Slept in for the first time in a while; when I did roll out of bed, it was a bright, sunny day. Charlie thought so, too. He was already outside and cursing around the door when I was getting dressed and having breakfast. Ran another Buck Rogers episode to drown him out while I ate, and later as I took down the Valentine's Day decorations. Buck helps a young high jumper from a totalitarian world escape to Earth with his astrosled-driving sweetheart during the annual "Olympiad." His sponsor has implanted a bomb in him that they can make go off remotely. They have to outrun the signal through the astrosled course...which can be deadly for those who veer off of it.
Headed out to run errands as soon as the episode ended. First stop of the day was the Oaklyn Library. It looks like they're slightly reorganizing the adult DVDs. Instead of making the genre labels all hot pink, as they were previously, they're now different colors - Comedy is bright green, Crime is white, Drama is purple. Whomever did the labeling must have just thrown everything back on the shelf, as many titles were wildly out of order. (And it looked like they were only half-done with the drama.) Other than that, it wasn't a busy day. I looked over the kids' area briefly before heading out.
No wonder the library was dead. As Charlie had pointed out earlier, the weather was absolutely gorgeous. It was still windy, but not to the degree of earlier in the week, and the temperatures had soared into the lower 60's. I only needed a jean jacket to run around in. It was so nice, I had a quick lunch at Sonic. I was only hungry enough for a hot dog, tater tots, and a cherry limeade. Maybe because it was almost 2 PM by that point, or because of the wind, but I was the only one on the patio. (They may have had a point about the wind. My tater tots almost blew away.)
The Acme wasn't any busier than the Oaklyn Library. I had no problems walking around to do my shopping, and the lines were empty. (And they had plenty of help up front.) Eggs were on sale for 99 cents during the weekend, and 3-packs of sponges are still buy one, get one. Found a lone salmon cake in the seafood case that was also 99 cents. I've been wanting to try the thin chocolate mint cookies with the white chocolate backs, but they were so expensive! Grabbed the last bag from the clearance shelf. Restocked canned tomato sauce and mandarin oranges, skim milk, peanut butter, parchment paper, apples (bags of galas were on sale), oranges, bananas, sugar, corn meal, and ground turkey.
My schedule next week is kind of strange. I have two very early days on Sunday and Wednesday...and two late days on Thursday and next Saturday (the latter until 7). Monday, Tuesday, and next Friday are my off days, Tuesday for counseling.
Went straight home, put everything away as quickly as I could, and went right back out again in less than 10 minutes. I really wanted to return my DVDs to the Haddon Township Library. They were actually a bit busier than some of the other places I visited today, maybe because they were about an hour and a half from closing by the time I arrived. I mainly shelved the adult titles, the kid titles and TV sets being on hold for other volunteers.
Had just enough time after I finish to grab a couple of movies and books. Stuck to all adult titles for movies this week. A couple of people have recommended the Amy Adams/Meryl Streep drama Julie & Julia, about a woman who wrote about famous chef Julia Child and tried her recipes, but I never got around to it until now. Having enjoyed The Shape of Water early last spring, I thought I'd give another Oscar-winner from last year, the drama Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri, a try. Also found two tales of romance from the 30's and early 40's, The Girl From 10th Avenue with Bette Davis and Random Harvest with Ronald Coleman and Greer Garson.
I also grabbed a bunch of books. They finally had a book on being a professional blogger. Also found one on being and introvert running a business, The Introvert Entrepreneur, along with one on work in the 21st century and how it's changing and another on careers in mass media and communication. Took out one of the last Mercedes Lackey books they had that interested me, The Sleeping Beauty.
Made a quick stop at WaWa for money on the way home. It was well into rush hour by this point, and they were quite busy. At least there wasn't a line for the ATM machine. I bought a bottle of grapefruit Bubly sparkling water to get change for the laundry tomorrow.
(Incidentally, it turns out Charlie was adding molding around the front door today, which explains all the banging and his needing to have the door open occasionally. It does look much better. Even the exposed wood out there now looks better than the faded yellow siding and peeling brown paint from before.)
First thing I did when I got home was look up Microsoft Word to see how expensive the software is now. To my surprise, you can now use it for free online. Almost every job I see wants you to know everything about Word. I haven't used it in years. I never wanted to pay to download it or for the software on disc. I'll look further into this tomorrow.
Did some writing later. The group breaks up when they arrive at the Nottingham Fair. Thomas and Artoo will scan the crowds for the Sheriff and his minions. Luke and Yoda will keep the Sheriff busy, while Leia does the same with the Prince Palpatine. Han intends to enter the contest for the Golden Arrow and win. He's certain he can do so without being noticed...but Lando-a-Dale seems a bit worried about something...
Broke for dinner at 6:30. Watched the next Buck Rogers episode while I ate that salmon cake with roasted broccoli and salad with home-made honey mustard dressing for dinner. "A Dream of Jennifer" goes further into Buck's life in the 20th Century and is a tad bit darker than previous episodes in the series. Buck thinks he sees his former girlfriend from the 20th century and follows her to "City By the Sea" (aka New Orleans). What she's really doing is luring him into a trap set by aliens who want him to attack freighters that are transporting weapons to a rival colony. Buck refuses, until they threaten the girl. It takes help from Wilma, Twiki, and Dr. Theopolis to make him understand that, while we can't go back, we can figure out to live our lives in the best possible way now.
"Space Rockers" goes 180 degrees in the opposite direction, from semi-serious for a space opera to ridiculously goofy, even for a space opera. The wildly popular rock music by the group Andromeda seems to turn teenagers into machines of destruction whenever they have concerts on their worlds. Buck heads to a former space station-turned-broadcasting station to find out how their manager (Jerry Orbach) is managing to send subliminal messages through their music.
Switched to playing Angry Birds Star Wars after dinner. The second world, the Death Star, adds Pilot Luke Skywalker (who splits into three birds) and Chewbacca (who is big enough to slam through anything, including metal that the other birds can't penetrate) to the mix. There were some really tough rounds, especially in space. One round had magnetic pieces that kept attracting my Obi-Wan birds and wouldn't let them blast through. I must have restarted that round thirty times before I finally figured it out.
Finished the night with the short romantic comedy-drama The Girl From 10th Avenue. Miriam Brady (Bette Davis) finds herself saddled with drunk rich boy Geoffrey Sherwood (Ian Hunter) after he sees his former sweetheart Valentine (Katherine Alexander) get married to someone else. Two of his buddies offer her 100 dollars to keep an eye on him, which somehow ends up with the two of them married after they get plastered together. They decide to make a go of things with the help of their landlady, former Florodora Girl Mrs. Martin (Alison Skipworth). Their marriage works out surprisingly well, until Valentine decides she wants Geoff back. Miriam isn't going to take this lying down and ends up in a well-publicized fight with Valentine in a restaurant. Now Geoff has to decide which woman he really wants...and if he wants to return to his previous life of rich aimlessness.
My favorite thing about this one was Skipworth, who was quite funny as the seen-it-all-twice landlady. Otherwise, this was mainly for fans of Davis or the romantic shopgirl-makes-good movies of the Depression era.
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