Getting Physical

I ignored the gale-force winds that sent everyone else in the area scurrying this morning and made a quick run to the Oaklyn Library. No, there wasn't much going on there, either. I organized a few DVDs, rearranged some of the picture books, and took a good look at the children's non-fiction and young adult section.

When I got home, I had Ham and Pasta Soup for lunch and ran two East Side Kids movies, Docks of New York and Bowery Champs. Despite their titles, both have a lot in common with later Bowery Boys episodes. Champs has Mugs McGinnis and another kid (Gabe Dell) working for a local newspaper. They discover that a singer is accused of killing her husband...but Mugs isn't so sure that she did it. Docks also involves a mystery. In this case, the Kids are helping a young woman who is the rightful princess of an overthrown country in Europe regain her throne.

I left for work about an hour earlier than usual to pick up my paycheck and do something I've been meaning to for a while. I've looked at the Lucile Roberts, a gym exclusively for women, in the Audubon Crossings Shopping Center before. Normally, I don't like gyms. I'd rather be outside. One yoga class, a couple of walks, and bike riding doesn't seem to be cutting it anymore, though. I've regained almost all of the weight I lost over the past few years. I really need to try something else, and I don't want to go back to Weight Watchers. They were having a really good membership sale, too. I caved in and signed up for the basic 2-year membership.

When I rode over to work, since I had some extra time, I got my schedule first. Not bad. Pretty much the same as last week, only I work late on Friday. That's my only late day, though. Once again, I have Thursday and Saturday off.

Work wasn't too bad when I came in, but rush hour brought huge crowds. We're having another big 3-day-sale. This is also the first major holiday weekend of the year after the Yuletide festivities end and the first time since New Year's that many people have had a chance to really shop.

I had my own stocking up to do after work. I mainly needed produce - pears, grapefruit, strawberries (they're on sale), collard greens, broccoli (also on sale), and romaine lettuce. Thought I'd try using fruit juice concentrate for baked goods experiments again, too. Also needed Smart Balance spread (still on clearance) and yogurt. Replaced the lock for my locker at work. The store is clamping down on leaving lockers unlocked, and my old lock had been yanked around so much, the dial came off.

Groceries In the Tropics

The weather remains rainy, humid, and cool. Perfect day for sleeping in. When I did get up, I had breakfast, then spent the rest of the morning reading and finishing Naughty Marietta. (I'll watch Sweethearts later in the week.)

Work wasn't too busy today, but we were short on help. There were two call-outs. I found this interesting, given this isn't the kind of weather that usually inspires delinquency. At any rate, I stayed an extra hour and put piles of candy away between customers.

About an hour before I left, several employees were called into the front office by Pete, our new manager. Far from being in trouble, he wanted to tell us about a promotion Acme going to do between this Friday and early July. It appears to work like the McDonald's Monopoly promotion. Customers and employees each get a game card (employees get one with different prizes). When they buy anything at all, they get one piece. If they buy certain products, they can get more pieces.

At the very least, this looks like a vast improvement on the annoying pot and pan giveaway from two years ago. It still involves giving out game pieces, but they're far larger and easier to handle than the tiny stickers we gave out for the pots. You don't have to collect as many, either. Most of the items only require five or six pieces to win a prize. The prizes are a lot bigger and more useful than a cheap pot, too, ranging from food items to large cash-prizes.

But the best part by my way of thinking is, for the next few weeks, the Acme is lifting its uniform code somewhat and allowing employees to wear capris and Hawaiian shirts to look the part of summer barbecuers. That may be the best prize of all. It's supposed to get much hotter after this week, and it'll be a heck of a lot easier on me to ride to work in capris and a light Hawaiian shirt!

I ran a few errands in the mall behind the Acme after work. I stopped at America's Best and ordered contacts. I took a peek at Lucille Roberts to see what they're like. I headed for Fashion Bug to buy myself a pair of khaki capris for this weekend.

The weather continues to be weird, by the way. It rained a little bit this morning, then was just cloudy when I went to work. It poured around 2:30...for all of five minutes. When I headed back to the mall, it was just cloudy again, and it stayed cloudy when I rode home and swept the long green seed pods off the porch. It started to rain lightly around 7:30...and once again ended five minutes later, around the time I took out the trash.

Smile, Darn Ya Smile!

Started out an utterly gorgeous late-spring day with a trip to the laundromat. It was a bit busy, but other than that, there were no problems. Not even bad weather this time. It was sunny, warm, dry, and breezy, probably in the mid-to-upper 70s. I went straight home with my laundry this time, with no thunderstorm interruptions.

After I got in, I folded my laundry and watched one of the two Looney Tunes specials included with the Golden Collection Vol. 6 set, Bugs Bunny In King Arthur's Court. It's one of the few Looney Tunes specials that doesn't rely on bits and pieces of the older shorts, and one of the very few that tells a linear story. In a spoof of the famous Mark Twain story, Bugs takes one of his famous wrong turns at Albuquerque (via advice from Ray Bradbury) and somehow ends up in Camelot! Daffy is the bored king. Porky is his page. (They really played up the stuttering jokes here.) Perpetual bad-guys Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd are Merlin the magician and a knight, respectively. Not great by any accounts, but cute enough.

After an Fried Egg Sandwich lunch, I headed back out again. My first stop was the Westmont Plaza. I made a quick stop at Super Fresh to see if I could find something. After that, I went behind the Super Fresh to Super Fitness, one of two health clubs in the immediate area.

Super Fitness turned out to be a large, well-stocked area behind the main mall. (The entrance is on the side of the mall building behind The Music Place, which is probably why Lauren and I didn't see it there last week.) They have all the usual machines, plus an aerobic studio...which is my real interest. I'd really like to take some more exercise classes. I enjoy my yoga classes at Yogawood, but I'd like to take some that do more for my heart and muscles, not to mention meet other people who also want to lose weight. The price seemed pretty reasonable, too.

The Westmont Plaza is across the street from the Haddon Township Library, so that was my next stop. I was there much longer than I had anticipated. Though they didn't have many DVDs to put away today, they had plenty of children's books, and the kids' DVDs needed badly to be reorganized. I took another look over the self-help books on my way out, hoping to find more on leaving comfort zones or life coaching, but I didn't see anything I liked.

Headed down Cuthbert Road and over to Haddon Avenue next. Made a very brief stop at the Cuthbert Road 7-11, but they were out of soft pretzels. The Philly Pretzel Company on Haddon Avenue took care of that craving. After that, I rode down Haddon to Vitality Fitness, a few blocks from the Collingswood PATCO Station. They were a much smaller, more cramped gym housed in an older, Art Deco-esque building. Turns out they have no real classes. Their emphasis is on personal training and one-on-one sessions...which is really the opposite of what I'm interested in at the moment. I spend enough time alone or with one or two people. I want to be a part of a group.

Rode home after that via Newton River Park and West Clinton Avenue. I'd gotten an idea for cookies while I was on my ride. I rolled the Betty Crocker Stir-and-Drop Sugar Cookie recipe into pretzel shapes and sprinkled them with salt, making Lemon Salty-Sweet Cookie Pretzels. I burned the first batch a bit, but the second came out pretty well. I even got the hang of making the pretzel shape.

I ran more Looney Tunes during my baking session and dinner. The last Looney Tunes Gold Collection set is really made more for adult collectors than kids who dig the Tunes...but with that in mind, there's still some fun to be had. Some of the World War II and 50s propaganda cartoons on Disc 2 that go into detail about the era are fascinating for history buffs. (Loved the lady mechanic who fixed a huge machine with a bobby pin!)

As a fan of the black-and-white cartoons of the early 30s in general, I quite enjoyed the Bosko/Foxy/Buddy cartoons on Disc 3. I have fond memories of some of the Bosko and Buddy shorts appearing as part of Nickelodeon's evening "Looney Tunes" show in the 80s. While not quite as inspired as the Disney cartoons from the same era (and Foxy and Buddy are a bit bland, even compared to the slightly jazzier Bosko), they're still full of energy and crazy gags, even while being quite different from later Warners efforts.