Bastet

That is fantastic! I love that you went in to look at an established pair - which would have been a wonderful adoption story on its own - and wound up doing a mix and match instead because that's just how things went. Congratulations to the four of you. I'm sure if the previous Kitties Gunderson could see this development, they'd approve. I look forward to a new set of pictures and stories. How old are they estimated to be?

Tonight's syndicated episodes aired early, because of a concert special in the prime-time slot, so I only watched "Under the Influence" during commercial breaks of another show. Thankfully, one of those breaks coincided with Rusty's "crisis" -- there is so much great stuff packed into one little scene: - Sharon whimpering and giving Andy an I've had enough for today; you deal with him face when the writer objects to the FBI listening in on the suspect’s conversation with his lawyer (I despise the PATRIOT Act, so I don't like the handling of this case [between that, overstating the affirmative defense, and flirting with a Johnson Rule violation with Mrs. Vega], but I love that face when he annoys her yet again) - Rusty rushing into the Murder Room declaring he's in the middle of a huge crisis - which makes Sharon worry he's been threatened again, but which turns out to be that his teacher rejected his college application essay - which Sharon says doesn't sound like a crisis, prompting Buzz to respond, "You haven't read it yet." - Rusty jumping right back into my teenage life is the most-important thing in the world mode when Sharon, who'd told him she doesn't have time to deal with his essay right now, complains they're stuck doing nothing being met with her talk to the hand gesture of dismissal - Everyone reacting to the "my greatest influence is me" opening line when Buzz tells her to just read that - Rusty getting excited when he finds out the guy talking to him is a TV writer, and promptly losing all interest when the answer to what show is “It's not on yet” - Sharon telling him she'll take his phone and laptop away if he doesn't rewrite it resulting in this exchange between Rusty, Sharon, and the writer: "You can't take my things away from me." "They are not your things, they are MY things, and you can only keep them while making mature decisions, which in this case means listening to your teacher." "Are you sure she’s not your mom?” Another scene I saw is one that tickles me far more than it would on paper; there’s just something about Julio as he interjects while Sharon is addressing Andrea after figuring out Mr. Blood is the car owner's son: If Julio’s right- I am. and our suspect is cartel- He is. then … I also saw most of the end, and it struck me again that Amy seemed pleased by Jason’s interest; “call me, whenever you want … with questions” was delivered like playing it coy rather than a blow-off. I wonder if they’d considered possibly bringing that character back, or maybe just mentioning him. I liked her and Chuck together, so I’m glad that’s the relationship we saw. And, fundamentally, whatever the original plan, I like things like this, and Rusty's crush on one of the SWAT officers assigned to protect him during the Stroh/Burning Man arc -- where an attraction just exists, without anything ever coming of it. That's life, but on TV, it usually leads to something. I like when it's just a little thing that happens but doesn't become a plot. Tonight was the first time I noticed that when Andy gets distracted by snack food when they go to clear the chop shop, Amy has to snap him out of it to get him moving again. Which in turn made me pay attention to her smile near the end when he pulls the chips out of his desk drawer -- and thus made me realize she took the bag he was distracted by from the scene and put it in his drawer. I always took him blowing the dust off the bag to mean they were his, and had been in there for so long (because of this goofy cleanse he’s been on) they gathered dust. But how much dust can you collect in a drawer? Not as much as you would on a rack in a chop shop. So now I look at his reaction to coming across them in the drawer and her reaction to him doing do so and realize she did that for him. Cute!

I remembered Ali with the failing liver and kidneys due to lepto. I was so frustrated with his owner for not vaccinating him for that; she was devastated by his condition and determined not to put him down, but she could have avoided it all by getting him a vaccine that is considered one of those necessary in her area. I also remembered Shredder the tegu, because that was similarly frustrating; his dad clearly loves him and was willing to do whatever it took to treat him, but if he'd researched how to properly care for him to begin with, it wouldn't have been necessary - it was an improper habitat that caused the problem. I vividly remembered Jamie Bell, both for how much couch material they pulled out of her intestines, and for how it pleased me that a guy like her owner - old white male Texan, dressed like a rural old white male Texan to boot - chose, among all his options in the greater Houston area, the practice run by three black guys. And Ginger as the second of the crazy-big splenic masses that turned out to be benign rather than the typical hemangiosarcoma; I still can't get over that statistic in one practice over the course of a year or two. And, of course, B.D. - Mama Ross coming in as an emergency, Dr. Ross asking the camera crew to give him a minute, and him later talking to his kids about B.D.'s impending death. It was all very touching. The docs talking about how their little kids look at them, as parents and especially as parents who are vets, like "Well, fix it!" was a poignant look back on that story. I didn’t remember Benji, the chicken attacked by a coyote. That’s a small animal to survive a coyote attack! She wouldn’t have if not for her owner instinctively charging in to protect her. “How many times have you had to pluck a patient?” was funny. A cow farm where everyone is vegan was also new to me. As was putting GPS trackers on goats and finding one in active, troubled labor. What a difficult situation, with them not at all prepared and Dr. Ross recovering from his hip injury. I appreciate that they, if they'd known and had equipment, would have performed an emergency c-section rather than just pulling. They were so sad when the kid was stillborn, and I cried just like the owner did when the mama started cleaning up her dead baby. At least she survived due to their intervention. And I hadn't seen their number one, Shugie with the stalled labor. I can't with people who breed dogs (or, even worse, cats), given the millions of adoptable pets euthanized in shelters each year simply because there are that many more of them than there are homes. So I was glad for the dogs, and for Dr. Ross's joyous surprise that the techs successfully revived that one pup, but not having kind thoughts for the owner who chooses - twice now - to risk her dog's health and contribute to the overpopulation crisis for profit. I'm glad the episode ended on a montage, not on that story. Being a look-back, I guess this was the season finale? Boo; I love the Saturday nights that I have Pit Bulls and Parolees and The Vet Life on tap.

Yeah, Tia has said that before, that producers just choose three to include in the episode. Aren Jackson. It's been clear they were split up for quite a while, but as far as I know this is the first time she's confirmed it. I didn't realize the episode started an hour early tonight until about 20 minutes in, so at least I got to see most of it. Poor Walt! (And Poor Lizzy running around in that heat while pregnant.) His adrenaline crash meaning he finally just could not go on anymore was heartbreaking; like Lizzy said, she hated to do that to him, but he was in danger from some of the neighbors and needed medical attention - they had to do the temporary harm to save him long term. It's a shame long term isn't all that long. But like Lizzy said, the last thing he'll feel is love and happiness, not fear and pain. It's so beautiful that he learned how to be a dog (after he remained so skittish with the woman who'd been feeding him); thank goodness for Elise bringing him into her home. And he gave them all one of those second winds they need to keep going; Walt's time with them will never be forgotten, no matter how short it winds up being. I'm so glad the woman who got Adam away from his shitty owner followed up, and then reached out to VRC when the shelter was going to kill him. How great that he's slated for the PA prison program if he continues to improve. I love when Tia talks about how inaccurate temperament testing in a shelter, especially after only a couple of days, is. If the shelter my cat Riley was in for five months euthanized animals for being scared, she'd have been toast. She hid inside a box in her cage for those five months, despite all their efforts at socialization. She was terrified and sad (her owner had died, and she and the five other cats brought in by the family were all varying degrees of mess [she was the only one left when I went in], so I don't think they had a great life), and they had to do force feedings and IV fluids a few times when they just couldn't get her to eat enough even by offering baby food and home-cooked treats. She barely responded when I offered her my hand to smell in the cage, and when they brought her out and put her on my lap, she shook like an earthquake. So of course she's who I decided to adopt. When I got her home, she ran behind/under my stove (where I didn't even know a cat could fit). I got her out from there and shut her in my office. I let her be for about an hour, then came in and sat down on the floor. After a few minutes, she came out to thoroughly sniff me, and then plopped down in my lap. I called the person I'd been dealing with at the shelter to tell her, and she cried. It took plenty of work and patience to get Riley to where she wasn't still scared of everything in the world other than me, but she was a completely different cat from the beginning just by getting back to a home environment. Angelina's situation shows the lasting effect that can result from heartworm; she made it through the treatment, but the damage done by the disease is delaying treatment for her other disease, because her heart and lungs make the surgery she needs have to be done a little at a time, rather than being able to go in and get all the cancer at once. So much can be avoided with a preventative. I wish some rich southerner would sponsor a program to provide it for free. Logan's doggy door training was funny. I know some just barrel right through them, but I understand his why would I ram my head into this flimsy window? attitude about the flap. Great idea of Mariah at the home visit to make all of them the reward for going through. He's a friendly, eager dude, so I knew the kids were going to love him as much as the parents did. If you like dogs, you're going to love Logan. It never fails to make me smile when a kenneled dog runs around her/his new yard, so thrilled at having all that off-leash open space.

Cold Case would not have been anywhere near as good a show without the extensive use of popular music to set the right tone in jumping back and forth between years in each episode. I wish they'd ponied up for DVD rights in the original licensing contract. But I'm very happy they didn't use less, and less-expensive music in the original, reruns, and syndication airings.

I was going to suggest another shout-out to Garvin Eddy (like back in the original series, when the Question Man asked who designed the kitchen and Dan said, "Some guy named Garvin Eddy"), but I realized this show has a different production designer.

I've seen Moana mentioned, but haven't paid attention to know the slightest thing about it, so I had no shot at FJ. Trying to think of movies set in Tahiti only brought to mind Mutiny on the Bounty, and that certainly didn't fit with a 2016 initial release. So I had no guess. The only TS that surprised me were 3-D printing (I don't understand how it works, but I know what it looks like) and candor. I loved that postal abbreviations category.

It's been over a week, and I'm still laughing at Becky's explanation to Jackie of what a throuple is: "It's the fun of a threesome with the drudgery of a relationship."

Thank goodness! (I hate facial hair, especially beards.) Now if he drops the baby thing, too, I could really come around on his relationship with Darlene. I have a feeling Nervous!Jackie with Jennifer Grey and Clark Gregg's characters is going to be hilarious:

One of my best friends washes her hands more in a day than I do in a week. I work from home and she's unemployed, so we both spend a lot of time in our own homes. I tend not to wash my hands unless I got something on them, while she washes her hands after touching just about anything other than her cat. Then she has to put lotion on them, because she washes them too often. Her ex, with whom she lived for years, used to tell her, "Someday, I'm going to calculate what percentage of my life is spent waiting for you to finish your hand ritual."

I don't do crossword puzzles, and pay very little attention to royal families, so I have to credit knowing Eton (which wasn't a TS, but a missed DD, so odds are if it had been a "regular" clue someone would have known it) to what I picked up by scrolling through the Royals thread as I "next unread topic" my way through the Everything Else TV forum. I don't think I'd have picked that up, at least to the point I could pull it out of my brain, otherwise.

I'm not going to be home tonight, so I just read the archive. I wasn't expecting FJ to be a TS. I've never read the book or seen the films, but I know it's about a mad scientist, so house of pain + island needing to be in the title made it spring to mind immediately.' But stein and The Bad Seed were the only other TS that surprised me. "I would also have accepted 'What is my refrigerator?'" about the case of beer clue made me laugh.

I just watched it, and I don't think her reaction is exaggerated. She obviously doesn't normally eat rice with her stir fry, so when he tells her he made her favorite and she sees what she thinks is rice in it, she wonders why he made it differently, asking, "With rice?" He shows her that it's cauliflower. It's all very simple and natural to me. Maybe because I don't eat rice with my stir fry, either (or with much of anything; I only eat it with stuff like curry, and I've switched to cauliflower "rice" because I like cauliflower more than I like rice) -- if my partner, knowing I don't eat it that way, tempted me by telling me as I walked in the door that he'd made my favorite meal and then presented me with that stir fry - in which the "rice" is mixed in, so it's not like it's her regular stir fry sitting on a bed of rice and she can just not eat the rice - I, too, would question the presence of rice. Only I'd probably say, "Why the hell did you put rice in it when you know I don't like it?" So she's much nicer than I am.

I know - I was pretty impressed they'd all managed to avoid those commercials! I was a bit surprised that no one guessed refuse and god, and that Coneheads and Al Franken were TS; I don't think I've ever seen an episode of SNL in its entirety, but I've seen oodles of sketches and some of the films, and have picked up more via cultural osmosis. The Louisiana Purchase clue had no business being in DJ.

Yes, my mom emailed them this morning after there were still no RSVPs in today's mail. It's two minutes out of her day, but it's also a delay in confirming things with the restaurant and the florist while we wait to hear back to make sure we have an accurate headcount. We wanted to have that nailed down two weeks out, but we really only need one week's notice, so it's not a big deal. But if they'd sent their replies, it wouldn't be necessary. It's just inconsiderate. (Sure, one or both could have been lost in the mail, which is why we're double-checking. But I doubt it.)

Good timing; I need new Dixie Chicks music in my life right now.

We've talked about this one before, but I'm venting: People who don't RSVP. The RSVP deadline for my parents' 50th anniversary party was the 1st, but there are two couples we haven't heard from. Come on! There are addressed, stamped envelopes included. If you misplaced it, send an email. Both couples would have to fly out to attend, so I assume if we haven't received a "yep, I'll be there" response by now (the party is ten days away), they're not coming -- I don't anticipate this being a situation where someone doesn't RSVP and then just shows up, causing a lot of last-second shuffling. But how rude not to respond at all. And these are people in their 70s, brought up when etiquette was still a thing. And surely in their 70-some years, they have hosted at least one party, or heard someone complain about hosting a party, and thus know that hosts need an accurate headcount.

If there's room, I sit down next to Riley, since she'll immediately get on my lap and then I can scoot us into whatever position I want. She never sits in my office chair by herself*, but Maddie and Baxter used to. If I needed to sit down and work, I'd move them, but if I was just coming in to compose a single email or something like that, I'd kneel on the floor in between the chair and my desk and type that way. *But, boy, does she want to be on my lap when I'm in it. I let her sit there when I'm just reading, then tap her and say "scoot" when I need her to move so I can type. She jumps up on the desk and stays there for a while, waiting for the typing to stop so she can get back in my lap. If the typing goes on too long, or she gets shooed out of my lap too many times, she'll finally give up and go sleep on the office couch instead.

The attack that sent me to the ER and, after those docs ruled out a heart attack and stroke, resulted in several follow-up cardiology tests to make sure there wasn't something else/other wrong than the presumptive rule-out diagnosis of an anxiety attack - an acute, more-severe manifestation of a chronic condition they said I didn't realize I had - bore only a little resemblance to those I know with anxiety, and didn't even fully fit into the same box of anyone I found sharing about her/his condition on the internet. As a result, I wasted years forgoing treatment (and thus getting worse), thinking it must be something else, before my periodic attacks and everyday condition settled into something more in line with the "norm". By that time, it also became clear I'd developed chronic depression. Yeah, I have anxiety and depression that by now pretty closely resembles that of others in the same boat. But I also had it back then when my symptoms/manifestation in some ways mirrored the typical patient and in several more ways were "Hm, really? Interesting; there's a lot we still don't understand about these disorders" different to my doctors.

The episode will be preempted for Super Tuesday coverage here, so I just read the archive. I’m bummed no one knew “Just a Girl” (or at didn't know/remember who sang it) – I love that song. I also love “Brass in Pocket”, so that one was a bit of a bummer, too. No one getting "How Sweet It Is" surprised me a bit. As did the Philistine, Nicholas Nickleby, and Tweedledee and Tweedledum TS. I only missed one in the first round (ham), but several in DJ -- mostly in the Luke category. I kind of threw up my hands, figuring there was a specific person or place being sought that I didn't know, when I should have thought of more general answers like good samaritan and temple. I usually don't do well with clues about children's books, either, but FJ was an instaget thanks to recognizing "green eggs".

All sets have the AC cranked to counteract the heat of all those lights - so when they're on set, the temp evens out to "normal", but offstage can get chilly.

Several surprising TS tonight: Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852 and had to have Uncle Something in the title?), Tristram Shandy (when Alex's response made clear Bruce had the right character, just pronounced it slightly wrong), Lou Grant, and Oceania. I'm also a bit surprised FJ was a TS, because if I can correctly guess something about religion/mythology, I figure at least one of of three J! contestants can, too. Maybe they all thought "missionaries" was too simple to be the answer, because preaching at people around the world about their god made me immediately think of missionaries, but I figured it was some specific group/type of missionaries that I didn't know.

In which their legs looked great. But they wore tights with those; I was responding to the discussion about how infrequently we saw the skin of their upper arms and legs.

I don't even know most of those songs. "Tequila Sheila" is one I do, and I laughed out loud at the "come the entirety of Hell on with this pick" comment. Another one is "One Way Ticket" and I am stunned to read that not only did they rank it in the top 700, it's the only song of hers they did rank. That's such an odd pick. "Whiskey Lullaby" ought to be higher. Much higher.

No, Nancy was the one who started dating women. In the original "it was all a book" reveal, it turned out Jackie was a lesbian (and had always been up front about that with her sister, but Roseanne for some reason pictured her with men so that's how she wrote her). But the revival season and this spinoff have thrown that book storyline out the window, so, as far as we know, Jackie has only ever dated men.