MERLE'S DOOR

Gentle Readers,

This week seems to be the perfect time to tell you about Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog because with the granddogs visiting it's non-stop bark, run, and play around here. My boys think Stella the bulldog is heavenly. Pauly is more standoffish and difficult, so he hangs out more with me, and that's fine with Grandma.

By chance, writer Ted Kerasote comes across the dog he names Merle, and he sets out trying to insist that Merle obey his commands and conform to life as a typical dog. He soon learns that Merle prefers to make his own decisions. The two end up of teaching each other.

After Merle settles in with Ted, Merle quickly become known as The Mayor in their small town as he makes his daily rounds visiting his friends and checking up on everyone.

I kind of skimmed some of the stuff about how we should let our dogs live the free dog life, doing as they see fit as long as they don't chase cattle, because after Harper got out of the yard last summer and slipped away, watching him cross a busy street with traffic coming at him horrified me. I thank God for bringing Harp the Herald Angels Sing back to me.

We don't all live in a small town in Wyoming where our dogs can have doggie doors and go in and out and do as they please.

However, I enjoyed Merle and Ted's adventures together tremendously, and the book has some lovely photos. Ted seems to be a good writer AND a pretty hot guy (he was once making sweet, sweet love to a lady when Merle tried to help out and the lady asked if he really had to do everything with his dog), and Merle, quite obviously, was a beautiful, sensitive, intelligent, fun-loving dog.

I say WAS because of course Merle dies in the end. Get out the boxes of Kleenex and Puffs -- no Scott tissues, too rough on the nose for a weeper like Merle's Door.

I couldn't help loving the relationship that develops between Ted and Merle, and I think you will too.

I suggest you put Merle's Door on your summer reading list. The book could make a fun movie, but Hollywood, please don't cast Owen Wilson as Ted. He already played Marley's dad in Marley and Me, a cute movie, but I liked the book by John Grogan much better. Perhaps Tom Hanks could be Ted.

Infinities of love and dogs,

Lola

CANCELLATION TRIALS & TRIBULATIONS

Gentle Readers,

Last week I told you about all my new techno stuff in  TECH NO GEEK.       

But getting new stuff meant I had to cancel some old stuff. The new cell phone was no problem because of Rad and because I simply went from one AT&T phone to another.

But installing a U-Verse package meant I had to cancel my old satellite TV provider and internet service.

So I called the satellite people. We'll call them DirectFuckMe. The guy I got on the phone simply would not shut up and let me cancel the service. I didn't shout; I didn't curse. But I did end up becoming rather angry and speaking to him quite strongly, as in, My DVR hasn't worked properly for months and you people kept telling me it was my fault and you wouldn't do anything about it and then the AT&T guy told me today that your stuff had never been hooked up properly.

Mr. DirectFuckMe actually had the nerve to tell me that he isn't "you people," that he has a name and it's Shit Head, and that I never talked to him so it wasn't his fault.

Then he tried to rip me off by telling me if I didn't cancel for another month that it would save me money on what I have to pay per month ($20) to finish off my contract, which ends in September. I said, How can paying for another month at $79 cost less?

He said, Blah blah blah blah something something something.

I said, Just cancel it right now.

He finally obeyed.

Them I had to call Shamcast to cancel the internet. I've been unhappy with them because they called me a couple of months ago and said they were sending out someone to upgrade my modem free of charge and the cost of my service would actually go down.

HA! I say HA!

Almost every day the internet went out after the upgrade and I had to unplug everything and plug it back in, not easy when one is hampered by a broken back. Furthermore, although the cost of the internet service went down by about a dollar, they added some other cost, so the total cost went up.

But I was prepared when I called Shamcast because of my experience with DirectFuckMe. When Shamcast inquired why I was canceling, I answered, I am giving away all my belongings and entering a convent.

He said he didn't even know there were convents in the United States anymore. I assured him there were.

He said I was due for a refund.

No argument.

Problem solved.

I'm going to use the entering a convent excuse from now on.

In fact, afterwards I felt so freaking brilliant I'm surprised my head could fit through the door.

Infinities of love and nunneries,

Lola

P.S. AT&T also gave me a $200 rebate for getting the U-Verse package, which more than covers the cost of the $60 I still owe DirectFuckMe for canceling my contract with them.

DAKOTA'S COMING OF AGE

While I wasn't looking, Gentle Readers, Dakota Fanning came of age as an actress.

I thought she would do so as Lily in The Secret Life of Bees, but that movie really didn't do anything for me. The filmmakers simply did not capture the Lily who is portrayed in the much loved novel by Sue Monk Kidd.

But lo and behold, I had missed a movie Hannah Dakota Fanning (no wonder they call her Dakota - who wants to be Hannah Fanning? kinda reminds me of the saying my aunt's fanny) starred in that was released in 2007: Hounddog. Apparently the movie was rather controversial and was not shown in some cities because of a scene in which Fanning's character, Lewellen, is raped. But as Fanning herself pointed out, it didn't really happen and she was just acting.

While I certainly thought Fanning was great in I Am Sam and Man on Fire, she was great in the way that a precocious child is great. In Hounddog, she is great as a young adult who is not going to be "former child actress Dakota Fanning." Ms. Fanning should have a long career ahead of her, if she wants it.

The movie is heartbreaking and dramatic, and of course, not for children.

David Morse plays Lewellen's daddy, Lew, who starts the film as the rather menacing type of character for which he is now known, but then he is struck stupid by lightning and turns into an idiot snaggle-toothed cracker. My first memory of David Morse was when he played the hapless, sweet widower doctor nicknamed Boomer on the tv show St. Elsewhere. I loved that show. How interesting that he has extended and expanded his career by playing a variety of characters, many evil, but also a good prison guard in The Green Mile.

Well, let's conclude now with salutations to Hannah Fanning.

Dakota, you are way cool.

Love,

Lola

Oh, and by the way, Dakota Fanning and I share our date of birth: February 23. Of course, the year is different. I was at least ten or twelve or ******* when she was born in 1994.