Friday, January 05, 2018

Ain't We Got Fun

Brr! Gusty winds blew up sparkling ice crystals on my porch as I had muffins and pineapple for breakfast. Watched another snow-themed Max & Ruby episode as I ate. We weren't the only ones who were snowed in yesterday. "Max's Snow Day" has Ruby coming up with various activities for her and her brother to enjoy when the snow's too blustery to play in. Max would just rather go outside. After hearing about the Abominable Snow Bunny on the radio, Max has to find out of "Max's Snow Bunny" is real. His sister's more interested in making snow angels. "Max's Mix-Up" happens when he switches places with Morris in order to continue sledding.

Spent the rest of the morning writing. The man BB found is Han Shaftoe, Mother Leia Goose's husband who was supposedly lost at sea. Several of Barnaby's men wrecked his beloved ship the Falcon and kidnapped him. Kylo Ren wants him to reveal the location of the deed for his share of the Toy Factory, but he's refused to tell them. BB steals the keys from the sleeping troll and frees Han from his bonds. Chewie's so happy to see his master, he lets out a noisy bark...that could wake up that troll...

Broke for lunch at 1. Ran a few more winter-themed Scooby Doo episodes while eating chicken soup with Star Wars-shaped pasta for lunch. It's "A Scary Night for a Snow Beast Fright" when they head up to Alaska to respond to a distress call from a professor friend. They arrive to find that the professor's vanished, along with all the Inuit in the village near-by. A huge dinosaur-like snow-beast scared them off. While the kids try to figure out what it's after, Scooby flirts with a pretty sled dog.

"Alaskan King Coward" remains up north, but cuts to later in the 1970's. Scooby, Scrappy, and Shaggy are gold-hunting in the Klondike. They accidentally free another dinosaur-like monster from its resting place. Shaggy and Scooby would love to avoid it, but Scrappy thinks it's after their claim and keeps baiting it.

It was so cold today, Dad drove me to and from work. Considering the temperatures in the lower 10's, I'm surprised we were so busy. I cleaned registers for the first hour, but it got so bad, they put me in a register until break.

I had some problems doing carts later. Not because I was out for too long this time. I'd go into the lobby or inside to do cold returns whenever  my knees started to freeze. Whomever plowed our parking lot (and the ones in the mall in back of us) did a terrible job. There were piles of snow everywhere, including blocking the corrals, and packed, icy snow on the blacktop. It took forever for me to round up carts that in some cases had nowhere to go and had been left in snow drifts on the lot. It got so bad, they finally pulled me inside for good and had me spend my last half-hour doing a full cart of returns.

Got my schedule when I arrived. For once, I'm glad my hours were cut back to what they usually are. I really need the time to myself after how crazy the last few weeks have been. I do wish my first day off was earlier than Thursday, but I have Thursday and next Saturday off, and one one evening shift.

When I got home, I had the last of the leftover New Year's ham and potatoes for dinner. Ran By the Light of the Silvery Moon while I ate. We return to the home of the Winfield family a year later to find that Marjorie (Doris Day) has started working as a mechanic while her fiancee Bill (Gordon MacRae) is still away in World War I. She's disappointed to find that he wants to earn a nest egg before they get married, but finally decides that he has a point and she'll wait. Her brother Wesley is having his own problems. First, he gets attached to the turkey they're keeping for Thanksgiving and is devastated when his father says he'll have to go. A few weeks later, he finds a paper in his father's jacket that he assumes is a love note to a French actress. He shows it to Marjorie, who gets upset and now refuses to marry Bill, claiming she can't leave her mother. It all comes out on the night of their parents 20th anniversary at the local skating pond, when they discover what the actress really wanted with that paper.

Ok follow-up to On Moonlight Bay is more-or-less the same deal...though Marjorie and Bill's constant flip-flopping over getting married gets a little annoying after a while. Otherwise, if you enjoyed the first movie or other nostalgic musicals, you'll probably like this one as well. 

Finished out the night with Annie. The 1983 version of the hit Broadway musical begins with the title character (Aileen Quinn) breaking out of a New York orphanage to find her parents. She doesn't succeed, but she does befriend a scruffy dog named Sandy. They get back just in time to be adopted for a week by Grace Farrell (Ann Renniking), the secretary of billionaire Oliver Warbucks (Albert Finney). Cranky, workaholic Warbucks only wanted to adopt an orphan to boost his image...but he ends up becoming fond enough of spunky Annie to want to take her in permanently. Meanwhile, Miss Hannigan, the alcoholic head of the orphanage (Carol Burnett), her brother Rooster (Tim Curry), and his girlfriend Lily (Bernadette Peters) hatch their own scheme to get their hands on Annie and Warbucks' big money.

I've always loved this movie, ever since it came out. (Mom told me that Annie and Return of the Jedi were the first live-action movies she took Rose and me to see in theaters.) Critics have always had problems with the cast, director John Huston, and the deviations the film took from its source material (though they have let up a little on this since the 2014 Annie deviated even further), but I think it's a lot of fun. My only major complaint is that the big rescue scene in the last 20 minutes feels completely out of line with the rest of the movie. Otherwise, if you or your own "little girls" are fans of musicals or rags-to-riches stories, this is absolutely worth checking out. 

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