Bastet

I'll add Vanessa Williams, OMD, and System of a Down.

Oh, and remember how I faux grumbled that the one canned food Riley likes is $2.05/can? The others she likes now -- $2.65 and $2.85. Then there's the frozen raw, at anywhere from about $10-15/pound, depending on the protein. She likes chicken, but she loves duck, rabbit, and venison. She's got pretty champagne tastes for a clearance kitty. (Of course, with how little she eats, for now she's not that expensive to feed.) She, like my parents' cat Chester, most loves duck (the frozen raw). But Nature's Variety recently quit making it in a feline formula. So my parents and I both have to buy the canine formula and add taurine. Which is not a big deal, and the dog formulas come in larger bags, which breaks down to a lower per-pound cost. But still. So at some point I'll have to decide which will win out - my laziness (and lack of freezer space), which will make the convenience of pre-made worth the cost, or my thriftiness (and fondness for having control of the quality of my protein - and the way the animal who died to provide it was treated), which will force me to make my own cat food. I think I see a meat grinder in my future. At least once I remodel the kitchen and replace the fridge with one with more freezer space. And lots of research on the proper ratio of muscle to organ meat and meat to bone (or substitute), necessary supplements and their amounts, etc. I have a trusted recipe for cooked food, but would be starting almost from scratch on raw. There's a lot of info out there, it's just a matter of wading through and evaluating.

I've seen the headlines about this game craze, but I hadn't read any of them until now, so if someone had shown up at my house saying there was a Pokemon in my yard they wanted to catch, I would have been backing away slowly to call the men in white coats. Note to self: Even though a bunch of people playing a game doesn't sound like anything you'll care about, when you see that many headlines about one, read the articles.

Nancy Kerrigan always bugged the ever-loving shit out of me, and I loved to watch Tonya Harding skate, so I was disappointed when all that crazy stuff went down. I liked that episode and think it presented a fair picture of Tonya -- good and bad. How awful her mother was to her (yet was the only person she had to rely on, making it no wonder she married an asshole at a young age), how she was treated as the "white trash" of the skating world -- and how, while she has a good handle on some things today, she's still living in denial. I always rooted for her on the ice, and will always root for her to continue learning to love and make a stable life for herself, but she's not yet being completely honest with herself as far as I can tell.

I'm knocking on everything wood within reach, but Riley had made some real progress with food this week. Dry food is the only thing she'll seek out on her own and eat off a plate/bowl on the ground like, you know, a cat, but she's so much more enthusiastic about the canned or pre-made raw food I bring to her on the desk, in bed, etc. than she was initially. She used to literally run away when I'd bring food, and after being coaxed into eating out of my hand, she'd look a bit miserable afterward. Now, after a little sniffing, she will eat off the plate, and looks normal afterward. I don't normally do this, but I'm allowing her to eat dry food one meal a day for now. At least it's one of the few dry foods made with good ingredients (just cooked to death) and not deriving a ton of its calories from carbohydrates. So 1/4 cup a day of it isn't bad, even though it's not ideal. And it helps get a more typical number of calories into her per day. Plus, it's something she'll eat when home alone. So, she still needs to eat a little more - and, good gravy, she needs to eat on her own rather than only eating when she's been served - but she's gone from refusing all but one or two kinds of cat food (and those only if doctored up with raw chicken liver, homemade chicken stock, etc.) to liking a few kinds of canned food and several kinds of pre-made raw. I still have to shut her in the study when my mom comes over to force her to get used to Grandma; if she has the ability to run to the bedroom or office and hide under the bed, she will, which is what kept happening, so I took the option away from her. The first time she shook and hid behind me for a good 20 minutes. Today (the second time), for maybe a minute. And she let my mom pet her several times; one time, she even rubbed my mom's hand on her own (undoubtedly because she was sitting under a table at the time and thus felt extra secure being "hidden"). So we're going to continue this at least once a week for a while. I don't care if she never becomes the kind of cat who greets most people when they come over, but she has to at minimum get comfortable with my mom - or I'll never be able to go on vacation again! Baxter used to rearrange the pillows on the office couch/bed to his liking, and now Riley does the same -- which generally means she knocks them down flat to use as little thrones:

I like the dog.

"Condoms, Rose! Condoms, condoms, condoms" has been posted, so I will offer up The Great Herring War: The aforementioned "Not Lebanese, Blanche, lesbian": And Blanche meets Dr. Jonathan Newman:

possibilities, all the Animal Planet vet shows use very few stories that don't have a happy ending.

Oh, hell. This is the potential pitfall with therapy. It can be of tremendous value, but therapists - despite all their training - still carry with them the same biases that infect us all. Some don't recognize it and overcome it. It's a big problem where even female therapists have internalized much of the sexist bullshit that pervades society, and thus counsel their female clients from that viewpoint. Huge. Add in racial prejudice when one of the people you're most focused on talking about is a black man ... you're not going to get good advice from this person. Not that someone trained in the psychology of domestic violence can't have racial prejudices that affect her/his abilities, but please do indeed start with a DV hotline for referral to someone whose expertise is in counseling victims of domestic abuse and keep going until you find someone who's a good match for you. Do not be scared to go to HR. I am not about to bullshit you and assure you your particular HR department is properly trained in how to handle intra-office DV; sadly, they may wind up being a total clusterfuck. But get out in front of all this. Document. Call meetings. Leave a trail. Nor am I going to bullshit you that there are no potential ramifications from any of this. He will lash out. The horrifying fact is abused women are in the most danger when they attempt to break away. This is no joke, and you've gotta do what you've gotta do. The system may not work for you. First and foremost protect yourself. Etc. But PLEASE do indeed reach out to a DV hotline to help you navigate all your potential decisions as this unfolds.

Huh. My mom was prescribed Norco after each of her knee replacement surgeries and we never had any problems. She got plenty of pills at one time, all she had to do for a refill was call or email her doctor, and I was able to go pick them up.

Also The Cranberries and Grace Slick. Another very popular title. I can think of Sugarland, David Bowie, Oingo Boingo, Shakespeare's Sister, and Rihanna, as well. We can add Julee Cruise and Santana, too.

I have always had white kitchen cabinets. I like my wood furniture to be stained, but my doors, trim, and cabinetry to be painted. And since I love color on the walls, the rest is done in a shade of white that complements the wall color. So, for example, my kitchen walls are a medium shade of yellow and my cabinets are a white that has a slight yellow tint to it you don't notice without studying it. I have no trouble keeping them clean; I use a semi-gloss sheen that makes for easy cleaning, and wipe off any smudges with a Magic Eraser sponge.

I made (whole wheat thin crust) pizza with alfredo sauce, chicken, mushrooms, and broccoli, and I'm really struggling to talk myself out of eating another piece or two as a midnight snack.

You're not missing shit by being out the boyfriend. His abusive behavior is entirely on him, not you, bottom line. I want to preempt any "you've kept him around for a year?" piling on, because there's a whole lot of psychology going on here; what matters is that he's gone - and stays gone. He's not going to "get better," because he's fucked up. And there may be a terribly sad reason for that, and the best-case scenario is that he recognizes himself as an abuser and takes the necessary steps down the long road to recovery. But he needs to do all that without you. I encourage you to contact a domestic violence hotline for a referral to a local counselor who specializes in this area. And, yes, it's abuse. Seriously -- a textbook case. He's irrationally jealous, possessive, and controlling, he runs hot and cold, and he twists perfectly normal situations into betrayals on your part, making you apologize for stuff that is not remotely inappropriate and blaming you for "making him" get upset with you. I hope he's never gotten physical with you, but the absence of physical violence doesn't stop it being abuse. Run like the wind, because it will only escalate. Seriously. Get the car fixed, yeah, but also get yourself whatever help you need to permanently extricate yourself from this man. Don't be embarrassed to involve your mutual employer in protecting you. Don't "oh, it can't be that bad" second-guess yourself out of a restraining order when he starts seeking you out again. Get.the.hell.out. And surround yourself with experienced people who can help you understand what's going on and protect yourself.

Forever Young -Rod Stewart -Bob Dylan Even though Dylan got an equal share of the royalties on Stewart's song because of the similarities, they're two different songs.

To me, dine and ditch is when you skip out on the bill, and dine and dash is to eat and run without the crime.

Plus, you die (until the next time you come back) in really interesting ways. Sure, some will be more banal -- getting shot, falling off a cliff, crashing your car -- but you may be eaten by a shark, stabbed by a puppet, or turned into a shrunken head.

When Nina came in to the Dirty Robber at the end, she said Frankie told her to meet him there after the concert. Earlier, when Angela counseled Frankie on what to do about Kent's invitation, he said something like, "Yeah, that's what Nina said." And, most telling, there was something with Angela telling her stories about Frankie as a boy. That all says dating to me.

Also Elton John. And my favorite, TLC.

I was kind of surprised by the John Wayne TS. The only one of his films I have ever watched all the way through is Rooster Cogburn (and that's because of Katharine Hepburn), but it's kind of hard to escape hearing about his films enough that Cahill and Hondo in the clue did it for me. I also knew Kafka, California, Madonna, and Snark -- I LOVED the periodic spelling category.

Whenever I watch this, I skip the wedding; it blunts the aggravation considerably. I, too, wish I had a wall of throwing vases. "Stuff your stuff!" "Get thee used to this - I havest a headache." BTW, Cybill's last name is misspelled in the "Who cares?" paragraph.

Also Annie Lennox, Carly Simon, and Tracy Chapman. Also Damn Yankees, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, P!nk, and Bon Jovi. (And probably more; I think this is another quite popular title.) My favorite is The Dixie Chicks.

That was Tess Gerritsen? That's cute. I'm kind of surprised it took them so long to give her a cameo, but it also makes sense they'd do it in the home stretch. Kent the KISS fan truly cracked me up. I missed the part about the mice, thankfully (I basically had it on as background noise). I'm with Jane on not understanding people believing in ghosts (wanting to believe, thinking it a nice idea in the way Korsak described, sure, but not actually believing), but I also really liked Korsak knocking her down with the reminder she followed her Frost hallucination around town. Plus it was just nice to hear his name; kudos to whomever remembered that episode and realized this story line made for a natural way to reference him again.

I guess maybe if you were a Los Angeleno born after it was changed from Grauman's to Mann's, you'd think of it that way, but even then you were likely hearing it referred to as Grauman's by people who were around before the change. It's always been Grauman's to me, and while I knew it had been changed to Mann's for a time, I rarely if ever heard anyone who lives here refer to it that way; that would be something a tourist would read out of their book. And TCL? Forget it.

Not just a hesitation, he filled that pause with the up-talk "Um ..." that is a clear signal the positive answer to follow is going to either be an attempt at diplomacy or an outright lie.