Return to Manor Avenue

Slept in a bit longer than I have been lately. I needed it, after my long day yesterday. Got up in time for breakfast and Split Second. Once again, the champ dominated the competition...at least until the speed round, when one of the women answered several questions faster than he did. He finally got in enough to win. Still couldn't get the car, though, so he's coming back. A father and his daughter in-law were the big winners on Blockbusters, but they couldn't get through the Gold Rush round.

Spent the next few hours online. Finally announced Dad's death on Facebooks, then called Comcast to cancel my account with them. I'm using the internet at Jodie's house. It'll end on the 31st. I just need to get to UPS to send the box back.

It was 1:30 before I got to a Summer Fruit Smoothie for lunch. Had it while watching Classic Concentration. A young woman got the matching rounds pretty easily, before she had much time to amass a lot of prizes. She managed to make enough matches to get the car with literally no time to spare.

I called Rose earlier in the morning. She said she was going with Dana and her children to have Dad cremated. She did ask if I wanted to go, but I wasn't really up to it. I don't think Jessa went, either. From the sound of things, there was already going to be a lot more people around than there should have been as it was.

Opted to start cleaning the Manor Avenue apartment on my own instead. It rained hard this morning, but though the rain subsided by noon, it remained cloudy and killer humid. The rain thankfully waited to start again until I was just a block from my other place.

Turned off the refrigerator to defrost it, then scrubbed the bathroom and kitchen as best I could. The mildew stains on the bathtub caulking and shower tiles and around the kitchen sink are so bad, I can't get them off with anything. Can't get them off the toilet, either. Discovered while scrubbing under the kitchen sink that a pipe in the back leaked and left yet another stain.

Rounded up a few things to take home that I wouldn't need in the milk crate, including the toilet bowl cleaner and most of the dust rags. I probably won't need the whole container. Missed a soup can when I cleared out the pantry. Stopped briefly and told Charlie about the leaky pipe as he worked on his front yard.

I was going to write, but I was so tired by the time I got home, I eventually gave up and opted for Match Game and leftovers for dinner. Glad I did. The first Match Game episode was one of my favorites. Gene complained that everyone on the upper desks matched the contestant in the first round and couldn't play, so the folks on the lower tier pretended to be panelist above them. As funny as Richard Dawson was as Brett Somers, the ladies he was between outshown him. Jo Ann Pflug made a hilarious Dick Gautier, and Fannie Flagg was an absolutely perfect Charles Nelson Reilly.

Made Peanut Butter No-Bake Cookies during the second Match Game episode. I only had crunchy peanut butter, so this batch had nuts in them. Yum. They seemed to be pretty tasty when I was dishing them onto the cookie sheets.

It was a seesaw battle on Sale of the Century. Neither of the women would give an inch, and they were back and forth the whole show. It came down to a tie question in the end that one of the women just barely got. Like the previous champ, she still didn't manage to make it through the bonus round, though.

Finished the night online after a much-needed shower with Return to Oz on Disney Plus. Dorothy (Fairuza Balk) has tried to tell her uncle and aunt about Oz, but they don't believe her stories. They send her to a mental institution, where the doctor (Nicol Williamson) thinks his electrotherapy machine will help her sleep at nights. One little girl knows better and frees Dorothy, allowing them to escape. Dorothy ends up in a chicken coop in the river, floating into Oz with her talking chicken Billina (voice of Denise Bryer). It's not the Oz that she (or many kids who know this story) are familiar with, though. The Emerald City is in ruins, with its emeralds gone and everyone turned to stone. Dorothy makes some new friends, including sweet Jack Pumpkinhead (Brian Henson) and mechanical soldier Tik Tok (Sean Barrett), who help her find The Nome King (Williamson), dodge the wicked witch Mombi (Joan Marsh), and return the glitter and magic to Oz.

Considering how scary this one gets, you'd think it would have freaked me out when it debuted in 1985. Far from it. I've been fascinated by it since it's debut. For all my dislike of jump scares and bloody horror, I do have a taste for the macabre. It's probably way too dark for little ones who are familiar with the MGM musical or some animated retellings, but older kids and teens who share my taste for dark fantasy may get a kick out of the creepy stop-motion special effects, lush score by David Shire, and excellent performances, especially by Balk and Williamson.