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.

Today is a perfect day. It is warm at 72˚and will get warmer. The sun will shine all day. The breeze is strong. I can hear the leaves blowing back and forth. The dogs are in and out the dog door, but it is just about time for their morning naps.

My dance card is empty, and I am glad for the day of rest as I have been out every day this week. I even went to the dump on what was the busiest dump day I have ever seen. That was yesterday. There were lines of cars waiting to get into other lines of cars. I had a trunkful, and a very kind man hauled my bags out of the trunk to the dumpster.

When I was a kid, I was busy all summer. Most weekdays I went to the playground on the field at the foot of my street. I played softball against other playgrounds, played checkers and horseshoes, learned to play tennis and did all sorts of crafts. I used to buy gimp. I made bracelets, lanyards, key chains and even anklets. I first learned the box stitch then the rest. I remember I made a bracelet with the flat stitch. Many years later, my mother put a lanyard kit in my stocking. It had two colors of gimp. My fingers remembered it all. They made short shrift of that kit.

I have always had books. My mother told me she used to sit with me on her lap while she pointed to the animals on the backs of the Golden Books. I knew all of them. She said my favorite book back then was Chicken Little. I loved the rhyming names of the animals like Turkey Lurkey and Foxy Loxy. It was also my first science fiction novel of sorts. My first chapter books were the Bobbsey Twins. I read the classics, the girl detectives, the Hardy Boys, travel books, the backs of cereal boxes and the bulletin when I was at mass. When I was older, I traveled with books. They were a currency which could be traded. I brought The Autobiography of Malcolm X with me to PC training in Ghana and finished the book quickly so I traded it in what became known as the first of the great trades.