No Fright On Friday the 13th

I'm not a horror fan. The scariest I got this Friday the 13th was running a couple of items devoted to spooky stuff. I started off the morning with Witchcraft....!, a record I picked up from a yard sale a few years ago that's a collection of instrumental renditions of witch or magic-themed songs, like "That Old Black Magic" and "Old Devil Moon." After breakfast, I dusted the living room and put on the Ghostbusters soundtrack.

As I continued dusting and putting up the fall decorations, I switched to episodes of The Shadow. The early tales of Lamont Cranston and Margot Lane as they used mind-related powers to catch criminals were atmospheric and spooky. Orson Welles lent the right world-weary note to pulp-ish tales like "The Bride of Death," "The Temple Bells," and the anti-war-themed "The Silent Avenger."

(A personal note on these cassettes - I've had them since college, when I picked them up at what was then the Hamilton Mall's Waldenbooks. My then-roommate Amanda and I used to shiver under our blankets in our cold, drafty old apartment and listen to the episodes before we went to bed to drown out the parties going on above us. Oh, how we wished we could send in for that trial ton of Blue Coal!)

I hurried off to work around 1PM. We weren't that busy early on; once again, it picked up during rush hour. It slowed down enough for me to let go without a relief. I was sore, stressed, bone-tired, and my heel spur hurt something horrible. I'd been flustered and frustrated with myself all day.

My schedule for next week didn't help. While I do go on vacation Tuesday, I work 7 hours on Monday and early on Sunday! I'll never get anything done before I leave!

(I did find out why the schedules were so off. The front end manager who usually does the schedule was on vacation this week. She didn't do this week's schedule or next week's. That explains a lot.)

I did a really quick grocery run after I got off. I'm going to be gone for part of next week, but there were a few things I needed. The Acme's large eggs were on a really good sale. Needed to restock powdered sugar, tuna, vanilla (the small box of Acme's generic vanilla extract is really cheap for the good stuff), yogurt, daytime cold medicine, and contact lens solution. Kashi cereals were on a decent sale, and I had a coupon. I went with their Autumn Wheat and Cinnamon Harvest shredded wheat. Treated myself to two inexpensive cartoon DVDs, The Backyardigans' special International Super Spy and another set of Tom & Jerry Tales episodes.