Bastet

She lived to 93, had a long and respected career, was made a dame, and did an interview two days before her death; not bad! It was but one of the many roles she nailed, but she was perfect on AbFab. That character reminded me a bit of the mom of a friend of my mom's, so I adored the performance even more. I like Julia Sawalha's tribute to her "Gran": And this is a lovely story from Miranda Hart:

Holy crap, this Alabama/OU game could make the Clemson blowout of Notre Dame look like a close one. This is painful, and I'd been on such a high from Notre Dame going down in flames (as they tend to do in big bowl games because they don't belong there). I do think the Sooner offense can get it together, as this scoring drive just indicated, but it's a tremendously tall order for their defense - the season-long weak spot - to keep the Tide in check while they do.

And leading up to the new season, Nat Geo Wild is doing long marathons each day.

No new episode, but there's a marathon all day and into the wee hours of tomorrow morning. I'm hoping for a "new episode next Saturday" or something to come up, but not yet.

@ABay, relaxing is productive - it helps your body and mind get some sorely-needed rest.

Two of my friends - the two for whom I cat-sit - use that, and I don't like the smell of it even when it's fresh out of the bag.

I'm perfectly happy drinking out of restaurant glasses, so I always tell the server "no straw, please," because, like you, I just don't want to risk it being tossed instead of added back into the pile if I simply leave it on the table unopened.

In just the month that we had a dog* at my parents' house when I was a teenager, she managed to kill the grass in at least one sizable circle, maybe two, with her pee; I guess she had her favorite pee spots despite the large backyard. *She was a stray who just walked up to my mom one morning in the driveway; we unsuccessfully looked around the neighborhood for an owner, then took her to the shelter and told them to call us if she wasn't claimed (or adopted by someone -- basically, do not kill her), and because she was a pit mix, as soon as her 3-day owner hold was up, they called to say she'd be euthanized if we didn't adopt her, so we did and kept her until we could find a good home for her.

I do, too, because it drives me nuts seeing people wash their dishes before putting them in the dishwasher; all they're doing is wasting water. Dishwashers are designed to have the dishes scraped before loading, that's it. If you have a crappy dishwasher, okay. But too many people with perfectly-working dishwashers do the rinse and scrub routine. I'm also annoyed - and this for no good reason, since it's not wasting anything but their own detergent - by the large percentage of people who use far more laundry detergent than is called for. But: Yes, I think that's her flaw - her delivery.

I expected someone to ask, "Both from the losing team?" They could go that route, but I tend to think part of this "we're doing it with 12 instead of 8" twist is that a total screw-up saved by the rest of their team isn't safe, and the weak link of the 2nd place team can be the second elimination if they were worse than the 2nd worse person on the losing team (or even the worst person on the winning team if they were an epic disaster bailed out by their team). They give lip service to that a good bit, but I don't think it's all that often that someone actually gets sent home for it.

I really liked Karen and Nina during their seasons, so I was happy to see them in the QF. I loved Kelsey saying she wants to make other female chefs proud. I like amuse bouche challenges to see how many inevitably will make an appetizer portion instead. I thought only Kelsey did so, which is better than normal. At least everyone in the bottom knew exactly why they were there; in the QF, there just isn’t the time for a Plan B. I laughed that last week half of us didn’t even realize Michelle was in the competition, and then this week she wins immunity. Knowing this was a three-team Restaurant Wars, as soon as I saw the vessels, I knew that was how the teams were going to be assigned. Thistle (Brandon, Michelle, Pablo, Sara): Michelle saying with immunity, she’ll be Exec Chef, just makes sense, but I figure Brandon is going to act like he’s in charge regardless of who actually is. It's hard to say, not knowing anything of Michelle until tonight and not getting a whole lot of her leadership even now, whether she has the right temperament for EC. Third Coast (David, Kelsey, Nini, Justin): I laughed at them strategizing in the bubble bath. Nini really put them behind the eight ball, and I like her, so I hope they all get it together. North East (Brian, Adrienne, Eddie, Eric): I like how Adrienne asserted herself in planning, that, no, as EC the only way she will do two dishes is if they’re both for the third course. She also handled Brian well when he – who’d written the Magna Carta of service manuals – wasn’t ready to train the service staff. Each team is in the weeds in at least one way, which is practically inevitable for how they always set Restaurant Wars up. The things out of their control - how the dining spaces are set up and how experienced the servers are - should be handled differently; it's cheap drama to have the spaces not set up by the time they get there and start the six-hour countdown and for some of the servers, whom they had no choice in "hiring" as they would in reality, to be inexperienced. There's enough challenge to be found in finding time, in the midst of prep, to properly train experienced servers in a completed space.

Yep (I'm trying to limit my posts to trivia that hasn't been noted before, since they're so long). Spielberg also asked her if Older Dottie was Geena made up, or just her voice, and Marshall considered it the highest compliment that it worked so well someone of his experience and caliber had to ask. Also, the initial plan was for all the Older Characters to be voiced by the younger actors, but Rosie O'Donnell just could not match her voice at all to the Older Doris actor's delivery in one section, and others were having some trouble, too, so she scrapped it for all but Dottie. Geena Davis had to work very hard at syncing her voice to the actor's delivery, because Lynn Cartwright speaks much slower than she does. As for the scene with the black women, I'll have to go back and watch that part with the commentary, because I was either dozing off or just coming to, but in talking about how much they love that scene, I think I heard one of them say that was another one it was suggested to be cut for time. I'm sure Marshall never would have even entertained the idea. Its inclusion made me nearly stand up and cheer the first time I saw the film (in the theatre). To have made this celebration of the opportunity and experience this league gave the women playing in it without acknowledging women of color were excluded from it (and even segregated as spectators in some cities) would have been a serious oversight, but one that sadly a lot of white writers and directors would have made.

I don't much care for the title, and I haven't seen commercials for it so I don't know how I feel about the promotion of it (since it's TLC, rather than Discovery Health, the answer would probably be negative), but the few times I've seen the show I've found it interesting, like I do most medical shows. I've learned about skin conditions I didn't even know existed and seen some cool treatments.

I get choked up at that scene every time. The movie ran way too long, so they had to find lots of things to cut. Someone, I'm not sure if it was the editor or a studio exec, said they could lose that scene! Marshall said no way, that would be crazy, and she cut the scene with Marla, Dottie, Kit, and Capadino on the train instead. Also, filming the scene when Marla's dad comes over to plead her case (after Capadino walked away because she wasn't pretty), Jon Lovitz wasn't blinking. Marshall asked him what he was doing, and he said he'd been told if you blink, the director will cut to a shot of the other character. She asked him, "Do you really think I'm going to have the camera on you while this man is delivering these lines? Just react!" Oh, and the other part that always makes me tear up, when Stillwell says he had to come, because Evelyn always said this was the best time she ever had in her life, always made Marshall cry, too. Like any interview with any of them about it, the special features make clear how much this film meant to everyone - at the time and even now. They knew they were making something special, and were very invested in rectifying the shameful fact most of America didn't even know this league had existed. They wanted to do right by these women. Some of them are still involved with AAGPBL events, and all of them are over the moon at how many people still come up to them all the time about this film. Especially when it's young girls. Anne Ramsay talked about how many men whisper to her that this is their favorite sports film, and she thinks/says, "Why are you whispering? It is okay for men to like movies about women." (Of course, Geena Davis's research institute has revealed over and over again that men very much watch movies and TV shows about women, and they make money, yet the idea stubbornly persists that only women will watch such projects so there are still far too few of them getting made.) They also had a true blast making the movie, all those months of hard work together. They loved having a woman directing, and loved working with so many other women (because that's very much not the normal experience on a movie set). When reporters would come to interview the cast during filming, they'd all ask things along the lines of, "So, a big group of women, huh? Lots of catfights to tell us about?" Geena Davis would get so mad, explaining, no, hello, in general women love working together and support each other, and that's very much the case here. The special features also make clear how close Penny and Garry were, and it was poignant to watch them talk about each other with them both now gone. Tracy was obviously quite close to both of them, too. Oh, another bit of trivia I just remembered from the commentary -- the scene of Kit cracking up at the charm school and Dottie hushing her was just Lori Petty not being able to keep it together (she spent all two days of that shoot trying not to laugh) and Geena Davis reacting in character, and Marshall loved it so she kept it in.

I wound up going in and out of sleep while the commentary played, but I still picked up lots of interesting stuff: Lori Petty actually can easily outrun Geena Davis, so it was hard for her, in shooting the scenes where Kit and Dottie are racing and when they’re trying to catch the train, to come in behind her yet still look like she was running as fast as she could. On the other hand, it was very easy for her to capture the sibling dynamic, because she felt a lot of pressure as a relatively new actor and an unconventionally-attractive woman to measure up to this glamorous Oscar winner. The studio wanted the movie to end with Dottie and Kit saying goodbye at the buses, not wanting the Hall of Fame scene with the real players, but Marshall had final cut and told them to bugger off, those women were the entire reason she was making the film. Also, when she and the writers went in to pitch it to Fox, a studio exec interrupted to ask who was going to play the coach. Marshall said, “Shut up! We’re telling you a story here, listen to it. Who cares who plays the coach?” She went through a lot to get the movie made, and at one point Fox was slated to do it with another (male) director. It wound up being a situation where Sony was courting her, and threw in, "We'll even make that girl movie you want to do." In the script, Kit and Dottie had not seen each other since they went their separate ways, but test audiences didn’t buy that, so they added in the part during the HoF ceremony where Kit’s family knows Dottie, and when they tacked on the beginning scene between Older Dottie and her daughter (the studio didn’t like just going right to people entering the HoF) they had the daughter say “you hardly ever get to see her” or whatever it was, not “you haven’t seen her in 40 years.” I’m glad they did that; I think what they wound up with is realistic – they don’t see each other much, because Dottie likes to play life safe while Kit likes adventure, so Dottie and Bob would just do their thing in Oregon while Kit and Frank would travel, but they’re not estranged and thus do see each other occasionally. The actors playing the older versions of the characters worked very closely with their younger counterparts so they seemed like realistic versions of them, even coordinating on what type of hairstyle the character would have at that age. Speaking of hair, Marshall made all the (female) stars dye their hair, because they all had highlights, which women didn’t have back then, so she made them dye their hair a solid color. Lori Petty wore a wig, because she has such short hair, so she was even hotter than everyone else sweating away in those wool costumes. The period detail did not stop at the wardrobes; the gloves don’t have webbing between the fingers, as was the case back then, so balls kept going through them and a few people – including Anne Ramsay – wound up with a broken nose. Everyone had blistered hands, because they had to hit without using batting gloves, which didn’t exist then – and not just while filming, but while practicing, too, because they needed to learn to do it that way. Even the way the field is mowed was done the way it was then, not as it is now (so they had to keep re-mowing Wrigley Field). In training, Geena Davis has baseball-shaped bruises, complete with imprint of the laces, all up her forearms because it took her a while to get good at catching. They had two days to shoot at the HoF, and on day two Marshall was going to lose eight of the real players who had to leave for an event elsewhere. When, as day one was drawing to a close, Marshall wondered how to handle this, they told her, "Penny, we'll just make it a double-header." So all these women in their 70s - the real players and the older actors - shot for 24 hours, sleeping on the floor and benches at Cooperstown in between takes, to get it done. When Madonna joined training, she brought a boombox onto the field, and told everyone, “If you break it, you buy it.” Rosie O’Donnell told her, “You have more money than most third-world countries; shut up.” (As we’ve often heard, they became great friends. And, that story notwithstanding, everyone talked about how not a diva she was, and what a hard worker.) The studio insisted on Dottie reforming Jimmy from his alcoholic ways, which both Marshall and Tom Hanks found ridiculous, so their version of acquiescence to that request was that scene where Dottie hands him a soda and he does the exaggerated "Ahhh." Hee. Tom Hanks showed up every day for the game scenes, even when he wasn't needed, to help entertain the large crowd of extras who were also sweltering in their period costumes. In training, O'Donnell kept cheating when they were supposed to run laps, and Marshall caught on, so she'd feel the back of O'Donnell's shirt, and if it wasn't sweaty, she'd make her go run another lap. This has been brought up before, but I love it: One of the reasons O'Donnell was cast is she's one of the few people who can understand everything Marshall says, and she'd translate to all the people standing around asking, "What'd she just say?" Also, when the Marshall siblings talk to each other, they did it in such shorthand that no one who heard it knew what they had actually discussed, because so many words were missing. Despite all the exercise they got, they put on weight because all the activity made them ravenous and they over-indulged at the craft services table. No one realized it while filming, because they looked thin compared to all the local women cast as players (since they're "normal" thin, not Hollywood thin). When they got home, Madonna called up Marshall and said, "I'm fat!" Word trickled in they'd all gained weight. Jon Lovitz, when he had to do the scene where Mr. Capadino reacts to seeing Marla's face for the first time, felt bad and kept reassuring Cavanaugh that she's not ugly. She told him not to worry about it; she's laughing all the way to the bank. (She was working as a server when she was cast, and didn't even have an agent.) During the cow-milking scene, they had to stop filming because a cow was going into labor. Lovitz is oblivious to what goes on around him, so he wondered why they were stopping. Marshall said, "Um, Jon, a cow just fell over and is delivering a calf!" The farmers named the calf Penny.

As it does many fans, as this thread shows, but I have a slightly different take: - Of course, since Rose and Charlie seem to have lived by a community property arrangement where all assets were joint, and thus the other half of the estate passed to the surviving spouse when the first one died, Rose as the surviving spouse is free to do what she wants with her inheritance; she is within her rights to spend every last dime - But the intention, as understood by all parties and common in such situations, being that the surviving spouse would continue to live the same general lifestyle and then whatever was left when she passed would be distributed among the kids, and - most relevantly - Rose having concocted and maintained a fiction about Charlie's financial success (to justify the time he spent away from home and make his kids proud), it's natural for Kirsten to be surprised at what remains given the disconnect between reality and what she'd always been told and think Rose must have made irresponsible choices to be left with so little (and, indeed, Rose doubles down and gives details pretending it is so in order to explain it); she handles it incredibly poorly, but the "what the hell?" underlying her reaction is well founded - Ultimately, though, the logistics fall apart at the will containing dollar amounts on all the accounts in order to trigger Kirsten's incredulity and subsequent chain of events. That's now it works; that's not how any of this works. For almost all assets, the value varies, and thus is determined at the time of death in making distribution. There would be a list of assets, but not their worth at the time of executing the will, because that's irrelevant to what it will be at the time of death. So Kirsten could have seen some accounts, properties, and/or other assets she knew/was told used to exist not listed in the will, been informed Rose had previously sold them for cash to live on, reached the same conclusion, yet ultimately learned the same truth, and this could have played out more realistically, but the whole "there are only X dollars in these accounts left" thing does not wash.

You've done very well, @SuzyRhapsody, with refraining from metaphorically shaking your daughter while shouting, "This is the stupidest thing; what the hell is wrong with you?!" Because it is astoundingly stupid, and, unfortunately, this or one of her other dumb-ass decisions may have significant consequences. But she may emerge relatively unharmed, think, "Wow, that was dumb," and move on a bit delayed but with an important lesson learned. She may get herself into the type of hole you did, yet ultimately emerge victorious as you did. Et cetera, et cetera; there's no way of telling. That you've acknowledged to yourself you have to let her make these mistakes, suffer their consequences, and hopefully learn from them, is a big step alone. That you translated that, in the midst of fresh - and holiday-enhanced - emotion into schooling your interaction with her, is truly remarkable; that took a lot of self awareness and strength, and parents with fewer years and easier history under their belts have fumbled in similar circumstances. You earned that ugly cry, and you've also earned relief and pride at how you handled yourself and hope for how she'll handle herself going forward given this new dynamic. It'll be a bumpy journey for you both, individually, and for your relationship, but there are some good places you may wind up. Keep doing what you're doing. I'm keeping a good thought for you both. In the interim, congratulations on your first owned-home, and I hope you enjoy making it your own.

I also like that her marriage wasn't a storyline, that he's just sort of there and the one thing of him we know is he's completely supportive of her playing, but the backstory and dynamic that originally existed but didn't air gives me a chuckle, because Bill Pullman is totally bland to me in every role he plays, and has an unparalleled ability to generate zero chemistry with all the women with whom he shares the screen, so when I read about and now that I've seen those deleted scenes, they make perfect sense to me just because Bob is played by Bill Pullman. I'm going to listen to the rest of commentary (Penny Marshall, Lori Petty, Tracy Reiner, and Megan Cavanaugh) tonight, as after watching the deleted scenes last night I fell asleep just a few minutes into it, so I'll report in tomorrow with any more good bits of trivia.

I'm not sure if it's this thread or the Holiday Commercials one, but we have - you are not alone is disliking it, just like most (all?) commercials in which someone surprises someone with a car for Christmas. But it's not clear to her at that point. As he says, "One for you and one for me," he's gesturing to the red one as he says "for you" and to the black one as he says "for me," but she's not looking at him, so she doesn't see what we see. She's standing next to him, with both facing forward, and as soon as they step outside, her eyes are - quite naturally - on the two gigantic vehicles in front of her, not him. After he muttered, "Actually, that one was going to be for -" she could have opted to cut him off with an "Oh" and the ensuing awkward conversation instead of another "I love it," but I can't bring myself to care. If he's going to do something as stupid as this purchase, and she's so drawn to the black one, then he can just content himself with the red one. (Which, to give him his due, he does - his "And I love that you love it" and "I like red" are increasingly good natured; he's down with this twist within about five seconds.) I'm sure he prefers her "I love it" reaction to what mine would have been, which is something along the lines of "What the ever-loving fuck were you thinking?"

I'd seen it written here that there had originally been a scene with Dottie plowing into pregnant Marla and that being why she was crying, and I also knew there'd been a kiss cut, but it wasn't until seeing the deleted scenes that I learned they worked together. I'd also heard about Dottie's backstory including that she and Bob dated for five years and then abruptly got married the night before he shipped out, and that's part of Kit and Dottie's extended conversation about whether they should go with Mr. Capadino and try out. As Kit is trying to persuade her, she says Dottie can't be all that thrilled with life, either, and Dottie says she's just sad about Bob being gone; if he was home, they'd be starting a family. Kit says she could have married him five years ago and have all kinds of family by now. Dottie says she wanted to be sure, and Kit makes fun of her last-second wedding, married by a preacher who didn't even get out of his pajamas, with Dad standing there saying, "One down ..." There was also more to the scene outside the bus when Kit reveals they're going to the Suds Bucket and Mae is going to poison Miss Cuthbert's dinner. Dottie asks to talk with Kit behind the bus (prompting everyone to tease "Kit's in trouble") and cautions her against hanging out with Mae, pointing out that she's "gone all the way." Kit says so what, you've done it, and Dottie replies that she had to, then corrects herself that it's not had to, but supposed to. So it's clear that Dottie only finally agreed to marry Bill because he was shipping out, not because she was independently finally sure after five years, and she's still dealing with some doubts. Some other cuts: The scene where Evelyn asks Jimmy if she can bring her son with her on the road was cut for time, there was originally more in the beginning -- he's passed on on the dugout bench, and she wakes him up. First he walks out and does his wave the hat at the crowd thing, and she tells him no, he already did that. Then he puts his hand over his heart and starts singing the national anthem, and she finally gets him coherent enough to understand that the game is over, and she just needs to ask him a question. Originally, Jimmy was at The Suds Bucket, too. He'd seen the women sneaking out while Miss Cuthbert puked, but obviously he could give a shit if they're breaking that particular rule, so he just wound up there drinking himself. That guy who gives Kit a kiss on the cheek was originally trying to get her to go out to his truck with him, and bet her that she couldn't strike him out; if she couldn't, she had to go out to the truck with him. She gets two strikes in a row, and then as she's gearing up for the third pitch, Mae encourages her to let him win - after all, what did she come here for? So Kit is winding up to purposely miss, when Jimmy grabs her arm, and tells her maybe this is a decision that shouldn't be made after a pitcher of beer. Then he looks at the guy (who is now shirtless) and says, then again, maybe it should and walks away. Kit thinks about it briefly, and throws a perfect strike. There was also a scene at the bar where he comes to Dottie's rescue -- remember how she's there with just a coat over her nightgown? Well, she had Marla on her back as she dragged her off the stage, but Marla of course went down and took the coat with her. In a cute move, Dottie isn't particularly concerned about standing there in a bar in her nightgown, but when Marla's dress rides up her thigh as she hits the ground, Dottie quickly pulls it back down. But then Mr. Lowenstein enters the bar, so before he can spot Dottie, Jimmy knocks him out from behind with a bottle. As he hoists him up over his shoulder, Dottie asks what Jimmy is going to tell him when he wakes up, and Jimmy says he'll just drop him off in bed with Miss Cuthbert, and that will keep him from ever mentioning it. I'm glad that one got cut (she didn't say why, so it may have just been for time). When they got to the house being used as Harvey Mansion, they found a hidden bar (it looks like cabinetry along the wall, then you hit a switch and the cabinetry opens to reveal a bar), and quickly sketched out and filmed a scene using it -- Mr. Harvey opens the bar and there's a bartender in there, too. This guy just lives in the hidden bar until Mr. Harvey wants a drink. There's some funny dialogue between the bartender and Jimmy, but I get the sense it was cut because the concept is all just a little too much, even for Mr. Harvey. Interestingly, the story - from the Katie Baker article above - about Babe Ruth and a meat rocket that Lovitz objected to having cut because keeping it in would surely mean he'd get an award nomination (to which Marshall replied, "You’re in the film just enough") would have been the one moment in the film that Mr. Capadino came across as semi-human. It's when he's leaving after dropping Dottie, Kit, and Marla off at tryouts and they're surprised he's not sticking around. He turns back around and says, "Okay, I'll tell you a story" and then tells the story of being 18 years old and wanting to get into baseball more than anything. Somehow he winds up in front of Babe Ruth at practice, and Babe Ruth says, "Hey, Kid, go get me a hot dog." So young little Ernie is thrilled at runs off to do so. Ruth sucks it down, and asks for another one. Lather, rinse, repeat - Capadino spends all his time delivering hot dogs. Then Babe Ruth starts choking, and Capadino kicks him in the back, dislodging this giant meat rocket. Dottie asks what this has to do with them, and he leaves, with extended muttering about how it's about him, and Babe Ruth, and they ask about themselves. Anyway, the humanizing part is the look on his face when he remembers being that starry-eyed kid coming face to face with Babe Ruth. And, heh, Marshall obviously remembered his consternation at having it cut, because her intro to that scene is basically, "Yes, Jon Lovitz is very funny. Here's a scene of his that was cut." There's also, before that, more of him insulting Marla; in the dining car on the train, she's wolfing down food, and he's making his usual snide comments. It's pretty short, and Marla definitely does not come off well (better than him, of course, but still, it's too over the top in its representation of "her dad raised her like a boy," because she's really kind of gross, not just unaware of all the fancy schmancy table etiquette rules), so I think that one's better off on the cutting room floor. There's a sweet scene when Marla receives a package from her dad containing a new glove; she gets misty, saying it must have cost him a week's pay. Later we see her putting cash from her first payday into an envelope to send home.

Yes, that's how it plays, and I liked learning that Marshall didn't like that, because it was more interesting to her when Dottie's emotions were about Marla, her teammates, and her guilt, and now she's just boo hooing about Bob. I agree. But, yes, I am glad the kiss was cut, because even though it was never intended to go anywhere or be something the audience rooted for (it was about Dottie's feelings about her life and marriage, not about Jimmy), the Dottie/Jimmy thing is simply a distraction the film does not need. So test audiences rooting for them to get together, and Marshall's annoyance with that, saved us.

I just searched VRC's Facebook page, and, yep, that was the mid-season finale and they expect to be away "about a month." So, yay, new episodes should be coming soon!

I got the 25th anniversary Blu-Ray of this for Christmas, and I've just gotten started with the special features, but I am already even more enamored of Penny Marshall than before: - She believes the opening credits are up to the director, so she decided to put all the main women before the title, and all of the men besides Tom Hanks got left for after - I always assumed she went directly to her pals Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel to write the script, but nope: She wanted it written by a woman, but the women she approached (she didn't say who) turned it down, so only then did she fall back on them - It bugged her that (test) audiences wanted Dottie and Jimmy to get together - hello; it's 1943, and a woman can't easily divorce her husband - so she cut the kiss between them because it just fueled that fire - It continued to drive her crazy that she goes from Betty Spaghetti finding out about George's death to Dottie crying in her room (when Bob comes in), but she had to delete the Dottie plows into a pregnant Marla scene*, so the proper context, that Dottie is crying over guilt, is inevitably lost. * I watched the deleted scenes, and it turns out the reason that one had to go is because the kiss was deleted. The set-up is that Marla had come back to the league, playing for Racine, because she and Nelson needed the money. The coach and manager can't know she's pregnant, because they'll kick her off the team, but all the players know. She tells the coach her back hurts, so he doesn't play her much, and then the players all do things to make it so she doesn't have to make any plays other than simple catches. The Peaches find this out when they're getting ready to face Racine in a game, and see that Marla is back. Dottie gets onto first, and Jimmy is trying to talk to her, but she's pissed off about the kiss. They wind up having a tense conversation between plays, and this keeps her from not paying attention to the fact there's been a substitution on Racine and Marla is now on second, or paying attention to the players in the dugout attempting to alert her to that fact. So when Doris gets a hit, Dottie takes off extra hard because of her emotions, and by the time she registers that it's Marla, it's too late, and she totally topples her. (So, if the kiss didn't happen, then the conversation between Jimmy and Dottie when she's on first can't happen, and with that gone, there's no way to explain why she doesn't see that Marla is in the game or why she runs like she does.) It makes her abandoning her teammates when Bob shows up a little more understandable - not just the guilt, but also the players were pissed off at her when she took out Marla.

I received Becky Aikman's Off The Cliff: How the Making of Thelma & Louise Drove Hollywood to the Edge this morning, and while I have only thumbed through it so far because I have another book I want to finish first, it looks great and I am really looking forward to reading it. Here's a description from the author's website:

Bloody Mary here and the cat napping by the fire with his head on my thigh is Bandit (one of my parents' cats), but same lazy day still in pajamas. In a bit, I'll get up and make peanut butter cookies.