Bastet

I think my Abby opinion is the unpopular one, because all the people here who hate her and all the people who apparently love her on other forums are quite devoted to the notion of her being the worst or best ever, and I neither like her nor dislike her; I just think she's fine - definitely not on my list of favorites, but doesn't annoy me, either.

Oh goody, another Bible category. You don't put rocks in a drink to make it on ice, you put ice in a drink to make it on the rocks. As soon as Matt talked about a really long escalator in a subway system, I said, "Must be D.C." I chalked Robin's picayune excitement up to her thinking of it as a southern phrase and being excited a guy from Connecticut knew it. (I think it's more well known than she perceives it - thanks partly to the Times-Picayune - but given her background I understand her thinking it regional, and it was valued at $2000, so clearly the writers think it's somewhat difficult. At any rate, I didn't perceive anything disrespectful about her reaction.) The knuckles and Andrew Lloyd Webber TS surprised me. I didn't know any of the "Out" songs (although I recognized two of them after the fact), and only correctly guessed the one they all missed - "call out". On top of those four misses, I also missed three in Exodus, two in 15 minutes, and one in guarantee in the first round. I ran the other two categories, but, yikes, not off to a good start. In DJ, I only ran math (I should have run EGOT, too, but I couldn't remember the Frozen song in time), but at least I only missed seven across the other categories. I got FJ thanks to Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey. I didn't remember the specific tidbit about his supposed lineage, but between the year and an African emperor who'd have enough devotees to be a FJ clue, I knew it was Haile Selassie.

Quoting myself to say, yeah, Trouble it is:

You can get a sense, and living together is a great way of finding out, but there are still women faced with an unpleasant surprise after marriage, when those outdated notions of what it means to be a wife creep in, and the man is different in some subtle ways that add up. And there are a ton of instances where the boyfriend/husband was a decent partner in the family until parenting was added to the mix, and then he's nowhere near as equal a participant in that. So you can know where a man says he stands, or even truly believes himself to stand, but not until you live with him are you going to know how he'll really be, and even then marriage and, especially, parenthood can change things. It's not on women to use our special powers and correctly predict our partner's future behavior (not that you were suggesting it was!), but to be clear on what we deserve and expect (and we need to be firm early, because what we ignore we allow and then it's even more of a battle when we hit our breaking point), and then it's on men to live up to their responsibilities.

Exactly. Feminists have been explaining for decades what needs to change within homes as well as workplaces. It's not our failing that men still think "domestic" duties are women's with which they magnanimously help. It's their failing not to understand they are equally responsible for caring for the home in which they live and the children they have spawned. We go out there and fight for paid parental, not maternity, leave, and men still refuse to take it. Between men who actively work to uphold the patriarchy and those who turn a blind eye to the privileges it bestows on them, the choices women make within a system that is rigged against them should not be the primary focus of conversation. It's the yeah, but syndrome, where you lay out all the institutional barriers and sexist stereotypes that create inequality, and someone wants to say, "Yeah, but she could have done this instead." And I'd love to talk with them about what she could have done differently, so we learn from each other how to navigate this system while we're dismantling it, after we tackle the myriad things those with more power should do differently, so her options are better.

I wasn't home tonight, so I just read the archive. The auger TS surprised me, because I got that even without being able to see the picture. The Hollow Men TS also surprised me a bit. I did not have a good first round. The only category I ran was homonyms. The only one I got in the Yogi Bear category was the one they all missed, Brad Parrot. I also missed three in 1876, two in internet businesses, and one each in the others. I did slightly better in DJ. I only ran oceans, and missed ten among the other categories. I got FJ, at least.

Yeah, there are plenty of aspects of parenting one doesn't need experience to have an opinion on. There are a ton of things in life one doesn't need to know the intricacies of first hand in order to comment on the results. Oh my, yes. I cannot imagine the thought process of babysitting someone else's kid and thinking, "You know what we should do before they get home? Poke holes in her."

I remember the conversation between Mark and Roseanne very well; it was lovely. And Roseanne had to talk some sense into Becky, too. But it left them in a good potential place, with Becky getting back to her old self. And Mark had always been supportive of her ambitions in the past (when it was Original Recipe Becky), so it felt like once he got over feeling blindsided and insecure, he'd once again feel that way. But instead it all just went away entirely because we saw Sarah in the role almost exclusively after that.

Why shouldn't she have been willing to leave him behind if he didn't want to come with her? She wanted to continue her life with Mark, but a better life - she wanted to go to college, start a new career, and then have kids, and she wanted to do that with him. But if he didn't support that, wanting her to instead pop out a kid while they're living in a shitty trailer and keep working a crappy job, then she was going to do it without him. There was such incredible potential in that episode, with her talking about maybe becoming an EMT or physical therapist or something, him jumping to she's going to become a doctor and leave me, things getting all mixed up for a time, and then them settling into a mindset where positive change is a real possibility ... and then Lecy couldn't get away to do the Disney episodes, and we're right back to Sarah's unambitious airhead version of Becky.

Not only does Riley drink 99% of her water out of my glass and one percent out of any of her bowls, Melrose, my "guest" cat posted above, is the same! It's the same water everywhere, but somehow it tastes better from my glass - and specifically my glass, because if I just put down a fresh one and say, "Here, you can have your own," Riley isn't anywhere near as interested and Melrose flat-out declines. I guess it's the smell of their person making it inviting; Melrose does the same to her owner. I certainly don't mind sharing, and I think it's sweet Melrose feels that way about me, so no harm done.

I was a couple of minutes late tuning in due to wrangling a door-dashing cat back in, so I didn't hear Robin's introductory remarks. But she, like almost everyone, did a good job. She has a great broadcasting voice, and I just love how happy all the guest hosts are to get to do this. Great charity, too. The Agriculture TS surprised me a bit, but I correctly predicted Commerce was going to go unanswered. I had a really stressful day, so I wasn't sure I'd be able to properly concentrate, but I did very well in the first round; I only missed one each in podcasts (doing a lot better than I expected based on the category) and I (like Allison, I picked Isaac as the biblical I name). In DJ, though, I didn't run a single category; I missed three each in Prague and authors, two in serious, and one each in the rest. For FJ, Hawaii was an instaget, and I knew the other island had to be in Alaska, but it took me a few beats to come up with Kodiak. I'd have had plenty of time to write it down, though. So still a good game overall.

I'm hardly ever treated rudely by a server, cashier, etc. or see someone else treated rudely by one, but I frequently witness them being treated that way by customers. Of course transgressions occur on both sides of the counter, but it's far more common for customers to be inappropriate. People have such a dismissive attitude towards the "peons" in these jobs that any perceived "slight" (a store policy they don't like, an item not being available, etc.) leaves them feeling entitled to turn downright disdainful towards them. I spend a lot of time talking to managers, not to complain about service I received, but to state the customer was at fault and the employee responded appropriately. Because, a lot of times, the managers are just as bad as the customers, and the last thing anyone working retail needs after dealing with an asshole customer is getting in trouble with the even bigger asshole who has power over them.

Because dads aren't held to ridiculously high standards like moms are (in fact, they are held to ridiculously low standards; as Michael Chabon said in Manhood for Amateurs, "The handy thing about being a father is that the historic standard is so pitifully low") -- research shows that when both parents work, women spend 400 percent (no, I did not accidentally type an extra zero, that's four hundred percent) more time with the kids - and where only the woman is employed, she still does the majority of the child care and household tasks - yet their parenting is what gets scrutinized. And just in general, men aren't pitted against each other the way women are.

Even though I'd forgotten Kelly married Ajoni (she initially said it would be making another mistake, and I somehow blanked out on her changing her mind), I remember so clearly the episode where she told M.E. she was pregnant. I like the totally raw and sometimes ugly way M.E. was written. She kept flashing back to her mother's reaction, and she wanted to do better, but she was just so angry; her and Collier's parents had told them absolutely nothing, but they'd talked to Kelly about sex until they were blue in the face and she still made a stupid choice. M.E. knew better than anyone how scared Kelly was, how hard this was going to be, and how it was going to limit her life, and that fear for her daughter's future came out as anger.

It airs at 7:00 a.m. here, which is "the middle of the night" to me, but it happened to coincide with one of my periods of being awake for a while before being able to fall back asleep, so I watched this episode. (I stalled out in my re-watch in season two a while ago, but since you noted this wasn't available on YouTube - where I'd been watching - I figured I'd give it a look.) Poor M.E. I mean, obviously poor Johnny, and my sympathy to the entire family, but he was the only one in that house who understood and accepted her. The actor playing the young version of Teresa is terrible. I looked her up on IMDb, and she only has four credits, with this being her last one. I had forgotten Kelly married Ajoni. (I remembered the pregnancy, but not the marriage aspect of carrying on the family tradition.) I love how angry M.E. is about Collier's racism; it's nothing new, but she really thought his love for his daughter would be stronger. Like when her asshole dad finally invited Rene into the house after Johnny's funeral, knowing that Mary Elizabeth needed her. And all the stuff about M.E. driving Rene absolutely crazy - and knowing it - while staying with her was great. I love Rene saying she has a family, M.E.'s - M.E. is crashing in her house, Collier is confiding in her, Kelly has half her silverware.

Good grief, the overwhelming majority of songs ranked from 101-110 do not belong that high on the list. This thing is a total shit show.

My friend's husband has this. When they first moved in together, on a daily basis she would walk into the kitchen and shout, "The poltergeists have been here again!" He's better, but still does it a lot.

As a lawyer, I talk about parenting in terms of joint and several liability, because I think it's a prime real world example: all parties are equally liable, and if one doesn't do their share, the others are entitled to go after them. So all these men who think they should get a cookie - or a blow job - for doing 30% of the parenting and household work when so many guys only do 15% can go fuck themselves, because they're still falling far short of their obligation. The "second shift" is almost as pronounced as when Arlie Hochschild and Anne Machung published their book of the same name in the late '80s; the smallest gap any individual study has shown still has women doing twice the housework and child care as men, and most show a larger gulf. And that, like so many other things, plays into the unequal pay asked about. Because it all comes down to sexism, even where discrimination by the employer is not the sole cause - all the well, yeah, but that's because excuses for women earning less are rooted in how sexist ideas and practices play out as intended. It's a patriarchy; it's designed to work this way, it's not the inevitable result of how things naturally work.

Pretty much everyone I've ever heard/read talk about Rue said she was Blanche (good and bad, so it's hardly ever leveled as an insult).

I agree. I'm a sucker for storylines when a medical professional knows what's up for themselves or a loved one, and Pratt's impending death was particularly well done. I disliked him for a long time, only coming around on him when he got over himself to support Chen in ending her father's misery. And I hate Frank with every fiber of my being, to the point I actively resent the heart attack episode where they try to convince us he's this really nice guy at home to his sweet as pie wife and disabled daughter AND speaks highly to them of the ER staff he treats like shit on a daily basis. But, good gods, that moment at the elevator? That is believable. Frank's redemption episode, no; completely over the top. But that even this asshole, in that moment, would show respect? That works. And beautifully.

I sat near her in two restaurants - both times well after her show was over - and eavesdropped as much as I could. She was a hoot!

Nature's Variety Instinct frozen raw, the rabbit formula. She used to like rotating between chicken, duck, and rabbit, but then fixated on rabbit. Another cat was happiest with Wellness chicken paté. Wellness has a lot of good canned food offerings. And their CORE dry food is one of the handful of dry cat foods that isn't sky high in carbs (a cat's natural diet is high protein, moderate fat, and very low carb, but most dry foods get at least a quarter of their calories from carbs). I just looked up Dr. Pol's food (just for cats, as I don't know anything about canine nutrition), and there's only a dry food option. I've seen a lot worse, but it's not good, and the recommended amount to feed is obscene - it would give the average cat over 400 calories per day (for weight maintenance, cats should generally eat 20 calories per pound of body weight per day, so a typical 10-pound cat needs 200, not 400). Sadly, most pet food manufacturers choose profit over health when stating their feeding guidelines. Topic? Um, I love Tater. He shouldn't be allowed loose in the waiting room, but I love his attitude. I always laugh when one of the vets/techs has to step over him, or when office staff have to reach around him to access their keyboards.

I like it. I do like the woman in this video, and ask, "Do I know you?" and then when he says no, say, "Yet you're telling me what to do with my face." They usually walk away grumbling, but if I ever encounter one who keeps on, I'm going to further emulate her by announcing, "Women everywhere - a random man has life advice!"

I spent many years recording Guiding Light daily, when Kim Zimmer's character Reva infected the show, but I hadn't seen Body Heat in decades, so when I watched it again it caused an "Oh, Reva!" reaction upon seeing her. As many problems I had with her GL character, I think she was fine as an actor, including in this film, and enjoy the story of her casting. Ha - same.

Sadly, because it's not part of their core curriculum and what they do "learn" often comes in the form of Hill's propaganda, many vets know fuck all about nutrition. Some acknowledge this. Some peddle crappy food. I'll never let one of the latter group anywhere near my cat on general principle; I don't care what else they know, if they can't look at an ingredients list and know a food is inappropriate, they're not getting their hands on my pet, since I live in an area with lots of choices.