Friday, October 2

We were up at 6:30 a.m. on this sunny but nippy morning, so I could go to water aerobics. There weren't many at the pool when I arrived, even though I got there a little late, thanks to sitting in the driveway forever before I dared get on the road.

Others drifted in as the time for aerobics neared, until finally about 25 of us were gathered. Our regular lifeguard (a coach at the college) was not available today, so he engaged a student for the duty. The only problem was, the young man...head down on the table in front of him...snoozed through most of the session. At one point, we decided to send up a loud cheer during one of our exercises, just to startle him awake.

Back home, once I was ready for the day, I peeled and sliced the pears we bought yesterday and stewed them with a little sugar substitute, because they were a bit crisp for eating raw. We had dishes of them with fig cookies and hot tea for a snack this evening.

Before I started working on the pears, I got a call from my brother, who is retired in Florida.
We are derelict about keeping in touch with each other. It usually takes a holiday or a family tragedy to prompt a phone call.

Today, he was responding to the death of Granddaughter's partner. We talked for quite a while, ending by promising to mend our ways and touch base more often. My brother doesn't do computers, texting, or the like, so the telephone and snail mail are the only ways to contact him. However, his daughter (my niece) has e-mail, so we are in contact fairly often.

After lunch, Hubbie and I ran errands, while Mother stayed home and cut up bell peppers for the freezer. First we went to a grocery store for cottage cheese, on-sale coffee (for which we also had cents-off coupons), and on-sale fifteen pound bags of red potatoes.

Then we went to another grocery store for pork loins and no-boil lasagna noodles. At the meat counter, we searched and searched for pork loins and couldn't find them. Finally, Hubbie asked a meat cutter if there were any loins in the back. She marched him to a case full of them, located right across the aisle from where we were standing (we hadn't noticed it, because our backs were turned to it...sort of like the monoliths we couldn't find near the bridge last week).

We were pretty embarrassed, and grinned sheepishly at a lady also shopping for meat. She laughed and said she's been guilty of similar things. Then she launched into a discussion of her ill husband, who apparently isn't doing well following a heart attack. I don't know how I managed to elicit this information from her, but it happens frequently at stores that strangers feel the need to confide in me. I must just have one of those non-threatening, motherly, faces.

From there, we went to a home improvement store to check the price of potted mums. We bought one purple one. I wanted a yellow one and a red one, too, but the ones at this store are already in full bloom, which will fade soon.

So we went on to the WDCS, where I bought the colors I wanted, as well as a bale of straw. We also shopped for groceries to satisfy the menu for next week.

Back home, we didn't accomplish much else before we got ready to go at 5 p.m. to a local middle school for their fall festival, where we bought barbecue sandwiches, served with coleslaw, potato chips, chocolate chip cookies, and cold drinks. I ate the sandwich and coleslaw, with a cup of water.

The festival included a silent auction, which ended at 7:30. We think we got the bids on several items, but won't know for sure until someone from the school calls on Monday.

We were back home about 8 p.m., and watched TV for the rest of the evening.