The morning ran away from me. I woke up late, took my time reading the papers, chatted with my former neighbor, also my landscaper, and watched a bit of the news. I don’t know why I watch the news. It seldom changes. Inside my house, my world may be small, but it is a good world. The air conditioner is keeping the heat, extreme for this time of year, at bay. The dogs love the coolness and chase each around the house. Groceries from the organic store were just delivered. I treated myself to Tate’s chocolate chip cookies and some chocolate wafers. I now have tomatoes, raspberries and bananas. The dogs will be happy. They are banana fans. My groceries filled just one bag, and I am $60+ poorer. My trash pile is mounting. It is mostly used cat litter, heavy used cat litter. I am toying with the idea of calling Skip, my factotum, to do a trash run, cut down the tall weeds in the back yard, gather the fallen branches all over the back and finally open my deck. I just hope the weather cools enough for outside work.

The only sounds are birds. I did see the baby rabbit when I got my newspaper. It scurried to hide in the flowers, well buds not yet flowers, in the front garden. The rabbit seems to have found a home here much to the amusement of my dogs. They love watching out the front door. Nala is a trash bag picker. Like Gracie did, she sneaks stuff out of the bag and runs outside so I won’t catch her. Last night I found the remnants of cardboard trash bag container in pieces on the deck. She also stole a bag of exotic tea bags I was saving for a friend. She got them from a box in my room. She didn’t like the tea but she loved the mesh bag holding the tea. I took from her mouth and found another piece outside.

When I was a kid, I went to Girl Scout day camp. We were the oldest campers. I remember when we had to take down the flag each afternoon, fold it and put it away for the next day. Facing each other during the folding was our undoing. We had to look away or we would have laughed out loud. The counselors were not happy. We got the role model speech. I enjoyed the camp. I learned how to make hobo stew. We went hiking through the pine woods. It always felt cool on the paths under the trees. Our last camp activity was an overnight in the lodge. The lodge smelled of camp fires. The walls were all pine wood. The kitchen was inside as was the counselors’ room. The bathrooms were a step away. They had plumbing. We slept on cots, the old canvas cots with wooden legs and end pieces. They were folded and tucked away in storage under benches. Opening them was like trying to solve a puzzle. During the night sometimes, a cot would collapse at one end. That was always funny and a counselor always told us to go back to sleep. Fun was easy when I was a kid.

Today I spent almost two hours trying to find a place from which to post music. YouTube blocked just about every video I tried to post. The copyright code is imbedded in many of the downloads so I got that black square forbidding the posting. Next I hunted for alternatives to YouTube. I found a couple of songs on other sites, but not the songs I was searching to find. Finally I gave up after posting three videos, one from YouTube, an old song, and the other two from other sites. I am frustrated. If you know a YouTube like site, please share. I’d appreciate it.

The closed house still holds the chill from yesterday when the AC blasted most of the afternoon and evening. Another hot day is predicted for today. Even now it is already 86˚, but worst than the high temperature is the humidity at 72%. I will be staying close to hearth and home today and will be wearing the least amount of clothes decency will allow.

Oh, to be young again when weather hardly mattered. I could play softball at the park even under the heat of the afternoon sun. Hydrate was an unknown word and never encouraged, but I would stop to drink, if I needed water, at the bubbler close to the field in the park. Even my dog Duke drank from the bubbler. He’d stand upright on his back paws and slurp the water.

Yesterday, the new renters next door were on their deck. One woman laughed like a horse neighing. Every time she did Henry barked and ran to the front door. He couldn’t be convinced it wasn’t from a horse draw carriage rolling down the street. That was when I shut all the windows and turned on the AC.

When I was a kid, I remember lying in bed with my head on my pillow and feeling water drain from my ear. It was warm water. It was ocean water from swimming at the beach. I used to love swimming underwater. I always kept my eyes opened hoping to find a treasure. I never did. I never saw much except a few shells and peoples’ legs and feet.

I found a tick on Nala. It was still moving around. I checked the rest of her and didn’t find any more. I checked Henry and found none. Both have short fur making hunting easier. Yesterday’s tick makes it 3 to 1: three for me and one for the dogs.

I don’t remember my mother ever making pancakes. That was fine with me as I didn’t like them. They had a weird consistency. I liked eggs for a more formal breakfast than cereal. My mother took requests. Scrambled with cheese or fried eggs over easy were my favorites. There was a technique I always employed when eating the fried eggs. I’d eat the white around the yolks first then I’d break the yolk. One piece of toast was used to mop up each egg’s yoke. If I did it right, the dish was clean. The dog was always disappointed.