Expectations (Un)Met

The dog we were sitting went home at the beginning of the month and I am okay with that. This is Fudge:

Laying on the puppydog eyes because I wouldn’t play tug-of-war anymore

He is tall and energetic and just over a year old so basically a giant, extremely mischievous puppy. For the month of February it was like having two toddlers in the house. We had our moments of connection but he was a lot.

On the other hand, part of what we wanted to know was: are we good with having a dog again? And the answer seemed to be yes. My daughter loved him and my son was sorta hit-and-miss, but I think partly that was because Fudge was like, the size of Clifford the Big Red Dog to my boy. Aside from the mischief, he was a good reason to get out and go for walks, so that was nice.

So, a dog that is not as big. We’re keeping our ears to the ground, folks.

Two other things:

Fudge’s owners gave us a bunch of different gift cards to thank us for dogsitting, one of which was a Tim Hortons card that I took. I rarely go there. The lineups are often very long and my time on this earth is too short to wait for mediocre coffee. But I won’t argue with essentially free food, so I tried it. Wouldn’t you know, it’s Roll Up The Rim time!

For those unfamiliar, Roll Up The Rim is a popular annual contest where you win prizes by buying coffee and rolling up the cup’s rim to find a little printed message to see what you got. Only, what I did not know was that two years ago they shifted to a digital format; there’s not actually any prize information printed on the cups and no rolling is required anymore. What is required is an online account in their stupid app, so that you can scan a code at the restaurant and enter that way.

I bought my coffee, drank it, and rolled up the rim, hoping to win another. But nothing was there. I was confused, and a quick Google search shows I’m far from the only one, even though this change was made in 2021. I guess…why call it Roll Up the Rim anymore? I don’t think the change would have bothered me quite so much with any other name. I felt old and disconnected, angrily muttering that maybe living in the future has cost us too much this time.

The other thing was that I just wanted someplace to put my thoughts about The Mandalorian. I’ve had this idea for a long time, but starting the third season very recently has brought them back to the forefront.

When I watch a show I love to peruse discussion groups afterward. And every time people complain about the writing quality or silliness of the show I want to say, “yeah those things are to be expected” because guess what? The Mandalorian is just a super high-budget Saturday afternoon syndicated TV adventure.

I had that thought early in the first season and it’s helped me excuse any part of the show that didn’t really click. When I was a kid & before I had cable, there were always cheesy adventure stories on TV on Saturday afternoons, after the infomercials had finally died away. No big budgets, few big stars, not always a very big cultural impact but often lumbering on for way more seasons than you could’ve thought possible for something that hardly anybody in your orbit actually seemed to watch. Like Xena Warrior Princess or Earth: Final Conflict or Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. This show feels to me like those, but with way higher production values.

This part is harder to articulate but the thing that sealed the deal for me was the theme song.

This plays in full over the credits and when it winds down I always expect there to be one of the Disney TV logos I saw a million times, like Buena Vista or Touchstone. I think it’s a good show and I enjoy it, but I am sort of keeping my own expectations low haha

Thing I Saw: The parking lot of a local grocery store is a popular hangout spot for young adults in their cars; gosh I sounded so old to myself when I read that back, wow. Anyway there are now large signs in the parking lot reminding people not to make so much engine noise, which I think will be 1000% ineffective.

Thing I Learned: Kung Fu: TLC, as mentioned earlier in the post, had four seasons. Humorously, Warner Bros. apparently just released the first two on DVD and then never bothered about the rest.

I’m Grateful For: A (slightly) less chaotic house now that Fudge has gone.

This blog is one of my favourite wastes of time