It was still sunny when I rolled out of bed this morning. Started off my day with reading in honor of Father's Day and Flag Day on Friday from the Colliers Harvest of Holidays book. While I enjoyed the two stories about Betsy Ross and the women who made the flag that flew over Baltimore in 1814 and inspired "The Star Spangled Banner," my favorites were the Father's Day pieces. The first story was a very sweet and simple short about a dad who takes his little girl outside on a hot summer night to get her to go to sleep. The second is an excerpt from the biography Cheaper By the Dozen that has Mr. Gilbreath forming his 12 children into a committee to do chores and buy supplies.
Made Blueberry Pancakes while watching more Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers. "A Creep In the Deep" is stealing fish from restaurants and cargo boats. The Rangers discover that the raids are lead by Captain Fin and his crew, who restored a submarine and filled it with water so they can steal on land. The Captain thinks he's setting the fish free, including a star whale...but not all of them are so eager to leave their homes or show business.
Moved to "Normie's Science Project" while cleaning up from breakfast. Normie is Professor Nimnul's equally obnoxious nephew, who has swiped his uncle's "sound amplifier" for a school science fair. Turns out it does a lot more than impress teachers. It can level whole cities. The Rangers have to get the record it uses back to it's original owner, Normie's rival at the fair.
"Seer No Evil" has a gypsy moth fortune teller at a fair claiming that Chip will die within the next 24 hours. Chip thinks it's a load of hogwash, but when her predictions seem to come true, the others try to keep him from getting hurt and still solve the case of a monkey and a game barker who use the game prizes to rob the homes of wealthy fair goers.
Headed out to run a few errands around noon. The day had become a bit cloudy while I was finishing breakfast. I even felt a few sprinkles of rain as I headed down Manheim to Dad and Jodie's house to wish Dad a happy Father's Day. Jessa was also there when I arrived. I was able to give Dad his card and a hug, and the four of us talked for a while. They'd had Rose and her brood over the day before. Evidently, Finley has now decided she doesn't need anyone's help to swim and will stubbornly jump in without her mother's help. They said she's all over everything at once, grabbing at things.
Jessa drove me to Dollar General, which was my next stop. I was out of dishwashing liquid, and I badly needed underwear. Treated myself to one of the tasty pecan logs that only they sell.
The rain was long gone and the sun was out by the time I strolled back to Oaklyn. I had lunch at Phillies Phatties. It was past 2 by then; not surprisingly, the only people there were me, the cooks, and Freeform on TV. Enjoyed a slice of white broccoli, a slice of tomato basil mozzarella, and a can of Vanilla Pepsi. (I had no idea Pepsi revived their vanilla flavor. Considering I'm a big fan of Vanilla Coke, I'll more than happily take Pepsi's version too.)
The clouds were starting to gather as I hurried home, and though it was still a bit cool, it was also windy and very humid. Spent the next few hours writing. Luke separates from the others to check out something he saw at a cave in one of the snow-covered mountains. He no sooner lands to check it out than he's knocked out...and it's not by a huge yeti-like creature, but something far more human...
Broke for dinner at 6. I wasn't really that hungry and stuck to having a chocolate banana smoothie for dinner. Continued Rescue Rangers while I ate. The Rangers are "Chipwrecked Shipmunks" when they're stranded on a deserted island. Dale and Monty find a treasure while looking for supplies and plan to keep it for themselves...until their old friends the Pirats show up, looking for treasure, and a hurricane starts to roll in...
Monty is hailed as a hero by a little Spanish mouse town in "When Mice Were Men." They believed he saved them from a nasty bull. The truth isn't quite as heroic as they think. Monty has to find his inner courage when the bull returns, seeking revenge.
Dale has a sweet tooth on a camping trip in "Chocolate Chips." Though Chip scolds him for eating all their snacks, it comes in handy when he's the only one who isn't bitten by drugged mosquitoes that forces locals to cut down cacao trees and turn the chocolate into candy for an insane chocolatier.
It started to rain just as I began dinner. Once again, when it rained, it monsooned. No pyrotechnics this time, but the precipitation was really coming down for a while. (To my knowledge, it's been gone for a while.)
Instead of video games, I switched to Buzzr after dinner. They were preempting their usual weekend re-runs of re-runs with Game Changers, a documentary on game shows. The show was more valuable than its makers could have known at the time. At least three of the men interviewed are no longer with us, including long-time Let's Make a Deal host Monty Hall and TV songwriter and actor Alan Thicke. By the time I got online, they were discussing more recent shows and how they were made. Seeing Pat Sajak and Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune for the first time or Regis Philbin discuss the phenomenal success in the late 90's of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire brought back so many memories. I watched the latter in college (and still occasionally catch it in syndication), and my whole family would gather to watch the former and Jeopardy in the 80's and early 90's.
Finished the night after a shower with more Mary Pickford. Her movies are so short, I managed to squeeze in three. I think my favorite of the bunch was The Poor Little Rich Girl from 1917. The story of a girl who has everything in the world but her parents' attention is a wonderful showcase for Pickford's brand of comedy. My favorite sequence is when she happily turns a broken sink into her own water park, prancing around in the spray, and even letting it hit the resentful maid who wanted her out at one point.
A Little Princess wasn't the most faithful adaption of that particular book (the whole Ali Baba sequence early on just drags things down), but it's saved by an expressive and surprisingly rather pretty ZaSu Pitts. Cinderella was a dreamy adaptation from 1914, with Pickford paired with her then-husband Owen Moore as the prince.
Here's all three if you'd like to give Pickford and her child-like world a try:
The Poor Little Rich Girl
A Little Princess
Cinderella
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