I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: GLORIA BALSAM-“Fluffy” (1983).

This song is also on Greasy Kid Stuff 3 (I was disappointed to realize that I couldn’t find all that many of the other songs online).  But when I found the video for it, it had also been gathered on a compilation called The Rhino Brothers Presents The World’s Worst Records.

The song is about the narrator trying to find her missing dog, Fluffy.  In all honesty I don’t know if she ever found the dog because her voice is so (intentionally, I hope) off-key and distracting that it’s hard to pay attention to what she is saying  The music is a big sweet ballad, which is completely undermined by her voice.

I suppose this is funny, but I’m honestly not sure what to make of it and I don’t intend to listen to it again to find out.  Maybe that Greasy Kid Stuff album isn’t as desirable as I thought.

[READ: August 3, 2014] Guinea Dog 2

When I picked up Guinea Dog, I also grabbed Guinea Dog 2.  Since the kids enjoyed the first one so much that we started #2 right away.

This book picks up right where the first one left off. It may even be the next day.  Everyone has learned about Fido and her amazing tricks (thanks mostly to Dmitri taking a video and threatening to show it on YouTube).  And Lurena is so totally in love with her (she has offered to take her home many many times, but Rufus keeps refusing).  Heck even his dad seems to like her now.  Rufus has had it with the attention.

So he decides to stop playing with her like a dog.  He doesn’t let her out of the cage as much.  He stops treating her like a dog too–he wants to untrain her, to make her a proper guinea pig.

Now, like in the first book where I didn’t understand the motivations behind Rufus’ actions, here again I don’t get it.  No matter how much he hates the attention, how can he not think that having a guinea dog is awesomely cool.  (We have guinea pigs and they are certainly cute but they are not awesomely cool).  So the more he protests and tries to hide how cool she is the more weird it seems to me (and to his friends).

Murphy of course wants to get a guinea dog just like Fido, even the wicked Dmitri wants to buy her from him.  And rodent loving Lurena would do anything to own her.  But Rufus doesn’t want to give her away, he just wants her to be normal.  Which I guess is motivation enough, I suppose.

Until one day when he can’t find her. He is convinced that he hurt Fido’s feelings by trying to change her.  He is convinced that she rain away. He is convinced that he will never see her again. And he is genuinely upset.  Perhaps he does love her after all?

I’m not sure if the surprise reveal was as obvious as it seemed, but I feel like there are clues enough to lead you in that direction (inducing a very major one), which kind of stinks.  But despite the somewhat obvious ending of that aspect of the plot, the ending of the book was super fun and enjoyable, and I like the way he wrapped it up so nicely.

This book was a bout 20 pages shorter than the first and it actually felt even shorter than that.  Which is fine. You wouldn’t want the story stretched out any longer than that.

I also just saw that Guinea Pig 3 is due out this August, so perhaps we’ll be continuing the saga shortly.