I'm the opposite of excited about thanksgiving, because Stepmonster is playing hostess again. But, you know, grandma wants us "all together" so I'm falling on my sword. My family has two speeds...fighting and drama, or the awkward silence of people who never learned to have conversations...my grandma's dreams make me sad. we're never going to have the movie ending.

Man, Sorry Nora.

The good news doesn't last long. Apparently water was spewing out of a sprinkler pipe.

I cannot believe this.

Suela, that DOES sound super useful, dang.

Nora, that sucks. Also le nubian. Dang!

The plumber came and replaced the bad part with the correct part, and they are not charging me anything, since they put the wrong part on in the first place (and I already paid for that one back in March). Which is awesome. Less awesome--he took off the temp one they'd put on, and it was already rusting up. Which is what caused the last one to go. Now maybe the appropriate one wont' do that, but...it's not a good sign. It was on all of a week!

I didn't know there was an entire nationwide franchise that organizes seniors' moves into assisted living, conducts the move and unpacks everything, appraises the belongings left behind, runs estate sales, and cleans and sells the empty home.

Is it "It's Your Move"? They are a huge sponsor of my local NPR station.

This is an awesome review, ending with the punchline

That was a thing of beauty. What a magnificent smackdown.

On the Guy Fieri thing, I feel like people are taking it as a slam against that style of food, and I really don't think so. I think Pete Wells was prepared to enjoy the things that were described on the menu, and was disappointed with what actually came out.

Okay, my cousin teaches microbiology at a university in Pennsylvania, and does research and whatnot. She posted on FB that her research team is getting t-shirts made, but they want to have (her words) "street nicknames" instead of their real names. So she asked for suggestions for hers, because she can't think of one, and doesn't want them to just give her one. She said preferably science-geeky.

I told her I can science-geek pretty well, but I need to know her research area and/or what she teaches.

This is the answer: "Microbiology. Infectious diseases. STDs. Chancroid."

There is no nickname I can come up with that she's going to want printed on a t-shirt. (Okay, I'm considering "Infectious T," since her name starts with T.)

Any suggestions that aren't ridiculously dirty? (Seriously, the STD category [and I'm surprised she doesn't call them STIs] alone is a GOLD MINE. But all I'm coming up with is really, really inappropriate.)

Dear Tabby: Life Advice From a Cat (7 Pics)

Is it "It's Your Move"? They are a huge sponsor of my local NPR station.

Nope, it's called Caring Transitions.

In a total change of pace, this is a really interesting discussion about the New Jersey coastline post-Sandy, and what the prospects are for preventing this kind of damage in the future. Nice balance of financial necessity and physical reality.

I think Pete Wells was prepared to enjoy the things that were described on the menu, and was disappointed with what actually came out.

No, I got that. He even called him on that in the review. Which led to the nachos.