The day is pretty. The sun is shining, and the sky is a lovely blue. A slight breeze barely moves the leaves. It is already hot at 84˚, today’s high. We are still under a tropical storm warning. People are moving boats out of the water. Bumper to bumper traffic waits to get over the bridges. The tourists are bailing. As for my preparations, I’m just about set. Everything is charged. The larder is full. I only need to get some canned dog food and a little more chocolate. There is never enough chocolate.

When I was a kid, the only weather that held my attention was snow. I wanted a no school day. I’d watch the snow out the picture window until bedtime and hoped it would pile up during the night, and we’d hear the no school whistle blown from the fire station. When it did, that was cause for loud celebration.

When I have gone back to Ghana, it has always been during the rainy season, the coolest time of the year, when everything is green and lush. The rain comes every day, sometimes dramatically, sometimes quietly. When I lived in Ghana, I often sat under the small metal overhang outside my front door to watch the rain. At the beginning of the rainy season, everything flooded because the ground was rock hard having gone so long without rain. Behind my house were millet fields and a family compound. Everything was brown: the grass, the fields and even the mud compound. Soon enough, though, I’d see the small green shoots in the fields. With all the rain, the millet quickly got so tall the compound almost disappeared, and I was surrounded by green.

I am carrying an opened dry dog food bag around the house. I opened it yesterday and have no place for storage so I move it from room to room to keep it safe. Right now it is in here, the den, with me. Henry just came further into the room than he has ever come, right to where the bag is. Earlier, I had forgotten to shut the bathroom door when I heard a rustling. I knew exactly what it was. Both dogs were at the feed bag. I moved it here again. Tonight is dinner and game night with friends. I’m going to have to figure out where to hide the dog food. I’m thinking irony. I’ll put it in the cats’ room. I expect both cats to stand next to the bag and razz the dogs, maybe even snack on a bit of dry dog food and wave.

The sun was out when I woke up but has since disappeared. Partly cloudy is the forecast. Right now it is fully cloudy. It is 82˚, another hot day. We are under a hurricane watch. It has been 30 years since Bob, our last landfall hurricane. The powers that be are now tracking Henri which has the potential to be an historic event for New England. It all depends on the storm’s track. Sunday could be the big day.

I have a small grocery order being delivered today. The dogs’ canned food didn’t arrive so I ordered a few cans for the meantime and some storm provisions for me: chocolate chip cookies, potato chips and more bananas which I’ll hide from Nala. Tomorrow I’ll head for the dump.

I didn’t wash my kitchen floor anticipating rain yesterday and more paw prints, but I am at a breaking point. I need, for my psychological well being, to wash the floor today. It is a disgusting mess of prints, pine needles, leaves and box pieces Nala drags in and out of the house. Her latest prize is an empty milk container.

When I was a kid, hurricane Carol hit us. I was seven. I remember it well because my sister Moe had just been born and was being kept in the hospital for which my parents were relieved. We lost electricity. We also lost the giant elm tree from across the street. It fell and covered the road with its topmost branches. My father took my brother and me out during the storm’s eye so we could see the tree. We climbed around the branches and stood on the small part of the trunk still in the ground.

I remember Hurricane Bob. It hit in August 1991 and wreaked havoc on the cape destroying houses and trees and even roads. We had no electricity for days. So many trees fell the roads were impassable, and people were stuck inside their houses. I could hear the whirr of electric saws cutting into the trunks of trees and lopping off branches from the trees on the roads and no other sounds. It was almost eerie like the soundtrack from a horror movie. Crews came from off cape to help. Nothing was open. I was glad I had provisioned. I even had plenty of charcoal and cooked up some good meals. What I didn’t have was a coffee pot safe to use over charcoal. I have one now.

The sun is out. It is the partly sunny portion of the day.