Are You In, Or Out?

I was up very late last night, something I haven't done in a while on a weekday. I didn't have any plans today that had to be done right away. When I did get moving, I put on some fourth-season Sailor Moon as I ate Dark Chocolate Cranberry Muffins for breakfast. Serena, Rini, and the other Inner Soldiers take a free ballet course with a handsome instructor. Their teacher is also training his girlfriend for the role of Giselle in their upcoming production of the tragic ballet, but it's not going well. Fish Eye of the Amazon Trio also joins the classes. She seems to enchant the teacher, much to the shock of his girlfriend. Serena and Rini do their best to play matchmakers...and make sure these lovers don't end up like the ones in Giselle!

I finally headed out my with my very full laundry bag in the old cart around 11:30. It was a gorgeous day, sunny, windless, and probably in the mid-30s, normal for January in southern New Jersey. Most of the ice was melting in the warmer sun; I dodged the patches that were too thick to melt fast.

 I stopped at the Oaklyn Library first. The librarian had some kind of news cast on. I hadn't had the radio on this morning and had no idea what had happened until the librarian explained it. Aids of New Jersey Governor Christie shut down lanes in the George Washington Bridge and caused a huge traffic jam that cost a life in order to get back at the Mayor of Fort Lee in North Jersey for not endorsing Christie during his campaign last year.  That's just about the dumbest thing I have ever heard a politician do. Christie was apologizing all over the place. It was really weird.

The library needed quite a bit of work. The adult DVDs weren't too bad, but the kids' titles needed a bit of organizing. The board books were a mess. I reorganized almost the entire separate board book shelf. Nothing was where it should have been.

I finally headed out around quarter of 1. I'd put off a laundry run for way too long. I wanted to get it in yesterday, but finally decided I got started too late. Christie was just finishing his speech as I came in and got my change. It was relatively busy, though not as bad as it was the week of Christmas. I was able to get a washer and a drier and even put in a little more time on the drier than I usually do, given the extra-large load I had this week (bath and kitchen towels and Christmas linen, in addition to uniforms and normal clothes).

When I got in, I first had a late lunch of leftovers as I finished out Sailor Moon's fourth season "Amazon Trio" run. Mina takes Tiger's Eye and Hawk's Eye for a ride when she dates them both at the same time. Lita falls hard for Tiger's Eye when he dances with her at a prom. Even after he abandons her, she's convinced it's love at first sight...until the others discover it's a Dead Moon Circus plot. Fish Eye tries to get Darien for fall for her, but he's crazy about Serena. When Fish Eye tries to figure out why, she discovers why she and the other Amazon Trio members don't have dreams of their own...and what Zirconia has in store for them if they keep failing.

Moved to Ocean's Eleven as I cleaned the kitchen. This remake of the 1960 "Rat Pack" vehicle takes us to a far more modern Vegas. Con Man Danny Ocean (George Clooney) still wants to pull the biggest con of all on three real Vegas casinos, here owned by a sleazy corporate raider (Andy Garcia). In truth, the real reason Ocean wants to pull the chips over the guy's eyes is he wants his smart wife Tess (Julia Roberts). Can his group manage to get 80,000 out of three of the biggest casinos in Vegas, without Garcia catching on....or catching them?

This is one of the few remakes in cinema history to far surpass the original in quality. As with the original, it's pure popcorn fun, but there's more action, it moves faster, and you actually get to see the heist as it's being pulled, instead of spending a chunk of the movie behind pianos. There's a comparable sense of style at work here - you still feel a little hipper having watched it. If you want in, this is the cast to join. I haven't seen the two sequels - I've heard they weren't quite as good, but were enjoyable in their own way.

Finished out the night with animation as I baked Pineapple Drop Cookies, then made Pasta and Meatballs with honey-glazed carrots for dinner. The Looney Tunes had their own encounters with gamblers, gambling, and hotels. A poor cat can't seem to avoid the bite of the Gambling Bug in "Early To Bet," even though he keeps losing to a dog who makes him play for nasty "penalties." Bugs is nabbed by two thugs when he inadvertently witnesses a robbery in "Bugs and Thugs," then does everything he can to alert the police to their presence. Sylvester tries to get Tweety out of his and Granny's hotel room in "Canary Row," but Granny doesn't make that easy!