Thursday, January 03, 2013

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

It was a frosty but thankfully sunny morning when I awoke. I started things off with Chocolate Chip-Coconut Muffins for breakfast while watching the Faerie Tale Theatre version of "The Three Little Pigs." Here, the pigs are a trio of brothers who are pushed out into the world by their mother (Doris Roberts) who can't afford to feed them anymore. The pig who builds the straw house (Stephan Furst) dreams of quick bucks. The one who builds his house of sticks (Fred Willard) is a huge hog who wants to lead the good life and chase all the sows he can find. Larry, the runt of the litter (Billy Crystal), is the sensible family artist who sees the value of making his brick home as solid as possible. His strong home becomes even more important when a wolf (Jeff Goldblum) comes to their door looking for a pork dinner for his nagging wife. It'll take all of Larry's cleverness to keep him, his brothers, and a pretty sow named Tina (Valerie Perrine) from ending up on the wolf's dinner plate!

One of the cuter episodes, and along with "The Emperor's New Clothes," the funniest show of the entire series. Goldblum in particular has some very funny one-liners as the hen-pecked wolf.

It dropped into the lower 30s today, but the sun brought people out of the woodwork anyway. There were surprisingly a couple of people walking their dogs or going for a stroll as I rode across Newton River Park. It was so cold, the river had a thin layer of ice for the first time this winter.

The Haddon Township Library was very busy when I arrived. So many kids' DVDs had come in, there literally wasn't room to shelve them all! Storybook Hour was just ending as I worked on organizing the titles that did fit. One adorable little girl requested Callieu and the Disney Cinderella. A boy wanted Scooby Doo; I directed him towards the holiday set I just returned. A second girl asked for Mickey Mouse Clubhouse; I handed her Mickey and Donald Had a Farm.

There was less to shelve with the adult titles, and very few foreign titles mixed in. I didn't take out any movies or books this week, and returned everything I took out last week but one self-help book. Between work and taking down the Christmas decorations, I just won't have the time. I'll run Lois & Clark and the public domain cartoon set instead.

I wanted to stop at Tuesday Morning on the way home and look for a second calender for my bedroom, but they were closed for inventory! Who closes for a whole week just to do inventory? Don't most stores do that at night? I ended up at Rite Aid across the street instead. Maybe it was just as well. I needed milk; they have the cheapest milk around, and it saved me a trip to WaWa. Found the Backyardigans Christmas DVD cheaper than I've ever seen it anywhere. Also bought bungee cords from the dollar racks. The ones that came with the house frayed ages ago, and I wanted to use them to hold down the air conditioner cover. It wasn't working indoors.

When I got home, I fixed the air conditioner cover, then spent the rest of the afternoon running more public domain shorts and eating leftover chicken stir fry for lunch. More 40s Superman ("Destruction Inc") and Terrytoons' The Mighty Heroes topped the list here, along with a few not-bad Popeye shorts from the early 50s.

Work was pretty much the same as yesterday - down-the-aisles busy during rush hour, otherwise on-and-off steady, with some annoying customers. It'll likely remain so as we get through the beginning of the month.

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