The morning is lovely, and the breeze is a strong one coming from the north. I suspect it is a gift from Mother Nature to compensate for the heat wave starting tomorrow. Humidity is already seeping into the air. I’m indelicately sweating, and all I am doing is sitting on the couch typing.

Nala woke me up this morning. I could hear her crying. I got up to check and found her trying to get through the cat room barrier, the gate. She was crying as if she something had happened to her. I looked and Gwen, the cat, was the cause. She was sitting just out of reach of Nala’s head. It made chuckle. Cats are sly and intelligent, a fun combination. After the crying, Nala and Henry chased each other on and off my bed. They drove me crazy. It was all because I didn’t bar the bedroom door last night to keep Nala inside the room. I hoped she’d last through the night. She didn’t. Nala peed on my dining room floor again. She lasts all night in my bedroom but uses my dining room if she is free. Right now both dogs are sleeping. Nala is beside me on the couch. I really want to keep waking her up, but that makes little sense.

I watched a Hallmark Christmas movie this morning. Every house is decorated outside, and each inside is a Christmas wonderland, even in the houses of people who don’t want to celebrate Christmas. Every movie has a happy ending. That is a lot of sweetness to swallow, but after the year we’ve all had, nothing beats the sweetness of a Christmas movie.

When I was a kid, summer Sundays were different than Sundays during the rest of the year. In the winter, we stayed around the house to be there for Sunday dinner, and in the afternoons we often went to East Boston to visit my grandparents. We always had to go to mass regardless of the weather or the season. In winter, it was whatever mass at no particular time. In summer it was early mass so we could have the rest of the day to go to the beach. Other people had the same plans so the church was overflowing, even to people standing in the foyer. I remember sitting on the top step, and people were standing right behind me. I always thought the stairs were the best seats in the house, in the church but out of the church. I could talk and not even in whispers. I always left early.