So, Where Is It?

Darn it, where's that thunderstorm we were supposed to get tonight?

It was supposed to rain in the afternoon. It looked like it all day, cloudy, humid, and warm for this time of year. I spent the morning doing laundry at Uncle Ken's. I watched The Wonder Pets save a Bald Eagle egg in Canada and a Flamingo in a coloring book (the uncle of the latter had a "Jamaican" accent, and even had dreadlocks and a bright knit cap!), then enjoyed a rather goofy superhero-themed Blue's Clues before Dad came home and wanted to watch The Weather Channel.

The Weather Channel said we were supposed to get severe thunderstorms starting late in the afternoon...when I work, of course. I finally asked Dad for a ride. I don't really care about the thunder, but I didn't want to be caught in a deluge. (I've done that enough.)

Work was pretty much the same as yesterday customer-wise - busy until dinner, steady-to-dead thereafter, with a lot of obnoxious beginning-of-the-month customers. (The worst was a very annoying woman who kept fussing that she wanted to buy her huge order before her elderly mother tried to pay for it, then complained when Mom showed up with more and claimed she was embarrassing her. Frankly, she was acting a LOT more embarrassing than her mom was!)

Actually, our biggest problem today was with the help. One of the teenage baggers went outside to do carts...and never came back. Half the store must have searched for him for at least 20 minutes before his car was discovered to be gone and he was assumed to have gone AWOL.

On the other hand, I saw a gaggle of new cashiers being trained this evening. Their arrival is a mixed blessing. On one hand, they were mostly teenagers and college students, and that should take care of a lot of late shifts. On the other hand...I've been getting really GOOD hours for this time of year in the last few weeks or so. We'll see what king of impact they have.

Dinosaur Disco Quest

I did not awaken to a terribly attractive day. It was gloomy and dark, and the rain came down in sheets. Though the rain was gone by the time I got up, got dressed, and made banana pancakes for breakfast, it was still incredibly windy. It was so windy, both of my plastic deck chairs blew halfway across the porch before I managed to grab them and stack them.

I did make it over to Uncle Ken's to do the laundry. Uncle Ken and his girlfriend Dolores were working on cleaning the big picture windows in the kitchen and living room area. I had to wait a little while to do my small pile of laundry due to the heavy, dirty curtains they already had in the washer and drier, but I did get to enjoy some shows in the interim.

Caught the tail end of The Wonder Pets first. They learned about levers and pulleys as they helped a baby elephant in Kenya get it's trunk out of the mud. (Baby Elephant's mama had a pretty Kenyan accent.) Blue's Clues was an early Steve episode dealing with musical instruments; cute, but not all that exciting, though I didn't figure the game out until the third clue.

Switched over to TV Land and encountered one of the most famous of the many beloved I Love Lucy episodes. After begging Ricky to stay in Hollywood just a little longer, a souvenir-happy Lucy and Ethel go after the ultimate take-home trinket at the Chinese Theater - John Wayne's footprints in cement! Needless to say, nothing works out the way Lucy wants it to. She spends a lot of time stomping around in buckets of cement, and we get to learn some more naughty Spanish words from her not-pleased hubby.

I got a bit of a surprise on my return to Nick - Go Diego Go! was early today. I found out why when Diego, Alicia, and Baby Jaguar were joined by Dora the Explorer as they browsed through a dinosaur museum. Yes, dinosaurs were the theme of this double-length Go Diego Go!/Dora the Explorer crossover. Our intrepid Hispanic trio (and their cub buddy) go back in time to help an adolescent Maiasaura get back to her family. Maiasauras were new when I was about Diego's age, and it was fascinating to learn about a lesser-known dinosaur. It was also nice to see how the formats of Diego's show (learn about animal traits and habitats) and Dora's (let's go from this obstacle to this one) were combined. (We did see a little too much Map for my taste, though...)

The Backyardigans were also on a quest today. In "Quest For the Flying Rock," Uniqua, Tyrone, Tasha, and Pablo go on a race to see who can get to the Flying Rock on top of the Steep Step Hill first, the girls going through the jungle and the boys trooping across the desert. Needless to say, everyone winds up learning a lesson in teamwork and cooperation, to the tune of disco and 70s pop.

Much to my annoyance, the wind continued into the afternoon. Despite the sunshine and 45-degree temperatures, I ended up asking Dolores for a ride to work. The last time I rode to work in gale-force winds, I almost ended up being blown into Peter Creek. Work was steady-to-dead, with some obnoxious customers and a lack of help (that kid who kept not appearing last week finally quit).

Christmas Fantasia

I did my laundry today instead of trying to fit it in tomorrow before work. I've seen the full-length Dora the Explorer episode that ran today before, but it's a cute one. Dora must become a "true princess" in order to break the spell a mean witch (guest star voice Chita Rivera) cast over her monkey buddy Boots. Some folks online had reservations about the giant-and-the-puppy game, but other than that, Dora's second hour special and her second excursion in to fairy tales is a great deal of fun. I'm particularly fond of that catchy "Calliente" song that turns the winter into spring, and of helping Dora, Isa, Benny, and Tico catch the Explorer Stars!

Steve and Blue introduced the concept of maps on Blue's Clues today while Blue maps Steve's way to the place she wants to go for their afternoon outing. This was one of the tougher clues - I didn't get it until the third one.

I also began my holiday baking today. I make five kinds of cookies:

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip
Italian Biscotti
Cherry Coconut Bars
Peanut Butter
Merry Christmas Molasses Roll-Outs

And three kinds of breads:

Cranberry Bread
Pumpkin Oat Bread
Cinnamon Strusal Bread

Today, we did the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip and Cranberry Bread. The Oatmeal came out fine, if a bit sticky. I'm experimenting with using less butter and shortening (and lighter butter when I can), and with using part sugar/part sugar substitute (the Acme had a bag on clearance for $4.40, cheap for sugar/Splenda blends). I'm not the only one trying to lose weight, and I know several people who are diabetic. Unfortuantly, I forgot to chop the cranberries for the bread. The batter ran over, but thankfully, it didn't make too much of a mess.

I enjoyed the original Rankin-Bass Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer this morning during a wheat pancake breakfast. I actually didn't see this until a few years ago, when I broke down and bought the video in my last year of college. It's a little dated ("We have to get the women back to Christmas Town"), but cute and touching, with great characters and songs so good, three of them are now holiday standards. My favorite character is Yukon Cornelius. In a place where even reindeer are obsessed with conformity, Yukon is truly one of a kind. (Not to mention he and Hermie get some of the best lines. "Didn't I tell you about Bumbles? Bumbles bounce!" "I got me a peppermint mine!" "Fog's as thick as peanut butter." "You mean pea soup." "You eat what you eat, and I eat what I eat!")

Speaking of one-of-a-kind, I ran two true Christmas programming oddities while working on the cookies and bread. Here Comes Santa Claus is a French musical fantasy from 1986. A little boy named Simon is so determined that Santa Claus should bring him his missing parents back from Africa for Christmas, he and his friend Melody visit Santa himself in Lapland, taking a plane there after separating themselves from their class on a visit to an airport. In Lapland, they encounter a beautiful fairy who helps Santa Claus with his work, the usual elves...and an evil ogre who eats children, dogs, and fairies! While the kids try to escape the clutches of the ogre, Santa and Mary Ellen the fairy rescue Simon's parents from an all-too-realistic Senegal.

First of all, this is dubbed into English. While the lip syncing is often off and the dubbing is obvious, the dialog itself is pretty good (except for some stiff pep talk towards the end). The music is 80s synthesizer pop; catchy and pretty if you like 80s music. I enjoyed Mary Ellen's ballad "Land Of the Midnight Sun" when she's out looking for the kids, and the kids' teacher's (the same actress who plays Mary Ellen)
number "'Cause There's a Father Christmas."

Second, this gets weird. How often do you see Santa Claus in a very real Africa, being chased by crocodiles and arrested by African military groups? According to the end credits and the Internet Movie Database, this was actually filmed on location in Finland and Senegal, an odd choice for a musical fantasy. Those are real African natives working the salt mines and helping Santa and Mary Ellen.

For all the authenticity, this is also a fantasy. Mary Ellen and Santa have a cute episode with a family of monkeys that has nothing to do with anything. The kids somehow manage to get the stewardesses on the plane to believe they belong there with no questions, and their teacher never notices they're gone. The ogre's alter-ego, the nasty school janitor, locks children who break his windows in a broom closet, and actually throws something at Simon at one point. There's also the whole idea of a fairy helping Santa in the first place, instead of the American Mrs. Claus. Even with the plot holes, the movie has real charm, the kids are good, and the sight of Mary Ellen and Santa bickering in Africa is just classic.

One thing I do like about Here Comes Santa Claus is learning about modern French Santa traditions. Kids leave their letters to Santa with their teachers. They leave their shoes out instead of stockings. The kids and the teacher gather in the community church to sing a carol on Christmas Eve. When the kids and Santa deliver presents, they aren't wrapped; Santa covers them with tinsel garland instead.

1986 was not a good year for holiday musical fantasy. NBC's big Christmas production for that year was Babes In Toyland, featuring the music of Anthony Newley and an 11-year-old Drew Barrymore as a rather adult young lady who finds herself traveling to the title fantasy land to help Jack Be Nimble wed Mary Quite Contrary and defeat the evil Barnaby.

While not QUITE as horrible as most people have made it out to be, it's not even near the level of cute bizarreness that Here Comes Santa Claus achieves. There are three big problems here. A) I don't know what got into Newley, but his music for this is just awful. B) Despite some colorful sets and costumes, the special effects are sub-par even for TV and definitely compromise the fantasy effect. C) The only cast member who can actually sing, Eileen Brennan, doesn't.

Brennan and Richard Mulligan do have some nice moments as dithery Old Mother Hubbard and nasty Barnaby, and Drew Barrymore does as well as she can under the circumstances. There are some nice touches and gags; Mother Hubbard carries a list around to remember every single thing she says or does, Barnaby lives in a bowling ball, and everyone drives around in cute little multi-color cars like something out of an amusement park. For the most part, though, the cast is as stiff as much of the script. Lord only knows what Keanu Reeves is doing here - he looks like he'd be happier in The Matrix, or at least Bill and Ted.

Really, I don't recommend either of these unless you're 80s fans or into cheesy movies or fans of Barrymore, Brennan, or Reeves. Neither are available on DVD, though the videos should be on Amazon.com and eBay. (I got Here Comes Santa Claus from the North Cape May Acme in 2005; Babes In Toyland came from a mom and pop video store in Collingswood that was going out of business last year.)

I'd heard of the special Annabelle's Wish when I was in college, but I never had the chance to see it until tonight. It covers one of my favorite Christmas myths - that farm animals are given the ability to speak on midnight at Christmas Eve. Annabelle is a sweet calf born on Christmas Eve who is given to Billy, a mute boy who lives with his grandfather. Grandfather and grandson live with the horrifying death of Billy's parents in tragic barn fire that also cost Billy his voice. Neither are having an easy time of it. Grandfather is being hounded by a snooty aunt who thinks Billy could regain his voice under her care in the city; Billy is tormented by two bullies and their father, who's suffered a holiday tragedy of his own.

After meeting Santa, Annabelle has only one wish. She wants to fly with Santa and his reindeer. She wants to so badly, she ties branches around her head for "horns," and dreams of flying in a lovely sequence. She is given to Billy, and the two become fast friends. But the bullies and snotty aunt continue to plague them...until Annabelle makes the ultimate sacrifice on Christmas Eve to give Billy his one wish.

A gentle, moving tale of simple people dealing with trauma during the holidays, of friendship, and of sacrifice. Country fans will be most interested; Randy Travis narrates and sings at least one song, and there's a few other famous country stars on the soundtrack as well.

Here's more at the Internet Movie Database about these productions.

Here Comes Santa Claus
Babes In Toyland (1986)
Annabelle's Wish

Oh, and I started a small office/storage room in WebKinz World. I want a place to put the Christmas stuff after the holidays and clear out my dock.

Running the Gamut From A Drive to E Drive

My detachable A drive has been giving me trouble for the last week. It keeps saying certain files are write-protected when they aren't or just plain not opening, even files it never had any trouble opening before! My stepfather gave me the A drive when I bought my current computer in early September 2005. Apparently, he'd had it but never used it. I still had a lot of empty floppy discs at that point, and all of my files were on floppies.

I'm giving up on that darn A drive. Instead of spending twenty to forty bucks to get another one, I'm just going to do what I should have done all along - transfer my files to CD. It'll take a while, but I'm sick of this "write protected" stuff.

Spent most of the morning doing laundry, doing pilates, and watching Nick and TCM. In addition to The Adventures of Mark Twain on TCM ("artists and writers" being the biopic sub-theme of the day), I caught a couple of cute Nick Jr. episodes. Wonder Pets was the favorite this time around. The globe (and storybook)-trotting school pet trio Linny, Tuck, and Ming-Ming headed for the woods to help a baby bee gain enough confidence to fly and make honey, and to Coney (not "corny," Tuck!) Island to help a baby squirrel find it's way to the only tree on the boardwalk. The latter reminded me of why this show has been growing on me - it can be pretty weird sometimes, but incredibly imaginative, too. And someone did their homework - the baby squirrel's mother actually had the appropriate Russian/Brooklyn accent. (She sounded like a fuzzy Gertrude Berg.) (I also wonder if that tree growing in a Brooklyn boardwalk was intended as an in-joke...)

I also saw Blue's Room for the first time on an actual episode. Blue's Room is a puppet/live action segment of Blue's Clues where Blue talks to the audience (as opposed to the puppy sounds she makes in the actual show) and interacts with her "toys," various puppet dolls and furniture. Not unlike Elmo's World on Sesame Street, I think it's cute, but takes away from the actual show - finding clues with Joe.

I also enjoyed the Dora the Explorer episode today, because it revolves around one of my favorite past-times - storytelling. Dora reads "The Three Little Pigs" to Boots, who keeps asking what happens next, even after the story ends. To appease her monkey buddy, Dora concocts a sort-of sequal that somehow involves her and Boots helping the goofy king of the land find his mother by the end of the rainbow and turns into a trip through several familiar fairy tales. This was one of the better stories from Dora's "Catch the Explorer Stars" arc. King Juan El Bobo and his mommy proved so popular, they both turned up in several later stories.

The Acme was a bit of a pain today. We were still short on help, and there weren't even any call-outs this time. We just didn't have enough people scheduled.

Small Pleasures and Huge Frustrations

Most of today went well. I got the laundry done and did pilates while watching two Dora The Explorer episodes, a Joe Blues Clues, and a new episode of the rather odd-but-cute The Wonder Pets. The last-named involves a trio of bold and daring elementary school animals - Ming Ming the Chick, Tuck the Turtle, and a hamster whose name I can't remember - who dress in little costumes and go out on various adventures to save a baby animal in distress. Today, they helped their first fictional animal, a unicorn whose horn was stuck in a tree in a storybook. They also lent paws, wings, and flippers to one of the most popular animals of recent years - a baby penguin who looked like he'd just stepped out of Happy Feet

Dora's two episodes were as straightforward as can be - in the first, she and Boots traveled to the Monkey Bars so she could find out if she can climb them all the way. In the second, Dora and Boots are joined by Diego, as all three help a baby brontosaurus get back to his mother, and learn about other dinosaurs and their mommies.

Though the dinosaur episode was very cute (especially that baby bronto giving his mother the flower at the end!), I found myself preferring the earlier adventure. I can relate all too well to Dora's determination to cross the Monkey Bars. Even now, I have difficulty on monkey bars and am still a little afraid to cross very high ones. I could barely get past the second or third rung at Dora's age. I applaud her effort and determination!

(And a side note on the dinosaur episode - Diego seems to be a lot older in Dora the Explorer than he is in his own show. In Go Diego Go! he appears to be a year or two older than six-ish Dora; in the dinosaur show, he seemed more like eleven or twelve, complete with a much deeper voice.)

I did try TCM, but no interesting biographies today. One looked like one of those very old George Arliss vehicles from the early 30s, either Alexander Hamilton or Diserali; the other seemed to be about Christopher Columbus and, from what little I saw, was a poorly-scripted snore. (No good movie has EVER been made about Christopher Columbus.)

I did catch an old favorite on TV Land, though. I always got a kick out of The Munsters as a kid. How many TV shows can pull off being macabre and sorta sweet at the same time? Everyone freaks when they see Herman, but he's really the biggest doll around; he just happens to be a Frankenstein monster with the world's largest stitched-in heart. As with the Addams Family, it's the details that matter here - Grandpa sleeping upside-down, their kid being a vampire who sleeps with a wolfman doll and has what looks like a pet dragon who lives under the stairs, Herman working in a funeral home. To be honest, the show was, far more than the genuinely weird Addams Family, a sitcom with gently ghoulish trappings. Today's story almost seemed to come from the 50s - Lilly gets mad at Herman when he comes home late from an office party, and Gramps, the kid, and niece Marlyn have to get them back together.

I didn't work until 4PM, so I decided to use the extra time to bring out my winter clothes and sort things to donate to the thrift shop. A few of my drawstring and elastic waistband pants would be genuinely too big for me now. I could live with the rest. I also got rid of two sweaters with horizontal stripes (makes me look bigger) and a spring dress with too-busy print. Everything else but two heavy sweaters it is genuinely too early for were either put in the containers in the back room or in my dresser. I also got some story work in.

A few annoying customers at work, but I was only there for a few hours and it was mildly steady, nothing like last night.

I had problems with Netscape again tonight; that's why this post is so late. I'm working on downloading NetZero as I type this. Forget this messing around. If Netscape is going to give me trouble (this is the second time I had to cut a chat with Lauren short because they were being a pain), forget it. I can't even remember my darn screen name!

Reach Out Of The Darkness

Today is (now) my only day off this week. I did the laundry in the morning, as usual Caught some enjoyable Nick Jr shows. Today's Blue's Clues was one of Steve's episodes, and involved the things some of the characters love to collect. For once, Miss Blue and her stripes-loving human pal actually had me stumped until the last clue!

Dora and Diego both had interesting and fairly unusual episodes that dealt with memories and remembering. Someone at Nick must have read my blog entry from last Tuesday that complained about the sameness in Dora's episodes, because there was a mild format change this week. Dora recalls at a big family dinner how she first became an explorer and met her animal buddies Boots, Isa, Tico, Benny, the Fiesta Trio, and the infamous Swiper The Fox. I believe this is also the first (and only?) time the music-playing bugs and frog known as the Fiesta Trio, who normally herald the end of a game sequence, are in the spotlight. Also, Map and Backpack only make cameo appearances; Dora herself announces the game locations. (And given I find Map's voice to be annoying, I kinda like this better.)

Diego was once again at a beach, this time helping his whole family (including his rarely-seen parents) clean up garbage in preparation for a group of leatherback turtles to lay their eggs. Diego himself recalled how he'd once helped one of the mother turtles when she was young and helped her again when she and her friends became caught in a net, while Alicia and their folks stopped the careless Bobo Brothers from redistributing the trash. Another episode I can relate to. I've lived by the beach for most of my life, and many elementary school and junior high school kids clean up trash on the Jersey Shore for not only the same reasons as Diego and his family, but because they're the lifeblood of South Jersey - they're ecosystems, they provide seafood for locals, tourists, and fish-lovers around the world, and they attract millions of tourists a year.

I stuck around after the laundry was done for The Backyardigans. Superheroes and action films were the affectionate parody of the day. The mambo tunes were so infectious, I found myself dancing along as weather-controlling Uniqua and master builder Austin chased mad scientist shrinker Tyrone and goo-creator Pablo as they raced to the Tower Of Power, which held the Key To Rule The World! I especially loved how the kids' powers were, frankly, a lot more sensible than many real-life superheroic creations...and I REALLY loved Uniqua saving Austin and the key in the end. (And they must know Edna Mode - only Pablo had a cape.)

I did make it to the Camden County Library later in the afternoon for this week's volunteering session. Worked on the world and US history sections, which were a mess and took me the majority of the two hours I was there, then spent another hour looking for books on job hunting and college graduate degrees. Didn't see anything I liked about the former, but I did find a book about adults going to back to college that may be helpful. I also picked up a book of Weight Watchers recipes, a couple of Walt Disney Comic Books (I do love me some Donald Duck), and a Calvin and Hobbes comic book I haven't read yet.

I've had bike trouble for the past few days. The back tire keeps deflating, no matter how often I pump it. It was so deflated when I came out of the library, I had to walk it home. (I peeked at AC Moore for about 10 minutes, but while they had lots of fabric, they had no books or patterns for clothes for 18 inch dolls like Samantha, and only books on knitting clothes for fashion dolls, not sewing them.) The small bike shop on the White Horse Pike where I had my pedals replaced twice last year on the old bike was closed on "Teus" (the exact wording on the sign) and mostly seemed to be opened at the proprietors' convenience...which, of course, is in the afternoon and evening later in the week, when I usually work.

Sigh. I'll go to Uncle Ken tomorrow and borrow his or Bruce's bike until I can get an inner tube and get to the shop to have it fixed.

How To Not Make Up Your Mind

Darn it. The Acme called me in twice today. The first time was when I was doing my laundry at Uncle Ken's. Did I want to come in around 3 and go until 7:45? I called them to say "yes"...but they told me they'd already gotten it filled. When I came home from volunteering at the library and running errands, they'd called again and asked me to come in. Seems the guy who called out changed his mind and decided to come in...then called out again! By that point, it was 7:30. I did not call back.

Caught cute, if typical, Dora The Explorer and Go Diego Go! episodes today. As adorable as it was to see Dora and Boots find out whose birthday it was, it was Diego's episode that really resonated with me. He traveled to the ocean to help a baby humpbacked whale that got stranded on a rocky island. I grew up at the Jersey Shore, where real baby whales (though not rare humpbacks) have been stranded and helped by real animal rescuers, some as young as Diego's sister Alicia.

Also ran into an amusing but somewhat bland Blue's Clues. It must have been new. I could have sworn Joe's sweater was orange, but here, it looks red. Shapes were the theme. I guessed right on the first clue; a supermarket IS a good place to look for shapes, as I ought to know.

TCM highlighted popular comics of the 30s this morning. A Night At The Opera is one of my favorite movies. I was glad to catch the final 15 opera-wrecking minutes. The slightly schmaltzy Joe E. Brown vehicle that came after it, Fireman, Save My Child was less interesting.

I did my library volunteering today. Reorganized the CDs, which needed it badly. They've always been a mess, at least in the year and a half I've been going to the Haddon Township Library. They are now as alphabetical as I can make them. Doing the classical CDs was a special challenge, as I know little about that music genre, but I think I got it worked out. I also organized the historical American Girls series books, from Kayla to Molly (no Julie yet, and not much Kit, either - LOTS of Addy).

I was a bit disappointed to find that while the librarians understood my wanting to be a children's librarian, they couldn't do much more than recommend local schools to look at. I was really, really hoping they could point me in the direction of a good library or bookstore-oriented job.

Mom's crazy if she thinks I'm going to look for another grocery store job. That's defeating the point of a job search. I don't want the SAME job in another store. I want a NEW job, something I feel more comfortable and useful in. Something a college graduate should be doing. Nothing would change by changing companies. I'd still be getting bad hours, dealing with stupid people, and doing a job I hate.