More Haze, More Heat

6:05

Topped Maple Tree

Bean Bag Champions, Dick Redington and Jan Johnson

Bean Bag Runner's Up, Wendy Heinz and Joe Johnson

Dick Redington, Jan Johnson, Karan Redington

Joe Johnson, Charlie Heinz, Dick Redington

Up at 6:00 to an orange globe, just rising over Long Point,  63 degrees outside, 73 inside...amazing heat for May, as it got up to 85 yesterday.  The sky over the lake is hazy, like an August morning, and I was awakened by bass boats about 6:00 though I don't think there is a tournament, just the early bird fishing boats.

We had a busy day yesterday, getting ready for our dinner party of eight.  Lots of work inside for Evie, cleaning the house, the porches, getting the food ready, setting the table, all the sorts of things that you have to do to get dinner ready for guests.  I helped when I could, finished the weeding, put in the buoys to keep the boats away from our dock, grilled some mango for dinner, all this before our tree service arrived.  Maalon, a young Amish tree climber, topped our southerly most tree, not one of the two big maples in the front yard.  He discovered the upper core was rotten, from woodpeckers and squirrels, dropped it in the yard, a huge trunk, leaving behind a pretty ugly but safer tree.  When he starting cutting the large trunk into smaller pieces, two squirrels ran out of the tree, though the third did not make it!  It took them close to two hours to do the work, costing a pretty penny but at least our yard should be safer from the falling of dead branches.

We both went swimming late afternoon, the water numbing, especially if you went below the the surface but in contrast to the weather, it felt refreshing, cleansing, cooling, just what we needed to recharge our batteries for the company.  They arrived around 6:00 and we sat outside in our front yard, a beautiful evening, with drinks, talking and playing bean bag till 7:45.  Everyone seemed to love the game, wanted the directions for making the boards, and neither Evie nor I were part of the winning teams.  The women especially seemed to enjoy the game because they were as good as their husbands.  Dinner was great, teriyaki pork chops, brown rice, ratatouille, and salad with Evie's special dressing, which all loved and wanted the recipe.  We had revani for dessert, a rich semolina cake, topped with a sugar and water sauce and chopped pistachios, a typical Turkish sweet.  We passed around strawberries which made the revani perfect.

We sat around the table till 10:30, talking mostly about the good old days, growing up in the late 50's, the cars we drove, our kids, books we liked, especially mysteries, the usuals for a party like this and, of course, getting older.  No talk of health or medication, little about politics, nothing about sports, so it was a congenial group.  We feel a little on the outside since they all worked for the CI and had lots in common.  Slowly, we are beginning to know some of the allusions, the people, the stories.  Joe and his wife Jan, grew up in Jamestown, and know just about everything about the area.  Charlie Heinz and his wife Wendy have been here since the 70's and Charlie used to come to the CI when he was a boy.  And Dick and Karan Redington have also been here since the early 1980's and Karan's parents have had a cottage at the CI since her childhood, so their are lots of reminiscences of life at the CI. After everyone left, we did up all the dishes, cleaned the kitchen and got to bed around 11:30, tired from a  long day.

We have a busy day today. At 9:30 we are picking up my nephew, Kevin Gail and his son Connor, in Panama, at the south end of the George Cusimano Overland Trail.  They are going hike it over the weekend and we will drop them off at the north end.  We are then driving to Westfield for a wildflower walk along Chautauqua Creek with Becky Nystroms of the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy.  And tonight, we are going to a porch party at our neighbors, Jim and Barb Fox.