Began the morning with breakfast and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Madame Razz mistakes Adora for the "Hero" Mara, the She-Ra of a thousand years ago, when she visits her to get some answers. Mara had come to Etheria to study magic for a secret weapon called the Heart of Etheria. To her horror, it involved draining magic from Etheria and storing it in the planet's core. She sacrificed herself to make sure it was never used by anyone, pushing Etheria into Despondos, She also encourages Adora to not listen to Light Hope, who was programmed by the First Ones to set off the Heart weapon, without thought of what it would do to the planet and its residents.
Moved on to Miles Ahead next while cutting paper in half for the kids and having lunch. I go further into this biography of temperamental jazz genius Miles Davis at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.
Called Uber just as the movie ended. I really had a hard time getting one at quarter after 12. They didn't show up for 19 minutes, and I was 6 minutes late. Couldn't get an Uber at 4:30, either. That one took 11 minutes to get there. At least there was no trouble with traffic or on the road either way.
Today was a half-day in the Collingswood School District. The kids are off tomorrow for a teacher's meeting. Since they won't be there tomorrow, the kids had their Valentine's Day parties today. I couldn't believe all the stuff they had in their white and pink and red bags. When I was their ages, we got paper Valentines with popular characters on them from everyone in the class and maybe cupcakes and some candy. In addition to the paper valentines, candy, and (for some of the younger ones) cupcakes, their bags were bursting with stamps, toys, tiny Slinkys, mini containers of slime, stickers, little plastic animal figurines, and plastic bead bracelets.
After lunch, we settled some of the kids down with an art project. The head teacher (who thankfully was feeling better) handed around pages with a huge heart drawn on them. The pre-schoolers tore bits of pink tissue paper and glued those on the heart, along with metallic and die-cut bits of paper and colored feathers leftover from the turkey hand project at Thanksgiving. The older kids glued beads onto their hearts. Not all of the kids did the project, but those who did seemed to enjoy themselves well enough.
For the most part, the kids spent the rest of the afternoon playing with magnetic tiles, Duplos, or their new Valentine's toys. I brought Richard Scarry's Best Story Book Ever, Disney's Storybookland, and Strawberry Shortcake and the Winter That Would Not End with me to read. One of the littlest girls requested Snow White. A boy building with magnetic tiles asked for a Mickey Mouse story, so I went with the relatively short Mickey Mouse and Pluto Pup. They all got a kick out of making sure Hilda Hippo had the right alphabetic foods when we read Feed Hilda Hippo Her ABCs. Near the end of the day, I refereed a boy and a girl as they rolled a magnetic tile car into their towers to knock them over.
Honestly, for a four-hour day where we couldn't use the library (the teachers were meeting there), the kids weren't generally that bad. I did argue with one girl about using both sides of the paper when she drew. One of the other teachers brought some paper, too, and we didn't want to run out again. Two of the older boys roughhoused later and had to be separated (twice). One of the boys dumped his bag of loot everywhere and had to finally be admonished to clean it up when too many of the other kids wanted to play with his stuff.
Oh, and we had a fire drill later in the day, when we were down to 15 kids all together. No one was really happy about that, least of all the kids. Though the sun was finally peeking out of the clouds by 3:30, it was colder than it has been, in the mid-30's, and still a bit breezy. Needless to say, the kids turned around and trooped back fast as they could after we counted them.
Three of the older kids even gave me Kit-Kats and a mini Rice Krispies Treat. I took a couple of the girls to the bathroom a few times and had good conversations with them. Danced as well as I could with another girl who could do some darn good gymnastic tricks while the music was on and the boys were grabbing at each other. I read a story about the months of the year to her later. I'm so glad I took this job. I have 40 of the nicest Valentines anyone could ever wish for.
When I got home, I went straight into making Strawberry Cupcakes for Valentine's Day. I thought they would be easier after my cake mix cookies spread too much last year. I added frosting in the middle, hoping for a Tastycake-cupcake cream filled effect. Alas, the cupcakes weren't firm enough. The frosting just seeped into the middle and made them very gooey. The crushed freeze-dried strawberries I used in the cupcakes and on top of them worked out much better.
Watched Match Game Syndicated after I had a shower and grabbed dinner. We're now on the week with comedienne Louise Sorrel, with Fred Grandy sitting in Charles' place. There were a couple of amusing matchmaking jokes when a single young lady and a single Hispanic man were contestants together. (Too bad the last episode of this week is currently unavailable, due to being on a tape with one of the Jimmie Walker weeks GSN hasn't shown yet.)
Finished the night with two of the most beloved albums by the real Miles Davis. Kind of Blue is from 1959 and Sketches of Spain from 1960, the height of Davis' original fame and artistic powers. Davis may not have appreciated the softer blues music on Kind of Blue later in his life, but "So What" and "Blues In Green" are among the most powerful songs he ever wrote. Sketches of Spain features genuine Spanish melodies like "Will 'o the Wisp," traditional Hispanic covers like "Saeta," and Gil Evans' "Solea."
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