When I woke up, I thought it was yesterday. The sky is grey, and there are snow showers just the same as yesterday morning. It is still cold, 30˚, and the wind makes it feel even colder. I’m glad I have nowhere I need to be.

Nala woke me up. She was lying beside me whining. It was boxer speak for get up and let me out. I did. I am nothing if not obedient.

I have been lazy of late. Each morning I make a few tentative plans then I make the same plans the next morning. Today, though, I did bring my laundry to this floor from upstairs.

Both dogs are sleeping beside me on the couch, one on each side. Nala has her head on my lap. Henry is twitching. He is dreaming. Every now and then he stretches. Nala snores.

I used to wear slipper socks. My mother bought each of us a new pair every Christmas. The soles were leather, and we used to drive my mother crazy by shuffling our feet when we walked across the floor.

When I was a kid, we had yellow egg cups from Fannie Farmer. They were chickens and roosters and a single duck. Some school mornings my mother made us soft boiled eggs. She always sliced off the top of the eggs and put one egg in each egg cup. She also made toast and sliced it into four pieces, the perfect size to dip into the eggs. When I moved into my house, my mother brought down the egg cups. Some have missing beaks, but I don’t care. They are filled with memories.

We always called them dropped eggs on toast. When I was older, I found out they are officially poached eggs. My mother used to put the eggs in a pan with boiling water and swish them around. The cooked eggs were odd shapes, but they tasted the best. Later she got a special pan to cook the poached eggs. Each egg was perfectly round. They didn’t look like dropped eggs on toast anymore.

I used to like oatmeal, the old fashioned sort you had to cook on the stove. My mother made it in the winter so we’d be fortified for the walk to school in the cold. I usually sprinkled sugar on my oatmeal and added milk or my favorite, maple syrup. The oatmeal was always lumpy.

This morning I woke up to snow showers, but they lasted only a few minutes then the sun deigned to appear framed by blue. Now we have light grey clouds. It’s cold, only 26˚. My car’s trunk is frozen shut. How sad, no dump today, but I do have to get cat food.

When I was a kid, my favorite subject was English but not far behind English was geography. My favorite picture in my geography book was of the statue of Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado Mountain in Rio . His arms were spread straight out. Below the mountain was the ocean. I never forgot that picture. Many years later I saw the statue in real life. I stood below and looked up and was awed by the immensity of that statue and by those huge arms. It looked exactly like I remembered.

We never had strange food when I was a kid. The closest we got was tinned sardines. Mostly we ate meat and potatoes, mashed potatoes except on Sunday when we sometimes had baked. I don’t remember too many fresh vegetables except carrots which we didn’t like. My mother mixed them with the mashed potatoes, and we were none the wiser. For years I thought mashed potatoes were sometimes streaked with orange.

I don’t remember when I got brave enough to try unfamiliar foods. I know in Ghana I tried everything including Lebanese and Indian food. The first night we were in Ghana there was a welcome dinner. I didn’t recognize anything, but I tried every dish. I remember one dish which looked like mashed leaves. Later I learned it was kontomire stew. I never liked it. I tried the orange bananas. I thought they were just a Ghanaian variety you had to cook. Come to find out they were plantains which became one of my favorite foods, even to now.

My sister gave me a box of See’s lollipops, cinnamon lollipops, at Christmas. I devoured them and ordered more. I also devoured the new box. I then ordered two boxes. They came this morning. I haven’t yet opened the delivery carton. I know what will happen.