Friday, January 22

Got up at 6:30 this morning, so I could get ready to go to water aerobics. The pool was wonderfully warm today. It was so nice that I'm sure the thermostat will be set back over the weekend, and it'll be cool by Monday. Twenty-one of us showed up today.

Back home, after I was ready for the day, we left for an outing to another town about an hour away to meet Sis for lunch and then go to see the trumpeter swans at a local lake.

We had lunch at a fairly new catfish restaurant, where Mother and I ordered grilled catfish, with baked potatoes, and Hubbie and Sis ordered today's special of fried catfish, with French fries. All of us, except Sis, took advantage of the salad bar.

After that, we went to the lake...that is, we went to the lake once we found out where it is. Hubbie was confident he knew the way, since we'd been there before a few years ago, but he was mistaken about the direction. So he took the wrong road, and we had to turn around and go back to town and ask for directions at a gas station. In fact, he ended up checking at two gas stations before we found the correct road. After all that, I doubt we'll ever forget the way again.

The swans are beautiful (see previous blogs). We spent an hour or so at the lake, where a lady was sharing bags of corn for feeding the swans. She said she'd bought a 50-lb. bag last year, and was anxious this year to give it away. Since I was busy snapping photographs of the swans, Mother and Sis threw corn in the lake.

There is a high, wire, fence at the lake to keep people from getting too close to these protected birds, so observers had to fling the corn pretty hard to get it out into the water. Most of Mother's share landed on the embankment.

The predicted sunny, temps in the 60s day, never materialized. Instead, it was overcast and cool, and though there was no wind, we began to get chilled after a while, and ready to head home.

This morning before we left for the other town, Mother put the ingredients for a bean and cabbage soup in the slow cooker to simmer while we were gone. We had this with hot rolls for supper.

Mother went home after supper, and Hubbie and I watched the movie, "Slumdog Millionaire," an R-rated movie about orphaned children (slumdogs) who learn to survive on their own in India. The story revolves around a boy and his brother. One of the brothers goes on to become a contestant on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," and as he is competing, he flashes back to his life growing up in slums. His main motivation for competing is his love for a girl that he met in the slums as a young child, and then became separated from until their teens. This is an excellent movie.