Saturday, August 8

If things had gone as planned, we would have been on the road to Michigan today. But since the trip has been postponed, I decided to get an early start grocery shopping at the WDCS this morning, because we wanted to go to the watermelon festival this afternoon. I skipped my exercises, figuring I'd get plenty while walking around the festival grounds pushing Mother in the wheelchair


Whew! Was it ever hot at the festival! We stayed long enough to make a tour around the craft booths, sign up for prizes, make a quick trip through the car and tractor show (see snapshots in previous blog), and enjoy cups of soft serve ice cream, before we called it quits.

The crafts booths featured the usual items...t-shirts and caps, Indian jewelry, wood crafts, jars of honey and jellies, etc. There were several food booths, too, some sponsored by local organizations serving hamburgers, hot dogs and the like, and other commercial ones offering foods like blooming onions and (yuk) gator on a stick.

On a stage, performers sang country and gospel songs. People strolling through the festival grounds wore watermelon themed t-shirts and hats, and fanned themselves with free logo fans given away at some booths. Later in the afternoon, there was to be a free watermelon feast. Several local growers provide the melons, and a very large group of people line up for generous one-fourth-of-a-melon servings.

We preferred to travel down the road to our favorite watermelon farmer's roadside stand and buy a small melon to eat at home. We were back home before 3 p.m. As soon as I came into the house, I headed for the kitchen to make myself a glass of lemonade, using bottled lemon juice and sugar substitute. I offered to make glasses of the refreshing beverage for Mother and Hubbie, too, but they declined.



For me, though, one glass wasn't enough, so after I quickly downed the first serving, I made myself another glass, this time sipping it. I guess I must have been both dehydrated and low on electrolytes, because I felt much cooler and refreshed after finishing off the second glass.



Now I was ready to settle down and read my novel until suppertime. Supper was loaded baked potatoes...huge potatoes topped with pepper Jack cheese, leftover barbecue pork and sauce, and coleslaw. Sides were corn-on-the-cob and sliced tomatoes.



Later, we went over to the college to see the outdoor movie musical, "Oliver!" sponsored by a local dance studio and the arts council. You may remember that in a previous blog, I mentioned that the dance studio instructor had sent e-mails to about 350 people, including us, inviting us to attend this movie. The e-mail came not once, but over 400 times.



You'd think that after receiving a message 400 times, I'd remember what time the movie was scheduled to be shown. But no, I had to check my e-mail to find out. "About 8:30" is what the invitation says. "Oliver!" is a three-hour, G-rated, 1968 Academy Award winning movie, based on the Charles Dickens novel, "Oliver Twist."

When we arrived, Hubbie walked up to the dance instructor and (tongue-in-cheek) said, "I surely do thank you for sending us an invitation to this movie." The instructor laughed, saying that not everyone was thankful for the invitation. "One person even threatened to sue me," she said. I don't think that person would have a case, since what happened wasn't the instructor's fault.

She said that the e-mails stopped coming to us when the service provider blocked them from going out anymore. But, she added, the messages kept replicating through the server....about 65,000 times...before the server shut down the instructor's e-mail account.

About 30 of the 350 she'd sent the invitation to showed up for the movie. We thought we were going to arrive late, because after we finished watching a movie on TV, it was nearly 8:30. But we got there just as the movie started.

We didn't take snacks with us, because one purpose of the free movie was to sell snacks as a fundraiser. So we bought homemade brownies at intermission (two large ones per Ziplock bag for fifty cents) . Following intermission, there was a glitch with the second movie CD when the sound stopped. Those in charge scrambled around to fix it, but in the meantime, half the audience folded their lawn chairs and left. Finally, after hooking up a different speaker, the sound came back on, and the remainder of us enjoyed the rest of the movie.

At a few points through the movie, a group of dance students got up and, on the sidewalk beside the movie screen, demonstrated dance routines like the ones the characters were performing onscreen. The students had met from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. to learn these routines before the movie began.

As we left the movie, around 11:30 p.m., the instructor said, "Well, we've had a few ups and downs getting this event together, but we made it."