Hot Sunshine Rag

Began the morning with breakfast and The Busy World of Richard Scarry. Huckle and Hilda's friends are disappointed when they have their birthday parties on the same day. They first try to out-do each other with fun things to do at their parties, but it's Huckle and Sally who figure out how to make "The Best Birthday Party Ever." Martha is a peasant girl living in 1400's Germany. She'd love to learn how to read, but books are hand-lettered and expensive. She and absent-minded Gutenberg invent the printing press so "Martha's First Book" is affordable for everyone. Mr. Gronkle wrecks havoc on his roof and Busytown when he's "Locked Out" of his house.

Switched to PAW Patrol while I got organized. We're not the only ones dealing with the heat. "Pups Save a Pool Day" when one of the pipes on the water tower gets bent and can't fill up the community pool. They become "Circus Pup-formers" when a circus car with the animals, performers, and stagehands is stranded and they have to put up the tent and do all the acts.

Headed out to run errands after the cartoon ended. I had a bag of donations for Goodwill. I dropped the bag off behind the building, then walked around and went inside. I did quite well for myself. Though it turns out I already have It's a Wonderful Life, I did find other DVDs I don't have. Got a better copy of A Christmas Story, along with a collection of Oscar-winning Warners animated shorts and a Canadian copy of Airplane II: The Sequel. The CDs were:

Sentimental Journey: Fantastic Forties (A two-disc set of songs from the 1940's)

Halloween Songs & Sounds (Collection of mildly spooky Disney songs, including "I Want to Scare Myself" from Winnie the Pooh: Boo to You, and scary sound effects.) 

The records were: 

Ragtime Fun - 4-disc Reader's Digest set of songs from the ragtime era of the 1910's and 20's

Dan Fogelberg - Greatest Hits

As I browsed through the racks with the pajamas, a flash of soft tan caught my eye. A handsome little tan joined bear sat on top of the rack, nestled among high heeled sandals and wedges. I had no idea how he ended up there, but I couldn't just leave him sitting with shoes. Plus, he and everything else I found but Airplane, the animation DVD, and Wonderful Life had the half-price blue and green tags on them. The Disney CD wound up being 50 cents, the Forties set was a dollar, and the big Reader's Digest collection and the teddy bear were $2.50 each. (I named the bear Caramel, since I have a somewhat similar sized bear named Butterscotch.) 

I really didn't need anything at Ross or Marshalls, so I headed across the street next. The Shoe Factory opened a few months ago appropriately where Payless used to be. Though their wares were better-made than most of what I remembering finding at Payless, they were mainly cheap sandals or flats. I need sneakers for work right now. I left quickly when I couldn't find the New Balances I normally use.

Had lunch a few doors down at Futomaki. Thought I'd try something different. I just had pizza and it was too hot for noodle bowls or tons of Chinese food. Settled down in their calming dark wood and stone storefront for a chicken hibachi lunch. Apparently, this consisted of a salad with a slightly tangy French dressing-like sauce, a bowl of a clear broth with mushroom slices, steamed vegetables and chicken in a teriyaki sauce, and a huge scoop of fried rice. I was too full for all that rice and it was too hot for soup, but I ate everything else and enjoyed it. 

Cooled off at a quiet Sonic with a banana milkshake. There were cars in the ports, but only one other person on the patio enjoying a burger. Yum! Sweet and thick and very banana-tasting. I'm not really that big on their food, but they do make good slushes and shakes.

Cut across Audubon next for a nice, long ride. Which may not have been the smartest thing to do on a day when the temperature rose to the mid-90's. I stopped at WaWa on the corner of Pine and the White Horse Pike for a Propel. Made a second stop at the Family Dollar on the White Horse Pike to buy cards for a friend and her daughter who have birthdays this month. I didn't see anything I liked for my oldest nephew Skylar, who turns 20 at the end of this month. I'll wait a week or two on him. 

Went straight home and into watching Pajama Party after I got out. I go further into this nutty Beach Party movie with Tommy Kirk as an alien who falls for an Earth girl at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.

 Pajama Party

Spent the next two hours after that adding more CDs to the inventory. In addition to Fogelberg, artists I added today included the Eagles, Alice Cooper, Counting Crows, Jim Croce, Neil Diamond, the Doors,  Gloria Estefan, and the two home-made Micky Dolenz CDs Lauren sent me when we first became friends in 2004. And I'm not even half-way through the first rock CD binder yet! I'm also beginning to realize how long it's been since I've listened to a lot of these. Some of them I may have put away without ever listening to them. I really should change that. I have a lot of great stuff here. 

Listened to Ella & Louis while I worked. Braying Armstrong and smooth Fitzgerald may have seem to be opposites in style, but they come together beautifully on this album. It's all gorgeous classic ballads like "Isn't This a Lovely Day?", "They Can't Take That Away From Me," "Stars Fell On Alabama," and one that was new to me, the lovely "Under a Blanket of Blue."

Broke for a quick dinner and Match Game Syndicated at 7 PM. We skipped ahead a bit to the week with Scoey Mitchilll, Dolly Martin, and Debralee Scott. There was a great deal of arguing over Dolly's answer for "Bess __" on the Audience Match. Bess Armstrong was a character actress who nowadays is best-known for her work on TV and Broadway. Apparently, Dolly was the only one in the panel who heard of her in 1979. 

Finished the night with more records while I wrote the Pajama Party review. The RCA Grimm's Fairy Tales were very short, often modernized adaptations of familiar stories. Most of them were lightened and updated - Red Riding Hood gets the wolf off her back by telling him he could be on TV, the Elves help the Shoemaker with a new shoe-making machine, and the princess agrees to let Rumplestiltskin be her child's babysitter instead of him stomping himself underground. Ironically, the lightest story in its original form - The Fisherman and His Wife - became the darkest here. In the original story, the wife and the fisherman just become poor again after she demands godhood. Here, she's actually turned into a fish for her greediness. 

That Ragtime Fun collection did turn out to be a hoot and a half. Jo Anne Castle from The Lawrence Welk Show joins several other ragtime and jazz bands to pound out some of the most popular songs of the 1910's and 20's. Jo Anne's best numbers on the first album were "Goodbye My Lady Love" and "King Porter Stomp." I especially enjoyed hearing songs that were totally new to me like "Poor Buttermilk," "The Raggy Fox Trot," "Wolverine Blues," "Chinatown, My Chinatown," and "Sensation."