Smile, Darn Ya Smile!

Started out an utterly gorgeous late-spring day with a trip to the laundromat. It was a bit busy, but other than that, there were no problems. Not even bad weather this time. It was sunny, warm, dry, and breezy, probably in the mid-to-upper 70s. I went straight home with my laundry this time, with no thunderstorm interruptions.

After I got in, I folded my laundry and watched one of the two Looney Tunes specials included with the Golden Collection Vol. 6 set, Bugs Bunny In King Arthur's Court. It's one of the few Looney Tunes specials that doesn't rely on bits and pieces of the older shorts, and one of the very few that tells a linear story. In a spoof of the famous Mark Twain story, Bugs takes one of his famous wrong turns at Albuquerque (via advice from Ray Bradbury) and somehow ends up in Camelot! Daffy is the bored king. Porky is his page. (They really played up the stuttering jokes here.) Perpetual bad-guys Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd are Merlin the magician and a knight, respectively. Not great by any accounts, but cute enough.

After an Fried Egg Sandwich lunch, I headed back out again. My first stop was the Westmont Plaza. I made a quick stop at Super Fresh to see if I could find something. After that, I went behind the Super Fresh to Super Fitness, one of two health clubs in the immediate area.

Super Fitness turned out to be a large, well-stocked area behind the main mall. (The entrance is on the side of the mall building behind The Music Place, which is probably why Lauren and I didn't see it there last week.) They have all the usual machines, plus an aerobic studio...which is my real interest. I'd really like to take some more exercise classes. I enjoy my yoga classes at Yogawood, but I'd like to take some that do more for my heart and muscles, not to mention meet other people who also want to lose weight. The price seemed pretty reasonable, too.

The Westmont Plaza is across the street from the Haddon Township Library, so that was my next stop. I was there much longer than I had anticipated. Though they didn't have many DVDs to put away today, they had plenty of children's books, and the kids' DVDs needed badly to be reorganized. I took another look over the self-help books on my way out, hoping to find more on leaving comfort zones or life coaching, but I didn't see anything I liked.

Headed down Cuthbert Road and over to Haddon Avenue next. Made a very brief stop at the Cuthbert Road 7-11, but they were out of soft pretzels. The Philly Pretzel Company on Haddon Avenue took care of that craving. After that, I rode down Haddon to Vitality Fitness, a few blocks from the Collingswood PATCO Station. They were a much smaller, more cramped gym housed in an older, Art Deco-esque building. Turns out they have no real classes. Their emphasis is on personal training and one-on-one sessions...which is really the opposite of what I'm interested in at the moment. I spend enough time alone or with one or two people. I want to be a part of a group.

Rode home after that via Newton River Park and West Clinton Avenue. I'd gotten an idea for cookies while I was on my ride. I rolled the Betty Crocker Stir-and-Drop Sugar Cookie recipe into pretzel shapes and sprinkled them with salt, making Lemon Salty-Sweet Cookie Pretzels. I burned the first batch a bit, but the second came out pretty well. I even got the hang of making the pretzel shape.

I ran more Looney Tunes during my baking session and dinner. The last Looney Tunes Gold Collection set is really made more for adult collectors than kids who dig the Tunes...but with that in mind, there's still some fun to be had. Some of the World War II and 50s propaganda cartoons on Disc 2 that go into detail about the era are fascinating for history buffs. (Loved the lady mechanic who fixed a huge machine with a bobby pin!)

As a fan of the black-and-white cartoons of the early 30s in general, I quite enjoyed the Bosko/Foxy/Buddy cartoons on Disc 3. I have fond memories of some of the Bosko and Buddy shorts appearing as part of Nickelodeon's evening "Looney Tunes" show in the 80s. While not quite as inspired as the Disney cartoons from the same era (and Foxy and Buddy are a bit bland, even compared to the slightly jazzier Bosko), they're still full of energy and crazy gags, even while being quite different from later Warners efforts.