Strawberries and Raspberries and Purple Piemen, Oh My!

I had early work today, and it might have been just as well. Except for a surge around noon, I spent most of my six-hour shift standing around. After two days of iffy clouds and wind, the sun was shining and the wind had gentled down to a mild breeze. By the time I got out of work, it was about 75 and absolutely stunning.

I made a quick stop at a store around the corner from the Acme. My bath rugs had long had it. One was frayed and ripped; the other was losing so many fibers, I finally threw it away last month after having had it since moving to Wildwood in 2002. Marburn Curtains generally specializes in linens and curtains, but Sharon, one of the managers, told me they also sell bath items, including rugs. I stopped there on my way home and found exactly what I was looking for, two small bath rugs in pale yellow and sage green, exactly right for my tiny bathroom. They were $5 each; I picked up both.

Four of the five Strawberry Shortcake books I ordered on my birthday last week were on my porch when I got home. (The last one is coming from California and will probably take longer.) The 2003 revival did a Strawberry version of Cinderella in one episode. It must have been pretty popular with somebody, because in addition to adapting that episode in book form, they did three more well-known fairy tales. Rapunzel was the only one I never saw before. In this version, Strawberry, Ginger Snap, Blueberry Muffin, Huckleberry Pie, and Orange Blossom are having a camp-out. Poor Orange is scared of the dark, so to calm her fears, Strawberry tells her the story of a young girl (Rapunzel/Strawberry) who is accused of stealing by a witch (Orange Blossom) who turns out to be lonely and not really mean at all.

The remaining three books were all from the mid-80s. Parker Brothers published colorful hardback picture books based after popular cartoon characters between 1983 and 1985. I had fond memories of the two Rose Petal Place books my sisters and I had as children and finally bought them online. I loved them so much, I bought the other four books in the series and started to look for other Parker Brothers 80s picture books.

(If memory serves me correctly, the Care Bears didn't end their run after six books. There had to be at least ten or eleven, along with books that spotlighted the Care Bear Cousins. I've also seen two rarer Rose Petal Place Parker Brothers books on eBay I haven't bought yet. Golden Books did a similar series for Rainbow Brite.)

According to the back of the books I bought today, there were six Parker Brothers Strawberry Shortcake books. Like the Rose Petal and Care Bears series, one book was adapted from a special, and the others were original stories. Pets On Parade was the third animated Strawberry special in 1982; the book (along with the other two I bought) came along a year later. Strawberry is the judge of the annual Pet Show. The Pie Man and his partner Sour Grapes are determined their crow and snake will win, even if they have to cheat - and blame Strawberry - to do it! (Actually, I might have voted for the crow; Cap'n Cackle was kind of cute.)

(Pets On Parade is one of the few vintage stories to have been adapted for the revival, as the episode Best Pets Yet. In this version, Peppermint Fizz is the one who cheats, and she finally repents after hearing a conversation about the consequences of cheating between Strawberry and Apple Dumplin'.)

The Pieman also makes a brief appearance in another contest-themed story, Strawberry Shortcake and the Big Balloon Race. The kids hold a hot-air balloon festival to celebrate their summer harvest, but it turns into a fight to keep their crops when lazy Huckleberry Pie goes AWOL and the Pieman sends his pet crows to attack the berries. I would have liked to have seen Strawberry tell Huckleberry off for leaving his post, but otherwise, this was a really fun story, probably my favorite of the three.

Strawberry Shortcake In the Deep, Dark Woods was a bit slower. Strawberry and her kitten Custard are lost in the woods after dark when they fall asleep after a picnic. That's about the extent of the story, and while it drags a little, the end is adorable.

It was such a nice day, I went for a walk after I put the books away. I went around the park next door, then down the street. I was about to round a corner when I saw a dog run out of a yard and in front of a car! The car was a very old junker model driven by a man who was even older. The car just barely missed the dog, which naturally didn't sit well with his owners, who were on the grass in their front yard as people worked on their roof. The woman ranted and cursed about how the man had Parkinson's Disease and shouldn't have been driving at all.

I think BOTH were at fault. This is the second time in two weeks I saw a dog almost run over because it wasn't on a leash. (I almost ran over the first one on my bike!) Almost no one in the neighborhood has a fenced-in yard. Come on, folks. Unless your pet is behind a fence or in the park, keep them on a leash, please! There are kids and old people here, and neither are going to be looking for pets.

On the other hand, the woman was right that the man probably shouldn't have been on the road. I've seen him at the Acme before. He always rides one of those motorized wheelchairs with the baskets, and he can barely lift his load or sign his credit card receipts. Not to mention the car shouldn't have been on the road, either. It looked like it was going to collapse right there.