Today is pretty but already hot. It is 86˚ and humid. I’m not going anywhere. I doubt I’ll even get dressed. Today is a good day to stay in the cool house and maybe read or watch a movie. I have cheese, and I have crackers. I have ice cream. I’m content.

Both dogs came back inside panting heavily. It took a while for Nala to settle down for her morning nap. Henry is barking. It could be because a car went by, a walker walked by, my neighbor checked his yard or someone slammed a car door. Henry is the dog that cries wolf.

Both dogs have well dog visits together later in September. Henry needs a variety of shots. Nala needs to be seen. I have all her vet records to give them. I hope having Nala in the car with him will help Henry enjoy the ride more.

I have jumped into the plot of Charlotte’s Web. I know where all the baby spiders are, my house. They are threading their webs from plant to plant on the windowsills and on chairs leg to leg. The webs are small as are the spiders. They haven’t woven me a message yet, but I keep looking.

I have become a vampire. The nurse called from the doctor’s office to give me the results of my pre-physical blood tests, but I already knew. She said my vitamin D is in the dumps, a medical term I hadn’t heard used before in quite the same way. I am now taking a heavy regimen of vitamin D. I suppose I could sit in the sun for a while, but it is just too hot.

When I was a kid, I had two pairs of shoes, school shoes and play shoes. The school shoes doubled as church shoes. I never wore my school shoes outside when I played. I had ingrained in me that school shoes and playtime should never meet. I always changed out of school clothes as soon as I got home.

I have winter shoes and summer shoes, a pair of each. I have many more shoes than that, but I don’t wear them much. Mostly I still wear my wool clogs thus mixing summer and winter, but their future is bleak. My big toe has pushed through. Where’s the duct tape?

Today is hot. The temperature is 89˚, but the humidity makes it feel ever hotter, closer to 97˚. Earlier, I had to bring a box to the trunk anticipating a dump run later. The box was so heavy I had to turn it end to end to get it to the car. I have yet to develop a strategy to lift it into the car.

Having run out of excuses to delay the inevitable, I am going to wash the kitchen floor today. I have one appointment after which I’m free to don my house dress, grab the bucket and mop and wash and clean. I’ll sing a happy tune. No I won’t. There’s nothing happy about it, and I have no bluebirds.

Yesterday I cleaned the yard. Nala had stolen the newspapers while they were still in the plastic sleeve so I went to retrieve them. The Globe was spread out page after page. The Cape Times was intact but had teeth marks. Happily, I was able to reassemble the Globe to read it. This morning I watched her steal crumbled brown packing paper from the recycle bag. I let her have it. Chasing her would have been a lost cause. I’ll clean it up later.

When I was a kid, I loved this time of year. It was still warm, even hot, in the mornings for my walk to school. I remember Pomeworth Street, the long street I walked from top to bottom on my way to school. It had wonderfully big, old houses close to the sidewalks. Some had porches. All had yards. I walked over the tracks and by the train manager’s house. I loved those tracks. I had walked them many times but one thing bothered me. I didn’t know where the other end went. We never walked that far. I still don’t know.

I usually walked down the first sort of driveway into the school yard then into the school and my classroom where I was stuck for most of the day. At the end of school, after I’d changed out of my school clothes, I’d play outside until the street lights came on. I argued for more time using simple logic. The lights came on early because the day was shorter. I didn’t explain it as succinctly to my mother but the gist was there. My mother said no.

In September and October, my father and all the other men in the neighborhood were out every weekend, rakes in hand. I still remember the sounds of those rakes gathering and piling the leaves. I can still see my father in my mind’s eye standing by the pile holding his rake. I remember the flames from the burning piles, but I most remember the smell, the aroma, of leaves burning. Those Saturdays of the fathers raking leaves and then supervising the controlled burn were some of my favorite reasons for loving this time of year.

I’m going to end here leaving you in suspense. I said,”…some of my favorite reasons…” Are there more? Is this a serial? I’m shrugging my shoulders in response.