On a Cold and Cloudy Day

A cold gray day lies outside the bay window here in my kitchen dining nook. Some red leaves remain on my Japanese maple that is fore and center in my view. The golden leaves of late autumn have been blown down over the past day or so and lie about in the street and on the sidewalks. If the air would dry out just a little bit I would go out and start raking because the city pick up for leaves will happen this week or next. Hunting season starts on the 15th of November and the city must act before that. Any job that requires physical labor, like working in the asphalt plants, pouring concrete and the like must be done by about the 12th or 13th for no hands will be around to do the work after that. Men doing manly things will be “up north” in cabins, cottages and lodges drinking beer, playing cards and hunting.
The air is not dry and a chilling mist is omnipresent. Even here in the warm space of the kitchen I am chilled. The dampness in the air coupled with the temperature that is hovering just above freezing makes my bone ache. While the right thing to do is to just winter up by putting on gloves and a good coat, the coffee I just made and the pear preserves on white bread bagel are much more appealing. There are things to be done that will be done today. Our hockey game is at 3 p.m. and we will be there will bells on. Some basic shopping is required, especially if I am going to make that new recipe. Last night after having watched some really trashy movie (that I laughed at quite a bit) I watched a program called On the Road Again Spain. It was a cooking show populated with very pretty people driving through the gorgeous Spanish countryside to a cheese maker’s factory and to a private meal in a magnificent villa. Oh and there was the obvious and required visit to an El Greco painting in the city of Toledo. Spain versus East Lansing, hmmmmh, not really much of a choice at this time of the year is it?
Well anyway, on this pretty program populated with pretty people they made what was in essence a stuffing cooked in a European version of a wok. Ingredients involved were olive oil, whole garlic cloves bread and chorizo. It looked to be fast and tasty. This may be something we try today, maybe before or maybe after the hockey game.
This morning I watched one of the Sunday morning shows with talking heads blathering on about the potential of person x to fill post y in the Obama White House. My 10 year old summed it up. Screaming in his most indignant voice “Oh for goodness sake people, he was only elected on Tuesday can you give him a chance before you start tearing him down.” Perceptive little puppy that one is. He took the remote and flipped it to Van Helsing and I left the room. However having seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall the night before, I started chuckling as I headed out of the room. If you have not seen it Sarah Marshall is bawdy and raunchy and starts out real slow. However the musical number at the end is worth the price of the rental. It is a musical based on Dracula and it is way, way over the top.
Okay I think I have worked out some of my guilt about not having posted to the blog recently. Hey the kids’ lives are very active and I am here only to be a support structure for those lives. Of course there was that election thing too. Handing out pamphlets took time. And finally there is the lazy factor also. On this cold afternoon I found some energy.