Friday, October 23

I decided to stay away from the swimming pool again today. I hope to go back Monday. I did get on the treadmill, however. While I was exercising, Hubbie went over to the cable TV office to report the problem of our TV with its runaway guide and DVR list functions. Last night, I had to just quickly hit select to capture a program, and then I usually couldn't hit the function quickly enough to get what we wanted. So we just watched whatever the remote control managed to halt.

Hubbie came back from the cable TV office with a new remote control and instructions on how to program it. He did as instructed, and still we had runaway functions. So he called the cable TV number, which is somewhere in Texas, and was told they could put out a work order for someone to come today to replace the cable box (which was determined to be the actual problem). We didn't know exactly what time the cable guy would be here, so Hubbie gave his cell phone number...if the cable guy called, we could be home within minutes.

Then we went on about our business, going downtown around 10 a.m. to tour the various antique/craft/flea market shops and malls, listen to music in the pocket park, and get free hamburgers and hot dogs provided by a local bank. This is a "first annual" event that began Wednesday and will continue through tomorrow.

It was pretty much rained out yesterday, but today the town was crowded with folks looking for something different to do. The weather was chilly and windy, but since we spent most of our time inside the shops, it was tolerable.

I didn't find much I wanted. One new store had a couple of ceramic items that I bought...a cardinal bird to add to the mantel when I put my birds and birdhouses back up in January, and a small pot with a handle, of unknown origin (it looks sort of Oriental), that I'll use as a Christmas tree ornament. Together, the items cost $3.50.

Hubbie bought a quart jar of locally produced honey. It is said that eating local honey helps control pollen allergy symptoms by introducing small amounts of the pollen allergens to the system, thereby desensitizing the consumer. It seems to work, though it is not proven scientifically.

After we'd shopped for a while, we stopped by the bank's portable barbecue unit to pick up freshly cooked hamburgers and hot dogs to bring home for lunch. We sliced up sweet onions and tomatoes to add to the burgers, along with lettuce.

After lunch, we continued our tour of the antique/crafts etc. stores until around 2 p.m., and then returned home to fix chicken noodle soup from the broth and chicken Mother cooked Tuesday. We wanted the soup to be ready when we came back from an event at the college, where a photographer showed slides of his Antarctica trip. The slide show and his talk were very interesting. A large crowd...more folks came than expected, I think...crowded into the small area in the college library where program took place.

I can't imagine why this keeps happening, but again today the largest man in the room plunked himself down in the chair right in front of Mother. So one of the library staff moved a folding chair, and I pushed Mother's wheelchair in front of "large guy."

The program lasted two hours, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. When we got back home, I put a can of biscuits in the oven. We had these with (you guessed it) honey. After supper, we watched TV, of course. Since all the programs I'd recorded on the old DVR were lost when it was replace with a new one (the cable guy came shortly after we returned from our downtown tour this afternoon...he said he'd never seen anything like our runaway functions).

Funny: at one of the stores downtown that sells "shabby chic" clothes, I saw a chambray tunic with a lace-up front that I liked and that I thought was in my size. I decided to try it on and went to the makeshift dressing room in the back of the store.

The tunic was a bit snug and not right for me, but when I tried to take it off, it rolled up in the back and trapped my arms...one up, one down....forming a straight jacket effect. I couldn't reach anywhere to pull the thing off. I had to twist and turn and inch my arms until I could get a hold on the opposite sleeve and strain my way out of it and finally out of the whole thing. After I got out of it, my hair looked like it had been combed by a hay rake. Naturally, I was so long in the dressing room that both Mother and Hubbie were ready to send someone in to check on me.