A daily journal of our lives (begun in October 2010), in photos (many taken by my wife, Evie) and words, mostly from
our home on Chautauqua Lake, in Western New York, where my wife Evie and I live, after my having retired from teaching English for forty-five years in Hawaii, Turkey, and Ohio. We have three children, seven grandchildren, and one great-grandson, as you will notice if you follow my blog since we often travel to visit them. Photo taken from our back porch on 12/05/2024 at 8:53 AM
Up just after 7:00, to the whiteness of the lake and yard, the gray of the sky. It's 41º already as the thaw begin for a couple of days alas. Lots of fearless guys are out fishing, their church I guess.
Early Morning Augering
Yesterday was a really good day for us, beginning with a sunny day to take away the winter blues. My day began with a rigorous yoga class and, surprise, three of our Woodlawn neighbors, Barb Fox and Joe and Betsy Bergen attended class, led by Woodlawn veteran, Julie Lescynski. They were up for the weekend, to get in some cross country skiing and a few beers at Pine Junction. After class, I hurried home, gathered the trash and hit the Transfer Station so we could get out on the lake.
We were not sure what to expect when we put on our skis and slid out on to the lake, whether it would be good for skiing or too wet. It was great, no problem with freezing water on the bottom of our skis, so we skied down as far as Whitney Bay and back, working up a major sweat because the temperatures were in the 40's and we had on too many layers. When we got back, I had enough, was sore from both yoga and skiing so I went in. Evie, however, did not want come in so she stayed out another 15 minutes, sucking in the sunlight and warm air.
Ah, The Sun, A Blue Sky, And A Snowy Lake
Before skiing, while I was at yoga, Evie made another pot of vegetable soup as well as using the pressure cooker to cook up a pound of cannelloni beans. Since she used less than a half of them for her soup, after lunch I put together a simple Turkish peasant dish called Kuru fasulye, basically beans with a dollop of tomato paste, sauteed onions and red pepper. There's not much to it but it's tasty and filling, especially when you serve it over rice. The rest of the afternoon Evie spent exploring music on Amazon and, in my case, reading and taking a nap.
Our Favorite Window Table At Forte
We were excited all day about our evening, dinner at Forte and a movie at the Reg Lenna. Ron and Linda picked us up at 6:00 as we had reservations at 6:30 at Forte, in Jamestown, at our favorite table, next to the window in the bar. This has become 'our table' if we call early enough for reservations. Since we have been to Forte numerous times, we all knew what to order: the steak special, with Caesar salad, garlic mashed potatoes or fries, grilled bread with olive oil, and a beer, all for 12 bucks. And our steaks were great, as were the fries and salad and bread. We also had a couple of beers and were out just in time to get in line for theater tickets. Usually, the Reg Lenna's audience is around 50 to 100 people on a good night. Well last night, there was a long line for tickets and the downstairs was filled, probably over 500 people, all to watch the movie SPOTLIGHT, which I assume never made it to the local theater because it was too good...they usually bring only the most ridiculous and infantile films to Lakewood Cinemas. And if it's a decent movie, it lasts only a week. Anyways, before the film started, they had a brief talk about the problem of child abuse and passed out brochures for anyone who might be interested in becoming a counselor. The movie, SPOTLIGHT, was gripping, one of the better films I have seen in the past couple of years. The story, of the cover up by the Catholic Diocese over the past 30 years of priests' abuse of children was tragic, infuriating, and brought most of us close to tears. When the film ended, there was just silence, hardly movement, comparable I think to what the audience felt when watching SCHINDLER'S LIST for the first time. The film was compelling; I was never bored, always on the edge of my seat. Making something as boring as fact gathering takes a great script and some bending of the facts for dramatic effects but from everything I have read, the film was faithful to the story. Everyone should see this film, to see how the Catholic church, like most institutions, businesses, governments, etc, seek to hide their scandals and lie, thinking only of themselves, of their institutions reputation, not the victims. And so it goes.
Because the film was so emotional, none of us felt like going home, so we walked to Brazil's Craft Beer and Wine Lounge around 10:30. It was good to see it was packed with patrons enjoying the libations and we had to stand because there were no available seats. We don't necessarily like their craft beers because they are too hoppy or bitter for us but we found a beer to our liking, a Pikeland Pils from Sly Fox Brewing in Phoenixville, Pa, and spent our time talking about the complexities of the film. We were home by 11:30, tired but happy from such a great night out in Jamestown.
I was up at 6:30 and counted six lights out on the lake, as the weekend fishermen are out perching early in the morning. I got the paper, the moon still visible, casting spooky, shadows of our tree on on our parking area. In the front yard, the sky was divided in half, by a vast cloud bank which gradually sunk, opening to a blue sky, with brushes of pink. It's still cold, 19º but by the afternoon, it will be in the 40's, tomorrow, perhaps, in the 50's.
A Snowy Webb's Trail
The Man In Red
Yesterday was our kind of winter morning, with a blizzard like snowfall on and off till around noon. I decided to skip yoga so we could cross country ski somewhere, so we decided that Webb's Trail would be our best bet, flat and lots of trees along the trail, cutting whatever wind there might be. We were in no hurry, so we got there about 10:30, just as the snow was abating alas. Still, it was great skiing, a layer of at least six inches, and a trail made by a snowmobile. The wind was brutal when we hit open areas but otherwise it was great skiing. We were out about an hour and I had had enough, my legs sore and tired, from skiing and perhaps yoga.
Evie In Winter
We were home by lunch time, so I heated some cauliflower soup and another fish taco, finishing of the perch from the other night. I think I could live on fish tacos if I had a good coleslaw to go along with the perch. The rest of the afternoon we both did our thing, relaxing and enjoying the day, waiting until 4:00 to go back out and ski. We wanted to get a good day of exercise, so we decided to ski on the lake, like I did the day before. Unfortunately, it was not a good experience, as there were wet spots and our skis then froze, so we could not slide. We would have to deice them, then start again and the same thing would happen. And it was really windy, so after struggling for about 15 minutes, we turned around and headed home, disappointed that we could not get a good ski in.
We then relaxed and had our wine and cheese before dinner and Evie was excited beyond description because our daughter-in-law Mary had texted about getting Amazon Prime Music. Since we are Prime members, we were able to download the Amazon Prime Music app to our Sonos systems and we can now listen to almost any group or song. Amazing. We sat and listened to various tunes and playlists until about 7:45. Dinner was easy because Evie had gotten stuffed cabbage rolls out of the freezer early in the day, as well as some frozen mashed potatoes. She popped them into the oven before we had our wine, and they were piping hot when we ate around 8:00, still as good if not better when she made them a couple of months ago. We got caught up on American Idol, two nights worth and got tired of their attempts to bring drama to what should just be an music audition. And so it goes. We went up to read about 10:30, looking forward to more cross country skiing today before the warm weather ruins the conditions.
Another early morning, up in darkness at 6:00 but now, at 7:15, it's beginning to get light. I was surprised to see a light on the lake, a solitary fisherman, out since 6:00, in front of the Long Point Pavilion. The usual guys have yet to arrive and head out from Victoria. They will come. It's 25º at the moment, a wet snow falling, and it is not supposed to get much warmer, great weather for cross country skiing.
Yesterday was another surprisingly warm day, with a high in the 40's during the afternoon, continuing le petit melt. I started the day with breakfast at the Bemus Point Inn with the guys not in Florida. It's always good to see them, to see what others are doing with their day. One is volunteering to help residents with their tax returns, the other driving to Florida next week, then flying to Costa Rica for ten days. I have to admit the latter sounds like more fun. We usually have the same table and the few times that we didn't, the waitresses are always apologetic. Now they have a reserved sign on it for us. I usually get home around 9:15, in time to get ready for yoga and drive to Lakewood for class which begins at 10:00 on Thursdays. It's always a good class, well attended and there were even two guys in class, after a week of women only. We worked on a position called the saddle which I dislike immensely mostly because I cannot do it, probably never will be able to. No big deal. I do something else that approximates the position. The sign of a good yogi is to know your limitations and not worry about it.
After class, I shopped at Aldi's for the first time in weeks, mostly because I had read that they were challenging Whole Foods by going organic to a degree. It was a quick run through as I had a small list and didn't worry about buying organic. The prices on most but not all things are certainly a lot cheaper but you have to know the prices to save money. When I got home, Evie was debating whether to go to the gym because it felt so good to just enjoy being home, not having anything planned for our day or evening. We had had a busy three evenings, with the moonlight trek, the Tuscan dinner, a fish fry with the McClures. Her better angel, however, took over and she went off to Lakewood as I made myself a fish taco and warmed up some vegetable soup for lunch. And I watched TREME though I soon got bored, turned it off and went into the living room to read and nap because I was tired from getting up at 5:30. I am reading Pete Hamil's FOREVER, a fictionalized history of New York City.
Selfie While Cross Country Skiing
Evie did not get home till around 3:00, happy from once again having a good workout, finding her groove. Sometimes working out feels good, at others it's just plain work, no fun. Yesterday, for her, it was fun. I looked outside around 3:15 and it was sunny on the lake, with blue skies, and the guys were beginning to trot out on the lake to fish. So I decided to see whether the lake was good for cross country skiing. And despite the fact that it was warm, just about 40º, the lake felt safe and the surface was great for skiing. So I was able to ski for an hour, in the sun, from Victoria all the way down to Whitney Bay and back, keeping within 10 yards of the shoreline, just to be safe. It was my first time on the lake this year and it felt great. In fact, because of last night's snow, I cannot wait to get back out there this morning.
Fishermen Begin Arriving at 4:16
When I got back, we had little to do for dinner since we were having the leftover chicken with mushrooms and artichoke hearts. We relaxed for an hour, with a glass of wine and pistachios for a snack before Evie went into the kitchen to make a salad and roast some brussels sprouts and we had an easy dinner. After dinner, we anxiously waited, like the rest of America, for Donald Trump's plane to appear at the Des Moines airport, the dawning of the Age of Trump. Get used to it. And when he appeared on stage, we stood to show our respect before the King of Comedy, probably or improbably, the next President of the United States! And so it goes.
I forgot in my excitement that before Trump' arrival, we did watch the next episode of American Crime Story, one of the better mini series on ABC. We both recommend it highly. We channel surfed the rest of the night between the debate, Trump's Circus Act, and the pundits discussing the two ring circus of Trump and the Republican Debate. By 10:00, I had enough and went up to read about the Irish before they immigrated to New York City.
I was up way too early for some unknown reason. I tried to get back to sleep but couldn't so I was up drinking coffee in the dark at 5:30. Not the way I would have like to start my day. Still, since I am up, I was able to catch some great photos of the colorful dawn off to the south. Slashes of pink, orange gray and blue, hover above the shoreline. That's the advantage, the plus, of waking up early. It was chilly out, 23º when I went out to get the paper and the wind occasionally howls through the front door.
Yesterday was a busy day, especially for Evie since we were having he McClures over for an easy dinner, which never turns out to be an easy dinner but one that takes up a good part of the day, despite our good intentions. I did get a good yoga class in at 10:00, in fact, a difficult one as I still feel some of the stretches this morning. And Evie went to the gym around 1:00, leaving me to my lunch and another episode of Treme.
Late Afternoon Fishing
But once she got home, around 3:00, we both seemed to be in the kitchen until the Ron and Linda arrived at 6:00. And I did little of the cooking, just cleaning up. So what took the time. First, we were having perch, left by our fishermen friend, Jerry, last Friday, frozen in water, then thawed. Evie decided to bake one batch, fry another and both needed a different kind of coating. Lots of dishes, large and small ensued. Then she made our dessert, my Mom's ice box pudding, with angel food cake, chocolate mousse and whipped cream. More dishes. I put in my two cents and made my brother-in-law Rich's tartar sauce, with mayo, dill pickles, capers, and hot sauce. A few more dishes. Earlier in the day, Evie also made cornbread muffins and put together the coleslaw, slicing the cabbage with a mandolin, adding radishes and dressing. Around 4:30, she realized that she had not yet made the macaroni and cheese. So out came the cheese grater, the macaroni, the makings for the white sauce and I helped by boiling the noodles. Mostly pots and pans. By 6:00, I was pooped from doing dishes but Evie was still going strong,
Dining In With Linda and Ron
The McClure's arrived just after 6:00 and we quickly poured the beers, got out the appetizers and relaxed, at last, in the living room before Evie and Linda returned to the kitchen to fry up a batch of perch filets to go along with the baked perch. Needless to say, dinner was great, the perch crispy and sweet, the tartar sauce 'out of this world' because I made it. Everyone had a couple helpings of mac and cheese, the coleslaw was gone and only a few cornbread muffins remained. It was the equal of our five course Tuscan dinner albeit with fish and beer. After dinner, we watched an amazing video we just came across, of four guys kayaking the Chautauqua Gorge three weeks ago, navigating snow and ice covered banks, the rapids and ice, tipping at times, even having to be dragged out of a hole by a rope. It was really an amazing video. We ended the night in front of the fireplace, enjoying the icebox pudding before Linda and Ron headed home, just after 10:00. A fun night, the dinner worth the prep.
I made the mistake of reading of a review of this book (something I rarely do) by Claire Messud from the New York Times and realized it was so spot on and I had to publish it on my blog. So here it is...enjoy. I did. And read the book! "One of this nation’s most abiding myths is that social origins don’t matter. Each of us is Gatsby, or can be, with the potential to be reinvented and obliterate the past. This is nowhere more true than in New York City, where, surrounded by millions, each person supposedly stands upon his or her own merits. If we reach a sophisticated urban consensus on how to speak, how to dress, how to live, then who will know what lies beneath the surface? Who will know what any one of us might really mean by words like “home,” “childhood” or “love”?
Elizabeth Strout is a writer bracingly unafraid of silences, her vision of the world northern, Protestant and flinty. “Olive Kitteridge,” her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of linked stories, gives life to a woman both fierce and thwarted, hampered in her passions at once by rage and a sense of propriety. The narrator of Strout’s powerful and melancholy new novel, “My Name Is Lucy Barton,” might be a distant relation of Olive’s, though she is raised in poverty outside the small town of Amgash, Ill., rather than in Maine, and her adult home, where most of the novel takes place, is in Manhattan.
Lucy is a writer — words are her vocation — and yet she, like Olive, hovers at the edge of the sayable, attempting to articulate experiences that have never been and, without the force of her will, might never be expressed. She says she decided in the third grade to be a writer after reading about a girl named Tilly, “who was strange and unattractive because she was dirty and poor.” Books “brought me things,” she explains. “They made me feel less alone. This is my point. And I thought: I will write and people will not feel so alone!”
Lucy Barton’s story is, in meaningful ways, about loneliness, about an individual’s isolation when her past — all that has formed her — is invisible and incommunicable to those around her. Like the fictional Tilly, she endured a childhood of hardship, shunned even by her Amgash classmates, living in a world incomprehensible to her adult friends in New York. Not only did the family have little heat and little food, they had no books, no magazines and no TV: There was a lot for Lucy to catch up on.
Hers is also, though, a simple love story, about a girl’s unquestioning, almost animal love for her mother, and her mother’s love in return; about how what is invisible and incommunicable is not only what isolates but also what binds.
Lucy’s account, told many years later, primarily records a five-day visit from her mother when Lucy was hospitalized with a mysterious infection for almost nine weeks in New York in the mid-1980s. At the time, Lucy had a husband and two small daughters, ages 5 and 6, but she had been largely estranged from her parents since her marriage. We learn that her father — a World War II veteran whose agonies and aggressions remain somewhat oblique, but who would be described in traditional parlance as having had a “bad war” — can’t abide the fact that Lucy’s husband is of German extraction, with “blond German looks” to match.
Elizabeth Strout
Over the course of Lucy’s mother’s unexpected stay, the older woman remains in the hospital room with her daughter, taking only occasional catnaps. (“You learn to, when you don’t feel safe,” she observes, prompting Lucy to reflect, “I know very little about my mother’s childhood.”) They pass the time making up nicknames for the nurses and gossiping cheerfully about the fates of some of the girls and women from Amgash Lucy knew in her youth: snooty Kathie Nicely, who fell in love with a schoolteacher (who turned out to be gay) and then was shunned by her husband and daughters; Cousin Harriet, who “had that very poor luck with her marriage” and was left to raise her children as an impoverished young widow; Marilyn Somebody, married to a man who, sent almost immediately to fight in Vietnam, “had to do some terrible stuff, and . . . he’s never been the same”; or Mary Mumford, a.k.a. Mississippi Mary, who married well and seemed to have it all, but upon discovering her husband’s long-term affair with his secretary suffered a heart attack.
In discussing these narratives, they circle around those things they can’t broach openly. They don’t talk about Lucy’s father’s episodes, “what as a child I had called — to myself — the Thing, meaning an incident of my father becoming very anxious and not in control of himself”; or about the fact that Lucy’s parents struck their children “impulsively and vigorously”; or about her terror of being locked in her father’s truck and her horror at even hearing the word “snake.” They don’t discuss why Lucy’s brother still lives at home and reads children’s books, or why “he goes into the Pedersons’ barn, and he sleeps next to the pigs that will be taken to slaughter.” And, above all, they don’t talk about Lucy’s present life in New York, about the stories she’s published or her young family and new friends.
Lucy, exhilarated simply by her mother’s presence — “I was so happy. Oh, I was happy speaking with my mother this way!” — has, at least many years later, made her peace with all that their conversations elided and, it would seem, with the pain associated with the unsayable and the unsaid. “I have asked experts,” she reflects. “Their answers have been thoughtful, and almost always the same: I don’t know what your mother remembered. I like these experts because they seem decent, and because I feel I know a true sentence when I hear one now. They do not know what my mother remembered. I don’t know what my mother remembered either.
Strout articulates for her readers — albeit often circumspectly, perhaps the only way — the Gordian knot of family, binding together fear and misery, solace and love. Lucy Barton, although still a young woman in her hospital bed, is already far from the hardscrabble silences of rural Amgash; but in her uncertain illness nothing can console her like her mother’s presence — “It was the sound of my mother’s voice I most wanted; what she said didn’t matter.” In a moment of crucial directness, Lucy explains: “I feel that people may not understand that my mother could never say the words I love you. I feel that people may not understand: It was all right.”
Interspersed with Lucy’s memories of these precious five days are intimations of her marriage and its ultimate failure, along with portraits of her beloved doctor and her friends and mentors at the time — in particular a neighbor named Jeremy, who dies of AIDS, and a writer and teacher named Sarah Payne. These are the people who see Lucy as an artist, giving her a new sense of belonging, and, in Sarah’s case, exhorting her to look unflinchingly at a story. “If you find yourself protecting anyone as you write this piece,” Sarah tells her, “remember this: You’re not doing it right.”
Whether Strout once had a literary guide like Sarah Payne (an imperfect guide, flawed as are all these beautifully too-human characters) or whether she herself has been one, her fiction certainly enacts the fierce clarity of vision Payne demands: There is not a scintilla of sentimentality in this exquisite novel. Instead, in its careful words and vibrating silences, “My Name Is Lucy Barton” offers us a rare wealth of emotion, from darkest suffering to — “I was so happy. Oh, I was happy” — simple joy."
Woke up at 7:00 to a white morning and the lake and yard are once again covered with snow, most likely an inch or two. Early, it was snowing hard enough so I could hardly see past the trees but now, at 8:00, it's cleared up a bit, and the fishing guys are back out on the lake and there's some color above the horizon where the sun rises. It's 27º and should not get much warmer as the cooler weather returns for a day or two before the warm weather and rain returns. Yuk.
Fishing On Thin Ice Yesterday Afternoon
Yesterday was you a warm, winter day, rain, melting snow and muddy, sometimes slushy roads. It made us feel good to know we went snowshoeing the evening before the coming of the rain. So, we decided early it was going to be a day of yoga and working out at the YMCA. I was off to yoga at 9:30, another good class, and a cup of coffee afterwards at Ryders Cup. The routine rarely changes; when I got home, Evie had put together another soup, this time an Indian recipe for cauliflower soup, with all those good Indian spices. She then left to do some shopping at Wegman's and to workout at the gym. I made a couple of tomato and toasted cheese sandwiches to go with the soup and watched another episode of TREME, which deals often tragically with the aftermath of Katrina, the loss of life and home and culture.
Evie's Photograph From Yesterday
Evie was home by 3:00, happy with her workout and with bags of groceries. I helped bring in the groceries and put things away and we both then relaxed until 5:00, reading or watching some TV.
A Tuscan Dinner
We then showered, got dressed up and went off to Andriaccio's, a local Italian restaurant which was having a special Tuscan dinner, along with accompanying wines. We went with our friends, Jane and Jerry Grice and they included their friends, Kip and Lisa. I knew Lisa from yoga and her coffee shop Wired in Bemus. The dinner was all we could have asked for, starting with a Tuscan version of a onion soup, with pancetta and Fontina cheese, roasted Sea Bass with gnocchi, a roasted garlic infused mushroom tart with arugula, a tenderloin on Mascarpone polenta, and biscotti for dessert. The sommelier was great, explaining the Tuscan wines, where they came from, the flavors they include.
Tuscan Onion Soup with Pancetta Crostino
Our Favorite Wine, With Vine
Grilled Strip Loin On Mascarpone Polenta
We got to know Lisa and Kip, who own Willow Run, the par three golf course just up the street from Woodlawn. They are both residents of Bemus Point and grew up in the area. Jane and Jerry were great fun, as always and we all would like to do this again. I think there will be another dinner like this in February but it will have a South American theme.
We got home around 9:00, in time to watch some of the brouhaha over Trump's refusal to participate in the debate because of Megan Kelly's supposed bias. What a baby but he's getting a lot more press than he would have had he stayed part of the debate. No matter what he does, he gets coverage by the media. And I don't even think he tries, he does it unconsciously. He just reacts and the media follows with excitement and interest, as do his followers. This is a guy who listens to no one, not even his own common sense. Just fires back, trust his gut and sees what happens. So far, so good for him.
Well, it's warming up, alas, turning the beauty of winter into something that resembles the drizzle and mud of Spring. Gray, almost blue skies, and a sad 39º out, the cause of the thaw. A wintry mix is predicted, meaning rain and some snow, not the kind of weather for hiking or skiing. So, it looks like yoga and working out at the YMCA for the two of us today. Surprisingly, there are a few fishermen out on the lake, which has lost it's whiteness, is now a slick, wet gray. The only plus of the melt...it's getting cold again tomorrow, perhaps refreezing the lake, making it good for ice skating.
Yesterday began with Evie getting up late, around 8:30, just in time to pick out the photos and edit the blog before I drove off to Eight Limbs Yoga. It was surprisingly warm, not that bitter 10º morning air that I have been used to. Lots of ladies in class and I was the only guy for the first time this month. After class, one of the ladies asked me if THE LIFE CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING UP, a book I had mentioned in class last winter, had really changed my life. I had to say no but perhaps it had changed my wife's and my grandchildrens' lives because Evie had helped them to rearranged and tidy up their rooms. I think she was disappointed, hoping it had changed my life. I guess I am too lazy to fold my boxers and tee shirts properly.
When I returned home, Evie was still sitting on the couch, having spent most of the morning on the phone talking with our daughter Jill and my sister Ellen, about the snowfall that had basically blockaded the Washington and Northern Virginia areas. Neither family could get out of their driveways and the streets in Herndon were still not plowed (even as of last night) because the two and a half feet of snow. It made me wonder what would happen with our private road if we ever got a storm like that. We could be locked in for a week or more. Better stock up on chips and dip and beer.
We had an idea yesterday of joining a snowshoeing group on a moonlit hike, led by a naturalist from the Allegany State Park. So, before lunch, I called and got all the information, so we decided to participate. We then had lunch, read some, then starting getting ready for our excursion. Because the group was leaving at 4:30 to start the trek, we had to leave here around 3:15 because it was close to an hour drive to the park, to the Summit's warming hut. When we arrived, we were surprised by the number of cars and lots of people. All told we had a group of twenty, plus two naturalists. Everyone was very friendly, introduced themselves, and made us feel welcome. Most of the group were either from Bradford, PA or the Ellicottvile area and seemed to know each other or had been on the hike the week before.
Ready To Snowshoe
Most of the trails do not allow snowshoeing because they are for cross country skiers, so the naturalists had put together a new trail, following what they said was an old horse trail, called Bear Paw. It was a two and a half mile loop, with various stations where we would stop to look at something, a tree, or bush, whatever, and the naturalist would talk about it.
Listening To Our Naturalist
It was a fairly easy hike, nothing too hard although a couple of people did slip and fall. We walked out in the dimming sunlight and home in utter darkness, illuminated only by the headlamps of a number of the hikers.
Hikers From Texas And Pennsylvania
Hiking Out As Sunsets
Hiking Back In Darkness
It was really a great hike, the walk out, the sun setting illuminating the sky off to the West, then the hike home in dark, spooky and yet welcoming, as the stars started to appear. When we got back to the lodge, the group from Bradford had brought a cooler with food and drinks, so they stayed on to enjoy the end of the walk.
View From Stone Tower
We decided to head to the Horseshoe Inn, our new favorite restaurant/bar in the area but to our great and I emphasize great, disappointment, it was closed for some reason. So, we had to head home, hungry and thirsty, and a bit put out since I had checked their website and they were supposedly open for business.
We got home around 8:30, and Evie quickly made a salad, heated up some pumpkin rolls and got out the soup so we had a quick, easy but good dinner. We watched the new series, BILLIONS, a bit disappointing this week but we will stick with it. We then watched Bernie Sanders answer questions from the audience and both of us were impressed with him. He's definitely a good man, with a great heart, and would dramatically change things if elected President, moving us closer to a European style of government, where many of the needs of the people, like health care and retirement are taken care of by government. I don't think it will fly here in the capitalistic, individualistic world of the United States.
Well, it's 7:45 and the fishermen have been out for at least an hour, like ants crawling on a white table cloth. Off to the Southeast, the sky is streaked with pink and gray and it's warming up, a toasty 23º. Not a good sign as we don't want it to warm up until April!
Skiing Chautauqua Country Club
Yesterday for us and most of America was football Sunday, two big games filled the screen from 3:00 to 9:30. But the morning and early afternoon was ours to do as we liked, so we started with a rousing cross country skiing morning on the Chautauqua Golf Club's course. We had never skied the course before and were not sure we would like it because it's so open, few wooded areas, just vast fairways of white. But it ended up being fun and Evie especially enjoyed it because it was mostly flat with gentle slopes, no big hills to speak of. We skied from the clubhouse to the southerly end of the course and back, following the tracks of other skiers at times. We were the only ones on the course until we were skiing back to the clubhouse when we saw another couple snow shoeing up one of the fairways. We loved the view, skiing with the lake off in the distance, beyond the fairways, streets, and houses of the Chautauqua Institution. We will be back.
Sunny At 4:00
Still There At 5:00
We skied for an hour and were home by 12:30, after stopping to talk with our neighbors, the Fox's, who were heading home, alas. They mentioned our friend, Jerry, who dropped off a couple of bags of frozen perch for us on Friday. We wanted to make sure the fish was not sitting out for a week. He left a note with his phone number, so Evie texted him later in the day with a thank you. We cannot wait to fry them up this week.
Breakfast was our typical Sunday breakfast, eggs, bacon and sesame seed bagels and we watched, what else, CBS Sunday morning, always interesting. We then spent the rest of the day inside watching football though we regretted it as the lake was extraordinary and the fishing guys were out in full force. Late afternoon, neighbors were out on the lake walking their dog, others were on the lake cross country skiing. We should have been out there. We even saw what we think was either a lost dog or a coyote or fox trotting in the middle of the lake late morning.
Dog, Coyote, Or Fox
Long Point Late Afternoon
During the commercials, Evie put together our dinner, a classic go to dish which she first started making when we lived in Hawaii in 1967, chicken with artichokes and mushrooms. The only difference between then and now: we used canned mushrooms and artichoke hearts then, fresh mushrooms and frozen artichoke hearts now. We wanted to enjoy a glass of wine and some cheese before the sun set but the Patriots comeback and almost victory kept us in the TV room till 6:30. We had the chicken with rice and watched some of the Panther/Cardinals game until we just got sick of watching football. So, we watched some junk TV because not much is on Sunday night before 10:00, when I went upstairs to read. Evie followed around 10:30.
It's just hit 8:00 and I have been up since the crack of dawn, a slice of pink sky as it were before it clouded up. Now the sky is a gray curtain, contrasting with the whiteness of the lake. And it looks like fishing season has begun because I can count more than a dozen guys out on the lake, black stick figures on the lake's whiteness. It's a frigid 10º and we have not had snow in a couple of days.
Yesterday turned out to be a great winter day, lots of snow on the ground and blue skies, puffy clouds, the kind of weather that draws even the most house bound outdoors. I began my day at 9:00 with another yoga class, lots of others had the same idea. I stopped for a coffee, said aloha to the regulars and came home, just in time to gather the trash and hit the Transfer Station, probably my only 'must do' chore of the week. Evie had skipped working out the day before so she felt guilty and even though she did not feel much like traveling to the Y, her conscience got the best of her and she drove off to Lakewood around 12:30.
I had a lunch of a leftover breaded pork chop,with apple sauce and a bowl of vegetable soup. And I watched, what else, college basketball games on the tube. The various channels are littered with college basketball these days, so that you often have a choice of five or six games every two hours. I tend to watch Kansas, my son Tom's favorite team. Since I finished Elizabeth Strout's MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON in two days (its a short novel), I started another Bruno, Chief of Police novel, BLACK DIAMOND set in the wine country of France. The black diamond refers to truffles by the way.
Let's Go!
Snow Shoeing Long Point State Park
When Evie returned around 2:30, the day, the blue sky, the clouds, were at their peak, beckoning us to snowshoe or cross country ski. So, we drove over to Long Point State Park, strapped on our shoes and skis, and spent a good hour, on the worn, busy paths of the park. Obviously, lots of others had the same idea, as their were lots of tracks from skis, snowshoes, and snowmobiles. Interestingly, we hardly saw a anyone except for a couple of dog walkers, probably because they were out earlier in the day. It felt good to be out on the trails again, breathing in the cold air, working up a sweat despite the cold temperatures.
5:14
Long Point
We were home around 4:30, the late afternoon sky amazing, in time to relax for a couple of hours before showering and getting ready to go out to dinner to Steener's Irish Pub, a place we have not been to in a couple of months. It was a busy place, with lots of snowmobilers drinking beer but we found couple seats at at the bar and were welcomed by Jeremy, the bartender. We unfortunately did not strike up a conversation with any of the patrons as we usually do but we still had a good time, ordering their homemade french fries for an appetizer, then splitting the 16 oz. Delmonico steak dinner, a special, with a draft, salad, and fries included. It was just what the doctor ordered, to use a cliche, and we left happy with our meal, especially the fries. Yum.
Dusk On The Lake: 6:05 p.m.
We got home at 8:30 and watched the weather channel and CNN, as they chronicled the snowstorm, minute by minute, as it tucked in both New York City and Washington. My sister Ellen, who lives in Herndon, just out side of Washington, sent us photos of the 30+ inches of snow they got by nightfall. Amazing. We then watched Real Time with Bill Maher, just what we needed as he is so adept at satirizing our politicians and his guests like author Jon Meacham, are always insightful as well as fun.
