Today is another lovely day with warmth and bright sun. The breeze is so slight the leaves barely move. It is a quiet day but then most days around here are quiet. A dog occasionally barking is about the only sound. I have nothing on my dance card today. Yesterday a friend came by and we had cocktails and appies on the deck. Henry even visited. It was a wonderful way to spend the late afternoon.
I woke up close to eleven this morning. Henry got me up at seven to let him out, but I went back to bed. Seven was too early, too middle of the night to me.
When I was a kid, Sunday rituals were sacred. Mass was first then it was hanging around the house until dinner, usually around two. If I went anywhere beyond the backyard, it was on a whole family excursion. Every now and then we’d go for a Sunday ride. I had one back window, my brother had the other, one of my sisters was in the middle of us and my other sister sat in the front seat. Cars in those days had full front seats from one window to the other. The shift was on the steering wheel. Some of the rides were on back roads. I remember getting excited when we’d see a farm with cows. I remember stopping for ice cream. That was the best part of the ride, even better than the cows. My favorite ice cream for the longest time was chocolate chip then mocha chip then mint chip. The pattern is easy. Give me chocolate. My father’s favorite was vanilla, but he never ate just plain vanilla. He covered his ice cream in Hershey’s syrup so thick there was like a river of chocolate surrounding the vanilla.
The spawn chewed the outside string of lights again. I’ve given up. I’m flying the white flag. That is about the fifth strand done in by a spawn of Satan, a rat with a puffy tail, a squirrel. I went hunting for a solution. The only one I found was to cover the strands with PVC piping. That seems like a lot of work, a lot of measuring and cutting to fit the short spaces between the lights. I’ll just stay in the dark.
