The morning is yesterday and the day before that. The weather is the same. Clouds still hold sway and the temperature is in the 50’s, but the sun is supposed to make an appearance. I’m hoping it will. I need a bit of sunshine.

I am, as per the quote, celebrating my spirit animal, the sloth, today. It was a busy week. I frantically cleaned and had four uke events. The last two were concerts. During the Thursday concert, my music book kept falling because the top of the stand has a broken screw and can’t be tightened. At the third fall, all the pages came loose on the floor. I really wanted to curse, but circumstances didn’t allow it. That was the breaking point. I ordered another stand and it came yesterday but too late to use. I’ll practice putting it together a few times before next week’s concert.

When I was a kid, my father had his Saturday rituals. In the morning he’d have coffee, always instant which he preferred, and read his paper. He’d then go up town. Sometimes I was lucky enough to go with him. First stop was always the Chinese laundry. My father only wore white shirts back then and always had them laundered. I loved that laundry. The counter was in front just a bit inside the door. On the right was a window. In front of the window was a giant sort of iron. It had two parts, a pull down top and a bottom of the same size. Sometimes a man was working the iron. Steam made a hissing noise and came out the sides of the iron when the top was down. I liked watching him. My father’s shirts were always wrapped in brown paper and secured with string. The barber shop was next, a couple of doors down. It was small, only two chairs. My father usually just got his hair trimmed. I used to sit in a chair by the window and read magazines. They were all about hunting and fishing. Sometimes we’d visit my father’s friend at his drug store. I got a coke at the soda fountain while I waited. After my father was done visiting, we’d go home. I always loved those mornings with just my father and me. They were special.

We seem to be stuck in the 50’s with clouds every day. No rain is predicted, just those clouds. At night, it gets chillier, sweatshirt chillier.

Today I have a concert. It always amazes me that I can play a musical instrument. No one in my family plays. None of my friends played. The closest I got to making music was the triangle in the rhythm band when I was in the second grade. I wanted the sticks, but I didn’t have a choice so I got stuck with the triangle. I have wind chimes in my yard. When the wind blows, the chimes make the sweetest sound. They always remind me of how I fell in love with that triangle.

When I was a kid, I had adventures. I remember when my brother and I found a shack in the woods beside the field below my house. It was small. The roof was covered in a dirty tarp with holes. The door was a piece of cloth. No one was around it so my brother and I went inside. We had to crawl as the roof was so low. The floor was dirt and so was what we found. A few piles of magazines were inside. They were all Playboy sorts with naked women. We got out of there quickly. We never went back as we didn’t want to run into the builder of the shack. Much later, when we were a little older, we figured it might have been a teenager hiding the magazines from his mother. Maybe under the mattress was filled.

A chain link fence separated the project from the houses behind it which were actually on a different street. I remember a huge white house with a porch. I used to walk by it when I went to the field to pat the two horses. There was a short dirt road beside it. One day I investigated down that road. I found a neat looking house. It was small and had one floor. The front was all screened. It looked like a cottage, the sort that Hansel and Gretel found but without the gingerbread. I looked through the side windows at a living room with chairs and a couch. No one was there. I always wondered who lived there.

When I take a ride, I go down roads I’ve never been. I keep taking rights until I reach the ocean then I go left until I reach the ocean on the other side. I sometimes stop at an interesting store or to buy lunch where I’ve never eaten before. I’m always up for adventure.