Thursday, April 14

Slept late, until around 8:30, so I skipped my exercises, because I needed to be dressed and ready for the day before the pest control guy came (scheduled between 10 a.m. and noon). I also needed to be ready to meet Hubbie and the other Master Gardeners for an 11 a.m. tour of the fantastic gardens of a local resident.

The pest control guy arrived at 10:30, but wasn't finished with the task by the time I needed to leave the house. Fortunately, Mother had come over earlier, so I didn't need to stick around.

The first thing I had to do, though, was get the pest control guy to move his truck, which he'd parked directly in the middle of the driveway, right behind my van.

I arrived at the house featuring the garden about 11:15, and Hubbie arrived moments later. A large group of Master Gardeners attended the tour. Our host spent time discussing his garden and answering questions about individual plants. I didn't hang around for that. Camera in hand, I roamed on my own around this fabulous garden that includes several tiers of trees, flowering bushes and plants, waterfalls, rock walls and steps, and a Japanese tea house, including a pond filled with koi fish.

Following the tour, I treated Hubbie to lunch at an Italian restaurant, where we both opted for quiche, with a mixed fruit side. Toasted Italian bread and marinara sauce came with the meal.

Afterward, Hubbie came home, and I went shopping...to the greeting card store for an Easter card and a Mother's Day card for Mother, and a graduation card for Hubbie's niece; to the store that has a sale every weekend to search for a pair of black slacks for Mother; to the newspaper office to drop off a contest puzzle; and to the Literacy Council office to pick up a student workbook.

Back home, I took the black slacks to Mother to try on. They were a size twelve petite, but they were too big, so I took them back and ordered a size ten. While I was out, I stopped by a specialty store to buy Jelly Belly jelly beans to give to Mother for Easter.

Since I was out, I decided to go to the other store that has a sale every weekend, but I didn't find anything I could use. From there,I went to the everything's a dollar store, where I bought a cute cardboard basket with a daisy design, and Easter grass, to make a gift for Mother.

I was back home around 4:30. Later, Hubbie and I had a supper of leftover veggie soup. Then we watched the 2010, R-rated movie, "The Joneses," starring Demi Moore and David Duchovny. A "perfect" family moves into a suburban neighborhood. Turns out they are a sales unit, pretending to be a family in order to sell high-end products to their wealthy neighbors and their friends. Of course, things begin going wrong when individual "family" members get into scrapes.

Makes me wonder: while standing in line to pay for the pair of slacks at the store that has a sale every weekend, a couple of ladies ahead of me greeted each other. One asked the other how she was doing, and the other commented that she was now divorced after 38 years of marriage. She explained that she divorced her husband because he was verbally abusive. She had stayed with him all those years for the sake of the children. She still sees him, the lady went on, because now that they are divorced, they get along better than they ever did before. TMI, I say. Why do some people feel compelled to air the most intimate details of their lives before an audience of strangers?

And then on the way home, I got behind a driver who traveled exceedingly slowly. A long line of us snailed along for a couple of miles. An elderly driver, I wondered? But when the car turned off the road, I discovered it was being driven by a young woman...preoccupied with talking on her cell phone.