Hello, there, Dear Reader. It is late morning in Lithia, Florida, on Friday, June 10, 2022. It is a hot, humid early summer day in the Tampa Bay area. Currently, the temperature is 84°F (29°C) under mostly sunny skies. With humidity at 84% and the wind blowing from the west-southwest at 6 MPH (10 KM/H), the heat index is already a steamy 93°F (34°C). Today’s forecast calls for scattered rain showers – but no thunderstorms! – and a high of 87°F (30°C). Tonight, scattered rain showers will continue; the low will be 74°F (24°C).
Last night I watched two titles on my most recent To Be Watched list: John Carpenter’s The Thing and the fourth part of the six-part Disney+ miniseries Obi-Wan Kenobi.
I managed to accomplish this because our miniature schnauzer, Sandy, had a weird anxiety attack because one of her beloved humans, The Caregiver’s middle son, was off at work and would not settle down. In fact, the guy had to come home and help her chill out enough so he could go back to his place of employment.
Because Sandy is also fond of me – I am, to her, part of the family since I’ve lived here, more or less, six years – I was asked to be her minder till she acted normal again. The Caregiver was still working and had to go visit her boyfriend after 5 PM; the oldest son – the guy I call “Gamer Boy” – was asleep after another long night of gaming and pot smoking, and the youngest daughter has COVID and is self-quarantined in her room. So, I was the only human available to keep our dog company.
I didn’t mind, so I picked The Thing, a 1982 remake of a Howard Hawks-produced science fiction/horror film from 1951, The Thing from Another World. Both stories are based on John W. Campbell’s 1938 novella Who Goes There? However, they tell different stories set in two similar but geographically different places – Christian Nyby’s 1951 version is set in the Arctic north and has one prominent female character (played by Margaret Sheridan), while Carpenter’s ’82 version features an all-male cast in an American research station in Antarctica.
I’d seen bits of The Thing on cable back in the Eighties, but not the entire film, and since Amazon had the 2021 4K UHD/2K HD/Digital Copy set for a reasonable price, I bought it earlier this week and had “penciled it in” on my TBW list. Since I needed to choose a movie to watch in the family room while sitting with Sandy (I call her “my little Shmoo”), I tagged The Thing as “it.”
I’m a bit tired today, though, so I am not going to write a review of The Thing right now. The only thing I will say is that the movie was better than I thought it would be, so I have no regrets about adding it to my collection.
And, as I mentioned earlier, I also watched the fourth episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi after I ate dinner sometime after 9 PM. I didn’t time the episode, but it certainly wasn’t an hour long. It was good, though, and it is fun and exciting to see Ewan McGregor taking up the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master, 17 years after he played the character in the Star Wars prequel trilogy.
In the end, Sandy, aka Sandy the Wonder Dog, aka “my little shmoo,” recovered after a while. I think having a trusted human to sit with her eased her anxiety, and by the time I went back to my room, she was mostly back to normal. This morning she even stuck to her morning routine of opening my bedroom door to ask for her usual treat!
I don’t have any other developments to write about, Dear Reader, so I will just say sayonara here. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.
Unless, of course, it’s raining.
A Certain Point of View, Too 
Dogs are so different with respect to anxiety. Our Leonberger was incredibly calm and not afraid of anything and never anxious. However, that’s expected. That’s how the Leonberger dogs are. However, our Labrador and our Pub was not anxious either. Our German shepherd and our Japanese Chin was somewhat anxious, but the most anxious dog we’ve ever had is our mini-Australian Shepherd. He is scared of every noise he hears and he panics when there’s bad weather. He was never afraid of Bronco though. I am glad you like the Thing.
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