I actually spent the morning - and a lot of the day - cleaning the blinds. I've tried once or twice since I moved here to wash them, but there's eight of them, and it takes forever. It took forever even with the blind cleaner tool. In fact, it took me three hours to clean the four blinds in the living area, the one in the bathroom, and one of the three in my bedroom. I finished the other two later, after lunch...and they're all still pretty filthy. They came with the house, but I'm considering replacing them with either bamboo or narrower blinds that would be easier to clean and let more light in, or curtains that would just require being tossed in the wash.
Ran several cartoons while I worked, starting with two episodes of She-Ra. "The Sea Hawk" is a Han Solo-esque pirate who works for the Horde, but claims he doesn't belong to them. Adora makes him reconsider his stance on working with the Great Rebellion. She-Ra gets into a "Duel at Devin" when a little girl brings her to her tiny village. It's been taken over by some bullying Horde soldiers. The townspeople are too afraid to fight back...until She-Ra and one little girl encourage them to stand up for themselves.
Switched to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs while continuing to struggle with the blinds. Disney's first full-length animated film tells the tale of a young princess who flees her wicked stepmother and ends up in the house of seven eccentric miners. She's a good cook, a good singer, and not a bad story teller, and they're (mostly) glad to take her in. Her stepmother the Wicked Queen is on her trail though, and she won't rest until she's eliminated the competition.
Once again had this on for the medieval/fantasy aesthetic. It's not my favorite Disney movie, but it is history, and the dwarfs, the music, and animation are all fun.
Headed out for a walk around quarter of 1. First stop was the Oaklyn Library. There was absolutely no one there but me and the librarian. The gloomy, cold, windy day was not exactly encouraging. I organized videos and shelved kids' books and moved on.
Since I was in the neighborhood, I headed a couple of blocks down to Dad and Jodie's house. For once, I caught them both at home, watching endless Law & Order: Special Victim's Unit episodes on Ion Television. Jodie invited me to a late Easter brunch at her son TJ's apartment in South Philadelphia last week. I was able to tell them that I could go. They'll pick me up tomorrow around 12:45.
Went home, watching an episode of Good Eats while having a quick lunch before returning to trying to clean the blinds. Alton has a much easier time with a notoriously fussy dessert in "Hooked on Backlava." As much as I love the Middle Eastern honey-nut-phyllo dessert, it's still too much work for me to make on my own. I'll stick to buying it from bakeries.
Finally finished the blinds around quarter after 4. Did some writing after that. Leia rides to Alderaan Manor, only to find it burned to the ground like her parents' home. She finds two of her aunt and uncle's servants, fussy butler Cyril and his mute blacksmith buddy Artello, amid the wreckage. Boba Fett, who joined the troopers, finds her. But it's Han to the rescue when Fett tells her he intends to take her and the servants back to Palpatine.
Broke at quarter of 7 to make Italian stove-top casserole for dinner, with ground turkey, zucchini, onion, and lots of shredded mozzarella cheese. Ran one of the non-holiday Garfield specials while I cooked. Garfield's imagination works overtime, dreaming himself into parodies of Airport and Jaws, among others. When Jon "saves" him and Odie from the airplane dream, Garfield is convinced they're invincible. He comes up with a spoof of spy capers that has him and Odie searching for the Banana of Bombay to test his theory.
Played a quick half-hour of Wii Sports after dinner. I'm getting a little better at tennis. I can usually get up to a bronze on hitting the ball, and my Target Practice is improving, too. I'm still having trouble timing my swing, though. I also did bowling and some golf Target Practice.
Finished off the night with Supergirl. This 1984 outing is quite different from the current TV show. The title character (Helen Slater) comes to Earth in search of the Omega Headron, an object of great power. It's ended up in the hands of carnival witch Serena (Faye Dunaway), who intends to use it to take over the world. Supergirl goes undercover as prep school kid Linda Lee in order to find out where the Omega Headron landed. She befriends her roommate Lucy Lane (Maureen Teefy), but makes an enemy of her obnoxious math teacher (Peter Cook). Against Nigel's wishes, Serena creates a love potion to make a hunky construction worker (Hart Bochner) fall in love with her...but he falls for Linda instead. Now Supergirl has to figure out how to stop Serena's plot and deal with his love-sick advances, before she ends up in the Phantom Zone with her former mentor Zaltar (Peter O'Toole) for good.
Yes, I know this isn't a great movie. It's not even a good one. I love it anyway. I have no idea what's going on with the Omega Headron, O'Toole and Cook are wasted in thankless roles, the script is the richest form of cheese, Bochner is a block of wood, and the special effects look ridiculous.
What makes the movie is Slater and Dunaway. Slater is totally convincing as the super-powered teen who can go from blond to brunette in a single bound, and it's fun to watch Dunaway chew every inch of scenery in sight as the low-level witch who thinks she's found her way to the big time. Jerry Goldsmith's lovely score is vastly underrated, too.
If you're looking for another strong female superhero or have fond memories of catching this on cable when you were a kid too, it's worth checking out and better than its reputation suggests.
1 comment:
We had blinds when I was a kid, the Venetian blind kind, and we've had miniblinds in our apartment. There are no easy ways to keep the damn things clean. Mom used to take all ours down (ten windows in that tiny house!) TWICE a year and wash them in the bathtub. I said no way; we have roller shades, but they're so hard to find anymore and then you have to put up the hardware to mount them. If you go all curtain I would recommend insulated curtains which would keep the cold and heat out, but they are also expensive, so there is no easy financial answer to this problem, unfortunately!
Now if the blinds came with the property, I would say they are the landlord's responsibility, but seeing the problems you have with Charlie, I'm not sure talking with someone is a solution, either. :-(
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