Sunny, Blue Skies And Ten Below Zero

7:02

Good Morning

 Up at 6:40, to a frighteningly cold morning but a flawless clear sky, an orange blush on the shoreline, waiting for the sun to rise.  I walked outside to get the paper, breathed in the below zero air, sinus clearing, and hurried back in the warm house, ready to read my Post Journal, a five minute task each morning.

Despite yesterday's cold weather, and off and on snow, we journeyed to yoga and the YMCA, taking our time on the snowy roads, surprised at the lack of traffic, wondering if the locals knew something that we didn't about the roads.  They did...there was a 12 car pile up on RT 5 near Sheridan, a result of a white out up near Lake Erie. Anyways, we took our time, classes were fine, and we both felt good about ourselves for having gotten out and done something active.  We then did our weekly shopping at Wegman's, and Evie had her nifty iPad in hand, with her Wegman's app that show her shopping list, replete with the aisle and price of any item she puts on it.  Just what Evie needs, another list.  We walked out to a snow squall in the parking lot, took the back way home, through  Ashville, thinking it would be safer, less traffic, got home around 1:00 and settled in for the rest of the day, after a retro lunch of fried baloney sandwiches and vegetable soup.  No hiking or cross country skiing for us because of the cold and snow.

Winter Winds Whip Up The Lake, Obscuring Tom's Point at 4:00

We had what I will call a 'Betts and Frank' kind of night because it reminds me of my parents.  Evie put together a 1950's meal, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts and salad, and then we sat down like my parents did for probably fifty years and had a preprandial cocktail, for us Manhattans, for my Dad, a martini, my Mom, a Manhattan.  They never seemed to miss a night and lived into their 90's, a salubrious recommendation for a nightly cocktail.  We tend to feel guilty if we have a cocktails too often Puritans that we are,  rationing them to once every couple of weeks though I admit to breaking the rule occasionally, like last night.  No sense in being too fastidious.

Betts and Frank, with our Son Tom, Hawaii, 1969

Dusk at 6:00

Dinner was great, love that meatloaf and mashed potatoes, and we finished the first season of HOUSE OF CARDS, (SPOILER) started the second, and were shocked to see Zoey killed off by Francis.  She was one of the three main players in the series, so it was quite a shock, like Matthew's death in Downton Abbey.  I finished Jayne Anne Phillips QUIET DELL last night and started another Jack Reacher like thriller, THE AMERICAN, by Andrew Britton, fluff no doubt but as my buddy Mac would say, "Moose shit but delicious.'

QUOTATION OF THE DAY:

 “The thing about television right now is that it is an indestructible and terrifying giant that is stronger than the government. It is possible through television to take a small matter and blow it up to monumental proportions,” a quotation from the movie NETWORK.  How prescient, look at Fox News and MSNBC.  They set the agenda for both the right and left---for Fox News, it's Benghazi week after week, since September, for MSNBC it's Chris Christie since January, not necessarily the same but we are tired of both.