Strange Magic On Election Day

Actually, I spent most of the day in front of my computer. I was trying to look up the Union's mental health benefits and a list of local therapists whom the Union covers. I couldn't find it anywhere. The local Union Health Fund had one page from 2006 with mostly broken links. It looked like it hadn't been touched since then.

I ended up calling the Union twice. First thing this morning, I called about my health benefits. Had they gotten the disability payment papers in, so I could keep getting my benefits? Yes, they had. I just had to print out the next payment off the site and send it to them.

The second time was later in the afternoon, after I'd gotten fed up with searching all over the Web for the Union's Health Fund Site. According to the woman I got a hold of, there is no site. There hasn't been one since the 2006 site was abandoned. Their IS department hasn't gotten to it (which is totally absurd in this day and age). They did give me a listing of local therapists I can talk to...and the closest is on Newton Avenue, just a few blocks from Dad's house and the Oaklyn Library.

Shortly before I broke for lunch, I decided to try something. I had an iTunes gift card I'd never used. I intended to give it to my sister last year, but I wasn't sure if she had an iTunes account and got her something else instead. My very first downloaded music was the 2007 original Broadway cast album from the stage version of Xanadu. I had to hear if it was as much of a crazy hoot as everyone says it is. I have the feeling you're missing a lot between numbers, but some of them are pretty cute. Three additional songs were written in for Kira and her muse sisters. Two, "Strange Magic" and "Evil Woman," came from the Electric Light Orchestra back catalog. The remaining number, "Have You Ever Been Mellow?," was an early Olivia Newton-John hit.

I watched election-themed specials and TV show episodes throughout the day. Linus runs for class president in You're Not Elected, Charlie Brown, but may blow his chances after making a speech about the Great Pumpkin. Hampton Pig searches for the reason Montana Max was expelled from school after a fixed election in the Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Citizen Max." The Three Stooges are hired by the campaign managers of a crooked politician to vote for him, but they have their own ideas in the short "Three Dark Horses." Mike Nesmith has his own problems with an equally crooked city official when he throws his wool hat into California's political ring in the second season Monkees episode "Monkee Mayor."

Went downstairs to pick up the mail twice. The mail was really late today. The first time, I picked up yesterday's mail. Today's didn't arrive until past 2...and with it came the card containing the checks from Mom. I gave one to Andrew right away for the rent. The other will go in the bank tomorrow. I don't have a choice about borrowing money. I appreciate their help, but I still feel horribly guilty. I'm not an independent person if I'm mooching off of others.

Ran The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band during a dinner of leftover chicken, roasted broccoli, and sauteed sweet potatoes and apples. The title orchestra was a real-life family performing group who lived in the Midwest during the 1880s. Their oldest daughter Alice (Leslie Ann Warren) and her new beau (John Davidson) persuade the family to move to the Dakota Territory, just in time for the hotly contested election of 1888. It doesn't help that Davidson and Papa Bower (Buddy Ebson), along with most of South Dakota, are Republican, while Grandpa Bower (Walter Brennan) is a Democrat in every fiber of his being. Grandpa's constant stirring up trouble finally comes between the lovers and causes rifts in the family. Can relationships be patched up, even as the Dakotas separate?

No doubt about it, this is one of Disney's odder musicals. A contested election makes a unique background to a family-friendly extravaganza, and while this doesn't feature one of the Sherman Brothers' better scores, it does have a couple of rousing numbers, notiably "Ten Feet Off the Ground" for the family and the ensemble dance routine "West O' the Wide Missouri." A young Goldie Hawn faces off with Warren in the latter.