I began a cloudy and cool day with more horror-themed cartoons. (Figured they were appropriate with the weather. "The Return of the Acme Acres Zone" is one of the strangest episodes Tiny Toon Adventures ever did. "Real Kids Don't Eat Broccoli" is a parody of Blade Runner, with detective Buster tracking down Babs' runaway droid. "Boo Ha Ha" has Hamton and Plucky on the run from a goofy ghost in a spooky haunted hotel. "Duck Dodgers Jr." marks the only appearance of Marvin the Martian and his protege Marsha on the show. Plucky is Daffy's eager young space cadet, who helps his idol figure out who is sucking up objects from the universe and turning them into blocks.
Headed out around 9:30. I had a lot that I wanted to do in a short time, starting with a quick run to the Collingswood Farm Market. They're down to their last two months, and as such, are starting to wind down. Several booths were missing and likely gone for the season, including the truck with the corn. On the upside, I saw Brussels sprouts for the first time this year and spinach and radishes for the first time since the spring.
Along with small apples and the sprouts, I thought I'd try something different. One of the booths was selling something called mini-Kiwis. They looked like tiny, green, fuzz-less versions of their larger counterparts. I like kiwi, but I rarely buy them, due to the fuzz and them being a pain to slice sometimes. I thought these might be a bit easier to eat.
Along with being the day of the Farm Market, today was also the day of the Collingswood Book Festival. This street fair is devoted to nothing but books and crafts related to books (along with the usual music and push cart food). There was a "teen territory" tent set up for discussions of young adult books and another devoted to poetry. A side street was marked off as a kids' area, with coloring tables and two circles where storytellers read Green Eggs and Ham to older children and The Very Hungry Caterpillar to toddlers.
I made my first and favorite find at a cart of old Collingswood Library books being given out for free in front of the kids' area. There were several Star Wars Expanded Universe novels among the freebies...including a collection of the first three books in the Jedi Prince series. They aren't very well-regarded by fans now (mainly because they don't match up with the later Legends stories), but I remember loving them when I was in my young teens.
My favorite part of the Book Festival are the used book sales on the end of Haddon Avenue, near the Philly Pretzel Company. This is where I usually make all my best finds. I eventually ended up with:
Original cast of the 1973 Broadway musical Seesaw on LP
Original 1983 novelization of Return of the Jedi, with all its pictures intact. (I've had it for almost 30 years. I read the Cape May Elementary library's copy so often around 1989-1990, the librarian gave it to me. It was already in bad shape then, with the pictures missing and half the book falling off the cracked and peeling spine. Needless to say, it's in even worse shape now.)
Dear America: One Eye Laughing, the Other Eye Weeping
Maple Sugar For Windy Foot - Apparently the third novel of a series of books from the 1940's and 50's about a farming family in New England. I'm not normally into horse stories, but my friend Linda Young has often mentioned them, and I thought the maple sugar gathering theme here seemed interesting. Linda has a page that can tell you more about it.
Two slender dessert and cake/cookies cookbooks from the late 70's
The historical romance Swing Shift and the Oscar-winning musical The Great Ziegfeld on DVD (the latter to eventually review for my Musical Dreams blog).
(I also found the American Girl book Changes for Molly, but it turns out I already had it.)
Rushed home as soon as I finished with my purchases. I put everything away, ate yogurt and Cranberry Flummery, changed, and raced back out. I had work at noon. I made it right on the dot, in fact.
As it turned out, I spent the majority of the afternoon doing carts. I did gather trash inside and out and returned a few cold items early in the day, but there were other baggers around. I had no problems with this. For one thing, they needed to be done. I'd get them full, and fifteen minutes later, the side of the store would be half-empty again. We were crazy-busy for most of the day. Not only is it still the beginning of the month, but for most people, it's also a holiday weekend. The weather's not exactly conductive to doing much else, either. (Thankfully, it didn't do anything besides sprinkle a little.)
I was so worn out after work, I barely made it to Arby's to eat. I attempted to order a Turkey Club, but my debit card wouldn't go through. I could have sworn I had enough left for a meal! They ended up giving it to me for free. That was so sweet of them, but I'm still a little embarrassed. I don't like drawing attention to myself or not getting things I haven't earned or paid for.
Rushed home as soon as I could. Made chocolate cupcakes from a low-fat recipe I have in a Hershey baking book while watching Cats Don't Dance. I go into this underrated animated musical from 1997 further at my Musical Dreams Reviews blog.
Cats Don't Dance
Finished the night with The Princess and the Pirate, which was the next movie on the disc. Bob Hope plays the cowardly Sylvester the Great, a bad actor who travels around the Caribbean in the 1700s in the hopes of finding an audience that won't pelt him with fruit. He encounters the lovely Margaret (Virginia Mayo) on a boat going to the New World. The boat is attacked by the notorious pirate The Hook (Victor McLaghlan), who wants to ransom her. Sylvester poses as a female gypsy and, with the help of tattoo artist Featherstone (Walter Brennan), manages to escape with the beautiful young woman and a map leading to buried treasure.
They flee to a pirate's stronghold, where they cook up an act at a local tavern to make money. The act is popular, but it also attracts the attention of the corrupt governor La Roche (Walter Slezak). He kidnaps Margaret, and when Sylvester complains, grabs him, too. Featherstone shows up at this point, along with the Hook, who is league with La Roche. Margaret is a princess, who fled an arranged marriage to marry a commoner...and La Roche thinks it's Sylvester. Sylvester is going to have play the role of his life to save Margaret and make sure both their heads stay intact!
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