Monday, Nov. 5

Up at 6:30 to get ready for water aerobics. Cloudy, drizzly, chilly morning for the drive to the college. The autumn trees were a monotone rust color on this gray day.

In the gymnasium dressing room, one of the lap swimmers, a woman with a young family, was in a chatty mood. She commented on how she was anxious to finish a rock fence at her house, before rain set in today. She said that the work is very difficult. She and her husband had hired a man to build the fence. But, as she put it, "he has issues," among which, she suspects, may be substance abuse.

She described him as a "colorful character," with an intimate knowledge of the color coding of bandana headgear as it relates to different crowds, like gang members, criminals, and rock music fans. She suspects him of substance abuse because, while he is an excellent worker when he shows up, he often works for only a day or two, then collects his pay and disappears for several days.

She thinks he is a good and kind person at heart, who is "lost," and in need of a church family. But though she has invited him to her church several times, he has never availed himself of the opportunity.

Since he has not shown up in a few weeks now, she and her husband are finishing the job that he started. And though they think he is a good man, they don't intend to hire him for anything else in the future.

The water in the pool was wonderfully warm, and twenty of us enjoyed it. Conversation was of ordinary life things, as we all studiously avoided talk of the presidential election tomorrow.

One woman commented that the time on her flip phone had not automatically changed yesterday. Hubbie still has that kind of phone, too, and the time on his also didn't change, even though the automatic function was on. I had to search for the manual function to change it. I told the woman at the pool how to do this. My android phone changed automatically, so I don't know why the flip phones didn't.

The cable TV boxes changed automatically, of course, as did my laptop and the upstairs computer, but the four house clocks, and the van and truck clocks, as well as our wristwatches had to be changed manually.

It's the time of the year to change the batteries in the smoke alarms, too. I reminded Hubbie of this tonight, prompting him to search for fresh batteries.

I was amused this morning when a TV personality on the early morning show referred to Standard Time as, "the way God intended it," as if changing the clock Sunday somehow put the world to rights again. Does she seriously think that manipulation of clocks actually changes time? Earth time consists of twenty-four hour days. This was true even when clocks didn't exist. A clock is merely a measurement of that twenty-four hours. We just choose to measure it differently in summer than in winter.

When I got back home from the pool, Hubbie did the honors of putting color in my hair, in anticipation of a haircut appointment Wednesday afternoon.

While I was getting ready for the day, Hubbie received a call that his teenage grandson had to be taken to the hospital this morning, because he was having difficulty breathing. It was determined that he had air in his chest cavity that might have been caused by his asthma.

By the time I was ready for the day, it was already 11:30. After lunch, Mother and I worked making Christmas cards for Caring Hands Hospice. While we did this, Hubbie took the van the dealership in another town to satisfy a recall notice on some part or other. He returned about 3 p.m.

Mother and I worked until around 4 p.m., and made seven cards. Mother didn't get a nap this afternoon, but she commented several times about how much she enjoyed the card-making session. I guess making cheerful Christmas cards on a dismal, rainy, day is good for the phyche.

For supper, I heated leftover lasagna, which we had with cottage cheese, and bread and butter. Afterward, I accompanied Mother to her house, and waited until she had showered before I returned home.

Hubbie and I spent the rest of the evening watching TV, including an episode of "Upstairs, Downstairs," the British series from PBS.

In the "What's Up With That?" department: yesterday, the art council director thanked us for the big bag of candy we contributed for the downtown Halloween trick-or-treat event last Wednesday night. And then she commented that more teenagers and adults with pillowcases stopped by the gallery this year in an attempt to collect candy. They didn't even make an effort to wear a costume. So her way around the situation was to say that no one without a costume could have candy.