Let It Rain

6:18

7:15

I woke to the sound of rain drops, falling on our roof, soothing and welcoming sounds after a long absence.  It's 47º, cloudy, and we got another half inch of rain over night.  Not much compared to what Houston's been getting but around here lately, it's quite a bit.  The lawn, trees, and bushes love it.  And we just witnessed our first Baltimore oriole of the year, perched on our front porch for a few seconds.  Time to get out the grape jam, the oriole feeder.

A Spring Cardinal

Yesterday was another lazy Sunday, overcast much of the day, with a light drizzle on and off, so fine it almost didn't feel like rain, what my old friend from Istanbul, Jim Lovett, poet and teacher,  would call 'the rain that wets only fools.'  So we stretched out our morning, Evie by baking chocolate chip cookies until about 10:30, when we donned our rain gear (we didn't need it) and went for a walk around the Chautauqua Institutition.  A good part of the way, Evie was on the phone, talking with our daughter in law Mary, about our grandson Nick's graduation party in May.  They got it settled by the time we got to Packard Manor, the half way point.  We ran into pharmacist Jim Rovegno on the way back, as he stopped to say hi.  We have not seen him in a while; he owns a classy, independent pharmacy in Lakewood which we try to frequent.

Chocolate Chip Cookies With Tahini

We came home and while I kept busy outside, Evie quickly put together our breakfast, free range eggs, their shells both white and green, bacon and bagels, and we watched CBS Sunday Morning, no change in our routine.  Evie wanted to get things done because she owed our good friend Vi, a phone call and knew it would fill her afternoon.  But first, Jill, our daughter called from Bristow, about a recipe and the two of them talked for a while.  So Evie's afternoon was filled with phone calls while I watched basketball, read, and took a short nap.  And bizarrely, mid afternoon, we watched ducks waddle from the lake to our back yard, as if they knew where they were going, playing in puddles of water.

A Colorful Wood Duck

A Courting Pair Of Wood Ducks In Our Side Yard

Earlier in the afternoon, Evie had prepped our dinner by searing a chuck roast, sauteing carrots and celery, then slow roasting our dinner for several hours.  We had wine time around 5:30, as the fog rolled in and dinner was practically done except for the mashing of potatoes.  So we had a perfect Sunday dinner, a tender pot roast, with mashed potatoes, gravy and a salad.  Just wanted I wanted on a rainy early evening.

Fog At Wine Time

We watched Obama's last address at the White House Correspondent's dinner on C-Span followed by Larry Wilmore who kept it 'a hundred.'  Meaning he was uncomfortably honest, sparing nobody, especially the press.  It got mixed reviews because of his willingness to go in areas often taboo, like race.  We liked it.  We ended the night watching the penultimate episode of The Good Wife, laughed for the first time in a while when Alicia was told that her husband was having an affair, as if she was supposed to be shocked.  She wasn't and laughed, as if was no big deal, old news.

We ended the day with a dessert of Evie's chocolate chip cookies made with tahini, a sesame seed paste which replaced some of the butter, perhaps more healthy.  They were yummy.  A good way to end the day.