Saturday, October 3

Slept late this morning, but got a treadmill session and resistance exercises in anyway.

It was a routine day of household chores after that. Mother came over and stewed some of the last tomatoes from the garden, and then started cleaning what she thought were sweet banana peppers for the freezer. But she soon began having a burning sensation in her nose, so she asked me to take a bite of one of the peppers. Wow! It was hot! We won't be able to use them, so they will be given to whoever in the family might want them (first come, first served).

Mother bought the pepper plants last spring, while we were touring a garden at a private home in the town where Hubbie's daughter lives. She was told the peppers would be sweet. So we're disappointed.

Hubbie worked in the yard most of the day, including re-potting plants to be brought into the sun room for the winter. He wanted to get this chore done before predicted rain comes in tomorrow (and sticks around for most of the week). He also picked the last of the green tomatoes from the garden, to be sliced for the freezer. We love fried green tomatoes with a beans and cornbread dinner, or served with chicken and white gravy. When we "fry," though, it's with small amounts of olive oil.

Hubbie also mowed the yard today. While he was doing that, I spent time in the yard with Shih Tzu. These days, she is inactive ninety-nine percent of the time, so I try to encourage her to exercise a little. Even though she is nearly blind and deaf, she still seems to know where she wants to go. Today, no matter how many times I picked her up and headed her toward the center of the yard, she kept circling around and heading toward the road. You'd think she had a magnet on her nose, or something.

Later, I arranged the pumpkins, pots of mums, etc., on and in front of the bale of straw near the front porch. This morning, when we got up, Hubbie noticed that all of the cats and kittens were piled on top of the straw bale, so he grabbed a camera and went out to take pictures of them.

The cats didn't let a little thing like decorations on top of the bale stop them, though, because this evening, we noticed they were back up there, cutely arranged among the scarecrow, pumpkin, and pot of mums.

For supper, we had bagel pizzas, with sauteed potatoes, using leftover baked potatoes, and salad.


Later, we attended a symphony concert at the college. This orchestra is from the northeast delta region of our state, and they were very good. I had won the bid for two tickets to the concert at the silent auction of the arts council fundraising event during the summer. So we bought one more ticket tonight for Mother, and split the total cost of the tickets three ways, making the price of each one very inexpensive.

Tonight's program included several rousing pieces, including "Fanfare for the Common Man," by Aaron Copeland. The composition uses only French horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, and gong.

The orchestra also played the music of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, who is noted for the popular composition, "Scheherazade." Tonight's piece, "Capriccio Espagnol," evoked mental images of gypsy and Spanish dancers.

Following intermission, the orchestra played Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture. For "The Pines of the Appian Way," by Ottorino Raspighi, an organist performed on the huge pipe organ housed in the fine arts auditorium. The composition is described as "approaching somewhat ominously, with bass clarinet and low bass sounding fragmentary phrases of military fanfares."

The orchestra's encore number was one of the Olympic themes.

After such thunderous and uplifting music, we were wide awake when we got home to watch our favorite college football team play an exciting game to a much needed win. I had recorded the game on the DVR, but since we didn't get home from the concert until 9 p.m., it was nearly midnight before the game was over.

Surprisingly, despite our stimulating evening, I was able to fall asleep quickly and sleep soundly all night.