Morning Drizzle on a Dreary Tuesday Morning

Mitchell's First Place Painting

Drizzle and Gray at 6:05

Evie's Garden in the Early Morning Light

What a way to return to the lake, a light rain for the past twelve hours, a gray and overcast sky, the sound of birds and drizzle.  I love it.  Reminds me of the old days at the lake when it used to be cool much of the summer and rain often.  By the way, I woke at 6:00!

We left Darien yesterday morning very early, about 6:15, had an easy ride up RT 7 to Danbury, then across # 84 to Middleton, where I picked up #17 to Binghamton, then # 86 home to the lake, just a little under seven hours.  The Roscoe Diner is about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Darien, about 135 miles in case anyone is interested.  We didn't stop  but have always wanted to...too much in a hurry to get home or to Darien.  We arrived at Chautauqua around 1:30 after stopping at Peterson's Farm Market for some vegetables for dinner.

We unpacked easily, got the house in order, then went outside to work on the yard, as rain was forecast for later in the day.  We rearranged all the flowers, which we had placed in a huddle for watering while we were gone.  Evie cut the grass, rough and high in spots, since it had not been mowed since we left about ten days ago.  It was quite warm and humid, about 82 degrees, so Evie worked up enough of a sweat that we both jumped in the lake for a swim after getting the yard in order.  The water felt great, still cold but refreshing, with lots of weeds beginning to take hold.  Time to get out the weed rakes and begin our summer of weeding the lake.

We had a couple of sundowners around 6:00 (though the sun doesn't set till about 9:30) with some Castello cheese(brie and blue cheese), then had an easy dinner of home fries, bacon, eggs and, of course, a salad.  We finished the final two episodes of Mad Men, both really interesting.  Briefly, Lane gets caught for embezzling, commits suicide, Sally sneaks off with Glenn to a museum, gets her first period, and takes a taxi home and we get to see Betty act like a mother towards Sally.  Pete gets punched a couple of times by a cuckolded husband, well deserved, on a train, sleeps with a 'blue housewife,' and finally gets his wish...an apartment in the city.  Megan's depressed because her career is going nowhere.  Don steps in, after watching her trailer (reminds me of the end of  Cinema Paradiso) and with his help, she lands a job in a commercial.  Rodger sleeps with Megan's Mom...can it be love.  Don gets back his mojo, walks into Dow Chemicals office, and pitches his firm.  Don runs into Peggy, who quit last week, in a cinema, as both are unwinding.  Peggy's doing well, working on an ad campaign on cigarettes for women, Virginia Slims I assume.  The final episode ends with Don sitting alone at a bar, after seeing Megan off to her job.  A female friend of Megan's walks up and asks him if he's alone. And the episode ends, like all episodes with a song, this time a song from the 60's,  Nancy Sinatra singing the theme from a James Bond thriller, "You Only Live Twice."  We are left wondering if this is the old Don sleeping around, with the magic ad touch, or the new Don, faithful and out of his element in the sixties.