Sudden Storms and Saying Good-Bye to Friends

Lauren and I started the day with one more walk in the park and a snack on the fruit of the blackberry tree. She would be spending most of the afternoon in trains or train stations. It was a lovely, sunny morning, neither as hot nor as humid as yesterday. We strolled around the perimeter of the park, just taking in the beautiful views while we could still do it together.

We spent the last hour at my place watching the Peanuts specials I bought on Tuesday. You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown, gives Charlie a chance to finally win it all when he joins a motorcross race. Peppermint Patty and "The Masked Marvel" prove worthy opponents, but Chuck finally proves that slow and steady really does win the race, and that the best prize of all is being a real winner. He learns a similar lesson in You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown, when the gang enlists him and Marcie in the Junior Olympics' decathlon. Not only do the duo find themselves competing against "The Masked Marvel" again, but tough Freddy from Fremont also proves stiff competition.

Jodie picked us up around noon to head to the train platform behind Shop Rite in Cherry Hill. We were joined by Jodie's younger son's girlfriend. Other than a quick move when she missed the turn-off that sent me bumping all over the place, we made it there on time. Lauren's train was right on schedule. I gave her a hug and watched her as she got on the Transit to Philly.

I finally opted to spend the rest of my day at home. My legs were tired. My refrigerator was largely empty. I didn't have a lot of money left, either. I started putting together peanut butter cookies from the sugar-free baking cookbook as I ran Tin Man.

This elaborate Wizard of Oz update from SyFy introduces us to quite a different view of over the rainbow. D.G (Zooey Deschanel), a waitress in Kansas, is longing for something she can't quite put into words. She wants to find the place where she belongs...but she never expected that the place she belonged in would be the Outer Zone (the O.Z). This wasteland was taken over by the witch Azkadellia (Kathleen Robertson), who isn't what she seems. Neither are the friends she encounters along the way, a good-natured fellow named Glitch (Alan Cumming) who had half his brain removed by the witch, a cowardly half-animal creature named Raw (Raoul Trujillo) who has psychic powers, and Wyatt Cain, an ex-cop ("Tin Man" in O.Z slang) who lost his family to the witch's raiders and has a lot more heart than he would ever admit. This motley group, most of whom can barely remember their own names, set off to find "the Emerald of the Eclipse," the key to saving the O.Z from Azkadellia's wicked schemes.

I really liked it. Generally, I'm no purist. I enjoy seeing how stories can be picked apart and told in a different way. I found this modern version of one of the most famous fantasy stories in the world to be imaginative and a pure delight. Critics, who were probably expecting something closer to the book and MGM movie, were apparently harsh on it, and it seems to be the kind of thing people either love (the boy who sold it to me at FYE gushed about how much he enjoyed it) or hate. As Deneb at Mutant Reviews pointed out, there's a lot of plot holes and it can be cheesy, but the characters are fairly well-written, the special effects are excellent, and it really does suck you into its bizarre world.

Tin Man is 3 and a 1/2 hours. As I was watching the first half, I realized I heard what sounded like raindrops on the roof and the outside part of the air conditioner. Much to my surprise, when I poked my head out the front door, I got wet. It was pouring, and thunder could be heard in the distance. This was not something I expected to see after the gorgeous morning we had! I was worried about Lauren, too. The storm came out of nowhere and may have affected her train.

The storm passed about a half-hour later, as quickly and suddenly as it arrived. I finished up the series, baking a loaf of Banana-Dark Chocolate Chip Bread. I made myself a wrap with the last of the ham and provolone from yesterday and some bibb lettuce while watching episodes of Tiny Toon Adventures ("Fairy Tales for the 90s") and Sailor Moon ("Mirror Mirror on the Wall") that also put different spins on famous stories.

It was around 6PM when the bread came out of the oven. Not only had the sun emerged again, but it was much cooler than it had been this morning. I took advantage of the return of nice weather with a stroll to WaWa for milk and a cherry-limeade Icee. My cell phone rang on the way; good thing I walked. It was Lauren. The train from Philadelphia and New York had both left on time. She mentioned that there were clouds and the trains were wet, but she never saw the storms we did here. She must have literally out-raced Mother Nature! She was 25 minutes from Albany at that point. I haven't heard from her since then, but I imagine she's long at home by now.

There were clouds building up again as I headed home with my milk and my Icee. Thankfully at press time, they have yet to do anything but look unattractive. I dubbed The 39 Steps and Quadrophenia while working on a collage for The Artist's Way book. It's supposed to be all the images of your past, present, and future, or just whatever grabs you. I ended up cutting a lot of things out of rare movie, American Girl, and L.L Bean catalogs, but I think it came out pretty well.

39 Steps and Quadrophenia are veddy, veddy British, but that's where the similarities end. The original 1937 39 Steps is the tale of a spy (Robert Donat) who finds himself literally attached to a London woman (Madeline Carroll) with handcuffs as he tries to stop important information from leaving the country. Quadrophenia jumps ahead twenty years or so to the disenchanted life of a young "mod" who questions his involvement with a local gang and his idol (Sting) after a riot in the seaside resort of Brighton.

39 Steps is a relatively light Hitchcock story; it's not as comic as some later versions, but it's also not as dark as some of his later films. Quadrophenia is hard to find and is mainly for fans of Sting, the Who album it's based after, or this era in English history. (And heed that R rating on the latter - there's f-bombs all over the place. If bad language bothers you, don't come within a hundred miles of this one.)