Airplane Watching

I went down to the navy base on Whidbey Island yesterday. My dad and I watched the growlers and EP-3s take off and land.
My dad used to be a navigator in EP-3s, so he told me all about them. It was really cool.

Micheal Jackson is Dead

It's on the news right now.
I'm amazed it took this long. Updates to follow, I guess, if the damn news channel keeps interrupting my normal programming.

UPDATE: You know who I feel bad for? The Paramedic who had to administer CPR.

Tarantula

A few weeks ago I was offered a geriatric tarantula named Harry. I spent hours poring over books from the library before accepting the 21-year-old Chilean Rose Haired tarantula.
That's right: my tarantula is old enough to order a beer.
According to the books and my eyes, the tarantula is a female as opposed to a male... I'm just gonna call her Harriet. Problem solved.
She's very well-behaved and will sit perfectly still in my hand when I hold her. She eats crickets every so often and spends the days waltzing around her terrarium in no real hurry.
Admittedly, I am afraid of being bitten. All tarantulas have venom, but hers would not cause me any more injury than a wasp sting. I fear the mechanical pain of the bite- her fangs are massive. Because of this mild worry, I go out of my way to make her comfortable and happy and stress-free. In 21 years, her previous owner informed me, she's never bitten anyone. And Harriet was held a LOT. She was a classroom pet in an elementary school where children were permitted to hold her. Yikes. I guess that makes me a nursing home to, as I said, geriatric tarantulas.

Fathers' Day Wisdom

My father once said, "Alison, you can't go through life wondering if there are narcotics in the peanut bag."

I'll let you think about that and stew for a while.

Dog-Sitting

In addition to my two normal dogs, Star and Leika, a friend dog is staying overnight with us. Her name is Tuna.
Tuna's a golden retriever, and a service dog school dropout. I'm friends with her family, so we usually all go as a group to the park. Tuna's older than Star, but she's in great health and Star's always happy to have her around.
Leika isn't so pleased- Tuna likes to play with Leika's toys and Leika does not like that one bit.

Star

Star's still around and still kicking. The vet is amazed- he was sure she'd be dead by now.
She's slow and deliberate in her actions, but she still goes for a walk with me every day- usually a half-a-mile but sometimes more.

She's such a good dog. I've told her so many times.

The Faun

Worked on this for about three weeks- it's the faun from Pan's Labyrinth.

Terminator

I got around to seeing the new Terminator movie today. Come to think of it, this is actually the first time I've seen a Terminator movie in theaters- I never saw 1 'til it was out on VHS, and the same with 2. I didn't have time to see 3 when it was in theaters (three was terrible, by the way). I have not watched the television series out of respect to the movies- if it's not Linda Hamilton, it isn't Sarah Connor.
4 was corny, but because it is an action movie, corniness is acceptable. Casting was excellent, and the T-800 had a big part toward the end. A CGI Ahnuld was even there, but no references were made to the T-800 from Judgement Day (my favorite of the movies).
See it. Maybe not in theaters, but see it nonetheless.