Mid-Term Election Day

We were up around 7:30 on this very cool, drizzly morning , and I did a treadmill session and weights exercises after breakfast. Hubbie hung the flag on the well house in recognition of Election Day.



As soon as I was ready for the day, we went to our polling place to cast our votes in this very important election.



At 11:30, I went to my beauty shop for a haircut. When I got back home, Hubbie informed me that Mother was having problems with her plumbing, so he called a plumber, who arrived around noon to take care of the problem.



It was well after 12:30 before Hubbie and I had lunch. As soon as we'd eaten, we ran errands...first to the pharmacy, and then to one of the stores that has a sale every weekend. I had a $10 coupon to spend, and I found a fleece shirt for under $12.



From there, we went to another pharmacy, where I had a coupon for buy-one-get-one-half-price packages of hair color. I also had a $2 coupon for these.



Then we went to the health store, where I bought multi-vitamins. After that, it was on to the WDCS for groceries and incidentals.



We were back home around 4 p.m. Later, we had leftover chicken and dumplings, with a small amount of mashed potatoes. Since there wasn't enough mashed potatoes, we baked a few very small sweet potatoes to go with the meal.



Around 6:30, we went to the college that is near our home to attend a 7 p.m. hypnotist program. This was the second in a series of programs for which I bought season tickets.



This was one of those evenings when we had to choose among several entertainments...the hypnotist program, a football game on TV, and the elimination episode of "Dancing With the Star," on TV. I recorded the two TV programs, though I don't know when we'll be able to watch them.

The hypnotist's program was hilarious, of course. He hypnotized a large group on stage...mainly college students...who did the foolish things asked of them. Three guys were told they were girls competing in a hula contest for a million dollar prize. They were to go into the audience and perform for various men, whom they thought were judges. Donning grass skirts and flowered cup things on their chests, they swayed and flirted up and down the aisles.

One guy was told that every time he heard the words Rip Van Winkle, he would stand up and announce he had wet his pants, and he was proud of it. The women onstage were told that upon hearing spy music, they would go out in the audience and look for clues, and then on command return to the stage and start fighting imaginary enemies.

The guys were told that their butts were on fire, and the only way they could put it out was to scoot along the stage. One guy was told that when he counted to ten, he would skip the number three. He became very puzzled when he counted his fingers and kept coming up with eleven, or when he counted backward and ended with zero. When asked how he came up with eleven fingers, he said he never was very good at math.

A girl was told that when asked, she would know her last name, but would forget her first name. She was told that when she recited the alphabet, however, and came to the correct letter of her first name, she would suddenly remember it.

At one point, they were all told they were naked, which caused some hilarious squirming to cover themselves. But then they were told they were proud of their naked bodies and wanted to show them off, whereupon they went into sexy poses.

He also hypnotized receptive audience members, two of whom were women who were told that they were his number one fan, and when he said his name, they would job up and clap and cheer, which they did.

The last thing he told them was that they would not be able to leave the auditorium until someone said their name. We were behind one of the women, and each time she tried to go out the door, she was unable to. Her friends tried to coax her through the door, but she would pull back, saying she'd wait until later. Finally, one of them said her name, and she was released from the command.

We were back home around 9 p.m., when we watched the football game I'd recorded on DVR.

Sad News

We were saddened to learn this morning on our social network page that a sister-in-law, who suffered a massive stroke last week, passed away last night. Thoughts and prayers from our southern family go out to our brother and his family, who live in a northern state.

Monday, Nov. 1

November, already! The months are rolling past way too fast.

October ended on both joyous and sad notes: happily, two great-grandchildren and a grandson-in-law had birthdays, a granddaughter and her husband celebrated an anniversary, a great-granddaughter was crowned queen of her second grade class, and most family enjoyed various Halloween events. But due to downsizing, a nephew-in-law has lost his job. Hubbie's son has had rotator cuff surgery and is very uncomfortable right now. And sadly, a sister-in-law has suffered a massive stroke, with dim prognosis. A lot can happen in just a few days.

We were up just before 8 a.m. this morning, and I did a treadmill session and resistance exercises after breakfast. After that, Mother came over and put color in my hair in anticipation of a beauty shop appointment tomorrow. After that I did this and that around the house.

While I was busy in household chores, Mother put a pot of chicken on to stew...a combination of leg quarters and breasts. The leg quarters are for Shih Tzu, to stimulate her appetite, which has recently declined. Along with a medicine stimulant from the vet, Shih Tzu has been eating much better the past few days.

The chicken breasts were for our supper. We used a can of low-fat, low-sodium biscuits as dumplings with the broth and chicken breasts, and had this with mashed potatoes, English peas, and canned cranberry sauce. Very holiday-ish.

After lunch, I took Mother to a 2 p.m. medical appointment with her urologist. This was just a follow-up appointment to make sure the infection was completely clear. It is. Mother still doesn't drink nearly enough fluids (beyond coffee), so today she had difficulty giving a specimen. The specimen was so small that the nurse couldn't test it. So she had to do a catheter test, something Mother really, really doesn't like.

I often wonder if folks check themselves in their mirror before leaving home. Today, an obese young woman corraling two children under age three was forced from time-to-time to chase after a toddler and bend over to pick him up. Whenever she bent over, her jeans and shirt parted to reveal about twelves inches of buttock cleavage. Very unappealing. There is no shame these days.

After we got back home, I booted the laptop computer to show Mother snapshots of the great-grandkids in Halloween costumes, and Great-Granddaughter in her pageant outfit.

Hubbie was busy all day, too, running errands and washing the truck.

We spent the evening after supper doing the usual...watching TV, particularly an episode of "Dancing With the Stars."

Halloween Day

Happy Halloween to everyone. Hope you had a fun day, with only the scares that you wanted.

We were up around 7:30 this morning, but I skipped my exercises to get ready to go to a town about an hour and a half away, where we joined Hubbie's daughter, son-in-law, great-grandson, and a friend of the great grandson for lunch and a performance of "Dracula," at a dinner theater.

We opted out of having lunch at the theater, and went to a local buffet restaurant instead. Mother chose pork roast, macaroni and cheese, sweet potatoes, and coleslaw. I also chose pork roast, but with mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans, and coleslaw. Then Mother had strawberry shortcake with angel food cake, and I decided on the peach cobbler with ice cream. The ice cream reminded us of snow ice cream.

The play was not as good as past performances we've seen in that theater, but it was entertaining enough. The most striking thing about the play was the awesome set....the inside of a huge castle, with realistic looking oil lamps mounted all around the "stone" walls.

The walls of the castle opened outward on tracks built into the stage floor, and the upper portions lifted up to reveal two rooms...a bedroom on one side, and the cell of a madman on the other. Round mini-stages were built onto the lower portions of the open-out walls. Various scenes were played on these stages.

A large window that opened inward was built into one wall. Stage smoke blew onto the stage from this window when Dracula entered the bedroom of the lead actress.

There were some well-choreographed fight scenes in the play, and the madman threw himself into his character, but there were a few glitches, too...early on, swords clattered noisily to the floor backstage, the sound system squealed a couple of times, and a large rolling set piece representing a seaside cliff missed the exit space when being pushed offstage in the dark and banged loudly into a wall.

Mother commented that these oopses "took the magic out of the performance."

The play ended about 4 p.m., and we all lost no time heading to our respective towns. We were home about 5:30.

Had a light supper later, and then did the usual...watched TV.