Carol the Dabbler

Poor sweet doggy.

I'm pretty sure that my father actually said "cheese" in his younger days. At least that's how he always looked in pictures. Thank goodness he adopted a more natural smile later on.

Finally had enough, huh? I kinda know the feeling, though I never toughed it out as long as you've done. Please keep us posted!

Virtually all of the recent comments amount to multi-lingual spam (e.g., one in Vietnamese offering to place ads at a certain airport). But if you scroll most of the way down, there are some actual comments. Didn't take the time to read many of them, but they looked interesting -- people offering their experiences, etc. I've seen this happen on other blogs, especially ones that have been sitting around for a while. Which is why if I ever follow through with setting up my own blog, I will specify that I need to approve any comments before they go live.

That would've had all sorts of possibilities, wouldn't it? Could have been a better fit with the prior episodes, I think, than all the WTF that we did get in HLV.

1. Actually, it's not a completely new drug -- something very similar, which allows a person to be responsive while retaining no memory of the events, has been used since before Sherlock, during procedures such as colonoscopies, minor surgery, and certain dental work. I have no idea whether a person could carry on a perfectly normal conversation while under the influence (because I don't remember!), but the general idea was not made up for the show. 2. That's interesting -- could you share some of those clues? Even though it's possible that it wasn't actually Mary in TRF, just Amanda Abbington hanging out on set (as I believe she was known to do then) and being an extra -- from an in-universe perspective that's fascinating!

I believe the American translation would be "hubba-hubba" or "va-va-va-voom" -- or whatever they're saying nowadays. I'd never heard or read it till maybe ten years ago. Is it a fairly new expression, Pseud, or just something that hadn't made it across the Atlantic?

1. I have read very little of the TJLC evidence. However, from what little I have seen (or read synopses of), a good bit of the scholarly treatment relies on assuming that the show follows a particular formula -- that certain elements will always be present, in their proper place, and each in its proper relationship to the other elements. But this doesn't happen reliably even with what you might call literary fiction, and the Moftisses seem to delight in breaking rules. Therefore, even though such formulae might yield a pretty good guess as to what will happen next, they cannot be used as any kind of proof that it will, or even that it should. Please do try to find that source, littlefoot -- I might well have been extrapolating from too few samples. 2. I fully agree about the impish fun. Plus they seem to enjoy setting themselves a tough challenge (e.g., completely estranging Sherlock and John, then getting them reconciled). 3. I agree. Unfortunately for the theorists, though, evidence is not necessarily proof. 1. I assume you're talking about the Religious Right, at least as far as the US is concerned. I have no idea how it is in the rest of the world, but it's my understanding that a] the RR has no particular quarrel with people *being* gay, as long as they don't engage in gay sex, which would not be shown in this sort of franchise anyhow (though I'm not at all certain how a gay hug would be perceived), and that b] judging by some folks that I've known, the franchise is considered inherently evil anyhow, since it depicts witches and wizards. So I doubt there's much point in worrying about that point. 2. Sounds like a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Good idea! And pretty sure I've seen them in catalogs, just don't recall which ones. Why don't you look online? You might even find candles made with real balsam fir, which would smell even nicer. Or incense.

You could get a can of pine air freshener. That's what I did one year. Didn't fool anybody, I suppose, but it made me feel a little better.

And according to Wikipedia, the "overweight" was all homegrown Viggo Mortensen: "[Mortensen] began negotiations to star in the film in May 2017, and put on 40–50 pounds for the role." As I've said before, I wish actors wouldn't sacrifice their future health for their roles. He's apparently lost the extra weight now, but if he does this often enough, he may find it harder and harder to lose the weight. Apparently one's body eventually decides there's a famine going on, and goes into low-metabolism mode.

Yeah, me too. I mean, I can tell the books apart easily enough. But it's my impression that screen adaptations generally combine the two. And I haven't seen the Depp version, so didn't realize that it came in two parts.

It's my impression that some people are more worried about the cats messing up the tree and/or the decorations, while others are more worried that the cats might eat something harmful, or injure themselves, or bite into a live electrical cord (we once came far too close to losing a cat by electrocution). Do they still make tinsel? The old foil kind was very fragile, so a cat could easily ruin it, but on the plus side I doubt it was likely to do any harm to the cat. The subsequent mylar foil was (is?) far sturdier, and I have it from an eye-witness that it could go right through a cat unharmed. If it did actually go completely through, then presumably no harm done, but any "linear foreign object" can sometimes act like a drawstring and kink up a cat's intestines, which can be fatal. The old-fashioned eggshell-thin glass balls could both harm and be harmed -- a cat could easily smash them by batting them off the tree, and the broken pieces could then injure the cat. Cats are famous for climbing up a tree much more easily than climbing back down. A cat that's reached the top of a Christmas tree and is trying to figure out how to get back down could quite plausibly get tangled in garlands and/or launch itself off the top with sufficient force to tip the tree over. I'm now thinking it would be cute to decorate a tree with nothing but cat toys....

Our tree is in an enclosed porch off the kitchen, where we can enjoy it through the windows, but it's not in our way, and the cats can't get at it.

A mother is always a mother.