Monday, September 30, 2019

A Good Day for Baking

Began a cloudy morning with breakfast, then decided I'd try making those Raspberry Oatmeal Bars that came out so well back in May. This time, I used the Smuckers' Fruit and Honey jam as the topping. They came out very crumbly, too much to really handle, but also very sweet and decadent.

Watched episodes of Star Wars: Resistance while I baked. Kaz takes the Fireball to rendezvous with Poe and General Leia Organa. Tam hadn't finished fixing it, and he's lucky the Resistance is able to keep him from crashing. He, Poe, and their droids are sent to follow a First Order flight path. They end up on "Station Theta Black," a mining facility, but end up fighting Phasma and Major Vonreg when they give the orders to destroy the facility and the evidence.

"Bibo" is a slimy little sea critter that Neeku has become attached to. The rest of the crew isn't nearly as fond of him. He eats everything metal, including their tools and parts, smells terrible, and makes a mess. He runs away, but is found by Kel and Eila, the kids from "The Children from Tehar." Eila is upset, predicting that a big "something" is coming after Bibo. When a sea monster attacks the Colossus, the Ace Squadron fights them off...but Kaz and his crush Synara knows what it's really after.

It's "Dangerous Business" when Kaz keeps an eye on Orka and Flix's Acquisitions Shop for the day. Things get ugly when an alien named Teroj Kee comes looking for a certain part. Kaz says he can't have it, but he tricks Kaz into a locked storage container and steals it anyway. It'll take help from BB-8 and Orka and Flix's pet Gorg Bitey to stop the pirate and help Kaz figure out his involvement with the First Order.

"The Doza Dillemma" happens when the Captain's daughter Torra is kidnapped by pirates. Doza has to accept the First Order's protection if he wants to see her again. The First Order seemingly "rescues" the girl, but Kaz is suspicious of their intentions.

Trouble with the First Order boils over when "The First Order Occupation" comes to the Colossus. Kaz gets nervous when the stormtroopers ask him and Yeager a few too many questions. Despite his worries, he still helps pirate spy Synara escape the ship and return to her clan.

The kids are the ones who come across "The New Trooper" and knock him out. Kaz steals his armor and discovers to his horror that the First Order intends to take over the Colossus and use it for a resupply station. He has to get the information to Yeager, then get the armor back to its real owner without getting caught.

Poe and Kaz discover that "The Core Problem" is the First Order has somehow made a sun vanish, destroyed several planetoids, and drilled through another planet. The two and their droids land on an abandoned moon, whose population was destroyed...except one probe droid, who reveals the boys' location. They just barely manage to escape TIE fighters before Poe heads off to Jakku. Kaz returns to the Colossus with a different droid. He has a lame excuse as to where BB-8 is, but Tam is starting to get suspicious...

Headed out for a walk after the bars were out of the oven and I'd gone through my journals in the back room. It was gray, cloudy, and cool, but that was certainly an improvement over the heat we've had recently. The gardens are blossoming with mums, marigolds, and late roses, but the lawns are showing the relative lack of rain of late with dry, yellow grasses.

I was mainly out for a stroll to the Oaklyn Library. At 1 PM, they were quite empty. It was just the librarians and me, listening to reports on the hot weather elsewhere on the Weather Channel. I organized the DVDs, looked over the children's books, and moved on.

After a short stroll around the neighborhood, I returned to my apartment for a quick lunch. After I ate, I went into cleaning the bathroom. It really needed to be done, despite my having not been around for a week this month. The tub was especially grungy, probably from those couple of baths I took a few weeks ago.

Ran Johnny English Reborn for the rest of the afternoon. Johnny English (Rowan Atikson) has been training in Tibet after the newly-elected president of Mozambique died on his watch. He's joined by young, eager assistant Colin Tucker (Daniel Kaluuya) as they search for Vortex, a group of spies-turned-assassins who destroyed English's previous mission. English keeps finding the spies and their three keys that open a weapon, only to see them murdered by a little Asian cleaning woman (Pik-Sem Lim). The second spy lives long enough to reveal that there's a third turncoat spy...within MI7 itself. English doesn't believe who it is at first, allowing the mole to escape. With the help of psychologist Kate Sumner (Rosamund Pike) and footage of the Mozambique incident, he discovers how Vortex is controlling the killers. Now he has to evade the turncoat spy and that Killer Cleaner long enough to prove to everyone what Vortex is really after.

Wacky spy spoof benefits from Atikson's antics as the impossibly naive spy, even if the story isn't the most inspired. If you love Bond satire or Atikson, you'll want to give this one a look.

Did some writing after I finished the bathroom and the movie ended. To Brett's horror, the producer turns into a devil before her very eyes. Other devils run out and attack the others, grabbing the other two women and dragging Charles from Richard. Brett demands that Ira release them, but he has other plans...

Broke for dinner at 6:30. With the cool weather continuing, I figured I could get away with baked chicken legs. Tried a recipe for "deluxe" red cabbage and apples from the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook. Didn't add the gingersnap pieces called for, but it otherwise came out absolutely delicious, nice and sweet and very purple-red. Had it with roasted broccoli. Yum! It all came out very well, with juicy chicken and sweet cabbage and apples.

Finished the night with three episodes of Get Smart. 99 and Max end up on the "Island of the Darned" when they hit a jungle island in search of the hunter who killed and stuffed a CONTROL agent. The hunter decides to turn things around and hunt them. They try to evade him, but it takes a puff from a very lethal cigarette to really get rid of him. "Bronzefinger" is an art thief who could be one of three art restorers at a local museum...if someone wasn't knocking them off one by one. A beautiful debutante wants to give Max the "Kiss of Death" for killing her father, but she's prepared for her intoxicating charms.

No comments: