Gray, Overcast, and Rainy... And I Like It

Saluting Our Veterans on Memorial Day

6:30

Up at 6:30 and surprise, no sunshine in the living room, but the sound of rain on the roof, rain drops on the front windows, the furniture on our front porch damp (I forgot to cover them), and a gray, gray outdoors, lake, sky, a line of heavy rain across the lake, over towards Bemus.  It  feels nice and cosy inside; I feel lazy and may just skip yoga this morning, as I am getting tired of it.

Yesterday was a perfect Memorial Day, sunny and breezy, but enjoyable outside, even if a fleece was necessary.  Around 10:00, I drove to Mc Clure's, parked my car, and I had decided to ride my bike, enjoy the Mayville Memorial Day Parade that my buddy Ron had mentioned started at 10:00, which he had checked out on his computer earlier in the day.  So off I went, biking the back road, but could not find a trace of a parade, thought perhaps it was later in the day.  I biked around village, off again to the lake, along Sea Lion Drive and back to Lighthouse Point, jumped in my car, bought some ground chuck at the Lighthouse and went home.  Evie, meanwhile, had made a banana cream pie for tonight's picnic and was about ready to deep fry more potato chips as well.

At 1:30, I did some more shopping for the picnic at Topps, then stopped at Mc Clures, to help Ron launch his monster pontoon boat, mentioning that there was no parade.  He assured me he had found it on the Internet, went back to his computer to show me, and realized he was reading about Mayville, Wisconsin, not New York.  He had a good laugh!  Launching the boat went easily, no hiccups, the only difficult part getting the ropes set up correctly so, when docked, the wind does not move the boat into the next slip.  I was home by 3:00, relaxed some, read, then we started to get ready for the picnic, wondering if it would be warm enough to sit outside.

The Gals, Happy to Be Back At The Lake

Well, it was warm enough till about 6:30 when it suddenly seemed to get cold, so we went inside to get dinner on the table.  We had the Mc Clures over, of course, and our two neighborhoods who just arrived for the summer, the Leonard's from Valley Forge, the Joneses from Houston.  We had lots to talk about, as we enjoyed Evie's home made chips (Dave Jones wanted to know what brand they were), with bleu cheese, as well as guacamole and tortilla chips.  For dinner, I cooked burgers and Sahlen hot dogs, to go along with Linda's potato salad, Evie's broccoli and cheese salad, Florida corn, and all the fixings for the dogs and burgers.  Everyone loved the meal, as the last time we had a picnic like this was likely Labor Day.  For whatever reason, it was the perfect meal for a Memorial Day.  And, of course, we topped it off we banana cream pie and Turkish tea, with a fire in our fireplace, a nice way to end the day.

Three Veterans, Enjoying Memorial Day

Everyone  helped some with the dishes after we cleared the table, so when our guests left around 9:30, we had the kitchen cleaned up within 15 minutes. This after dinner clean up is getting to be a habit; we like a clean kitchen when we get up in the morning.  I wonder if this is  being obsessive, too controlling, or just common sense?  An article in today's New York Times asks that question: "Is it healthy to keep our bodies and homes squeaky clean, or should we relax a bit?" You know my answer and probably Evie's!