The Last of "Magic Marky"...

Mark came over tonight. He brought along his video camera and got some more footage of me: a farewell message and a simple shot of me dancing around in front of some of my dad's cars. And tonight we had a double feature: "The Grand Tour", the movie version of the classic sci-fi novella "Vintage Season", written by Henry L. Kuttner and C.J. Moore, featuring Jeff Daniels as a widower in the process of trying to remodel a house into an inn -- and rebuild his life after his wife's death -- who has to play host to a group of very bizarre tourists. The second half was the Tim Burton classic "Beetlejuice", in which a recently deceased married couple hire the services of a "bio-exorcist" to chase an obnoxious married couple out of their home. I gotta admit to being extremely fond of Tim Burton's loopily freakish sense of humor.

Trying not to be too sad here... there's a very remote outside chance I might go to a going-away party Mark's friends are throwing for him, on Saturday night, but I have to work that night, so the prospects aren't promising as of now.

Interesting customers we have at my place of work...

About fifteen minutes into my shift this afternoon, I happen to glance over in time to see a Basset Hound trotting up the front end of the store. I thought he was with someone, since he was trotting along behind a guy pushing a shopping cart; he had a collar with tags on it, around his neck, so he clearly had a home. One of the supervisors (not the Frenchman, though) ran after the dog, trying to catch him, whereupon the pooch turned and trotted up one of the lanes, into the main part of the store. I turned to "Luanne" the cashier and said, jokingly, "Hm, I wonder if they ran out of dog treats in his house, so he came here to get some for himself."

The supervisor (I think it was one of the Stephanies; we've got two supervisors named Stephanie, so we're always mixing them up...) came back a few minutes later, chuckling. Apparantly, Jay McCarty helped her corner the dog and put him outside, but in the meantime, she'd followed the dog past a lady shopping with her daughter. The little girl spotted the dog and had tugged on her mom's sleeve to "Look at the puppy!" The mother replied, "There's no puppy in here..." just as the dog went trotting by, right in front of her. A few minutes later, the lady who'd spotted the dog comes through the lane where Luanne and I were working; of course she asked us if we'd seen the dog, and she went on to mention her daughter spotting him right away. I told her my thoughts about what brought in the four-legged would-be shopper; Luanne added, "I bet he went down Aisle 15" (where the dog food is).