WHAT A HOOT

It must be near Halloween, because today was a real hoot. 

It started out with the three old ladies making a trek down Broadway to the big box electronics store to get Martha a new portable heater.  What a crew we are as we click down the street with canes and old lady baskets.  At one point (well at some points, but this one had a photo op) we sat down and I just couldn't resist taking our picture, because we really are the three old ladies you take a picture of when you go on a trip. 

Anyway, we got to the big box store where our combined ages surpassed the combined IQs of all six salesmen, but they were still condescending.   Martha had previously bought a heater at this store and returned it because it was defective and she couldn't program it.  It was a damn space heater for pity's sake, and you had to spend about as much time programming it as if it were a new computer.  And the programming device didn't work anyway.  I tried it, Billie tried it, and one of her clever computer-savvy students tried it. 

Okay, that was then, this was now and we're back in the store to buy another, simpler heater.  I kid you not, they had at least 12 models of space heaters in this place.  Some of them apparently do international monetary transactions, and some of them don't even turn off if they fall over on the floor.  In other words, there's a wide range.  The first salesman who helped us wasn't interested in us after we didn't want to take the first one we looked at and retreated back to a desk with other salesmen so he wouldn't have to waste any more time with us .  He thought it was crazy to ask if the thing turns off if it tips over.  I might point out that the fan in question oscillates, which probably makes it quite attractive to certain four-legged creatures who live in this apartment.   We finally picked one out after moving all the floor models all around so we could plug them in and see how warm they got.  And all the time we can see the "cool" salesmen all standing around a desk snickering at us.  By the way, we were the only customers in the store. 
After we finally decided on one, nothing would do but we had to have them open the box to prove that the one we were buying worked.  They really didn't like that, but they did it because three old ladies together definitelyachieve critical mass. 

I walked Martha back home with the heater and then Billie and I went to Chinatown.  As usual, we were looking for watches.  She found three that she was happy with after sorting through about 279 similar watches, and then we went off to Little Italy for dinner.  We ate at the place we ate at the first time we were in New York, but this time you didn't see us through the window on a Food Network show. 

As we were finishing dinner, Billie went to check the time and discovered she had an extra watch on.  Now, I gotta tell you, when you're looking at watches in Chinatown, they watch you like a hawk so you don't steal any, but Ms. Lightfingers managed to evade the watchful eyes of not one but two clerks in the store and make off with a free watch.  Being the honest soul that she is, she walked back down to the store and paid for it.  The man couldn't figure out what she was complaining about when we got there, assuming that one of these fine watches had stopped once it left the energy field of the shop, and that we were coming back to complain.  It took a few minutes to make him understand that she was coming back to pay for another watch.  She's paying for the watch and I'm standing there trying to figure out if we can make the same thing work at Tiffany's tomorrow.

Anyway, we came home because we were going to a concert tonight.  We thought this was a kind of a "throwaway" concert, because it was free and at the church right across Broadway from Martha's -- but it turned out to be this wonderful piano trio called the Claremont Trio.  They were wonderful.  I especially liked the pianist in the group, though Billie thought the piano was too loud.  They played a wonderful Beethoven which I think was early in his career, and then a modern piece by a composer I think might live in Berkeley which was very interesting and drew on her Peruvian heritage.  The final piece was a Mendelssohn with a real knock 'em dead first movement and a final movement which had a bit of the Doxology prominantly displayed. 

Right now Billie's asleep in the bedroom, so I'll have to wait til tomorrow to upload any
pictures.    No great loss today in the picture category.

 I've been lazy. I'm adding a little more old lady stuff this morning, because we are now all sitting around in the living room playing with our cell phones, computers and ipods. But once again, I think our ages overwhelm our IQs, so these are some pretty funny conversations. Much misinformation is being shared.   Also, I put on a sweater this morning and found it was preloaded with a Kleenex in the sleeve. 

I'm also adding, because I have some time, a picture of me with my new pants on.