The weather is bizarre. For two days it has been frigid weather, and my heat has been constantly running. Going outside even for a little bit was brutally cold. The dogs were out just for their business though I think Nala stole a box from the recycle bin and shredded it before she came back inside the house. Today the high will be 45˚, perfect dump weather. Tomorrow will be rainy and maybe even snowy.

I can’t believe I will actually get dressed today. It has been a while. I do, for cleanliness sake, change my cozies after my shower, but as far as I get beyond the house is usually the mailbox across the street.

Henry and his battle with the dog door continues. Yesterday he came back in himself through the dreaded door every time. Today he’s been standing outside and whacking the door with his nose, his method of summoning me. I am well trained.

When I was a kid, I never thought about how my every day was the same except for weekends, but even they had a pattern. Saturday was mine. Sunday was family. Saturday was morning TV, bike rides around town, hot dogs, beans and brown bread for Dinner and a bath Saturday night. Sunday was doomed from the start. I had to go to mass. After mass I usually stayed around the house, watched some TV, read the funnies or hid in my room and read until dinner time. Sunday was the only day of the week with dinner. Every other day we had lunch and supper. Sunday dinner was usually around two. Sunday supper was light after the big dinner.

In Ghana, my week days too had the same pattern. I was up early, sometimes early enough to watch my students line up with their metal buckets at the shower stalls outside. I remember the sound of water hitting the bottom of the buckets. I’d have my first cup of coffee then breakfast, the same one very day, then I’d walk across the school compound to the classroom block to teach my first class of the day. In between classes, I’d walk home and maybe have another cup of coffee. After school, I’d go into town, roam around the market and hope to find a surprise like the watermelon I once found. I’d visit people in the stores and my husband at the Super Service Inn. On picture day, his mother, my mother-in-law, dressed him in new clothes. He looked adorable though a little uneasy, nervous and probably wondering why the white lady was taking pictures of him with her trusty Instamatic. When I looked at the picture just now, I realized it was taken fifty three years ago. I expect my husband is a grandfather.