That Morning Sky

6:52

7:05

A restless night, kind of waiting for the clock to hit 6:00 so I could get up.  Fortunately, it's been fun watching the morning sky, at first festooned with jet streams, like sky writers in the sky and now, a full blooded sun rising, filling the sky and lake with its light.  And Evie's up now, at 6:45, also unable to sleep in, looking forward to the sunrise.  It looks like a sunny and warm Sunday, a harbinger of spring, a high of 55º.

Yesterday was sloppy Saturday, as the snow began to melt, yards began to appear and everyone needed some kind of rubber boots to walk.  I decided to go to Saturday's yoga, a popular class of twelve, more challenging than classes during the week, with some variety (at my request...I am good friends with the teacher!).  After class, I stopped at Ryder's for a cup of java and to pick up a dozen fresh eggs, as one of my fellow yoga students mentioned she had a dozen waiting for me.  Nothing like fresh, organic eggs.  Then, a quick trip to Wegman's to pick up a few things.   When I got home, Evie was trying to decide what to bring to the Cousins Christmas at the Kinney's at 5:30.  She finally decided on a cauliflower soup and home made potato chips, so the rest of the afternoon was mostly taken up with getting both of these dishes ready.  A good idea or two by the end takes up much more time than planned.  The results, however, were worth it.

My major task, as usual, was to drive to the Transfer Station to get rid of trash and this time, a couple of gallons of salad oil, leftover from our deep fryer.  Fun.  It's always a pleasure to get rid of trash, like tidying up your garage and kitchen.  The rest of the afternoon I helped out when necessary in the kitchen, kind of like a gofer and dishwasher.  And I watched a couple of basketball games, usually for ten or fifteen minutes before I got bored.  It's no fun when you no longer are familiar with the teams or the players.  All was finished in the kitchen by about 4:00, giving us time to relax some and get cleaned up before the gathering at 5:30.

With Julie, My Yoga Guru

The Master Of Ceremonies, Jim, With His Wife, Barb

Maggie, With Last Year's Gift Hat

The event, a Dirty Santa gift exchange, has been happening for years with our neighbors, at first the Fox's and Lauers, then Kinneys, later Bergen's, and now us.  It's basically a crazy gift exchange between various members of the families invited, some coming a distance to participate.  Everyone brought appetizers and beers, so we were extremely happy and full by the time we started opening the often outrageous and hilarious gifts.  Led by the maestro, Jim Fox, we either picked out a wrapped package out of the corner or better yet, took one that was sitting on a neighbor's lap.  It was fun watching people trying to decide by looking at the package, whether it was worth it or not.  At the end, there's a 30 second free for all where you can exchange or take a gift from a neighbor, quite wild.  We then spent another hour opening each gift, one person at a time, laughing at the silly and kitschy gifts, some re-gifted from previous years.  Evie got one of the best, a ceramic frog in a bikini with sunglasses, classy kitsch, which we hope to set on our septic tank although she fits perfectly on our kitchen windowsill.

Reclining Frog

Ethan and His Fiancee, Jen

Our Neighbors, Eileen and Flip 

We were done with the festivities around 9:30, hit the appetizer table and refrigerator again, and I am sure many stayed to the wee hours.  We went home around 10:15, as others were starting to leave as well.  It was needless to say a fun night.  Like I said, we have great neighbors.

An entry from Hal Borland's SUNDIAL OF THE SEASONS, for February 28th.  It describes perfectly, for me, the coming months of March and April here on Chautauqua Lake.

"Now come the watery days. The melt sets in, brooks flow, rivers run, even the upland pastures begin to ooze.  Not every day or all day even,  but with a persistence that only nature and the seasons know. The melt, and then the rain, and the frost deep down begins to leach out, upward by capillary action instead of downward by gravity.  And the sap, matching the frost, moves up the trunks and out into the furthest branchlets.  

In the big span, life began long ago in ahe water and the shoreline ooze.  An so it is today, and every year.  Spring  starts in the watery days, in the soggy soil.  Water, the life-giver, the prompter of root and bulb and seed and leaf.  Water, the solvent which carries nutrients by the ton for the plant life of this earth.  A waterless Spring is a dead Spring, as a waterless planet is a dead planet.

We come now to a time of more rain than snow, more melt than ice.  To longer days, which draw the fangs of the cold.  To change, slow and creeping change that leaves us impatient with its deliberation. Change that drips from the eaves, and flows singing in the brook, and oozes from the sod, and that, in its own ordered time, will come green across the hilltops."