Good Clean Fun

I opened my eyes. The clock read 7:30. I closed them for what I thought was five minutes or so. When I opened them again, the clock said 11.

Not a good way to start the day.

I was even less thrilled when I was half-way to Collingswood to deliver some donations to the thrift shop and I discovered the back tire, which I pumped last night, had deflated again. Looks like I was right about that slow leak. I ended up walking it around Collingswood and Westmont for most of the day.

The thrift shop went better. Erica called me last night and said she'd received a big box of records as part of a donation, including Monkees records. She'd mentioned the record Davy, Peter, and Micky made when they were on tour together in the mid-80s, Pool It! The record was still there when I arrived...and it held an even more interesting surprise. The Pool It! cover contained not only the record that went with it, but the mid-80s Rhino copy of a later Monkees album, The Monkees Present. Monkees Present was the second album released after Peter Tork left the group, and it features my very favorite of the songs Mike Nesmith wrote for the Monkees, "Listen to the Band."

(I also picked up the Rhino version of the first, self-titled Monkees album, along with Jack Jones and Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians.)

I hiked over to the library after leaving the thrift shop, with short stops at the Collingswood Library and the 7-11 next to the Westmont Acme, picking up a bottle of water and a big soft pretzel for lunch from the latter. It was hot, humid, and sunny by the time I was out and about, and I was sweating like crazy.

The Haddon Township Library was hopping when I finally made it there. One of the librarians said she'd organized the children's DVDs yesterday and discovered this morning that they were messy again. I reorganized them again, then shelved the adult DVDs as well as I could. Lots of people wanted DVDs today, and I couldn't always answer their requests for specific titles. Not to mention, a mother and her son were looking for DVDs, and the little boy, who couldn't have been more than 7 or 8, kept dragging over titles like Rocky Balboa or I Am Legend that were way over his head.

I took three DVDs I'd been wanting to see (the original 50s version of Cheaper By the Dozen with Myrna Loy and Clifton Webb, the original High Noon with Gary Cooper, and the magic-themed The Prestige with Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale) before heading back into the hot sunshine. It was about 4:30 by this point. I made a very quick stop at Super Fresh to see if they had any low-fat peanut butter on sale (nope) before just walking home. I was hoping my neighbor would be out to fix my tire, but I didn't see him. Maybe he'll be there tomorrow.