Shadow In the Rain

Began the morning with early work. It was gloomy and gray when I headed to the Acme, but not raining. The rain didn't show up until around 10, and then, it was only showering lightly. By noon, the shower had picked up, and so did our customers. We were swamped for most of the afternoon. With the Eagles playing at 8:20 and the weather not appropriate for anything else, people had the time to do major shopping.

I was frantic! The carts kept vanishing, no matter how hard I tried to keep them full. There was no help, either. Both the late morning and afternoon baggers called out, likely not wanting to work in the rain. And I had to do the overflowing outside trash and recycling and sweep the store, too. The rain had also picked up by 2 PM, turning into a heavy shower. I rode home and got soaked.

(The shower has continued, sometimes hard, for the rest of the day.)

As soon as I got in, I changed into dry clothes, then went right to bed. Between the early morning and how busy we were, I was dead tired. Despite the chattering downstairs, I slept from 2:30 until nearly quarter of 5 and felt at least a little better afterwards.

Worked on writing as soon as I was awake enough. Charles suggests they take Bill the wolf into town with them to find out who cursed him. Gary, meanwhile, has decided he wants to help Little Sarah Riding Hood home. Richard agrees to it, as long as he returns to his own home afterwards.

Broke for dinner at 6:30. Had Jodie's chicken tortellini soup while listening to two of my favorite episodes of the classic radio thriller The Shadow. "The Temple Bells of Nibung" can be rung by a snake charmer who is running a drug cartel and has kidnapped the son of the police commissioner. The bells could reveal the Shadow's true identity, if Lamont doesn't stop her before they ring!

"The Bride of Death" is a spookier tale. A wealthy elderly woman has been taken in by a cult who claims to be "The Temple of the Ancient Ones" and know the secret of eternal life. The Shadow not only has to rescue the woman's secretary from being sacrificed at the alter, but save his own assistant Margo Lane, too.

Ended the night with the Eagles-Cowboys game on the radio. I wish I hadn't. The game was awful. The Eagles just could not get anything going and eventually lost 37-10.