Bastet

But Robin presumably knows nothing about him, so knowing he's in town wouldn't mean anything to her even if she was nasty enough to act on it -- to Robin, he's just some dude named Emilio on the other end of the phone, as there's nothing to indicate this random supervisor knows the history of an employee's faux husband to think, "Wait, he's supposed to be in Mexico."

Once I figured out his name is Tobey Maguire, not Toby McGuire, I was able to verify on IMDb that, yes, that was him. And one of Becky's friends in an early season episode was played by Alyson Hannigan.

We barely know Robin, but nothing about her thus far suggests to me she would do something so vindictive as turn an undocumented immigrant in to ICE for no reason. He doesn't work at Wellman, so he and his immigration status are of no consequence to her. And Robin's issues with Becky are professional, not personal, so there wouldn't be any reason for her to go after Becky in such an ugly way; if she gets too fed up with her mediocre job performance, she'll just fire her, not blow up her personal life for sport.

From an episode thread: I'm around Becky's age, so I watched Roseanne with my parents back in the day. Every time I watch "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" (the third episode of the series), I remember my mom commenting how refreshingly realistic it was to see the kids underfoot when Roseanne was getting ready for their "fancy" dinner at the Lanford Inn (Becky was lecturing her on how to apply make-up and going through her stuff, Darlene was trying on her heels, etc.).

It would at least be awkward sometimes for some of them. They handled the pace and trajectory of Dan and Louise's relationship so well ... until they actually got together, and then it moved at warp speed, and, other than a brief freak-out from Jackie, it's just been smooth sailing, with everyone acting like she's part of the family. That's just not realistic, even though they like her and are happy that he's able to be happy with someone else; there will be twinges from time to time, and another woman regularly being there - on Mom's side of the bed, standing at Mom's stove, etc. - is going to trigger one of those twinges. They even had Darlene giving her the rent money. It was to make the "while she was shaving her legs" joke to continue the refrain about how there's no privacy in the house, but that's something you do if it's your mom and you're paying rent to the two of them. Not when it's your dad's girlfriend who is just quarantining in his house.

Here you can't even go in the building at all; clinic staff come out to the car to get them. Riley was sick this summer, in a mystery diagnosis situation, so over a couple of months we had several visits each to her primary vet and a specialist, and it was hard not being able to be in there with her since she's so scared in foreign situations. (Knock on wood, she's doing very well, and doesn't need another check-up until after the first of the year.) I hope you and the girls are back home for cuddles soon - is the ride home at least a little better than the ride there, since they know they're going home?

And I cannot handle those people, so Ruby bugged the shit out of me. The only time I was on his side was at the funeral, when he dismissed Carter, telling him the day is not about him (or something like that; I haven't seen it in a while). I absolutely love Carol's mom when she tells her, "So go be an astronaut!" Nobody held Carol back but Carol, yet she was always too busy blaming and resenting others to take a good look at herself.

The man screwed his employees out of their owed wages and filed for bankruptcy protection to avoid paying them after they rose up and sued his ass. How he treats his staff says a lot more to me about whether he is or is not a jerk than how he speaks on camera about the person he deemed equal enough to marry.

Shall I just open every episode’s reaction with “Insert Mask Frustration Here”? I’m really trying to let it go, but it’s hard. It's also not sitting right to make "Share the Wealth" the nationwide protest movement Harris is compelled to take to the streets in support of, when this is the year of Black Lives Matter, not Occupy Wall Street. Both worthy causes, and wealth disparity is much more personally relevant to Harris, but they're purporting to set these characters in present-day reality, so this feels like a deliberate sidestep. How fucking old is Dan that he can’t handle his girlfriend needing time to herself? And that shit with her picture and scent in bed?! Pathetic. I can’t stand people like that. At least Louise called it out as crazy pants - after inexplicably returning <sigh> - but that was just too lame for me to roll with. I still can hardly bear to look at Ben with that stuff on his face, but he cracks me up each week. This time, I liked “If I ever get back in the one percent I’m going to oppress all you people”. Also tripping himself out with his deep thoughts and Darlene calling him Spicoli. I was so happy to see everyone paying rent, but knew it was going to be a plot point, and Harris was really being a twit. Yes, it stinks for her that she’s not of the economic class where she can just be a supported student at this age. But she’s not, and she has to work within that reality. Which she’d been doing, quite frankly displaying more economic sense than her mom and grandpa. So for her now to be such an asshole felt manufactured, even though teenagers certainly do behave inconsistently; if it had been directed at Darlene rather than Dan, it would have worked a lot better -- if she was going to lash out over anyone "owing" or "failing" her, it would be her parent (and, hey, how 'bout the one who bailed?) rather than her grandparent. But Dan being angry and ashamed, to the point he wishes he had life insurance so he could throw himself off the roof and provide for them that way choked me up big time. (In the midst of more mask grumbling, because good for her not being comfortable hugging him after having left the bubble for something as exposed as a protest … but she’s perfectly fine talking to him without a mask.) That was painfully realistic. I continue to really like Robin. “Hi, cutie, make better choices than Mommy.” Right on, Robin. (And, seriously: “I have to call Beverly Rose”? Beverly Rose is A BABY.) This was a good way of working her gender identity into the show, and I liked the scene between her and Becky in the office. Especially that she still said, “Get your lazy ass back to work, Becky” later.

The Mason-Dixon Line TS surprised me. So did Peterbilt and ear. I was expecting a little bit of pay attention snark from Alex about T.J.'s NRDC = Greenpeace answer. I missed two of the hip hop clues (but got the two that stumped the contestants) and Mecca, but otherwise ran the first round. In DJ, though, I only ran the crossword clues; I missed several in the prophets category, and one each in all the others. I didn't even have a guess for FJ.

I have always been completely at a loss as to what producers and test audiences found so compelling about her in the pilot that it was decided to keep her around rather than have her die as originally planned. Liking Carol as the show went on, I understand, but whatever special something people got out of what we saw of her in the pilot I have never been able to see.

Home stretch was a surprising TS, as was snake (especially with the wrong answers for both not setting at least one of the other two contestants on the right path). Bali, too, a bit. And Iger a little bit, only in that no one even guessed him or Eisner (I figure those are the two CEOs who don't have the last name Disney people have heard of). Science-podge and Sports Idioms were the only categories in the first round I ran, but I only missed one each in the other four, so not too bad. It was a different story in DJ; I must have missed at least a dozen. I got FJ handily, at least.

I finally watched this, and I feel the same way. As someone in the documentary said, who is more dismissed than an old woman, and here's this 84-year-old woman who everyone wants to hear what she has to say. I already knew her professional history (I'm a civil rights lawyer specializing in women's rights) and what a great marriage she and Marty had, so I didn't learn anything new (which is why it took me so long to watch), but I enjoyed it. I cried afterward, because watching it with our Supreme Court as it is now and will remain for a long time is depressing.

I'm a lawyer, not a doctor, but I just happen to know that, so it bugs me.

Yeah, I let that slide since anything resembling a proper demonstration of CPR would harm the actors. What I can't get past on medical shows, though, is how many patients skip right to asystole -- and then get defibrillated.

I know how to spell schlemiel, but I'd have had to guess on schlimazel - I'd have guessed right, though, I think (I might have gone with schlemazel if in a hurry). I'm surprised that was a TS. Same with noshing and schlock; these folks do not know their Yiddish. I also didn't expect shrinking violet to go unanswered. I did almost as poorly as the contestants in the authors' middle names category, and was terrible in royal pains and geography (usually a strong suit!) categories, too. I missed a few scattered others in each round, too, so not a great game for me. (I was reading the archive with football on in the background, but I don't think I can pin it on distraction; it just wasn't my night.) At least FJ was an instaget for me to end strong.

Yes, Taster's Choice. (I don't remember if they were neighbors, but it was a serialized love story.)

I am so with you on that one.

I love this song. There's a boy from a brief period in my childhood whose name I can't remember at all and whose face I can just call up a vague image of, but with whom I clearly remember singing and dancing to it with at a barbecue at his parents' house during the time they lived in our neighborhood. I don't know why the memory is strong, but I think of that every time the song pops up on my iPod. REALLY?! That song is repugnant and these Sirius fools have it in the top 400 of all time! Um, too high. This isn't a bad cover, but the original is so far superior that to rank this so highly is just weird. Such a good song. I might have ranked it a bit higher, but I think this is a fair placement. Ain't nothing 'bout this song that's special, but it's enjoyable. Nowhere near top 400, though. I don't know "Big Star" or "When She Says Baby", and I'm not even going to bother looking them up, because I'm quite sure I'd agree with the CU commentary. And, while I still wish they'd included a woman among their analysts, I appreciate the men being the kind who recognize things like:

Indeed I did - and it was so good, we crawled back in for a two-hour nap this afternoon.

If it was his first shift in a professional restaurant kitchen, odds are he was at the bar with drinks and late night munchies with his coworkers before coming home, wanting nothing more than to crawl in bed ... only to find his family wanting to keep him up with yet more food. I haven't seen the commercial, but it sounds dumb; everyone should be sleeping and they can celebrate at a far more convenient and enjoyable time.

All is well on the Chester front. I had to baby him some (hand feeding) during the day to get him to eat a full amount (the cancer eats a large percentage of his nutrients, so it's extra important), but in the evenings he'd eat well on his own. So I left my parents' house last night around 7:00, knowing he'd be okay for the 14 hours until they'd come home and wanting to spend the night in my own bed with my own kitty and sleep in. Riley and I have played and snuggled almost enough to catch up, I think, as she's finally napping somewhere - in the sun - other than glued to me. And when my parents came home this morning, Chester ran - when he usually ambles - down the hall to greet them. He has since snacked a couple of times, cuddled with each of them, and otherwise happily snoozed in the sunny spot on the guest bed. So, of course in a perfect world I'd have loved to enjoy my usual Thanksgiving camping trip, especially this difficult year, but I'm really glad that once he started having some trouble I chose to split the time as I did - no regrets or resentment. I at least got a brief Thanksgiving, my parents got a full week out in their motorhome for the first time this year, and little Chester whom no one would have thought a year ago would even still be here this Thanksgiving just keeps on keepin' on, completely content a good 80% of the time. That's quality of life well worth a minor sacrifice to maintain! I'm sure he will sleep glued to my mom's side tonight, occasionally venturing over to lick my dad's face. Which will wake Bandit up, and he'll have to crawl up from my dad's hip to his chest for cuddles lest Chester ever get any attention he doesn't get. The joys of sleeping with cats.

Because representation is important. Transgender characters have been rare on television, and the few that existed were usually played by cisgender actors and stereotypically written to boot. It's getting better, but there's still a long way to go, so to have another transgender character, played by a transgender actor, on a network show is a good thing so long as she's not a caricatured mess. If they're going to add a recurring character, by all means add someone like her. Not someone like Neville. We have, and have had for decades, plenty of Nevilles. We don't have enough Robins. Hopefully her gender identity will be treated honestly when it's revealed, yet it will not become her sole trait. They're off to a good start, as she wasn't introduced as The Transgender Supervisor, just as Robin, the potential mentor to Darlene who won't tolerate Becky's shit.

One of the block of episodes I watched the other day - in which Carol was an entitled, self-righteous, all-around little shit with no apparent grasp of the real world in which everyone around her was figuring out how to live - had her running out to confront the driver because her car was being repossessed. It's revealed she missed three payments, yet she reacts to this development as if it's an unwarranted and in fact totally bizarre action. Even after the adrenaline wears off, her car gone, and she's back in the ER, she's still angry with Doug for knowing her car was being repo'd but playing it down as being towed. Dude. How do YOU not know that?! If you've assumed joint financial responsibility with someone, believe them to have been using half your money to fulfill those obligations, and then find yourself blindsided by the vehicle you use being hauled away for non-payment, by all means be aghast and angry. But if you know very well you and you alone owe X each month towards repayment of Y loan and you've paid zero for three months, you do not get to act like the tow truck driver's presence is a surprise and a horrible injustice.

Yep, because that was Original Recipe Becky who left town with him, plan firmly in place to get her GED and go to college (starting with community, because his union job and whatever part-time work she got could easily cover that while building up a nest egg for university tuition) in Minneapolis. But when they came back to Lanford, it was with New Coke Becky, and the two of them were too stupid to live, let alone secure a future. It's been appalling to me for over 15 years now how many people involved in the show have admitted with absolutely no shame that they wrote the character totally differently depending on which actor was playing her. The hell? Of course Sarah would bring her own take on what's on the page; there would always be differences beyond the obvious physical ones. But when her Becky is written as such a fundamentally different person than when Lecy is playing the role, that's far beyond interpretation. They wrote Becky like an idiotic bimbo when Sarah was up and like a capable young woman who'd been derailed when it was a Lecy episode. The whiplash was not an inevitable side effect of dueling actors, that was a deliberate - and stupid - writing choice. If they felt Sarah couldn't play any version of Original Recipe Becky, so the character had to be so different in her hands, then that's a casting fail. Either way, New Coke Becky was a huge misstep.