I had to get up early with Dominica today so that I could drive her over to dad’s. Dad is driving the two of them down to Castile to teach today. I got her over to his house at 8:30, right on time, and then drove back to Geneseo so that I could drop off Oreo at the house (he did, of course, ride along for as long as he could) and take Dominica’s car over to the shop up the street to get it inspected, oil changed and all that stuff.
I dropped off the car and they said that it would be at least forty-five minutes before it would be done and I know that that often means that it will be longer so I decided that I should hoof it back to the house so that Oreo wouldn’t be alone for too long. I needed exercise anyway so it wasn’t too big of a deal to do a little walking. I stepped out of the shop and the weather was fine. The sun was out and it was calm and cold but not too cold. Well, that didn’t last long. Apparently the shop is in the lee and as soon as I got down the driveway the wind came whipping through and I was chilled to the bone the entire walk back. It was very painful and my left ankle (the one that I broke in 1986) was absolutely killing me the entire way. I was limping by the time I got back to the house.
Of course it took me so long to walk back to the house that Oreo had an accident on the carpet while I was trying to get back to him. I just can’t win. I got his mess cleaned up and then settled in to work. I ended up having an awfully productive day and got a lot of calls about jobs all over the place (I never get any real offers but I get a lot of calls.) I got a lot done and managed to stay on task all day long.
Dominica got home close to 4:00. Dad dropped her off at the house. I didn’t eat lunch so that we could eat together so she cooked her fake chicken, pasta and cheese dish and we decided to relax for the evening and watch some movies. I had a huge haul come in from Amazon today – mostly movies that are replacing laserdiscs that I currently own but no longer have a player to watch them on. But a lot of them are updated to widescreen and are new digital transfers so they look a lot better than the laserdiscs did. In addition to replacing old movies I also managed to get the last four films to complete my Pink Panther collection. I now have all nine of the original films up to and including the 1993 release of Son of the Pink Panther. All of the movies are horrible, of course, but there is something nostalgic about them and they are a little funny.
Dominica and I first watched Betsy’s Wedding which is the last of the Brat Pack movies and one that she was not familiar with which is weird because she is fanatical about those movies. It is one of the replaced LDs. It isn’t a great movie but it isn’t bad. A little weird but enjoyable. Good enough that I was willing to replace my LD so that I could keep watching it.
After Betsy’s Wedding I introduced Dominica to Brassed Off which is a really excellent British film from the early 90’s that deals with the incredible hardships caused by the closing of the collieries (coal mines) in Britain as the country began switching to cleaner and more cost effective means of power production. It is one of the earlier Ewan McGreggor films and also features Pete Postlethwaite (whose ending monologue was made famous by being played as the introduction to the song Tubthumping by Chumbawumba) and Stephen Tompkinson whom most people know as the star of the popular show Ballykissangel and who, in that role, made guest appearances on Father Ted and the Vicar of Dibley. Brassed Off is very sad but a great movie and well worth watching.
I didn’t feel like working tonight so I convinced Dominica to watch The Trail of the Pink Panther from 1982 which is the first Pink Panther movie to be made after its star, Peter Sellers, had died. Of course, that didn’t stop Blake Edwards from putting him intot he movie. So the movie’s star is only ever shown in clips from earlier films and outtakes. It is really poor. Not that the other Pink Panther movies are anything special. But this one is really bad because they had so little to work with. Peter Sellers would have killed them all if he would have known what they were going to do.
We ended up not even making it halfway through the movie before we were both really tired and decided to just go to bed. It wasn’t even 10:00 pm yet! Boy, this being over thirty thing is really tough.
I have to be up early tomorrow because I am heading down to Dansville to meet with the hospital there.