A Sunny Patch at the End of the Fog

Started off the day with breakfast and Bugs Bunny's Cupid Capers. This Looney Tunes cut-and-paste special deals with love among the usual suspects, from Bugs marrying off the Tasmanian Devil to Pepe LePew discovering love in the Foreign Legion. An Elmer-like Cupid is flying around, shooting the Toons to ensure romance, but Bugs believes that he's meddling.

It was still a very warm and foggy day when I finally headed out around 10:30. There was no one in Newton River Park but two joggers and a flock of ducks swimming in the newly-defrosted waterways. Haddon Township Library, on the other hand, was busy. I returned quite a few piles of DVDs and pulled another pile of foreign and kids' titles from the regular DVD shelves. Ended up renewing War Horse and taking out two Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids hour-long "movies" (the original and the later The Princess, The Prince, and the Bee) and the anime tale The Secret World of Arriety, the last-named based after The Borrowers.

Rode down the hill under the Library for lunch at the Crystal Lake Diner. I'd had breakfast early and was hungry. Ended up with a western omelet with cheddar cheese, whole-wheat toast with lots of butter, and a pile of home fries. Everything was served up hot and fast (to my surprise, since they were pretty busy). I was on my way to Haddonfield by 1.

I showed up at Ms. Stahl's office a little early. I locked my bike behind her building, then went for a short walk to the tiny candy novelties store. For a store that was barely bigger than a closet, they were pretty well-stocked. I ended up with Chocolate Smarties. I never saw Chocolate Smarties before. They were really good, too, smooth and cocoa-y, lacking that weird tang that the fruit-flavored Smarties have.

After I got back to Ms. Stahl's office, I crocheted and read the book on classic toys for a little while. She'd cleaned up her office a bit since I was last there. The big bear in the window now had a monkey friend, and a wicker chair had been moved by the window in place of the big lounge seat.

Once again, the session went very well. I tried to explain as best I could about how frustrating the fall was, what with everything that went on - Uncle Ken's death, my fractured ankle, my financial problems, how I got back into writing. She wants to see my writing - she says her husband is a writer and editor. I also explained about how hard it is for me to find jobs, and has been for a decade. Beyond my shyness and the economy, communications is a competitive market. I want to find something I can do to supplement the writing that is closer to my skills and interests than the cashiering job.

She pretty much said to take a personality test and print it out, google "communication jobs" online and see what I find...and be more positive. I can't help it. I get so frustrated with myself. I don't even think of how negative I sound and act when I'm doing it. It just comes out. I feel like I've had nothing but trouble since I got out of college.

This time, I went straight home after leaving Haddonfield. Thanks to the beginnings of rush hour, it took me almost an hour to get back to Oaklyn! Thankfully, by this point, the fog had finally lifted, and the sun was coming out. It was far warmer than it has been too, in the lower 50s according to the radio that was on in Ms. Stahl's outer office.

When I got in, I made Carrot Muffins as I ran the two Miss Spider "movies." The original Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids charmingly depicts how Miss Flora Spider (Brooke Shields) married Holley (Rick Moranis), over the objections of the smarmy Spidercus (Tony Jay). Miss Spider and her new hubby settle in and have a family. Miss Spider is worried that she won't be a good mother, since she herself was an orphan. When one of her children disappears, she panics and goes after him. Meanwhile, Squirt, her oldest son, is searching for the mother of an abandoned chicken egg with the help of a stinkbug and three parentless, homeless bug kids.

The Princess, the Prince, and the Bee focuses on Shimmer the Jewel Beetle, one of Miss Spider's adopted children. Shimmer and her family meet a jewel beetle pair on their way to Mushroom Glen to attend the annual ball there. It seems the Jewel Beetle rulers of Mushroom Glen lost their child in a storm. Shimmer wonders if she may be the lost child and convinces her parents and Stinky the Stinkbug to go after them. Squirt and his friend Felix the Frog tag along, hoping to prove themselves brave princes.

Sunny Patch is a rather exciting and sweet introduction to the main show. Once again, Miss Spider's concerns over how to rear her children despite being abandoned by her own mother are handled in a fairly realistic manner. Princess, the Prince, and the Bee is cute for fans of Shimmer and her adopted mother, or for those with princess-crazy little girls.

Not every romance that begins like Flora and Holley's ends well. I switched to the 1937 musical tragedy Maytime during a dinner of leftover chicken legs and sauteed winter vegetables, and later while making Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. Marcia Mornay (Jeanette MacDonald) tells the story of her lost love in a sad flashback. She was one a prima donna, the toast of Emperor Joseph Napoleon's Paris. After one especially successful ball, her older teacher Nazaroff (John Barrymore) proposes marriage. Flush with all the excitement, she takes a ride into town and meets Paul Allison (Nelson Eddy), a homesick voice student, at a cafe. Two dates, one at his apartment, one at the local May Fair, later, and they're both hopelessly in love...but Marcia turns him down. She's already agreed to marry Nazaroff. Years later, and Marcia is a celebrated but unhappy opera star. She encounters Paul again when they perform together in her New York debut. Nazaroff can tell by the way they sing that they're in love, but he's not going to let his rival Paul off easy...

I'm not normally one for tragic romance, but this is by far my favorite of the eight movies Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy made together; I believe Jeanette MacDonald once said it was her favorite, too. This isn't one for when you're feeling lighthearted; it's a full-blown, five-hanky film. Everyone does well here; even Eddy tries hard, and John Barrymore turns in one of his better later-day performances, cue-card-reading and all. Dig around for it at the Warner Archive...and bring lots of tissues.