A great day with a sort of down ending

Note to self: now that it's getting dark, don't take late afternoon naps. I did today, woke up about 5:30, and was discouraged by the early arrival of twilight. Felt sort of sluggish. Tomorrow, of course, will be even worse. I was expecting Jacob about 5:30 for the night, so I flew out of bed...only to discover his baseball game was cancelled, he fell asleep, and wasn't spending the night tonight. So all in all I felt a bit letdown...but I cheered myself with large sea scallops, a half ear of corn, and a small salad for a late supper. So good.
Until that nap (maybe there's a lesson there), it had been a great day. Temperature this morning around seventy when I went to Central Market, so I put the top down on the car. Got all sorts of good things I didn't really need, came home and made a huge Greek casserole, sort of a version of pastitsio with ground lamb, penne pasta, and a ricotta sauce instead of bechamel. Cooking is my idea of a perfect Saturay morning, though the casserole is for tomorrow night's supper.
Read a book--Hank Phillipp Ryan's The Other Woman--while I ate lunch and then settled down to write. Got the scene rattling around in my brain finished--we'll see how it reads tomorrow. But I have one scene to go to finish the first draft of this novel, and, now rejuvenated by supper, I think I'll tackle it tonight.
After writing came that long, late nap, so I got to do all my favorite things today--cook, write, read, and nap. Still missing doing the puzzle with Jacob but there will be many other opportunities. And who knows? I may go work on it by myself. All in all a good day.
But I'm not happy about the end of daylight savings time. I rather like dark in the morning, and I love light evenings, dread the dark of winter even here in Texas,

Deja Vu all over again

Was it Babe Ruth that was famous for saying that? All I know is it was some famous baseball player. But that's how I feel about daylight savings time. It really snuck up on me this year. When did they move it from the end of March to the middle? I only happened to glance at a buried article in this morning's paper about it or I would have missed it. Then Christian told me tonight we get an extra hour of sleep--I wasn't sure and checked on it. NO! We lose an hour. I texted him to that effect, so that we wouldn't all be late for church tomorrow.
Personally I like daylight savings and would love to keep it all year, but  I understand the arguments of those in agriculture and other time-affected fields. But now that I get to sleep a little later I like the morning darkness--my bedroom is on the east side of the house, seems to have been in almost every house I've lived in. My dog and cat judge "get up" time by the darkness, so later daylight will make them sleep later. And I like the long evening, especially in summer when it's light until almost nine. I like to sit on my porch, and I like to go to visit Jordan and her family without feeling I have to rush to get home before dark--I don't particularly like to drive home after dark nor walk down my driveay. So I'm happy about it--I just wish they wouldn't spring it on us unexpectedly. Or maybe I've had my head in a bucket!
I did read in that tiny newspaper article that scientists now suspect that the changes in our body rhythms may not be good for us--circadian rhythms or whatever. But they're always disovering new things that are not good for us, so I can't take that one seriously. I've never had much trouble adjusting.
A subdued Jacob arrived tonight. He'd spent much of the day at the zoo and was tired, tired, tired. His mom said he would go to sleep quickly--I wonder what planet she's from. It's 9:30, which I explained to him is really 10:30, and got the proverbial, "Why?" So I got him in jammies and ready for bed and allowed a little more TV. Just now he came into my study to give me a hug and tell me he loves me. Be still my heart! But of course, I still have to go through the turn-off the TV battle.
When he walked in tonight, he asked, "Are we going to church now?" He has decided he really likes going there a lot. So since we'll lose an hour in the morning, I have church clothes all laid out and everything ready to go. His parents will probably meet us there.

Daylight savings and a gourmet meal

"Spring ahead" may distress a lot of people but Scooby and I loved it this morning--slept until almost nine o'clock, which meant I felt like that morning was almost gone by the time I read the morning paper with my coffee. It doesn't take me long to read the paper these days, even on Sunday, because I find little I want to pause over. But two things caught my notice this morning: one was that the cartel violence in Mexico has moved as far south as Acapulco, where thirteen people, including a police officer, were found dead, some beheaded, others "riddled with bullets" (nice image over Sunday coffee). Jordan's work keeps taking her to southern Mexico. I worry, and she assures me the tourist places are safe. So I left her a message that she absolutely cannot go there any more. I don't care if she is going to be thirty-five Wed., I am still the "boss of her," as Jacob would say, when I want to be!
The other item that caught my eye was that the State Board of Education has voted that the history curriculum in schools will contain no mention of the fact that Tejanos died at the Alamo! Talk about rewriting history. I guess that third-grade book on Enrico Garza that I once contemplated is not a good idea. Besides, even if they didn't die, Martin de Leon and Juan Seguin must present problems for history teachers. If it weren't so sad, I'd laugh.
After my slow start this morning, I moved slowly--and it was a luxury. But about four this afternoon, I got busy cooking for friends Rodger and Linda Preston from Granbury. I was fixing a meal that was supposed to take 20 minutes to prepare at the last minute, but I wanted to sip a glass of wine and visit during those twenty minutes, so I figured how to make it ahead. I decided to concentrate on one dish at a time, instead of having two many pans on the fire at the same time So I made a simple version of pasta Alfredo (I know, not at all on my diet)--I used wild mushroom pasta,, made a sauce of butter and cream (yikes!), tossed the pasta with the sauce and a bit of the cooking water, added good parmesan, drizzled it with truffle oil, and set the whole thing aside. Next I turned to veal scallopine (a real splurge but I so enjoyed the veal I had the other night). Dusted them in flour and sauteed them in olive oil--Linda asked me how you cook veal, and I said, "Quickly," which Rodger, the main cook in that famly, echoed with "Very quickly." I removed the scallopine from the pan, drained off the grease, and splashed in a good bit of white wine to scrape up the brown bits, then added butter and a about 2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar. Poured the sauce over the veal, topped it with a lot of capers, covered it tightly in foil and put the whole thing in a warm oven. Washed and cut asparagus, cut up the salad greens I had washed in the morning, and got out the salad dressing I had made (basic olive oil, champagne vinegar, lemon juice, salt, pepper, dry mustard, and worcestershire). I laid out a small basket of tiny toasted bread squares and filled a small pottery bowl with whipped cream cheese--hint to the wise: whipped cream cheese is about half as fattening as even light brick cream cheese but do not use it for cooking. The moisture content is completely different, and it won't cook up correctly.
So when Rodger and Linda got here at six, after closing their shop, Almost Heaven, on the square in Granbury, all I had to do was put smoked salmon on the appetizer platter. We had wine and salmon with cream cheese and toast squares on the porch--remarking on how lovely and warm and light it was. After an hour, when we were ready for dinner, all I had to do was heat the pasta,stir fry the asparagus, and toss the salad. It was, if I do modestly say so, a terrific meal. And I have leftovers, but I'd love to give away the pasta--too fattening. After dinner we took a last glass of wine to the porch, but with the sun down it had gotten too cool for comfort, and we didn't linger long.
Linda is a longtime friend, dating back to the early '70s; our children grew up together, Colin being the age of her oldest daughter and Jamie and the younger one matching. Linda remembers that Megan would come to their house and make a beeline for her dressing table because I wasn't much into cosmetics but Linda was, and Megan found lots of experiment with. Rodger came on the scene after Linda was widowed--we all grieved because Lynn was a wonderful man--but now she and Rodger have been married ten years, and I'm crazy about him. He's funny, he likes good food, and he's a staunch and realistic liberal. So it was a pleasant evening.
The coolness of the evening reminds me that we're supposedly due one more realy cold spell late this month. I'm holding off on buying herbs. Linda and Rodger are in a house that's new to them, and they have found volunteer arugula and basil growing in the grass. They've already made salads, but how do you mow with greens like that sprouting?