Princesses, Paupers, and Strawberry Shortcake

It was a gorgeous morning for a ride to the Haddon Township Library. By 11, when I headed out, the sun was shining, the breeze was whistling, and it was probably in the lower-mid 50s, fairly normal for this time of year. There were lots of people out and about, too, enjoying their last day of gorgeous weather before rain (and possibly snow) comes in starting tomorrow.

The library was also bustling when I arrived. I mostly concentrated on DVDs today. The kids' DVDs badly needed to be organized. There were stacks and stacks of adult DVDs to shelve, too. There weren't as many non-fiction DVDs as in the past few weeks, which was probably a good thing. It looks like most of the non-fiction DVDs were just reorganized, and it'll take me a while to figure out what goes where.

The Library seems to have gotten several new kids' DVDs in during the past week. I indulged my girlie side and took out two Barbie As specials, the first musical The Princess and the Pauper and the just-released A Fairy Secret. They had the newest Strawberry Shortcake and Max and Ruby DVDs, so I grabbed those as well. I also took out the western Two Mules For Sister Sara and last year's Russell Crowe version of Robin Hood.

I ended up taking out a pile of books, too. I not only picked up the newest Samantha AG mystery Clue In the Castle Tower and the one and only Josefina mystery, Secret In the Hills. Found two cookbooks on healthy eating that were far more to my liking than the awful Hungry Girl cookbook from a few weeks ago. One was The Taste of Home Comfort Food Diet Cookbook. The other concentrated on seasonal foods. I'm a firm believer in eating seasonally.

Made a couple of quick stops at the Westmont Plaza next. I grabbed dried apricots from Super Fresh and sponges from Dollar Tree. Had a tasty turkey, avocado spread, lettuce, and Swiss cheese sandwich for lunch at the Bagel Shop. I went straight home after lunch, dodging two FedEx workers who thought they were being cute by standing in my way and pulling back at the last minute. Jerks. They're lucky I didn't run them over. That wasn't funny.

I remembered while riding back to the apartment that I have bills due. I paid them online right away when I got home, then did a few things on the computer. Went for a walk around 4. I went down to the end of Goff Avenue to enjoy the perfectly clear view of Newton River and the Ben Franklin Bridge, then walked back around to Kendall and West Clinton. Everything in the neighborhood looks so nice. Daffodils and crocus bloom in gardens; forsythia bushes drip with brilliant sunshine-colored blossoms. Some homes still had St. Patrick's Day banners waving in the breeze. Others settled for more general spring depictions of birdhouses, flowers, birds, and baby animals.

Spent the rest of the afternoon working on granola bars at my place and watching cartoons. First on deck was Princess and the Pauper. I avoided this one after hearing a song from it performed at the 2004 Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and finding it to be excruciating. That song isn't great...but the movie itself is surprisingly one of Barbie's best. It's actually a fairly accurate adaptation of Prince and the Pauper. Here, Barbie is wealthy intellectual Princess Annika and ambitious indentured servant Erika. When the kingdom's supply of gold runs out, Annika finds herself engaged to marry a rich prince from a neighboring kingdom. When the queen's treacherous adviser has Annika kidnapped, it will take all of the wits of both girls, their pet cats and horse, and their respective beaus to reveal his plot and save the kingdom!

The biggest surprise of all was how much of a musical this was. It had at least 7 songs plus some reprises, more music than many live-action movie musicals. And unlike Diamond Castle and Island Princess, where only Barbie and a couple of her animal buddies get to sing, almost everyone has a number. Even the villain gets two songs and a reprise to himself.

Even better, the plot was genuinely exciting and fun. The villain was appropriately menacing, and this is one of the few times the good queen really figures into the plot. The prince who falls for Erika and the royal tutor who is Annika's best friend are far more interesting than most of the bland male characters in these stories, too.

Alas, most of the episodes on the Max and Ruby set were ones that had been previously released. "Max's Castle" was my favorite of the episodes that were new to me. Ruby and Louise are building the "perfect" block castle. Max, as usual, thinks their castle could use a little something...like his toys barging in.

Puttin' on the Glitz, on the other hand, was entirely new Strawberry Shortcake. It's the first 2009 series DVD I've seen to be a series of episodes, instead of episodes strung together to make a "movie." The first and last episodes, both dealing with confronting and criticizing friends about problems and with the impersonality of technology, were my favorites.

Made granola bars and dinner while the cartoons ran. The Lemon Thyme Chicken from the Taste of Home Comfort Food Diet Cookbook came out superbly, other than I added a wee bit too much lemon juice. I paired that with spinach salad and steamed broccoli for a nice dinner.

The granola bars...were more of a problem. The recipe called for a kind of thick caramel-type sauce to be added to dried fruit, nuts, and oats. I was hoping that leaving them in the pan to harden would make them less flaky. That wasn't smart. They just stuck to the pan. Oh well, they still taste good. I'll just eat my granola bars in chunks...and now I know how to make caramel sauce, too.