15 N 17

The drab, gloomy & overcast sky lingers and the mood is being dragged down. I am thinking a sunshine fix OR even a triple-digit day, OOPS, 40 C would be wonderful about NOW.

A great day unfolded yesterday in spectacular fashion.

I had it all planned out and midway a change or a course correction made it better than planned.

After the recent hectic & marginally chaotic weeks of preparations for the art sale & show and then golf, I needed a down ‘mental health’ day.

SERIOUSLY ? GO ON …

I will.

I was set up to paint and motivated on a couple of projects and was going back & forth between two little shorebirds. Had tunes reverberating and when that got old, switched to the old time radio shows. The sun came out in the afternoon and I went for a hike to the local ponds or lakes to observe and take attendance of the waterfowl passing thru. That was the first of many this season.

I saw an American widgeon, a few shovelers, a ring-neck, scaups and many mallards. I saw one unusual behavior. This one duck turned and was floating half-up out of the water on its side. IOW, one foot was under the water & you could see only the one webbed foot. Say that fast a couple of times por favor.

I had never seen that before. Maybe that one is ill or needs to see a duck therapist.

No sooner entering the casa the smart phone goes off. It is First Born calling long-distance with an update and then drops bomb they are coming up early THIS weekend for Thanksgiving. Good thing the B & B is still fairly spotless to meet their very high standards of cleanliness. Then she had to drop off and will call tomorrow which is now today with complete details.

Within the hour S1 sends a text local message and he is wondering if I am watching the Stars game tonight. Before I responded in the negative with a radio only, I remembered that we had exchanged tests messages on Sunday, his birthday, and decided to get together one night this week for a little birthday huddle. This was it.

His attention span on returning text messages most of the time is extremely annoying so I called right away and long story going to abbreviation mode nailed down ALL the details for the evening cancelling for a later time a new dish to incorporating.

We went down to the Cadillac and had the usual & always expected good time. There was some live music and the crowd at the bar where we sat was friendly & engaging.

On my right was a fireman from Houston who moved up to McK & was working in Plano. Good guy.

To the left of S1 two lost souls that were also apparently either in the bar business or food service industry. Br12 actually knew one of them and he bought S1 a shot of Patron to my … bewilderment.

Wrapping up & winding down, the Stars lost in pathetic fashion in OT and we left. It was a Tuesday night, the band was still playing and it seemed like a weekend, 1:00 am but it was just after 9:00.

Stars were in FLA so the puck dropped an hour earlier.

The happy ending is after a salad, pizza & too many beers, 169.6 this morning.

Somehow I kept it under 170.