Saturday, March 27, 2010

Saturday, March 27

We were up at 7 a.m., but I skipped my exercises, so we could get ready for a visit from Daughter and Great-Granddaughter. They arrived around 10:30 a.m., bringing Great-Grandson with them.

Great-Grandson, a few months short of his second birthday, is a spitfire. He nearly wore Daughter out. He is a cutie, but he is absolutely never still. Daughter stayed on his heels for the three hours or so that they were here.

For lunch, we had chicken prepared in the slow cooker, baked sweet potatoes, steamed veggies, and yeast bread. Great-Grandson used most of his meal as projectiles, which he chucked at his Grandmother. At the end of the meal, her shirt was splotched with various foods.

Great-Grandson has the habit of throwing everything he picks up, so toys flew this way and that. We hope that he will soon outgrow this habit.

After lunch, we celebrated Shih Tzu's sixteenth birthday with party hats, candles, and a pineapple upside down cake. Before we enjoyed the cake, we all gathered around it with Shih Tzu for photos. Very thoughtful Great-Granddaughter even brought a gift for Shih Tzu...a soft, yellow, shaped-like-a-fish squeaky toy.

After that, we loaded into the two cars and headed to the college, where, according to our local newspaper, there was to be an Easter egg hunt at 2 p.m. on this mild, but windy, windy day. A group of parents, with kids and their baskets in tow, gathered at the place on campus indicated by the newspaper. No eggs were visible on the grounds, and no one was there who looked in charge.

So I hiked down to the library to inquire. A young woman, who said she was in charge, noted that the event is actually scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. Apparently, the newspaper got the information wrong and then refused to correct it, saying it was too late for a correction.

Since there was to be no egg hunt, we loaded up again and went over to the college lake for a walk on the path. Mother was too tired to walk, so Daughter and I unloaded the wheelchair from the back of the van for her. I pushed Mother, while Daughter herded the kids.

I hope that this outing wore Great-Grandson down enough that he napped on the trip home. Daughter and kids left about 3 p.m.

At 3:30, Hubbie and I went down to the college for a FilmFest event...a feature about Cajun and zydeco music. Marc and Ann Savoy, noted Cajun musicians, were central to the film. An accompanying film featured a snapshot of the couple's career.

Both were in attendance at the screening and answered audience questions afterward. Tonight at 8 p.m., the couple and their family performed in concert. Hubbie and I are not really educated in this genre of music, but we were certainly willing to experience it, especially from such an esteemed group.

Before we left for the concert, warnings were issued on TV for a severe thunderstorm, possibly containing hail, for our county. But nothing developed before we left for the concert.

Addendum: no, nothing happened before we left for the concert...it waited until we got down to the college, a mile away. Then it cut loose. Hubbie drove up to the front of the auditorium to let me out while he went to park the van. As I stepped out of the van, a blowing cold rain, mixed with small hail, soaked the front of my jeans. I was carrying an umbrella, but the rain blew right under it.

I hurried inside. There were several wet folks standing in the lobby, including one man whose shirt was soaked through. Coming in behind me was a woman with a very large red and white umbrella that had blown inside out. Another woman was struggling to help her fix the umbrella, with the result that when it snapped right side out, it shot water into the faces of both. It was a comical sight.

In the meantime, Hubbie waited in the van until the storm abated before he came inside. I was already seated. Fortunately, the auditorium was heated so that my jeans dried after a while. I'm sure glad the air conditioning wasn't on, as it usually is. I did have the presence of mind to wear a turtleneck shirt and a fleece hoodie, so I was pretty comfortable.

It has just been one of those days. Hubbie had promised to gather daffodils yesterday afternoon for a bouquet, but forgot. So he went out this morning to do so. But many of the flowers he brought in were dirty from hanging down on the wet lawn. We finally got a nice bunch for the table, though.

Then when Daughter got here, she advised me that she had forgotten to bring the movie, "Up," despite my reminding her yesterday.

Of course the non-existent Easter egg hunt was another glitch. And then there was the rain storm tonight.

No matter. It was a good day, anyway.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Friday, March 26

We were up early this morning, at 6:30, so I could get ready to go to water aerobics. At 7:30, though, our aerobics leader called to say the pool had lost about half its water since Wednesday (it has had a leak for quite a while), so there would be no session this morning.

Even if the problem can be corrected and the pool filled over the weekend, it'll be too cold for swimming on Monday. I'll just wait for the our leader to call again when the pool is ready.

So I did a treadmill session and resistance exercises this morning. Afterward, I read an e-mail from one of my high school classmates. He updated me on another classmate who is suffering from terminal cancer. He and two other classmates visited the ill one, and learned that his prognosis is very bad...doctors give him maybe 30 days.

So once I was ready for the day, the greeting card shop was the first stop on Hubbie's and my round of errands. I found a card that expressed my support for the ill classmate, and later wrote a short letter to include in the card, along with copies of scrapbook pages from our class's last two reunions. This man is featured in several of the photos on the pages.

From the greeting card shop, we went to the hydroponic farm to get more tomatoes, and then to the everything's a dollar store to get party hats for Shih Tzu's birthday party tomorrow, as well as lemon drops and butterscotch disks for Mother for Easter.

Our last stop was the WDCS for groceries and incidentals. Back home, we had a lunch of leftover corn chowder and bran muffins. Then I retreated to my office to write the letter to my classmate and make copies of the scrapbook pages.

By the time I was finished, it was time for a supper of tuna and egg salad sandwiches. At 6 p.m., Mother and I went to the FilmFest, held at a local college about a mile from us. Tonight, we saw a series of films by state artists.

The films included one about a theme park in our state that went defunct in the 1990s, and another about the trials and tribulations of promoting a diamond field. Other short films included a very well done one about the loss of a child (just images, no dialogue), and two about the cycle of life. We particularly enjoyed one done by an oriental artist that featured candles dancing to music...sort of like dancing water.

We were back home about 9 p.m. Hubbie and I watched a couple of one-hour shows before heading to bed.

Nice, sunny day today, though a tad cool. Yesterday at the museum, I bought a pumpkin colored t-shirt, with a yellow FilmFest logo on the front. Today, I wore the t-shirt over a yellow turtleneck. With a denim jacket, I was comfortable during the day, but the theater was pretty cool tonight, so I think I'll take a heavier jacket tomorrow night for the FilmFest concert.

Thursday, March 25

Up at 7:30, and did a treadmill session and weights exercises after breakfast. Mother came over mid-morning, and we did this a that getting ready for a visit from Daughter and Granddaughter on Saturday.

At noon, we went to the museum for a brown-bag-lunch FilmFest event. Today's features included one about a visit by President Nixon to Mobile, Alabama, where he spent a total of 104 minutes, and met with his political rival, Governor George Wallace. We were struck by the fact that while he was there, he lost a cuff link, which a young girl found. The girl was thrilled, and wrote to Nixon asking if she could keep it. He asked her to return it to him. What a guy.

A year later, Wallace was shot, which resulted in his being confined to a wheelchair. While he was in critical condition in the hospital, Nixon called Wallace's wife. The film features that phone call, which reveals that Nixon, who was supposed to be offering comfort to Mrs. Wallace, was obviously distracted to the point that he couldn't keep the boredom out of his voice. There were two other very short films, as well, but they were not as interesting as the Nixon one.

The sky was dark, and it was obvious that we were in for some wet weather this afternoon, Fortunately, the rain held off until we got home from the museum. While it rained, we whiled the afternoon away watching TV...a feature of several state high school choirs performing patriotic music. We were interested in the feature, because one of the choirs is from a local school, and one is from a school in the community where Sis works.

Then we watched two episodes of, "Life," a nature program about insects and animals. This will be a 13-episode series.

By the time we finished these programs it was suppertime. We had leftover beef hash with fried eggs and toast, and dishes of canned peaches for dessert.

Mother went home after that, and Hubbie and I went to a play reading at the home of the lady who hosts the community theater board meetings. A local retired professor has written a reader's theater play about a period in the history of our town. He hopes to produce the play during our town's sesquicentennial events. He wanted eight of us to read the play aloud, so he could get a feel for its timing.

Hubbie took the role of a Union soldier (from the letters of the soldier), and I read the part of a young woman writing in her diary. We met at 6:30, and didn't finish reading until after 10 p.m. So it was apparent to the author (and to the rest of us) that the play is way too long.

We were both plenty ready to hit the sack when we got back home.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Wednesday, March 24

Another very pretty day. It's looking more and more like Easter, with trees like snowy white Bradford pears, and blossoming pink magnolias, along with bright yellow forsythia bushes, as well as daffodils, and even pretty little periwinkle flowers.

We were up at 6:30, so I could go to water aerobics. Fourteen of us showed up this morning, with each of us complaining of how cool the water was. It was okay once I was used to it, but that first plunge sure was shivery.

One of the members, who has been absent for a while, returned today. Seems she was recovering from an injury to her leg, when one of her heifers kicked her. This lady is in her 70s, but is still raising cattle...alone. I don't know how she does it, since she has difficulty even walking. She's pretty strong otherwise (she was once an Olympic-quality swimmer, and still is our strongest swimmer), and she says she does most of her work with a four-wheeler.

After I got back home and ready for the day, I continued reading the John Grisham book until time to go to the museum for the first of the FilmFest screenings. There were two short films today. One was about an appalacian guitar maker. Son, who plays guitar with a couple of bands, would have enjoyed this film.

The second screening was about an albino African-American blind man, who has been working for 30 years in industries for the blind mattress factory.

The screenings were at noon, and we were encouraged to bring brown bag lunches. We, of course, took ham salad sandwiches, a choice of pretzels or corn chips, and cookies. A few others brought lunches, too, but most did not. Tomorrow, there will be another brown-bag lunch screening at the museum.

Back home, I finished the John Grisham book, while Mother worked puzzles, and Hubbie watched basketball games.

For supper, we had beef hash, using the leftover roast from Sunday, and a choice of Lima beans or butter beans.

Later, Mother and I went to one of the colleges for another session of FilmFest screenings. These were short French films, subtitled, of course. There were some cute ones, including a musical spoofing American corporate greed, and an animated one about a character who is affected by an asteroid and knocked 91 centimeters off center.

More serious ones included a man who tries to commit suicide by jumping in a lake in winter, but lands, in his underwear, on a hunk of ice. A woman happens by who is having marital problems, and instead of hurrying to help the man, she chatters on and on about her husband woes. Finally, she decides to try to save the man by swimming out to him. She wades to within feet of him, and when he sees she's in shallow water, he hops off the ice, but goes completely under, and drowns.

Another one features a woman who, while riding her bicycle, is hit by a car. In her dying moments, she thinks of the last time she saw her friends, of how curt she was with her Mother the last time she spoke with her on the phone, the last time she felt rain, the last time she made love, etc., and how she might have done things differently if she'd know those were the "last times."

We enjoyed the screenings, except for the fact that since they were shown in the art gallery of the college, we had to sit on metal folding chairs. My back and legs did not enjoy that. Mother was really stiff when she got up to leave.

Refreshments were served...bags of popcorn, cookies, trail mix, and bottled water or sodas. I ate a small cookie, and brought a bag of popcorn Hubbie, who stayed home to bathe Shih Tzu and watch basketball games.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Tuesday, March 23

What a gorgeous day! Spring at its best.

Slept late, then did a treadmill session and resistance exercises. While I was doing this, Hubbie went to a Master Gardeners house to dig plants for the upcoming fundraising plant sale. Mother came over and made ham salad to make sandwiches with tomorrow for a brown-bag-lunch FilmFest event at the museum.

Once I was ready for the day, I did this and that around the house until 11 a.m., when I met an appointment to get my hair cut.

Back home, Mother and I cleared away our scrapbooking/greeting card making materials, since we won't have time to work on them the rest of this week. Then we dug out all the leftovers from the past few days for a bottom-of-the-refrigerator lunch.

After lunch, Hubbie went out to work in the yard, Mother worked puzzles, and I read a John Grisham book..."Ford County," a series of short stories. The book was loaned to me by one of the members of water aerobics before Christmas. Hubbie started reading it right away, but then tucked it in a drawer during the holidays, and forgot about it. I just remembered it yesterday. Now, I'm determined to get it read in the next couple of days.

The lady to whom the book belongs said it is one of Grisham's worst. Certainly, it is a departure from his previous popular works, but I think the book's straitlaced 80-year-old owner just can't appreciate some of the story situations and low-life characters....death row, a bunch of guys on a mission to donate blood who get drunk and sidetracked in a strip joint that includes lap dancing, and a failure of a lawyer who is also a failure of a husband and father. So far, those are the only stories I've read.

Still, the lady wants the book back, so she can pass on to a friend of hers who collects Grisham novels. So I'll read it as quickly as possible and get it back to her, with my apologies for being so delinquent.

Supper tonight was corn chowder and bran muffins. Mother went home after that, and Hubbie and I watched an episode of "Dancing with the Stars," that I recorded on DVR last night. We followed this with an episode of NCIS, followed by a women's college tournament basketball game, featuring a team from our state. Unfortunately, they lost.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Monday, March 22

Up at 6:30 this morning to get ready for water aerobics. I think I'm adjusting a little to the time change, so it wasn't as hard to roll out of bed.

It was a rather cool morning, requiring a coat. The pool was a bit chilly, too. We understand that the college is keeping the temp down, because there is a swim meet there this week while the kids are on spring break.

Back home, Mother came over to put color in my hair. After that, she relaxed with her puzzle books while I got ready for the day. Later, I worked on scrapbook pages until lunchtime.

After lunch, Hubbie and I ran a couple of errands...first to a friend's house to pick up a bag of combination wheat and white flour. While Mother and I were visiting with her and another friend last week, she mentioned that she tried the flour and didn't like it. I agreed to take it off her hands, since we like making pancakes with this combination. But she forgot to give it to me before we left her house. So we played phone tag for a few days before she finally reached me this afternoon, just before we left to run errands.

From Friends's house, we went to the post office to mail the screen door birthday card to another of my friends. Then we stopped by a little shop that sells Jelly Belly jelly beans. I bought a half pound of these to give to Mother for Easter. She loves these, as well as butterscotch candies and lemon drops. I'll get some of each of those to add to her Easter basket, too.

I continued with my scrapbooking when we got back home. The project absorbed me most of the rest of the afternoon.

We had leftover beef roast and trimmings for supper. Mother went home after that, and Hubbie and I watched the movie, "Little Children," a 2006, R-rated film starring Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly, Greg Elelman, and Sadie Goldstein. An unhappy suburban wife starts an affair with a stay-at-home husband. Besides a steamy relationship between these two (that includes explicit sex scenes), the story also pivots on a pedophile in the neighborhood, and a vigilante determined to make his life miserable. The movie has a three-star rating, and Kate Winslet was nominated for an Academy Award for her role.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Sunday, March 21

Slept really late this morning. Woke up at 6:30, but Hubbie was sound asleep, so I lay awake until 7:30, when I fell asleep again. Didn't wake back up until nearly 9 a.m. The yard was puddled after two and a half inches of rain fell last night. Thankfully, we didn't get any snow, though a northwest county of the state, where Hubbie's daughter lives, got eleven inches of the white stuff.

Skipped my exercises this morning, and just went on and got ready for the day. Mother came over and put a beef roast with onions and carrots into the slow cooker. For the rest of the morning, we visited, read the newspaper, did laundry, programmed the DVR, planned the week's menu, etc.

The beef roast was yummy, served with mashed potatoes and gravy. Mother went home after lunch, and Hubbie and I ran errands...to the WDCS for groceries for the week, to a grocery store for eggs at four dozen for $5, and to a gas station to fill the van.

Back home, I wrote a letter to my friend to enclose in her screen door birthday card. I'll mail the card tomorrow, hoping it arrives in time for her birthday Tuesday.

For supper, Hubbie and I had the rest of the tomato soup, with bean sandwiches on hamburger buns, again. Later, we watched the movie, "Taken," a 2008, PG-13 movie starring Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, and Maggie Grace. A man's career as a spy forces him to become estranged from his daughter. In her teen years, he tries to establish a relationship. On a trip to Paris, the daughter is kidnapped by slavers, and the father uses all his spy skills to find her. There's quite a bit of violence in the movie, so it surprises me that it's not more restricted than PG-13.

Then we watched a state university's women's basketball team in tournament play...the first time in their history that the college's women have reached this level...and they won! Looking forward to seeing them play again Tuesday.