The morning was already hot when I dragged myself out of bed. I flipped on the AC, let the dogs out and grabbed a cup of coffee. My morning had officially begun.

Today will be in the low 80’s. Right now it is both sunny and cloudy with a barely noticeable breeze. Yesterday I watered the deck plants and noticed the spawn had dug up the same flowers in the same clay pot. I reburied the flowers. I’ll check again later.

When I was a kid, my father worked long hours. He was a salesman. His territory was the South Shore, a distance from where we lived. He came home late, well after dinner. Because we didn’t see much of him on the weekdays, I always thought of Saturday as his day. In the summer he’d mow the lawn. My father always had his mower sharpened at the hardware store in the beginning of the summer. I loved the sound of the clicking mower. My father had a technique for mowing, a pattern. It never varied. I remember the side lawn and the lines from the mower. My father never got a power mower. He loved his hand mower.

I am not one for violence except there was a single incident, a never repeated incident. I was a senior in high school. My friends and I were sitting in the grandstand at a Sox game. We were enjoying the game until the guy beside me started yelling at the team and swearing big time swears, not your harmless hells or damns. I asked him nicely to stop. He didn’t. He got worse. I asked him a second time. I got the same result. By this time, I was getting angry. The request wasn’t unreasonable, and his language was way out of bounds. I asked one more time. He kept swearing. He was even smug about it. Without even thinking about it, I punched him on the cheek. I didn’t hold back, and I didn’t think of the consequences. He was the most surprised person I’d ever seen. I was the second most surprised person. Despite my response, I would never advocate violence as a solution, but he stopped swearing. He even offered me popcorn. I took some.

The birds have found the feeders. I sat on the deck yesterday and watched a few come in, grab a sunflower seed and leave provisioned. The chickadees were the first. They always are. Next was a titmouse, and he came back a couple of times. Some sort of sparrow also visited. I noticed one clay pot’s plants didn’t seem to be doing well. When I checked, I noticed the plants had been pulled out of the soil. I know it was a spawn of Satan. This one is tricky, sly.

Today is already beautiful. It is 80°. The sun is glinting through the trees in the backyard. Nothing is moving, not even a single leaf. Tonight will be in the 60’s.

I have often written about my travels, especially in Africa. I have a story for you, a new story. It’s sort of a long story. My friends and I boarded a bus in Ouagadougou, in what was then Upper Volta and is now Burkina Faso. It was a Trans-African bus with the motto we never break down; of course, it broke down. We sat around while the mechanics left to get parts. They hitched. After we were back on the road we had to stop at a closed post office as we had mail to leave. We stayed overnight. It was cold as we were getting nearer to the desert. The driver to whom I spoke Hausa had been delighted I knew his language. He shared hot coffee and bread with me. I shared with my two friends. The next morning we got back on the road.

The bus broke down again. The driver told me, “An gama.” It is finished. My friends and I hitched and got a ride to the border between Burkina Faso and Niger. The border had a barrel on each side of the road with a long piece of wood resting on each barrel. We sat for a while then hitched. My friends got a ride. I got a different ride. I crossed the bridge into Niamey, and the driver dropped me off on a fairly big road. I was alone. I wandered a bit and found a hotel. I should have kept wandering. That night I realized it was a bordello. I could hear men knocking on doors and talking to women then the doors would close. They knocked on my door. I hid out of sight and didn’t answer. That went on all night. I didn’t sleep. I was on alert.

I left that hotel as soon as the sun rose. I got to the main road, and a little boy stopped to talk to me. He asked in French if I was looking for Le Corps de la Paix, Peace Corps in French. I guess he figured a lost, wandering white lady hauling a backpack had to be Peace Corps. He led me to the office, and they directed me to the hostel. My friends were there. They had found it the day before and had slept there. They missed the adventure. They could never tell the story of sleeping, rather not sleeping, in a bordello. That’s my story.

Right now it is 80° with the whiff of a breeze from the north window behind me. The sun is out, but it will play peek-a-boo all day. Last night was cool by comparison. It got down to the high 60’s which was a delight. Tonight will be similar. The sloth in me is strong today because every other day this week I have toiled. I have dusted, swept the deck twice, cleared rooms and vacuumed. I don’t know where these sudden bursts of energy originate, but I want to put a stop to them.

When I was a kid, my favorite cereal was Rice Krispies. I really did like the snap, crackle and pop. On Saturdays, I’d sit on the floor in front of the TV with my cereal bowl in hand and watch some of my favorite programs. I do not love westerns, but I did as a kid. I loved The Lone Ranger and his “fiery horse with the speed of light.” Every now and then I still watch it. Roy Rogers and Gene Autry were both singing cowboys. Hopalong Cassidy wasn’t. Another sort of western was Sergeant Preston of the Canadian Mounted Police. I remember his dog Yukon King and his horse Rex. I also remember I learned where the Yukon is. “Hey, Wild Bill, wait for me,” was Jingles’ call at the start of Wild Bill Hickok. I loved Cisco and Pancho. Cisco had the best clothes, especially a beautiful embroidered sombrero. Pancho had a thick accent. They were desperados wanted by the authorities, but Cisco was a sort of western Robin Hood helping the downtrodden. I watched them all: Annie Oakley, Fury, Rin Tin Tin and the flying cowboy of sorts, Sky King.

It was Saturday morning in the 1950’s when I first fell in love with black and white science fiction. Captain Midnight and his sidekick Ichabod Mudd, with two d’s, was a favorite. There were old movie serials like Gene Autry and The Phantom Empire. I remember the long, long elevator to the subterranean civilization under his ranch. I watched every episode. Even back then, I willingly suspended disbelief.

This morning is a delight. The air, blowing a bit from the north, even feels a little chilly. It is 70° with no humidity. Later it will get warmer, 78° being the high for the day. I haven’t a list so I feel a bit at sea. Yesterday I not only completed my list but also filled the bird feeders, not on the list. I feel accomplished.

Every season has a feel about it. Every season even has a wardrobe. My favorite season is fall, but I do love summers, especially summer nights. The doors and windows are open. The air is filled with the chirping of katydids and crickets. Sometimes I can hear a frog, and I swear I sometimes hear an owl. My neighborhood is always quiet. I can see the lights in the windows of my neighbors’ houses. In my house, the lights somehow look dimmer at night, a bit diffused. Out the back door, white lights are on the fence. I keep lit candles in the windows. Sometimes I go out just to sit on the deck in the dark. The dogs come with me. They lie down but stay alert. I keep watch for fireflies. The dogs just keep watch.

When I was a kid, Duke, our boxer, followed us everywhere. We used to yell at him to stay, and Duke would sit. We’d walk a little bit then turn around to check on Duke, and he’d still be sitting, but the distance between us and the sitting dog never changed, never got any bigger. Duke knew how to dupe us. My father and mother were also his victims. Duke sometimes escaped in the morning and would start to follow kids to school. My father would yell out the door for Duke to come. He’d turn around, give my father a defiant look and then keep walking even a little faster. My father would get so mad he’d hop in his car and chase Duke. He usually caught him as Duke couldn’t resist a ride in the car. My mother tried to bribe Duke with bologna. She’d hold the meat out the front door, shake it so Duke could see it. He’d run to the door and snatch the meat. My mother never caught him. Nala has a bit of Duke about her, a big bit of Duke, and I am her victim.

I don’t know what I’ll do today. Maybe I’ll sweep the deck. Maybe I’ll check a few stored bins as I’m missing some shirts I hand made in Ghana. I might even make my bed, but then again I don’t want to go overboard. (I’d like to point out that I started this with an ocean idiom and am finishing it in like fashion!)

Today is hot and humid, an ugly combination. I am sitting in the cool house with my feet up and a cup of coffee in hand. The dogs are napping. They’re just enjoying life. I do wish it was cooler so I could sit on the deck to take in the day. The only event on my dance card is uke practice tonight.

One summer in the mid 1970’s, my friend and I traveled through South America. Back then, there were few tourists. We seldom found English speakers. We landed in Caracas, traveled the continent then took off from Rio. I planned the trip. I knew enough Spanish, but my friend knew none. She said the only word she wanted was for beer. I helped her with that. We stayed in Caracas only a couple of days. It was a huge city which held little interest for us. I remember going to this huge building filled with kiosks all selling tickets to various parts of Venezuela. We bought tickets to Merida. We were the only foreigners on the bus. I remember the trip took close to twelve hours on a winding road. We stopped in a small mountain town for lunch. Our fellow passengers told us to order the trout. We did. It was amazing. Merida is in the Venezuelan Andes. Many of the buildings are Spanish architecture and are stunningly beautiful. We went to Merida to ride the cable car. I remember being in line when they announced no cars that day because of the wind. Instead, we walked around the city and went to the market biding our time, but the next day was the same so we decided to move on to Columbia.

Our next destination was Bogota, but it was a bus ride of fifteen or sixteen hours so we planned a stop. I remember a cheap hotel where we didn’t dare take off our shoes and thought we’d leave dirtier than we had arrived. That was the first of our how can we sleep here hotels. Bogota back then was safe. We walked all over the city with no problems. The most unbelievable place was the Gold Museum. What I remember is walking pass a thick metal safe like door into a dark room. When they turned the lights on, every person ooed as we were surrounded by cases filled with gold artifacts. It was brilliant. We went to the salt cathedral next, not so far from Bogota. The cathedral is underground in a salt mine. What was surprising was the salt was in chunks and not very white. I asked a guard at the mine how the salt was processed from the chunks. He actually took us in a car to the factory down the road. One of the workers led us on a tour of the factory. We even had to wear hard hats. I remember salt was everywhere in the air. We breathed it and tasted it. We watched the whole process. Before we left, I was given a small chunk of salt with some black on the edges. I still have it. I keep it in the fridge so it won’t melt.

Ecuador was next. I’ll save that for another day.

Lat night was cooler, down to the 70’s, so I turned off the AC. This morning the house is still cool, but that won’t last. It will be in the 80’s today and most of the week. I will hibernate.

My inner sloth is still reeling. Yesterday I cross off the chores on my to-do list. I scrubbed all the deck chairs and swept the deck, well most of it. I’ll finish the rest today. I need a new broom.

When I was a kid, I loved walking around uptown checking out the stores. I remember there were three drug stores close to each other. I never wondered about that. Middlesex Drug was the fanciest. It had the best soda fountain with a marble top. That is where I’d drink my vanilla cokes made the old way with fizzy water and flavoring. They had counters along the sides and in the middle, and at Christmas I’d wander hoping to find presents for my parents within my meager budget. Pullo’s Rexall Drug was right by the movie theater. It was small. Mr. Pullo, also the pharmacist, used to wear white jackets, the sort Ben Casey always wore. He was one of my father’s friends. Stoneham Pharmacy, Bracciotti’s, was almost next door to Pullo’s. I don’t remember ever shopping there.

One of my favorite stores was the cobbler’s. It was long and narrow and tucked between two other stores. The window was filled with shoes in pairs with Manila tags. The counter too was covered in shoes. The cobbler sat behind the counter working on a shoe held on a metal holder the shape of a shoe. He wore an apron. He always looked old to me.

On the street in the middle of the square used to be a police box. A policeman sat inside and controlled the three sets of attached traffic lights. Signs were on the front. Straight ahead to Route 128 and straight ahead to Route 28. A traffic accident destroyed it.

The square was called up-town while Boston was in-town. I don’t know if everyone called it that, but my mother always did.

The morning is lovely but already hot. It will be in the mid 80’s. I’ll be doing deck work while the back is still shaded. On my to-do list cleaning the chairs sweeping the deck. The potted flowers are beautiful. Their colors are popping after yesterday’s rain. Nala loves lying in the shade on the deck.

I am always amazed at how quiet my neighborhood is on Sundays. There are kids on my street, but they disappear every Sunday. The quiet reminds me of my childhood Sundays when everything was closed, families went together to church and Sunday dinner was special. My bike stayed in the cellar. We hung round the house. I’d read the funnies and watch movies. My father sat in the chair by the picture window and read the paper. My mother was in the kitchen making dinner. The menu always included a roast of some sort, gravy, mashed potatoes and a veggie or two. It was always the best dinner of the week.

During the summer we stayed up late on Sundays. The rest of the year my mother used the pretext that Monday was a school day so we had to go to bed early. I begrudgingly went. I’d try to read a little, but my mother would keep telling me to turn out the light and go to sleep as if I could fall asleep at will. I hated Sunday nights.

I have favorite books. When I was a kid, I loved The Wind in the Willows. I loved Mole, Ratty, Badger and Mr. Toad, but I loved Mole the most. I still have my copy of the book. When I read Little Women, I loved the March family, especially Jo, the renegade. The book was a Christmas present. It was a Whitman book with a hard cardboard cover and a colored front of Jo sitting on a lounge and reading. I read that book twice. Robert Lewis Stevenson’s novels were on the favorite list. I read Treasure Island first, but I remember when we went to Maine one year for vacation. There was a small room off the kitchen with wicker furniture and a bookcase filled with books. A Child’s Garden of Verses was one of those books. I read it from cover to cover then read it again. It was as if my life had been captured in poetry, my imagination tapped and my dreams brought to life.

The sloth in me is strong. I have to get moving.

A beep a bit back announced rain would begin in 23 minutes. The timing was just a little off. The rain started in fifteen minutes. I could hear the pings of the drops hitting the metal barrel on the deck. The rain was heavy, but now I can hear individual drops. The forecast is for a day of rain in the high 70’s. I just crossed washing the kitchen floor off my to-do list.

When I was a kid, a rainy Saturday was devastating. My bike stayed in the cellar and I stayed home. I’d head to my bedroom, a quiet place, with my book. I always had a book. I’d lie cozy in bed and read by the bed-lamp hanging off the headboard. Sometimes the sound of the rain lulled me to sleep.

When I was in the sixth grade, I made my first promise to myself. I would travel and see the world. I had no doubt about it. I even named it after a classmate who used to go to England to visit family, the Barrett disease.

Canada was my first foreign country. I was sixteen when we went to Niagara Falls. We stayed in a motel for the first time. We ate in restaurants or had picnics as we traveled. We took the walk under the falls. All of us were dressed in yellow slickers. We went to the wax museum. We saw the falls at night lit up with beautiful colored lights. We stayed in a huge cottage on the shore of Lake Ontario. I walked across the street and saw tiny waves lapping the shore. I remember the Eisenhower lock on the St. Lawrence River. That whole trip was amazing, and I haven’t ever forgotten it. It was the first fulfillment of my promise.

My second country was a huge leap from Canada. It was Ghana. I still remember the excitement when I was boarding the bus to leave staging in Philadelphia for the airport. I remember we flew over the cape. I took a picture, a sort of good-bye picture. I remember landing in Madrid for a new crew and refueling. I remember landing in Accra, but I don’t remember much of the bus trip to Winneba. I fell sleep. I remember my first morning in Ghana with such clarity. I stood outside my room on the second floor of the dorm and looked at the palm trees, the greenery, the roofs of houses and the hills far beyond. I was mesmerized by the unfamiliar. I had fulfilled my promise in the most spectacular place.

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