Bastet

Thinking of Oswalt and McNamara's daughter makes me sad, too -- thankfully, she's old enough to retain memories of her mom, but she's so young to have to wrap her mind around this loss (not that there's a good age for it).

With a clinic name like Planned Pethood, I suspect it was simply the focus of last night's episode rather than a new policy. And I am all for it. I favor legislation requiring spay/neuter for pets (with necessary medical exemptions, and with low-cost spay/neuter clinics at shelters), which we have in my area, so a private clinic - especially one that does pro bono work - making it their policy? Hell, yeah. Jackson the cat was a cutie, and I'm so glad that pit bull with heat stroke was okay -- a temp of 109?? I loved the "residentially impaired" man with the little dog with broken bones, how he said he goes stir crazy living such an isolated life and talks to himself, so being able to talk to the dog helps.

Right? That has to be deliberate. While I am pretty casual about nudity (mine or others'), that doesn't lead to me being oblivious to the surroundings and circumstances. There's no way I would just somehow not think about the fact I was bending over naked in the middle of a common space! She has to know what she's doing.

I don't know if it's new or just new to me, but I am loving this episode of Dr. Jeff showing the importance of spay/neuter, for both population control and health.

At D.J.'s spelling bee: Roseanne: Please let it be a word he knows. Teacher: David Jacob, your word is foreclosure.

I can understand applying lotion in front of the mirror to make sure everything is rubbed in (on the places you can't see just by looking down), and I'm not someone who has issues being naked in front of strangers in locker rooms, at spas, etc. But choosing a mirror in the center of communal space and then bending over is a bit much, yeah.

I never regularly watched Throwdown, but I saw quite a few episodes and it seemed to be like he was always losing. As for Rachael Ray's $40 a Day, I liked the restaurants I got to see, but hated that the premise was predicated on screwing servers out of a proper tip, so I stopped watching. Presumably they were adequately compensated by the production company, but it's still a shitty thing to do as a TV show, advising people to eat cheaply on the backs of others.

I mostly remember discussion of whether that was their first time or not (I'm in the latter camp), rather than debate over whether or not they had sex at all. I probably just skim over the latter, though. I was watching quite sporadically by season seven, and I think I'd missed many episodes in a row prior to all things, but made sure to tune back in for that one. I couldn't stand the attitude towards Daniel's illness, so I don't particularly care for the episode, but I like that it confirmed to me they were, in fact, sleeping together, because the lack of acknowledgment had been bugging me some.

In shorts, they'd be cold off the active set, but feel fine under the lights while shooting; it's typical for actors to have a coat draped over them as soon as they walk out of camera range to account for the studio temperature. They could have put them in clothing more appropriate to Miami without making the actors uncomfortable. I wonder if the "old people are always cold" mindset affected the costume designer.

In most places, and for now, it's considered a made-up word, an improper example of back-formation. You could subject yourself to a real earful (as it were) by Googling "Is conversate a word?" but I think the article I linked above does a nicer job. In some regions/cultures, it's a word. In others, it's not. And, with the way language evolves, the day may very well come that it's widely accepted. I have quite the love/hate relationship with the evolution of language, but that's for another day.

Jeez, dying in your sleep is grand, but not at 46! I wonder what happened.

Heather Nova finally returned to the U.S., and I went to see her last night. It was every bit as good as it was in 1994. She did a nice mix of new and old. Oyster is my favorite of her albums, and from that I most wanted to hear Walk This World, Island, and Sugar, but figured in a fairly short set we'd only get Walk This World. It turned out, we got all but Sugar. Speaking of long-awaited tours, I have never missed working for a record label so much as when I shelled out a ridiculous amount of money for The Dixie Chicks' final show this summer at the Hollywood Bowl. Obscene, really. But they're one of my favorite bands, and I haven't seen them on stage in so long, I figured I'd treat myself.

Yeah, riding a bike on the sidewalks is illegal in my city (no idea what the exception is for kids), but our bike lane system is piss poor, so it's unreasonably dangerous for cyclists to ride on many streets. The city is slowly making changes as a result of grassroots activism by those who regularly bike and/or walk, but in the interim I don't care if someone rides their bike on the sidewalk so long as they do so courteously. Which many do, but there are notable exceptions. We have a lot of rude pedestrians here, especially those who, like discussed above, walk double file and take up the entire sidewalk, then expect you to move for them (by hopping in the gutter or tromping through someone's landscaping) rather than temporarily shifting. Oh, hell no. I will walk right into your inconsiderate self before I will do that. It's a game of chicken, and I win.

The latter I'm used to from a British friend, so I'm the opposite.

I watched August: Osage County (for the first time) today. WTF with the one sister getting mad at Julia Roberts' character for not telling her their alleged cousin is actually their half brother, saying it's equal to their mom never telling her? Hello! Mother has had this info from day one, but Julia's character just found out, and was asked not to tell. And why is it important to begin with? Because this sister is FUCKING THEIR "COUSIN" (another bit of knowledge only recently acquired). So someone should have thought to warn you your cousin is actually your half brother, so you wouldn't start banging him?

There are several articles out there on the invention of "conversate," and back-formation in general, but I think this one is the most informative.

Sledge died a year ago (4/14/15).

That's how I store asparagus -- in a little bit of water, with a plastic bag loosely covering. Are these pod things pretty much airtight? (I can't tell from looking at the picture.) I would think that would create too much humidity.

That was me, and it would have been no issue to quote me. I didn't give it a whole lot of thought, as I was just musing on my recent re-listen of his music after a long time without hearing it, but the "fairly" was basically a nod to the artists whose influence could be seen in his music, and the "original" a testament to the individual style we'll never see again. I thought of Michael Jackson, too. I remember emailing back and forth with a friend that day about Farrah Fawcett's death, and seeing a headline on the LA Times website that some other outlet was reporting Michael Jackson had died. I included the link in my latest email to her, but with a "this can't be true" sentiment. I thought I'd read somewhere after Prince's recent emergency landing that some website had erroneously (or as a hoax) reported he was dead, so when I first saw today's headline I had the same initial reaction -- this can't be right.

Maybe that, or maybe something else was diagnosed and he/his publicist just said it was the flu. Whatever happened, it's too bad, because he was much too young to die. I hadn't listened to his music in a long time (other than still hearing old songs on the radio), but a couple of weeks ago I had a craving and pulled out his greatest hits CD. He had a fairly original sound, and was quite the entertainer (I only saw him in concert once, but it was a good show).

Quoting myself to say I went ahead and watched this and ... holy shit. It made the tears I shed watching Dear Zachary seem like a slight mist. We're talking gasping, sobbing, I have no idea when I'll be able to breathe through my nose again crying. Which probably makes you wonder why on earth you should subject yourselves to this film, but you should. Because some of the tears are that it's so beautiful. I felt for everyone profiled, including the dying man who wanted to deny anyone the right to make a different choice than he'd make for himself. But Cody Curtis ... the film belongs to Cody. Has anyone else watched this?

I just watched The House I Live In, examining the epic failure of the U.S. “war on drugs.” It’s impressively comprehensive, and does a particularly good job with the devastating impact on the black community (including a nice outline of the racist history of drug laws, rather than just talking about recent examples like mandatory minimums) and a good segment on how mass incarceration – often in private prisons - has created a booming and varied industry that now has a vested interest in seeing the policy of locking people up, and for a long time, for drug offenses continued. One of the interesting aspects was hearing from so many people who are part of that war – prison officials, narcotics detectives, judges, etc. – and who acknowledge what a ridiculous and counter-productive system we’ve created. Honest talk from a good selection of people all around; addiction experts, activists, law enforcement officers, those incarcerated, addicts, their families, etc. It was filmed over many years, and quite well done. It won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance when it came out (2012?), and with good reason. I then got three minutes into How to Die in Oregon (about the death with dignity law) before tearing up. Maybe I’ll save that for a fresh day. I saw TRAPPED (about Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers laws) at a screening a month or so ago, and found that well done, too. Not quite as well done as I wanted it to be – there were a couple of key avenues of discussion I thought were glaring in their omission (e.g. contrasting all the medical procedures with astronomically greater risk of complication that are not subject to the same requirements imposed by these laws on abortion) – but informative (and infuriating). One of the simplest tools was one of the most effective; a recurring map of disappearing clinics, showing how many were forced to close with each new law.

I just watched the '85 Bears episode, and holy crap, I cried at the guys' reaction to Buddy Ryan's letter. The footage of Mike Singletary visiting him was already making me emotional, and then they laid that on me. Good episode. I also finally watched June 17th, 1994, an episode I'd long avoided because anything to do with O.J. Simpson risks upsetting me. Wow, I had forgotten just how much was going on in the world of sports over the few days between Nicole and Ron's murder and O.J.'s arrest. It's not a topic I'd have ever thought to make an episode about, but it turned out to be quite interesting. I watched Trojan War, too (I'd seen part of it when it premiered, but just now went back and watched the whole thing). That really took me back through all the emotions of being a USC football fan. The frustrating years when the team had gone from being a perennial powerhouse to one that kept losing to UCLA and Notre Dame, the "eh, here we go again" attitude when Carroll was hired, and then the sheer excitement of watching his teams play. Carson Palmer to Mike Williams, then Matt Leinart to Matt Williams, then Thunder & Lightning. It was just so very much fun to watch those teams play. Of course, the episode also made me re-live that national championship loss to Texas. But it was nice to hear the coaches and players from both teams talk about it the way they did. Then the final segment, with everyone talking about how they wouldn't trade it for the world, even with how everything blew up with the NCAA sanctions. The entire episode, the emotions and the players and coaches tracked with me own, so it was a powerful episode for me -- it really took me back.

A bit of trivia, since this is a common mistake: NOW is the National Organization for Women. O is for the omission of women's issues from the platforms of many progressive organizations in the '60s, which kicked the second wave into high gear and turned the organized women's liberation movement into something the characters would really start hearing and thinking about.

She'll always be Mildred Krebs to me, but I'll never forget her guest spot on St. Elsewhere, either. I'm pulling out the Remington Steele DVDs tonight.