Sun Shiny Morning

6:37

For the first time in quite awhile, at least here at the lake, the sun beat me up.  I was up about 6:37, came downstairs and the sun was already ablaze over Long Point Bay, filling the living room and kitchen with light, a surprise.  The sun's journey back and forth, in front of our house, always fascinates me.  And since I have retired, get up early, I also pay more attention to it whereas when working, I paid little attention to it like many things I missed while working and raising a family. It's chilly out, 30º, hardly a ripple on the lake, the start to a fine day.

We were both up early yesterday and even before I left for yoga at 10:00, Evie had put together the makings for our dinner of Greek pastitisio, a macaroni and ground beef dish, spiced with cinnamon, dill, parsley, cayenne pepper,  feta cheese and to be topped with a bechamel sauce.  I left about 9:30 for class, enjoyed it because there were only three others, so we could work on asanas that involved lots of props, one that a large class cannot accomplish.  Afterwards, I stopped at the bank, the ATM broken, so I went inside for cash.  Funny how you get used to the ease of any ATM and it seems like a hassle to have to actually go into a bank, to a teller, for your money.  I stopped at the Tri James office, bought twenty dollars more of stones, to fuel my obsession.  Now, my road and part of my parking space look pristine, waiting for next year's winter when the snow plow destroys it..

Later Morning Fishing, In Sleet and Rain

When I got home, Evie had dinner finished and even made some amazingly healthy cookies (we think), with coconut oil, not butter, pistachios and walnuts, coconut, all kinds of good healthy things and, oh yea, chocolate chips.  We have not had cookies around in awhile so it seemed like a real treat to have one of two or three during the day.  Yum.  Around 1:30, Evie went off to the YMCA, had a good workout, and was home by 3:30, just as it was clearing up.  Most of the day up to that point was miserable, either rain or sleet and Mayville even had an inch of snow in the morning.  When it cleared up, I got off my couch, put on my work pants, and drove off to get another load of stones, as I am starting to spread it on my parking space.

Late Afternoon Clearing at 6:25

I forgot to mention that in the mail yesterday we received from Ohio University's basketball office, a memory book of our 1964 Final Eight Team, which was honored in early February in Athens, Ohio.  It's filled with pictures from that year, but many (taken by Evie) of that weekend, and from other weekends from the past six years when the team got together to celebrate and renew our friendships.  It was a nice touch, with commentary on the 1964 season as well as photos of some team members, their families, and biographies of what they have done with their life, how OU and basketball influenced their careers.  Needless to say, my biography was by far the most thorough and wordy, a page an a half, doing exactly what they asked, whereas my teammates included the bare essentials, a paragraph or two, a bit embarrassing for me.  If it had not been for Evie taking pictures over the years, however, we would not have had much of a Memory Book.  So, it was a surprise to get the book, especially since there was a change in the coaching staff. I expected the staff to just forget about it.  Pretty nice.

We had the pastitsio for dinner, with a salad, and I made some Parmesan toast, in the oven, which complimented the meal, giving some crunch to it.  We continue to enjoy FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, a look as I mentioned not only at the football crazies in Texas, but it's also a somewhat exaggerated but still fairly accurate look at teenagers, their angst, their relationships with others, how their love and violent emotions spill over, complicating their lives.  We also watched American Idol, and we really enjoyed it.  Most of the finalists, at least in our estimation, are really talented and it's going to hard to settle on just one winner.   Watching contestants grow over the season is much of the fun of any reality show, but American Idol is particularly thriilling (since it's the only one we watch).

A Few Snowflakes Welcome A Spring Morning

8:15

It's 7:00 and I expected to wake up to a white lawn, but it's not quiet cold enough, so all we have are flurries though none are sticking to the ground.  It's 34º with a sunny forecast for later in the day, but at the moment, it looks miserable out, gray, foggy, and wet.

Yesterday was a different sort of day, as we spent a large part of it in Erie.  Evie had a doctor's appointment in Erie, at a modern, efficient third floor office, overlooking Erie's Harbor, right next to Hamot Hospital.  It was a forty five minute drive from Woodlawn, a foggy drive most of the way coming and going.  The office was huge, airy and efficient, packed with mostly pregnant Mom's, the speaker calling one every five minutes.  As I sat there, I thought about the first time I sat in a waiting room, tiny and institutional,  unlike this one, probably 48 years ago.  Evie was pregnant with our first child, Beth, the patients all white and married.  Yesterday, however, at least half to two thirds of the Mom's were either African American or Hispanic,  many of the women in head scarves, most likely from Northern Africa, many without wedding bands.  I suppose this diversity is typical in most urban medical centers, but it was a revelation to me, having lived in predominately white Hudson, Ohio, for thirty three years,  and now Chautauqua, NY, for five, though if I were to drive to Jamestown 12 miles away, it would also be quite diverse.  The waiting room was a revealing snapshot of America twenty nine years from now, according to the Census Bureau, when whites will comprise less than 50% of the population, whether they like it or not.  Living in pockets of white American like we have for the past forty years, we forget how diverse America has become, just leave any suburb and drive into a city or urban  area.  As Bob Dylan sings, 'The Times, They Are A Changing.'

After Evie's appointment, we shopped at the Peach Street Mall, at both T.J. Maxx's, and Dick's Sporting Goods, taking advantage of our trip to Erie.  No deals at Dick's though Evie found some at TJ's, not surprising.  We then spent close to an hour at the Erie Wegman's, sightseeing the amazing grocery store, much larger than our Wegman's in Jamestown. We were home by 1:30, for lunch, some Stewart and Colbert on TV, then relaxing during the afternoon.  It did clear up later, so I returned to the Tri James quarry a couple of times to pick up more stones, to finish the road, then start on our parking area.  I am becoming obsessed with transferring stones back and forth.

Tuesday Afternoon at 5:40

Long Point - Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.

It was a particularly beautiful sunset, lots of clouds and sun, shadows and light, a perfect dusk for a glass of wine.  Around 6:30, Evie put together tacos, with lots of lettuce, cheese, and of course, sour cream, a perfect, easy dinner for last night.  We watched the Academy Award Nominated Film PHILOMENA.  It was our kind of movie, an interesting story, great acting, with some humor.  Unlike most films, it avoided the gratuitous sex and violence, yet it was about sex and violence, the Catholic churches discomfort with sex, the violence of the church, the nuns, perpetrated on Irish unwed mothers, for having committed the mortal sin of having had sex and giving birth to a child out of wedlock.  The movie is another uncomfortable  look at the darker side of any institution, this time religious, where righteous, unquestioning power remains unchecked, with little oversight.  The film is based on a true story and is well worth watching.  

We have also started viewing an older series, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, which we started the first season back in 2006 but then stopped for some reason.  I had read the book the series was based on, by Buzz Bittinger, loved it.  I can see why this series has been mentioned right up there with The Sopranos and The Wire, as the best of television.  FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS depicts not only our obsession with high school sports, especially football, but also describes the town, the parents and their sons and daughters,  us, how we live through our children, their lives on the playing field. It's riveting, scary at times, America at its best and worst, with its emphasis on winning, being number one but at any cost.  I think we have 72 episodes to go.

Wet and Gray Morning

6:30 AM

6:55

5:30, Monday Afternoon

Up early, because we are going into Erie for a doctor's appointment at 8:30. It's strange to have a cloudy morning; I was getting used to sun rises and clear skies, warm weather.  Snow flurries are possible tomorrow morning.

Like most Monday's, there were ten of us at yoga, lots of talk before class, then a few asanas that I had never done before, the kind that tell me my hamstrings are too tight.  Ouch.  Class was fine, with many talking about a cute yoga top one of them found at the Sahalie catalog.  Needless to say, they did not come in talls.  After yoga, I went to Ryder's, bought a coffee, and also picked up a book, just out, by a local Maple Springs resident called CLEAR SKIES, DARK WATERS.  It has gotten some press, about the author's life here at the lake after some personal and financial setbacks.  It looks like it's about her growth, her family, the Chautauqua area, and how it helped pull her life together.  Then, I stopped at Tri James, got another receipt for more stones from the quarry, and I stopped on the way home for four buckets worth.  It's getting to be my life...measuring it in buckets of stones.

Turkey Vultures Return

Evie had been busy while I was gone, did some painting, more cleaning, until we had lunch, soup and pizza and watched last night's episode of Silicon Valley, not as good as the previous two.  Let's hope it gets better.  Mid afternoon, I went back to Tri James twice, to get more stones, for spreading on our road and I think one more trip will do it.  But then, our parking spaces now look naked, so no doubt, I will be going back for more to spread on our parking spaces.  At 4:30, we decided it was too nice of a day to not take a walk, so we headed over to Bemus and walked Lakeside Drive, as it was starting to cloud up but was still warm, in the low 70's.  We walked 3/4's of the way down, then turned around because we were whooped.  Not much action on Lakeside drive, a few landscaping firms cleaning yards.  In Bemus proper, however, there was some digging up of sidewalks in front of Sklllman's and the Surf Club, quite a mess at the moment.  Lots of people were sitting on the front porch of the Seezurh House, enjoying the warm weather, a number of the women/girls in short shorts.  Zowie.

Scallops A La Evie For Dinner

We got home around 6:00 and because we were hungry, Evie started dinner, scallops in a wine/lemon/shallot/garlic sauce over linguine.  This makes our third straight night with restaurant quality dinners. We also liked the salad dressing so much from Saturday night's dinner that Evie made it again because it's so simple, 3 TBS of lemon juice, 3 TBS of Dijon mustard, and a 1/4 of a cup of olive oil.   This feasting stops today, when we get back to comfort foods, like tacos, good but not tres chic as my sister Ellen would say.

AMERICANAH: CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE *****

I put off reading this book for some reason, a big mistake because I really liked it, one of the best and most interesting reads about the African American/American African experience.  The narrator, Ifemelu, is a young women who grows up in Lagos, Nigeria.   The novel begins, however, in a hair braiding and straightening parlor in Newark, where Ifemelu goes, to have her hair braided because she has decided to give up her work as a popular blogger in the States, and return to Nigeria after a hiatus of many years.

As she gets her hair braided, she then goes back in time, to her life growing up in Nigeria, as a teenager, the family that surrounds her, the various despotic governments that often shape the families lives, and the teen age love of her life, Obinze.  When she graduates from high school, she wins a scholarship to a college in the US and at  Obinze's urging, she decides to go, which begins her odyssey in America, where for the first time, she realizes she is black.

Growing up in Nigeria, color is not an issue, but in the US, it is. We see her struggle to acclimatize her Nigeria upbringing in a different culture and what's most interesting, she finds herself alienated for a time from the African American community as well because it's so different from her African community, with different sets of customs, beliefs, even religions.  She struggles to find a job, eventually landing one as a nanny for a Mom in a very upscale community.  She works when needed, , goes to school, makes friends, and begins blogging on life in the US from the dual point of view of an African American and American African.  Eventually, because of her ties to the family as a Nanny, she meets the wives's brother, Curt, who falls in love with Ifemelu.  He is extraordinarily rich and they become lovers, and he introduces her to an entirely new way of life, upscale apartments, cappuccinos, trips to Paris and London, all things unimaginable a few years ago.  And because her blog takes off, she becomes famous, and Princeton offers her a grant, things seem to be going well. Then, consciously, as a matter of revolt,  she angers Curt by sleeping with another man.  He leaves her, to fend on her own despite her apologizes and half baked excuses.

She finds another apartment, becomes independent and  eventually hooks up with a black professor from Yale named Blaine and they live seemingly happy together, Ifemelu finally comfortable with America, the friends that surround a college campus.  Then, inexplicably, Efemelu begins to be drawn back to her roots, to Nigeria, feeling somewhat of a sell out by living the good life in the States, ignoring her people and missing Obinze, her teen love.

She decides to return, sells her apartment, ends her blog, but finds it difficult to not only adjust to a culture now foreign to her after having lived for years in the States but it's also difficult to find a decent job, even with her credentials.  She eventually finds a job working for a cheesy magazine, reconnects with her friends, but not Obinze.  For some reason, she resists meeting him, establishes herself, begins a modern blog, which becomes successful and then seems ready to reconnect with  Obinze.  They begin where they left off, great friends, and slowly their love is rekindled even though he has a wife and a child.  They both fight this passion, decide to leave well enough alone, that it's too much to expect they can live together.  The novel ends with Obinze, at her door, and she opens it and lets him in.

This book has opened my eyes more than any other to what it's like to be black in the US, how different American Africans are even though they, too, would be clumped together with African Americans because they are black.  We too easily make assumptions about Blacks without evidence, other than color

Stillness Reigns At Lake Chautauqua

6:24

6:54

It's 6:45 and I have been up for a half an hour, enjoying the changing morning sky, the sun hidden behind a partly cloudy sky but about ready to break out.  It 46º but like yesterday, it should get up to the high 60's.  The sun has just peaked through the clouds, highlighting a raft of mergansers floating off the shoreline. It looks like another good spring day.

I was up early yesterday, as Evie slept in, and I was out on the lake kayaking by 7:30, as I could not resist the temptation to get up off my comfortable couch, put on my life jacket, boots, and paddle down to Whitney Bay and back, the only fool on the lake at this hour.  Lots of ducks, especially buffleheads, and sea gulls littered my way.  I don't remember sea gulls being this prevalent so early, perhaps their presence results from last week's fish kill of white perch.  It was chilly coming back, as the wind picked up.  And I am pretty sure I saw an osprey in the trees along Woodlawn.

Kayak Morning Along Woodlawn

When I returned, Evie was up, enjoying the morning and we decided to walk the CI late morning, once she had fully awakened.  We had not walked it in awhile, and I remember the last time I walked it, before we went to Florida, and it was still icy, lots of snow, so it was a quite different walk this time, though still bland and colorless, only the browns of trees and fallen leaves.  Spring has yet to arrive here at Chautauqua to any great degree.  We almost always walk the same way, staying off the lake front until we get to the north end, coming back most of the way on Pratt, passing Hurlburt Church.  We saw few people out, either walking or in their yards.  It amazes me the concentration of empty homes for all but ten weeks of the year, which could be said, I suppose, for all the lakeside homes that ring the lake...except for us.

Daffodil at Chautauqua Institute -- one of the few

We had our big Easter breakfast, of maple bacon from Trader Joe's, fried eggs, and homemade English muffin bread.  We watched CBS Sunday morning, did up the dishes, then relaxed and read the paper. About 2:00, we found our mojo and we both went outside and worked for a couple of hours in Evie's garden, in the backyard, cleaning out leaves, trimming bushes, getting the garden cleaned up, a type of outdoor spring cleaning.  We still have little color other than the six inch high green shoots from the daffodils.  It was warm enough for me to just wear a tee shirt, and we both worked up a sweat, filled three large garbage cans with organic refuse.  It was a good feeling when we finished, to look out over the yard and see the chaos of winter had disappeared, as the rebirth of spring and an attempt to order a neglected garden has begun.

Picky, House Hunting Purple Martin Checking It Out 

We relaxed before dinner, with one of our favorite cheeses, St. Andre, and a beer before getting dinner ready.  As I grilled the two inch thick steak outside (it took 18 minutes), Evie broiled asparagus in the oven, then  sauteed mushrooms, till caramelized, then added soy and butter, for our steaks.  What a meal.  We started to watch a Woody Allen movie called SCOOP, supposedly hilarious but within 15 minutes, we were bored with Woody Allen's nonstop chatter, his tired jokes, and turned it off and watched 60 Minutes instead.  At 9:00, we watched Nurse Jackie and again, I am getting tired of her drug habit, which consumes her life.  I get it after five seasons and would like to see her change but it's not going to happen soon.  We ended the night with The Good Wife, and I finished RED STATION before starting my next book, SEATING ARRANGEMENTS, a novel I mentioned yesterday that was recommended on NPR.  I like it so far, a father is getting ready for his daughter's three day wedding extravaganza, at their tony home on an island off of Massachusetts.

The Sun Has Risen

6:37

Easter Flowers

A beautiful morning at 6:30, as I wait for the sun to peak over Long Point, the sky at the moment a light blue, a pink tinge over the opposite shoreline.  It looks like a spectacular Easter Sunday, clear skies, lots of sun and warm, perhaps in the 70's.  We left the bedroom window open last night, so I was awakened by geese, ducks, and song birds, not a bad way to begin the day if you don't mind rising before sun.  It's now 7:30 and once I finish this, I may go kayaking because it's such a wonderful morning.

I went to yoga in Lakewood at 9:00, just two of us and Chris, the same as last week.  It was a good class, lots of warrior and triangles, not my favorite but  I am getting used to them.  Chris was very talkative, told us some about his early life, a roadie for bands like the Stones and Pink Floyd, a few years in Thailand studying yoga, and his passion for teaching the guitar.  Once you get to know more about a person, the more you find them interesting.  And if you  didn't get that initial peak into their life, you wouldn't pay much attention to them.

After a coffee at Ryder's, to round out my morning, I drove home, then went off to Mayville, to the library to pick up two books I have been wanting to read, both mentioned on NPR, SEATING ARRANGEMENTS and ASTONISH ME, by Maggie Shipstead.  I hope I like them.  After the library, I stopped at the Lighthouse, and picked up a great looking two inch New York strip steak for our Easter dinner.  Today was supposed to be sunny and warm so I felt like grilling.  When I got home, I gathered the trash and drove off to the Transfer Station, then to the Quarry to pick up another five buckets of stones.  As I was driving out, a car drove in, a women got out, the secretary from the Tri James office.  She told me they were closing  the fence because they had heard people were  driving in and taking gravel, like me, but had not paid for it.  She was fine with me, however, since I had paid her earlier in the week, an honest guy.

Molting Goldfinches

A Perching Goldfinch Eyeing Us  While Waiting His Turn at The Feeder

As you can see from our photos, we have become enamored with the goldfinches in our yard, at our feeder, especially the males, who lose their dull olive color from the winter, as they molt, the new vibrant yellow colored feathers pushing through, distinguishing the male from the female.

We enjoyed the afternoon, both in and out, did some yard work, then I went kayaking around 4:00, a slight wind, and I took my fishing rod along, wondering if I would have any luck.  I went down to my sweet spot, among the weeds, but kept getting my lure stuck until my line finally broke off and I lost the lure.  So I spent another half hour kayaking down to the campground and back, enjoying the sun, the breeze, just being out on the lake.

For dinner, Evie put together the Mustard Milanese chicken cutlets and I made the arugula and fennel salad, with a mustard, oil and lemon juice dressing.  Evie refrigerated the panko/mustard crusted  cutlets for and hour, then fried them in oil, and I tossed the salad.  We heaped the salad on top of each cutlet and had what we thought was a restaurant worthy dinner, the crispiness of the cutlet, the bite of the lemon/oil dressing, the combination of the bitterness of the arugula, the anise flavor of the fennel.  We even had a cutlet leftover, but not the salad.  We had no DVD's to watch, so we went to Netflix, searched for something interesting, and ended up watching three episodes of a series we started a few years ago but stopped called WEEDS.  We still are not crazy about it but obviously liked it enough to watch three episodes.  Afterwards, I was glad to get back to my book RED STATION,  by Adrian Magson, set in the Republic of Georgia, just after the fall of the Soviet Union.  Disgraced MI5 agents are sent there, just as the Russians are about to invade, reminiscent of what's happening in the Ukraine this past month.

Finally, I did want to mention a fascinating interview from Friday's Charlie Rose; he interviewed Obama's Deputy Chief of Staff Alyssa Mastromonaco, who has been with Obama since 2005 when he was still a Senator.  She's candid, bright, interesting, always championing her Boss, but you believe her. A great interview if you have any interest in one person's view from inside the White House.  And what was most fascinating, she never blamed the Republicans for their antics, their attempts to block anything that Obama endorsed or presented.

Another Crisp, Bright And Shiny Saturday Morning

7:15

First Signs Of Spring In Our Yard

Awake early, laying in bed trying to figure out how early it was from the amount of light in our bedroom.  I assumed it was around 6:30 but it was really 6:08.  I should have stayed in bed.  It's now 6:50, and I am on my second cup of coffee, the sun is in full bloom over the lake, and Click and Clack are about to finish, Only A Game about to begin.  My Saturday mornings don't seem to change, except for the seasons.

Yesterday began with a special introductory class at the yoga studio, given by one of women in my yoga class, Sarah Hoffman.  She's very interested in alternative medicine though she's a radiology technician.  It's worked for her, so she wants others to benefit from her successes.  Sarah gave a talk/demonstration to about nine of us about Chakra breathing.  Those who follow this practice believe there are seven chakras or centers in our body, starting with the crown, then moving to the brow, throat, heart, solar plexus, sacrum, and root.  Each center has a color which influences it and she believes our anxieties, pains, and sicknesses, arise from the blockage of these centers.  Basically, in a simplistic way, she believes that by breathing and meditating various colors, depending on the pain and area, relief will occur.  She had us breathe in the color white from our crown, down our spine, to our root, then exhale it back through the spine and out brow.  This will supposedly clear our chakras.  It was an interesting class, probably not something I will pursue, but for her, it was important enough to share and everyone enjoyed the class.  Before the 10:00 class, I did a quick run through Wegman's, picking up food for our Easter weekend dinners.

Neither one of us had much energy.  Evie did not  feel like working out, and I did not want to hike. We both feel a little off,  perhaps a "bug"of some sort.  Anyways, we did do some work in the yard, trimming bushes and small trees, and I made three trips to the Tri James quarry, and spread the stones on half of the damp road in front of our house.  Hopefully, we will be able to walk on it without getting wet.  The rest of the afternoon we just snoozed, read or watched TV.  I had picked a recipe out of the Smitten Kitchen cookbook,  chicken cutlets with a panko/mustard coating and a salad of arugula and fennel.  So early on, Evie pulled the chicken out of the freezer, cut and pounded the cutlets and put them in the refrigerator until she was ready to cook.  Around 6:00, neither one of us felt like getting dinner ready, so we put off the special chicken and salad dinner until Saturday, and we ordered a pizza from Adriaaccios's, feeling guilty about our laziness.  I picked it up around 6:30, and we had an easy dinner.  Why we should feel guilty about following our impulses, a leftover from our Puritan ancestors.

We finished the Hunger Games (Catching Fire), and the second half was less interesting then the first.It reminded me of the TV show Survivor except that the game was to kill the other competitors. And we watched the first two episodes of a new series on HBO called Silicon Valley.  It has gotten good reviews and we both liked it quite a bit.  It follows a group of geeks, all living in a California bungalow, who come up with the 'new new thing', and it follows their journey, I assume, as they are wooed by various companies, and the main character must decide whether to sell it or keep it for himself and become his own boss.  It loosely follows the route that Steve Jobs and his buddies took, starting in a garage, deciding to build their own company, and moving on from there.  I hope it continues to be savvy, interesting as well as funny.