Too Early Of A Morning

5:43

6:17

Awake around 5:15, up at 5:35, to an picturesque sky of clouds, light peaking through the cracks, and a chilly though comfortable 57º.  I actually heard a boat out on the lake at that hour and there's a fishing boat off of Victoria as I write at 6:30.  It looks like a good day, weather wise, despite this mornings cloud cover, a high of 73º.

Yesterday was another busy day, mostly for Evie, as she was up early, getting busy, while I went to yoga in Westfield with my neighbor, Kathy Leonard.  It was a rainy ride to Westfield, then to Hardscrabble Road.  There were about 12 of us in the studio in the woods, an ideal location for a yoga studio.  Class was, as always, humbling and informative, as Dariel is a stickler for doing things right.  It rained hard during class, peppering the skylights, and quite humid in class, despite the fans.  But it was a good class, close to two hours long, and Kathy really enjoyed it.  On the way home, we stopped at the Lighthouse, to pick up a mega brisket for Saturday night, a sub for lunch.  When I got home, Evie has already made two soups, her famous vegetable, and a mushroom barley, both favorites of our kids and grandchildren.

We watched some Stewart while eating our subs, then Evie got busy again, getting the brisket ready for a four hour slow cooking in the oven.  I relaxed some, read, then Evie decided to take off with our neighbor's grandkids, to the Dollar Store, to pick out items for our depleted treasure chest.  They had a grand time picking out 'treasures' that they thought our grandchildren and others might enjoy and, of course, Evie let them buy a few things for themselves, the best part of the trip.  She also picked up my boat cover, more expensive then I thought, of course, and came home in the rain.

A Couple of Cuties

The Grilling Birthday Boy and Friend

Around 5:30, we both took showers because we were going over to the Mc Clures to celebrate Ron's SIXTY EIGHTH BIRTHDAY.  By the time we got there, it had cleared up and cooled off, so we needed a fleece or sweat shirt when we sat out side on their deck enjoying a beer and appetizers.  We had not seen them in a week, so we had lots to talk about.  Around 7:25, Ron put the unhusked corn on the grill for 15 minutes, then the New York strips for another 15 minutes and we had a feast.  We gave Ron a solar powered teddy bear on a swing, to go with last years wind up frog that does back flips, both best sellers from the Dollar Store.  He was, of course, overwhelmed with joy and at our thoughtfulness.  We drove home around 9:30, on a surprisingly empty RT 394.  Both of us were tired, from  getting up early, not sleeping as well as we would have liked, so we were off to bed early.

Mc Clure's Antique Bell

I finished my Olen Steinhauer novel, THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS, his first which I did not much like. And I started the highly recommended first novel by Smith Henderson, FOURTH OF JULY CREEK, about a social worker in the wilds of Montana, in the 1980's.