The rain has stopped as has my work on the ark, but scattered showers are predicted so I’ll keep the tools handy. The kitchen floor is filled with paw prints. The backyard is soaked. 

My sloth must have been napping this morning as I have already changed my bed, taken my shower and cleaned down the stairs. I’m exhausted!

In the winter, my mother usually made us a hot breakfast before school. My favorite was soft boiled eggs. She used to serve the eggs in yellow Fanny Farmer duck egg holders. She would cut off the top of the egg and have toast around the plate. The toast was cut into strips the perfect size for dunking. When I first moved into this house, I had only a few pieces of furniture, a frying pan and two pots, a few dishes, a TV and a couch for my bed. My parents came to visit to see the house. My mother brought a few memories. She brought down two duck egg cups. Each duck had lost its beak. I loved those ducks, beaks or no beaks. They are still in my kitchen.

I remember classmates from grammar school. Many of us were together for eight years. After graduation, I lost touch with most of them. I wonder about them. I had a crazy, old nun in the eighth grade, Sister Hildegard. It was our life’s mission to take advantage of her. She hated us. One poor classmate was somehow related to her. Her name was Eleanor, and she sat in the last desk in the fourth row. I remember one day when Sister Hildegard went off on Eleanor who had rolled her skirt at the waist to make it shorter. Somehow Sister Hildegard noticed and went up the row toward Eleanor so fast her veil was blowing behind her. She yelled and pulled the skirt so far down you could see the top of Eleanor’s slip under the skirt. Eleanor started crying. No one made fun of her or laughed. We were horrified for her. I have never forgotten.

When I was a junior in high school on a late Friday afternoon, only a nun and I were left to finish decorating the gym for a dance that night. She was on a ladder. At some point she dropped the decoration and said, “Shit.” I was taken aback. A nun swearing? I never really thought of nuns as regular people. They were a breed unto themselves. We had three sexes: men, women and nuns. 

My dance card has three entries, all uke related. I have practice, a lesson and a concert on Friday. We are still singing funny food songs. 

I keep checking my hands and feet for webbing. It is raining, again, and it is supposed to rain all day. I was going to do a couple of errands, but I’ve decided to stay home, to stay warm and dry. 

My muse has gone to sunnier climes. I don’t blame her. We seem to be stuck in the last bit of winter. The next few nights will be downright cold, down to the 30’s. Where did I put my mittens? I need to wear a bed cap like Scrooge and the man in The Night Before Christmas did. I’d like mine to be colorful. Their’s were white.

I remember my hometown so very well. I was roamer, sometimes on foot but mostly on my bike. There used to be a small train, a narrow gauge, which took riders through the trees behind the China Moon and Hago Harrington’s miniature golf course. Sunnyhurst Dairy’s bottling plant was close to the route of the train. Sunnyhurst also sold ice cream, cones and such, from the front of the brick building near where the Italian bakery is now. My friend Pat and I used to stop there. I have a couple of Sunnyhurst milk bottles. The square had an army-navy store. I never shopped there, but I wish I could now. The town horse barn faced the road behind the town hall. It was one of my stops. I think if I could go back in time, I’d go back to the the late 50’s, early 60’s, and spend a Saturday on my bike riding all over town. 

I have shelves filled with cookbooks. I store many of the books in wooden boxes against one wall here in the den. The boxes are old. One is from a cranberry bog and is labeled 1982. Another is a Gnome beverages box. A beverages’ box has slots for bottle storage, for 12 bottles of flavored drinks sold at a small plant I remember was near the Fellsway. I have an insulated Hood box which used to sit on the back steps of our house. The milkman left the bottles of milk in it so the milk could stay cold. Many of the books are Christmas books filled with crafts and recipes. My mother used to send me one every year. 

The floor to ceiling bookcase in the kitchen is filled with all sorts of stuff. I have a collection of glass cocktail shakers and old drink stirrers, some from TWA and hotels and bars which are long gone. My favorite cookbooks are ones with recipes from books like Nancy Drew, Barbara Pym, Anne of Green Gables and Shakespeare. I have an ugly collection of souvenirs. A fondue pot is on one shelf. Dishes and bowls are on the lower shelves. 

I love all my collections.