It was so late when I was finally ready, I called Uber. Of course, they took 13 minutes to arrive, and I was late to the Acme. Thankfully, not only did they only take 8 minutes going to Thomas Sharp, I called early. It took me a little longer to get a driver home after the first one canceled, but I did find one who came in 6 minutes.
Thankfully after all that, work was fine. It wasn't really busy until later, and even that could have been worse. It started showering around 11 AM, which probably helped. (I also ended up pretty damp while I did the carts.) Other than I did have to replace the toilet paper in the women's bathroom, there were no problems whatsoever.
After my carb-heavy lunch and dinner yesterday, I opted for something with a lot less cheese. I went to Futomaki in the Audubon Crossings Shopping Center behind the Acme for lunch. Had a bento box with salmon and vegetables in teriyaki sauce, California rolls, rice, and scallops. I enjoyed a nice, quiet, serene lunch. The only other person there was an Asian gentleman working on his laptop. Went back to the Acme after that to get granola (which I forgot last Saturday) before calling Uber.
Things largely went better at Thomas Sharp School. For one thing, the rain was long gone by the time I got there. It hasn't rained since about 12:30. For another, I had 8 kids at my table, and they were perfectly fine in the bathroom. There were 27 all together, which meant the cafeteria did get pretty wild. Two of the girls did goof off under the tables again and tried to eat their snacks on the floor. They were kept back for 10 minutes so the head teacher could talk to them while the rest of us took the other kids outside.
Things went better once we did get out. For one thing, by 4 PM, it was cool, cloudy, and windy but perfectly dry, probably in the lower-mid 60's. For another, they were able to get on the swings by 4:30, but didn't stay on long. We have a new teacher, a long, lanky male college student. The kids had a ball chasing him around as they listened to the Taylor Swift songs "Welcome to New York," "Shake It Off," and "Wildest Dreams," the kids' dance number "The Gummy Bears Song," "Zoo" from Zootopia 2, and songs from The Lion King, Moana, and KPop Demon Hunters. Two of the boys left when I did, leaving the one remaining girl to go inside with the two remaining teachers and join the older kids.
Vacuumed and Swiftered my bedroom while watching The Price Is Right. I came in for a heartbreaker of a Three Strikes that ended with the contestant getting the third strike at the last minute. The Showcase Showdown went better. One lady got 95 on her first try that no one else could touch. The Showcases were a generic furniture and trip and one of the Time Capsule sci-fi skits, this one ending with a speed boat. It got really close, but the lady who hit that 95 needs to look into boating lessons...
Stayed at Buzzr for Match Game '91 as I moved to dusting and washing the window. Evidently, they're stopping here for now, or at least until we get into their National Game Show Day all-new episodes marathon next month. Vicki Lawrence, comedian Bob Sarlatte, and Marcia Wallace spent the two episodes watching Jimmie Walker flirt with a very pretty contestant, and then pretty much claiming he's going to marry her after he helps her win big bucks.
Since they switched to the first episode of Match Game '73 after that, I spent the rest of the night after dinner watching The Greatest Show On Earth. This Cecil B. DeMille three-ring melodrama won an Oscar for its glittering costumes and huge spectacle, and while it's been criticized as one of the weaker Best Picture winners, it's hard to rival this one for sheer fun. No-nonsense Brad Braden (Charleton Heston) is the manager of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, the biggest traveling circus in the US. His girlfriend Holly (Betty Hutton) is furious when he takes her out of the center ring and replaces her with The Great Sebastian (Cornel Wilde), who is a bigger draw.
She and Sebastian spend the next few performances trying to out-perform each other as Holly falls for him and Sebastian flirts with his former girlfriends Angel (Gloria Grahame) and Phyllis (Dorothy Lamour). Holly's devastated when one of Sebastian's tricks go wrong, and it looks like he might be out of the ring for good. The circus has even bigger problems. Angel's jealous ex-boyfriend and former elephant trainer Klaus (Lyle Bettger) and busker Harry (John Kellogg), whom Brad fired when he found him cheating customers, try to steal from the pay car, setting off a disastrous train collision that brings Buttons (James Stewart), a former doctor-turned-clown, out of hiding as well. It's Holly who finally figures out why the circus means so much to Brad when she almost loses him and ends up making the show go on herself.
Like I said, for a comedic soap opera that gets fussed about for being lightweight compared to the other Best Picture competition in 1952 (including High Noon), this is honestly way more fun than it ought to be. The cast mostly delivers, especially Gloria Grahame as sarcastic Angel and Stewart as kindly Buttons, though Lamour could have more to do. Some of the details (including how Brad is eventually saved after he's badly hurt in the train accident) are a little too campy for words...but there's no arguing with the spectacle. You can't get more circus than this movie. The spangles-and-feathers costumes are incredible, and they really pop in my Paramount DVD copy. If you're looking for something fun and thoughtless and feel like joining the circus (and have a spare two and a half hours on your hands), join Holly on the trapeze and check this out.
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