The rain started around 2:30 this morning. It started staccato. I listened for a while then turned off the light and fell sleep. The dogs woke me around 8:30, and it was pouring. I let the dogs out, yes, I am the one, and went back to bed. They were asleep on my bed when I finally stirred close to noon. I am a sloth without the toe nails.

The darkness the rain brings always feels somehow comforting. I am dry and warm in my house. The lamp on the table gently lights the room. The dogs on the couch beside me sleep soundly with only an occasional sigh. I can hear my heat blasting. I checked the news and the weather. Both are unsettling, the news the worst.

This morning I had coffee and an English muffin. I had no cream but did have almond milk in the oven. It was part of my emergency stores; actually, it was the only emergency store. The English muffins were flat from packaging. They are a brand new to me. I used the last of my black mission fig jam. The almond milk tasted just fine and so did the flat muffins covered in fig jam.

President Biden is in Brussels. My sister and I reminisced about the trip we took there with our parents. We stayed at the Hotel Amigo right off the Grand-Place. It was exquisite and about as far as you can get from a hostel bunk room and a shared bathroom. It was during this trip my father unceremoniously gave me the keys to the rental. He never drove on any of our trips again. It started from the airport. He was lost, didn’t know where we could find the hotel. I gave him directions. He wouldn’t listen as I had never been in Brussels before this, but I had seen signs to the center of the city, and I knew that’s where our hotel was. He finally listened, and we easily found our hotel. The trip which broke the driver’s back (sorry, it is the best I could do) was the trip to Bruges. We ended up in Waterloo. We went to the worst museum I have ever seen. They had cones on the floor around the puddles. There were empty display cases. It smelled musty. We left laughing. We did find a really good museum in Waterloo, and we eventually made it to Bruges. I drove.

The last story I’ll tell is on me. On that same trip we went to Bastogne. We ate at a restaurant in a hotel where the Americans had stayed during the siege of Bastogne when it was surrounded by Germans. My father and I ordered boar. When the waiter brought the food, he asked who the two boars were. My mother and sister roared laughing and pointed to my father and me.

The day is pretty. It is sunny and calm but chillier than it has been; it’s only in the 40’s and won’t get much higher. I do have a couple of errands so I’ll venture out. I have been taking Nala with me, and she loves the car. I don’t know if I am brave enough to bring Henry. He hates the car.

When I was a kid, if we didn’t do what my mother told us, she always threatened to tell my father. He was the hammer. She knew it. We knew it. When I was older, my mother took to throwing things. I remember my dictionary whizzing through the air. Nothing ever hit us. She knew that. We knew that. We were safe until the flying slipper. My mother wore slippers during the day. She started throwing the slippers. They were close at hand. She missed every time then she told one of us to bring the slipper back. We knew that was a bad idea. The slipper was no longer just a projectile. It had become a weapon. If one of us returned it, that good soul would get whacked. We were quick to solve the slipper problem. We threw it back, gently. My mother wasn’t happy. We were. We ran in the opposite direction. She yelled at us she’d tell my father.

When I was in high school, my father worked away on weekends. He came home Friday nights and left Monday mornings. We were waiting until the end of the school year to move. We’d greet my father then meet my friends and head out for Friday night doings. I had no curfew so I was never late; actually, I made sure to get home early, but when I got home, I still had to fill out what my brother and I called the curfew card left on the desk. Both my parents were in bed so they had left the note on the desk asking us to sign in and write down the time. We complied. Nothing ever happened.