Bastet

I think that's the only Clint Black song I like (although I may be forgetting some; I couldn't even think of one until you posted Killing Time and I thought, "Oh yeah, that's a good song"). I cannot stand Garth Brooks.

Ha - a Billy Blanks cameo. I still do tae bo tapes. Corday's response to Romano saying paying the residents such low wages is the only way the public heath system can afford to provide medical care to all the "freeloaders" is my new favorite moment of hers. Kerry's "What the hell is wrong with you?" to Doug was perfectly delivered. That Doug is still spouting his "you'd have done the same thing" bullshit and completely unrepentant for the position he's put Mark and Carol (not to mention all the other patients that rely on the clinics) in is making me want to punch him through my TV.

That's funny - I make shrimp tacos with a mango slaw fairly frequently, and was thinking of making it tonight.

I can recite the movie verbatim while watching. I may have a problem. Thanks for the info, everyone, on Carol's upcoming pregnancy being intentional. I usually watch one episode per day while eating lunch, and then just have the other two on as background noise that I pay sporadic attention to. (I'd record them, but I know that I'd never actually sit down and catch up.) I tuned in today just in time to hear Doug getting his righteousness on again, telling Mark and Kerry if they saw the kind of pain the kid is in, they'd have done the same thing. Mark's perfectly delivered "We have seen that kind of pain" started my lunch off right.

"Okay, yep, goodnight."

He'll always be the cop from Clue to me. He was also memorable as "Tinkerbell" in an episode of Cold Case. Me too, and I could have done with more of her and less of Carol at the clinic. Doug and his righteous indignation can miss me; I am every bit as sympathetic to that mother and her son as he is, but he knowingly exposed the hospital to a loss of federal funding, and just all-around reputation. It's a county hospital, in a county that has already shut down at least one. Is this one kid more valuable than the tens of thousands of others they wouldn't be able to treat if it all came crashing down? And he knowingly screwed over not just Kerry, but his best friend Mark; he knows damn well they have to cover up his actions, and exploited that. I like George Clooney a lot, but I'm not going to be too sad when Doug leaves. And the Doug/Carol thing does nothing for me. I don't dislike them together, mind you - in fact, I think they're good together at this point in their lives, and think it's good they save the rest of the world from dating either one of them as they both generally suck as a romantic partner - but I did not then nor do I now get invested in their relationship. I recently read - I'm telling you, I remember almost nothing - that Carol turns up pregnant. What the hell? I know the failure rate of TV birth control is exponentially higher than reality - a message I find dangerous on top of annoying - but didn't she just have a pregnancy scare? And are they not both medical professionals but also people routinely helping patients with the consequences of unintended pregnancy? Yet they're not making damn sure if doesn't happen unless/until they want it to? So I'm curious to see if/how they explain it - operator error, or another birth control failure? When Peter knocked up Carla despite having gone through an HIV scare with Jeanie (with whom he was "careful, but not that careful"), the show made a point to say the two of them had always been careful, but nothing is 100%.

I had made a halved version of Ina Garten's spinach gratin for Mother's Day dinner, so I had some thawed formerly-frozen spinach left. I sautéed some garlic, shallots, and mushrooms, and combined that with the spinach and some Parmigiano-reggiano and stuffed it into chicken breasts. Then a simple "gravy" of a flour/butter roux and chicken stock and dry vermouth to pour over the finished product. Easy, tasty, and yielding leftovers for lunch.

I tend to think the same way about a super couple -- two characters the show is teasing fans with "will they or won't they" and then "OMG, they did," and who get so much entertainment media coverage of those storylines you can't help but know their names even if you don't watch the show. Maddie and David. Sam and Diane. Ross and Rachel. Mulder and Scully. Meredith and Derek. Brenda and Dylan. Doug and Carol. Angela Chase and Jordan Catalano. (I know, my examples are old; I don't read entertainment media other than this site anymore, so I'm going with what I remember from my years of Entertainment Weekly and TVGuide. Not a single minority couple is coming to mind.)

That's on my long list of things I didn't remember, but I am loving the hell out of it this time around.

Yikes; I don't think BevMo prices are that out of bounds here -- more like a few extra dollars than double the price.

Ugh, more manufactured situations. And not just going on the cruise to begin with, but specific shit like everyone dropping by one by one to interrupt Steven asking Megan out. I hope that relationship itself is organic, and not something the producers prompted and nudged about, in the hopes of creating a storyline. Any time Sean says anything about “the babes,” I want to smack his parents. When he proclaims he’s dating Meghan Trainor, I want to smack him. I like Rachel, but if she can’t be happy without being in a romantic relationship, she has problems much bigger than DS. She has so much fun with her friends and family, and I’m glad to hear her talk about trying new things and being happy independent of anyone else. It’s interesting to hear that she hasn’t always been social like we see on the show. Cristina, too, is doing well, acknowledging that she needs to live “on her own” and gain some independence before getting married. I hope to see more of Elena and Hiromi this season; their progress individually and together is getting quite interesting.

I forgot this was airing tonight, and just tuned in about halfway through to hear Rachel proclaim it's "inappropriate" to wear a two-piece bathing suit in front of guys. Um, okay. But I'll keep watching. And it looks like there's another episode on after this one; I hope they're not going to burn the whole season off two at a time.

Yes, Estelle Parsons turned in a wonderful performance on Grace & Frankie. So, if she's up to it when filming commences (she's 90, so I suspect things can change on a dime), I am sure we will see Bev.

More special contestants. When will we get back to normal episodes? At any rate, the newlyweds: I cannot stand lovey-dovey people, so this was going to come down to whoever disgusted me least. The first two pairs coming out with the woman being carried made me cross them off my list -- but I had to grudgingly admit Toni and Ralph, the “dating site for old people” couple, made me laugh in their intro, and put them back on. I don’t think it’s a coincidence the couple who was older and had been married and divorced before was the least obnoxious about being newlyweds. I was sad to see them go first, but when I saw those clams, I knew they were history. Laura and Henry were okay, and I was impressed she calmly explained why they were not cooking the pork tenderloin whole rather than just saying, “You’re crazy, get out of my way.” But then they wound up cooking the hell out of it, so that was that. I liked Jhonathan and Corry, because they, like the first couple eliminated, also interacted like normal people rather than lobotomized fools. “Cuz I can’t get pregnant” pretty much sold me on them, and I was rooting for them big time by the final round, considering their competition. Kam and Karen walked out normally, but that was pretty much the last moment they didn’t annoy me; they became unbearable within seconds and stayed that way. “Good job, baby, keep it up.” First, baby. Second, her “good job” was carrying some ingredients back from the pantry. In the next two minutes, I think we were subjected to two “I love you”s. Then they constantly had to stand/sit there holding hands – in case one wanders off, I suppose. Grow up. Ugh; so bummed to see them win. She'd probably be okay on her own, but combined with him, no.

That's what I figured they'd do - use Lecy as Becky (damn right), but then work Sarah in there someplace for laughs.

Goodbye, Mr. Gordon is an interesting mix of things I hate and things I love in one episode. The A-story is awful: Dorothy is downright embarrassing in her behavior with and about Mr. Gordon (not redeemed by her final moment), and her high school teacher being played by someone nearly ten years younger than her is just too ridiculous to get past. But then there's the B-story about "Lesbian Lovers of Miami," which yields absolute hilarity. I love when Blanche objects: "Rose Nylund, every man I know is watching this show. This live show. This live show about lesbian lovers of Miami." "Every man you know is watching? Hey, we could beat The Price Is Right!" And then, one of my favorite moments of the whole series, Sophia as one of the audience members with questions: "This is directed to Dorothy's lover. Do people treat you differently because you're a lesbian?" "Well, most people don't know." "Really? I would've guessed right off. Next question to Dorothy: What kind of pain and embarrassment has this lifestyle caused your mother?" "I really don't know, but I'll ask her tomorrow when I visit her at the home." "No more questions."

If it were me, I'd give her a second chance rather than requesting someone new, having already alerted the supervisor to the issue; it's obviously hard to judge without seeing it, but I feel like this wasn't entirely her fault and thus I wouldn't want whatever repercussions there could be for her if I basically said, "No, she was so bad, I don't even want her back here for the do-over on the house; send me someone else." The cleaning service is only being engaged once every other month, and only (at least this time) for two hours. She was told to "focus" on the floors and bathroom, but that doesn't sound like she was asked to only do those things -- was she also dusting? She asked if it was okay, with 20 minutes left to go, and was falsely told it was, rather than, "No, I'm not happy with the floors and would like X corrected before you go." I'm just too wary of how these workers may be treated to not give her the chance to redeem herself. Plus, if, after she did it again with the supervisor there signing off on the company's standards being met, it still wasn't up to par, I'd know to go with a different service altogether. As an aside, I've never hired someone to clean my house (I keep wanting to, because I'm pretty close to over spending time on it, but I also have a high standard of clean and don't particularly trust someone else to meet it; I'd happily pay well to have someone else do it the way I'd do it, but I'd rather do it myself than pay anything for someone to do any less of a job), but I know a lot of people who do, and they've all been happier with an independent contractor than a service. Housekeeper recommendations are requested/shared on Nextdoor all the time, so maybe ask neighbors who they use and are happy with -- while it would normally be hard to find someone to sign up for such infrequent work, if it's someone who's already down the street every week, they might like to pick up the extra dough every other month.

You'd be a hypocrite if you were also being paid to clean, did a shitty job, but criticized your co-worker for also doing a shitty job. You're not; you're the customer paying for a service, and she didn't perform it adequately. When she asked you if it was okay, it was a mistake to say it was, but you responded truthfully when the manager asked -- so now she gets a second chance at doing it right; if she still doesn't, move on to someone else. And the highlighted isn't healthy. Maybe this can be a baby step toward working on that.

All the major plot developments on this show I have forgotten in the years since I watched, but Kerry's quest for a sternal saw - this, I remember.

Judith Light is always a bonus. But the best of L&O: SVU is still exponentially better than the best of just plain ol' L&O.

I couldn't believe the size of those bladder stones! I also couldn't believe (possibly in another episode; I just had Animal Planet on for a while and paid sporadic attention) the woman and her teenage son who brought in their cat because he was spraying on things in the house and the woman theorized the cat was doing it to annoy her. Um, no, he's doing it because he's two years old and you haven't neutered him yet! There was also a couple who kept breeding their dog, despite the fact she had complications every time. That's when I changed the channel.

Nextdoor prohibits that shit (legit or not; the Nextdoor newsfeed is not for unsolicited advertisement of your own business/services), so if the Lead didn't already remove it, use the Report Post function.

My Law & Order franchise OU is that I don't particularly care for the original and will only have it on as background noise if I really want some but nothing better is on. When SVU was at its best - which, yeah, was a long time ago; I haven't watched it in many years - I think it was the only version of the L&O franchise that was ever actually good. The chemistry of the cast/interaction of the characters made it possible for me to overlook all the "Um, that's not how the law/justice system works" objections that did distract me in the original, which I regard as a generic procedural. Season two to six or so, or even season one, SVU, I will stop to watch it at least for a while when I come across it while going around the dial. The original, any season, again - only if I don't have a better option. The Criminal Intent version was utterly unwatchable to me because of Vincent D'Onofrio, and I never watched the others. So, to me, SVU is a (short-lived) highlight in a humdrum franchise.

Oh, man - Utah. I love to go hiking in national parks (and to travel in general), so I've been all around the country, and Utah is one of the most beautiful states in the U.S. As it should be, to make up for so much of the rest. Yes, you're paying the same (assuming the regular price is similar at BevMo vs. the store), but you're getting two bottles instead of one. Unless - and I know BevMo's prices are high, but this would seem excessive - the cost of a bottle of the wine in question is nearly double at BevMo what it is at your grocery store, such that the per bottle cost of buying one at regular price and one at five cents at BevMo versus the per bottle cost of buying two at the store doesn't save you some serious coin. And you don't have to buy two of the same during the five cent wine sale, as I understand it; just two bottles that are part of the promotion, and you pay regular price for one and five cents for the bottle of equal or lesser value. So if BevMo has a decent wine selection, and the prices are decent enough so that basically getting two for the price of one is cheaper there than buying two elsewhere, it would be a good deal.

Congratulations on the promotion opportunity! I saw your locations listed in another thread, and I'm not sure I could bring myself to move to any of them, but I'd probably pick Atlanta of the four if I had to, so I definitely understand your thought process. Can you interview at more than one location, so you could check out your second choice, too?