Sunday, October 4

We were up at our usual time this morning, though I skipped my exercises. It was a routine Sunday of reading the paper, programming the DVR, and having lunch. Lunch today was chicken breasts roasted in the slow cooker with onions, carrots, and celery, and served with boiled potatoes, and gravy made from chicken broth, plus baked butternut squash.

While lunch was cooking, though, we watched a movie..."Creature From the Black Lagoon." This is a 1955 black and white film that Mother and I first saw when I was a teenager. At that time, it was very scary...so much so, that during the creature-jumps-out-at-you scenes, Mother would reach over and anxiously pound my knee. Today, it seemed very mild compared to current horror movies, though it is a three-star film, and still fun to watch.

After lunch, Mother went home, and Hubbie and I watched another horror film. This one is called "In the Company of Wolves," starring Angela Lansbury. It is an R-rated 1985 revision of "Little Red Riding Hood." Granny (Angela Lansbury) warns her granddaughter of straying from the path, where wolves may lurk and lead her astray. Wolves, Granny warns, may appear as men whose eyebrows grow together. It is R-rated for violence and bloody transformations from man to wolf.

After supper, Hubbie and I continued watching movies I'd recorded on DVR. The DVR was getting full, so we needed to watch some of the movies or ditch them. There was nothing else we wanted to do on this rainy, October-boo day, so we sat down to a scary movie marathon. We saw two films..."Joshua," and "The Vagrant." Both are rated "R" for violence and some language. "The Vagrant" has brief nudity.

"Joshua," is a 2007 movie about an evil-doing nine-year-old boy who is jealous of his newborn baby sister, and sets about doing awful things on the sly. His mother finally realizes what he is doing, but the father doesn't believe it. The mother is committed to an asylum, and then the boy goes to work on his father. All the while, the viewer fears for the baby sister. I'd seen this movie before, but Hubbie hadn't.

"The Vagrant," is a 1992 movie about a guy who moves into a house and is plagued by a filthy, very scary looking bum, who invades his home and kills people. Of course, there is no proof that the bum is guilty of anything, so the police suspect the homeowner.

Since it's predicted to rain all week, we decided to disassmeble the outdoor fall arrangement, so the pumpkins and the bale of straw won't sit in water and rot. Hopefully, this crazy weather will settle down, and we can put the arrangement back in the yard soon.

We now have a helpful new feature as part of our cable/internet/phone service bundle...when the phone rings, the name and number of the caller appears on our television screen. So we can now not only ignore calls we don't want to take (like telemarketers), but we'll also know who the call is for so that person can answer it, or let voice mail take a message. Of course, the caller's number also appears on the telephone, but we don't always see that. Today, when the arts council director called, and I told her about this new feature, she said it was kind of scary.