Monday, September 16, 2013

The Backyard Is Not Enough

When I opened my eyes this morning, my bedside clock said 10:06...and I worked at 11! Yikes! I never had the chance to write in my journal or read or even have tea. I jumped up, got dressed, had a very quick breakfast of cereal and a peach, packed leftovers and an apple for my lunch, and hurried off to work.

It was raining when I headed off to work, but not hard. By the time I arrived, the rain was slowing down. Accordingly, the Acme wasn't that busy when I got in, but it picked up around lunchtime and was steady throughout the day. The day went quite fast, and there were no major problems at all.

(And for those of you who have been to Dinosaur Dracula and read Matt's ecstatic reviews, you'll be delighted to hear that we finally got the Monster Cereals in. All five of them, the revived Fruity Yummy Mummy and Frute Brute too. I won't be buying them myself, since I don't eat really sugary cereals, but I'm glad to see them there. Given all the problems I had last fall, the 2013 Halloween season has nowhere to go but up.)

I went straight home after work, dodging the last of the rush hour customers. When I got in, I changed into regular clothes, then made an omelet for dinner and a loaf of zucchini bread from a recipe in Julie's Cooking Studio to bring to Cape May County. I ran the rest of the Backyardigans DVD I picked up the other day. "International Super Spy" is the first of two double-length Backyardigans episodes, and their second spy spoof. This one is a more obvious James Bond parody. Pablo is a secret agent who likes his apple juice shaken, not stirred. Tasha's his Chief, who sends him on a mission to find three containers. Austin is his fellow agent. Uniqua is the evil "Lady In Pink," and Tyrone is her not-too-concerned hench-moose. Pablo travels across the world, looking for the three containers that could create "A Recipe for Disaster" in the wrong hands.

(And I only just noticed this, but the three places the kids visit - London, Switzerland, and the Caribbean - parallel the places visited by the Beatles in Help!. Considering that the movie is also something of a Bond parody and came out around the height of the original spy craze, it's actually a pretty interesting shout out.)

The Backyardigans did two Christmas-themed episodes. The first one, "The Secret of Snow," debuted in the second season. Uniqua wants to discover the secret of making snow fall, but busy Tasha the Ice Lady has no time for her requests. She keeps sending the pink bug-girl away to increasingly warmer climates. Uniqua eventually gets help from Cowboy Pablo, Jungle Moose Tyrone, and Tasha's assistant Austin, who just wants to do something besides make ice.

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