The day is already hot at 82°. I’ve turned on the air conditioner. Both dogs are now stretched out and sleeping. Neither one was out for too long earlier. Poor Nala doesn’t do well in the heat. She pants a lot.

When I was a kid, our house, a duplex, was close to the top of a huge hill and was on the corner of the street. It had a big, grassy lawn in front. There was a set of stairs from the street up to the pathway to the front door. I never rode my bike down that lawn but, instead, rode it down the smaller grassy hill next to the stairs then I’d glide to the big hill. Down that hill was the fastest ride. Up that hill was the slowest. About halfway up, I’d have to stop riding and start walking my bike. The hill was just a mite too steep.

In the winter, that hill was perfect for sledding. We’d walk to the top of the hill, run and then hit the sleds on our stomachs with our legs bent at the knee and the bottom of our legs in the air. Only little kids sat up on their sleds. We flew down that hill. At the bottom, we’d grab the rope at the front of the sled and trudge up the hill for another run. When our lips turned blue, it was time to go inside.

My mother aways made breakfast so we’d be fortified for school. She made oatmeal in winter, the sort you had to boil. It always had a few lumps, but if you added milk and tons of sugar, the lumps didn’t matter. She’d cook soft-boiled eggs. She’d make toast and cut the pieces into strips which fit through the tops of the eggs, perfect pieces for dipping. Sometimes we’d have cereal. We always added sugar to the cereal. I drank cocoa and my brother drank tea. My mother served the tea from a ceramic teapot. It always seemed a bit fancy. The cocoa was made in my cup with half boiling water and half milk. It had bubbles around the inside rim.

When I watch old TV shows like Leave It to Beaver or The Donna Reed Show, there is always a stack of white bread on the dinner table. I always wondered about that. Why squishy white bread? I’d understand rolls or slices of Italian bread but I just don’t get the white bread.

The sky is light blue and cloudless. The sun is eye squinting bright. A slight breeze stirs the air. Everything is quiet. Today is a lovely day.

When I was a kid, Sunday was sacrosanct. The churches were filled. Everyone was dressed in church clothes. Women wore skirts or dresses and hats. Men wore suits, white shirts and ties. The stores were all closed except for small, corner stores which sold essentials like milk and bread and the Sunday paper. Sunday was family day. It was Sunday dinner day, the most formal meal of the week.

My grandmother, my father’s mother, was a terrible cook. She cooked bland food. Spaghetti sauce was a can of stewed tomatoes poured right out of the can on to the pasta. My father’s bland palate reflected his mother’s lack of cooking expertise. To him, garlic belonged only on garlic bread and shrimp scampi, nothing else. Asparagus came from a can and bent at the middle. Hummus was wallpaper paste, a review gleaned from looking at it, not tasting it, as he judged food by looks. For him, the simpler the food the better. Give him roast beef, mashed potatoes and maybe corn, niblet not creamed, and he’d be in food heaven.

In Ghana, on Sunday, my students attended a service on school grounds, in the cafeteria. For it, they wore their Sunday school cloths: three piece dresses, a top, bottom to the ankles and a wraparound the waist piece. Each of the four classes had its own cloth pattern. Sunday was also visitors’ day. Students would wear their own dresses. Photographers came and took pictures. It was also the day Bill, Peg and I bought dinner from a chop bar by the lorry park. Translation: a small shed like spot with maybe a table or two and a few chairs which was at the parking lot where all the busses waited for riders before they left for other places. The food was cooked out back. Mostly we bought fufu and soup. Translation: the slightly sour, spongy dough made from boiled and pounded starchy food crops like plantains, cassava and yams — or a combination of two or more — in a very large mortar with a pestle. The soup was whatever was on the stove: light soup (nkrakra), groundnut soup (nkate nkwan), palm nut soup (abenkwan), green vegetable soup (abun abun), egusi soup and more. I was an okra stew fan. Fufu was eaten with your right hand. Your hand got a bit messy.

Today, I’ll probably have hot dogs. I took a pack out of the freezer. I figure I’m not violating New England cultural norms by eating hot dogs on a Sunday. I didn’t have any last night.

At 74° the morning was a bit cooler than lately. The sun comes and goes. The day is still, quiet. Nala is out. Henry is sleeping upstairs on my bed, his favorite napping spot. It is a lazy day all around.

My muse is on vacation. I have started and erased several different openings. None have caught fire. I stalled each time. Ghana is my back-up.

My house, one side of a duplex, was on school grounds, Women’s Training College, in Bolgatanga. It was brand new. It had four inside rooms: the living room, my bedroom, a spare room with my desk and an eating area with a table and a couple of chairs and the fridge. In the courtyard outside was the faucet, a shower, cold water only, a toilet room, the actual kitchen with a stove I never used, and a room for Thomas, who worked for me. I always felt lucky, maybe a little guilty. I had water and electricity.

I had no TV and no radio. I had a cassette player and a few cassettes: Peter, Paul and Mary, Joni Mitchell, CSN&Y and Simon and Garfunkel. I also had a mixed tape my sister made for me.

All my classes were in the morning. I taught the second years. In between classes I’d go home and sit outside and drink a cup of coffee. During my off time I’d sometimes go shopping in town, but mostly I read book after book.

Every night, the watchman made his rounds before he’d fall asleep by the fire. He’d stop at my house for ice water. He didn’t speak any English.

The nights were quiet and dark. I always slept soundly. I was up early as I usually went to bed early.

After I bought my moto, I traveled on the backroads with a can of gas bungeed on the back, just in case. The road weren’t paved. They were dusty in the dry season and tamped down in the rainy season. I loved exploring far afield, and I suspect the sight of a white lady on a motorcycle on a way back road stopped people in their tracks. The ones I saw walking on the road always waved.

I was never bored. Every day was exciting. Every day I woke up in Africa. Every day I was amazed.

Right now it is 78° and cloudy. Tonight the low could get down to 68°. I look forward to feeling cool though I wonder if it is a prescience of fall or Mother Nature pranking us. Possible showers are also part of the weather report, but I don’t care one way or the other. Rain never stops me.

When I was a kid, only the movie theater had air conditioning. In our house, we didn’t even have a fan. Both inside doors were open to the screens as were the windows. The dark living room, shades down, was the coolest room in the house. Our screen doors were wooden. I can still remember my mother yelling, “Don’t slam the door,” but if you ran out the door, it just slammed itself. She wanted and maybe even expected my younger sisters would gently close the door. The poor woman had no idea. What kid stops to close the door?

Popsicles were my favorite treat to beat the heat. When Johnny, the ice cream man, came, everyone ran home to get money. Popsicles were only a nickel. All the other treats were a dime. I loved the root beer and cherry popsicles. If I had a dime, I’d buy a Drumstick. I still buy Drumsticks. If Johnny had no drumsticks, I’d buy a Push-Up. That was sherbet in a cardboard tube about the size of a toilet paper tube. It had a wooden push up stick on the bottom; hence, its name. My favorite was orange.

When we visited my grandparents in East Boston, we’d sometimes buy Italian ice, similar to a snow cone but tastier. It came in either a cardboard cup or a cardboard cone. Lemon was my favorite. I remember at the bottom of the cone was liquid, cold, tart lemon.

As for ice cream, I went on a mint chocolate chip frenzy a while back. I did the same with coffee chip. Now it is coconut to which I sometimes add a bit of hot fudge. It is ice cream Nirvana.

This is quite the busy week for me. I even had to buy gas. In the next three days I have four uke concerts, a practice and a lesson. Last night’s concert went well. Across the green was a nice breeze so the sun wasn’t deadly. Tonight’s practice music is the Beatles.

When I was a kid, I didn’t know anyone who played a musical instrument. My grandparents had a piano, but it was more of a status symbol as no one in the family played. It stood in their living room with its pearly keys unplayed but dusted every day.

The same grandparents had a dining room. The furniture was bulky and dark. The table with eight chairs, a hutch on one wall and a side board on the other filled the room. I remember eating there when I was young but not when I was older. The kitchen had a hidden ironing board and a small table crammed into a space between cabinets. If you sat against the wall, you were sort of stuck at the table. I remember tall cabinets to the ceiling. The kitchen had a closet which is where my grandmother stashed the bottles of root beer.

We didn’t usually go to visit those grandparents, my father’s parents, even though they lived in the same town. My father by himself would visit. I didn’t mind as being there was always boring.

When I was growing up, my family played games together: board games and card games. I learned to play whist when I was probably ten or eleven. My parents had built-in partners, my brother and me. It was always girls against the boys, and the girls usually won. I remember playing Po-Ke-No for pennies. My mother kept a penny jar in the kitchen just for that game. We always put the pennies back when the game was over.

I am lazy when it comes to meals. Mostly I look for easy. I hard-boil a few eggs for snacking. I fry a couple of hot dogs for dinner. A banana is usually breakfast though once in a while I have toast. I always have cheese. Bread is supposed to be the staff of life, but I’m thinking it needs cheese to be complete.

We are still stuck in the heat. It is already in the mid 80’s. My AC is cranking. The sky is cloudy and sunny and cloudy. It rained last night, a heavy rain for a while. Today will be dry.

This is a busy uke week for me. Last week I had none. This week I have a lesson, a practice and a concert every day starting tonight in Hyannis. My fingers will be tired.

I remember odd events.

I was on a bus one time, and there were three women sitting on the front seat which faced the other front seat. They never stopped talking. One woman lit a cigarette and somehow kept talking. She wasn’t paying attention and put the lit end of the cigarette in her mouth. She sputtered and spit.

I used to take the bus from Boston to Hyannis when I was in college. It left from the old Trailways terminal in Park Square. That terminal had a small luncheonette and a kiosk selling newspapers, magazines and candy. The chairs were along the wall. I was sitting and reading and smoking when my bus was called. I put out the cigarette in the metal ashtray and went to stand in line. Right behind me a guy walked over, picked my cigarette butt out of the ashtray, lit it and started smoking. The Trailways terminal didn’t always attract the best clientele.

I remember my confirmation when I was in the sixth grade. I had to wear a robe with a white collar topped by a red beanie. The bishop came to perform the ceremony. The nuns had prepared us. They told us the bishop would slap us on the cheek as a reminder that we might have to suffer for our faith, that we were becoming soldiers for Christ. I got slapped, but it didn’t really hurt though I had braced myself.

I remember the flight to Ghana. My seatbelt got stuck between the wall and the seat so I couldn’t use it. I hoped no stewardess would notice. They showed one movie, The Love Bug.

I remember learning to tie a bow. My mother sat on the chair in the living room, and I knelt beside her. She had yarn, and she’d show me how to tie a bow then would have me try. It took a few times, but I succeeded in tying a bow. A triumph!

My memory drawers are filled with all these odd little memories, most of little consequence in the scheme of things.

The morning is hot, humid and windy. It is also cloudy again. I have a couple of errands. Jack, the cat, needs more food. Nala, the thief, got in and stole all the envelopes of Jack’s new food. I have cans of food, but Jack doesn’t like the food in the cans, the same food he ate last week. Cats are peculiar.

When I was a little kid, I believed in Santa, the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy and all magical beings. I thought fireflies were fairies, relatives of Tinker Bell. The nights, though, were for vigilance when witches, trolls and goblins wandered. I always figured that was why I had to be home when the streetlights came on, to keep me safe from the dark creatures. I loved stories like Hansel and Gretel, The Brave Little Tailor and Jack and the Beanstalk. They were the good guys. They beat the bad guys.

In Ghana, my language instructor told us folk tales. Mosquito buzzes ear because mosquito is in love with ear who rejected him. The buzzing reminds ear that mosquito is still around. Adze, in a Ewe folktale, is a vampire who turns into a firefly and even a human. It possesses people and turns them into witches. People still believe in witches in Ghana, and there are witch camps where women accused of witchcraft, who have had to flee their villages, live in safety.

I love the classic horror stories rather than the ones with blood and gore and victims a plenty. I’ll always watch Dracula, my favorite. His eyes are mesmerizing, and his cape work captivating especially when he hides his victims and bites behind it. I’d like to be invisible though not mad, crazy, like The Invisible Man. I’d sneak on planes and travel. I’d spook people on Halloween. I’d never want to be The Wolfman, the poor, old sad Wolfman. Frankenstein is my least favorite.

When I was a kid, I knew the difference between what is real and what isn’t, but I remember hearing noises and, instead of hiding, I’d yell out and warn whatever was out there I was armed. It was a lie. It was bravado, but it seemed to work. I never did get attacked

The humidity is so thick you can see it in the air. The AC is already working its hardest to cool the house. Outside is mostly cloudy and 80°. The humidity is 79°. Both dogs are asleep on the couch. My dance card is empty, and I am thankful.

My muse is among the missing again today. I figured I’d tell a few stories about my time in Ghana. Some you know, but they are worth repeating.

At my friends’ house in Tafo, they didn’t have running water. They did have outhouses in the yard, but because they lived on the second floor, you sort of had to plan your outhouse trip ahead of time. On one visit, I had travelers’ bane, a woeful curse. I had to break land speed records to get to the outhouse. I sat there a while then I heard a noise below me. I jumped up. A head popped into the hole above which I had been sitting. A man saw me and said, “Hello, madam.” I said hello back. He grabbed the now filled bucket, emptied it, put it back then said good-bye. He was the night soil man.

I heard a knock at my door. I looked and saw a man I didn’t know standing in front of my screen door. I went over, and he greeted me. I returned the greeting. Greetings are a wonderful part of the Ghanaian culture and were our first lessons during language training, Hausa for me. He very politely told me he was looking for a white woman to be his friend which meant a whole lot more than friendship. I politely declined, and he asked me if I knew any Canadian women. I said no. He thanked me and left.

Students used to visit me at night as they had a bit of time at the end of the required study time and lights out. One night I remember my student, Mary Kanubula, talking about Mary and the birth of Jesus. I have no memory of how that became the topic of conversation, but she had a theory she wanted to share. She didn’t believe in the virgin birth. It made no sense to her. She told me an angel came to earth and had his way with Mary, though in her words he f’ed her. She got pregnant. That was it.

One of my favorite of all Ghanaian sayings was when a student explained she had gone to my house and met my absence. I wasn’t home.

The morning is dark. Sometime earlier it rained, and more rain is expected. The breeze is strong, maybe even a wind at times. The AC is on, my attempt to beat the humidity. I started my day cleaning up after Henry. He got spooked and knocked over a full water dish in the kitchen. My pant legs got wet as did some jars and cutting boards, but the floor does look good, as if I washed it. The paws prints are gone.

I have no plans for today. Outside does not look inviting. Besides, the roads will be filled with bored vacationers looking for amusement.

This is the rainy season in Ghana. It rains just about every day. Everything is green. The fields are filled with corn and millet plants so high you can’t see over them. Nothing stops in the rain. It is just a regular part of the day. The bugs return. In my living room, I had a naked light bulb hanging on a wire from the ceiling. It was ugly so I bought a basket in the market and made a sort of lampshade for the bulb, relying, of course, on my extensive interior decorating skills. On the floor below the basket was a circle of light, the circumference of the basket. At the end of every night, the circle was black, filled with bugs attracted to the light, to their own demise. I started taking my anti-malarial pills again. I had stopped taking them in the bug-less dry season, but I didn’t want to court malaria so I choked down the gross tasting Aralen, an antimalarial pill.

Most of the rainy season was during the school holiday, sort of Ghana’s version of summer vacation. l traveled. First I’d take the bus to Kumasi, visit friends then take the train to Accra. I always stayed at the Peace Corps hostel in Accra, a whole 50 pesewas (think cents) for bed and breakfast. I also got to catch up with friends, some I hadn’t seen since training. Usually I went to Togo where I binged on French pastry, sorbet, lobster and biftecks with frites, steak and potatoes in English. I shopped at the grand marché, the huge market in Lomé, the capital of Togo. I always thought that made me a world traveler.

Every time I have returned to Ghana it has been during the rainy season. The fields are filled. The rain is heavy at times with thunder and lightning adding a bit of drama. I’d sit outside at the hotel restaurant at a table under a thatched roof, have dinner and watch the rain. Nothing stops in the rain.

Last night’s activities were ugly. Nala, of course, was at the heart of them. It was late, around 12:30. The dogs were out for a jaunt. Suddenly, I could smell skunk, and the odor was close enough that my eyes burned. Fearing the worst, I called the dogs. Henry came back inside. Nala didn’t. Right away I was suspicious. I yelled and offered a treat. Usually the word treat has her running at breakneck speed into the house, but no Nala. I went outside to check. She was playing with something white. I could smell skunk even worse. I came inside and hunted down my Nature’s Miracle Skunk Smell Remover. Nala came in, and I checked her, the old sniff method. I wasn’t sure if I was smelling the dog or the house, but I doused her in Nature’s Miracle anyway. She ran out the door before I could grab her. When she came back inside, I doused her again. This morning I checked the yard before I let out the dogs. I saw nothing skunk-like. The dogs went out. Nala appeared a bit later through the dog door with fur in her mouth, white fur with black tips. It smelled of skunk. I shooed her outside. She came back in without the fur. I doused her again. She is now napping. There is a faint odor of skunk coming from outside so I shut the windows and turned on the AC. Later I will dispose of the fur. I do wonder where the rest of the skunk is.

I am hunkered down in the house and am cool and comfortable. The larder is filled. I shopped a bit yesterday for the cat and me. I bought groceries and a Snickers. The Snickers is gone.

When I was a kid, I loved penny candy. Granted the price was right, but even better was the variety. I had favorites. The fireball was among them. It was a challenge to eat the whole ball without taking it out of your mouth when it got really hot. Root beer barrels tasted great and lasted a while if you didn’t crunch. Mary Jane’s were chewy. They tasted of peanut butter and molasses. Bonomo Turkish Taffy came in several flavors. Chocolate and banana were my favorites. We used to buy candy cigarettes and pretend to smoke them. I liked spearmint and orange jelly candies. That they were coated in sugar was a plus. You could buy straws with flavored powder inside, wax bottles with colored liquid, Banana Splits, a yellow hard candy, colored buttons on paper and not eating the paper was key and Squirrel Nut Zippers, another favorite of mine. I remember jars and jars filled with penny candy. There were so many more choices it took a while to spend a penny let alone the wealth of a nickel.