Friday, Oct. 7

Up at 6:30 to get ready to go to water aerobics. The water was a little cooler this morning, and the water level was down, so I figure maintenance will top it off, which means it will be probably be pretty chilly Monday. Twenty-six of us showed up today, though, which is a bigger crowd than usually comes on Friday.

Back home, while I was getting ready for the day, Hubbie baked a batch of ready-to-bake chocolate chip cookies that had been in the refrigerator forever...we bought the bucket of cookie dough months ago from a great-granddaughter, who was selling them for a school fundraiser.

Once I was dressed, I accompanied Mother to our house. But we didn't do anything productive before lunch. After lunch, Hubbie and I went shopping for a new TV for Mother. Hers is just awful. The picture color is dark red, and there's a weird ghost image around everything.

We found a suitable small flat screen at our favorite appliance store, but it had to be ordered, so it won't arrive for a few days. We lucked out today in that there was a one-day ten percent discount to seniors. As we usually do with expensive household items for Mother, we will share the expense three ways, so Mother will not be unduly burdened. We'd be glad to take care of the whole price, but Mother will insist on paying part of it.

Back home, we were in no mood to do much, so we watched the 1953 version of "War of the Worlds." The special effects in this movie are very primitive compared to today's realistic ones. In fact, we can clearly see the wires that suspend the Martian spaceships. I wonder why they weren't visible to me when I first saw this movie in a theater as a kid? I guess I saw what I wanted to see.

Some of the effects are pretty cool...the rays that zap people to ash figures on the ground, or allow us to see them as a screaming person, then a skeletal figure, then as ash. The goose-neck zappers, the weird sound coming from the ships, and the slimy Martian creatures, are still eerie. Those goose-neck zappers and the slimy Martians scared the bejeebies out of me when I first saw them...creeped me out for walking home in the twilight after the movie. What if a Martian jumped out from behind a bush and grabbed me?

Later, we had leftover stir fry and rice for supper. Since I'd prepared an abundance of rice Wednesday, Mother made rice pudding while our supper was heating. We enjoyed small dishes of it after supper. So we certainly had enough rice today.

Afterward, I accompanied Mother home, and then Hubbie and I watched the 2006 movie, "Day of Wrath." During the Spanish Inquisition, a sheriff of a small town finds two dead bodies, victims of murder. One is a nobleman, the other a harlot. But when he brings the nobleman's widow back to the scene, he finds the corpses have mysteriously disappeared, and the scene has been thoroughly cleaned. The same thing happens again with another nobleman. In his effort to find the murderers, his own life and the lives of his family are threatened.