Bastet

When Baxter would "forget" the rule about staying in the backyard*, and I'd find him in the driveway or out front, he'd get this look on his face I interpreted to mean, "The aliens have done it again! There I was, in the backyard where I belonged, and suddenly I was abducted." *Yes, for the first time in my lifetime of cat guardianship, in Maddie and Baxter I had two cats I somehow trained to stay put in the backyard, not to go more than one house in either direction when we were out front, and to, on the occasions they broke these rules, turn around and immediately return when I said, "Come back here, please." I was always with them out front just in case, but I could leave them in the backyard and just check on them every half hour or so to make sure the aliens hadn't struck. It was so great for all three of us. I will probably never luck into that again.

Oh my goodness, what lovely boys. And I love that both big dogs are shown taking over their humans' couches.

So, learning what everyone did of Chick-Fil-A a few years back, I had a good guess what the Sunday thing was about and did an internet search to confirm after these stories, so I can't fault anyone not knowing and having the radical notion they could get a meal from a chain restaurant. I love pickles as much as the next person, but these people would never get my money. At least it's just one private company; entire states codifying a religion into law is a whole 'nother matter. I'll never forget the first time I flew out of DFW on a Sunday and instead of being asked for my pre-takeoff drink order as per usual I was just offered a glass of orange juice. When I asked for a Bloody Mary instead, I was informed we couldn't drink on the ground on Sundays. At least we didn't have to leave TX air space.

Oh my goodness, that's funny! I could hear the under 40 one, even though I'm over 40, but just barely and only because I was actively listening for something; if that just randomly sounded in the room, I'd never hear it.

Neutral in that the amount mixed into a whole dish just sort of blends in as a general flavor enhancer rather than a specific focal point of taste much the way salt does (although it obviously has a more distinctive taste, thus one uses less pepper than salt when seasoning - except me, because I'm contrary like that).

Anne Burrell hates black pepper, so she never uses it (who could taste it in the ocean of salt she uses, anyway?). I'm the opposite -- when I'm cooking, I season with a tiny amount of salt (sometimes none), but almost always grind some black pepper. I like the taste on its own, but also find it pretty neutral in most dishes. I love onions any which way, and am cracking up at the "hold the onions" burger repeatedly coming out with an onion ring. If you bread it and fry it, it ceases to be an onion? I have no idea the logic on omitting the diced/sliced onions but repeatedly sending it out with a big ol' onion ring and not grasping why it's being sent back.

All night I've seen a shorter version of the Cigna commercial with TV doctors, that deletes Patrick Dempsey trying to get into his doctor pose. That's the best part of the commercial, IMO, so the short version sucks.

I noticed some of them had the red mark on their index fingers some instructors use to provide a visual reminder for those who incorrectly place their index finger on the top of their knife, so presumably they get actual, useful instruction off-screen. If that stuff was on screen, I would watch this show. It would be interesting to see people learn - especially on a celebrity edition, where it's people the audience already "knows" (even though I only know two of these people) - and they could still have plenty of time for silly challenges and talking heads in which these people all audition for their next gig.

Thank you, harrie. She was not a very photogenic cat (plus, I have no particular photography skills and black cats are hard to photograph well), but she was adorable in person. This was Baxter:

I'm very familiar with the Coliseum (and don't have to park). So no luck needed, but, yeah, I have good bladder control. There are more tickets available for tomorrow's game against the Seahawks than I would have expected (expected because of Seahawks fans rather than Rams fans, mind you), but I can't go, which ticks me off. The only Rams game I know for sure I'll be attending this season is against the Panthers.

One year ago today, I had to say goodbye to my Maddie. She was an adult when I adopted her, and we had 15 years together, so she was at least 16 and probably more like 18 when she died. She was very ill when I adopted her and had wasted away to 4-1/2 pounds of skin and bones; while 6-month-old Baxter, whom I adopted at the same time, ran around exploring, Maddie just slept. I spent a week dropping her off each morning for hospitalization, then taking her home each night. After that week, she finally started eating on her own, and I stayed home for two weeks of continued medication and fluids (and TLC), after which she was perfectly healthy and never looked back. Despite her age, she was never an old lady cat; up until the illness of her final months, she maintained the same energy level and playfulness she’d always had. She was my Chatty Cathy – she talked all the time, and had quite the repertoire of sounds. Including a call for emergency belly rubs – she’d bellow to summon me to the carpeted floor in the study, pace around chattering to herself looking for just the right spot (it was always the same general area, but the perfect spot moved from day to day) on which to fall over and present her belly. I’d get down on the floor with her and rub while she rolled back and forth purring. She did this until the end, and I remember thinking on the day before she went into hospital, “If this winds up being it, I’ll always have this memory.” I know the exact place on the carpet where the magic spot was that day. She loved Baxter and was protective of him, but he was the quintessential annoying little brother, and when he died unexpectedly at 13, I figured she’d earned the right to be an only child in her golden years. Although I missed him terribly, and still do, the year and a half Maddie and I had as a duo was a special time. I miss her. Riley is making this anniversary a lot easier than it would be in a cat-less house, but it’s a tough day. I was in my twenties when I adopted Maddie and Baxter; after a lifetime of family cats and then roommate cats, they were the first two who were mine alone. They were with me through job changes, a second education and complete career change, buying a house, losing old friends and gaining new ones, dreams achieved and dreams abandoned to reality, and all the myriad changes you go through as your twenties turn into your thirties and you really become the person you are. So many changes, and they were the constant. Anyway, a crappy cell phone picture of her is my avatar here, but she died before I learned how to resize photos in order to post here so she was never visually part of Chit Chat. So here’s my favorite picture of her, my mantle kitty:

This is my big stumbling block in deciding whether or not to see this film. I'm addicted to plane crash documentaries, so enjoying the dramatized versions is always difficult for the inaccuracies, but completely misrepresenting the NTSB investigators (To, what, add drama? Um, I think the engine loss takes care of that, so that leaves an anti-government agenda, and fuck that noise) may be a step too far for me. I'll probably wait until it's on TV. Both Sully and the co-pilot have talked about that stroke of good luck in real life.

I agree about Fisher. I also agree with this. I would like the Rams to be successful, so there's not just a team in town, but a good team in town, but it's going to take me a while before I'm truly rooting for them like a fan. And I'll never root for them against the Giants or Raiders (or the Seahawks so long as Pete Carroll is coaching). But it's exciting to be able to go to an NFL game without traveling. (And it's easy for me to get to the Coliseum, so I'm more into this interim period than the new stadium era.) How long before I'm actually going to see the Rams rather than going to games where I like the opponent? We'll see.

I never got into Everybody Loves Raymond, but somehow wound up watching the Thanksgiving episode in which Debra's seemingly happy parents are outed as being at each others' throats and about to enter marriage counseling. I happened upon that episode today, and cracked up all over again. Robert's "Sweet bastard, I'm getting happy" as he knocks back another drink and watches the drama unfold made me laugh so hard the cat jumped off my lap. I also love when Debra's mom is complaining about her husband and Marie says, "I feel so close to you right now." And then there's the physical comedy when Debra drops the turkey:

This isn't my cup of tea, because it's so fake I can't ignore that and just watch the food, but I watched it while hanging out at a friend's house -- I figured an hour spent with "Natalie" and Barbara Eden (the only ones I know) couldn't be too awful. My friend wanted to watch because Jersey Shore was her guilty pleasure for however long it was on, and she spent pretty much all of Mike's screen time yelling at the TV -- she said the JS cast had weekly (good, homemade) dinners at home, and Mike was the cook for many of them.

And 100% cute.

Yikes - I remember James Stacy from his Emmy-nominated guest spot on Cagney & Lacey, the TV movie about the accident that cost him his limbs, and his precedent-setting lawsuit, but I somehow completely missed the child molestation conviction and all the craziness that surrounded it.

Grocery store fruit and vegetables are almost universally disappointing - as was said, the factory farms grow for uniformity, size, color, etc. rather than flavor - so I am very thankful to be able to have a backyard garden much of the year, and to have excellent farmers' markets locally to fill in the gaps. I use a lot of avocados, so sometimes I have to pick a few up at the market in between farmers' market days. I have a couple of great local markets, and in general they have better stuff than the chains, but every once in a while I will still wind up with an avocado that looks great but turns out to be crap when I get into it. Highly annoying. Another avocado peeve, even though I have good options due to friends' trees and farmers' markets: that most grocery stores only carry Hass avocados. They're great, but there are so many other delicious varieties as well, so that one could stock in-season avocados pretty much year round, rather than trucking in Hass when they're not in season, because people have been led to believe they're the only avocados that exist in the west.

Well, we kind of had to be, didn't we -- NFL football wasn't an option for a long time. Basketball (well, Lakers basketball, anyway) was popular enough on its own, but becoming a college football town to the extent LA did came about because of the NFL vacuum. It's never been a sports town, period, in the way of Chicago or other cities with which I'm less familiar, but pro football had a large fan base here in the past and will again. This Rams team is making it difficult to jump/stay on that particular bandwagon, and, yeah, there's a lot else going on here to choose from on Sundays if their games continue to suck. But there will be plenty of fans. The novelty/nostalgia (depending on whether you were alive and old enough to attend the last time it was an option) will ebb with a bad season, but as things work themselves out, a fan base will be sustained. We didn't want to pay for a new stadium, and we didn't want it in a location that made it more trouble than it was worth to get off the couch, but we wanted a team.

That's an odd thing for someone past college age to hang up as wall art in their bedroom.

First the raging jealousy and ridiculous demands, now sitting on a rock blubbering to a picture because she's away from her fiancé for two days -- Cristina, girl, don't make me stop liking you. Dancing with her family was very cute, though. The patience required to put up with some of these folks is far more than I have; I can come away from a one-hour show emotionally exhausted, so I can't imagine the people who do it day in and day out. Rachel's mom is so good with her. When Rachel's initial reaction is to insist she doesn't want to go, her mom doesn't push, just says she has time to decide. Later she offers to get a hotel room nearby, so that Rachel can give it a try knowing she'll be able to call her mom and have her there in minutes if she gets scared. All this easing into things means Rachel winds up deciding to just go ahead and join the group. The families of Rachel and Cristina are aces, pure and simple.

Brussels sprouts I love (as is true of the majority of vegetables) -- I could eat them daily and not get sick of them. I suppose it does go both ways with cell phones -- those staring at a screen with multiple phone number fields to fill in, unable to comprehend someone giving only a cell phone number or someone giving only a home or work number. I get a lot of "We don't have a cell phone number listed for you; would you like to add that now?" questions when I have to call my bank, insurance company, etc. The negative answer often perplexes them. "You don't have a cell phone?" Um, yeah, but I won't be giving you the number.

I would too if I actually made calls and texts with any regularity; I pay less than half that per month for far more minutes than I'll ever use and a per text fee that adds up to peanuts because I so rarely text. I pay the bare minimum because I use the bare minimum -- I want a cell phone for those emergencies that never happen and when I'm stuck in traffic and like the ability to place a courtesy "I'm going to be late enough you should go ahead and grab a drink and a table" call, and that's it. Presumably the day will come when one can't have a cell phone that isn't a smart phone, and at that point I'll have to learn to use one. No problem, but I will resent the hell out of the increased cost since I just don't use a mobile phone enough to justify more than what I'm paying now. And that won't change. I can't fathom squinting at a tiny phone to read correspondence, let alone watch video content, so that's never going to be useful to me -- I have a large monitor and really large TVs because I want my eyes to have a large surface when they have to stare at electronic images. And I don't take work calls/check work emails outside of office hours and don't take social calls when I'm busy, so I just don't need the 24/7 connection. Lima beans? Eww. But, then, I have never met a bean I did not hate. Well, not true - I like edamame. The rest, though, I'll take a pass.

I don't remember how much it costs me per text, but I have to pay for each text sent or received. It's the plan I chose - I hardly ever text, so it would make no sense to pay more per month for a plan that includes free texting; it's far cheaper to just pay individually for the handful of texts I send/receive each year. I hardly ever use my cell phone, period, and very few people have the number. Those who do know it spends most of its time in my car or purse/briefcase waiting to be charged and thus not to call me on it. Every once in a while, someone gets amnesia, though, and when I finally unearth my phone and charge it, I'll discover a weeks-old message. I share the peeve with people who assume everyone has a smartphone. When I ask about something in a store and the clerk tells me, "You can get it on your phone" or starts talking about an app, I like to dig out my flip phone and ask, "Oh, really?"

Ha! I largely do not care about germs, so public toilets don't bother me on that front, but given the way a flushing toilet spews germs into the air, I can just imagine how those who are bothered by germs feel about a toilet they can't cover, especially those they can't even control when they flush. So it is with all due sympathy I chuckle at the image of you delivering a ninja kick and fleeing the stall.