Very Busy Good Friday

I once again fought a gloomy-but-warm day with some of the more exciting Remember WENN episodes. There's doom and gloom cast over WENN after Scott's departure in the third season episode "The New Actor." Pruitt's not exactly making himself popular at the station, with denying the hard-working Mackie a raise and cutting the already low budget. Things go from bad to worse when Jeff Singer leaves to broadcast in war-torn London again, much to the consternation of his wife Hilary Booth. Now Mackie's overworked AND underpaid, but help is about to come from a familiar....and unexpected...source.

The Acme tried to call me in early, but I was still in bed when the phone rang! They had their reasons. We were mobbed for most of the day. Showers for most of the day crossed with the beginning of the month, Easter, and most kids going on vacation today or yesterday added up to total pandemonium. I didn't get my break until nearly quarter of 3, and I was done at 4! Thank goodness my relief was right on time.

I'm not happy with my schedule at all. I'm working Easter. I don't think I've ever worked Easter. It's just 10 to 2, but it's still working Easter. I noted at least six or more people on vacation this week. I hate it when they let everyone go on vacation at the same time. I was really hoping they'd learn to be better about that. Everyone who has kids must have wanted spring break off. (No wonder the manager who told me about my third vacation week specifically said not to take the week after Easter off. Everyone else took the week after Easter off.)

I did better with this week's grocery shopping. The Acme's having a 40% off Perdue chicken sale. I was able to buy ground chicken and chicken cutlets for later in the week and chicken tenderloins for dinner tonight. I ate my last dollar fish fillet pack a couple of days ago. Domino Sugar was on a three-day sale for $1.99. Needed to restock grapefruit, carrots, apples, mushrooms, bananas, low-salt black beans, cereal (went with Brown Sugar Oatmeal Squares on sale) and paper towels.

I got lucky going home. It had just started to shower on my way to work. By the time I finished, it was wet, warm, windy, and humid, but not raining. I don't think it's rained the rest of the night. I got home perfectly dry.

When I got in, I put everything away, then watched more WENN while making cornmeal-coated chicken fingers with baked sweet potato fries and broccoli and cauliflower. The still-gloomy weather was the perfect backdrop for the first season episode "Armchair Detectives." Jeff plays Sherlock Holmes to Mackie's Watson when a criminal appears at the station, waving a gun around and demanding that his case be re-opened. He doesn't think he got a fair trial. The cast re-creates the case...and Jeff gets to put his detective abilities to the test.

Scott Sherwood made his first appearance in a later first season episode, "A Capitol Idea." He shows up as a brash replacement for Victor Comstock, full of ideas and full of himself. His first idea is to weave more commercials into their shows. They'll pick up more sponsors, and the shows will flow more smoothly. While he does inadvertently invent informercials, it also makes the shows sound like fifteen-minute commercials. The cast finally revolts and switch their scripts around, making a mockery of the shows.

Scott's next idea isn't much more above-board. In "Popping the Question," he wants to put on a game show with a huge cash payout...and fix it so the sponsor's son will win. Once again, the cast revolts, putting in Betty and Mr. Eldridge to try to get around the know-it-all college kid. Meanwhile, Doug Thompson, WENN's sweet young lawyer, has to wait and wait for Betty to remember their date.

Jeff ends up joining Victor in war-torn London for the first time in the first-season finale "World of Tomorrow." Meanwhile, Betty has her hands full with the others, who are trying to show off for the big production WENN is doing for the finale of the 1939 World's Fair. Jeff is the one who finally brings them together when his and Victor's broadcast in London is bombed by the Germans in the Blitz.

(And I did find an alternative for Easter dinner. Tortilla Press has their Easter brunch going until 4. I'll just see if I can rush over there for dinner as soon as I get off of work.)