Last night got downright cold. I shut the windows downstairs but left the ones in my bedroom open. That was a mistake. The dogs hogged all the covers. I burrowed as far as I could but was still a bit chilly. This morning, when I went out to get the papers, I was surprised how warm it feels outside. It is 75˚, the high for the day. Tonight will get down to the 50’s. I could go out today or not. I haven’t yet decided.

Yesterday I cleaned a bit. Downstairs got vacuumed. I cleaned all the bark and pieces of branches Nala brought inside for chewing purposes. One branch was about 2 or 3 feet long. She dragged it through the dog door. The kitchen floor is all muddy paw prints. I’ll clean that today. Upstairs I vacuumed and cleaned the cats’ room and the Bathroom. The bathroom toilet seat had cat hair on it I suspect from Jack’s drinking at the toilet, his indoor fountain. The bathroom floor had small clumps of cat hair. The bathroom is pristine for now.

When I was a kid, I was never afraid of spiders or bugs. I didn’t believe the darning needle bugs would really sew my lips together. I thought girls who screamed at bugs were silly. I could understand being afraid of a swarm of killer bees attacking but not much else. I did get stung by a bee once, but that didn’t scar me for life. In Ghana I was wary but not afraid. Centipedes were the longest bugs I had ever seen. Flies were plentiful. I remember watching a wide swath of ants travel across the school compound. Those ants were better left alone. Snakes never scared me when I was a kid. I had seen garter snakes in the garden and knew they were harmless. We used to pick them up and sometimes keep them a while. In Ghana I saw boas. They were scary. The one I remember the most ate a live chicken. When I was teaching one time, a few students coming back from the latrine starting pelting stones at the ground beside the classroom block steps. They were killing a poisonous snake. Life was seldom dull in Ghana.