Bastet

While it's a synonym for the past perfect tense, I hardly ever hear pluperfect used that way; I hardly ever hear it used at all, but the rare times I do, it's not even as "more than perfect," it's as a regional expression, an adjective meaning the most-extreme (most-perfect) form of Whatever. This goes back to, in my lexicon, "Dadgummit, Ed Earl, if you ain't a pluperfect fool" from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, from which I learned the word as part of an expression rather than as a tense - and probably before I ever understood the Latin origin - and it has over the years been repeated as such by some OK/TX folks I know. A pluperfect fool = as big a fool as one can be, a pluperfect moron = as stupid as it's possible to be, etc.

Good gods, I should have injected vodka into my veins. Just CC saying, “Previously, on The X-Files” filled me with dread. Cue VO and old footage - yep, this is going to suck. Blah, blah, Williamcakes. I’ve never cared about William, I didn’t care about Jackson’s emo jerk ass in his previous episode, and I don’t care now that he was just an experiment (duh – which is why I screamed bloody murder at the time that Scully should/would have aborted upon turning up impossibly pregnant). So that he turns out to be an alien who makes people explode is a big ball of blah to me. (Nicely gruesome hotel room when he takes Barbara Hershey’s crew out, but, yeah – don’t care.) Ten minutes in and Scully appears. Three minutes later, she inexplicably does not accompany Mulder. Eight minutes later we see her again, fretting over the phone for 15 seconds so Mulder can continue his quest. Two minutes later, about five seconds of her to, again, add little to Mulder’s adventure. Lather, rinse, repeat – she is on the phone the whole fucking time, adding nothing of substance, until when twenty goddamn minutes after that we see her decide to get in the game, and then about five minutes later she runs around uselessly and then there's the pregnancy bullshit at the end. “What am I now if I’m not a father?” Um, everything you’ve been all along? And now a post-menopausal woman has another impossible pregnancy? Fuck this show. Great, it ended on a hug. For diminished expectations, fine. But CC is a sexist idiot, and I hate him as always. Thoughts along the way: ZOMG! The X-Files have been shut down! Gee, that’s never happened before, and I am so scared. -“This is Monica Reyes; I think they’ve got your son, William.” As opposed to your other son? -“The person who controls your son is the person who controls your future.” -“Just come back alive.” -“I’m here about my boy.” -“Everything depends on it. Every last thing in the world.” -“My name is Mulder, I’m your father.” -“There’s something you need to know, something you may not want to hear, about your son and who his father is.” -“I need the boy, the boy is mine.” Okay, Brandy/Monica. Good night, Irene, who wrote this shit? Ah, yes – Chris Carter. The trucker is someone who’s been on the show before, right? “You’re taller than me.” Okay, because he’s played by Tim Robbins’ son, maybe he is, but in the shot when he says that and hugs him, Mulder looks taller. Scully is leaking “Death will hunt you down” to an alt-news website? Seriously, CC, go find that fire. Scully is in an oversized billowing trench coat for old time’s sake? LOL – Skinner’s feet are sticking out from under the car like the wicked witch’s under the house. I’d read a “CSM mows Skinner down and he dies” spoiler, but this has not just ambiguity, but He’s Alive! revelation if this shit continues on written all over it. Gillian, block Chris Carter's number and never look back.

I know! I tuned it just in time for FJ, and wondered if the whole game had been that easy. If you know anything about film composers, barring a brain fart, you know it instantly. If you know a little bit about film, barring a brain fart, you know it instantly. If you just keep half an ear open to pop culture, you can probably guess it. You should have picked a harder clue indeed, Alex. So am I.

(Emphasis mine.) That is what I was fearing based on the spoilers I read - which made it sound like ass, but in the way I expected it to - because everything was about men - Mulder, CSM, William - running around killing people and not one peep about what Scully was doing. So I figured she was once again sidelined, so that pissed me off. And I knew they were telegraphing a pregnancy with that idiotic conversation in an earlier episode, but to have it confirmed they really went with such a goddamned stupid storyline -- ugh, I just can't with this. Chris Carter, kindly go find a fire and die in it.

They really went there? That's it, I am not watching until I am three sheets to the wind.

"The Cut Man Cometh" is an episode of Sports Night.

I can't imagine why anyone would call me a Yank/Yankee, other than a southerner or Brit doing so as a pejorative, but even though it would be derogatory, and rooted in disturbing nationalism, I get the sense the offender would actually come off as milquetoast to me, and I'd wind up letting out a "Really, that's the best you've got?"-style laugh and dismissing them. It would be like that time on Law & Order: SVU when season one Benson was interrogating a rapist/murderer and called him a "nosy parker." Um, okay. It's an insult, but a lame one, and thus not one that would hurt or even particularly offend me. Now, that may very well be informed by the fact it's not one that gets lobbed at me, but it's also that there isn't the same power imbalance behind the word as you find with many similar terms.

Thanks to Sports Night, I automatically said The Cut Man and then had to correct myself.

Enmeshment. Yeah, while I can think of numerous reasons to want the hell out of the military (it being the military and all), with Gina being deployed, I figure that's the route they're going. We'll find out in a week, I guess (yay!) - with two episodes back-to-back as the premiere, I think we'll get a lot of catch-up questions answered that first night.

I'm sure you'll all be relieved to hear I just placed my bridesmaid dress order, and this should be my last wedding-related complaint for a while! But first - not only was her mother trying to dictate the color (um, excuse me, are you wearing one of these dresses? Paying for them? No? Then kindly shut the fuck up), when the bride emailed back to say, "Look, these are the three color options, and they will each pick whichever one they like best," Mom announces which one of those three it should be AND when bride reiterates that it will be whichever one or two of those three we want, then pops up with, "Well, [bride's niece, who is going to be a flower girl/junior bridesmaid/something so she can say she was part of it] has a pale yellow dress, so it needs to go with that." EXCUSE ME? So that led to another frustrated email from the bride (who was an utter moron to include her mother in this email to begin with), saying it doesn't matter - we're not even sure what she's going to do as part of the ceremony, and she'll only be in a couple of the pictures, which is why bride told her she can whatever the hell she wants in the first place - so, no, her dress is not a factor in deciding our dresses. Finally, the emails stopped. I went in yesterday, picked out a different dress than the three I'd been considering, heh, and then the color got decided for us because of the bride's three options, both our dress styles were only available in one of those colors. It's the same color, kind of lavender, so we'll be in same color, different dress, which I think is a good look. Now, I'm not a pastel person (this color looks good on me, so no problem for the wedding, but yet another way in which this is a disposable dress), but I am apparently a far more petty person than I thought, because the fact we're wearing light purple dresses nevertheless makes me happy simply because it was the mom's least-favorite color. Oh, and the sister? I sent an email Sunday night, a reply just to her and the bride (not the mom!) to the bride's email giving the final list of colors, starting off with "Hi, [Sister]. Nice to "meet" you, and I look forward to doing so in person this summer," and telling her I'd be going in the next day to finalize my dress selection, noting that the styles I was looking at all coordinate with the dress she'd opted for (and saying that she looked very nice in it), and thus I'd email the two of them my style selection and color availability when I was done, by which point she'd know her color availability, so we could make a final decision and then place our orders today. Not a peep. Ever. The bride had to text her yesterday, "Are you alive? If so, what did you find out about color availability?" to get that info. Whew. Done. It will arrive in less than a month, I'm tall enough it doesn't need to be hemmed, and I can wear a regular bra with it, so I can just pick it up, shove that thing in the closet, and continue to put this wedding out of my mind until the end of June.

I remember that it was posted here somewhere that they do not (which is realistic, as most independent restaurants don't last long term), but I don't remember the source.

I've only seen it once, but I take it as they are treating him - McDuff the Crime Dog - as any ol' dog, while he wants to be treated as a detective who just happens to be a dog. So: not intentionally diminishing/mocking him based on him being a canine and them being humans, but, in actuality, doing just that.

My mom was, for decades, a magnet for old folks, especially women, asking her for help/recommendations/general chit-chat in the grocery store. She loved it, and my dad and I enjoyed teasing her about it. It doesn't happen as often now - I guess now that she's an old lady herself - but it's still good for a laugh when it does. I do a lot of research before I travel anywhere, have probably never opened a map in public, and generally evince an "I know where I'm going" vibe, so I do not come off as a tourist even when I am, and thus get asked questions domestically a fair bit and also in some European countries from fellow Americans who think I'm a native (my skin color and hair mean I can "pass" for a variety of ethnicities). And sometimes even from natives from another part of the (foreign) country! It's crazy, but fun when I can answer -- especially when I'm stumbling through such an explanation in a language of which I have only a rudimentary grasp. But I apparently don't have the "ask me things" countenance in the grocery store at home - thank the universe, probably - just the height that compels me to offer assistance to those straining towards an upper-shelf item.

I am a total sucker for storylines in which a doctor knows exactly how fucked she or he is, and that acknowledgment of the situation is written all over her or his face. It takes good acting, and I'd never been overly impressed by Mekhi Phifer until that episode, at which point he nailed the hell out of it. At a time when I was largely disconnected with the series emotionally, and with a character I had initially disliked and gradually, but so subtly I almost missed my own turnaround, come to appreciate and take comfort in, he swept me up in a wave of emotion. It was all very well done, from making us think in the season finale he'd gone boom to making us think in the next season's premiere that he was fine, to the declining situation as it played out, decisions had to be made, and then he was dead.

Yeah, the reboot was announced in January, the casting of the two leads last week, and then Ving Rhames, as a new character - maybe replacing Samuels in the chain of command, or maybe higher up the food chain, as a captain - today. I liked Michelle Hurd a lot on L&O: SVU, missed her after she was gone, and hated the way her character was written out, and I like Rhames, but damn if I will watch this show. Create a NEW police drama focused on a partnership between two women, told from a feminist point of view (I don't even know if they aim to replicate this), and exploring they myriad issues underlying crime in America, specifically NYC (again, no clue if they're keeping this aspect, or just capitalizing on the name), and I'd happily check it out. But call those characters Christine Cagney and Mary Beth Lacey, and you can miss me. Like Sharon Gless said: Just call them something else. I don't like to wish ill of a project, since I can just not watch, but if this dies after the pilot, I will do a modified happy dance.

It seems David climbed in through the window for old times sake. That makes me laugh already.

What a shock. Said absolutely no one.

Yep, just like two different Ralphs ten miles apart having different options - it's based on what sells in that store. The butcher at my mom's Ralphs grumbled with her about people wanting boneless meat, but explained that they had so many packages of bone-in meat left sitting there about to go bad, they largely stopped offering them after a while. Those same people must shop at my local Costco (which is about halfway between me and my parents' house), because they consistently have boneless everything other than the lamb chops. I wonder why so many want boneless - for the faster cooking time? The fact it's priced per pound and they don't want to pay for the weight of the bone? Finding boneless easier to eat? Enquiring minds want to know.

Jackie quitting the force makes sense to me. She's not a desk job person in general - all the various jobs she tried, and not one of them involved sitting at a desk all day - and she would have absolutely hated being on desk duty (which was not presented as temporary; they didn't get into specifics, but I assume it was a liability issue as the basis for not sending her out into the field again, based on the pre-existing on-the-job injury) in the police station. Being a cop was the first job she loved, and she'd have been miserable typing up reports about the things she used to be out doing herself, listening to her colleagues talk about their day, gathering information over the phone rather than out in person, etc. If she'd already had a child, she might have had to suck it up in order to keep the benefits, but with only herself to take care of, she could say "If I can't be the kind of cop I signed up to be, then I don't want to be a cop at all" and move on to something else.

Ugh, yes, the pork chop difficulties. I like them thin cut, and finding those with the bone in is getting harder. Bone-in ribeye is still fairly plentiful here (thank the universe, because that's my favorite steak; I don't eat a lot of beef, so when I do, I want what I want). I'm lucky to have a good butcher shop and a couple of independent markets locally, but the supermarket chains are trending heavily towards boneless, and that's annoying when I'd like to be lazy and pick up everything in one place. Costco has pretty good quality meat (and good prices), but the only thing I can buy there is lamb chops because everything else is boneless! The Ralphs (Kroger) near me still has a good selection of bone-in meats (including my thin-cut pork chops), but the one near my mom packages almost nothing with bones, because people aren't buying them -- to get bone-in, you have to ask the butcher and hope they have something on hand to cut to order for you.

I don't particularly like carpet - I have it in one room, which I use as a library/study-type room, because for some reason the builder/original owner put tile in that room instead of the hardwood that's in the rest of the house (other than the kitchen and bathroom), and I can't match 1938 hardwood, so it's either tile or carpet, and I don't like tile in "living" rooms (or bedrooms), just kitchens and bathrooms - and vastly prefer hardwood in terms of looks and ability to keep it truly clean, but, as I've undoubtedly ranted before, I truly love the rare times a HH wants carpet, just to flip the script.

Yellow would be gorgeous (whenever I cut yellow flowers, I put them in a cobalt vase), but beyond yellow and certain shades of orange, options are limited. She has vetoed the cobalt as too bright, in a group email to her mom (why?!), her sister, and me; the mom has already emailed back that cobalt isn't bright, and the bride has emailed again to say yes it is, and we're not getting it. I didn't sign up for this shit; I emailed the bride alone and said I'm going to call in the morning, get an appointment for the afternoon, so tell me by then what goddamned color you want me in and I will buy a dress in that color. Then it's, well, the same color in two different fabrics looks different. Fine, tell me a fabric; I have options in both fabrics we're looking at. Just put me out of my misery and let me spend nearly 200 frakkin' dollars on a dress I do not want in the first place and will never wear again. I'm sorry, all, I'm almost through complaining about this until the wedding, but if I don't vent here I'm going to damage a very important friendship by unleashing my full wrath (my other two closest friends could handle that, no problem, but she's rather sensitive, so I adjust myself accordingly).

It's Sally Kirkland, not Sally Kellerman, who plays Mrs. Healy. Kellerman (who was in Foxes) is even more offbeat than Kirkland.

Bingo. And my guess is what's what we wind up wearing, but we'll see.

The only boneless steak I'll eat is filet mignon. I'll use boneless chicken breasts in a salad or pasta, but to eat a piece of chicken, it better have the bone(s). Bones = flavor. It annoys the hell out of me how increasingly difficult is is to get bone-in meat without going to the butcher.