Up around 7 a.m., and did a treadmill session and weights exercises after breakfast. While I was on the treadmill, Hubbie came in to tell me Mother had buzzed him on the intercom to announce that something was wrong with her air conditioner. Seems it quit working in the middle of the night, so she and her cat suffered the heat until this morning. Wish we'd known...they could have spent the night with us.
Hubbie immediately called a heat and air repairman, and then assisted Mother and her cat to our house. They were pretty wilted and glad for the respite of our cool house. Of course, the cat, who was confined to a cage, wasn't ecstatic, so she whined a bit.
We weren't sure when the repairman would come...sometime today, he said...but we left Mother's house open for him in case we weren't here ( he is a trustworthy individual that we've dealt with over many years).
At 10 a.m., we went to the fairgrounds for Senior Day. It was hot, hot, hot, and there is no air conditioning in the buildings, but big fans did alleviate the heat a little. We began by touring the women's building, and the plant and vegetable sheds, to see what ribbons we'd won. We got lots of blue ribbons in the crafts, canned goods, and baked goods, but as far as we could tell, no Best of Show awards.
Mother and I both got blue ribbons for our place settings, but the Best of Show went to a setting of gold rimmed china, with gold rimmed crystal glassware. No way would I have displayed a fine set like that at the fair where, even though it is locked behind chicken wire fences and gates, it can still be accessed by some enterprising thief.
This year, most of the top awards went to patriotic-themed exhibits. Both the Extension Homemakers and the 4-H booths that got Grand Champion awards had patriotic themes. A patriotic wreath in the holiday division of crafts took the top award, as did other red, white, and blue themes in other sections.
In fact, the whole fairgrounds was patriotic-themed, with American flags posted all around the perimeter, and a special area of tall flags with accompanying photos of fallen soldiers was set aside...very moving, particularly since our town lost a young man in Iraq recently. The fair this year is dedicated to him.
After the women's building, we visited the plant and vegetable sheds. We got a few red ribbons on cut flowers, which admittedly weren't as pretty as they might have been in a less heat-stressed year. But we got lots of blue ribbons on plants and on the few tomatoes we entered. My floral arrangement got a blue ribbon, but no top award this year. Boo.
After touring the women's building, we went through the commercial building, where we signed up for every door prize offered. I used address labels for this, which is an easy way to register. Mother didn't have any labels, though, so I registered for her.
We visited with lots of folks in this building...all of whom were manning exhibt boothes. We saw the lady who coordinates Caring Hands Hospice, and a woman whose daughter is cast in the upcoming children's play, produced by the community theater, as well as my dentist, who is promoting the community/sports complex.
Outside of the building, I met a woman who was my daughter's childhood playmate...her family lived in the same neighborhood as we did. I didn't recognize her, but she immediately recognized me. I was sad to learn that her mother passed away with lung cancer two years ago. This woman and my daughter were dance students for several years, and were in recitals together. She came to our fair from a town about 45 minutes away, where she works for a health center. The center was distributing fans and bottles of water, as well as canvas totes.
Around 11:30, I located Hubbie in the entertainment shed, where he had gotten three tickets for our lunch...lunch was provided by the local senior citizens center. Each ticket was numbered for door prize drawings. Hubbie got two prizes...a very pretty candle in a jar, and two dinners to a fast food cajun chicken restaurant.
Lunch was chicken salad sandwiches, broccoli and white cheese salad with a vinegar dressing, baked potato chips, canned mandarin oranges, and cartons of 2% milk. The baked chips contain yellow dye, and I drink only skim milk. But I ate everything else. We thought canned mandarin oranges was a strange dessert, but we ate them, anyway.
After that, we headed home. As soon as we arrived, I poured glasses of lemonade over ice for Hubbie and me (for the first time since we can remember, no one was selling lemonade at the fair).
Not-so-funny: I had just finished pouring the lemonade when, as I was attempting to set the empty container on the table, I knocked one of the glasses of the sticky liquid over. Just what we needed. I sopped up the lemonade off the table, while Hubbie mopped it off the floor. Of course, both surfaces needed more than one sopping/mopping, because they were both very sticky. Our shoes stuck to the floor when we walked.
In the meantime, I made another batch of lemonade, and we downed two glasses of it apiece. Mother didn't want any. Since she'd lost sleep last night, all she wanted to do was nap.
The good thing is that the air condtioner repairman had come while we were gone and fixed the unit, so when Hubbie went to Mother's house to check on it, he found that it was cool inside.
Mother did well at the fair, since she wore cool clothing, rode in the wheelchair, and wore house shoes rather than regular shoes, as I suggested. I figured she just needed to be comfortable, not make a fashion statement. None of the seniors at the fair were trying to make fashion statements, I noticed.
Mother and I relaxed for the afternoon, while Hubbie went to the barber shop. Later, we had a supper of leftover lasagna, with green beans, and cottage cheese with tomatoes. Then, I accompanied Mother to her house. Afterward, Hubbie and I watched TV...three episodes of "Lark Rise to Candleford," from the PBS channel.
Note: got a phone call from Niece last night. She said her dad and mother (my brother and his wife) have moved back to New York from Florida. They both have health problems, so they are now living with Niece. She has been seeing to their medical needs, and she says both are doing better than they were.
Both seem to have settled in nicely, and Brother has even made a new friend, who lives across the street. Sister-in-Law is in the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease, so things are dicier with her. She suffers from Sundowners Syndrome, which is stressing Niece. Things are okay during the day, but then her mother gets confused and agitated in the evening. After working all day (she works at a hospital), she is already tired, and then she has to prepare a meal for her parents, and try to be patient with her mother's mood shifts. My heart goes out to her.
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