Baby, It's Really Cold Outside!

It was windy and bitterly cold, though sunny, when I got up this morning. I ran a couple of episodes of The Muppet Show to warm things up a little as I got ready for work. Bernadette Peters appeared in a second season episode, where she danced with the Muppet Monsters in "Take a Little One Step" from No No Nanette and reassured Kermit's nephew Robin that he was appreciated. Edgar Bergen and his dummies Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd fit right in as Fozzie tries his own ventriloquism act and Charlie wonders what to make of a theater that's more like a zoo.

The extreme chill coupled with the return to a normal schedule for the first time in two weeks must have scared a lot of people off. It was on and off steady, but not really that horrible. We were quiet for a lot of the afternoon. I was only late getting off because my last customers had WIC Checks. They were really nice about it, but WIC Checks - checks for low-income families with babies and small children to get basics like milk, formula, fruit and vegetables, and baby food - can take a while to do, especially when they have three or more.

Went straight home when I finally got out. I noticed as I came upstairs that the contractors who have been working on the downstairs apartment had replaced the yellow tape that cut off the sagging half of the porch with a more solid wooden barrier. (Part of the barrier, in fact, was made from the wood that had covered the sagging parts in the middle of the porch.)

Spent the rest of the night making Chocolate-Banana Muffins. Threw in chocolate chips and the last of the coconut, too. I've been taking muffins to work instead of sandwiches. They take less time to make and fit easier in my lunch bags. The muffins came out nice, and oh boy, were they chocolate-y! I used that Hershey's Special Dark cocoa I love.

Ran Broadway's Lost Treasures I as I finished the muffins, and later as I ate leftovers for dinner. I dubbed this collection of performances from the Tony Awards about two years ago from a tape I found at the Haddon Heights Library. It's fun to see the wonderful performances, some with their original casts. My favorites include Zero Mostel really getting into "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fiddler On the Roof, the dynamic wedding finale of My One and Only, Bonnie Franklin and the cast of the 1970 show Applause spoofing popular late 60s musicals, Patti LuPone and the cast of Evita promising "A New Argentina," the cast of the original 1977 Annie performing a medley of songs from that show, and chimney sweep Barbara Harris suddenly becoming "Movie Star Gorgeous" in a touching number from the musical anthology The Apple Tree.