Getting Ready for Spring

As soon as I had breakfast, I went right into dusting the apartment. It wasn't really that bad, but it had to be done. After I finished that, I pulled out the spring and St. Patrick's Day decorations. Most of what I have for St. Patrick's Day are cardboard cutouts of shamrocks and animals dressed as leprechauns. I also have a tinsel garland I picked up from Dollar Tree a few years ago and a shamrock-print Beanie Baby bear I found at a yard sale. Spring decorations include two small baskets of flowers (one actually came with one of Samantha's limited-edition outfits), a wreath draped with artificial lilacs that went on the front door, and two yellow wooden tulips with green raffia ribbon I hang on the knobs of the cookbook cabinet and a flower-print tin that I got from Mom when she cleared out her seasonal items a few years ago.

Ran the first two episodes of The Man from Atlantis while I worked. This short-lived show was apparently based on a series of TV movies made early in 1977 (which, unfortunately, do not come with this set). The title character is a young man named Mark Harris (Patrick Duffy) who has super-strength and the ability to swim like a fish, among other super powers. The show picks up with "Melt Down." A machine is using powerful microwaves to melt the polar ice caps and flood the world. Mr. Schubert (Victor Buono), a rich old industrialist who seems to be obsessed with Mark, claims he'll trade him for stopping the machine. But of course, he has no intention of keeping his word...

Schubert's back in "The Mudworm." This time, he's sabotaged an underwater computer, forcing it to sink ships and do his bidding. As it turns out, Mark can not only talk to water creatures, but computers as well...and he has to convince it to end the destruction.

Hurried off to work as soon as I finished with the decorations. Other than ending up in the register again briefly right after break, there were no problems all day. I spent the first half outside, gathering carts and the trash and recycling, and the second half bagging and shelving candy and the few returns that were around. We were quiet for most of the day, and never more than a little steady. Nice weather may have been one cause. While it was once again very windy, it was sunny and fairly warm when you could dodge the wind.

Picked up a few things after work. I mainly needed toilet paper; I just ran out. Grabbed the last of that Smucker's Natural Orange Marmalade off the clearance shelf. I love that stuff. Needed thin pads, and I fished You Only Live Twice (one of the Bond films that I never finalized, and thus, doesn't work with my current DVD player) out of the 5 dollar DVD bins.

Did research on classic movie blogs when I got home, then worked on some writing. Leia manages to dodge Vader long enough to arrive at one of the apartment buildings in Yavin Park, the Coruscant City equivalent of Greenwich Village in New York or South Street in Philadelphia. She finds a familiar pair working on the plumbing in the communal bathroom, handyman and plumber Rudy Detonski and his nervous translator friend Charlie. Rudy is the repair man and go-to gadgeteer genius of the Rebel League, and Leia wouldn't trust anyone else with delivering the precious tapes...

Broke for dinner at 6:30. Had the last of the leftover hamburger pie and green beans, then made Chocolate Chip Muffins while finishing out the Man from Atlantis disc. "The Hawk of Mu" is a strange hawk statue Mark discovers underground while investigating a power outage. To his surprise, the statue seems to be the cause of the outages, as it can suck the power from the area around it. He has to keep it from falling into Schubert's hands, with the help of his spunky daughter.

Finished the night with Singin' In the Rain after a shower. I go into more detail on what's likely the most beloved original movie musical of all time at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.

Singin' In the Rain