Bastet

Not to mention the havoc they wreak on dwarf fruit trees, which is when they're not quite so cute anymore. (My parents added a fence to keep deer from being able to get into their backyard because of that, but a) planted extra rosebushes in the front yard so they'd have more to graze on there and b) made one section of the fence a small gate, so that if drought conditions ever mean the deer need those trees more than they do, they can open it up to create a deer entry.) My parents and I live about eight miles apart in the foothills of the same mountain range, but I'm a good bit further down, so I don't get deer in my neighborhood. The coyotes occasionally venture down my way, but not the deer. I wish it was the other way around.

I have no idea what's for dinner, but for lunch I just had a BLT made with my garden's first tomato of the season. Bliss. As for the teas, as I understand it, historically high tea was a full, family meal served when workers got home for the evening, while low tea was the afternoon social gathering for ladies of leisure (the tea and small snacks were also enjoyed by other high society members, too), who ate fashionably late in the evening and thus liked a little something to tide them over.

I doubt it. I agree. Similar to the example you posted, a contestant was sexually assaulted during production of one of MTV's Real World/Road Rules Challenges, and nothing changed. She sued the production company for neglecting to intervene, and its defense was basically "she asked for it" ("Plaintiff failed to avoid the injuries of which she complains" by being drunk, flirting, and exposing her body to other contestants).

Yep, tonight at 9:00 - and there will be "surprise Bat-guests." I've never had any interest in Batman (any incarnation, from comic book to whatever the latest movie is), but when I hear the character mentioned, Adam West is the only person I think of. Even I think this is pretty darn cool.

Wait, wait! I need 15 minutes of Elena. Same here, and I would never have thought that during season one. Back then, I wanted about five minutes of her -- I found her story interesting, but found her personality difficult to stomach in all but the smallest dose. Now she's a relief.

It just depends on why the licking is happening. If it's allergies, try to eliminate the allergen, if it's psychological, try to treat the anxiety, etc. Fun times removing variables to diagnose the source. There is the option of short course (or a shot, but oral meds you can stop immediately if need be) of prednisolone if it gets bad enough the kitty is in danger of/already breaking skin. Long-term use of steroids can be problematic, obviously, but as a stop-gap it's often okay. Or, as was noted, popping on ye olde cone of shame. There is a "skin soother" formula of Spirit Essences, plus some targeted at some of the underlying causes. A friend saw decent results with the skin soother (and the stress stopper/safe space formulas of Spirit Essences have helped a lot with Bandit's anxiety). There are some natural, okay-if-they-ingest it topical applications that may soothe hot spots, but I have no experience with those and am blanking on what they are. Always better in the long run to treat the underlying cause, though -- if you can pinpoint what it is.

I caught the last couple of minutes, with Megan throwing a fit in the main room while everyone else was in the kitchen, and my growing like for Elena moved forward another notch when she attempted to stop the others from going out there, saying to give her some space. Because either way - if Megan was doing it for attention or if she was blowing off some steam (I think you should do it at home, in private, with your own stuff, but I am in full support of a brief tantrum from time to time before regrouping and moving forward, and that's for "typical" people) - leaving her alone is the appropriate response; if it's the former scenario, don't reward her, and if it's the latter, don't bother her.

Sister Rose and Sister Blanche collecting lingerie for needy sexy people, and "Oh, Jesus!" followed by Blanche's "Please protect us in this, our hour of need" save will never not be funny, but tonight I thought as I sometimes do -- that is a decidedly non-sexy bra she's holding. It was harder then to find pretty bras in larger sizes (all the cute ones on the racks in A through C cups, and then those ugly-ass things in boxes on the back wall for D and up), but Blanche is averagely endowed. They should have had her flinging around something better than plain beige. "Where am I supposed to sleep?" "On the floor like any other dog." [Stan laughing] "Stanley, if you're doing what I think you're doing, you're in big trouble." "You leave me no choice, I'll have to pull out the big guns." "You're wasting your time, Stanley, I'm familiar with the big gun." I also love the way he just nods when Sophia crawls between them and tells him to think of her as the Berlin Wall -- try to climb over her, and he'll know what barbed wire between his legs feels like.

I've sometimes wondered if my parents would have ignored gender stereotypes so thoroughly in teaching me how to do things if I'd had a brother. I doubt they'd have taught us strictly down those artificial lines, because that would be huge shift, but would some of those subconscious biases kicked in and affected things? I think so. Just one of the many reasons I'm glad to be an only child. I learned cooking, sewing, basic-to-moderate electrical and plumbing repairs, auto maintenance, woodworking, painting, how to put down a tile floor ... it was all just self-sufficiency to them, and thus that's how I was raised. Their skills tend to fall in line with the gender roles of their time, since that's largely how they were taught, but there's some overlap and some crossing of that gender line, and they didn't express that men should know/are inherently suited for A and women should know/are inherently suited for B. So they didn't assume I could or should only learn "girl stuff." But it wasn't fundamentally a conscious effort to do away with that crap; I think it was more - at least initially - that 1) they each only had the one kid to teach their skills to, so I got it all by default, and 2) it was apparent early on that my abilities and interests tended towards a pretty even mix of those traditionally labeled masculine and those traditionally regarded as feminine. Whatever their gender biases in instigating how-to lessons or subconsciously encouraging interests in me and this mythical brother, I can't imagine they'd have ever listened to either of us express an interest/exhibit a skill in something and tell us, "No, that's for girls/boys."

I don't lock my doors when I'm home during the day - they're locked overnight, and then when I unlock one to use it, I don't re-lock it until that night, or if I'm leaving (and I may not always lock them all at night; I don't check when going to bed the way I do when I'm leaving) - but my visitors knock. Like you said, no one would ever think of just waltzing in.

The relationship between the Abramowitz siblings of Slums of Beverly Hills is one of the many things I adore about that film. They're so typical in their interactions - they annoy the hell out of each other on the regular, but when push comes to shove they look out for each other. And I love things like Vivian saying, "I don't say anything about your morning wood, don't you go around talking about my tits."

The reason Kyra disappeared for a while is Scarlett Pomers needed treatment for anorexia. The evolving relationship between Reba and Barbra Jean was my favorite part of the show, and I think the pace at which it played out was perfect. Seasons two through four are still highly re-watchable for me, but before and after are way too sitcom-y for my taste.

I watched the cat phobia guy this morning at my parents' house, and my mom spent the whole time yelling at him, but phobias are by definition irrational, so I was a bit more sympathetic. His fearful drawing back did seem to be instinctual, and we see people do that to all sorts of animals (I'd do that with a snake, even though I've never been attacked or even threatened by one; I'm scared of them based on nonsense reasons and have thus avoided exposure). That she considered boarding her cat while his family came to visit is even more disconcerting than the fact he suggested it to begin with, so a big side eye to both of them for that, but he didn't seem to be a jerk about any of it, just a guy who'd never bothered to get some help for his generational cat-phobic weirdness. Him kissing the cat in the cafe and then delightedly reporting, "I kissed a cat!" was cute. I had my doubts on him continuing to do the work, since he hadn't done shit prior to this, but that picture of him, his sister, and Natto suggests he did. All of Mojito's issues were simply the result of being a kitten, and not having a feline playmate, so I hope the "I'm not sure if we can keep him" thing was just for the show. I'm glad they wised up and got a second kitten, and they seemed like a nice family - I like how they were drawn to an "imperfect" cat others might reject as defective, since some of them have physical challenges of their own - so their follow-up was nice.

I was just going around the dial and came across an ad for an upcoming Lifetime movie that I hope is better than it looks, because it's Kyra Sedgwick's directorial debut, stars Kevin Bacon, and features their daughter Sosie (who played Brenda's niece Charlie) and - and this is why I'm posting here - Jon Tenney. I love him as Fritz, so I find it pretty cute that she cast him in her project. It's an adaptation of a novel, and will air July 23rd: Story of a Girl.

I discovered the word supper, meaning the evening meal I call dinner, as a child, by reading it in a book and asking my parents what the hell these characters were eating. It turned out my dad had grown up (in '40s-'50s small town Oklahoma) using the words interchangeably, but since by the time I came along he'd been in Los Angeles nearly 10 years and supper was completely gone from his vocabulary, I'd never heard him use it. I went through a phase when I was around 30 where I packed big meals for lunch and ate light dinners when I got home, but it just didn't work for me. I'm a night person on every level, including my appetite. I haven't decided on tonight's dinner yet. Probably tilapia.

I can maybe eat a sandwich for dinner, but it is primarily a lunch food to me, and the only way I'd eat soup for dinner is if I was ill and that's all I could stomach -- soup is definitely lunch. I do my big eating at dinner: small salad to start, then the main dish with one or two vegetable sides.

Thankfully, none of my female friends are the sort who thinks moving a couch, holding a ladder, or anything else is "man's work," so none of them would send their boyfriend/husband if I called to ask them for help. But if they did, yeah, I would find that annoying. And really weird -- I can't imagine asking A if they'll help me with something, hearing yes, and then having B show up. "Can you or B come by this afternoon to help me lift this thing?" and B is the one who turns up, sure. But otherwise, just weird. I don't like asking for help on general principle, but there are some things that inherently require at least one additional person to accomplish. I start with one or both of my parents, but if they aren't around, I ask whichever friend is best-suited to the task and take it from there.

If it's something I'll want to watch multiple times, I buy the DVD/Blu-Ray. I like having a physical copy that is mine forever, not just for however long Netflix has the rights to it, and that I can take with me to a friend's house for movie night (or anywhere). I also like the special features, as mentioned above.

No matter how many times I watch this movie - and that's a lot of times - I never fail to get choked up when Marla and her dad say good-bye in the train station. She starts worrying that she shouldn't go, because who will help him, and he tells her, "Nothing's ever going to happen here. You have to go where things are happening."

Yes, and Pop TV just recently aired the first six seasons in syndication (they're starting over now, and then hopefully carrying on with the final nine), so she's very fresh in my mind from that role.

We've seen him several times, and he's talked some, but we hear a lot more from Joyce. It was sad to see how little they know each other - Joyce, overhearing their conversation, said it was like they were trying to catch up on 30 years in one afternoon - because it sounded like a conversation between an adult child and the father who'd left 30 years ago and just came back into the kid's life, except John Sr. has been a member of the household all this time. I wonder if he was any more involved with his daughters' lives.

That's one of my favorite scenes of the series, as hard as it is to watch. Becky gets hit with the college news and then, before she's had time to blow off steam and think about her options, she finds out about Mark's job offer. Darlene talks some sense into her, and she realizes it would be selfish to ask him to stay, so she's off to tell him to take the job. In that moment, she thinks (as she says) she's not going to college and she's never going to see Mark again. It's the perfect storm, and for her to lash out in the worst possible way, giving voice to exactly what Dan is feeling in his own shitty moment - that he blew it as a husband and father by taking a chance on the bike shop and failing - is so incredibly ugly, but so incredibly raw and real. Good people behave in very bad ways sometimes, and this show was great at showing that. As we've also discussed in the Episodes thread, I also love that her decision to marry Mark isn't as stupid as it seems on paper. If things had worked as they anticipated, it wouldn't have been the end of the world -- Mark has a good job that will allow him into the union, she goes to community college in Minnesota as she would have in Lanford, etc. Still not a wise decision, certainly, given their ages, but for her to say, "Don't give this up for me; go take that job" and him to say, "Marry me and come with me" is a frustratingly realistic choice for them to make under the circumstances. Which leads to Dan in the bedroom, heart breaking as he says, "She's going to get pregnant, she's going to forget all about school -- this is it! This is her life!" And Roseanne telling Mark she knows he didn't force Becky into anything, she got married because she wanted to - but she also knows she wants to finish school, and go to college, and if she doesn't, then she'll know that's because of Mark. Then the wind beneath my wings/Morticia and Bubblebutt goodbye between the sisters, and Roseanne's perfectly-delivered "Good-bye, Becky." Dan finally calling Becky, and her reaction. Ugh, my heart. That storyline is so well done.

Even more than that, I like what is essentially the follow-up to it -- when she misses again, and instead of going apeshit and making her cry this time, he tells her he'd like her to work on it for next season. All the non-verbal stuff as he just barely reins himself in, face red and shaking, hands fluttering, etc. and she's standing there cringing and repeating, "I know" - and then the smile that breaks out across her face when he pulls himself together and just calmly tells her to work on it.

Special K is telling women to own the fact they eat? Special K, the brand that every January used to run commercials featuring thin women presented as fat cows who'd ballooned up over the holidays and thus needed to subsist on its cereal so they could shrink back down and dare show themselves in public again?

It's bleeped out in the promos. I have no idea if it's also censored in the show being advertised itself, but I'd guess so; going by its syndication of ER, Pop TV is very basic cable in its sensibilities -- hints of breasts have been pixelated, and words have been muted. Which is funny, considering this originally aired on network TV.