Today is lovely and warm, okay, warmish, at 48˚. The breeze is every now and then. The deep blue sky has white, puffy clouds, cumulous I think, close to the horizon. They remind me of the clouds I used to draw and color with my white crayon, one of that crayon’s few uses other than Santa’s beard. I think I did my best work in clouds.

I tempted fate earlier and went to get my paper without wearing my sweatshirt. My arms were cold. I hurried. Today is dump day, and I will be appropriately clad.

My pick up trash stick, with a nail at one end, is being delivered today. All I need is an around my shoulder trash bag, an orange jump suit and a sheriff’s car following me.

When I was a kid, Sunday was different from all other days. It had a tinge of the sacred about it. The day started with my wearing a dress and my Sunday shoes to mass. In those days we all dressed for mass. I remember wearing a lace mantilla instead of a hat. I also remember seeing women with white Kleenex on their heads, their version of hats. Bobby pins kept the Kleenex attached. The Kleenex perplexed me.

We used to hang around the house watching TV and waiting for dinner. I always loved our Sunday dinners. They were the special meals of the week. We usually ate around two, the magic hour. We always had mashed potatoes. My mother made gravy from the roast drippings, and I remember making a hole, more of an indentation, on the top of the mound of potatoes to hold the gravy. It was a bit of a contest between me and the potatoes.

Sunday was a family day. The stores, except for a few corner stores and a gas station here and there, were closed. In the winter we visited my grandparents on some Sunday afternoons. They lived in East Boston. I remember my father dropping the rest of us off while he hunted for a parking space. In summer, we often went to the beach for the day. Sometimes we went on a Sunday ride. My father always took back roads, never the highway for those rides. I remember farms and cows and horses. I remember stopping for ice cream at one of the local creameries. My father loved vanilla ice cream. I had no allegiance to any flavor. I loved sugar cones the best even though they often developed a dripping hole at the point of the cone. I usually didn’t realize there was a hole until the ice cream dripped on my shirt. I remember putting my finger on the hole to keep it from dripping. I felt like the Dutch boy with his finger in the hole of the dike.

Bedtime was early on Sundays. We’d watch TV, lots of western back then, and beg my mother to let us stay up a bit later, but we never won that argument no matter how cogent we were. It was a school night was all my mother had to say. We dragged our feet all the way upstairs to bed.

The clouds are still around, but the day is warmish at 53˚. The trees are quiet. My neighborhood too is quiet now. I say now because around 4:30, yes 4:30 a.m., I was reading in bed surrounded by the dogs when I heard a noise from outside so I sat up and listened. I heard a turkey gobbling probably from my front yard. The dogs didn’t hear it or they didn’t care about a bird. The gobbling went on for a while. I was tempted to get out of bed to go downstairs to look, but the dogs were asleep, I had room in the bed, and I didn’t want to test fate so I turned off the light to the sounds of the turkey.

When I was a kid, I was thrilled to see wildlife. On family car rides we’d yell out even when we saw just cows. I remember thinking how funny skunks walk with that little waddle. I also remember running from that funny, waddling skunk. On one ride, we yelled when we saw some deer eating in a field, their heads down to the grass. My father stopped so we could watch.

We used to go to Maine to my father’s friend’s cottage in Ogunquit. It was a tiny place where every available space had beds. I remember sleeping behind a wall in the kitchen which hid a bed. The wall went up and down. One Sunday, I woke up early before every one else and went outside. Another friend of my father’s who had a cottage was there. I said hello, and because I was the only one awake, he invited me to go with him to a monastery for mass. I did. It was a most amazing morning. I remember every bit of that experience, but I don’t remember the man’s name. He was old, at least to the young me. He wore a suit and a fedora. We chatted. He pointed out places as we drove through town to the next town, Kennebunkport, to the monastery. I remember the chapel. It was old with stained-glass windows, finished wooden walls and statues in darkened wood. The pews sloped a bit. The monks wore brown. They sang during the mass. Their voices were beautiful. My father’s friend gave me a quarter for the collection. I was used to a dime. On the way home, we stopped for donuts, hot chocolate and coffee. As we drove pass the harbor, I saw seals and did my look at the animals yell. He stopped the car, and we ate breakfast watching the seals.

That is one of my best mornings.