Bastet

I'm used to it, as I've spent much of my life sleeping that way. As a little kid, I was the one sleeping on our cat - he was enormous (26 pounds!) and fluffy and let me use him as a pillow. The next one slept like a person - head on the pillow, body under the covers. The next two slept in various spots on the bed according to temperature and mood, and played musical beds, so sometimes one or both were with my parents instead of me. And then came Louise, who slept in my armpit, basically. The cats in between her and Riley have all slept touching me at least part of the time, so the fact she must be on top of me or velcroed to my side isn't a problem for me. (I switch positions several times throughout the night, and she just readjusts herself accordingly.) But getting pushed into some weird position half hanging off my pillow is! A friend of mine saw a sleep doctor, whose recommendation was to sleep alone. She said she had no problem banishing her husband to the guest room, but couldn't shut the cats out. That is me. I hate sharing a bed with another person (and a snorer absolutely cannot stay), but I'll put up with almost anything from the cats. Including snoring, which thankfully none of them have done regularly (or loudly, although Baxter got some volume once in a while).

I have a sore neck and a secondary headache, all because Riley kept rearranging me in my sleep. She has to be touching me, but apparently got hot; I had fallen asleep with her up against me parallel, and woke up falling off my pillow because she had moved to be perpendicular to me -- with her back up against the front of the pillows to keep cool, and just her paws on me. I put us back in order so I could have my head properly on the pillows and went back to sleep. Fast forward a few hours, and guess how I woke up? Lather, rinse, repeat. I told her we cannot do this all summer, or Mommy will wind up in traction.

Well, first you have to take care when ordering a cocktail that goes by a name (e.g. martini) versus by its ingredients (e.g. gin and tonic), because it may not be known, or may mean something else, where you are. I'm not sure I've ever had a martini at a restaurant/bar anywhere in Europe (and I've only been to western Europe thus far), but I've had them (traditional [with gin]) at a Brit's house, and it was made similarly as it is here - mixed (whether shaken or stirred, heh) over ice, and then strained into a (non-chilled) glass. It's not that everything is room temperature, just that served over ice is uncommon - if not room temp, chilled (prepared over ice, refrigerated, etc.) is generally how you'll get what you think of as a traditionally cold drink, rather than on the rocks.

It's one of the adjustments upon traveling in much of Europe - no washcloth in your bathroom (yes, I know, some people here don't use them, either), and no ice in your drink. I don't drink soda, and am fine with water without ice, so it generally doesn't bother me; I simply order a liquor I'm content to drink neat. But, there are times - especially in England - when I want a cocktail like a gin & tonic, and it is an adjustment to drink that at room temp, because the taste is different. Not bad, just different; it's part of the travel experience.

Laziness led to a really healthy day of food. I started off with an egg white scramble, with bacon, asparagus, spinach, and fontina, but that was the last of the cooking for the day. I had the second half of a cucumber, tomato, and red onion salad in the fridge, so that was lunch. I didn't want to expend much more energy than that for dinner, so it was another salad - mixed greens (I keep a container of lettuce, spinach, and red cabbage that I use as a base, and it really feels nice not to have to chop/shred each night) with avocado, feta, walnuts, and balsamic vinaigrette. Tomorrow night will be pork chops, collard greens (chiffonade and then sautéed with onion, as I don't like greens cooked for eons), and a salad, so after today's health-fest I may also treat myself to the delicious packet of chemicals that is Kraft mac & cheese (the "whole grain" version, because that helps 🙂 ). I don't eat it very often, but it's my favorite processed food indulgence, and I love it with pork.

I'm quite tidy myself, but I enjoy seeing messy homes on TV when it fits with the character, especially - just for even more variety - when it's a messy woman and/or tidy man. I liked that on The Closer, Brenda was a bit messy at home (as she was with everything other than her job, heh) and Fritz was the one who wound up doing more than his share to keep things neat because that absolutely fit with their individual characters and their relationship, and it was a nice little background touch. (And occasional explicit point; I love when he asked her if her shoes were afraid of the dark, and upon her confused response in the negative, asked if they could then please go in the closet where they belong.)

For dinner, I broiled lamb chops seasoned with fresh rosemary and garlic and for my side dish sautéed zucchini and crookneck squash with onion, garlic, cumin seed, and jalapeño, topped with cilantro and Monterey Jack cheese. The salad was cucumber, tomato, and red onion with Italian dressing. This is not a typical combination, but I have squash and cucumber coming out of my ass (and just from my friend's garden; my parents got theirs planted late and I didn't plant one at all this year) - so I'm in that stage of making the salad and veggie side based on how best to use what I have the most of that's about to go bad, and then adding a main dish that may or may not make a whole lot of sense as a whole meal.

This reminds me of what bugs me about characters pretending to be a couple: they always act sickeningly sweet, with ridiculous pet names, constant hand-holding, and overall schmoopiness. Yes, some real couples act like that, but most couples interact normally. It's not necessary to act like a lovesick fool to play at being a couple. Just once, when it's cops doing it as a cover, I would really like to have the bad guy watch their routine and just laugh, saying they're obviously cops and walking away without doing what they were trying to catch him in the act of.

Not unique, but I've usually had it served with reduced balsamic and that's tasty.

No. The prosecutor wouldn't ask in the first place, but if she did, the defense attorney would object and the judge would sustain the objection, so the detective would never give an answer.

I know there's no one there overnight, so when they keep animals "hospitalized" overnight it's really not hospitalization because there's no monitoring. I'm just talking about sending outpatient animals home sooner after their procedure than I'm used to rather than keeping them on fluids until they're fully "up" from the anesthesia.

I am so tired of this being my attitude before the season even starts - and having it confirmed once it does. (And, yes, I know there are other teams whose fans have had that as their annual reality for a lot longer, but that doesn't abate my own frustration.)

Same here. And none of the others on your short list make mine, but I share in the love for The Truth About Cats and Dogs. I almost never come across it on TV, so I don't think I've seen it again since it first came out; I'll have to rent it, because this reminds me how much I enjoyed it.

Yes, Goranson was very much a typical working actor in NY - short films, stage performances, the occasional guest shot on a big show, all sometimes supplemented by non-acting gigs. She didn't do much work in "Hollywood", no, but she was not out of "the business".

While I’m a big ball of “yikes” on some of the farm practices (by the farmers and/or the vets), I will never stop giving credit to the manual labor Dr. Pol puts in – and at a few decades past me, who does more than average but would still wind up gasping in a corner on some of these calls! – when shit gets real with livestock. It's pretty incredible what he's still willing and able to physically do. OMG with the cow a month overdue (I swear at one point they said two), out in the woods, with a stuck calf. Horses going down is always hard to watch, and no matter how many time I’ve seen choke on this show, I always cringe at the treatment. I love footage of the Netherlands; Amsterdam, upon my first visit, became one of my favorite cities in the world, and on a subsequent visit to the area I ventured further out into the country – wonderfully interesting cities/towns and people. I’m annoyed by the “let dogs roam” attitude that let Daisy be attacked, and the sight of her owners clasping their blood-stained liver-spotted hands together as they wait to hear they can take her home to curl up in their king-sized bed together just made that worse. Poor dog not making it. They seem to send animals home before they’ve properly recovered from sedation/anesthesia a lot, but they know far more about veterinary medicine than I do, so I guess there's a window in which any complications will present themselves and they just let that pass and then move 'em out.

Samir in “The Jumping Off Point” breaks my heart, so I appreciate how wonderful Amy is with him and how bothered Sharon is by the fact they’re not prosecuting the killer for his rape as well. “Is that rape if you do it to someone like me?” and “I didn’t even think I counted like that” stab me, and of course the similarities with Rusty’s long process of understanding what was done to him during his hustling days make it all the more poignant. That’s especially true when Sharon listens to Kyle’s mom talk about how Kyle didn’t want to need her. The actor playing the mom does a great job with her character’s recounting how she arranged a meeting with “WildKyle95” in order to see her son, and her realization that was her last hug. And she and the actor playing the estranged husband do a great job of portraying the couple’s absolute disdain for each other -- no wonder Kyle wanted out of that house. But, Dude, when you charge thousands of dollars of electronics on your dad’s credit card while you’re lounging around refusing to get a job because you’re too busy smoking pot with your friends, yeah, you’re going to get yelled at! I like that Kyle was both things; him being an overgrown brat who didn’t want to work a real job or live by basic rules like don’t steal from me doesn’t mean he’s not a victim of “Jason” any more than Samir’s prostitution made him fair game for rape. I also like Sharon luring “Jason” into a false sense of just here to answer a few more innocent questions about other people security upon his arrival at the station, where she’s planted sitting at a desk, like just another detective, before she strategically rises and introduces herself as a captain, freaking him out with the obvious seriousness indicated by her rank. Great little strategy I didn’t initially notice. On the flip side of a particularly sad case, I crack up at Andy’s physical therapist; I like how Andy’s annoyance just rolls off his back, and love Sharon getting Andy to take the wheelchair he offers by pointing out that if Andy falls and breaks something, he’ll be in hospital longer. Andy calling Provenza to worry that his hair is falling out also makes me laugh, as does his diagnosing himself online with an impending stroke, and his reaction when he spills the beans to Patrice about the upcoming proposal. Patrice’s “Who filled out these DNR forms for you, someone trying to kill you?” and response when she finds out it was Provenza is great, too. I also like Andy wondering if this is what his life has come to, that being able to turn in a circle without falling is cause for celebration. It’s realistic in the midst of the funny, just like him not wanting to keep being a patient Sharon has to take care of. That dynamic happened early in their romantic relationship, and has an inevitable effect, but of course it’s one of the many aspects of it not explored. One bugaboo: When Sharon tells Buzz to turn off the mic when Kyle’s chat session automatically launches, she goes on to explain why (in case the killer is present, they don’t want him knowing they’re onto the death as a murder) before he has a chance to do so; if the killer was there, he’d have heard. But I like that scene for the touch that Rusty knows what the session launching means, and immediately moves out of frame; I always appreciate that thread, no matter how I come to get annoyed with Rusty as the seasons go on. A final tidbit: the gag reel for this season ends with a shot of “cut” being called on Provenza looking down over the parking structure, holding onto the railing, followed by G.W. Bailey stepping back saying, “My hands are in bird shit!” Gus and Rusty’s interaction in “Thick as Thieves” annoyed me in the past, because there is nothing in their interaction the first time around that explains this hint of Gus having the hots for Rusty in the interim. I subsequently learned that’s because Gus was originally written just to be Marianna’s brother, and then James Duff decided to bring him back as Rusty’s boyfriend. So now that I have an explanation, I can let the WTF? nature of things slide. And I love how irritated Sharon is that Rusty, despite his areas of growth, continues to do this – ignore people after they’re no longer useful to him/when he doesn’t want to have a difficult conversation with them. Yet she still places a comforting hand on him when he’s subpoenaed for the penalty phase and gets blasted by Gus; he brought this on himself, but innocently, so she doesn’t intervene with Gus, but she offers emotional support to Rusty. What does still irk me is the reference to Bug having testified that Slider held Marianna under the water for over a minute. No she didn’t, because she never saw Slider actually kill her; Bug ran inside after he rolled “Alice” into the pool after she tripped and fell, and then was with him afterward, when he put her in the trunk and dumped her, but she didn’t see the actual drowning. It’s one of the reasons Andrea was initially willing to plead him down. Not to mention the utter lunacy that this death penalty trial (ridiculous for any, but death penalty?!) takes just two days. I can’t with this shit, but on the other hand I have to let it go because such timing is just TV. I'm glad this show doesn’t often do courtroom scenes, because I quickly get tired of swallowing the TV version of trials, but it's frustrating here because the timeline of Slider’s case otherwise (from arrest to trial) played out naturally. But I like the episode despite those fundamental grumbles. Sharon and Rusty scheming for him to accompany Andy to the courthouse is cute, as is Andy letting it go because he appreciates the care they gave him when he did need it. And Andy demonstrating how long even a fraction of a minute is works so effectively I’ll again let it slide that Andrea would have asked Dr. Morales, not Andy, if that much time underwater was enough to cause death (and that her asking Andy would result in an objection, which would be sustained). I have major issues with the American bail system, and while bondspeople being “borderline thugs” is down that list of reasons why, I enjoy Provenza’s grumbling about them, and the way they nail Carmen. I appreciate the continuity that Andy’s near-healed forehead injury from the fall is still visible; good job, make-up department. I like Sharon combining the first names of all the con artist’s aliases to refer to him as “Marvin Richard Scott”. Also her calling him “Missing Marvin”. And Dolly’s recitation of her history with the con artist is entertaining from beginning to end, especially all her repetitions of “stupid”. It’s a nice take on the typical female dupe seen on TV; she did a dumb thing, and knows it, but she's not an idiot in general. Selma is a similarly-good twist on a typical female character; her trust in the con artist is strong, but when it looks like he killed her son, she joins in suspecting him and despairs that she got her son killed. This series is far from perfect in its presentation of women, but it does often subvert stereotypes. And I love when everyone delights in how the con artist thinks he’s got it made because he’s talking to two women; little does he know what he’s in for when those two women are Sharon and Amy.

Progressive, not Prudential. 🙂

I keep meaning to ask this: Does anyone here have trouble understanding Dr. Petra to the point the captioning is necessary? I appreciate making things easy for the audience, but I also cringe a bit when anything mildly “foreign” gets treated as de facto incomprehensible, and I don’t think her accent is prohibitively strong. They don’t do it all the time, though, so production is determining that sometimes she needs captioning to be widely understood. I tend to do really well with accents (I even understand Scottish accents, heh), so that’s why I’m curious if that indeed holds true for anyone here. Dr. Jeff’s reaction to Grafton amused me; he was very “the dog ate an entire intestinal system worth of trash and it’s just going to have to work its way out” about it – not like it was wasting his time, just that it was not worth giving much attention beyond that. At least the owner taking him to PPP for his garbage gut meant he got fixed. I liked when she said she was going to give him treats – but not too many – and just cuddle with him all day upon getting him home. Oliver eating hair ties gave me flashbacks to how lucky we were when my then-roommate’s cat ate a section of my fabric headband (that he retrieved out of a bathroom drawer that was just the tiniest bit shy of fully closed!) and it had lost so much elasticity (it was just a ratty old thing I used when washing my face) that he had no trouble passing it. And to how relieved I was to walk in on my cat Riley just as she swallowed a 4-inch length of stretchy ribbon (actually an 8-inch piece, but folded in half) she’d crawled into a bag to retrieve; getting there just in time meant I was able to simply induce vomiting (with hydrogen peroxide) and get it back out intact, again avoiding surgery. Shelley – who is my favorite tech – rubbing Oliver’s shaved belly on her way out of the room was cute. The little orphaned black kitten going to town on his bottle had me smiling, and then my heart was warmed another 20 degrees when Christine talked about needing time to mourn her 17-year-old cat and now being ready to be the little guy’s mommy. (Him kissing Dr. Amy was adorable, too. Of course, let’s be real, everything about kittens is adorable.) Her poor old dog crawling in the litter box to get away from the house panther, but I’m sure they’ll figure it out. The infrared pits in the snake’s mouth to detect heat signatures in the dark is interesting. I still don’t like snakes, but that’s interesting.

The Hollywood Reporter obituary simply said she died at home yesterday at age 75. Several obituaries have said the cause of death is not yet clear, and that may be because it has not yet been officially determined (meaning it's not yet clear to anyone), or simply because it wasn't stated in the announcement from Disney (meaning it's just not known by the media and, by extension, the public):

It seems like the cause may not yet be clear.

Cause of death wasn't included in the announcement.

The tiny kitten with the big hernia? I was a little nervous for her, but she did just fine - they showed video of her bigger, fluffier self playing and a picture of her in her owner's arms at the end, with a note that she'd made a full recovery.

The air fryer testing segment confirmed I have no interest in one - they bake like a convection oven, so they're not a substitute for a deep fryer, but for the oven. There's no way I'd take up space in my cabinets and have to lug it out when I wanted to use it rather than just using my oven simply because the air fryer cooks faster. Now, I don't have a convection option on my oven, so maybe if I made a lot of things that came out better "oven fried" in a convection than a traditional oven, I'd find it worth taking up the cabinet space with an air fryer (or, more likely, a convection toaster oven), but I don't. I looked up other air fryer reviews, and the first three I clicked on all picked the same one as ATK, but also said they don't recommend buying one, period; just use your oven. The sauce made for the pork tenderloin sounded simple and tasty, so I'll make that next time I cook one. I'm not sure I'd bother with their pan-seared steak technique for the loin itself rather than just oven roasting it whole as I normally do (even without brining, I've never had one come out dry), although that crust from the sear at the end did look quite inviting. And it's not as if cutting and pounding would take any real time, so I guess I should give it a whirl.

I think that mother is fucking nuts. Now, the serving of mac & cheese is way too big regardless, and if the kid is going to only eat that, as opposed to having it along with what's on her plate, then hell no on every level, but the commercial isn't clear on that and I tend to interpret it as the latter - she's getting it as a (again, huge) side dish so the meal includes something she loves along with what she has to eat. (It is definitely two different meals, though [different clothes on both], so it's not a situation where Mom got up in the middle of a refused dinner and made mac & cheese instead.) But chasing your child around insisting "you're having one more bite" when she says she's not hungry? No. That means she ate some, and what if she really is full? Even if she's not, she just doesn't want to eat any more of her vegetable, if Mom only wants her to eat one more bite (it's not a "get back here and finish your plate" scenario; she tells her twice she needs to eat one more bite), is the difference between the kid eating x bites and x+1 bites really worth the mom ruining her own meal and chasing her kid around with a fork like a lunatic? Next time, just put one more bite than you want her to eat on the plate, and when she says she's full with that one bite left, excuse her from the table while you snag that bite and enjoy the rest of your meal. Kids can't be in charge, but not every battle of wills has to be WWIII; you're the adult, so use your superior brain, lady.

Indeed; I eat that a fair bit. Shrimp is an available topping at all the local pizza restaurants I know of (smoked salmon, scallops, mussels, and/or clams are on the menus, too; I'm not sure about lobster), and most have a frutti de mare as one of their specialty pizzas.