Warming Up For A Day

7:22

7:30

A Raft of Ducks on the Edge of Ice

I woke at 6:45 to what I think was the sounds (high pitched whooping or yodeling) of tundra swans though I could not see them because it was too dark. And yesterday afternoon, Evie spotted a few tundra swans in front of our house but this morning, there's a flock of them, hanging out along the shallow waters of Woodlawn, along with geese and ducks.  Cool beans  It's been a lovely morning sunrise, of a changing orange/blue/gray sky off to the south, mostly gray to the north. It's a warm 36º, the lakes half frozen, and it may even rain later in the day. Yuck.

Tundra Swans

A Late Migration South

Yesterday was breakfast with Charlie, the weather having scared the others away.  We talked about what we might have done had we won the lottery; we both suggested we would have liked to have given it all away a la Bill Gates, but focus much of it on Chautauqua County.  We congratulated ourselves on being so high minded!  The reality?  We would probably have bought condos in New York City, a beach home on Cabo, a villa in Southern France.  I was home by 9:00 and neither Evie nor I were up to an early morning cross country skiing, so I went to Yin yoga, an easy class which seemed difficult for me because holding certain positions for three to five minutes wreaks havoc on my knees and hips.  I hung in there, however, and felt better after class.  I then went to our discount grocery store, Sav A Lot and picked up a couple of porterhouse steaks on sale, some pork chops, and canned beans.  A deal.  I also stopped in the Steadman Coffee shop, to get a pound of Turkish blend coffee for my Bialetti coffee pot.  I talked with the owner and he wants to see what my coffee pot looks like because I told how good the brewed coffee is.  When I got home, Evie was ready for a drive to Lakewood to the Y, and I had lunch, a bagel with cream cheese and squash soup.  And I decided to try TREME, the series set in New Orleans just after the hurricane, set mostly in the black, poverty stricken districts of the city and the world of its African American music and musicians.

Victoria Woods In Winter

Around 4:00, I made the mistake of hiking in the wood, not cross country skiing, so I was blazing a trail in my boots in foot deep snow.  By the time I got back, I had worked up quite a sweat even though it was still cold outside.  Afterwards, we relaxed with a glass of wine before dinner, enjoying the disappearing light over the lake.  Around 6:00,  I went outside and grilled two steaks, while Evie sauteed some mushrooms, and baked some pumpkin rolls, for dinner and to freeze.  Dinner was great, steaks, mushrooms, salad, and baked potatoes and rolls!  We wanted to finish up the series MAKING A MURDERER because this morning on POTUS, our favorite radio host, Michael Smerconish, will spend an hour talking about the show.  So we watched the last two episodes, saw the uncle and nephew get life in prison, as expected.  We, like most people who have watched the documentary, were appalled by the guilty verdicts, the police and one defense lawyer's malfeasance.  The juries, however, did not have the benefit of the watching the documentary and we both agreed had we been on the jury, it would have been hard to stand up against a not guilty verdict.  Neither one of us is convinced of their guilt or innocence.  But if we are not sure, if there is doubt, they should go free. They did not.

After watching this documentary, it only made sense to watch the first hour of the Republican debate which was all I could stand.  The contrast between Obama's optimistic, articulate, sane, and humane State of The Union speech, with the nasty, small minded, venomous, hyperbole if not lies of the Republican candidates was striking.  And it underscored, for me, the contrast between parties, one that seems impossible to bridge.  Interestingly, if John McCain had been elected in 2008 and the state of the union would be the same as it is now, the Republicans would be heaping praise on his Presidency.  Neither side can afford to praise anything the other side of the aisle has done or would like to do; neither can understand how the other can embrace their candidate, whether Obama or Trump. A sad state of affairs, the recipe for a decline and fall, like the Roman Empire unless we find a way to overcome our differences, our polarity.