Spring mornings are lovely. Today’s sun is brilliant and is framed by the deepest blue sky. The morning breeze is strong enough to sway even the thick, high pine branches. It will only get to 51˚.

Friends are coming to dinner tonight. We will dine like royalty. I’m serving a seafood dinner starting with fish chowder followed by a seafood casserole accompanied by roasted butter glazed tri-color carrots. I bought haddock, shrimp and scallops. Apple pie will be dessert. I can’t remember the last time I had apple pie. Maybe I’ll put a bit of cheddar cheese on the table for the pie topping. That was my father’s favorite way to eat apple pie.

When I was a kid, dinner aways included a meat, a vegetable and potatoes, mashed potatoes. My mother was a ground beef maven. I loved her American chop suey which I always thought was Chinese given its exotic name. She did make another Chinese dinner she used to cook in her fry pan on the counter. It had ground beef of course, bean sprouts, water chestnuts, noodles and crunchy chow mein on the top. I loved that meal despite what I thought were odd ingredients. Those were her only forays into Chinese food. They were successes.

Her meatloaf was to die for either topped with mashed potatoes or ketchup and bacon. The only fish we ate were fish sticks on Fridays, an exception to the rule of ground beef because we couldn’t eat meat. My mother always served fish sticks with French fries and made her own tartar sauce.

While dusting behind the TV the other day, I found my cache of black and white science fiction films from the 50’s which I bought a couple of summers ago. I figure they are great fodder for movies on the deck this summer. My movie theater has been in hiatus because of the circumstances of the time. When it gets warmer, I’m thinking a red carpet grand opening event. Formal wear will not be required.

When I woke up, there was sun and a bit of blue. Since then, clouds have taken over the sky and the day has darkened. Rain is not predicted so the clouds serve no useful purpose. I do have a list today and an order of operations. Already I have added and removed books from my little library. I swept the kitchen floor while my coffee was perking, actually dripping but coffee should perk and be accompanied by music. I’m going to wash the kitchen floor today. As for that laundry, it is down the cellar, step two in the saga of laundry. The plants need to be watered. I dusted one this morning with my sweatshirt sleeve aka my handy dust cloth. I’ll probably find more to do as I walk around the house. Maybe I should close my eyes.

When I was a kid, I had no chores. My mother did everything except empty the kitchen basket. That was my brother’s job, but he had selective memory and had to be reminded all the time to empty it. He groused.

When I was growing up, I never learned to work the washing machine or later the dryer. I never cooked. I was inept when it came to household chores, but I didn’t care. I had my mother. When I was in college, I learned to do my laundry, but I was stymied when the washer stopped working and was accompanied by an annoying buzzer. I hand wrung my clothes. I called my mother later. She told me the load was uneven. That was laundry lesson one. Lesson two was to sort my clothes. I learned that when a shirt bled all over everything else. I still never cooked.

When I was in Ghana, I never did laundry. Everywhere I went during training, I paid someone to wash and iron my clothes. When I was finally living at my school, my houseboy Thomas washed and ironed my clothes, mostly dresses. I still didn’t cook. I had no stove, only a small charcoal burner. When it was burning, the wood charcoal aroma wafted through the air, and I could smell it everywhere in the mornings. That is still on my list of favorite smells. My breakfast and lunch were the same every day, eggs and toast in the morning and fruit for lunch. Dinner was mostly beef in a tomato sauce. It cooked a while to soften the meat so it didn’t take out fillings when I chewed. Chicken was another meat for dinner. I bought the chickens in the market and ate a few of my own. They weren’t pets. They were dirty and sometimes nasty, but personal habits aside, they tasted good.

In Ghana, the first thing I successfully made was sugar cookies for Christmas. I had bought gas for my stove from a station one hundred miles away so I could bake the cookies. I rolled the dough with a beer bottle and made trees, Santas and bells from the cookie cutters my mother had sent. I couldn’t believe how delicious they tasted despite my inexperience, my usual ineptitude, in the kitchen. Those cookies sparked my love of cooking and baking. I’m quite good at both. That is not a boast.