A Mac N Cheese Burger With Bacon And Onion Rings Night

A Guy, Burger, And A Beer

6:34

8:35

I was up just before 6:00, alas, waiting for the magic hour of 6:00 to arrive so I could get up with a clear conscience, having gotten enough sleep.  It was gray and overcast at that time but now, at 6:47 I can see blue mixed in with the gray and white although there's no sun at the moment.  The lake's wrinkled, gray, not very inviting but I am sure I will be out there in a bit.  I was just looking at last year's blog and realized the lake didn't open until April 14, my first paddle of Spring, 2018.  It's 8:00 and I am back from a short paddle.  It was cold, windy and easy going out, riding the waves, but tough because of the wind and waves heading home.  Because of the 40º weather, I wore gloves, stocking cap, and three layers to stay warm and it was too choppy to take many photographs.

Kayaking On A Choppy Morning

Yesterday began with another good paddle although I did not see any herons, just wood ducks. I went to a beginning yoga class which is fine because I consider myself still a neophyte.  There were six of us, many regulars like me.  After class, I stopped for coffee then hit four different hardware stores, looking for plastic netting to wrap around our dock and deter barn swallows from nesting under the dock.  If we don't, they will dive bomb us every time we walk out on the dock.  It's more of a problem for us because we are among the first to put our docks out so they start nesting on our dock first.  I finally found it at Tractor Supply and it's advertised as deer netting and used to keep deer away from plants. I also picked up some fertilizer and grass seed so I must be assuming Spring is coming.

What's Up?

When I returned home, Evie had been busy, cleaning our front porch and doing other chores, all part of spring cleaning.  I was hungry so she made me a quesadilla with avocado, salsa, and cheese, perfect.  I also had a bowl of her wheatberry veggie soup and watched BOSCH.  Evie took off to the Y and do some shopping around 1:00 so I watched another episode of BOSCH and some basketball before taking a cat nap.  I also am enjoying my book, SAVAGE NEWS, an eye-opener about the news business.  At the moment, the young female reporter is being harassed by her editor, bugging her to go out for a drink with him late evening.  I wonder how common this was/is...probably a lot.

Evie was home around 3:30 and noticed our chaise lounge was missing from our dock. It was folded up, lying on the dock so I couldn't believe that the wind had taken it and thrown it in the lake.  It was, however, not on the dock when I went out and I assumed it had to be in the lake.  Unfortunately, the shadows were such that I could not make out anything in the water until an hour later when the sun came out. I thought I glimpsed an object ten feet off the dock but was not sure it was the chair.  I then went into the garage, tied a large hook on a rope and kayaked out to where I thought the chair might be although I had my doubts.  It was windy as well so every time I kayaked over where I thought the chair might be, the wind blew me away.  Finally, I allowed for the drift, dropped the rope with the hook, pulled on it and to my disbelief, I pulled up the chaise lounge.  A miracle on the lake.  Evie was ecstatic, proud of her handyman husband, who had rescued a chaise lounge from the frigid waters of Chautauqua Lake.

We were interested in going to Steeners for the steak special but after calling and texting, they finally replied that they were still renovating and were not open until Wednesday.  So we decided to drive to the Stockton Hotel for burgers, about a twenty-five-minute drive.  We always like going there and they have a nice bar.  When we walked in, we were surprised to see the tables in the bar were filled but the bar was practically empty.  We found our favorite seats on the corner and quickly ordered a beer.  We noticed the guy sitting two chairs away had this enormous burger in front of him so Evie asked him what it was.  Well, it was a Mac N Cheeseburger with onion rings, cheese, and bacon.  Evie literally challenged me to try it, calling me a wimp if I didn't.  So I ordered it and it looked better than it was and I hardly made it through half of the burger and fries,  Because the bar was empty, we talked quite a bit with the waitress, a gal we met the last time we were there.  And we realized why people were sitting at the tables in the bar.  The restaurant/dining area was closed.

We left just before 8:00 and were able to drive home in light.  We quickly put on our sweats and settled down in front of the TV to watch the most recent Jeopardy. The winner, a professional sports' gambler and frighteningly talented polymath, has demolished every competitor, 'shattering the idea of a typical Jeopardy strategy,' and winning over a million dollars so far. He plays, according to Slate, "like a cyborg constructed for the express purpose of winning this ever popular game."  We also watched another episode of RAKE and we ended the night with Vice News, an in-depth look at the tragic bombings in Sri Lanka.  Marx was right: " Religion is the opium of the people."