Movie Night II

Drinks on the veranda before dinner. It's the Southern way.

MaryAnna brought over lasagna. I made garlic bread again, this time with a sweet brown italian loaf, and a romaine leaf and spring mix salad mixed with a light dressing of balsamic vinaigrette and romano cheese.

Movie time!

A Change

A raven hit the windowpane

As the wind blew o'er the lake.

This house will n'er be the same

Now that you've gone away.

We slept all through the hurricane,

The water crept up where we lay.

As I held you, you laid the blame

On a ceiling water stain.

Dreams like this come to call again -

My life is going through a change;

The things I love are being framed,

Archived and laid quietly away.

Where do you go when everywhere you are and have been is exactly where you don't want to be?

L'ermitage

Yesterday evening I took the bike out to join J. and B. at "L'ermitage."

In the morning we had breakfast...

Listened to some music...

Then ran through the jungle...

Walked through the fields...

And explored an abandoned house...

Good times...

Spaghetti and Movie Night

David and I breaking ground for the night in the kitchen.

Heating up the ground beef for the sauce.

My garlic bread is ready for the oven.

Butter, fresh minced garlic, parsley, oregano, & basil... dipped and slathered.

David chipping away at the thawing hunk of beef as it is cooked while MaryAnna cleans the mixed greens and romaine leaves for the salad.

David's reduction of a 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon by Crane Lake and fresh minced garlic to cook the beef in.

Good for cooking, good for drinking... what more can you ask for a cheap wine? Does it do magic tricks? Well, enough of it can make just about any meal taste good.

They're getting along... so nice :-)

Finito! Molto Bene!

MaryAnna modeling my finished work.

Jim's home from work - the meal can begin!

And here is the meal served... Spaghetti - cooked al dente - with meat sauce, a slice of garlic bread, mixed greens and romaine salad with balsamic vinaigrette and parmesan, and a glass of Barefoot merlot table wine. Amore!

  

MaryAnna was jealous of our button-down shirts so I lent her one of mine, which she draped over herself without bothering to remove the hanger. I do not predict a new fashion trend.

Enjoying a smoke, some string quartet music and a decanter of red wine on the porch.

Everyone's cuddled up on the couch for the movie, and I'm leaving to go to work. Ah, the joys of being on the night shift...

Good night for all...

 Goodnight all!

TV Dilemma

"Halloween H20: 20 Years Later" is on FOX when I turn the TV on. I'm watching it and my blood pressure is rising, which reminds me that I don't particularly care for horror flicks. So I flip one channel down to AMC and find "You've Got Mail" playing. Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan on-screen chemistry and classic story-line vs. cheap suspense and no plot... so hard to decide. Really.

Mole

I have a mole on my eyelid... you'd be surprised how annoying that can be... especially when you're rubbing your eyes because you're tired and you touch the mole and just want to pick at it until it bleeds.

"Landscape of a Third Kind"

...aaaaand now, here's some art!

The Fence is Always Grayer on the Other Side

My boss asked me today, "When you were in Iraq, what did you miss the most?"

I thought for a moment, and replied without hesitation "My car."

I love my car, but in all honesty it's really not much to miss compared to the $500,000 vehicles I was driving around in the sandbox, and I think you'd agree if you could see it.

But what I really missed was the freedom it represented to me at the time. We all stand on one side of the fence, and gaze longingly at the grass on the other, completely assured of it's superiority. We really don't resent the grass on our side, but the sole virtue of the fence is to make you desire anything it separates you from. We can jump from one side to the other our entire lives without ever realizing that it's rarely the grass that changes, it's the view through fence that so often contorts our perceptions.

Now I drive my car, and for some reason (hmm, what could it be?) I find the motorcycle that my parents passed down to me as my new symbol of freedom. It's been something of a trial assaulting an assortment of obstacles that stand in the way of my enjoyment of the bike, and it's still going to be a little while yet before it's ready for the road. All this only heightens my anticipation of the freedom I believe that I'll find while straddling the ironside of the "Thumper." 

Will the grass actually be greener this time? Maybe it doesn't matter. Perhaps it's just about the thrill of jumping back and forth like an addle-brained fool, and the resulting bruises and splinters that remind us that we're human.

Riding the "Thumper" a couple of years back. I had just wrecked it into a barbed-wire fence a few moments before this photo was taken - as evidenced by my shredded clothing.

Revival

This smell of happy Earth,
A damp and misty morning revival.
Fall leaves dying as they give birth
To hues no artist could rival.

The rain fell throughout the night
Over dry and cracked dirt;
In soothing whispers, all things aright,
And heal what drought has hurt.

The dead-fields now shall prosper,
And Farmer's late yields increase.
Goodwill between all is fostered
As all partake in the cloud's release.

God gives in seasons fair
Strengthens in seasons grim.
Through our struggles, He's always there,
And all good flows from Him.