Bastet

I have been snacking on cucumber, tomato, and red onion salads with "Italian" dressing daily since the cucumbers and tomatoes started coming in; it's so refreshing in this hot weather.

Same here; "No, thank you, I'm not interested" is the truth, and all I owe anyone -- I don't list reasons to justify my lack of interest. I usually don't have to repeat myself in person (often once on the phone, where they don't have the full effect, just my voice), because my demeanor tends to make clear sales tactics aren't going to work on me. Oh my. I mean, I have no problem being undressed in front of strangers and I have carried on conversations in various stages of undress with friends, but I can't imagine chatting up a random fellow patron of the gym, spa, whatever without putting on my clothes. If we're next to each other at the lockers, I'm in the midst of dressing/undressing and just want to ask a quick question (e.g. they've come in from swimming, and I want to ask if the pool is crowded), I'm not going to worry about covering up to do that, but a whole conversation with a stranger? It's just weird, first. And whatever your own comfort level being half naked in that situation, how do you not think about the distinct possibility of the other person's discomfort with it?

I just watched the series finale so I can give my friend her DVD back when I see her tonight, and I think it's one of my favorites. I usually wind up disappointed in series finales, and I remember being nervous for this one, because when shows write women leaving jobs they love as a way of ending things, her reasoning usually makes no sense to me (hello, Rizzoli & Isles). But I like this one. I think it helped immensely that the show was basically continuing -- everyone else (besides Gabriel) just carries on, and the only task is to explain why Brenda would be gone. And, sure, it's utterly ridiculous to object to being reprimanded for her attack on Stroh in the elevator, since from the moment she did it she knew she was going to be suspended and probably fired, so reprimanded was a pretty good outcome. But, you know, Brenda is utterly ridiculous sometimes. And she'd had enough. Between the Johnson Rule, learning how much interference Pope and Raydor had to run for her - and Major Crimes - to have not been shelved already, her mother's death, and what Rusty was saying to her, she was finally waking up to what her obsession was doing to her and those around her. When the DA Office job offer came along at exactly the right time, it actually made sense for her to do the "You can't fire me, I quit" routine, despite the fact she could have kept the job and team she loved if she'd accepted the reprimand. She's doing something different, but that still lets her get in the trenches when she wants to. She's not running back to Atlanta or vowing to sit at home and be attentive to Fritz. It's a completely inoffensive way of writing her out, and I breathed a sigh of relief. She got an ending that honored the good she'd done without looking the other way on the bad. And a replacement purse, filled with Ding Dongs. I love it. I wanted to see her goodbye with Sharon, but I love it as-is.

I'm not much of a fan of Terri Clark in general, but I love with abandon Girls Lie Too. (I never thought about this being a factor, but now I'm flipping through my mental rolodex of hat acts, and my reaction is usually the same - eh, good voice, and I like a couple of his songs, but I'd never go see a show.)

Are you sure that's current? It says Saturday, November 12 (and, indeed, Saturday is when the show usually airs), but November 12 is a Monday this year. When I pull up the show's homepage on the Animal Planet website, I don't see anything about a new season. (Although, I had to load it on a different browser to even be able to see stuff to begin with, so it may just be invisible to me.)

Maybe as I watch each week I should tally each time Brenda says a genuine "thank you" to someone throughout the series (I certainly won't wear out my pencil doing so), because I remain convinced she said more such thank-yous to Sharon in the final season than she has to everyone else in her life combined. Wistful sigh - I love Major Crimes, and more than this show, so I can't complain, but the evolving dynamic between Brenda and Sharon became my favorite thing about The Closer, so I would have liked one more season with both of them. Alas, that wouldn't have made sense, because based on everything that happened, it was time for Brenda to go, and if all that hadn't happened, their relationship would have evolved more slowly, if at all. So it's just some weird little alternate universe I think about when I watch the Sharon episodes of seasons six and seven. Speaking of those episodes, the season seven Flynn/Provenza caper, with Provenza's ex-wife Liz and her bulldog Frank, provides the truly hilarious sight of Provenza in the back seat with the dog - Provenza says the dog is seriously ugly, Liz says she has a type, and I realize Provenza's and Frank's faces totally do match. Oh, yes. It's epic.

I like this on its own, but mostly as the first of what will become a recurring conversation that amuses me far more than I ever thought it would have: Brenda: My cat had kittens, and I have to go pick him up, because every minute he spends at the vet is costing me a million dollars. Fritz: Your boy cat had kittens? Brenda: [Explanation of how she thought it was a male.] I'm worried about him. Fritz: Her. You’re worried about her.

(Spoiler tagged because it happens in Major Crimes rather than this show.) Wow; that homophobe Andy Flynn I really had forgotten how awful most of these characters are in the beginning. On that note, good gods, Sanchez is a creep. Speaking of creeps - Taylor. It's amusing that the squad deciding they hate him even more than they hate Brenda is what starts to thaw them towards her. Brenda's "You are beneath me ... in rank" smackdown is wonderful. I look forward to seeing again how that ultimately plays out in the season finale when everyone - including Andy, having been screwed over by his buddy Taylor - submits their resignation, which Brenda tosses one by one, just like she did with their transfer requests in the pilot. Hee; I think this early stretch of episodes (this time, Batter Up) is also when we first learn that Provenza doesn't want anyone touching his desk. I love that it never changes. I laughed out loud when Pope told Gabriel, "You could learn a thing or two from her" about Brenda, and then clarified, "Just about interrogation -- ignore all the rest." Because, yeah.

I like anything Stephen Tobolowsky is in. Is The Butler Did It Provenza's first "I don't climb" of the series? These early credits are interesting in hindsight, and also a little disturbing -- Gina Rivera, Michael Paul Chan, and Raymond Cruz are not in the main credits, but are instead listed as guest stars. So three of the four people of color playing squad members are not in the main credits (even though Tony Denison, whose character is on occasional loan from Robbery-Homicide at this point and thus appears less frequently than they do, is; even when, like this episode, he doesn't appear at all). I still can't get over Buzz's shaggy surfer hair; I had completely repressed that from my memory.

Pope: Where is she [Brenda]? [Grousing about keeping a VIP waiting.] Gabriel: She's having a personal crisis. Pope: Yeah, it's called her life.

Continuity was not the show's strong suit, but they weren't wildly inconsistent with the few references to specific ages (the problems come from the fact the ages of people related to them don't line up), so if you put those together and accept them as semi-accurate, heh, the ages as the show begins are approximately: 80 for Sophia, 55 for Dorothy and Rose, and a couple of years younger for Blanche. People in their 50s, 60s, and 70s look, dress, and act a lot younger today than they did at the time of the series, so, yes, it can be jarring to watch this now and hear an age reference.

So much of the first season's humor rests on Brenda not knowing where the hell anything is in L.A., so this would have been a different show had GPS navigation aids already been ubiquitous when it premiered.

Those are the ones I buy, but other than one store, I cannot get them anywhere other than at the farmers market. It's annoying.

Right. You have the issue of who owns the rights to the music and lyrics and who owns rights to the vocal performance (and they have to be licensed separately), and with respect to the former that's rarely as straightforward as it seems. Sales of season one on DVD didn't make it cost effective, given the music licensing costs, to release future seasons, to the surprise of no one. I'd love if the revival sparked such interest in revisiting the original series that subsequent seasons are released via a "complete series" set, but even if a company like Lions Gate - probably the most-dedicated to keeping original content intact - obtains the rights to the original seasons and sets out to clear the music, it's unlikely we'll ever get a full release with all the original music intact. This show is along the lines of The Wonder Years, where at long last the complete series was released on DVD with a lot of the music from the original airing re-licensed, but there was still a good chunk of it replaced because that's the only way to make it cost effective to release a music-heavy show where future DVD release wasn't included in the original music clearance contracts.

Like the rest, the corn ratio is a to-taste thing; since I like cabbage a good bit more than I like corn, I use more of the former than the latter. For a "regular" batch (meaning for a household, not a picnic), I use approximately: 1/4 head of red cabbage, 1/4 head of green cabbage, 1/2 cup of corn kernels, 4 scallions, 2 celery sticks (to answer that question, I do it chopped, but you can do whatever shape you prefer), 1 carrot, and 1/2 the typical bunch of dill.

Oh, indeed. I've had that in my head ever since my first watch, because of course he's a III and has a Q (Quentin?) middle name. I adore him - for his reactions to Brenda, to his City Attorney history with Andy, and that he's friends with Sharon - and, while it's pretty far down on the (to be fair, short) list of things for which I wind up angry at James Duff, his aborted promise to bring Gavin back (via his friendship with Sharon) on Major Crimes irks me. I think I wind up irritated with Gavin - who should be concerned only with Brenda, not the LAPD as a whole (as he was when confirming Sharon's suspicion there was something problematic with the initial settlement offer everyone but Sharon wanted Brenda to sign off on and tossing it in the trash) - in the Johnson Rule settlement (which, again, my pal Sharon attempts to refuse on behalf of the LAPD even though it's a save for the department and only bad for Brenda), but I need to watch the specifics of the lawsuit storyline again. Such a hardship; I'd become rather tired of Brenda, and then this lawsuit popped up that took a stark look at the problems I had with her, and my interest in the show was rejuvenated.

When Baxter had a turd stuck in his tailfeathers (or still half out the chute, as he had an occasional dry stool issue), he turned into a bucking bronco, and I'd have to chase along behind him attempting to retrieve it before he succeeded in flinging it off. Switching cats, two nights ago Riley - a more inept bug hunter I have never had (which is fine; I completely respect the fact she makes friends with crickets and invites them to hang out next to her rather than capturing them, so I just call them all Jiminy and relocate them outside) - somehow discerned from the bedroom that a moth was in the living room and, by the nightlight in that room as sunlight dawned, captured it (fatally, alas). (I was newly awake, as I frequently am in the middle of the night, and wondered why on earth she was getting up when she'd already completed her nightly "briefly leave Mommy's side to pee and kill off dinner" routine, and soon heard the pitter patter of paws running and jumping in the living room; investigating, I found the cause of her interest.) She was so pleased with herself, she ran into the study to assert her authority by attacking a scratching post, so we played with the peacock feather for a while before I went back to bed; she joined me shortly and conked out, exhausted from her endeavors.

Indeed. It reminds me of media coverage of the documentaries co-directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, in which somehow (hint: penis) Burns consistently winds up the focus, which, of course, impacts public discussion of said films. This is particularly egregious with their most-recent project, The Vietnam War, which would have been a far different - and inferior - film without her. Here is a good opinion piece in The Washington Post on that issue.

I continued on with my skipping ahead to the Sharon Raydor years via DVD, but in season six I had to watch part of Layover, a non-Sharon episode, because Brenda's disgusted face when she realizes why Provenza cannot stand up and help is emblazoned on my mind to this day and I had to relive it. Ha! I also love Andy handing him a pillow, and telling him, "Okay, but according to the commercial, in another [hour?] you're going to have to see a doctor." I then skipped ahead to Pope getting the story, so I could hear, "What is this, the seventies?" in response to Brenda saying Flynn and Provenza picked up a couple of flight attendants while escorting a fugitive back to L.A. (I'd have watched the whole thing, but I needed to go to sleep.) When I got to season seven, I watched Death Warrant twice. I love that episode so much, mostly for Sharon, but I also get Andrea Hobbs and Gavin. Tonight I'll be starting with Fresh Pursuit, woo!

Oh, that sounds delicious. I make Ina Garten's arugula, watermelon, and feta salad every summer, but when I pick up my first watermelon of the season (I didn't grow any this year, and haven't made it to the farmers market in several weeks [I hate the seedless watermelons in stores]), I will be trying that first. Thanks for the link!

That's how I felt about Carter and Glenne Headley's character, and the approximately 15-year age difference and his baby face were the least of it. He was young in both age and life experience/maturity then, and she had a maternal vibe (because of her specialty? because the actor was pregnant? because that's just how she was written/came across? because the actor's voice inherently sounds like a parent speaking to a child? all of the above?). It was icky, especially when you factor in that after Bobby died, Eleanor shut down, so for most of his life, Carter did not have a warm, comforting, maternal figure in his life (he had Gamma as something of a support and confidant, but that wasn't her vibe, either) and thus it plays like that's what he's attracted to in her -- and that she's responding to the little boy in him. That scene in her office, reading, when Benton walks in? Feels like bedtime story time. I didn't get that with Carter and Susan, although I paid very little attention to their short-lived whatever, but I also didn't feel it AT ALL. I never perceived any romantic/sexual chemistry between Susan and Mark, either. Nor Susan with that gross greaseball she married, but that's because he's a gross greaseball. She and Div were okay, but on the whole Susan never really sparked with anyone on the show in that way for me. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, really, but they kept writing dynamics that didn't come across to me in execution.)

I had to do that for Baxter; his T4 level was fine on the methimazole for a couple of years with just the occasional adjustment (and he gobbled up his pill in a treat with no issue), but then he became incredibly difficult to regulate and was undergoing frequent blood draws because of the medication adjustments. Scintigraphy showed two rather large tumors, so the disease definitely needed to be dispatched with permanently at that point rather than treated with medication. But I felt bad about the logistics of the radioiodine procedure for all the same reasons. You'll both get through it -- short-term bad for long-term good. The clinic where Baxter's was done had a webcam in each little cube, so I could watch him whenever I wanted. The hard part was when he came home, and I was supposed to limit my exposure to him. Screw that; it lasted maybe a day. Good thoughts to you and Lily.

"Planned Pethood" should be a tip-off, the first thing on the clinic's website is its mission statement ("The reduction of companion animal overpopulation throughout the world”), and the existence of the show further publicizes the policy. There is a pet overpopulation crisis in this country, leading to several million adoptable pets being euthanized in U.S. shelters each year simply because there are that many more of them than there are homes for them. He's doing what he can to make a dent in that, and those who don't agree with the policy do have numerous other options. I assume including the policy in most episodes (and showcasing the spay/neuter clinics they provide in impoverished areas) was a stipulation of agreeing to the show, but I'd have to go through interviews to confirm that. But with his goal being two-fold -- increased revenue for the clinic and education on the overpopulation issue -- I think it's a pretty safe bet.

In addition to the raw honesty of the scene in which they have to let Kitty go - which isn't common on TV (and is something they probably would not have opted for on this show had it not been necessitated by the real Miss Kitty's impending demise) - it was the simple fact this was one of the few shows with a pet-owning character where we routinely saw the pet. I know the norm is just a reality of production - animals (especially cats) are hard to work with and make a long day of shooting even longer. But we saw Kitty, and then Joel, in a lot of shots - on the couch, on the bed, walking through the room, being shooed off the table, etc. And Fritz and Brenda talked to, and about, the cats, like real pet owners do. Brenda just sort of stumbled into pet ownership, and she wasn't particularly good at it initially (I was so glad for Kitty that Fritz was around, too), but she fell in love with Kitty, lived up to her responsibilities to her, got her heart broken, swore she wasn't going through it again (complete with loading up all of Kitty's stuff to donate and telling Fritz to take Joel back), and then fell in love with Joel and signed up to go through it all over again some day. How many people does that happen to, and yet we almost never see it on TV. I remember a friend telling me that Kyra Sedgwick had gone through this with her own cat not long before filming Kitty's finale, so she must have been emotionally wiped out by the experience; I hope it was the last thing she had to shoot for the day!

I liked Darlene until she moved to Chicago; when she came home for visits after that, she was an unbearable ass. And then her decision to marry and have a baby did not ring true to me, so I could not connect with her during that storyline (I also found Sara Gilbert a bit awkward of an actor at that stage, which did not help). But I liked her again in the revival, so I suspect I will like her in the spinoff.