Started off a sunny, freezing cold morning with work. I alternated between doing the carts and doing the candy during the first half of my shift. By the second half, another bagger had arrived who prefers being outside. I wanted to focus on the candy, but I kept ending up in the register. We just didn't have enough help, especially early in the morning. Too many people wanted today off. Thankfully, even with the disruptions, the manager and I still managed to get all of the candy shelved.
At any rate, I was able to get off and get my schedule. Fewer hours (which is disappointing but not entirely surprising - this is the week after a major holiday) and three days off, mainly morning and afternoon work. At least there's only one really early day this time. The early Thursday will once again give me the time to hit up the Haddon Township Library.
I really didn't need a whole lot groceries-wise this week. Found spinach and feta chicken sausages with a manager's coupon. I didn't desperately need eggs, but the 18-count container was on a really good sale. I'm probably going to be doing more baking as we get closer to the holidays. They were out of cranberries, so I grabbed two grapefruit to go with breakfast. Found Crest Gum Protection toothpaste on clearance, and I had an online coupon for Crest products. Restocked skim milk, yogurt, cheese, white sugar, apples, bananas, mushrooms, and toilet paper.
Watched an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic while I put everything away. "Applebuck Season" is the show's fourth episode. Applejack is determined to buck, or kick, all of the apples off the trees in her family's orchard and still have time to help her friends. Twilight Sparkle repeatedly asks her if she can help, but she wants to prove that she can do it all alone. She finally learns to ask for help when she's so tired, she lets Fluttershy's bunnies eat half the gardens in Ponyville and is literally kicking at a dead tree.
Worked on writing for a while after dinner. Anakin leaves Yoda's counting house...and helps Palpatine Marley to buy it out six month later when it shuts down. Yoda retires, the other apprentices are forced to leave, and Mace mysteriously "falls" out of a window. Marley begs Anakin not to divulge the details on that one. Among Anakin's other dastardly deeds are forcing an orphanage to close by raising its rent too high. He wanted to turn the property over to the high-paying official Tarkin, but it turns out the kids ended up on the streets and died.
Meanwhile, Padme is growing increasingly worried about Anakin's greedy and angry behavior. He thinks he's doing it for her, but she knows better. They're growing apart. She wants to love him, but he's become someone she barely recognizes.
Broke for dinner at quarter of 7. Made scrambled eggs with cheese, mushrooms, and broccoli rabe while doing the two remaining My Little Pony holiday episodes. "Hearthbreakers" from the fifth season has Applejack and her family traveling to spend their winter festival, Hearth's Warming Day, with Pinkie and her family. Applejack's family are hard-working farmers. Pinkie's austere Amish-like family, who run a quarry, seem more than a little strange to them. Apple and her family try to introduce them to their traditions, only to lose a family heirloom. Apple's angry at first, until she and Pinkie realize that the holiday is more about who you share it with than what you do.
The most recent "Christmas" episode from the actual show is "A Hearth's Warming Tail" from the sixth season. This is basically a retelling of A Christmas Carol. Twilight Sparkle reads Starlight Shimmer her favorite holiday to show her why she should celebrate the holidays. Starlight becomes Snowball Frost, a magic-obsessed unicorn who intends to create a spell that will wipe out Hearth's Warming Day forever! It takes the Spirits of Hearth's Warming Past (Applejack), Present (Pinkie), and Future (Princess Luna) to convince her to destroy her spell and celebrate with the rest of the town.
My Little Pony is hardly the first girl-oriented franchise to adapt A Christmas Carol. Barbie: A Christmas Carol came out about a decade ago. Barbie's little sister Kelly wishes they could do what they always do on Christmas Eve, instead of going to a charity ball. Barbie relates the story of Eden Starling, a spoiled diva in Victorian England who only cares about herself and refuses to allow any of her performers, including her best friend Catherine, to go home for Christmas. Eden's encounters with three familiar ghosts and her realization of what Catherine plans on doing for Christmas Day makes her change her mind about the holidays...and encourages Kelly to think better about charity and giving, too.
Oh, and I found something last night and tonight tht I haven't seen in years. In the mid-90's, Disney put out three direct-to-video half-hour specials featuring kids romping with costumed Disney characters that they called Mickey's Fun Songs. Two of them were set in various parts of Walt Disney World, while the third revolved around the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. Not only do they use a wider range of songs than the average Disney Sing-a-Long video (some of which are older standards), but they give us a glimpse of Barnum and Bailey well before they were disbanded and parts of Disney World that have since shut down, including River Country and Discovery Island on the camping video.
Keefe used to love these. We watched the camping and circus specials constantly. The songs are mostly burned into my brain. We didn't see the beach party one nearly as often. I think we rented it twice from a local video store, but couldn't find it to purchase.
If you remember watching them too, they're now available on YouTube.
Beach Party at Walt Disney World
Campout at Walt Disney World
Let's Go to the Circus!
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