Sunday, Oct. 21

Slept late, until around 8 a.m. Skipped my exercises, as usual on Sundays. Got dressed right away, while Hubbie accompanied Mother to our house, because we needed to begin food preparations. Made a batch of autumn stew, and a recipe of butternut squash soup.

For lunch, though, we had deli rotisserie chicken, with Parmesan potatoes, and whole kernel corn.

While we enjoyed lunch, we watched a movie on DVD from the library..."Is Anybody There?" a 2009 British film starring Michael Caine. Caine plays an elderly man, who lives in an old folks home run by an 11-year-old boy's parents. The boy is determined to discover what happens after a person dies. The old man is a jaded magician, because he lost his wife before he could say goodbye and ask for forgiveness for a transgression. The boy is convinced the old man can help him solve the problem of the hereafter. Lessons are learned.

Following lunch, Mother headed to the couch for a nap, while Hubbie and I ran errands...to the library to drop off the four DVDs we borrowed last week; to the WDCS for groceries; and to a department store to pick up intimate apparel for Mother.

Adventure at the WDCS: when I walked in the door, the alarm went off. What the heck? This was the second time an alarm has gone off when I entered a store...the first time was at a lingerie shop in another town recently.

I stopped inside and talked with the door greeter, who said something in my purse was setting off the alarm. I opened my purse to show him the inside. Is the purse new, he wondered? No, it's about fifteen years old. Is the billfold new? he wondered. No.

"Let's go to the other side of the store, so I can solve your problem for you," he said.

At that end of the store, he ran an electronic scanner over my purse. Sure enough, it alarmed. So I began taking things out one at a time, so he could scan them. It wasn't the billfold. It wasn't the cell phone. It wasn't the tin of breath mints. It wasn't the pen-like spray container of hand sanitizer, the lipsticks, the little pill carriers, the pens or pencils, the little emergency light that flashes when I push a button on it. It wasn't the tiny magifying glass, it wasn't my car keys, it wasn't the handheld electronic game, it wasn't the change purse, and it wasn't the little notepads.

The last thing to come out was a little purse mirror in a case. It set the alarm off. How could a mirror set off an alarm? The door greeter looked at it and found a little pocket in it that contained an ID card. On the back of the card was a raised strip. That was the culprit.

I've had that little mirror forever, and carried it in my summer purse. It never set off an alarm before!

Several folks were gathered to see what I had in my purse that set the alarm off, and we all had a good laugh. The door greeter said that now if I wanted to get attention when I came in the door, I'd have to wave my arms and shout.

Funny: leaving the WDCS parking lot, I warned Hubbie that someone was trying to back out. The car was nearly hidden beside a truck, which reminded us of the time that Hubbie backed into a truck trying to exit the parking lot. Our van was parked beside a big honking truck, too, so neither we, nor the person driving the truck in the lane, could see each other.

This made me think of all the other things Hubbie has backed into: a truck, a car, a fence, a tree, a light pole, and a ditch.

"Well, at least they were all different things," I said.

"I try not to make the same mistake twice," Hubbie laughed.

Back home, Mother was still napping, but she awoke around 4:30. She was ready to go home about 5:30, so I accompanied her.

At home, I threw some laundry in the washer, and then Hubbie and I watched TV...a movie called, "Fear." A sixteen-year-old girl falls for a twenty-something guy, who ends up terrorizing her family.