“It’s a one-way trip, and the last stop is the cemetery.”

The Movie: Double Indemnity, 1944 (Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler, screenwriters, from the novel by James M. Cain; Billy Wilder, director)
Who says it: Edward G. Robinson as Barton Keyes, a veteran insurance investigator
The context: Keyes knows that Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) conspired with someone to kill her husband, and that this alliance will lead to their destruction.
How to use it: To advise someone against a course of action, although this line is true of all of us at all times.

The Oak Grove Cemetery in Gardiner (est. 1844) is the best off-leash dog park in town; a neighbor told Dizzy and me about it the other morning. It's three blocks south of the town common, an easy half-mile's walk from my apartment. Our routine in the morning is to get up, go to the cemetery, then walk through the town common and down the hill to the post office. Across from the post office is A-1 to Go, a gourmet food shop that sells excellent coffee and muffins, and then it's another quick half-mile up the hill to the apartment.

When I told Gary about the cemetery/dog park last night, he said, "That's it. Another reason I'm getting cremated. I don't want dogs peeing all over me." It's one point of view, and I understand some might find it disrespectful -- although I wouldn't let Dizzy pee on a headstone. But I like the idea of live, happy people going to graveyards for some reason other than to mourn the dead. My own dead relatives are buried in cemeteries in suburban New York and Charleston, SC, and I never go visit them there. I'd like to think that someone occasionally walks by their headstones and wonders about their lives, as I do at Oak Grove.

This morning I'm getting kitchen furniture delivered, and this afternoon I might even get cable.