A busy (but not really stressful) day at work. I did not see M., but she emailed me to ask questions about the budget (which I was able to answer). We got $2500 in the mail from someone she had talked to earlier. Her address was in our mailing list for a different name. Either they live together, or that person moved and she just happened to get the mailing. December is good for getting money. Also some thank you letters to send out for Harvest.

Ray and I had lunch at the Thai restaurant. It tasted good. I had hot tea too; love Thai tea. It was bitter cold all day, just barely reaching 40 degrees, and windy. So the warm food--soup, egg roll, tea, rice, meat and veggies--really hit the spot.

At 3, I went to the bank and then met my Mom at a new funky bookstore 3 doors up from the Last Resort. We had a great time, although anything like that is very tiring for her. They had comfy places for her to sit and I brought her books to choose from for two of her grandsons. She has her back is starting to bother her more again. She takes a second pain pill in the middle of the day and that helps. I said I think it is the cold weather, but she thinks it is just time, that it was optimistic to think the improvement was permanent. The store is called dog-eared, I think. They have old as well as new books, and a room full of records. He might give us store credit for some of our books and records. Besides gifts, I bought a book on normal memory loss. Apparently, the ability to remember names and where you left things commonly starts slipping away after middle age and is not a precursor to dementia or Alzheimer's. But I will have to read the book.

We drove to Frontier, although I think the new parking place was farther away from it than the old one. It is a very funky store, with neat things, but it has new ownership and I predict it will close, because there are fewer neat things than there were. We were looking for small candles for the angel wreath but they didn't have any.  It was very cold and windy walking back to the car.

We sat in Ray's parking lot, reading some of our new gift books. Vanessa was reading one of the Boxcar Children books--she decided it was pretty stupid. She picked out several different books for him to try, some that there are more in the series if he likes them. I looked for Redwall, but he's probably too young for that and they didn't have it. Ray came out about 5, from a faculty meeting.

We drove home and thrashed around making supper right away. I adapted a recipe for a noodle bowl that called for scallions and bean sprouts to use the one bok choy from our garden that the Captain had picked. It was pretty tasty and there was plenty of it. I was hurrying because Deb and I had agreed to go audition for Dancing at Lughnasa http://www.townandgownplayers.org/audition.php?show=108.
Leara Rhodes is directing. Cat Clayton is one of the assistant directors. We didn't have to prepare anything. We took turns reading. I read several times for the oldest sister, Kate, and it was fun. But they would have emailed me by now if I was called back, so I probably didn't get a part. I had an email from Deb and she didn't either. It's probably just as well. It's a pretty serious and depressing play, I think. We did a bit of Irish dancing, and I wasn't the best at it. I look forward to seeing it.

I was home a little before 9, had some pumpkin pie with whipped cream that had been left for me, and read a little. The Captain was watching football (Monday night) and I thought about asking him to go in his room so I could watch something else, but I started falling asleep, so went to bed instead.