Pink Sky in Morning, Sailor's Take Warning

6:40

7:11

Up at 6:25, to a pink sky, lots of clouds, a day that will bring rain, as the temperatures drop.  Right now it's 59, high of 72 but tomorrow's high will be in the mid 60's.  I guess this fickleness is fairly typical for the Chautauqua area, perhaps more so the last few years as global warning takes it toll.

Yesterday was a day to get things done in the morning and kick back in the afternoon.  It began with the resumption of the Thursday morning breakfast club, as five of us gather at the Bemus Inn to kibitz, solve the world's problems, and talk about local gossip and politics.  All of them used to work at the CI as vice presidents, so they know the area, what's going on in the CI and Jamestown and surrounding communities quite well.  We are much a like, at least in our breakfast orders, as three of us had poached eggs on hash, not your most healthy breakfast.  Anyways, the rest of the morning Evie and I spent outside, beginning our clean up for the winter.  We worked on the hedges, Evie cut the lawn, and I finally took down the purple martin house.  We also started gathering together summer toys and accoutrement's and putting them up in the garage attic.  I even took down the snow shovels before I put up the summer floats!

I have also made the decision to invest in a home improvement package.  Through the NYState, I was able to get a free home improvement assessment.  They evaluate how tight, how energy efficient your house is and then put together a package of suggested improvements, things that could be done to save money, to invest in the health and longevity of your house.  Most of my work will be done in the crawl space, spraying two inch foam insulation around the perimeter, air sealing, and adding a vapor barrier to the crawl space.  I like the guy, a local, who put together the package.  Because it's through NY State, there are lots of hoops to jump through.  And because I am so wealthy, I don't get any rebates, alas!  It will be interesting to see if it makes much difference.  I am most worried about dampness in the crawl space and the possibility of mold and this should take care of it.

The big event of the day took place around 5:00.  Evie wanted to kayak before we went out for dinner, so we jumped in our boats and paddled fortuitously across to Long Point.  As we paddled around the tip, two people had dragged a canoe out to the point and were putting it in the water.  We said hello to them, not noticing at first, that the second of the two canoeists, was TOPLESS.  At first, from a distance I thought she was boy with her shirt off.  As I got closer, I did a double take and realized it was a woman, perhaps in her early 20's.  I resisted the urge to linger and talk, paddled on by, resisted the temptation to turn around and see where they were paddling, a good boy like my mom  always said.  We paddled around the bay and never saw them again though Evie said they paddled towards Tom's Point. Needless to say, I will be kayaking the next few afternoons around 5:00, just to make sure there are no more disturbing, disreputable, salacious events on the lake...the morality patrol.

For dinner, we went to Andriaccio's, the Italian restaurant across from the CI, with our neighbors the Leonard's and Pat Jones.  As usual, it was busy and we had a pretty good pizza, the Neapolitan and because we got the large, we ended up taking half of it home, tonight's dinner no doubt.  It was a nice way to spent am evening, with our neighbors, and we got home around 8:00, just in time to watch the politicizing of the events in the Middle East.  Every Republican pundit took this opportunity to say it was all Obama's fault, a result of his weakness and pandering to the ME.  And the Democrats all argue that his policies are working, that he's resolute, look at the death of Osama, the pull out of Iraq, etc.  Few know what they are talking about and if they switched parties, they would be saying just the opposite.  No matter what Obama does, the Democrats support it, the Republicans criticize it, whether it's right or wrong.  Just politics, I guess.