Bastet

Yeah, there were various references. The episode in which everyone thinks Sophia is having a heart attack during a storm that delays the paramedics (in which it turns out, as her doctor shows up, that she just ate herself into illness), Dorothy references being "over 50" (in talking about how if Sophia dies, she'll be an orphan). There are other instances, too, but that one just aired tonight so it's one I'm clear on. More specific ages may have come up when Rose was applying for the hospital job, and general age references came up many times that fans with better memories can pinpoint. But, certainly, they are younger than we'd think looking at them now; I don't remember what I thought at the time.

Nope, I'm number three. I'm decidedly not a sci-fi fan, The X-Files being my major exception, so it's not terribly surprising, but it's such an iconic film for my generation that I've tried several times to get through Star Wars. Can't do it. So I've never seen it all the way through. And I've never even tried a moment of the sequels; do not give a shit.

There's a mini-marathon of episodes on tonight, so I got all excited thinking perhaps the new season was starting this weekend. I went searching online and, alas, no, but a few days ago Tia responded to a "when do we get new episodes?" question by saying she doesn't know, but thinks it should be soon. I hope so!

Add me to the list ready to throw in the towel with this show, that has devolved from a lovely documentary series to a typical reality show crapfest of forced scenarios. Smart move, I guess, by Rachel's brother and brother-in-law to get their wedding at least in part comped without having to give up too much of their privacy. Kris telling Megan that if a relationship isn't working, you end it, and if you break-up you act how you feel afterward, not how every bad movie in the history of cinema has told you to act was nice. Everyone strutting their stuff at the fashion show was nice. Rachel taking off running for the finish line when she spotted her dad was everything. The rest? Pffft. In case anyone missed the promo during a commercial break, there will be a bonus episode next week (interviews and outtakes, I think).

I agree in theory that getting your dander up that a movie was remade is silly; just don't see it. But I know myself, and if The Thin Man is ever remade, I'm going to lose my shit.

Most fobs have an emergency key. I was trying to figure out how to describe the process, but then went looking for a video; here's how you get in - and then start - a Lexus if the fob is dead.

Roseanne (set in Lanford).

P2C2E, I somehow missed your post about your dog's diagnosis, and thus came off like a complete asshole for posting after it without offering my condolences and best wishes on the diagnosis. I'm not familiar with the condition, so have nothing informative to offer, but wish you and your lab the best!

Oh my, I had completely forgotten that Robert Palmer died. I still possess an irrational love for his cover of I Didn't Mean to Turn You On.

My mom is also an only child, while my dad is one of eight (one died as a toddler). My dad has always said his family felt like it was split into two families; by the time the younger half of the siblings (which includes him, although he's pretty close to the middle) were old enough to really be involved with what was going on, much of the older half were off on their own already (this was a dirt poor family in a tiny town; you got married if you were a girl or went off to work if you were a boy before high school even ended much of the time; my dad is the only one who went to college). So he has this huge family in another state, and we visited every few years, but some of my aunts and uncles (and the resulting cousins) I never really knew because he didn't know them all that well despite sharing parents with them. (The three who are left are the third-oldest, my dad at number five and the second-youngest. They're all close now, but it was not always so.) Incidentally, the disparity in family size has always been amusing to me, in that when my parents discussed marriage my dad said he wanted four kids, and my mom said no way in hell, but she'd be happy with two. They agreed on that, got married, took six years to have me, and agreed, "You know what, one is good." Thank you, Mom and Dad!

My local shelters have those outdoor cages, too, and for the same reason -- at least that way the animals are safely contained until shelter workers arrive in the morning, versus the poor animals who were being tossed over or tied to fences, left in cardboard boxes, etc. It's also for people who find a stray overnight and want to turn her/him in, but can't keep the animal at their home until morning. There's fresh water inside, and they can only be re-opened by shelter staff. Maharincess, congratulations on adopting Granny Clampett. And kudos to you for adopting a senior. She looks like she has a big personality.

I don't remember every moment of my childhood, obviously, but I don't think I ever wanted a sibling. I always thought being an only child was perfect -- I had friends in the neighborhood to play with whenever I wanted, but I never had to have anyone around when I didn't. And I've never been one to feel lonely, with or without people around, as I really enjoy being alone. Plus, it was nice and quiet at home without having a sibling (plus, sometimes, their friends) around. My best friend is one of three kids, and her house was so overwhelming to me sometimes. She and I met when we were five, became part of each others' families, and are still best friends. The one aspect of life I can imagine it being better to have a sibling is after my parents are gone, to have someone I can have "Remember how Dad used to ..." and "What about that time Mom ..." conversations with. But my best friend was around for so much of it, I'll always have someone to reminisce with.

The gender split for veterinarians in this country is about 50/50, but women are increasingly represented in veterinary schools -- up to 80% of students. Veterinary medicine is still a blindingly white profession, though. A BLS report from only a couple of years ago showed 97 percent of practicing veterinarians to be white. Like women, non-whites are better represented in veterinary schools than in the workforce, yet they still comprise only something like ten percent of enrolled students. It's why I'm very happy to have The Vet Life on the air, even though I don't care for the scenes at home (in that or any show; that one just happens to have more than the others I watch, so it stands out). One of the vets said when he met his wife and introduced himself as a vet, she said she'd never met a black veterinarian in her life. This is not uncommon, obviously. It's so great to show them to a national audience.

Yeah, it was just that their specific objection was to guests having to walk through their bedroom to get to the bathroom, not that guests (who were all in-town and just hanging out rather than staying over) would be using the bathroom, period. So a modified "Jack and Jill" set-up, where the bathroom is accessible from the master bedroom or the hallway, would have solved that problem and given them a nicer bathroom. They probably wanted to be able to list it as a two-bath in the future. It was interesting that they put the tub in the guest bath rather than master. It makes sense for the way they live, probably -- the shower gets used daily and the tub occasionally -- and also for future buyers (or maybe them in the future) who want a tub for bathing kids. But then other buyers trip out if there is no tub in the master bath.

And I have no idea what that is about, as it isn't exactly a surprise that this will be quite a weak season for them. Do they really have that much of a national audience that it makes sense to schedule four of their games in prime time, even knowing they're going to stink? I know the NFL can air just about any match-up and bring in huge ratings, but there had to be better options each of those weeks.

Yeah, it's different for me, because I don't plan on ever moving again, so of course I pay no attention to resale value when making selections, but unless I knew I would only be staying 5 years or so, I can't imagine resale being a major factor in my decisions. Where I liked two things equally, and one was better than the other for resale, I'd go with that one, but I wouldn't select something I liked less because it was better for some hypothetical future sale than what I liked. It's my home. That's so personal to me.

I felt like I'd stepped into a time machine and gone back to last season.

Always - Bon Jovi Also Blink 182, Erasure, and Patsy Cline.

I don't know if last night's episode was new, since I hardly ever watch anymore, but it was another one where I disturbed the cat with my laughter as the designer went through her plans for the kitchen: Two-tone Shaker cabinetry, check. Farm sink, check. White subway tile backsplash, check. Boring white quartz countertop, check. Barn door, check. And, for a more recent addition to the checklist: brass hardware, check. The HHs were pleasant, though, and it was nice to see someone buying in the less-appealing neighborhoods of Los Angeles. And as fake as the "man discovers the wallpaper" scene was, I got a good laugh out of the fiancée justifying her decision to approve it without talking to him by saying, "He took down an entire wall without talking to me." But watching a brand new kitchen be destroyed was painful to watch. I don't think we saw them take a sledgehammer to the cabinets, so I can at least hope they took those down intact and donated them to Habitat or something. I don't like what they did with the fireplace; too white, and too cold. Instead of two bathrooms back-to-back, I'd have done one larger bathroom with two entrances - one from the master bedroom and one from the hallway. And speaking of hallways, I don't like layouts where the front door just opens right into the living room (or other room) without some type of foyer, but I'm not flummoxed by them. His reaction to entering into a hallway was odd. With her, the thing that stuck out to me was that she kept calling light-colored things "so dark." Medium brown countertops. Light grey paint color. "It's so dark." Um, it's really not. Spending $700k on a house at the same time you're paying for a wedding - because of some drippy notion of needing to carry her over the threshold immediately after the honeymoon - when one of you is a student? Not for me, thanks, but if it works for them, so be it. They seemed harmless and even likable, which is increasingly rare on these shows.

I will always stop on that scene for the same reasons. Of course, I will also always stop on "You can put it anywhere" for very different reasons. Such is the film.

I like Larry Fitzgerald a lot, but that commercial creeps me out. That he's calling to hear her voice is one thing, but he leaves a message. For a dead person.

Riley has been with me about three months now, and while she is definitely still a scaredy-cat, she's coming out of her shell nicely. She's roaming the house more freely now; for quite a long time, she stuck to the bedroom and office, only venturing into the study or living room if I was in there and generally avoiding the kitchen. Those first two are still her most-frequent hangouts, but she will now enter every room of the house on her own. She has not slept under the beds in nearly two months; she always naps on a bed or couch (or sunny spot on the floor) now. She still often runs away when I walk towards her while she's on the ground (if she's on a couch or table so we're not quite so far apart in height, she's fine), but not always, and she just darts a couple of feet away now; no hiding, and when I stop moving, she walks up to me. She's eating well, although she has decided she doesn't like canned food -- only raw or dry. She won't eat quite enough raw to get a full day's calories, so she gets a little bit of dry food each day. Oh well; it's one of the few remotely healthy dry foods out there, she's not eating much of it, the ultra-healthy raw food balances it out ... I'm letting it go. But the raw duck that was her favorite (of chicken, rabbit, and duck) when I had the little one-pound bags? As soon as I dropped big bucks on the 3-pound bag, she decided duck was awful and she would only eat chicken or rabbit. Of course. Chester eats the duck, so I just gave the bag to my parents. She remains the ultimate cuddle-bug. Any time I sit down, she tucks herself in right next to me and purrs away. And at night she still sleeps on top of me or right up against me; she does not like being picked up and held, but when we're lying down she loves to have my arm across her or around her. She'd be unbearable to share a bed with if she was a person, but I have completely different rules for cuddling when it comes to cats. She needs her claws trimmed. A couple of months ago, she got spooked while I was carrying her, and she launched off my chest with her back claws spread; I looked like Tina after Freddy Krueger got through with her in Nightmare on Elm Street. There's still a 4-inch scar from the deepest of the three slices; it's slowly fading as I lather myself with vitamin E, but still quite visible -- this cat has ruined my cleavage. She, of course, doesn't like having her claws trimmed, so one night I manage to get one clipped before she runs away, then I can't get any for several more nights ... thus far, all her back claws have been trimmed, but only three front claws. By the time I get the last one done, the first one will need to be done again. I'm working on getting her better with being picked up; sometimes when I pick her up, it's just to kiss her head and put her right back down, sometimes it's to hold her for 30 seconds, sometimes it's to carry her to the next room, etc. It's small bursts, and not always for something "bad," and it's helping so that when I do need to pick her up and move her for some reason, there is far less struggling. My mom is still the only one she doesn't run away/hide from, and I still have to shut her in the living room or study for her to stay, so being around others remains her biggest issue. And if she just hates everyone other than me, so be it, but so that sometime in my life I can actually go on vacation again, I would like her to be reasonably comfortable with her grandma. So we keep working on it -- my mom comes over once a week for about half an hour.

Same here. I eat a side mixed-green salad with pretty much every meal, so when I order pizza I either make such a salad or order one. I am lucky enough to have a wealth of options for Italian delivery, never having to resort to chain pizza joints, so it may be naive, but I'm left with a "You just now have salads?!" sense upon hearing about these Domino's commercials (which I've yet to see). To me, it's like advertising one provides napkins. Oh, and thanks for the memories sparked by talking of the smell of a Shakey's. We went out to dinner every Friday when I was a kid, and that was a frequent destination, and then it was the hang-out spot after football games in high school. I haven't been back since - precisely because it was so open to kids and teens, an environment in which I had no interest once I grew up - but when that comment was made I could call up the smell, no problem.

Yep - I still get DVDs (and don't have streaming).

Yes, I found this episode horribly "just for the show" forced. We saw how a skilled producer could make John's performance sound decent, but it can only go so far; he's never going to have a career at this, and his mom's perfectly logical "have a go at it until 30, and then it's time to figure out a job vs. a hobby" stance was tossed aside in favor of some delusional "he's a rapper" BS. Cristina competes at a venue attended by 20 people, about 12 of whom are her peeps? Those scenes were great, mind you, particularly Cristina being disappointed in second place and her mom doing the math for her on what a great accomplishment that is, but let's not pretend this was actual footage of an all-star competition. And Steven is, what, entitled to Megan because he's a good guy who has decided he likes her? Her feelings and that of the man to whom she's committed mean nothing? Good on them if they decide to start dating after she breaks it off (with the guy she unrealistically expects to marry and impregnate her), but this "I want her and thus I shall have her" storyline isn't any more cute because of DS. Really just a shit storm of an episode, IMO, and Exhibit A in how this series devolved from documentary to "reality" show.