Parly Cloudy, Windy And Cool

Our Great Grandson, Tommy

It's 8:23, and both Evie and I have been up since 6:45. After a cup of coffee and planning our day — mostly how I am going to help this morning — I realized she's already up doing things, so I'd better get this written so I can be useful, which is always problematic. I was out on the lake at 7:30, paddling into a southeasterly wind for 20 minutes down to Sandy Bottom, then had an easy paddle back, spotting both a heron and an eagle, which made my morning.

7:22

6:36

Kayak Morning

  Into The Sun And Reeds

Heron

Tuesday was a good day, mostly because Evie had a great day at kindergarten. I had my usual morning of paddling, blogging, and breakfast, so I won't go into detail. By 9:30, we were on our way to Southwestern. I'm sure Evie could have driven, but I wanted to give her knee one more day to heal, so I dropped her off with no plan for the rest of the morning. I went a little crazy and walked around the Target next to Wegmans, checking it out, and was surprised at all the stuff on the shelves — it rivals Walmart. I bought a pair of sweatpants for twenty-five bucks but will take them back today because they're too short. After my retail excursion, I stopped at Tim Hortons for a coffee and a sausage biscuit, then drove to Bemus, to the end of Lakeside Drive. Instead of my usual hike, I did the eastern side of the trail, heading up toward the highway past the buildings. It seemed longer than I remembered — it ended up being about two miles, much of it up some easy hills. I was glad to get back to the car.

Long Point Trail

I was home by 12:15, had a fish sandwich, watched some TV, then left to pick Evie up at 1:15. I waited in the parking lot for five minutes before she came out smiling, having had fun with her class. We were tempted to do some shopping, but it would have been too much for Evie after a day in kindergarten. Once we got home, she regaled me with stories about some of the kids, then watched her shows while I read and napped. Neither of us did anything productive the rest of the afternoon, and we looked forward to wine time at 5:00. It was a windy late afternoon, with the wind chimes sounding every minute or two. After wine and appetizers, neither of us was that hungry, so a bowl of Evie's veggie soup and a hot dog sounded good — that was our dinner. We watched a few shows until Evie went up to bed, when I switched over to the first half of the Fever game. I was bored by halftime, so I switched to my series Fauda, about an Israeli undercover counterterrorism unit. It takes place after the October 7th Hamas invasion, in which 1,200 Israelis were killed. Episode seven, though, went back to that day — to the invasion itself — and it was hard to watch Hamas storm a house and kill children, and rape and kill the wife of one of the series' main characters. There was a warning before the episode began about its violence. I looked up the stats afterward: yes, 1,200 Israelis were killed. In the Israeli response that followed, which continued for over a year, roughly 72,000 Palestinians reportedly died — I had a hard time falling asleep after that.