The sun was still shining brightly when I awoke this morning and switched on the radio. This week's American Top 40 re-run danced back to 1978, when disco was king. Hits that early March included "Lay Down Sally" by Eric Clapton, "I Go Crazy" by Paul Davis, "Emotion" by Samantha Sang, "The Name of the Game" by ABBA, "Just the Way You Are" by Billy Joel, "If I Can't Have You" by Yvonne Elliman, "Happy Anniversary" by The Little River Band, "Peg" by Steely Dan, "Can't Smile Without You" by Barry Manilow, "We Are the Champions" by Queen, "Thunder Island" by Jay Ferguson, the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind by John Williams, and "How Deep Is Your Love," "Night Fever," and "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees.
The Bee Gees' numbers (along with "If I Can't Have You") came off the phenomenally popular Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. "Stayin' Alive" had been #1 for weeks; it was finally knocked out of the top spot that week by one of the biggest hits of the Gibb brothers' younger solo sibling Andy, "Love Is Thicker Than Water."
I finished out Planes while working on this week's grocery list. Disney took over from Pixar to make this tale of a cropduster who wants to fly with planes built for speed in a race around the globe. He begs for training from a downed World War II Navy plane. He won't do it at first, until he sees how determined he is. The cropduster is considered a joke by the other contestants, but first he aids the British plane during an accident, then starts beating them. Trouble is, this low-flying cropduster has a fear of heights he'll have to overcome if he wants to compete with the best...
I heard a lot of bad-mouthing about this one from critics when it came out, but my mom and nephews adored it. I'm going to side with Mom and the boys here - this was really cute. While the story is hardly original and the animation lacks the detail of the Cars films, the characters are funny and the whole thing ends up being quite touching. It's what Cars 2 would have been like if Pixar hadn't felt the need to add the overly-complicated Mater spy subplot. Disney was right in moving this to a theatrical run (it was supposed to go direct to DVD). If you have plane fans in the family of any age, or little boys looking for a good Disney movie, this wound up being the surprise of the winter and is recommended.
The weather was actually quite nice when I headed out to the Acme to do this week's grocery shopping. The sun was shining, the sky was a rich blue, and it was chilly but not nearly as cold as yesterday, probably in the upper 30s. This was probably one of the factors contributing to it being a madhouse at the store. There were long lines even as I arrived at quarter of 10. We're still supposed to be getting snow tomorrow night and Monday too, anywhere from 3 to 8 inches, according to the National Weather Service at press time. It's also the beginning of the month; many people would be doing their big grocery shopping now, no matter what the weather.
Good thing I didn't have a really long list. I was mainly restocking pantry essentials, like sugar, canned tomato sauce, buttermilk, and canned white beans. I also restocked my grapefruit and bananas and picked up a bag of Brussels sprouts for this week's dinners. Got ground chicken and packs of fish fillets on sale. They still have a ton of special edition holiday teas from Christmas on clearance. I decided to try Celestial Seasonings' Sweet Pumpkin Spice.
I'm not terribly happy with my schedule next week. While I do have Tuesday and Friday off (Tuesday for counseling) and only work 4 hours next Saturday, I work 8 hours on Monday and 7 on Wednesday...and Monday is when we're supposed to be hit by that storm! Everyone is either working other jobs, neck-deep in college courses, or on vacation.
There was a message from Rose waiting for me when I got in. She basically wanted to know what to do about the storm. If it's going to be really, really bad (rumors around here say more than a foot), she says she won't be able to drive me, and that I should call out. If it's that bad, I'll walk. (I just wish the store would, you know, CLOSE when there's a blizzard, like every other store in the area.)
I had a quick lunch of leftovers while running more Three Stooges animated shorts. They're harassed by "A Bull For Andamo" when the one they're supposed to be delivering to a bull ring gets loose. The Stooges are "The Tree Nuts" when they protect their forest from the insatiable appetite of a hungry termite. They have to "Stop Dragon Around" in order to stop a mechanical beast from robbing a village. In "Wash My Line," the trio run into trouble when they fall behind on their laundry business and start to mix-up and make a mess of several women's orders. And they wonder "Who's Lion" when the cat in question is delivered to their home, and they have to feed it hamburgers to get it to the zoo.
It was 12:30 when I finally headed out again to run some errands. After a quick stop at my landlord Andrew's house a block away to drop off this month's rent, I strolled to the Oaklyn Library. It was still a beautiful day at this point, sunny and breezy but not as bad as earlier in the week. The library was surprisingly busy; there were several people on the computers, and quite a few kids in the children's area. The children's area was so busy, I concentrated on what little there was to do with the DVDs instead. I ended up taking out four DVDs here, three movies from last summer (Turbo, The Heat, and The Great Gatsby) along with the Warner Archive release of the complete Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show.
I strolled down the White Horse Pike next. My first stop was The House of Fun, the collectibles/junk shop next-door to the former PNC Bank building. They were as filled with toys, books, ancient video games, stuffed animals, t-shirts with animated characters on them, and Hello Kitty products as ever...and for once, with people, too. I'd never seen it so busy in there. I'd also never seen so many young kids in there. Either a lot of kids have birthdays this week, or their parents were trying to find something for them to do before and during the storm. A girl begged for stuffed Care Bears in their original boxes; a boy wanted original 70s-80s Star Wars action figures. I don't think either counted on them being three times their original purchase prices. I ended up with a pile of kids' single book and records (mostly Disney and Strawberry Shortcake) and the video of the serial Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe.
My next stops were fast. I hit Family Dollar for Drano (which I forgot at the Acme; my kitchen sink has been running really slow) and garlic powder. (Couldn't find what I was looking for, which was a snow shovel.) After that, I made an even briefer stop at Dunkin' Donuts for the first Lucky Mint Coolatta of the season. When I got home, I swept all the sticker balls and sticks off the porch, while I can still see the porch.
Despite the still-nice weather, I opted to spend the rest of the afternoon indoors. I finished the positive music project (I'll type it later tonight or tomorrow), then did a short yoga routine to my Bee Gees Greatest Hits LP set. I mostly did sun salutations and whatever I could remember from classes.
I changed the American Girl dolls next. Felicity wears Elizabeth's Summer Gown. (It's green, and it has a quilted petticoat. It says more "spring" than "summer" to me.) Samantha's now in a handmade version of her ice-blue Skating Party Dress. (She's my only doll with no green clothes.) Molly looks adorable in the shamrock-print dress I found at a yard sale a few years ago. Jessa squeezed into an emerald-green tie-front blouse and the jeans from the first "Blue Jeans Basics" set. Whitney's in the green-sprigged turtleneck from the AG Girl Scout Uniform and a pair of overalls I found on eBay. (Josefina stayed in her birthday outfit.)
After I finished with the dolls, I made salmon, Roasted Brussels Sprouts, and Nutmeg Chocolate Chip Muffins for dinner while watching Monsters University.
This prequel to the popular Pixar movie Monsters Inc. also deals with an underdog story, but it goes further into the idea of being an underdog, using our skills, and what we are and aren't built to do. Mike Warkowski (Billy Crystal) has wanted to be a monster who scares and makes energy all his life and goes to the title institution to fulfill his dream. He knows every textbook inside and out, but he's...well, he's a cute little walking eyeball and about as scary as my teddy bears. Jimmy Sullivan (John Goodman), on the other hand, is a huge blue and purple furball and a natural scarer from a family of scarers, but he doesn't bother studying and doesn't know the technical jargon or how to vary his scares. When both get kicked out of the scaring program by the very strict dean (Helen Mirren), they decide that the only way to get back in is through The Scare Games. They join forces with the less-than-frightening members of Oozma Kappa (OK) and discover that, while things don't always go the way we want them or expect them to, when push comes to shove, a real friend is the one who has your back when you're down and an ear open for your troubles.
This, too, was quite a surprise. Anyone who knows even a little about Monsters Inc. can guess the ending (and that poor Mike is in for a world of disappointment). The interesting thing about this one is how it questions and plays with a lot of college movie cliches, from actually showing students in class to an underdog who not only doesn't win, but isn't even really suited for what he's competing in. There's a lot of lighter moments as well, especially from the hilariously goofy members of OK (I especially like many-eyed pink blob Squishy and crazy philosophy student Art). Not quite up to Brave or the Toy Story sequels, but certainly an improvement over Cars 2. Recommended for older kids, Pixar and animations fans, and fans of the first film.
Oh, and around the time I was doing yoga, I noticed that the blue sky had finally been replaced by dark clouds. They still don't look like snow to me, but we'll see what happens.
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