Swung by Lowes first thing this morning for more safflower seeds for our ravening flock. I think I've seen the lamp I want for our foyer. It's a bit more than the one I originally picked out, but it's slightly larger and will fill the space better without being as ostentatious (or ugly, like the one that's there now).

Stopped next door at Borders to use my coupon and Borders Bucks to get the newest "Pink Carnation" novel, and found a novel about the 1906 San Francisco fire/earthquake in the $2 bin. Looks a bit weird, but for $2—whatever. What money I saved on the new book, though, I used to donate some coffee to the troops in Iraq.

And then it was time for today's chore: going to Walmart. Goodness, the prices have gone up! I remember when their Campbell's chicken broth was the cheapest in town. And my yogurt was 3¢ more than Kroger has been selling it for on sale. I should have expected this after WallyWorld remodeled itself to look like KMart, with all that Martha Stewart crap. The only thing I found cheaper was their generic omeprazole, which is less money than even BJs.

Last stop was Kroger, where I used our accumulated points to get gasoline at 1.57⁹ a gallon. Good show.

This afternoon I worked on a craft project, took Willow on a walk, then sat down to watch the 2000 version of The Railway Children that aired a few days ago. In the 1970s movie version, Jennie Agutter played Bobbie, the lead character; in this version she plays Bobbie's mother. The story, based on the book by E[dith] Nesbit, is about three children and their mother, who must sell their things and move to a little cottage in the country when the father is suddenly escorted away. They live very simply and have adventures on the railway, including warning the train after a landslide and helping a Russian man who unexpectedly appears on the train platform.

It's a very leisurely story and I enjoyed this version as well as the earlier one. This one attempted to tell the entire story (there was an incident or two left out of the first movie), which I appreciated, although I think the earlier version moved a little better. The family does appear more in "wolf at the door" straits in the newer version, though. They cast Bobbie, it seemed to me, as a little older in this version, even though she wears young girls' clothing and a pinafore, since they imply she has a bit of a crush on the young man who appears late in the story.

Also of note: the father is played by Michael Kitchen of Foyle's War.

I'm changing channels right now to try to figure out what the dickens is wrong with our satellite feed. It seems to be only on the four network channels (NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox) broadcasting in HD, and has been doing this for three days now: the picture is in fits and stops (like frames are missing), pixelates, sometimes turns blue or skews sideways. It does it during the local news (and the commercials) as well as during the network programs and syndicated programs, so it's not just the network feed.

Labels: books, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 6:35:00 PM

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