Tuesday, June 26

Slept late this morning, until nearly 8:30 a.m. We would have had breakfast at 8:30, except that I forgot to take my thyroid medicine, so we had to wait until around 9 a.m. to eat.

At 10 a.m., when Hubbie accompanied Mother to our house, I still had exercised. I spent too much time drinking coffee and watching the morning shows. Finally got on the treadmill, and did resistance exercises around 10:30. While I did this, Hubbie ran errands, including to the farmer's market to pick up veggies for supper.

As I was cooling down afterward, someone rang the doorbell. Phooey...anytime I decide to be lazy, either someone comes to the door, or we need to run an urgent errand. I guess I need to be up and ready early every morning, just in case!

The lady at the door was visiting to deliver a handwritten ladies only, come-as-you-are invitation to a coffee and dessert get-together at her house this evening at 7 p.m., as a way of getting acquainted with folks in the neighborhood. I apologized for my unkempt appearance, and she laughed and said she often looks bedraggled in the morning, since she works in her garden before getting ready for the day.

Of course, it was lunchtime by the time I was dressed and ready for the day. For lunch, I fixed potato pancakes from leftover mashed potatoes, with scrambled eggs in sauteed onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, yellow squash, and American cheese. Served this with slices of homemade bread that Sis provided when she was here.

After lunch, Mother peeled and sliced eggplant from our garden, which she salted and weighed down to draw out the bitterness. Then I washed green beans from our garden, supplemented with some that Hubbie bought at the Farmer's market, and the three of us snapped them. I seasoned the beans, added beef broth, and set them to simmering.

Once this task was complete, I insisted that Mother go to the couch for a nap, so she'll feel energized for our visit to the neighbor later.

Then I washed new potatoes for the steamer, and Hubbie sliced okra to be sauteed later. I also put a hostess thank-you tag on a half-pint jar of strawberry preserves to take to the neighbor this evening.

While the beans simmered, I ran errands...to the greeting card shop, and to the store that used to have a sale every weekend. I needed a particular item to wear with my "come-as-you-are" outfit tonight. With ladies, "come-as-you-are" means agonizing over just the right thing to wear.

Back home, I did this and that until time to finish supper preparations. Started the potatoes steaming, with sliced onion for flavor; washed the salt from the eggplant slices, dipped them in eggs, and dredged them in a flour/Pamesan cheese/no-salt seasoning/pepper/paprika mixture, and sauteed them, after which I put them in a baking dish and covered them with spaghetti sauce leftover from the pasta dinner yesterday, and put dish in the oven to bake; coated the sliced okra in a flour/cornmeal mixture to be fried later; and sliced tomatoes from the garden. All this, served with the simmered green beans, was very tasty.

After supper, I accompanied Mother to her house, so she could change clothes for the get-together at 7 p.m. I also changed into capris and a knit shirt. We arrived at the same time as a few other ladies.

We parked closest to the garage, so others ended up parking behind us. The neighbor's house is very nice, having been built only a couple of years ago. The walkway to the front door is quite long, though, so it was a hike for Mother. At at the front, the stone steps are a bit steep, and there are no railings. So I had to pull Mother up the three steps, as well as up a step into the house. After that, she could use her walker.

The house is quite lovely, and nine of us enjoyed sitting in the spacious living room chatting. There were several that I didn't know, and some that I did. One lady and I knew each other only because her husband was the one who grew a large patch of turnips and brought us a bunch of them, which we put in the freezer. Tonight she commented that her husband died in April of a massive heart attack. We didn't know this, or we would have sent our condolences at the time.

This just proves how insular we have become as a society...we don't even know what's happening to our neighbors. It's sad.

On a lighter note, when we began talking about traveling, one lady commented that in their earlier years, whenever she and her husband were on a long trip, and she needed a rest stop, her husband could never find just the right place. She would nearly explode before he stopped. But now, she said, "the worm has turned." They are retired, she does most of the driving, his bladder has shrunk, and she delays until the last possible moment before stopping.

I guess the reason that our hostess decided on a get-together this evening was because her husband, who is the manager of the waste-water plant here in town, is on a business trip to North Dakota, and she's rambling around that big house by herself. She needed company.

About an hour after we arrived, we adjourned to the dining room, where we were served a choice of a variety of desserts...fresh strawberries and peaches with dip, a spice cake, a coconut cream pie, and couple of kinds of cookies, along with a choice of soft drinks, hot coffee, or iced coffee.

Mother opted for hot coffee and cookies, and I chose fresh fruit and iced coffee. Around 9 p.m., some of us began leaving. Getting Mother down the porch steps was as troublesome as getting her up, but the hostess helped steady her.

On our walk down the sidewalk, we noticed a cute little brown bunny among the plants. He hopped out into the open, and froze while we passed, hoping that he blended so well with his surroundings that we couldn't see him. Hope the coyotes that the ladies said are prevalent in the area don't find him.

I personally haven't seen any coyotes, but the ladies said they are so bold that they come very close to their homes. And at night, they hear them howling. I think they have gotten some our kittens in the past, but we've never seen the creatures.

Since Mother and I were among the first to arrive, others were parked behind me. This necessitated that I maneuver past the front of the other vehicles, drop down off the driveway onto the lawn, and swing back to the driveway behind other vehicles. Hope we didn't leave ruts in her yard. I doubt we did, though, since the ground is so hard from lack of rain that it's like concrete.

Back home, I accompanied Mother back to her house. Hubbie met us as we were walking. "I thought you said the get-togther probably wouldn't last more than an hour," he teased. It had been two hours. Time flies among a gathering of women.

Hubbie and I finished the evening watching TV...which I think is what Hubbie was doing while I was gone.