Today will be sunny and warm, fall warm in the high 70’s. Tonight will be in the 60’s, another fine night for sleeping. The morning is lovely. Everything is glistening in the sun. The birds are busy at the feeders. Nala is out. Henry has picked the best spot on the couch for his nap. Everything is right with our little world.

I miss the sounds of my childhood. The milkman used to carry his bottles of milk in a wire holder. The glass bottles clinked when he walked. I liked the clicking of the rotary phone when you dialed numbers. I miss the voice of the real operator, “Directory assistance. How may I help you?” I worked in Woolworth’s for a small while at a cash register. Every number I pressed made a sound, and the money drawer had a bell. I remember the sound of snow when the TV stations ended their broadcasts for the night. The rag man and the knife sharpening man called out from the street. When I was really young, the rag man had a horse and wagon. The horse’s hooves clopped on the street. The sounds of screen doors slamming came from almost every house on the block usually prefaced by a warning, “Don’t slam the door.” I used a film projector when I was first teaching. At the end of the film was the slapping sound from the end of the reel. The different coins had their own sounds when you fed them into the phones in booths. That was how the operator knew you were paying for the call. One of my favorite and most missed sounds was when my mother would call out from the back door, “Supper’s ready. Come in.”

The summer is fleeting. It seems to come and go now at breakneck speeds. Our last Monday ukulele concert on the Hyannis green was last night. We had played a summer full of music. The tourists are still here but in fewer numbers. The weekends will be full, the weekdays not is full. Soon enough, we will get back our Cape Cod back, primed and ready for my favorite season here, fall.

The day has yet to decide. Rain? Sun? When I woke up, it was sunny. Right now it is cloudy and humid. This is the last week of meteorological summer. Labor Day is next week, an early Labor Day heralding the arrival of fall.

I remember how excited I was to vote for the first time. Back then you had to be 21 to vote. My first vote in a presidential race went to Hubert Humphrey. He lost to Richard Nixon. My second presidential vote went to George McGovern. Massachusetts was the only state he carried, but we felt vindicated when Nixon resigned because of Watergate. I remember a bumper sticker from back then which gave me a chuckle, “Nixon has a staff infection,” and another one which said, “Don’t blame me. I’m from Massachusetts.” I voted when I was in Ghana, an absentee ballot, but it didn’t come by air so it arrived a long time after the election. I sent it back anyway, airmail. I always vote. I believe it is a privilege.

In my mind, one of the most disgusting dishes is refried beans. I don’t even like beans let alone refried beans. They remind me of the results of a baby’s biological function, unnamed, but I suspect you can imagine.

My brother once ate some berries we found in the woods and had to have his stomach pumped. I wonder how many people ate foods they found growing and picked the wrong ones to try. Who opened a durian, smelled that awful smell and decided to eat it anyway? It even looks alien. Hummus resembles an odd color of wallpaper paste. The horned melon reminds me of the head of an alien I saw in a Star Trek episode. Even a pomegranate is a little weird looking.

Before Ghana, the only pineapple I had ever eaten was from a can, and I had never eaten or even seen a pawpaw, aka a papaya, or a mango. Every day my lunch in Ghana was a bowl of cut fruit, pineapples, oranges, bananas and pawpaw and sometimes mango. Lunch was always a delight.

Right now it is thundering, and it has started to rain, a small rain, a gentle rain.

The rainstorm is now a beaut. The thunder is loud and overhead. The lightning has started, the wind is blowing the trees left and right, the lights have flickered and gone out a couple of times and the rain is tremendous. The dogs don’t usually mind thunder, but this storm is too much for them. Both are shaking and clinging to me. I have an arm round each of them. I feel so bad for my babies!!