My neighbor is taking her citizenship test tomorrow. She is a bundle of nerves even though she knows all the book answers and speaks good English. Her only speaking problem is the agreement of subject and verb, especially has and have, which throws her off every time. Nicee had only one question for me today which was how to pronoun Eisenhower. After a couple of run throughs I told Nicee no more studying: take the day off today and enjoy yourself. I know she won’t.

February is usually our snowiest month so I’m in a wait and see holding pattern. Today’s 51˚ could be a smokescreen for a blizzard. I am skeptical of a warm winter’s day. Something has to be afoot.

February is a month of expectations. Valentine’s Day is close and February vacation is not long after. When I was a teacher, I just hung around the cape or took day trips over the bridge. The joy of the week was in not using an alarm clock, staying up late and having no papers to correct or plans to make. During vacation when I was a kid our daytime plans depended upon the weather. A day like today meant bike riding all over town which gave us such a sense of freedom. We could ride anywhere we wanted, and bulky clothes were gone for the day. I could freely move my arms and legs, and my clothes didn’t make a swishing noise. If we had snow, we sledded until our lips turned blue. The actual bed time was arbitrary but mostly later than usual. Lunch was catch as catch can. Mostly it was a sandwich grabbed on the run. The week always went quickly.

There are a slew of things I never saw my mother do. She cleaned and did washing when I was in school though I do remember her taking dry clothes off the outside lines. When I left for school, my bed was messy. When I came home, it was neatly made. I figure my mother must have taken a bath at some point but I never saw her take one. The only task I was around to see was my mother making dinner. She was always peeling potatoes, endless bags of potatoes, or so it seemed to to me.