The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
Introductions
That Border Collie mix I couldn’t get out of my head? Here she is:
Her paperwork from the rescue actually said “Burmese Mountain Dog” which I found pretty funny. So I am just saying that we have another WonderMutt. I have several stories to tell about the adoption experience and how she came about her name and introducing her to Gibbs and how the birds are doing, but we are all pretty tired now.
Sigmund and the Bunny and the Feathers
The other night I brought home Joker, a rabbit for whom I pet sit once or twice a year. The last time he was here, Gibbs was a very small puppy, so I was a tiny bit worried about his reaction.
No problem. Gibbs doesn’t show any interest in Joker. He is interested, however, to see the birds are interested. This is a picture of Sigmund about five seconds after I had settled in Joker:
Which led me to realize that Sigmund’s feathers have really come in. Which led me to feel a tiny bit guilty because the last time he chewed off all of his feathers, it was because there was a new puppy in the house and I am right now preparing to bring home Dog #2. So. Just so I have a record of Sigmund being almost-fully-feathered again:
Next New Favorite Dog Toy
Gibbs has had a couple of these:
He starts by playing with them appropriately. Dig the little stuffed animals out of the house or tree or hive. Then he shreds the house. Or tree. Or hive. He also had one of these:
It made him mad. So he pulled off one donut, opened the blue stuffed bone and pulled the stuffing out so that I couldn’t put the donuts back on it. He still has those donuts. He likes to throw them into the air. Thinks he’s so freakin’ clever.
Finally, we tried this:
Awesome. The idea of the eggs made me squeamish, but he doesn’t know what they are, so whatever. We started with the fish one. And look:
The hole where the eggs go is elastic and just a bit harder for the dog to dig the toy out. And the fish one doesn’t have any other stuffing inside, so it stays intact (Although Gibbs tore off the eyeballs and the lips. Damn weirdo.) The size of the eggs is in the same neighborhood as a tennis ball, which he loves. And there are replacement eggs for when he loses them under a different couch!
Love this toy. I have bought more. They are at Wags on Willow in Northbrook and online at Drs. Foster and Smith.
Mark Twain in Hawaii: Roughing it in the Sandwich Islands
Book 17
This is the second time in a row that I have picked up a short Twain book and taken forever to read it.
Twain visited the Hawaiian islands in the 1860s and sent many dispatches back to the states about his experiences. This is a compilation. There was an interesting note in the Forward that Twain meant to write a novel about Hawaii that never materialized. One theory is that he turned that particular outline into A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
Anyway. I will need to do some homework on just exactly how much of this text is true. It leaves the impression that Hawaiians 150 years ago were always naked and just barely past the ritual of human sacrifice. The photographs tell a different story. About the nudity, anyway.
Twain’s wit certainly comes through in these pieces, as do his admiration for the islands. I have to say my favorite part was the description of the volcano on the Big Island. It sounds exactly the same.
I need to go Google Captain Cook now. Did they really boil his bones?
P.S. Please note that I read my souvenir vacation book immediately after the actual vacation.
What I Did This Weekend
Friday, my car pretended that she was sick so that she could spend the day with Bill at the garage. Seriously. He heard the noise two days earlier when I asked him to listen, but when there was a whole day with an appointment and everything – nothing.
We spent some time trolling the websites for another dog.
Saturday was Blanket Day. The take of blankets – bagged, tagged and ready to deliver – was in the neighborhood of 750:
Today, my mother caved and turned on the A/C. I took Gibbs to the dog park. This is what he looked like the entire time:
Until he lost his ball. Then he looked like this:
Then I took him home to take a nap while my mother screamed at March Madness and I went over to the Chicagoland Pet Expo. I talked with several of the rescues and there was one particular Border Collie mix that I couldn’t get out of my head, so I took her picture and e-mailed it to my mother who had a hundred questions. So I was the idiot texting and walking through the trade show. Sorry about that.
When I got home and took out the garbage, I saw this:
Neighbors’ flowers. This weekend, I also saw that my tulips are coming up. And I saw a bumblebee. In each of these three moments I thought, “Poor thing. You’re doomed.”
Then I finished Season 2 of Downton Abbey, which I will tell you about later.
So that was a good weekend.
Blankets 11 – 17
Saturday is Blanket Day and I just took this batch downstairs to the laundry:
The solid yellow has one of the Red Heart Kids yarns – I forget the name. The lady bug blanket has Red Heart’s Cherry Red. I am so glad I picked up the giant skein of that one.
These two were crafted by the crafty ladies before they landed in Penny’s stash:
Both use scraps of patterned fleece to accent the solid fleece. Plus the one on the left includes the line “Play Ball” embroidered from a sewing machine. On the left I used Caron’s white yarn and the right has Caron Simply Soft in Grey Heather.
Finally:
On the right is the fleece from Ikea with Caron Soft Paints yarn in Spring Brook. The center uses Caron white and the left has Caron Simply Soft in Plum Wine. I would have called it Dusty Rose, but whatever.
So I made it through that pile!
Being Back
I returned from vacation and found my dog has started to figure it out – sometimes I go away. And while he will still sleep in my bedroom, he spends the better part of the night with my mother which makes no sense because she is all screamy at the NCAA right now.
Over the weekend, I took him to the doctor, where he was all barky-barky. Then to Wags on Willow where he was perfectly pleasant with Mary, the proprietor, then went all barky-barky whenever anyone new entered the room. Finally on Sunday, we went back to the dog park where he was perfectly pleasant with every man, woman and beast we encountered.
We are starting to reach out to various rescue groups in search of dog #2. It is more difficult now that we have “best companion for Gibbs” as a requirement, in addition to “won’t try to kill the birds”. And we don’t have Puppy Amnesia. Obviously, I will keep you posted.
And finally, I was pleased to find my monthly picture of Gibbs at Doggie Do Rite in my Facebook Feed today:
Yeah. That would be my dog stalking a bulldog with the tennis ball.
Downton Abbey, Season One
Or..When I Started Watching the Same Television Show as my Grandfather
Of course, I had heard of it. But I didn’t buy it until I heard, “It’s like a turn of the century British soap opera. With Maggie Smith!” Seriously. That description made me drop thirty bucks on seven episodes of a TV show.
It is a lame description. It is really Pride and Prejudice crossed with Gone with the Wind and Gosford Park. If that made any sense.
So, yeah. Some of the plot points have been done. Twice, I said out loud, “Heh. Scarlett did it.” (As in “Simpsons did it” (referring to Scarlett O’Hara) not “in the library with the candlestick” although that would have been cool, too.) (Geez with the quotation marks and the parens. This is poor writing.) But with as many of the pieces that were easy to see coming, I was impressed with the ones that weren’t.
Of course, Dame Maggie gets the bests one liners as the Dowager Countess. But seriously, her character seems to grow as a person at least as much as the next character which is awesome because it would have been easy to write her the laughs and move on. But that would have played itself out and as it happens I am really looking forward to watching Season 2.
So I finished the last episode and immediately walked it to my mother and presented it like it was the crown jewels. She made a face. And do you know what she said?
Do you know what she said?!
“Your grandfather watches that show.”
Sarah’s Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay
Book 16
An American journalist in Paris is assigned a story – the anniversary of the mass arrest and deportation of Jews in Paris, 1942. She finds a personal connection, through her French in-laws, to one of the families and tries to find out what happened to them.
This type of novel, this genre, ought to have a name: where some modern day person stumbles upon a mystery and pursues it to the extreme. Sometimes there are eerie personal parallels and sometimes there is a personal epiphany. But always, always that modern day person begins the journey at least half broken. And totally annoying. Unfortunately, it seems to be a necessary part of of the formula. As in:
Julie and Julia, Possession, The Historian, The Labyrinth, The Thirteenth Tale
Sarah’s Key has a whole lot to say. While I was not familiar with this particular episode in the Holocaust, I have read a bit about the French experience. The convergence of survival, complicity, guilt, embarrassment and burying (or re-writing) history were really well illustrated in the Tezac family. The portrayal of secrets kept was intense. The story of the little girl in 1942 was compelling. For all of these reasons, I can give this book a thumbs up.
I just wish I could have liked the narrator.
The Winds of War
I read this Herman Wouk novel, from my mother’s shelf, a few years ago. It was my summer epic read. The mini-series has been sitting on my shelf for awhile.
Robert Mitchum plays Cmdr. Victor Henry, the naval attache to Berlin in 1939. He has three grown children: Warren is a naval pilot, Byron is a grad school dropout tooling around Europe and Madeline is a student. So here were are with the personal and the political converging ahead of WWII and that is really all you have to know.
As best I remember, it is faithful to the book. However, there is a seriously diminished focus on some of the characters – namely Warren and Madeline Henry. I guess I am ok with this, since Byron really has the best story and the thing is already really long.
This was produced in 1983, which I believe was smack in the middle of the network television mini-series heyday. North and South, The Blue and the Gray (I didn’t actually see that one) and our beloved V. Which means that we have to allow for some 80’s network movie cheese. I am fine with that. But I do find the casting a bit suspect.
Ali MacGraw seems rather old for the Natalie Jastrow character. Perhaps that is because I remember her from Dynasty when she was playing the older generation. Also, Jan-Michael Vincent seems old to be playing Byron – who is supposed to be the younger brother. And Polly Bergen as the matriarch. Well. She reminded me of Mrs. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice (think the Colin Firth version, please) which was not a vibe I picked up while reading the novel. My mother may disagree with me, there.
But Holy Something did Robert Mitchum rock this thing and that is not my daddy issues talking. He makes me want to skip over reading the sequel and go straight to the DVD.
Network television should really bring back this format.
The Next Dark Age 