Saturday, Oct. 9

It's hard to believe that we have ended the first week of October, and the temperature is still in the 90s. Our state has now broken a record for the greatest number of days at 90 degrees and above.

We were up at 7 a.m., and I did a treadmill session and weights exercises after breakfast. Once I was ready for the day, Hubbie and I went to the WDCS for a few groceries.

Back home, I continued working on our family history until lunchtime. Mother came over after lunch, and we went to a local college for a program of Japanese music. It was an hour and a half program that began at 2 p.m. The artists played seven pieces, as well as relating the history of the music.

Japanese music is not a genre that we could listen to frequently or for long periods of time, but today's program was interesting. Two artists performed...one a Japanese woman in traditional dress, and an American man, who has studied the music for many years. He, too, was in traditional Japanese dress.

The woman performed on two different kotos (Japanese harps), and the man played a shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo end-blown flute). Each of the pieces they played told a story, of course. One piece illustrated the story of two nesting cranes, as they raise their young, watch them leave the nest, and then grow old and die (a correlation to human life).

The audience was not large, but there was a sizable contingent of youngsters from a town about an hour away that came to the college in a school bus. I assume these were students of Japanese culture. Students from the college were also in attendance, as part of their Japanese studies.

Whenever, the musicians tuned their instruments, Hubbie would ask, "Is it over now?" This was an allusion to the time we took a granddaughter, who was about four years old at the time, to a symphony concert. We'd warned her the concert would be long, and she might get bored, but she insisted on going, anyway We cracked up when she asked that question after the muscians finished tuning up.

Back home, Hubbie and I watched our favorite college football team play to a win. I'd recorded the game on DVR while we were at the concert. While the game was going on, Mother and I prepared a supper of bagel pizzas, microwaveable baked potatoes, and sliced tomatoes with cottage cheese.

Mother went home after supper, and Hubbie and I watched several one-hour shows on TV.