The rain started sometime after 1 am. It was not unexpected as I had seen the forecast on the news. Later I checked my weather app. It said the rain would stop in 58 minutes. I didn’t wait. We all went to bed and were lulled to sleep by the sound of the rain on the roof.

The morning is warm, 49°. It is partly cloudy. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain again which is a great excuse not to wash the kitchen floor today. The paw prints would be back.

When I was a kid, we celebrated both Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays by having school vacation the same week. What we did during winter vacation was dependent upon the weather. February was always iffy. Snow meant sledding. Freezing meant ice skating. Good days meant anything we wanted like biking or walking around town. As usual, my mother never knew where we were. We didn’t tell her because we didn’t know where we’d be. Our routes were spontaneous choices. I do remember going to the library so I’d have enough books to read during vacation. I used to grab lunch to take with me so I wouldn’t have to interrupt my adventures to go home to eat. That week we had no schedules except the street lights. That never changed. We got to stay up late. I remember all those westerns on nighttime TV. I used to read in bed, and my mother never yelled up the stairs of me to turn off my light. I loved vacations.

Right now I am watching the Monolith Monsters from 1957 on my iPad. I love the absurdity of this movie: a meteor lands and fragments. When those fragments are exposed to water, they separate. They get taller. They move by fragmenting into small pieces then those pieces rejoin and become huge monoliths. That keeps happening as they move closer to town, a bad thing as the fragments turn people into stone. I hunted for this movie. It’s a favorite.

I have a few things on my dance card this week but mostly I get to be a sloth, my favorite alter ego.

The clouds and the sun are taking turns. The weatherman calls that partly cloudy. I’ve always wondered why it isn’t partly sunny. Anyway, it is a warm morning, in the 40’s. The air is so still the dead leaves aren’t even moving. The dogs haven’t come in for their morning naps. Henry has been running in and out and insistently barking at the front door. I checked to see why. I didn’t see anything or anyone, but I figure Henry did.

Today is dump day, and I have a uke concert at the mall. I’ve already brought out the trash. It sits by the trunk ready for loading. I’ll stop at the dump before I leave for Hyannis and the concert.

When I was a kid, Sunday was sacrosanct. Most stores were closed. The only ones open were one corner store, the red store, and Dunkin’ Donuts. In front of the church, a guy sold papers every Sunday. He had a wheeled, gray wooden storage sort of wagon for his papers. He used to keep it under the church stairs the rest of the week. On Sundays he’d fill the wagon and roll it to the front of the church. There was always a line.

When I lived in Ghana, Sunday was different than any other day. Most people went to church dressed in their finest. I remember being in Accra and going to the cathedral for Sunday mass, more out of curiosity than fervency. It was within walking distance of the hostel. I only went that one time. At my school in Bolga, we always had a service of sorts in the dining hall on Sundays. The students all wore their Sunday clothes made from traditional cloth. Each class had a different pattern for their dresses so you knew what year they were. My students were second years. On Sundays after the service, students were allowed to dress in mufti, have visitors and even have photographers come to take pictures. Many students went into town, the only day they could.

As for us, Sunday was traditional food day. We used to buy fufu or t-zed and soup at the lorry park. We always ate together every evening and every Sunday afternoon outside, usually on the Sandford side of the backyard.

Sunday for me now is generally a quiet day. When it is warm, I sit on the deck drinking my coffee and reading the papers. Sometimes I even make a Sunday dinner. Usually I take a nap, a long nap.