Wednesday, March 04, 2020

Matches and Hedgehogs

Began a sunny morning with breakfast and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood on PBS Kids. The Tiger family takes their youngest member to the clock factory for "Margaret's First Chime Time." On the way, they encounter Katerina Kittycat and her mother Henrietta, who share a tea party and dance together. "Tiger Family Fun" takes them to the Enchanted Garden to pick strawberries. After they encounter Music Man Stan, Lady Elaine, and Miss Elaina picking blueberries, they opt to put their fruit together and have blueberry-banana pancakes for dinner with fruit skewers for dessert.

Work got really crazy for a Wednesday. It's the beginning of the month, and many of our customers are taking advantage of big sales while they can. I did manage to round up carts and baskets and the inside trash, but not much else. They kept calling me into the register.

Hurried out as soon as possible. Though it remained windy, the rain disappeared overnight, and the sun felt wonderful. Took the long way down Nicholson Road to enjoy the warmth a little more, given it's supposed to drop back into the 40's by the weekend. Dodged some late-lunch traffic until I got into Oaklyn; most people there were likely still in work or school.

Changed and had lunch, then switched to scrubbing the kitchen. Watched more Hart to Hart on the Roku Channel while I worked. They have to "Cruise at Your Own Risk" when they learn Johnathan's cruise line's been hit by jewelry thieves. The duo pose as a Southern bigwig and his diamond-toting mistress to ferret out the thieves. Meanwhile their housekeeper Max, who is pretending to be a rich Italian, romances a sweet widow from Brooklyn.

Ran a bunch of Match Game episodes while finishing the kitchen and vacuuming. Started off with the last episode of 1975 as Gene, his regulars, Dick Martin, Fannie Flagg, and Richard Dawson's then-girlfriend Jody Donovan celebrated with fancy hats and a slightly inebriated Charles dragging in a giant "Match Game 75" balloon. New Year's Day 1976 saw the first jokes about that year's Bicentennial. Broadway songwriter Marvin Hamlisch and Isobel Sanford from The Jeffersons joined in for the next episode. A strange answer on an Audience Match inspired Hamlisch to write a song called "Fog Cloud."

Rose called as I vacuumed the bedroom. I texted her earlier about the new rent agreement. Frankly, I want out. I'm not living over a nice little old lady and raking her yard anymore. I should have moved out ages ago. Turns out the rent is for month-to-month, rather than a full year. My landlady can ask me to leave at any time, but I can also leave on my own at any time. I didn't even see anything in the rambling 8-page rental agreement about giving her notice. The agreement mostly boiled down to variations on "don't make noise, don't hurt the apartment, and we're not responsible if you do." It also claims she's going to convert the heat and stove to electric, which I'll have to pay for...but she claimed that on last year's lease, and it never happened. Supposedly, it'll happen this month.

(It also claimed that the apartment was rented unfurnished. It was furnished when I moved in. I like the sturdy little vintage table that holds my TV, VCR, and Wii and would have asked if I could keep it anyway and am willing to keep the dresser until I can find something better. I don't need the rack in the back or the two huge wardrobes. I need to figure out what to do about those.)

Did some more research after I got the cleaning done, then worked on writing. Malade orders Sir Gautier to carry Brett off. She's hold his fellow trolls, including his protege Sir Walden, hostage in the dungeon. Angry, Marcia runs over to bargain with her before Gene can stop her...

Finished out the night during dinner with two episodes of the 1993 cartoon The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog in honor of the movie currently in theaters. The plot here is pretty simple, as per the original Sega Genesis games. Sonic (Jaleel White) and his fox buddy Tails (Christopher Welch) spend most of their time outrunning evil mad scientist Dr. Robotnik (Long John Baldry) and his hench-bots Scratch (Phil Hayes), Grounder (Garry Chalk), and Coconuts (Ian James Corlett).

We learn how Robotnik came to make his mooks for the "Super Special Sonic Search & Smash Squad." He needed better bounty hunters to catch freedom fighters Sonic and Tails, so he made them himself...but all they do is fight with each other and with fellow robotic bounty hunter Coconuts. Sonic and Tails go underground in "Subterranean Sonic" when they inadvertently invade the caves made by selfish mole Spleunk. Not only do they have to convince him that they care nothing about his diamonds, but Robotnik's robots are on their trail, too.

I thought most cartoons stopped using the "moral of the day" segments by the 90's, but this show ends with "Sonic Says." In the first episode, he admonishes Tails to save calling 911 for real emergencies. "Subterranean Sonic" ends with Sonic admonishing Spelunk and Tails to share their lunches.

My memories of this show go back to the mid-90's, when Grandma Ann gave Keefe a big stuffed Sonic for his birthday one year. Since we didn't have Sega at the time, the one Adventures video at our local mom and pop video store gave him his only chance to see the lightning-fast hedgehog in action. We rented that video constantly through the late 90's. Keefe was devastated when they finally sold that video (and not to us). This is the first time I've seen it since then.

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