Out and About In the Autumn Wind

Began a beautiful but chilly and windy day with breakfast and The Busy World of Richard Scarry. "Bananas the Magician" is about to give up when he can't do his tricks perfectly the first time. Lowly and Huckle make him think a banana appeared in his hat, but they're really in trouble when they have to make a whole bunch appear! "The First Horseless Carriage" is created in 1783 France by a family of sheep dogs who are tired of pushing their fruit and vegetable carriage up hill. Hilda is upset when she doesn't get the part of a princess in the school show. She inadvertently becomes "Princess Hilda" when she's locked in at the local TV station and ends up in her own cooking show.

Headed off to run errands next. Dropped Lauren's birthday card and gift card in the mail slot at the post office and a bag of clothes in the bin behind Dollar General. Had a big bag of donations for the Goodwill behind the Acme. Found a black t-shirt there for my black cat costume and the soundtrack for the Disney Pocahontas on CD. Went into Marshalls for a nice journal; found one with a beautiful pink and gold floral cover. Also picked up a Christmas present for Lauren, a cute Halloween Care Bears standing wood decoration, and those Junkless granola bars that I only see at Walmart around here. 

Tried something different for lunch. There's five different restaurants on the two-block stretch of Merchant Street in Audubon. I ended up at the cheapest, Sun Press. They're a Mexican restaurant specializing in burritos, tacos and Cubano sandwiches. Since it was Taco Tuesday, I went with three "Supremo" tacos with chicken, cheese, and lettuce. They weren't bad, but the sauce kept spilling out and burning my hand, and the chicken was much spicier than I thought! That sauce cleared my sinuses.

Headed a few doors down to Desserts By Design next. I hadn't been there in ages. Had a tasty chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting and fall-colored sprinkles, bought a vanilla version for Dawn, and said "Hi" to the manager when I managed to wade through the long line of older women on their lunch breaks looking for treats.

Dawn texted me and said she had gotten off earlier than expected...but by the time I got her text, it was almost 1. I rode over to the Haddon Township Library and met her at the originally planned 1:30. She loved her cupcake, but we didn't really have much luck. The Jewish Community Center only has part-time work and doesn't really want receptionists. I put in a few applications, but I wasn't really excited about any of them. She was still working when I left to get home and beat the traffic just getting out of school.

Went straight into That Thing You Do! when I got in. I go further into Tom Hanks' directorial debut about a fictional one-hit wonder rock band from the 60's whose catchy "one-hit" title song became one in real-life at my my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.

Cult Flops - That Thing You Do!

Got a little work on the inventory next. Added the original Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with Carol Channing, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, and the Mary Martin Girl Crazy. Gentleman's Guide and Girl Crazy were Goodwill finds (both while on vacation), but I have no clue where I got Gentlemen Prefer Blondes anymore. I think that might be one of the titles I picked up from Borders in college, or maybe one of the earlier ones I bought from Abbie Road when Bob was still in Collingswood (before he moved to Audubon).

Switched to Match Game '77 while eating dinner. Gary Crosby, Mary Wickes, and Joyce Bulifant join in to hear a nervous older lady accidentally say that she's "retarded" instead of "retired!" Gene Rayburn helps calm her down.

Finished the night with more of my recent record acquisitions. I picked up Television's Greatest Hits Vol. II mainly for the familiar sitcom themes like The Monkees, The Odd Couple, Hogan's Heroes, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but there's a lot more great stuff here than just comedies. By far my favorite of the action shows was John Williams' stunning theme for The Time Tunnel. I might have to dig up that show and its soundtrack. 

I had no idea Wil E. Coyote and Road Runner even had a theme, but it wound up being kind of catchy (and one of the few TV themes written and sung by a woman). They even included both of the Three Stooges' themes. Other familiar animated and kid-oriented themes included the two Looney Tunes themes, The Pink Panther, Underdog, George of the Jungle, a bit of "Linus and Lucy," and the original "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" from Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. 

A&M Records head Herb Alpert's days with the Tijuana Brass were long behind him when he rose up the charts in 1979 with the jazz hit "Rise." It would prove to be the biggest non-Brass hit of his career. Some of the other songs on the Rise album are nearly as worthy, including the lush "1980" and gorgeous "Behind the Rain."