The sun is shining, the sky is blue and the temperature is 22°. Tonight we’ll dip to 13°. I’ve had enough. I’m asking for only one day of warmth, deck weather warmth. That would hold me for a while.

Two of my travel magazines arrived in the mail this week. Their pages were filled with advertisements showing pictures of people enjoying the beaches of some tropical isle surrounded by water so blue it didn’t look real. All along the seaside were houses painted in bright colors and market wagons selling baskets and vibrant clothing trimmed in reds and blues. I felt like one of Pavlov’s dogs.

We played our weekly trivia game last night at the Squire in Chatham. It is a fun night we look forward to every week. We have dinner, a few drinks, a lot of laughs and a few friendly arguments over possible answers. Generally we’re in contention every week. Two weeks ago we won, last week we were third and even though our team was smaller than usual last night, only four of us, we won again. Other than the first round, we were ahead all night. We won a $50.00 certificate to the Squire and bragging rights for the week.

When I read the paper or do crossword puzzles, I see potential trivia questions. On Sunday, the capital of the gem state and the first chimpanzee in space were two of the crossword puzzle answers. I knew neither but figured them out from the clues around them. I won’t forget them now, and I won’t tell you either.

We used to play Jeopardy. One of us would be Alex giving the answers while the rest of  us were the contestants with clickers instead of buttons. That worked for only a little while. My father was a clicking maniac and often answered even though he hadn’t clicked first. He drove us all so crazy we got rid of the clickers, and Jeopardy became a pencil and paper game. We still had fun.