I’m wearing my sweatshirt. The temperature is only 63°. Fall is next week. I guess today is a dress rehearsal.

It will stay sunny all day and the high will be 72°. I have a couple of chores and a couple of errands. My bed needs changing and the plants need watering. I have a small grocery list, and the dogs need a few cans of food. My sloth day has ended.

I caught Nala trying to get a box through the dog door. She managed to do it before I could stop her. I went into the yard to get the box and found a few things she had stolen from my bedroom. That dog is relentless. I found a bunch of dead leaves on a branch in the living room. I guess Nala figured if I can’t get anything out, I’ll bring it in. I’m just happy nothing is dead other than the leaves.

When I was a kid, I imagined myself as one of the characters in the books I was reading. The Doctor Doolittle series had me wishing I could speak to animals. I’d talk to birds, my dog Duke and a few squirrels, none of whom were yet spawns of Satan. I would be the fifth little woman living through a Christmas without presents. Nancy Drew and I would solve crimes together. I wanted to be one of the characters in any Jules Verne book. I used to check the man in the moon to see if he had his happy or his sad face. To go to the moon in a rocket was almost beyond comprehension. I didn’t care that Captain Nemo was a bit crazed. To be in a submarine looking out a picture window showing the bottom of the ocean filled with fish seemed the height of delight, hand clapping delight. I was never without books especially ones which fed my imagination.

For tonight I’m thinking about having a fire in my chiminea and dinner on the deck. I have pinion wood which fills the air with the sweetest aroma. I’ll buy something special for dinner to treat myself. The dogs will be with me, they always are.

Today is a sloth day. The last few days I have expended vast amounts of energy cleaning the house, and I need to revitalize. I have washed and waxed the kitchen floor, one bathroom floor, the hall and the stairs. I have vacuumed and polished. I have rearranged the den trying for a bit of order, less clutter. I am crazed.

My house and yard have a new rule, nothing dead. Nala was playing with a spawn in the yard, one which had already received its unearthly reward. She’d toss it, play with it and then take it for a run. She wouldn’t give it to me. She brought it through the dog door, probably for a tour of the house. I yelled and she took it back outside. Later, I had to shut the backdoor on the dogs when I went on my errand. The spawn was outside. When I got home, I went through the gate to the backyard, found the spawn and got it out of my yard. Nala never noticed.

This morning is chilly at only 63°. It is a sunny day with a blue sky. The breeze is strong. The high will only be in the low 70’s. The low will be 54°. Summer is waning in the face of fall.

When I was a kid, I loved fall best of all. I’d walk in the gutters filled with leaves on my way to school. The leaves were perfectly piled for wading through and kicking them into the air. It was like a storm of leaves blowing left and right and into the street. Sometimes, though, the leaves on the bottom were wet, even soggy. Kicking them did nothing. They were too wet to move. My shoes got ugly with pieces of wet leaves. I didn’t care. I was a kid.

Once the fall mornings got chilly, we’d have hot food for breakfast. Some mornings we had oatmeal, that thick, lumpy, paste-like oatmeal. I’d pour milk on the oatmeal and add sugar. Both made it palatable. I don’t eat oatmeal anymore. There was always toast, white toast browned perfectly. Sometimes there were eggs, usually soft-boiled. They were my favorite.

My school had no cafeteria so the only hot lunch I’d ever have was soup in my thermos. Mostly it was chicken noodle. My mother always included Saltines. She never missed a beat.

Yesterday I had a grilled cheese sandwich with tomatoes for dinner. I yummed my way through each bite. The dogs got none of it. Some things are just not meant for sharing.