"We're Havin' A Heat Wave..."

First of all, welcome to summer! And boy, did it feel like summer, with temperatures into the upper-80s, lower-90s.

Started a hot, humid, but breezy day with a run to the laundromat. I really like doing my laundry at a laundromat. I can do it when I want to without having to call my dad and ask him if the dryer and washer's free. If one washer or dryer's taken or broken, I can use another. If I have to wait, it's no big deal, either. And it only takes an hour for everything to wash and dry, rather than the hour and a half to two hours it often took at Dad's. (He really should have replaced that dryer ages ago.) Not to mention, I usually only have one load of laundry a week that costs me $3 to 4 dollars, tops, if I don't buy a can of soda for 75 cents. I got to the laundromat by quarter of 11 and was out by almost noon.

I finished North By Northwest as I folded laundry and had a simple lunch of celery sticks, peanut butter, yogurt, and a granola bar. Northwest is the tangled tale of a New York ad executive (Cary Grant) who gets mixed up with spies (Eva Marie Saint and James Mason) who think he's a fictional man. While I enjoyed Grant and Marie Saint's wonderful performances (including some surprisingly adult banter for the squeaky-clean 50s), like Rear Window, this is another iconic Hitchcock classic that's been imitated so much (such as the famous scene where Grant is chased by a crop duster) that a little of the magic is lost.

After lunch, I grabbed the DVDs and headed back out again. I made quick stops at Rite Aid and Super Fresh, then went to the Haddon Township Library for this week's volunteering session. The library was busy, but the librarians were trying to catch up on signing items in, and there were few DVDs to put away. I shelved what there was, along with some kids' books. I eventually took out two books on the joys of being single, another Beatrix Potter Cottage Mystery (The Tale of Briar Bank), and four DVDs - The Golden Compass, Alexander's Ragtime Band, On A Clear Day You Can See Forever, and a set of Adventures In Care-A-Lot Care Bear cartoons, Cheer, There, and Everywhere.

Watched Alexander's Ragtime Band after I got home and started to make Salisbury Steaks and steamed spring peas and yellow squash for dinner. Band is one of the best known vehicles of Fox star Alice Faye, and her second appearance with Don Ameche and Tyrone Power in 1938 (after In Old Chicago).

Like most of the non-Rogers-and-Hammerstein Fox musicals, Band is an enjoyably corny and melodramatic romantic drama. The lead singer (Faye) and the band's leader (Power) spar and break up and get together again in the years from 1914 to 1938, all while never aging a day. Ameche is the band's pianist and Faye's other suitor, Jack Haley is Power's comic pal, and an energetic Ethel Merman is the band's second singer.

The attraction here, besides the able cast belting Irving Berlin songs, is the intimate numbers. Unlike the cast-of-thousands MGM spectacles, here you often just have people singing one-on-one or a solo performance. Not that Fox couldn't get big with the best of them, but the quieter approach works better with the soap opera story. You really get to know these characters well. Helps that they have some great music to sing, too. Among the standards heard (along with the title song) are "Ragtime Violin," the real-life army number "Gee, How I Hate To Get Up In the Morning," "Heat Wave," and the Oscar-nominated "Now It Can Be Told."