Winds of Fall

Began a cloudy morning with my Sunday pancakes. The pumpkin spice chip oatmeal cookies came out so nicely, I thought I'd recreate the flavors in a cookie and make Pumpkin Spice Chip Oatmeal Pancakes. They were ok. I probably should have added a little brown sugar along with the chips.

Ran one of my favorite Christmas CDs as I ate. A Broadway Christmas is a collection of holiday songs from various shows. A few are well-known, such as "We Need a Little Christmas" from Mame or "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" from Meet Me In St. Louis (which turned up on Broadway as a stage show in the late 80's). Others were from lesser-known shows ("Christmas Child" from Irma La Douce), Broadway flops ("Be A Santa" from Subways are For Sleeping), taken from stage shows that haven't made Broadway ("Christmas Gifts" from a musical version of It's a Wonderful Life), or were cut numbers (the lovely "Christmas Eve" was dropped from the operetta She Loves Me). There was even an older song that had just then been rediscovered, Irving Berlin's "The Happy New Year Blues."

Did some writing after I cleaned up from breakfast. Queen Leia is ready to greet them when they arrive at the Ribbon Candy Village. Leia is a lovely older fairy, dressed in a lavender and plum-colored gown, with soft purple wings. She praises Rey and the Nutcracker for their bravery and reveals that she knows where her husband is being held. They're connected. He's in Starkiller Castle at the Kingdom of the First Order, over Dark Chocolate Mountain.

Put on a holiday cassette as I ate lunch and got ready for work. I think I like the second Disney Christmas Collection far better than the first. The strange number here is a very odd Little Mermaid version of "Deck the Halls." Otherwise, there's a lot of fun material here. I love the Disney characters' attempt at "The 12 Days of Christmas," and the not-bad original choral number "Celebrate."

Work was pretty much the same as yesterday, busy when I came in, quiet when I left. Once again, other than cleaning up a coffee spill in aisle 4, I was outside rounding up carts most of the night. This was complicated by weather that was very changed from yesterday. While we thankfully didn't get the foot of snow Lauren ended up with in Massachusetts, we did have a huge storm last night and some very heavy gale-force winds. The winds continued all throughout work (and are still continuing as I write this). It was cold and cloudy and grey. At least I had plenty of help. At one point, there were two other baggers helping me, and there was always one other person out there with me.

When I finally made it home, I made the last of the leftover Chicken Soup wit Lemon and Orzo while playing more Lego Star Wars. Finally got the last pieces I needed for "Speeder Showdown" and "Dagobah," which finished out Free Play. Tried Super Story, which is a cross between Story Mode and the Challenges. You play all six rounds one after the other, trying to finish them in under an hour and gather 100,000 studs. I did The Phantom Menace levels. I was able to gather the studs easily, but I missed the hour mark by 15 minutes. Oh well. We'll see if I do better on Attack of the Clones next time.