In response to Veronica's innocent query "What the heck is this album of the week thing, anyway?", i've added another mini-review to the list. Have a look. I'm trying, honest.

You can't get away from it, that's just the way life works. A little bad, a little good. A bit of sadness, a bit of happiness.

The weekend before last we came to the realization that Cobi's cancer was beginning to really get her down. She was obviously now feeling pain from it, and it was moreover affecting her eating and demeanor. We made the tough decision to put her to sleep on Memorial Day, and made an appointment for 4 o'clock that Tuesday. It's a choice that you can easily second guess over and over again. If she's happy when we walk her or give her a treat, is that enough to stave off putting her down? What about the rest of the time? Is she constantly in pain? It can eat you up inside. We took her across the bay to the vet in Fremont. They put a catheter in her arm, and let us hold her as she went. We took a good twenty minutes afterwards to cry over our poor little doggie. However she looked more peaceful then than she had in a long time, and it helped to know she was no longer in pain. She's up in heaven now playing with Peanut and lounging next to Veronica's grandfather. It's still hard when i drive up to the house and Cobi's not doing her twirl in the window.

We had our carpet cleaned the day after, to try to remove some of Cobi's pee and blood stains. The stains are miraculously gone now, but there's still a bit of urine odor. We're hoping that it will fade over time, now that the carpet is no longer being watered by Cobi. V and i also met up with Marcus and headed to Michael at Tin's Tea House in Walnut Creek to sample some candidate wines for the wedding. He served us a very nice Sauvignon Blanc and a good Cabernet and Merlot, so we were able to fill in another piece of the wedding puzzle. On Sunday we met our baker and got a sample cake. Next up: photographer.

My physically and emotionally draining work week concluded with a jaunt to the city on Friday night to see Franz Ferdinand at the Regency with Veronica and Gary. Unfortunately our new favorite Thai place Chai Yo was being used for a private party, so we had to settle for burgers at Sliders before the show. Arriving at the venue at 10:30pm, we realized that the location was formerly the Regency movie theater on Van Ness, where V and i had seen The Truman Show years ago. I was a bit awed at the turnout and enthusiasm for FF ... i know they get airplay on Live 105, but the place (roughly Great American Music Hall size) was sold out and ticket hunters outside were at near-Modest Mouse levels. For a band with one album? Anyway, they were pretty good, although the acoustics in the venue are crap. FF played for maybe 45 minutes, after which we zoomed down the peninsula to get some shuteye.

On Saturday V finished off her work week while i relaxed at home. In no particular order, i finished I-Ninja for the GameCube (not bad, fun gameplay if a bit repetitive), did some wedding-related work, brought V breakfast at work, and took a nap. That evening we tried in vain to go see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, but thwarted in that effort we instead had some Japanese food, played Scrabble, and watched X2: X-Men United on cable.

On Sunday we got our act in gear and did manage to see a matinee of the new Harry Potter movie. You would predict a more engaging experience when ditching the director of Home Alone for the director of Y Tu Mama Tambien, and that expectation is fulfilled. Despite my penchant for the Willie Wonka parallels of the first book, i think the third Harry Potter novel was my favorite, and Alfonso Cuaron transforms it very well to the screen. He adds a lot of symbolism, particularly an emphasis on the passage of time (fly-through shots of the clocktower at Hogwarts, scenes of the Whomping Willow as seasons change). As Roger Ebert put it, Harry is no longer someone you can push around, and this makes for a darker and more emotionally realistic film. Altogether more satisfying than the "prepubescent suspense thriller" that the second film was.

The weekend wrapped up with a Scrabble rematch, at which Veronica corrected her defeat the previous evening by wiping the floor with me.