Spread a Little Happiness

Started a sunny, windy morning with oatmeal, clementines, and the Disney Aladdin. In this version of the Arabian Nights tale, Aladdin is a street urchin with a heart of gold who lives on the streets of Agrabah, stealing bread for him and his monkey Abu. The sultan's wicked vizier Jafar tricks Aladdin into retrieving a magical lamp for him...a lamp that contains a wisecracking genie who will grant the owner of the lamp three wishes. When Aladdin gets his hands on the lamp, he admits that his only heart's desire is to see the Princess Jasmine again. The genie turns Aladdin into a prince in order to win Jasmine and the throne. Jafar's livid, the Sultan is delighted to see his daughter finally admiring one of her suitors. When Jafar ends up with the lamp, Aladdin finally learns that it takes a lot more than magic to really win a girl's heart or beat a powerful sorcerer, and that one's true worth doesn't lie in lamps or diamonds, but in one's heart.

The follow-up to Beauty and the Beast was almost as popular and is considered to be one of the seminal movies of the 90s animation boom. It's not my favorite today. Though the movie is best known for Robin Williams' wacky improvisation as the Genie, many of his jokes are kind of obscure now. There's still some stunning animation, especially in the Cave of Wonders, Jafar's one of Disney's better male villains, and Aladdin and Jasmine are fun leads. The music, much of it written by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman before the latter's untimely death, is great too. The ballad "A Whole New World" won the Oscar, but I've always liked Aladdin's bouncy introductory number, "One Jump Ahead."

Thsi was released as a Platinum Edition way back in 2006 (I bought my copy from FYE two years later), but it hasn't been seen since then and is a bit harder to find than most major Disney films. Worth looking for, though, especially if you have a little boy who is put off by most other Disney "girlie" movies.

I worked unusually early today, from 11 to 5. I stood around for a lot of it, especially in the first half of the day. For once, we had tons of help and not much to do. It did pick up a little during the usualy 4-6 rush hour...but we still had enough help by 5 for me to shut down with no line.

I had one errand and a little grocery shopping to do. As soon as I left the Acme, I hurried over to America's Best to finally retrieve my contacts. When I got back, I did what little shopping I had to do. The Acme was having a big sale on eggs - a dollar for a carton of 12 large eggs! I had to get one, even though I don't need eggs that badly. Also picked up cooking spray, the inexpensive Acme generic canola oil, individual packs of flounder and tilapia (they were out of salmon), bananas, cake mix, and a bag of clementines on sale.

Called my sister Rose even before I got in the door. Today was my nephew Khai's 3rd birthday. I wanted to give him a birthday wish that was as sweet as the one he gave me on Sunday. I got his mother. She was just getting him up at Dad's house. Evidently, they were having a small party for him. Did I want to come over? Sure! I wanted to give him the present I bought on Tuesday anyway. I put everything away, changed out of my work shirt, signed the cards for Khai and Rose, got back on the bike, and rode to Dad's.

I got in at the right time. Khai was just getting up from a nap when I arrived. He wore the very tropical shirt with bright colored parrots on it that Nana Jodie brought him from Florida. Rose said that otherwise, he hadn't been too happy with his grandparents giving him bathing suits. His parents and friends gave him toys. I gave him two I Can Read books his mother can read to him, one from the Berenstein Bears, one from Little Critter. Finally gave Rose her birthday card, too. (It was the 7th.)

Jodie showed me the pool area. Her brother had apparently done the work on the concrete...and it looked amazing. He'd somehow made it look like the brick path that leads up to the pool. The spaces where additional deck chairs once were had been replaced by larger grass plots for Dad's beloved flower and vegetable beds. (If there's one thing Dad loves, it's landscaping the pool area.) The pool is even full now. You could swim in it...if it was warm enough. Evidently, Khai had stuck a finger in earlier and proclaimed it "just right." Needless to say, his grandmother and mother weren't keen on him swimming in mid-April.

The Mr. Softee ice cream truck always comes around Dad's house at about 7PM. You should have see how excited Khai was! He LOVES getting ice cream from the ice cream truck! Thanks to the wind, we could hear it for miles. Khai was so excited, he could barely eat his hot dog and Swiss cheese. He finally got a vanilla soft-serve cone with cherry coating. Jessa got a plain vanilla cone. I passed; I ate blueberry cupcakes when I arrived and had plenty of dessert at my apartment.

Khai finally settled down to watch Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs as the rest of us ate mushroom and plain cheese pizza for dinner. Clouds had been building up on the horizon since I picked up my contacts at 5, and they were only getting worse by quarter of 8. I finally headed home around 8PM in order to avoid the weather, taking a few slices of pizza with me.

Thank heavens the rain waited until around 10PM to burst. It did thunder for a while, but at press time it just sounds like a heavy but ordinary rain shower.