Called Uber after that. Today is the start of the Cherry Hill Library Book Sale. I've done well the last few times I hit them. They arrived within 7 minutes, but there were a few problems getting there. I have no idea what the traffic was on the White Horse Pike in Collingswood. Thankfully, it wasn't as bad once we got past Collings Avenue and was fine by the time he dropped me off at Cherry Hill.
The Cherry Hill Library is the largest library in Camden County, and their book sale is likely the largest in the area, too. It takes up most of the basement meeting rooms. I went straight to the boxes and boxes of records, DVDs, and CDs when I got downstairs. The room with the kids' books was even busier, but I did manage to find something. Had such a hard time getting around the main room with the adult books, I had to wait in the back until I could find a path through all those people.
For all that, I did ultimately make some good finds. The CDs were:
The 1990 studio cast recording of the Rodgers and Hart show Babes In Arms
Dave Brubeck - The Quartet
The Manhattan Transfer - Anthology (2-Disc set)
The Official Album of Disneyland and Walt Disney World, featuring songs from many long-gone rides (especially in Epcot)
The DVDs were:
Barbie (I was kind of shocked to run across a new and popular movie. The DVD holder was broken, but the DVD itself is fine.)
The Mario Lanza vehicle Seven Hills of Rome
I'm really hot with finding Walt Disney Treasures sets. Came up with Behind the Scenes at the Walt Disney Studios, minus it's tin. This one features The Reluctant Dragon, one of Disney's more underrated films.
No records this time, but I did come up with some great books:
Hugh Fordin - The Movies' Greatest Musicals Produced In Hollywood by the Freed Unit
Agatha Christie - The Man In the Brown Suit
Elizabeth Peters - The Love Talker
Helen Pierce Jacob - The Secret of the Strawbridge Place
Mary MacLeod - King Arthur
But my best find today was the very version of Grimm's Fairy Tales my mother had when I was a child, the one that was so old and worn, the cover came off and half the book was stuck together. Though the covers on this one are a bit loose, they're far from off, and the pages are fine. It had the same wonderful color and black and white artwork and obscure stories, like "The Pink," "Iron Hans," "The Raven," and my favorite, "The Lady and the Lion."
Headed out for lunch around 1:30. It was still thickly humid, but cloudy and much cooler, probably in the lower 80's. I could get away with a stroll down King's Highway. Stopped at Raymond's Pizza for lunch. They were a pretty typical hole-in-the-wall in a brown 70's shopping center, but their plain cheese and mushroom slices were pretty good, and the prices were great.
Continued down King's Highway after lunch another block to The Big Event. I wasn't going bowling alone, but I could get away with the arcade. They were a little busy with bored kids and their parents, but nothing like when Lauren and I were there early last month. I hit the 1000-point jackpot on the Big Reel fishing-themed wheel and got a lot of points elsewhere, including on Nerf Arcade. Got a sweet cherry-red Lamborghini on Crusin' Blast and came in second on the Madagascar course. Between the jackpot and all of my playing, I ended up with over 4.200 points. Was able to get the board game Aggression and a small stuffed animal that'll go to a friend's daughter for her birthday.
I was originally going to go home at that point...but the prices for Uber were way beyond what I was willing to pay for a 20-minute trip. Strolled another block down to the Ellisburg Shopping Center instead. There's a Rita's Water Ice a few doors down from the Whole Foods there. The chocolate vanilla swirl and root beer water ice gelati I had was delicious...and more to the point, by the time I finished it, the prices were far cheaper. The lady arrived in 4 minutes and got me home on the back roads of Haddonfield and Westmont in a little over 20.
Put on Remember WENN when I got home. "Hilary Booth, Registered Nurse" is supposed to go on the air for a big prime-time broadcast of one of her signature soap operas, Valiant Journey...but after Mr. Foley accidentally hits her with the microphone boom, she thinks she's the kindly nurse she portrays on a World War I show. Betty once again has to deal with all this without the help of Victor Comstock, who leaves to broadcast in London after this episode.
Hilary's semi-husband Jeff is in the spotlight when "Valentino Speaks!" He's excited when a movie director chooses him to dub, and then play, Valentino in a rediscovered silent movie. Jeff quickly learns how difficult movie acting is, and how he'd much rather play all the roles he does at the station than be typecast like Valentino was.
"A Capitol Idea" introduces Scott Sherwood, the brash new station manager who claims Victor sent him as his replacement. He's full of wild new ideas for the station, starting with him asking Betty to weave the commercials into the programming to get more ads in. This does inadvertently invent informercials, but it also makes the shows sound alike. Betty threatens to resign and Mr. Eldridge won't come in at all. The others make a mockery out of the shows to get them back.
(And it's rather appropriate that "A Capitol Idea" was the third and last WENN episode I saw while babysitting during the summer of 1996. I loved how Scott and Betty interacted with each other and the cast. I went to bed that night on the lumpy couch in the living room dreaming of a blossoming relationship between them...and they're still my favorite characters on the show to this day.)
Switched to Tubi for the truly bizarre Earth Girls are Easy. I go further into this 1988 sci-fi comedy about three aliens who crash-land in a manicurist's pool and have to adjust to Earth ways at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.
Worked on Hilary and the Beasts for the rest of the afternoon. Hilary is still playing phone tag with Doug Thompson and City Hall over a week later, but she has help from an unexpected source. She finds a talking newspaper (Gus Kahana) with the ability to repeat any number of celebrity voices. She manages to get out of those voices that Troll had been married, but "the wrong woman" got him into a contract he couldn't get out of and was the one who came to the mansion.
She also joins Maple downstairs in the more intimate music room. Maple's grown fond of Miss Organ (Eugenia), who seems to know all of Hilary and Jeff's favorite songs. Her gossip confirms that Troll had been forced to give up his first wife by a nasty "she" to save a friend. Mr. Rabbit (Mr. Foley) turns up too, shyly bringing Miss Organ a lavender rose.
Switched to Match Game '75 during dinner. They'd moved on to the next week by the time I got on. Craig Morris and Fannie Flagg joined in, while Joyce Bulifant was happy to actually get some well-received answers for a change.
Finished the night with more of my recent record finds. I Love My Wife was Cy Coleman and Michael Stewart's 1977 response to the Sexual Revolution as two couples switched partners and lives. It's too bad the story is as dated as the wide-legged pantsuits and high leather boots on the back cover, because some of the songs aren't bad. The ladies get the country spoof "Someone Wonderful I Missed," while the guys go vaudevillian with "Hey There Good Times."
The Fabulous Mae West performs not only her own songs, but familiar numbers from other media that certainly fit her double entendre-laden personality. "A Guy What Takes His Time" and "They Call Me Sister Honky Tonk" are probably the ones here that are most associated with her. I also liked "Love Is the Greatest Thing" and "I Want You - I Need You."
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