I am still infected with the cleaning bug. Yesterday it was the kitchen, hall and bathroom floors and vacuuming and dusting the dining room. They look great, but I am exhausted.

Mother Nature is doing her spring dance. Today is another beautiful day. It is 58° with the deepest blue sky and not a cloud in sight. The sun is so bright it highlights everything. Even the pine trees look lovely. My front garden is awash with flowers. More dafs have bloomed. The deepest maroon hyacinths have appeared. The forsythia is bright with yellow flowers. The world is wild with color.

When I was a kid I loved spring not so much for the flowers but for the warm days. I got to bring my bicycle out of the cellar. It would stay parked in the backyard just waiting for me. I even liked riding to the white store for bread or milk, things which never lasted in our house. The afternoons were long. The sun stayed around. We got to play outside until just about supper time.

We played games like Red Rover. It was a game of strength. We stood in two lines facing each other. Each line held hands. We’d call over a member of the other side. If the kid we called broke through, he got to take one of us back with him, but if he didn’t, we got to keep him. I remember some teams got down to two. They were doomed.

My other favorite games were Red Light, Green Light and Simon Says. There was always a lot of groaning with Simon Says. The caller had to be clever. It was easy to get caught.

After supper, we always watched TV. My father got home late and seldom ate supper with us. I remember him coming through the door. I can see him in my mind’s eye wearing his fedora and top coat. He always wore a suit and a white shirt, a starched white shirt. His tie was always in a Windsor knot.

My house is quiet. The dogs are elsewhere. Nala is outside lying in the sun and tearing apart a cardboard box she stole. She is a happy dog. Henry is napping upstairs, but he comes down every now and then to bark at something outside only he sees.

My dance card is filled this week starting tonight with uke practice. We are beginning to work on Songs of the 70’s, Book 2. My lesson tomorrow will be practicing the same music. There are three concerts this week. I will definitely go to two of them. As for the rest of the week, the only thing I know is I will not be cleaning.

Restoring Coffee is still a work in progress.

My blog is still a mess. I need to sit with it a while to figure out how to get back to Coffee as we know it. I am quite frustrated at myself. I didn’t pay the annual fee I had been paying until all hell broke loose. Now I have to figure everything out again. Oh well!

Today is spring warm, in the mid 60’s. The clouds are gone and the sun has taken its rightful place in a blue sky. My weather gauges, the two dogs, are outside and have been for a while. They have even missed their morning naps to enjoy the warmth. I just might have to join them.*

I can still remember the joy the first warm days brought when I was a kid. It was spring jacket weather, sometimes skipping all the way to school weather and perfect weather for playing outside till late afternoon. In my mind’s eye, I can still see the field below our house. In spring, the grass grew tall and was filled with grasshoppers. I remember running to chase the jumping grasshoppers hoping to catch one with my hands. They were brown. I used to peek through my fingers to check them out. I liked their legs. I remember the dead tree on the left in the back of the field. Only the bottom part of its truck stood. One big branch had fallen across the path. I used to climb over it rather than take the path around it. Just beyond that tree, the field ended in a copse with only a small dirt pathway between the trees. The swamp was just a bit further. That was my play-land when I was a kid.

When I was really young, I didn’t have any worries. My only responsibility was school. I didn’t mind. I always liked school. Because I wore a uniform, I didn’t worry about clothes. I mostly had play clothes and a dress or two for church. I loved comfy clothes, still do. In Ghana, I was the dressiest I have ever been. I wore a dress every day. It was customary.

I have been infected by the cleaning bug. While I was waiting for my coffee, I ended up in the dining room cleaning and dusting the cupboard, all the dishes in it, the tables and the chairs. I fear that bug.