Balance and That Crazy Woodpecker

Started out a damp, cloudy day with this week's yoga class. We worked on heart and hip opening today. In order to communicate with others better, we did our opening meditation back-to-back with another classmate. At least the girl I sat behind had a warm back!

We did some very difficult moves today. I had a very hard time. I hate having to modify the moves, especially when everyone else is doing them normally and bending all over the place. I wish they had some of the gentler yoga classes in the morning. I can't always make the afternoon gentle vinyasa courses.

Went straight to the Collingswood Library after class let out. They were having the tail end of their Storybook Hour when I arrived. I mostly shelved children's DVDs. Helped a few kids find titles when they finished.

After the kids left, there wasn't much to do, so I went straight home. I noticed on my ride that the small antique shop across from the library seems to have closed. That's not surprising. The old man who owned the shop was selling everything 50% off the last time I was there, and he was never opened all that often. He probably retired.

In happier news, it looks like a new business is finally moving into the former Friends In Deed Thrift Shop store front. I'm hoping for another thrift shop. I really miss Friends In Deed. While I do like helping the Logan Church Thrift Shop, they're only open every two weeks. It would be nice to have a place to donate my things that's available at least five or six days a week.

It was sprinkling when I walked my bike over to the Library. The rain picked up as I rode home, and continued for the rest of the evening. I had leftover Orange Chicken Stir Fry for lunch, finished the last disc of the Woody Woodpecker and Friends DVD set, and baked a loaf of Orange Chocolate Chip Tea Bread.

Walter Lantz's creations kept rolling right along into the Nifty Fifties...even as other studios were shutting down their animated shorts divisions. Even more than Warners, Lantz' animators loved to have fun with topical gags and situations. More than a quarter of the Woody cartoons had either science fiction or Old West settings, as per the Fifties' twin obsessions with the New and Old Frontier. Several cartoons were inspired by Universal movies, including "Maw and Paw" and "The Ostrich Egg and I" (both take-offs on the smash hit movie The Egg and I and its subsequent spin-off  the "Ma & Pa Kettle" series).

Woody himself didn't change all that much in this period; if anything, he became even more of a heckler than before. Even the addition of his twin niece and nephew Splinter and Knothead (both voiced by June Foray) didn't slow Woody down. Buzz Buzzard was prominent in early and mid-50s shorts, but was eventually replaced by the more conventional goon Dooley. Wally Wallrus made rare appearances on his own or with Chilly Willy, Lantz's other major star of the 50s and 60s. Also first appearing in this time period were Windy and Breezy, the father and son bear pair always out to find a free lunch, and ever-watchful Inspector Willoughby.

It was raining harder by the time I went to work, but not so hard that I couldn't ride. Work wasn't too bad when I came in, but it was on-and-off busy for most of the night. It's the beginning of the President's Day Weekend, the second four-day-holiday-weekend of the year (and the last until we get closer to Easter and the Jewish spring holidays), and a lot of people probably got off early. There were some mildly annoying customers, otherwise no problems, and I was in and out.