My weekend and upcoming

Picked up the new foster dog on Saturday. She’s unbelievably gorgeous, and also quite large. She can eat off my kitchen counter (yeah, we’re training her out of THAT first thing!) without lifting her front paws off the floor. It’s stunning. she’s pretty friendly, crate-trained and housetrained, but not much else. She’ll sit (under duress), comes to a whistle, and definitely knows “No.” But that’s about it. She seems to think she can have whatever she wants whenever she wants it. I don’t think she was ever shown boundaries (i.e., Tables and countertops are for people, not doggies). But she’s a sweetheart, plays remarkably well with Rio given her size, appears in prety good health, loves being brushed and is overall pretty chill.

Friday we had a quiet evening at home. Saturday, too (we’ve got Season Two of Slings and Arrows out from Netflix). Saturday afternoon, we had the end-of-term meeting for the WRW board. I’m going to miss the outgoing board members but I’m also really excited about our new president. She’s got some great ideas for the chapter in the future!

Sunday we went to a doggie event where both Rio and foster dog demonstrated pretty poor leash manners. Foster Dog was not ever trained. I’m not sure what Rio’s excuse is. Guess what we’ll be working on for the next week!

Sunday evening, I met a friend for drinks and a movie. We saw MY LIFE IN RUINS, which is the new Nia Vardalos movie (MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING). It’s about an American ex-patriate ancient history professor who loses her job at the university and ends up being a tour guide at a cut-rate Greek bus touring company, where she’s deemed the most “boring” tour guide. The tourists are all broadly drawn caricatures (drunk Australians, polite Canadians, slutty divorcees, boorish Americans), and lolz and romance ensue amongst the gorgeous scenery.

It’s cute. Not as good as …WEDDING, but cute, especially if you’ve been to Greece and understand a lot of the jokes about tourism there. I thought some things were laugh-out-loud funny, while others were a bit too broad or overplayed, such as the insulting diatribe about the person who is standing behind you, or the person who is stunningly attractive being depicted as butt-ugly for the most superficial and unconvincing of reasons (otherwise known as She’s All That Syndrome). I had a few issues with the plotting. For instance, I think if I were on a bus tour and the quality my accommodations were decided based on how much the tour operator liked my group’s tour guide, I’d probably ask for my money back. And other bits of the plotting felt overly familiar. You could see it coming from a mile away. Finally, there were some annoying continuity/editing issues.

Much like Mamma Mia! I think the film probably won a lot of goodwill merely from being set in gorgeous gorgeous Greece. Every time the film got a little meh, they could switch to a breathtaking tracking shot of cliffs, sea, ruins, and voila, you were sufficiently awed. But it was definitely a cute, feel-good kind of film. With some NICE eye-candy. And, um, other Greek scenery. Also, I seriously covet Vardalos’s wardrobe in this film. It was an endless parade of cute summer dresses, culminating (in keeping with the very on the nose flavor of the movie) a fabulous, perhaps-too-obviously-designer greek goddess number in the final scene.

So that was my weekend. What did you all do?

This week, I may not be around the blog as much as usual, because I’m hitting the final stretch in my draft and it’s very intense. However, I’ve got a special guest blogger at the end of the week. Stay tune!