Thursday, March 20, 2014

Welcome to Springtime

The first day of spring began partly cloudy and very windy. I worked on The Mummy's Case and wrote in my journal, then had breakfast. Ran another Rankin/Bass Easter special, Here Comes Peter Cottontail, as I ate. The first Rankin/Bass Easter tale shows what happens when the title character (Casey Kasem) oversleeps on Easter day and loses his Chief Easter Bunny status to nasty Irontail (Vincent Price). He has to travel through a year's worth of holidays to deliver his eggs and evade Irontail, with the help of eccentric narrator Seymour S. Sassafras (Danny Kaye) and caterpillar pilot Antoine (also Kaye).

I really didn't have much planned for today, nor did I really want to have much planned, considering how busy my week's been. I did volunteer at the Oaklyn Library, mainly because I didn't get to volunteering there last week. They had re-organized the children's books again, clearing out more older books and putting ones with similar themes (holiday books, storybooks) together. I mostly concentrated on the adult and child DVDs and the board books. There were several new adult DVDs that needed to have their stickers removed and be brought up to the main desk (where recently released DVDs are now kept). The board books were a mess - I had to almost completely re-arrange those shelves.

I rode around Oaklyn a little after that. A stop at CVS revealed that they'd pulled out their Easter candy, but didn't provide much else I couldn't live without. Picked up a turkey hoagie and a small bag of Pretzel Chips at WaWa.

While the sun was warmer than it has been, the heavy wind made it feel chilly, and the sun kept going in and out. Other than sweeping the porch briefly, I did nothing else outside today. Watched an episode of Tales of the Gold Monkey during my hoagie lunch. Jake Cutter transports a "High Stakes Lady" who wants to take part in a big poker game on an Oriental island to their casino, but it turns out that big bucks is far from the only thing she's after. When Jake is attacked by a group of Japanese men who turn out to be spies, he begins to realize that this poker-faced beauty is playing for far higher stakes.

I spent the next few hours online, doing the first lesson in my online communications course. So far, so good. I just had to take a quiz and write what my goals are for class and for communicating better. Simply put, I want to learn to get around my shyness and fear of authority and try to figure out how to talk to and empathize with people better. I'll never get the kind of job I want or the kind of life I want if I don't learn how to handle interviews and be more assertive and confident.

I next decided to go through the dolls' clothes and do some re-arranging, especially now that they have more things coming. I finally decided that the coats took up too much room on the dolls' pewter clothes rack and moved them to the box Whitney came in. Pajamas were moved to a large vintage box that once held Josefina's Feast-Day Outfit. Out-of-season separates were moved to the box Samantha came in. (Yes, I still have Sam's original box, in pretty decent condition, too. Jessa didn't have the boxes for Felicity and Molly, and the box the doll Jess came in had been crunched so badly, I finally decided it wasn't worth keeping.)

I changed the dolls into lighter outfits for Easter and spring. Samantha looks quite elegant in her pink and white Tea Dress with the big Bertha collar. Jessa wears the late 90s Birthday Outfit with the purple fruit-print jumper and t-shirt. Felicity also wears a birthday outfit, in this case her Pink Spring Dress and Pinner Apron. It's too cold for Molly's sleeveless Birthday Pinafore - she went in her Polka-Dot Outfit instead. Whitney's temporarily sporting the yellow floral Queen's Treasure dress I bought off eBay - she'll be going into the pink dress from Kit's Candy Making Set as soon as it arrives. (Though I will admit the headband from the Queen's Treasures dress looks awfully cute holding back Whitney's curls. I might have to find or make her some more headbands like that.) I left Josefina in her Feast Day Finery. It looks so pretty on her, and I really don't have much else to change her into.

Put on The Rocketeer as I made leftover steak and Brussels sprouts sauteed in honey-wine-butter sauce for dinner, with Dark Chocolate Chip Muffins for dessert. I love this 1991 adaptation of the comic book series of the same name. The title character is Cliff (Bill Campbell), a pilot in 1938 who discovers a secret jet pack hidden in a hanger. With the help of his friend Peevy (Alan Arkin), he gets the jet pack working, rescuing a friend from an accident at an airshow. While the rest of Los Angeles tries to discover the identity of "The Rocketeer," Cliff tries to find out who wants the jet pack and rescue his girlfriend Jenny (Jennifer Connelly) from smarmy movie star Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton). Sinclair turns out to be a lot more dangerous than either suspects...

I love this marvelous, old-fashioned adventure tale. If you're a fan of square-jawed 30s heroics, "diesel punk" science fiction, or tales of manly men and smart women doing battle on incredible inventions out of Flash Gordon, this is highly recommended.

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