All Summer Long

Started an gorgeous, sunny day with the other two Garfield travel specials. Garfield In Paradise takes the fat cat, his owner, and best dog buddy to a strange tropical island, where the hotel owners make Jack Benny jokes and the natives worship 50s cars. The trio hit the great outdoors in Garfield In the Rough, much to the annoyance of the fat cat who would rather be pampered at home. The trip doesn't start well, thanks to a tiny tent and Garfield eating their food in the middle of the night....but things get really hairy when they discover that a black panther is loose in the area!

I had a lot of errands to run today, starting with volunteering at the Oaklyn Library. They weren't busy at all; only one person was on the computer when I came in. There wasn't really much to do. I organized the DVD shelves and the board books and left.

Went straight to the Acme next for this week's grocery run. Surprisingly, given this is the Friday before a holiday weekend, it wasn't any busier than it has been the past few days. I didn't really have a huge order, anyway. I mostly needed to stock up on meat; I ended up with breaded chicken cutlets, spiced chicken cutlets, ground chicken, and three of those single fish packs. I was almost out of white and brown sugar. (The 4 pound Acme generic bag of sugar is $1.89 at regular price!) Was out of cocoa, butter, and chocolate chips. Bought a bag of dried fruit to make more granola bars.

My schedule for next week is a huge improvement over the last month or so...which is also a bit of a surprise. Last year, I worked for most of the week of Labor Day. This time, I have two days off (one of them Wednesday - no waiting over a week) and only work 11 to 4 on Labor Day. I do work late Saturday, but that will allow me to get to the Farm Market with no rushing. Maybe I'll do both farm markets - we'll see how things go.

I originally wanted to try a new Mexican restaurant on the White Horse Pike a block from WaWa (it's in the same location that's housed at least six or seven different pizza parlors since I've moved here), but it doesn't seem to be open yet. I ended up having lunch at the Westmont Bagel Shop instead. I ate half of a Turkey Swiss Melt with bacon and tomatoes and attempted a cup of Chicken Tortilla Soup. I should have known that the guy who said the soup wasn't spicy didn't know what he was talking about. The soup was burning hot! Even if it wasn't spicy to him, I don't handle any kind of spicy well. I stopped at Dollar Tree just to get a small ice cream sandwich to cure the burning sensation in my mouth.

 My next stop was the Haddon Township Library. I had DVDs that needed to go back and overdue books to return. Though they were busy, there wasn't really much to shelve or organize. I did the kids' and adults' DVDs and shelved some CDs and audio books. I ended up with a new My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic set focusing on Rainbow Dash, the Jerry Lewis version of The Nutty Professor (which I have seen, but not in years), and two animated movies, The Nut Job from earlier this year and the original animated The Hobbit. I also took out the last of this year's American Girl historical character mysteries I hadn't read, the Caroline story The Traveler's Tricks.

Cut through Newton Lake Park going home. It was one of the nicest summer days I ever saw. The sun was bright overhead, but there was a cool wind that kept the heat at bay. The sky was blue and the clouds were pretty and fluffy. I saw a woman reading at a picnic table and a dad with his daughter and their dog on a blanket...and decided it was too nice of a day to run home right away. I first sat at a bench to read the Caroline book, but ultimately decided it wasn't comfortable enough and ended up on a bench near the causeway between Collingswood and Oaklyn.

(And I finished the book while I was at the park. Not bad. I liked it more than Becky's mystery, but not as much as Kit's. I do agree with Linda Young that Caroline really wouldn't have been sent on such a dangerous errand in real-life, and I picked up on who the real villain was from the beginning. Other than that, it was an interesting look at travel during the War of 1812/Regency Era.)

When I did make it home, I baked those granola bars, then made chicken cutlets with mushrooms and Chinese beans and leftover tomatoes and potatoes for dinner. Ran American Graffiti as I worked. The last day of summer proves to be a memorable one for four guys living in a small Southern California town in 1962. One (Richard Dreyfuss) doesn't know if he wants to go to college or not. He ends up spending most of the night chasing a beautiful blond in a Thunderbird (Susanne Summers). The local hot rodder (Paul LeMat) gets stuck babysitting a feisty 13-year-old (MacKenzie Phillips). The school president (Ron Howard) isn't sure he wants to leave his girl (Cindy Williams). Their geek buddy (Charles Martin Smith) picks up a statuesque blond (Candy Clark), but loses his friend's car. Their adventures cruising around town are punctuated by the rock of the era and by Wolfman Jack (himself), the local DJ, whom everyone considers to be something of a mysterious figure.

Classic coming of age tale doesn't really have a plot and doesn't need one - it's all characters and their stories. If you love plotless coming of age tales like Dazed and Confused or ensemble comedies like Pirate Radio (or are a huge fan of the rock of the late 50s and early 60s), you'll probably get a kick out of this one.