Getting Organized

I awoke to a phone call. Yes, it was the Acme. They wanted me to come in two hours early, at noon. No problem. I was only working four hours today, and I need the extra hours. I didn't have too much planned for this morning, either.

In fact, the only thing I really had planned for today was some organizing in my bedroom. I wanted to make room for the Ever After High dolls, clear off the top of the printer (which tends to accumulate everything from receipts to old phone messages), and clear all of the printer paper out of a drawer in my desk and off the top of the crate holding oversized comic books. I recycled the receipts and moved everything else that was on top of the printer but the phone and the phone book into the drawer. The printer paper was moved to the top of the printer. Fancier paper and lined paper were switched to the shelf under the printer. The box holding my stationary went under the phone. I moved Gram Bear and Tenderheart over to the top of the comic books crate. (Tenderheart may not stay. He doesn't fit well with plump Gram and Polite Panda.) That leaves space for Cerise and Briar on the children's hardback books shelf, appropriately under the Sailor Moon dolls.

Ran March of the Toy Soldiers as I worked. This is the renamed 1934 Babes In Toyland with Laurel and Hardy as the fat and thin comic relief, this time on the right side of the law. Once again, nasty Barnaby comes between two Mother Goose lovers, here Little Bo Peep (Charlotte Henry) and Tom Piper (Felix Knight). Stan and Ollie first have to help Bo Peep and her mother, the Old Woman Who Lived In a Shoe, get the mortgage on the shoe from Barnaby. Though they get into trouble for it, they do ultimately manage to get things right. After that, Barnaby outright gets Tom exiled. Bo Peep and the boys don't believe it and, after the boys prove his innocence, travel into Bogey Land to rescue him.

The Babes you go for depends on which cast you prefer and how big of a fan of Laurel and Hardy's antics you are. I honestly like them both. Though I grew up on the Disney version, I do like Laurel and Hardy, and there's much that's charming about this one, too.

The March of the Toy Soldiers DVD is filled with public domain extras culled from here, there, and everywhere. I ran a few of them as I had a quick lunch and prepared for work. At least 15 years before Rankin-Bass did their version, Paramount put out a very sweet (and somewhat more accurate to the original story) Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer animated short that's been a staple in Christmas-themed public domain sets for years. Two shorts were also rather sweet. One, Christmas Toy Shop, has Santa telling all about his toys to two wide-awake youngsters. The other was a more traditional telling of The Night Before Christmas.

Though it wasn't bad when I came in, by about 2:30, we were absolutely swamped with people buying things for Thanksgiving and for relatives visiting next week. We still don't have enough help to deal with them all, either. There were long lines all day - we'd call stock people and bakers to deal with them, and then they'd go back to their section...and then we'd have to call them again when the lines would get long again. This went on all evening. I was tired and got so stressed! Thankfully, they had one of the college boys come in for me, instead of going into stocking; I originally didn't have a relief.

When I got home, I had leftovers for dinner and quickly ran a Backyardigans episode to unwind. Uniqua is a librarian in Veja, California, who loves her job more than anything. When a book goes missing, she becomes "The Masked Retriever" to bring it back to the library! Don Austin has a book he refuses to return. The Masked Retriever chases him across the California and Mexican countryside to get him to renew it.