A Windy, Cold Morning

8:02

7:42

It's 7:30 and I am listening to NPR, a much more balanced and varied start to my morning than MSNBC.  It's not as cold as yesterday, 24º, and a wintry mix is predicted for the rest of the day as we start the climb towards 50º on Thursday.

We woke up with a plan yesterday, unusual for us, to cross country ski at the Audubon Community Nature Center.  We were in no hurry and decided to head there late morning.  So we (Evie) got some things done in the morning, mostly wash and organizing and cleaning up the kitchen.  We drove to the Audubon, a 45 minute drive through Busti.  There were a number of cars in the Audubon's parking lot, a good sign.  We were not sure which trail to take, which way to go, so we started on the yellow, in a counter clock wise direction, the opposite of our usual way.

First Skiing Of 2017

After 15 minutes, we decided to change trails because our skis were sliding, so we jumped on the orange, which eventually took us to the yellow, again, a short cut, and we headed home though a woods of pine trees, which we both love. We were out for more than an hour, following groomed trails at times, bushwhacking a bit at others. This was Evie's first time on skis this year and she did great, loved her new skis and wants to go more often.  We met only two other couples as we skied.

Midway, we stopped to experiment with a selfie stick, which Evie had ordered from Amazon earlier in the week.  As you can see from the photos below, we were not quite adept at using it but eventually we were able to take a decent photo.  Get ready for more selfies on the blog, folks, as Evie's bound to go selfie crazy for a bit.

Not Quite!

Better

We did not get home from skiing until 1:30, and I quickly had lunch, veggie soup and a cheese sandwich made with our homemade black bread.  Yum.  I watched another episode of CASE and then fell asleep, tired from our morning cross country skiing.  I woke around 2:30 and spent a good part of the afternoon reading Springsteen's BORN TO RUN.

Dinner was easy for Evie, just grab some of the meatballs she froze the day before, plop them in a pasta sauce, make a salad and viola, dinner was ready.  We were able, then, to relax with a glass of wine as the day waned, the fishing guys slowly walking back to shore.  We were both hot for spaghetti and meatballs, so we devoured our dinner.

And we finally found our kind of movie, CAPTAIN FANTASTIC, no gratuitous violence or sex, no infantile or stupid humor, just a good story, a funnny and original script, and for once, a group of child actors we both loved.  Briefly, a family tries to live off the grid, hippie like to the extreme, until the mother dies.  Her death forces them to confront the modern world and its conveniences.  The film is much more than that, and we really enjoyed it.  After the film, I watched about 10 minutes of the 'big football' and missed the exciting ending obviously.  I will watch the replay today.  I went up to bed, happy to get back to Bruce.  His life is about to change as he spends six months writing his break through song, BORN TO RUN.

Fire On Lakeside Drive

I forgot to mention around 9:00 we noticed lots of flashing red lights over  on the Bemus shoreline and found out this morning a house on Lakeside Drive caught fire.  If you are familiar with the area, it's a long, narrow one story white house, a ranch with pagoda-like touches.  It sounds like the residents called the fire department and much of the house was saved.