The breeze is cooling this morning, the sort we hope for in the heat of a summer’s day. The air is still clear and the day smells of spring, of flowers and grass. Gracie and I stayed on the deck for a long while, both of us reluctant to come inside. The oriole dropped by for his grape jelly. He announces his arrival with a whistle.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. I stayed outside, filled the last of the flower pots on the deck with zinnias and got the fountain started. I love the sound of the water. Today I’ll plant in the front garden. Later I’ll buy the last of the flowers for the yard.

The leaves have secluded my deck. I feel as if I’m in a tree house high above the ground. No longer do I see the neighbors’ houses. I see only their lights through the trees.

Our stalwart band of trivia experts is dissolved for the summer. Last night was the last Trivia Night at the Squire. Another restaurant, down the road, also has trivia night, and three of us will give it a try. As for the rest of the team: two are on the fence and two are no-gos. It will be lonely without them.

Sometimes I just choose to stay home and spend the day reading or sitting on the deck in the sun. I don’t count success by enterprise but by contentment. Today I will be successful.

When I went to get the papers from the driveway, I had to stand outside for a while. The world this morning is squint your eyes bright, the way it sometimes is after a heavy rain. The sunlight glistens off leaves and glints on car windows. The air smells fresh, like sheets dried outside on the clothesline. Glorious comes to mind.

This morning I had my sixth month dental check-up and cleaning. While I was sitting in the chair, I heard the drill. I winced at the sound of it.

Palm trees always seemed exotic to me when I was a kid. I remember seeing them pictured along the shoreline of some tropical beach in a National Geographic article. Green coconuts were usually clustered in and around the fronds. My first sighting of palm trees was in Ghana. The trees were in a line along the sides of the road. They exceeded all my childhood expectations.

The first big mountains I saw were the Alps. It was summer, and the meadows below the mountains were filled with wildflowers. Snow still capped many of the peaks, but the mountains were mostly lush and green. I knew all about the Alps. I had read Heidi. They looked just as she had described.

On my first trip to London I went to 221 Baker Street. I knew Sherlock Holmes never really lived there, but I still wanted to see it. My only disappointment was there wasn’t fog or the sounds of carriages and horses’ hooves.

Books took me away in time and place, and my mind’s eye imagined what the words described. I had been so many places before I went anywhere.

The house is colder than outside. I went on the deck with my coffee, sat in the sun and got warm. It’s a lovely day, another in a string of lovely days. I’ll be outside enjoying it as I plant some herbs in my deck boxes and in my herb garden. I have basil, oregano, cilantro and rosemary. I also bought some Shasta daisies for the front garden. They are one of the few flowers I can actually identify. It was trip two to the garden center, more will come.

For the second morning in a row, the devil woke me up. The sound of teeth gnawing deck furniture broke through my haze of sleep at about 5:30 this morning. I jumped out of bed, ran to the deck and chased away evil, but I know this Prince of Darkness will be back, still disguised as a gray rodent. I feel a kinship with Elmer Fudd.

My father grilled hot dogs and hamburgers when we were little. My mother made potato salad. When we got older, my father expanded his offerings. Sometimes he’d cook sausages or chicken or marinated steak tips or even a combination of meats. He used charcoal in a hibachi and sat outside with his drink and cigarette while he kept an eye on the meat. My father always cooked the meat exactly right. My mother’s offerings expanded as well, but I knew they’d be potato salad. Somethings ought never to change.

My friends and I had corn on the cob and Tony burgers for supper last night. The burgers are so named by my friend Tony who concocts, cooks and serves them. They are my favorite cheeseburgers. The corn was summer sweet, a sugar and butter corn with bright yellow and creamy white kernels. I was a typewriter, eating row by row, left to right, the same way my father always ate his corn. For dessert, we had a fruit custard. It was the ultimate summer meal.

The sun is warm and sits in a deep blue sky. The shade is a bit chilly.

As I was crossing the bridge over the river this morning on my way to breakfast, I saw quahoggers, the first I’ve seen this season. The tide was low, and they were bunched close to shore with their baskets floating beside them on small inflated rings. Most of them were bent to the water, the best raking position. I thought how good a baked stuffed quahog tastes.

A long time back, my friends and I used to meet every Sunday morning. We’d go clamming or quahogging together, and we knew the best spots. For clams, we’d head to the flats where the sand was still rippled from the tide. We’d walk and look for the tell tale clams holes, then get down on our knees to dig. A rake needed to be used carefully so as not to break the clam’s shell. I remember getting squirted by the clams and laughing.

Other times we’d go to our secret cove to dig for quahogs. I’d wear waders and walk and feel with my feet for the quahog then I’d reach down to rake it and put it in my basket. I always got wet, and my waders were heavy with water.

With our bounty, we’d head to our friends’ house for the day. We’d sit on their patio overlooking the marsh, drink coffee, talk and read The New York Times, each of us grabbing our favorite sections. Sunday dinner was always what we’d all brought. Some had vegetables from their gardens, we had the seafood, and our friend Harry always had something for the barbecue, sometimes meat and sometimes fish. We’d all help make dinner then sit outside in the early afternoon and eat together. They were the best of Sundays.

While my coffee was brewing, I sat out on the deck with my new camera in hand hoping to take pictures of all the birds dropping by my feeders for breakfast. Not a bird stopped. Three Baltimore orioles chasing each other flew over the yard, a goldfinch was on a branch hidden by leaves and a nuthatch flew over my head. I took a picture of Gracie.

When I came back inside, I scratched my head and found a tick. I flushed it away, but I’m still grossed out, and my entire body itches. I check Gracie all the time for ticks. I wonder if I can train her to check me.

The sun was here then it left. Now it’s back. I think it will be a peek-a-boo day. I’m going for a ride later. It’s been a long time since Gracie and I meandered. The Cape is spring beautiful. The leaves are out, the lilacs are in bloom and the flowers are growing tall. I don’t want to miss any of it.

I love the faces in pansies. Some smile. Others look pensive. The ones in the pail on my front steps remind me of a garden club tea where all the women are wearing brightly colored hats.

The irises in my garden have buds. Every day I check to see how big they’ve gotten. So far they are all still green, not a touch of color peeks through.

My sisters used to bring my mother dandelion bouquets. She’d put them in a jelly glass in the middle of the table. For a little kid, dandelions were the best of flowers. I remember blowing their seeds into the air and watching the wind take and strew them like little parachutes. Sometimes we’d sit and make necklaces and crowns of dandelions, and I remember holding a dandelion under my friend’s chin to see if she liked butter. I think she did.