Umbrellas of Oaklyn

The day started off gloomy...inside and out. I feverently hoped it wouldn't pour during my usual Saturday errands. It was still humid, though a little cooler than yesterday. The rain held off when I was at the bank, and it was still cloudy but not rainy as I hit the farm market. I needed a lot today - ended up with pears (peaches are still out, but I'm tired of them), tiny little apples, bok choy, carrots, spinach, tomatoes, leeks (first time since the spring), Colby cheese from the dairy booth, and red and green peppers.

I rode around to look at yard sales. It had been spitting since the farm market, but after the second yard sale, it started raining more heavily. I stopped under several trees, waiting for the showers to stop. The second time was under a tree at Newton River Park. I decided I was closer to the Haddon Township Library than to home, so I rode in that direction.

As it turns out, the Library was busy, and there was plenty of help. For once, there were few books or DVDs to put away. They must have had a lot of weekend help, possibly local kids needing something useful to do on a messy holiday weekend. I shelved some DVDs, but otherwise wasn't there for very long.

I took the long way around, down Crystal Lake Road and King's Highway back to the White Horse Pike, and then over to Willie the Woodsman's and Wife to see if they had a few items I wanted for friends' birthday presents. They didn't, so I moved on. It was still raining heavily when I was in Audubon, but by the time I left Willie's, the rain had slowed down. Of course, it ended the moment I arrived home and was sunny on and off the rest of the day.

Even so, I opted to stay in. I baked a cake, adding fiber to the simple Mickey Mouse Cookbook cake recipe and cutting the fat with applesauce, Smart Balance butter, and whole-wheat flour along with the regular. I tried making my own icing as well, but that didn't go quite as nicely. I was almost out of milk, so I added applesauce to the powdered sugar and butter, which just made it grainy...so I threw in some cocoa powder, which did cut down on the grain a little.

Watched The Umbrellas of Cherbourg as I worked on the cake and heated up some Turkey Chili for dinner. I'm not usually fond of foreign movies, but I'd heard this one was a musical, and really good, not to mention French, which I speak a tiny bit. This was one of the most romantic movies I've ever seen. Two teenagers fall in love in late 50s provincial France, but he's sent to war (Vietnam?). She winds up pregnant with his kid, and marries to save her mother's umbrella shop (hense the title).

Melodramatic? You bet. It's also beautifully sung (and lots of singing - it's through-sung, with no actual spoken dialogue) and far better than the soap-opera-ish description sounds. The set design and cinematography are breathtaking. The color alone is amazing. It just pops, like candy spread across the screen.