Today is beautiful. The sky is a lovely blue with nary a cloud. It is already in the 50’s. I will be out and about. I’d hate to waste today by staying inside.

My house needs to be cleaned. The dust rises into the air when I walk down the hall. Henry is to blame. It is mostly his white hair.

The dogs stay out on days like today. Nala lies on a small patch of grass in the sun. Henry stands around sniffing the air and barking at imaginary critters or people walking by or the mailman. I don’t check unless his bark is frantic. That is the signal a package has arrived.

When I was a kid, Duke, our boxer, was watchful, especially at night. He barked at intruders. He always made us feel safe.

I haven’t been to my old town much, but when I go, I always do a nostalgia ride. I drive through the square and remember. In the old days I could smell the bread baking at Hank’s bakery. The fish market had lobsters swimming in a tank in the window. I used to get vanilla cokes at the drugstore. It had a soda fountain with a marble counter and stools for sitting. I used to watch the soda jerk make the vanilla coke with syrup and frizzy water. The straws were made of paper. They stood in a container with a glass top you could pull up to get the straw. From the square I’d drive by the fire station and the town hall. I always took that same route when I was a kid. I’d take the next right after the church and drive by the old school. I attended it from grade 1 to grade 4, until the new school was built. From there I head to my street and drive by my old house. That is the end.

Spring seems to be hiding. Today is cold. The prediction is for rain and maybe even snow. The rain I could have guessed but never the snow. When the dogs come inside, their fur is cold to the touch. They don’t stay out long. Henry just goes out to bark. He drives me crazy with his noise.

Today is dump day. The car is almost loaded. As for the rest of the week, it is a uke week with practice, a lesson and two concerts.

I watch a lot of movies. They tend to be mysteries, thrillers or science fiction. I watch weird movie channels. The other night I watched Fawesome. I was in cinema heaven. It has mostly old movies but also old television series like Annie Oakley, The Range Rider and The Adventures of Kit Carson. I don’t remember a movie, I didn’t watch, but I do remember the warnings. The movie contained action, sex and philosophical discussion.

When I was a kid, I always thought of Sunday as a wasted day. I had to stay around the house except for church which was just a going and a coming. Sunday night was a school night which meant early to bed. Sunday dinner was the only thing which made the day bearable. Give me roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy and baby peas and I’m happy.

I have a couple of stories from my Peace Corps days. The first happened on the plane from Boston to Philadelphia where I had staging. I had quite a few carry-on bags. When I got to my seat, I put some bags in the overhead, some under the seat and a couple beside me. A guy was in the other seat. He asked me if I was running away from home. I told him I was going to Africa in the Peace Corps. He looked chagrined. He offered to buy me a drink. I didn’t say no. He bought me a couple of drinks.

I got to the hotel, the Hotel Sylvania, and got in line to check in. I met the people in front of me and the people behind me. One of them became a good friend. When I got to the desk, I was told I was missing some documents, my fingerprints and my physical report. I had them both. They officially checked me in, gave me my room key and a schedule. That was the start of my Peace Corps experience.

I’d have you guess the weather, but you’d probably say cloudy and ugly, and you’d be right. It is 36°, the low for the day. Rain and snow are predicted, not much snow but enough for head shaking and wondering what is going on with the weather and where is spring hiding.

When I was a kid, we sometimes went to Boston. I loved going there, but it was always a trek. We had to walk uptown to catch a bus to Sullivan Square. Once at Sullivan, we’d walk up the stairs to the subway station and wait for the train. I remember seeing the train way off down the tracks and hearing the sound of it coming. I also remember the breeze from the cars. I used to kneel on the train seat so I could look out the window. We’d get off the train at the station with all the stores. You could go directly into Jordan Marsh and Filene’s right there at the station. I remember there was a small decorated window at the entrance to Jordan’s. We never went to Filene’s

If the weather was warm, we go to the Common and the Public Garden. I loved feeding the squirrels. I was young then. Three or four of them would surround me and take bread from my hand. I loved it. We’d sometimes ride the Swan Boats. They’d circle the lagoon under pedal power. I remember all the ducks.

I have favorite smells. I love the aroma of cookies baking in the oven. I grow rosemary in deck boxes and rub my hand up the stocks so it smells of the rosemary. It is the same with the mint. A spring morning smells of grass and flowers. Adding a bright sun makes it a perfect morning. One of my all time favorite smells is of burning wood. In Ghana, people cook over wood charcoal fires. The sweet aroma of the fire is one of my favorite memories. On every trip back, that aroma filled the morning air. It always made me feel at home.

The wind is terrible. It has the proverbial sound of a freight train. My front fence, badly needing to be replaced anyway, fell, three sections of it. I pulled each section up and used sticks to keep each in place. The sections were heavy and wet. My hands were freezing when I was done. Once inside the house, I warmed them around my cup of hot coffee.

It had been raining since yesterday morning. Now we are left with fog, wind, clouds and chill. Nothing is inviting about today. Today is a perfect sloth day. It is a perfect day to snuggle on the couch under the afghan and watch bad movies. Where are the bonbons?

I have learned certain truths in my life. Buttered toast will always fall to the floor on the buttered side. Wearing dirty underwear is courting disaster. When you are halfway to somewhere, it will start to rain. Your tongue will turn black if you lie. Leaving the house with wet hair will bring on a cold. Sitting too close to the TV causes blindness, but carrots might just be the cure. Darning needles, aka dragonflies, can sew your eyes shut. Swallowing seeds made a garden grow in your stomach, but I had trouble with this one. The only seeds I ever swallowed were watermelon seeds. If I went swimming too soon after eating, I’d get cramps and maybe die, but I won’t fault my mother on this one as she believed it too. If I cried, I was told I’d get something to cry about which made no sense to me. I was already crying because I had something to cry about.

I never doubted my mother. I was sure she wouldn’t lie. I’d spit out my watermelon seeds, wear clean undies, watch TV from far away and never expose my tongue if I lied, but I did cheat a little. I went swimming before the thirty minutes. Strangely enough, I never got cramps. I never went blind and never had my eyes sewed shut. I just thought myself lucky.

Partly cloudy is today’s weather report. It seems to be the weather report for most days. The rain may start tonight, but it will definitely be rainy tomorrow. I believe the weather man said we should expect 40 days and 40 nights of rain.

My dance card is filled with uke, with practice, my lesson and a concert. I am going to have to emerge from my hibernation cave.

When I was a kid, I had to walk to school in the rain. I didn’t have an umbrella or a raincoat so I sat at my desk with wet hair, wet shoes and wet socks, but I didn’t really care. I was a kid. I didn’t know discomfort. That belonged to older people.

Cleaning my house is a lesson in futility. When I vacuum, I swear the dust is hiding and waiting because as soon as I’m finished, it reappears in clumps to plague me. When I was in Moscow, at any museum, we were required to wear covers on our shoes. I figured it was a cheap way to keep the floors clean. I have adopted that Russian cleaning method. Right now I am wearing muk luks over my socks. I drag my feet across floors, and my muk luks collect the dust. Next, I need to find a way to wash the kitchen floor using little or no effort. I’m thinking maybe just gliding in wet socks is the answer.

I remember Jiffy Pop. I remember how long it took to pop while I shook the aluminum package over the burner using the metal handle. My favorite part was watching the foil in the middle expand. Sometimes, if I wasn’t careful, the bottom kernels burned. After the popping, I remember tearing the aluminum off the top and watching the steam escape. My mother salted the popcorn a bit and always added melted butter. My fingers got butter sticky.

My mother used to buy powdered milk. We didn’t drink it; instead, she used to reconstitute it and use it in making pudding, chocolate pudding as we never had any other kind. It was her way of saving the bottled milk. The pudding was cook on the stove pudding, never instant. It always tasted good.

I am watching The Horror of Party Beach. It was made in 1964, is black and white and stars John Scott and Eulabelle Moore. I’m thinking the movie is its own horror.