Ran a couple of episodes of Sofia the First as I ate and cleaned up after breakfast. "Holiday In Enchantria" is the first of three holiday episodes of this series to date. Sofia is looking forward to spending Enchantria's winter festival with her new family. Amber's just looking forward to the big party and pile of presents. When their father King Roland vanishes in a blizzard, Queen Miranda takes her family out to look for them in their flying carriage. The snow downs them as well. Sofia is worried that they'll never find her father...until Princess Aurora of Sleeping Beauty appears to remind her that her animals friends can help.
The family's loyal butler and King Roland's valet has big plans to spend "Bailywick's Day Off" with his brother. The kids and their friends were also originally going to spend the day together, but they keep asking Bailywick for his help, constantly delaying his plans. They finally realize how much they rely on him and decide to give him a special surprise to make up for the loss of his holiday.
Lucinda is "The Little Witch," a new girl in town who loves casting spells to play pranks on people. That hasn't exactly made her popular with the villagers, including Sofia's friends Jade and Ruby. Sofia talks to Lucinda and realizes that she wants friends rather badly, but has no idea of how to be one. She brings her to Jade's birthday party to apologize. Jade wants to spring a "witch trap," but she finally learns to give people a second chance.
Unfortunately, after "The Little Witch," the DVD started skipping so badly, I took it off. Replaced it with A Walt Disney Christmas as I packed my lunch and changed into my work clothes. This collection of winter and holiday-themed Disney shorts came from one of the company's earliest white clamshell videos. It's so old, "Santa's Workshop," "The Night Before Christmas," and "Donald's Snow Fight" are completely uncensored. In fact, this video was the first time I saw these shorts intact. It also includes the romantic featurette "Once Upon a Wintertime," the cute Disney gang winter tale "On Ice," and one of my favorite Disney shorts, "Pluto's Christmas Tree." The last-named hadn't even ended before it was time for me to head off to work.
Work was quiet the entire afternoon. It never became even remotely busy. It hasn't been this dead at the Acme since Halloween. It was a gorgeous day two days after the biggest food holiday of the year. Most people were probably out visiting relatives or shopping for anything but food. I spent the first hour or so gathering the few carts there were with another bagger and enjoying the upper 50's temperatures and windless sunshine and the last hour doing a small cart of returns. I also rounded up baskets and did the front end trash.
To my surprise, I have a perfectly normal schedule next week, with Tuesday and my Friday personal day off and the regular amount of hours. I fully expected to have my hours cut badly, like I did the week after Thanksgiving last year. Thank goodness. Not only will I have a somewhat decent paycheck the week of vacation, but three afternoon shifts and two days off will give me the chance to finish Beauties and the Frogs, start cleaning the apartment for the holidays, and still get my regular library volunteering and errands in.
Most of what I needed this week was bits and bobs. The Acme had bags of small oranges on sale. A bag of small apples wasn't, but I figured it was cheaper than buying four large loose apples. Grabbed a bag of cranberries for more Flummery, or maybe Cranberry Muffins. Took advantage of more sales to pick up a free container of Dannon's new light Greek yogurt with an online coupon and two boxes of the limited edition Nutmeg and Cinnamon Triscuits. Also decided to try three more limited edition flavors, the Mountain Dew Holiday Brew (a combination of regular Dew and Code Red), Cranberry Vanilla Wonderland herbal tea from Celestial Seasonings, and Quaker's Gingerbread Spice granola bars. Restocked cereal (picked up the generic Life on clearance), canned pumpkin, yogurt, hand soap for the kitchen sink, a small loaf of Italian bread for a dollar, honey, minced garlic, and two very pretty vintage-looking gift bags. Picked up this year's advent calendar; all they had left was Elf on the Shelf.
Put everything away when I got home, then changed and worked on writing. The others arrive just in time to see Prince Ben - Kylo Ren - stab Harold in the side. Ben wanted him out of the way...because Harold is really Han, the King of Alderaan. Snoke orders the prince to attack his mother as well, but he's hesitant to do it. He still cares about her and wants her to rule with him. Leia refuses, calling him unworthy to rule anyone. Chewbacca and Poe try to get his sword from him, but they're held back by demons.
When Luke arrives with the girls, all hell breaks loose. Finn finally reveals how to eliminate Snoke and destroy Ben's dark power - by breaking the crystal balls on Snoke's cane and the hilt of Ben's sword. Finn attacks Ben, giving Rey the chance to break his ball, as the others tie up Hux and Mitaka. Han uses his last breath to stab Snoke with his spikes. When he drops the cane, Leia and Luke use their own magic to destroy his ball. Bereft of his evil power, the wicked ruler of the First Order Clan turns into a crow and flies away.
I got so into writing, it was quarter after 7 before I finally started dinner. Dug out the turkey and carrots from Thanksgiving dinner, along with my own celery and mushrooms, the last of the Brussels sprouts, and chicken broth and chicken stock to make turkey and vegetable soup. Had it with cranberry sauce and two slices of Italian bread with butter; used some of the mashed potatoes to thicken it.
Did a quick Three Stooges short while getting the soup together. Shemp joins in as three "Squareheads of the Round Table" try to help Cedric the Blacksmith woo the fair Princess Elaine. Elaine is engaged to the Black Prince, who wants to kill the king. The trio do what they can to bring the lovers together and reveal the Black Prince's treachery.
Finished the night and my dinner with Murder on the Orient Express. This is the original 1974 version of one of the most famous Agatha Christie novels. Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney) is traveling on the very full first-class compartment on the famous train from Istanbul to Paris when a businessman who had earlier asked him to be his bodyguard is found murdered. Turns out he was really an incognito gangster who had once masterminded an infamous kidnapping and got off with the money. Who could have killed him? Was it is his nervous young secretary Hector MacQueen (Anthony Perkins)? The chatty American matron Harriet Hubbard (Lauren Bacall) who swears someone was in her room the night of the murder? The stoic Scottish army man Colonel Arbuthnot (Sean Connery)? The reserved governess Mary Debenham (Vanessa Redgrave)? Or perhaps the shy Swedish missionary Greta Ohlsson (Ingrid Bergman)? Or the elderly Russian princess (Wendy Hiller) who was the dead child's godmother, but can't seem to remember any details about the household. Or perhaps one or more of them were in on it? Poirot has to figure it out in less than 48 hours, before the snow is cleared from the train and they arrive at their destination.
Classy all-star mystery is a bit closer to the book than the one currently in theaters apparently is. While Bergman won a supporting actress Oscar as the gentle missionary, the entire cast is excellent. Special kudos to the pitch-perfect 30's costumes and sets, the haunting music, and Sidney Lumet's direction. If you're a fan of mysteries, historical tales, Christie, or the cast, this is one of the most beloved of all big-screen Christie adaptations and is worth checking out.
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