Don't Stop Us Now

After her long trip, I let Lauren sleep in this morning. I got up around 9:30 and read and wrote in my journal in bed. She got up around 11, just after I finished breakfast. I ran the "Garfield's Travel Adventures" specials while she got dressed and ate.

It was past noon when we headed out on foot for the Audubon Crossings Shopping Center. (Lauren's too small to ride both of my bikes, so we'll be either walking, asking for rides, or taking buses this week.) I stopped at the Acme really quick for my paychecks, then we headed to the shopping center proper.

With FYE gone, there wasn't much back there that interested us. Lauren owns a Wii, so we popped in the Game Stop there for a moment for her to check out the inventory. After that, we went to Tu Se Bella, the pizzeria next-door to Game Stop, for lunch. I had a slice of mushroom and a slice of white garlic broccoli. She had a slice of bruschetta (olive oil and tomatoes) and a slice of pepperoni. I bought a bottle of water; she bought a bottle of Coke. It was all delicious, as Tu Se Bella always is, and delivered quickly despite us hitting the tail end of the lunch crowd.

We went back to the Acme after lunch. She wanted more soda for the week. I needed a few other things. I was out of eggs and chicken and wanted to stock up on peanut butter. Acme was having a good sale on Wishbone salad dressing, and I had a coupon for $1.50 off three. The mousse mix was on sale, so I bought things for a mousse pie for us this week.

After we walked home, I put everything away and made a pudding pie while Lauren took her bathroom break. I took mine, then watched Looney Tunes with Lauren for about 20 minutes until we were ready to head out again.

We made a quick stop at the bank to deposit my paycheck money. Our first stop after that was The House of Fun, the collectibles store a few doors down. They weren't open when Lauren visited last year because they were busy moving into their larger current location. (Their former location now houses a tattoo parlor.) She loved it, loved the shelves filled with boxes of 70s and 80s board games, rows and rows of still-in-packaging action figures, and displays of random Hello Kitty merchandise, pop culture-print t-shirts, comic books, and obsolete video game systems going back to the earliest Atari boxes.

Lauren didn't buy anything, but I found something just sitting on one of the still-waiting-to-be-unloaded boxes. A pretty white bear with a pink saddle on her back and faded white and yellow stars around her body stood on the box and watched us with her painted pale-blue eyes. I very much remembered owning her as a child. According to the man at the desk, she was Ursa Major, one of the toys in the Hasbro mid-80s Moon Dreamers line

Yes! Moon Dreamers was one of the 15-minute "Friends" segments of My Little Pony and Friends. Hasbro marketed doll versions of all of these segments, including Moon Dreamers. Basically a cross between My Little Pony and Rainbow Brite, the Moon Dreamers made sure humans had sweet dreams via the crystals they carried. The "gimmick" with the dolls and toys was that they, their clothes, and the animals the smaller dolls could ride on glowed in the dark. Ursa was one of the two vinyl ride-on toys, a gentle white bear. We had the other one, too: Rory, the lion with the pink mane.

(This was one of the few toy lines we had a playset for. We used the Dream-Along-Drifter for years as a floating bed or ersatz RV for our smaller dolls and My Little Ponies. We also had the Crystal Starr, Whimzee, and Star Gazer dolls and the plastic "crystal" necklaces that came with them. Whimzee's plastic gem-trimmed headband and Star Gazer's silver and purple gauze robe were around for longer than the dolls themselves were.)

It was a gorgeous day, breezy and hot without being as humid as yesterday...but it was still hot. By 3:30, we both desperately needed a drink. I bought an Icee at WaWa. Lauren added raspberry syrup to Mello Yello, turning it a gorgeous shade of red. (She said it was really tasty, too.)

We went over the train bridge and into Audubon. Lauren got along so well with Bob at Abbie Road last year, I wanted to take her back again. We had a nice chat with him, and he let us pick out used CDs for two and three dollars each!

We also dropped by Desserts By Design while in Audubon. I got a chocolate coconut cupcake. Lauren bought her favorite Almond Paste Cookie. She got to meet the nice lady who works there. (One of her daughters was working the counter when I brought Lauren there last year.)

It was 6PM by this point. We headed across Nicholson Road, down Manor Avenue, and over to Hillcrest. Jodie invited us over to Dad's house to say "hi" to her, Rose, and Khai. The two women and the baby boy were still there when we arrived. They offered us the last of their cheese pizza, which we gratefully accepted. (I'll use the fish I originally pulled out tomorrow.) Lauren got to meet my sister and coo over my adorable nephew...and Khai got to show off his new walking skills!

When we finally arrived back at my place, I went straight in the shower and Lauren put on Tangled. We spent the rest of the night online, listening to CDs and looking up Ursa Minor and other 80s toys.

Tomorrow, we're hoping to hit the Collingswood Farm Market, then have lunch in Haddonfield.