On the Record

I finished up Sofia the First while eating breakfast. Sofia's stepdad King Roland learns a lesson in wishing in "The Baker King." After a stressful day, he wishes that he and his family were just normal bakers instead of royalty...and suddenly wakes up in the home of the baker. He thinks he's found the perfect stress-free vacation. Being a baker is a lot more work than he thought, though - you actually have to do things like make bread and mile-high cakes and do it on time. Sofia reminds him that he's a much better king, and his people depend on him. "Four's a Crowd" when Sofia invites her two best friends from the village to help her and Amber decorate a carriage for a flying carriage parade and her friends seem to prefer Amber over her. Sofia feels left out, until an accident gets them working together.

Volunteered at Studio LuLoo late this morning. I won't have the time to do it tomorrow - I work at 11. I tackled that shelf filled with random books, magazines and papers. They actually did have book holders there. I moved all of the kid's picture books and fiction books to the play room. The binders filled with kids' and teens' poetry and old arts and crafts notes went behind the book holders. Books with games and lessons went in one section, books on history in another. Books on world peace went in another slot. Yet another slot held books on animals.

When I got out, I went to WaWa quickly for a turkey hoagie, a soft pretzel, and a Black Raspberry Sparkling Ice for lunch, then headed home. The cast album for Beautiful: The Carole King Musical had arrived, but I didn't have much time to listen to it before I had to eat quickly and head off to work.

Work was on-and-off steady through rush hour, after which it got busy and we didn't have enough help to handle the crowds. We had a harder time with computers going down than with customers. The store is almost completely out of plastic bags, too. I don't think we even have that many paper bags. And we're not supposed to get more until Saturday!

When I got home, I resumed Beautiful while eating leftovers for dinner. Beautiful has the honor of being the first records I've bought brand-new since the late 80's. Carole King started out as primarily a songwriter in the 60's with her husband Gerry Coffin. Though they wrote some of the biggest hits of the decade (including "On Broadway" for the Drifters, "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" for The Righteous Brothers, and "Pleasant Valley Sunday" for The Monkees), Coffin's infidelities lead to the end of their marriage and their partnership in 1969. By the early 70s, King was writing songs on her own, and her Tapestry album was a massive platinum-selling hit, spinning off "I Feel the Earth Move" and "So Far Away."

Jesse Muller won a Tony for her performance as King; she really does sound like her on the album. My only regret is they didn't extend the show's time period long enough to squeeze in my favorite solo King number, "Sweet Seasons," and that King and Coffin's best song for the Monkees, "The Porpoise Song" from Head, was a little too strange to fit. Other than that, if you love King or the rock songs from this time period, this is a fine recreation of the time with some fabulous performances.