Today is cloudy and chilly but the weekend will be spectacular. I suspect the fortuitous weather report will have the cape lined with cars and tourists for the weekend. The water is still too cold for swimming, but the sand and sun will draw the crowds to the beaches. My deck is a mess with pollen and stuff from the trees, but today is cool enough for cleaning and getting ready to spend the next two days outside.

Today is garden shop day. I only need about four or five flowers for the front garden, but I need several for the deck pots. I also need herbs for the garden and for the flower boxes on the deck. The last on my list is one more vegetable for my small raised garden. This is one of my favorite days: when I wander the aisles of the garden shop. All self-restraint seems to disappear. My cart overflows, and I wonder if I’ve bought enough.

I am 100 pages from finishing my book: A Dark Dividing by Sarah Rayne. I started it on Wednesday and have been reading every spare moment since. My errands were more of an annoyance than usual knowing that my book was sitting at home waiting. If today weren’t flower day, I wouldn’t move off the couch until I’d finished. I love finding a book difficult to put down.

When I was really little, my mother read the Golden Books to me. She thought me the smartest of all children because when I was two I could identify all the animals circling the back cover. She told me my favorite story was Chicken Little. I still have a special place in my heart for Henny Penny, and I will always remember Foxy Locky, Goosey Loosey, Turkey Lurkey and Ducky Lucky. They are such wonderful names. It makes me laugh a bit thinking about my favorite childhood book and how the main character thinks the sky is falling. It is no wonder I have always loved science fiction. That Foxy Locky eats most of the characters seems a bit chilling, but I guess it never scared me as Henny Penny, my heroine, runs away safely.

My mother read Treasure Island to my brother and me, a bit of it every night before bed. It made bedtime palatable knowing I’d be following Jim and Long John Silver on their voyage. I still love that book, and I’m still pained by Long John’s treachery.

When I taught English, some kids took pride in saying they’d never read a book. Others told me my course books were the first they’d ever finished. It saddened me that these kids had never entered the amazing world of books, but once, many, many years later, a former student stopped me and said thanks. He told me he had read all of the books in my science fiction course and hadn’t stopped reading since. That was about my biggest accomplishment: helping make a student a reader.