Fall is still holding sway. The day is warm and sunny, at 64˚. The low will be in the mid 50’s tonight. Skip, my factotum, is coming either today or tomorrow. That means he’ll do the dump run. I am saved. He’ll also shut down the deck, and I’ll have him get the Christmas lights ready for an early debut this year. I need the colors and the lights and the expectations they bring.

Today I am watching It: Chapter Two which isn’t as good as the original film, but I am in the mood for a change from politics.

This is the time of day when I have the den all to myself. Gwen never comes down anyway so she is asleep upstairs. Jack joins her for a late morning nap but on his own end of the bed. Henry is also upstairs, but he is in my room with the bed all to himself. I know he stretches. Henry sleeps with me at night.

When I was a little kid, my adventures were close to home. The field below my house was my favorite place. The grass grew so high it was up to my waists, but there was a permanent path made by all of us following the same route through the grass to the woods. On hot summer days the field was alive with grasshoppers and noisy insects. At night it was lit by blinking fireflies flickering on and off. It was a magical place.

The swamp was a border. It was as far as I could wander when I was little. I remember the front of the swamp was clear of any brush or grass but had a slick of green. It was where we skated in winter. It was where we watched polliwogs dart in the swamp water close to the shore in the springtime. I would lie on my stomach on the grass at the water’s edge and watch the polliwogs. I saw them grow and one day they were gone.

Today is another warm, lovely day. The sun is squint your eyes bright. The yellow oak leaves on the backyard trees seem to glow in the sunlight. The birds are in and out of the feeders I filled yesterday. Most of them are chickadees, the state bird of Massachusetts.

Last night I heard a bang in the back. Henry was with me on the couch. When he heard it, he jumped up and ran to the back door barking the whole time. This is the exact moment in the plot when I turned into a B horror movie star who ignored the warnings and went anyway. I got to the kitchen, turned on the back light and opened the door. No one jumped out at me wearing a hook or a mask or carrying a lethal weapon so I kept going. Henry followed. I thought he should be first, being my protector and all, but he was so close behind me he stepped on the back of my slipper. We got to the back, and I saw what had happened. A spawn had run across the deck rail and knocked flower pots over from the rail to the ground, a good distance. Only the the dish under the clay pot couldn’t handle the fall and broke into pieces. I’ll pick up the pot later.

When I was a kid in grammar school, we alternated between having a nun or not having a nun. All the not nuns were women, older women. My very favorite teacher was Miss Quilter, my sixth grade teacher. I remember she wore really thick glasses and white blouses with bows at the neck. I also remember wanting to learn everything from her.

My dance card is empty for the next few days. Wednesday is the first day with an entry: my uke lesson. I have another entry on Thursday, an appointment . That’s two this week. I’ll probably need a nap.