Football Frolics

Began a quick morning with breakfast, baking the Cinnamon Refrigerator Cookies, and the Peanuts. It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown has Peppermint Patty trying to lead her team to victory in the big homecoming football game. Trouble is, Lucy keeps pulling the football away before Chuck can kick it. Chuck's more concerned about being the escort for the Little Red Haired Girl after the game.

The Cinnamon Refrigerator Cookies just made one big mess. All they did was crumble. It took me so long to clean up, I was almost late for work! This was not a good thing. We were busy all day, with beginning-of-the-month people and people getting ready for their Super Bowl parties. Folks were in a major hurry. I had to clean up at least three spills, including a huge soda spill in a line and dip broken in the back room. I did round up carts a little while one bagger was on break, but I mostly bagged.

At least there was food in the back to give me energy. The Acme was having its annual Super Bowl Chili Cook-Off. Along with two pots of chili and my cookies, there was pulled pork, kielbasa, meatballs, deviled eggs, macaroni salad, corn bread, pound cake, chocolate chip bread, brownies with cookie centers, and plates of Reece's mini-peanut butter cups and Hershey's Kisses. I had chili, two deviled eggs, a small slice of chocolate chip bread, and a slice of pound cake, and that was more than enough.

My schedule next week is a bit odd. We're back to the long days with three days off. Maybe it's just as well. I have a lot that I need to do this week. I need to update my non-driver's ID, figure out what's going on with food stamps, and get started with this month's cleaning. I have counseling on Tuesday, too.

I had a ton of grocery shopping to do this week! The Acme was having really good meat sales for the first time in ages, probably due to the Super Bowl. I picked up crab cakes, chicken drumsticks, ground turkey, and Italian chicken sausages, the last-named with a manager's coupon. Stocked up on sugar, peanut butter, cereal (Quaker's been on a really good sale - went with that yummy Vanilla Life), oranges (another good sale), bananas, carrots, eggs, skim milk, tuna, aluminum foil, and cake and pudding mixes. Bought lemon Jello, vanilla pudding, and a white cake mix to try a recipe at home.

Ran more football-themed cartoons while getting organized when I got in. Acme Looniversity's football team isn't looking forward to "The Acme Bowl" in the first season of Tiny Toon Adventures. They haven't won yet, and they're playing unbeatable (and constantly cheating) Perfecto Prep. Plus it looks like Plucky may have sold their playbook to Perfecto! But Buster and the other toons have a few tricks up their sleeves that'll teach the Perfecto team a lesson in playing fair.

Worked on Pinterest and my story for a few hours after I finished in the kitchen. I started a page on teddy bears - famous, old, new, cute, scuffed - yesterday, but didn't have a chance to really work on it until today. I'm not the biggest fan of the Marvel and DC Movie Universes, but I did enjoy (most of) the movies enough to start a page for them. Also did a page for the places I'd like to travel to someday.

Teddy Bears!
Marvel and DC Universes
Travel - Places I Want to Visit

Did get some writing in, too. Leia's the first to tell a story. She spins a spooky yarn about a mad scientist who picks up a hitchhiker and tries to graft his mind and body with that of a deer. He goes insane, rejecting the experiment and what's been done with him. He finally destroys the lab, and possibly, the scientist. Some say he still roams the woods, looking for retribution for what was done to him...

Put on a few more football-related shorts while having leftovers for dinner. Hello Kitty is "Cinderkitty" in Hello Kitty Furry Tale Theater. This little kitten would rather be throwing forward passes than being a cheerleader. She finally proves that girls can do both...and win the penguin prince in the process.

Mickey Mouse is the world's least-likely Tom Brady in the classic black-and-white short "Touchdown Mickey." He's determined to win this one for Clarabelle and Minnie, while Goofy attempts to announce the game in the booth.

Popeye did two football cartoons during the Fleischer Brothers years. "You Gotta Be a Football Hero" has him joining the big game against Bluto in order to impress Olive. "The Football Toucher-Downer" is a tad less typical. Here, he relates to Sweet Pea how he first ate spinach in a football game as a child...and how it helped him defeat the opposition.

The Three Stooges are "Three Little Pigskins" when a trio of gangsters' molls mistake them for popular college players. It's all fun and games...until their boyfriends figure out who they really are. They have to figure out how to play - fast!

Decided to try something a little different for Dad and Jodie's party tomorrow. I saw an advertisement for 7-Up Soda in the chips and soda aisle that included "7-Up Cake." It sounded like Julie's Pistachio Cake with the club soda replaced with 7-Up. The smaller bottle of Sprite was cheaper, so it became Julie's Groovy Sprite Cake. In addition to the Sprite, I added lemon gelatin with the vanilla pudding (I couldn't find a lemon pudding mix), lime juice, and lemon extract.

Finished the night with The Great Mouse Detective after a shower. One of Disney's best action films takes us to Baker Street...or, more specifically, under it. Basil is the finest rodent detective in all of England. He's a little miffed when a Scottish girl calls on him to find her missing toymaker dad...until he realizes that the fellow was kidnapped by the bat lackey of Rattigan, the most notorious criminal in all rodent-dom. Now the game is afoot as Basil and his new friend Watson must use all their deductive skills to find out what Rattigan has in mind...and rescue the Queen of England herself.

An old childhood favorite of mine. Dad-Bruce actually took Rose and me to see it in the theater when it came out, and I've loved it ever since. Check out the amazing visuals on Big Ben - this was some of the first use of CGI in an animated film.