Winter Wonderland at Last

First of all, Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day to all! I didn't get to see the inauguration, but I did read about it online.

The day was just cloudy and much colder when I finally woke up this morning. I finished out the Jake and the Neverland Pirates set during breakfast. My favorite episode on the Peter Pan Returns disc had fun with Disney's perpetual fondness for princesses. Izzy has been reading about (and dressing like) a "pirate princess" from her book who has been turned into gold by a wicked witch. The kids first have to save her and her golden ship from Hook. (Interestingly, Hook has no interest in her, even after she's changed back - it's her ship he's after.) Next, they have to return her rainbow wand to her, with Hook in hot pursuit.

Since I didn't have much in the way of plans today, I decided to go for a quick run to Rite Aid early this afternoon. It's supposed to be very cold all week, and today was no exception. It was probably in the lower 30s when I headed down to Cuthbert Road. They were surprisingly busy, given the weather. I did find the contact lens solution CVS was out of yesterday (for slightly cheaper). And their skim milk has dropped even further in price, and it was already the cheapest milk in the area! I grabbed that, too.

Worried about the weather, I headed straight home. Spent the rest of the day having lunch, messing around online, baking Banana Honey Muffins, and finally getting to watch Time After Time. I took this one out numerous times last year, only to not get a chance to watch it for some reason or another. In the year 1893, reporter and science fiction author H.G Wells (Malcom McDowell) has invented a genuine time machine. Most of Wells' colleagues think he's nuts, but one good friend, a surgeon named John Robertson (David Warner), seems particularly interested. Wells discovers the hard way why when the local bobbies show up at his house...and Robertson is revealed to be the infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper.

Wells pursues him to then-modern times - more specifically, San Francisco, November 1979. He's dismayed to discover that the Utopian society of peace and serenity that he envisioned has hardly come to pass. Cars honk, guns can be bought easily, McDonald's has lousy breakfasts, and the world would continue  to make war. On the other hand, women are also far less restricted, as he learns from feminist banker Amy (Mary Steenburgen). Amy becomes his introduction to a strange new world where sweetly nerdy sci-fi geniuses are considered lunatics....and lunatics are considered normal.

The film had a few surprises for me, too. This unusual sci-fi/romance/thriller hybrid is one of the sweetest fantasy movies I've ever seen. Mom used to talk about it in the early 80s. She was a fan of Mary Steenburgen, and she often mentioned the film's science fiction themes. McDowell and Steenburgen have wonderful chemistry - they would, in fact, get married in real-life a year later. If you're a fan of Steeburgen or McDowell or Wells' real-life books, this is highly recommended.

The muffins took so long, I was almost late getting to work! It may not have been worth the fuss. Work was steady through about 6:30, after which it died so quickly, I spent at least three hours organizing shelves, cleaning registers, and returning items.

It was sunny when I headed off to work, but there were clouds on the horizon. Most of my customers mentioned that it finally started snowing around 6-7ish, and was so bad, it obscured their vision. By the time I left, the snow was long gone. There was at least an inch or so of snow on the ground, and the streets were icy. I walked my bike a lot of the way home, especially on the back roads like Manor and Goff.