No errands to do today, but I have some laundry which I’ve brought down to this floor, only one more floor to go. I’ll probably make my bed, but that’s not a given. I will water the plants. I’ve already showered and read the papers. The day is partly sunny which I prefer over partly cloudy, a choice which reminds me of the half-full or half-empty glass description. I always figured that choice had little to do with outlook and more to do with thirst. Really thirsty makes the glass half-empty.

In our travels, my brother and I would drink water from just about everywhere except the swamp. Beside the tracks, there was a pipe with water flowing from it. Underneath the pipe was a small pool of water which was the start of a stream. We always stopped there for a drink. The water looked clean. That’s all we cared about. There were very few bubblers around town. One was at the field below our street, and we stopped there. We even taught the dog to drink from it. Germs were never a consideration. Cooties were, not germs, but dogs didn’t have cooties. People did. In my head just now jumped the memory of cootie catchers. They were made by folding a paper several times until there were four corners meeting in the middle and each corner had a pocket to put your fingers in so you could move the corners back and forth until a corner was chosen. Inside each corner was something pithy the maker had written. We also used those cootie catchers as fortune tellers, a nicer game. Later I realized these were origami, but knowing that was a long way in the future.

The best and the coldest water was from the hose. Before you drank it, the water had to run a bit as the sun had warmed the water already in the hose. Once it was cold enough, the flow had to be gentle or the front of your shirt got soaked. It was a balancing act which took some practice.

Even in Ghana we drank suspect water which had floaties, our pet name for whatever was in the water bottle, really a beer bottle holding water, but on my latest two visits to Ghana, I bought water, bottled water. I figured I’m beyond taking chances with floaties.