Wednesday, Sept. 11

September 11...Patriot Day. We hung the flag on the well house in remembrance of that terrible day in 2001.

Up at 6 a.m. this morning to get ready to go to water aerobics. Arrived at the college at 7:25, in time to see the sun peeking through puffy cotton ball clouds.

The pool was a bit shivery again, though I got used to it after a while. Twenty three showed up for the session. Today, our leader announced that we will not meet all next week, because the pool will be used in SWAT team training exercises.

The college campus is generally pretty quiet when I arrive in the morning, but is abuzz by the time aerobics is over. Students bustle here and there, and maintenance staff are busy in custodial tasks and lawn care. Students ignore me as I pass (I'm of an age to be invisible now), but staff stop their work to let me pass...I think this is to avoid any possibility of injury from the equipment they use.

Most mornings, I leave the gym at 9 a.m., in time to hear the carillon Westminster chime, followed by nine gongs announcing the hour. There's something soothing about this. There are so many things I love about that very beautiful campus, and this is one of them.

Back home afterward, I enjoyed a couple of cups of coffee, as usual. Hubbie accompanied Mother to our house around 9:30, and before I went upstairs to get ready for the day, I gathered and washed veggies for her to dice and slice...yellow and zucchini squash, celery, carrots, and bell pepper. Hubbie peeled and sliced potatoes. While they did this, I gathered all the other ingredients for soup making.

Then I showered and dressed. It was lunchtime by the time I got back downstairs. Lunch for Hubbie and me was cold meatloaf sandwiches. Mother opted for her usual Ramen noodle soup, with a small slice of meatloaf on the side. She declares she loves meatloaf sandwiches, but I think she actually just loves the memory of loving meatloaf sandwiches, because sandwiches are now difficult for her to manage. They seem to wad up and stick in her throat.

After lunch, I put the soup together and set it to simmering. Besides the veggies, the soup calls for diced tomatoes, chicken broth, garlic, and spices. It's a very diet friendly soup.

Once the soup was simmering, I washed okra from the garden, and Mother sliced it for the freezer. We got a gallon bag of it. I hope the garden continues to produce this veggie. It'll be so good in the coming cool-weather months.

The garden continues to produce a bumper crop of banana peppers, too, most of which are also destined for the freezer. I use these in lots of things, like soups, sauces, stirfrys and pots of beans.

Spent the rest of the afternoon doing this and that, while Mother napped, and Hubbie ran errands. Mother, who has a huge bruise on her arm from her flu shot yesterday, was feeling a little blah...probably a mild effect of the shot...so she bundled in an afghan and snoozed instead of working her jigsaw puzzle.

I did this and that, until I happened to think that we wanted to take advantage of a sale on pineapples at a local grocery store, so I called Hubbie, hoping to catch him while he was running around to see if he could stop by the store and pick up a couple.

I used my cell phone to call him, but as I was dialing, the landline rang. Caller ID on the TV showed that it was Hubbie. But when I answered, no one was on the line.

I tried Hubbie's cell phone again. This time he answered. "Why didn't you answer when I picked up the land line?" I asked. "I didn't call the land line," he said.

Huh?

"So what do you want?" he asked.

"Where are you?" I wanted to know.

"At your mother's house."

"Well, never mind then," I said.

"Okay, but what did you want?" he asked

"Well, I was going to ask you...." (signal of another call coming into his cell). "Never mind," I said, and ended my call.

Moments later, he walked in. "Who was the other call from?" I asked.

"Huh?" he asked.

"I heard a signal from your cell," I said.

"I must have accidentally hit a function." he said.

Gad. We were not made for the cell phone age.

Later, I served the soup with canned biscuits, and heated cornbread leftover from a few days ago. Mother stayed around for a while after supper to watch episodes of "Rizzoli and Isles."

Hubbie accompanied her home afterward, and then we watched episodes of "One Tree Hill."

Note: I thought we were going to get some rain today when it began thundering this afternoon. But no dice, though some counties south of us did get some. The state is pretty dry, with burn bans in some counties, so rain would be welcome.