Sunday, Jan. 30

Up around 8 a.m., but skipped my exercises, as I usually do on Sundays. I did my usual Sunday activities of programming the DVD for shows and programs, doing some laundry, and reading the newspaper.

Mother came over around 9 a.m. and put together a meatloaf. Later, Hubbie peeled potatoes, which I mashed when they were cooked. Green beans completed the meal.

While the meatloaf baked, we watched the second episode of "Downton Abbey." This time, a dashing young man arrives with a potential match for the eldest daughter. Naturally, the daughter falls for the dashing young man. The young man bribes one of the staff into showing him her room late at night, where he intends to compromise her. We don't know if he manages what he intends or not, but he suddenly dies in her bed. She is forced to tell her maid, who then tells the mother. Together, they get the man (his body) back to his assigned bedroom. Of course, they are seen doing this by another staff member.

Lots of side stories are going, too, like the maid who has learned to use a new invention...the typewriter...and is taking a correspondence course to become a secretary. And the mother of the second cousin once removed, who stands to inherit the family home and wealth, is a nurse from a large city, who has shown the local doctor how to save a man's life with a new medical technique.

Mother went home after lunch, and Hubbie and I got ready to go to the museum to hear a woman (the director of the fine art gallery at a university where Daughter works) talk about children's books illustrators. There is currently a national traveling exhibit of original drawings representing 130 years of children's book illustrations on display at the museum.

The talk and the exhibit were very interesting. The speaker brought along stacks of children's books to illustrate the points of her talk...the charming drawings of Beatrix Potter, the sophisticated illustrations of the "Polar Express," by Chris Van Allburg, "Shrek!" by William Steig (looks very different from the movie version), and the pictures that accompany Dr. Seuss books. She pointed out that some illustrations are cartoon-like, while others are fine art. She also noted that while children's books have been made into movies, some movies, like "Toy Story," are now being translated into books.

Some highly recognizable drawings in the exhibit include Raggedy Ann and Andy, the crooked man from "There was a Crooked Man," and Mother Goose. The exhibit is being so well guarded that it is absolutely chilly in the gallery rooms, because the temperature must kept at a certain level. And the lighting is also low so as not to fade the drawings. Of course, we were not allowed to take our refreshments into the galleries.

Speaking of refreshments, peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies were offered, with coffee or lemonade. I brought a couple of cookies home for Mother, since she wasn't up to going to the museum today. For some reason, she has gotten the idea that a couple of women were talking about her the last time she went.

I told her I doubted that they were focused on her, but she insisted that one of them looked right at her and spoke in a low voice to the other one. If anything, one of them was probably just asking who she was. But then she said the other one was seated beside her, but turned her back on her. I asked if she was a very large woman. She said yes. I explained that since the chairs were close together, that maybe the woman had to turn toward the aisle to keep from bumping her knees on the chair in front of her. She seemed satisfied with that answer, but I suggested she probably had something else she'd rather do at home today, and she agreed.

I took the cookies to her when we got back, and found that she'd baked a batch of cupcakes and seemed in good spirits. The other day, she mentioned that she forgot how to use her VCR, so I spent some time showing her how to do it. I think she just might have tried to use the wrong remote. I offered to tape IDs to her three remotes so she wouldn't confuse them, and even to tape instructions to the back of the VCR remote so she wouldn't have trouble with it again, but she said she thought she had it straight in her head again.

Later, Hubbie and I watched the 2008, R-rated movie, "Two Lovers," starring Gweneth Paltrow and Joaquin Phoenix. A young man (Phoenix) moves back in with his mother and is distraught after a break-up. He tries to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge into a river. That night, he meets a young, sweet woman (Vanessa Shaw) who'd like to take are of him, but then later he meets another drug-addled and promiscuous woman (Paltrow) and is torn. With the one, he is the strong one, with the other he's in danger of being led into her lifestyle.