Today is another wonderfully beautiful summer day. The morning air is clear. The sun is a bit diffused. There are clouds, but they are just part of the background of the day. The temperature will be in the high 70’s. The low will be a lovely 68˚. A strong breeze ruffles the leaves and bends the top branches of the pines. Today is a day to be enjoyed.

Today begins August. It wasn’t my favorite month but it was. I guess that’s a contradiction of sorts needing explaining. Well, August meant closer to back to school, the end of my summer, but August also meant my birthday, the best day ever. It all makes sense.

When I was a kid, I wasn’t ever thrilled with Sundays. I had to go to mass and stay around for dinner. On some Sunday afternoons we went to visit my grandparents in East Boston. I was always bored unless I explored. The thousands of cousins, who were also dragged to my grandparents, were more my sisters’ ages. I was the oldest grandchild. I lived in a smallish town so I was in awe of the city and found it intriguing. Corner stores were everywhere. People sold slush out of their windows. Bakeries had pizza, square pizza which I still love. I remember the truck with the merry go round stopping on the streets so kids could buy rides. The horses were small. There were four or five of them spinning in a tight circle. I was too old to ride, but I was okay with no horseback riding. I had the city to explore.

In South America, Quito, old Quito, is my favorite city. We stayed in a hotel around the corner from the plaza. Women wearing shawls and hats toted bundles of stuff, usually covered bundles to make them easier to carry but difficult to identify. I roamed the narrow streets. I stopped to visit churches and museums. I shopped in a couple of stores. I sat on the plaza steps for a while to watch the world go by me. I ate on the run. Quito was my hub for exploring. I went in a bus to the equator. There was a shack of sorts and a line on the ground separating the two hemispheres. I stood straddling the line so I was in both hemispheres. The shack sold souvenirs and post cards. I bought a few post cards, wrote them out and paid to have them sent from the equator so the postmark was 00°00’00. That was really neat. Another day I went to a market a distance from the city. It was unbelievable. The market had everything from animals to prepared foods, clothes, cloth, household goods and so much more. I bought a few things, easy to carry things. One was a small basket and the other a hat, a beautiful red sort of cowboy hat I still have which is old enough now to be an antique. Inside the hat it says Industria Equatoriana and La Paloma de Tubac. I wore that hat rather than pack and probably squash it. I must have been an interesting sight to behold.