Hey All and a Happy New Year!

Had a really good weekend and did some cool stuff. On saturday I went up to do volunteer work at the Yonkers Ferret Shelter. At the train station in Yonkers I met up with a new aquaintance [Aliza] ... whom I've been chatting with thru one of the Yahoo Groups I belong too. Then we switched to emails. Anyhow, she adopted one of the furkids from the shelter [for her daughters b-day] I volunteer at and mentioned it online. Thats how we got to chatting via email. When Aliza showed up at the station she had her daughter Briana with her, plus little Vanilla peeking his head out of her shoulder satchel. Jumped into her car ... chatting the whole time ... drove to shelter. Aliza, Briana and Vanilla came in with me. It'd been two months since I'd been at shelter and it was good seeing Joanne and her pets. We talked for abit on a few topics before heading into the shelter area. Stayed in shelter area for 10 minutes while Aliza chat with Joanne about ferrets and I played with a few. The main group was out and about, scampering here and there just sniffing everything. Joanne mentioned that during December only one ferret was adopted and four were taken in. At 1:30pm Aliza left with her daughter and furkid. She's a cool, fun, interesting gal. We'll catch up on talk via email. I then got to work on my duties ... which included cleaning/filling up waterbottles, brushing furkids and cleaning their ears. Throughout all this I socialized with them, gave them belated Xmas gifts, as well as yummy treats. They were a happy bunch. This time Oliver, Emily and Big Willy were following me around. Their so sweet. Had a nice tea break with Joanne and gave her a large tin of my homemade cookies as a gift. Back in the shelter we put one group of fuzzies into their cages and took out next group. I brushed their fur and cleaned their little ears. While that group was playing I washed the floors, changed the poopy papers and cleaned out litterboxes. Then Joanne and I put that group away, as well as give them extra treats. Then it was time for me to change into clean clothes and head back to the train station. All in all ... a most enjoyable visit.

On Sunday I went with a friend to the cinema and enjoyed viewing LOTRs "The Two Towers". Saw the first LOTRs film [Fellowship of the Ring] a year ago and greatly enjoyed it. [Rewatched the film while on vacation in Cape May.] Even tho the films are 3 hours long, you don't mind or notice it due to it being so well directed and acted. The Tolkien trilogy is wonderful and I re-read it back in October/November. First time I read "The Hobbit" and LOTRs was back in the mid-1980s. These films are directed by Peter Jackson and he's assembled a brilliant cast to flesh out [well, not in Gollums case] the characters of Middle-Earth. Most of the filming takes place in New Zealand and what gorgeous scenery it is. Breathtaking! The special effects and fantastic computerized work are top notch. Some of my fav characters in the plots of "Fellowship of the Ring" and "Two Towers" are ... Aragorn, Faramir, Gandalf, Shadowfax [yes, the horse], Treebeard, Boromir, Elrond, Merry, Pippin, Gimli and Legolas. Yes, I know, I didn't mention Frodo. Oh well ... sorry about that ... he's not one of my fav Trilogy characters. Anyhow ... lots of amazing scenes in the second film ... especially the battle segments and Ents. Awesome! I highly recommend renting the first film in video or DVD format and then quickly go out to see the second film. You won't be disappointed, not at all.