In the Heat of Spring

Began the morning with breakfast and The Pirates of Dark Water. The crew finds themselves in a "Break Up" when they arrive at Niddler's home island and discover his people are sold as slaves. Ren helps free them, but when they discover the pirate who stole the first treasure and the compass and the slaver are in cahoots, Ren stays behind to help Niddler and his people. Tula and Teron leave on the ship, convinced Ren and Niddler are lost. They were rescued and set out after them, only to be caught by Bloth on the open seas.

Spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon doing the child care refresher course and the CPR course, both of which were required by Healthy Kids. Thankfully, the refresher course took about an hour. It was the CPR course, which was for adults and kids and was more thorough than the one I did in May, that took forever. I was still working on it when it was time to leave for the Thomas Sharp School. 

Listened to Anderson's Fairy Tales while I worked. This double-CD is a collection of some of Anderson's more fanciful stories. Thankfully, only "The Little Match Girl" is all that depressing, considering what some of his fairy tales can be like. Most of them are adventures like "The Traveling Companion" and "Little Claus and Big Claus," gentle moral tales like "The Ugly Duckling," or slightly more pointed ones like "The Swineherd." Brit Erica Johns provides the soothing narrations.

I hurried downstairs and called Uber soon as I ate a quick lunch. Thank heavens I was able to get a driver in 4 minutes! I arrived only slightly late, nothing like yesterday.

Good thing, too. We had 29 kids today, 9 of them at my table. At least my kids were really good. They weren't too bad in the bathrooms, and most of them came and got their backpacks from the library without being asked. (We started in the library, since the school band was rehearsing in the cafeteria.) Once again, they all wanted to go outside after snack time! 

And who wanted to miss a glorious 80-degree day? It was sunny, breezy, and ridiculously hot for March. Too hot. I kept having to take kids inside to get drinks, when they weren't chasing bubbles or each other or having "no shoes" parties. (We quickly put the kibosh on that one. Mulch was not meant for bare feet.) It was so nice, they were only just going back inside when I went to the other side of the school to wait for Jessa.

Jess finally arrived at 6. We had no idea what to do for dinner and just followed the traffic across Cherry Hill and Pennsauken until she suggested The Melting Pot in Maple Shade. It was a brilliant idea. This dark, modern wood-paneled restaurant specializes in all kinds of fondue. We decided the oil and meat variety would be too much and take too long to cook and settled for Classic Alpine cheese fondue and a dark chocolate fondue for dessert. Oh yuuumm! They made the cheese fondue right at the electric burners on the marble table top. We dipped cubed French bread, chunks of soft pretzels, and sliced vegetables into it. I ordered cubed sausage for some more protein. The dark chocolate fondue came with sliced bananas and strawberries, cubed pound cake, Rice Krispies Treats, and brownies, and bits of chocolate chip cookie bar. Jessa tossed in mini-churros, too. We chatted for so long, we where there almost a half-hour after we finished eating.

When I got home, I finally completed the CPR course, then finished the night listening to the last disc of the Broadway: The American Musical soundtrack. This one kicks off with songs from the huge European rock operas of the 80's and early 90's, including "Memory" from Cats, "Do You Hear the People Sing" from Les Miserables, "The Music of the Night" from The Phantom of the Opera, and "The American Dream" from Miss Saigon. By the time Glenn Close was singing "With One Look" in the massive Sunset Boulevard, most audiences had started to look for a more homegrown and less bombastic sound. 

La Cage Aux Follies was the first musical with a happy gay couple at its center, and it's anthem "I Am What I Am" spoke for a significant portion of the musical's fan base...even as the AIDS crisis killed off many promising young talents. Smokey Joe's Cafe, Jelly's Last Jam, Movin' Out, and Mamma Mia! were jukebox musicals with infectious, nostalgic numbers like "On Broadway" and "Dancing Queen" getting audiences up and dancing. Hairspray and The Producers proved that smash hit musicals could come from films, with their big chorus numbers like "Good Morning Baltimore" and "I Wanna Be a Producer," while the rock shows Rent and The Boy from Oz introduced promising new talents. At the time the miniseries came out in 2004, the big thing on Broadway was Wicked...and unlike the other shows on this disc, it's still going strong, in New York and London, at press time. Elphaba's big first-act closer "Defying Gravity" is included here.