An Autumn Morning

7:13

9:13

What a difference in mornings. The last few days were summer-like, warm, with hardly any wind, cloudless, a calm lake. This morning a vast cloud bank hovers above the eastern shore and the lake is choppy from the wind. It's 9:30 and I just returned from a depressing breakfast with the guys as we analyzed Kamala's chances of winning. 

Wednesday began as usual with a good paddle, breakfast, and the blog. I was getting my Outback inspected at 9:30 so I dropped the car off at 9:15 and Evie drove me home before heading off to her kindergarten class. So I had a morning to myself which is unusual. I did some yard work raking the leaves from under the red twigs, mulching them, cleaning behind Evie's garden.

Basketball friends

At noon, my basketball buddies from Cleveland arrived and we drove over to Bemus Point for lunch at the Lake Life Cafe. We try to get together twice a year. Three of them grew up together in East Cleveland and I got to know them through playing basketball in the summers, after college and we even coached against each other. Like me, they are in their 80s so we spent most of the time regaling each other with stories of our youth and our days of teaching. What fun, what lies, what exaggerations. After lunch, we returned to my house and sat on the front porch until 3:00 when they headed up to the Cleveland area. We vowed to  get together in late winter or early spring, perhaps in Erie, an hour's drive for both of us. 

Once they left, Evie drove me to pick up my car. Unfortunately, Ray had it up on a lift and showed me where the frame which seemed to be holding up the engine was rusting out. So I am going to have a 1500 dollar bill once they can get a new frame and install it on my Outback. It never ends.

We came home and had some wine, feeling sorry for ourselves, at least I did. I forgot to mention that after the news about the Outback, we said the heck with making dinner and I picked up a four-pack of Kentucky Friend chicken with coleslaw and biscuits, for ten bucks, a deal. So that was our dinner and we watched two episodes of House Of Cards. We watched it when it was a big deal five years ago and it's still great, especially as the elections are so close. I watched a bit of basketball before going up to bed early, tired from skipping my nap.