The morning was already hot when I dragged myself out of bed. I flipped on the AC, let the dogs out and grabbed a cup of coffee. My morning had officially begun.

Today will be in the low 80’s. Right now it is both sunny and cloudy with a barely noticeable breeze. Yesterday I watered the deck plants and noticed the spawn had dug up the same flowers in the same clay pot. I reburied the flowers. I’ll check again later.

When I was a kid, my father worked long hours. He was a salesman. His territory was the South Shore, a distance from where we lived. He came home late, well after dinner. Because we didn’t see much of him on the weekdays, I always thought of Saturday as his day. In the summer he’d mow the lawn. My father always had his mower sharpened at the hardware store in the beginning of the summer. I loved the sound of the clicking mower. My father had a technique for mowing, a pattern. It never varied. I remember the side lawn and the lines from the mower. My father never got a power mower. He loved his hand mower.

I am not one for violence except there was a single incident, a never repeated incident. I was a senior in high school. My friends and I were sitting in the grandstand at a Sox game. We were enjoying the game until the guy beside me started yelling at the team and swearing big time swears, not your harmless hells or damns. I asked him nicely to stop. He didn’t. He got worse. I asked him a second time. I got the same result. By this time, I was getting angry. The request wasn’t unreasonable, and his language was way out of bounds. I asked one more time. He kept swearing. He was even smug about it. Without even thinking about it, I punched him on the cheek. I didn’t hold back, and I didn’t think of the consequences. He was the most surprised person I’d ever seen. I was the second most surprised person. Despite my response, I would never advocate violence as a solution, but he stopped swearing. He even offered me popcorn. I took some.

The birds have found the feeders. I sat on the deck yesterday and watched a few come in, grab a sunflower seed and leave provisioned. The chickadees were the first. They always are. Next was a titmouse, and he came back a couple of times. Some sort of sparrow also visited. I noticed one clay pot’s plants didn’t seem to be doing well. When I checked, I noticed the plants had been pulled out of the soil. I know it was a spawn of Satan. This one is tricky, sly.

Today is already beautiful. It is 80°. The sun is glinting through the trees in the backyard. Nothing is moving, not even a single leaf. Tonight will be in the 60’s.

I have often written about my travels, especially in Africa. I have a story for you, a new story. It’s sort of a long story. My friends and I boarded a bus in Ouagadougou, in what was then Upper Volta and is now Burkina Faso. It was a Trans-African bus with the motto we never break down; of course, it broke down. We sat around while the mechanics left to get parts. They hitched. After we were back on the road we had to stop at a closed post office as we had mail to leave. We stayed overnight. It was cold as we were getting nearer to the desert. The driver to whom I spoke Hausa had been delighted I knew his language. He shared hot coffee and bread with me. I shared with my two friends. The next morning we got back on the road.

The bus broke down again. The driver told me, “An gama.” It is finished. My friends and I hitched and got a ride to the border between Burkina Faso and Niger. The border had a barrel on each side of the road with a long piece of wood resting on each barrel. We sat for a while then hitched. My friends got a ride. I got a different ride. I crossed the bridge into Niamey, and the driver dropped me off on a fairly big road. I was alone. I wandered a bit and found a hotel. I should have kept wandering. That night I realized it was a bordello. I could hear men knocking on doors and talking to women then the doors would close. They knocked on my door. I hid out of sight and didn’t answer. That went on all night. I didn’t sleep. I was on alert.

I left that hotel as soon as the sun rose. I got to the main road, and a little boy stopped to talk to me. He asked in French if I was looking for Le Corps de la Paix, Peace Corps in French. I guess he figured a lost, wandering white lady hauling a backpack had to be Peace Corps. He led me to the office, and they directed me to the hostel. My friends were there. They had found it the day before and had slept there. They missed the adventure. They could never tell the story of sleeping, rather not sleeping, in a bordello. That’s my story.