Bastet

"And which side are yours on?" "Both." Bernice's Sanity Hearing makes me laugh from beginning to end.

I don't take the State Farm husband's reaction as homophobic. In fact, his even-keeled responses are among the reasons I don't hate the commercial like I otherwise would. I don't read him as being grossed out by the idea of a man finding him attractive. I don't see any reason he'd think Jake was doing anything other than helping him with insurance, and he's so unaffected by his wife's misinterpretation of the situation that he just delivers a deadpan response to her "She sounds hideous" line.

That annoyed me, too. I don't dislike heels, but I don't get giddy over them, either (okay, the fact I have a pair of red heels that are as comfortable as they are cute does make me rather happy). I have no problem with any individual woman being shoe crazy, but I do have a problem with 95 percent of women on television being that way. To have a character who has explicitly stated a dislike of high-heeled shoes - a dislike that fits in nicely with her overall personality - suddenly start prancing around in any way other than mocking the entire concept was just dumb.

The State Farm woman cracks me up in spite of herself when she says, "She sounds hideous." All three characters have such great lines in that commercial; the husband with "Well, she's a guy, so ..." and Jake with "Uh, khakis." In the context of women being so often portrayed as jealous, nagging wives in commercials, it is certainly problematic, but taken on its own I can stand it.

Has anyone made Ina's buttermilk ranch dressing recipe? I really only use ranch dressing as a dip for onion rings, which I don't make very often because they're a pain, so I keep in the pantry a couple of those Hidden Valley packets that you combine with mayo and milk. But I have Ina on in the background while I paint my new patio doors and she's making ranch dressing, so I'm reminded that I really ought to make the real thing. She used mustard, which I loathe -- if it's an important component, I'll use half of what she called for and see how it comes out. Otherwise, I'm skipping it.

I've already expressed the main themes I hate about Titanic, but now that it has come up again let me offer up a petty reason behind my dislike: Rose trying to wake Jack up when she hears the life boats coming back. Fool, he's dead. I get that you are traumatized and half frozen, but you know he's dead. So wasting a bunch of time saying his name over and over only leads to you wasting a bunch more time repeating "Come back" until I want to harm either my eardrums or your vocal cords. By the time she gets her shit together and grabs the dead guy's whistle, I'm kind of hoping for her to choke on it.

Those jars of horseradish are so disappointing! I've always just grated fresh horseradish root, but one time I was making something at a friend's house and she handed me a store-bought jar ... blech. So weak. As soon as I got home, I made up a jar of the real thing and sent it to her -- she said it was a revelation, having only ever eaten the stuff from the store.

And it sounded good to me right up until the coconut, which I don't like, but both my parents like it so I've filed the idea away for a future birthday cake.

Ginsburg writes some of the best dissents in the Court's history. Unfortunately, she gets a lot of practice.

L is for the Lindstroms, who adopted Rose after she was left on their doorstep in a basket along with some crackers and smoked cheese.

It works fine for me.

Oh, I don't think men are the targets of the sexism in those ads since the things they screw up are almost universally household chores and parenting. Women being inadequate at domestic tasks was a bad thing; they had failed at their duties. Men being inept at the same thing? Just the natural order of things; women are innately suited to such things, while men have superior intellect and skills that are just wasted on "women's work." Same message advertising has been shoving down our throats since the '50s, just delivered in a different way.

"Okay, before we go on - C.J., if blood is gushing from the head wound you just received from a stampeding herd of bison, you'll do the press briefing."

I was an adult - and how - upon first viewing, but Schindler's List remains a terrific yet difficult film for me to rewatch due to many scenes. If I had to pick a random "I don't know why this is the one that really gets to me, but it does" scene, it would be the one of the little kid hiding in the latrine.

I still can't decide when I'm going to cut bait, but I watched tonight's episode largely as background noise and was my usual level of "yeah, this show stinks, but Jane and Maura rule" okay with it. Kudos to Bruce McGill for his performance when Jane reveals her pregnancy to Korsak; perfectly delivered. I don't care that Frankie and Tommy are family, Jane's mom is way out of line in delivering the news instead of Jane. I'd rather kill myself than continue a pregnancy to term, yet even I know that basic bit of first trimester etiquette.

Madison Ave. loves to portray women - especially wives - as nags, but I just don't remember the "Babe, what are you doing?" woman coming across that way. It seemed like a question delivered in a way that should shield her from being labeled a bitch or shrew, but obviously not. It was perhaps part of the overall trend in presenting men as inept at domestic tasks (because, of course, their superior skills and intellect are wasted on such things for which the female brain is inherently suited), but it stuck in my memory as just another annoying yogurt commercial in which women wax rhapsodic about faux flavors because heaven forbid they consume the occasional extra calorie by eating the real thing.

Don't forget screenless windows.

My favorite example of this is when he gets roped into impersonating Consuela at the INS hearing. He keeps doing the laugh, apologizing for "her" enormous teeth, etc. I love when Charlene wonders what is keeping them and Julia says, "A six-foot black man dressed like Hazel just left here with Suzanne, his co-conspirator to defraud and deceive the United States government. And you're wondering what's keeping them? Well, it's been three and a half hours. I don't think you have to wonder anymore. I think it's pretty obvious. They are in prison." Anthony's sweet relationship with Julia, him grateful to her giving him a chance after his "unfortunate incarceration" and her so proud of him, is nice, but my favorite is the wonderfully bizarre relationship he wound up having with Suzanne. He was even better at calling her on her shit than Julia.

As Cynthia Heimel said: “From the viewpoint of many men, there are two stages in a woman's life: prey and invisible. After a certain age, when they don't want to fuck you anymore, they don't see you at all.” This seems especially true of the men writing television! Certainly, lucindabelle.

. No, I didn't. I pointed out that such characters generally appear only in one context (and said nothing about taking offense, but if you're curious, I find it offensive on two levels -- that female characters who express a desire to delay or forgo having children must always be narratively lectured for their choice, and that female characters who have regrets at the end of their fertile years exist only on the periphery rather than as characters whose stories are fully told). It does neither. I'm going to assume your intentions are good, and I believe I've cleared things up by stating my actual opinion, but I'm open to any private conversation you'd like to have. I would like to ask, however, that in future you refrain from publicly ascribing to me motivations and positions I have not taken. My complaints have been about the stereotypical ways in which various choices with respect to motherhood are generally presented on television, and the imbalance (in terms of representation by sheer numbers) between those who do and don't want children.

I haven't seen it in a long time, but I didn't think she got mad at him, period, and not for looking in the refrigerator; I thought she was trying to find out what on earth he was looking for that he enthusiastically flung open the doors of the refrigerator and then just stood there staring for so long. Mostly I remember that commercial as being yet another one in which women are so obsessed with calories they'll lie to themselves and each other about the taste of yogurt.

I can't think of any as main characters, but one sure seems to pop up for an episode to give advice any time a younger female character decides to delay or forgo having children.

Reference to Bea's wonderful way of saying things and a quote containing "it doesn't matter" took me immediately to this: "And, he's still interested." "In what?" "Rose, if you have to ask, it does not matter anymore."

Repeating myself here, but Z is for Zbornak Syndrome, which Rose felt would be a better name for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Next up - food the Girls ate, cooked, talked about, etc. Have fun with the spelling of Rose's Scandinavian delicacies.

Ha - I was going to use the same thing, quote and all, for W. X is for the X-ray that showed Dorothy needed surgery on her foot, causing her to drop out of the dance routine with Blanche and Rose ... they never realized how long her solo was.