Sunny In Chautauqua

6:03

6:28

6:40

6:41

Up and at 'em, as my Mom used to say, to another clear morning sky, a brilliant sunrise, a quiet lake with an occasional screech of a loon.  It's a surprisingly chilly morning, 38º, but will warm up to the 70's later in the day.  The lake looks so inviting at the moment, silent, empty and calm, that I should get off my couch and kayak but I am too lazy this early in the morning, later too.

It's getting difficult to write about each day without repeating myself because of the sameness of the weather, sunny, blue skies, and warming up.  I cannot remember as many spectacular days in a row like the past week.  By saying this, I hope I am not angering the weather gods.  They tend to punish arrogance, too much good luck.  Anyways, we had our typical Sunday morning, with a great walk around the Chautauqua Institution, which has yet to change much, plant and tree wise, over the past three weeks.  Trees have yet to leaf, daffodils are just green shoots, reminding us that spring here at the lake is much later than other areas.  We could have a frost up to Memorial Day.  Still, there's a beauty in early spring, the budding trees, the deep blue of the lake.  Our Sunday constitutional takes just about an hour, depending on whether we linger or not.

When we returned home, it was too early for brunch, so we worked out in the yard for an hour, planting three privets that we bought last fall from Art Sample.  And I started getting chairs and tables out of storage, carrying them out on the dock, so now we can relax on it.  And I started digging up the area where we had a large tree removed last spring, getting it ready to plant some grass. Around 1:15, we had had enough, so Evie made breakfast and I finished up with the work outside. We watched CBS Sunday Morning, as we enjoyed our eggs, bacon, and bagel, as it was still too cool and windy to eat outside, alas.

We took the rest of the afternoon off, as it was a Sunday, a day of rest.  I read, napped, watched the Cavs first half, and Evie spent some of the afternoon in our side yard getting some sun.  We both felt like we had wasted a good day but on reflection, we did what we wanted, which is why retirement is so great.  If we don't want to do something, we don't have to do it.  It's just that a guilty conscience often rears its ugly head, suggesting that leisure is a bad thing, that we should be doing something.  I have to admit that I have less trouble with this than my dear wife.

By 5:30, we overcame our guilt and settled down for a late afternoon of wine time, with a wonderful cheese, St Andre, crackers and some endamame, so we could feel as if we were being healthy.  It was a quiet and slow sunset on the lake, no boats, few people, just Evie and me or so it seemed. We stretched it out as long as we could.

We had decided early that we did not want to fuss for dinner, so Evie pulled out the Mushroom Man pizza from the freezer, heated it up, and with a salad, we had a good dinner.  We watched some junk TV before figuring out we could get the Anita Hill story, CONFIRMATION, on HBO.  We watched half of it before deciding that bed sounded too good to stay up and finish it.