Cold Turkey

6:28

6:32

Hydrangeas and Jerusalem Artichokes Hugging Our Porch

A beautiful morning sunrise over Long Point on a cloudless sky of pink and light blue.  It's 65º, should be a day filled with sunshine, no rain, and high near 80. A perfect day for our grandchildren...too bad they left for home yesterday.  It's 7:00 as I finish writing the blog, time to go kayaking and let Evie sleep in.  It's now 9:30 and I had a good paddle and a photograph of a heron, sitting high up in a tree, overlooking the lake and reeds.

Kayaking Along The Shore

Where's Henry?

And yes, it feels like cold turkey this morning, as suddenly, the house is quiet, empty, neat, because our traditional two/three weeks with our three kids and seven grandchildren ended yesterday morning at 8:30, when they left for the Buffalo Airport.  It was a nightmare of a morning for them, as their flight from Baltimore to Dallas was canceled.  They were able to book a flight this morning at 11:00 to Dallas, assumed they would take the flight from Buffalo to Baltimore, stay with Jill in Virginia, then fly out the next day.  The trouble began when their driver got a speeding ticket on the highway, getting them late to the Buffalo airport.  Once they were in the airport, they found out their tickets on the first leg of their trip, to Baltimore, five of them were canceled when their flight to Dallas was canceled.  Fortunately, they were able to get tickets back on the flight to Baltimore and arrived at the gate just as they were boarding.  All's well that ends well.  They arrived in Baltimore, Friday, at 12:30 where Jill picked them up and drove them back to her house in Bristow, VA, for the night. 

The Results Of Two Weeks Of Coloring

Meanwhile, we were somewhat at a loss here at the lake, with seemingly nothing to look forward to until next summer.  That's not true but it's the way we felt.  Our solution, always, to their departure is to fill our morning and afternoon with work.  So we had lots to keep us busy to get the house back to its old self.  I stripped the beds upstairs, then starting putting away blankets, quilts, extra things like that in the attic.  Meanwhile, Evie went through the cupboards, getting rid of all the leftover snacks, bread, and other foodstuffs we no longer wanted.  We also gave the living room a  good cleaning and vacuuming and took the leaves out of the dining room table.  Evie also gave the kitchen a good cleaning and I straightened and vacuuming the TV room.  By noon, we were ready to take it easy and had accomplished our goal, to put the fact that our vacation with family was over for another year. 

We did a few things in the afternoon, nothing substantial although Evie made our dinner,  chicken, mushrooms, and broccoli with a Marsala sauce.  I  did some reading, tried to nap but couldn't, watched some TV and neither of us put in any dock time.  No granddaughters to swim and play with.

Around 6:00, we took the leftover brie out of the refrigerator,  found some crackers, to drown our sorrows with a couple of Manhattans on the porch.  Our daughter Beth knows us well, texting us at 6:30 to see if we were having Manhattans on the porch. We were.  We had dinner around 7:30 and it was just what 'the doctor ordered,' seemingly healthy and tasty, especially with dollops of yogurt on top.  We watched a couple of saved Stephen Colbert's but had trouble fast-forwarding through the commercials with our new remote or commander as my parents called it.  We cut the cable, as I may have mentioned earlier in a blog, so we are relearning how our new DirectTV NOW with Apple TV works.  All I know about it, for now, is four months of service is costing me about the same as one month of Spectrum TV.