All In the Golden Afternoon

Decided to sleep in on what turned out to be a gorgeous, sunny, breezy June day. After breakfast, I headed to the Audubon Crossings Shopping Center behind the Acme. I don't get a paycheck this week (got my vacation paycheck last week), but I did want to get my grocery shopping done. I also dropped by FYE briefly to see if they had any new WebKinz (nope). I spent a little more time at the Shoe Depot. I need new cheap sneakers to run errands in, but I didn't see anything I liked.

Headed home after that to put away my groceries. I had the last of the leftover ground chicken chili for lunch while watching Mannequin 2: On the Move. This cute semi-sequel is pretty much a rehash of the first movie. In this case, however, the lady in question is a 1,000-year-old peasant maiden who is cursed by a wicked sorcerer. Only her true love can undo the spell...and her true love, naturally, turns out to be a new employee at the very same department store in Philadelphia where the first one took place, under the tutelage of the very same flamboyant Hollywood.

It's not as good as the first time around (which isn't that great to begin with), but if you can get around some plot holes and awkward lines, it's pretty cute. Kristy Swanson does as well as she can with the pretty maiden who suddenly finds herself in a whole different era. Trouble is, she has no chemistry with the wooden William Ragsdale, and some of Mesatch Taylor's gags are over-the-top, even for this type of broad romantic comedy. Not the worst way to spend and hour and a half if you run into it on cable, but I wouldn't seek it out unless you really, really like Swanson, Taylor, or the first movie.

I grabbed the bike after the movie ended and went for a ride. I wanted to find the Audubon and Haddon Heights rec centers. I never did find the rec centers, but I made other great finds.

I stopped at Willie the Woodsman and Wife's in Audubon to check out their WebKinz collection, since I didn't get a chance to last week. Maybe it's just as well that I wasn't able to get there until now. They just got the June WebKinz in this week. I was able to buy the gorgeous Golden Pegasus, a very large, fluffy horse with beautiful, large blue eyes with embroidered lashes and gilt-edged, fuzzy wings. I also met the mother and sweet Autistic son of Gloria, the store's proprietor.

It was such a lovely day, I just opted to ride around Haddon Heights next after I couldn't find the rec center. I found myself at the end of Station Avenue and the beginning of yet another huge park centered around water, Haddon Lake Park. I rode down the path for a while, passing large, lovely old and new homes and grass that still managed to be green despite the recent heat waves. The path came to a stop at a point. The blacktop path went up to the street...but an unpaved path went into the woods. Despite the unpaved path being riddled with roots and bumps, I made my way gingerly into the woods.

It was really beautiful in there. Once the unpaved path got away from the roots, it followed a lovely little brown brook through a thick forest of trees and logs. It was green and cool in the forest. If it hadn't been for the occasional sound of a car or glimpse of a house, I would have felt like I was in an enchanted glen. The brook bubbled and glimmered merrily. The birds swooped through the tree-tops. The wind played tag with the dark green leaves.

I came out at what appeared to be an amphitheater built into the side of a hill, under the trees. I noticed a sign for a free concert series tomorrow evening, from 3-7, at Haddon Lake Dell. I may see if I'm up for going tomorrow if the weather cooperates and I'm up to it after my farm market errands run.

I rode around Audubon for a while after that, just enjoying the day. It was hot, but not so hot I was roasting. I stopped at the TreeHouse Cafe for a Strawberry Italian Soda before riding over the Audubon bridge and into Oaklyn.

Spent the rest of the evening working on a crochet hat for Molly and watching "Thousands Cheer," which is basically a MGM World War II "morale-boosting" revue. Kathryn Grayson plays the daughter of a general who wants to put on a show for soldiers; Gene Kelly is the former circus star who loves her. A long line of MGM talent appears in skits and numbers in the last 20 minutes or so, including Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Frank Morgan, Virginia O'Brian, Lena Horne, bandleader Kay Kyser, Gloria DeHaven, June Allyson, future TV stars Ann Southern and Lucile Ball, Red Skeleton, Margaret O'Brien, and in what would be her last appearance at MGM, tap dancer Eleanor Powell.

As with DuBarry Was a Lady, this is very much a product of it's "win one for Uncle Sam, rah-rah" times. As I mentioned, this is more-or-less a revue with a storyline, and the tale of Kelly learning about teamwork can come off as corny today. Grayson's attempt to pull her parents back together is only slightly less forced. It's fun if you're a fan of the stars involved, World War II, Grayson, or Kelly, but otherwise not a must-see.

Oh, and meet the very handsome Helios, my Golden Pegasus! Named for the unicorn-Pegasus character in the fourth season of Sailor Moon, he will move into the new World Cup Soccer-themed room.