����I am a cheap and easy weep.

����I'm telling you, even those cheesily sentimental ads phone companies run during the holidays will turn on my waterworks.

����I watch Miracle on 34th Street every year at Christmas (the Natalie Wood version, not the barren modern remake) and every year I cry. Buckets, I cry buckets.

����Some critics rate movies with thumbs up, me I have a kleenex rating. Miracle on 34th Street is a five kleenex movie, my highest rating.

����So tonight Paul goes and rents that dog movie My Dog Skip. Yes, the man has a subtly cruel side.

����See, here's the thing, and he knows this well--I am a confirmed cat person, a woman who does not particularly care for dogs. This is a movie that one reviewer described as, "... a serviceable time-passer for kids, grandparents, and poochophiles that feints toward the toughness of ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' but stays well within Hallmark-homily territory."

����I knew I was being manipulated with every heart touching scene.

����Wept like a baby.

����For a dog.

����Me, the woman who does not like dogs.

����For a dog I KNEW would pull through because it was blatantly obvious that nothing truly tragic would happen in this movie.

����The official Marn rating for My Dog Skip? Half a kleenex.

����Yes, I am a cheap and easy weep, but I still have my standards.