Dust Removal Be My Destiny

Slept in a bit this morning, then watched Three Stooges shorts while having an escarole and mushroom omelet for breakfast. I pulled on my new boots and headed for the Acme around quarter after 11.

I tried to take a shortcut through Audubon Park to avoid the snow on the sidewalk on the Black Horse Pike, but it really didn't end up being very short. Audubon Park is a 50s development that's all cul-de-sacs, plain houses surrounded by fences, and roads that go nowhere. It took me ten minutes to find a road that went to Nicholson.

I didn't really have much shopping to do in any case. I mostly needed to restock fruit and vegetables - grapefruit, Brussels sprouts, bananas, and celery. I also needed Smart Balance butter (which turned out to be on sale), a little yogurt (which wasn't on sale - good thing I only needed two containers), and good Colby and Parmesan cheese from the deli. (I love the Collingswood Farm Market's brick cheese so much that I've decided not to buy the regular brick cheese from the dairy section anymore. Why buy any old thing when you can get the good stuff?)

Even with a ride home from a frequent customer who is also a neighbor of my uncle's, it was still past 1 when I got in. I was going to walk to Audubon today, but I just plain ran out of time. I had leftover stir-fry for lunch, then went for a shorter walk in the neighborhood instead.

Tried going to the Oaklyn Library, but they seem to have returned to their original 10-2 and 4-8 schedule, and it was around 2:30 when I got there. I opted to head for the bank next, and then to CVS to pick up shampoo and a get-well-soon card for my landlady Miss Ellie, who hurt her knees on the patch of ice in front of her side of the house.

Spent the rest of the evening at home, dusting, putting up the remaining general winter decorations, and watching more Three Stooges and the Danny Kaye movie On the Riviera. Like Wonder Man, Kaye is once again playing doubles, this time an American comedian and a French pilot who needs him to appear as him at a very important function. The comedian has to fool the pilot's beautiful wife, too, and he does...only too well, which doesn't make the comedian's girlfriend happy.

Actually, I was a little disappointed with this one. All the Technicolor and fancy dance numbers in the world can't hide an oft-told plot that lacks the verve and goofiness of the somewhat similar Wonder Man. (And it's a very oft-told plot. This is the third remake of this story for 20th Century Fox, going back to 1935's Follies Bergeire, where the entertainer was the very real Frenchman Maurice Chevalier.) Gene Tierney is about as much fun as a block of ice as the unhappy wife and is clearly out of her element in a musical.

On the other hand, this is worth seeing for Kaye fans to catch him playing a somewhat normal, non-nervous guy for a change...and for his incredibly relaxed and even sexy version of "Ballin' the Jack."

Sigh. And yes, the back tire on my bike has finally gone completely flat. I'll take it up to Haddonfield tomorrow to see if that bike shop can look at it. The Acme actually tried to call me in for tomorrow, but I really want to get the biked looked at...not to mention, I haven't had off since last weekend and was really looking forward to having this weekend off.