Sunday, July 27, 2014

Put On Your Sunday Shows

I had a quick breakfast of Blueberry Pancakes while listening to most of Hello Dolly! Carol Channing was a huge hit in the original 1965 Broadway cast of the hilarious tale of Dolly Levi, a fast-talking matchmaker in the New York area in early 1900s. Resourceful Dolly manages to pair off most of the cast during one memorable Fourth of July in Manhattan...including herself with cranky but wealthy bachelor Horace Vandergelder (David Burns). I generally prefer Pearl Bailey and her later all-black cast, but there's some virtues here took, especially a very young Eileen Brennan as Irene Malloy (she gets to introduce the lovely "Ribbons Down My Back").

Work was more-or-less the same it has been on Sunday all month - steady but not overwhelmingly so. There were a few annoying or obnoxious customers. Maybe people were worried about the weather. We were supposed to get storms by later in the afternoon. It was hot and humid and, despite a nice wind, not very pleasant. It was still sunny when my relief came in around 3.

I changed into regular clothes when I got home, then took out a ton of recycling. I really shouldn't have put it off - the bin with the cans and milk bottles was overloaded. Spent the next hour cooling off in the air conditioning, messing around online and watching the squirrels and birds chasing each other on the porch outside my bedroom window.

Bored, I made a quick run to CVS for cards. Dad-Bruce's birthday is tomorrow. My oldest nephew Skylar has his birthday on the 31st. It was still sunny and humid, though a bit cooler, by quarter after 5. The ride wasn't too horrible, and CVS was quiet as can be.

When I got home, I sliced a tomato, a potato, and some green pepper, threw in the last of the mushrooms, added eggs and cheese, and had scrambled eggs and summer vegetables for dinner. Ran another Broadway cast album as I enjoyed a simple but hearty dinner. Plain and Fancy is a fairly typical musical from 1955 with an atypical setting - the Pennsylvania Amish country. Two normal sophisticated New Yorkers who have inherited land in the real-life Amish town of Bird-In-the-Hand find themselves among the Amish country folks. The "plain" folks of Pennsylvania butt heads with the "fancy" couple as both sides learn that love can be tough for anyone, no matter how plain or fancy they are.

Very cute if you're a fan of Barbara Cook or the musicals of the 50s and 60s. Hilda, the curious Amish girl who falls for the male half of the New York couple, was Cook's first role in a hit show. She gets a lot to sing for someone whose character doesn't really have much to do with the plot - she has two solos, plus joins in on two other numbers. This isn't something I'd go out of my way for (it's hard to find on CD), but is enjoyable enough if you ever run into a copy.

Oh, and at press time, it still hasn't stormed, or even put out so much as a raindrop. We'll see how things go tomorrow.

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