Bastet

Ah, okay. I didn't hear it, and Alex said something like, "Yes, what is a snake?" so between those two things I thought Neil hadn't said it and Alex was filling it in for him (like saying, "Yes, Grace Kelly" when Debra gave her Princess Grace answer).

Things like accepting Princess Grace for Grace Kelly and not penalizing Neil for failing to phrase in the form of a question (I didn't hear a "What is" before his snake answer) were par for the course in the celebrity tournaments of old, but I wish they'd stuck to recent history and governed this like a regular game. (Not to mention gone with more challenging clues.) I haven't watched any of Vince Gilligan's shows since he was a writer on The X-Files, and haven't paid attention to any press about him since then, so to me he's frozen in time from XF-era interviews and I did a double take at him looking different. Same great voice, though. Good voices all around this game, really. I didn't get home until just as the interviews started, so I missed the first half of round one. From the portion of the game I saw, Indonesia was my big stunner as a TS -- from the clue and category, they knew the answer started with I, was made up of a shit ton of islands, and straddles the equator. The Tehran embassy was almost as surprising. Omelet(te) was a bit surprising, too, but I liked Neil's reaction. I wasn't familiar with him, but he was enjoyable to watch. I was rooting for both Debra and Vince, but can't complain about his win. (And can't believe Vince didn't get FJ.) I just wish it hadn't been such an easy set of clues.

I did not know that. I've heard it said, but I don't think I'd ever seen it written before, and I always thought people were just screwing up the word "supposedly" -- I didn't know it could be intentional. (My "learn something new everyday" tidbit for today, I guess.)

A neighbor got in an early crop of several varieties of squash and shared the bounty, so even though it's too early in the year for corn, I made this recipe using frozen corn. This was a side dish for Mother's Day dinner, and my parents and I all really liked it. I will definitely make it again this summer when my own crops are in, because I usually wind up swimming in squash at some point. Other minor changes: I used 4 cups total of the various types of squash I had rather than using just the two specified in the recipe, fresh chiles - jalapeño and Anaheim - instead of canned, and regular Monterey Jack cheese instead of reduced fat (I love low-fat milk, but I cannot handle low-fat cheese). Tonight's dinner will be a quesadilla using the little bit of meat left from last night's rib-eye steaks.

I love their chicken parmesan recipe. The texture is perfect.

No, not Roz! 9 to 5 is one of my favorite films, and Wilson was so enjoyable both in the movie and in the special features for the 25th anniversary DVD. She was a great character actor, and someone others always seemed to enjoy working with.

I find that quite odd, too. I've never wished anyone other than my mom a happy Mother's Day. It would never occur to me to say it to anyone else.

Any good food on the menu for Mother's Day? My mom doesn't have enough of an appetite (since she's so much less active) to go out for our usual Mother's Day breakfast, plus she can't have a Bloody Mary thanks to her pain meds, so she said to skip it this year. While I'm sorry it's taking her longer to get back in the saddle after this surgery, I really enjoyed sleeping in on Mother's Day for the first time ever. I asked Maddie (my cat) to go make me my Mother's Day Bloody Mary, but, just like when I ask her to do the dishes because I'm too tired, I had to do it myself. I'll head over to my parents' house in a couple of hours so my mom and I can hang out, play some games, etc. Then for dinner I'm having my dad grill a couple of rib-eye steaks (that will be plenty to split among the three of us) while I make a mixed greens salad, a potato, scallion and herb purée my parents love (I hate potatoes, so I don't even taste what I'm making, but people seem to love the potato dishes I make for them), and a sauté of corn, chiles, and several types of squash topped with cilantro and Monterey Jack cheese. It's way too early in the year for corn, but my neighbor had some squash come in early and shared a variety, so I'm going to do it with frozen corn.

If I can find a really funny card (I don't do sweet/sappy cards), I'll get one for my parents on their birthdays, Christmas, and Mother's/Father's Day because I know they like getting cards. But I've gone through just about all the good ones by now, so they rarely get one anymore. And for Christmas, there are a few people to whom I send cards because they don't have email, we're not close enough that I want to make a phone call, and they'd be a little hurt by not hearing anything from me at the holidays. Otherwise, I email or call (depending on how close we are) people to wish them well on holidays, because I find cards to be a waste.

"Well, you do look like Judy Jetson." I don't remember what the "makes too much noise when I walk" dress looked like.

I agree; this network is such an oasis. This was plainly evident on the day it was announced the Germanwings co-pilot had crashed the plane (and that’s all we knew at the time). To amuse/horrify myself that evening, I flipped back and forth between Al Jazeera’s prime-time news hour and that of CNN. On the former, the story was covered via a few minutes of straightforward recounting of what the data had revealed. The latter? So far as I could tell, the entire hour was devoted to computer animation and wild speculation from experts (or “experts”) in aviation, psychology, terrorism, etc.

I've only ever seen Amurri in The Banger Sisters (well, and that quick, dialogue-free shot of her in Dead Man Walking), and she was so bad I felt sorry for her. I don't know if she's improved with age, but based on that one role I would certainly say she's no Susan Sarandon. I don't think I've seen Meryl Streep's daughter in anything. But they both have very tough acts to follow, so I hope their moms passed on thick skin if nothing else.

It's all good; one was for the fetus. I have little bits each of leftover chicken, sausage, and roasted veggies. I'm planning to put them in a 3-cup fondue bowl with some pasta and shredded cheese, bake it, and pronounce it a personal casserole.

I missed last night's game, but I quite enjoyed tonight's -- it was so well balanced, with the contestants all having a fairly broad base of knowledge and heading into FJ with similar dollar amounts. The Tower of London popped into my head quickly for FJ, and while I couldn't specifically remember learning that during my visit there, it made sense given the clue, so I stuck with it. I guess the snap is Luis' signature move, because he did it in his intro, too. That was a pretty fierce one for the DD victory. I skip the interviews, so I didn't hear what he said about Jane Fonda, but I admire her, so he gets bonus points for liking her. But I liked all three contestants. (It's pretty rare for me to be bothered by one, but they're largely non-entities to me as I'm just watching to quiz myself; the combination of these three, though, I found enjoyable.)

I couldn’t get back to sleep for a while in the middle of the night, so I finished the series. The finale remains so powerful to me, the complete loss of any semblance of financial security Roseanne felt upon losing Dan leading her to imagine herself as having all the money in the world, hobnobbing with the kind of people she sees on TV. And then losing herself in a deep depression until she had to be strong for her family. Realizing her dreams of becoming a writer weren’t going to come true unless she acted upon them, and thus spending nights in that basement writing room reviewing her life – and taking the opportunity to change things she couldn’t fix in reality, giving herself a degree of power she was denied by circumstances. I still get chills when she says “I lost Dan …” and we pan to the empty chair. Then the wonderful VO content as we switch to reality, with Roseanne in the basement reading what she has written, concluding with the fact she thinks she’ll be a lot better now that she has finished writing the story of her life. Remembering when Dan and the kids gave her the writing room as a birthday gift. And then her walking back into the real living room – subtly wiping tears from her eyes as she does, which makes me wonder if Roseanne Barr was tearing up for real – sitting down on that ratty couch and turning on the TV. Life goes on. I’m just so thankful to Roseanne Barr for this show. To the other actors who helped bring it to life and to the writers who wove her stories into such wonderful episodes, too, but primarily to her. She had a vision, she stuck with it, and she made sure that for nine years we had a show on American television told from a feminist, blue collar viewpoint. A nine-year exploration of class in America; with the popular narrative being that the so-called American Dream (work hard and you can pull yourself up the socio-economic ladder) is the norm, here was someone pointing out that the reality is if you are born poor, you are most likely going to die poor. Nine years of speaking truth to power, exploring issues often misrepresented, shallowly addressed or ignored altogether, and showing us the lives of people often disregarded. Done through comedy that is - far more often than not - intelligent, honest, and downright hilarious.

L is for LAUSD, the Los Angeles Unified School District in which Dorothy might work as a substitute teacher (which would provide an ample supply of things to come home and complain to the others about).

F is for the freeways on which they'd spend a lot of time stuck in traffic.

Does anyone make a tasty whole-wheat pizza dough? My pizza consumption is about a 50/50 split between delivery (it's just so tempting, since I have numerous local pizzerias from which to choose) and homemade. But when I make pizza, I use a pre-made whole-wheat dough from Trader Joe's. It's good, it's cheap, and it's pretty fresh under the circumstances, but I should make my own. I know dough is a pretty basic thing, but I've had a few awful whole wheat pizza crusts over the years, so I'd love a personally-recommended recipe. I'll be rolling this out to thin crust.

I haven't; they're the kind of thing in which I have no interest.

I hear "You've just given me chicken water" in my head every time I eat chicken noodle soup. Dan's illness provided so many terrific lines in that episode. "Even Elvis got to die in his own bathroom." And Roseanne concluding the chicken water conversation with, "Stay sick, Dan, because as soon as you're well, I'm going to kill you." I love Dan hollering from the bathroom, Roseanne telling Darlene to go see what he wants, and Darlene, instead of moving, yelling, "Dad, what do you want?" And then when she does go check, comes back to get him more soup, and says she should just save him the trouble and pour it directly down the toilet. I also like when Roseanne is in the kitchen muttering about Dan being 37 years old and turning into a big baby because he gets a little flu. Dan asks from the living room what she said, and instead of saying, "Never mind" or similar, she raises her voice and repeats, "I said, 'He's thirty-seven years old, he gets a little flu, and he acts like a total baby!'" And Dan replies, "Oh, okay."

My mom used to make donuts from time to time when I was a kid, which was such a treat. Now, I don't remember the last time I had a donut. Breakfast meetings tend to involve muffins or other pastries, instead, and donuts just aren't something I'd go out and get on my own. I don't even know if there is a good, non-chain place locally. I like glazed, but it's probably the one I'd reach for last (unless it was a twist; for some reason, I like glazed better as a twist). Thus the Krispy Kreme fascination is completely lost on me -- to me, they're fine, but nothing more. I don't like anything filled, even if I'd like the filling on its own. I just like a basic cake donut with some sort of icing - chocolate, vanilla, etc. Maybe some sprinkles. I also like powdered donuts and crumb donuts.

There are no spoilers in the portion of this Grantland interview with DD that talks about the XF revival; as he says, he just plain doesn't know what's going to happen. But his reason - in addition to "pure greed" - for thinking XF deserves another shot gets at what I liked about the show, why I'm more hopeful for this short-run TV series than I would be a third film, and why I strongly prefer a mix of episodes over a mytharc miniseries: Amusingly, he doesn't remember much about William, and misremembers their relationship in IWTB. Talking about the confusion he and GA felt near the end of the series due to the ambiguity of the relationship, William, etc., he says: Ha - the things they forget, or misremember, always amuse me.

Yeah, the writing was simultaneously sharp and subtle when the show was great. By season nine, though, other than some select moments, it’s neither. I only have a few more episodes to go. I’m still enjoying season nine far more than I did the first time around, but it’s all over the map. Two things that have been bugging me throughout: - They brought Sarah Chalke back full-time because they couldn’t get Lecy enough and didn’t want to switch back and forth for another season. Okay. But there are numerous scenes or even episodes where Becky isn’t there, even though Mark is. What was the point, then? - Darlene and David have jobs in Chicago; that was the whole basis of getting married when she got pregnant, that she and the baby could be on his insurance, she’d be able to work part time from home while finishing school, he'd be working as a graphic artist (pretty much his dream job), etc. Yet they’re constantly at the Conners (not just at Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.) and there’s no reference to them being home for a visit. In the episode when Darlene goes into premature labor, David is on his way back from Chicago, but otherwise they’re in Lanford. But there’s no discussion of it, so I have no idea what’s going on with school or either of their jobs. The Harris/Conner women gathered around the baby (“I think it’s some sort of coven or something”) is a moving scene – except for Sarah and Sara’s parts. Laurie, Roseanne and Estelle do fantastic work, and then the two of them fall flat. Sarah is to be expected, but there’s just something about Sara’s portrayal of pregnant/parenting Darlene that I’m not connecting with. I never bought her decision in the first place, and now when they’re all expressing their emotions about this new family member who probably won’t make it, even Bev moves me more than Darlene. I do find the conversation between Dan and David in the hallway quite touching, and I love how concerned Mark is through the whole thing. Good writing or bad, this is such a great family and I really care about these characters. There’s something wrong with my disc that contains the Thanksgiving episode – I can watch the first several minutes and the tag, but that’s it – so I missed Bev coming out. But I love when she goes to see Nana Mary to talk about this confusion she’s feeling as she hits a crossroads in her life. Give those two acting veterans just about anything to work with, and I’ll be a captive audience, but we get great insight into both characters. You really see how Bev became the person she is. Dan and Roseanne’s separation after he confesses to his relationship with the nurse is well done. Michael Fishman is pretty awkward as an actor by this stage, but he nails the scene where DJ snaps at Dan in the bedroom as Dan is packing to return to California. I also like him in the episode when he and Heather don’t have sex. When she asks him if he’s upset they didn’t do anything and he says he’s actually relieved, it’s such a real moment for a kid that age. And I love Mark and Jackie after DJ pages him at the wrestling match: “Is everything okay?” “Yeah, DJ was just looking for a condom.” “What?!”

I wondered if he got confused by the “You” category title and was thinking of body parts beginning with U – because uterus was such a random guess, and by the wording of the clue it had to be a body part that everyone has. J! provided my "learn something new every day" moment for today -- I had no idea whence "bell, book, and candle" came.

It would never have occurred to me that he (or GA) would. That's something you let actors do after they've been slogging away for years on end and are getting bored; with six episodes, you leave it to the pros.