Dan Antion

Next Chapter – SoCS

Island View – Winter
The perfect lime wedge.

Welcome back to the Island View Café, even as the island is about to be submerged. While a huge swath of our country has been hit by a winter storm, we have received nothing but rain for two days. Rain that, unfortunately has no place to go. The ground is well frozen. The long blogging month of January is in the rear-view mirror, and the short month of regular blogging is at hand. There is an announcement at the end of this post, but let’s move onto Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt,

“Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is ‘page.’ Use it as a noun or a verb. Have fun!”

If we were having a beer, you’d be in the mood for reminiscing.

“Good afternoon, Dan. It’s good to see you here today.”

“Good afternoon, David. Why the surprise? It’s Saturday, I’m almost always here.”

“Now you are. I was remembering the years when you’d be on your way to Florida this weekend, to your company’s Annual Meeting.”

“Yes, well, I turned that page and began a new chapter, as it were.”

“But you’re still drinking Corona. Here you go, Dan. David, John Howell’s special or wine today?”

“That’s interesting, Cheryl, I’ve been thinking about having wine. Do you still have Meiomi?”

“We do. Seltzer and ice?”

“Just seltzer, please.”

“You know, Dan, Cheryl’s right. You used to only drink Corona in February. The rest of the year it was Sam Adams, Yuengling or Naughty Nurse.”

“That’s true. I drank Corona in February in honor of my sister-in-law, after she passed away in February. One year, I decided that I like it better than those other beers.”

“Here you go, David. If you boys want any food, we have Chicken Corn Chowder today.”

“Thanks Cheryl. Cheers, Dan!”

“Cheers.”

“Do you miss going to Florida.”

“Nope, not a bit.”

“Even with he single-digit lows we’ve been having. You don’t miss being able to put on some shorts and walk along the beach?”

“It wasn’t a vacation, David. It was work. Something my boss always made sure we remembered.”

“Work…right. As I recall, it always began with a Super Bowl party. Hardly sounds like work to me.”

“A Super Bowl party in a room full of people who could fire me or have me fired.”

“I guess that could be awkward. Good that the Steelers weren’t in too many of those games.”

“Ouch, David. That was rude. Do you guys want any food?”

“Since David is paying, and considering that last remark, I think I’m going to try that chowder. Didn’t it used to be Bacon Corn Chowder?”

“We make that sometimes, but today it’s chicken. Our chef took a new card out of his mother’s recipe bin.”

“Make that two bowls, Cheryl.”

“Sure, David. I’ll put that order right in.”

“So, Dan. You say you don’t miss going to Florida, but how did you like waking up to a skating rink in your yard?”

“That was a little unnerving, still, we have spikes for our boots, and we only have to go out for the dog.”

“Part of that new page. I guess that is better than hoping your plane will get here or take off.”

“That’s the best thing about retirement, David, no business travel.”

“I can understand that. But the Super Bowl is next week, so you wouldn’t be traveling this week, right?”

“Hard to say. The NFL didn’t finalize the seventeen-game season until well after plans for the meeting would have been made. They might be down there watching the Pro Bowl.”

“Perish the thought. I’d rather watch the Puppy Bowl than the pro version of touch football.”

“Face it, David. No one wants to lose a star player in a meaningless game.”

“They can watch the Olympics. Sunday night is Curling – Mixed Doubles – USA vs Canada.”

“We have to be careful, David. Linda Hill might get mad if we say bad things about Canada.”

“May the best country win, Dan.”

“Cheers!” Speaking of Canada, next week we will have our first guest of 2022. Natalie the Explorer will be joining us to talk about blogging, blog challenges and, well, it is SoCS, so I never know where the conversation might go.

Chicken corn chowder
The snow is gone now. Smokey should be able to get around a little better.
The bunny doesn’t hasn’t had to go to far to eat. He lives under there.
Our cable company is hanging new cable. Maddie isn’t impressed.
If you look close, you can see the new cable they’re hanging.
No basketball today
It was pretty while it lasted.
AMTRAK crossing – they are still working to double-track this area.
We aren’t going to see much sun for a few days.
Late afternoon after the river
The day before the storm rolled in.
We have an opossum around here. I think these might be her tracks.
We had almost 2″ of rain. Before the rain started to freeze. We had a few lakes in the yard
“Maddie, that’s ice under there. We are not going through there.”
We haven’t seen much of Smokey during the past few days. He came out between storms.
Winter can be very pretty

76 comments

  1. I think the technical meteorological term for your weather is “icky.” All that cold mud and slush, freezing and thawing? Ick. On the other hand, there’s that winter river, which is beautiful in your photos. As is that chowder — I did like the crack about the mom’s recipe bin. Cheryl is not to be outdone by Dan and David.

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    • That’s the perfect word for this weather- icky. I haven’t been out yet, but all that ick probably froze overnight. The chowder was excellent and we can never outdo Cheryl. Thanks for stopping by today,

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  4. Rain with no place to go, that can’t be good.
    Chicken corn chowder – haven’t had that since I made it in work (that’s got to be almost 30 years ago! Yikes I’m old!!

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  5. Oh, Dan, I understand about not wanting to be in Florida for work, but why not for fun? Or at least to warm up. It’s been a cold winter!

    That chicken corn chowder looks yum.

    I always chuckle over curling. Never understood the play or the rules. Pro flag football would be more exciting for me…just don’t let the Appleton Curling Club know that.

    Happy Saturday!

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    • I’m not much of a beach person, Mary. Warm would be nice, but only if I had access to all the things I like to do when it’s warm. I took Faith with me twice, when she was in grad school, for a winter break. She is much more of a beach person, so that worked well. It has been cold, but it looks like we’ll have highs in the low 40s next week. That’s OK.

      I won’t tell the club about your thoughts on curling. After watching bits of it through three Olympics, I think I understand the basics. I wouldn’t call it exciting.

      Happy Saturday – I hope it’s a good one.

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  7. Wow, you’ve captured the cold beautifully in your photos, Dan. Your last one is extraordinary. I hope you can spend your day in front of the fireplace.

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    • Thanks Gwen. That last scene was one of those moments I was glad to be outside on a crummy day. I guess there’s always something good to see. I hope you’re having a nice weekend.

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    • Maddie understands, but she wants to follow the scent of something that did go in there. She seems to have strong hunting instincts. Today, we have spikes on our boots and we’re letting her follow her nose across the ice.

      I think business travel ruined Florida for me. Too many trips.

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    • Yikes! That’s a lot of rain, Maggie. We had almost 2 inches Thursday and Friday. A little drained yesterday afternoon and then everything froze overnight. It’s only going to go as high as 23 today, and then back down to 8. But they say we’ll be in the 40s by Wednesday. Thanks. Enjoy the weekend.

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  10. I’ll complain about our ‘hard freeze’ warnings here, but I could not take the (really) cold weather you are having. I have a trickle of water in my veins where there used to be blood. 😆
    Every August I used to have to travel to Orlando for work. Hot as blazes, plus we flew from Florida to Atlanta to change planes and then fly back into Florida again. It’s always the joke here that you can’t fly anywhere in Florida without first flying out of Florida. Have a great weekend, Dan.

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  11. The chicken corn chowder sounds yummy! Now I’m hungry. :) A fun conversation and great use of the prompt. But the weather…Wow! You guys have been slammed. I’m sure you’ll be thrilled to see Spring arrive. Great photos. Have a good weekend!

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  13. That chowder looks amazing, I’ll have some too please.
    I am watching the Olympics right now and loving it, so far I’ve seen, curling , speed skating, skiatholon, luge and now snow boarding,.love it and yes the UK are there😊.
    Lovely post as ever Dan 💜💜

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  14. Something in the weather flooded or froze your post out of the WP reader list. Fortunately I was not using that technology to find my way to the island view bar. Not sure what is worse all that rain an flooding or all this snow. The snow blower got a good work out. And the upside down birdbath aka snow mushroom is nearly covered. I don’t have to reach so high to get the bird feeder down and refill it. Now the chicken corn chowder sounds interesting. However does clam chowder ever go out of style ? One more question. What was the announcement ? Or did I read right past it ?

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  15. Judy keeps telling us how many days until spring. I hope she isn’t on drugs and hallucinating! Lol! Same yucky weather here. Pouring rain, yard turned into ponds and rivers, then everything is frozen solid. Then repeat…..just because!

    Poor Maddie just itching to get in the middle of it all. Murphy having a really hard time maneuvering out there with three legs.

    Fun conversation today. You keep enjoying those Coronas Dan! You made fast work of the prompt!

    Good to see Smokey venturing out again. He must’ve forgotten where he hid his stash of peanuts so he needs a fresh supply from you!

    I hope that opossum wasn’t looking for Cinderella’s glass slipper ‘cause she ain’t never gonna get her foot in it! Nope! Not gonna happen!

    I really like the photo you captioned “ we aren’t going to see much sun for a few days”, and the last photo as well.

    Stay warm. Keep safe. Share your afghan with Maddie!
    Ginger

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  16. I cannot believe you wouldn’t prefer Florida to all that snow and ice! I would!! Texas has been in the freezer since Thursday, with snow, sleet, and ice. Luckily, I didn’t have to get out but my hubby had to go to work. Again, we are lucky the power stayed on this time! The snow started to melt with the sunshine yesterday, but the freezing temps kept all that is in the shade. Looking forward to warmer temperatures today, and hoping that is the worst winter has for us this year! Great SoCs post! That chowder looked delicious and warming.

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  17. Cheers to no business travel! While I have not yet turned the page to retirement, all our annual events were converted to virtual. There is talk of going back to in person eventually but we shall see.

    It is chowder weather here, or in our case a shrimp gumbo starter to celebrate PoPo’s b-day.

    I’ll be back next week to meet Natalie.

    Happy Saturday!

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  18. I don’t miss business travel either. I don’t even miss getting on an airplane with the probability of some idiot going off-hook over mask-wearing. That chowder looks delicious and the photos made me colder than I already am. Thanks for the mention, Dan. Have a super week.

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  21. You are right: winter can be beautiful, especially when observed from inside a warm apartment nursing a hot cup of tea. My favourite way of doing it. But that chowder looks delicious! I could make room for it…

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  23. Those possum tracks remind me of living in Kingwood TX where disturbing noises in backyard led to my investigation. A huge white face looked up at me. Yikes

    Sent from my iPhone

    >

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  26. We are still encased in ice with bitter temperatures and no way to get out until melting begins. I love curling, and will be watching Canada USA tonight. Right now its women’s hockey, and USA has a commanding lead. All I need is a bowl of that chicken corn chowder. Another great Saturday at the bar.

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