Dog and Pony Shows

Started off another lovely day with breakfast and baking. Thought I'd try the Spicy Cranapple Muffins again from the muffin cookbook my friend Jen Waters sent me about five or so years ago. Yum! Other than replacing the orange juice with a bit of fresh-squeezed orange leftover from breakfast, they were perfect, moist and sweet and so flavorful!

Ran the Twilight and Starlight set all morning. As you can guess from the title, all of the episodes revolve around Starlight Glimmer, a villainous unicorn with extraordinary powers who was reformed at the end of Season 5. "No Second Prances" from early in the sixth season has her looking for a friend to take to a party with Princess Celestia. She finds her in Trixie, a unicorn magician who had previously clashed with the ponies. Twilight doesn't approve of their friendship, leading Starlight to choose between her new friend and a party with her mentor that she's not sure she wants to attend.

The sixth season ended with the two-parter "To Where and Back Again." Starlight has to round up a mismatched group of former villains and misfits, including Trixie, the mischievous mix-and-match critter Discord, and shy changeling Thorax to head off Chrysalis, the Changeling Queen. She has kidnapped all of Equestria's leaders and is hoping for her clan to feed on the love the ponies give them. Starlight is terrified of leading again after her leadership abilities in her home village caused a lot of trouble...but she eventually learns that she can step up to the plate and lead others without harming them.

Season 7 begins right where the previous season left off, with Starlight and her new friends being awarded medals for bravery. Twilight has come to realize that it's time for her pupil to graduate. She's not sure about encouraging Starlight to move on, but some "Celestial Advice" from her former mentor may make her feel better about letting go.

Starlight tries to keep her anger "All Bottled Up" after her attempts to teach Trixie magic causes them to make Twilight's table map disappear. She doesn't want to lose her new friend, so she tries to store all her anger over Trixie's insensitivity in a bottle. As they search for the table, she gets angrier and angrier, storing more and more anger...until she and Trixie break it, and it ends up making three regular Ponyville citizens angry at Trixie.

The muffins were in the oven so long, I was almost late getting to work! As it turned out, there wasn't much need to rush. We were dead all afternoon. I did clean the bathrooms briefly, but even that was mainly mopping the floor and replacing the soap in the men's room. Otherwise, I was mostly gathering carts and baskets or doing returns.

Took the long way home down Nicholson Road. It was too nice of a day to hurry home. The weather remains stunning here, in the mid-50's, sunny and breezy, but not as windy as early last week. The sky is a searing blue, the leaves brilliant golds and russets. Other than dodging some early rush hour traffic on Nicholson, it couldn't have been a lovelier ride.

Went right on the computer when I got home. The first thing I did was post Beauties and the Frogs on Fanfiction.net and my writing blog. Here's the links:

Beauties and the Frogs - Fanfiction.net
Beauties and the Frogs - My Writing Blog

Had a little time to start work on my next story. The opening segment of BB In Toyland is set in a fictional Philadelphia department store on Christmas Eve in 1986. "BB" is 8-year-old Barbara Beatrix Dameron, the little sister of Poe Dameron (based after BB-8). Her brother often brings her to visit Skywalker Department Store, a grand downtown store on Market Street where he works. As she admires the fancy sequined gowns in the store windows, she mentions she wants to dress just like Joan Collins on Dynasty when she grows up (even if she doesn't want to act like her). Poe's surprised she even knows what that show is. BB's no dope - she listens to her parents and multitudes of family members in their Northeastern Philadelphia neighborhood.

It wasn't until nearly 7 when I finally got around to eating dinner. Got rid of the last week's leftovers while watching Lego Scooby Doo: Beach Blowout Blast. This time, the gang heads to a very typical 60s' beach party that apparently has been going on for years, since two notorious local pirates had a party, then escaped with their treasure. The owners of the hotel where the kids are staying seem to know a lot more about the history of the pirates and their ship, now a museum, than they're telling, while their son and daughter are very jealous and hostile towards the group. Meanwhile, Velma and Fred are determined to prove that they're cool enough to be the "Captains" of the Beach Blowout Blast party by starting new dance moves and not embarking on any mysteries...but it proves to be bad timing when the pirates show up and start attacking the boardwalk and the hotel. Now the kids have to figure out what these spectral buccaneers are really after, or this groovy bash may end up buried in the sand.

Somewhat goofier than the previous Lego Scooby Doo Hollywood tale, a little closer to the satirical tone taken by other Lego direct-to-DVD offerings and the recent Be Cool, Scooby Doo show. I kind of wish they'd had another great, appropriate guest star like Elvira in the Hollywood story. Otherwise, if you enjoyed the previous Lego Scooby movie, you'll probably get a kick out of this one as well.

(And it's interesting that it's Fred and Velma who are considered boring and uncool here. That's the very reason they were dropped from the show in the late 70's. Hanna Barbara executives and many fans at the time thought they were the least-interesting and most-expendable members of the group. Mystery Inc. wouldn't be seen together again in something resembling their original forms until Scooby Doo on Zombie Island in 1999.)

Ended the night with an episode of Scooby Doo, Where are You? included with the DVD. "A Clue for Scooby Doo" from the first season maroons the gang near a spooky lighthouse. The old woman who works there claims she's a witch, and it's the spirit of her dead husband who is haunting the harbor and sinking ships. Shaggy and Scooby are more interested in local seafood, but Velma thinks there might be another explanation.