Rainy Day Assemble

I awoke very, very late to rain. Not a good sign, since I had wanted to get the Oaklyn Library volunteering in today. Thankfully, by the time I finally got moving, the rain had taken a temporary break. I didn't get to the library until past 1. It looked like there was some kind of meeting going on, with five or so people sitting at the big table in the main room discussing the library's finances and similar topics. Otherwise, it wasn't busy. The weather must have scared everyone off. I did take out another Star Wars visual book (Star Wars In 100 Scenes), along with two movies. Not only does the Oaklyn Library usually get the newest releases in faster than the Haddon Township Library does, but they tend to be around for longer, since there's fewer people using them. I easily found some recent Disney releases I've been dying to see, Avengers: Age of Ultron and one of two moves Pixar put out last year, Inside Out.

It was still just warm and gloomy when I headed down to West Clinton. After peeking to see if Studio LuLoo was open (it wasn't), I went to Common Grounds Coffee House for lunch. They, too, were quiet, except for the barista and one other person. I enjoyed a tasty slice of Tomato Florentine Quiche and a chai latte for lunch while looking over the Star Wars book.

I got home just in time. Twenty minutes after I'd sat down at my computer to work on writing, it started to pour. It would pour off and on for a lot of the day. I worked on my story and looked at stuff online instead. Darren and Kathleen maintain an uneasy peace after their argument over her selling her books and him not understanding her. The peace shatters when he's finally well enough to walk again and is wondering what he should do with himself. He doesn't want to return to his wicked aunt, but he has nowhere else to go. Kathleen says she'll settle the matter after she comes home from town.

At the grocer's shop where she works, Kathleen asks people about Darren's aunt. Turns out she's the mysterious owner of the villa that overlooks the town. The wealthy people who once owned the villa had been kind, but when they died, she took over and abused her nephew and servants and held parties to honor her looks and money. Kathleen doesn't like the sound of this at all...and she suspects she now know where Darren came from, and who cursed him...

I cleaned the kitchen while finally finishing out Thoroughly Modern Millie. Switched to baking a Pineapple White Cake and making pasta, meatballs, and sauteed spinach and mushrooms for dinner while watching Avengers: Age of Ultron. Ultron is a program created by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), aka Iron Man, after he sees a vision of his friends dying and it being his fault. That vision was created by Scarlet Witch and her brother Quicksilver, orphans who volunteered for a government program to give them amazing abilities. Though Stark and fellow scientist Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) aka The Incredible Hulk have good intentions, the program they create turns on them. It somehow gets into one of Tony's suits and steals a jewel from the scepter that belongs to Thor's (Chris Helmsworth) brother Loki. Now the group has to stop this new being from annihilating the entire human race in the name of "peace." Meanwhile, love may be blooming between Banner and Natasha Romanov (Scarlet Johanssen), if he can stop seeing himself as a beast unworthy of such a beauty...

While I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I did the first film, I still liked it a lot. Everyone still did really well, even if the story didn't make one shred of sense. On the other hand, as fond as I am of Ruffalo's Banner/Hulk, his romance with Black Widow did seem kind of forced. I wish they'd done more with some of the newer characters as well, especially since it looks like several of them are poised to join the team in later installments.

If you liked the first one, you'll probably enjoy this one just as much. However, I do recommend you see the first one and maybe one or two other Marvel Universe movies before you come here to have any idea of what's going on.