Rainy Holidays

Slept in this morning. I didn't mean to. I just opened my eyes at 10:30. Had breakfast while watching one of the two Christmas episodes of Laverne & Shirley. "Oh Hear the Angel Voices" from the second season has the cast putting on a show for the patients at a mental hospital. Shirley's terrified. She's heard a few too many stories about family members who ended up in mental hospitals. Laverne's too busy flirting with a wealthy patient to worry much.

Rain or no rain, I really didn't feel like sitting inside all day. Besides, I work the rest of the week. I wanted to get to the Oaklyn Library while I had the time. The weather must have scared everyone off. It was just the librarians, the Weather Channel bleating about snow in the Midwest, and me the entire half-hour I was there. I organized the DVDs on both sides, took a look at the picture and board books, and shelved young adult novels.

Since it's only a few blocks from the Library and the rain had slowed somewhat, I strolled over to WaWa for a holiday treat. Decided to try their Eggnog Cream Smoothie. It's not bad. It does taste like eggnog, but it's also a bit watery. I still enjoyed it as I strolled home in the rapidly increasing rain under my umbrella.

Had a quick lunch when I got home, then made my first batch of Christmas cookies of the year. Lauren requested Peanut Butter Cookies instead of chocolate chip in her Christmas box. That's fine by me. I used the same New Fashioned Peanut Butter Cookies recipe I have since 2012. I'd just come off breaking my ankle earlier in the fall and had even less money than usual. The cake mix-based peanut butter cookie recipe I found on the Betty Crocker website was my way of cutting a few corners. The resulting cookie was so delicious, it's been my go-to peanut butter cookie recipe ever since.

Unfortunately, these didn't work out quite as well. They were wonderfully chewy and soft, but the first batch burned on the bottom. At least the second batch turned out all right. I kept the worst ones for myself and will send the rest to Lauren and her parents later this week.

Ran Christmas Eve On Sesame Street while I ate and started the cookies in honor of Caroll Spinney, the long-time voice and puppeteer for Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, who passed away yesterday. Big Bird is upset when Oscar asks him how Santa's able to get down all those skinny New York chimneys in one night and enlists Kermit, Snuffleupagus, and one of the kids to help him figure it out. Meanwhile, Ernie and Bert give up the things that mean the most of them to buy presents for each other, but it's Mr. Hooper who has the biggest surprise of all. Cookie Monster would love to tell Santa what he wants for Christmas, but he keeps eating the writing utensils.

Moved on to another PBS staple, The Cat In the Hat Knows a Lot About Christmas, as I pulled out the cookies and started writing my Christmas cards. Nick and Sally are having fun at the Cat's big Christmas Eve party, but when it's time to go home, Ralph the Reindeer accidentally mistakes Sally's backyard for Freeze-Your-Knees Snowland and gets off at the wrong stop. The Cat, the fish, and the kids try to bring him home, but the Thing-a-Ma-Jigger keeps breaking down. As they make their way across the globe, they learn about the migration patterns of elephants, dolphins, red crabs, and reindeer, and how each group gets together with their families during the winter.

I was still finishing up the cards as The Cat ended and did a quick Rankin Bass special while I rounded up the last of them. The First Christmas Snow is the slightly melodramatic tale of a little shepherd named Lucas who is blinded in a lightning accident. He, his dog, and his sheep are taken in by the kindly nuns of a local parish, including Sister Theresa (Angela Landsbury). The fussy priest (Cyril Ritchard) wants to send him to an orphanage, but the nuns and the kids of the parish have become attached to him. His fondest wish is to at least feel snow on Christmas...and it isn't until the night of the parish Christmas play that he not only gets his wish, but the rest of the parish realize just how important he's become to them.

Worked on writing for several hours after I finished the cards. An old woman emerges from the gingerbread house, offering the trio of weary travelers dinner and a place to sleep for the night. The guys are all for it, but Brett can see that her house is made of black magic and doesn't trust her for an instant. She turns out to be right. She's really her evil stepmother, who locks up the two men in cages, then binds Brett with iron chains and forces her to work as a slave. She wants to fatten Charles for her trolls and marry Richard, but Brett has a plan...

Broke for dinner at quarter after 7. Ran two episodes of Good Eats on fruit often consumed during the Christmas season as I ate roasted broccoli and the last of the hot dogs and leftover Chinese rice for dinner. Cranberries were just beginning to be considered a nutritional powerhouse when these episodes came out in the mid-2000's. Alton shows how they can be turned into home-made cranberry sauce, granita, and Cosmopolitans. Oranges are a lot more than juice when he makes them into Orange Juilius drinks, marmalade, and sherbet.

Finished the night after a shower with X-Men: Dark Phoenix. It's the early 90's, and the X-Men are still riding high after having saved the world from Apocalypse. Jean Gray (Sophie Turner) accidentally absorbs the power from a sun flare while helping the others save astronauts from a stricken space shuttle. The blast amplifies her psychic powers, but it also makes them go out of control. Professor Xavier (James McAvoy) had put blocks on her powers to help her forget the trauma from a childhood accident, but they're released after her power is amplified, and it all comes roaring back.

After accidentally killing Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), she flees to the island of Genosha and seeks out Xavier's old partner Magneto (Michael Fassbinder), but he won't help her, either. She finally gets that help from the head of a race of aliens who reveals that she was possessed by a cosmic force...but that force intends to use her to snare both Magneto and Xavier's mutants and take over the Earth. Jean, however, has no desire to allow this to happen...even if she has to sacrifice herself to save those who have become her family.

This wasn't really bad, but it wasn't great either. McAvoy and Fassbinder are still excellent as the two heads of the different Mutant factions, but there wasn't enough of Lawrence's tough Mystique or Nicholas Holt as the intelligent Beast, and the bland Tucker wasn't really up to the task of portraying the possessed Gray. This is the second time 20th Century Fox struck out with this story on the big screen after the even-worse X-Men: The Last Stand. Maybe it's better off on the printed page, where you can imagine all of this happening in your mind with your own voices and special effects. At least those special effects are quite lovely, and it has a moving score by Hans Zimmer.

For the most part, yeah, I can understand why this was a major flop last summer. Ok if you're a fan of the second run of X-Man films or are a major superhero nut; not really necessary for anyone else.

And I'm glad I got in when I did. It's continued raining, sometimes heavily, for the rest of the day and into the evening.