Bastet

U is for Underwear, Royal; as heir to Roseanne's throne, Becky will go fold it.

I don't know if it was someone on The Real World, or on another tacky MTV show, since it says "think along the lines of The Real World or Jersey Shore). Maybe Road Rules? Either way, "a decade ago" means I'll be no help, as I'd quit watching before then.

S is for Sylvia, who still has some tread on those old tires.

I am still friends with three people I worked with twenty years ago; we became very close working together, and socialized a lot then, and then as we one by one went our separate ways job-wise, we stayed friends, but obviously spent far less time together. We only get together as a group four times a year (for each of our birthdays), and then I'll get together with each of them individually maybe once more a year. So, not among my close friends - I define that very tightly, and there are only three of them - but friends; we talk about our lives. In other jobs, though, there has usually been one person I socialized with outside the office one-on-one, and we've pretty much always gone out occasionally for happy hour as an office group, but they're not really friends - they're people with whom I enjoy/enjoyed working and also enjoy occasionally socializing with, but we don't discuss our personal lives and feelings in the same way I do with my friends. It's more chatting about what's going on in the world, books/movies/TV shows we like, etc. and just knowing the basics about our lives.

I agree. And the pattern of compounding the situation the rigged economy put them in via their own short-sighted/foolish choices (and how often that was rooted in ignorance, which also ties in to the institutional nature of things) was one of the best parts of the show for me - refreshingly realistic, yet simultaneously frustrating. I love that I almost always understood why they were making the decisions they made (probably everything other than that Disney World trip, and it's no coincidence that was rooted in Disney's purchase of ABC, not an organic plot), even when I could see the writing on the wall that it was a bad decision; they weren't idiots, they were products of their environment. Neither blameless nor the sole architects of their destiny -- another one of the many balances this series was so good at striking.

The Case of the Purloined Pea Puree was a big deal in discussion, but I don't remember if it was a big deal on the show. (I know it was an issue raised, but not how much of one.)

This is a trope?

I don't eat either one, but isn't the difference between dressing and stuffing that the former is cooked separately and the latter is stuffed inside the bird? So you could have the same ingredients, but the dish could differ in name based on how it was cooked? If this longstanding but never-examined assumption of mine is correct, I don't see how they're interchangeable. But I also don't remember the wording of the clue.

The Lyme disease clue was quite over valued as a DD in DJ. Pot bellied (stove) is probably the only TS that truly surprised me, but depending on my mood I may had (Formula) 409 to that list. Even though I've never read the book, FJ was an easy guess for me thanks to the wording of the clue.

Yep, and, coincidentally, also the subject of a clue on Jeopardy! this week.

It's also something done when the parent is still living in the house, and presumably will be until she/he dies. Grace and Frankie were living elsewhere, and weren't dying, so to have signed it over to the kids, meaning the kids would get the money when it sold, then have to turn around and give that money back to Grace and Frankie, is an unnecessary mess and causes tax implications. There's no logic behind the kids having title or power of attorney (no reason Grace and Frankie would have given it willingly, and no way the kids would have gotten it over their objections had they tried), and that's fine - even with Grace's attitude when she says the kids put the house on the market, it could still mean the kids are just handling the logistics with the real estate agent and, while Grace and Frankie agreed to selling the house, they are sad about it. That's fairly logical. But in that scenario, Grace and Frankie - still the owners - are the ones signing the paperwork. So that falls apart when they make their escape and reach the house, only to be shocked by the "Sold" sign -- for the transaction to have gone far enough for that to happen (not a sign saying "in escrow" or "pending," but sold), Grace and Frankie would have signed the documents and it wouldn't be a surprise, and even if the real estate agent jumped the gun on the sign, to accept the offer would require their signatures. At this point, it just seems to be dramatic license taken to get to the reveal at the end. And if next season Grace and Frankie get their house back and the kids get their asses handed to them for their manipulation (telling each that it was for the other), I'll indeed wave it away. But so help me if Nick is the buyer (as I suspect) and remains the new owner for any longer than is necessary to sell it right back to them. I will not abide some scenario where he's a boyfriend-landlord.

The woman who did those great abridged season videos (where she uses dolls and funny voices to summarize each season of XF) did her usual take on this episode: https://twitter.com/ladiefantastic/status/976669844081815552?s=21

They were definitely not from the healthy section of the menu - white bread, beef burgers, bacon, and then Bobby put two slices of cheese on his. (I don't remember how much she put on hers.) She did spread it (not from end to end, probably, but she dragged it across, and then as it melted on the grill it would spread out further, and I think well enough to cover the diameter of an English muffin.

Roasted (whole) chicken, because the idea of simply stuffing some garlic, lemon, and rosemary into the cavity, seasoning it, and sitting back while the oven does its thing already appeals for tonight, and it's not even noon! Probably another arugula salad as I still have a bit left, and some asparagus also roasted with rosemary and garlic. Minimal effort, plus lots of leftover chicken to be used in myriad ways over the next week.

Yeah, but it's the storyline that made sense with William, too, and they never so much as hinted at it, so I doubt they'd go that route this time, either, if the show continued. Abortion continues to be network TV's third rail (not that it's presented much more realistically on cable), which pisses me off something fierce.

Yep, "mainland" or similar was in the clue, so it pretty much had to be Italy or Turkey; there might be a Greek island far enough north that Albania could have been the answer, but basically it's Italy or Turkey. And whatever the proximity given was, the island was close to the other country, so that heavily signaled Turkey. Add in the history of fighting between those two countries, and Lesbos being in the news (although maybe not as far back as when this was filmed), and you don't need to know where those islands are, you can reason your way to it. I was surprised two of them missed it. But, then again, I have already admitted that one of the ways I entertain myself is by taking geography quizzes, so Turkey as a good-sized land mass right across the sea from Greece may not pop as easily into the average J! mind. The show seems to have dumbed down geography questions over the years (how many name this country seen highlighted on the map clues have there been?!), so perhaps contestants aren't studying it too heavily.

Nope. Just like we saw that Al and Bev, with one income and two kids, were more financially secure than Dan and Roseanne, with three kids but two incomes, we saw Mark and Becky on the road to struggling even more. I always found that a poignant juxtaposition - Roseanne and Dan's goal was to make things 50% better for their kids than they'd had it, but they raised a family in an age when institutional roadblocks to that sprung up all over the place. The destruction of unions and increasing privatization of public services slowly gutted the working class, making the roads to middle class few and far between.

In tonight's brunch burger challenge, did the challenger overcook her burger? I'm trying to figure out how he managed to beat her using those stupid buns, so she must have screwed something up. Or maybe his sauce was better. Unfortunately, I was a little distracted when the judges were giving their feedback. I didn't find either of them particularly brunch-y; they were bacon burgers with egg. At least she used the English muffins. I'd have rather seen a burger made out of sausage, skip the bacon, and everything else on hers the same (only with an egg white, since I hate yolk). But, at any time of day, other than the yolk, I'd have eaten either one of them - I love a good burger. Scott acting like it was a novel thing to make an indentation in the top of the (raw) burger, so it doesn't wind up with a little dome when cooked, was odd; how could he possibly have never seen that technique before? Now I'm watching the Juicy Lucy re-run, so I am seriously hungry for a burger! That would be a bit much as a late-night snack, right?

That and the fact Turkey is a large country across the Aegean from Greece, so even if you don't specifically know where those islands are located, it's a pretty good country to guess.

I'm marinating some chicken in peanut oil, lime juice, ginger, and garlic, and will make a stir fry with that, snow peas and bean sprouts. For lunch I had leftover of something I made the other night for the first time in a while - poached chicken breast with leeks, and a salsa verde (cilantro, basil, mint, jalapeño, lime zest/juice, garlic, and olive oil). I forgot how much I like that, despite the fact it's ridiculously healthy.

I want to share this with people who appreciate what an accomplishment it is: While making the Italian wedding soup yesterday, I only ate three of the meatballs while waiting for the soup to be ready to add them in.

As they should be. I never understood why Scully had William to begin with -- she's infertile, and with a history of being experimented on by nefarious shadow government forces and/or aliens, so turning up pregnant should lead to an immediate trip to the nearest clinic. No, you will not be using my body yet again! Whatever you've implanted in me is coming out. Instead, yay, a baby. Now she's pregnant under even more mysterious circumstances (since now we also have the whole, you know, being fifty fucking four years old thing, meaning if she had no history of infertility, hadn't completed menopause, and was actively trying to conceive, she'd have about a 0.5% chance of succeeding, so add it all up and the odds that this one was a natural conception aren't any better than the first one), and they'd be geriatric by the time the kid left home, turned into an alien and blew up the world, whatever. So, very much not a happy ending in my book.

Murderers planning to kill someone via injection will also take the step of bleeding any air out of the syringe, even though the purpose of that is to avoid any risk of causing an air embolism. Do you really care about an embolism if the substance you're injecting someone with is already fatal?

When Roseanne enters the kitchen from the bedroom and says, "We've got a problem," she's holding and looking at a prescription pill bottle. Then later she says to Dan, seemingly in response to him suggesting she's taking too many pain pills, "If I was taking a handful of these pills, I'd be in a way better mood; have you seen me be in a way better mood?" So, she could be addicted, and lying about pills going missing as a cover story for the shortage, or it could be that it's not her who is addicted, but someone else in the family, stealing her pills. Maybe Harris, since there's a problem with kids that age swiping their parents' pills for recreational use, and then getting hooked.

No, Dan and Roseanne had the bedroom (with an attached bathroom) that was separate, downstairs, and the two extra bedrooms for the kids were upstairs.