Cleolinda everywhere

A bit sad today--our red pom Meko has developed diabetes, as previously reported, and was starting to get cataracts. We put her on insulin shots, and the cataracts mostly dissolved, which seemed like a small miracle. On Friday she was hopping up the stairs coming in from the front yard like usual; by Monday, she's suddenly got cataracts so thick that she can't even see the front door right in front of her, and "front" doesn't even look like a word to me anymore. She's gone almost completely blind, and it's the saddest thing ever to watch her creeping along the floor with her nose to the ground trying to smell where she's going, and bumping into the recliner anyway. She ends up going in circles and getting scared when she can't figure out where she is, and my stepfather started crying the other night. (She's technically my stepdog.) So we're talking to her a lot, so she can hear where we are, and carrying her outside when she wants to go, and generally trying to make her comfortable. She seems happy enough when she knows where she is, and not really lacking for energy, but she's gotten so thin that we can feel all her ribs when we pick her up, and all of these health problems have developed in the last six months--with such suddenness that they feel like a final decline. She might have weeks; she might have months. We don't know.

She seemed happy enough last night; she scratched at the couch (she was still able to jump up on it as of Thanksgiving) so I picked her up and she settled down on a Föm pillow and did her I'm So Happy My Eyes Go Squinty When I Smile thing while Mom and I watched King Kong on TCM. I had meant to just come down and to some laundry and get something to eat, but we ended up splitting a frozen pizza and watching the whole thing. I petted Meko and she curled up right under my face and she spent the whole movie going "Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh!," which was kind of appropriate, because... King Kong is kind of bad, y'all. I mean, I know it's kind of one of those sacred cows up there with Citizen Kane, but unlike Kane, which is still extremely rewatchable, I think Kong is best appreciated for the iconic nature of its imagery than the actual quality of, say, the effects or the acting. And I mean, I know--the effects were amazing for the time, and Brando and the like hadn't come along pioneering naturalistic acting yet. But we got to the part at about the half-hour mark when Jack turns to Ann, seemingly for no reason, and declares, sounding a good bit surprised himself, "Ann... I think I love you!," and Ann says, with great astonishment of her own, "Why, Jack! You hate women!," and Jack replies, "But Ann, you aren't women," and I turned to Mom and said, "Dude... this is kind of terrible." Suddenly, I understood why one might want to do a remake, and not just because of new technologies.

(That said, Fay Wray still rocks the house.)


Linkspam:

Just for fun--it may stick around after the holidays, but the idea might burn itself out; who knows?--mlleelizabeth started up a comm that's something like sages_of_chaos crossed with a Harry Potter sorting community. Basically, only fictional characters can apply. (So no Dubya, no Hitler, no Russell Crowe.) It looks like it's going to have a very informal, improv-rpg, self-modded kind of atmosphere--just to have fun and be funny, although a certain elder Pevensie has been given leave as Head Girl to tell Mum if anyone misbehaves. (She may also show up here in the comments if I, uh, forget to change my log-in.)

Two from particle_person:

1. "Diane Duane is taking a reader poll to see whether there's a market to self-publish a book that won't get published any other way. The book is a sequel to her first two "cat wizard" books, which haven't sold well. (I personally recommend them to anyone who likes her Young Wizards series, which is set in the same universe.) Duane explains the whole thing on her blog, which shows where to indicate interest in the book."

2.  "Just saw this bit of gossip on the cranky_editors site: Stephen King may have pulled an Anne Rice; they say he now considers himself above editing." Oh, Stephen.

Pirates of the Caribbean 2 pictures.

At trailer_spot: The Poseidon remake and The DaVinci Code.

Prince Caspian greenlit?

Golden Globes noms for movies and TV. I kind of want to give Crowe the boot and put Ralph Fiennes in there for The Constant Gardener (which got a Best Picture/Drama nomination! And he carries the entire movie on his back the whole time!), but other than that, I haven't noticed anything really outrageous about the nominations. Well, except that Walk the Line has been lumped into Musical/Comedy, thereby annihilating any chances Keira Knightley and Pride and Prejudice had. There is, you know, a different between "a musical" and "a movie about music."

And with that, I must away; I think the dogs need walking. Or carrying, as the case may be.