Calm Before the Storms

I slept in, until 9:30, and relished it. I never get Sundays off, so it was a real treat to be able to spend a morning making Cranberry-Sunflower Seed Pancakes and not having to rush. Mom called ME, for a change, too. She was enjoying some quiet time to herself after Dad had finally gone fishing for the first time since before Christmas...the first time we've had decent enough weather to be fishing.

Other than that, she hadn't had a great week. My sister Anny, her son Skylar, and my brother Keefe had all gone through a violent bout with the flu that lasted hours and apparently involved violent unloading of stomachs several times an hour. Poor Skylar had it the worst. He got so dehydrated, Mom said if he'd done it any longer, they would have had to take him to the hospital. Mom says she hasn't gotten it yet...unusual, since she's usually the first one to get anything.

Spent the rest of the morning with breakfast and Brunch With the Beatles. They honored George Harrison with most of his major Beatles songs and quite a few solo tunes, from the pre-fame "Three Cool Cats" to my favorite of his solo work, "All Those Years Ago."

I took off immediately after the Beatles ended. It was a gorgeous day, sunny, bright, windless, and probably in the upper 40s-lower 50s for the first time in ages. Perfect day for a walk. I thought of going to Audubon and Haddon Heights, but most of the small stores up there are closed on Sunday. I turned around and went in the direction of Collingswood instead.

Most of the stores in Collingswood were closed, too, but the town was hopping anyway. There were lots of people out enjoying the weather, ranging from parents with energetic kids to elderly folks to teenagers. As it was past 1 by that point, I assumed they'd just gotten out of church.

I found lots of people, but not much to do. I hiked over to the PATCO station and took a five-minute train ride to Haddonfield. Haddonfield is kind of the same thing as Collingswood - a small, eclectic, upwardly-mobile town on a major highway. Thankfully, there's fewer closed shops in Haddonfield than in Collingswood (although one of the early casualties was that really cool used CD store where I bought my Billy Joel's Greatest Hits Vol I and II and Monkees Greatest Hits discs), and most of them were open.

(On the other hand, for a town that has "Shop Local" posters plastered everywhere, there's an awful lot of chain stores, including Cold Stone Creamery, Starbucks, and CVS.)

Not to mention, there are few towns in New Jersey - or anywhere - that can claim to have a dinosaur named after it. The near-complete skeleton of Hadrosaurus was discovered near Haddonfield in 1858, according to the sign next to the statue of the beast between stores. It was the most complete skeleton ever found up to that point, and it's still on display in the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences to this day.

I spent a couple of hours browsing around the shopping district. I had a yummy hot cider and toasted bagel with cream cheese at the Grind House Cafe. The Happy Hippo Toy Shop was having a 20% off sale on everything in the store. I bought one of the newest WebKinz, a Ginger Cat. I stopped at CVS for a pack of tissues for my purse and bought Palmolive dishwashing liquid on sale and a bag of cough drops (which are much cheaper there than at the Acme).

Finally started heading home around quarter of 4...when the darn train appeared. It took forever. It was fairly full, too, much to my surprise. I guess I'm not the only one who wanted to take advantage of the beautiful weather before we get rain later this week. I hung around Collingswood a little while longer, but there still wasn't much open, so I finally headed home down Collings Road. I tried the path on the train tracks, but it's still covered with snow, so I just ended up taking the long way.

I had a small dinner of an omelet made with the last of the stir fry vegetables and cheddar cheese when I got home and watched Muppet Show episodes. I'm glad I went for my little outing today. I haven't really had the chance to get out since early February.

Oh, and meet John the Ginger Cat! My second BeatleKinz, he's going to move in with his mate Paul in their Beatle Flat in LondonKinz.