Warming Up to Muffins

By the time I came home from my long walk yesterday, the snow was about half-gone, and melting fast. When I went outside to see if I had any mail (nope), it was nearly three-fourths gone. There is now almost no snow left anywhere, except for the usual dirty chunks along the highway and on parking lots that linger all winter. Today was about 55 degrees, sunny, and breezy but not gale-force wind. It's still a little too warm for this time of year, but it did manage to get rid of the snow. (The last time we had that much snow, it was around for weeks, thanks to a coating of ice that came down after it.) Looks like we may get some rain on Sunday night and Monday and it'll drop into a more normal mid-40s, but nothing like last week's storm!

Despite the decent weather, I spent most of the day inside. I really wasn't up to anything big after hiking around Camden County for most of yesterday. I read the books I took out of the library. I baked Brown Sugar Banana Muffins from the low-fat baking cookbook to get rid of two bruised bananas. (They came out quite nicely, too, moist and just sweet enough.)

I watched That's Entertainment III while reading and began Kiss Me Kate while the muffins were in the oven. The latter is MGM's version of the smash hit 1948 Cole Porter Broadway musical. Two sets of couples fight, fall for each other, and war again as they put on a musical version of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Kathryn Grayson gets a rare chance to be the experienced leading lady instead of the sweet ingeune, and she relishes it; Howard Keel is great as her ham ex-husband. Ann Miller's "Too Darn Hot" is a sizzling delight, and she gets to join Tommy Rall for "Why Can't You Behave?" We also get a short bit of Bob Fosse choreography in "From This Moment On."

Actually, the reason my family watched this one a lot when I first got it as a teenager was it lead to many discussions on the role of men and women in society and what should be expected of both, and how their roles have changed. The "Battle of the Sexes" tends to get discussed a lot when your family is 4/6 female. Rose was dating a rather conservative fellow Mock Trial member at the time I got this movie, too - I remember how much they used to argue over it!

Work was busy during rush hour, but otherwise steady. I had another annoying chop shop guy. This one fussed and kept saying I'd rung up too many 12 packs of soda, but I know I rang up the amount he had. I once again sent him to customer service. He probably just wanted a freebie. Thankfully, my relief was early and I got in and out with no problems whatsoever.