Sunny "inside" though it's cloudy out...

Having lost my maternal grandmother to colon cancer gives an added relief to my "passing grade" on Friday. Thank you to all who encouraged and visited and crossed their fingers and cared!

I was asked what dinner was...

My last shopping run last week I picked up a George Foreman grill; digital with removable plates so they run through the dishwasher. Dottie's sister Jane and her husband had one when we were in Vermont the last time, and I was impressed with it and the ability to cook different things at the same time, or the same thing with different seasonings. Though Dottie wasn't particularly happy with the idea of something else to find a place for in our kitchen, my having cooked on it some over the weekend has convinced her that it might be all right. I'm hoping that "Big George" can help me become "Little Al" again instead of "Fat Albert"...

So when we got home on Friday I dropped a couple of chicken breasts in the sink to thaw, then she had to go get her paycheck and I rode along. When we got back instead of mixing my favorite Italian marinade, I cheated and poured some Newman's Italian salad dressing on a plate, flipped them through it, and a few minutes later we were having chicken breasts. I chased mine with a yogurt...

Dinner was a half sirloin off the gas grill; I cooked 4, but most of the time of late, cut mine in half figuring to eat half later or the next day. Mashed potatoes and brown gravy with mushrooms alongside.

Even though I had slept late the day before and through the test, I still was exhausted and we slept in Saturday morning. Breakfast was oatmeal with a scoop of protein powder and then we went out to run some errands we hadn't planned on; Angel (our going on 13 year old dog) is starting to hobble more despite the MSM she's on, and refuses to lie on the padded carpet in our room if we aren't in there, so we went and picked up a new pet bed for her, and a very soft rug to put in another place she always lies. Of course, right now she's lying on the hardwood floor just out of reach of my foot.

(A year ago her leg acted up the first time after Dottie tried to bathe her in the washtub we had used since she was a pup; just like us, she's not as flexible as she used to be. A trip to the vet comfirmed nothing out of place, but just arthritis settling in her joints. After a week she was fine; the MSM he recommended took 5 or 6 years off her. She could outrun Bill around the yard again, etc..

She and Frankie have always had a thing about chasing each other around the house in play; she will be lying in the living room, most likely when we are watching something, and jump up and tear through the kitchen to "wind him up". The other night she did it and came back limping...she's not young anymore...

Now, two days later, she's better again, though still getting up slowly.)

When we got home Bill and Laura were here; she's back from DC and her internship to do her last semester at KU and so the leftover steaks from the day before became their dinner and Dottie and I ate the halves we had left from the day before. Baked potatoes and salads, with a cheescake sampler for dessert. We watched "27 Dresses" from my Netflix list. when we used to watch "Roswell" I knew Katherine Heigl had a wonderful sense of comedy (her Christmas Nazi episodes were priceless) and enjoyed getting to see her really show it! I fell in love with Judy Greer when she guested on "Earl" and "Two and Half Men" and once again she didn't disappoint. Good movie!

There had been a lot of things in the theater we had missed out on these last few months as events transpired against us; we made up for a bit of that Sunday as we made a 10AM showing of "Hancock" (I'll buy that one when it comes out; damn good movie!) then bought tickets and made the 12:30 showing of "Journey to the Center of the Earth" in 3D. John and Noel saw it in Colorado on their vacation with my sister and they were disappointed, saying the animated sequences looked unfinished or something, they were just "off". We went anyway, and in 3D with the new glasses (no more red and cyan, but polarized ones that fit over Dottie's regular glasses) it was impressive. We found out later that evening that the print John and Noel saw was NOT 3D because the theater wasn't set up for it, and the only thing I can figure is that someone didn't "re-register" the two prints to make the 2D one so that is why they thought it didn't look right. Hopefully the DVD will turn out well, as I did some research and at this time the only 3D that works for TV sets is the old one.

My last 3D movie was Andy Warhol's "Frankenstein" in the early 70's. I have fond memories of it, though they might have been influenced by the chemicals I had ingested before I rode my motorcycle there along with some other guys I was stationed with, or the alcohol we consumed while we were there. I would love to see it in 3D again just to refresh my memory!

There's no way I could ever get Dottie to go to that one though...

:o)

When we got home I called John and found out that their little dog Abby we kept while they were gone had slipped her collar that morning and disappeared. They had been out looking for her several times and finally decided when she got hungry she'd come home. Dottie and I ate our dinner, and started trying to watch "Children of Men" from my Netflix list. It had a divot in it that wiped out chapters 8 & 9 so we pulled it, got some other things ready to mail, and then drove to the mailbox. It was almost dark, and John had said he had driven to our house looking for Abby thinking she might have somehow tried to find her way there. I told Dottie I wanted to look for her, so we drove towards their house, wondering if she'd have ever found the bridge over the freeway, etc..

We cruised the ball fields in the park below their house, figuring if she heard the crowd she'd have been drawn there, slowly working our way towards their house. The parking lots, the streets below their house...

We pulled up to the stop sign below their house and it was almost dark. Instead of turning towards their house I turned left back towards the 4 lane street a block away. In the headlights of Dottie's Malibu there were a little boy and girl on their bicycles with a little brown furball trying to get them to pet her...

So we cranked down the windows and started calling her; we stopped just short of them and while I opened my door to get out and grab her, explaining to the kids and thanking them, Dottie opened her door and Abby jumped in her lap.

We took her home; the grandkids were ecstatic to have her back and John and Noel thanked us for finding her...

We came home and Dottie showered and then we watched "The Myth", a Jackie Chan movie never released here until last fall on DVD. He had it for sale on his website for a while before that, and you could tell he was proud of it; I understand why now!

Not bad for what started out as a screwed up weekend!

So now that I've prattled on until my coffee is cold, I'll stop now and hope that Monday and the rest of the week are kind to each of you!

alan