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| Tufted Titmouse in Lilac Tree |
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| 7:42 |
It's 7:10 and the outdoors, the trees, the lake, the shorelines, are just beginning to become visible. I am listening to CNN talk about what to expect in 2018 as the furnace turns on and off, measuring my morning. It's warmed up some, no longer a 12 below like yesterday morning. It's a toasty, double-digit 10º. Unfortunately, the wind is picking up, perhaps the reason I have yet to see any ice fishermen on the lake. Perhaps they had a hard night. And today marks the beginning of the New Year. To the natural world, it's just another day, one that's moving inexorably toward spring. Mankind is the only part of the natural world that celebrates the new year.
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| Trudging Out To Ice Fish With Sleds |
Yesterday was a long day as we spent most of it inside, waiting to go out to dinner at 6:00 with our friends, Linda and Ron. Evie, the lucky gal, slept in some but I was up at my usual 6:00 or earlier. We had gotten four or five inches of snow overnight, so after a leisurely morning of doing little, I went outside around noon and cleaned off the car, moved it, then shoveled our parking area, lately an everyday occasion.
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| Scrappy the Squirrel Enjoying Berries |
When I came in from the single digit weather, Evie had a big breakfast ready, our typical Sunday repast of home fries, fried eggs, bacon and toast or a bagel. We watched CBS Sunday morning, which talked mostly about this past year, somewhat of a bore I thought. I lived it and did not want to relive it (Trump) again.
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| Ready To Head Home |
The rest of the afternoon we did little, watched some TV, a couple of football games, read, napped, cleaned up the kitchen, things like that to keep busy. I also made some Turkish tea which went nicely with the yogurt cake. I also watched the surprising Buffalo Bills play pretty well and eventually beat the Miami Dolphins, clinching a playoff spot for the first time since 1999. Late afternoon, we both showered and got gussied up for our night out. Linda and Ron picked us up at 6:00, just as it started to snow again. We were eating at the Landmark, in downtown Jamestown. The roads were slippery enough that we almost turned around and had hot dogs at our house. But it seemed to clear up around Lakewood, so we marshaled on to Jamestown. We had drinks in the bar while we waited for our table and I ended up talking with Tabby, our local Ashville librarian.
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| Night Out With A Couple Of Cuties |
We were seated around 7:15 and the dining room was packed with locals of all ages, from golden agers like us to teenagers. We ordered a bottle of Apothic red wine and some calamari for an appetizer. Linda and Ron were in good spirits because one of their feral cats, Claymore, who had gone missing for a week, suddenly returned yesterday in good shape. How he survived in the subzero weather remains a mystery. Everyone ordered fish, two salmons, one sea bass but not me. I felt like Italian, veal parm with spaghetti. We enjoyed our dinners, the festive atmosphere of the restaurant and as usual, our checks were screwed up, Ron paying for three dinners, me for only one. Unfortunately, he caught it so I had to fork over a twenty to make up for the screwup. This seems to happen to us quite often and usually, I am the benefactor. We took our time driving home as the roads were still slippery, arriving at our house around 10:00. Neither of us were excited about staying up till midnight, so we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. Evie and I stayed up watching some TV until 11:00, then went up to read and sleep, too tired to welcome in the New Year, a couple of wimps.
Evie and I both liked this poem enough to end 2018's first blog with it. One of my former Robert College students put it on Facebook. Enjoy.
An Easy Prayer For Pagans
O Karma, Dharma, pudding and pie,
gimme a break before I die:
grant me wisdom, will, and wit,
purity, probity, pluck, and grit.
Trustworthy, helpful, friendly, kind,
gimme great abs and a steel-trap mind.
And forgive, Ye Gods, some humble advice -
these little blessings would suffice
to beget an earthly paradise:
make the bad people good
and the good people nice,
and before our world goes over the brink,
teach the believers how to think.
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