Bastet

I assumed it was her brother and his boyfriend, because (I think; now I'm starting to doubt my recollection) they were dancing together in the episode with Angel, Cristina, and the rest of her family dancing in the backyard.

That's what I always tell my relatives in Oklahoma when they say they'd be terrified to live here (L.A.) because of the earthquakes. I'll take the occasional earthquake - most of which do little more than rattle the wall art - over the annual tornado season, thank you. It would be nice to have the advance warning for an earthquake you do for a tornado or hurricane, yes, but I like the odds. I think it largely comes down to what you're used to. Back to peeves, "storm watch" news coverage every time we have more than three consecutive drops of rain here is annoying enough; I can only imagine what local coverage is like for hurricanes and such.

Sure, it could all be in her mind. I'd have to go back and watch the conversation between Rachel and her mom about the ex (after Perth got scared off, which is, I believe, the first time the ex was discussed), because while the impression I have in my memory is that her mom was acknowledging a real situation that affected Rachel's actions, it may be that Rachel was just delusional and this producer plant from the race was her actual first date. If so, it's funny to me that production left in commentary about an ex right on the heels of presenting a first date scenario.

The insurance policy may prohibit space heaters. Also, since they have both a motor and a heating element, they draw a lot of power; allowing them would run the risk of too many people on the same circuit running one at the same time (thus tripping the breaker). I imagine the liability concerns (overblown, given the safety features on modern space heaters, but present) and power usage are the main considerations behind most policies prohibiting them. But keeping the workplace cold enough that people need gloves and winter coats? Ridiculous!

Perth was the guy she went all stage five clinger on, when he just wanted to be friends, prompting her mom to have a good conversation with her about slowing her roll. The ex she's referenced several times was before him, but I don't know the time frame.

The various pairings for the talking heads were cute, especially John and Elena. Megan's laugh is adorable. But WTF with Kris asking her if she'd ever had sex, Megan saying she didn't think so, and Kris saying she'd know if she had? That's every parent's job, to teach their children what sex is, and guiding them towards the personal standards to use in deciding whether to say yes or no in various circumstances. It's all the more important with a child with a disability that potentially affects their decision-making skills in that area. The show treated it like some (hopefully totally false) throw-away line for humor, but it was quite disturbing. All these folks need extra education on sex and consent, especially the women who could become pregnant with kids they're not adequately equipped to care for. Also, it was bad enough last week when they tried to play off Rachel's date with the plant from the 5k as her first date ever, when we'd previously heard her talking about an ex, so it was glaring when on the heels of that set-up last week they included this week a clip of Rachel talking about said ex. Why futz; her story is interesting enough on its own. Yes, we've seen him with them in the kitchen a few times. I'm always struck by how perfect his personality is to instruct this group of people (because mine is so very not).

And this is why I hate myself for my inability to simply not watch and spare myself the frustration. Because CC will never get over himself enough to end the damn thing, so every one of however many of these mini-seasons we get will end with some stupid cliffhanger, and at some point he's not going to get another shot at it, and we'll be left with a stupid cliffhanger that never gets resolved.

I have never liked John more than when he looked like "Take this fucking thing away from me" during the baby-sitting class.

I can't root for the Vikings, pretty much ever, because I'm a Bears fan, and I certainly couldn't have rooted for them tonight, because, hello, my G-Men. But I have such abiding love for Sam Bradford from his OU days that I want to be happy for him. But, ouch.

I knew that Killing All The Right People came out of Bloodworth-Thomason's mother having AIDS, but I had no idea Imogene's line had actually come out of someone's mouth. What a great article, with all the memories and the reflections from Bloodworth-Thomason at the end. Thanks for posting!

No, that was Dave Coulier who dated Alanis -- thus spawning You Oughta Know. Apparently, he had quite the MO with the younger ladies, as a friend of a friend was suddenly engaged to him (when hardly anyone even knew they'd been dating) and going on and on about this wonderful man, and then all of a sudden she wasn't, and the little she said about the whole thing carried the same venom as the song, heh.

Yes, I think showing that, "American dream" platitudes aside, reality in this country is if you are born poor you are most likely going to die poor is one of the most important things this show did.

I'm addicted to plane crash documentaries (odd, perhaps, given how much I enjoy flying; maybe it reinforces for me how statistically unlikely I am to be in one, I don't know) and I'm readily familiar with that crash. It has always struck me how very similar a later jet vs. small plane midair collision was, an Aeromexico flight that went down in Cerritos (and was also captured on camera by ground photographers who happened to be in the area for other events). I had to fly for business that November, which was my first time in the air since the attacks. (I was on vacation when they happened, and scheduled to fly back the following weekend, but I was just a state away from home and the airports were still horribly backed up from just being re-opened, that I just rented a car.) I wasn't nervous that I can recall, but I remember my mom being pretty anxious about me flying. Getting back to peeves, we have great tree-lined streets in my neighborhood (the kind where the trees meet in the middle overhead, creating a lovely canopy), and it would drive me batty if the city had planted trees that dropped things like crazy. Especially those spiky brown balls someone was talking about up-thread; growing up, a friend's neighbor had one of those trees in their front yard, close enough it would drop those deathtraps on the sidewalk, which wreaked havoc when we were roller skating or riding bikes down the sidewalk.

Other way around (at least when I was growing up); the resident puts the flag up if they have outgoing mail (so that the letter carrier knows to stop to collect even if they don't have anything to deliver at that address), and then puts it down so the resident knows they've been there. Of course, the process is somewhat antiquated now, since it would be akin to saying, "Hello, I have checks sitting here for the taking," but that's how it was designed to work.

While I'm happy to have a conference win, I would have liked to see what USC could do in the second half against an Arizona St. team that wasn't reduced to a back-up QB. Because the Trojans, after an initial few minutes that made me think, "Oh, here we go again," played a beautifully dominant first half. But after tossing away last week's game, I wanted to see if they could sustain it given the Sun Devils' penchant for monstrous fourth-quarter comebacks. USC is so horribly shaky, and, despite the Pac-12 South technically being wide open, this is a transition season, so I wanted to see them tested. They do seem to have mentally banded together in a way that hadn't yet been present, and more mentally disciplined, so maybe Helton wondering if he'd hold onto his job even a few more games lit the right kind of fire. Oklahoma State knocked off Texas, woo! I hope OU gives them another pounding next week, but that's an 8 a.m. game here, so I'll read about it when I wake up.

My dad loves bacon, egg, and cheese (with onion) sandwiches. I don't like egg yolks, so I never joined him in eating these sandwiches growing up. Fast forward decades, and he's over at my house helping me with something, and wants one of those sandwiches on our break. So as I'm pondering what to make for myself, I think, "Eh, I'll make another one with just an egg white for me rather than getting out all new ingredients." Oh my god, that was good! I mean, how could it not be -- bacon. cheese. -- but I'd never had one. My favorite breakfast sandwich, though, is a smashed avocado with bacon. Of course, my favorite breakfast is a Bloody Mary, especially during football season. Making food takes too much time away from the morning game!

Google "catio" (or, okay, the less-cutesy "outdoor cat enclosure") and you can lose days perusing the various creative ways cat owners have devised enclosed outdoor spaces in all manner of yards, with all manner of materials.

I enjoy flying. If I'm just going to Vegas or San Francisco, I prefer to drive, and I've driven to Utah for hiking trips (oh my god, the national parks in that state are particularly beautiful) but beyond that I'd rather fly. I love to travel, and I like being on a plane. I find it relaxing. (Granted, the one time I flew coach I felt rather differently about the airplane experience!) One of my best friends used to love to fly, and then developed a rather strong anxiety about it, so she hasn't done any international travel (or even returned to the East coast) in over a decade. Her partner (with whom she lives) hates to drive any significant distance, so travel is a big bone of contention between them -- he hates road trips, and she wants to accommodate that, but she doesn't just dislike getting on a plane, she becomes crippled with anxiety by it, so that wins out. So they've done one long road trip and otherwise stayed within the state.

They do here in my L.A. suburb; letter carriers walk my neighborhood (and all the old neighborhoods in my city), as we have mail slots at the house, not the curb. Mine drops down into a little chute inside the foyer closet; very convenient. At my parents' house, the boxes are at the curb; I remember a good 30 years ago, my mom mentioned to the local post master that she wished they were at the house instead, and he said the USPS was looking at requiring everyone to put in a curbside box (to make it faster for letter carriers to complete their rounds, since they can just drive their way through the streets), but obviously that didn't happen.

Yay, I especially love when the black kitties get a home! Congratulations, JTMacc99. I'm partial to Luna, as that was my "niece's" (best friend's dog) name. After three months here, Riley has finally started coming into the main bathroom. She explored it when she first got here and was day by day investigating more of the house, and then never set paw in it again. (She'd go in the half bath, which has her second litter box in it -- that is supposed to be her only litter box, but Miss Thing didn't want to leave the office, so everything got shifted -- but never that one; it has been very odd going to the bathroom without being accompanied by a cat.) A few days ago, she came in with me, and then last night she came in again and explored; she sat in the bathtub for a while. She also tested out the floor cushions in front of the living room fireplace that were Baxter's. So adventurous! Oh, and I sneaked up on her and got one more front claw trimmed. Woo!

Damn, I wish I got Discovery Life, because I really liked that show!

While there may be some states where an exploration of one city could reasonably represent the state as a whole, I'm hard-pressed to come up with one, and thus think this idea is largely bullshit. As but one example, I live - and was born and raised in - Los Angeles. There have been many shows set here, so to quibble about which one best represented the city would be one (never-ending) thing. To select one of them as representing the state? Preposterous. There are many who think one should have a passport to travel from southern to northern California or vice versa. There are a shit ton of cities/towns along the way who don't connect with either and share little beyond a "CA" designation. Even in most of the smallest of states, this must be the case -- city vs. suburban vs. rural exists everywhere that I'm aware of, and individual nuances beyond that; while the fact I've been to all 50 states doesn't make me an expert on any of them (even my own), I'd be quite surprised if there was one for which a single city's experience could reasonably represent the state as a whole. So even where a show gets it right for a city/area, extrapolating to say it defines a state seems ridiculous. Especially if we're translating number of viewers to endorsement of the show's presentation of a location; people enjoy all manner of shows that don't accurately reflect their settings.

Yeah, I mentioned the same thing, because it's not something I could do. I'm trying to picture the episode when the parents all met to talk about making provisions for care of their kids after they're gone, to remember what everyone's plans are, but all I can remember is John's sisters saying they'd take him in (and have him take turns living with each of them, to have a break) and Kris lamenting the fact Megan's care will come from the system, rather than family. I can't remember specifics from anyone else.

If the report I read is accurate, Malloy (whom I watched as Kyle on Guiding Light; I can still picture "When the symbol turns, shoot Kyle"/"I can't shoot my brother") died on his birthday, this past Saturday -- a heart attack at age 62.

Sure, but Rachel being in the wedding didn't meant the wedding had to be filmed and aired on the show. That was something to which they agreed, and were compensated accordingly; they got the hotel comped, and who knows how much the production company paid for. Given how expensive weddings are, it was a smart move -- they're not the stars of the show, so they knew nowhere near as much of it would be aired as would happen if Rachel or any of the others got married on camera, and thus it's not as intrusive. One normally has to share a lot more of a personal moment with the world in order to get a production company to pick up the tab (or at least a portion of the tab). They got the best of both worlds, and good for them. From the little we've seen of them, they're a nice couple, and are very good brothers to Rachel. It's not a minor consideration to marry into that situation; Rachel may wind up living with her brother after the parents are gone, so the husband has taken on that possibility. Rachel and Cristina have lucked out in the family department. None of these people have bad parents, even Elena, and most of them have pretty damn good parents. But those two have parents and brothers who are just downright special people (yet would probably never describe themselves that way). Which undoubtedly plays a significant role in why Rachel and Cristina are such good eggs.