Happiness is sleeping late followed by biscuits for breakfast. James put some ground flaxseed in them and they looked as if they were whole wheat. I had them with mint butter and a glass of milk. Yum. Did a couple of surveys on the computer while I was eating.

We headed out about noon just as the grey, swollen sky started to spatter rain. We ran into a terrible accident just as we started out, at Powder Springs and Macland, between a small car and a police car, although it looked as if something/someone else was involved because there wasn't enough damage on the small car to have caused all that damage to the police car.

By the time we'd made our way up Macland Road and east on Lost Mountain/Mars Hill, it was raining in earnest. I grabbed my Books-a-Million coupon (20 percent off entire purchase) and just ran; James fished around for his umbrella and then didn't have to dash.

Goodness...spent over an hour just looking around. I decided to pick up the Dime Store mystery book that I had passed up at Barnes & Noble yesterday (I haven't read the first one, which is why I was reluctant to pick up the second), plus found an Ann Rinaldi historical I didn't have, and a neat-looking fantasy called The Apothecary. And since it was twenty percent off, I bought a remaindered copy of The Pioneer Woman. Plus I found a spiffing coffee table book called Legacies: Collecting America's History at the Smithsonian which was $8 after the coupon!

James didn't find any books he wanted, but did buy the TARDIS cookie jar. We've been looking and looking at it.

The clouds were still low, but the rain had stopped, by the time we emerged. We decided to go home a different way, through Acworth Due West Road, a bit of Dallas Highway, and then West Sandtown to Macland and home. We enjoyed it. Lost Mountain/Mars Hill used to be mostly country or country homes, but there are several large shopping centers on it now. The only "big" thing on Acworth Due West is a Baptist church and a couple of small shopping centers. Plus, by coming home this way, we went right past the Avenue at West Cobb and Barnes & Noble, where I picked up Shopping, Seduction and Mr. Selfridge with my other coupon. The Masterpiece Theatre production of this story is on tonight, the story of Henry Selfridge, an American who started one of Great Britain's most well-known department stores.

Finally, the nicest part of Easter: after changing clothes I put on the Addie Mills story, The Easter Promise, in which a former Clear River [Nebraska] resident returns to her old home town. Twelve year old Addie is thrilled to learn she is a famous stage actress and she and her friends take the woman flowers to welcome her home. But Constance Payne has problems that the girls don't understand and Addie's on her way to being disappointed by her actions. Not quite as good as the first two stories [The House Without A Christmas Tree and The Thanksgiving Treasure], but a nice period piece.

I followed this with Here Comes Peter Cottontail, my favorite of the three Rankin-Bass Easter stories, in which Peter must redeem himself after losing the faith of the residents of April Valley. The baddie here is the voice of Vincent Price as the evil rabbit January Q. Irontail; Price plays him with delightful over-the-top relish, with in-jokes tossed in from some of his horror movies. Danny Kaye is the narrator and it's full of luscious bright color.

James made lamb steaks finished with One Screw Loose's balsamic onion jelly for supper with rice on the side. It was quite delicious, and we watched It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown, a slight entry in the "Peanuts" cartoon series. Fed-up Woodstock demands a dryer home from Snoopy, who buys him a succession of bird houses, while a running gag follows Peppermint Patty's efforts to teach Marcie how to color eggs, since her bespectacled buddy does everything but boil the eggs in their shell—they're fried, baked, made into soup, etc., and Linus promises the Easter Beagle will bring colored eggs. The funniest gag is Charles Schultz's not-so-sly dig at commercialism: the kids go into a department store to buy Easter supplies and the store is already decorated for Christmas!

Now it's time for Series 2 of Call the Midwife and then Mr. Selfridge.

[Later—I am loving Selfridge. Over the top quite a bit, but just a look at a classic department store is worth it. Many of the department stores I was taken into as a child still had the old wooden-and-glass showcases and the drawers and boxes behind the counter in wooden shelving units. I particularly remember the old Kresge store on Westminster Street, and the tiny little Bunn's department store right around the corner of Cranston Street, although these memories are very dim. I remember Bunn's would be rather dark on cloudy days, as there were no fluorescent lights in the store and they relied on skylights to supplant the store lights. I remember handkerchief counters at Kresge's, and a corner there where they had inexpensive toys, cheap, windup things.] 

Labels: books, television, weather

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