A Doberman, a Shiba, and a Dane

Philip asked if I was ready to go to the store right after I'd had breakfast, still sitting at the table, head on arms, in my bathrobe. "I'll go get dressed," I mumbled. He took the time, while I did so, to eat breakfast himself. I was still ready before he was. We went to Walmart, got my watch pin replaced, some gel pads for my boots, more socks, and the latest Shojo Beat. While we were at the jewelry counter for my watch, Philip said casually, "While we're here we could get an engagement ring." "That would be a good idea," the lady at the counter said, promptly. "And did you have a particular girl in mind?" I enquired. "Oh, I just thought I'd get the ring first and then get a girl to go with it." I suggested the girl might like to help choose it. "Ah, I'll just find a girl who matches it." The clerk said, "My husband picked out my ring and hm, three of our houses by himself." I asked what she'd thought about this. "Eh, it was fine. He knew what he was doing." So much for support.

We went to the library, too, where they were having a sale. The only thing I found was Terry Pratchett's Strata, proof that libraries are insane. Every Discworld fan needs to know how he got started with this! Sheesh. They appear to have sold a lot of other crucial books too. There were hardly any Lois Bujolds, the only copy of Cordelia's Honor being down in Fountain. All the new Sharing Knife books are either checked out or reserved, too. I ended up with Warrior's Apprentice, The Curse of Chalion, and a couple of Heyers I've been craving lately. I looked for Hartnagle's All About Aussies, but its absence was no tragedy, as Grandma has decided I need to buy it online, using her credit card and paying her back. *wide grin* Abebooks has a copy at a reasonable price.

After lunch and Beat (with Pocky), I took Lark and Phil up the way we went yesterday to see that nice Dane. The humans were all inside, but when I rang the doorbell the man let Gabby out. He was in the middle of something, though, and after a bit Phil puts the dogs back in and we headed home. It was nice and cool, with clouds, so I was in slightly better shape for commandoing across the hillside to the road behind our house. The new gel pads are a definite improvement, although still with a tendency to shift which I'll have to work on--it may be solvable without use of glue.

We got home and Phil promptly hijacked the monitor cable. We ended up watching Blast from the Past, on his laptop via the terebi. It's......pretty good. The plot....heh/geh/keh. It starts in the sixties. This fairly wealthy genius has built the mother of all fallout shelters in his backyard. He and his very pregnant wife hunker down after a television address from President Kennedy. An airplane crashes in the back yard, convincing Mr. Webber that the bomb has hit--to do him justice, there were flames coming down the hatches. Closing the door was justified. Setting the time-lock for thirty-five years.....well, as far as he knew it was justified. His wife didn't entirely agree. Fast forward thirty-five years. Their son, Adam, is well-educated, well-mannered, well.....built. A very nice boy, in fact, albeit thirty-five. His father, having reconnoitred topside, has come to the conclusion that all the survivors are messed up one way or another, and there's no reason whatever to come out for another ten years. There is, however, the little matter of supplies. For one thing, Adam's mother is nearly out of alcohol--currently a staple, given her underground existence and her husband's well-worn tapes of "The Honeymooners." So Adam is sent topside  to bring back supplies--and, hopefully, a nice girl, from Pasadena if possible. Buying supplies was easy, once he'd sold one or two of his father's old baseball cards and found a nice girl to help drive U-Hauls and rent lockers. Getting it all back to the shelter was harder, especially considering he'd promptly gotten lost, in the first place, and in the second place, the nice girl, being not entirely nice, refused to believe she'd fallen for a guy who, while looking exactly her type, reminded her like a lost puppy. It all.........works out. Of course. Mostly. I do wonder if Adam's mother ever took the butcher knife to her husband, when for example she learned there'd never been any nuclear attack--something her bunker-building husband never came to believe.

After dinner Phil and I went to see the new Pixar movie, UP. It was pretty good. Not great, but good. Hmmmm......a good family movie. I think my favorite bits were the dogs, and after that Carl's wife.....a character with live appearances only in the prologue. This story takes place largely after her death, you see. Anyway. Come to think of it, the only other major female character is the bird--Kevin. Yeah. But it's a fun movie, and I was happy to take the chance to dress up; Sid gave me a really nice black top that I've been wanting to wear with the red skirt. It was perfect. It doesn't even have many white dog hairs on it, now that Lark's finally assimilated the fact that I have once more returned to her life. Which reminds me--the dogs really impressed me. Not just the characterization, which was terrific, but the animation. The expressions, conveyed perfectly through caricatured canine bodies. The textures, so that I knew exactly what it would feel like to touch one of those lolling pink tongues. Heck, even the voices, through the special collars that communicated the dogs' thoughts, simultaneously permitting them to communicate both verbally and physically, without the disruption of moving mouths. Alpha, the scary Doberman, sounded like, when the collar was working properly, Toy Story's Zurg. So.....it was fun. It was good. It wasn't great.