Mondrianyone

I was just skimming through the shows my DVR recorded this morning, and the recording of The Kitchen seemed to be back-to-back episodes of Beat Bobby Flay (or Flay Bobby Beat). I'm assuming this wasn't just my TV. Did anyone hear an announcement about why it wasn't on? Or something about a time change? Very odd that they came off several weeks of two-hour episodes, and then suddenly nothing. ETA: Googled it. Technical difficulties. Whatever that means.

You think? I'm wondering why they'd need to spend the time and money knocking it off when they can buy them by the truckload from China for probably less than the $6.19 apiece you'd pay on eBay and mark them up to $79.99. But I'm not exactly a schmatta-trade maven.

Well, that's what makes horse races! Or so they say. 🐎 I don't remember anyone saying they used the whole budget, but usually if they're under, there's mention of that. And I definitely don't remember hearing that. Didn't they load the yurt pieces onto a rowboat? I'm a little foggy on what two points it went from and two, but if rowing it was the only transport, then that probably didn't eat up much budget. I don't mean to seem cranky. I was just really thinking this was going to be so interesting, and it let me down. But don't let me pee on your parade!

For anybody who thought Sonja's lacy cover-up was cute (and I did, but also oddly familiar), I can possibly save you about $73 and change off the Sonja Morgan Original price. I spend too much time on ebay. All yours for $6.19, with free shipping. (This is the same dress, yes?)

Why would our not seeing groundskeepers on the show be proof that they're not there? We don't see landscapers, or lawn mowers, or farriers clipping the ponies' hooves, or swan people clipping the swans' feathers so they can't fly away--but all these people are obviously there off camera, since the lawns are always mowed, the roses always pruned, and so on and so on. Maybe TPTB think it wouldn't interest viewers to see this stuff happening, so they don't show it. But clearly it does happen, or we'd be looking at Grey Gardens rather than Villa Rosa. I don't know if the ponies get exercised, but it would really surprise me if they didn't. I don't think the lawns mow themselves either.

Usually they redo a whole house, reroof it, build a deck, plus landscaping and maybe a dock for twice that. So it seems odd that all they did was move a portable structure and build a small round platform (and an outhouse) for half the standard budget. Normally I'm amazed at how much they do for the budget they have. This time I found myself wondering where $10k of that $15k went.

Exactly what I was hoping to see. There's all kinds of multi-use furniture around these days. And since the yurt isn't going anywhere, what was to stop them from installing walls of some sort? Or folding screens for privacy, at least, for when people are, say, changing clothes and don't need to be on display. The sleeping situation seemed like the most basic one to address, but they didn't really address anything. I saw a documentary on Mongolian nomads a few years ago, and they rely heavily on rugs and blankets as furnishings and floor coverings and bedding, so why hot play off that idea in some modern way? Could've been such an interesting and informative episode but turned out to be a huge disappointment.

We have friends who lived in a yurt for at least two years while they were building a house. But theirs was considerably bigger than the one on MCM, and they just needed to have room for two parents and two kids. I was trying to figure out where six people were going to sleep in that little yurt once they took out the mattresses and that large couch. All I spotted was a single futon, which could no way accommodate two adults and four kids. I was expecting them to show or tell us about air mattresses or folding cots or something, but that didn't happen. I don't think the use of space was very well thought out. Or thought out at all, really, from what I saw.

Here I go, boarding the express train to hell . . . I haven't seen the dog-bite case again, but I remembered it as soon as I read the name Wyld. Horrible brat and arrogant father who thinks his kid is made of rainbows and entitlement. I should keep this case on my DVR and watch it every time I start thinking it wouldn't be so very bad if Roe v. Wade got overturned.

My husband's from PA, and the first time I visited his family there was also the first time I saw (beet) pickled eggs. I couldn't believe how beautiful they were, and when we went home, I tried making them. And then I sort of forgot about them, till last year, when I stumbled on a recipe online that sounded the closest to my mother-in-law's of all the ones I'd seen. So I made them, and I thought they were great. My husband said the brine needed more cloves, so I added them, and he said they tasted exactly like his mother's. He also admitted he'd never liked pickled eggs all that much. Go figure. More for me.

What I believe they didn't mention was the distance from the floor of the tub to the cabinet knob. Without that info, it's really not possible to know if she could've grabbed the knob just by reaching up. Although if you jump to clutch onto anything to keep yourself from falling, that could account for a few inches of disparity. And it would also add to the likelihood the hinge would get pulled loose.

I'm pretty sure they said she was 5'4", 130 pounds. Which, if you hung your entire weight on a hinge that was just screwed into what looked like a fiberboard cabinet faced in laminate, would probably be enough to pull the hinge loose. But I'm still convinced he did it.

A couple of episodes back, there was some discussion here about how if a man had made the private jokes that Andrea made to Mike, sexualizing little girls, there would've been some serious backlash. It just occurred to me that if there was a gender switch about the whole tank-top issue, and Mike told Andrea repeatedly what it was and wasn't okay for her to wear, viewers would go equally nuts (assuming it was taken seriously, and not just a joke b/w partners). I know that if my husband tried to approve of my clothes, he'd find all the locks in the house changed next time he went out. It's funny what people object to and what just sails right by. And I would never presume to tell Idris what to wear. He could wear clown shoes for all I'd care.

Briefly reconsidering men in tank tops: (Sorry for cutting Idris's head off, but for the purposes of this post it was the least important part.) 😈

My experience, too. I was prepared to tell a polite lie the first time I sat in one of his chairs, but I didn't have to. He's managed to tweak all the uncomfortable angles and soften sharp edges so that they really are surprisingly comfy to sit in, compared to the previous Adirondacks I've known and not loved.

The maker of those Adirondack chairs for last night's episode is a friend of ours. We had no idea he was going to be on, and then suddenly there he was! I don't know why he didn't get the courtesy of having his name mentioned (closed caption said "Man"), as they always do with artists and craftspeople who are featured on the show. His name is Rob Lemire, and his chairs really are both beautiful and comfortable. I'm going to have to ask him if he gave them those chairs for free for the honor of going nameless.

Everything about this show/her character is inappropriate. I'm guessing that's the whole point. It's probably useful to bear in mind that the title of the show is I'm Sorry.

Another suggestion: Bluetooth headphones. You have to have a newer TV that has Bluetooth capability. I bought a pair so I could watch TV and not disturb my husband in the next room, but the bonus is that the audio is so much clearer. And no wires, obviously. Yeah, I understand (sort of) JJ wanting to get all the money--although how much more does she really need? I just think at some point it's not only about you, it's about the audience (which oddly enough means "the state or act of hearing"!), and for me personally, it's getting less and less pleasurable to watch her gradually going deaf and blaming other people for the fact that she can't hear them. And good for you, Byrd, for not making it other people's problem. It's hard to admit graciously that we're losing abilities we've always taken for granted, but it's an undeniable reality.

I'll have to go find your post on wig math (which should definitely be an elective at all women's colleges!). I can't do any other math, but 9 feet somehow just seemed right to me. Very glad we got to the same answer without having to show our work. 📏 I grill people I send flowers to to make sure they didn't get cheap substitutions for the kinds I paid for. So I manage to create pain for everyone involved, I guess, while trying to be the best flower sender ever. We should send each other an arrangement and see how that turns out!

Well, thank you both for the bash-free zone. I don't entirely agree with those takes on the hearing thing, though. She's been cupping her hand to her ear for years and years, long before it became painfully obvious that she has a real problem. And I'm pretty sure I've heard her ask people that I had no trouble understanding to speak up or repeat themselves. Besides, half the litigants on the show speak poorly in one way or another. If she can't hear them, maybe the recruiters should set some articulateness standards for people they choose to be on the show. It just feels to me that this is one more element in how she's devolving into a cranky old lady. There's such a thing as exiting the stage gracefully--almost everyone has to do it at some point--and this could be the time, before she becomes an object of total ridicule. Obviously, there's room for lots of different opinions here, and this is just mine.

Came here to say exactly these two things. About the new 'do, it's possible JJ thought that RBG stole her lace-collar look and finally decided to even the score. The first few minutes were pretty horrifying, but it kind of grew on me as well. So good for her for not ossifying in the same hairstyle till death. One thing I actively wish she would change is the hearing situation. Having to cup her ear and have litigants shout and get Byrd to translate everything for her and not understanding what people are saying really makes her look as if she should retire. I have a friend who was having hearing issues, and he got a very high-tech hearing aid that he controls through his phone. Changed everything, and his situation wasn't nearly as bad as JJ's. If you don't want people thinking you should hang it up and go grab a recliner in the assisted living facility, you should do whatever you can to keep from deteriorating (IMO). God knows she can afford it. If you can't hear the testimony, maybe it is time to retire. I know I'm going to get bashed for that, but I feel embarrassed for her every time she says, "What?? Speak up, I'm 75 years old!" And I'm not 25 anymore either.

You do know you're on the Internet, right? 👩‍💻

It's no trouble at all. We don't use the Fire Stick anymore because we replaced the TV that needed it, but it was a godsend at the time. All the streaming services built into that TV were changing their format, and one by one we were losing them, so the FS got us back the programming we were still paying for but couldn't watch. It's very easy to set up, so don't be afraid of it. Second this for sure. I almost never bake from a mix, but I make an exception for Ghirardelli. When you need a quick brownie fix, these puppies definitely step up. There's a box in my pantry right now . . . I tried telling Alexa on my tablet to go fuck herself. She just played a disgusted little tune and shut down. Tried it again, and she did the same thing again. She's clearly not taking any guff from the likes of me.

You're welcome. I'd definitely suggest that if you get the Fire Stick, you get the kind that has the voice option on the remote (they may come with voice now as the standard option, for all I know, but we had to pay about $10 more about five years ago). That way when you want to search for a program or a movie, you just talk into the remote rather than do all that fiddly typing. It's a great feature.

I love the parchment sheets--as much as I hated the roll! I also have parchment rounds that I bought in the size cake pans I use most often. But if you know the trick for cutting rounds (not pencil tracing, although that works, too), you can quickly cut any size rounds from the sheets.