I’d like to install a pet door downstairs to accommodate my dog so that she can chase that squirrel with abandon and without needing me to jump up let her out every other minute.
I’m confident I’ll do a better job than this.
Yesterday when I went out to my car there was so much dirt layered atop it that I thought an undertaker had been by with a shovel. Before the paranoia could really get cranking, I crossed the street and looked at my neighbor’s car: same thing. Indeed, every car on the street looked like the victim of the latest Biblical plague: airborne dirt. Later, a service writer at the Ford dealership told me that it had been on the news: Some vicious wind had come whistling through the valley last night and deposited dirt everywhere. (And no, it wasn’t anyone at TMZ.com.)
Just now I took my dog for a bike ride. (Well, I pedal, she runs alongside.) There was so much grit in the air I felt like I was in one of those asteroid disaster movies. Since 1988, southern California has had earthquakes, mud slides, deluges, drought, riots, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now this.
This year, for the first time in a long time, I’m not cooking Thanksgiving dinner and neither is my wife. Some years I do the turkey and all the fixings, especially if the holiday falls between two of her graveyard shifts or if she’s out of town with our kids (in which case I invite strange assemblages of acquaintances, as in this episode recounted this time last year). Other years she does it. This year we’re going to a nice restaurant instead. It was her idea, and it’s one I like a lot.
Her other idea is that after our Thanksgiving dinner at the nice restaurant, the five of us can go to the movies. She scanned the listings to see what’s playing. “We can go see ‘The Fantastic Mr. Fox,'” she said. “Or, we can take the kids to see” and she named this movie. Given the subject matter, I’m not sure it’s the right choice for a feast holiday.
This rendition of “Bohemian Rhapsody” leaves me feeling all fuzzy.
Lou Dobbs may run for President.
In other news, there’s still no Democrat running for governor of California.
Overheard tonight, as my 7-year-old and his 11-year-old sister came across a television commercial for the new teen vampire movie:
Him: “Why doesn’t he die? He’s a vampire. Vampires can’t be out in sunlight.”
Her: “I don’t know. He just doesn’t.”
Him: “Why not?”
Her: “I don’t know. I know one way to kill them for sure. Rip them apart into pieces. They did that in the first movie.”
Him: “Why don’t they use acid? That would work.”
Her: No response.
Him: “Why don’t they use acid?”
Her: No response.
Him: “EMMA!!!!! Why don’t they use acid?”
Her: “I DON’T KNOW!!!!”
Later, he told me that he had “a plan to put an end to her diabolical ways.”
According to a news story on MSNBC.com, “Tiny insect brains can solve big problems.“
If you’d like to see what “The Prisoner” really looks like, click here.
The new one doesn’t even have cool theme music, let alone Patrick McGoohan’s penetrating glare (which I practiced for hours back in high school).
I’m not the only one seeing more people in restaurants. In another good economic portent, even the restaurants in Indiana are showing signs of life.
As a fan of the original series, which spoke so directly to my rebellious teenage self, I was looking forward to the remake of “The Prisoner” running on AMC this week. Sadly, it’s unbearably bad. Really, truly, tediously, awful. I would go on about why, but this fellow has already enumerated all the reasons, with one exception: There’s nothing at stake. No stakes = no conflict = no story. In its place: dolorous music accompanying logy acting. If there are terrorists in the village, I’m rooting for them.