Meddling in personal affairs

Interesting weekend. Busy weekend. Once again, too short weekend.

Friday The Prof and I rented Lawrence of Arabia. I knew it was long, but I hadn’t appreciated it was long enough to rate two DVD discs. I enjoyed seeing it again and (as usual) picked up on a few things that I either hadn’t picked up on before or had forgotten. We watched the first disc Friday, and the second Saturday night. The ending always makes me a little sad. Lawrence definitely qualifies as the Hero with a Flaw, and it seems like everyone about him took advantage of that. At the end of the movie, there isn’t anyone you can really like, unless it’s Sherif Ali, who seems to not only have stayed true to his cause, but grown throughout the movie, and stayed loyal to Lawrence. The Prof enjoyed it as well, which is a relief. Whenever I pick a movie that I’ve been raving about that he hasn’t seen, I wonder if he’s going to think I’m a little batty after seeing it himself.

Next time it’s my turn to pick, I’ll probably end up getting Bridge on the River Kwai. It’s my personal nomination for best all-time movie (even over Citizen Kane). Since it’s the same director and much of the same cast, I figure The Prof will like it, even if he doesn’t think as highly of it as I do.

The Prof has been putting quite a bit of thought into getting a new car. His little blue Geo started out life as an Enterprise rental car, has been cross country three times, has well over 100,000 on it, and is living on borrowed time. The Prof has been very diligent about researching replacement cars, and really liked the idea of a Prius, Toyota’s hybrid car that uses both gas and electrical. We set out on Saturday to a Toyota dealership in our area that actually had a couple on their lot (it has proved to be fairly impossible to find Priuses (Pria? Prium? What the heck is the plural of “Prius” anyhow?) at any of the local dealers. They not only had those on the lot, but also had a couple of the new Matrix models on hand. I was amazed how much space there was in the Matrix. The Prof liked what he saw with Matrix, and decided to take one for a test drive to see how it handled. It turns out that the handling too was impressive. We must have spent three hours at the dealership. The lead time for ordering a Matrix or a Prius is astronomical: six weeks for the Matrix and longer for the Prius. We ended up talking availability, financing, packages and the like with the salesman (who, no lie, used to be a nuclear engineer) and The Prof decided to go for it. So, with luck, he’ll have a nice new silver Matrix by mid-July – just in time to help us move! The timing couldn’t be better.

Sunday I went downtown to help my friend Rattie stow things in a U-Haul for her trip down south. She’s taken an internship in Greensboro, and leaves this morning. I mostly moved boxes and other assorted small stuff, as Rattie didn’t want me moving anything heavy. Perhaps she should have let me do some of the heavier things, though … one of the small objects she wanted me to move was one of her cats. We were afraid it would get out the door while we were carrying boxes, so the plan was for me to put it in the bathroom temporarily. The cat had other ideas though. I picked it up in the prescribed fashion, but as soon as I had the cat properly in my hands it completely spazzed out. I was reluctant to let go, because I was afraid it would bolt for the open door. The results? Nice long scratches down both my forearms and down my stomach (right through my polo shirt!). Rattie belatedly remembered later that the cat had a history of not liking strangers picking it up!

I think Rattie’s a little nervous about moving on – she’s been in the city working on her PhD/vet degree for eight years now. It was good to see her, and bittersweet to have to leave not knowing if we’re going to see each other again. Rattie was a good friend to me, and visited me virtually every day in the hospital when I got sick third year. She’s the last of the people I took classes with to set out on veterinary Diaspora; we all swore to keep in touch, but few of us were able to when the realities of life took over. Well, North Carolina isn’t that far away – maybe I can con The Prof into going down to visit next year.

Last night The Prof gave me my birthday presents early – the last two sets of The Prisoner DVD’s! It was totally unexpected – I’d known he’d gone to Barnes and Noble for my present, and figured I was getting a book. The Prof and I have been enjoying watching The Prisoner series – he for the first time, I for the third or so time. We cracked open the first of the new set and watched it before I hit the sack last night. It was a nice, relaxing way to end the weekend.

My little lower GI problem appears to have resurfaced with a vengeance over the weekend. Either that, or I’ve picked up some sort of bug. It’s getting to the point where I can’t tell the difference. My gut kept waking me up with urgent and painful demands every two hours last night. This morning I have every reason to believe my bowels are pristine clean, and I have a headache like nobody’s business. I am not pleasant company.

Finally, Clueless gave me a bit of a start this morning. I’d fed him (and ACfH) and then went to take care of my morning preparations. When I was getting ready to leave, I released the kitten from the bathroom, where she is fed, and went looking for CW. His bowl was empty, but he was nowhere to be found. I’m always worried about closing one of the cats in a closet (they are sneaky about slinking into an open closet when your back is turned), so I went hunting to make sure he was free and OK. I couldn’t find him anywhere.

Now, we have a nice sized apartment, but it isn’t that big! In fifteen minutes time, I had no idea how CW could end up getting himself into a jam anywhere. Since he has the heart condition though, I wasn’t about to leave until I found him and was able to verify he was OK. Just as I was beginning to consider panic as an option, I heard a sound from under my computer desk. I went to look, but there was nothing there except the plastic storage boxes I keep there, as well as a large, flat storage box (the kind designed for under the bed). No Clueless. I called him again, and again I heard the noise under the desk. A third call, and the lid to the storage box lifted and Clueless came oozing out like he’d been holing up there all his life. This leads me to wonder exactly how often he lifts the lid to that box and hides out there. I suspect ACfH has inspired Clueless to get creative about finding hidey-holes.