A Lazy Monday Morning

7:29

Dinner with Leonards, daughter Beth, and Pat Jones

Walk in CI as Storm Clouds Loom

Chilly has become the adjective to describe late September mornings,  It's 44 degrees, nice and crisp, with a mix of clouds and sun though we just had a brief spat of rain  The lake looks like a sheet of slate, smooth and gray black. as I sit here contemplating my day.  What to do?  Such a problem.  Perhaps a hike, or kayaking, then getting ready for 36 Hours In Buffalo, tomorrow and Wednesday.  Just walked out on the dock and the lake once again has a disgusting film of green algae on it and it has been that way on and off for a few weeks now.  Troubling.

Yesterday was a typically great Sunday, perfect for your NFL fans, except I saw it was raining in Cleveland.  Here it was a beautiful fall day.  We went for a long walk in the morning, at the CI, and ran into Jim and Maureen Lovengo.  He owns a pharmacy in Lakewood we like, and she works as the Assistant Director of the Department of Religion.  As we were talking, she mentioned that they were hard at work on next year's program, one of them being a week on Turkey:  Model for the Middle East.  I hadn't realized that this was a theme, so I was quite excited.  She gave me her card and asked that I send her any recommendations I had for speakers.  So I sent off five names of my students, all whom are well known world wide, three are professors at Harvard, one at Duke, and one CEO of a major textile firm.  Any one of them would be great and I know them all, though have not seen most of them since high school at Robert College.  You can tell I am excited.  I am going to email all my Turkish friends about this, as most probably don't know the CI exists, let alone the fact that a week will be devoted to Turkey. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent reading and watching football for me, prepping dinner for Evie, as we were having the Leonards, their daughter Beth, and Pat Jones over for dinner.  We had a fun night, as everyone seemed to enjoy not only the dinner but the conversation.  I got a bit carried away, however, with my description of my visit to the monasteries on Mt. Athos in Greece.  I hope they were not too bored.  Evie made a great meal, a pork roast with a pan sauce, home made apple sauce, a Turkish cheese borek, salad, and fresh corn off the cob.  Every thing was devoured, with just enough left over for tonight's dinner, I hope.  For dessert, we had a marvelous chocolate torte with raspberry sauce which Pat made.  They stayed until about 9:30.  We then decided to do the dishes, staying up like a couple from the 1960's, washing and drying the dishes after a party.  For some reason, we like to do this, to wash and dry dishes, avoiding our dishwasher. There's something about both washing and drying dishes which is settling, relaxing, the routine of doing something over and over again.  I sound like a Buddhist.  We watched a bit of the Emmy's then went to bed around 11:30, a late night for us.