Today is a lovely summer day. The temperature is 71°. The sun is bright in a blue sky. A breeze is blowing the trees and branches. Best of all, the humidity is gone. Of course, it being summer on Cape Cod, the humidity will be back, but not today.

My muse has taken a vacation. I keep starting and stopping. I keep getting stuck. I even yawn a little. I’m thinking a morning nap is in order.

Prepare for stream of consciousness.

My favorite pie is lemon meringue. My friend used to make it for me instead of a birthday cake. I’ll take blueberry pie next. My mother always made Thanksgiving pies and included lemon meringue. She made apple, my father’s favorite. He added a chunk of cheddar. I prefer sweet potato pie to pumpkin and custard more than both.

I have four pairs of high tops. I have a fifth pair I stored somewhere, but it is now lost in time. That pair is pink. I like my red high tops best. I’d like a green pair next.

I don’t wear hats unless it is Arctic cold. I have one hat dating back to high school. My friend’s grandmother knitted it for me. It is pink and white. There is a funny side to hats and me. I don’t wear them, but I collect them. I have some really neat ones like an old band hat with a red plume. A fedora reminds me of my dad as he wore one to work very day when I was a kid. One of my favorites is a wide pink hat I figure some elegant woman wore in the 50’s. My train conductor’s hat is blue. I have my old brownie hat. I have a red fez and a red Chinese cap. My sister gave me her Easter hat from when she was a little girl. It has a wide brim and a blue bow. I have other hats, but I’ll save those for another day.

I love hamburgers and cheeseburgers. My favorite ice cream changes. A while back it was mint chocolate chip. Lately it has been mocha chip. My favorite topping is hot fudge, and harkening back to my youth, marshmallow goes on top of the fudge, but whipped cream is fine too.

I like brownies. I loved my mother’s brownies with chocolate frosting and jimmies. I like too many cookies to choose a favorite though chocolate chip would be close.

Wow, it seems I overcame my writing lethargy. I could go on, but I need another cup of coffee, and I want to save something for my next museless day.

The dogs and I are on the deck. They are eating each other’s faces with, not unexpectedly, Nala being the loudest growler. I’m watching the birds. My cardinal is back as are the stalwart chickadees. Most of the pot flowers are blooming, the only exceptions being the twice uprooted flowers from the spawn. My hibiscuses in the front garden have started to bloom.

The morning is cloudy and damp. Rain is predicted. It is 78° but doesn’t feel warm. An every now and then a breeze feels chilly in the dampness.

My friends came through with coffee, one brought beans and the other ground coffee from Brazil. I brewed a pot yesterday. I happily poured in my light cream, but it didn’t pour. It plopped. I am not a black coffee drinker so for yet another morning I didn’t have coffee. I was thinking of putting a sign in my front yard saying proceed at your own risk.

My dance card has one entry left, a uke concert tomorrow, my third this week; however, my to-do list is filled. Entries get added and seldom deleted.

When I was a kid, we lived in the first duplex on the corner of the hill in the project. There were more duplexes in a sort of an S formation with some down the street and others up the street. A small rotary was up the hill circled by the last houses so the street didn’t dead end. All the houses had lawns and backyards. Clothes lines were on squares of tar behind each house. Back then my mother had a wringer washing machine in the cellar. I liked to watch her hang the clothes. My father had a pattern for the lawn. My mother had a pattern for the clothes. Shirts were hung upside down. Three clothespins always connected two shirts. She used to keep the clothespins in a bag hanging from the line. Pants were hung by the bottoms of the legs. I don’t remember the underwear, but I figure she followed the same pattern as the shirts. I loved seeing the clothes in winter. They’d freeze on the lines with shirt sleeves straight out. I used to think they could be props in some scary movie, The Shirt Sleeve Killers.