Rainy Day at Home

It was pouring cats, dogs, pigs, and chickens when I awoke this morning, and would pretty much continue to rain off and on all day. I brightened up the gloomy weather with breakfast and an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures. "Rainy Daze" from the first season shows what Buster and Babs do during wet weather. The first short has Buster ending up at Montana Max's house as his "rent-a-friend." Rent-a-punching-bag is a bit closer to what Monty's doing...but Buster has a way to turn the tables. In the second short, Babs uses her imagination to turn a boring wet afternoon into one filled with fun. Babs and Buster flee the rain in the third story. They were aiming for hot weather, but end up chasing a poacher who is after a seal in the Arctic.

Spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon cleaning and listening to a couple of Christmas albums. The Perry Como Christmas Album is my favorite of his two holiday albums that I have. It features the sweet "Christmas Eve" and "There's No Christmas Like a Home Christmas." Merry Christmas With the Williams Brothers introduces "Kay Thompson's Jingle Bells," "It's the Holiday Season," and Andy Williams' familiar version of "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year." Barbara Streisand's A Christmas Album is mostly hymns, but it does have her very funny version of "Jingle Bells."

Got the bathroom and the kitchen done this morning. They weren't too bad. I did just do them at the beginning of the month, but I like to get major cleaning done before I put up the Christmas decorations. Actually, the worst of it should be the dusting, which I probably won't get to until at least Friday. I didn't get to the dusting when I did the rest of the cleaning.

Had fried eggs and a salad for lunch while finishing A Walt Disney Christmas, which I began while I was working on the kitchen. I dubbed this collection of Christmas and winter-themed Disney shorts off of a very old clamshell tape from Blockbuster. It's so old, "Donald's Snow Fight" and the Santa Claus Silly Symphonies are shown in their entirety. (I'd never seen a non-censored version of "Santa's Workshop" until I bought this tape.) "Donald's Snow Fight" is probably my favorite. It's war when Donald knocks down his nephews' snowman and they retaliate by ruining his winter coat. It somehow ends with flaming snowballs taking down giant ice boats and Donald getting that sinking feeling.

Worked on my story for a few hours after lunch. The Nutcracker and Chewie finally help Rey to the top of the pit. Leia and Luke are with them. Leia has turned them all into mice to get past the guards. The human girl tells them what the mice have planned for Han. Leia and the Nutcracker are both livid and want to go after them right away, but Rey points out that he'll be guarded. They'll need another plan...

Broke for dinner around 5:30. I made chicken salad, steamed broccoli, baked acorn squash, and roasted acorn seeds. Yum. Roasted acorn squash seeds are some of the great hidden delights of fall. Scoop them out of the squash, wash off the guts, spread them in a pan, spray them with olive oil or butter spray, shake a little salt on them, and roast them as you would other seeds. So delicious, and much better than throwing them out.

Switched to making Cranberry-Orange Muffins and Cranberry Flummery while watching The Spy Who Loved Me. The fourth Roger Moore James Bond movie takes us to Egypt (after an interlude in the Alps). Someone's been hijacking British and Russian submarines. James is supposed to pick up microfilm with the blue prints for the machine that's causing the damage. Turns out Moscow has also sent their best agent, the woman XXX (Barbara Bach). XXX has her own reasons for wanting this mission - James killed her agent boyfriend on his last mission. The two find themselves working together to discover the secrets of the ocean-obsessed billionaire Stromberg and his strange Atlantis hide out...and dodge the metal toothed and immortal Jaws (Richard Kiel).

This is the by far the best of the Roger Moore Bond movies, and my personal favorite of his tenure along with Octopussy. They hit all the right notes here - it's just campy enough but still fairly dark, with one of the best Bond women ever and probably the best henchman, nice locations, and an interesting plot. Great music, too - the Marvin Hamlisch score is awesome, and the theme song, Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better," was nominated for an Oscar and was a hit in its own right.

My only complaint is that, as cool as Jaws is, his boss Stromberg is fairly bland by comparison. He comes off as a dull imitation of Dr. No and Blofeld. His ultimate plan is pretty ridiculous, too, even for this series. I do like how Bond eventually gets rid of him, though - no invitations to dinner, just quick and neat.

If you ever wanted to check out the Roger Moore Bond movies, I'd recommend starting here. It's by far one of the best Bond films and Moore's best Bond film.