Alexa predicted liquid sunshine today then explained it was rain. Thanks! I was perplexed, but she was right. When last I let Henry in, it was sprinkling. The rain has dampened my day, literally. I was going to brave the wide world today, but I might just stay inside and kept dry and warm.

When I was a kid, I wasn’t a lover of the rain. A storm always meant getting wet walking to school, but the worst was no recess.

I loved Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. I used to crumble Saltines with my hands and put them into the bowl. Saltines swell in water. The crumbs absorb all the soup. I always had a thick layer to eat through to get to the chicken and the noodles.

Fried dough was often a Friday supper. My mother would fry up the dough in her cast iron frying pan. We’d sit in the kitchen waiting, watching. My poor mother couldn’t cook fast enough. We’d slather the dough with butter which almost floated on the top of the dough. We all ate carefully but quickly.

My life is pretty boring right now. I don’t go out much so no new adventures. I don’t see friends as they are also staying home. Poor Henry escapes up stairs when I chat with him too long. Jack just falls asleep, so much for my patter, my rhetoric.

I don’t like swordfish or salmon. The pink of the salmon just doesn’t seem right somehow. I remember a British Air first class flight to Germany. We had been upgraded. They served salmon for lunch.

When I traveled to Europe, I always started or finished my trip in London. One trip we decide to take the ferry from Calais to Dover. We got to the ferry station and was surprised no one was there. We sat for a bit then asked. We were in the wrong place. We had to run with our bags across a huge, massive (my memory may be a bit off here. I might be thinking it was huge because of the running) parking lot. We just made it. They took up the ramp after we were aboard. When we arrived in Dover, we got on the train to London. We were only there a few days but we managed plays and shopping and eating well.

I haven’t ordered delivery in a couple of weeks. I am craving Chinese food.

Today’s weather is the same as yesterday’s. I think I might be caught in a time loop. I wouldn’t mind but I’d prefer to choose the time to loop. This morning started early for me, an unusual event. What was worse was I changed the cat litter, made my bed and took a shower, all before 10. That is far more industrious than I have been in days. I’m not a fan.

Speaking of weather, it was a little foggy this morning. The wind is blowing now and it is chilly. I saw a couple of snow flurries earlier, but only a few. It even looks as if we might have sun. It seems t6o be peeking through, and I think I see a bit of blue.

I have to go out today, the first time in a couple of weeks. My errand list is short.

When I was a kid, I got fifty cents allowance. I thought it was big money. Usually I spent it right away. Sometimes I bought a book which left me with a penny, useful back then. Sometimes I bought a couple of five cent candy bars and put the rest away to spend another day. I still have many of those books. My mother saved them and gave them to me when I bought my house. The pages in many of the books are yellow and brittle. I figure they should be after over sixty years.

I was in Ghana for 27 months. I didn’t have a radio. Nobody had a TV. Ghana has several daily papers, but the news is local. I loved reading those papers. They were a snapshot of Ghana, but everything in those papers was so graphic to me, but not so to the Ghanaians. I remember a front page picture of a dead man, a thief killed by his victim. I also remember my friends the Popps who were actually in a printed ad in one paper. There they were, two white people, clicking glasses while seated at a small table. It was an ad for whiskey.

Most of the time I didn’t know what was happening at home, but that didn’t bother me. I had a lack of curiosity about events so far away. Life at home went on without me, and I didn’t mind. I was living an amazing life.