The rain makes the day gloomy. Right now it is 41° and foggy. The birds are back. They were missing for a while. This morning I saw several chickadees and Mrs. Cardinal. Yesterday I filled one of the feeders with a different seed. It is supposedly anti-spawn. I put the seed in the feeder the spawns usually sit on to dine, the one the chickadees favor. I’m thinking the seed might have some hot pepper which deters the spawns. 

Chickens are dirty. They are also creatures of habit. That comes into this story later. In Ghana, I had chickens. The first sitting hen was a gift. She was a horrible mother and lost her chicks, a few at a time, probably to snakes. We ate her. My next hen was a good mother. All her chicks lived and spent the nights roosting in my backyard. Other volunteers often visit. If they stayed overnight, the custom was they either brought food or gave a little money. One of the volunteers I trained with came to visit. I was cordial though I wasn’t fond of the guy. I don’t think any of us were. He was haughty and annoying. He went to John’s Hopkins and told us that all the time. We weren’t impressed. It was the harmattan when he came. I was sleeping outside on my mattress. I put another one outside for him and carefully placed it in the yard. Early the next morning I heard him scream. I wasn’t surprised. I had placed his mattress where the chickens always walk to go out the gate. The chickens jumped on him. He was directly in their path. I pretended to be surprised. 

Sometimes I have a flash, a picture, from my memory drawers. When I visit where I grew up, I take a nostalgia ride passing the places from my childhood. I always go by the duplex where we lived for so long. I can see my father raking the front yard and my mother hanging up laundry. The small hill where, to my father’s consternation, I’d ride down on my bike is there. All it is missing are tire tread marks. I go by houses where my friends used to live. I remember their names and can see their faces. Some even still live in town. 

I am sometimes surprised by the memories I have of when I was young. They aren’t of life changing events. They are small memories, ones I didn’t realize I was making, but I am always glad for them. They give me joy.

Here I am thinking the air feels warm, but it is only 33°. It is cloudy. The day looks gloomy, uninviting. I have uke practice tonight. We are playing love songs of the 60’s, songs from my heyday.

It is a typical morning. The dogs have been out twice. Nala comes in on her own while Henry whines at the dog door for me to let him inside. They’ve had their morning treats, Buddy biscuits. Both of them are now sleeping on the couch. It’s nap time.

My Christmas tree had been standing in my living room since Christmas. It was covered with the tree bag meant to capture the needles. I didn’t move the tree outside earlier as it was too tall and too heavy. Yesterday I decided to tackle the task. It was awful. I managed to get the tree near the door then I went outside hoping to pull it through the threshold. It got stuck. Nothing moved. I grabbed branches and pulled. All the needles fell. I cut my hand somehow. I changed my strategy and pulled the side branches out one at a time. It worked. The tree is on the front lawn still in the white bag. I couldn’t remove the bottom of the tree stand so I’ll have to try again today. I hope no one looks too closely at that tree bag. I can see the blood from my cut all over it. Maybe I should bury it in the backyard. 

When I was a kid, a penny was valuable. I could buy penny candy. Sometimes I could get two pieces of candy for a penny. That was a good day. Now, the penny will join analog time, cursive, dial phones, typewriters, yellow pages, maps and so much much more. 

I thought about all the sayings and idioms about pennies. Those too will be gone, thrown on the trash pile of archaic language. I’m thinking a penny for my thoughts is probably now worth a dollar and even more, but it just doesn’t sound right. How about the bad penny who always shows up? That phrase is centuries old. A penny saved is a penny earned. Some things used to cost a pretty penny. How can you change penny dreadful? Nothing else fits. How about penny pinching? The worse is no more pennies from heaven. We are now or will soon be bereft of divine intervention.