Some days seem just perfect. Yesterday was one of those. I had my uke lesson, and it was fun playing new music. I got gas, seemingly a mundane task, but the sun was shining, and the trees were gently swaying. I was glad to sit and watch. I stopped at the dump on the way home and chatted with the man who always helps to empty my trunk. We both loved the weather. I also stopped for a blood test, a common event. I was the only one there, an uncommon event. I got home, and it wasn’t even noon yet, a boon. Even though I only did mostly errands, I felt quite content. It was just one of those mornings when everything fit.

Friends are coming for dinner. This doesn’t happen often. I have my shopping list and my flow chart. My house is clean. The floors are sparkling, and for the meanwhile, the spiders’ webs are gone. I have yet to prep the dogs. That will be the toughest task.

Before I left for Ghana, my mother and I went shopping. I was packing for two years. I had a list of suggested items. I was allotted eighty pounds of luggage. We had to buy two sets of sheets and a couple of towels. We bought dresses because women wore dresses in public. We bought cotten underwear, packages and packages, as was suggested. The list of toiletries was long. I had a couple of pairs of sandals. I had pictures of my family. I brought a couple of books. I remember one was The Autobiography of Malcolm X. My parents bought me luggage, an Instamatic camera and slide film. The luggage was red. I had to send the film home to be developed as there was no place in Ghana.

It didn’t take long to realize how useless the list had been. It said not to bring spices as Ghana had plenty. The only spice Ghana had was hot pepper. I brought too many clothes. Ghanaian cloth was beautiful and inexpensive. Seamstresses charged little. Within the first six months, I wore only dresses I had had made. My sandals fell apart in the heat and humidity. I had them resoled in the market. They used pieces of tires for soles. I left tread marks. My deodorant caused boils. I could buy shampoo and toothpaste. We got a medical kit. I didn’t need to empty the drug store selves. I had an umbrella. Ghanaians only used umbrellas to be protected from the sun. I never used mine. I had an alarm clock, but it was unnecessary. The roosters crowed, and in the early morning, my students swept the school compound outside my window.

Well, it is time to get a move on. I have company coming!

Right now we have a fall morning chill at 65°, but the day will get warmer and will reach the 70’s. Through the trees in the back yard, I can see blue sky. The sunlight is dappling through the oak leaves. This is a lovely morning.

My father always carried a white handkerchief in his back pocket. In the old days, before we had a dryer, my mother used to iron his handkerchiefs. When I was young, I always gave him new ones for Christmas which I’d buy in a fancy package at the drug store. I remember the nuns too used white handkerchiefs. They used to tuck them under their sleeves at their wrists. A small corner of the white handkerchief usually stuck out for quick retrieval.

I have old fingers. A couple are arthritic which translates into trouble opening some bottle tops, especially the ones where you have to press in each side at the designated marks at the same time then turn the top. I have gotten so frustrated I have thrown the bottle. It travels far. My last resort is usually breaking the top with pliers. I use a fork to pull the sort of key on the tops of dog food cans. That works well. Sometimes, though, I just can’t get the bottles opened. They either sit in the cabinet until their expiration date or they get tossed. Getting old has its challenges.

In grammar school, I wore tie shoes. My mother had taught me how to tie bows when I was around five. My first bows were so loose they fell apart. I’d tie them tighter, and they’d become knots. That was sort of a Goldilocks experience of trying to find just right. It took me a while, but I finally mastered the art of tying bows.

We used to have reading class. We had thick readers with stories followed by questions. The stories were interesting. The questions were chronological and easy to look up if you forgot the answers. We used to get graded on silent reading. I always got an S for satisfactory. I figured if your lips didn’t move or your finger stayed off the text you got that S.

Over the blackboards in most of my grammar school classrooms were two rows of letters. It was the alphabet, A to Z, in cursive. The upper case, capital letters, had their lower case, small letters, right beside them. All the capital letters were fancy, but I thought the weirdest looking letters were Q, X and Z. It was a good thing we didn’t use them often.