The sun is getting brighter. The morning is cool but that won’t last as it could get into the high 70’s. Everything is wet from the on and off again rain of the last few days. We’re still keeping on eye on Lee. The forecast is for a nor’easter on Saturday, but already the air direction is changing. The morning air is coming through my north facing window. People have started hunkering down. Boats are being taken out of the water. I’m guessing the grocery stores will be filled with harried shoppers. I only need coffee. I ground the last of it yesterday. Coffee is essential.

On my dance card today is the farmer’s market uke concert. I’ll get there early and buy my scones, some native tomatoes and whatever else catches my eye. Last market it was some chocolate chunk candy. I only bought one, a mistake, as it was delicious, even better than a Snickers, a blasphemy.

When I was a kid, my least favorite subject was arithmetic. I remember learning the times tables. I liked only the ones, fives and tens, the easy ones. The nuns kept watch during arithmetic class so I used to hide my fingers under my desk so I could use them for counting. We didn’t have art or music every day, only the basic subjects. I loved reading. Sometimes I’d even hide my book from home inside one of my text books so I could read during class. I never did get caught. My technique was to raise my hand and answer a question or two so it seemed as if I were paying attention.

We always played in the streets. We rode our bikes and roller-skated. We drew hop scotch boxes on the middle of the road. We played Red Light-Green Light, Hide and Seek, Simon Says, regular Tag and Freeze Tag. Not many cars went up or down the street. Most families had only one car, and it was gone all day, driven to work by our dads. We were inside by the time most dads arrived home from work.

I am not a tea drinker, except iced tea. When I was a kid, my mother gave me hot tea when I was sick so I associate tea with being sick. She gave us flat ginger ale and dry toast if our stomachs were upset. They were a mother’s panacea.

I’m watching Snowbeast. It has already done in one skier. Her bloody jacket was found but, no one believes in the creature. It is about to eat victim number two. It roars a lot but no one pays it heed. I guess guileless people are a necessity.

Last night it rained, gently at first then torrentially. I was surrounded by rain. I could hear it pound the windows and the roof. The air was thick and stilled by the humidity. I fell asleep to the rain.

This morning is cloudy and damp. The rain falls intermittently. It is 77°, the high for the day. Tonight will go down to the 60’s. The rest of the week will have similar weather. Hurricane Lee is in the news. Right now, whether it will hit Cape Cod is still uncertain, but we have been warned to expect “dangerous surf and rip currents” beginning Sunday. My mother would say it’s time to batten down the hatches.

My sister Moe was born just before Hurricane Edna wreaked its havoc in 1954. She was small, too small to leave the hospital, so they kept her. It was a good thing as we and thousands of others lost electricity. I remember sitting by the picture window watching the trees being blown. The biggest oak tree fell. It covered the road. We went out with my father during the eye of the storm to look at the tree. I remember how still the air was. At the end of the trunk we could see the dangling roots with dirt still clinging. Branches and debris covered the road. I was amazed that such a tree could fall. Forever after that storm, the empty spot near the corner across the street always reminded of what had stood there.

It has started raining again. I can hear it from the window behind me. That is Nala’s window. She loves leaning on the back of the couch to look out the screen. I don’t know what holds her interest. There are some trees, and you can see the side of the house next door, a rental, but no one is there.

I love living in New England. I love all four seasons, or at least parts of all four seasons. My favorite season is fall on Cape Cod. The weather is fine with warm days and cool nights. Only the weekends are busy with tourists. The roads are back to being ours. Oak tree leaves turn color. They turn a brown red, a deep color. Sugar maple trees, far fewer than the oak, are brilliant in the fall. Their leaves turn bright yellow. The low lying cranberry bogs have ripening fruits which turn the bogs into a display of red, a bright red. The harvest starts in mid to late September. I always stop to watch if I happen on a bog being harvested. The fall is long here on the cape. It lets us forget the short spring.