Monday, March 18, 2013

A Love Froggy Day In Oaklyn

I slept in a little this morning, then finished The Sea Hawk and wrote in my journal until past 10. It was just as well. The view from my bedroom windows wasn't promising. It was cloudy and gray, almost as bad as last Tuesday, though not wet at that point. 

I ran the other Looney Tunes Easter special, Bugs Bunny's Easter Funnies, as I had breakfast. This one goes the more conventional route of mixing parts from shorts with a flimsy plot made from new material. The Easter Bunny has taken sick. When Bugs isn't available,  he and Granny look for a replacement among the Toons. The theme here is more "Oscar winners" than Easter. We have segments from "Birds Anonymous " "For Scent-imental Reasons," and "Knighty Knight Bugs," among others, but not a single Easter or spring short. Ok for major Looney Tunes fans or those looking for springtime entertainment for little kids, not necessary for anyone else.

Oh, and while I did enjoy The Sea Hawk, I didn't love it. I've had it for almost a year now, since my last birthday, and hadn't gotten to it. While the tale of a British nobleman who is betrayed by his weakling brother into slavery, then becomes an Arabian pirate, is exciting and filled with amazing historical details, it might actually be a bit too detailed for me. I was kind of hoping for more action and less loving details of everything in Algiers. I liked it enough to try other novels by Rafael Sabatini, but this probably won't be my favorite.

It was so late by the time I finally headed out, I decided to reverse my usual errands and start with lunch. Besides, it was also still gloomy, windy, and chilly. I made a quick stop at a surprisingly quiet for the lunch hour Capitol Pizza. I bought a bottle of Coke Zero and a slice of mushroom pizza - breakfast was late this morning.

Dodged the noon traffic next to run some errands at the Westmont Plaza. Dollar Tree was crazy-busy, with full aisles and a line across the front of the store. I was mainly there for Easter cards for the family and birthday cards for Mom (whose birthday is Wednesday) and my friend Kelly in Wildwood (whose birthday was last week). A quick peek at JoAnn's yielded nothing but the realization that they're pretty close to done. Most of the back of the store has already been cleared out, and they don't have nearly the spring decorations they usually have. I considered a spring-themed wreath, but decided I didn't need it and headed out. Dropped into Tuesday Morning and found a WebKinz Love Frog for $2.99. I also discovered they'd expanded the store considerably. The side of the store that had once been storage now held large pieces of furniture and Christmas leftovers. 

The Haddon Township Library was my last stop. It was probably just as well that they had plenty of help and not a lot for me to do. I organized the children's books and shelved some adult DVDs. The DVDs were all in the right places - nothing needed to be cleared out. I looked around for some books to give me ideas for hobbies, but it was getting late. I ended up taking out DVDs of Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids and the 2006 Angelina Ballerina cartoons, along with the animated movie Over the Hedge (I read the comic strip when I'm at work) and the Hitchcock film Torn Curtain with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews. 

It was almost 4 when I finally made my way across Newton River Park. It had begun to sprinkle as I left the Westmont Plaza. By this point, the sprinkle was fast becoming a light shower. It goes without saying I had the Park entirely to myself for once. Even the Canadian geese seemed to be fleeing the weather. 

Spent the rest of the evening at my apartment, making a Spice Cake and dubbing another Richard Chamberlain 70s swashbuckler, The Count of Monte Cristo. Once again, Chamberlain plays a man wrongfully imprisoned who wants revenge. This time, he's sailor Edmund Dantes who was thrown into prison by four men who wanted his ship, his money, and his wife. An old priest (Trevor Howard) teaches him about how to escape, but warns  him against vengeance.  An embittered Edmund ignores him and, with the help of the treasure the old man's map lead him to, becomes the nobleman of the title. He discovers just how harsh vengeance can be when it does hurt the men who slandered his name...but also the woman he had almost married who is now wed to his rival.

While I will admit that I did like the somewhat more lighthearted 2002 version better, this one was also interesting. At the very least, it remained truer to the original story, while still condensing an enormous, detailed novel. I will add that this can only, at press time, be bought as a Korean import on DVD in the US. You're better off digging around for the video or seeing if you can catch it on cable. 

Switched to Angelina Ballerina as I cleaned up from my dinner of lamb chops with scallions and mushrooms, green beans and almonds, and spinach and arugula salad with cherry tomatoes. In the "full length" episode "All Dancers On Deck," Angelina and Alice are thrilled when they and their dance class take a cruise to their teacher Miss Lilly's native country Dachovia. The cruise, however, is plagued by problems from the start. Angelina and Alice want to help Miss Lilly's nephew Yuri prove to the stuffy Captain that he's good enough to wed his daughter, but their attempts at helping only make things worse. Meanwhile, Henry is obsessed with boats and will think of nothing else, the Pinkpaws twins left their costumes at home, and poor William spends the voyage seasick. When the ship runs aground on an iceberg and the Captain blames Yuri, Angelina becomes determined to help...and prove that dancing can be very useful on ship.

Oh, and meet my Love Frog, my first (and likely only) Valentine's WebKinz, Amoura! Amoura's name is a variation on "Amour," which of course, is French for "love." Amoura is a poet and a writer with very romantic soul who lives in a small pink-and-magenta room on the edge of WebKinz World. I really only bought her to go with my Valentine's Day displays; after I pick up the Rockerz Fox later this month, I'm going to try to lay of WebKinz for a while. 

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