Flowers On a Rainy Day

Began a gloomy morning with breakfast and the last of the new Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood episodes to debut this week. It's "Pizza Day at School." Dan is delighted when Prince Wednesday is his pizza buddy, but not when he wants peppers on his pie and Wednesday wants broccoli. Teacher Harriet reminds him that it's not only ok to want different things, but you should ask your friends what they like, too. "Daniel and Jodi Like Different Things" when they're at the beach. Daniel doesn't like Jodi squeezing water on him, and Jodi's little brother Leo doesn't want sand in his toes.

Switched to The Busy World of Richard Scarry while I got ready for work. Officer Flo is "Sergeant Murphy's Deputy," who is assigned to help him when he's overworked. Flo reminds me a lot of a fox Judy Hopps. She's just as overzealous about solving cases and handing out tickets, including when she's supposed to be directing traffic. Sergeant Murphy reminds her that her real job is to help the community. "Couscous In the Sahara" finds himself chasing Pepe and his Dirty Rats again. He finally finds a way to corner them while searching for treasure in a pyramid. Mrs. Cat wants Huckle to bring cookies to "The New Kid On the Block," but he drops them on the way there. He's happier to play with Cassie, whom he saw across the street...but she does seem awfully new...

Even as Busy World ended, the rain continued to fall. It was a light shower, cold and windy. This was no day for riding the bike. I called Uber. The driver originally said he would arrive in 5 minutes. I waited for six minutes, then seven. Nothing. When I checked Uber, it turns out the guy canceled a minute before he was supposed to pick me up. Great. Not only did the next driver I got take longer to get there, but I barely got to work on time. Getting home was no picnic, either. He took 12 minutes and was late. Of course, by that point, it was also rush hour, and still showering (though lighter than earlier).

Helping out in the floral department wasn't much fun, either. One of the floral department managers called out, and the other was frantic. She said she wanted me to learn how to do everything right and quickly, but whether it was putting mini-bouquets in a wooden rolling shelf or carrying vases of arrangements out to the displays, I just couldn't seem to do it the way she wanted it done. And all throughout the day, people kept poking their heads in, asking for bouquets in fancy wrapping or huge arrangements. Even the arrangements I did make didn't have enough filler in them. The head manager had to help load rose bouquets into buckets! It was a mess. We weren't even all that busy.

At least I was able to get some grocery shopping done after work. Had online coupons for Made Good granola bars and buy one, get one BodyArmor drinks. Restocked oranges, coconut milk, and yogurt. Found a tray of mini-cookies on the clearance rack I thought I'd try. Needed money for the Haddon Township Town-Wide Yard Sale and the Collingswood Farm Market tomorrow, too.

Got my schedule, too. In good news, three days off. They're all early days again, though, and no floral department work. The head bagger wanted next Friday and Saturday off, so no Farm Market or yard sales next week.  

Finished Flash Gordon when I got home, then worked on writing. Kathleen walks through the old hollow tree, and into a warm and sunny glen. She's surprised when the rabbit leads her right to a charming little cottage owned by a kindly older woman...

Broke for dinner and Match Game '77 at 7 PM. The champ was very pretty, but she didn't show much sense in the Audience Match. She chose the least likely answer to "__ Brains," possibly because Richard said it. Marcia Wallace, Lee Merriweather, and comedian David Lansburg were among those with better answers. She did better in the next episode watching Marcia tell Gene he's "semi-irresistible" and with her answer as to what's the only exercise a heavy drinker gets.

Finished the night at Shout! TV with Mystery Science Theater 3000. Outlaw of Gor is one of the last of the sword and sorcery barbarian movies that were popular throughout the 80's. At least the premise is genuinely interesting. Ordinary guy Professor Tarl Cabot (Urbano Barberini) and his dorky buddy Watney (Russel Savadier) are thrown back to a barbarian-like kingdom in another dimension. Cabot has already had adventures here, including falling in love with Princess Talena (Rebecca Ferrati). Her father, King Marlenus (Larry Taylor), married the scheming Lara (Donna Denton), who has partnered with his bishop Xenos (Jack Palance) to take over the throne. She kills Marlenus and frames Cabot. Cabot and his diminutive friend Hup (Nigel Chipps) flee into the desert, rescuing a girl (Michelle Clarke) from slavery. Meanwhile, Xenos and Lara aren't exactly getting along, as they plot to take each other out and Lara hires a "hunter" (Tulio Moneta) to find Cabot.

I love the idea of dropping a normal guy and his geek buddy in Conan the Barbarian...but unfortunately, this is a Cannon Group production. Watney barely figures into the first half and the last ten minutes and turns on his buddy pretty quickly. The production values range from cheesy to absurd; some of the rock formations in the desert are obviously paper mache, for instance. Palance looks like he's sleepwalking through his role, too. It's a shame, because there's some interesting ideas and things that do work, including the incident with the slave group and Denton as the ambitious and evil Lara, along with an unusually lush and epic score for a Cannon movie. Worth checking out once if you're a fan of 80's sword and sorcery fantasy, with or without robot wisecracks.