"Another Fine Mess You've Gotten Me Into!"

After the excitement yesterday, I wanted to keep my only day off this week more laid-back. I started the morning with taking down the Fourth of July decorations. I figured I might as well. I'm working the rest of the week after today. Besides, I don't like leaving most holiday decorations up after the fact. (Except for Christmas. I like having them up, and they take forever to put up and take down anyway.) My very few general summer decorations will stay up until early-mid September.

I took a leisurely stroll to the Oaklyn Library a bit later in the morning. It was very hot today, but surprisingly not humid. The sky was a pale blue, with a few fleecy clouds. Actually, I wish we would get some rain. The grass is looking so brown and dry!

The Oaklyn Library needed the organizing. I finally decided to take out the DVDs that were listed wrong and get the librarians to fix them. Someone listed at least ten or fifteen titles under the words "The," "A," and "An," which as any good librarian could tell you, aren't counted as words. I'm tired of putting them in the right places, under their actual title, and then having someone try to put them under the letter listed. (And The Mark of Zorro goes under "Mark," not "Zorro." Conversely, the Angelina Ballerina and Backyardigans discs should be listed as those series, not the episode names.)

The kids' section was worse. There were young adult titles mixed in with the picture books, non-fiction in with fiction, and very large gaps where older material had been hastily removed. I put the out-of-order books where they belonged and fixed the young adult series section, which had gotten completely disorganized after its move from the metal shelves to the wooden ones.

Hiked over to WaWa after leaving the library for lunch and milk. It was even hotter by the time I headed out. The sun beat down relentlessly, despite a not-bad breeze. I grabbed a half-gallon of skim milk, a turkey and Swiss Junior hoagie, and a pretzel, and quickly made my way home.

I spent the next few hours inside, watching The Devil's Brother and doing things online. The Devil's Brother is one of the few musicals Laurel and Hardy appeared in (usually as comic relief). Dennis King is the title character, a Robin Hood-like figure who robs from the rich to give to the poor. The "rich" in question is a lovely noblewoman (Thelma Todd) with an older and very rich husband. Stan and Ollie try to rob King after they lose their money to bandits, but King ends up taking them on as aids to help him pull the wool over not only Todd's eyes, but her husband's and a young soldier after King.

Finally headed to the laundromat around quarter of 6. It had cooled off considerably, enough that it actually felt quite nice outside. Some clouds had begun to build up in the afternoon, but they'd completely vanished by 6. The laundromat was quiet, too. There were only a few people and the local Channel 6 and Channel 10 newscasts. This was a good thing. I had a lot of laundry to do, thanks to Lauren's visit and the sheet I used yesterday at the fireworks.

When I got in, I ran Bonnie Scotland and made Flounder in Teriyaki Sauce with mushrooms, steamed green beans, and cucumber and tomato salad. Bonnie Scotland is something like a more exotic Bowery Boys movie. In this case, when Stan and Ollie come to Scotland for Stan's inheritance, they find themselves stranded with no money, no pants for Ollie, and no way to get home. Joining the Scottish Army provides them with clothing and travel...but they quickly prove to be even worse soldiers than they were Scotsmen.

While I did like the swashbuckling Devil's Brother better than the bizarre Bonnie Scotland and neither are the pair's absolute best, they both have their moments. And the set comes with segments that Laurel and Hardy did for other MGM films (including Hollywood Revue and the otherwise lost operetta Rogue Song) and a documentary on the short subjects of the 20s, 30s, and 40s.

Summer Madness

Hot, hot, hot today! It wasn't even humid. It was just hot. We're into the Dog Days of Summer now, and it sure feels like it. I spent most of my only day off this week shopping. I picked up my paycheck first, then rode over to Wal-Mart. I was hoping to find a new bathing suit to replace the green one I bought last summer that's now three sizes too big for me. It would seem that so's every woman customer at Wal-Mart. I didn't see any bathing suits left that even close to fit. They were all big plus sizes. Fashion Bug had the same problem. I guess I missed all the size 14-16s.

I did end up with a very cute sun dress, a white embroidered shirt to go with my new peach ruffled skirt, and a pair of dark-blue shorts to replace a pair of dark-blue shorts I have now that are way too big. The sun dress came from Wal-Mart. It's red and white polka-dots with blue trim. I still don't like the high waists that are currently in style, but it seems to be impossible to find a dress without one. At least the gathers at the chest aren't too obvious. The polka-dot dress replaces a peach dress with small purple flowers and a lace collar that looked like something an old lady would wear and is now 4 sizes too big for me. I also picked up a pair of good white summer shoes from Fashion Bug to go with my sun dress and the peach skirt. They, too, are a little more cutesy than I'd prefer, white slip-ons with bows on the sides, but it's hard to find summer shoes without some silly-looking trim. Maybe I could somehow get the ribbons off.

I had a slice of vegetable pizza and a bottle of water at Tu Se Bella's, then went back over to the Acme to buy this week's groceries. I grabbed yogurt (the Acme now has Light Banana Cream Pie...and their Light Cappuccino and Pina Colada flavors are back), small steaks that were on sale, single packs of salmon and flounder, spaghetti sauce, and items to make a pudding pie for Jodie's party tomorrow evening.

I put the pie together when I got home, after I finally got everything put away. That Banana Cream Pie went over so well at my cousin Taylere's graduation party last month (and was so easy to make), I decided to make a similar pie for Jodie's party. The Acme had the big boxes of Jello's new Chip flavored puddings - chocolate or vanilla pudding with mini flavored chips or cookies mixed in. I made a Chocolate Mint Chip Cream Pie with the Jello Chocolate Mint Chip pudding, a chocolate graham cracker crust, and the last $1.00 container of Acme whipped topping on the shelf.

I had originally planned on finishing the cleaning today, but I was so tired between my long work week and my shopping, it never happened. After I put together my bills, a rebate, and the form for the insurance and got those in the mail, I walked over to the bank. It was a half-hour before closing, and the bank was very busy. It was really too hot for a long walk, so I was straight to the bank and just made a quick stop at 7-11 on the way home for a Diet Dr. Pepper Cherry Vanilla soda and a nifty soft pretzel sprinkled with bits of garlic and poppy seeds in addition to salt.

The rest of the afternoon was spent inside, watching the bonus material on Yankee Doodle Dandy. I started another bio-musical, 'Til The Clouds Roll By, while making a delicious dinner of Quick Chicken Cacciatore (from a low-fat cookbook I bought at the thrift shop last year), spinach and cucumber salad, and a slice of fresh farm market sourdough bread.

Faster and Faster To Nowhere

I have a confession to make. Ahem.

I like disco.

A child of 1979, I grew up on disco. My stepfather loved disco divas like Donna Summer and Diana Ross, and still does. One of my earliest childhood memories is of my sister Rose and I shaking our groove things to "Bad Girls/Hot Stuff," still two of my favorite songs, while Dad laughed at our antics. I bought him Donna Summer's On the Radio on CD for him to annoy Mom (she DOESN'T like disco) with about five or six years ago. It was the surprise hit of my family's Christmas. Even Mom happily cranked up the volume whenever it was on.

I sent the bills this morning and went through last year's papers, sorting what could go and what needed to be kept for tax purposes. After everything was sorted, I headed back to Act Two to see if they still had the CD/DVD rack I saw on the way out last week but wasn't going to try to carry home on foot. They didn't, but I did pick up a few other items. My Cabbage Patch Kid, Carrie, finally got some new clothes. She's been wearing the dress she came in in 1984 for over a decade. The dress is in decent shape for it's age, but it's also pilled, stained, and the Velcro won't close very well anymore. I got her a cute pair of green overalls with a red-and-green plaid shirt. The shirt's short-sleeved, so she still wears her cream-colored baby sweater. The overalls are a bit stiff; I had a hard time getting them on her. I also got a second vintage 80s item, a Good Luck Bear Care Bear figurine in mint condition. My third find was my favorite, Donna Summer's disco classic Once Upon A Time. I haven't heard this in years, but it seems to be Summer's 70s retelling of the Cinderella story, and while not as familiar as "MacArthur Park" or "Bad Girls" it's still a blast to listen to.

About an hour after I came home, it began to snow heavily. Though the snow settled into flurries by 3PM and never did stick, I opted to get a ride to work anyway. I wasn't getting off until 8:45, and I was worried about ice. Work was steady when I came in, stone-dead when I left.