If you’d like a bit of a weather report, just check yesterday’s Coffee. Today is the same. I do love this weather, but I’d like some rain. Everything is too dry.

When I was a kid, Sunday was sacrosanct. Most of the stores were closed. It was family dinner day. We hung around the house after church. My father read his paper, and we watched TV. Sometimes in the afternoon we went to visit my grandparents.

In my mind’s eye, I can see the way to East Boston where my grandparents lived. I remember places which caught my eye or piqued my curiosity. They sit in my memory drawers in no particular order. I remember the sportman’s club with the pond stocked with trout. It was just before my favorite part of the ride, Route 1. On the highway, right beside each other were a couple of seafood restaurants. Some of the menu was listed on signs by the road so drivers might be tantalized to stop. I also remember the small store which advertised bait. It was close to the church with its back to the highway. There was a sign to Wonderland, the dog track. Both sides of the highway were filled with all sorts of stores and buildings. On a corner with a strip of grass below an overpass was a bridal shop with mannequins wearing wedding dresses in the windows. The rotary was always busy. We had to wait for a break in traffic. Beyond that was a trailer park and a sort of project with brick buildings. It was at the bottom of the hill where the huge statue of Madonna Queen of the Universe looked down on the city. We’d leave the highway and ride through a couple of neighborhoods to get to my grandparents’ house. My father would drop us us then he’d hunt for a parking space. The house was always filled with cousins and aunts and uncles. My grandmother was in the kitchen as were my mother and the aunts. My grandfather hid from the turmoil. He used to give us each a dime.

My dance card is fairly empty for this week. I have the usual uke practice and lesson and only one concert. If the warm weather continues, I’ll be happy to sit on the deck to read and watch the birds. I’ll let my sloth have full rein.

I never tire of beautiful days. Today will be 75° and sunny while tonight will have a low of 58°. The morning is quiet and still. My tasks today are simple, fill the bird feeders and vacuum the Henry fur which is all over downstairs. The little balls of fur resemble tumbleweeds in their shape and in their ability to travel in the breeze when the dogs and I walk by them.

I miss phone booths. I miss the banks of them at train and bus stations. I miss them on corners. I never went by one without checking the change slot. I sometimes found a dime. They were refuges in the rain. I’d wait behind the folding door hoping the rain would stop. If I was walking and got tired, I’d sit in the booth for a while. I know cell phones are convenient and sometimes life saving, but the old phone booths had personality and real operators.

When I graduated from high school, my gift was a typewriter for college. I used it all four years. I also used bottles of white-out and those tiny typewriter sheets you put between the ribbon and the offending letter and then typed on the sheet the correct letter. I was often impatient waiting for the white-out to dry. My typewriter is in my cellar somewhere. I’d like to find it. I suspect hunting in the cellar will resemble an archeological dig.

My dogs and I have regimens. When we first get downstairs in the morning, the dogs rush out the dog door. One time they tried to go together and got stuck in the door. Henry goes to his favorite tree and lifts his leg. Nala runs into the yard. They both come back in for a biscuit and a small treat then they have their morning naps. I make my coffee. I read the newspaper and have two cups of coffee. This months the coffee is from Uganda. After that I start my musings. It is pretty much the same very day. It is never a grind. It is a routine.