Gloomy Skies And Snow Showers

Gaggle Of Geese

Cruising 

I slept in until 8:00, a miracle.  Not sure why but  I will take it.  It's a dull, boring morning outside, a monochromatic gray, not very promising, the temperatures in the high 20's.  And I woke thinking it was Monday, not Sunday.  Ridiculous.  Usually by now, I will have heard some shot gun shots, seen rafts of ducks but this morning, a gaggle of 150 geese are floating by, like flotsam on the water.

Yesterday was framed by a few chores, some fun, some things we have to just get done.  For me, it was the weekly trip to the Transfer Station, then to the Lighthouse Grocery, to pick up some goodies for our dinner tonight.  And I stopped at the Smith Library, to return a couple of films, pick up five more I probably won't watch, and a couple of books, one of Evie and my favorite writers, Tony Earley who who wrote JIM THE BOY and THE BLUE SKY, both set in the mountains of North Carolina. Nothing complicated, just a good story, interesting characters, set in the 1930's.

When I got home, Evie was already busy in the kitchen, making a bolognese sauce, an affair which takes three hours of simmering on the stove.  When she had it ready to simmer, she went off to Lakewood, to work out, then shopped at Wegman's, leaving me 'home alone.' Nothing too exciting while she was gone, a lunch, part of a terrible movie called KINGSMEN, a rip off on James Bond, a nap, and finishing Grisham's latest, ROGUE LAWYER.

Winter Paddle

When Evie got home, I felt guilty for not having hiked, so I got on my foul weather clothes and took a long kayak paddle, down to Whitney Bay and back.  I talked briefly to a guy sitting in his front yard, happy to be outside, sitting in front of a fire.  It looked like fun.  The lake was empty except for wildlife and as I paddled near, they would fly away in a seeming panic.  I was out over an hour, loving it because there was no wind and despite the temperatures in the 20's, I was not cold.

Rousting Mallards and Mates

When I got home, it was time to put together dinner; the pork roast was already done, so Evie got out the food processor and put onions and potatoes in it, getting them ready for potato latkes, to go with our pork.  She had looked through various recipes, all different and gradually settled on one from the Smitten Kitchen.  Once they were grated, she added eggs, flour, salt and pepper, dropped a large spoon full into hot oil and fried them, around 20.  Once they were done, we had a great dinner, pork, sauerkraut and latkes, reminiscent of Rich Holzhiemer's favorite dinner.  After dinner, we watched a movie that's been on our to watch list for a couple of years called SARAH'S KEY, worth watching but not great.  Kristin Scott Thomas, however, is wonderful, as a woman discovering the truth about an apartment she has just renovated in Paris, once belonging to a Jewish family.  She discovers that the French facilitated the deaths of over 80,000 Jews during WWII.  And one of them, Sarah, lived in her apartment.