Rainy Days and Tuesdays

It was just cloudy when I got up this morning. I ran the remaining "Donald Duck in the Army" cartoons while having oatmeal and the last blood orange for breakfast. "Fall Out-Fall In" has poor Donald on the march with his unit. All he wants is sleep and a hot meal, but first he can't get his tent up, then his fellow soldiers' creative snoring keeps him awake! "The Old Army Game" is a little more disturbing today. Donald goes AWOL for a night on the town. He has to play keep-away with Pete when he's found out...but the game gets ugly when Donald thinks permanent damage has been done.

It started to rain as I ran more cartoons. I thought I'd just wait it out. I went in the back to gather up donations, mainly videos and CDs, for the Acme's rummage sale on Saturday. I also went through the dolls' things to see if there was anything there I could get rid of. The rain, however, didn't end. I just rode to the Haddon Township Library and got wet.

The Library was actually pretty busy, probably because of the weather. I had plenty of DVDs to shelve. Maybe too many. The kids' DVDs in particular are still overflowing. I did take some out this week, since I had no huge plans and it's supposed to get really hot starting tomorrow. Grabbed Mister Roberts, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy: The Three Musketeers, Scooby Doo and the Boo Brothers, and Moonrise Kingdom (which I didn't get to a few weeks ago).

By this point, the rain was coming down a bit harder. I didn't really have much money anyway, and I wasn't planning on making a lot of stops today. I just had lunch at Wendy's on the cliff under the Library. Good thing it wasn't busy, despite it being ten of 1 at that point. Wendy's has a new flatbread chicken sandwich. I tried the variation with honey mustard and no bacon. It was actually quite good, a little slippery but not too greasy, and there was plenty of meat, for once.

The rain finally let up as I left for Haddonfield, and I arrived at counseling relatively dry. I told Ms. Stahl about Rose's move and my babysitting Khai and about Anny's new job. I then went into the stress with my job, and how badly I wanted out of it. I just want to be a normal single 30-year-old with a normal job. I feel like I'm not getting anywhere, and never will.

She basically said that if I'm not going to be able to find a writing job (her son apparently started as a musician, couldn't find jobs, and ended up studying nursing), I need to find something else. The trouble is...I have nothing else. I read, I write, I edit, and I organize things. That's all. Those are my skills. I was really hoping to avoid returning to school and spending more money on expensive classes after the last ones I took were no help whatsoever.

She suggested looking into trades and talking to the Camden County College career counselors, which I haven't gotten around to because of work. The trouble with trades is, I don't think I'd be much of a plumber, electrician, or engineer. I do want to learn to do woodworking, but I'm not sure what kind of a carpenter I'd make. I don't know what I'd be good at.

I went straight home after that. It was raining again, and harder. I just got wet again. When I came home, I got online to look up trades and see if I could make an appointment with Camden County College's career counselors. I didn't have any luck with either. Like I mentioned, trades seemed to be too hands-on for me and require too much training. And Camden County College's page won't load. AVG keeps coming up with a virus, and did for Lauren later when she tried it, too.

Went in the bath after I gave up on that. I wasn't feeling very relaxed. Ms. Stahl says I set my standards too high, and that I'm always going to be disappointed because I do. Well, of course I do! When everyone says you're so smart and brilliant, wouldn't you expect more of yourself? Wouldn't you expect yourself to have a decent job, and a life around other 30-something singles you can talk to? Nobody ever told me I should be a plumber, or a carpenter. They said "you should be a writer." I just wish I knew what I could do with those skills, or in addition to those skills.

I made a very simple, fast dinner of a "tea quesadilla" - a burrito-sized tortilla cut in half, then spread with home-made hummus and farm-market lettuce and radishes. Ran the animated The Three Musketeers while I ate dinner and made slow-cooker rice pudding for dessert. This is one of the last direct-to-home-media movies Disney did, and it's by far one of the best. Here, the usual animated shorts gang spoofs swashbucklers and operettas. Mickey, Don, and Goofy want to join the fabled Musketeers after a childhood encounter with the original ones from the books. Trouble is, Don is a coward, Goofy's not the brightest character in Disney's stable, and Mickey's courage is a lot bigger than he is. Captain Pete, the dastardly head of the Musketeers, promotes them to bodyguards of Princess Minnie and Lady Daisy in the hopes of having an easier chance to off the royal mouse. While Mickey falls for Minnie and Donald annoys Daisy, Lady Clarabelle Cow gets in on the act to help Pete divide and conquer the would-be Musketeers for good.

While this doesn't have much to do with the original story, it's pretty cute on its own. I got a big kick out of it the last time I rented it, and I still enjoyed it tonight. Fans of the "famous five" or the classical music used will have a lot of fun here.