Saturday Come Alive

7:10

Well. the neighborhood has come alive, as many are up here for the beautiful fall weekend so far, though rain is forecast late tomorrow.  It's nice to here voices, especially down the street, where the Elste's are hosting a birthday party for their granddaughter and friends.  I can hear their screams and laughs and can only imagine what they heard coming from our house this past summer.  It was nice and cool when I got up, about 53, but will get to the high 70's later today.  We are going kayaking in a bit, then either to walk the Audubon or go for a nice long boat ride, depending on the weather, especially the wind.

Still Green

Last night we went to Wendy and Charlie Heinz's house for dinner, in Chautauqua Shores, with two other couples we knew, the Redingtons' and Follansbee's.  The Redington's children went to Reserve and he's part of the breakfast club.  We knew Jeff Follansbee slightly, as he was our lawyer when we bought our house back in 1981.  He moved a way for awhile but has come back, works as head of development at the CI.  We have seen him and his new wife a couple of times, at other parties or the art opening we went to last year, though Gay, his wife does not seem to remember us.  We sat around their living room, talking, sipping wine, enjoying brie and Swiss, as they constantly worked at keeping their dog at bey.  He's a golden doodle, entirely out of control, though he's been to various schools.  They love him but he is a constant irritation,  I think, as they had to muzzle him when we arrived, though he does not seem aggressive, just curious and he's so big that they must be careful around others.  And they obviously cannot leave food within his reach or it will be gone.  Again, it's amazing how people put up with such inconvenience every day.

We had delicious stew over noodles for dinner, reminding us our an Austrian stew with caraway seeds and beer we used to make from Craig Claireborne's International Cookbook back in Istanbul.  For dessert, we had a pumpkin custard/pudding with whipped cream on top.  We talked about movies, TV shows, and as usual most people our age are unaware of Netflix and don't watch many of the programs we really like.  It's interesting how different our tastes are.  It's clear most of them are Luddites, as we talked about cell phone usage, how most hardly use theirs, don't know where to put them, and have no idea how to text.  We talked briefly about Turkey though it's hard to tell if people have much interest in our stories.  Mostly, they want to know about the political situation, whether we felt safe there or not.  It was a nice evening though subdued as everyone seemed tired, yawning and tired looking.  We all left about 9:30, just about right I think.  We were glad to get home, to relax and get back to our books and Evie's Words with Friends.