A Day of Errands, A Night of Musicals

The weather continues to be gorgeous here. By the time I was up and moving, the wind had died down and the sun had returned. It was chillier than yesterday, but still nothing like it was last month or earlier this month.

Started out my day with laundry. I worked too early to get it done yesterday. I timed it right for the second week in a row. There was only one other woman there when I arrived. By the time I was putting my things in the drier, a couple and two college students had brought in huge loads of clothes that took up almost every other available washer (and would eventually use every drier, too).

There was a box and a small package waiting for me when I got home. I ordered a few things I wanted from Amazon.com last week. Turner Classic Movies has released low-priced sets of four popular older movies on two two-sided discs. I bought the one for "Broadway Musicals" with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Kiss Me Kate, Annie Get Your Gun, and the 1951 Show Boat, and the "Murder Mysteries" set with Dial "M" For Murder, the 1941 Maltese Falcon, the 1946 The Big Sleep, and the 1946 The Postman Always Rings Twice. Admittedly, I had some of those on video, and the only one out of them I hadn't already seen was Dial "M", but some of those videos are getting on in years, and they're all good movies.

I bought the Warner Archive movie Summer Holiday, a cute 1948 MGM musical featuring Mickey Rooney, from an outside source. There's several other MGM musicals I have taped that are in the Archive, too, including Look For the Silver Lining and Lovely To Look At. Thing is, these movies cost $20 or more a pop for what's essentially fancy DVD-Rs. They don't even have real menus or chapter stops or anything. Though I don't regret buying Summer Holiday, I was thinking that to save money on the rest of it, instead of buying tons of DVDs, I'd buy a DVD recorder and transfer all of those movies I taped off of cable to plain old recordable DVDs.

(This would be nice for several videos my dad Bruce made of Rose and me visiting him in Florida in the late 80s-early 90s, too. I know those videos have to be over 20 years old and probably getting ready to die, if they haven't died already.)

My other acquisition from this Amazon order was one of my favorite books of all time. Despite its title, The Pyrates is really a spoof of all things swashbuckler, not just pirate lore. The only place I ever saw it was at the Cape May Courthouse Main Branch of the Cape May County Library, but it was worth the trek there to get it. I used to read it once a summer. Think of it as "A Mel Brooks version of The Pirate Movie by way of Monty Python with a touch of "Pirates of the Carribean." Not historically accurate, but very funny, especially if you love old-fashioned action movies as much as I do.

I had leftover shrimp stir-fry for lunch while finishing The African Queen. Checking the messages on my house phone, I discovered the Acme called me in while I was at the laundromat, asking me to come in from 12:30 to 9. Well, it was a little long, but I'd do it. I need the hours. Alas, when I called them, they'd already filled the position. For once, I was disappointed. I wouldn't have minded it. I have no major plans for tomorrow other than volunteering at the Oaklyn Library.

Oh, well. I did have things to do today...such as this week's volunteer session at the Haddon Township Library. Headed over there via Newton River Park after lunch. While the back path under the trees is still covered with ice, the front path is completely clear except for a few small random shady patches. I had a pleasant ride, passing joggers and dog-walkers who were also enjoying being able to use the park again.

The Library was fairly busy when I got in. I organized the kids' DVDs and shelved DVDs and kids' books. I also took out three books on making changes and getting around the disapproval of others.

While I feel a lot better about myself and my life in general than I did this time last year, I still have a long way to go. I suspect a lot of it is tied up with work. I've mentioned it here many times before. Everyone I know keeps telling me how important it is for me to keep my job.

The trouble is, my job has been one of the thorns in my side for years. I have no chance for any kind of advancement. I haven't had a raise in ages. I think I've hit the maximum wages that one can earn on part-time hours. The job is stressful, dull, useless, and lacks creativity. Though my fellow employees have been nice to me, I don't feel like I fit in amongst the older people who have a second job, college students working part-time while in school, and teenagers working their first jobs.

I know I should be grateful. I'm well aware of what the economy's like. I know more and more jobs are being cut, even if the economy is supposed to be recovering. I also know how I feel. I didn't go to college to work at a grocery store the rest of my life. I want to write. I want to help people. I want to organize things. I want to create things. I want to make things better. I want to make people happy...and make me happy, too. I want to work with people who feel the way I do. I'm not doing any of this at the Acme.

Made a quick stop at Super Fresh and Rite Aid on the way home. Rite Aid had what I was looking for - a new dry erase board. My old one refuses to erase all the way anymore. I should probably have waited for spring break and sales on office supplies, but I don't think it would have held out another month.

I didn't get in until after 4:30. I put up my new dry erase board and wrote my current schedule on it, then put on Summer Holiday. This musical version of the 1935 Broadway comedy Ah, Wilderness! was one of Rooney's last MGM vehicles. He plays the cocky teenage son of the newspaper editor of a small Connecticut town in turn of the 20th Century. The kid has been reading a lot of romantic poetry and politically-charged non-fiction that's been giving him some rather radical notions. His speeches about the terrible conditions of the working man are giving his dad (Walter Huston) a headache and scaring the wits out of his shy girlfriend (Gloria DelHaven). Meanwhile, his perpetually drunk uncle (Frank Morgan) is pursuing the local old maid (Agnes Moorehead) with little success.

While not as good as Meet Me In St. Louis, it's predecessor in Americana at MGM, it's still a very cute movie. Like director Rouben Mamoulien's earlier musical Love Me Tonight, there's a lot of use of rhyming dialogue and songs flowing in and out of speech in a way that sounds more natural than most musicals. Rooney and DelHaven have a sweet number early on, "Afraid to Fall In Love."

Switched to Night at the Opera while making a skillet dish of chicken cutlets, brown rice, and frozen peas for dinner, along with steamed asparagus. Groucho Marx persuades rich widow Margaret Dumont to invest in an Italian opera company. Meanwhile, Chico and Harpo have befriended a pair of opera singers (Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones) looking for their big break...if they can get past the obnoxious opera star Lasparri (Walter Woolf King).

The best and best-known of the Marx Brothers' MGM movies features some of their most famous bits, including the infamous everyone-piled-into-one-tiny-stateroom scene ("Is my Aunt Minnie in here?" "If she isn't, you can probably find someone just as good."), the "party of the first part" contract-ripping session, and the destruction of "Il Trovatore" in the finale.