Friday, July 3

We slept late this morning, and by the time we had breakfast, I exercised, and then got ready for the day, it was already 10 a.m. Mother came over about that time and gave me a list of groceries she needed when we shopped at the WDCS.

We ran a couple of errands before going grocery shopping. And then road construction on the main drag to the WDCS slowed us to a snail's pace, so it was after 11 a.m. before we arrived at the store. Also, the store was packed with July 4 holiday shoppers, so I had to wait a long time at the deli counter before my order could be filled.

Then at the checkout counter, the shopper ahead of us had picked up a bottle of shampoo that leaked and dripped all over the counter. This created a delay, while the checker cleaned up the mess and alerted an associate to go fetch another bottle.

While the associate looked for another bottle, the checker completed the lady's other purchases, and then began checking ours. The other customer pushed her cart a few feet away from the counter and waited. But the associate who had been sent for the shampoo didn't immediately return, which got the customer's dander up. "Can I leave my cart here, while I go get another bottle of shampoo myself?" she snapped at the checker. The checker said, "sure."

The lady stormed away, and presently was back with the shampoo. "I should have hunted that clerk down and told her she doesn't know what she's doing!" she growled at the checker.
"Thank you, and have a nice day," the checker smiled, as the lady stormed out of the store.

Besides being a real witch, the thing I noticed about the lady was that though she is tall, slender, and buxom...maybe striking in her younger years...she is probably well into her 70s now. In a failed attempt to look sexy, though, she wore a long, blond pony tail, tight jeans, and a form-fitting, sleeveless blouse that emphasized her flabby, wrinkled, and age-spotted arms. I wonder what this lady saw when she looked at herself in the mirror this morning? Apparently, not the same thing that I saw.

Daughter called after I got home to let me know that she and a lady friend of hers, whom we've never met, plan to travel up here early tomorrow, visit, and have lunch with us, and then return home to attend Great-Grandson's birthday party.

After lunch, I put together a potato salad, while Mother made macaroni salad. We'll serve these with barbecue sandwiches, corn-on-the-cob, coleslaw, and sliced tomatoes for our July 4 celebration. Our red, white, and blue dessert will be angel food cake topped with sugared strawberries, blueberries, and vanilla ice cream.

I baked the angel food cake as soon as I finished with the potato salad. While the cake was cooling, Hubbie and I drove downtown to leave the props at the art gallery for the Fairytale Theater play. I should have delivered the stuff this morning, because that's when the play director stopped by to pick them up. So when I got home, I called the director, who said she was only a couple of blocks away from the gallery then and could stop back by there for the items.

We spent the rest of the afternoon sprucing the house for company. For supper, we sampled the potato and macaroni salads, with BLT sandwiches. Afterward, we set the table with picnic ware...a white plastic tablecloth, red plastic plates, and red Solo cups.

Then I went out into the yard to see if I could find flowers in patriotic colors. About all that's blooming, though, are zinnias. So I cut a red one, a few white ones, and a couple of lavender ones. I put these in a slender vase with a few sparkly red Christmas fronds, as well as red, white and blue shiny patriotic garlands, bent to look like fireworks bursts, and then surrounded the top of the vase with little paper American flags. It's not great, but it'll serve.

Hubbie's jobs today were to bathe Shih Tzu, vacuum the downstairs carpet, clean the downstairs bathroom, and mop the kitchen floor. Hubbie has always been very willing to do these tasks around the house.

Later, Hubbie and I watched a couple of movies: "Path of Destruction," a Sci-Fi flick about nanotechnology gone wrong. After an explosion, the nanoparticles run amuck, eating through or melting stuff.

The second movie was "Exit Speed," rated "R" for violence and language. Starring Desmond Harrington, Lea Thomson, and Fred Ward, it's about ten people on a bus who are attacked by a motorcycle gang. A chase ends with the bus crashing in a scrap yard, where the passengers hole up and fight the gang.

Things are the same at the eagle nest. The baby spent time flapping his wings and hopping around the nest. I only saw the mother return once, without a kill. She stayed only briefly before flying off again. The eaglet is spending a lot of time alone in the nest these days. Today was the first time Mother got to see him in action.