Keep the Coffee Comimg

We seem to be in the middle of a spate of lovely days. Today will be in the 60’s, but the rest of the week will be in the 70’s. I’m thinking a ride or two is in order. I’ll take all lefts this time. Most of those lead to the ocean.

Nala loves being in the yard. She stretches out in the grass, soaks up the sun and naps. Henry is straightforward, his task foremost. He runs to the tree, lifts his leg, does his business and comes back inside hoping for a treat or a sip of my coffee. If the sees my cup, he is relentless.

My father drank instant coffee. He preferred it to brewed. My mother liked Coke in the morning. She was neither a tea nor coffee drinker. My day has to start with coffee, usually two cups. My coffee beans come in the mail, a package every month. This month I’m drinking coffee from Uganda. I have some instant coffee in the cupboard. I needed it for a recipe. The only time I drank instant coffee was in Ghana, proof positive that taste buds can be muted, even ignored.

When I was a kid, my life was easy. It was a routine with school all week and church on Sundays. I patiently waded through through those days, through the week, until Saturday, my day. In warm weather, I was all over town on my bike. In the winter it was a matinee at the theater uptown or ice skating or sledding if we were lucky enough to have snow. I never minded the cold.

The books I read when I was a kid were classics or series like Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, The Bobbsey Twins or the Hardy Boys. I remember Heidi, Black Beauty, Little Men and Little Women. I remember Five Little Peppers which was about five poor kids growing up in the little brown house with their widowed mother Mamsie. It was a tug at your heartstrings book. I read several in the series and had my heart tugged every time.

This is a busy week. I have my usual uke practice and lesson and also two concerts in Brewster. This is transportation 2 week, walking songs.

Around 4 am the rain started. I was in bed so I heard it, heavy and loud, above my head. The storm started fast and ended fast. It is a chilly morning, just 56°, and it will stay that way. The sun comes and the sun goes. Right now it is cloudy. I have no plans for today though I do need a few groceries, but not enough to get me motivated to go out.

My mother mostly grocery shopped on Friday nights. My father had to drive her as she didn’t have a license. She did her big shopping at the start of the month when my father got paid. During the rest of the month she’d send one of us to the red or white store usually just for bread but sometimes for milk. She used to try to hide the cookies so they’d last for lunches. We could always count on Oreos.

When I was a kid, the future was tomorrow except when we counted the days before a big holiday. The big three started with Halloween, moved into Thanksgiving then in what seemed like years and years later came Christmas. With a week to go before Halloween, we’d start planning our costumes. We didn’t buy costumes. Back then the bought costume masks covered the face and were plastic and the costumes tied in the back at the neck. The masks had one elastic spanning the sides. The costume I remember seeing the most was a clown.

My mother was inventive. She was our costumer and make-up artist. She’d buy Lone Ranger type masks. The rest of the costume was homemade. My sister was a hula dancer one year. She wore her dancing recital grass skirt and a lei. I was once a bum holding all my possessions in a tied bundle at the end of a stick. Another year I was a farm girl with jeans and a flannel shirt. I always carried a pillowcase.

Last night I ordered my Halloween candy. I always buy what we used to call nickel bars. I bought a box of Mars candy and another of Hershey’s. I have some leftover Halloween pencils so I’m going to tape one on each candy bar. In case you’re wondering, my Mars box has Snickers. Those I’ll keep.