I am behind closed doors. My air conditioner is blasting. The high today will be 87˚ and the low 72˚ though I can’t imagine in what world 72˚ is a low. A hot breeze is blowing. We had no rain yesterday despite a threatening sky and ugly humidity. The heat will be around until the weekend. I’ll be out on the deck later to water the plants.

When I was a kid, I don’t remember the heat ever bothering me. I was out every day. On the hottest days I sometimes went to the pool. It was on the other side of town, a long walk. The pool was often crowded. On the concrete sides of the pool, I remember couples, teens, spread out on towels next to each other. Girls had to wear bathing caps. I wondered why not boys. One time, when I dove from the board, I went straight down and hit my face on the bottom. I split my lip which swelled right away. The lifeguard checked me out then drove me home. I hated the split lip but I loved the ride.

When I was in Ghana, my friends had a pool near them. I used to kid them that they lived in the lap of luxury. Once in a while when I visited, we went to the pool, no bathing caps necessary.

I remember one Sunday when I was in Accra during a school holiday. A few of us got together and went to a resort on the beach. We were there all day. I remember a walk down the beach and a game of beach baseball. We used dead palm branches as bats and a coconut for the ball. It never went very far. I got the worst sunburn that day.

My dance card has a few items so I’ll be venturing out of the house. Today and tomorrow I have uke and Friday night I have a play. I still have a few things to put around the deck and two chairs to lug up from the cellar. I’m waiting until it is a bit cooler in the late afternoon, until the low of 72˚.

Right now it is cloudy and breezy. We’re all on the deck, the dogs and I. Out here is wonderfully pleasant. The breeze is so strong the whirly-gigs are blowing, and the small flags in the planters are fluttering. Nala is taking her morning nap on the deck. I don’t see Henry now. I suspect he went inside to the comfy couch for his nap, but he’ll be back. He is not keen on being alone in the house.

We have the possibility of rain late tonight but long after my ukulele concert in Hyannis.

Last year I didn’t open my deck. I sat out there on occasion but left the umbrella furled and the table and the rest of the furniture covered. This year I decided I needed the deck. I needed the beauty of my private space. I love how it looks with all the pots filled with herbs and flowers and with several candles on the rail and a few hanging from tree limbs. On the wall are pictures and my wooden shark which is surrounded by a hanging fish and some coral. I have more to hang on the walls, but they stay inside until I have company as they won’t tolerate rain and wet.

When I was a kid, I never minded staying around all summer. Mostly we did stay at home vacations as going away was too expensive. We went to museums which whetted my appetite and gave me a love of museums for the whole of my life. Even in Ghana I went to the museum my first free weekend in Accra. My favorite museum was the one at Harvard. I still remember the monkey heads in glass jars filled with formaldehyde and the out-rigger canoe hanging from the ceiling. At the Museum of Fine Arts, I didn’t like the paintings all that much, but I did love the room filled with sarcophagi. They were so enormous. I wondered about the mummies. On other vacation days we went to the beach or to a lake. I remember a lake with a slide into the water and a zip line. I rowed a boat for the first time there. I kept going in a circle.

My mother made the best picnic food. Her peppers and eggs were my favorite sandwiches, always in a roll. My father concocted the bug juice for the red tartan cooler. Orange was my favorite. Oreos were for staving off hunger, always a new bag emptied by the time we left for home.

We had summer cook-outs. My mother was the hunter gatherer, the shopper. My father was the cook. I think that is when I became a hot dog fan. My mother used to cut slits on the tops of the dogs. My father cooked them to perfection with grill marks. I suffused my dogs with yellow mustard and even piccalilli back then. My mother made a potato salad, the only salad we ever ate, even when we were grown.

Yesterday I bought hot dogs and potato salad.