A Rather Blustery Day

I was reading The Curse of the Pharoahs in bed, listening to the wind whistle and rattle my bedroom windows, when the phone rang. It was Charlie. Poor guy had to fix an ancient water pipe downstairs that was gunked up and had to shut down the water again. That was fine. I'd skip tea this morning. I did ask him about the heat. He said it had been on for over a week. I tried the thermostat...and found out that some idiot turned it down to 59 degrees! I have no idea how that happened. I didn't do it. At any rate, I turned it up to 66, and it's now much warmer in here.

And I didn't need to skip the tea, either. I accidentally turned the faucet in the bathroom on when I was in there, and the water ran fine. It ran fine all during breakfast. I was even able to have my chai tea after all. I'm going to guess that he either never turned it off, or did so after I left for the afternoon. 

Ran today's first round of wartime shorts for Veteran's Day while I ate. The Fleischer Brothers dropped Popeye into World War II a few months before America officially entered, in "The Mighty Navy." He may be a great sailor, but he's too used to giving orders on his own ship to follow them. He winds up peeling onions when he can't do things the Navy way....before shooting down an unknown enemy single-handed, thanks to his can of spinach.

"Blunder Below" is a variation on this. Made after the war had begun, the enemy in this one is clearly the (heavily stereotyped) Japanese Navy. This time, Popeye is banished to the boiler room, but still manages to take down a Japanese sub.

Most of the other shorts, such as "Kicking the Conga Around" and "Olive Oyl and Water Don't Mix" were standard "Bluto and Popeye chase Olive" stories. "Many Tanks" gets more creative. Hoping to get a date with Olive, Army private Bluto switches uniforms with gob on leave Popeye. Popeye will do anything he can to get back to his date, including driving a tank through town while being chased by half the US Army.

Swee'Pea makes one of his last appearances in "Baby Wants a Battleship." Olive has Popeye watch the baby while she goes shopping. Popeye would be more than happy to...if they tyke wasn't obsessed with the battle cruiser he's working on. He gets loose and leads the sailor on a wild chase around the destroyer to keep him from harm. Popeye has more luck taking "Spinach fer Britain" to London and taking down the Nazis while he's at it.

Headed out to the Audubon Crossings Shopping Center around 11:30. I'd been wanting to check out the new Marshalls' and Ross Dress for Less back there since they opened a few weeks ago, but I didn't have the time until today. They're both pretty much the same thing - clearance department stores that sell high-end cast offs and last year's fashions at a fraction of the price. Ross had the better (and better-organized) clothes. I almost bought a really nice orange and brown striped dress there. I preferred Marshalls' housewares department. They had a better selection, along with a section with fancy pens and notebooks. I got a notebook with donuts on the cover for me and a gift for my friend Amanda for Christmas from there.

Checked out a few more small stores on the other side of the mall, across the parking lot from the three department stores. (There's a tiny Wal Mart at the end of the lot that I'm not overly fond of. Their selection is terrible, and their customers are worse.) While teen clothing boutique Rainbow had closing signs posted, the rest of the mall was bustling. Indeed, Avenue and Game Stop were both crowded with early holiday shoppers when I went in. I didn't get anything, but it was nice to look around.

Applebee's was busy when I arrived, too. It was 1:30, nearly the end of lunch hour on a day many people probably had off or got off early. I treated myself to a much-needed hot chocolate. Yum. It was probably from a mix, but tasty enough, topped with lots of whipped cream and a sprinkling of cocoa and sugar. Bought my lunch from the combo menu. The tomato-basil soup was amazing, thick and rich, with mozzarella shavings lots of tomato pieces. It's a good thing I only had half of the Clubhouse Grille sandwich. The half I had was dripping with lettuce, tomato, ham slices, and cheese. I added a warm slice of brownie with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream and lots of hot fudge.

There was an ambulance in front of the Acme when I pulled the bike in at the rack on the end of the front patio. A small knot of cops, employees, and even a few customers were gathered around one of the baggers. He seemed ok, other than his nose was a bit bloodied and skinned. As far as I could gather, someone had run into him while he was doing carts and had knocked him over. At least he looked like he was moving fine on his own.

The rest of my trip was a lot less exciting. I didn't even really need that much in the way of groceries. Picked up more of those super-sweet clementines, olive oil, unbleached flour, butter (real butter this time - there was a good sale on Land O' Lakes), yogurt, skim milk, muffin papers, and tissues. Campbell's condensed soup was on a good sale. How could I resist the Star Wars character-pasta-shape chicken soup, with their shiny BB-8 labels? 

Next week's schedule is far better and closer to normal for this time of year than the previous two weeks were. I work 2 to 6 for most of the week, except for a 12 to 4 shift on Sunday, with Monday and Friday off. Should have plenty of time for the libraries and for writing, as well as starting to prepare for this year's holiday season. 

(I also figured out why I was pushed to afternoon hours. One of the older cashiers who had been bounced around a few departments had moved to bagging. She has a lot more experience than I do, not to mention two daughters whom I believe are in high school.)

Headed home after I finished. I didn't have any other plans for today, and it was too blustery and cold to be doing a lot of running around anyway. Not to mention, both of the libraries were closed to observe Veteran's Day. A nice, sunny day did help somewhat with the cold.

(Oh, and the water was on when I got home. Either Charlie didn't do the plumbing today, or it didn't take that long.)

Did one last Popeye short while putting everything away. Bluto claims he's "Too Weak to Work" on a Navy battle cruiser, but he's got plenty of energy to horse around in his hospital room and ogle nurses. Popeye sets him in his place by posing as a nurse.

Did some writing for the next few hours. While the girls vow to check out the basement and see if the princes of their (literal) dreams are hidden there, Leia has tea with Harold in the library. She admits that she misses her brother and her home, and that she feels guilty about her son's betrayal. He wouldn't have turned against her and her husband if they'd been there for him. Harold tries to reassure her that some people just believe bad things and make wrong choices. It's not entirely her fault. 

She finally, angrily turns on him, trying to get him to tell her what he knows about the king in the shadows in her dreams. Yes, he does know who he is, and why he can't speak. No, he can't tell her. He's under the same restrictions as the other amphibians. They're forbidden from leaving the grounds, too. Invisible dark magic pulls them back if they try to walk away.

They're about to kiss when the girls show up, disappointed and covered in cobwebs. All that their searching turned up was that the basement was filthy. Leia tells them that they can stop searching. She's begun to figure out what's going on...

Stopped for dinner around 6:30. Had salmon fillet with spinach and mushrooms in a chicken stock sauce, along with macaroni salad. Made Apple-Maple Muffins from the Basic Muffins recipe in the Sunset bread cookbook I bought a while back. Yum. I think I put in too much maple flavoring. I only wanted a hint. Otherwise, they're very good, very nice and moist.

Did the Looney Tunes World War II shorts while I ate. Most of these fell into three categories - sketch comedy revues of life on the home front or in the barracks ("Meet John Doughboy," "Wacky Blackout," "The Weakly Reporter"), allegories on how we got into the war...and how we were going to win it ("The Duckinators," "Fifth Column Mouse"), or shorts featuring either regular ("Herr Meets Hare," "Daffy the Commando") or one-off ("The Draft Horse," "Russian Rhapsody") characters. "Reporter" is my favorite of the revues. I love the lady who fixes an entire factory with her one bobby pin. "The Duckinators" is a fascinating take on how Hitler and the other Axis nations came to power, told entirely with geese, ducks, and doves. (We also had Bosco, Warner's earliest animated star, taking on World War I in an early short, "Bosco the Doughboy.")

Bugs and Daffy figured into the best of the solo character World War II shorts. "Super Rabbit" starts off spoofing Superman and other popular Golden Age comic book heroes. Bugs eats specially-formulated carrots and becomes a super-strong hero. He takes on a rabbit-hating cowboy and his horse on their own turf, but when push comes to shove, he dons the uniform of a real hero - a marine officer.

"Draftee Daffy" is less thrilled about joining the Armed Forces. He'd do anything to dodge that pesky "Little Man from the Draft Board" - including blowing both of them to smithereens!

My favorite Bugs Bunny short and Warners wartime short is "Falling Hare." This may be the only time Bugs ever takes on an antagonist that gives as good as he gets. Termite Terrace's favorite rabbit catches a gremlin destroying planes. Unlike most of the villains Bugs encounters, this little guy is no dope. He does everything he can to get Bugs out of the plane...at least until it goes into a free fall...

Finished out the night online while watching Bowery Battalion. Between 1951 and 1953, the Bowery Boys made four comedies revolving around each branch of the Armed Services. The first of them lands the group in the Army after Sach thinks an Army training exercise is an invasion and scares the others into joining and Slip is tricked into going with them. They can't seem to do anything right, accidentally "borrowing" officers' coats their first day there and perpetually getting in trouble with their superior officer. Louie's arrival with the plans for a hydrogen ray he developed during World War I gives them a chance to redeem themselves as his guards. Even that, they mess up, losing Louie to spies who want the ray formula for themselves. Despite the fear of going AWOL, they take it upon themselves to rescue their favorite soda shoppe owner.