More Gray, Warming Up Some

Evie's Famous Vegetable Soup

7:30

Fishing Huts off of Long Point

Up just after 7:00 to a typical morning, gray sky on white, snow covered lake, surrounded by a coast line of trees, dusted by snow.  Just enough snow last night to need a broom to sweep it off my car's windshield.  It's 22º at the moment and it won't get much warmer during the day, with an inch of snow forecast.  We were thinking of going to the Allegheny State Park today but neither of us had the desire to drive an hour for a hike.  We will stick around here.

Cross Country Skiing to Sandy Bottom

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny morning and we lost our window of opportunity to hike the woods by going to Yoga and the YMCA instead.  We vowed that next time we have a sunny morning, we are off to a forest, either the Westside Overland Trail or Allegheny State Park.  Both our workouts, however, were good.  Evie stopped at Walmart to get some photos made to send to the Mullens and I had a coffee at Ryder's Cup.  When we got home, we continued with going through all our clothes, deciding which we have not worn in a couple of years, to give to what we hope are needy families.  We have a back bedroom full of clothes at the moment.  Now we just have to find someone that really needs it, some place other than the Salvation Army.  I am sure there churches around that make sure the clothes go to deserving families.

Woodlawn

We relaxed early after noon but I decided to see what it was like to cross country ski on the lake.  It was great, slippery, no wetness when I glided over the snow, the snow compressed, only about six inches deep.  I went as far as Sandy Bottom, the beginning of Wells Bay and back, around thirty minutes, just what I needed to wake up and get ready to go the the movies.

Home

We went to the 4:00 matinee of Silver Linings Playbook, as I mentioned yesterday, a much talked about movie because both the movie and it's actors are up for Academy Awards.  And I mentioned I would probably not like it.  Well, I did and didn't.  Neither one of us was taken with it though it got better towards the end.  We just did not identify with any of the characters, the depressed, often violent Bradley Cooper, his crazy father played by Robert De Niro (he wages his entire life savings on a Philadelphia Eagles football game)j, or Jennifer Lawrence, the love interest, also depressed who falls in love with Cooper even though he seems madly in love with his wife.  And most improbably, the two lovers, Cooper and Lawrence, end up falling in love as they practice for a dance contest which they, of course, do well enough to ensure that Cooper's father wins the parley keeping his life savings.  It's a feel good movie but we did not much like any of the characters.  For example, Cooper accidentally hits his mother, gets in a fist fight with his father because he refuses to take his meds.  I am sure things like this happen but it's not part of my experience, and it seems more like something that happens in movies.  I would give it a B -, Evie a C + because she does not want to seem like a Debbie Downer.  I was also put off early on because of the close ups of Cooper's face, emphasizing his mental illness and the film makers trivialized both characters mental problems by making them seem to disappear miraculously when they fall in love.  Are we to assume that because they fall in love, both are happy and healthy? That's the last shot of the movie, Lawrence sitting on Cooper's lap, in his families living room, his Mom getting dinner ready, Dad watching a football game, suggesting they all lived happily after, like a fairy tale.  Bah humbug.  By the way, I did like a movie, ZERO DARK THIRTY, so I am not always a curmudgeon.