Saturday, April 16, 2011

Saturday, April 16

Slept soundly and well last night and got up late, around 8:30, on this very chilly morning. Did a treadmill session and resistance exercises after breakfast. Mother came over mid-morning and worked on her jigsaw puzzle.

It was a very lazy day, and aside from preparing a lesson for my Monday night session with a new Literacy Council student, I didn't accomplish much today.

After a veggie soup lunch, Mother went back to her jigsaw puzzle, and Hubbie and I watched the 1953, PG-rated movie, "The Robe," starring Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, and Victor Mature. Marcellus Gallio (Burton), a tribune, is assigned to the crucifixion of Jesus, and then gambles for and wins His robe. Marcellus later attributes his hallucinations and violent outbursts to the robe, and searches for his escaped slave (Mature), now in possession of the robe, in order destroy the garment, which he is convinced is cursed. Of the main cast of characters in this movie, only a couple of the actors still survive.

Later, we had a supper of beef hash, with a choice of Lima beans or butter beans, and sliced tomatoes. Mother went home afterward, and Hubbie and I watched our favorite college football team's annual red/white game...a showcase to give the fans a chance to see the players in action, before the season begins. Hubbie chose the white team, and I went with the red team. Hubbie's team won.

Then we watched the 1996, PG romantic comedy movie, "One Fine Day," starring Michelle Pfeiffer, and George Clooney. A single mother (Pfeiffer) with a little boy, juggles a career with parenthood. A newspaper columnist divorced man (Clooney), who has his young daughter every other weekend shies away from commitment. One day, they deliver their kids to their school for a field trip, but arrive too late. So they agree to share babysitting duties for the day. Everything hilariously goes wrong. This is a movie on DVD that we got free with cereal box tops.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Friday, April 15

Another sleepless night, thanks to thunderstorms and the threat of tornadoes. Since we are registered with a weather-call service through a television station in the Capital City, we got two calls last night, both warning of severe thunderstorms. Because I know that severe thunderstorms can spawn tornadoes, I stayed glued to the TV, where meteorologists were tracking the storms all night.

Thankfully, other than wind, rain, thunder and lightening, the worst of the weather bypassed us. Sadly, though, seven people in towns south of us died in the storms overnight.

Got up late, around 8:30, and lazed around after breakfast until I could muster the energy to do a treadmill session and weights exercises.

Mother came over mid-morning. She was draggy, too, having also lost sleep. Even if she could have ignored the storms, her cat could not. The cat gets absolutely panicky in storms, and of course nothing can comfort her.

While I was getting ready for the day, Mother peeled and boiled a pot of potatoes, which will be used tomorrow to make beef hash. After that, she worked on her jigsaw puzzle, while I went outdoors to take pictures of a particularly beautiful dogwood tree in our yard.

After I'd photographed the tree, I went to the shade garden to snap images of the hosta plants. As I was doing this, a truck stopped on the road adjacent to our yard, and an older man stepped out to ask me if the flowering tree was a dogwood, and would I mind if he parked in our driveway to take pictures of it. I told him to take as many pictures as he wanted. I'm glad someone else appreciates that tree as much as we do.

Back in the house, I prepared plates of chef's salad for Hubbie's and my lunch. Mother opted for a sandwich. Then I uploaded photos I'd taken at the garden tour yesterday, as well as ones of the dogwood tree and hostas, to my social network page.

Afterward, Hubbie and I went to the WDCS for a few groceries. Before returning home, we stopped by a home improvement store, where Hubbie bought a couple of grape tomato plants.

Supper tonight was the-week-in-review leftovers. Mother went home afterward, and Hubbie and I watched the 2003, R-rated movie, "Sylvia," starring Gwyneth Paltrow. The movie tells the story of poet, Sylvia Plath, and her passionate but rocky love and marrage to poet Ted Hughes (played by Daniel Craig). Plathe eventually falls into depression and commits suicide. Paltrow's mother, Blythe Danner, also appears in the movie.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

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.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Wednesday, April 13

Had one of those nights when I couldn't go to sleep. Finally drifted off around 3:30 a.m., only to be awakened by the house trembling. Earthquake? Well, there was no news of an earthquake, so maybe it was just a train rumbling down the tracks a few miles south of us. Or maybe I was dreaming.

I got up around 7:30, though I certainly didn't want to. I had trouble getting my day started, and didn't get on the treadmill till around 9 a.m.

Mother came over while I was getting ready for the day and worked on her jigsaw puzzle. Hubbie took Shih Tzu to the vet, because she's having bowel problems. He gave her a medication for it. I dragged myself through the rest of the day doing this and that, but not accomplishing much of note.

Later, Mother put a pot of vegetable soup on to simmer, which we had for supper after I got back from a 5 p.m. visual arts committee meeting.

Mother went home afterward, and Hubbie and I watched TV, including the 2007, unrated movie, "Death Defying Acts," starring Catherine Zeta Jones and Guy Pearce. In 1920, a woman con artist psychic and her daughter set out to scam Houdini. The woman bears an uncanny resemblance to Houdini's late mother, whom he worshipped. Romance ensues. This movie is billed as historical drama, though I don't know how much of it is based on facts.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Tuesday, April 12

Today is Granddaughter's birthday. Happy Birthday, Granddaughter!

Up around 7:30 on this glorious morning, and did a treadmill session and resistance exercises after breakfast.

Around 9 a.m., Hubbie ran errands...to get the oil changed in the van, and meet a dental appointment. Mother came over around that same time and continued working on her jigsaw puzzle.

I didn't do anything major for the rest of the morning...checked and responded to e-mails, visited my social network site, made phone calls to scrapbook club members to find out if anyone would be able to meet on our usual meeting date (which this month is the Thursday before Easter), searched my greeting card stash and found a suitable one for Great-Grandson's upcoming fifth birthday, and changed the sheets on the spare room bed.

Since Mother hadn't seen last night's episode of "Dancing with the Stars," I played it for her from the DVR. She began watching it at 11:30, so I fixed us a lunch of chicken salad sandwiches and leftover chicken noodle soup and joined her in watching the show for the second time.

Afterward, I made a bowl of fruited Jell-o, and then gathered three sweet potatoes from a box full we'd bought at the WDCS for ten cents a pound back in the fall. Mother and I also shucked the last ears of corn from Son's 2010 summer garden, while Hubbie shredded a head of cabbage in the food processor. The potatoes (baked), the cabbage (sauteed), and the corn-on-the-cob, along with sliced tomatoes, was delicious for supper.

Mother went home after supper, and around 7 p.m., I attended a community theater board meeting. I took along a large bag of fabric, given to us by our friend who is cleaning closets. The theater is always interested in fabrics of all sorts for making costumes.

The meeting ended around 8:15, and I was back home a few minutes later. Hubbie had watched a movie on DVD while I was gone, but it was over at about the same time I came in the door, so we watched the elimination episode of "Dancing with the Stars," which I'd recorded on DVR. As often happens, the couple eliminated were not the ones I thought would go.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Monday, April 11

Woke up to early morning storms, but didn't actual rise until 7:30. Once I knew the storms had passed after breakfast, I did a treadmill session and weights exercises.

After I was ready for the day, I did various household chores, like laundry, that I'd skipped over the weekend. In the meantime, Hubbie ran a couple of errands...to get a haircut, to stop by the pharmacy for medications, and to another pharmacy to take advantage of a sale on decaf coffee in the brand that I like. It was priced at about half what we usually pay, plus he was able to use a $3 AARP coupon, so the two small cans cost only $5.

It was such a dismal morning that Mother opted to stay home until around noon, when she came over and joined us for lunch. After lunch, she started a new jigsaw puzzle, while Hubbie and I ran more errands...to the WDCS for groceries for this week's menu, to a grocery store to take advantage of $1 and $2 coupons, to the bank, and back to the pharmacy offering the decaf coffee.

We bought two more cans (the limit, and the last left on the shelf). If shoppers want to take advantage of this store's loss-leaders, they have to get there early on the first day of the sale, because there will be only a limited amount of the advertised product available. If the sale item requires a store flier coupon, and they sell out before the shopper gets there, the store will, upon request, issue a rain check. We took advantage of that during last week's sale on cans of fat-free, low sodium, chicken broth.

Back home, I discovered I'd received an e-mail from the Literacy Council director, with the names of three potential students. One of them can meet at the college right down the road from our house, so that's the one I'm interested in. The director said she has called the Council a number of times since January asking for a tutor, so maybe she will be dedicated to the program. Also, I'm told she speaks English well enough to carry on a simple conversation, which is a definite plus.

Later, we had a supper of leftover beef roast and veggies from yesterday. Then, around 7 p.m., we went to my Alma Mater college to attend the spring concert of the choral society, which is comprised of both students and folks from the community.

The program, in celebration of Easter, included four selections from Elijah (Felix Mendelssohn - 1809-1847); and Mass No. 3 in B-Flat Major (Franz Schubert - 1797-1828). A student soprano soloist was exceptional.

The excellent program lasted less than an hour, so we were home just after 8:30. We finished the evening by watching an episode of "Dancing with the Stars," which featured a 46-piece orchestra, and one of my favorite performers, David Garrett.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Sunday, April 10

Got up around 7:30, but skipped my exercises again, since Great-Nephew was asleep in the spare bedroom, where the treadmill resides.

After breakfast, Mother came over and put a beef roast and veggies in the slow cooker. When we planned the meal, we anticipated that Great-Nephew would join us for lunch. But as it happened, he needed to go back to the college to perform with the Celtic group at the Scottish Festival, which ended today around 2 p.m.

We don't know when he came in last night after the festival...we were asleep. But he got up around 9:30 and had a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee for his breakfast.

Then we visited for a while, before he needed to leave a few minutes before 11 a.m. Great-Nephew has recently become a member of the newspaper staff at his high school, so he was interested in talking with me about journalism, particularly opening paragraphs. I provided copies of several articles I've written, as examples of different approaches to hooking the reader in the first few sentences.

He said that he's enjoying journalism, and agreed that learning to write a concise newspaper article has taught him how to better organize his work in other school writing projects.

We were sorry that he missed having lunch with us, because the beef roast, with carrots and onions, and mashed potatoes and gravy, along with hydroponic grape tomatoes, and slices of Irish soda bread, was delicious.

Mother went home afterward, taking a few slices of the bread for her breakfast, and a couple of slices of the wonderful Irish chocolate cake for evening snacks. I saved enough of the cake aside for Hubbie and me, too, and then put the rest into the freezer. It's too good to be good for us, so it's best that we save some of it for a future special occasion.

Around 1 p.m., Hubbie and I dressed to go to an anniversary reception in recognition of the 50th anniversary of my Alma Mater's honor society, of which I am a member. As a non-traditional student, I was inducted in 1988. The members of the society are drawn from the top ten percent of each year's class. In 1988, there were only 90 in our class (the same number that graduated in 1990).

It seemed appropriate to wear dressy clothes, which is what Hubbie and I did, but of course, there were some who came much more casually attired, including a couple who wore blue jeans. Most of the older ones among us dressed up, though...we obviously come from an age when there was a dress code for certain occasions.

About 25 of us were in attendance, and it was a pleasant gathering. We enjoyed visiting with folks, and hearing the comments made by college administrative staff, which included the unveiling of a large, framed, listing of the names of all inductees, beginning in 1960. A staff member agreed to e-mail a copy of the list to me, so I can study it at my leisure. I want to see how many folks I recognize. The framed list is to hang outside the office of the honor society advisor.

Funny: thanks to a battery-operated clock in the den that obviously isn't working correctly, we were a few minutes late leaving the house for the 2 p.m. honor society reception. That clock said it was around 1:20 when I happened to check the clock on the cable box, which read 2:10! I had intended to arrive "fashionably late," not real late.

Fortunately, we got there before the speeches, which was more than can be said of a member who was inducted in the first class (1960). She arrived after the speeches and the unveiling. She apologized, saying she had gone to the wrong place on campus. "Obviously, I didn't learn how to read when I was a student here," she laughed.

It was obvious that the organizers of the event had hoped for a bigger gathering, because there was a table laden with refreshments that included a variety of fruits, vegetables, including mushrooms and asparagus, and dip, as well as white cheese logs, one made of a combination of cream cheese and blue cheese, and one that the president's wife and I thought was herb-coated goat cheese, and fancy crackers.

Following the event, Hubbie and I visited the gallery, where a student juried art show is on view. A couple of works intrigued me. One was titled, "The Birds and the Bees," a literal interpretation represented by paper mache birds and bees suspended on a mobile. The other was a hen in a nest, both made entirely from broken egg shells. Neither of these won ribbons, but I like them anyway.

Back home, Hubbie and I watched the 1992, R-rated movie, "The Last of the Mohicans," starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe. Adventure and romance in Colonial America, as Hawkeye, an adopted son of the Mohicans, and Cora Munro, the aristocratic daughter of a British Colonel, fall in love during a conflict between the British, the French, and their Native American allies.

After a sandwich supper, we watched the 2009,R-rated movie, "The Cry of the Owl," starring no one I recognize. A young woman becomes attracted to her stalker. When her boyfriend goes missing, the stalker is naturally suspected of foul play, but jealousy turns things deadly.