Balance on the Moon River

It couldn't have been nicer when I headed out for this week's yoga class. We concentrated on balancing poses. I'm not great with balancing, and the fact that I was tired didn't help. It doesn't help that I still have a hard time not comparing myself to the rest of the class, either. I've spent half my life trying to catch up with my sisters and every other person my age in terms of what I can do and am supposed to do.

After class, I went to the Collingswood Library for this week's volunteering session there. I organized and filed DVDs downstairs, then organized American Girl books upstairs. It was fairly quiet there, and I left in less than an hour.

I stopped for a pretzel and a chilled cappuccino at WaWa, then headed home. I went via Newton River Park. It was a gorgeous day for a ride. The sun sparkled over the rippling, deep green water. The cool wind kept the sun from feeling too hot. There wasn't a smidge of humidity in the air. It's looking much greener and less dry thanks to the recent storms (though the grass is still a tad brown).

When I got home, I did things around the apartment while dubbing Breakfast at Tiffany's. A classic romantic comedy-drama about a free-spirited call girl in New York (Audrey Hepburn) and the writer upstairs (George Peppard) who is being financed by an older woman, this is a bittersweet story about two people who think they know all about life, but turn out to be more romantic than they believe. Buddy Ebsen and Patricia Neal also give excellent performances as Hepburn's Texan horse-doctor husband who tries to get her to come home and the woman keeping Peppard. (Beware of Mickey Rooney's distasteful stereotypical Japanese upstairs neighbor. It's the only sour note in this graceful film.)

Did this month's budget after Breakfast at Tiffany's ended. Even with the new TV, I surprisingly didn't spend as much as I thought I did. The fact that I didn't really go anywhere last month (I was busy, had just gotten off of vacation, and it was too hot to do a lot of traveling anyway) probably helped.

Work was a pain. It was busy, and I'm tired from working all week. There were call outs, which left us severely short on help all night. I'm really feeling burnt out at work. I'm not used to having long work weeks during the summer. I'm grateful for the extra money, but it's just not what I'm accustomed to at this time of year.

I headed home and dubbed Dinner at Eight, another comedy-drama. This one is an all-star film about the guests at a swank dinner party. If it doesn't sound exciting, the guests include Jean Harlow and Wallace Beery (as a boorish new money businessman and his lazy wife who is desperate to get into society), John Barrymore (as a washed-up actor), Lee Tracy (as his agent), Lionel Barrymore and Billie Burke (as the owner of a shipping line who is facing losing his family's long-time company and his wife who is giving the party), and Marie Dressler (as a fading actress with a fondness for dogs). This was Dressler's last film before her untimely death of cancer, and she and Jean Harlow get one last hilarious moment before the movie ends.