The (Nearsighted) Eyes Have It

Started out this morning with The Easter Bunny Is Coming To Town, the third Rankin-Bass Easter special, and really my favorite of the three nowadays. Here, the Easter Bunny is Sunny, who was adopted by the all-youngster residents of Kidville on Easter morning. He wants to bring the kids' chickens the Hendrews Sisters' eggs to the gloomy Town, but grouchy Gadzooks the Bear and nasty Lady Lilly, who is in charge of her gentler nephew King Bruce the Frail, block his path. It'll take all of the kids' and Sunny' ingenuity to cheer up Gadzooks and get around Lady Lilly's laws. In the end, both learn that some new traditions can be fun when we give them a chance.

While Peter Cottontail has the better voice cast and score, I like the story better here. Yes, a lot of it is lifted wholesale from Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, including Fred Astaire as the mailman narrator, but just as much of it is fun on its own. It's also the only Rankin-Bass Easter special to fully revolve Easter, with no references to Santa Claus or other holidays.

Called Mom while the cartoon was on. My sister Anny showed up with her other son Collyn, who usually lives with his father and doesn't visit as often. She got caught up talking to them and forgot to call. That's ok. Our chat was brief anyway. We mainly discussed the recent cold weather, our winter doldrums, and how we're trying to spend less at grocery stores while still eat well. (Buy fewer processed foods; use fewer coupons and look for sales; buy better items on sale or at middle-price emporiums like Dollar General and Family Dollar that last longer; buy as many things possible locally.)

The first errand on the list today was the laundry. It was chilly outside, but sunny and windy, probably in the lower 40s. I had a nice walk to the laundromat. It wasn't that busy, but my load wasn't big anyway. I did get a bit of a shock after The Price Is Right ended (with a rare occasion in which someone won both Showcase Showdowns - I think that might actually be the first time I've ever seen it happen). The lead story on CBS' local newscast was about the mess that I passed on the Black Horse Pike on my way home last night. Turns out what I thought was a "car accident" was a hit-and-run. An older woman had been run over by a truck. They showed the remains of her grocery bag...and the tan bag was familiar. It's spooky to think I may even have had her as a customer; they mentioned it happening around 7PM, when I would have been at work.

When I got home, I put my laundry away, then quickly checked the Internet for a look at the weather. They were announcing possible snow for late tomorrow night. As of right now, um, nope. It's supposed to start raining around 1AM, then maybe snow a little bit, then go right back to rain by the next day. As long as it doesn't do anything tomorrow. I had no really big plans for Wednesday besides a quick Oaklyn Library trip.

Ran Adventures In Babysitting while having leftovers for lunch. Matt's mention of it at Dinosaur Dracula inspired me to watch it for the first time in ages. Chris Parker (Elizabeth Shue) is not having a great day. First, her boyfriend cancels a much-anticipated date. After that, she's talked into babysitting for 10-ish Sara and 14-year-old Brad, despite insisting she's too old for it. Brad has a huge crush on her; Sara doesn't care about much besides Marvel superheroes and teasing her brother. The arrival of Brad's annoying friend Darryl doesn't help matters. Things get really hairy when Chris' friend Brenda calls from Chicago. She's run away from home and wants Chris to pick her up at the bus station. This would be simple, if Chris' car didn't bust a tire on the freeway, or if they weren't picked up by an increasingly bizarre series of characters, from a kindly mechanic to a group of blues singers in a bar to gangsters who are after a Playboy Darryl snuck out of their offices.

Movies about kids and teenagers having wacky (and often dangerous) adventures were common in the 80s and 90s, and few of them were done as well as this one. The sequence in which the kids have to literally sing the blues in a bar is probably the most famous segment; other favorite parts includes Sara meeting her hero, Chris and the boys confronting her errant boyfriend at a restaurant, and the knife fight in a gang war that almost gets ugly...until Brad, and then Chris, intervenes.

Some bad language (including the aforementioned knife fight) make this iffy for most younger kids; for older kids, teens Brad's age, and adults who grew up watching this on cable, this is still a really fun romp, with an awesome R&B, classic rock, and blues soundtrack.

I had my annual eye exam around 3PM. I say "around," because it was really, really busy. America's Best's waiting room was the most full I'd ever seen it. It was probably around 3:15 when I got checked for several eye diseases; I didn't get the actual exam until past 3:30. Everything went fine. My eyes are the same they were last year. I don't need contacts, but when I do order them, there will be no change in the prescription.

For some reason, I thought I was working at 4 today when I made my appointment. Nope; I worked at 5. I just rode home for a little while, finished Adventures In Babysitting, and did things around the apartment. When I did get to work, it was on-and-off busy all night - not as bad as last night, but not dead, either. It did quiet down enough for me to leave without a relief.