Good evening. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce this week’s blog. This week Artemis, Bruiser, Charlotte, the twins Titus and Tyler, Ruffles, and I all called on Sergio Squirrel’s assistance once again. He’d done such a spectacular job getting pictures off the surveillance tape at the 7-Eleven we asked if he could get us the blueprints of the layout of the yellow house with the catwalk. He scampered down to the planning and building department at city hall late in the afternoon. He returned with photos the next day but told us it was a harrowing experience.

He said he had arrived at city hall at four forty-five P.M. just as they were about to close. As a man and a woman who were in a heated argument were coming out, he darted inside without being noticed. He found a place to hide under a vending machine and waited until five o’clock when the place closed.

After that Sergio told us he crawled out from under the machine and headed down the slippery tile hall to find the room where the blueprints are kept. He almost skidded into a copy machine but regained his footing and pressed forwards. He entered what looked like the right place, but found it was only a generic conference room. Someone had left a plate of crackers on the boardroom table and he snatched one. One cannot feel peckish when one is on a mission, he said. He continued down the hall and darted into a couple of rooms he found out were only offices. He was, however, delighted to discover a small bowl of peanut M&M candies on one of the desks and stopped briefly to enjoy the confection.

Finally, he came to a room at the end of a hallway with a double door, but it was locked shut. He didn’t know how he was going to get inside. He scampered back to one of the offices and hopped up on the desk chair. This was no easy feat as the chair had casters on it and rolled around as he climbed to the top of the back of the chair. He almost lost his balance and narrowly missed falling into a round metal trash can.

Once on the top of the backrest, though, he was able to study the window. He noticed it had the ability to open. If he could push the glass forwards, he could escape out the bottom, head outside and then scurry back inside the window of the room with the double door if it also had a window that opened out. Sergio said opening the window was no small feat. He had to push a lever down with all his might. But it worked and the window swung out from the bottom. He crawled onto the window frame and hopped out onto a nearby tree.

He skuttled along the branch and sat studying the position where he believed the double door room was located. It indeed came equipped with a window that opened but said window was closed. Disheartened, he headed back to the other office. Once inside he snatched a couple more M&M candies and munched them down to deal with the stress.

As he was leaving the office, he happened to see a maintenance guy rolling a garbage can down the hall, wearing a pair of headsets and singing off key. Sergio hid in the doorway of the office and when the man moved past him. Sergio jumped onto the rolling garbage can and held on. The man rolled the can all the way down to the double doored room at the end of the hall. He unlocked it with his badge and inadvertently rolled Sergio inside.

Sergio realized immediately this was the place where the blueprints were kept. As the man began cleaning and sweeping the room, Sergio scampered under a plush desk chair and lay low. It took a while, but the man finished cleaning the room. Sergio crawled out thinking he was gone when the man turned around. Sergio stepped back and hid behind a table leg. The man narrowed his eyes and stared straight at him. Our poor squirrel said his heart was beating so fast he could hear pulsing in his ears.

Then the man shut off the lights and left the room, rolling his garbage can down the hall. Sergio waited and then he headed over to a vault at the wall. He knew that under one of the keyboards on one of the desks there must be the code. Humans were always a little careless. He of course was right. He entered the code into the vault, and it unlocked. He scampered inside and found hard copies of the blueprints of houses. After several minutes of figuring out how the blueprints were organized, he found the ones to the yellow house with the catwalk. He took pictures on his phone and carefully put the blueprints away. He went to leave the vault when he heard a terrifying sound.

A guard-dog entered the room. Sergio’s heart nearly stopped beating. Somehow the security guard realized the vault was open and now said security guard and guard-dog were entering the vault. He would have to hide again. He hopped up onto one of the racks and crawled into one of the rolled-up blueprints. He tried not to shiver. He tried not to make a sound. But a guard-dog’s ears are sensitive.

The dog turned towards him and barked and growled viciously at the blueprints where he hid. The security guard turned and told the dog to calm down. Sergio knew he was trapped, cornered, doomed. What choice did he have but to use his talents. Just as the security guard shined his bright flashlight into the rolled-up documents, Sergio drew in a breath and sprung out into the security guard’s face. This stunned the security guard and his horror hound enough to allow him enough time to dash out of the vault, out the open door, back down the hall, into the room with the still open window, leap into the tree, scurry down the trunk and dash for freedom. He was so shaken by the experience he hid in his drey cuddling his acorns until the next day when he mustered up his courage and brought the pictures to us. Thank you, dear Sergio. Until next week, I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

You can check out my books Chicane and all five installments of the Musicology book series Musicology: Volume One, Baby!, Musicology: Volume Two, Kid!, Musicology: Volume Three, Twist!, Musicology: Volume Four, Sweetie! and Musicology: The Epiquad on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback editions. You can also check out Musicology’s web site at www.musicologyrocks.com and vote for who you think will win Musicology!

STREAM OF THE WEEK: IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU (2025)-HBO MAX

Easily one of the best films of the year, this excellent piece of independent cinema fabulously written and directed by Mary Bronstein is an all-out attack on parenting and the medical system. Loaded with symbolism and metaphor, it is an original wonder. Some viewers have found it difficult to watch. I did not. Maybe because I’m an INTJ. I could easily rewatch the film and look for more clever layers in this story. Honestly, I’m baffled as to why it was not nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

Linda (Rose Byrn in a phenomenal Oscar nominated performance) is a psychotherapist who has a daughter known only as the Child (Delany Quinn). As viewers we barely get a look at the girl’s face. This is because Bronstein wants the audience to focus on the mother who in other films is often relegated to the background. This is Linda’s story. Not her husband’s nor her daughter’s. The Child has a rare pediatric eating disorder and must be fed through a tube (likely a phallic symbol) in her stomach at night which Linda must always attend to.

One day, after Linda and the Child come home from an appointment with Dr. Spring (Mary Bronstein), the Child’s passive aggressive medical doctor, carrying a cheese pizza for which the Child will only eat the crust, the Child heads into the bathroom of their upper middle-class Montauk apartment. The kid starts crying out that there is water all over the floor. When Linda goes to check out the situation she finds a crack in the ceiling. The crack gives way, and water rushes everywhere leaving her with a large hole in the ceiling.

Finding herself looking directly into womanhood she calls her husband Charles (Christian Slater who, like the daughter we rarely see) and he says he cannot come home because he is busy with his career. Take notice when you do see Charles, he is dressed in white, a wink and nudge to him being a “white knight come to rescue her”.

Linda then takes the Child to a motel near the water. During her stay she will find herself confronting Dr. Spring, Charles, a Parking Attendant (Mark Stolzenberg), a sardonic desk clerk named Diana (Ivy Wolk), sexist contractors who find reasons to stall on fixing her ceiling, and her own psychotherapist (creepily played by Conan O’Brien) a covert narcissistic jerk who makes the Crane brothers look like selfless saints. Her only comfort is escaping from their motel room at night clutching a receiver in one hand and marijuana paraphernalia in the other.

During their stay she meets James (ASAP Rocky), the motel’s superintendent, who provides some comfort and grounding. But this becomes short lived as one of her patients Caroline (Danielle Macdonald) who is struggling with being a new mother does something drastic.