Beauty and the Shelf

Started today with this week's American Top 40. Casey dropped back two years to August 1977. Disco was just emerging as king of the late 70s music scene that summer, joined by pop, R&B, and hard rock. Hits included "You and Me" by Alice Cooper, "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac, James Taylor's version of "Handyman," "Higher and Higher" by Rita Coolidge, "Looks Like We've Made It" by Barry Manilow, "Undercover Angel" by Alan O'Day, and "My Heart Belongs to Me" by Barbara Streisand.

I hadn't expected to hit any yard sales today...but there ended up being two of them minutes of my apartment in Oaklyn. Found a very nice folding shelf at a sale on West Cedar for five dollars. It was a bit awkward riding with it on my bike, so I took it home, left it on my steps, and went back out. My finds at West Oakland, a few doors down from the WaWa, were a bit easier to carry - the DVD for Barbie and the Magic of the Pegasus and a cute Belle toddler doll who needed a little TLC. She's not from the Animator's Collection line, but even with a dirty face, torn stockings, and badly matted hair, she was still darling...and only a dollar. (She has rather pretty olive-green eyes. I always thought Belle's eyes were brown, but I like my Belle's eyes, too.)

Made a quick stop at the bank to deposit my paycheck next, then rode on to the Farm Market. Raspberries, blueberries, and those little cantaloupes are gone, but just about everything else is out in full force. The crowds were, too. It was packed when I arrived around 10:30. I managed to squeeze through long enough to grab corn, white peaches, tiny Pristine apples, a heirloom tomato, a pint of mixed cherry-sized tomatoes in various colors, plums, Chinese beans, an orange and a green-red pepper, and a ball-shaped lavender eggplant.

I saw no other yard sales, and I didn't have much money left anyway, so I went straight home. I put my produce away, then spent an hour and a half organizing my new finds. I moved the children's books and comic books to the new shelf, weeded out my comic books, moved the Care Bears to the shelf across from my bed, and put all of the crates but one out in the music area to hold records. (I may move one crate back, though.)

Ran The Outlaws Is Coming! and more Stooges shorts as I organized. Outlaws is the last of the Stooges movies of the 60s. This time, the Stooges are printers' assistants going out west with a young editor (Adam West of the 60s Batman fame) to find out what's happening to the buffalo herds. If the buffalo disappears, the Indians will go to war against the US Calvary! The quartet discover that a dastardly local criminal and his band of gunslingers (all of them played by kids' TV hosts who ran Stooges shorts on their programs, including Philadelphia favorite Sally Starr as Belle Starr) are driving the buffalo away and selling rifles to the Natives. While West pursues sharpshooter Annie Oakley (Nancy Hovick), the Stooges try to stop the ruthless killers and turn them to the right side of the law.

If you have fond memories of any of the "gunslingers" or are a fan of western spoofs, try this one on for size. It's much better than the so-so Around the World In a Daze. West is probably less stiff here than he was in Batman; Hovick and the "gunslingers" are having a ball. You're still better off going to the shorts first, but if you want to see what they did after the shorts petered out, this is probably the best place to start.

The shorts I watched during a leftovers lunch were, to put it kindly, a mixed bag. Most of them, like Up In Daisy's Penthouse, were remakes of older shorts (this one was reworked from Curly's Three Dumb Clucks). Of the totally new material, my favorites were Three Dark Horses, a hilarious political spoof, and the very strange Cuckoo on a Choo-Choo. Shemp is a drunk who hallucinates giant canaries, Larry's a noisy lout, and Moe's hot on the trail of both and their lady friends as they hide out in a stolen train car. Larry put in what was probably his best performance; he really threw himself into that Marlon Brando impression. Shemp has a lot of fun with his drunk routines, too.

I worked on cleaning Belle up before lunch. I dropped her dress in the laundry basket; that will be washed Monday with my clothes. I easily washed her dusty face and body. It was her hair that I couldn't figure out. I used tons of conditioner, and it remained a tangled mop. She's drying in the shower now. I'll see what I can do about her hair tomorrow.

I had customer problems at work. One of the older women who order you to bag the moment they see you without even a "How do you do?" threw a fit when I said "Hello, may I have your card?" over her demands. She shouldn't have been rude...or accused me of having a bad attitude! I got very upset, and despite my profuse apologies, she complained to the manager. The manager didn't take her seriously. Apparently, that same woman comes in every Saturday evening and always causes trouble for somebody. Last week, she fussed to him that he should lower a price for her when the price was as low as it could be made...and she whined that she would complain about him!

We were actually pretty busy tonight. Not a good thing; we were also short-handed. The guy who was supposed to work late called out. One of the college students took over for him, but that meant he was alone. A manager came in for me so I could get out at a decent time.