Spring Cleaning

7:02

7:06

7:10

8:29

8:30

8:44

A quiet morning here at the lake, as always.  I was up at 6:40, in time to watch the sky turn from gray, to streaked with pink, to now, at 7:25,  mostly gray.  Perhaps the sunrise in 20 minutes will change that, but for now, the sky is a double of the still frozen lake, gray and gray.  It's 8:30 and the sun has risen above the clouds, covering the lake with its light.

Yesterday was not our typical Monday as I am taking some time off from yoga and since it was the first day of Spring, Evie was energized to do some 'deep spring cleaning,' a task that took up much of the day.  Like the feckless husband that I am, I was little help although, to be honest, Evie usually prefers to do that type of work by herself.

Trails At Long Point State Park

I, too, was wanting to do something active, so I drove over to Long Point State Park, leaving Evie at home with the dining room torn apart.  While she worked on the table and chairs with Liquid Gold, a polish we have been using for years, I was tromping around the woods of Long Point for over an hour.  The woods were still mostly snow covered.  The snow on trails, however, was beaten down and crunchy, from hikers, skiers and even snowmobiles I assume.  I was a solitary figure in the park, enjoying the 30º weather, the open vistas of a snow covered woods, the occasional tap tap tap of a wood pecker.

Still Frozen And Snow Covered Chautauqua Lake

When I got home, the dining room table and chairs were sparkling, the room still in disarray as there was still lots to do.  While Evie vacuumed, I made my lunch, a BLT, and finished off the matzo ball soup.  And I watched the second half of the upset of Duke by South Carolina from Sunday.  The rest of the afternoon went quickly, as Evie would work on cleaning the blinds, a slow, onerous, time consuming task, then take time out to watch the public FBI hearings on TV.  I finished up my Bernie Gunther novel, THE WOMAN FROM ZAGREB and started the next one in the series, THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE.  And I just read the next novel in the series, PRUSSIAN BLUE, will be published in early April, the 12th in Phillip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series.  Cool beans.

Long Point At 6:00 PM

Around 5:30, Evie and I reunited around a cocktail and guacamole and chips, as we enjoyed the waning of the day, listening to, of course, more of the pundits take on the Trump Presidency.  It was a relief to have dinner, an eggplant pasta with tomatoes and watch something else on TV.  Or maybe not because we caught up on the latest Real Time With Bill Maher, which is definitely an opinionated political show.  At least it makes us laugh.  We finished the night with Vice News, saving a couple of our favorite series for another night.