The usual shopping this morning, as we headed out to Publix to do the twofers. We got boneless skinless chicken breast, which I usually loathe, but at two-for-one we can't afford to ignore it. James will marinate it this afternoon for tomorrow night. Georgia Monsoon Season broke out as we entered the store and it was still raining steadily when we emerged. A gentleman—in the full sense of the word—walked me to the truck with an umbrella, and of course I had to worry, until I got into the cab, that he was some sort of mugger. Doesn't it suck that in this modern society we have to be afraid of things like that?

So we went to Kroger and it was still raining, and I said suddenly to James, "We have to go to Costco, don't we? So if we do go there, do we still need to go here?" I mean, I had yogurt and bread, and had gotten bananas at Publix because Kroger's are always green, and we had plenty of food and veggies in the house. So James got gasoline and we went home to put it all away, then we drove up to the Town Center Kroger because I wanted to go by CD Warehouse.

At this time (11:30) it was already full, but not crowded. We hadn't had any breakfast but a NutTritious bar each, so we made the most of the samples. We both even ate a spinach and cheese filled ravioli. (Tomato sauce covers a lot of sins.) Got milk, chili, parsley flakes, ibuprofin, canned beef, and a few other things.

Since it was already 80°F at noon, even though we had the milk in the insulated bag, we didn't spend much time in CD Warehouse. James did find some CDs and I got the Blu-Ray of The Poseidon Adventure. I also ran into Barnes & Noble to see if the May British "Country Living" was out, but it wasn't. I did notice that Earlene Fowler's latest Benni Harper mystery was out in paperback, so I tried to pull up the B&N coupon on my phone. Grrr! The image of the coupon had been removed.

Anyway, we came home to get into cooler things. I am wearing one of my new tank tops, which has a leopard pattern on it in lilac/purple/indigo/blue/aqua horizontals against black. Yes, it is pretty wild looking.

We finished watching the rest of the extras on Lady and the Tramp. These were outstanding; they included an edited version the Disneyland episode "The Story of Dogs" which publicized the film, and "Cavalcade of Songs," a segment of which showed how Peggy Lee and her partner wrote the songs. The neatest extra may have been the original storyboards for Lady, the first story treatment they did. Tramp was not in the story, just a scruffy dog named Homer who was courting her. She was the one who killed the rat and was blamed for attacking the baby.

I then hitched the Blu-Ray up to the network, since the wireless appears terminal, and watched a few things on Netflix. The first was something called It's Showtime!, a compilation of animal scenes from movies. There are montages of the action from Flipper, Lassie Come-Home, National Velvet, bits from the "Dogtown" (dogs dressed up in human clothes) shorts from the 1930s, the funny antics of "Daisy" from the "Blondie" movies and Asta from the "Thin Man" films, a ::yawn:: compilation of chimpanzee clips, Keystone Kops "klips," and various other things, including horse clips that often didn't show anything more interesting than the horse galloping or rearing. There were little of the clever horse clips like Tom Mix's "Tony" leading bad guys on a chase or Trigger climbing stairs and doing the bed routine with Bob Hope. The main draw, I thought, of this film was seeing some footage of the original Rin Tin Tin, the lovely, mostly black original dog that Lee Duncan brought home from the trenches of World War I-era Europe, who climbed tall walls and cliffs with ease. There was an extended clip shown from Falsely Accused, a film where Rinty is a suspected sheep killer. He outwits a band of hunters on horseback and then returns to his master's cabin, where he is also suspected. There is a heartrending scene where he tries to get his master and mistress to acknowledge him, with big, pleading eyes. The only person on his side is the baby.

Then I put on a documentary about Disneyland, part of the "Disney Parks" series, made two years ago. I watched it with more and more dismay; all the new rides are thrill rides, which I don't do. I was also a bit pissed to find out they have put Disney cartoon characters in "It's a Small World." That isn't what the ride is supposed to be about. ::grump:: Also watched six "Fractured Fairy Tales," including the Sleeping Beauty one which is a spoof of Disneyland, and three episodes of Shaun the Sheep.

Finally I put on something I had queued that was supposedly an affectionate documentary about the development of the automobile. Well, what a surprise! This was from 1961 and was hosted by Groucho Marx, one of a series of specials called NBC's Project Twenty. I'm pretty sure I remember this mostly from old TV Guides, but I'm also pretty certain my folks used to watch it (it was after my bedtime, I'm sure). These were one-hour documentaries about different aspects of the American life, like the first World War, the Depression, the Old West, etc. Some of them are released on DVD, and Netflix seems to have all or most of them. I've queued the rest: "The Jazz Age," "The Innocent Years," "Life in the Thirties," "The Great War," "Not So Long Ago," and "The Story of Will Rogers," which is narrated by Bob Hope.

Had to stop watching then because it was almost time for the new series of Sherlock. This completely absorbed us until 65 minutes into the show when yet another thunderstorm (these had been rumbling since early evening) stomped in and killed the DVR. And of course of all the local channels, GPB is the only one that doesn't come in on broadcast television. Of course. Yeah, we missed the end; just got to the point where Sherlock was one guess away from being locked out of Irene's phone. Geez, GPB, if you're going to nag us now for money every freakin' two months, put up a better antenna!

Labels: books, dogs, DVDs, food, shopping

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