The day is beautiful but cold at 38°. The high will be 39°. I can hardly wait. Where the heck is that sunscreen?

The dogs stay out a long time. I get nervous. Memories of Miss Gracie, the talented 6 foot fence jumper, flood my brain so I go check on the dogs! I should know better. They are always there. Henry comes when I call. Nala mostly does, but she takes longer and sometimes even hides, especially if she has a spawn or some other creature already gone to its heavenly reward in her mouth. If I go into the yard, Nala will run the circuit of the yard at breakneck speed still carrying her prize. I let her. Nala loves to lie in the sun in the rough grass near the back fence. I can’t see her from here because of the trees so I go into the yard. She is usually sprawled and asleep. I want Nala’s life.

When I was a kid in probably the second or third grade, I saw at the top of my neighbor’s paper JMJ. It wasn’t her name so I asked. She said it meant Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Why at the top of your paper? She told me they are blessing her endeavors (my adult word). I didn’t add the initials to my paper. I winged it on my own.

Life gets quiet for me this time of year. I stay home in my comfy clothes unless uke and PT force me to get dressed and out of the house. I have only one PT left. Uke is twice a week, large group practice and a small group lesson. That will continue. I promise I will not grouse about getting up, dressed and out twice a week. I like my uke.

I don’t use much ketchup or, if you prefer, catsup. The other night I had hot dogs for dinner, a common occurrence in this house. I use mustard and piccalilli. Once in a while I use ketchup on my burgers and my fries, but I prefer mayonnaise on both. I believe it is against the law in 38 states to put ketchup on hot dogs.

Today is warm, actually 50° warm. The wind, though, is chilly. I had PT earlier and after PT I had to stop for animal food which is why I am so late. I only have one more PT session left which means my dog injured finger, think bitten, may permanently look like a dowsing rod.

Similar to figuring out the age of a tree from the rings is finding the age of the old person from the winter layers. Today I wore my flannel shirt. That was it for upper warmth. One lady had on a heavy shirt, a hooded sweat shirt, a down jacket, a scarf covering the bottom part of her face and a hat pulled down over her eyes. In the old days, she would have been a bank robber or a train robber hiding her identity.

Nala didn’t come inside right away yesterday morning. I knew exactly what that meant so I went on the deck to check. Yup, she had a flopping spawn in her mouth as she was running about the yard. I turned around and went back into the house. I have learned she will run a while, get tired of it and come inside. That’s what happened, but later it was Henry who didn’t come inside. That hasn’t happened before. Yup, he had the now headless spawn. I put him and Nala into house then threw the spawn in the brush outside the fence. Nala’s yard trash is getting far more complicated.

When I was in Ghana, Patrick, another volunteer, and I went into town to see a movie. We got the roof seats, the expensive seats. Think Green Monster. We ordered kebabs hoping for beef and not liver. The server first brought up soap, a bowl of water and towels as it was customary to wash your hands before eating. She brought up the meat. We got liver. The movie came next. It was Bollywood singing throughout the whole film. But it is the ride home which is the climax of this story. We each had our own motos. Patrick was ahead of me. It was night. I kept looking at the sky and the stars as I drove. They were always mesmerizing. When I looked at the road again, Patrick was gone. The road was straight for miles so I would have seen his bike lights. No lights. No Partick. My mind reeled. I went first to aliens though I should have seen their landing lights. I stopped to check the fields, but they were down to dirt, no crops, no Patrick. The stars were so bright you could read by them. Patrick was gone. I didn’t know what to do. How do I explain the missing Patrick? I heard a noise, “Hello, Hello.” I followed the sound. I found Patrick. He and his moto had fallen into a hole, deep enough to hide them, in the middle of the road. I helped him out. The moto was fine and so was Pat. I was disappointed. Finding him had ruined a potentially great story.