Sorry for lack of posts. Summer just sucks the life out of me. Counting down the days for autumn or at least late summer, when the days are still hot but the nights start cooling off. I never can seem to do anything creative during summer. I hardly can even bring myself to watch anything during summer. I just want to sleep sleep sleep until it's over.
Silver is 6 months old, over 42 lbs now, and has been neutered, microchipped, and licensed. Here's a picture from last week, after he got the stitches out and the cone of shame off and was able to play in his pool again. He wore himself out and came in and crashed. Hee. Puppyhood sure doesn't last long at all.
This blog is currently quiet because nothing is going on here worth sharing. No writing, no reading, very little movie watching, not even any walking, but that latter's only because Silver has hit six months and went in to get neutered last week, poor baby. So, I'm not allowed to take him out and about until the stitches come out next week. Having a young hyper dog is interesting when you can't wear them out with a couple walks a day. However, we've had a spat of off-leash dogs -- pit bulls no less -- running around the neighborhood, so maybe the break will get those guys off the street so I can take my dog for a peaceful walk without stressing out about what we'll run into. We've already been attacked once, really don't need that in our lives.
We have lots of wild green parrots in Southern California. I've seen big flocks of them flying over in Whittier. We don't have many out my way, but last year, we had a single green parrot in our neighborhood. He was beautiful... and he was lonely. He cried. Let me tell you, it was heartbreaking. He would cry and cry and cry, and we felt so badly for him. (That's an audio cry, not a tears-from-eyes cry. LOL) He consoled himself by hanging out with a flock of pigeons. Where they went, he went, but he cried and cried. And my family made sad faces at each other every time we heard him. He was very loud, very distinctive, and very forlorn.
Well, earlier this year, he got a girlfriend! Or just a pal. I don't know enough about wild green parrots to know male from female yet. But he stopped crying, and the two are inseparable. It's still just the two of them, but they can be seen all over our neighborhood.
Including in my apple tree!
Silver and I spooked them the other day when we were coming back from our morning walk. And this morning, they came after we were back in the house, and I got to watch them. I took some monumentally lousy pictures with my cell phone through the window, but it was the best I could do without going outside and spooking them. My sister was leaving for work at the same time, so I quickly called her and she was able to see them from her car, so she took an equally lousy picture from the other direction. Still, they're way cool.
They perch on their right leg, pick an apple with their left talon, then hold it up so they can eat it. It explains all the half-eaten apples I have out there!
Click to make the pictures bigger.
My pic from inside the house... let's play can you find the green parrots on the green tree??
This is the pic my sister took, with only one of the parrots in it.
Amazingly enough, the trees are nearly devoid of apples now, though it make look like there's still a lot. They're at the end of their run. I'm happy to let the parrots get some fresh fruit. I know they love fruit.
Here are selections from five of my favorite WWII scores. Not my top five, just five of my many favorites. If I did just my top favorite five, I'm afraid the list would be dominated by Goldsmith, but there's plenty of other scores I love and listen to frequently.
It's nearly June, and Silver continues to grow. He's up to 30 lbs now. He's had all his vaccinations and we're now out walking the neighborhood daily, sometimes in the evening as well as the morning. Depends how much energy he has and what the outside temperature is. It's still nice out right now, but that's going to change as we head into summer.
I received a copy of a newspaper article from Feb 2nd 1945. It's about my great grandmother receiving the news that two of her sons had died in WWII within 10 days of each other (one in Belgium, one over the Atlantic). My dad has always told me the story of my great-uncles, but the article had dates and specifics and reactions. I'm glad this was saved by family to be passed down.
A gentleman in line behind me at Walmart last week had served in the Korean war. I thanked him for his service and he seemed greatly pleased to be recognized. He said how cold it had been while he was there. I had to get home to Silver, but I wish I'd been forward enough to ask him if I could take him for coffee and he could tell me any stories he wished to pass on. I regret not asking him that.
To all our veterans and servicemen and women, past and present, thank you.
Ack, look how fast he's growing. 19 pounds this morning. 19!!! He almost doesn't look like a puppy anymore, but has graduated to "young dog."
I've been taking him to "puppy play time," which Petco offers free several times a week to let puppies socialize with other puppies in a safe environment, with a trainer to help correct behavior and keep an eye on everything. He loves it, and it's always interesting how if there's another Husky pup there, the two will gravitate right to each other. My sister came with me to the last session, and she said Silver was both the handsomest puppy there, and the most regal. He stands very proudly, in that classic show-dog stance. I thought those dogs had to be taught that, but maybe some stand that way naturally?
I was in the mood for some wackiness this past weekend, and that's exactly what this movie is: wacky. It's a light-hearted, quite zany WWII movie, with a cast I love: James Coburn, Aldo Ray, Sergio Fantoni, and Dick Shawn.
The plot concerns an uptight by-the-book Captain Cash (Dick Shawn), ordered to take the remains of an exhausted company and capture the village of Valerno. (This is set in 1943, in Sicily.) The Italian soldiers there, under the command of Captain Oppo (Sergio Fantoni) are more than willing to surrender -- as long as they're allowed to have a festival that night first. Naturally, Cash strenuously objects to this, but the offer of a peaceful surrender wins him over. A gigantic village-wide wild party ensues that night. The Italians get ready to surrender in the morning as promised, but things start going awry. Things really go wrong with the Germans show up unexpectedly and capture the entire town. Then the Italians and Americans have to work together before they're all executed at dawn. This being a comedy, there's no doubt of the outcome, but it's how they beat the Germans that's so funny.
This movie isn't perfect. The humor style isn't going to work for everyone. And the festival drags and drags (though it's not without its moments). On re-watches, I admit, I tend to skip right over that part. The section right after it, with everyone hung over and trying to deal with the aftermath and Major Pott and creating a fake battle is probably my favorite section, but I also love the whole end once the Germans occupy the town. I mean you get Dick Shawn in drag, as just about the ugliest woman imaginable. Makes me laugh and laugh.
James Coburn and Aldo Ray are, of course, my favorite parts of this movies. They play Lt. Christian and Sgt. Rizzo, respectively. They are hilarious without being outright silly, like some of the rest of the movie. Aldo Ray gets to speak a bunch of Italian, which is awesome. He spends a good portion of the movie in an Italian uniform that is too small for him (it'll stretch!), and that alone cracks me up. I'm also extremely fond of Sergio Fantoni, who I know mostly as Captain Oriani from Von Ryan's Express. He was one of my favorite characters in that movie, and I love him here too. He's the perfect relaxed foil for uptight Captain Cash.
I spend a lot of this movie imagining some of this company hooking up in a couple years with Lt. Hanley and Sgt. Saunders in France. Particularly as William Bryant is in this movie, as well as Kurt Kruger, and Horst Ebersberg, and Jay Novello. It's hard not to think Combat! while watching this, as there's so many common denominators.
It also has an absolutely fabulous catchy main theme by Henry Mancini that I never tire of hearing:
Favorite parts:
The main title music
Lt. Christian translating Oppo's gesture.
The entire village brawl
The fake battle, particularly where Oppo shoots Christian and he refuses to fall down.
Capt. Cash in drag
Aldo Ray kidnapping Major Pott
When Major Pott flips his wig and starts spouting the most odd things
Looks like Silver is far more interested in water than my previous Husky, who really never wanted to see water, ever. This video was a couple days ago when it soared up over 90 degrees here. The following day, it dropped to the 60's and was raining. He was out playing in the rain, running back and forth repeatedly beneath the drips coming off the garage roof. Think I'll pick him up a little wading pool for summer.
So far, he's been gaining about two pounds a week. Yikes! Growing fast.
Silver is fascinated by the television. I watched Randolph Scott Westerns all weekend, and Silver watched them with me. (Extra points for guessing which movie we're watching in this pic!)
My Rosie cat loves Silver and will rub on him and clean his head. He's slowly learning to be gentle, as who can not be nice to a mama cat giving you love? He's now licking her back, though he still wants to play, of course. Puppy. Also, when I brought him home, he was smaller than the cats. He's now bigger.
Okay, so here's the list of my 100 favorite movies as of March 2016. This list is grouped in five sections, with the top section being the can't-live-without-them movies, and the favorites-but-I-don't-need-to-watch-constantly at the bottom. The movies are alphabetically listed within each section, cuz trying to rank them any other way was impossible.
26. 3:10 to Yuma (1957)
27. Adventures of Tin-Tin, The (2011)
28. Ben-Hur (1959)
29. Big Hero 6 (2014)
30. Casino Royale (2006)
31. Cat Ballou (1965)
32. Cowboys and Aliens (2011) 33. Crossed Swords (1977)
34. Dead Again (1991)
35. Desolation of Smaug, The (2013) 36. Diamonds are Forever (1971)
37. Die Hard (1988)
38. Epic (2013)
39. Fifth Element, The (1997) 40. For Greater Glory (2012)
41. Great Escape, The (1963)
42. It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)
43. Man from UNCLE, The (2015) 44. Postman (1997) 45. Rango (2011)
46. Shadow, The (1994)
47. Skyfall (2012)
48. Sons of Katie Elder, The (1965)
49. South Pacific (1958)
50. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
66. Alamo, The (1960)
67. Alvarez Kelly (1966) 68. Black Rain (1989)
69. Brassed Off (1996)
70. Dragonslayer (1981)
71. How to Train Your Dragon (2010) 72. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
73. Jungle Book (1994)
74. Jurassic Park (1993)
75. Ladyhawke (1985) 76. Lockout (2012) 77. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
78. Return of the Jedi (1983)
79. Revenge of the Sith (2005)
80. Ride Lonesome (1959)
81. Road to Bali, The (1952)
82. Road to Rio, The (1947) 83. Rocketeer, The (1991)
84. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) 85. Seven Percent Solution, The (1976)
86. Silverado (1985)
87. Star Wars (1977) 88. Vikings, The (1958)
89. Von Ryan's Express (1965)
90. Where Eagles Dare (1968)
91. Evita (1996) 92. Expendables 3 (2014)
93. Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)
94. San Francisco (1936)
95. Singin' in the Rain (1952)
96. Sunshine (2007)
97. Terminator (1984)
98. Time Machine (1960)
99. Titanic (1997)
100. Without a Clue (1988)
