As the Snow Vanishes

It did, indeed, snow overnight...but the snow was wet and fat and fluffy. It was just barely sticking to the ground when I awoke. The streets were wet, but clear.

Since the snow continued through the morning, I ran Frosty's Winter Wonderland while I ate breakfast and got ready for work. The second Rankin Bass Frosty tale has him feeling lonely when the kids aren't around. They make him a snowwoman he names Crystal to cheer him up and become his wife. Jack Frost, who brings the snow and wind, is very jealous of all the attention Frosty's getting and becomes determined to get rid of the snowman for good.

It was still snowing when I went to work, but it didn't last for very long. I was called in early last night, 10 to 2 instead of 12 to 4, and that was fine. In fact, I preferred it that way. The earlier I could get out, the better. I was in the register for most of the day this time (instead of a brief 20 minutes doing returns). I wish I'd been getting carts. It's the beginning of the month, which means we had lots of annoying, grouchy people who won't do much of anything, including help out.

My schedule didn't help. I'm absolutely livid. In good news, I have a few more hours next week than I have been getting. Trouble is, I only have one day off, and it's the day I asked off for counseling. And I'm still listed as a bagger. I'm not the only one getting weird hours, either. I complained about my strange, short hours to a fellow employee, who also complained about odd shifts and only getting one day off. (And she has far more seniority than I do!) How am I going to get anything done next week, including cleaning, writing, counseling, and putting up the spring holiday decorations?

Thankfully, it wasn't too busy by the time I did my own grocery shopping. I had a LOT that I needed this week! The Acme was having its "buck a bag" dollar vegetable sale. I picked up celery, mushrooms, and spinach, along with restocking apples, grapefruit, and bananas. The only meat on sale was the 4 for 20 deal; I'm  not spending 20 dollars on just meat. I bought ground chicken and found a pack of tortilla-crusted salmon on manager's clearance. Also restocked yogurt, tuna, cream of mushroom soup, milk (they were out of skim - I grabbed 1%), frozen peas, vanilla, jam, and dish washing liquid. The Acme is still clearing out its original generic brands. I grabbed a 3 pack of generic tape for $1.49.

No wonder it slowed down a bit later. By the time I was heading home, the snow was long gone, and the sun was out. The streets weren't even wet anymore. You'd never know we had any snow last night. It was even kind of warmish for early March, probably in the mid-40's.

After I put everything away, I went into writing. After Princess Leia is knocked out by the stormtroopers, she finds herself in a very awkward position - in the arms of the evil Lord Vader, who happens to be a half-demon and her father. She demands that he put her down and reminds him that he invaded her ball. He points out that she was having the ball to cover her spying activities, not to find a husband. At any rate, he's going to turn her over to his master, King Palapatine, to train as a black sorceress. Not to mention, he wants to find out more about the Rebels In the Woods from her. She refuses to do either, but he hands her off to his men to carry away before she can protest further.

Did a quick vacuuming session next. Goodness knows when I'll get to dusting. I'm hoping to get everything done by the end of next week. The apartment's getting kind of bad again.

I had leftovers and made Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies from a cake mix (since the peanut butter ones came out so well) while continuing Star Wars: Rebels. I absolutely love the dynamics between the characters here, especially my favorites, the strong commander and former Jedi Kanan and the Twi'lek pilot Hera, who act as surrogate dad and mom to the group. Also, this show can surprise you. An episode that seemed like a one-off (Hera and teen bomb expert/artist Sabine bond while escaping cat-like monsters) has repercussions later when Ezra and Kanan use the same monsters to escape the show's Big Bad, the evil Sith Lord the Inquisitor.

Just a Little Bit of Snow

Started today with a run to the gym. At that point, around 11:30, it was partly cloudy and chilly but otherwise perfectly fine. I did the elliptical machine and worked on my arms. Whew! The elliptical machine works up quite a sweat, the most of the three running/biking apparatuses at Lucile Roberts. I was only on for 20 minutes with a resistance of 3, and I was sweating. When I finished, I did the arm-based weight machines, worked with weights, and stretched to cool down.

Since I was in the area, I stopped by the Acme on the way home. I needed milk badly. I also grabbed a copy of Entrepreneur Magazine to get some ideas about running businesses. They were busy, but no more or less so than on any other day. The forecast called for less than an inch of snow that wasn't really supposed to stick to the street.

Spent the rest of the afternoon at my apartment. I made Beef and Winter Vegetable Stew for an early dinner. I finally dusted the apartment, finishing this month's cleaning. I baked a Lemon-Coconut Chiffon Cake. I shelved the copy of Winnie the Pooh that came in the mail today.

Ran several cartoons and specials related to winter as I did my chores and baking. Frosty's Winter Wonderland is Rankin-Bass' follow-up to their original 1969 Frosty special; Frosty Returns is actually a very different Frosty story from 1992. Winter Wonderland, which tells how Frosty made himself a wife, is the better of the two. Returns has its own charms, though, including a really cute performance by John Goodman as the title snowman.

I dug through my cartoon sets for shorts relating to snow after the specials were done. I went with the Donald Duck classic Donald's Snow Fight, the Sylvester/Tweety vehicle Puddy Tat Trouble and the Bugs short Frigid Hare, and the Woody Woodpecker tales Pantry Panic and Ski For Two. I had just enough time after the cartoons ended to pull the cake out of the oven, grab my coat, and hurry out to work!

The rush may not have been necessary. Work was just barely busy when I arrived, stone-cold dead when I left. I spent the majority of the night shelving candy. Needless to say, there were no problems whatsoever.

It had been flurrying on and off since about 3PM. It was doing it when I went to work. By the time I got out, the snow had gotten much heavier. It was sticking to the grass (and to my porch), but the sidewalks and streets were just wet. I had a very quick and very pretty ride home.

The Secret of Snowy Rides

I spent most of today running errands. I finally delivered a big bag of donations to the Friends in Deed thrift shop in Collingswood, including my old winter coats. I bought a cute Cheer Bear that can talk when you hug her. I bought a hot chocolate at WaWa, then went to counseling. I told Scott about everything happening in my family and the culinary school idea, but he mainly wants me to concentrate on trying not to get upset when things go wrong at work. I wrote down some of the things he suggested I try to think about when I get anxious - I hope it helps.

I had a quick small ham and swiss sandwich at Primo Hoagies, then rode over to the Haddon Township Library. I made a brief stop at Walgreens to see if they had any good Lil'Kinz. Nope - they still just had Tigers and Yorkies. I have a Lil'Kinz Tiger, and I don't want a silly fluffy Yorkie. I just went on ahead to the Haddon Township Library. I did the children's DVDs, removing the PG-rated animated films Iron Giant and Over the Hedge. (And for those of you who work at libraries or video rental stores, please remember that a movie being animated doesn't automatically mean it's G-rated or for little kids. Please check the ratings on the box!) I took out three DVDs and two cookbooks before heading out.

I made a very brief stop at Super Fresh. I didn't find what I was looking for and forgot something else I wanted, milk, so I also stopped by WaWa on the way back to Oaklyn. I'm glad I did - a half-gallon of skim milk at WaWa has dropped to $2.19. (A half gallon of skim milk costs $2.69 at the Acme!)

Since I was in the area, I rode over to the park behind the Oaklyn Public School on my way home. It was a nice day, bitterly cold (the high was 25) and very windy, but sunny. The snow is still very pretty, and there's still quite a bit on the ground. (Thank goodness it's not nearly as icy or as much of a problem to move as last week's snowfall, though.) I just had to take ten minutes to run through it, kick it around, make snow angels, throw a snowball to the air. We didn't often get snow in Cape May County, and the rare times we did was usually a treat. I love snow. As long as it doesn't get too messy, it's a lot of fun. (Of course, I also don't have some of the problems other people do with large snowfalls. I don't have kids who will be out of school, I live less than ten minutes from work and can commute in anything short of a major blizzard, and my neighbors or my landlady's nephew shovel my steps and porch.)

I enjoyed some more snow-related animated shorts and specials this morning and during dinner. In addition to their Christmas and Easter specials, Rankin-Bass made two specials in the 70s that were really more salutes to winter than to winter holidays. I have Frosty's Winter Wonderland, which was RB's 1976 follow-up to Frosty the Snowman. Unlike the original, this one doesn't try to needlessly tie Christmas in. Frosty comes from the North Pole, but he's lonely when the kids aren't around, so they make him a wife. Meanwhile, Jack Frost (not the same character in the 1979 stop-motion special) feels jealous of the attention Frosty gets from the kids and tries to steal his hat. It's slight but charming, with one of Rankin-Bass' better casts. The original Frosty, Jackie Vernon, is joined by Shelley Winters as his "snow wife" Crystal, Paul Frees as Jack Frost, Dennis Day as Parson Brown, and Andy Griffith as the narrator. Day and Griffith get to duet (rather nicely, too) on the title song.

Although Frosty Returns sounds like a second sequal to the Rankin-Bass Frosty specials, and it does share some elements (snow setting, kids, song, goofy villain who turns good in the end, comedian narrator), it's was actually made by Bill Melendez, who did the Peanuts specials. In fact, Returns, which was made in 1992, has more of a Peanuts vibe than a Rankin-Bass vibe. The kids seem a bit more real than they did in the Rankin-Bass specials, and there's a somewhat cynical 90s feel, from elderly teachers complaining about shoveling sidewalks and breaking hips to Frosty making wisecracks about his polka-dot bow-tie. Not for Rankin-Bass purists, but different and cute in it's own way. I'm especially fond of the only song, "Let There Be Snow." Not a bad cast here, either - Andrea Martin as the fussy teacher, John Goodman as Frosty, and Jonathan Winters as the narrator.

The Backyardigans had their own adventures in the snow. I took out the last Backyardigans DVD the library had that I hadn't seen this afternoon. I have seen the title special episode (a James Bond spoof, complete with Henry Mancini-esque jazz music), but not the other two episodes. Uniqua desperately wants to find "The Secret of Snow," but ever-busy Ice Lady Tasha has no time for her questions. She tries to send the pink bug girl first to the desert, then the jungle, but compassionate Austin, Cowboy Pablo, and Tyrone of the Jungle help her out. All four kids end up learning that there is no real secret to snow...but the secret of friendship is to help others out and have fun doing it, to the tune of Dixieland versions of Christmas songs. (In fact, this would appear to be the closest thing The Backyardigans has to a Christmas episode. It ends with the kids saying "Happy Holidays," the only time they don't go home for a snack in the end.)

My personal favorite on the disc was "A Giant Problem." Queen Uniqua sends her wizards Tyrone and Pablo to get rid of Tasha the Giant, who keeps waking the Queen from her nap. Problem is, Tyrone and Pablo are hardly Harry Potter-quality wizards - none of their spells work right. Big, goofy Tasha doesn't really want to hurt them, anyway. All she wants is to play tag. The 80s synthesizer music brought back a lot of childhood memories.