The air is thick with humidity. The breeze is getting stronger. It is getting darker. Thunderstorms are predicted.

It rained last night for a short while but long enough for the dogs to leave muddy paw prints all over the kitchen floor. The floor was washed on Monday so I should have expected rain.

Last night calamity struck. I spilled my coke and some landed on the keyboard of this Mac. First the audio disappeared, no internal speakers listed, only earphones. I tried the suggested remedies. None worked. I decided I could live with no sound. Next, the keyboard stopped working. I couldn’t type my password to open the computer. That, I couldn’t live with. I felt doomed. I didn’t sleep well, but this morning, despite the dire predictions, all is well.

When I graduated from high school, a typewriter was my graduation present. It was a perfect gift to take to college, but there was a problem. I didn’t know how to type. I had tried my senior year to take typing, but my guidance counselor told me it wasn’t a college track course. He scheduled me for Latin IV instead. Such a good trade-off! I use Latin IV everywhere I go.

I didn’t bake anything ever until my first Christmas in Ghana. I made sugar cookies. It was quite the process. First, I had to travel 200 miles round trip to fill my gas cylinder so I could use my oven. Next, I looked for a cookie recipe and was happy to find one that looked fairly easy in the cookbook called Ghana Chop, a Peace Corps Ghana cookbook. It gave measurements in cigarette tins. I had Christmas cookie cutters my mother had sent. I used a Star beer bottle as a rolling pin. I sifted my flour to remove as many bugs as I could. After all that, and with a few bugs still in the flour, I was surprised by how good the cookies tasted. They even looked good. They were a Christmas hit.

Since then a lot has changed but a lot is the same. I have become quite adept at baking cookies. I mostly bake them at Christmas time. I use the same old cookie cutters. I ditched the bottle rolling pin for a traditional one. The flour has no bugs. I use confectioners’ sugar to make frosting; however, despite the batches of cookies I have made since then, that first batch is still the most memorable. It is one of my proudest accomplishments.