The morning is already hot at 78˚ and the temperature will rise until it hits the low 80’s, the hottest day in a while, but after tomorrow we’ll go back to lovely days with temperatures in the 70’s. This has been the most beautiful spring.

My ice maker still doesn’t make ice. The repair man didn’t appear yesterday, but he did call, unlike the no-show repair man on Wednesday. The new appointment is Tuesday, the third one so far. My faucet still needs to be replaced. I’ll put it on the list for next week. I need deck flowers before the summer passes. Okay, I am exaggerating a bit about the passing, but it feels that way so I intend to shop for my flowers today. I swear. It is the only item in my list.

In my mind’s eye, when I think of summers when I was a kid, I see tall trees with their branches covered in leaves. I knew all the trees by the shapes of their leaves. I once had to learn them for a Girl Scout badge. I sometimes collected the leaves for a wax paper album of leaves, especially in the fall.

I can still recall the smells of my childhood. I remember the smell of the chlorine getting stronger as we got closer to the MDC pool at the other end of town. It was always a strong smell that seemed to permeate inside, outside and around. After I changed into my clothes, I could still smell it on my skin even though I had taken a shower.

Each store uptown either had its own smell or no smell like in the bank and the jewelry store. The fish market had a smell that was sometimes the ocean and other times fishy, too fishy, but I always stopped even though I also think I grimaced every time. The shoe store store smelled like leather, like the pile of shoes on the counter. The bakery smelled of freshly baked bread. It was the best smell in the square.

Sometimes I’d get a piece of cheddar from the wheel in front of Kennedy’s. They’d cut it if you asked for a taste. Maybe that’s where my love of cheddar started.

I have always counted myself lucky. I grew up at a time when I was free to come and go. My bicycle and I could travel all over my town and the towns around us. My mother didn’t worry. I was the first in my family to go to college, but it was expected I would. We never talked about it, but we all knew I’d go. I mean, really, why else would I have taken four years of Latin? I got into the Peace Corps, my first after college choice. I lived in Africa for two years, in Africa, the most amazing place. My career here began at Dennis-Yarmouth and ended there 33 years later when I retired. I loved my job, even during the hard times. I loved my kids all the time. I always felt lucky I had chosen the right path for me, the right job.

I love both the slow days and the busy days of my life now. Busy days get me out of the house. In the summer, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are those days, all ukulele days. On Thursday, I take a sloth day, a well earned sloth day. Some Fridays, every other one, I have a play to see at the Dennis Playhouse so every other week is a really busy week. I thought I would mind the busy week, loving sloth days as I do, but I don’t. I remember how quiet last winter was when I had uke on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and nothing on any other days except a show or two near Christmas. Balancing busy now, busy summer, with quiet winter seems right.

I really do feel lucky, backwards and forwards.

Today is another perfect day. The air is still. The sun is bright and warm. It is in the low 70’s. Tomorrow the weather changes. It will be hot at 81˙. I’m already planning to be deck bound with a cold drink, a good book and maybe some cheese and crackers, staples in my house. I think I saw some cheddar.

When I was a kid, my mother always bought the orange cheese, the American cheese. I remember each slice of cheese was a perfect square, perfect for sandwiches. I don’t remember the taste. I do remember each slice of cheese had the imprint of the paper it was wrapped in on it, similar to the canned cranberry sauce and its ridges, but on the cheese, the imprint looked like a wrinkle or a seam on the earth from an earthquake, a dramatic interpretation.

Ghana had no cheese so I don’t think it was until after Peace Corps when my cheese palate expanded exponentially. Out was orange American. In was cheddar. A flood of other cheeses followed (I am using flood as the group name here. I like it.). Even now I’ll try a new cheese. There is a great cheese selection at my store. I always check it out. I always buy some cheese. I never want to run out.

I think cheddar is the main cheese always in my fridge. When I have company, I usually serve at least 3 cheeses on a charcuterie plate, my new appetizer. The plate is fun to make.

When we traveled, my mother, my father and I, my mother always packed snacks. Late in the afternoon, after a day of walking, touring some city, we’d go back to the hotel. My father and I would play cribbage. My mother would make each of them a drink from the nips she had packed. I’d order a Diet Coke. My mother did crossword puzzles from the book she had brought while my dad and I played. After a while, she’d bring out the snacks. She’d packed those little packages with bread sticks and spreadable cheese, Velveeta I suspect, and crackers with peanut butter. Sometimes she’d even pack M&M’s. These were the perfect snacks. They reminded me of when I was a kid. They also tasted good, especially the M&M’s (I do love chocolate.). Those snacks held us together until dinnertime when the three of us would walk to a restaurant close by we had noticed and wanted to try.

My mother always brought those snacks. What gave me a smile was when’d bring out the orange cheese with the bread sticks. The cheese was in a square container. The whole scene was a throwback to that American cheese in the wrapper. The only difference was this cheese was soft for dipping. It looked the same and tasted the same. I think I ate all those snack crackers. I was able to lighten my mother’s load.

I still sometimes buy Velveeta. Nothing melts like it or sticks to a tortilla chip in the same way.