The day is sunny and is supposed to be in the high 40’s, but the wind is making it feel far colder. Gracie, though, has been outside most of the morning. I guess wearing a fur coat helps.

Oh the pain, the pain!! My Red Sox lost the opener. Jon Lester was off his game and Carl Crawford didn’t get a hit. He actually struck out three times. The highpoints were few but heartwarming. David Ortiz hit a home run, Adrian Gonzalvez went two for four and Jacoby Ellsbury stole his first base of the season. My friends and I wore our Red Sox sweatshirts and socks and cheered and moaned in unison. We ate appetizers and then had pizza delivered. If it weren’t for the loss, the evening would have been great fun.

Today is my do chores at home day, but I can’t really complain as I have so few of them. Most times my stay home day is reading and lounging and being a sloth. Among my chores today are laundry, trash and litter boxes then it’s back to being a sloth.

My front garden has blooming flowers in yellow, pink and purple. I don’t know the names of all of them, but the crocus have been up a while, and I can see the flowers of the hyacinths so they aren’t so far away. I planted these bulbs last year, but I thought the squirrels had eaten most of them. How lovely a surprise to see so many survived.

I can still see all my neighbors’ houses through the naked branches of the trees in the backyard. Once their leaves arrive, though, the houses will disappear, and I’ll sit on my deck among the trees and think I’m Tarzan and Jane’s neighbor. Gracie and the birds will provide the sounds, not quite from the jungle though, but still enough to make me think I’m far away from my street and my town and the suburbs.

I have organized all my Ghanaian pictures on my new Mac. Next I’m going to figure out how to add music. I’ll then make a duplicate with captions and send it along to Tim, another RPCV from Ghana. He has already made a DVD from his slides and those of two other returned volunteers. Peace Corps Ghana has been asking for archival items as part of the 50th anniversary. I hope to bring them copies of my slides and the combined ones. I look at my slides and can’t believe how young I was. Forty years has passed far too quickly.