-- I just caught a mosquito biting the side of my left hand, just below the pinky. I swatted at it, but I must've missed. Now my hand is itchy, and I'm just waiting to see where else the thing bites me. (I never seem to feel the actual bite.)
-- I've been spending a lot of time, lately, cleaning up puppy "mistakes", including mopping the entire dining room floor (where Trixie stays most of the time) every single morning. (I lead such a glamorous life!) By now, that floor has certainly been mopped more than any other place in this house (because I'll be the first to admit that mopping the floor has never been a high priority for me. Cleaning the floor is such an irritating chore, because it never stays clean for more than a few hours, at most.) Yes, I'm beginning to wear my way through that dining room floor, and we've only had her for a couple of weeks. Mopping is good exercise, though, right? I'm sure to lose five or ten pounds from all this mopping, right? ;o)
-- Someone I know (who shall remain nameless-- oh, who could it possibly be?), when singing "Yankee Doodle" some time ago (why? I can't remember) thought they lyrics were "Put a noodle on his head / And called it macaroni". Yeah, I guess that makes about as much sense as the real lyrics do, but I still laughed. (g)
-- I'm looking forward to the return of new episodes of favorite TV programs, starting in September. If I were "cool", I suppose I'd pretend to be too busy or glamorous (see above) to care about a new season of television programming, but-- I'm not, so I do!
-- Speaking of TV. . . Donald and I were amused to find that we aren't the only ones who think the new animated Wendy in TV commercials looks a bit creepy. (g) Especially in this one:
-- Trixie likes chewing on this old shoe:
But so far, we haven't felt safe leaving her with it unattended. (We want to prevent her chewing off a piece and eating it.) So it's a "special treat" toy, like her little yellow, spiky, squeaky toy and a couple of ping pong balls that she loves.
It may be a tragic mistake to let her chew this old sneaker. Possibly she'll grow to be a terror to all shoes, regardless of age (or race or sex (g)). However, I think that some dogs are capable of distinguishing between "their" shoe and other shoes-- just like a dog that chews on his own stuffed animal knows not to chew on pillows. Maybe she'll be one of those dogs. (I hope!)
-- More puppy stuff:
She's just lately developed a bad habit. (Well. Another bad habit, in addition to the typical puppy biting/chewing thing.) The clinical term is "coprophagy", but I generally refer to it as "Ewww! Gross! Trixie, why do you do that?!" ;o)
Anyway, it's extremely frustrating, because I am as scrupulous as you possibly can be about keeping her room clean. As soon as I see that she's left a "surprise" (of either type!), I remove it (if applicable), mop the spot with diluted cleanser, then wipe it again with water. And I generally give the whole room a quick mopping every morning, as I wrote before. I honestly don't see what more I could be doing, other than keeping constant vigil over the room-- because the only times she even has the opportunity to engage in this disgusting behavior is overnight or before I notice that she's "been busy". (How many euphemisms for "pooped" can I use before I come right out with it?)
Of course this is one of those things that could have any number of causes. Even watching me clean up after her could be causing her to mimic me (in her own special way (g)), according to some sources! (sigh) I need to figure out a plan for house training her, I guess, but she's still so young (eight weeks old, today) that I haven't wanted to push her too hard. . .
-- I've been trying to find out how old puppies usually are when they learn to fetch. So far, I haven't found much about specific ages-- probably because it varies so much with breed, individual personalities, and other circumstances-- but I have learned that if a dog is to be considered for training as a guide dog, bomb dog, etc., it's critical that they learn fetch.
Molly's always been good at fetching. (Except, of course, when she refuses to bring the toy back-- usually a sign that she's not in the mood. (g)) You'd expect a spaniel to be naturally adept at fetching, since that's part of the breed's "job"-- fetching dead birds. (What? That's what they are, you know, whether you plan on eating them later or not. You needn't blame me if it sounds nasty.)
Daisy, on the other hand, was usually completely uninterested in fetching. There were a very few times when she got excited about a game of fetch. (Maybe she didn't want to butt in on "Molly's game"; maybe she simply didn't see the appeal in running after something and bringing it back, only to have it thrown away again. . .)
. . . So I was surprised when Trixie took to the game so quickly. She started during our first week with her, so she couldn't have been even seven weeks old at that time! It may change as she grows older, but for now, she seems to love playing fetch.
(whispers) She also likes playing growly games of tug-o'-war, but don't tell anyone about that, ok? Some people think tug-o'-war is bad for dogs. At least we try to rig it so that the people always "win". Supposedly, if the puppy/dog "wins", s/he thinks s/he's the alpha of the pack.
-- Looks like we may be getting a taste of Tropical Whatever-She-Is-Now Fay, early next week. Of course, that's very iffy, at this point. We're not worried about this one, though. Some of our more violent afternoon thunderstorms are probably worse than Fay is likely to be.
-- I read yesterday that the BBC is planning to film another version of Jane Eyre! Sure, there've been plenty of film adaptations already-- including one the BBC did only so long ago as 2006!-- but I'm always up for another Jane Eyre adaptation! They've cast Ellen Page in the lead role, which makes me even more curious. I haven't seen Juno (which, unless I'm mistaken, is the movie that she's best known for), but I must say I wasn't impressed (or at all tantalized) by the previews. I really wonder how she'll make the transition from bratty teen to Jane Eyre. If she's a bratty Jane Eyre. . . ugh! In that case, I'll have to fall back on the 2006 version. (It wasn't completely faithful to the book, but I think it's my favorite version to date.)
-- On the subject of film adaptations. . . Sullivan's filmed another Anne movie, and from the trailer (and what I've read) it looks to be a doozy. His Anne movie (Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story) bore absolutely no resemblance to the chain of events described in Montgomery's books. Even if you aren't bothered by a little thing like that ;o), the characters didn't behave as they ought, and the timeline didn't make sense. According to the books, Anne's youngest child was teen-aged by the beginning of World War I. In the film, she wasn't even married to Gilbert, yet! (Shocking, I know. (g)) I couldn't get past all those changes, and I didn't enjoy the movie at all.
Warning: This will contain spoilers for the new movie!
This next movie-- Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning-- looks like it'll be even worse. From what I gather, the film starts out with Anne in her sixties. It's either during or after WWII, and I've read that Gilbert is supposed to have died in the war. Anyway, she finds a letter or something, and we're taken back to the years before she was sent to Green Gables. I think the worst thing in the trailer was some guy (the nonexistant adopted son Sullivan invented for Anne3, maybe?) asking OlderAnne, "So you weren't adopted?" and Older Anne smilingly replying, "As a child I made up stories about my parents." What?! So she only pretended to be an orphan, all those years?
I'm not a purist, really. I enjoy the first two Sullivan adaptations, despite deviations from the novels. What's more, I realize that if it weren't for those films, I may never have found the books. But this is going too, too far. The basic germ of the whole AoGG story is that a girl orphan is sent by mistake to people expecting a boy. Now he's rewriting it so that Anne wasn't even a true orphan?!
(What's next? She actually was a boy? (g) Or maybe she has a sex-change operation because of the trauma of not being the boy the Cuthberts wanted. Perhaps I can sell that idea to Sullivan. . . It's very cutting-edge. ;o))
Yes, Anne had a wild imagination, but she was not a dishonest child. She wouldn't "make up stories" about something that important. And why in the world would she have waited so long to hunt up her possibly still-living father? Why keep it a secret for so long? Are we to believe that she somehow repressed the memories all this time? It's just plain yucky and not at all true to the spirit of the Anne books, in my not-so-humble opinion.
Anyway, if you're interested, here's a link to the trailer:
Don't say I didn't warn you!;o)
