Bastet

Animal Planet. I was watching Dr. Jeff and My Cat From Hell last night and saw numerous promos for it. It premieres Saturday June 4th. And they talk about race; in one clip, one of them comments on how many people (including his wife, when he met her) have said to him, "Oh, wow, I've never met a black veterinarian."

I just saw it for the first time last night, so the dialogue was fresh in my mind. I thought it was pretty well done, but if the severity of her allergy is so well known to even her friends, never mind her, I do not understand how she needs this drug company's ad to tell her to carry a freakin' epi pen just in case. Because stuff like this does happen all the time -- someone with an allergy doesn't ask if a food contains their dangerous ingredient (either out of forgetfulness or because it's something not normally made with that ingredient so they wouldn't have thought to ask) or a host/server gives the wrong answer.

Ha - a friend lived with me for a while in my first post-college townhouse, and sometimes we'd wake up wondering why our legs were sore and then remember that after a few drinks we'd popped in some '80s CDs and danced around the living room. Nice aerobic exercise to burn off those alcohol calories. Salty, crunchy snacks are my kryptonite. For "dinner" last night, I made a big bowl of spinach, artichoke & cheese dip and made my way through half a bag of tortilla chips. Not to mention an annoying one. I'm usually in my car yelling, "Thanks, asshole! You may have all the time in the world, but now I have to wait, too." Yes, I have road rage, and fellow drivers are lucky I am anti-gun.

White God is a beautifully-shot movie, and in fact well done on pretty much all fronts. But I cannot get through it.

They say in the commercial that she did ask (the friend says, "She asked you!").

There was insulation - both in the simple "turn a Rubbermaid storage bin into a home" versions and the cute little igloos donated at the end. And, yes, Staten Island.

Bingo. O.J. Simpson makes it hard to watch now (but at least Nordberg keeps getting the ever-loving shit kicked out of him), but the film is just laugh-until-it-hurts funny to me. The baseball scenes are great, and also the shenanigans in Ludwig's office. The student driver and her instructor. The long-suffering mayor. Etc.

I think that's a pretty safe bet. Maybe she just looked at the success rate of the surgery and figured Oliver would be fine no matter what she fed him -- because, statistically, she was likely to have been right. But Oliver is on the wrong side of the statistics, and hopefully she now understands she can't take the chance. Plus, Dr. Jeff made that opening HUGE (for a urethra; it's all relative), so there's some leeway for even a fairly large number of crystals to pass through. Hopefully, he'll be fine, because finding enough tissue to perform that surgery a second time was lucky enough -- three strikes and poor Oliver will likely be out. I hope they also talked to her about the importance of increased water consumption for Oliver (adding water to his canned food, getting a fountain to encourage more drinking [many cats will drink more water out of a fountain than a regular bowl], etc.) because one of the greatest tools for keeping a urinary tract healthy is to keep it moving.

I don't love Casablanca the way so many do, but that La Marseillaise scene is quite powerful, and LeBeau is a significant part of that.

Now that I'm done with the episode ... Even more kudos to the father/son team caring for the community cats. They will never again find one frozen to death. What must have happened to Sweet Pea in her previous life? I've had an easier time taming a truly feral - never had a home, extremely limited exposure to humans - cat than they are with a cat who's had a home of some sort. Good on them realizing they're her not only best but pretty much only shot, at least for now, and sticking with it.

I'm only five minutes into it, but as a huge proponent of TNR, I am loving this episode's outline of how to properly care for community cats. These guys have their hearts in the right place, and they're apparently the only people in the neighborhood attempting to help these cats, but they - by their own admission - don't know what they're doing, so they're not helping anywhere near as much as they want to. I'm going to set aside reaching out to a TV show rather than a local TNR organization and just rejoice in this being shown to a national audience.

Heh; I've got big "crumbcatchers," too. That's what I'll think of from now on. My mom had a mastectomy about 20 years ago, and opted out of reconstructive surgery, so one breast is a prosthesis. Thus, unable to feel anything on that side, she's prone to accidentally sticking it in her salad dressing or something as she leans forward to reach for something. She figures it's fine so long as she doesn't set her fake boob on fire.

Holy hell, did Dr. Jeff really just successfully perform a second PU surgery? I'm impressed. I'm also hoping Oliver's owner understands how crucial it is to feed him a diet that reduces his risk of forming excess crystals. Because that surgery has an over 90% success rate; to need it again, the cat is just congenitally prone to crystals and/or eating a shitty diet. She can't do anything about the first, but she can the second. And, yeah, quality pet food costs more than the junk, but it costs less than PU surgeries (not to mention the other health problems a cat that overweight is at increased risk of). Stumpy! <sniff> (The squirrel in the bonus footage from the "Extra Dose" episode.) The way Jeff's daughter burst into tears upon realizing it was her made me cry right along with her! I have a lot of squirrels in my neighborhood, and love to watch them chase each other. I have one I can distinguish from the others, who hangs out in my backyard a lot - Mr. Squirrel (creative, no?) - and who would walk right into my house if I'd let him. My late cat Maddie used to have long conversations with him, always when Mr. Squirrel was elevated and she was at ground level. I can walk right up to him, but I don't touch him.

And with all the latest technology.

Do you eat at a table, or just sitting on a sofa/chair (or standing at the sink, heh)? Because when I eat sitting at a table or desk, I'm fine, but when I plop down in my recliner to eat, I tend to drop food on my chest. Good thing I change into around-the-house clothes as soon as I get home.

Oh, crap - A League of Their Own is on, and I am powerless to resist watching it -- despite the fact this (wonderful) film would be 100 times better if Dottie had HELD ONTO THE DAMN BALL and that crybaby Kit would have either finally grown the hell up or melted down into oblivion, and I do not give a shit which one. Ugh, I hate Kit coming away a winner so much. It never stops pissing me off, because the narrative trying to make me feel sorry for her whiny ass blows my mind.

Oh my god, yes. "Where does this [dish/utensil I've unloaded from dishwasher/drying rack] go?" "The same place it has gone since the day we moved in!" This is one of the many reasons I live alone.

I'm glad they did, in fact, know she intended to adopt kittens at that time, rather than making a series of assumptions. I still think their parents should have stepped in when they came up with this idea and said that while it's a truly lovely thought, it would be better to get her a gift certificate to the shelter to cover the adoption fees, or to a pet supply store for food/supplies, and let her pick out her own cats. And I hope they went to the shelter rather than buying them someplace. But it's a much better scenario than what I was picturing. I wish that information had been included from the beginning, because I'm still nervous about people looking at this video without having the specifics and thinking, "That's a great idea!" when most of the time it's really not. At any rate, two kittens have a home, a cat lover's heart is healing, and a group of kids did something nice for their teacher.

Ooh, the original Jake from State Farm ad is back in rotation? I'll never get sick of that one. All three actors have absolutely perfect delivery.

Jungle Juice! That brought on some high school house party flashbacks. I also really wanted ribs. I'm undecided on which way they're going to go with Violet, and I like that none of them are really jumping to one conclusion or another. I love Bonnie's, "I'm not going to tell you [you're an alcoholic] ... I am going to tell you you have vomit in your hair, so draw your own conclusions," but then she also says later she thinks this is going to turn out to be something less than history repeating itself. And, yes, more Linda Lavin, please. They left the door open for that with Christy saying they can still be friends even though they're not going to be in-laws (followed by the predictable but amusing "I'm standing right here" bit about Christy needing a mom).

I thought that premiered during the Super Bowl, but apparently it was the Oscars.

Per various other accounts, and even by his own admission, Grant was rather insecure in that regard and made that complaint a lot.

I find the ending really out of place and quite a letdown, so I always figured it was an alteration of the source material. They did that so much back then when adapting stories into films, plugging happy endings in where they did not belong.

Right? It's an independent restaurant, not a chain, and I trust they'd honor someone's request not to receive any communication other than "Your table is ready," but I don't trust they wouldn't try sending promotional shit and force people to opt out. But even if all they'd send was that one text, WTF? I could see offering it as an option, especially since this place generally has more than a bit of a wait and is centrally located, so there's lots to do in the immediate vicinity while waiting -- if you'd rather be able to wander far enough away that the little pager thing wouldn't work but close enough that you could make it back to claim your table promptly upon receiving the text, opt for the text, otherwise just hang out like normal and wait to be paged/called. But they got rid of their pagers, and are now down to either texting you or calling your name -- and expect texting to be the default.

I think my parents struck a great balance, imposing reasonable restrictions/taking reasonable precautions that changed as I matured and otherwise giving me room to explore and learn, letting me fall flat on my face (sometimes figuratively, one time literally) from time to time so I'd learn how to accept consequences and avoid similar mistakes in the future. Of course, at the time I thought they were super strict, but I came out of the womb ready to do battle with authority, so what did I know? (Hell, I still struggle with the fact people exist in the world who can tell me what to do.) Peeve: For Mother's Day, I took my mom to a restaurant she loves but that we hadn't been to in a while. When I walked up to request a table for two, the host asked for my phone number. Wondering why on earth he wanted my number rather than my name, I asked. "We'll send you a text when your table is ready." Um, no. My cell phone is lying dead in my car, in need of a charge. Even if it was in my purse and working, you are not texting me -- I hardly ever use the damn thing, and when I do it's to call 99% of the time and text the other one percent, so I have a plan with a very low monthly fee that gives me more minutes per month than I'd use in five years and charges a fee per text. I am not paying even whatever paltry amount it is for you to tell me my table is ready. And you're not getting a phone number only about ten people have. Give me one of those things that vibrates and lights up or exert your vocal cords to call out, "Bastet, party of two." (He did the latter - and we got a great table twenty minutes shy of the estimated wait time.) I was pleased to see as I looked around at the other families waiting outside (it's a busy place that doesn't take reservations) only half consisted of a group of people completely ignoring each other in favor of each one staring at a damn phone; the other half were engaged in conversation with the people actually sitting there with them. Sad that this percentage is pleasing, but in this day and age ...