Each morning, when I first wake up, I look out the window in my bedroom. This morning I saw the brightest sun and a deep, deep blue sky, a beautiful day with a high of 78° and a low of 54°. The weather report, though, does say a moderate chance of scattered showers after 3 PM, but I figure moderate makes it unlikely.

It is time to put my factotum, Skip, to work. I have a long list of spring work, things like replacing boards on the deck rail, power washing the deck and wooden chairs, planting pots with flowers and herbs and decorating for the summer with flags and candles and the fish table. I’m ready for coffee and papers on the deck.

I need a new dump sticker. The town calls it a transfer station sticker, a euphemism. The cost is $190.00. That gives me the privilege of dumping my own trash and recycling five days a week. How exciting!

Once, on a bus, I saw a woman who was constantly talking light her cigarette then put the lit end in her mouth. She sputtered and spit. I have no idea why I remember that.

I have a confession. On my way to Sandwich a long time back when I was young and reckless I got stopped for speeding, not once but twice. I got a warning each time. I have never had a speeding ticket.

I loved riding my Honda in Ghana. When I bought it, they taught me how to shift. My trip home from buying it was 100 miles on a paved road. The ride took well over four hours. I was a bit nervous when the lorries and the buses passed me. I could feel the breeze. I only stopped once to stretch my legs and buy some fruit from an auntie selling along the roadside in some small village. I noticed people walking on the roads or in the fields without seeing a compound or a village. I wondered where they came from and how far they were walking. I had a helmet. Peace Corps insisted we wear one and sent one to me. I didn’t wear it much. It was hot and bulky. I was attacked, sort of, by a herd of goats. They turned into me and hit my bike. That surprised me, and I dropped the bike and got burned from the exhaust. Another time, in the bush, I saw a troop of baboons cross the road. I stopped. One of them gave me a long look, but I never moved and he lost interest. I used to ride into town for market day. I brought shepherd’s bags with me to load with my purchases. They are woven bags which stretch. I’d fill the bags with oranges, plantain, yams, eggs and even a pineapple. I’d put the heavy bags on each handlebar. They hung to my knees. I’d hope for the best.

It is a beautiful day. The sun is bright. The air is still. It could even get as warm as 70+°. The Cape is inching toward summer, and today is a preview, a delightful preview.

I have a concert this afternoon, the first in a busy concert season. In June alone there are ten. The fingers on my left hand are getting meaty.

The dogs scared the heck out of me around four this morning. Both of them, at the same time, jumped off the bed and ran downstairs. Henry was barking though that is not unusual. He is a loud boy. I decided not to go check, but, instead, went back to sleep. The dogs joined me.

In reading the paper this morning, I saw scrum used in a different way. I had only known it as a rugby play. The sentence read, “A scrum of reporters…” I checked and it also means a disordered or confused situation involving a number of people. It was used to describe the reporters surrounding Santos and yelling questions.

When I was a kid, I used to keep a dictionary close in case I ran into a word I didn’t know. Even now there is one by my bed but down here I just ask Duck.

When I was growing up, my house and yard were filled with sounds. I loved the turning sound of the phone dial, the click click. My father always used a hand mower. It too had a click click sound. Our fridge didn’t hum. It always made all sorts of what sounded like grunting noises as if it were having trouble keeping up with its responsibilities. Floors creaked. The stairs creaked even more. The back door always slammed despite my mother yelling about closing the door. We knew when the milkman and the garbage men came. They had a metallic sound. The milkman’s bottles hit the wire basket. The garbage man used his foot to open the metal cover then pulled out the metal bucket filled with garbage. When he was done, he’d use his foot to slam the cover down.

I remember the sounds of the stores uptown. Cash registers had bells sounds and their drawers had metallic clangs when they slid open. There was no music in stores, but every now and then the supermarket had an announcement. Bells hanging on the door frames rang when shop doors were opened. At the bus stop by the movie theater, the bus engines were noisy and smoke always came out of the exhaust.

In my house and yard the sounds are intermittent. The sweetest sounds are the birds greeting the day, and the chimes ringing in the wind. When the school bus goes noisily down the street, Henry barks. The landscapers are the noisiest. Henry barks at the sounds of the motors. In the house, I can hear the furnace working, and the clink of ice cubes falling into the tray. I hear the beep when the coffee is brewed and when the microwave has finished.

In the darkness, the night birds sing and the frogs croak. The streets are quiet. It is my favorite time of the day.