"W."

The last movie I saw in the theatre was "Juno" way back in February. There are lots of movies I've wanted to see, but somehow we just never get to them.

The other day I got a message on Facebook from a friend here in Davis, asking if I wanted to go to see "W." with her while Walt was in Santa Barbara this week. She said she could come and pick me up so I wouldn't have to drive. Sounded good to me! (I even had cash on hand, left over from when we didn't have Cousins Day and I'd gotten money to give to Kathy for gas).

At 4 p.m., she arrived and we drove downtown to the theatre. I love going to the theatre in the middle of the afternoon, especially now that I'm a Senior and can geet those cheap Senior prices.

The guy who sold me my ticket was a dwarf. He looked familiar and I glanced at his name tag and was surprised. Last time I saw him he was still in school, had a mowhawk and was dripping gold jewelry over his leather. I asked him if XX was his last name, and then introduced myself. Then I did that horrible thing that adults do and started to say that I hadn't seen him since he was a lot smaller. Ooops. Not the right thing to say to a dwarft! Fortunately I caught myself in time to say "younger."

As for the movie, it's quite good. Go see it! The trailers might make you think it's a comedy or that it is a cut and slash movie about Bush, but really Stone takes his subject very seriously, and I actually have to say that if I didn't know what that bumbling puppet has done to this country--and the world--I might actually have felt sorry for him, a guy trying so hard to win the approval of his father, who obviously thinks that Jeb is the one who should be president.

Of course, I do have to remember that this is Stone's vision and who knows what is true and what is not, but it certainly has the ring of truth.

James Brolin does a fabulous job as Bush. I would be very surprised if he were not nominated for an Academy award.

Richard Dreyfus is so good as Cheney that it was several monutes into his first scene before I suddenly looked at him and started asking myself, "is that Richard Dreyfus?"

Most of the others were fine, but trying too hard to "look" the part. The only one who was a real disappointment was Thandie Newton as Condoleeza Rice. She was a caricature, and not even a good one. Every time she had a scene, it took me out of the movie and into real time as I squirmed uncomfortably at her performance.

But overall, I thought it gave a nice picture of the man in the White House. Of course, I don't know when they finished shooting, so it doesn't go far enough to see him slip to 20% in pubic opinion, or become a non-person in the Republican party.

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After I got home, my Alzheimers and blindness (so let me be dramatic for a moment) combined with Nicki's autism gave me a few minutes of panic as I went to give the dogs their dinner and couldn't find her. Not finding her is not necessarily an unusual thing, but usually it's because she's outside.

But it's raining. And I couldn't remember seeing her after I got home from the movies. I couldn't see her, and she didn't come when I called her (but then she never does).

I did another sweep of the house, calling her, but didn't see or hear her. I decided I finally had to confess to Ashley and came in here to send her another e-mail saying I'd lost Nicki. But as I started writing, I was trying desperately to remember whether or not I'd seen her since I came home from the movies. Finally I remembered that when I'd cleaned up the pee puddle in the kitchen, she had chased the towel. Whew. That means she had to be in the house, not outside injured somewhere.

I went back into the living room one more time and called her and, miracle of miracles, she actually came running out from wherever she was. It was a breakthrough--the first time she'd answered me when I'd called her. And she was fine and happy.

Another crisis averted.