Pedigree Certificates

February 19, 2026 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good morning. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce this week’s blog. Artemus the Persian, Bruiser the Jack Russel, Ruffles the Bulldog, Titus and Tyler the twin dachshunds and of course yours truly sat around this past week trying to come up with a plan. But before we did that, we had to consider how this evil catnapper found himself able to afford a white Corvette.

We called a tea party. The twins insisted on something with caffeine being served. This was concerning to the rest of us what with their difficulty keeping focus. We were stunned to find out that Earl Grey calmed them down. Shocking. The rest of us had a lovely fruity herbal. It was most scrumptious.

But getting back to the task at hand. Bernard D. Bunny joined our convention and helped us think about what could be going on. After drinking tea and deliberating the matter, it occurred to me that the villain may have acquired his car money by way of selling cats on the black market. When I spoke the words, I suddenly felt ludicrous. But Bernard after pondering the possibility for a moment said, “I think that sounds plausible.” The others agreed. “Yes,” Charlotte said. “Artemus and Demeter have pedigree certificates. So do Madeline and Edison.” But, I said, they would need the papers along with them to be valuable. We all thought about this dilemma. “Maybe,” Ruffles said, “he was able to hack into the computers and get an electronic copy.”

“Or possibly,” Bernard said, “he counterfeits them.”

This initiated a unified gasp.

“Counterfeit! Counterfeit!” the twins barked and ran around chasing each other’s tails.

“Do you think it’s too late?” Charlotte said. “Do you think he’s already sold our dear feline friends to evil conglomerates?”

“Maybe he hasn’t sold all of them off yet,” I said.

“Either way, we’re going to have to hurry. We must go investigate that brute’s house.

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: THE LOST BUS (2025)-APPLE TV+**

One of the more underrated films this year is this survival drama gem. Deservedly nominated for an Oscar for Best Achievement in Visual Effects for Charlie Noble, David Zaretti, Russell Bowen, and Brandon K. McLaughlin who provide a truly harrowing atmosphere. The story is based on the book Paradise by Lizzie Johnson about the 2018 Camp Fire which occurred in Paradise, California. It was the deadliest and most damaging wildfire in the history of California.

The story starts on Thursday morning November 8, 2018, in which badly maintained hardware belonging to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) was hit by Katabatic wind. This caused a line to fail in the Feather River Canyon and fire ignited. A truck driver saw it and called the fire department to report it. Because of the difficult terrain of the area, Ray Martinez, CAL FIRE Division chief (Yul Vazquez) was told by his crew they could not reach the location of the blaze. Listening to the advice of Jen Kissoon, CAL FIRE battalion chief (Kate Wharton) he realizes the fire is going to spread into a runaway wildfire. He attempts to send out an order to evacuate the area but runs into computer failure.

School Bus Driver Kevin McKay (well-acted by Matthew McConaughey) is struggling with financial and family issues. He has returned to Paradise to care for his aging mother Sherry (Kay McCabe McConaughey, McConaughey’s real life mother) and presently has custody of his son Shaun McKay (Levi McConaughey, McConaughey’s real life son). There is a lot of friction between Kevin and Shaun. Shaun is not doing as well in school as his father hoped, and he wants to leave Paradise and return to live with his mother. Not to mention Kevin is forced to take his beloved dog to the vet to have him put down. He asks his boss transportation director Ruby Bishop (Ashlie Atkinson) for extra hours. But she is reluctant to provide them as he has delayed returning his bus to the depot for maintenance several times (an interesting parallel with the badly maintained electrical lines).

After dropping off the kids at school that morning, Kevin gets a call from his mother that Shaun has a fever. Kevin tells her he needs to get gas for the bus and turn it in for maintenance, but he will stop at the pharmacy and get medicine after ending his shift. He fills the bus with gas, purchases Tylenol, and is on route home when a message is sent out to all the drivers that a wildfire is in effect. And Kevin is the only driver near enough to pick up 22 children stranded at Ponderosa Elementary School with their teacher Mary Ludwig (well-acted by America Ferrera) in the Paradise evacuation zone.

Sports Car

February 12, 2026 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce this week’s blog. Before I begin, I would just like to alert you to my unbelievably romantic new photo on the front page of our site. Am I not the cutest thing ever? Of course, I am. Feel free to bathe in my adorableness.

My novelist’s illness worsened some this week but has since improved. And so, I returned to assist my fellow Canis lupis familiaris and our dear Persian cat Artemus. At the meeting concerning the yellow house with the catwalk we decided to stage a stake out. Ruffles somehow talked his owner into driving over and parking his van on the opposite side of the cul-de-sac so we could run surveillance on the place. We watched the house diligently all through the afternoon. It was most boring. Nothing happened except the twin dachshunds decided to play slap jack which was most annoying.

Around four-thirty in the afternoon when we’d all eaten through our treat bags and were quite tired, a car pulled up. A rather stylish car if I do say so myself. A sports car of some sort in stark white that looked like a Stormtrooper’s uniform. We all put our paws on the tinted windows and watched. A villain matching the photos Sergio got for us from the 7-Eleven pulled his girth from the car.

“He’s not driving his van,” Charlotte the Chow said.

“Likely he has more than one car,” Bruiser the Jack Russel replied.

Artemis narrowed her eyes and studied the sloppy figure in his baggy circus pants, Gargoyle sunglasses, and wrinkled Hawaiian shirt. “It’s him. It must be him. No one who dresses like that could be a good person.”

We watched the sadist take a long sloppy drink from his Slurpee and gasped.

“The brute has our cats,” I said. “We must take action!”

“Right now?” Ruffles said.

“No. We must hatch a plan.”

Until next week, I bid you a very Happy Valentine’s Day and adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: KPOP DEMON HUNTERS (2025)-NETFLIX**

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, I thought this might be an off-beat somewhat romantic film to feature as this week’s stream of the week. This is a gorgeous-looking movie with a terrific script that’s not just for tweeners. Deservedly nominated for two Oscars for Best Original Song “Golden” by EJAE and Mark Sonnenblick and for Best Animated Film it is more than a solid contender for both honors. It is also proof that like last year’s outstanding animated films, animation is getting more unique and stronger.

At first, the concept of this film sounds bizarre. A female K-pop group is really three demon hunters who come to find their toughest enemy is a new male K-pop group made up of demons. Logically this should warrant a confused look followed by an eyeroll. But it works and it works well. The songstresses are Rumi (Arden Cho), Mira (May Hong), and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo) of the K-pop band Huntrix managed by their agent Bobby (Ken Jeong). They have gifted voices that allow them to create a magic barrier called Honmoon to hold back the demons. They are racing against time to create the Golden Honmoon which will permanently bar the demons from the human world.

But Gwi-Ma (Lee Byung-hun), leader of the soul-stealing demons, finds amongst his minions Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop), a human-turned-demon, has a plan. Jinu and four other demons have formed a boy band called the Saja Boys. Their plan: to steal Huntrix’s fans and weaken the Honmoon.

As the Saja Boys start to set their plan in motion, one of the Huntrix singers finds she must come to terms with a secret she has been keeping for years…that is if she can thwart the scene stealing tiger and magpie.

Truth

February 5, 2026 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce this week’s blog. It started late last week, my novelist feeling a little off and later feeling off turned into a full-blown cold. This greatly irritated her has she had both her flu and covid shots this year. I told my dear canine friends I would have to let them work on the missing cat dilemma whilst I nursed my novelist back to health. I was rather bored with the task since she slept a great deal and decided to go on the internet to see what was going on in the world. It is rather disturbing out there as there is a list of people who apparently went to an island and willingly hurt children. I was most distressed about this. My cups of tea did not settle me down. When my novelist woke up in the late afternoon, I confided in her what I’d been reading. She nodded her head and said, “I’m going to tell you two stories about two different people. Both stories are true and both people in them are real. I am going to call these two people B and C. I’m going to start with C.

“C was someone who worked at a place they called a video rental store. He was in his twenties, was a likeable man and he had a wife. One day he came into the video store to start work, and he went up to the counter and set a video or DVD down in front of his fellow employee. The video was a pornographic movie. He admitted he took it home and watched it and some other sordid details. He told his co-worker he was wrong, that he’d disrespected his wife, felt great guilt in doing it, and he apologized. His other co-workers thought this was hysterical. They laughed at him and made fun of him for quite a while. And then eventually life went back to normal and they left him alone.

“B was someone I met in kindergarten. The first time I saw him I said to myself, “I feel sorry for him. I don’t know why.” When B entered middle school, he became an underhanded bully. He got his friends to pick on other students and make them feel low and frightened and humiliated. He and his friends wrote mean things on students’ locker in permanent ink and made up cruel nicknames for them and got other students to call them those names. He never apologized to the people he hurt or tried to make amends.

Years passed and one day I was sitting in my room reading a book. My phone rang. I was surprised to find it was a friend I’d grown up and went to school with calling. They sounded distressed. They said, “Last night B stuck a shot gun in his mouth and blew the back of his head off.” I must tell you at that moment I felt stunned and then as if a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I was filled with elation. I felt guilty feeling good about his demise, but it is what I actually felt.

I looked at my novelist with confusion. What does all this mean? I asked.

She said, “It means that some people on that list are B and some are C, dead, alive or otherwise. Some of them are going to take one road and some are going to take the other. In the present world people have come to believe in the illusion that truth is what you decide it is. But that is not so. Truth is reality. Not your reality, not my reality, not anyone else’s reality, but Truth’s reality. You can try and buy your way out of it, you can lie about it, you can run. But you’re only going to get so far. Because Truth is the house. And the house always wins. It may take a very long time for Truth to win but Truth never loses, and it always comes to collect its debt.”

I pondered her words and they gave me renewed hope for our missing cats. Until next week, I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: SINNERS (2025)-HBO MAX**

Nominated for sixteen Academy Awards including Best Picture, comes this period piece/vampire movie written and directed by Oscar nominee Ryan Coogler. The film is stylish and intriguing with excellent performances throughout. It blends the power of blues music with racial tensions during 1932 in Clarkston, Mississippi. I do think the film goes on a scene or two too long, but overall, it is a solid story.

Identical twin brothers World War I veterans Elijah “Smoke” and Elias “Stack” (both well-played by Oscar nominee Michael B. Jordan) return home from Chicago after working for the mob for several years. They have steadily siphoned money from their employers and have amassed enough to open a juke joint for which they employ their talented younger cousin Samuel or “Sammie” (Miles Caton), the son of a preacher named Jedidiah Moore (Saul Williams) to sing and play guitar. Jedidiah is not happy about Sammie’s musical talents, considers them tools of the devil, and does not want him to play at the juke joint. But Sammie is determined to perform.

The twins purchase an old sawmill from a landowner and local KKK leader named Hogwood (David Maldonado). They then enlist several locals to assist them including pianist and harmonica player Delta Slim (Oscar Nominee Delroy Lindo), a married singer named Pearline (Jayme Lawson) whom Sammie has a crush on, shopkeepers Grace and Bo Chow (Helena Hu and Yao) to be suppliers, a field worker named Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller) to be their bouncer, and Smoke’s estranged wife Annie (Oscar Nominee Wunmi Mosaku) who practices Hoodoo, to be a cook. Smoke and Annie have a difficult past because their daughter died in infancy. During their recruitments, Stack runs into his old girlfriend Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) who is mixed race. Because she passes as white, Stack left her in order to protect her.

Meanwhile, an Irish-immigrant vampire named Remmick (Jack O’Connell) hides away from Choctaw vampire hunters looking for victims.

Other Oscar nominations for the film went to Autumn Durald Arkapaw for Cinematography, Ruth E. Carter for Costume Design, Michael P. Shawver for Film Editing, Ken Diaz, Mike Fontaine and Shunika Terry for Makeup and Hairstyling, and Ludwig Göransson for Original Score.

Happy Oscar Nominations Day

January 22, 2026January 22, 2026 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good morning. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to bring you the latest update on our catnapping situation. But first, my novelist wanted me to wish you Happy Oscar Nominations Day. Clearly, she thinks this is more important than what happened to Demeter, Edison and Madeline. Apparently, all the big holidays and events are happening on Thursdays these days. I might add it is also the first day of the Sundance Film Festival, making it a movie day all around. So, there it is, Happy Oscar Nominations Day. You can watch the announcement here. Let’s get to business.

As you know, last week we put a tracking collar on the last remaining feline member of our little motley crew. Edison put up a valiant fight in the park but still our dear Manx was carried off into the night by the evil catnapper. Charlotte the Chow followed the trail to one of the streets that leads to the main arterial with the rest of us in hot pursuit. The only clue we found was spilled Cherry Slurpee, which the twins Titus and Tyler lapped most of. The rest of us focused on the receipt that lay nearby. We now have a concrete clue to the identification of our predator.

We took the receipt back to the van and studied it. We found the villain paid with a debit card. We know there must be footage of this wretch on the camera at the 7-Eleven. But how would we get our hands on such precious information? Then it occurred to me that Wednesday was Squirrel Appreciation Day. Sergio! I told the others a dog could not sneak into a store without being noticed. But someone as small and as dodgy as a squirrel just might. My compadres agreed it was worth a shot and we all scampered home.

The next morning, and it was a cold and frosty morning, I went out and found Sergio up on a fence munching on a nut. I told him about the predicament and our precious Sciurus carolinensis was sympathetic to our plight. He said he would go to the 7-Eleven and view the previous night’s footage. He scampered off and I went back inside to brew a delicious cup of tea and await his return.

It took the better part of the morning but as I was perusing the comics in last Sunday’s newspaper I was delighted to look up and see the familiar furry grey face at the window. I hurried out and he showed me his phone. He had taken a picture of the brute: a burly fellow with mean eyes. Sergio sent the pictures he’d taken of the surveillance footage to all the other dogs, and we are studying the pictures as we speak. Until next week, I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: TRAIN DREAMS (2025)-NETFLIX**

This week’s movie was nominated for two Golden Globe awards and should have made a solid showing at the Oscars as well. It is gorgeously directed by Clint Bentley with cinematography by Oscar Nominee Adolpho Veloso. Though it is a profound and well-told story you’ve been forewarned, this is not for the faint of heart. It is a movie for grown-ups, and it may haunt you for days after seeing it. If you can’t handle that, go sit at the kid’s table and play on your phone.

Brilliantly adapted by Oscar Nominee Greg Kwedar from the 2011 novella by Denis Johnson, it is the story of a logger named Robert Grainier (another homerun performance by Joel Edgerton who clearly should have also received an Oscar nomination for his work here). We know at the beginning of the movie, he will live into his 80’s. The story opens at the turn of the 20th century where Robert starts out building the railroad in the pacific northwest. He headed out that way as a child and worked to survive ever since. After witnessing a shocking event he believes he might have been able to prevent, he turns to logging and floats through life without meaning. That is until he meets the luminous Gladys Olding (beautifully acted by Felicity Jones) at church. Throughout his life, Robert is haunted by dreams of things that are real and things that are not. Determining what is real and what is not real will become a harrowing challenge for him as the story unfolds.

Amazingly, the film was shot in the Pacific Northwest in Washington State in Colville, Spokane, Metaline Falls, Snoqualmie Falls, and Tekoa. This is marvelous and sadly shocking as Washington State has been a royal pain in the ass to film in thanks to its reputation of being too expensive and not lucrative enough. So, filmmakers have had to go to Oregon, Montana and Vancouver BC to get films made and I don’t blame them. It’s starting to get better but despite all it’s good points, Washington, though being the birthplace of companies like Amazon, Costco, Starbucks, and Microsoft is the ass clown of states when it comes to knowing how to make money.

Rounding out the cast is William H. Macy as explosives expert Arn Peeples, Nathaniel Arcand as storekeeper Ignatius Jack, Kerry Condon as forestry services worker Clare Thompson and Will Patton as the Narrator. The film also received an Oscar nod for Best Song for the title track “Train Dreams” by Nick Cave and the film’s composer, Bryce Dessner.

Pandemonium

June 26, 2025 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to tell you pure pandemonium has broken out. My novelist has had her eyes glued to the computer since this morning because the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale Preview dropped today. This for me is one of the most heinous weeks of the year. It is a most dreadful event where she pays attention to the sale but not to me. Alas, I am left to fend for myself as she drills down page after page looking at clothing and bobbles until her eyes are bloodshot and she walks around like she is in a trance. I, in the meantime, have been working on my new story The Dog Doctor which I will be releasing chapter by chapter. But there she sits, absolutely addicted. There is something profoundly wrong with that. Anyway, I am now going to go fetch myself some tea and dog biscuits and stay out of her way until the fever breaks. Until next week I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: HITCHCOCK (2012)- NETFLIX**

Right now, Netflix has a fantastic array of Hitchcock films to watch including some of his very best work: Frenzy, Family Plot, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), The Birds, Rear Window, Vertigo and of course Psycho. And if you are a true cinephile you have seen them all, probably multiple times. If you have never seen these films, cinephile or no, all seven of these are required viewing. If you watch nothing else this summer watch all seven of these movies. Especially the last four as they are masterpieces. Movies don’t get much better than this. So, unless you are watching The Dekalog or all of Stanley Kubrick’s films, stop what you’re streaming right this minute and view every one of these.

Now to this underrated movie from 2012, which is about how Hitchcock went about bringing Psycho to life. One would think a director with as much success as he had would be able to make his next movie without much struggle. But alas, business jackasses are everywhere. Alfred Hitchcock (brilliantly played by Anthony Hopkins) reads the book Psycho by Robert Bloch and is immediately smitten. Not even his collaborator and wife Alma Reville (BAFTA nominee Helen Mirren) can convince him otherwise. He is so determined that no one knows anything about the book before he makes the film he sends his secretary Peggy (Toni Collette) out to purchase every copy.

Because he didn’t make enough money with Vertigo and the studio considered it a failure (If you can believe that. My favorite Hitchcock movie by the way.) they don’t want to finance the film. So, Hitchcock decides to put up his own money and goes to work hiring Joseph Stefano (Ralph Macchio) to write the script, Janet Leigh (Scarlet Johansson) and Anthony Perkins (James D’Arcy) to play the leads and Vera Miles (Jessica Biel) whom Hitchcock had a bitter past with to co-star. In the meantime, Alma Reville has gotten fed up with her husband’s dismissiveness of her contribution to his success and considers starting an affair with screenwriter Whitfield Cook (Danny Houston).

A Brand New Bunny

May 29, 2025 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good morning. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to joyously welcome a new member of the Bunny family brood, Brendan D. Bunny, cousin to Bernard D. Bunny and Belle D. Bunny. I met him for the first time this morning. He is a whopping six inches from his head to his cotton tail and possibly three inches tall. He was rather taken aback by suddenly seeing a gorgeous parti poodle for the first time. I know how much beauty can be stunning to one so young and he scampered off into the bushes. Bernard has invited me to the family celebration, and I have saved the date. I am not sure what type of gift to bring. What should one gift for a baby bunny? I am looking into Bunnies by the Bay to see if there is something his family might find cute or useful. Perhaps a Roly Poly Bunny. That is always a good choice. And a bunch of parsley. I hear bunnies like parsley. At any rate, the whole event is quite joyous, and I cannot wait to attend. I have also alerted my novelist, so she is extra careful when backing out the car. Until next week, I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: DAZED AND CONFUSED (1993)- AMAZON PRIME**

If you have never seen this movie, you really, really should. And it’s the perfect time of year to do so. Set in Texas in May of 1976, the movie is simply one day and night on the last day of school for both high school and junior high school students in a small town. But what a great slice of life this is. Funny, honest and accurately depicted in both costume and setting, this is Richard Linklater’s small masterpiece that sports an unbelievably talented cast of young up and comers, some who would become Oscar winning writers and actors, Golden Globe nominees, huge TV stars, and famous Indi Film darlings. Why can’t all teenage films be this good? They do not cost that much to make and the payoff, if the script is good and it’s filmed right, is huge. There are not enough teenage films about…teenagers. No teen is a superhero. Most teens are not the banal subject of slasher films. And most of them are not much different through the eras whether it be Rebel Without a Cause, Breaking Away, Napoleon Dynamite, The Edge of Seventeen, or The Breakfast Club. I would like to see a lot more of these types of films come out of studios and then I might go back to the theatre.

On the last day of school in May 1976, high school quarterback Randall “Pink” Floyd (Jason London) has been given a paper to sign he must turn into his football coach before the end of the year. It denounces using drugs, sexual promiscuity and in general breaking the law. To say the least, Randall is not pleased. His fellow football players Benny O’Donnell (Cole Hauser) and Don Dawson (Sasha Jensen) encourage him to sign it. His stoner friends Ron Slater (Rory Cochrane), Michelle Burroughs (Milla Jovovich), and Kevin Pickford (Shawn Andrews) tell him its bull and his intellectual friends Mike Newhouse (Adam Goldberg), Tony Olson (Anthony Rapp) and Cynthia Dunn (Marissa Ribisi) are just happy to be invited to the afterschool party.

In the meantime, junior high school students Mitch Kramer (Wiley Wiggins), Sabrina Davis (Christin Hinojosa), John Hirschfelder (Jeremy Fox), and Carl Burnett (Esteban Powell) are getting ready to be hazed and not enjoying it. Darla Marks (Parker Posey) ruthlessly leads the hazing of the girls while paddle wielding Fred O’Bannion (Ben Affleck) brutishly leads the raid on the boys. Already graduated ex-football quarterback David Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey) hangs out with the teens kicking back, saving the party and shelling out good and bad worldly advice.

Rounding out this stellar cast are Randall’s would-be girlfriend Simone Kerr (Joey Lauren Adams), and Mitch Kramer’s older sister Jody Kramer (Michelle Burke).

Cable Sugit

April 24, 2025 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good afternoon. Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce my weekly blog post. I must tell you; internet cable is a nightmare. They are digging up the neighborhood to lay down Fios. And we are absolutely delighted by this as we have wanted fast internet for a while now. However, while they were digging up the ground and laying the cable we lost the internet. The Fios workers were kind enough to repair our cable so we have a television, but we could not bring back our internet for the computer. We contacted our provider who sent out a technician. Turns out whatever the Fios workers did fried our router which, if you have a router, you know they are not the cheapest toy in the Crackerjack box as it were. Anyway, our router was fortunately still under warranty, and we were able to order a new one at the cost of twenty-five dollars to ship. Dreadful. However, it is better than paying one hundred and seventy dollars. We are trying every workaround to use what internet we can. My novelist and I must be careful about using our phone for a hot spot because we would have run out of data for the month. Hopefully, our router will arrive soon, and we will be back to our regularly scheduled program. Until then, I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: BEAU IS AFRAID (2023)-HBO MAX**

This week’s pick is without doubt one of the strangest movies I have ever seen. And that includes Blue Velvet which ironically makes complete sense to me. I will say Beau Is Afraid is not for all tastes, it is not for kids, and the ending is truly odd. But the first two acts of the film are downright hysterical, and they make it worth the watch. The film is wildly written and directed by Ari Aster.

The plot, if that indeed is what it is, is focused on a man named Beau Wassermann (bravely and brilliantly played by Joaquin Phoenix). Beau has reason to be afraid. He lives alone in the absolute worst neighborhood in America and is understandably seeing a therapist (Stephen McKinley Henderson). Today’s visit is extra special because Beau is going home to see his highly successful mother Mona Wassermann (played by both Zoe Lister-Jones & Patti LuPone) tomorrow. Beau has every intention of getting home to see her and has every intention of catching his flight and the therapist gives him some pills he absolutely must drink with water to survive the affair. But because an unknown person keeps slipping notes under his door all that night by an unknown person claiming he won’t turn down his music (Beau is not playing any music) he wakes up late to catch his early flight. In his rush to get to the airport on time he makes the dreaded mistake of leaving his suitcase and keys in the hall to run back and retrieve his beloved dental floss. When Beau returns to the hall both the suitcase and keys are gone. He then finds himself on a genuinely bizarre odyssey as he attempts to head home to his mother’s house and tries to get there in time before…well, you’re just going to have to watch it and find out for yourself.

Rounding out the cast of this whacky adventure are Parker Posey as Elane Bray, Beau’s childhood sweetheart, Nathan Lane as Roger, and Amy Ryan as his wife Grace. Also look for Bill Header in a small but crucial roll as UPS Guy.

Money by Gigi Floyd

April 4, 2025 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here once again and I must tell you I am feeling better. Through the course of the week, I have managed to gain back some of my novelist’s trust. She now allows me to go outside without a leash again provided it is light outside. I am, however, required to wear a leash in the dark. This has encouraged me, and I am delighted to have at least some of my freedom back. I am, however, discouraged about my financial portfolio. It is disheartening to say the least. However, the bright side is I am a parti-poodle with a financial portfolio and even though a recession is on the horizon, that must count for something. I am keeping my furry chin up and foraging on towards a hopeful future…who am I kidding? We’re all doomed. Until next week, keep your feet on the ground and keep fretting over your finances.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: ANORA (2024)-HULU**

This year’s Oscar Winner for Best Film, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Original Screenplay (all four for Sean Baker’s outstanding work) and Best Actress, Anora is a timeless look at how the wealthy exploit and extort from those less fortunate than themselves and the indifference they have in going about doing it. No, the film is not about tariffs, but the same idea applies.

Anora (Mickey Madison in an excellent Oscar winning performance) whose name means pomegranate, honor, grace and light (yes, this is important) is a stripper in a New York city club. She is clearly wittier and classier than her occupation implies. She prefers to go by the name Ani and is good at and very professional at her job. She has a sister and a mother we never meet whom she occasionally talks about. She is twenty-three years old and if one didn’t know she was a stripper one would assume she was an intern, a grad student, or something of that nature. Not to say interns and grad students haven’t worked as strippers, but essentially that Ani would appear to have a future outside her current occupation.

Ani is bilingual and speaks both English and Russian. Which is how she comes to meet twenty-one-year-old Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) who goes by the name Ivan. It turns out Ivan is the son of a Russian oligarch. After she does a lap dance for him at the club, he asks her for a date. Ani goes to his house the following day and the date of course turns sexual. Ivan then offers to pay her ten thousand dollars to be his girlfriend for a week, which she obliges. But Ivan is not all he seems and as Ani gets to know him better her world begins to spin out of control. Especially after she meets Ivan’s godfather Torros (Karren Karagulian) and his henchmen Garnik (Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Oscar Nominee Yura Borisov in a wonderfully nuanced performance).

Phobias

March 27, 2025 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce my weekly blog. Alas, I have not gotten over my sudden onset of phobias. My novelist refuses to let me go anywhere outside the house without a leash now. I am not happy about my newfound loss of freedom. Losing your novelist’s trust is not a joyful thing. Although I am aware I am not my usual self. I have begun writing a journal about my newfound fears involving humans getting too close to me. Which did get better temporarily when thunder showers came this week. I began to calm down. I curled up with a nice shot of Aquadent, took a nap and afterwards I began to write. I wrote about how I have not been out to see Bernard or his little sister Belle for a week and started making a list of what I would like the Easter bunny to bring. I would like a white chocolate bunny. I would like a stuffed chewy toy. And doggone it, I would like to get my freedom back. I despise this leash thing. I want to roam about on my little patch of grass like I used to. I must find a way to win back my novelist’s trust. Somehow, I must return to my old self.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: THE TEACHER’S LOUNGE (2023) NETFLIX**

Nominated for an Oscar for International Feature Film in 2024, this film from Germany is a taunt and thrilling tale about a kind and moral teacher in one of the least kind and moral places in the world, a middle school. Leonie Benesch is fantastic as Carla Nowak, a young polish teacher starting her career teaching math and physical education in a German middle school. In her math classroom there is an exceptionally bright young student named Oskar Kuhn (Leonard Stettnisch) whom she likes and wants to assist him in furthering his education. At one point she presents him with a Rubik’s Cube which she explains requires math and not magic to complete the puzzle.

The school she teaches at has been struggling with issues of theft and Carla sees students and teachers alike taking advantage of opportunities all around her. One day she leaves her jacket and her laptop in the teacher’s lounge with her camera going. When Carla returns, she finds someone had gone into her wallet and taken money. When she reviews the video on her computer, she sees someone in a white blouse with yellow stars on it standing by her chair with her jacket on it, reaching into the pocket and taking her wallet. Oscar’s mother Friederike Kuhn (Eva Löbau) works in the student office, which is situated near the teacher’s lounge and when Carla goes into the office to report the theft, she sees she is wearing a white shirt with yellow stars on it.

Carla confronts Friederike and asks her to return the money and the conversation will be over. Friederike refuses to say she committed the theft and seems downright bewildered. Carla takes her computer to Dr. Bettina Böhm (Anne-Kathrin Gummich) who runs the school. Böhm calls Friederike into the office to try and elicit a confession and has a reluctant Carla show the video footage. Friederike refuses to confess to the crime and is put on leave. The event causes a rising tidal wave of schoolwide issues that come back to haunt Carla, including Oscar threatening to cause her harm.

Documenting

March 6, 2025March 6, 2025 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good morning. Gigi the parti poodle here to welcome you to another installment of my blog. As you know, I am continuing to take a break from my little stories I tell here while I continue to practice my writing and assist my novelist in penning her newest novel. This week, as is tradition, my novelist and I sat down and watched The Oscars. We have seen many of this year’s nominated films but not all and we are continuing to review them. This week we watched a couple of nominated documentaries together. I have come to find out that these are not comedies. I find myself rather disturbed after viewing them. Last night, for instance, I could not settle down to sleep. I had to shove and push my blanky in many directions. Nothing was comfortable. I also tried walking on my novelist. This did not help. She did not like it. I was finally able to settle down and listen to gentle music while I attempted to meditate and try and forget that the world is for lack of a better word, terrible. Which reminds me, I had a bath this week. I detest baths and yet I keep getting them. Perhaps I will film a documentary on that horror. Until next week, I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: FLOW (2024) HBO MAX**

Hands down the best Oscar award of the night this past Sunday went to this absolute must see masterpiece. This was a tremendous year for animation with three powerhouse films, The Wild Robot, Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl and Flow all competing for the prize. Honestly, all of them deserved the Oscar and if I had it my way it would have been a three-way tie with each of them taking home a statue. But if we were splitting hairs, Flow would have been my choice for the win. This visually stunning brilliantly told story became the first Oscar for the country of Latvia and a huge congratulations to them. If you see no other film this year, see this one.

Telling its tale with absolutely no dialogue at all, we find out that humans are gone. Empty houses, empty broken boats. Nothing. Animals, however, have survived. And one of them is a little charcoal cat with big bright gold eyes. The cat is suddenly startled by animals all running away in herds and it realizes something terrifying is coming. The cat runs into a friendly golden retriever who takes a shine to it, but the cat wants nothing to do with the dog. Especially since the dog appears to have other canine friends. The cat heads to its home, a beautiful place with cat statues all over the yard and a just finished sketch of it lies on a desk upstairs with no artist in sight. As the cat looks out the window, it finds the water is rising. Fast. It finds it must leave the house and climb up to the top of a gigantic stone cat structure much like climbing to the top of a large building. And yet the water continues to rise.

Much to the cat’s luck, a sailboat appears on the horizon. The cat struggles to swim to it and when it gets on board, it finds out it is inhabited…by a capybara. Turns out the capybara is kind as well as bright and resourceful. As they sail for awhile the golden retriever catches up to them as well as a meerkat obsessed with shiny things. The four begin to work together as they take a harrowing aquatic journey in search of food and dry land.