Cloudless Morning as It Warms Up

7:02

Hiking the Westside Trail

The Hiker Who Has Everything

Up just before 7:00, a orange glow off to the east, lake's quiet and calm, as the sun continues it's march south, now rising about half way up Lake Drive.  Summer, where have you gone?  It's 50 degrees and we are off this morning on another adventure, kayaks on the car roof, bike in the car, as we head to Presque Isle Park in Erie for the day.  We cannot wait.

Yesterday was the kind of Chautauqua day I always remember, a slight chill, nt matter what you do outside.  We decided to hike a section of the Fred Cusimano Westside Trail.  We started at the trail head in Panama, walked to Warner Road and back, just about two hours, a total of four miles.  It's through woods, state and privately owned land, a great way to spend a morning.  We have walked this section before, last fall and also during the winter, so it's fun to see it at different seasons.  The leaves have yet to change colors for the most part, so it was mostly deciduous trees, new growth, alternating with sporadic growths of pines.  We met no one either going or coming, nor was their a car in the parking lot.  The trail was well manicured, sand or pebbles scattered in wet sections, no logs blocking the trails, which is nice to see.

The afternoon was spent relaxing, mostly out on the dock, as there was little wind, and pleasant to sit in the sun and read or take cat naps.  Evie occasionally would go inside to check on her slow roasting tomatoes, a half bushel, and later in the afternoon, at my request, made some oatmeal/chocolate chip cookies.  We had left over moussaka for dinner, just as good as the other night if not better.  I love that dish, not quite the moussaka we ate in Greece, sitting in buckets of olive oil as you decided which dish to eat. We watched a much acclaimed Iranian film, THE SEPARATION, set in modern 'Tehran.  This time it's not really about children but a husband and wife at odds with their lives.  The wife wants to leave Iran, for the sake of her young daughter, the husband refuses to leave because of his father's Alzheimer's.  They split, the husband has to hire a pregnant peasant woman to take care of the father.  She leaves the grandfather alone briefly to visit a doctor, the husband discovers this, and they have words, and he accidentally pushes her and she falls on the stairs, having a miscarriage.  A good part of the film revolves around the peasant's angry husband, who accuses the other husband of murder.  The conflict eventually goes to the courts. The actors are amazingly realistic, so you never felt as if you were watching a film.  Caught between all of this anger and discord are the two daughters, one of the upper class family, the other of the peasant.  Clearly, there is a sense of class, the educated, perhaps secular upper class, and the conservative, Muslim under class.  Finally, the upper class husband admits he pushed the wife, to his young daughter, but the peasant's wife also admits she was hit by a car the day before, hastening the miscarriage.  Nothing is really solved, as they both go their ways.  The film ends with the judge leaving it up to the young girl to choose which parent she wants to live with.  The parents leave the room, as the girl tells the judge. We, like the two parents, are left waiting for the answer but it never materializes as the film ends.  Ir humanizes a culture we have demonized, and we see people are the same everywhere.