Dottie!

I can has dog! :-)

I returned to Ithaca Sunday evening with Dottie in tow, and she will be staying with me until the 19th. She's moping less than when I dogsat her last summer, which I think is because I brought her here instead of my parents dropping her off. Last time she was very reluctant to leave my apartment for the first couple days, as if she thought my parents might come back at any moment and she didn't want to miss them. This time she seems aware that they aren't around.

Here she is settling in to snooze for the night, in her bed at the base of my bedroom closet.

wherein Liz goes to NJ (and incidentally sees Age of Ultron)

Quick weekend report:

The bus trip was uneventful, though it began oddly. See, the bus station bathrooms were closed (though at least the men's room was apparently functional??? some dude ignored the chunk of plywood blocking off that area and used it, anyway) so I had to go across the street to GreenStar, the local organic coop grocery store, to use their restroom before the bus arrived. But aside from that, everything went as scheduled.

The dinner party was very enjoyable. Susan was able to stay long enough to actually get some dinner rather than just hors d'oeuvres, and it was good to catch up on what Mr. and Mrs. M, and Mr. and Mrs. G (...I guess actually Rev. and Mrs. G, now?) have been doing.

On Saturday Susan and I met downtown to have lunch at Romanelli's pizzeria, and then saw a 1pm showing of Age of Ultron. I enjoyed the movie. It wasn't terribly deep, but I went in expecting two solid hours of entertainment and that is what I got.

( more thoughts behind the cut -- beware of spoilers! )

In summary, I think Age of Ultron may end up being the Iron Man 2 of Avengers movies: a bit of a hot mess, partly because of middle-volume slump and partly because it's trying to cram in too much setup for other story threads, but still highly entertaining.

Anyway, moving on! I had an early-ish dinner at home with my parents, and then went on a slight adventure, otherwise known as "finding a church in Mendham," and then "finding parking." I was successful at both quests, though not without a couple setbacks. (In other words, one road had no street sign, and the church had no parking lot.) Then I listened to Susan's concert, which was a joint thing between the church choir she sings in and a subsection of a local chorus called the Masterwork Camerata. It was all sacred Christian music: a Gloria by Vivaldi; then three shorter pieces performed only by the Camerata group; then selections from The Messiah by Handel. The performances were good, and the church acoustics were wonderful.

On Sunday I went to church with my parents. It turned out to be the Coming of Age group's week to run the service -- that always leads to interesting results. In this case, we got a slideshow of a trip to Boston, several teens presenting short statements of their beliefs and general outlook on the world, teens presenting the results of trying to live out one of their beliefs for two weeks, and a lot of musical performances. Also bubble machines, because who doesn't love bubble machines?

And then I drove back to Ithaca, stopping several times en route to give Dottie a brief walk. The end. :-)