Peony of Simmer

The Sparrowhawk got motivated to mow the lawn, and while he was doing that, I went for a walk. It was a fairly complete round of walk, but it was slow and my knee still hurt. The nuns are assembling for some kind of festive gathering. I passed two of them who were going even more slowly than me. I said "Good morning, sisters," which I figure is a familiar greeting from old times. I never went to Catholic school myself. They turned and smiled. One was rather nattily dressed in black with a white blouse. Her slower companion was picking up acorns from under an oak tree. She said she wanted some good ones to put with her pine cones. When I got home, the lawn was about 75% mowed, and the Sparrowhawk had come inside because he was tired of waiting for the mower batteries to charge up again. I went out in the back yard and did battle with the buckthorn for awhile. It was discouraging. I started to fear that maybe I will never be able to lick this yard into shape, because I just don't have the wherewithal any more. It's too early to give up, I suppose, but I'm prone to seeing doom even when it's far off on the horizon.

I thought about my unwritten works for awhile, and had similar thoughts about that. Not to mention being distracted by having to discuss restaurant menus, because it turned out that the Sparrowhawk's brothers were in town and wanted us to join them for dinner. It's nice to be invited. They stopped by the house to return the slide projection equipment he had lent to Fritz, and then we went out to a restaurant that proved satisfactory to all. I had a thing called a Smooth Operator, which contained small batch bourbon, averna, angostura bitters, and spiced syrup. It had flavors of dark chocolate and orange, and it was not too sweet. Quite delicious, in fact. Some were getting fancy with black bean stew with chorizo, quinoa salad, and what not, but I decided to stick with the basics and had tomato soup and a grilled ham and cheese. After that, the brothers wanted to go out for ice cream at a spot that had been there since their youth--it is, in fact, the place near the lake that we go to all the time. So we got ice cream and strolled down to the lake. It was a lovely evening, with a cool breeze--unusual for August, but nice. Four hours of solid socializing! It was a nice time, but I'm beat now.