A Morning of Quiet, Calm, Clear Skies (and the Birds are Back)

7:44

Long Point at 4:30 PM

Long Point Marina

Up late, 7:30, the sky bright, sunrise above the weeds, by Giarizzo's, and the lake looks untouched, just a few sea gulls at the moment.  What are they doing here so late in the year?  I should be out in my kayak, despite the thirty degrees, instead of comfortable, warm, and coffee laden, here in my living room.  Maybe later.

Yoga is becoming my touchstone for the day.  Vin yesterday with twelve women, hardly enough room for me to fit in.  I wonder if they like having a male in the room, whether it limits their conversations, like no fart jokes or something like that.  There's something cool always about an all men's or women's club, a freedom to speak your mind that changes if the opposite sex joins in.  They are just going to have to put up with me.  I do enjoy it, paying attention to my breathing, to what I am doing, and I am getting better.  Yesterday, time flew as I was totally into what I was doing.  After class, I stopped at Weggies again, picked up some treats for Evie, who is feeling a bit better but still coughing quite a bit, and went home for lunch, left over Chinese from the night before.

Another leisurely afternoon of reading, taking it easy though we did make a Turkish soup, a combination of lentils, eggplant, tomato paste and onions, simmered for forty minutes, then pureed.  We then finished it off with cooked wheat berries and garbanzo beans, added a couple of tablespoons of dried mint, some lemon, and we had a great soup.  About 3:30, I decided to walk Long Point Park, drove to the end of Lake Drive, and walked for about an hour through the woods, out to the tip of Long Point, back through the grove of Black Locust to the car.  I rarely walk at this time of day in the woods and because it was a beautiful day, the sun was literally blinding when I walked westward.  Those who live on the east side of the lake are no doubt familiar with it's power in the late afternoon.

For dinner, we had the soup and croque monsieur (toasted ham and cheese sandwiches), both tasty, just what we wanted.  We watched a movie I had heard about called Margaret, with an amazing performance by Anna Paquin.  It's not an upbeat movie but very powerful and engaging.  A sixteen year old girl witnesses a bus running over a woman.  She feels partly responsible as she had diverted the passing bus driver's attention by yelling at him.  From this, she falls into the depths of a debilitating depression and guilt (though we are not sure what's bothering her), and she takes her guilt and unhappiness out on everyone, her mother, father, the dead women's friends, as she pursues the guilty bus driver, wanting to some how gain solace by implicating him in the accident.  Her parents are divorced, she's unhappy in school, has no boy friends, so all of these lead her into destructive behavior, the kind that touches everyone.  A powerful even scary look at a teenager, it's worth seeing for Paquin's performance.  It's not a feel good movie.

Finally, it would  seem my query from yesterday's blog, about where have the birds been, was heard because this morning, all three feeders are being attacked by various birds.  At this rate, I will be filling the feeders at least once a week.