Right Now - Jazz Showcase

Cyms Sheltered From Rain

Exceedingly crude and ugly, but effective. Just for a few days anyway.

REC and Quarantine

I haven't watched any American horror movies in a very long time.  They're geared only for the juvenile teeny-boppers, and full of pointless hacking/slashing, which is unappealing to me, even back in the day.  (Never got into the Friday 13th/Halloween crap.)  But recently I caught a couple minutes of Quarantine playing on TV, and it seemed intriguing.  I also like the lead, Jennifer Carpenter.  Cute.  Not the usual idiotic fare.  So I DVRd it when it reran.  Hubby decided to watch with me, very surprising, since he usually avoids this genre.

So the story is about a reporter and her cameraman doing a puff piece on firefighters, and in the course of responding to a call-out, ends up quarantined in an apartment building with a mysterious illness spreading among its residents.  We both really enjoyed it!  It was well-done, tense and suspenseful, and all the zombies running around weren't over the top corny.  Good outline of a plot, just enough to not be stupid, very interesting premise.  I really liked the live-action documentary feeling of the hand-held camera, which brought an immediacy and intensity to the action.

I found out that it was a remake of a Spanish movie, REC, and that was being offered OnDemand, so watched that too.  It was very good, much better than the American version.  But don't get me wrong, the Am version does a very good job this time matching the original.  Don't quote me, but I *think* the same director/producer made both, and shot for shot matched up, so that would explain why it retained most of its goodness.  Yeah, yeah, ripoffs of other movies abound - Jody Foster groping around blindly awash in green night-vision, for instance.  Blair Witch-y, etc.  But it's all done well.

Overall, I was very pleased to see that the horror genre hasn't gone completely off the rails.  We were both very entertained without feeling like it was a pointless hack-fest.

Holding Breath - Kitties Seem Ok

Last temp reading for Pixie at 11:30pm was 101º.  She's subdued, but responding to treaties, eating well, but not talking much.  Hopefully she doesn't suffer a relapse.  Still very worried about her.

Kayla thankfully ate a whole can tonight, then wanted a snack afterward too, and is now sprawled on my lap purring.  Whew.

Kayla Approves New Bed

Freshly laundered blankie and a heating pad underneath - the best!

Blooming Soon - Hopefully

Both noids, a zygo and a catt.

Pixie's Better But It's Kayla's Turn

Thankfully Pixie's fever's gone, but now she's started to have a lower temp.

11:30am 99.8º
 1:30pm 99.6º

Will have to keep an eye on it.  She's eating normally, and meowing when disturbed again, but subdued, as she would be from having had such a high fever.

But now Kayla refused to eat breakfast, and she's extra clingy today, demanding to sit on my lap and following me everywhere today.  Worried.

Pixie's Got A Fever Again

Been waiting for it to recur again, and it has.  Around 11pm she started looking down, now it's almost 4am, and she seems to be getting better again.

12:30am  104.6º
  1:30am  106º +  freaked me out, she let me put a wet towel on her, not even a peep
  2:30am  104º ready for the vet, whew, will wait now
  3:30am  103.4º  even took some treaties, even purred a bit for daddy
  4:30am  102.8º even purred for me, bit feistier.  Oh thank god.

Will go get some rest now and leave her alone to get better.  Fingers crossed it doesn't flare up again while I'm sleeping.

Book - The Art Thief

OMG.  What can I even say about this thing?  I think this is the first negative review I've done so far on this blog.  I HATE having to trash a book featuring subjects so near and dear to my heart - art, especially Caravaggio, and mystery.  BUT.....this thing BLOWS big-time.  It was so awful that I almost gave up.  This is only the 4th ever book I've ever contemplated not finishing, except I was hoping for a good ending.  Nope - the convoluted, Oceans-11-type rip-off ending really took the cake.  As it stood, it was a painful, 1.5 week trudge that had me continuously rolling my eyes.  (I usually finish books within a couple days.)

The writing was absolutely horrendous.  Ugly.  Tenses change mid-sentence!!!  Awkward.  Pretentious.  Charney didn't seem to find a metaphor he couldn't resist, which in itself is not a sin, but the results were painful, often ludicrous, ugly and forced.  The characters...what characters?  Plot?  Disjointed.  The guy must have had deluded expectations of this being turned into a Da Vinci Code, since it reads more like some ridiculously bad movie script.

Thankfully I've been calmed down by the next book on my list, The Devil in The White City, which I can tell already from the first chapter that it's well-written.

Extra Bonus - Pretty Botanical Garden

Helping Set Up Tables For Orchid Show

Inspecting The Library

Potinara Full Circle

The color darkened from the pale pink on day 1 to this pretty deep pink. AND it became wonderfully fragrant too!

From Blooming Orchids!

Hmmmm, just checked this out on the website, and it's too light in this pic, it's really a bright deep pink. But one can't expect too much from a mobile camera.

Orchid Winter Setup Continues

From Everything Else Orchids

Second shelf and lights all up and running. Glad I got the largest humidifier, cause at top running it's still just hovering around 50%. Got enough space for everything except the phals, but the lights are so bright I'm hoping to get away with a smaller shelf in between the two units.

Pixie Sunning In The Library

First Lighting Shelf Is Up

From Everything Else Orchids

Started with the tallest, there's one last slot for Catt Chocolate Drop right in the front. Lookin' good!!