Bastet

“Open Line” is another Rusty is annoying me episode, which is a recurring source of disgruntlement this season and beyond. It wouldn't be so bad if he was being presented as the typical I know it all now college kid he’s being, but he’s not – the show wants us to believe he’s such a wunderkind in the making that even Sharon and Judge Grove are just bowled over by what a great job he’s doing with his vlog. (I know part of her reaction is relief this story keeps him spending a good bit of time at the PAB, but still.) This show, like all cop shows, has consistently presented professional reporters as nuisances or even with outright disdain, but now Rusty is The Greatest. And, yes, the work he winds up doing to identify “Alice” is great, and his heart is always in the right place. But the mistakes he makes because he has no idea what he’s doing are smiled upon. Because it’s Rusty. And Duff is firmly wedged up his ass at this point, and just continues to lose sight of the field as the show goes on. Anyway, I do like how Sharon’s attitude in front of Taylor and Andrea changes when she realizes this idiot her son not only interviewed Slider about Alice without telling her, he talked to him about the case. I still wanted her to snap that it’s her phone, snatch it out of his hand, and give it to Andrea, but I grant it’s more realistic for her to handle it as she does. I like the continuation from the previous episode, where Sharon is still sending Julio out into the field over Provenza’s nervousness about Taylor’s objection; there’s a deleted scene that makes explicit how important this is, in which Julio tells Provenza he’s good, and if he can’t do the whole job, he doesn’t belong here anymore. As a Battlestar Galactica fan, I like the reunion of “Laura Roslin” and “Captain Apollo,” especially with such a different dynamic since Jamie Bamber is playing a total asshole (not to mention using his natural accent, which was so jarring to me when he first opened his mouth). Sharon’s smirk when Malcolm realizes he’s in real trouble is terrific. Mike mocking “the Facebook, the Twitter” is great. As is “Can’t Undo?!” But everyone “shutting down” their computers by simply closing their laptops makes me roll my eyes so hard. I get a kick out of Provenza being as irritated by Buzz’s references to his reserve officer training as Andy is by any and all references to Badge of Justice. “Turn Down” is so hilarious, I don’t even mind that Buzz is shoehorned into one of Provenza and Andy’s misadventures. There are so many things that make me laugh: - Provenza being in a worse seat in the “Batmobile” every time the opening credit sequence changes – first he’s driving, then he’s the passenger, and ultimately he’s in the back because he keeps screwing up the car - All the names Buzz gets called based on what he’s saying: Mr. Boy Scout, Barney Fife, Don Ho, Sherlock Holmes - The return of the privacy sign (and the casual way the groom reveals he, too, slept with Danny “once or twice or six times”) - Everyone’s reactions to Danny's musical performance during the rehearsal, the bride’s hysterical voice mail messages, and to Provenza revealing he’s going to take his uniform to Patrice’s for sexy times - Andrea’s reaction to Andy saying he agrees there should be no secrets in marriage - Sharon’s reaction to the groom saying the bride hasn’t eaten anything but breath mints in three days in order to fit into her dress, and to the bride killing that sandwich (I also love the bride saying “no, I may pick a little” when Mike asks if she wants him to clear away any of her smorgasbord) - Sharon’s giddiness when she gets her idea about unlocking the victim’s phone, Dr. Morales demanding “Okay, but nobody tweet about this” when he agrees to shock the corpse, and Mike's "holy crap" when it works - Frank Fontana the father of the bride screaming like he’s discovered a mutilated body part when he opens the mini bar to find it’s empty and his bill just got even higher, his confession – “glub, glub, glub” – and Sharon offering him a deal like she’s officiating a wedding ceremony - The sister’s laundry list of anti-anxiety medications including Valium three times - Buzz being so relieved by Sharon saying she’s glad he spoke up, because they wouldn’t be able to enjoy the game if a murderer got away with it, only to have her give him a look and pointedly say, “Of course, it would be nice to go” – I love the way he bumps into chairs as he scurries off to get back to work - Amy asking Sharon to hold on while she moves away from “the argument … against marriage” in order to continue the call, and Sharon asking Amy if the tranquilizer darts are for the suspects or Provenza

I like it, and buy it, but Skippy (crunchy) is still my favorite, so I laughed when America's Test Kitchen did a taste test of chunky peanut butter, and Julia said the very same thing. I eat so little peanut butter I think I'm going to go back to the Skippy.

We call it Sphinxing. Cats are extra adorable (and, of course, regal) when they strike that pose. Bandit, one of my parents' cats, has one front leg that is all white and one that is white with a big patch of his dark grey striped pattern. Even more often than he "Sphinxes," he sits with just that patterned leg extended. Showing off his pretty leg, we say.

I was born not long after that, and I got the smallpox vaccine (which became kind of amusing decades later as an X-Files fan given the conspiracy storyline about what, in addition to inoculation, the vaccine was used for; I had a brief moment of giving my scar the side-eye). It had fallen off the recommended list, and was no longer part of the routine vaccination protocol, but it was still available. Between basketball pre-emptions and not being home, I've missed much of this week, and the archive isn't updated, so I decided to go ahead and spoil myself reading here and just get back on track next week - until I read it's another Teen Tournament. Bleh. But better than Kids Week, so I'll probably still tune in at least half the time.

Woo-hoo - I'm getting a "new" car, which is my mom's old car. It's the same make and model as my Lexus, but only 10 years old instead of 20, so I'm excited. Last year, my dad suggested she get a new car, but she was of the "what's the point; how long am I going to be around to drive it?" mentality. Then she perked up and decided she'd do it - which meant I'd be getting her old one, which is a little smaller and sleeker than mine and gets better gas mileage, so even though mine is going strong, this would be even better - and sent me a link to her "Build a Lexus" page with what she'd picked out. But then she never did or said more about it, and I figured after the last CT scan (with mixed results) she was back to "what's the point?" mode. Well. She just showed up in my driveway with a seriously tricked out car, not in the silver she'd originally planned, but a fabulous red. It is gorgeous. And unbelievably comfortable. She decided, "Fuck it; if I'm dying, I'm driving in style for whatever time I have left." Good for her! Someone facing what she's facing can have whatever damn reaction she wants to her illness (I hate the pressure on patients to be upbeat and philosophical about it all), because this is an exhausting roller coaster of a battle without a happy ending, but it's good to find positive takes on things where you can, and this is a big move for her. It makes her happy, which makes me happy. The stress effect on my existing anxiety has been intense enough to cause physical problems for me lately, and I hope this will be a little boost to me, too, but, regardless, I'm just thrilled with her attitude; she doesn't treat herself enough, so I like to see her do it, period, and especially under these circumstances. Even if she just spent a serious chunk of change out of my inheritance, ha (KIDDING, of course - it's something my parents and I always joke about).

Yeah, to me she just came off as someone with a really short attention span (and an incredibly vague thesis). Beat Bobby Flay is a 30-minute show where we get to "know" the contestants about the same/a little less than on Chopped, and there are only two rounds in that one. It's the right amount of time; squeezing three rounds into 22 minutes would obviously mean showing less of the process of creating the dish and/or of the judges critiquing the dish, and they're already light on the latter (and not overstuffed with the former) in 44 minutes. It would basically be Ted introduces everyone, the first mystery basket ingredients are revealed, everyone says I'm going to make X, then 30 seconds of each of the four chefs making their dishes, and, boom - dishes are presented and the judges give their feedback.

That sounds like something out of my nightmares. I had a chicken breast left over from roasting a chicken, so I chopped it up and mixed it with onion, celery, tarragon, and mayo, intending to have a chicken salad sandwich, only to remember that the market was out of the bread I like (made with nothing but wheat flour, yeast, water, and salt) so I have no bread. I don't even have any lavash to make a wrap. Damn. I don't eat a lot of sandwiches, and I was looking forward to this one. Not enough to make a special trip to get some, though, so I am just eating the chicken salad. Dinner will be seared scallops with a mango and cucumber salsa. Vegetable and salad to be determined tonight. I have a lot of mangoes, so tomorrow night I'll make shrimp tacos with mango slaw.

Unless the goat sheds?

Quoting myself to say, for those who don't pay attention to the Recently Added TV Shows section, the replacement topic for House Hunters is now up and running.

The commercial - created by the NFL's internal ad agency to air during the Super Bowl in donated (or "donated") air time to combat the League's (well-earned) horrible reputation in dealing with domestic violence among its players - is widely reported to be based on a call described in a Reddit post, an answer to an AskReddit "What's your most unforgettable call?" question posed to dispatchers that went viral. Buzzfeed interviewed the poster, who said it happened about 10 years before his post, but Snopes notes a PSA by a Norwegian DV shelter several years earlier than the question and answer used the same "pizza call" scenario with a little less detail. So who knows?

Thanks - I'd been debating between pork chops and lamb chops, ridiculously unable to decide which sounds better (I can just make the other one tomorrow night, so I don't even know what my brain was doing that this was A Thing), and your post made me finally decide to go with the pork chops. So, they're brining, and I'll grill them and sauté some kale with red onion. The salad will be a simple red leaf lettuce and spinach with goat cheese, walnuts, and balsamic vinaigrette.

Oh, the number of those recordings I've listened to through my legal/policy work in domestic violence cases is sickening. And in some cases haunting; hearing someone's terrified screams and pleas for help is not something that just goes away, especially when those wind up being their final moments. With some of them, I've cried, thrown up, gone pale and numb, you name it. I'm a little shaky now just thinking about them, because the memories of "the worst of the worst" (for whatever reasons they registered in my brain that way) are so clear. (Which is one of the most-extreme reasons it's a difficult job these folks have - I extrapolate from how it feels to listen to after the fact to how it must feel to listen to someone get raped or murdered in real time and not be able to do anything, and it kind of blows my mind - and I tip my hat to the majority of emergency dispatch operators who do it well. But, holy crap, there are too many avoidable "mistakes".)

Oh, I remember "Little Good-byes" - great song. I love the list of things left behind. "Left the litter, but I took the cat" is great, but my hands-down favorite is "loaded up the TV in the back of my car, have fun watching the VCR." But I just looked up the video for it and, wow, that's bad. They look like they're in a junior high lip syncing contest, especially the brunette. A video showing them doing all the various things in the song could have come out quite funny, but they obviously didn't have the budget for it, since it was their debut (at least I assume/hope that's the reason for such a boring video).

Pretty much everyone's house - I swear appliances make suicide pacts. My worst was a three-fer; I once spent a weekend repairing the washing machine and refrigerator, plus replacing the garbage disposal. I am also prone to having to pause a project to fix something on a tool I'm using for the project.

And they will still remain down in Beyond TV as well? (So if I decide I don't want them mixed in with my shows in my CHP, I can just unfollow.)