Restless Heart

First of all, Happy Father's Day to all, including those whose children are four-legged or feathered. :)

Second, I had a fairly quiet day. Slept in, then made some tasty Strawberry Pancakes while listening to Fanny. Fanny (Florence Henderson) is in love with Marius (William Tabbert), but he loves the sea more. After he's left for a sailing job, she discovers she's pregnant. She's pressured into marrying the older Panisse (Walter Sleazak) by her mother. Panisse is delighted at having a child, whether it's his or not, and raises the boy as his own. Marius tries to reclaim his family, but his father (Enzio Pinza) turns him away. When the son grows older and longs for the sea, too, the ill Parnisse has to decide how long he wants to cling to the past.

Harold Rome wrote some really lovely music for this dramatic tale of broken hearts on the French waterfront. Nice cast, too, including Henderson in one of her first major roles as the title character. If you enjoy the more romantic side of musicals, the CD for this is out of print, but can currently be heard on YouTube. (There was a movie in 1960 with Leslie Caron as Fanny and Maurice Chevalier as Panisse, but it used the music as background scoring and made it a straight drama.)

Texted Dad-Bruce and called Dad-Bill to wish them both a Happy Father's Day. Bill was on his way out to sea as well. Bruce and Jodie were going to visit Jodie's dad, then have dinner at the Cove. I'll visit Bruce and give him his card on Tuesday, my next day off.

Worked on writing for an hour. Leia, Langdon, and Rusty join Luke in rescuing Wedge and the other Rogues. Leia explains that Henry is back on the Falcon, sleeping off the drugs Jenkins gave him. She throws a smoke bomb, giving them time to escape before Vader and his men arrive.

Switched to the soundtrack for The Music Man while getting organized for work, Meredith Wilson changed a few things for the movie, notably replacing "My White Knight" with "Being In Love" (supposedly because he had outside help on "My White Knight"). That aside, this is still a lot of fun - Preston is every bit as good here as he is on the original cast album, Shirley Jones sounds great on "Being In Love" and "Goodnight My Someone," and you also get Hermoine Gingold (in "Pick a Little, Talk a Little") and Buddy Hackett ("Shipoopi").

Work was a complete pain. I spent most of it outside in the heat, gathering carts, though I did do outside trash and rounded up baskets briefly. I had no help. One teen girl called out. Another was around for 15 minutes before claiming she was sick and going home. One of the cashiers volunteered to help around 3:30, but he could only stay out for a half-hour. It was busy all day, thanks to the holiday, the hot, sunny day, and most kids either getting out of school last week or early this week. I was sweating to death when I got out at 6, and the carts were still disappearing.

When I finally rolled home, I ate a very quick dinner, then played Lego Clone Wars. Finished out the "Story" levels with the final two missions of the game. The last Ventress round has Mace Windu and a couple of Clone Troopers rallying the army to take back Ryloth for good. In the last Dooku round, Anakin, Obi-Wan, and a couple of clones follow Luminara to a dark, dusty tomb deep under Geonosis. The tomb is filled with zombie Geonosians...and their queen, who has Luminaria prisoner. The two Jedi and their clone friends have to save her and capture Poggle the Lesser, before the queen does any damage.

As it turned out, neither of these rounds were as long or as difficult as the ones before. "Victory On Ryloth" was only slightly more complicated than previous army-building rounds. "Legacy of Terror" took a little longer, thanks to the dark caverns that made it hard to see many obstacles, but it still wasn't as difficult as some of the back-and-forth flying rounds.

I'm going to give Clone Wars a break for a while. I want to give Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, which looks like an RPG (role-playing type game), a try. I'll double back and do the Free Play rounds on Clone Wars after I finish that.

And sorry this was late! I had some trouble with the internet last night. For all that I can do on my Kindle and cell phone, I'm afraid one of them isn't updating my blog. At least it seems to be working  now.