EARLY RISING ON CHAUTAUQUA LAKE: Cooling Down With A Morning Mist

A daily journal of our lives (begun in October 2010), in photos (many taken by my wife, Evie) and words, mostly from our home on Chautauqua Lake, in Western New York, where my wife Evie and I live, after my having retired from teaching English for forty-five years in Hawaii, Turkey, and Ohio. We have three children, seven grandchildren, and one great-grandson, as you will notice if you follow my blog since we often travel to visit them. Photo from our porch taken on 11/03/2024 at 7:07 AM

Saturday, June 2, 2018

Cooling Down With A Morning Mist

7:44

I woke at first light, around 5:30, to the symphony of birds, turned over and slept in, for me, until 6:30. It's a deliciously cool morning, 62º, a much-desired change from 80º weather and humidity. At the moment, it's overcast, foggy, gray with a light wind, not very inviting for kayaking. But I went out anyways, fighting the wind and waves most of the way.

Rough Seas

Yesterday began with kayaking and yoga at 9:30, a small but good class. Julie always takes time to help new students. After class, I felt like doing something, so I took a quick trip to Aldi's, mostly to look around at all the 'stuff' on sale this week. I bought a few staples, nothing interesting, and some radishes for Evie. What a good guy. When I got home, Evie was ready to head to PT and I made an Aldi's turkey sandwich, to go with some Asian noodles. I watched the end of the film, ANON, and I would give it a C+. worth watching but not riveting.

We then alternated between working in the yard and coming in because of threatening thunderstorms. We did get some drizzle but there was flooding in the area, with 3-5 inches of rain. We were just lucky to avoid it. We did get some more weeding done and are about finished with it, thank goodness. It's back-breaking work and makes me wonder why have a flower garden. Why not just gravel the yard over like in Arizona.

Smiling Unhappy Diners

We were going out to dinner with neighbors, leaving at 6:15, to the Stockton Inn, a place we have liked and been to three or four times of the past year. A BIG MISTAKE. We should have known when we could hardly find a place to park. Also, we had to wait twenty minutes for a table even though we had a reservation. Unfortunately, that was not the only wait. We sat down at 7:20 and an hour and a half and a couple of beers later, we finally got our fish fry, the restaurant practically empty. To say we were unhappy would be an understatement. According to our waitress, the kitchen staff was new. I vaguely remembered seeing the below message on the restaurant's Facebook a few weeks ago. Why didn't we pay more attention?

This is no excuse really for any restaurant. After some discussion, the manager knocked 50% off our bill and sent us home with five desserts. It's going to be difficult, however, to go back or even recommend it to friends even though the fish fry and french fries were quite good. As our friend said, at least we will have a good story to tell.