Pumpkin, Dust, and Rock N' Roll

I took advantage of weather that remained dreary to sleep in as much as I could this morning. After I got up, I had a quick cereal breakfast and watched the Angelina Ballerina Christmas special, Christmas In Mouseland. Angelina is looking forward to her school's big pantomime of Cinderella and is desperately hoping to dance the title role. She's devastated when it goes to her rival Penelope Pinkpaws instead...and she's chosen to play the Wicked Stepmouse! Things go from bad to worse when she's dropped from the production after a fit of temperament and a sledding accident lands the understudy, her beloved teacher Miss Lilly, in the hospital. Angelina takes it on herself to talk the pantomime's writer Mr. Operatski in to staying...and to realize that they both need to learn a lot about patience and determination.

Poor Angelina! I think some of the adults were a bit hard on her here. While she shouldn't have thrown a fit about losing the role, what happened to Miss Lilly wasn't entirely her fault. I have to give her some credit, though. She's one tough missy. Miss Lilly is right about her determination.

(And by the way, before people start jumping on me, yes, I watch Christmas specials and listen to Christmas music in November. My rule is, if an animation franchise or TV show has a Thanksgiving episode, I watch that in November and wait until after Thanksgiving for the Christmas show. Anything else is fair game. I have at least 50 holiday-related videos and DVDs and well over 100 holiday CDs, cassettes, and records. There's just too much to fit into 25 days anymore!)

Headed out after Angelina ended. First stop of the day was the Oaklyn Library for this week's volunteering session there. I organized the DVDs, then did the children's videos and the kids' picture books. The videos really needed it. They had been put away in the kids' section...but many of them had been tossed in any old way, and it just looked clunky.

Next stop was the Acme. They were busy there, but they had plenty of help, and no one asked me to stay. Good thing, because I did need to pick up my paycheck and do some grocery shopping. I took advantage of a coupon from Acme and a $.79 Swanson's Broth sale to stock up for winter soups and sauces. Also bought yogurt, granola bars, canned pumpkin, ground chicken, steak, parchment paper, eggs, a roll for dinner, and a Christmas present for a friend.

I went straight home with my grocery load, then put it away and went right back out again. It was still cloudy when I rode to the Acme, but by the time I walked to the bank, the sun was coming out. It was in and out for the rest of the day.

I thought of having lunch out after I left the bank, but I remembered I intended to make my own cheese steak for dinner. I just got a pretzel and a fountain Coke Zero with a bit of raspberry and vanilla syrups instead. After my snack, I hiked around the neighborhood, enjoying the blustery breezes and the wonderful upper 50s-lower 60s temperatures. It really looks like fall now; all of the trees have reached their peak and are turning lovely shades of rust, copper, gold, red, brown, and pumpkin orange.

Briefly ended up at the park behind the school. I wouldn't normally go there on a school day, but most kids in New Jersey have off this weekend for the yearly Teachers' Convention. There were quite a few kids there anyway, just hanging out in the playground. Some men were watering the school yard as I passed by. I don't know why. It just rained yesterday, and we've gotten tons of rain. The field looks much greener than it did during the dry summer, even nicer than during the Town Picnic last month.

Spent the rest of the afternoon at home after I finished my walk. I was originally going to go into Audubon on my walk, but my legs are tired after spending so much time at work and running around this week! I opted to dress Samantha and Molly in warmer clothes (Molly got her school outfit; Samantha her meet outfit with the white pinafore), dust the apartment, and work on the budget instead. I also made a Pumpkin Mousse Pie with the pumpkin leftover from the muffins I made last week.

After I finished the budget, I put on Top Secret! and made that cheese steak, along with carrots in white wine-horseradish sauce and the last of the steamed cauliflower.

Top Secret! is the least-well-known of the "Laugh Or I'll Shoot!" comedies. American rock star Nick Rivers travels to East Germany for a concert. He finds himself involved in a Nazi scheme to draw submarines out of the water and falls for the beautiful head of the group fighting against the Germans. And did I mention this is also a spoof of Elvis movies...and oh yeah, Val Kilmer does his own singing?

It's as bizarre as it sounds. In fact, this may be the most bizarre of the three big Zucker/Abrahams 80s movies. While Airplane! and The Naked Gun take on the relatively normal genres of disaster film and cop show, Top Secret! goes after rock musicals, Beach Boys music, World War II films, and The A-Team, among others. Alas, the emphasis on Cold War-era politics means this one hasn't dated as well as the other two...and nor have some of the sex gags.

On the other hand, I get a kick out of the very accurate parodies of 50s and early 60s rock and of the musicals of that era, where kids went into screaming fits just by hearing their idol sing a tune in a pizza shop (as in one number where Kilmer starts kids into a Grease-worthy sock hop).

And yes, Kilmer did all his own singing...and is quite good at it. He really needs to do more musicals.