It's cool here again this morning and dark at 6:00, when I woke up.

Yesterday, Vanessa went with us to the service at UUFA, when the choir sang for the first time this year, a lovely a capella song. As usual, we have an overflow crowd wanting to sing at the beginning of the year, which will dwindle down to about half by next spring. We sang some great hymns too: Let it be a Dance. There were lots of new faces in the pews, which is fun, and many young children. We have a new pianist, too: Thomas, who is an extreme knitter. Yesterday I saw two different projects. Of course, he plays beautifully too. I also credit Amber with introducing another kindred spirit to Unitarian Universalism.

It was the Fourth Sunday, so we had lunch as well. The Captain drove over to join us for lunch, and there was some musicianship in the back yard afterward. People brought their guitars and played and sang; it was a little humid for it, but fun to see all the kids--some growing up that we have known and others new to us.

We went home for a couple of hours. Vanessa made cookies and started supper. She called up to me to help chop some vegetables and the Captain said, "I'll do it." She and I were trying to get to a 4:00 movie, which we enjoyed very much. It's pretty unusual for us to pay full price for a movie (we did go to the matinee, so it was only $6.50). We split popcorn and a Coke. We laughed and cried. It was great.

After supper, the Captain said, "Why don't we ever play cards?" I said some people like to watch things on TV. He said there was pretty much nothing he'd rather do than play cards. I suggested he be more assertive in asking people to play. So he suggested right then. I said it was fine, Vanessa agreed; Ray was a little lukewarm--he said sure. So we played cards and the Captain won by a lot. I had a dismal score, but Vanessa's was worse. Ray got grumpier and grumpier toward the end.