Wishing For Tomorrow

Ugh. My day mostly didn't go well. First of all, I overslept. I did finish Wishing for Tomorrow, though, which I very much enjoyed. This sequel to A Little Princess focuses on the the girls who lived at Miss Minchin's school with Sara and remained behind when she left. Poor Ermengarde feels abandoned. Snooty Lavinia throws herself further into her studies, especially after a new boy whose sisters went to Oxford moves next-door. Lottie makes a friend in the new maid, no-nonsense Alice. Miss Minchin takes less and less interest in teaching anyone but Lavinia and worries that she may lose more students. Ermengarde finally learns that she may not be a princess, but she, Lavinia, and all of them have their own special qualities...ones that'll help them when disaster strikes the school.

I was getting ready to go when there was a knock on the door. It was my neighbor's son. The windows and doors were here. They were going to start installing them downstairs today. Already? I thought they weren't doing that until spring. Oh, well. At least the house will be warmer this winter and that cracked window will finally be gone.

Much to my frustration, when I got downstairs, I discovered the back tire was going flat. I just pumped it two days ago! I guess it did have a slow leak. I was hoping it didn't. I can change the front tire pretty quickly, but I usually need help with the back. At any rate, I didn't have the time to change anything. I just rode the bike to work and was almost late.

Oddly enough, work was the opposite of how it's been for the past few weeks - crazy when I came in, not too bad when I left. I must have just  hit the noon rush hour. I guess everyone was leaving early to start getting ready for Thanksgiving. Most of the afternoon was steady-to-quiet. By the time it was picking up again, I was done. My relief was late; another college kid came in for me.

I got my schedule first. For the first time in months, it's almost entirely evening work. The only time I work during the day is Sunday...which of course, means I'll miss the Eagles game. On the other hand, I have a lot more hours than the last few weeks, I'll be able to get a lot of cleaning and baking done at my apartment, and I'll get to see Collingswood's Christmas Parade in full next Saturday. And yes, I did get Thanksgiving and Black Friday off for our trip to Mom's.

I didn't have a ton of shopping to do, at any rate. It was mostly restocking the larder. I was completely out of sugar, eggs, chocolate pudding mix, and parchment paper. Replaced the cake mix I used last week. They had more of those tasty small turkey tenderloins with three dollar off manager's coupons on them - I grabbed two. Bought honey and orange juice to use for holiday recipes this week and next week. Also grabbed my annual advent calender with the cheap chocolate. It always tastes terrible, but the pictures on the front are usually cute - this year's has Santa delivering two teddy bears who are very much enjoying the ride.

I ended up walking the bike home. At least it was a nice day for it. It was cold again, probably in the mid-30s, and still windy, but sunny and cloudless as well. The sun was setting in a soft glow of pink and orange as I arrived at my apartment. I tried to fix the back wheel on the porch downstairs, or at least what I could get of it with all the new windows and doors in their boxes laying there. I just couldn't get the bolts off! I ultimately asked my next-door neighbor Richard for help with it.

I spent the rest of the night upstairs at my place. I made that yummy Apricot-Honey Bread for the Acme's Thanksgiving Luncheon tomorrow while dubbing Red Skelton's Christmas Jollies. This was an 80s collection of skits from Red's shows, mostly the ones from the 50s and early 60s if the black and white and slightly fuzzy picture were any indication. Actually, my favorite segment was one of the last ones. Red's "silent spot" was his hilarious miming of a man who has just come home from New Year's Eve with the world's most monumental hangover. He gets stuck in the window trying to get fresh air, can't find his alarm clock, and his butler has a really hard time getting him back to bed!

I switched to cartoons as I had a quick chicken soup dinner. The Berenstein Bears' Christmas Tree is the tale of how Papa Bear is determined that he and Brother and Sister will get a real, perfect tree from the wilderness, not some tree lot. What they don't realize is that other animals need home for the holidays, too. They keep picking trees that are already occupied. When they do finally get back to town, the animals whose homes they spared have a big surprise for them at their tree house.