Well, today's wolf encounter was very disappointing compared to last year. The wolf was penned in behind fencing where he and his handler sat and talked to people hanging around the outside. He's still not an adult wolf and is really only about a year into his role as ambassador. So, I guess they're trying to make sure he feels secure. Maybe last year was too much for him. But the nature center that sponsored the event also had some other groups present with educational tables. A Game and Fish guy was there. I saw maps where various Mexican Grey Wolf packs hang out in our area. I learned that the Mexican Greys are on the smaller side of wolf sizes. Turns out those two smallish wolf-looking canines I saw silently running about 20 yards from me and my two unleashed dogs early one morning about 8 years ago could very well have been wolves. Wow! And that shockingly large"dog" print in the snow many years ago could also have been a wolf track. I had dismissed it at the time because a friend said that wolf tracks are about as wide as a woman's fist. This one wasn't that large and I didn't know if had melted any, thus spreading it bigger than the paw that made it. But today I saw track impressions that were smaller than the standard huge wolf print, so maybe it was. Pretty exciting to think I saw two wolves right on our property. I'm very glad my dogs didn't see them!
I ended up spending ALL day in town, though that was not the plan. I had such exciting things to do as go to nearly every store here on the mountain including K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Big Lots, (some of the finer establishments so well known to small towns!), Safeway, and Home Depot. Not to mention stopping for an early lunch and later on stopping for dinner because I was STILL there, stopping by the quilt store to pick out my border fabric, and hitting the kettle corn stand in the Safeway parking lot. (When we did our This-Is-A-Brilliant-Idea, But-Utterly-Failed Kettle Corn Adventure in Alaska in 2006 this local guy was the one that taught us the ropes....so I stopped by to say Hi....and got a free bag out of it! Nice guy. Must still feel sorry for us.)
But the BIG event of my very long trip into town was that on a whim I stopped by The Movie Gallery, a rental place that's going out of business. I stopped by about 5 weeks ago and things were discounted quite a bit but prices were still in the $7.50 range. Today I thought that surely things had been marked down again and I'd check it out since I'd been forgetting every other time I'd been in town. My first clue should have been that the parking lot was nearly full. But, fried as I was from 8 hours of running around, I didn't catch on. I walked in and though the shelves were nearly bare, there were these wonderful hot pink signs over 90% of the shelves that said: 50 cents. 50 CENTS! Hey, for 50 cents, I'll try movies I've never heard of. Apparently everyone else in the store was thinking the same thing. People had STACKS of DVDs. And, well, a certain blogger did, too.
I bought some completely unknown movies to gamble on (hey, it's only 50 cents, right) and some interesting titles like Saint of 9/11 (the story of the priest who rushed to the scene of 9/11 to pray and serve and was killed when one of the towers collapsed), The Ron Clark Story (an awesome true story about a teacher who believed the rebellious and failing students of an inner city school could actually excel in learning), Sometimes in April (based on a true story of two brothers and the horrible conflict in Rwanda), John Adams (an HBO mini-series about the second president...Oops! I just looked closely at the DVD and it says 'Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. Dang! Have to go back!)
I bought Ambulance Girl, the story of a writer whose life is falling apart and decides to become an EMT - based on another real story. And Shop Girl. Shop Girl is a remake of the original movie The Shop Around the Corner starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan. If "Shop Girl" and "The Shop Around the Corner" make you think of the movie, You've Got Mail with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks...you're thinking rightly. You've Got Mail was also a remake of the movie, The Shop Around the Corner. In the original movie, the man and woman were pen-pals and actually worked in the same gift shop but didn't know the other was the pen-pal they were falling in love with. In You've Got Mail, they meet in an online chat room. Meg Ryan's character's handle is "Shop Girl" and she owns a bookstore named "The Shop Around the Corner." It's one of my all-time favorite movies so I thought it would be fun to see how another rendition does it. [*Update: This movie was NOT a remake of the old Shop Around the Corner and You've Got Mail. It was something completely different, a story written-and starred in-by Steve Martin. It was a disappointment.]
I tried to grab a bunch of action/adventure titles for The Fisherman, but it was difficult. To me, they all looked unappealing. I did my best to follow what I know of his interests and, of course, his values, and steered clear of the highly thriller, victim, or evil predator type story lines. Which didn't leave many on these picked over shelves. But I went with some good and favorite actors like Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Val Kilmer. I also found some movies that had a distinct Christian sound to them. Good wholesome sounding films about people finding faith. And then I bought a bunch of chick flicks!
Because I had to stand in line for over an hour, though I was behind a mere 5 people, I didn't get home till close to 9pm. Had an almost immediate visit from one cute little raccoon on the front porch, and have been hanging out on Facebook, email, and now here. Nearly midnight...so, goodnight all!
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