The sun was through the clouds earlier, and I saw a bit of blue, but both have disappeared. The weather report calls for light rain. It is chilly at 50°. Today might even be light coat weather.

This is a busy week for me, all uke. I’ve already had practice and my lesson. Today, tomorrow and Sunday are concert days. The concert book is songs of the sea. On Saturday I am playing with a few friends at an ordination. We will play the dismissal song. My dance card groans.

I am back to being pleasant. I have my coffee. The animals don’t avoid me anymore. It is a happy household.

When I was in Ghana, tea was the Ghanaian drink of choice. I had to buy instant coffee. Ghanaians didn’t drink milk either so I had to buy canned milk. Every morning I drank at least two cups of coffee, one with breakfast and another after teaching a class or two. I had a giant mug. I used to sit on my small porch and drink the later cups of coffee. I loved watching the world go by. Little kids walked passed my house in one direction to the primary school while older kids also walked passed my house but in the other direction to the middle school. Both schools were just outside my school fence so through my school was a shortcut. I was an attraction. Kids either said good morning or stared at me.

I had eggs and toast every morning for breakfast. They were cooked over a small charcoal burner. The eggs were cooked in groundnut oil, peanut oil to us, which gave the eggs the best flavor. The toast was buttered with margarine (I couldn’t resist the word play). Because butter came in a can and was expensive, I only bought it for holidays and for baking. Margarine was also sold in a can, but it was fairly inexpensive.

I never minded the margarine, canned milk and, aghast, the instant coffee. After a while, they tasted just fine. In Ghana I learned to make good with what was available.

The rain continues, but the darker clouds have given way to lighter clouds. A few leaves are moving in the breeze. The air is chilly with the dampness. The dogs are resting, having their morning naps on the couch. I woke up late. I went to bed late though I always think late is a misnomer. It was close to 4 when I turned off the light. That’s early morning.

My dance card is filled this week, all with uke. It starts tonight, and there is something every day through Sunday. I can’t remember any other week as busy as this.

My mother always made great lunches. We had bologna a lot which I loved. We never had peanut butter and jelly even on Fridays when we couldn’t eat meat; instead, we mostly had tuna salad or egg salad. I saw kids with gross peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The jelly seeped through the bread, and there was always a blue looking circle in the middle of the top bread. It was always Wonder Bread which was thin and sort of squishy anyway. Cookies were the usual desert. Oreos were my favorite. Chocolate chip was a close second. I bought my milk. It was delivered to each classroom just before lunch. Candy to be sold was delivered at the same time but in a lunch box. The bars were a nickel. Once in a while my mother would give me a nickel, and candy was my dessert. That brings me to Sister Hildegard. She was my eighth grade teacher. She was quite old. I remember that she would take the lunch box, check out the candy bars and take a few. She hid them in a desk drawer. Once in a while she’d eat some covertly. We always knew because she’d be chewing. I remember once she spit nuts on a paper of mine.

In the winter my mother sometimes gave us soup for lunch. It was always chicken noodle, Campbell’s chicken noodle. The top of the thermos was the bowl. I had to be careful pouring the soup as sometimes the noodles plopped hard and drops flew usually onto my blouse. My mother included saltines and dessert in my lunch box.

I am still partial to bologna and Oreos. I only have soup once in a while, but when I do, I sometimes crush my Saltines and put the pieces in my soup. I like chicken soup still, but I prefer tomato soup with grilled cheese. I love to dip the sandwich into the soup, a sublime taste, a heavenly lunch.