Hot Hot Hot!

Began the day with early work. It was already hot and humid when I headed to the Acme. I rounded up carts for 40 minutes when I came in and helped other baggers outside for an hour after lunch, but I mostly stuck to doing returns and gathering baskets inside.

I got off around 1. I was so hungry, I went straight to lunch. Despite a line going around the store, I decided to brave Chick 'Fil A. Turns out the line was for the drive-through window. It was busy inside, but not horrible. I had a grilled chicken meal with a Coke Zero and their big, solid Waffle Fries.

In good news, I have three days off next week (Tuesday for counseling). My hours were cut, but that's pretty common at this time of  year. We're just not that busy. I'm surprised at a few late afternoon days after all the morning work I've been doing. The big concern are the two long days in the middle of the week, especially since the heat wave is supposed to continue. We'll see how things go.

Had a huge grocery order this week, especially for the summer. I wasn't able to make it to the Collingswood Farm Market today, so I bought peaches, escarole, blueberries, and cherries (the last-named on sale). It's too hot to bake. I bought whole wheat bread from the bakery for sandwiches for work this week. The clearance shelves groan with fancy flavorings and seasonings after the baking aisle was reorganized earlier this week. I bought lemon and maple flavorings, the previous version of the Acme generic vanilla, the McCormick Bourbon Brown Sugar seasonings, and a box of Kashi Dark Chocolate Granola Bars. Restocked relish, mustard, peanut butter, navy beans, skim milk, and ground chicken. Found a small container of cooked shrimp with a manager's coupon and thought it might be nice for dinner tomorrow.

When I got home, I finished Sheriff Callie's Wild West. This was a really cute show. You don't often seen western-themed kids' programming anymore. "The Pie Thief" had Petunia, the pink-loving skunk, fibbing about having seen a bandit when she eats all the pies for a contest. She regrets her lies when a real bandit comes to town, and she has to stall him long enough for Callie and Peck to appear. The rabbit who runs the general store is a "Fool for Gold" when he finds a huge gold nugget and thinks he's struck it rich. He gives away everything in the store to the others, to their delight. When the miner pigs tell him it's fool's gold and not worth a penny, he has to figure out how to get his stuff back, without offending anyone. "Mustache Toby" is the tough image Toby the Cactus tries to present when he buys himself an oversized handlebar mustache. "Bob's Cheated Chili" isn't the best recipe around. That goes to an old Spanish turtle whose hot peppers make the perfect pot of chili. When Bob steals the peppers for his own, he overflows the pot and floods the town with chili. "Toby the Cowsitter" offers to take care of a whole farm's worth of bovines in order to earn nickles for a milkshake. Trouble is, he knows nothing about taking care of animals, and the cows cause trouble when he doesn't pay attention to the.

Spent the next few hours, and a couple of hours around 8 PM, working on my story. I didn't get far. I was tired and easily distracted. Leia barely manages to escape falling rocks with the help of one of Jabba's slaves, a slender sludge-covered creature with blue eyes. Jabba sent one of his bounty hunters after Leia. Now, he's sending another in the hope to keep her trapped in the maze forever.

Ran an episode of The Backyardigans while having Bourbon Brown Sugar Turkey Burgers and the last of the steamed snap peas for dinner. Uniqua has "Blazing Paddles" when the Bandit Pablo wins hers and the other kids' ping pong paddles with his amazing Bandit SlamIt move. Vowing to hone her skills until they beat his, Uniqua goes out to the desert to turn herself into the most incredible ping pong player ever!

Finished out the night with Lego Star Wars. The last two rounds of Empire Strikes Back has Luke fighting Vader (before the big revelation), and then Lando getting Chewie, Leia, and the droids out of Cloud City. The Cloud City round was a basic build-and-collect, no sweat. Fighting Vader was more complicated. You often have to use the steam of Cloud City to get him down from high perches. My timing is terrible. I often couldn't time things so the steam was under him.

The opening rounds of Return of the Jedi were less difficult. The two Jabba's Palace levels were both basic building rounds. The first has Leia, Luke, Chewie, and the droids defrosting Han, then the guys and the droids fighting the Rancor. The second brought the entire crew in to blow Jabba's Skiffs to smithereens. That was tougher. You had to jump at just the right times in some places and use Luke's Force skills a lot.

Incidentally, it's a really good thing I worked early today. I was writing when it started thundering the first time. That was just a small storm, but the second, which came in while I was playing the Empire rounds, was far noisier, with lots of rain and pyrotechnics. Good. We haven't had much rain lately. We could use it.