The morning is lovely. It is 72° and sunny. A few oak leaves ruffle in the bit of a breeze. The dogs are out enjoying the day.

I slept well last night. My leg feels a bit better today. This is the start of week 4 so I am hopeful. I didn’t go out yesterday, but I did have the few groceries I needed delivered. My larder is filled.

Today I am going to water my house plants. That is the only item on my dance card. I do have uke events during the week and I hope to last for all of them.

I have favorite sounds. The rain is probably my favorite. I love it falling on the roof and windows. If I were building my house, I’d put on a metal roof so I’d be surrounded by the sound. The sweet ring of the chimes in my backyard makes the wind welcomed. The chimes hang low from a tree branch. I can see them from the house. In Ghana, I loved the morning crows of my rooster greeting the day. I’d listen then fall back to sleep. When I made my first trip back, a rooster crowed outside my hotel room window to welcome me back. It was like a trip back in time. During Peace Corps training, I stayed with a Ghanaian family. My room was in the back of the house facing a dirt street. A small mosque with green painted walls was on that street. I could hear the calls to prayer. The first call by the muezzin was before dawn. It reached me in that hazy place between awake and asleep. I would listen every morning then fall back to sleep. When I went to Morocco, I could hear the familiar calls from the top floor of my riad. Those calls were made through speakers, amplified for all to hear the prayers.

When I was in college and home for the weekend, my father always invited me on his Sunday dump run. If a friend came home with me, my friend was the invitee. My father loved the dump and loved to share those trips. Back then the dump was filled with huge, tall piles of trash. Gulls flew in circles round the trash piles, and the air was filled with their squawking caws. I always think of seagulls as home, as one of the cape’s loudest bird choristers. I love the late night. I love the sounds of night, of the birds and insects who share the wee hours with me, but I also love the first stirrings of the day, the time just before dawn when the birds sing a welcome to the awakening of the morning.

My favorite season is fall on Cape Cod. This week it will be in the 70’s every day. The nights are perfect, wonderful for sleeping, down to the 50’s and 60’s. Earlier we had sun, but now we have clouds. I’m hoping for more sun.

The house is quiet. The street is quiet. I don’t even hear a car. The Sundays of my childhood were quiet. I’d walk to mass. It didn’t matter the weather. Once in a while I’d go with my father to the early mass where he was an usher. I always sat on his side of the church so I could my dime into his basket. He used to shake it a little in front of me, a hello. Back then, both the upstairs and the downstairs of the church were filled with people. I liked the downstairs better, no sermon. The mass there finished quickly.

I never went bike riding or wandering on a Sunday. It was a family day. I loved Sunday dinners. They were special. We usually had a roast of beef or chicken. We always had mashed potatoes and gravy. I was a potato sculptor along the lines of Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters. I used to make a well in the middle of my potatoes, and that’s where I’d put the gravy. The contest was to keep the gravy from spilling over the side of the potatoes.

When I was a kid, I didn’t eat many vegetables. My mother picked her battles and served only the ones we’d eat. She’d serve corn on the cob in the summer and niblet corn or creamed corn in the winter. I liked the taste of creamed corn, but I hated it spreading into my potatoes. Baby peas were and still are my favorite. She’d sometimes serve green beans or yellow beans or French green beans. I’d eat a few. My father liked asparagus right from the can. If you held one spear up on your fork, it drooped at the middle.

I was never good at spitting watermelon seeds or cherry pits. We’d have contests, and I’d lose every time. Mostly I just spit and dribbled on my chin. The seeds fell to the ground. I had a friend who was the best seed spitter. Those seeds flew. I always envied him. I never did figure out the technique.

I have to go out today. I’d much prefer staying home in my cozies, but I need Tylenol. I also need bread and cream, my staples. I’m also thinking treats, biscuits for the dogs and Snickers for me.