Rain Into Snow

All it was doing when I got up this morning was raining hard. That didn't stop the Acme from calling me in early. They wanted me in by 10, but I hadn't had breakfast or gotten ready yet. I was in by 11:15. Surprisingly, we weren't busy all day long. In fact, the crowds were only massive during the lunch and evening rush hours. Between about 1:30 and 3:30, we were mildly steady, no more so than usual. Customers were telling me we could get anything from rain all night to 6 inches of snow, nothing like the 20 inches or so New England was supposed to get.

It was still so busy by the time I was done at 6, one of the stock people went in for me. Thankfully, it was already beginning to taper off. Weather or no weather, I had grocery shopping to do. While there were still plenty of eggs, chicken and milk had been decimated, and I bought some of the last bananas on the shelf. I stuck to carrots and escarole for fresh vegetables; they've gotten expensive, thanks to a frost in the western US. There was a good sale on strawberries and on Green Giant frozen vegetables. Needed to restock flour, cooking spray, diced tomatoes, kidney beans, vinegar, peanut butter, and chocolate chips.

Oh, and my schedule is about what I figured it would be - really busy. On one hand, my only day off is Tuesday, and that's because I asked for it for counseling. On the other hand, my only late work day this week is Sunday. The latest I work after that is 7.

By the time I was on my way home, the rain was down to barely a mist. All remained quiet as I put everything away, then made leftover chili for dinner and ran more Popeye shorts. I'd run Popeye in the morning before work, too.

Popeye was a bona-fide phenomenon by the time these cartoons came out between 1935 and 1937. Only Mickey Mouse was a bigger animated star in the 30s. Like Mickey, Popeye found his cast expanding as he grew more popular. Sweet Pea, the mischievous foundling whom Popeye and Olive took in, was introduced around this time. He saved Olive and Popeye from a factory in "Lost and Foundry," and took Popeye on a wild chase across the zoo in "Little Swee' Pea."

Some of the variations on the formula here were really fun. Wimpy and Popeye try to build Olive a house in the "The Builder-Upper"...with less-than-habitable results, even after eating spinach. Popeye isn't thrilled when he has to take Olive's pampered puppy for a walk and gets into a fight with Bluto and his bulldog. Fluffy shows him that even pooches can benefit from a can of leafy greens in "Proteck the Weakerest." Olive's elderly grandmother also benefits from spinach when she and Popeye join a New Year's Eve dance contest in "Let's Celebrake." Olive herself gets a taste of the green stuff - and learns what it's like to be on the short end of a love triangle - when a Mae West-like female boxer flirts with Popeye in "Never Kick a Woman."

By far the most famous shorts on this set were actually a pair of "two reelers" that we would probably call "featurettes" today. The Fleischers put Popeye into color and a bigger budget in the elaborate Arabian Knights tale "Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad." The results were amazing. The backgrounds are full of life, and the animation far outstrips anything in the shorts. The featurette was so successful, they did a second similar one, this time with Bluto as Ali Baba, a year later.

If most people know the Fleischer Popeye at all, it's probably through these shorts. All three of the color two-reelers are in the public domain. They can be found easily online and in dozens of cheap public domain animation videos and DVD sets (including the one Jessa gave me for Christmas).

The snow didn't finally arrive until I was already out of the shower and long online. It was light at first, but now it's coming down really hard. At press time, the National Weather Service is still saying about 2 to 4 inches for us.