cakes1975

All of this reminded me of the book/movie "The World according to Garp." Technical Sargent Garp was a comatose soldier in a hospital During WWII. His nurse, Jenny Fields decides she wants a child and not a husband, so she uses his constant erection to help herself get what she wants. In the book, he 'comes and goes at the same time', leaving Nurse Jenny Fields with what she wants; a baby boy who she names TS Garp. It's a great book by John Irving and a good Robin Williams movie.

I was sorry to see Bill killed, but I think many of us have see too many action spy movies. Most spies are more George Smiley than James Bond. I thought the writers did a good job explaining how Bill functioned out in the field when he told Eve about all his wining, dining and sleeping around in his salad days as a agent in Berlin. Most real spying is about gathering information, not hand -to- hand combat. Valerie Plame may have carried a pistol in her purse, but her phone was likely her best weapon. As for Villlanelle sitting there watching Eve and not being bothered, in many European cities, you can do just that. If its a legit area where you sit and chill, the police won't harass you for doing just that. Today it might be different, but in the oughts' I just sat around in several European cities and was never bothered by the authorities. I even sat outside the police station in the Waterloo Train Station and the only thing the officers did was explain to me why I could not take still photos in the station, but I could take videos. As a Black Woman, it was nice being able to wander around and not be followed or treated like a criminal. So none of the things that led to poor Bill's death seemed that far-fetched to me.

I'm meh on both Forth Worth and now Nashville. In both cases it feels like the couple has been shoehorned into the desired formula. Neither Ashley of Fort Worth, nor Page of Nashville are truly "designers." It's clear they really only do real estate and the couple has a regular contractor/designer for all their projects. With Tarek and Christina, and with Ken and Anita, you get the sense that they really do the work (at least, they did at one time, in the case of Tarek and Christina). The Fort Worth and Nashville couples do seem to be house flippers but neither does the sort of work they purport to do on this show. That makes it feel very staged, fake, and unnecessary. On Nashville, Deron is the designer and Page is the realtor who finds houses for their flipping business. Deron is a general contractor/designer, and I think the gig with Page is his side business (probably for TV).

Good for you! I get pissed when I hear the oh just lose weight and you A1C will come down, and you will be cured. A lot of this is sometimes the luck of the genetics draw. On my mother's maternal side, every man in the last five generations have been and died with diabetes; the only women who were diabetic were the daughters of the diabetic men. On my father's side, every generation was diagnosed type two by their forties. My father never had a weight problem, exercised regularly, and ate sensibly, and his held off, until 50; he took care of his but the cancer dropped in and both took him at 66. It was the only thing he warned me to watch out for, and I did. I noticed the signs right after my 43 birthday and started the exercise, eating right plan. When my A1C remained at 7.4 my Doctor and I went over my health history again, and realized that I forgot to mention my history with PCOS, and that my ovaries had been resected twice, and I had to have one removed during a third resection. She was like, "you should have told me this earlier." I was put on Glucovance that day, and twenty years later I am on that and two injectable meds. So far, no complications and I hope to live as long as some of my great uncles who made to their eighties. I loved that even with the commercials being in poor taste for some, they pointed out that there is no cure. There is management, there is keeping complications at bay for a while; at a medical conference last year, I learned that if you live long enough, you will get diabetes. Apparently your pancreas doesn't process glucose as well after eighty and everybody has a mild form of diabetes as they get closer to the end of life. Most doctors don't treat it aggressively because it is part of the aging process. Oh, I never told my father I had developed type II, he did not need to process that in his last year of life.

Hate to break it to you Couchtater and Snarklepuss, but skin lightening creams still exist and are used in America. Head to the 'ethnic' aisle in your local drug store and look for a skin cream call AMBI. It is a skin lightening cream. Most black women in the US use this cream to lighten dark areas on knees and elbows, but for years it was used to lighten facial skin so that the European Majority would hire some of us, especially in jobs where we would be seen by the General (white) public. In the 1970's as we were shouting "Black Power!" I could go for an interview for an office job, and there was always something in the interview room that was a lighter shade of brown than my skin. If I contrasted too much with that shade, I would not be getting a second interview. I have not been everywhere in the world, but I have seen 'colorism" everywhere I have traveled. Just wiki "Brown Paper Bag Test"or "Colorism" if you think this is something from some bygone era.

I was almost as happy for Ava DuVerney as she was for herself. I'm sure ADV has had to justify her existence as a Black Woman most of her life as "colorism" is a factor in most people who have been enslaved or colonized by Europeans over the centuries. The "one drop rule" was (is) prevalent in many societies, and it was legalized in the US until the 20th century. I'm sure Ava DuVerney got it from both sides. too light to be thought of as Black, too dark to be White, and probably given crap because she is "mixed." Also she and Mr. Coates were both pleased that they could actually trace their slave ancestry back as far as they did. Most of us Black Folks get stopped at the 1850-1860 census because of property records, name changes, etc. As you have noted Snarklepuss, you are white and probably like most of the white people on these programs, they mostly have European ancestry. Usually the only white people overly proud of being white are called racists because they are using it to justify their supremacy. Just step back and breathe, there is no reverse prejudice going on here, just someone proud to be who she always thought and believed herself to be..

I remember reading somewhere that the subjects often ask that the research be concentrated on certain members of the family. Usually it is someone that has been whispered about or had some mystery around them. Ava DuVerney wanted to know more about the man who raised her, and some clarification about her slave (and slave holding) ancestry.

Fuck you SyFy, and all your executives too!

The egg getting stuck was a giant ripoff of Miranda having to remove Carrie's IUD on SatC, so I gave that the side eye. Well this has happen to two members of my family so I found this funny and true. My mother had to remove a cousin's tampon that had gotten stuck (she forgot she had it in and had sex which moved it up further into her vagina) this was in the early sixties; and my daughter removed her cousin's cap in the late eighties. This apparently happens more than any of us wish to say. I'm just glad this missed a generation (me). But then again we were raised that you should be close enough and have enough trust that you should be able to show you mother a pimple on your anus (sorry,TMI).

I stumbled onto this forum and thought I would add my two cents to the discussion. Zoemom, please try to relax and take some deep breaths, your health is more important than this or any job. Now as far as the change in your drawer, get the counter from amazon when you can afford it, but in the meantime, do it the old-fashioned way, and roll the excess coins (if you have the required numbers that fits into the roll), and place them on the side until you really need them. If the office rarely has a cash paying customer, you would not need more than 20-pennies, nickels, and dimes, and maybe 12 quarters. Everything else could fit in a roll and would lessen your need to count down everything at the end of the day. Make a list of the various procedures and codes, laminate it, and leave it somewhere close (if you can, tape it next to your computer screen). Now for the shingles vaccine folk, most insurance companies prefer that you receive the shot from the pharmacy for the reasons listed above. If your Dr. writes it up as a prescription, your insurance must pay for it. Try calling the insurance beforehand to iron out the details. I had shingles about five years ago, but I had to get my Dr. to prescribe the vaccine because I was a federal employee and the CDC did not recommend the vaccine for anyone under 60. I called my health insurance and because my Dr. prescribed it, I got the shot, with the insurance coverage and only paid $50 for my out-of-pocket. I am so glad the age was lowered. As for the pain lingering, I learned over the years, that if you get any vaccination in your dominant arm, it gets better faster because of use, or you notice it less for the same reason. I always liked the Stooges, but fell in love with them when I started listened to the dialogue. The snark was strong and 1930's comedy invented the social and political burn.

Yes, Seabrooke is Junior's boat and according to the DC website, Junior is not longer crab fishing, but his Dad and other family members are.

I think that Chicken Wing has a point about Robert Avery being a deadbeat father. While he may not be a monster, he chose to leave and not make any real attempts at being a part of Jackson's life. As for the custody battle with Catherine, he may have made a half hearted attempt to get custody, or it was maybe just a threat with no real legal attempt to do so; but in Catherine's mind, just that was enough to frighten her, and that is what she relayed to Richard. I say this because my father used a similar tactic to get move visitation with me in the sixties. He had no legal claim as the law went back then (my stepfather was my father on the birth records), but he knew that my mother loved and respected his parents and step-parents, and wanted them to have contact and time with their first-born grandchild. He knew that my widowed mother would not be up to that kind of fight but it allowed him to be a dick and show his parents that he was attempting to take some responsibility. We found out that this was a bluff when his mother died, and he decided that the every other weekend visits with his side of the family were no longer needed (not to mention the bits and pieces of monetary support). This long-winded story is just to point out that Robert may have been bluffing about custody, but to Catherine is felt then and now as a real threat. I can only assume that the Avery family was on the side of their dynamic daughter-in-law, and not surprised at the attitude of their son because I'm pretty sure that Robert was never the Avery they wanted. Robert was 'born to it,'doing what was required. The way he talked about seeing Catherine for the first time at a fundraiser, he was obviously smitten. He probably also thought that Catherine would be his way out of the family business, he could just be a surgeon and she could be the driving force of the foundation. After a while all of it was too much for him, so he dropped out. It obvious that he still had money because upkeep of a bar/restaurant in a touristy resort town is not cheap, and trying to get a specialty coffee business started around that bar/restaurant is not cheap either. So I don't think that the Avery family cut him off financially, they just decided that Catherine was the better Avery for the family concern, aka 'born for it.'

Thank You. I'm glad that I am not the only one who remembers Catherine and April being snitch buddies before the Japril romance began.

I'm on board with a two for the price of one killing, aka Wes and Laurel. I think Daddy wanted to use a dead Laurel to prop-up something shady he is doing with the government. Remember he and Laurel had that argument about him keeping tabs on her through he phone and he promised he would no longer do that if she signed the paperwork about some land he did not want his name attached with. I also think he is in a business that is a combination of Blackwater & Booz Allan, which would make him kinda all-around-scummy. Techie/murdery at the same time.

No, America is so ignorant about that. My maternal grandfather and his wife were both light-skinned black people, and of the twelve children they had the skin tones ranged from 'pale-could-pass-for-white' to 'boot' black. My mother, the child of the first marriage was a lovely shade of coffee brown, like her mother. Nobody in their community thought anything was amiss because they all resembled their parents, and black folks, back in the day, knew we came in all shades. But it seems that people today think that a light skinned black person cannot possible have two dark-skinned parents. Perish the thought! Genetics are amazing and can make almost anything happen. Viva variety of the species!

I think Sherlock playing with his phone at the beginning of the episode was his way of saying fuck-off to Mycroft and the spy chiefs in the room. I also see the red-haired woman picking up Watson on the bus as a set-up for the Toby Jones character in the next episode, and with Watson being a flirt and a new father, she is a distraction not an emotional affair. As for the dead kid in the car, if you have something in your house/yard that has been there for a while, you rarely notice if anything is different; although, I would think the smell of a decomposing body would be noticeable.

I like this topic, but for me I prefer that the poll represented a show where the actual locale is more of a character in the show than a reference point. In that vein I think Law and Order is New York. The location, stories and characters are part of a whole. Same for The Wire and Homicide. It may offend people from Maryland, but for those of us watching from home, Baltimore is a character in those stories, and I'm not sure they would work as well if they were filmed on a LA soundstage. Being from Southwestern IL, the show that currently makes it setting a character for me is The Exorcist. The Chicago location adds to the overall story and gives it a sinister vibe; and I don't think it would work as well without the local political and religious conflagration that come from a big, historically corrupt city. I personally the only other city that could do the story of demon possession writ large any justice is New Orleans. There are other shows that get the vibe of a city, but I think that nothing can or will capture a whole state.

I have to take exception to this because people grieve differently. My best friend lost her son to SIDS twenty+ years ago, and we saw her have mental breaks on his birthday and death day for years. I found that on the day of his death, if we were both working I would go over to her desk and acknowledge the date and ask if she wanted to talk to keep her from spiraling because if she did not have a way to allow herself her feelings, she would go out and do something self-destructive. The family would celebrate his birthday together with a party for years. Her therapist thought these simple things would keep her from self harming, and I believe these rituals, and her finding a faith that comforts her saved her life and sanity. My fiancé died on July 7, 1993. After all these years and relationships later, I still get quiet and weepy on that date. So Allison's mental state around the time of Gabriel drowning and her fears for Joanie rang true to me; but YMMV.

Thanks for posting this. I listened to this fairly attractive woman (with some jacked-up teeth), and realized something that I almost, always hear from my conservative friends of the male variety; if a good looking woman is spouting the party line and even when they know that what she is saying is utter bullshit, they will defend her viewpoint even more. A friend of mine told me during the 2008 Sarah Palin fiasco, that a lot of conservative men find attractive women with their viewpoint irresistible, and are drawn to and will defend them because of the family-values vibe. She will willingly defer to them in any and all things and allows them to be more "manly". So when I saw the 16+million views, I could see that a lot of people were not doing their critical thinking or even doing basic research. Her numbers were so off-the-charts wrong as to be something out of some dystopian novel. But as Mark Twain use to say, " there are lies, damn lies, and statistics."

I think Adeejay was writing about them both being children of actors.

Macy gets a nice paycheck, gets to play an over-the-top character, and gets to work in his hometown (I think he grew up in the general area); it is an all around joy for him.

Same for me. She's had three children. I think it's nearly impossible for any actress to resist a few nips and tucks and still get work. At least until you're into your dowager years. There may be a little smoothing in the lines of Geena's face, ( her face looks tighter than it did in Grey's Anatomy) but I also think they we are not accustomed to seeing the face of an actual 60-year-old woman and I say that as actual 60-year-old woman.

Totally agree especially since I liked the Doctor and wished that she could be a bigger part of the gang. I also like how he male lead seemed to have formed a friendship with her, which explained why he chose to 'feed' her to keep her alive.

You should never feel obligated to thank someone for doing their job. Vietnam was America's last effort to colonize a nation (until this last decade+) for profit and resources. The domino theory about the spread of communism was the cover. Vietnam was also the last war that was covered without censure. The reporters could show the atrocities on both sides and let the people at home decide for themselves. We now have reporters embedded with the military and having their stories screened by the military before they are published. Vietnam was also the last of the draft into the military. Part of the reason for some of the hostility to those who served was the fact that they had other choices than a gun, although some of the choices were not great. Leaving Canada out, men ( army draftees) could opt for conscientious objector status, this was rarely given without a prison sentence. Fort Leavenworth Prison in Kansas was largest base for men with COS status in the nation. A man could also go to college or join the National Guard and have his combat status deferred, and last if your family had connections, your status could be deferred for years for a variety of reasons. The people who were sitting in the rice paddy were mostly poor, and minority, the people up in the ranks were usually second generation military and careerists who rose through the ranks. Bullets and bombs did not care who was there, but the aftermath with those who returned finally made the military and the nation wake up and start to recognize PTSD as a contributing factor to many of the veterans problems when they returned home. Of those I know they don't want a hollow thank your, they want respect, recognition of their struggles, and help. "Thank you for your service"is like saying "have a nice day," or "God bless." it's sweet but meaningless. I think that part of our attitude today toward war and its aftermath is we have sheltered our children/grandchildren from anything that might cause distress. It is part of the everybody get a trophy for attending syndrome. We want to shield them from the ugly instead of teaching that the ugly exists and we should try to overcome it or shape it into something better; and that we all have different gifts and some can do some things better than others. Or as friends says 'don't hate, celebrate!' I don't know how this show will turn out, but I suggest you talk to some Vietnam Veterans and others from that era. Some of the stories are fascinating and enlightening. I also suggest talking to anyone who has been combat in any war, it can be therapeutic for both parties; I know that I have learned at lot over the years.

1 hour ago, Neurochick said: I am tired of all this, "Nick is gay" nonsense. What woman is going to have sex in a public pool bathroom? . . .*raises hand* and I know that I'm not the only one. Ok, not a public pool bathroom, but a bathroom in a public place (a few public places). I would not today but back when I was younger? yeah if the time was right and it felt good . . . Now I think Neurochick has a point with the Nick is gay reaction, and I will admit it was my immediate thought as well. But then I stepped back and thought about his reply that he is always one to pick who he wants to date. The one he picks based on his attraction could go either way. Most of us want to be the one to choose who we are attracted to, this program skews that premise and I assume that works for all the participants; they aren't doing the picking. Now Nick does strikes me as someone with a more traditional gender identity expression, so I definitely see the Madonna/Whore thing being part of his makeup; and since I have known and know men who fit into this pod, I can see him being this way. Sonia strikes me as someone in need of affirmation on several levels. She was upset after the wedding that he did not immediately tell her that she was beautiful. Most women want to hear this, but they are marrying the person they are in love with, not a stranger, and damn girl, look in the mirror! Most of know when our look is smoking hot, we would like a "hell yeah" but we don't let it sour our mood. I do think the therapists have a point that they are both sucking at the communication game. If Sonia had more self-confidence, she could communicate her wants/needs better; and maybe then Nick would be forced to up his game or back the hell up and get out. This brings me to Heather and Derek. I thought Heather was wrong for this show from the start. I don't remember her age, but she seemed like a 40ish woman who was secure in her life and career, and was doing this show because her 'picker' was malfunctioning. I get the feeling that she's had several relationships fail and she saw her choice of men as a contributing factor. She decided to widen her field by saying on the application that an 'occasional smoker' could be included in the choices. She got Derek the pothead and immediately changed her mind. Now it could be that she cannot take a chance on testing positive for marijuana due to exposure ( I don't know her airline's policy on drugs), so I think she started rethinking the experiment very early. Derek seems like the guy in Peter Pan mode. He wants something to force him to grow up and thinks marriage will do that. I did not mind the rent-free, crappy looking apartment. hell I wish I had friends that would let me live rent-free in their apartment building. But he is really immature; he saw Heather flirting when she was just being herself. She works in a profession that is designed to put others at ease. Heather can seem warm and friendly in almost any situation, it's partly her training and personality. I think Heather uses 'flight attendant mode' to navigate new experiences/situations, and Derek throwing jealous hissy fits in Puerto Rico was not what she was expecting from the man she was given after a "thorough review by experts." I think she took the right path by considering then breaking it off. I applaud her decision and the show's for keeping it in. I would like to see them both navigate the rest of the six weeks on air because I think that the reason the show only gives divorce as an ending option is to impress upon the participants that marriage should be taken seriously, even when you're doing it for money and television exposure.