Hooked On a Feeling

Started a hazy, sunny morning with the last of the wartime shorts. I went into live action this time with a couple of Three Stooges war tales. "Back to the Front" takes the guys to the open ocean as Merchant Mariners. When they accidentally blow up their ship, they end up sneaking aboard a Nazi submarine and stopping a foul plot. "Higher Than a Kite" has them working as mechanics who eventually hope to become pilots. They're really up in the air when they hide from an angry officer in a missile that's shot into enemy territory. They're "Dizzy Pilots" who want to create their own airplanes that'll revolutionize the flight business. When their schemes turn out to be full of hot air, they find themselves drafted into the Army.

I headed out around 11:30 for this week's errand and volunteering run. My first stop was Studio LuLoo. I'm glad I was able to get to them this week. I worked too early last Wednesday and Thursday to volunteer. They're in the midst of having their kids turn huge old water bottles into pigs covered in scraps of pink fabric. I cut bolts and strips of fabric in all shades of pink, and prints ranging from a sheer shell pink linen-like square to a long strip of pink polka-dots to a breast cancer-themed bolt.

Went to Friendly's for lunch. They were a little busy, though not quite as much as I expected at quarter after 1. I had a tasty Turkey BLT on sourdough bread, with very salty fries. Given how hot it was today (into the upper 80's), I thought ice cream was appropriate. I had one scoop of PB Hunka Chunka Fudge with hot fudge syrup. Soo yummy! I needed chocolate and peanut butter, not to mention something to cool off.

I needed sponges at a surprisingly dead quiet Dollar Tree after lunch. I picked up the generic dollar store apple and strawberry bars, too. Fig Newtons are my go-to summer cookie when I need something sweet, but it's too hot to bake.

The Haddon Township Library wasn't any busier. In fact, there really wasn't much to do there. There were no kids DVDs to shelve, and only a few adult titles and one audio book. I did sort out the adult titles and pull foreign and kids' DVDs that were put in the wrong places, but that didn't take that long. I headed out after a half-hour, stopping at WaWa on the way home for milk and a Sparkling Ice Coconut-Pineapple soda.

The clouds were starting to build when I finally got in. I spent the next few hours writing. Victor asks Maple why she's so loyal to Scott, even though they don't have a romantic relationship anymore. She explains that Scott had helped her escape thugs who wanted to hurt her right after she'd arrived in the New World. He taught her how to fight with swords, ride a horse, and work on a ship. Victor won't admit he's a little jealous of how close she is to Scott...

I got off around 5 to clean the kitchen. It really needed it. The carpenter ants have been really bad this year...and I now know where at least some of them are coming from. The ivy and several of the bushes around the front of the house are dead or close to it. I saw Michael digging up the ivy today. Turns out the bricked-in front box where the ivy was is riddled with ants and termites. Wouldn't surprise me if they'd gotten around back, too.

Finally got around to running Guardians of the Galaxy while doing the kitchen and having leftovers for dinner. I bought this as a birthday present to myself, but it's a two-hour stretch, and I haven't had the time for it until now. Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is a bounty hunter who steals an orb that turns out to have awe-inspiring power. He runs into four other hunters who are also either after him, the orb, or want to sell it - Rocket (Bradley Cooper), a sarcastic raccoon and his buddy Groot (Vin Diesel), a tree that can only say his own name, the emerald-skinned assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana), and the revenge-minded Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista). The five bond after they escape prison together. They track down the space pirates who raised Quill and have the orb...but Ronan, the evil zealot who wants the orb for his own purposes, also tracks them down. Now, the five very different misfits have  to save the universe and show the entire galaxy what a little bit of teamwork, friendship, and rock n' roll can do.

No wonder this was the biggest hit of last summer. This is one of the most fun sci-fi movies I've seen since I was a kid. Someone really had a blast putting this together. The characters are creative and funny (especially Cooper's temperamental Rocket), the Flash Gordon backgrounds are amazing, and the whole thing just reeks pure comic-book lunacy. If you love science fiction, comic books, or are just looking for a good, solid action picture that's just a little different, you'll find this to be as much fun as I did. (Extra points for the 60's-70's soundtrack. Any sci-fi movie that makes ample use of "Hooked On a Feeling" and "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" definitely goes up in my estimate.)

And I'm glad I got home when I did. It started raining while I was writing and has rained off and on for the rest of the night. Looks like it'll do the same tomorrow.