MD and I went to see Howl this afternoon when I got home from work. Howl himself was a tad Hakurific, the minions were more than vaguely reminiscent of No Face and Billy Crystal's voice was too recognizable. Other than that it was fantastic. I need to dig the book out and reread it to see what embellishments Miyazaki might have made.

But before we left for the cinema, we had a trauma.

About once a year a bird will get trapped in our basement. Don't ask me how they get down there but it happens often enough that we have developed a protocol for this situation. I opened the back door as wide as it would go while having all other light sources covered (this is actually the way it always is because my husband is apparently a vampire) and MD chased the bird upstairs. Typically they head straight for the door. This one decided to go hide between some book cases. MD went to chivvy it out while I kept the cats from investigating the great outdoors and somehow MD made the bird scream. She thinks she might have squished it with the bookcase.

Then the bird flew and perched on the curtain rail over the back door. Then it flew and settled down in a corner on the floor. Evil 's eyes lit up, 'A giant bug! Yum!'. I definitely didn't want the cat's eating this bird because, aside from any other reason, I was afraid it was sick so I put MD on cat duty, flung a dishtowel over the bird, scooped it up and put it out. It flew away but I don't know how long it is for this world. P suggests it was just semi-catatonic from being in the basement all day.