The morning is pretty. The sun is bright. The sky is a muted blue. Even the smallest branch sits still. The leaves have no flutter. It is 41˚, chilly but not cold. The day will get warmer, as high as 54˚. I have a few chores. My little library needs tending. The dreaded laundry is piled high and it too needs tending. My plants are gasping and need water. I might even make my bed, but that might be over the line.

The dogs are enjoying the morning. They were chasing each other in the yard, but Nala got distracted. She found the last Chinese lantern on the deck. It had been on a tree limb overhanging the deck. She is now tearing the lantern apart. Yesterday I cleared the remnants of the purple lantern. This one is aqua.

This morning I had a small animal hunt. Gwen had gone to ground. I checked under both beds but couldn’t see her. She is, after all, black, a perfect color to hide under the beds. I moved the lamp to the floor and found her way back under one bed. I got her shot ready, but she was gone from that spot. I brought the lamp to the floor again and found her only because her eyes lit up in the light. This time I was ready. I had the needle all set, and she got her morning dose and a few treats. When I got up, I knocked over the water dish. It was not at all fun for either of us.

I have three lamps I love. All are from a local potter. One is tall and decorative. It is in the living room on the first piece of furniture I ever bought for this house, an old kitchen table with a leaf and two drawers. The other two have African accents. Both are here in the den. The lamp on the table has an African face, exaggerated a bit, on both sides. I had commissioned it. The potter made a couple of different lamps. I took both of them. The other is black and adobe colored. It looks like a decorative African compound like the ones in villages near where I lived, like the compounds in Sirigu.

My rooms in Ghana each had one hanging lamp. They reminded me of a bedroom in a cheap hotel. I made a basket lamp shade for the living room light. It fancied the bulb. I left the rest naked.

Last night was cold, down to the 30’s. I burrowed under the down comforter, slept longer than I have lately, woke up to let the dogs out then went back to bed. I slept another hour with the dogs joining me. The house was cold when I finally woke up so I turned up the heat. I’m comfortable now.

The weather is lovely. It will reach the 50’s and be sunny most of the day. Both doors are opened. The dogs love to look out the front door to see what’s happening in the neighborhood. They alert me when anyone goes by the house whether on foot or in a car.

Gwen had more testing all day yesterday. The vet called and said her numbers were still high, but she had gained more weight, a good sign. Her insulin stays the same, and she doesn’t need to go back for two weeks and even then only for a single test. She looks alert, moves around a bit more and the litter box stays dry far longer, more good signs. I just hope her count lowers.

Henry comes in the dog door at least once a day. It has only taken four years and Nala to prod him. I was shocked the first couple of times. Now I’m beginning to raise my expectations.

When I was a kid, this was my favorite day of the week. I didn’t have any have-to-dos. From the time I woke up until I sat down to hot dogs, beans and brown bread for supper, the whole day was mine. In the winter, it was matinee movie day. In the fall, it was mostly a ride my bike day. I used to ride to different parts of my town and sometimes to the next town for a change of scenery. I’d try to take different routes to the same places. One town over had railroad tracks, an old station and daily trains. I used to sit on a bench in front of the station and wait for the train. I always wanted to be on that train.

My brother used to ride his bike to Horn Pond, in a different town over, to go fishing. Sometimes I’d ride with him, and we’d both fish. I remember catfish on the hook. We always released. We never ate catfish. My father used to say they were bottom feeders as if that were such a bad thing. He did eat other bottom feeding fish like haddock and cod and for reasons unknown only reserved his disdain for the catfish. It took me a while before I’d eat catfish. I remember I had catfish nuggets as an appetizer, my first time tasting them. It was not my last.