Tuesday, July 24, 2007

the good, the bad, and the ugly

By "ugly" I mean completely and utterly disgusting, so any nauseated pregos may chose to refrain from reading the part of this post chronicling Otis's activities yesterday morning. Just a heads up...

Moving right along.

The good. Baby, baby, baby. My sweet girl is so hysterical. Everytime I look at her, I think I love her a little bit more. Sometimes I think I may explode from it all. I am constantly amazed at how much I love my life right now. I have a wonderful husband, who always makes me laugh, even as he aggravates the snot out of me. I have a great dog, who is sweet and gentle with our daughter. Of course, antics like yesterday's can be exceedingly frustrating. He's still an awesome doodle, though. Then, there is the girl. My vocabulary is ill-equipped for describing how happy she makes me and how perfectly she completes our little family. I'm giving up on trying...you'll all just have to see for yourselves.

The bad. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I waited a couple of days before even broaching the subject. I was terribly disappointed in the movie. Terribly. I will say, however, that I agree with Feathernester and Die Frau. The casting choices for Luna Lovegood, Dolores Umbridge, and Bellatrix LeStrange were perfect. I am in love with Luna's character. As for the movie, I'm not even upset about stuff that was left out. I understand the concept of editing for time. I get it. I do not, however, understand why they chose to just flat out change things. Come on, people. I'm sure it's not that important that they had Cho rat out the DA instead of her friend. I'm sure it matters to no one that Umbridge busted up into the DA as she did instead of Dobby warning them to run. I'm sure all those crazy made-up Educational Decrees aren't important. In fact, I know those things aren't important. They're just annoying. I suppose I'm a Harry Potter purist. Then there is my other major issue, which applies to the entire HP movie franchise, not just this particular flick. Could they please stop changing the way things look? I'm only asking for a bit of consistency. A teensy bit. Did anyone else notice that when Sirius spoke through the fire that it was completely different than in Goblet of Fire? I didn't care for the way it was done, but why change it? Then...Why suddenly change the movie to reflect present day so much? Big, shiny Parliament...London all lit up at night...Dudley in his ghetto-thug finest...insanely shiny hallways in the Ministry of Magic? It's so silly. It's equally silly that I am this upset about it, I suppose. I know that the books are based in the present, but they've never made it all so slick and shiny. I thought they'd always done a good job of achieving a very neutral backdrop, timewise. Now I feel like it's all chockablock with harvest gold and avocado appliances, if you know what I mean. I will admit that the dueling scenes at the end were pretty cool, though I found it odd that they showed Dumbledore's ankles. I know that's a weird thing to notice, but it made him seem so ordinary to me at a moment when he seemed invincible in the book. Dumbledore in socks. How mundane. I'm done thinking about it. At least for five minutes or so...

Okay. The ugly. Otis caught a chipmunk yesterday. At least I think it was chipmunk. He's been chasing one that runs along the back fence for weeks now. Anyway, he caught something yesterday morning. Chipmunk, squirrel, badger, whatever. He then proceeded to eat it. It still had all (at least I think all) of its body parts when I first noticed the situation. I tried all the regular attempts at getting him to relinquish his prey. Tennis ball, food, cheese, grapes. Nothing worked. I got the hose out. He quickly figured out that I couldn't reach the back corner of the yard with the spray...and that he could outrun the spray anyway. I called M. He encouraged me to try one more time with the hose, making sure it was really on full blast. I got Otis to drop the remainder of the poor animal, which at this point was only a severed head with an intact eyeball. One of the more disgusting sights I've ever witnessed, let me tell you. Of course, as soon as I went into the house to get a bag, Otis devoured the head. He wasn't about to let me take away his snack. I wouldn't let him inside yesterday morning because I was afraid he'd lick S in the face and infect her with hanta virus or rabies or some equally unappealing disease carried by chipmunks. When I did let him in, he was remanded to his kennel until M got home and we were able to take him straight to the bath. Then he apparently stayed awake all night, vomiting all over the carpet downstairs. Quite pleasant, I assure you. We're now trying to decide between paying Stanley Steemer to come clean our carpets or buying our own steam cleaner. Awesome. The poor little guy clearly feels like crap today, but I know it won't deter him from eating the next animal he manages to catch.

I think this is a long enough post, I'm going to make a Boca Burger.

2 comments:

Lesley said...

Being that Lucas and I have had to do both when the pup had parvo, I recommend Stanley for one or two rooms as it is not really that expensive. Just make sure you get the scotch guard stuff. But then we went and bought our own, and we got a little $79 bissell, and it works great for those little areas. It cleaned up a liquid poo lake in the living room to the point that you couldn't even see it. Hope that helps!

paul and kelly said...

i just want to say that no matter what you write about i find it fascinating. you have a gift with words. i think you should write a book, i would buy a copy for all of my friends. thanks for sharing your stories on your blog.

kel