Pink Sky In The Morning, Sailors Take Warning

6:47

7:14

 Up at 6:20, to a rosy glow off over Bemus Bay though now, at 7:06 the skies back to Chautauqua gray, no surprise.  The lake is frozen, looks like a huge ice rink, though no one has ventured out to fish in the past two days.  Today will be in the 40's, no snow forecast, perhaps that's a thing of the past.

Frozen Lake

Yesterday was our firsts full day at home and we enjoyed it, no real goals, just enjoy being 'present,' sorry for the yoga term!  Unfortunately, I bent over to pick up some cushions and pulled something in my back.  This has never happened before; let's hope its not a sign of things to come.  Anyways, I tried to walk it off, as we went to the CI, to enjoy just being outside after a couple of days in the car, and two rainy days in Virginia.  It felt great to back walking, even though it was not as picturesque as the beach at Sanibel Island.  Still, we enjoyed it, dodging some of the still icy or snow covered roads.

When we returned my back was no better, so Evie got out the heating pad and I did some yoga, hoping that would help.  After our walk, Evie decided to pick up our mail in Lakewood, then shop, and workout.   I stayed home, with my heating pad, had a lunch of veggie soup and barbecued beef, and just took it easy the rest of the afternoon.  Evie came back around 4:00 after walking another 4 1/2 miles at at the Y.  We relaxed around 5:30, with a glass of wine.  Earlier in the day, Evie had put together one of my favorite Turkish dishes called Tas Kebab, really a simple beef stew, with butter, tomato paste, onions, allspice, Maras biber (pepper), and cinnamon, which makes a tasty gravy.  Serve it over mashed potatoes and you are in heaven.

We caught up on more of our saved TV programs, watching Colbert and Stewart, then Parenthood, and some of American Idol.  I finished John D, MacDonald's THE GIRL IN THE BROWN PAPER WRAPPER, one of the  twenty one Travis Mc Gee novels set in Florida.  I read most of them, all with a color in the title, back in the 1980's when our family would stay with my parents in Florida during our school's spring break.  I had forgotten how good he was, a much better writer than many of today's writers, more thoughtful and insightful about human nature, with a clear dislike for what was happening to the environment in Florida, even though he was writing back in the 1950's and 1960's.  I wonder what he would think of Florida today, with wall to wall condos along most of its shoreline, the interior a crisscross of roads and housing developments, pine tree forests gone.  O, well, I am sounding like a tree hugger so I will sign off, get out my heating pad, take some Advil, and start my day.

 It looks like it might be a nice day as the sun is trying to peak out above the clouds, the skies blue off to the north though gray and threatening to the south.

7:30