Out of the Eye of the Hurricane

As it turned out, the closest Hurricane Earl got to us was 100 miles off the Jersey Shore. There's been some erosion down there, but nothing like the winds, rain, and flooding that smacked the Carolinas. It's been humid, mildly hot, and on-and-off cloudy all day. It didn't even rain.

Started off the gloomy morning with WOGL's "The Breakfast Club" morning show and writing in my journal. The Breakfast Club always runs Al Alberts' version of "On the Way to Cape May" at the end of their show every Friday between Memorial Day Weekend and Labor Day Weekend. I thought it would be a nice way to bookend my summer, especially since I actually did make it to Cape May this year.

I made a really nice breakfast of fried egg and egg white with farm-market Colby cheese, green peppers, onion, and mushrooms. I added a slice of 9-Grain toast with farm-market apple butter and a glass of green mint tea. Watched another East Side Kids movie while I had my breakfast. The boys try to help a girl whose guardian has been murdered by gangsters in 'Neath Brooklyn Bridge.

Made my errand run next. Picked up my paycheck at the Acme. Headed to the Audubon Crossings Mall to look for the new Looney Tunes DVDs that just came out. I couldn't find them at FYE or at Wal Mart. I did find Wal Mart's line of 18-inch doll clothes, though. I bought Jessa a really cute pair of doll-sized boots and happily ogled the new toys for the upcoming Disney movie Tangled (apparently, an action-oriented variation on Rapunzel) and the new Barbie As special Fashion Fairy Tale.

(And now I'm glad I didn't find those Looney Tunes sets. According to several angry customers at Amazon.com, many of the cartoons were badly cropped to make them look widescreen. Um...if they're not widescreen, why crop them to make them look that way? That makes no sense at all. It's just as bad as making a widescreen movie fullscreen. Run the cartoons the way they originally filmed, or don't bother.)

I had lunch at Arby's. Just bought a Chicken Club and a Diet Mountain Dew. I wasn't hungry enough for Curly Fries. Went back to the Acme to do my weekly grocery shopping next. Restocked my chicken breasts and cubed steak. Bought Yoplait yogurt on sale. Restocked sugar, corn meal, Cool Whip, crushed pineapple, granola bars, and peanuts.

Headed straight home after that. I put everything away and went right back out. I headed to the bank, where I deposited my paycheck and transferred funds from my savings account so I could pay my rent this month. I just haven't made enough money at the Acme lately, even with that one busy week.

After I left there, I went for a walk. Stopped at WaWa and treated myself to a Watermelon Lime-Coke Icee. The clouds were trying to break up at this point. It wasn't that hot, but the humidity was thick enough to cut with a knife. Despite this, I saw a lot of people out today, probably enjoying their Labor Day Weekend off. There was quite a bit of shore-bound traffic on both the White and Black Horse Pikes, too.

I read for about an hour when I got home, then decided that since it wasn't raining or that cold, I'd go for a swim. I'm very glad I did. The water was about 80 degrees, same as yesterday, and felt great once you got used to it. Once again, I had the pool to myself. Almost everyone else in the family were getting ready to go to the Philadelphia Phillies-Milwaukee Brewers game at 7PM. (Phillies won, by the way, 1-0. That'll make Uncle Ken, a big Phillies fan, happy.)

I passed the rest of the evening pleasantly at home, watching Soapdish and eating leftover Chicken-Tomato Soup, Persian Cucumber Salad, and Smashed Sweet Potatoes for dinner. Soapdish is a fun spoof of soap-opera hysterics...off and on the screen. The producer and second lead of the long-running but low-rated (fictional) soap opera The Sun Also Rises conspire to find ways to fire the long-standing diva and get her off the show for good.

This is one of the few random 80s/early 90s comedies Mom introduced me to, rather than Dad. She's a big fan of Sally Field, who plays the diva who really won't die. Other familiar faces here include Whoopi Goldberg (as Field's writer and confidante), Kevin Kline (as Field's ex-lover who now does dinner theater in Florida), Elizabeth Shue (as Field's wanna-be actress niece), Cathy Moriarty (as the second lead), Terri Hatcher (as a soap opera bimbo), a pre-drugs Robert Downey Jr. (as the mousey producer), and Carrie Fisher (as the show's casting agent).

Actually, it's interesting to watch this now. Many long-running real-life soap operas have gone off the air in the last few years, including As the World Turns and The Guiding Light. I guess people have enough soap operas in real-life these days that they don't need the silly ones on TV, or see enough on reality shows to last 80 lifetimes.