Monday, November 25, 2013

Cold Candy Thanksgiving

It was 49 degrees in the apartment when I woke up this morning. As soon as I could make myself get out from under the five blankets and comforters on my bed, I called Andrew. He picked up right away. He had checked the heater on Saturday and had heard the noise then. He went to call PS&G.

I made warm oatmeal and a half of a grapefruit for breakfast while watching Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas. While most of the Disney direct-to-home-media movies were rehashes or just thrown together, I kind of like this one. Set during Belle's stay at the castle in the original film, Belle is determined to give everyone a nice Christmas. The Beast objects, and so does a manipulating organ named Forte who was once the castle's conductor (Tim Curry) and an angel ornament named Angelique (Bernadette Peters) who has had too many disappointments. An excursion to get a Christmas tree off the castle grounds leads to a lot of hurt feelings between Belle and the Beast. It takes a special gift and the Beast's discovery of Forte's deception to patch up their relationship. Recommended for fans of the original movie or folks looking for holiday Disney tales, enjoyable enough for anyone else who runs into it on cable.

Finished out breakfast with an episode of Faerie Tale Theatre. "The Snow Queen" holds far more resemblance to the original than the Disney movie Frozen that's set to come out on Wednesday does. A young girl named Gerda must follow her dear friend Kai, who has been taken by the Snow Queen (Lee Remick) to her kingdom, through ice, snow, reindeer and girl thieves. In the end, the icy ruler teaches the two a lesson about love and true friendship.

Moved to The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas while making Cranberry Orange Bread for my family's Thanksgiving feast. You read the name right. This 1983 musical was a film version of a hit Broadway show from the late 70s. The title bordello was a real place known in the Lone Star State as the Chicken Ranch. When the most recent proprietress (Dolly Pardon) and her business comes under attack by an obnoxious moral watchdog (Dom DeLouise), her boyfriend the Sheriff (Burt Reynolds) tries to come to her rescue by getting the state Governor (Charles Durning) to keep "another Texas legend" going.

Sex romps aren't normally my thing, but this one is actually rather innocent for a musical about a brothel. I'll admit that my sisters and I watched this all the time as young kids. We loved the twangy music and spirited choreography, especially the Aggies' dance routine in the locker room and the party dance in the ball gowns afterwards...and we had no idea what was going on between the numbers or what the ladies were doing at that nice farm house. Dolly Pardon and Burt Reynolds are having a lot of fun, but Charles Durning gets the film's best number as he shows how to "Dance a Little Sidestep" and avoid giving a political statement about anything. Your mileage may vary as to whether you can get away with showing it to your kids, but for teenagers and adults, especially country music fans, this is a blast to watch and is worth looking around for.

I rushed to the laundromat after the Cranberry Bread was finally out of the oven. I barely had enough time for the one rather large load I had. Good thing there were only a few people going in and out, a bit of a surprise given the weather we're supposed to get tomorrow. I was just barely able to throw my laundry in, yank it out, rush home, put it away, change, make dinner, and hurry out to work.

Work was steady for most of the night. It was pretty much the same as yesterday - busy, but not overwhelming. There was plenty of help during rush hour; by the time I left, they barely needed the one woman still on.

Andrew called during Best Little Whorehouse. PS&G had called and said they'd fix the heater between 4 and 8PM. They seem to have been true to their word. It was much warmer in the apartment when I got home, though not quite as warm as it had been before the heater went out, probably about 62 degrees. (It was 67 yesterday morning.)

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