Since the weather continued to be cloudy, warm, and humid but not rainy, I headed out to explore Collingswood. I've spent enough time inside lately. Started off at the Groove Ground Coffee Shop. I wanted a drink, but WaWa declared the Collingswood store to be too small to expand and closed it. Had a frozen hot chocolate there instead to wet my whistle. I'm glad I got there when I did. They were already busy at quarter of 1. By the time I left, there was a longer line for drinks and egg sandwiches.
My next stop was two blocks down and around the corner at Collingswood Music. They mainly sell instruments and lessons, but they do also have records. Came out with four, two rock, one a vocalist, one a jazz collection:
Neil Diamond - Double Gold
Elton John - Rock of the Westies
Julie London - The Best of Julie
Maxwell Jazz II Sampler (Limited edition collection of classic jazz, for some reason marketed under the Maxwell cassette tape name despite being a record.)
Peered around at the collectibles shops Time Lapse and Clutter next. Didn't see anything of interest at either place and headed another block down to The Pop Shop for lunch. It was past 2 by this point, way beyond lunch time. The Pop Shop was so quiet, the only people in the place besides me and the waiter was a mom and her utterly adorable toddler daughter. I enjoyed grilled cheese with apples, cheddar, and bacon, fries, and an iced tea in relative peace.
Next up after a quick stop at Haddon Culinary for a Coke Zero was the lobby of the Collingswood Library. I almost always find something interesting on the book sale shelves there, and today was no exception. I've been trying not to buy more cookbooks...but I couldn't resist one featuring The Golden Girls! I really need to watch more of that show on Hulu. I'm not a fan of cheesecake, but there were other interesting recipes I wanted to try, including a banana cake from Sophia.
Since it's across the street and a block down from the library anyway, I went to Innergroove Records next. They surprisingly weren't busy either, despite it being almost 3 when I came in. I figured the high schoolers would already be there. I wanted to dodge the weather and didn't feel like spending an hour bent over the dollar bins, but I did dig out some good regular and two-dollar titles, including two kids' albums:
Peter Cottontail (Disney release from 1972 with a rather odd cover depicting the title character. In addition to the title song, they also have "I'm Late" and songs about Thumper from Bambi and the White Rabbit from Alice In Wonderland, along with a vocal retelling of the Grandpa Bunny short story from the Storybookland anthology.)
Here Comes Huckleberry Hound (Listed as the original TV soundtrack, I presume these are condensed versions of shorts from the Huckleberry Hound TV show.)
George Winston - Ballads and Blues 1972
Herman's Hermits - The Best of Herman's Hermits
Donna Summer - She Works Hard for the Money
Jumped into Occasionette on my way back down Haddon Avenue. I was hoping to find a cool birthday card for Rose here. I saw every type of card but birthday cards! Though they do have some neat kitchen accessories, most of their wares are too expensive at regular prices. I moved on to the bike rack behind the Senior Center instead and went home.
Finished Man In Space when I got home, then put on the 1939 version of The Three Musketeers. I go further into this cute spoof of the classic Alexandre Dumas swashbuckler featuring Don Ameche and the Ritz Brothers at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.
Dressed the dolls for Easter and early spring while the movie was on. Samantha is in her lovely pink and magenta Flower Picking Dress. The long skirt and asymmetrical lace collar look so pretty and grown-up on her. Jess wears the purple fruit-print Birthday Jumper and t-shirt from 1998. It's too cold for the purple jellies that go with it, so she borrowed Kit's red strap shoes. Josefina celebrates her feast day last month in her Feast Day Outfit with the ruffly camisa and turquoise and white skirt. Felicity also gets to celebrate her birthday this month with her salmon-pink Birthday Dress and floral Apron. The soft southwestern colors in Julie's original Birthday Dress are perfect for Ariel. Kit may not appreciate the frills, but she does look cute in her Candy-Making Dress.
Barbara Jean, Molly, and Whitney all wear hand-made outfits. Whitney and Molly get to try on the smocked dresses I bought them from the seller at the church yard sale during the Collingswood Book Festival last October. Molly's is pink stripes with rows of little red flowers; Whitney's is lavender gingham. The smocking on both outfits is trimmed with three roses, Molly's red, Whitney's purple. They both look lovely, especially Whitney in that simple but pretty purple print. I got Barbara Jean's pink, magenta, and yellow geometric-print dress off eBay two years ago. It's sleeveless, so she has a white cardigan with satiny ruffle trim on over it.
Switched to Match Game Syndicated while finishing up the dolls, and later while eating dinner. The celebrity coordinators got creative during the second week of Brett's absence and brought in three of the most popular semi-regular comediennes, Joyce Bulifant, Marcia Wallace, and Betty White, to rotate sitting in her seat. At one point, the ladies all end up sitting on the lower tier, with Charles joined by Bill Daily and Bart Braverman on the upper tier. Charles spent the rest of the episodes making jokes about what macho men they were.
Since for some reason they went back to Match Game '73 again for the last half-hour, I headed to YouTube. Today would have been the birthday of second Family Feud host Ray Combs. Someone posted the episode where they celebrated it on the air, complete with a cake, balloons, and his friends and family turning up in the last few minutes. The whole thing was really sweet, especially when they first brought the cake in.
Finished the night with more of my recent record and CD finds. Actually, the main reason I bought Here Comes Huckleberry Hound was for the Yogi story, "Rah Rah Bear"...and yeah, it's probably the best of the four episodes. Yogi hears that the Bears are playing the Giants and doesn't realize they're discussing football, so he heads to Chicago to help his fellow ursine creatures.
As for the others, "Huck, the Giant Killer" has some mildly amusing fairy tale gags, but "The Pony Express Rider" features annoyingly dated Native American stereotypes chasing down his one letter. Jinks has to be nice to those "meeces," or he might not get up there, in "Heavens to Jinksy!" Pixie and Dixie don't understand why he won't chase them, and a local dog makes it hard for Jinks to keep his temper.
Dave Brubeck took trips to "Eurasia" and New York in a pair of Jazz Impression albums from 1958 and 1964 respectively. Eurasia is slightly more interesting, featuring lilting pieces with exotic titles like "Nomad" and "Calcutta Blues." New York has two numbers from the short-lived TV show Mr. Broadway, plus more obvious titles like "Autumn In Washington Square" and "Something to Sing About." (And considering how much I liked these, I might have to look for the Brubeck's "Jazz Impressions" of Japan as well.)
(Oh, and at press time, despite remaining cloudy and humid, it still hasn't rained.)