Friday, October 29, 2021

Spooky Tales In the Rain

Began a very windy and cloudy morning with breakfast and one of The Monkees horror episodes from the second season, "Monstrous Monkee Mash." Davy's date with a dream girl turns out to be more of a nightmare when it turns out she's a vampire, Dracula's her uncle, and they intend to make him one of them. The others go to rescue them, but Peter and Micky fall into their clutches as well. It's up to Mike Nesmith to get all of them alive and with their brains intact!

Finally called Jodie's realtor Linda Alexandroff after breakfast. She said the same thing the other one did - I don't make enough money to pay the rent for most local apartments. Apparently, I'll have to write a letter to explain my inheritance and being able to pay 4 to 6 months of the rent up front. 

Did sneak a little writing in. Brett lifts Ira in the air and finally shakes a confession out of him. Yes, he stole the tarts, under orders from the King...and because he was hungry, and he wanted the Queen and King's attention. All they care about are their garden and parties, not running a kingdom. He believes the Red King's rules will make things better.

Broke with enough time to change, pack for grocery shopping later, and call Uber. The driver came within 8 minutes, but for some reason, his phone tried to direct him through Audubon, rather than taking any faster way. I turned him down Nicholson Road and past Applebee's. 

Work was busy almost the entire afternoon. Besides nasty weather chasing people and their Halloween parties inside, two cashiers called out, and another went home early. We had no help at all, anywhere. They reported only having one person in the deli and the bakery, too. At least most people were in good moods, and the afternoon went fast. It slowed down enough by 5:30 for me to shut down without a relief.

Fewer hours next week, but still a lot more than I was getting before last March. Yes, I did get Halloween off, as I requested; also have Wednesday off, and my cashiering shifts are short 4 and 5 hour days. Still have two 8 1/2 hour bagging days in a row, though. 

Went straight into grocery shopping after work. Found another bag of whole wheat flour on the clearance rack and had a free coupon for Acme brand butter. Picked up chips and green peppers for a dip recipe I'm going to try on Halloween. Grapes and shrimp were on good sales with online coupons, too. Restocked apples, bananas, milk, olive oil, cereal, vanilla extract, and shampoo. Treated myself to a double-pack of two Reeces Pumpkins. 

The clouds grew darker and darker as the afternoon progressed. No wonder it died down by 5:30. When I came outside after I finished my shopping, it was dark as midnight and showering heavily. To my surprise, it took less than four minutes for my Uber driver to arrive even with the bad weather. She was a pleasant older woman who chatted with me about my rental problems and got me home in five minutes. (I tipped her well.)

(Incidentally, it would continue raining off and on in some form or another for the rest of the night, complete with those high winds I mentioned earlier.)

Match Game '77 was on when I got home. The first one featured "___ Marshall" on the Audience Match. Gene wasn't entirely happy with the top answer being "Peter Marshall," host of the rival comedy game show Hollywood Squares. (We also find out why Richard started asking people to stop referring to him as "Dickie" by '77.) I had shrimp and salad during the second as the panelists reacted to an especially weird answer to a question about what the stork delivered along with the baby.

Switched to Perfect Strangers as I threw the laundry in the wash for the fourth season Halloween episode "Aliens." Larry's excited about watching a horror movie marathon on Halloween night. Balki thinks the horror movies will make you bad. Larry scoffs at his fears, until he has a nightmare about Balki being an alien bent on taking over the Earth!

Watched Young Frankenstein on Amazon Prime, where it's free with the subscription. Fredrick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) is called to Transylvania when he inherits his late grandfather's castle and workshop. He's a surgeon who isn't interested in his grandfather's gristly work in reanimating life, until he discovers his private library and thinks there might be something to it after all. His assistants Igor (Marty Feldman) and Helga (Terri Garr) help him bring an enormous man to the castle for an experiment. It works...but Igor brought an abnormal brain, and now Fredrick has a brainless hulk running around. He does manage to bring him back, thanks to Frou Blucker's (whinny) (Cloris Leachman) violin, and even gets him tap dancing...but first his routine goes wrong and the monster is taken prisoner, and then his fussy fiancée (Madeline Khan) shows up for a visit...

Classic horror comedy was so much fun - to watch and make - the cast added extra scenes, just so they could keep going! Top notch work from everyone involved, with some hilarious gags and delightfully spooky atmosphere (thanks to the real sets from the 1931 Universal Frankenstein being used). Highly recommended for lovers of Mel Brooks and his spoofs, the cast, or gentler horror satire.

Finished the night on YouTube with the Halloween episode of You Can't Do That On Television while folding laundry. Annoying Alisdair had joined the cast by this point, just in time to see Christine jokingly put a "curse" on their obnoxious stage manager Ross for Halloween. Christine means it to be all in fun, but Ross takes it seriously and spends the episode lamenting all the strange things happening to him. Meanwhile, the Senator dad has his own idea of trick-or-treating, a kid tricks the executioner by switching clothes with him, and some of Barth's Halloween dinners are not for the squeamish. 

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