Bread Baking Day

Started off a cloudy morning with early work. Spent it the same way I did yesterday's shift - gathering carts. I never even got to inside sweeping this time. I was alone for almost the entire morning and early afternoon. Another bagger didn't come in until 1:30. Kept up with the carts as best I could. Thankfully, the crowds seemed more off and on then crazy, though I ran into Rose's husband Craig coming out with a bag at one point, and he said it was really busy. While the clouds lingered all day and it got windy later, it was also relatively warm, in the upper 50's, and never rained.

Hurried home as soon as I finished. Changed and had a quick snack, then started the pumpkin bread. For many years, I always brought pumpkin, cranberry, and cinnamon swirl bread to Thanksgiving. I bought Pillsbury bread mixes in college, but after I moved on my own, I started making the pumpkin and cranberry from scratch. The recipe for the pumpkin bread comes from a fall baking pamphlet I picked up at the Acme in Wildwood around 2003. It's a very simple and moist one-bowl recipe I've used for pumpkin bread gifts every year since. It took a little while to bake and did come out a bit dark on the bottom, but it still smelled wonderful in the oven.

Watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles while I worked. Advertising executive Neil Page (Steve Martin) wants badly to go home to Chicago for his family's big Thanksgiving dinner. He thinks it'll be a simple plane ride, but a terrible blizzard strands the plane in Wichita. Neil ends up partnering with a chatty and occasionally annoying shower curtain salesman, Del Griffth (John Candy), to get him home. Del is a very nice and well-meaning man, but he's also a mass of bad habits who drives him crazy. As the two travel across the frozen Midwestern landscape, Neil gradually begins to understand why Del is on the road...and why he has a real reason to be thankful.

Mostly enjoyable adult comedy with career-best performances by Martin and Candy and a few hilarious set pieces, including their confrontation after Del makes a mess in the hotel and the entire sequence with the car on the highway. Even when it makes a sudden left turn into sentimentality towards the end of the film, it's still a lot of fun to watch.

Worked on writing even before the bread was out of the oven. After Malade leaves King Allen to stew in the dungeon, Gene falls back, his magic spent. Brett and Charles get him out into the sun, where Richard and Nipsey greet them. They spent the time lifting money in the marketplace and intend to give it to the poor in the country where Nipsey's cousins live a few miles away. They go to retrieve Donald and his new friend, who are quite enjoying themselves at lunch, and tell him who she really is.

Broke for dinner at 6:30. Had leftovers while watching Molly's Pilgrim. Molly is the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants in the 1980's who are new to the US. She's not at all happy in her new home. The other kids make fun of her old-fashioned clothes, the borscht she brings to lunch instead of peanut butter and jelly, and her strange accent. Her teacher wants the class to make pilgrim and Indian dolls for a Thanksgiving project, but Molly's mother makes a Russian woman. The kids are puzzled at first, until their teacher explains that Molly and her family came to this country for religious freedom...and that makes them pilgrims, too.

Took a desperately needed bath after Molly ended. My legs hurt like heck after two days of non-stop running back and forth with carts. I listened to Christmas jazz, looked over a book of Christmas cake decorating ideas and another on holiday history in the mid-20th century, and enjoyed the relaxation.

Finished the night with Thanksgiving specials on YouTube. Here's a whole bunch to tide you over until the big dinner tomorrow.

Animated Hero Classics: William Bradford
Rankin-Bass: The Mouse on the Mayflower
Nickelodeon Thanksgiving Fest 1989
Care Bear Family: Grams Bear's Thanksgiving Surprise
Casper the Ghost Classic: Do or Diet - Thanksgiving Special
Calvin and the Colonel: Thanksgiving Dinner (B&W)
Saturday Supercade: QBert - Thanksgiving for the Memories
Tex Avery at MGM: Jerky Turkey
The Bernstein Bears Meet Big Paw

If you can't get online tomorrow, I hope you have a safe and happy Thanksgiving with everyone you love!