April Showers Brings May Day Flowers

I slept in...and awoke to a blue sky and a cool wind. Despite the breeze, it was warm and sunny, just about the most perfect weather you can get in early May. I headed out to the Oaklyn Library after breakfast to return the DVDs and do volunteering.

Despite the nice day, there was plenty to do when I arrived. I walked into the tail end of this week's Storybook Hour with the local day care kids. While they selected books, I organized the adult DVDs and removed more stickers from the tops. (I really wish they'd be more careful about that.) When the kids left, I organized the children's DVDs and shelved kids' books.

I went for a short walk after leaving the library. It was a glorious day for it. I strolled past what's now Rose and Craig's new home. It looks far better than it did on St. Patrick's Day. The exterior has been painted, and the brick steps to the enclosed front porch repaired. I saw their van, but didn't see either of them, and a truck with what were probably workers was just about to pull in. I just kept going.

I wasn't the only one out and about. I saw kids playing during what I assumed to be their recess time on the front lawn of the Oaklyn School. People took younger kids for walks or bike rides. Lots of people worked in their lawns, mowing grass that had grown almost overnight, thanks to the storms. The "fuzzies" are out now, which means so is the pollen. I saw quite a few folks attempting to wash their cars.

Did my own cleaning when I got in. I scrubbed the bathroom while dubbing the first of three Laurel and Hardy videos I picked up a few weeks ago, Blockheads. This is probably the simplest and the shortest of the three "feature-length" movies I found. Ollie is planning on a nice anniversary dinner for his wife...until he finds out that his buddy Stan was brought home from Europe, after thinking World War I was still on. Ollie decides to bring his best friend home to his best girl, which leads to a series of complications ranging from them destroying Ollie's wife's car to their neighbor's (Billy Gilbert) wife ending up in Ollie's pajamas.

Two of the three tapes include classic Laurel and Hardy shorts as bonuses...and they don't get any more famous than The Music Box, the first short subject to win the Oscar in 1932. The boys have to deliver a piano up a steep flight of stairs, and then get it into a house. And yes, Gilbert is here, too, this time as a stuffy music professor.

Headed to work as soon as The Music Box ended. Between the nice day and this being the middle of the week, we weren't that busy. A lot of beginning-of-the-month people may be waiting for the weekend to shop. Busy during rush hour, steady-to-quiet the rest of the night.

I also just realized that today marks the 10-year anniversary of this blog. I technically started it on May 1st, 2003, though I didn't start writing regularly until 2007. Here's the first year's worth of entries, including the one that launched the blog.