Bastet

Yeah, I think the fact Charlie wound up benefiting so much from the personal aide job becomes a distraction, but Josh's actions back in that first meeting are disturbing - this privileged middle-aged white guy telling a young Black man who's navigating circumstances Josh has never known repeatedly talking over Charlie's requests and explanations is not a good look. Sorkin's writing contains moments like that almost as often as it contains patronizing sexism - like the deplorable "look at what we can do" dreck from Dan to the unhoused guy in Sports Night. The man has had to sneak into an office building in order to stay warm, and Dan's on about people with the resources to climb Mt. Everest as some relatable story of the triumph of determination.

That always boggled my mind, too. Whether Deena, being in high school, not a little kid, but still just five months out from losing her mom, could deal with the long hours home alone is irrelevant - what Charlie wanted was some income and regular hours (it's not as if they'd be relying on his salary, given the benefits they'd get upon their police officer mom's death) via the messenger job, to help take care of his sister. Instead Josh just decreed he should instead take this other job, which doesn't pay much more yet 20-hour days are not uncommon and there's a lot of last-minute travel, not to mention the tremendous responsibility and stress, which this guy who's not much more than a kid already has an abundance of.

Yep, it happens a lot, and it bugs me every time. I only ran Aretha and investing in the first round, but I only missed one each in the others (including religion, so good for me). In DJ, I didn't run a single category, but I only missed eight clues, so not bad. And I got FJ, so I had a decent game.

That's Kitty Wells. She was country music royalty, but her voice is definitely not for everyone.

From the very beginning, the finances never made sense, because the Roses owned the town but didn't seem to actually own a single thing within it. With respect to ownership/management of the motel, after Stevie inherited it from her aunt and freaked out, looking into selling it (which would leave the Roses with nowhere to live), Johnny offered to manage it in exchange for a percentage of the profits once it started turning a profit. He wasn't the boss, but she did rely on his business experience once she had to run more than the front desk.

Same! I don't hate licorice, but I don't like it, especially black licorice. Dark chocolate, on the other hand ... yes, please. I have terrific willpower when it comes to chocolate (unlike chips, which I cannot buy, only eat elsewhere, because I'll eat the whole bag), but when I was in Belgium, that got thrown out the window -- all those little shops where it's made in-house just begged to be tried.

I don't watch much financial news and don't remember David Faber from his Celebrity Jeopardy appearance, but add him to the long list who did a fine job guest hosting. (I didn't come in until the first round was almost over, and had to check the archive for the clues I missed, so I didn't see how he did with the interviews, but behind the podium he was fine.) And another great charity. The rain TS was surprising; I'm sure they all first thought flood and knew that couldn't be right, but I was surprised none of them made the mental adjustment to rain since it had to be four letters. The Christine McVie TS made me a little sad. The swipe at how forgettable Kaine's VP slot on the ticket was made me laugh. I ran that category, along with hodgepodge, idioms, and science in the first round. I missed one each in the other two. I only ran instrumental in DJ, though. I missed ten across the other categories, so not bad for a DJ round. I got FJ because of the hotel.

I agree, plus it's harder to spot them on a luggage carousel (I only ever take carry-on, even for month-long trips, but I've been with people who do the "I think that's mine, [grabs it], oops, nope" and "Oh shit, there's mine, I must have missed it the first time around" routine with their black bags). Mine is a medium green color. The red and teal colors on that SwissGear bag that was linked to are pretty.

I keep steri-strips (surgical tape) on hand for wounds that don't need stitches, but do need more than a regular bandage to seal the skin back together. This Healthline article outlines when they're a good option.

The only song of his I like, and I like it I do - it's sexy and he has a great voice for it. But number 79 of all time?! I didn't know this one, so just had a listen. It's perfectly fine, but generic, and has absolutely no business in the top 100. Or top 500. Or top 1000, really. Copy and paste my reaction to #75.

David (pansexual) and Stevie (heterosexual) on Schitt's Creek started and ended with a platonic friendship, but took a typical detour - after a stoned hook-up in season one, they had a brief friends with benefits arrangement before deciding friends was more important, so that was fine, but then for about five minutes they wrote Stevie as having romantic feelings for him, which was ridiculous (and so cliché that it would be the woman catching feelings). While it would have been nice for it to have always been platonic - although then we wouldn't have had the great "I like the wine and not the label" scene - it's still one of my favorites. Including how she instantly got along with his boyfriend (who became his husband), creating a great trio and not disrupting the friendship. Maeve and Otis on Sex Education have a great friendship, so of course the writers are screwing it up by inventing romantic feelings (and throwing in a love triangle to boot - WTF, show?). I took a quick scroll through my mental rolodex of favorite shows, and disturbingly few of them featured a truly platonic friendship between men and women. I adored the friendship between CJ and Toby on The West Wing, but there was some sort of past and a continuing undercurrent there that got hinted at (and I did not mind that at all in their case, I'm just saying it's typical). I liked Laura and Murphy's friendship on Remington Steele, but he carried a torch for her. Ed and Holly settled into a beautiful friendship on Guiding Light, but they'd been married, so that's certainly off the platonic list. Same with Elaine and Jerry on Seinfeld - they became friends after dating didn't work out, and that was great, but we're looking for friendships between men and women that were always friendships. Angela and Rickie on My So-Called Life, Starbuck and Helo on Battlestar Galactica, Murphy and Frank on Murphy Brown, Maureen and Roger on Guiding Light, and Suzanne and Anthony on Designing Women are the only truly platonic friendships I came up with between men and women where both parties' sexual orientation means sex/romance between them would have been theoretically possible.

Thanks, everyone. I'm back home, and completely worn out, but it was so peaceful. My mom wound up sitting in the recliner with him, so the last thing he ever knew was being cuddled against her chest. My dad, Bandit, and I were all there. This is the first time it has worked out to do it at home, and I'm thankful for that, and for the fact the final stage of his illness (systemic organ failure) happened suddenly - yesterday and today were as different as night and day. But he still talked a little, and he rubbed my chin when I took him outside for some final sunshine and fresh air. When he first got sick (IBD) eight years ago, his owners dumped him at the shelter rather than dealing with it. That horror wound up being the best thing that ever happened to him, though, because he wound up with us and was loved and pampered right through to the end. He was delightfully odd in ways we'd never seen before, and very even-keeled, just observing so many things without any reaction, so we joked that he was here from another planet, collecting data. I'll miss the little alien.

Chester's very long battle with cancer will end in a few hours; although skin and bones, he's maintained quality of life for nearly two years longer than anyone thought he would, but today his body just wore out. He'll be euthanized at home, on his favorite spot on my parents' bed. He stopped purring a few days ago, so I knew he was in the final stretch, but it still hits like a ton of bricks (I love my parents' cats like they're my own). He and my mom are super close - I know he hung on as long as he did for her - so she has to keep leaving the room sobbing to avoid upsetting him. Poor Bandit; this will be the second brother he's lost. Chester refused to play with him, but they were cuddle buddies (in fact, Chester frequently slept partially atop Bandit, who just rolled with it). I hate this. I've said goodbye to too many cats. It's worth going through this heartbreak over and over because life without cats is unthinkable to me (although I think Bandit will be my parents' last cat, given their ages and health), but it's horrible. I'm heading over to my parents' house shortly, but wanted to let y'all know since you've heard about his little sweater-clad self over the years. Here's Chester in healthier form:

Absolutely. Cancer treatment is no small thing, and those whose personal evaluation comes out in favor of skipping it are not "giving up" or anything else negative. They're asserting what little measure of control they have over a horrible situation foisted upon them in the way that works best for them. My mom's breast cancer battle began nearly 30 years ago, and has involved two metastases (one sent into remission for many years, but this latest of a few years back never will be and we're just running out the clock with treatment that stops, and then slows, progression); unless she gets hit by a bus, that's what is going to kill her, and she's lucky to be on the right side of scientific odds in that it hasn't yet. I hope she'll opt for physician-assisted death when the time comes, but whatever she wants I will support her choice, whatever its toll on me (really, how much differing degree of horrible can there be in losing your mom when she's a proper parent?) -- within reason, people need to control their own lives as they see fit, and they sure as hell deserve to determine their own deaths.

Yikes, I initially wrote what got posted - "I wonder if Andrew's mom is going to ..." - but, before hitting Submit, changed it to instead read "I wonder if Andrew has a mom who will ..." because, of course, not everyone starts out with a mom, let alone still has one. I was embarrassed I had to reconsider that rather than it being my instinctual phrasing. I don't know what happened in my pre-posting cut and re-type that the original text came through, but it's patently offensive in its heteronormativity and potentially insensitive regardless (maybe he had a mom and she died or abandoned him such that Mother's Day was never part of his life for those reasons) and I apologize for inadvertently publishing it.

TS means Triple Stumper, a clue that all three contestants failed to get right. See the glossary here for commonly-used phrases and abbreviations in discussing the show. CDC was just a shorthand reference to one of tonight's categories, "The CDC Says So".

So was I; indeed, that's the only part of it I could remember, so I guessed Why and When. I couldn't believe when Andrew included Who as one of his guesses, when that one was given away in the clue. I wonder if Andrew's mom is going to give him any guff about not knowing what month Mother's Day occurs. I had to be up dreadfully early this morning, so I took a nap around 5:00 and didn't wake up until about ten clues into DJ. I just checked the archive to catch up. Clearly, I need still more sleep. I blew the entire olde music category and missed all but one in books & authors. I ran legal, fowl balls, and tender, and just missed one in celebrations, so the first round could have been worse, but ouch. DJ was slightly better, but I only ran CDC. I missed three in countries, two in poetry, and one each in the rest.

I can't even reach mine.

Huh. I wouldn't have come up with that if I sat here all year thinking about it.

Oh yeah, I'd have known that one in a heartbeat. The archive just says "Not surprisingly, this". Without being able to see the picture contained within "this", I had no shot.

I still like Sports Night, but a strange thing happened the last time I re-watched it: I liked season one less than I used to, and liked season two more than I used to. Until then, I was of the popular opinion that season one was better, given season two's inherent difficulty with Sorkin and Schlamme juggling The West Wing at the same time, the stupid Dana's Dating Plan storyline, and the presence of Paula Marshall (that last one's just a personal strike against the season - for some reason, she bugs me in everything I've seen her in). But season one has a lot of Jeremy and Natalie, and while they both have great qualities and moments, they are also frequently annoying, and together they are nearly unbearable at times.

The episode is pre-empted here for the NBA draft, so I just read the archive. Yikes. I knew I wasn't a Beatles fan, but I wasn't expecting to blow the entire category. Other than that, I had a good first round, missing one each in something (the text of the Jon Stewart clue is incomplete on the archive, so I had no idea, but I know if I'd been able to see the picture, I'd have identified him regardless of what the rest of the clue says, so I'm giving myself that one and calling the Tyler TS my only miss) and everywhere (I ran that one, but took way more time than I'd have had if watching to spit out Mombasa, so I have to deduct one). In DJ, I was terrible in noble laureates; between the ones I didn't know and the ones where I couldn't get the name from my brain to my mouth quickly enough to count, all but one go down as misses. It was just not my round; I didn't run a single category. At least I only missed one each in military abbreviations (a pleasant surprise), head & hands, letters, and actors (I don't think being able to see the picture would have helped with Josh Hartnett). I missed two in richest people. I didn't get FJ, either.

It depends on the theatre. AMC instituted a ban about ten years ago, but I don't know if they still enforce it. Same with Regal.

This doesn't sound like a club I want to join, but is the answer "bird"? (I mean, my actual answer is "shit", but obviously it's supposed to be something else.) Bird seems dumb to me, since don't they usually perch on something rather than sitting on the floor of the cage, but maybe it's supposed to be a dumb answer joke? I don't know - add me to the list not getting the humor on this one.

In my senior year of high school, my group of friends spent a lot of time at a club downtown because the promoter was sleazy enough to let a group of girls who weren't even 18, never mind 21, in and give them drink tickets (presumably in the hopes at least one of us would have sex with him, which didn't happen). We always drank sex on the beach. Because we were 17, and that was hilarious. I haven't made one in decades, but I'd drink it on a hot summer day if you handed one to me. Just one, because that's about all I can drink of sweet things, but I'd drink it.