The air is so thick any movement makes breathing difficult. Everything is still, not even a slight breeze can break through the dense, damp air. The sky is gray. It is 67° which will be today’s high. My dance card is empty. Yesterday it was filled. I had a uke concert on Main Street in Hyannis for Open Street Day. The crowd sang along. It was fun. In the late afternoon, I went to the birthday celebration for a friend who used to be my neighbor. Everyone other than myself was Brazilian. We had great food including Brazilian linguica, a favorite of mine. I stayed until the early evening. I wanted to go home to keep the dogs company as they had been alone a good portion of the day. They were happy to see me but happier for the treats. I know my place in the hierarchy.

Few tourists remain except for the busy weekends. The roads are clearer. Travel time is less but harder to figure. Columbus Day weekend will be the last hurrah. The cape will be ours again.

When I was a kid, weekends, most of the year, were not much busier than weekdays though on Saturdays uptown had more cars and fewer parking spaces. It was the weekend errand day. But, in the summer, weekends took on whole new meanings. We often went to the drive-in on Saturday nights after spending the day at the beach or, once in while, a lake, but I remember one Saturday, quite the special Saturday, when my parents told us we were going to have surprise if we were good. They always attached good using their standards, which were seldom ours. Anyway, we got on Route 1 toward East Boston, where my grandparents lived. We were in Saugus when my father announced he was turning around and taking us home as he was tired of listening to us. We begged and pleaded and promised good behavior using his standards if he kept going. After the turnaround, he stopped the car at a parking lot. It was a giant toy store which had behind it rides, including a small roller coaster. I used to see that coaster when we rode by the store toward my grandparents’ house. It was a great surprise. He had only turned around as he was on the opposite side of the highway from the rides. We spent the day there. I think it was on that day and at that place where my love for roller coasters began. I rode it over and over and over.

I’m wearing my sweatshirt. The temperature is only 66°, and it won’t get much higher, but the day is still a pretty one. The air is still now. The sun glints through the leaves and branches of the back yard. I can see the blue sky. It’s a hang around the house day.

I was a sloth. Today I am a corkscrew. The frenzied cleaning of the last few days has taken its toll. Yesterday I hauled up from the cellar the back storm door, cleaned it and put it in the door. That is one heavy door which I could barely pick up so I had to move it from corner to corner then step by step up the cellar stairs. I had to replace the back screen door as the nights are getting cold, and the back door stays open so the dogs can come and go. My back is paying the price.

Yesterday I picked up in the hall what I thought was a dead leaf, but it wasn’t. It was a flat, desiccated creature with a tail and two back legs. It was too flat to figure out what creature it was. I remembered way back when one of my cats was playing with a flat, black something. When I picked it up, I realized it had once been a mouse. Anyway, back to yesterday’s flat black something. I picked it up and threw it over the fence. I thought end of black, flat unknown creature, but I was wrong. Today I saw something whitish on the inside door mat. I went to get it. I was grossed out. It was half a tiny jaw bone with teeth.

When I was a kid, I loved these fall days. I remember riding down the hill, my street, on my bicycle. The wind blew up my jacket sleeves and puffed my jacket. I was cold but thrilled by the speed of my bike. I used to zip across the road to the field below my street. It was my short-cut.

I remember walking the tracks. I also remember when trains, Boston and Maine trains, used to run on those tracks. I was pretty young then. I’d jump off the track and watch the train go by. It was only a few cars. It used to cross William Street where my grandparents lived and stop at Farm Hill Station. I remember we used to put a penny on the track for the train to flatten, and we used to jump over railroad ties with OO on them so we wouldn’t break my mother’s back. We were successful. She never had a broken back.