Keep the Coffee Comimg

If you checked the dictionary for fall day, you’d see a picture of today. It is 63° with a light breeze, a bright, warm sun and a cornflower blue sky with a few scattered clouds. Nala stays outside enjoying the day. Henry comes in hoping for a treat but disappointedly goes back outside to join Nala. Henry is the noisy dog. Nala is the sneaky dog.

My dance card has one item left, a uke concert tomorrow. If you’re counting, it is the 4th uke event of the week. We’re still playing cowboy songs. Yesterday I wore an old felt black cowboy hat and a bandana. The hat was once part of a cowgirl outfit. The crowd clapped and sang along. It was fun.

I’m on a peanut butter kick. I have it for breakfast and lunch. It is super chunky peanut butter. This morning I had it on the end piece of the loaf I had just opened. I put some honey on it in a decorative pattern. We all liked it. Even in Ghana I ate peanut butter sold in the market as groundnut paste, a soup starter. It was thick, bread tearing thick, so I used groundnut oil to thin it. I always had a jar of groundnut paste in the kitchen.

When I was a kid, my life was a certainty. Weekdays I went to school. What to wear was never a choice. I wore my uniform. I sat at my desk and plodded through the day. For lunch it was usually a sandwich and cookies. Both varied depending upon how close to shopping day it was. The lunch was bountiful early in the week. After school, we played on the street or in the field. We played hard. The afternoon was short.

Fall is almost in full swing. The leaves are changing. Yesterday I saw trees with red leaves and others with yellow leaves. They stood out from among the leafy green trees. Cranberries have been harvested from the bogs. The sun is sharper. At night the air is cool and even cold. Darkness comes early. My street seems to come to life at night. There are lights shining from every house. It has a cozy feel.

We seem to be in a rainy season of sorts. The street was wet when I woke up, and rain is predicted for today. I do think I just saw a bit of light behind the clouds, but that may be an illusion, the result of wistful thinking.

I am no longer Queen Sloth. Oh! the horror of it all. Yesterday I cleared out a large cabinet, washed all the bowls and pans I found and vacuumed the bottom of the cabinet. I then put the clean dishes in plastic bags and rearranged the cabinet when I put everything back. At least the effort was worthwhile. I found treasures. There is a fruit serving bowl with matching plates, Easter dishes, Mexican dishes and Day of the Dead serving pieces. I found my Marie Antoinette salt and pepper set, my favorite find. Her head comes off and holds the pepper, her torso the salt.

When I was growing up, we used plastic, unbreakable dinner plates and serving pieces my mother had bought at the supermarket every week. They had a decoration, what looked like sheaves of wheat. I remember if a plate fell it wobbled and made a noise on the kitchen linoleum. Once in a while one would crack but never break. We used those dishes for years.

Our glasses were a mishmash. The only matching glasses were aluminum in bright colors. A blue pitcher completed the set. We had several small glasses perfect for servings of pudding. They had held shrimp in tomato sauce, the key ingredient to a shrimp dip my mother always served at parties. We had the usual grape jelly glasses with cartoon figures. Roadrunner was my favorite. The best glasses were stored on the top shelf to keep them safe from slippery fingers.

When we were older and living on our own, we’d often visit. My mother would set a traditional table in the dining room for Sunday dinners and holidays. She had matching sets of plates, even a Christmas set. There was always a tablecloth, not plastic, and matching napkins. The silverware was placed beside the dishes, and we each even had a knife. I loved the look of those tables. In my memory, they are special times, festive times, family times.