No Baking Today

So my house just smells like a house.  Actually it smells a little like chlorine because I met KW at the Y late this afternoon for a 30 minute pool walk.  There was a group of teen boys playing "football" in the pool at the same time but they were pretty good about not crashing into us or splashing us besides, being the mothers of sons, we figured we could deal with it if things got out of hand. I got to the Y three times this week.  Yay, me!


We dodged the weather bullet today.  For most of the morning it rained, nice steady rain that farmers like in the growing season but isn't so great in late November but it wasn't cold enough to freeze...

and for a few minutes snowflakes the size of silver dollars (which you can kinda see) whammed down out of the sky.  But that was over quickly.  Thank heavens.



 

Right after lunch I met ACJ down at The Attic cafe to write for a couple hours but forgot the little notebook that I'm taking editing notes in.  Grr.  But I had another notebook and knew where I'd left off so I took my notes in there and then transferred them when I got home.


I just got a text from the renter that she grazed the side of the garage when she backed in tonight.  I never really got the backing in thing but will check it out on Friday when she's off.  Just what I need.

27 November--Barbara Malcolm, Spies Don't Retire. 

The most extreme example of how divided the group had become was on Windsock beach when all the expats went on Thursday afternoons for a cookout.  Dimitri and Irina arrived early, as was their habit, and they set up their chairs and umbrellas near the grove of scrubby trees on the north end of the beach.  Sonia and George were the next to arrive.  When she saw her nemesis, Sonia hooked a hand in George’s elbow and dragged him off to the clump of trees near the southern end of the strip of sand.

“But I’d like to sit by Dimitri,” George bleated as he stumbled after his wife, arms filled with beach paraphernalia.  Her back rigid and her head held high, Sonia marched down the beach with as much dignity as she could muster in the soft sand.  “But, dear, shouldn’t we sit closer to the group?” George said.  “We’re pretty far away from everyone here.”  He looked longingly down the beach at his new friend sitting like a cowed dog next to his imperious wife.

A steady stream of cars and vans were pulling up and parking along the back of the airport’s sole runway.  One by one, couples would cross the road carrying coolers and beach chairs.  The women would look up and down the beach.  Then would steer their hapless husbands either right or left depending how her sentiments lay; Sonia to the left, Irina to the right.

At either end of the beach was a tight group of umbrellas and chairs—and frowning women.  A few paces from each encampment (that’s the only word to describe it) were a confused-looking group of husbands.  The men edged toward each other across the barren, unshaded gap between the groups.  They looked like boys trying to escape a too strict nanny.  One by one they were called by their wives and one by one they turned and picked their way through the mild surf to dive into the sparkling blue ocean.  A few of the women stood and hollered at their escaping husband, but then realized how exposed they were to their enemies, so they sat rather abruptly to preserve a bit of their dignity.

I remembered that I want to knit one Christmas gift and had searched high and low for the perfect yarn.  It wasn't cheap but I bought it anyway.  So this evening I got out needles and yarn and started.  Well.  It's not at all what I hoped it'd be.  Back to the drawing board.

I'm looking forward to an afternoon spent with family tomorrow.  DS's in-laws graciously invite me every year to celebrate Thanksgiving with them.  Doing that eliminates the necessity of choosing which family "gets" which holiday.  That has to be a pain. I'm glad that we never had to do that.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Eat lots of pie.
--Barbara