Gray Skies and Cold, Brrrr

7:45

Hail Yesterday Morning

Both Evie and I woke up around 6:30, came down for coffee, and noticed the furnace was on for the first time this fall despite the fact our thermostat's set around 50º.  Surprise.  We quickly lit the gas fire place and within 15 minutes we were cozy, ensconced on our couches, waiting for the lake and sky to lighten to gun metal gray, the color option for this morning.  It's 36º out right now, the lake like a plate of glass, not a ripple, perfect for kayaking if you don't mind the cold.  We'll stay inside for now.

Yesterday was another yoga Tuesday, a day earlier than usual as my Wednesday class was cancelled and, flexible guy that I am, I went to Tuesday's class with a group of seven.  I am getting tired of saying but I seem unable to do a pose correctly except for savasana, a sleeping pose for 15 minutes.  I am good at that.  Still, I like the class because I feel like I am learning how to do poses correctly, if only I can remember.  That's the hard part.  Class has made me much more aware of sitting and standing postures, as well as walking, so I really do pay attention to walking and standing correctly, stacking my bones, walking as if I have a bowl on my head, tall and straight.  My ham strings often get in the way for various poses but walking, standing, and sitting correctly are no problem if I pay attention.

Evie's Decorated Halloween Cookies...Yum

It's a three hour morning when I go to yoga, leaving around 9:30, returning home around 12:30 if I don't stop somewhere.  When I got home, Evie had made more cookies, and had lunch ready, tuna sandwiches and mushroom barley soup. Wonder Woman.  We are still using the bread I made last week since Evie freezes it in three of four slice packets, pulls them out in the morning, and we have good bread for the day.  It was quite cool out yesterday, so I spent much of the afternoon inside reading and took a nice 45 minute nap...something I am quite able to do most afternoons.  As I napped, Evie worked, this time decorating the Halloween cookies she had baked in the morning.  Decorating them, as you can see from the picture, is time consuming but worth it in the end because they look so professional.

Pumpkin Display at Wegman's

Painted Pumpkins For Sale

We planned on going to a movie but at the last minute decided it was too nice out (the sun had just come out), so we did our shopping at Wegman's (5% off on Tuesday for seniors) and did the unthinkable, at least for us, stopped at Kentucky Fried Chicken and picked up a bucket of classic, along with cole slaw, mashed potatoes, and gravy.  At 5:00 the place was amazingly busy as others must have had the same idea.  We have laughed about  getting a bucket of chicken for years but haven't because it's so unhealthy.  We threw the health thing aside for a day, sinned against the healthy food Gods and 'loved it', just like the good old days in Euclid.  When we were first married, we would go to Kenny Kings for dinner.  They had the same kind of chicken, 'finger lickin good'.   Of course, we ate only two thighs a piece for dinner, so we have enough left for another dinner either tonight or tomorrow, a good deal in the end if you care about cost.

Before dinner, we did sit down and relax with a drink (like my parents, who had either a Manhattan or Martini every night before dinner for probably 50 years) and enjoyed the sunset, marred only my the sound of our neighbor Billy's pump motor, as he spent close to three hours next door in the dark, taking out poles.  Finally, all the docks, poles, and lifts seem to be in along Woodlawn, the lake wide once again.  I am currently reading two books, one long and labor intensive but I am to the section set in Istanbul, after a stint in 1990's Haiti and Yugoslavia just after WW II (you try to figure out the connection...I cannot at the moment).  And I am reading David Downings first Nazi Germany novel, Zoo Station, an easy read compared to the other.

Late Afternoon Sun on Long Point