Wednesday, Nov. 14

Up at 6:30 to get ready for water aerobics. Cold morning, requiring coat, hat, gloves over my fleece wear. The pool wasn't as warm, either, as it was Monday. The pool guy informed us it was 84 degrees, but it felt cooler, maybe because the room was cool, too.

I welcomed a couple of cups of hot coffee, and a hot shower, when I got back home. Hubbie accompanied Mother to our house before I went upstairs, so I gathered card stock in Christmas colors for her to make backgrounds to be applied to greeting cards.

After lunch, we used stickers, rubber stamps, and other elements to create cards for Caring Hands. We have now completed twenty-nine cards, but our aim is forty, so we need to work at least one more day on them. Daugther is supposed to visit on Saturday, so we'll probably enlist her help in completing the task.

For supper, I made a recipe of macaroni and cheese, which I served with meatloaf and green beans from last night's supper. Mother loves macaroni and cheese, so she thoroughly enjoyed her meal.

After supper, I attended a visual arts committee meeting at the gallery. It was a long meeting that ran from 5:30 to after 8 p.m. I hate long meetings. Tonight, we wrestled with new gallery policies and guidelines. The new guidelines are being proposed by a young upstart couple who serve on the arts council board. The husband of the pair is the new art instructor at the college where I attend water aerobics.

I don't know where this couple came from, but they certainly "aren't from around here," as we in the south say, because they have highfalutin ideas about how the gallery should be run, which includes ditching our local folks in favor of fine art by people from far off places.

We are a small rural community. The works of local artists are what is most likely to sell. But we agreed to let the couple try one, maybe two, shows (which they insist should be six weeks in length) to see what happens.

And we refused to concede to not having workshops in the gallery while a show is mounted. The gallery is a small space...we have no other place to conduct workshops. So if an artist is offended by having a workshop going on while his or her work is on display, then he or she can just take their work elsewhere.

A gem from the director: "If our benefactor sells this building next summer, then this proposal will be mute anyway." She meant "moot" of course, as in irrelevant, rather than unable to speak.

In the news: apparently seven states have gathered more than 25,000 petition signatures each to secede from the union, qualifying them for a response from the White House. Texas is one of those states, but comically, its state capital, Austin, has filed a counter-suit calling for it to secede from Texas and remain a part of the United States.

What chaos it would be if these and other states succeeded in seceding. Might be cause for another civil war...not only between states, but within states!