Around the Town and Home Again

Started this morning with the American Top 40's ongoing Christmas Countdown special and Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. The latter has become a favorite of mine in recent years. In this tale from 1978, Big Bird is worried when Oscar reminds him of how skinny most chimneys in New York are and how big Santa Claus is. How will Santa get down the chimneys to deliver those presents? While Big Bird ponders that question, Ernie and Bert want to give each other a special gift. They sell the things that mean the most of them to kindly store owner Mr. Hooper, but Hooper has a surprise that will make both happy. And Cookie Monster wants to tell Santa how much he wants cookies...if he can stop eating the writing utensils!

I don't know how much kids today would enjoy this. It was made well before the debut of recent Sesame Street Muppets like Elmo, Zoe, or Abby Caddaba. For adults who remember the show in the late 70s and early 80s, it's a sweet, charming special with some wonderful music, including "True Blue Miracle" and Oscar's "I Hate Christmas."

I had some errands to run in the area today. My first stop was PNC Bank to deposit my paycheck. While I was there, I saw some customers help an older woman who had fallen down in the parking lot. It looked like she'd scraped her hands and face - her face had red lines on her forehead and nose. The cops and parametics eventually arrived, but she claimed she was fine.

After I left, I next headed for the Oaklyn Library for this week's volunteering session there. Once again, it was just a quick one. I wanted to have lunch and get some other things done at the apartment.

A few days ago, I used the Vermont Country Store card Lauren sent me for an early Christmas present to order something I've been wanting for a while - a pair of two-tiered wooden shoe racks. The plastic shoe rack I bought a few years ago was pulling my shoes out of shape, and I was tired of using the tippy shelves in my closet. I removed the shelf that wasn't stable and left the heavier one that was. Instead of pushing the four shelves together, I put one set of shelves on top of the heavier one. That way, I now had five shelves instead of four. I love it! Other than the racks are unfinished and I'll probably need to watch out for splinters, they take up less room in my closet than the old shelves and look much better. Plus, I don't have to worry about them falling over now, and very real wood smells quite nice.

I made scrambled eggs with broccoli, onion, mushroom, and Cheddar cheese for lunch while running Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader. This time, Lucy and Edmund Penvensie are joined by their bratty cousin Eustace as they reunite with the now-King Caspian and Reepcheep the Mouse on the titular vessel. Caspian is searching the ends of Narnia for the seven lords of Telmar who were once his father's advisors. Lucy, Edmund, and a very reluctant and unhappy Eustace join him. Instead of fighting witches or warlords, though, this time they find themselves on a quest to battle their own inner demons...and outer ones when a spell turns Eustace into a creature he didn't even know existed.

Not bad. Not as good as the first one, but a hearty improvement over the rather dull Prince Caspian. I like the emphasis on battling fears instead of traditional bad guys - it's something different in a fantasy story. Not that there aren't plenty of those, too, from trolls that hop around on one foot to a rather nasty slave market. It's a shame I don't think the reception of this one was good enough to warrant a continuation into the next book of the series, The Silver Chair. That was my favorite of the original series along with the first novel.

I worked on the budget for an hour before work. Most of what I spent last month was food or early Christmas present shopping. December is always thrown out of whack by the holidays - the "other" section will be huge.

Thankfully after the beginning of the week, work was steady to very dead for most of the night. It was so quiet, and we had so much help for once (including new cashiers who were being trained), I managed to shelve an entire cart of candy in an hour and a half. I've never done that before. I think most people are now at the malls or getting ready for parties or baking. It'll pick up more when we get closer to Christmas and Hanukkah.