Philadelphia Freedom

Started out the morning with the last few minutes of Rango and one of the two little-known Peanuts shorts on the Charlie Brown Valentine DVD. In Someday You'll Find Her, Charlie Brown, Chuck falls hard for a girl he only sees for a few seconds in the crowd at a football game on TV. Linus thinks he's crazy, but he helps Chuck in his long search for his new love anyway. Snoopy and Woodstock are along for the ride and for a few gags about being chased by cats.

There's some sweet jokes about city and country living, but otherwise, this story was actually a bit weird. What happened to Chuck's Little Red Haired Girl? Not to mention, this is one of the few times where Chuck's shyness really backfires on him and it's his fault. He could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he'd only knocked on the girl's door, instead of forever sending Linus to do it.

My sister Rose called as the cartoon was finishing. She wanted to try Lucile Roberts, but is a lawyer and mother of a toddler who is very busy during the day. Could we do it in the afternoon? Sure. I planned on being home from Philadelphia fairly quickly. Then, ten minutes later, she called back. Oh, her boyfriend had to work, and his mother might not be able to take her son this evening. We might be able to do it still. She'd call me at 12.

I sighed and just rode out to the Haddon Township Library. It was a gorgeous day, in the lower 50s, sunny, and windless. The Library had plenty of volunteers and not much for me to do. I organized the children's DVDs, shelved kids' books, and removed kids and foreign DVDs from the regular adult DVD bins.

After a quick stop at Cafe Antonio's in Collingswood for a slice of White Spinach-Tomato-Ricotta Pizza and Diet Pepsi, I grabbed a PATCO to Philadelphia. Hit FYE first. They were having that "Buy 2 used, get the third for a dollar" sale that was so helpful for me back in September. I wound up with the Humphery Bogart movie To Have and Have Not for $10 and the 2000 musical Moulin Rouge for $8. The Alice Faye vehicle Lillian Russell, which I loved when I rented it from the Haddon Township Library a while back, ended up being the dollar movie.

Macy's was the next stop. I did very, very well there, thanks to a one-day sale and my last remaining Christmas gift card. The card fully covered a pair of Isotoner gloves that were on a major sale for $9.99 and a new pair of black jeans. (The old ones I bought several years ago from Macy's didn't close to fit anymore.) The card partially covered an Eileen West long-sleeved mauve nightshirt with sweet Swiss lace trim.

While I was looking for the bathroom, I stepped into a quiet corner and called Rose. I still hadn't heard from her. Just as I figured, she wasn't able to find a babysitter for her son. We'd do the gym another time.

I made a quick stop at the Starbucks in the Chestnut Street side of the building for a Chai Latte and a small Vanilla Bean Scone. (That's how darn big this Macy's is. It has it's own Starbucks.) I also made a quick bathroom break there, since I never did find the one upstairs.

Eventually finished the night at Russakoff's, my favorite used book store in Washington Square. I ended up with two books of reviews of women-oriented movies, Cinematherapy and Advanced Cinematherapy. How do you know you love a book store? The cashier in the front desk is watching end of The Empire Strikes Back (one of my favorite movies), and enjoying every minute of it.

The PATCO station entrance is just a few steps from Russakoff's. I took a very full train back to Collingswood, then rode home and spent the rest of the evening reading my Cinematherapy books.