Perfect Halloween Weather

I was very happy to awake to a cold, windy, blustery blue and gold fall morning after the ridiculous heat and humidity we had earlier in the week. It doesn't feel like Halloween in New Jersey when you're running around in capris and shirtsleeves a week before the big day.

First stop of the day was the Oaklyn Library for this week's volunteering session there. The children's section was overloaded with 135 pumpkins for their big Halloween party tonight. I didn't want to mess with the gourds, so I concentrated on DVDs. They needed it, anyway. There were DVDs piled on top of each other, out of order, and in completely the wrong section.

I did get into the children's section enough to pull out two Winnie the Pooh Halloween-themed videos, the Halloween special Boo To You, Too and a collection of three horror-oriented New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh episodes, Frankenpooh.

Went straight to the Audubon Crossings Mall next. Made brief stops at FYE (they didn't have the Christmas DVDs I was looking for, and the Bugs Bunny Halloween DVD was too expensive for an hour-long special that's mostly older material anyway) and at America's Best for my contacts.

I noticed a Toys R Us Express had opened in one of the closed stores on the FYE side of the mall and browsed around in there. I sure hope they're sticking around after the holidays. I could use a place to shop for my nephews and cousins that's nearby.

After I left Toys R Us, I rode back over to the Acme for this week's grocery shopping. I didn't really need much. Got ground chicken for meatloaf later in the week. Continued to take advantage of the McCormick Extracts and Spices sale and bought Cinnamon Extract. Found the Dark Chocolate and Mint Limited Edition Nestle Chocolate Chips I've been dying to try. Got Acme Light Yogurt, this week's yogurt sale. Decided I wanted to try grating my own Parmesan cheese and save some packaging. The Acme's generic gourmet brand Parmesan wedge is $3.99, the same price as the plastic container of cheese, and the wedge is a pretty good size.

And of course, I had to get Edy's Pumpkin Ice Cream. I've been waiting for that to go on sale during the fall. Edy's Pumpkin Ice Cream is my favorite ice cream flavor, right up there with Bryers' Cherry Vanilla. Not surprisingly, the Pumpkin is only in stores between about mid-September and mid-late November. I've had it at least once a fall since my friend Amanda and I discovered it on a routine grocery shopping trip in college. Between the two of us, it was gone in less than two days. It's that good. Really tastes like pumpkin pie.

Rode straight home after I finished. I put everything away and went right back out again. I mixed business with pleasure and walked to CVS for shampoo, to the bank to deposit my paycheck, and to WaWa for milk and a Turkey Club Ciabatta Melt for lunch.

Miss Ellie called when I got in. I told her I'd help her prune the yard today. I went downstairs as soon as I finished my sandwich and banana. She wanted me to cut back as much of the bush next to the pine tree in front of her side of the house as I could without killing it. I had to leave plenty to tie for the men who pick up our sticks, too.

I was out for about two hours, from 3:30 to 5:30. Miss Ellie left half-way through that. I wanted to wait for her to come home and tell me where the twine was, but by 5:30, it was getting colder and she still wasn't home. I decided to wait on tying the sticks until tomorrow and headed inside.

I'd started a Crock-Pot beef stew earlier this morning, before I went to the Oaklyn Library. It was hot and bubbling and ready to eat by the time I came upstairs. I had that with leftover cauliflower and Edy's Pumpkin Ice Cream for dessert while watching the Pooh Halloween specials.

Almost all of the Pooh cartoons, including Boo To You, Too concerned the easily-frightened Piglet. In Boo To You, he gets so scared of Tigger's talk of Halloween ghoulishness, Pooh opts to cancel their Halloween plans in deference to the timid Piglet. Piglet feels bad about it, though, and goes after them. It takes a major scare for everyone to make Piglet realize that there's a lot more to Halloween than spooky stuff...and that being scared can sometimes be a lot of fun.

The other cartoons were more horror-oriented. Frankenpooh was a 100 Acre Woods spoof of Frankenstein that shows what happens when Piglet's imagination gets the better of him. Things That Go Piglet In the Night has most of the gang chasing ghosts...that turn out to be a spooked Piglet. Pooh Moon had a science fiction bent. When they land in a mud puddle during a camping trip, Pooh and Piglet think they're on the moon...but the rest of the gang just think they're monsters.

Since I had the VCR going, I switched to the concert Hey, Mr. Producer!: The World of Cameron MacIntosh after the cartoons were over. MacIntosh produced some of the most popular stage musicals of the 80s and 90s, including the very long running Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, the revue Side By Side By Sondheim, the French blockbusters Miss Saigon and Les Misrables, and well-received revivals of My Fair Lady, Oklahoma!, The Boy Friend, and Oliver.

All of those were represented in this huge concert, a gala event put on for Queen Elizabeth herself in 1997. Alas, the video didn't have the full show...but what was there was fabulous. My favorites included Bernadette Peters and British divas Julia McKenzie and Ruthie Hendall strutting their stuff in "You've Gotta Get a Gimmick" (originally from Gypsy, here representing Side By Side), Dame Judi Dench's devestating "Send In the Clowns" (also from Side By Side), Little Shop of Horrors' original Audrey, Ellen Greene, performing the ballad "Somewhere That's Green," and Jonathan Pryce reprising his big song "American Dream" from Miss Saigon.

(Some of the numbers that were cut and shown at the end of the tape were just as good, including Hugh Jackman's "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" from Oklahoma! and Bernadette Peters being joined by a bevy of ladies of a certain age for a hilarious kickline to "Broadway Baby" from Follies.)