The sound of a blower woke me up. It was my landscaping crew. They blew all the leaves and sticks into a pile in the front yard then cleared the piles. In the back, they took my Christmas tree, my long dead Christmas tree, collected branches and blew the deck and driveway clean. Henry barked the whole time.

Nala stole an empty dog food can from the trash and took it outside. She carried it everywhere, and when she realized I didn’t care, she brought it inside. When I was with Jack, she brought it upstairs. It was on my bed. I took it and tossed it. She didn’t notice.

My mother used to keep a jigsaw puzzle on the dining room table. Anyone who walked by couldn’t resist trying to find where one of the pieces belonged. Sometimes when my mother visited, we’d do a puzzle together. I’d make her a drink and put out some snacks. We’d sit by the table, chat and find the edges first then the spots for the rest of the pieces. I loved those evenings.

Today is one ugly day. It is dark. The sky is covered in clouds. Rain is predicted for later. I’ll be staying dry close to hearth and home.

When I was a kid, ugly days meant nothing as long as they were dry. A Saturday was not a day to waste in my world, in my town. It was the perfect day to explore. I knew all the corners, all the streets and all the stores. Most times I went alone on my bike and sometimes on foot. If the movie was good, I’d go to the matinee. Other times I’d wander around uptown on my way to somewhere else. I remember the smell of popcorn cooking at the candy maker’s behind the square. I knew when Hank’s was baking bread. As I neared the fish market, the last of the stores, I could smell fish, an unpleasant smell of fish that seems to hang in the air of every fish market. In my memory drawers, all those stores still live. I swear I can smell the bread baking.

Today is cloudy and cooler than I expected. The prediction is for sun, but nobody told the sun. The wind is only now and then but still strong enough to whip the tall branches. I have a short to-do list. The big item on the list is buying canned dog food and dog treats. I also need to vacuum the hall littered with pieces of bark from the pine tree twig Nala brought inside this morning.

Not much is happening around here. It is quiet on my street. Not even a dog is barking, not even Henry who is having his morning nap upstairs on my bed. Nala is here on the couch.

I didn’t have deck movies last summer, but I’m ready for this summer. I bought a few black and white science fiction movies from the 50’s and a couple of classics, including Gunga Din and Casablanca. I have three choices for July 4th: 1776, Independence Day and, my favorite, Jaws. The ballots will go out in the mail.

When I was a kid, just before the end of the school bell rang, we’d put our books away then stand by the door in twos to go out. The nuns seemed to be enamored with twos. We walked into school in the morning in twos. We walked in after recess in twos, and we walked out at the end of the day in twos. The only exception to the rule of two was when we waited in a single line for our turns in the bathroom.

I have some Peeps. I opened the packages and put the yellow chicks in the kitchen bookcase so the air will harden them. They need to be so hard they don’t mush but rather make a banging noise on a hard surface. My love for hard Peeps started when I was in Ghana. My mother sent a package for Easter. It took two or three months to get to me. By then the Peeps were almost as hard as a rock. They made my teeth work. They still make my teeth work. I just have to practice patience.