Balance and the Libraries

Since I was in Atlantic City all day yesterday, I spent today doing my library volunteering. Started a hot and hazy (but surprisingly dry) morning at the Oaklyn Library. They've done more rearranging in there. The adult DVD titles now span both sides of the DVD shelves. The kids' DVDs were moved to the shelf in the children's area where the Easy Readers were. The Easy Readers were moved to two shelves near the young adult series titles. None of the DVDs were in bad shape; I mostly worked on kids' books. Also found two interesting hardback books on the sale shelves, the original The Snowman and The Hollywood Story, the latter a coffee-table book on the "Golden Age of Hollywood" and the studios who more-or-less ran it. It doesn't really say much that I don't already know, but the photographs are spectacular.

I went home to have a peanut butter and blueberry butter wrap, a green salad, and the last of the macaroni and ham salad from my parents' house last week for lunch. When I finished, I rounded the books and DVDs that needed to go back and headed to the Haddon Township Library. Newton River Park was fairly quiet, perhaps because it soared into the upper 80s today - very warm, humidity or no humidity. There were a few kids playing in the shaded playground area with their folks. Otherwise, I didn't even see a goose.

The Haddon Township Library was much busier with people escaping the heat. In fact, I only got to the DVDs and a fraction of the big pile of kids' books today. I ended up taking out three movies - Green Lantern with Ryan Reynolds, the goofy version of The Three Musketeers that came out last year, and more Abbott and Costello, this time the classic Meets Frankenstein. Also took out a book on the history of American Film Comedy, from the silent comics to the recent nutty man-children.

My next stop was the Collingswood Library; went straight there from Westmont. There was far less to do there. They, too, had reorganized their children's DVD shelves. They now span both sides of the shelf, taking over the shelves under the Wii titles that used to hold CDs. I did some DVD filing and organizing, but there wasn't much else and nothing to do upstairs. I mostly just read books on old Hollywood until it was time to head out for yoga.

Yoga class was very small today, just two other pupils besides me and the teacher, Scott (subbing for Lee). Between the heat and the very small basic class, no one was in the mood for over-exertion. We just worked on some simple standing poses.

I went straight home after class. I made crab salad with part of one of the two containers of fresh crabmeat Dad gave me last week and the last of the farm market scallions and cucumbers for dinner. Also sauteed some mushrooms and zucchini and boiled one of the ears of corn on the cob I got last week. It was all tasty as could be. I hope the Jersey corn stays this sweet all summer. It practically melted in my mouth.

Ran Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein during dinner. Bud and Lou find themselves dealing with half the monsters on the Universal lot when they're delivery men who find themselves bringing special crates to a horror-themed display...containing the remains of Dracula and Frankenstein. Turns out these two aren't as dead as everyone thought. Dracula (Bela Lugosi) thinks Lou's brain would be perfect for the monster (Glenn Strange), and hypnotizes several ladies - and Lou himself - in order to get it. Meanwhile, their friend (Lon Chaney Jr) keeps turning into the Wolf Man during a full moon while trying to retrieve the monsters' crates and destroy them.

This was the first in a long line of Abbott and Costello Meet... horror spoofs that ended with Meet the Mummy in the 50s. If you're a fan of these two or horror comedy, by all means, this is the one to go to. It's still a lot of fun, even if some of the participants (including Lou) didn't think much of it while it was in production. Check out Lou's reaction when he lands in Frankenstein's lap!