Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Scary Tales In the Rain

Started a late morning with Halloween specials. Halloween Hall of Fame is one of three 70's-80's Disney Halloween anthologies my family taped off the networks and The Disney Channel in 1988. Johnathan Winters is the star of this first one, probably from the mid-70's from the look and some of Winters' Minnesota Vikings references when he's playing with the props. Winters, a security guard at the Disney Studios, encounters an angry jack-o-lantern (also Winters) in a crystal ball. Seems Jack isn't happy with how watered-down Halloween's become. Winters directs him to the shorts "Trick Or Treat" and "Pluto's Judgement Day" and the featurette "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" to prove otherwise.

Headed out around quarter of 1. It had rained overnight, but by the time I got up, it was just cloudy, unusually warm for this time of year, and very windy. It started to sprinkle as I made my way across Newton Lake Park. Needless to say, they weren't busy. I saw one jogger and dodged a huge flock of Canadian geese.

The Haddon Township Library was busy with people dodging the weather. They were doing surveys of the books, but I was able to shelve some things. Organized the kids' DVDs (the S titles are still overstocked). Tried to shelve the adult titles, but there was just no room. I did get some audio books and hold items on the shelves, though.

I have plenty of things to watch for Halloween and Election Day, so I skipped taking out movies this week. I did find two books on women dealing with money management, A Girl's Guide to Money by Laura Brady, and Peace and Plenty: Finding Your Path to Financial Serenity, by Sarah Ban Breathnach. (The latter wrote the Simple Abundance books, two of which I have.) (And I finally returned that Garfield comic book I kept forgetting.)

The rain had returned as I made my way across the street to the Westmont Plaza...and it was coming down in a pretty decent shower. I hurried up the hill and past the stores to Friendly's as fast as I could. I had a coupon for 50 percent off their ice cream items, so I figured I'd eat there. It was nearly 2:30 by the time I ate. There were just a few families and older folks chatting there. I had a tasty Carolina BBQ Supermelt sandwich (roast beef on white with cheddar cheese, onion rings, and barbecue sauce) and fries. I'd never tried their Fribble milkshakes, so I had a half-price coffee shake for dessert.

Made a quick stop at Thriftway next. Their small generic mouthwashes were on sale for $1.99. Also grabbed a quart of skim milk for $1.49, cheaper than at Acme. The teen cashier saw my American Girl coin purse and mentioned she was a big fan. I was glad to meet a fellow fan; we had a nice little chat about our dolls.

The rain was still coming down when I got out of Thriftway. I wasn't going to wait around for it to end. I just headed home. Spent the rest of the afternoon writing. Betty and Maple join a tour of the mayor's house in order to gain access. Betty wants to find out where Holstrom is keeping the Fire Talisman and why he wants it, since he can't do magic. She and Maple are searching Holstrom's office, but one of Maple's spells just made noise that attracted attention...

Turned the leftovers in my fridge into Tomato-Turkey Soup with Fall Vegetables as I skipped ahead on the home-made Disney holiday specials disc to "Disney's Halloween Treat." This was The Disney Channel's Halloween show in the 80's and early 90's. It consists of sequences from Disney animated films and cartoons that feature horror or villains, two segments from The Wonderful World of Disney (one on cats and their use in horror, the other a Hans Conried narrated sequence on villains), and four classic Disney cartoons almost in full, "Donald and the Gorilla," "Pluto's Judgement Day," "Trick or Treat," and "Lonesome Ghosts." My sisters and I loved this as kids. I'm surprised the tape I dubbed this off of still worked, considering how much we ran it during the Halloween season well into the early 2000's.

Oh, and it rained off and on for the rest of the night, rather hard at one point while I was online. I don't hear anything but wind now.

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