Rainy Daze (Week?)

Dahlia A Day

6:45

Kayaking In The Rain

I was up at 5:30, listening to the sounds of the pouring rain and it has not stopped yet, an hour later.  Still, a dark sky, a heavy gray overcast, a cool 60º and it may last most of the day, much of the week.  I would love rain except for the fact that we have Beth and Marisa here and the rest of the gang arrives in phases through Thursday.  I just checked the rain gauge, 2 inches so far as I wait for it to let up some so I can get in a paddle.  At least the wind has died down.  I did get out for forty-five minutes, to a constant rain when I started, a drizzle when I finished. And I found a tube in the reeds and brought it home in case someone lost it.

Scavenging The Reeds

Yesterday the winds continued most of the day, unsettling, and I cannot remember 36 hours like this.  It meant a tough paddle in the morning and no dock time or swimming although it was warm enough to want to jump in the lake.  We did not get started with the day till late, around 10:00 when everyone was up.  Since the porch was straightened and the risers painted yesterday, Evie was thinking of new ways to arrange it.  While we cleaned the kitchen and got things ready for a trip to the Transfer Station, Beth was in the attic, looking for tables and chairs that might work on the porch.  And like Alladin, she came down with tables and chairs that really seemed to work, chairs that we have had in our attic since we bought the house.  Beth and Evie decided the coffee table was too large, so they brought in the wooden table we use for plants, and Evie found a Turkish Kilim to put over it and we had a completely remade porch.  Now we cannot wait to sit out there and have the family arrive to enjoy a glass of wine on a sunny afternoon (even rain).

As In Johnny!

While all this was going on, Evie was also making up a mega shopping list on her iPhone.  So we all jumped in the car around 11:30 and drove off to Wegmans on a busy Saturday afternoon.  With Evie, Beth and Marisa, I knew it was going to be a long shopping day, so I dropped them off and did a couple of errands, picking up some booze, stopping in at Home Depot for some liquid Miracle Gro which Evie wanted for her annuals.  I then hit Wegmans, grabbed a cart, and bought the beer, water and paper towels, checked out, put them in the car, came in thinking they might be done. No way, they were still in the bakery!  So I, fortunately, had brought my Kindle along so I  walked down to the cafe and sat there for another 20 minutes until Marisa called me and said they were at the cashier's, ready to depart.  Since I had already emptied one cart and they pushed two more groaning with groceries to the car, it took a magician to figure out how to get everything in the back of our Outback.  We did it, barely, and drove home, getting there at 1:30, two hours after leaving.  It took a good twenty minutes to unload the car and put things away.  Then, Beth made us a Greek salad, with feta, tomatoes, and cucumbers and we split a half of rotisserie chicken for lunch.  It was pleasant eating on the porch, protected from the wind.

Flowers From Evie's Garden, Arrangement By Beth

I then took a cat nap, came downstairs, and the gang was on the front porch with our neighbors, Joyce and Pat, and they spent a good half hour catching up.  Pat said she was bored, so she made some whoopie pies and brought a bag over for us.  Yum.  Around 3:30, Evie decided she wanted to mow the lawn, her idea of fun, so Beth, Marisa, and I decided to go to Michaels (with a quick run through T. J. Maxx), to pick up some paints and brushes for rock painting, and permanent markers for a fun tablecloth I bought a couple of years ago.  It's filled with outlines of all sorts of things, mostly food, and we are to color in the objects, creating a masterpiece of color and food.  Both are perfect hobbies for the rainy days to come.  Marisa started on it filling a pumpkin and strawberries and her take was it's going to be a long time before it's completed.

8:34...Perfect For A Swim?

Around 6:30, Evie finished up the lawn and came in and we started getting dinner ready, our old standby, sockeye salmon with a soy/marmalade marinade, rice, garlic spinach, and bread.  We sipped our wine while making dinner, and Marisa decided she needed a workout, so she did her exercises in the living room while Evie put together dinner.  Dinner was a bit of a disappointment as the salmon was not as moist as we would have liked, alas, but everything was eaten. While Marisa and Evie went for a swim in the cold, both wind and water,  Beth quickly did up the few dishes as we are once again using paper plates,  then we watched some TV, played on our devices, before going up to bed, as it was too late to watch a film.  Maybe tonight.