auntiemel

For those wanting more insight into a real-life arranged marriage situation, author Sonali Dev wrote this article about hers, and it's really good! https://masalamommas.com/2015/09/24/why-arranged-marriage-you-ask/

Tell Me You Love Me 🙂

I'm doing a rewatch on Prime - maybe it's in CBS AllAccess? - and I'm coming up on the dreaded finale. Honestly, the knowledge that Joe dies in the not-too-distant future has been coloring my entire rewatch, every single episode. I really wish they hadn't done that. It's freaking depressing. Different subject. The one plot hole that really gets to me - it did on first watch, and it bugged me just as much this time around - is the whole "Big Business" arc, when Allison gets hired by the company and "can't" report the crimes that her boss has flat-out told her about because of the iron-clad NDA she signed. Well, NDAs can't be used to keep people from reporting a crime, answering questions about a crime, or testifying about a crime. There's criminal law and civil law, and criminal trumps civil. No civil contract, including NDAs, can override the criminal justice system. Also, no civil contract can require the signatory to commit a crime themselves. That would invalidate the contract. NDAs can prevent you from talking about peripheral topics around a criminal investigation that don't have direct bearing on the crime itself...but NOT actual crimes! For instance, say you signed an NDA as a domestic worker for a prominent family, but then you saw that they were hiding their fugitive relative who was on the run from the cops. The NDA can't compel you not to report that - in fact, it's a crime to know and not report it, so no contract would be valid that required you to commit that crime by keeping silent about it. So, basically, once Allison's boss started spouting off about the murderous activities of his serial killer spawn, the contract was history. Sure, he could still intimidate her by saying what he said - that he had unlimited resources and could destroy her with court costs and take everything she owned. True enough. But that has nothing to do with the fucking NDA, it would be true if she'd never signed anything, and was still true, worthless NDA notwithstanding. But they all kept giving her that, "BUT YOU SIGNED, ALLISON! YOU SIGNED!" speech like it actually meant something, and it drove me up the freaking wall! LOL. Especially, since, you know...Allison went to law school. ETA: I finished my re-watch last night with the finale. I've decided to retcon it for myself and add an additional scene immediately after the ghost kiss where she does one of her classic Allison gasp-awakes. In my mind, the whole finale episode was a dream. That way I can appreciate it as a nice little piece of emotional storytelling, showcasing some solid dramatic acting by the principals, without having it affect my view of the whole series, should I ever choose to watch it again. Or, like...remember it. LOL.

I'm going to start a full series rewatch today to celebrate, prepare 😄

Yes, I was thinking that, as well! Both of them also reminded me of the Modern Family episode they did several years ago that was all via Facetime, etc. Also, thanks for everyone that expressed empathy for people sheltering alone. It's not easy! I'm not a particularly social person, and I have a dog, and it was even tough on me. Weirdly, I hadn't thought it would be. I've always lived alone, pretty much, and I've worked from home for almost a decade. But I SERIOUSLY underestimated how much just getting out of the house for a bit every day and being in the midst of bustling humanity at a restaurant, store, or coffee shop had been contributing to my mental health. It was, apparently, a big part of it! 😮 Luckily, my sister and her husband and I moved in together on April 10th. (It had already been set in motion before the shelter in place order. We'd both given notice on our old apartments and signed the lease on the new one, there was no rolling back the clock at that point!). The three of us get along really well, and it's a whole new quarantine experience, being in it together. To me, I'd rate the possible scenarios, on a scale of 1 being the worst possible shitty situation and 10 being almost like normal, as - Being quarantined with someone you're afraid of or in danger from - 1 Being quarantined with someone you hate...or who, at least, is working your last nerve - 3 Being quarantine totally alone, with no pets - 4 Being quarantined alone, but with the coolest dog evah 😛 - 5 Being quarantined with your awesome dog and awesome family - 9 My heart really goes out to the people who are still alone! I will also admit, I cried during the establishing shots of the empty city. I lived in LA for almost 20 years, and seeing like that...it was rough!

Shane: We're thinking about the concept of translation. Getting lost in translation. You know...that extremely common phrase that people use literally all the time? Also the title of one of the more successful movies of the last 20 years? Luis Fonsi (blank face, then...): Is that too obscure and complicated? Will it require people to think too much? Me: Aaaaandd...just fuck the entire world and then shoot me in the head. 🤣 😩

They just did a scene in front of it on All Rise, too, and I thought of Bosch. 🙂 I'm just starting the new season - about 15 minutes into the first episode. One weird line I noticed. The chief asks a guy how his new life in Walnut Creek is. The guy looks embarrassed and says, "Nowhere quite so swanky. Petaluma." I live about 20 minutes from Walnut Creek, and it's then about an hour more to Petaluma. Walnut Creek is a nice, upscale bedroom community. But it's not, like, Beverly Hills or anything! And Petaluma is great, right off 101 in Sonoma county. Super quaint and a touristy daytrip-type destination. It's freaking wine country, for God's sake! Not at all the way someone would speak about those two towns.

Yes, I do know that there are guidelines, it's not hard and fast ethical rule, such as confidentiality or don't fuck your patients. 🙂 For instance, some family members and I all see the same counselor for different issues. There's not a huge pool to choose from with our insurance and geographic area, so it is what it is. Also, when I was in college, my roommate and I saw the same counselor. Small-ish college, not many counselors. I'm sure she had a lot of patients who ended up talking about other patients, simply because of the intertwined lives of students on a small-ish college campus. Anyway, specifically with the situation with my roommate, she assured us all that we could each feel free to be honest about our feelings about the other because, in those kinds of situations, she was very well-trained to understand that each individual person is only sharing their impression of a story, not THE concrete set-in-stone story, so it wouldn't affect her work with the other person. Yes, and in a slant on the topic that is particularly relevant with the current situation, he did mention that he was actually making enough money to live on, between guest spots on TV shows and teaching acting...but he wasn't getting enough screentime per year to qualify for SAG insurance, and he needed that Trader Joe's health insurance! 😮 And I second, third, fourth, fifth and BEYOND the sentiment that if you are doing honest work to support yourself and your family, FUCK ANYONE who wants to make fun of your job. The very act of working and contributing is dignified. Screw anyone who thinks a particular way of doing that is beneath them!

Agreed, I liked both better before they "Pop-ified"them. Also, they completely changed the theme of "I'll Drink to That." And, maybe it's my age, but from my perspective, the concept of "an accounting of all the small pleasures in life worth celebrating" is SO MUCH MORE COMPELLING than the concept of "hey, I know everybody thinks you have to be rich to have fun, but we're super poor and we still have fun!" Wasn't that territory pretty roundly covered by Royals, anyway? And for as impressed as the entire panel was by the rhyming of "double" "bubble" and "trouble," I'm going to assume they're not big Shakespeare aficionados. Spoiler alert: he got there first! Anyway, that makes me sound like I hated the episode, I actually thought it was pretty fun. LOL.

Yeah, that was my feeling. There wasn't even a case!

I don't know if you watch The Incredible Dr. Pol on Nat Geo Wild, but he's colorblind, and his son tried to get him to try out the colorblind glasses. He had exactly the same reaction and reasoning as you! 🙂

It hadn't occurred to me until you said it, but now that I think about it, YES, absolutely!

That's so funny! A college student I used to interpret for was actually unsettled by the whole concept of hearing, because it enabled people to know what was going on in rooms - or even apartments - they weren't in. Things like, "So and so is doing the dishes," or, "The neighbors are watching Glee again," type of thing. She found it, in her words, "creepy." The lesson I gleaned from that is, it doesn't matter how small a percentage of the population our point of view represents, we ALWAYS think our perspective is the best and others are at least a little skewed. 🤣

See, and I would have thought that it was the idea of looking at someone else's life and circumstances and telling them that all of their own opinions about themselves, and those of their community who share the same experiences, are invalid--and then substituting my uneducated judgement for theirs when it comes to THEIR OWN LIVES was what was just plain wrong. 🤔 Also, I would have thought that looking at a group of people that are fulfilled, productive, and proud of themselves and their culture and trying to convince them that they are somehow deficient because they aren't "normal" like me would also be the thing that was just plain wrong. 🤨 The episode illustrated this. It wasn't Abigail's deafness that was holding her back. It was her father's refusal to see her as a grown, competent woman--which she clearly was. It's a common problem for people with challenges. Just because someone loves you doesn't mean they're not somewhat ableist in their view of you. Those two things can coexist. Everyone has challenges in life. It's not like things won't be harder for Abigail in Kenya than they would for a hearing person. Obviously. She will have to overcome obstacles that others wouldn't. But her point--and it's a good one--is that the people in the position to decide if those obstacles are worth overcoming are 1-her, 2-the program that accepted her, and 3-the foundation giving her the grant money. She's an adult. If all three of those deciding bodies are on board, it's not up to her father to step in and say, "You're not capable of this." Adults of all ranges of capabilities and challenges try things all the time that either do or do not work out well. But we have the freedom to try them. That's the point. And, circling back around to the original point, yes. The idea that people with physical challenges need to be cured IS bad. It's very bad. It says that there's a mark they should be hitting, and they aren't. That physical normalcy is the passing grade and they are somehow failing if they can't--or don't want to--reach it. That is wrong. It is just plain wrong. It's also, of course, wrong to vilify those who do choose to use aids or implements. On that one point we do agree. Basically, everyone is born different. Some people have physical challenges, and for some of those challenges there is assistive technology available that they may or may not choose to avail themselves of, in the pursuit of living their version of the best possible life. And what they choose is no one's fucking business but their own.

You don't need to put the words deaf culture in quotation marks as if it's a phrase coined to describe something ridiculous that doesn't really exist. 🤨 Deaf culture is quite real, not to mention nuanced. There is varied opinion among deaf people about cochlear implants, among many other issues. It's not a monolith. And it's certainly nothing that needs to be surrounded by "fake thing" quotes.