Dental Day

October 23, 2025 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good morning. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce my blog. Let me tell you this has been a most harrowing week. Every year the most hostile of events happens: Dental Day. Dental Day is where I am suddenly snatched off my novelist’s comfortable mattress at some unholy morning hour, put in my novelist’s car, forced to hear her growl and literally scream at traffic whilst I am driven in terror to the vet’s. Whilst there, I am set on a cold hard counter while the nurse gives my novelist a breakdown of the procedure. This stranger then takes me out of my novelist’s arms into a dreadful back room where my gorgeous front leg is shaved, a needle is painfully stuck into it, and after a while everything slowly goes dark.

When I come to, the nurse who took me into the land of horrors, is enthusiastically petting me. I slowly realize I am incarcerated, lying on a towel in some sort of stark minimalist cage. I have no idea what has happened or where I’ve been and my mouth feels like a feral kitten was shoved inside. There is numbness in the back of my jaw. I can feel the film of some gel on my eyeballs of all places, and I can hardly keep my lids open. My novelist is nowhere to be found. I lie there, groggy, terrified, and alone. If that isn’t shocking enough, suddenly, a plastic tube I didn’t realize was shoved down my throat is pulled out. Half the day has somehow gone by.

Then somewhere, sometime later, maybe in the midafternoon I am taken back to the room where it all began, and my novelist is there waiting for me. I have no idea how to respond. The creaky whining sounds I make seem foreign and I am confused. I just want her to hold me and get me out of this prison. She carries me as…Him pays them, pays them, mind you, for torturing me! My novelist carries me out to the car and sets me on a blanket on her lap. She holds me till we get home. She is most gingerly with me, no longer the maniac who screamed and yelled at traffic that morning. After we get out of the car, I retire to the office and collapse on my pillow near the window. I stay there most of the day sad, groggy, confused and in pain. I refuse to eat, refuse to leave the office until bedtime when my novelist puts me on the bed, opens my mouth and injects some sort of liquid between my teeth and I find some sort of relief from the pain and fall asleep. At least Dental Day is over for another 363 days. I shall try to forget about it for now and hope I am not emotionally traumatized. 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 SUBSTANCE (2024)-HBO MAX**

Just in time for Halloween, this highly imaginative, highly innovative film is finally streaming on HBO Max. If you haven’t seen it yet, you really should. Inches from perfection this is a phenomenal tightly put together stunner of a movie that would have made Stanley Kubrick proud. Brilliantly and meticulously directed and written by Coralie Fargeat, had the third act starting with the moments after Sue’s bathroom scene up until its brilliant last shot been less over the top it would have been a masterpiece. Someone should have figured out at some point that this was no longer a horror film but rather a work of art and gone less for comical gruesomeness during the climax and more for a poignant message. Had that happened, it would have been the best film of the year and one of the best for years to come.

Exercise celebrity Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore in a fearless well-deserved Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning performance) is great at her job. Except that she has hit her fifties. Her producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid who is deliciously vicious here) wants a newer, younger star. He callously takes her to lunch on her birthday and fires her over a large bowl of shrimp. Understandably upset, Elizabeth gets into a car wreck shortly after and meets a young handsome Male Nurse (Robin Grier) who slips her a note in her coat pocket with a USB file for The Substance, a way to a younger better self. Skeptical at first, Elizabeth throws the drive into the trash. But upon finding out there is an audition for someone to take her place, she recovers the drive and decides to go through with it. She contacts The Substance (voiced by Yann Bean) who provides her with an address. Shortly after, she receives a small package in the mail. Inside is a keycard with a number on it in bold print.

Heading to a sketchy part of LA and into some sort of hidden doorway that only opens halfway, Elizabeth finds a rather modern small facility where a locker matching her keycard number has a package in it. She takes the package home, opens it and follows the instructions. This DNA kit leads to the birth, as it were, of Sue (Margret Qualley, in a stunning performance that for some inexplicable reason did not garner her a Supporting Actress Oscar nomination) a younger version of herself and from that point on, chaos begins.

The film rightly won an Oscar for Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling for Pierre Olivier Persin, Stéphanie Guillon, and Marilyne Scarselli.

Tears of Abandonment

August 14, 2025 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Gigi the parti poodle here and I can’t even say good afternoon because I am sobbing. On a poodle neurosis scale of 1-10 I am an eleven. My worst nightmare came true. I was right. My novelist abandoned me. Utterly abandoned me. It happened late Sunday afternoon. I was peacefully lying in the office on my pillow by the window as my novelist worked. Then, suddenly, the clock changed to 5:30pm and she scooped me up, slapped on my harness and leash, and whisked me out to the car. I hate cars. They are frightening and I never know where I am going when I am in them. I ended up in the clink. The clink is somewhere I have no idea how I got to or know how to find the path home from. I was taken to the clink in August a year ago where I was incarcerated for a week. It was one of the lowest points of my life. And this week, she took me there again.

During my stay, I met a rather kind Boston Terrier named Gemma. She was older and wiser than I, so I stayed close to her during the day. As it was a minimum-security facility, we would go out onto the porch in the mid-morning where we played checkers. Gemma was a master at checkers. I lost every game. But I did enjoy her company. She told me her owner often goes on business trips, and she stays here frequently. I told her how difficult it was for me to be away from my novelist for even a few hours. She told me I must try meditation. She said to request my novelist put on soothing music for dogs and then relax and know that she shall return in time.

My novelist returned around 6pm yesterday and I was very relieved. I barked and walked around in circles in the car the entire way home. She took me outside to touch the dry grass, and Bernard greeted me with open arms. I told him about Gemma and her suggestions and Bernard said she must be a very wise dog to give such advice. And so, as I write this with teary eyes of joy and relief I am listening to soothing music for dogs. Until next week, I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: RED EYE (2005)-NETFLIX**

If you have never gotten a chance to see this movie, make sure you catch it before it leaves Netflix on August 31. I am always fascinated when movies get a resurgence on Netflix. It often goes to show that audiences are craving films with something more to offer than people running around in capes and tights. I keep crossing my fingers and hoping there is a golden age of movies on the horizon. Or are we just heading for Armageddon? Anyway, this week’s pick is a whole lot of fun. Wes Craven directs this juicy little thriller written by Carl Ellsworth and Dan Foos. The plot is straightforward. A young woman named Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) has the horrid misfortune of working as a manager at a high-end hotel. Because anyone who has ever worked in customer service at one point or another, knows what it’s like to be on the brink of becoming a killer. Lisa’s customers are like an exceptionally annoying trail of assclowns coming out of a miniature car. But for one reason or another she is a genius at her job. She knows how to juggle these dip wits like balls. She helps her poor coworker Cynthia (Jayma Mays who adds wonderful comedy to the film) via phone deal with them as they come at the poor woman like a rabid platoon of Nazis.

The reason Lisa is communicating with Cynthia by phone is she is heading for the airport to board a plane. She is catching the red eye flight on route home after attending her grandmother’s funeral. As she gets in line at Dallas Love Field, she meets a sweet young man named Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy). The two hit it off well and even find out that they are seated together on the same plane. But as the plane starts to take off Lisa begins to realize anyone knows a sweet young man with a name Jackson Rippner is bound to have ulterior motives. Rounding out the cast is Brian Cox who plays Joe Reisert, Cynthia’s father. And he is a much gentler paternal unit to her than he is when he’s running Waystar RoyCo.

Shower Curtains

June 12, 2025 ~ gigicatchesair ~ Leave a comment

Good morning. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce my blog. Today the shower curtain rod came down. This was a most distressing event. My novelist had to hold up the rod whilst I hurried over to the computer to watch a video on how to put it back up. It is one of those curved types that is held up by tension. This is the video I watched: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K03RkODZ42M

And so, this kind man showed us how to take the horrifying tangle of curtains, rod and rings off the bathroom floor and put it back up. Now, we figured out ourselves to remove the curtain and the rings first so hurrah for us (not to mention it is not part of the video). Anyway, I sat and studied his how to lesson intently. Of course, as all wise poodles do, I put on my blue light blocking glasses first as eye safety is paramount. Then I took notes which are never easy to do as one must understand I have paws and no opposable thumbs. I could hear my novelist shouting from the bathroom the blood was running out of her arms so I had bark back that it would take as long as it takes and then proceed to take notes with my paw.

When I finished writing, I hopped out of the office chair, retrieved a measuring tape, and trotted into the bathroom. I took the measuring tape and measured the distance from ceiling to rod to make certain the rod was even on both sides, also a challenge with paws. I then barked the instructions up to my novelist reading them off from my notes. She first had to put one arm down and then the other to allow them to recover and then she set the curtain against both walls and twisted the bar for tension. It was a challenge to get the ornamental ends snapped into place. The one went in without a struggle but the second required my novelist to get out her trusty step stool and angle herself correctly to pop it in firmly. We now have a working shower curtain and both of us learned a lesson in home improvement. I am certain Tim Taylor would be proud. Until next week, I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

**STREAM OF THE WEEK: BAD INFLUENCE: THE DARK SIDE OF KIDFLUENCING (2025)-NETFLIX**

Female psychopaths are exceedingly rare. Only 1 in 1050 women is a psychopath as opposed to 1 in 150 men. But they still exist and here is your chance to see one in the wild. Not to mention she’s a pedophile to boot. I don’t know about you, but I am not an influencer watcher. I don’t get it. I don’t need someone to tell me what dimwit products to buy with their stupid amateur videos. There are enough professionally made commercials out there hocking uninteresting junk that pimp it better with professional actors, directors and writers. But apparently this seedy low-rent schlock is hot. Especially to grown men who make up 92% of the audience for these kids shows. Picture that lurid debauchery if you will. You’d think this low-rent YouTube content would play to other kids but no. It plays to mentally deranged scum.

Tiffany Rockelle is a reptile who happened to give birth to a human daughter. Unfortunately, the daughter was pretty and talented and so like every garden variety psychopath this female lizard saw dollar signs in her third eye. She started putting Baby Jane Piper into pageants when the girl was three years old. And if that isn’t enough to make you shudder, when Piper turned eight, Tiffany shed her scaly skin, tossed her sweet little cash cow in her car and headed out on the road for Hollywood. Once there, Foxy Loxy started building her own little cult, luring children and their mothers into her cave to devour them. And devoured them she did. She picked up some barely legal sucker to be her boyfriend/director to film videos of the pre-teens hanging out with each other and having a good time calling them “the squad” because “the fresh meat” wasn’t catchy enough. Slowly, she got the mothers to give up their expensive apartments and “save money” by moving the kids into a house where she used the mothers as her minions while she had her boytoy film the kids 24-7. That is not an exaggeration. A typical practice of any psychopath: isolate your victims.

After awhile old Tiffany started doing what she had intended to from day one which is turn the films into her own *ahem* “personal fantasy videos”. And after that her actions became a long list of revolting illegal and immoral acts which you must see to believe. If you happen to read this post and you have any association whatsoever with this Ophiophagus hannah, get out now.