Long Day's Journey Into Midnight

I've had a very, very long weekend. First of all, Netscape is acting up again, which is why there was no post last night. It's been running weird last night and today; it made a mess of my chat with Lauren. I'm working on getting NetZero now, but it's sloooowww going. I may look into PeoplePC, too. I need an inexpensive server that won't drive me mad.

Second, I did get to the Farm Market yesterday, which was a good thing, because I REALLY needed to refill the produce bin, and I won't be able to make it there next week (another 11AM shift). I picked up spinach, apples, pears, mushrooms, garlic, celery, a tomato, and green beans. I got there pretty late, but it was still busy. The Farm Market is in it's last month, and a lot of regular booths were already gone, including the Crepes restaurant, the clay makers, one of the vegetable stands, and the honey makers.

Work yesterday was a genuine pain-in-the-rear. In my last hour, we got this one crazy, obnoxious older woman who looked like Phyllis Diller stuck her finger in a light socket. She was sooo ridiculously picky! Everything had to stand up straight and in EXACTLY the order she put it on the belt. Everything had to be EXACTLY the right way in the cart. She left her bag sitting on the counter and thought she couldn't pay. She wanted a newspaper; then she didn't; then she wanted it again. She's lucky I didn't shove it down her throat. The poor bagger left halfway through the order after she squawked at him over not getting her trash bags of paper towel rolls exactly straight. He later told me that if he hadn't left, he would have hit her. I shared his sentiments.

This morning went much better. I experimented with removing some of the shortening from the wonderful Quick Cinnamon Rolls recipe in the 1950 Betty Crocker Cookbook. I was only partially successful; it was still too mushy to roll, so they became drop biscuits with tiny pats of butter and sprinklings of cinnamon and brown sugar on top. They were a little salty; I think I put too much baking soda in them.

I watched the 1937 Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy movie Maytime this morning while making Cinnamon Biscuits. I'm a big fan of MacDonald/Eddy, and Maytime is probably their best movie, the first of two tragic, Moulin Rouge-esque operettas they made together. (I also have the second, 1941's so-so Bitter Sweet.) While Pauline Kael does have a point about the amazing costumes (almost every actor in this film, male and female, is decked out in a riot of ruffles, puffs, lace, sequins, bows, ribbons, and yards and yards of half the fabric in the universe. It makes for quite an eyeful, especially during the sequences set in Paris in the 1860s. (Of course, Nelson Eddy is also quite an eyeful, but if I expounded on that here, Blogger would flag me like crazy. ;) )

I found this copy at the thrift shop on Thursday. Alas, none of the MacDonald/Eddy films are on DVD yet (AHEM, MGM/Sony?), but the videos should be available on eBay or Amazon.com. (No idea what they'd cost, though. I bought all of mine but Maytime from Suncoast Video or Columbia House over ten years ago, when I was in high school.)

Work went slightly better today. It was crazy-busy, even during the first Philadelphia Eagles game in two weeks (which the Eagles won, by the way, beating the wayward New York Jets). I had a few more annoying customers, including one lady with frizzy hair who was almost as picky as the one last nice, but nicer and almost apologetic about it. (What is it about old ladies with frizzy hair?)

I didn't get off in time for the Eagles game, but I went over to Uncle Ken and Dad's house anyway to say hi and give Dad some pictures Mom sent up a few weeks ago with my field hockey jacket. I picked the right night to do it. Rose, Jodie, Jessa, and Dolores were all there, and I got to chat a little with Uncle Ken's adopted daughter Samantha and her family before they left, too. Jodie was sweet enough to make a hungry girl two grilled cheese sandwiches. (One's for lunch tomorrow.) Everyone complimented me on how good I looked and how much weight I lost. Rose and I may even go clothes shopping sometime this week, maybe tomorrow if I can get her up that early.