In the Spring Sunshine

Began the morning with breakfast and Little Bear. "Duck, Babysitter" finds herself taking care of three little ducklings while joining Little Bear, Emily, and the others on a picnic. When one duckling goes missing, Duck's friends help her find him. Grandmother and Grandfather Bear are looking forward to dancing at their 50th anniversary. "Little Bear's Band" provides the music after the record player breaks down. Emily is disappointed that she has to go home for the school year, so the others invite her along for one last adventure at "Hop Frog Pond." They ride down mud slides with otters and go swimming with frogs.

Switched to Aerosmith after the cartoon ended as I went through the drawer in the big side table in the main room I use for small things, like string and various forms of tape. I'm mostly clearing out all of the junk I picked up from those job fairs in 2023 and 2024 that I don't really need. Cleared out a few records I didn't want or were badly scratched. 

As for Aerosmith, Rock In a Hard Place went through a troubled production that saw at least two members of the band depart and Steven Tyler getting into hard drugs. Not to mention, their form of hard rock was considered passe in the early 80's. They still managed to put out some quality songs, including "Lightning Strikes" and a decent version of "Cry Me a River."

Called Uber after the record ended. The two bags of donations were too huge to carry on my bike. The driver, to my shock, arrived in 2 minutes! I got him to take me around the back of the Goodwill building. There was a gentleman going through the donations in the back who helped me get the bags into the boxes. 

I didn't really need anything at Goodwill, but I did need underwear. There was a small problem. I had no idea that sometime between January and late March, Lane Bryant closed. To tell the truth, I didn't often see people in there anyway, but I was hoping they'd hold out. Darn it, and I really needed new underwear. I ended up getting Laura Ashley underwear at Marshalls. I hope they hold up all right. Found a very pretty new offline journal on clearance there too when the Winnie the Pooh-themed one I'm currently using ends.

Walked back to the Acme to get water and call Uber. Of course, this time, it took 12 minutes for them to show up. Of course, I wound up being five minutes late to the Thomas Sharp School.

Definitely not a good thing. The head teacher was reading a book to the younger kids in the library when I arrived. The Tuesday music class had run overtime in the cafeteria. At least the 9 kids who usually are at my table weren't too bad. They were noisy in the bathrooms, and two of the girls took forever, but I did get them lined up afterwards. Which is more than I could say for snack time. There were 22 kids all together today, and they were all noisy and wild. One boy spilled his water bottle. One of the girls spit up her oranges. (I took her to the bathroom later, and she was fine. She ran around with the other kids later on. She must have eaten her snack too fast.) The kids were all screaming, yelling, and tattling.

It didn't help that we're still short-handed. Two teachers called out. One couldn't come until 3:30. One teacher is still out with broken ribs. The head teacher had to go back and forth between the older and the younger kids. At least more than half the kids were picked up in the cafeteria. We didn't take a huge group outside.

The kids were much happier once we got them out. They chased each other and yelled to the Mr. Softee truck down the street, trying to get him to come close to the school. (He didn't.) By 4:30, we were down to about 8 kids, enough that they could go on the swings. They love it when I push them! Hauling all those carts around is good for something. The others happily danced to "Zoo" from Zootopia 2, songs from Moana 2, and "The Big Pink Tiger Hunt." 

At 5, we moved the remaining 4 kids to the blacktop to play ball games with the 7 remaining older children. I gently tossed a yellow Nerf football with one of the youngest girls until it was time for me to go. (In fact, she left as I did. I think there might have been one younger kid left when Uber finally picked me up 12 minutes later.)

At least it was a gorgeous day for all of this! It was really too nice to have them inside. It was sunny and in the lower 50's-upper 60's, still a little on the breezy side but nothing like yesterday. Couldn't have been a nicer day in mid-April, especially after the crazy heat last week.

Jessa picked me up at 6 to eat out. The Westmont finally opened for dinner shortly after Easter, so we ate there. I'm glad Jessa suggested staying close to home this time. She had a tuna melt that was huge, drowning in Swiss cheese. I had a Greek chicken wrap. We both had slender, crispy fries and pepper pot cheese steak egg rolls - enormous fried wraps with spicy cheesesteak filling. My slice of chocolate cake was bigger than some of the younger kids in the after-school program, while her slab of pecan shortbread bar could pass for a life raft if the building sank. Needless to say, we took most of both home. She took home part of the tuna melt and the last cheese steak egg roll, too. 

Finished the night at home with The Love Boat. "Zeke and Zelda" (Milton Berle and Martha Raye) are old vaudevillians who sneak aboard the Pacific Princess rather than face eviction. They pass themselves off as a fussy millionaire (Herb Edleman) and his whiny wife (Elinor Donahue), but Zelda has second thoughts about the deception. Sex Ed teacher Emily Parker (Susan Richardson) says "Teach Me Tonight" when the author of the trashy novel she's reading Michael Scott (Daryl Anderson) asks her to edit his next romantic epic. "He's My Brother" says Doc when he finally manages to connect with his resentful brother (Jack Bannon) and his lovely wife (Elaine Joyce)...but his brother has alternate reasons for wanting to finally talk to him after resenting his going to college.