weekend free-for-all – September 15-16, 2018

by Alison Green on September 15, 2018

This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand. (This one is truly no work and no school.)

Book recommendation of the week: Goodbye, Vitamin, by Rachel Khong. It’s about family and memory and home, and it’s quiet and lovely.

* I make a commission if you use that Amazon link.

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{ 1,263 comments }

{ 1,263 comments… read them below }

  1. Laura H.*

    For those of you in Florence’s area of influence, hope y’all are safe as can be.

    Dealing with a major soaker in my area- hopefully will dry out a bit Tuesday.

    At my place of employment today for a shift. Hopefully I can dodge raindrops.

    1. Doc in a Box*

      Survived Hurricane Florence! This was my first hurricane, and I was terrified by everyone at work talking about the destruction wrought by Fran in ’96.

      We got quite a battering, with about 36 hours of intermittent high winds and downpours as the rain bands circled through again and again, and there are lots of small branches scattered around my yard. A couple of large trees fell along Main St. But miraculously, the giant oaks in front of/behind my house made it, and nothing fell on the power-lines overhead, so I’m counting that a win.

    2. Loopy*

      I’m in SE SC and we got literally nothing really. While we are so so so lucky, a mandatory evacuation was issued Tuesday at noon. I understand why because the forecast was much worse then and you can’t issue them too late…but I am also incredibly frustrated that people are out a week of work and expenses and will likely take future evacuations with an eye roll and stay.

      It’s not even raining right now and I know plenty of people won’t trust the evacuations going forward.

      My thoughts are with those who did get hit hard!

      1. fposte*

        I really feel for the people making the call on ordering evacuations for just that reason. You want a margin for error, so some false positives are presumably desirable, but too many up the risk, as you say, in future.

        I also liked the Scientific American piece pointing out why the hard economics of evacuation can be why people choose to stay put.

        1. Loopy*

          Its a bit of a lose-lose so often. Call too early, nothing happens you’re wrong. Call too late and something happens, you’re wrong. I hate to admit I’ll probably in the skeptical camp on future evacuation calls that early.

          I saw a lot of news segments interviewing people on why they stayed and the interviewees just seemed really sad that they were being judged so harshly when they simply didn’t have the money. I tried doing the math for a family who had to get a hotel and for Tuesday-Sat, it was easily 600-1000 dollars cost. for lodging and food alone. That’s hefty for anyone unplanned. And people with pets? Really hard.

          1. nonegiven*

            People were turned away from hotels for no credit card or having pets. Not everyone has a credit card or enough on their bank debit card to authorize for the stay. I might not evacuate. Where I am, I can stay with my sister if I need to but she is close enough to be in the same disaster.

    3. AvonLady Barksdale*

      We were supposed to get battered until the storm changed course. It’s been very rainy and windy, though, with a lot of downed trees in my neighborhood. Thankfully, we’ve only had very short power outages so far, but it’s still not great weather to go out in. Our biggest challenge has been managing the dog, who will hold it for 20 hours before he will willingly go out in the rain. Every poop (outside, of course) is a triumph.

      We are extremely lucky. Just last week, my partner and I started looking into renting a house on the Outer Banks for Christmas (we did that last year), and now, while I know things should be ok by then, it’s just sad to see. The OBX didn’t get it nearly as bad as the coast, though, and I have a few friends with houses there. Devastating, and it’s not even over yet.

    4. Forrest Rhodes*

      West Coaster here, also hoping those in the East are staying as safe, warm, and dry as possible.

      Does anyone know how the ponies of Chincoteague/Assateague are doing? News reports haven’t mentioned them—is it possible that they were relocated before the storm hit? Thanks for any information you’d care to share.

      1. Equestrian*

        The ponies aren’t evacuated ever. They are truly wild, and trying to evacuate them and loading them up on trailers is even worse than trying to herd feral cats. Truthfully though because they’re wild animals they’re smarter than most humans and no how to survive in a storm. They know that area well, they know where High Ground is, and more than likely they’ll be safer than any people who decide to stay put and get hit hard by the storm. I haven’t heard any news on how they’re doing yet but I am fairly certain that they are totally fine. I’m a long-time equestrian and trust me when I say – Wild Horses know what to do in bad weather.

        1. LilySparrow*

          Right, and a lot (not all, but a lot) of the dangers in a hurricane situation come from human habitation: power lines, gas lines, building debris, glass, concrete that intensifies flash flooding, sewage.

          Bad weather is a different proposition in a natural landscape.

      2. fposte*

        I don’t think that area got hit very badly. Chincoteague cancelled its state of emergency, and the ponies on Assateague generally fare pretty well because they can hit the high ground, and I don’t think the island is at risk of being overtopped. Evacuation of human staff on Assateague is usually a bigger concern.

      3. Violaine*

        There was a news article that mentioned not worrying about them – they’ve been there for centuries or longer, they know what to do. No interference necessary.

        1. AvonLady Barksdale*

          “they’ve been there for centuries or longer” I.e., this isn’t their first rodeo.

          I will see myself out. In the rain.

      4. Forrest Rhodes*

        Thanks, all. Good to hear the responses I was hoping for from minds more knowledgeable than mine. (And A.L. Barksdale, please don’t go—that was a perfect reaction, and you don’t wanna get wet!)

    5. bunniferous*

      Sitting here with no power but three years ago I won a portable gas grill and my husband used it to make the very best cup of coffee I have ever had. Can’t work but that is a feature not a bug today!

      We are still forecast more rain…this will be like Matthew and our region is still recovering from that. But at least we know what to expect. All in all this could have been MUCH worse.

    6. Violaine*

      Coastal SE Virginia here. We were expected to get something – anything – from the hurricane, but the shifting track has kept us from getting much of anything. Only a little rain.

      However, I went to school in, worked in, and lived in some of the towns that Florence is hitting in SE North Carolina (Jacksonville, Wilmington, etc). It’s breaking my heart to see so much flooding and destruction. Everyone I know that still lives there is safe, though, whether they evacuated or not. I am so, so glad for that.

  2. Loopy*

    I have been so looking forward to this thread!!

    With fall and winter coming, I really want to work on something like hygge-lite . Basically, I want to create a lot of warmth, coziness and comfort and positive associations instead of dreading the short days. One thing I LOVE is infusing my home certain scents, like the wax melts people use to scent a room. I’m a huge fan of scents like pecan or apple pie, coffee cake, cinnamon rolls, anything baked. Also vanilla varieties. Something that feels homey and warm.

    The issue? I have a pretty weak sense of smell! So I’m looking for recommendations for brands with really strong scents. Or certain scents people have found and love. I know most people are the opposite so I’m struggling to gauge by reviews! Does anyone have recs?

    1. ElspethGC*

      I’m always an advocate for Yankee Candle. I use the wax melts, often in the kitchen after cooking, and they last for several nights in a row and still smell good. Alternatively, you can put good quality vanilla extract (or other essential oils, or add whole spices like cinnamon) in an oven-proof cup and put in the oven for 20 minutes or so (with a timer!) and it makes your whole house smell super good. It’s a common tip for if people are coming to view your house.

      2. Raine*

        Another vote for wax melts! I used the brand that was cheapest at my local Walmart and a little plug in warmer. They were strong enough that they covered all the nasty smells of the dorm building I lived in my first year of college. In my apartment now I tend to use Better Homes & Gardens candles, also from Walmart. You can get quart jar sized candles for less than $5.

        1. Loopy*

          I’ve used the Walmart ones. I love the scent selection but was looking for something with maybe even more oomph! Mainly for a bigger area.

      3. all the candycorn*

        We have a tart warmer and some Yankee Candle warming tarts, and we’ve had some scented candles. I’ve observed that soy candles are easier on the respiratory system than the paraffin ones that are so readily available, the paraffin releases some volatile organic chemicals when it melts.

        Target sells a good selection of soy wax products in their candle section, and Trader Joe’s has been carrying one or two seasonal candles lately.

        1. Loopy*

          I was wondering why there were so many that were described as soy! I had no idea. Thank you for pointing that out!

      4. PhylllisB*

        Elspeth, if you don’t want to use your oven, you can also put some cinnamon sticks, orange peels (or a combo) in a boiler of water on the stove. Bring to a boil then lower to a simmer. Makes the house smell wonderful. Good thing about this is, you can cool it off, pour into a container and reuse a number of times. I’m going to do this when it gets cooler because aresol scents and candles irritate my throat. Oh, and you can add vanilla or nutmeg/whole cloves to this, too.

      1. Loopy*

        A quick Amazon search looked like they don’t do wax melts, just candles? Sadly, I can’t trust myself to remember to put out a candle and the wax melts (though they still use heat) are a safer option for me than an open flame.

    3. MsChanandlerBong*

      I had to get rid of all my wax melts and candles due to my asthma, but before I did, I used to love melting Yankee votives in my Scentsy warmer. The Scentsy melts are like $6 a pack, but Yankee often has 2/$1 sales for its votives. I’d buy a bunch, cut them in half, and use each half like a wax melt. I would just take the wick/metal base out of each votive and use only the wax part. My favorite scents were Macintosh apple, blueberry scone, jellybean (smells just like grape), North Pole (smells like peppermint), and strawberry.

      1. Loopy*

        I wondered if votives would melt with scents are strong as the wax melts. It was my main reason for ruling them out. I can’t smell regular scented candles almost at all unless I walk into a yankee candle store with 9287409380 of them! It made me sad for years I couldn’t enjoy scented candles.

      2. WellRed*

        Funny! We had apple in the ladies at work. To me it smelled like hot plastic apples. Scent is a funny thing.

      1. Equestrian*

        ^^^ What Pam said.
        What I would do personally is go to Penzeys Spices and buy a whole bunch of cinnamon sticks cloves nutmegs Etc. You’re looking for the whole spice and not the ground version. ( which is why I’m not recommending you buy this at grocery stores because often grocery stores will not sell the whole spice- only ground.) Of course, Penzeys is also amazing and I love supporting a small family-owned company. But that’s tangential to my Pointe.

        Put them all in a pot and put the pot on the stove with 6 to 8 cups of water, bring it to a boil, and then leave it to simmer for several hours. Your house will smell amazing and you can keep dumping more water in as needed.

        Do be aware that the more water you dump in the less smell you will have, but you can always dump more cinnamon sticks, clove, nutmeg etc in along with the water to keep the scent saturated.

    5. Ermintrude*

      DoTERRA oils in a diffuser. The scent is really strong for just a few drops. OnGuard is a blend that do that contains citrus and clove and is just So warming and comforting.

      1. Loopy*

        I looked into oil diffusers but the scent styles they have seem to be more natural. Which is probably good for most! I’m definitely an outlier in my choice of scents!

    6. People like shiny things*

      Switch scents frequently – biologically you start to no longer smell specific scents after being exposed regularly. Basically, the scent receptors are looking for new inputs looking for threats, once they decide that something is not a threat and starts to disregard it, the effect is the “nose-blind” thing fabreze uses to sell their products. That’s why you won’t notice your own scent/perfume/etc. But others can be overpowered by it.

      1. Loopy*

        That’s a great idea! I will try and load up on at least four to switch through. I tend to fall in love with one scent and just keep using it.

        1. KMaggs*

          There’s an Etsy shop called Frostbeard Studio that I love. They have candles and wax melts, all based around books and literary references. I haven’t used their wax melts, but their candles are strongly scented when burning and smell amazing. I’m sure their wax melts are just as good, and they come in a lot of scent combinations.

    7. Kuododi*

      I am a big fan of Bath & Body Works candles during fall and winter. They are one of the more pricey products on the market but if you get on the email list there’s daily sales so just keep an eye out. A disclaimer, I did work there for a while to keep extra $$ coming in the house. At the moment I’m not remembering the ingredients in their candles but I do know they were chosen specifically to avoid the overly smoky, black smear on the walls one can find with other types of candles. Enjoy.

    8. Ehhhh*

      Consider using the bead/gel things for bathrooms not in bathrooms. They tend to be overbearing to mask, well, the bathroom, so they might be perfect for you. And cheap.

    9. LimeRoos*

      So I’m a little late to this one. But Votivo has some of my favorite scents, and they’re all very strong. They have candles, but also reed diffusers, room spray, and a black box fan diffuser (that’s new, I haven’t tried it). I’m partial to Red Currant, Icy Blue Pine & Joie de Noel in the fall/winter.

    10. Tegan*

      This might be too late for you to see it, but I have found the Unstoppables branded wax melts the strongest smelling of any I’ve ever tried. We have both the pink and the green, and they both smell nice and super strong. I’d have to give a slight edge in both niceness and strength to the green. They both last for a really long time too, I’ve used each melt a handful of times so far and they’re both still going strong. I think there’s one other scent maybe? Not sure. But at any rate, highly recommend if you’re looking for really strong wax melts!

      2. PhylllisB*

        I have been seeing so many things Llama lately. Socks, tote bags, ect. Every time I see something, I thing Ooh, Alison would love this!!

  4. Bookworm Bingo*

    Last year, I discovered an event for my friends and I to check out in a part of our local city we’d never been to before. I mentioned the location to other people in my life and no one knew much about it. My friends and I took public transportation to get to the event, the website saying they were a few blocks walking distance from the public transport stop. When we got there, it was immediately apparent that this was a very unsafe area of the city and we needed to leave. We were able to do so quickly and safely, the only thing that happened was a male passerby darkly pointing out that we looked out of place. We got back to the safety of our homes and more surrounding areas, and put the uncomfortable situation behind us.

    As the one who planned that ill-fated outing, I find myself a little ‘once bitten, twice shy’ about planning another event to an unknown area. That’s not to say that I haven’t been to new areas in other cities before without incident. I’ve traveled a lot and that was the first time I’d ever felt truly unsafe. But I still feel uneasy about mistakenly leading my friends into a similar situation. And none of my friends blamed me, none of them knew of any red flags for that area, but I still blame myself.

    So when you’re going some place new and unknown, how can you research ahead of time the safety of the area? I’d love to do drivebys to spy things out for myself but obviously that’s not feasible for events a long distance off. Any recommendations?

    1. LilySparrow*

      Google Earth or Street View?

      It’s not going to cover everywhere, but I did discover recently that I needed sturdy shoes for a far-off wedding because we’d be parking in a meadow and walking on gravel, which was not apparent from the invitation.

    2. Mephyle*

      Google Maps Streetview is the next best thing to a real-life driveby. Obviously it can’t tell you as much, (and there is also the possibility of making an error the other way – getting a false sense of danger).
      I also find it useful when finding the way to some place is going to be complicated and it gives a much fuller idea than just a map of what the roads, streets, intersections and interchanges will look like.

      1. KnottyFerret*

        Seconding this. You can get crime maps for just about anywhere in the US, though it varies whether it’s available by city or county. Specifically, I look at violent crimes in the last 1-3 years to get a feel for how “safe” it will feel.

    4. Washi*

      Take a cab/rideshare there, and then take public transportation on the way back if you feel comfortable? I assume it was the walk to the event that was a problem, and it wouldn’t have been unsafe inside the actual venue.

      I’m curious about what it was about this area that so immediately felt unsafe?

      1. Temperance*

        Not OP, but I typically can tell when I’m in a high crime area by how rundown the properties are, how much trash is on the ground, etc. If I’m in a major city and the block looks like a war zone, I’m going to assume it’s a “bad” area.

        1. Flinty*

          Maybe I’m just desensitized, but there’s a difference between a generally rundown area, and an area where I am likely to actually be the victim of a crime. I used to live in a neighborhood with a lot of assaults and gun violence, but it was almost always between people who knew each other, not random shootings on the street. So yeah, I could have gotten unlucky and been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it was never very likely that I would be involved. And the area with the greatest number of muggings is actually the tourist part of town, not any of the “bad” neighborhoods, and even then, muggers usually go for individuals, not groups.

          So I guess if it was a “vibe” thing, I would suggest the OP maybe look into crime stats as the others were saying, but look at the specific types of crimes, not just general stats.

          1. Lissa*

            Yeah I’m also wondering about this – bad/unsafe areas to me would be an area where you’re more likely to be mugged. Someone going out of their way to say a group of people don’t look like they belong – are we talking a situation where everyone knows each other or it’s a gang thing? Cause otherwise…what does that even mean? Sorry if I sound ignorant – ARE there areas where strangers are likely to be attacked/harassed just for being strangers to the area? I mean, I’m sure they exist in the world, it’s just really out of my frame of reference. In my city when someone says “not a good area” usually they mean “a lot of homeless people are there” but passersby aren’t really at risk.

            1. Victoria Nonprofit (USA)*

              I agree. I’ve lived in urban areas my whole life, and I can’t really imagine a place that I would feel unsafe enough, during the day, to leave immediately.

              1. Catherine*

                When I lived in Seattle a couple years ago there were certain blocks downtown I had to avoid even in broad daylight because the catcalling and getting followed by strange men was just intolerable to me. I did genuinely feel at risk of physical violence in those areas.

          2. ket*

            Agree. I am statistically and practically safer due to my demographics/the types of crime in the “bad” part of my city than near the local party college, where I’ve been harassed plenty by rich kids. The party college looks nicer, though; bigger gardening budget.

        2. Basia, also a Fed*

          I grew up in the south side of Chicago in “the projects” and am not uncomfortable in poor, run down neighborhoods. Having said that, there have been a couple of times when I’ve been genuinely frightened (although not in Chicago).

          We once were walking down a street in a non-touristy area of a large US east coast city and a group of men in their 20s started following us and asking for money and saying “we can get it from you if we want, but it would be easier if we didn’t have to.”

          Different east coast city, but we were driving, stopped at a light, and a group of teenagers stepped off the sidewalk and started banging on the hood of our car. The light changed and we couldn’t move. I was terrified that we’d inch forward and accidentally hit someone and be dragged out of our car and beaten up.

          My point is that there are neighborhoods that are genuinely dangerous to obvious outsiders, and I don’t think its appropriate to second guess someone if they don’t feel comfortable.

        3. Laura Holt*

          This is incredibly racist, what is it even doing here? What’s yuor definition of a run down, a place that has too many bwron skinned people in it? You need to apologize for this post and take it down right now.

      3. LilySparrow*

        Not the OP, but I once got off the bus in an area of the boroughs of NYC and encountered a pack of feral dogs running down the sidewalk/street, with people scattering to get out of their way. Literal feral dogs, not a metaphor for anything.

        I’m sure the *people* who lived there were fine, but I definitely did not feel safe.

        1. Bronx chica*

          As someone from the outer boroughs, why did you put people in quotes? We don’t pack of feral dogs on our streets either and if they were scattering they obviously didn’t feel safe.

            1. LilySparrow*

              Yes, that was emphasis not quotes. I’m sure the people were no threat to me, they were not the reason I felt unsafe.

    5. Temperance*

      You can get neighborhood-specific information from CityData. What I would also do going forward is Google the event/venue to see what sorts of comments people have given on it.

    6. coffeehabit*

      I actually look up to see if there is a Starbucks in the area. If there is, I figure it’s a safe neighborhood.

      1. Gaia*

        That is a really weird assumption. Some of the highest crime areas in the last 3 cities I have lived in had a starbucks in them.

      2. Laura Holt*

        coffeehabit thinks that POC do not like starbucks or drink coffee, there are no starbucks in those icky brown neigborhoods.

    7. Cheesesteak in Paradise*

      I’m a bit uncomfortable with the idea of labeling areas “bad.” Do you mean it looked poor and was inhabited by black and brown people? That doesn’t mean you will be a victim of crime. As someone else said, most crimes aren’t random except for muggings and those are more likely in a densely populated tourist area where the mugger can disappear easily and lots of people aren’t paying attention.

      You almost surely would have been fine proceeding to your event. You weren’t alone and I assume it wasn’t in an actual war zone.

      1. Bratmon*

        I’m curious where you live so that you can claim “A poor, high crime area where an outsider is likely to get mugged” does not exist anywhere.

        1. ThatGirl*

          They did not write that sentence??

          There are areas of Chicago (the metro area I live in) that I would avoid because gang violence is more common and I wouldn’t want to get caught in crossfire, but those are not the neighborhoods I’m likely to get mugged in—muggers target crowded and touristy areas.

        1. Cheesesteak in Paradise*

          I didn’t assume – I asked what was meant by “bad.” But it’s definitely a fact that most of the time when white people in the US speak of “bad” areas that’s code for minority plus poor. That’s the whole rationale behind white flight from cities and banks historically (not far off history either) refusing mortgages in certain areas to minority applicants to keep them out. Plus OP said it was a part of the city OP lived in so urban “bad” = minority and poor is not a huge stretch.

          I’m not perfect by any means but everyone should examine their own take on “bad” areas as part of unconscious racism. Not saying OP is racist but examining these assumptions is a good exercise for everyone.

            1. Cheesesteak in Paradise*

              I didn’t say the OP was a white American. I certainly don’t know. If the OP is Syrian and talking about an area in Aleppo being dangerous, then nothing I have said applies to the OP.

              It’s still worth discussing that classifying a place (in your own city!) where people live as “bad” is problematic and definitely has roots in racism. Different kinds of racism (eg Chinatown or the Irish areas being historically “bad” in NYC) but it’s still racism. Mostly privileged people saying things are “bad” because the people who live there are Other (in some way) and economically disadvantaged rather than any real evidence about danger.

              OP can do what they want and should take their personal safety into account. But people in general should check the assumptions they have about classifying things as bad and whether those assumptions are based in subconscious racism.

      3. LilySparrow*

        Of course, it could go the other way, too. There are certainly areas not far from where I live now, where POC would feel unsafe, and if a local made a comment about them looking out of place it would definitely be a threat.

        I don’t think you can screen for that on Google Street view, tho.

      4. Courageous cat*

        I understand and agree with what you’re saying about poor and black/brown areas, but saying “you almost surely would have been fine” doesn’t sit well with me, because we literally have no way of knowing that. There are areas of my city where you are definitely significantly less likely to be fine. This comment overall makes me think that you don’t live in a very big or high-crime city.

        1. Cheesesteak in Paradise*

          My bona fides don’t matter but I lived in West Philadelphia working nights and weekends for 8 years and I live in another large US east coast city now. It’s not Mayberry.

          I’m not saying crime doesn’t exist or OP should be stupid about their personal safety. I just object to the underpinnings of what (some) people consider “bad”.

    8. LCL*

      If your city is big enough to have public transportation, it will have a local subreddit. Ask there, but keep in mind each subreddit has its own rules and that sort of page usually allows unverified information. And some pages can be really snarky.

  5. ElspethGC*

    Anyone with long hair have any suggestions for smart/put-together hairstyles, for any relatively fancy occasion or for the-thing-no-to-be-mentioned-here? I’ve got my graduation in less than a year, for example.

    I’ve got long hair – hip-length. Wavy, shifting to curls from about the waist down. Which causes issues, because 1) a whole load of sites for ‘professional’ advice (eg Corporette) basically said that if you’re an adult you shouldn’t have hair longer than shoulder/bra-strap length, and 2) the sites that do acknowledge that proper long hair exists talk about it looking smart with words like “smooth” and “sleek”, which just don’t work for anyone who doesn’t have straight hair. I avoid heat-styling (no straightening) and cutting it shorter isn’t really an option. I don’t want to do that.

    Anyone have any ideas? At the moment I usually just plait it back or have it in a ponytail if I want it tied back, which works but I feel like it makes me look young, probably because those were the go-to for when I was in school.

    1. Mephyle*

      No specific ideas, but try a YouTube search on: styles for very long hair. I see some results for this search.
      For a general internet search, it seems to give better targetted results if you put ‘very long hair’ in quotes; so:
      polished styles for “very long hair”.

    2. aarti*

      A hairstyle I see a lot here is women who braid their hair in a low braid starting from the nape of their neck. Rather than braiding it to end if the hair and tying it off, they fold the end up on the underside of the braid and use a hair band to hold it in place. It looks neater in my opinion and makes the hair seem “shorter” than it is. If I can find a picture I’ll post it later.

      1. Panda Bandit*

        Ooh, that’s the same hairstyle that was popular with men around the 1700s, known as clubbed or queued hair! *history nerd squeeing*

    3. LilySparrow*

      YouTube is great for all things hair. I have short hair but my kids have long hair, and sometimes I watch them just for fun.

      There’s a channel called Makeup Wearable that has “1-minute hairstyles for work” and another called Knot Me Pretty. Both of them have mid-back or longer hair.

      Looks like sectioning and using those little elastics to build structure are key.

      1. Reba*

        Yeah, youtube! I also have long hair–not quite as long as ElspethGC though–and I try to do something fancy with it a couple times a year, as if to justify the length. You can find lots of ideas for quick updos. Lately I’ve been into styles based on “pull through braids” which do indeed use a ton of those little elastics. For everyday, I do various combinations of low buns, french braids, “gibson tuck,” and french twists (with your long hair, secure the first section of twist against the head, then either twist-braid the remaining tail and lay it back alongside the main body of hair, or quickly regular braid the tail to make it easier to tuck inside the main body of hair).

        One thing that’s kind of gratifying about the video tutorials, as someone who also has wavy hair, is that most of the stylists put curl into their hair before beginning, for volume and grip in the updo style. So we are one step ahead on that one. :)

    4. Lora*

      Get a pack of Invisibobbles at Ulta or Sephora and look up “Invisibobble tutorial on YouTube. Many cute options. With the amount of hair you have, you may need to put a little gel or leave in conditioner to keep it from making weird loose bits around your face, or redo it after six hours to get frizzies/flyaways under control, but that’s okay because it’s pretty quick to do in a bathroom.

      Signed, someone whose very long hair is a curly, cowlicky white girl Afro when anything less than bra strap or even waist length.

    5. Indie*

      My advice is: Sneer with flared nostrils at people who see curls and waves as ‘wild and sexy’ and straight hair as ‘professional’. Not only are they sexists but they clearly don’t know any WoC.

      I have long curls/waves. My go-tos are:
      -Upside down ponytails: curving the hair inwards makes it really maneagble if you’re curls are trying to say hello to everyone at once.
      – Top knots. I use hair doughnuts and sock buns to give a more defined and neat shape.
      – Chignons. Use wavy hairpins and check out youtube for how to use them. Will hold up a cartload of hair.

      But don’t be afraid to let it all hang out. Women are allowed to be feminine in the workplace nowadays. Use barettes and Alicebands to keep hair in place and off the face (if it tends to ‘rise up’ as mine does) and as long as your hair is clean and groomed you’re fine.

        1. Ask a Manager* Post author

          Just to clarify because I’ve seen a few comments like this here — work is not unmentionable in the weekend thread! Just no work-focused questions/posts.

      2. ElspethGC*

        I’m not a WoC (I’m so white I’m translucent, and that’s not actually an exaggeration) but I agree with the curls vs straight thing being a complete mess. A friend straightened my hair once – took her nearly two hours – and I got a ton of comments on how it’s “so pretty and straight, you should do this every day!” Eff you, my hair’s pretty on its own. Why should it be especially pretty when it’s straight, other than the fact that it’s not what I normally do? Also, given the time it takes and the damage heat styling does, no. Just no.

        1. Arjay*

          Sometimes it’s not about the curly vs straight as much as it is seeing something different. I have a friend who unbeknowst to me straightened her hair every day. She came into work one day with it curly and I was telling her how great it looked and asked how she had styled it that way. I was shocked to find out that’s how it naturally looked when air-dried. I don’t know why she ever bothered doing anything else.

    6. Red Reader*

      Your hair sounds about like mine, on the borderline between wavy and curly and butt-length. I pretty much live in buns, personally. Hard to describe, but I’ll try — ponytail at about the central back of my head, wind it once around my left hand at the base of the ponytail, then wind the rest of the tail around the ponytail elastic (about four times for me) so the loop around my hand is basically sticking out the middle. Hold the very tail end in place with my right hand, and slide the loop off my left hand and basically jam it down around the whole rest of the wrap. Take a hair stick (pencil or chopstick will do for practicing — I tend to go with wooden sticks, a little on the thicker side, or even metal ones, but my hair will shatter most plastic) and put it through one side of the loop, angle it so it goes underneath the ponytail elastic, and then back out the other side.

      The loop helps hold everything in place without needing like fifteen sticks or pins, and I find that this tends to make a flatter bun than some of the other methods I’ve tried, which helps spread out the weight of that much hair. For me, it holds all day and in fact all night and longer — the bun I’ve got in right now, I put up Thursday morning (I was traveling all day Thursday and didn’t leave my house yesterday :P ) and the bun itself is fine, the bandana I’m wearing is more to cover the frizzes on the top of my head until I shower and go run errands :) If you find a bun is still too much weight on the back of your head, try adjusting the positioning before you give up on it — sometimes higher or lower does the trick.

      French twists are also pretty and classy, but I am not coordinated enough to figure out how to make one work with my hair when my bun does the trick :)

      1. ElspethGC*

        I’ve done buns a few times, usually when the length isn’t cooperating, and the amount of hair always ends up making it stick out the back of my head like a weird topknot. I’ll try the tip for making it flatter!

        And yes, I’ve never mastered French twists either. Too much hair for most of the tutorials.

        1. Lora*

          For hip length hair it really is too much for the clips, combs etc that would normally hold up a French twist. You can take the crown part of your hair and make a high bun, and French twist what’s underneath, but that’s sorta defeating the purpose.

          I do recommend learning to French/Dutch braid your own hair. That gives you something to anchor a long braid to, if you want to pin up a braid or ponytail so it doesn’t get caught in stuff. And that way the pinning stays up all day with minimal frizzies and it distributes the weight around your scalp.

      2. Elspeth McGillicuddy*

        Yes, hair stick buns! Found those this year and they are amazing. As fast as a messy bun, but actually work for my hair. And look fancy.

        I don’t have much curl to deal with, but I’ve got even longer hair. I love it, but it’s way too long to wear down from a practical point of view. If I leave the house, it’s pretty much in a bun.

        I’ve found it’s hard to find YouTube videos for long hair, since you search long hair and find someone with hair that barely reaches past their shoulders. I’ll share some links in the reply.

        1. Elspeth McGillicuddy*

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pixgHmqwiII&t=159s
          The middle style in this video is the Nautilus Bun that Red Reader describes above. It’s my standard too. Silvous Plaits also has a bunch of cool tutorials for character hair- Star Wars, Game of Thrones, anime. Not really work wear, but amazing for fancy event wear. And some nice tutorials on the basics.

          This lady talks too much, but if you skip to the actual hair part, she’s got some cool styles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJTQEX3WnZ0&t=428s I like the middle bun on this one too.

    7. gecko*

      Buns, sometimes I’ll do two french braids and twist the braids together and pin them on the back of my head. For buns the key is that you keep it low on your head or you look like a ballerina, so with the midpoint on the lump at the back of your skull or lower.

      For the “sleekness” thing, what that means for you is no frizzy flyaways around your face, so do some experimenting with some product that’ll keep that in check when you have your hair up.

    8. HannahS*

      When I had hair that long, I’d do a milkmaid-style French braid, starting from my side-part, working across the front of my head, around the back, and then tucked under itself at the front. It looked pretty good, and provided I wasn’t wearing a sundress, it didn’t look young. I tried a lot of different braided hairstyles; I find they distribute the weight of long hair more comfortably than a bun.

    9. Parenthetically*

      When I had hair that long, I frequently did milkmaid braids — I can’t French braid my own hair to save my life, but I could manage two simple braids, one starting behind each ear, braided right down to the end, secured with clear bands, and then criss-crossed/wrapped around my head and pinned in place. I’ve put a super simple tutorial link in my name. It’s very quick!

      A friend of mine who has mid-thigh length wavy hair often does hers in a braid that she then pins into a low figure eight at the nape of her neck for her work gigs (she’s a harpist), and it looks very professional.

    10. Indie*

      Something else I’ve found useful for this hair type is to do Dutch braids in place of French braids. French braids showcase the sleekness of straight hair and creates bulk for fine hair. Dutch braids (you plait under, not over, so the braid sits out on top) shows off the thickness and texture of the hair. For some reason i also find it easier to do.

      1. Constantly Sleepy*

        Huh! I didn’t realize that that was the type of braid that I’ve been doing. I can’t do a French braid on myself very well so it looks like I’ve been doing Dutch braids this entire time.

    11. Hannah*

      Personally, I don’t see what is unprofessional about long, wavy hair as long as it is clean, healthy, not matted, etc.

      Make sure the ends are kept healthy with regular trims, and maybe use some product to mitigate frizz and keep your beautiful curls looking as neat as possible. As long as it looks cared for, it should be fine in most contexts.

      I love long hair and wish my hair would cooperate with growing out! (My hair pretty much poops out around bra length.)

    12. Melody Pond*

      I have pretty long hair currently, but it’s more straight-ish/light wavy on its own, so probably not quite comparable to what you deal with.

      But still – I think a low bun at the nape of the neck is always work-appropriate. I experiment with braid-based styles a bit sometimes. I also really like this Etsy store which makes really fun hammered metal hair accessories, which are a fun way to dress up long hair:

      https://www.etsy.com/shop/Kapelika?ref=ss_profile

    13. Feliz*

      One of my direct reports has wavy hair down to the small of her back. She’s mid 20s and wears it really well – a variety of styles – all up, all down, mix of some up some down, small braids, full braids, braids in buns, just the front sections pinned off her face etc.

      Honestly, it always looks gorgeous – I think because it’s healthy and she clearly puts effort into it

    14. valentine*

      A simple tie at the nape. I’ve seen hair this long in lovely, large barrettes that look like wood or brooches. I think the issue with curls is frizz, so, Frizz-ease.

    15. DrTheLiz*

      Fellow long-hair here! For my undergrad graduation, I wore a “crown of braids”, which is pretty easy: make two braids starting just behind the ear, wind around the head, tuck the end under the other braid. For butt-length hair you might even be able to get away with a single braid making a complete loop. I also like the double-braid bun: French (or Dutch) braid the hair on each side moving back from the temple, then when you have two full braids gather and wind them into a single, low, oval bun. The low oval reduces bulk and the French/Dutch bit on the sides I find keeps the flattening effect of pulling the hair back from making my head look weirdly small.

      Googling “Victorian hair styles” I find can yield some fun results, especially for more formal things!

    17. Ehhhh*

      No advice, just jealousy. I’ve got thin, straight, quick-to-greasy hair that won’t grow more than a couple inches past my shoulders. I know maintaining and managing super long, wavy/curly/textured hair can be a PITA. But it’s so beautiful and amazing and I’m envious of you.

    18. Rachel B.*

      I have waist-length hair, and it is curly when it isn’t too blasted hot around here (two months out of the year?) I make a single braid either from the crown of the head, starting the braid bent over at the waist, or high on the back of the head leaning as far as possible backwards over the back of a sturdy chair to start the braid. Tie it off when there’s almost no hair left, then either coil the braid and stab it with a single large hairpin, aka hairsticks, use a couple of large combs or claws, or, my fave, get a scunci “upzing”. The upzing is two slightly curved combs connected by elastic strings of tiny beads. Put in one comb, curving following the curve of the skull, bend the elastic beaded strands over the coiled or folded braid, insert other comb on the other side of the braid, which comb is now also following the curve of the skull. Neat, tidy, stays put ALL day, and if little tiny bits come loose and curl along the nape of the neck or the temples, you still won’t be too hot, and the tiny curls look charming.

      I taught high school chemistry for several years and needed hair neat, tidy and definitely out of the way, not to mention grown-up. The coiled braid works for everything, including attending weddings, and one gets different looks depending on where one starts the braid. Even in the rain, it holds up pretty well, though the tiny curls multiply (fine by me).

  6. Daughter Dearest*

    Quick backstory for this question: my parents had a mutual divorce when I was a baby, and had joint custody, though I primarily lived with my mom and visited my dad every other week. My dad, stepmom, and half siblings always lived within 30 min drive of my mom’s house, that was important to my dad as I was growing up. This made it really easy for me to visit frequently as I grew up and my visits were less scheduled. When I had my own car, I could drive over after work to have dinner with them or hang out on a rainy weekend.

    For the first time in my life, my dad and family have moved further than that 30 min area. I’m moved out from home but was still near by. Earlier this year, they moved nearly 2 hours away. The frustration I’m having comes from my dad nagging at me to visit.

    Obviously with the 2 hour drive, spur of the moment dinners and casual hangouts are off the table. But it’s difficult to get to him even for a longer visit. If I’m driving over 1 hour anywhere, I prefer to spend the night. Spending 4 total hours in the car there and back for maybe a 3 hour visit is not fun. But it’s been difficult for me to have a weekend with nothing to do so I can make the overnight trip. And when I do have a weekend free, my dad is out or entertaining others guests or is somehow engaged that it won’t work. I’m frustrated because any time I call him up to casually talk, the first topic is ‘When are you coming to visit?’ so I want to call him even less because he’s always nagging.

    I’m hitting the point where I even want to say ‘Why aren’t you visiting me?’ He and the rest of the family still have a lot of ties to this area like their friends and his office (he’s working from home now) so I know my dad is actually back in this area quite frequently. A family friend told me that my dad was up here a week or two ago. But he doesn’t make any effort to see me when he’s in the area.

    I guess I’m frustrated because he’s putting all the guilt and burden of arranging the visit but doesn’t take any for himself even when he’s back around me frequently. And I know I do need to suck up the drive complaints and do a day visit. I love my dad to pieces but he’s gotten very annoying since he moved away. I miss the nights where I could swing by after work to have dinner with him and just hang out for a few hours.

    1. CBE*

      Say it! Especially if you’re hearing he’s been in the area. Something that says “Hey, next time you’re up here I’d love to grab dinner with you before you head back.”
      Because of the pattern growing up, it may never have occurred to him that now you’re an adult and he can come visit you without being at his ex’s place.

    2. Washi*

      I think “I’d love to see you too! Do you think you could visit me sometime?” is a totally valid question, especially if he’s in your area frequently. Actually, I think everything you’ve expressed here would be fair game to tell him, and might lead to both of you feeling less frustrated. My guess (if your dad is a nice, reasonable person) is that your dad is asking you when you’re visiting all the time to 1. express that he misses you and 2. make sure that you know you are welcome just as much as before, and he’s kind of oblivious about all the ways it’s now much harder for to visit and the things he needs to do on his end to make that happen.

      And is there any in the middle that you could meet up? If each of you had an hour drive, maybe that wouldn’t feel too bad for like, lunch and a walk or something.

    3. ainomiaka*

      Is this a new move? During a change it’s particularly easy to say “okay, we need to to talk about practicalities of seeing you”, but really, even the next time he says “when are you coming to visit?” would be reasonable. I would say don’t start off with complaining about guilt, but make it about practicalities. Specifically ask if he could clear a weekend for you to go visit, specifically say you’d like to be called when he’s in town/show him your place.
      If he’s still not helpful, being honest about not wanting to talk because he always nags, and then not talking as much is a reasonable next step. But start with just laying it out as problem solving practicalities.

    4. LilySparrow*

      It sounds like you have an overall really good relationship with your dad. Making the jump to a fully adult relationship on both sides isn’t always easy, even in the warmest parental relationships.

      You can absolutely bring up the one-sidedness going on here, in a “let’s talk” way, not a “call-out” type way.

      “Hey, I’ve been hearing you were in town but you didn’t call me. What’s going on? You know I always want to see you!”

      Or, “Hey, I’m trying to schedule a visit, but every time I suggest a date you say it won’t work. Can you block out some time for me? I can’t make this happen all by myself.”

    5. Villanelle*

      My friends live 2.30 hrs away. I don’t like it but I take the train and back in one day. It’s a long day for sure but I do it. You say you prefer to stay overnight. Fair enough. But sometimes you have to compromise and it sounds from what you have written here that both you and your dad can work on this (he/his family should make more of an effort to see you. You, maybe every other visit/every 3rd, whatever should just do the drive and back. Or stay somewhere cheap on the way there. Go explore. I dunno.)

    6. Temperance*

      You definitely need to bring this up! Ask him why he’s not visiting you when he’s in the area. It honestly might be that he’d prefer you to have “family time” with your half-siblings and stepmom, but still, he’s your dad and should put some effort in.

    7. Ender*

      As others have said, ask when he is coming. Also, next time you talk, lock down a weekend when you are both free and book it in. It might be a few months out but it will never happen if you don’t both commit to keeping a weekend free.

    8. Harvey P. Carr*

      Add my name to those who feel you should ask your father why he doesn’t reach out to see you when he’s in town.

    9. Bethany D*

      Maybe you could drive over on a Friday evening and enjoy Saturday morning with him, then head home in the afternoon for the rest of your weekend.

    10. Pickle Lily*

      You could suggest meeting in the middle for lunch or a walk etc. Then it’s only an hour each way and easier to fit into a busy weekend. And you both have to make the same effort.

    11. Yetanotherjennifer*

      I think on some level your dad doesn’t recognize that your lives have changed. You’re no longer a kid; you have a job, your own place, and other commitments. And he doesn’t live as close as he used to so drop-ins aren’t really possible any more. I think you’re also falling into a childhood habit of accepting your parent’s decrees for how things will be. You’re an adult too, now and while it may feel hard to broach this topic with him, you absolutely can. So talk to him. Next time he brings it up, say you’d love to but it doesn’t work for either of you anymore and you have a few ideas for new ways to get together. It will take some effort and advanced planning, and perhaps many reminders, but soon you’ll have new traditions and occasions to get together.

      You could also get your step-mom’s help with this. It may be that she’s the keeper of the schedule and can help him keep weekends free for you or identify good ones before they get filled. She could also remind him to save time for you when he’s planning a trip to your area.

  7. Waiting for the Sun*

    Music thread!

    If you were doing that thing we don’t talk about on weekends as a radio programmer and waned to freshen the playlist, what are some songs you would use? I’m thinking of classic rock or alternative songs that are radio-appropriate but overlooked/underplayed.
    Examples:
    Substitute” instead of “Behind Blue Eyes.”
    “Rock and Roll” by the Velvet Underground instead of the Zeppelin song by the same name.
    “Soul Kitchen” vs “Light My Fire” (had to do a Doors one:))

    1. annakarina1*

      Thin Lizzy’s “Still in Love With You” is one of my favorites that I’ve heard by them, next to “Roisin Dubh.” I’ve never liked “The Boys Are Back in Town,” but it’s the only song that rock radio plays by them.

      1. Waiting for the Sun*

        That song was new to me. Thanks.
        Enjoyed the Behind The Music episode on Thin Lizzy. Phil Lynott’s mom was ahead of her time.

    2. WellRed*

      I swear the only Kiss song our local radio plays us “Rock and Roll All Night.” I’d love to hear “Do You Love Me” just once.

      1. Waiting for the Sun*

        That’s a good one.
        I remember being annoyed by prissy girls and their “The only KISS song I like is Beth” attitude. Think girls are more free now to embrace hard rock.

    3. Waiting for the Sun*

      How could I forget? Warren Zevon – anything but “Werewolves.” Fun, but he had so much more to offer.

    4. annakarina1*

      Also, I like Van Morrison, but hate “Brown Eyed Girl.” I hated it when I was a kid listening to the sixties pop radio station, I just found it irritating. But my dad is a Van Morrison fan and his albums are so much richer and better.

    5. Lora*

      So many musicians from classic rock are men, how about some Patti Smith? Or for more alternative, Laurie Anderson?

      1. Waiting for the Sun*

        Thanks, yes.
        Joan Jett’s versions of “Crimson and Clover “ or “Do You Wanna Touch Me” would be nice.

      2. WellRed*

        Pat Benatar. Sick of Hit Me with your Best Shot. Much rather hear Outta Touch or Wuthering Heights or Helter Skelter.

        2. Sprechen Sie Talk?*

          Agree re: the first song especially as she has such a great overall catalog. I had totally forgotten how awesome Invincible was until I saw it used on GLOW. A much more powerful song.

    6. wingmaster*

      I’m a huge Pink Floyd listener. It’s always a treat when I hear some underplayed songs on the radio over “Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2”, because there are so many good songs. It would be nice to hear songs from other albums like Meddle or Animals.

      1. Waiting for the Sun*

        The radio played “On the Run, “ which was new to me, on a road trip outside Wateska, Illinois. Really perked up the drive! Figured it was Pink Floyd and looked it up when I got to my destination. Not sure what radio station; probably too distant to pick up Chicago stations. Impressed that a smaller-market station was venturing from the usual Floyd tracks.

    8. LCL*

      Ooh, I can do the classic rock part all day! I used to do this as mental exercise. So building off what everyone has posted:
      I’m a boy, cousin Kevin, the Seeker from The Who.
      Whiskey in the Jar by Thin Lizzy. Followed by Whiskey drinking woman by Nazareth.
      Rocket Ride by Kiss. Their least subtle song ever.
      Sentimental Hygiene by Warren Zevon. Followed by Industrial Disease, Dire Straits.
      Pissin in the River by Patti Smith.
      Hell is for children by Pat Benatar.
      One of these days, Pink Floyd. Two basses!
      Summer of Love and Black Blade, Blue Oyster Cult.
      The Lemon Song, Led Zeppelin. Bass part is to die for.
      Iron Man, Sir Mixalot with Metal Church. The guitar will give you chills, it’s that good.
      Famous Groupies and Hi Hi Hi, Paul McCartney and Wings.

      Be back later, going to walk the dog. Can’t wait to see everyone else’s suggestions!

    10. Windcalleddelilah*

      A lot of playlists tend to skew men. So I freshen it up by adding women led groups, women solo artists. Originals or covers. Also if I were doing a play list of classic rock from the early 70s, I’d also check out songs on other 70s lists – r&b, salsa, cult rock (songs that everyone knows but never made any charts)

    11. Big Moody Curve*

      My apologies if this doesn’t nest or format properly. I’m a newbie. It’s meant as a reply to Waiting for the Sun, about freshening up classic rock playlists.
      Feel free to tell me when to shut up.
      Since you mentioned Tin Lizzy: Mick Taylor’s version of Jailbreak. Or for particularly teeth-gritting days, the Dropkick Murphys’ version.
      Dropkick Murphys’ Dirty Water (if the Standells and Sid Vicious had a musical baby…)
      House of the Rising Sun – Frijid Pink
      Vagrants – Respect (pre-Mountain Leslie West)
      Mott The Hoople – Sweet Jane
      Hey Joe – several contenders here. The Leaves, Love, Stillroven, Tim O’Brien.
      Them/Van Morrison – Baby Please Don’t Go. Discovered this one myself on the B-side of Gloria. Be kind, please don’t ask “What’s a B-side”?
      Next Saturday, maybe “Live (recorded, released) versions that improve on the studio version”? Ex: Midnight Rambler on Get Your Ya-Ya’s Out.

      1. Big Moody Curve*

        I’m back.
        Van Morrison/John Lee Hooker’s live version of Gloria.
        Chambers Brothers – Midnight Hour
        Georgia Satellites – Don’t Pass Me By
        Freshmen – Papa Oo Mow Mow (no idea who the Freshmen were, this is a crazed surf/garage/proto-punk rendition)
        Shocking Blue – Never Marry A Railroad Man
        Shutting up now, honest.

          1. Big Moody Curve*

            Okay, one more:
            Gimme Shelter by Detroit (Mitch Ryder, post-Detroit Wheels. He aged into a great gravelly blues-rock voice.)
            Side note – I had never noticed the stray apostrophe in “Get Your Ya-Ya’s Out” until I typed it here. Whatever ya-yas are, they’re plural, not possessive. Now the punctuation will bother me forever.

  8. aarti*

    Yay! Caught this early this week.
    A year ago, almost to the day, I shaved my head. I’ve had different feelings about it over the past year but generally I’ve really enjoyed it. I found it incredibly satisfying and mostly I’ve liked the way I’ve looked. Two things:
    1) Anyone else have stories about drastic hair changes they want to share?

    2) My hair is in a weird the in-between stage. It’s 6 inches or so long but everywhere (so longer in the back and looks more like bangs in the front). Any suggestions for hairstyles?

    1. nep*

      I’ve got about 1.5 years of growth since my buzz cut. Many frustrating, awkward periods in between. I’m now back to top-knot. Miss the buzzed head and many days I wish I could have it just for a day. (I like having hair just for some variety…but when I see women with buzz cuts I do look longingly.)
      It was my second time shaving it in about a decade. One of my favorite parts was taking the clippers to it every morning or every other morning (on 2), mowing it down and getting that clean feeling.
      I know I could get more creative with it now than just the top-knot, but I don’t like spending lots of time on the hair. I like messy looks, in any case, but it takes time to get it just right.
      That was another wonderful part of the buzz–yes, I spent a couple minutes buzzing it, but that’s fun and satisfying; other than that no time spent messing with the hair.
      My only suggestion/or at least from my experience: Bobby pins can be your best friend. You can do cool things with them.

    2. AnonGD*

      Not really a happy story but I shaved my head before going into chemo (at 26). I tried to like it but I definitely don’t have a head built for baldness haha. Growing it out was a PAIN– but I feel like once you get a little bit past the point you’re at now you’ll have an easier time with styling. There’s an awkward phase where nothing looks particularly intentional (in my experience)

    3. Tau*

      No suggestions re: 2), unfortunately, but on 1) I went from hip-length to shoulder/chin-length hair at sixteen and then from that to a pixie cut at around 25 or so. I was nervous going into both but they were massive improvements and I’m not planning to let my hair get any longer than it is now again. I have pretty-much-straight hair that’s fine but ludicrously thick – every single hairdresser I’ve ever visited has commented on how much hair I have, and the one time I had to have an EEG the doctor had serious problems actually finding scalp to put the electrodes on – and I could never work out anything sensible to do with it when I was younger. When it’s longer, it just ends up completely overwhelming my face (and it would slip out of and/or eat the fastenings of most hairstyles I tried), but at pixie length, it actually looks good.

    4. Temporarily Anonymous*

      I better be anonymous for this one.
      I coloured my hair copper red which was a drastic change from its natural colour. I actually got mistaken for a natural redhead several times which was funny since my brows and lashes were still a very different colour. I also buzzed my hair this year (not while it was red) although it wasn’t an extreme buzz- I left the top a bit longer and did a fade on the sides & back with triangular sideburns. Absolutely loved both but couldn’t maintain the red (way too pricey). I find that I feel more like myself the shorter I cut my hair but inevitably I get more compliments as soon as it’s started growing out to an irritating length. Oh well.

    5. Monty and Millie's Mom*

      I agree with Nep, bobby pins are the way to go. I cut mine from about shoulder length to little spikeys about an inch long, which wa super cute when I put a little product in it, but I hated getting it cut every 6 weeks, so it only lasted about 6 months. It was fun, I liked it!

    6. Dr. Anonymous*

      French braids, both sides of the head. Hair bands or hair combs. Have a hair band in the bathroom because it’s about to be long enough to accidentally spit on it when you brush your teeth.

    7. PookieLou*

      1) I am in a cycle of growing my hair, cutting it all off on a whim, repeat. I have a lot of hair products that only get used for a few months, then go back to storage for next time my hair is long/short enough. One Saturday I was bored and felt frumpy with my longer hair. I didn’t have a regular stylist, so I called around until somebody had time to see me that day. I went from collar-length to buzzed sides/longer top. The pile of hair on the floor looked like it could be a small dog!
      As cliche as it is, I had just broken up with a real jerk of a guy when I got that cut. At my next appointment, I was hoping cute coworker would ask me out. Time after that was in preparation for our first date. Next time, we were exclusive. Next time, we’d started saying “I love you”. Getting engaged could have doubled as a reminder to get my hair done. First thing I did was show her the ring, which she was not surprised to see. The only reason she didn’t cut my hair prior to the wedding was because she was on maternity.

      2)My advice to you is to get really good with bobby pins. You can do a lot by twisting/braiding sections and pinning them back. I can’t manage a ponytail with my hair at its usual length, but I’ve found that alternately pinning sections of hair from each side at the back of my head creates a really pretty half-up look. I even did a formal up-do by pinning sections back from each side until I’d pinned it all. Clean hair can be hard to keep in place, so sometimes I curl it up with my iron and lightly spray it with hairspray before I style it. It adds nice volume and stays in place. Saved a lot of money on my wedding by doing my own hair that way.

    1. Lady Jay*

      Oh, fun! Are you doing it as a part of an organized event, or on your own? (From what I remember of the Blerch runs, they’re “online,” so you can do them whenever/wherever you want.)

    3. CatCat*

      Oh, fun! Beat the Blerch came to my city a few years ago and it was my first 5k. Still my favorite race, sooooo fun! I wish it would come again.

    4. Empty Sky*

      Hope you had fun!

      I am jealous. It’s been around 3-4 years since I managed to finish one. I have a couple of recurring injuries that keep knocking me back (I’m doing physiotherapy and Pilates to resolve the underlying biomechanical issues and change the way I run/walk/stand, but it’s a long process). I used to knock them out several times a week in training, so it’s frustrating.

    5. LGC*

      Hope it went well! I’ve done one Blerch (well…that is a story in and of itself), and it was pretty fun! For the most part, anyway.

    6. Free Meerkats*

      I finished and had fun. Only got rained on a little. I was fastest of the walkers in my age class (60 to dead males.) Of course, there were only two of us…

      I don’t run, too many ankle injuries when I was young. If you ever see me running, don’t ask questions, just start running with me. :-)

  10. Loves Libraries*

    Really sad week. Yesterday my 24 year old son’s best friend was buried. He died after falling asleep at the wheel. So sad. I’m proud of my son for being a great friend and comforting the parents. No parent should have to bury their child. If any of y’all have done that, I’m so sorry.

    1. nep*

      Oh that is devastating. Condolences. And indeed it must have lifted your heart to see your son being a comfort to others.
      Peace

    2. CBE*

      I am so sorry. I have lost a young family member to another driver falling asleep at the wheel. It’s rough.
      I hope your son is able to find comfort and peace, eventually, as he grieves his friend.

    4. Falling Diphthong*

      Condolences. I lost a young family member unexpectedly in the spring, and it is such a flattening shock.

    5. Jean (just Jean)*

      That is awful for the parents and everyone else involved. I’m glad that your son was so helpful in comforting his friend’s parents at the time. I hope that they are able to remain in contact and watch your son’s life unfold over time. It’s good for your son to be a source of comfort and it helps the bereaved parents even though nothing can ever replace the loss of a child (or any other loved one).

    6. Loves Libraries*

      Thank you all. I have 2 children in college in the Carolinas. One is right at where the storm will be Sunday morning. I think this death is making me more anxious than usual.

    7. still miss her*

      I’m 24, and my best friend passed away suddenly almost two years ago. So crazy to me, her services feel like they were yesterday. Pulmonary embolism. I hope your son remains close with his friend’s parents. Staying in touch with my friend’s mom and dad honestly really helped me through my own grief, and I know it helped them more. Nothing’ll make it hurt less, but when we’re all together it feels like she’s there too.

      1. SorryForYourLoss*

        From birth control pills? I also had PEs from those about 4 years ago, I’m so grateful to be perfectly healthy today. I often think of how differently it could have gone.

  11. Trixie*

    Hurricane Florence ended up taking a backseat in my orbit, thanks to a fender bender on Thursday.
    No one was hurt which is always most important. However, I was the at-fault driver and this is just a few months after I was the victim of a fender bender. Not looking forward to see my insurance rates sky rocket. At all.
    The car I hit was not heavily damaged (just bumper) but mine was crunched in front. Air bags did not deploy but any accident on car history is not good. Thinking once repaired, I can pay off this car as quickly as possible (maybe dip into emergency fund) and sell or trade towards new used car. I know I’ll take a hit on value (thanks to damage reported on car history) but I’d rather unload now while mileage is under 30K.
    Looking forward, pretty easy to plan around no car for immediate time being. Was already staying home (not driving or working) because of Florence. I can use Uber or Lyft for commuting, may be cheaper than car rental for next 2-3 weeks.
    Thanks to new position, I can probably work from home if weather worsens (courtesy of Florence). Plus, I am financially in better spot to pay for higher rates which apparently will last for next 3-5 years. I can shop around for new auto insurance but don’t think it will matter with my current driver history which was pristine prior to 2018.
    Moving forward. What’s done is done. Just grr.

    1. Not So NewReader*

      I take those driver safety courses every three years. I get 10% off a portion of my insurance for each year for three years then I have to re-up. Maybe that is an option for you?
      My late husband was an insurance adjuster. We bought a lot of used cars together. He always looked at the lines of the car, when they put it back did they put it back correctly? Is the bumper straight across? Is the hood in line with the rest of the car? This type of thing. Insist that the body shop do a good job, this will help you get the best price you can when you sell it. (What I like about this advice is that we don’t have to be a super technical person to check around the car and make sure every thing is matched up evenly. And we can find problem areas doing this.)

    2. Red Reader*

      I would shop around though anyway, just in case. My car was totaled in a not-my-fault accident back in February, and when my renewal came due, my insurance decided that they were going to literally almost double my rate. I’m lazy, and I don’t want to shop for car insurance unless someone gives me a reason, but that was totally a reason, and I ended up finding cheaper rates elsewhere (as in, cheaper than before the rate-doubling renewal, let alone after) even though my husband and I both had minor at-fault fender benders on our record. If you don’t find anything better, you don’t, but it’s worth a shot at least!

      1. CheeryO*

        Definitely shop around! I have an… interesting driving record, with three minor at-fault accidents (hit two parked cars and rear-ended someone) and one not-at-fault accident (rear-ended) in the space of about four years (I’ve been accident-free for two years, knock on wood!). My insurance dropped me after the last one, and I was terrified that I was going to be uninsurable. A lot of companies gave me ridiculous quotes, but some were reasonable. I ended up doing one of the Snapshot programs (Progressive, but I think other companies have something similar) and actually ended up saving a significant amount of money over what my previous company had been charging me even before the last couple accidents. It was a really obnoxious six months, because you have to limit your driving during “high risk” hours (mainly overnight) and do only the gentlest of gentle brakes. Super worth it, though!

        Also, maybe this is just me, but I don’t see why you need to get rid of the car. As someone who has shopped for used cars in the <30,000 mile range, I'm ideally looking for something that's never been in an accident. I'd expect the record to get more spotty as the mileage/age goes up.

    3. MRK*

      I had friends (a couple) who’s insurance went way up after an unlucky run of accidents. They ended up doing one of those plug in moniter things from one of the insurance companies and only had to deal with the highest insurance payments for a couple months. After that it was readjusted based on the information the device gathers. It’s an option if you are normally a pretty decent driver and just had some bad luck

  12. Sevenorora*

    Pokémon Go Question:

    I need a few more friends to finish a mission
    I live in Europe, so might get some interesting eggs when sending gifts ;-)

    My trainer code: 0119 1840 8031

    3. Middle School Teacher*

      Oh, me too! My trainer code is 6148 7038 6487. I’m in Canada so you might get some cool stuff in gifts!

    6. Frank*

      Hello. I am from Canada… here is my code if anyone wants to add me: 3752 8520 2398
      I added those that already shared their code.

    12. Ginger Sheep*

      Oh great! I am a very new Pokemon Go player -started this august!- and I was really wondering how this friend thing worked… I’m in France, and my trainer code is 6844 4991 3742. Don’t hesitate to add me!

  13. nep*

    Just starting to build my second website. Hope I don’t pull as many hairs out as I did with the first one, now that I’m a little more familiar with things.
    Anyone else use Bluehost for hosting? Their support has been great in the past few days as I sent them my new domain name and got things going.

    1. Sack of Benevolent Trash Marsupials*

      I am late to the party here but Bluehost is awesome. They are the host of choice for my husband, who is a web developer.

      1. Free Meerkats*

        I figure the chain mail alone is going to take me the better part of a year, and it likely won’t be entered into competition until 2021. And the first public view of my competition costumes happens onstage because a big part of my costumes is The Reveal.

        So please don’t hold your breath, you’ll die. :-)

    2. Lora*

      This is the most manly thing I have ever seen. While looking at it, I grew a beard, my car turned into a monster truck, and the white wine in my kitchen was transformed into Jack Daniels.

    4. Anono-me*

      I am super super super duper impressed.

      Many many moons ago I helped, or rather tried to help a friend who was making chainmail. So I know just how hard it is to make a teeny tiny square of something that isn’t completely horrible. You have a huge square of plaid perfection.

      Ps What ever happened to the squid?

  15. Lady Jay*

    Reading thread! What’s on your bookshelf this week?

    I just finished Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti, a novella about a young woman of the Himba people in Africa, who leaves her homeland behind when she’s accepted to the galactic version of Harvard, Oomza University, and as she travels, is changed by her experiences. There’s also some deadly aliens in there. :) It very much feels like Octavia Butler lite, which is a good thing, as Butler’s Xenogenesis is about 700 pages, and this one is 150. I recommend Binti really highly.

    Now I’m reading the Three Body Problem 0 no spoilers, I’m only a couple chapters in! But it’s good already!

    1. annakarina1*

      Wow, I read Binti earlier this year, along with Who Fears Death, and in the middle of Three Body Problem right now!

      I did like Binti, though I felt like the major climax was resolved rather quickly. I only read the first novella, I haven’t read the others.

      I’m having trouble getting through Three Body Problem. I like sci-fi, but it’s more talk about hard science and physics that I have a harder time understanding, and keeping track of the plot. I get a general idea of the story, but I haven’t been able to stay into it a lot, more just reading it in spurts. It’s well-written and engaging, I’m just not as invested as I’ve been with other books.

      1. Lady Jay*

        I do agree that Binti is resolved a little quickly; while the shorter length makes it easy to tackle, it could easily have been another 100 pages long, I think.

        Was Who Fears Death? good? It’s on my to-read list.

        2. annakarina1*

          I really enjoyed Who Fears Death s lot. I got really into it, and I normally don’t get into fantasy, but this was more like a mix of fantasy with African folklore, with a stunning protagonist, so it stood out. I haven’t read the other books in the series yet.

      2. PhylllisB*

        I recently finished Max’s Story: A Puppy Tale by R. Bruce Cameron. It’s really a children’s book, but if you read and liked the A Dog’s Purpose series, you will like these. There’s also Ellie’s Story, Bailey’s Story and one other that escapes me at the moment. Plan to try to read them all.

        1. PhylllisB*

          The other book is Molly’s Story. As I said, these are really for children maybe 3rd grade up? But they’re such cute little stories that if you are a sucker for dog stories like I am, you will love them. And if you have children/grandchildren, well there’s your built in excuse right there!!

      3. Reba*

        Three Body Problem is also slow going for me. My spouse read it/them first, and I want to finish so we can talk about it! While he was reading, I kept hearing these exclamations from out of the silence: “What?” “That’s so crazy!” “WAIT WHAT”

        Last night I read “the Emperor’s Soul” (Brandon Sanderson). It was like a delicious snack, short and I finished in a couple hours. Not quite as well written, mechanically, as some of his other works, but very fun and imaginative.

        1. AcademiaNut*

          I really like Three Body Problem – the hard science part isn’t an issue for me, and I found reading a science fiction book with a very non-Western cultural background very interesting. I enjoyed the trilogy less as it went on, though, as I felt the author was struggling with what to do with the plot and it just kept getting bigger but less anchored in the characters.

      4. Lemonworld*

        I am struggling to find a book to get into right now. I’ve been getting books online from the library, which is great, but it also means I check out a lot of books and don’t end up reading all of them. I abandon books more freely and can get into funny reading moods.

        The last book I finished was Michael Connelly’s Two Kinds of Truth, which was excellent. I think I’m going to try the last book in Ezekial Boone’s spider series – Zero Day. I accidentally started with book 2, and it was a cracking read – like a disaster movie.

      5. OhGee*

        I read lots of SFF and found The Three Body Problem really tough to get through. I’m currently reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, and while it took me a while to get a solid understanding of the complex universe she’s created, I’ve flown through it. Nnedi’s books are high on my reading list for the end of this year.

        1. SpellingBee*

          I’ve tried three times to read Ancillary Justice and I just can’t get into it! I struggle through about halfway every time and then just give up; I can’t seem to care about the characters.

    2. Merci Dee*

      I’ve been going back through and re-reading the Shadow Unit series, and am on book 8 out of 15. It’s a great series of books, kind of a mix of Criminal Minds and X-Files. The action centers on a small offshoot of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, called the Anomalous Crimes Task Force. They’re a small group that is working to solve crimes committed by individuals who have been “infected” by a phenomenon the group calls the Anomaly. Those who are affected by the Anomaly have super strength, and powers that vary from individual to individual. Naturally, mayhem ensues.

    3. Overeducated*

      I’m reading The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Gallant. I don’t always love the ideas behind his books but they’re reliably entertaining.

    5. Marion Ravenwood*

      I’m reading Sinclair Lewis’ ‘It Can’t Happen Here’, about the election of a boorish, anti-immigrant 1930s Senator who wins the US Presidency after promising jobs and money to people who were affected by the Great Depression. It’s tough going so far, but feels very pertinent to read right now.

    6. Red Reader*

      I just reread the entirety of Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series while I was on vacation – all twelve books. Next up is Chuck Wendig’s “Aftermath” trilogy, which covers the span of time between the original Star Wars movie trilogy and the newest one.

        1. Red Reader*

          So good. SO GOOD. I did a full series reread because I hadn’t done since about book 7, and everything since then I just read as it came out, so I was forgetting a lot of the earlier stuff and she ties so much back to things that seemed incidental when they happened eight books ago!

        2. SpiderLadyCEO*

          Oh my gosh, I just finished it, and I’m so sad that I’ve finally finished all the October books! Each one is better than the last, I will have to do a full reread soon.

          Now I’m not sure what to read! I will have to find something that sucks me in like the October books did.

          1. Red Reader*

            Have you tried her other serieses? My husband is hooked on October Daye, my housemate is hooked on Incryptid, and I love them all but my favorite is the Newsflesh series under her Mira Grant ‘nym. Indexing, only available on Kindle, is also an excellent two-book pair and I love the Wayward Children books as well.

    7. Max Kitty*

      I’ve just started The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (his first novel). One of the categories in a reading challenge I’m participating is a banned book. I chose this one because the Nazis banned Hemingway entirely and burned his books. And I found an entire website dedicated to trying to justify banning The Sun Also Rises, which makes me even more determined to read it. Maybe I won’t like it, but I’ll be darned if I’ll give anyone the power to tell me what I can and can’t read.

    8. Middle School Teacher*

      The Shakespeare Requirement, by Julie Schumacher. It’s good but I liked Dear Committee Members better.

      Also, French Exit by Patrick deWitt! Undermajordomo Minor needs to be turned into a movie by Wes Anderson, like today.

    9. Pam.*

      There are two more Binti novellas. Both great.

      I also recommend Catherynne Valente’s Space Opera, and Martha Wells’ Murderbot novellas.

    10. SparklingStars*

      I’m on a non-fiction kick. I just finished a book about white supremacy in America called “Everything You Love Will Burn”, by Vegas Tenold, and now I’m starting one called “The Coddling of the American Mind”, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, which basically talks about how all of the “helicopter parenting” that today’s kids are receiving is setting them up for problems as they grow up. Both have been fascinating reads.

    12. Sparkly Librarian*

      This week:
      -Not Becoming My Mother, a memoir by Ruth Reichl (Some good reminders on how to build and center your life, but very personal. I prefer her food writing.)
      -The Outsider, by Stephen King (Surprise! I didn’t know there was a new book out. Some crossover with characters from Mr. Mercedes. Crime novel with bonus supernaturalism. Satisfying.)
      -Make Me a Mother, by Susanne Antonetta (Memoir of adopting a child from Korea in the ’90s. Still working on it.)
      -Forever Mom: What to Expect When You’re Adopting, by Mary Ostyn (So much Jesus. Skimming through there are some valuable lessons about attachment.)
      -Summer of Salt, by Katrina Leno (Practical Magic done for YA)
      -The Book of Essie, by Meghan MacLean Weir (A glimpse behind the scenes of a televised religious family much like the Duggars. Predictable but enjoyable. Did I get that recommendation here?)

      1. Lemonworld*

        I loved The Outsider! If you like crime fiction with a supernatural twist, you might enjoy James Oswald’s Tony MacLean series. It’s Scottish crime fiction, so as a fan of Ian Rankin, I’ve really enjoyed it extra. Oswald is no Stephen King, of course, but the books I’ve read so far have been satisfying reads.

        The Book of Essie was one of Allison’s recs maybe a month or two ago. I *think* I have it on hold at the library.

    13. Anonymosity*

      I’m reading Bob Woodward’s Fear: [You-Know-Who] in the White House. It’s a slog, not because it’s uninteresting, but because I can only read a little bit at a time before the top of my head blows off. I’m just so annoyed that it even has to exist. And all written down in one place, it just seems so, so much worse.

      I just can’t imagine being Bob Woodward and watching all this happen. He’s probably like, “Holy smokes!”

    14. Minta*

      I just finished Lady Be Good, by Amber Brock. It was fun. The parts set in 1953 Miami were fun to imagine in my head. Next up is Eagle and Crane, by Suzanne Rindell. I also have a biography about Andrew Carnegie on deck.

    15. Tort-ally Harebrained*

      I just finished the 10th book in the Charles Lenox series written by Charles French. Lovely Regency era detective books.

    16. Bluebell*

      I finished The Woman in the Window, and also Robert Crais’ The Wanted. And yesterday I read Retta’s memoir, which was very fun.

    17. NiceOrc*

      I’ve just finished “In the dark spaces” by Cally Black, about a young girl who is a stowaway on a space ship. Her aunt is hiding her, along with her cousin. Then the spaceship is attacked and she is captured by bird-like creatures, and has to convince them not to kill her, and that she can be useful to them, while trying to get back to her baby cousin. Interesting thoughts around whether she is a traitor to humans or just trying to survive.

      Now re-reading the Glamourist Histories series, by Mary Robinette Kowal. The first book is “Shades of milk and honey. A Jane Austen-esque story involving magic, known here as glamour. Very enjoyable!

  16. Indie*

    Hey does anyone have experience of that peculiar type of sexist; the ‘single dad looking for someone to parent his children’? It’s been happening to quite a few people in my world lately but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the phenomenon discussed.
    My sister just got back from a destination wedding where the groom did a complete parenting hand off to the bride ON THE WEDDING DAY never troubling himself with them once (or nominating a baby sitter) and the bride was settling arguments and seeing to them, in spite of the fact they dismiss her as a non-parent. It was troubling because my sister loves her nieces and hates to see their parenting outsourced by a lazy dad.
    It reminded me of a friend a few years back having the same issue. Her partner considered himself an involved dad because he had his child every weekend, but he just filled every day with ‘fun’ activities and then left my friend to do anything sensible or discipline-y because she works with kids. He also wouldn’t get up in the night which was distressing to a young son who had nightmares and wet the bed. She was a vocal feminist but seemed unable to see the sexism in these habits (probably because sleep deprived?).
    When I was online dating I encounteted men who were interested in my ability to parent their kids. I don’t know; is this a thing? You hear mansplaining discussed, and those men who hand off parenting to the child’s actual mother, but no one talks about the guys who expect women who are totally unrelated to the child to be mothers.

    1. London Calling*

      *Her partner considered himself an involved dad because he had his child every weekend, but he just filled every day with ‘fun’ activities and then left my friend to do anything sensible or discipline-y because she works with kids.*

      Otherwise known as a ‘Disney dad.’ Although the bridegroom seems to be just a lazy uninvolved parent full stop. Leavinghis wife do the child-care on their WEDDING DAY??

      https://beanstalkmums.com.au/the-troublesome-truth-of-the-disney-dad/

    2. Sunny Day in the ADK*

      Years ago I was living with a guy that had a kid from a previous relationship. We had his kid every other weekend and I feel like I spent more time watching her than he did. I would take her to the park or go for walks as he sat at home watching tv or chatting with the woman he left me for (haha).

    3. blackcat*

      I haven’t experienced it personally, but it is definitely A. Thing. I mean, it’s even kinda the plot of the sound of music.

      My grandfather did it. Twice.

      It is also a thing for men to expect new wives to coparent with the ex.

      1. ainomiaka*

        I feel like some amount of coparenting with the ex is inherent in dating anyone with a child. The ex is never going to be gone, and new relationship is going to have to see and talk to them, because the kids aren’t about you. I mean, the dude should be taking a large role here, and if you’re talking about the dude never being involved but expecting the two women to work it out that is shi**y. But I feel like signing on to any relationship where there are kids requires some amount of ex coparenting.

        1. fposte*

          Though it can also go too far in the other direction. I see a lot of posts in legal forums from the parent’s new partner, often a very new and unmarried partner, who’s clearly determined they’re going to be a better parent than the ex and take his/her place. Courts *really* don’t like that.

          1. ainomiaka*

            oh for sure. This is absolutely not okay either. Though I’d describe it less as coparenting, given that there doesn’t seem to be an co involved.

        2. blackcat*

          Oh, yes, *some* coparenting, I totally agree.

          I have known 3 cases where the dudes have abdicated ALL of the coparenting. As in, they refuse to speak to their ex, requiring the new woman do EVERYTHING with the ex. That’s just a shit thing to do.

        3. Indie*

          I honestly don’t know how you co parent with a non parent. The non parent shouldn’t directly be doing discipline or making big decisions without going through their partner, the parent. They certainly shouldn’t be negotiating anything with the ex who is a real parent! I know from my school experience it’s common for people to try, but kids resent the hell out of a Johnny come lately telling them what to do. Aside from occasional babysitting and general friendliness to the child and ex, I don’t see that they have any more responsibility than an uncle or aunt.

          1. CBE*

            And I cannot imagine having responsibility for a child living in my home that I couldn’t discipline. Little kids really do need immediate discipline when it comes to safety things. If the stepmom is there with the kids while the dad is at work or away on business, and the kids are setting fire to stuff in the garage, you bet that stepmom should step in and discipline!
            Even if the kid needs to do homework, chores, whatever.
            Being a step parent absolutely is more responsibility than an uncle or aunt!

            1. Indie*

              The rules of a person’s home is a different matter than ‘I am now your parent’. I also don’t mean step parenting of small children where you are primary carers as a couple and are raising/adopting them and I don’t mean you can’t be the responsible adult in the room when something is happening. That’s a different thing from stepping in as a new person into a child’s life and directly becoming a third or a half of their parentage. Particularly if an existing parenting is abdicating to make room. That would make any child uneasy.

          2. Traffic_Spiral*

            “I honestly don’t know how you co parent with a non parent.

            “I’m guessing that 1.) the nonparent wasn’t an affair partner, and 2.) the ex knows that her former-husband is useless as a parent, so if its not the new wife, nothing’s getting done.

    4. Lady Jay*

      Lordy, yes. I tried online dating for a while (taking a break right now, largely due to financial reasons); and it was always an instant turn-off when men were primarily interested in whether I’d get along with their kids. There was one guy, fairly recently widowed, who kept asking about whether I thought I’d his kids, both under 10; I would try turning the conversation back towards him, and he’d pop right back up with a question about his kids.

      I felt like, Dude, it’s a marriage.. This only works if I like *you* first.

      1. ainomiaka*

        I’m honestly really curious where the line is/how to find it. Your position that it only works if you like him first is absolutely reasonable. I also feel like a dad having the strong dealbreaker that knowing that his kids are part of him and a 100% package deal is also reasonable. Have you had anyone bring this up in a way that you thought was good? How did they do it?

        1. Lady Jay*

          Yeah, this is a good question.

          Thinking back, I would have been a lot less turned off if there were an effort on the dad’s part to establish a meaningful relationship with me, at the start of our interactions, with the understanding that I’d meet his kids and get to know them, at least on an acquaintance level, fairly early on. Because there was no real effort to establish a relationship between us, I was skeptical that this would work.

          If you’re more mathematically minded, I think it could be pictured like this: Guy + Kids = okay. Guy – Kids = not okay, but Kids – guy = also not okay.

          The intersecting relationships of “husband/wife” and “father/mother” need to be balanced, in a way that one doesn’t obscure the other.

      2. LilySparrow*

        I think that was a successful screening on both ends. He was putting his dealbreaker right up front. You wanted to get to know him first before considering the kids. He was disclosing that his first commitment was to his kids, and he didn’t want to waste time getting to know anyone who wasn’t willing to accept that up front.

        Screening out a bad fit early is a win.

        1. Close Bracket*

          Sounds to me like his first commitment was to finding someone who would take care of his kids and he didn’t want to waste time on anyone who wasn’t going to take care of his kids.

          2. Lady Jay*

            Yes, this was what it felt like, that he primarily wanted somebody to be a mother to his kids. I didn’t get the sense that he was interested in a wife at all.

            It was a pretty weird interaction.

    5. Middle School Teacher*

      I agree with you. It’s interesting because a lot of single dads I’ve seen online are very clear about “my kids have a mom, I’m not looking to replace her”. Which is great, I guess, but makes me think I’d be going into that relationship with kids (because of course if you develop a relationship with dad, you develop it with the kids) who will be openly rude and defiant and all “I can be horrible to you because you’re not my mom”. As someone who doesn’t want kids, I tend to avoid those guys, I’m sorry to say.

      1. Harvey P. Carr*

        “I’d be going into that relationship with kids (because of course if you develop a relationship with dad, you develop it with the kids) who will be openly rude and defiant and all ‘I can be horrible to you because you’re not my mom’.”

        I don’t like kids, don’t want kids, and would not date a woman who has kids, so this perspective may color my response. But if I was the guy in this situation… no, let me rephrase it… I would think a guy in this situation would make sure to tell the kids something like “No, she isn’t your mother, but I expect you to treat her with the same courtesy and respect that you give your mother, and there will be repercussions if you don’t.”

        The actual wording, and the repercussions, will of course depend on the level of the relationship (dating/committed/engaged/married), but the goal is to make sure the kids know “You’re not my mother” will not be tolerated.

        1. Anonymosity*

          THIS.
          I’ve dated men with kids (lived with one and step-parented his child) and if he had let her treat me like crap, I would have been out of there in a New York minute. Early on, I met her and she liked me. Then I moved in, and it changed the relationship, because not only was I there, I was also feeding her, bathing her, and looking after her when she was at her dad’s (she was three when we met and seven when we broke up).

          The first time I let her know it was time to pick up the toys before dinner and she said “No” to me, he stepped in and told her, “Anonymosity is helping me take care of you and when she tells you to do something, you do it.”

          Step-parenting won’t always be full-on parenting, but the actual parent absolutely has to have your back. And it can also be very rewarding. I lost contact with Kid after we broke up. She’s a young woman now and I have no idea what she’s doing, but I think about her often. We had a lot of fun, and I hope she remembers that time fondly.

      2. Close Bracket*

        So he’s not looking for a replacement mom, he’s looking for a bang-nanny. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

    6. Ender*

      One of many many reasons I never seriously considered men with kids. I remember watching that Julia Roberts movie “stepmom” and I was totally confused by it – until I saw that movie it would never have occurred to me that a situation like that would even exist.

      On some of the parenting forums I’ve been on women ask advice about parenting their stepkids and it always seems like the actual father is a lazy useless fecker – which is why they need advice I suppose.

      My advice is always the same – tell him to step up and deal with it. Not your kid so don’t make it your problem. (I’m obviously talking “normal” situations here like dad not playing with or disciplining kids, not something you’d call law enforcement over.

      If I was seeing a guy like this I think I would make myself scarce on weekends his kid comes over. Though why anyone would even find a man attractive if he’s a useless father is a mystery to me too – that’s a pretty core personality trait to overlook.

    7. neverjaunty*

      I don’t think your friend was so much sleep-deprived as not wanting to face the fact that a dude she liked, and who had previously checked off the Woke Dude boxes, went right back to self-serving gender roles when it was convenient for him.

    8. Extra Vitamins*

      Oh yes. Most extreme example: TOTAL STRANGER in the mall tried to hand my sister his toddler to watch while he “just went in this store for a minute.”

      2. Fruit loop*

        Oh, I had that a lot when I worked as a customer service agent for an airline. People would hand me their babies and small children all the time.

        It got so I would say, “No, I will not hold your baby. I will check you in, I will help you tag everything you are bringing with you, I will do everything possible to make this easier for you, but I do not want to hold your child.”

        Mostly, it was because the children would start crying because I was a stranger, or they would immediately start chewing on my work badge and it was always the side with the scanner part I needed to clock in and out at work or at the employee lot.

    9. Lissa*

      Yup! I have been called intolerant, bigoted and other things because when I was single and dating I said I wouldn’t consider men with kids largely because of this. I have seen far too many situations where it starts out fine but sure enough the guy starts expecting his partner to do more and more, and even she sets out saying she won’t, either she does or she’s considered an evil witch who neglects children, and often blamed more than he is even though they are HIS kids.

    11. Quandong*

      Yes, this is definitely a thing, it happened to me in both dating that didn’t progress beyond two dates, and in 2 relationships.

      I’m very accustomed to interacting with children, and in all my experiences I was more confident with the kids than the dads were. This lead to all sorts of outrageous situations where I was treated as though I were the responsible parent or a professional nanny.

    12. Koala dreams*

      Yes, it’s a thing, and yes, people talk about it. Seldomly to the parents involved, I guess because it’s awkward to bring up, but people do notice.
      I’ve been mystified by this system ever since I was a kid, and it was first as an adult when I read a book about 16th century royalty who did this that I understood this phenomenon.
      As a feminist it makes me sad that some people still live in the 16th century, at the same time, if they are happy with those kind of rigid gender roles, who am I to judge?
      However, in the case of the health and well-being of the other family members are sacrificed because it’s more important that Dad gets out of child-care duties, that’s just sad. :(

  17. Merci Dee*

    So excited! My mom’s 77th birthday was Tuesday, so my 3 sisters and I planned a birthday celebration for her today. The four of us girls, plus my daughter and my niece (about 5 months older than my daughter) are taking mom to a local B&B for tea this afternoon. One sister is coming in from out of state, and the other 2 and my niece live about 80 miles away. It’s going to be so much fun! I’ll post updates later.

    Hope everyone is having a great weekend, and that anyone in the path of dangerous weather is staying safe.

    3. Merci Dee*

      Just got back from the tea. We had such a great time! Everyone was excited to see each other spend some time together. My middle sister had not really tried hot tea before, so she got to experiment to see what she liked. Since there were 7 of us, we each got different flavors of tea, and then passed cups around to sample some of each. Most of us got 2 – 3 pots of tea each, with a different flavor each time, so we were able to sample almost 20 flavors in all. My daughter absolutely loved the two flavors she ordered today, so we naturally had to buy a bag of each to bring home.

      We had so much fun that we decided we were going to get together a couple of times a year for tea. This time the location was near my mom, my daughter and me. Next time, we’ll go some place near my oldest and youngest sisters and my niece. After that, we’ll go somewhere close to my middle sister in the next state over. Can’t wait!

      2. Emily*

        That sounds like a blast!

        I was recently at a bachelorette party, and one of the highlights of the weekend (for me, at least) was a very fancy tea. Everyone had their own teapots (with choice of tea), their own foods (including sandwiches, scones, and sweets), and optional champagne cocktails (I had one with creme de violette and it was tasty and felt very fancy).

  18. TV*

    Fellow dry eye sufferers…my eyeballs turned into the Sahara desert back at the beginning of Feburary and nothing seemed to help. My regular doc referred me to a special dry eye doctor in the area and I got the lipiflow treatment done 9 weeks ago. Around week 7 is when I really started to feel it and it just keeps getting better! Does anyone have any experience with lipiflow long term? I understand I will likely need the treatment again in the future but I’m not sure when or what that means.

    2. fposte*

      Oh, I’m really interested to hear this. I’m on Xiidra, which works pretty well for me in preventing my corneal erosions (I’m fortunate in having really good insurance that covers it), but I was curious about lipiflow. Maybe I’ll ask next time I go in.

      1. TV*

        I was on Xiidra and it technically worked, it just didn’t last very long. Lipiflow is an inpatient procedure that was not covered by insurance at all and was $1700 for me. But depending on what the cause is for your dry eye, it might be a good treatment for you.

        1. fposte*

          I’m on Xiidra as maintenance rather than cure, so duration isn’t really an issue. But I’d still love to try Lipiflow–I’ll look around my area.

    3. Amber Rose*

      I have never heard of Lipiflow before, though a quick google says it’s done every 2 years. I’ve been on Restasis for about two months now, and while my eyes are still pretty dry, they’re definitely not as dire as they were.

      Looks like most treatments for dry eye take a long time.

      1. TV*

        It’s definitely a wait and see sort of treatment plan. I’m on restasis and have been for 4 or 5 months and I couldn’t tell one way or the other if it was making a difference. But my doc said to stay on it and continue to do that, the heated eye masks and fish oil pills until our next recheck.

        1. fposte*

          If your insurance is on board for Xiidra, it apparently works much faster than Restasis. But it ain’t cheap if you have to go out of pocket.

          1. TV*

            I tried it and it technically worked, it just worked for about 2 hours after I put the drops in and that was all. I’m very fortunate to have good insurance and my doctors all signed me up for the discount programs through the manufacturer so the most expensive prescription was about $20 for a 30 day supply.

            1. fposte*

              What I was told is that it takes a few weeks for results to kick in, whereas Restasis takes several months; that’s about what I found, and while there’s a baseline of improvement I still definitely notice if I accidentally skip a dose. But Lipiflow sounds better than either to me, tbh.

    4. persimmon*

      For my dry eye, I have:
      -Punctal plugs: these help a lot, I definitely recommend. They work by preventing your tears from being reabsorbed as fast, so your eyes stay wetter. (sorry, gross)
      -Restasis: also very good.
      -Daily hot compresses, just take a warm wet washcloth and hold it to your eyes, and rub gently. This works surprisingly well.
      -I also got Lasik mainly because I was having trouble with contacts. It didn’t make my dry eye worse and not having contacts or even glasses has made my eyes feel less irritated.

      Never tried Lipiflow! My ophthalmologist was pretty dismissive of it but that was a few years ago so maybe things have advanced.

      1. TV*

        My special eye doc office is doing a lot of research on dry eye so they have a lot of data backing it up. It depends on the cause of your dry eye too. I’m pretty young so they think contacts were the culprit. Lipiflow unclog your glands so if that isn’t the problem, it won’t help you much. But my doc thinks that the punctual plugs doesn’t target the cause of dry eye, so they try to do treatments that address causes, not symptoms.

      2. Anonymosity*

        Ugh, my eyes seem to have gotten drier and I’d love to get Lasik. I don’t mind wearing reading glasses but damn I’d love to ditch my contacts and not have to wear regular glasses.

  19. Ruth (UK)*

    I’m having a bit of post-summer blues. I’ve decided to put this on the weekend thread as it’s more about a shift in my hobbies, the weather, darkness, etc than anything work related or time off work (ie. it’s not blues directly related to having been off work), though I do tend to take most of my leave between may and September, typically as Fridays, and sometimes Mondays too (to make long weekends).

    This summer I’ve spent a lot of time outside, a lot of time camping, been to various festivals, craft fairs, etc, some of my friends have got married, and generally a lot’s been going on. I do some hobbies that are seasonal (perform in the summer, practice in the winter) and now I’m just trying to get back into my post-summer routine which feels a bit tough.

    I also lead at a local volunteer project that is similar to, but not directly the same thing as a soup kitchen. While I care deeply about it etc, doing that isn’t in the same category of ‘fun’ as most of what I’ve been doing this summer (and I had taken a couple months’ break from it ending now).

    I’m do tend to struggle with cold weather, and I’m not thrilled about the increasingly dark evenings, especially as my main form of transport is a bike, and I hate cycling in the dark (even though I have adequate lights etc).

    Basically, it’s only September and I’m already trying hopefully to look forward to next spring…

    1. Victoria Nonprofit (USA)*

      I make a list of things to do each season that help me feel like I really experienced the season.

      For me, that looks like:

      Winter: Sit in a coffee shop and read while the snow falls outside, go on a candlelight hike (our state parks do this every winter), attend the local winter festival activities, bake Christmas cookies, etc.

      Spring: Eat on a patio, go to the home opener for the local baseball team… aaaaaaand that’s about it (spring lasts, like, two weeks here. We can have two feet of snow in April and it starts getting into the 90s in May).

      Summer: Swim in a lake, watch fireworks, more baseball, etc.

      Fall: Cheer for the local marathon, take a hike by the river while the leaves are turning, carve pumpkins, etc.

    2. Tris Prior*

      Right there with you. It’s still pretty warm here, for Chicago, but it’s starting to get dark around 7 and I hate it so much. I barely have time to deal with the garden after I get home from work and evening walks with Boyfriend are totally out…. I mean, I live in a pretty safe neighborhood so sure, we could walk in the dark, but it’s just not the same. :(

    3. Yorkshire Rose*

      Here, the mosquitoes are making life miserable after 5:30 pm, so I am also making a similar list of fun things to do when it’s dark and cold.

      If you have the funds, I suggest getting a SADD light. Verilux is one of the go-to brands for real, therapeutic sun lamps. I use mine in the morning in the fall/winter as I get ready for work, and it helps keeping me from getting too gloomy. Autumn, however, is my favorite time of year – my body isn’t built for heat!

  20. Hong Kong Traveller*

    Long shot, but has anyone been to Hong Kong recently? I used points to book 9 days there and I’m wondering if this sounds doable:
    Subway from HKG airport to Kowloon, six days exploring.
    Subway to Disneyland, two nights there (they have special offers that include the hotel and admission ticket).
    Ferry to Macau, overnight there, then ferry to Hong Kong airport and fly back to the US.
    Thank you so much in advance.

    1. Dan*

      So… when you say “doable”, what, exactly do you mean? (Pretty much anything is doable, whether or not something is too rushed too be enjoyable is a different matter, and also one of personal preference.)

      1. Technically speaking, you’ll be taking the MTR from HKG to Kowloon. That is definitely doable, if not the preferred way to get into the city from the airport.

      2. Six days isn’t too rushed. (In fact, I’m not sure that six days -anywhere- while staying in the same hotel would be too rushed.)

      3. Donno anything about Disneyland over there. If that’s your jam, then hey. I can’t imagine that one full day (and change) is too much or too little.

      4. Macau: This is the only thing where I have any real “feedback”. (I’m not saying don’t go, just know what you’re in for.) The only real similarity between Macau and Las Vegas is that there is gambling in Macau. The non-gaming activities in Macau are pretty much nothing compared to Vegas. Second, table minimums there are ridiculous – think $20-$30 USD per hand.

      For a one night stay, what I *wouldn’t* do is stay on the Cotai strip. (Unfortunately, if you’re staying on points, you’re likely staying on the strip.) I’d be more inclined to stay in the more central part of Macau, which is sort of the “off strip” equivalent.

      Have you checked the ferry schedules between the airport and Macau? Note that there are two different operators; one runs to the Cotai Strip, the other runs to the Outer Ferry Terminal in Macau proper. Cabs aren’t cheap, so you’ll spend a bunch of money shuttling yourself around if you stay on the Strip and want to go into the city, or vv. Also, ferry schedules are rather limited from the airport to Macau — they are very frequent from either Kowloon or Hong Kong Island to Macau and vv, but not from Macau to the airport. Depending on what time you’re departing for the US, this can be an issue.

      The ferries between Hong Kong and Macau run frequent and all night long, I’d consider making a day trip from Hong Kong to Macau instead. Unless you have a flight departing after noon, unless you’re particularly lucky with the schedules, you’re going to find that your return day is going to be very inconvenient and waste a lot of time sitting around for logistical reasons. Least you say, “oh but the night life I will miss!” Again, the ferries run 24/7 and besides, the nightlife isn’t anything to speak of. It ain’t Vegas. As noted above with the high table mins, the Chinese go to Macau to *gamble*, they don’t go for “entertainment.”

      All in all though, sounds like fun. If you’re flying over from the US just for this trip, I think it’s a *little* short for a vacation, unless you handle jet lag well.

  21. Lora*

    Surreal moment of the week: I drive past the Andover and Lawrence MA area every day, and saw the gas explosions when they first happened and also the day after, from the highway. It looked like one of those old photos of Victorian London where you can’t see the sun for all the smog.

    Each home was supposed to have a gas regulator and a backup coming off the pipeline; the gas regulators cost about $100. The descriptions of what people whose houses caught on fire experienced definitely makes it sound like the company didn’t install the regulators properly, didn’t install backups, didn’t maintain them, etc. There should also have been PRVs installed to ensure that if the system did overpressurize it vents somewhere safely. It also sounds like the gas company didn’t follow basic safety procedure for working with hazardous gases while doing plumbing work (check pressure first with a small manual relief valve, if line is pressurized shut off an upstream valve and vent the sections individually in controlled bursts outside of a confined space, use multigas sniffers constantly).

    Hope everyone who was injured recovers fully and quickly. And I hope that utilities are held accountable, and that we learn from this experience the importance of investing and maintaining infrastructure.

    1. WellRed*

      I am surprised more people weren’t killed. As to the gas company, someone’s going to be in a lot of trouble.

      1. roisin54*

        I’m surprised too, when I first heard about this I was expecting a much higher death toll.

        I’m sure there are going to be fines and lawsuits aplenty with this, and I wouldn’t be shocked if the gas company files for bankruptcy at some point. Their President is just coming off so tone-deaf and clueless. Eversource is a pain (for many reasons) but I can see why Baker out them in charge of fixing it all. The other people clearly have no clue what they’re doing.

    3. kerlin*

      Most of my family is in that area. I have cousins that evacuated from Andover, and my parents are close enough that my father said he could hear nothing but sirens for hours going up 93. Totally, utterly surreal and insane.

      Interesting to read your evaluation of the safety measures, and the more and more I read in the news it sounds like the gas company just massively screwed this up – both in the work they did AND the PR afterwards.

      1. fposte*

        And speaking of the economic impact of evacuation: it sounds like it might be weeks(!) until some evacuees are allowed back in. I really doubt the gas company is going to fork over the full costs for people’s expenses for that duration.

        1. blackcat*

          At least one impacted person I know is getting the money for a hotel in the mean time from their homeowners insurance company. Sounds like the insurance co plans to sue the utility to recoup the cost.

          1. fposte*

            I hope other insurance cos. follow suit–it’s a gamble for the company, admittedly, but it’s the best case for the homeowner. Though renters might have a harder time (and of course renters don’t always have insurance).

    4. blackcat*

      I am also in MA and am incredibly grateful that my entire street got new gas lines, new meters, etc recently.
      But I am also not pleased that it took a BAD gas leak on the street for them to do it. The responding employees at the time rather alarmed because gas line under the road was original and almost all of us still had the original lines into the homes.
      Original as in 1892. Date was printed on the pipes.

      But it sounds like this case was a combination of inadequate maintenance of infrastructure combined with something else hinky going on. Whether it was incompetence or hacking, someone somewhere set the pressure in the mains to be way too high.

      1. Lora*

        Yeah, that’s what I mean about, they’re supposed to have PRVs installed that vent somewhere safe if it over pressurizes. I work with a lot of pressurized gas and steam systems, and the worst thing that happens if someone overpressurizes a line is, you hear a loud POP and there’s an alarm beeping and stuff venting either from the roof or the facility “backyard” where no people are. For a flammable gas that can be large volume, they sometimes put safety flares on top of a stack off the PRV, so the gas can be safely combusted, but in any case there are supposed to be Fail Closed valves to shut off the source as soon as an overpressure critical alarm goes off. There were a lot of failures that must have happened for it to be this bad.

        1. Falling Diphthong*

          And the vents are supposed to be dumb–no electronics, no internet connection, valve pops open under a certain pressure.

          1. Lora*

            Yup, mechanical only and all sensor alarms hardwired. Not to say you can’t have DCS at all, but you have to have the hardware too, so it makes more sense for the DCS to be monitor only at those points.

    5. LCL*

      Thanks, I’ve been looking for a technical explanation. I work in utilities but not natural gas and don’t know anything about it. I have been following the news closely. Those poor people.

    6. Mimmy*

      What a horrible situation. My oldest sister lives in the Boston area, so when the news first broke, I was really nervous. However, she does not live in the affected areas. I still texted her just to be sure she was safe – have not heard back.

      I’ll be REALLY interested to find out the cause. Hoping for some serious accountability. About 8,500 people were affected, I believe.

  22. Dainty Lady*

    What a wonderful picture of Eve! (Or Lucy?)

    Partnered people, how do you work peacefully and productively with your partner on home projects? As you might remember, we had to have major work done on our pool recently, and it was, as *all* home projects are for us, a source of huge disagreement and stress. Basically, I am too tolerant of service providers and my husband is too fussy, and then we butt heads. I won’t say more than that, just asking for strategies for dividing up responsibilities, making decisions, etc.

    1. kerlin*

      I wish I had advice. It always ends up just being me doing it. Which increases the resentment on my part for doing all the work…but it does avoid butting heads bout communication with the contractors. So maybe if you each agree to take on a project wholly, so that you can manage it in your way, as long as you’re overall splitting things?

    2. LilySparrow*

      We divide up responsibility based on our knowledge/skill set, and how strong our preferences are. So in the planning stages, we talk about not just the goal, but the range of possible changes and outcomes that would be acceptable or deal breakers.

      He knows more about building stuff, drainage, etc, and has pretty strong opinions on design. He’s in charge of setting priority order on what might need to happen urgently to protect against damage, what stage needs to be done to allow for long-term plans, what solutions are appropriate for our given circumstances, and so forth. He’s better at talking to vendors in person, because he knows all the technical terms (and because then I don’t have to be infuriated by sexist condescension).

      I am the Keeper of the Budget and the Maker of Phone Calls, because I’m just better at those things. I have strong opinions on color, style, textures, and plants. I am in charge of crafting, reviewing, or delivering any official or binding statements (like “Yes we accept this proposal” or “this is wrong, here is what you will do to fix it”), because I am okay with having people dislike me, if need be.

      We just take a lot of time to hash things out before we start, and then check in a lot when changes happen.

      However, we have a couple of normal operating expectations in our relationship: 1) we are a team, and nothing outside our relationship is more important than that. 2) If one really cares about a detail and the other could go either way, the stronger opinion prevails.
      3) If one of us really wants something that the other doesn’t think is important, the one who wants it has to do the work to make it happen.
      4) If we can’t agree, we hold off.

      1. Melody Pond*

        You guys sound like you have a really nice balance worked out! What you’ve described is basically what Mr. Pond and I strive for, but it sounds like you guys pull it off even better than we do. :)

    3. Not So NewReader*

      No one thing works in every situation. We used humor sometimes. Sometimes we would just defer to the other one, especially if the other one had more knowledge or experience. Sometimes one of us was in charge and the other one walked away for Reasons. (No anger, just a bottom line of practicality.) Some situations can be solved by sorting out the reasons why. “Why do you want X not Y?” In following the rationale behind the choice it becomes very apparent that X is indeed the better choice, it’s not whim.
      Take breaks between projects. Get extra rest during projects, when you feel yourselves getting cranky, call it a day. Start up again, the next day or next weekend, whatever. Watch out for crankiness that is just plain lack of rest.
      Acknowledge that it IS stressful because you both want to get it right and there are a lot of choices out there and a lot of conflicting information.

    4. Red Reader*

      I am married, though in our case it’s a little different because I own the house solo, I owned it before we got married, and my husband actually pays me the same rent that our housemates do because our finances are completely separate aside from one savings account that we use for vacations. But for projects that involve service providers, I handle it all solo (partly because it’s my house and partly because I’m the one who’s around, I work from home so I’m always here). For projects that involve DIY, he’s the one who’s more likely to be actually doing the work, so we decide what we want to be the end result, he tells me what supplies he needs, I buy them, and then I get out of the way while he does it. Basically I do the financial and outside-people-management portions, he does the physical labor portions.

      1. Dainty Lady*

        IKR??!! We have an ant infestation now and I think I’d rather let them carry the house away than struggle through dealing with it with my husband, dearly as I love him!

    6. Old Biddy*

      I’ve only been married two years/living with my husband 4 years but owned my house when I met him, so I still arrange stuff like tree removal and sealing the driveway.
      When we work on something together he can get on my nerves. I like it when we work on separate aspects of the same project, so that I can focus on what I’m doing. (I’m a scientist and am used to being hyperfocused on whatever I’m working on.) He likes to talk, which is fine normally but disrupts my focus. I try to use my words and tell him to call me when he needs an extra pair of hands but not expect me to hang around chatting in between.

    7. the gold digger*

      No advice. I have threatened divorce every single time we have worked on a home project together.

      Wait. I do have advice. Do not remove the old stove and microwave and put in the new ones together.

      Or upack meat into the chest freezer together.

      Or make the bed together.

      1. Wishing You Well*

        Even though I love my guy – doing a project together? No, just no. Any home project has to be just him or hire it done. Anything else would involve a chalk outline and a homicide charge!

      2. Blue_eyes*

        Haha. Glad to know we’re not the only ones who argue while making the bed. I don’t know why, but it almost always starts an argument. And vacuuming. Our cordless vacuum has been a huge relationship-saver.

      3. Arjay*

        I love this line Captain Awkward uses a lot, though I’m not sure of its origins. “Sometimes the cheapest way to pay for things is with money.” It often applies to asking friends or family for favors that come with a bunch of strings attached, but can be used on household projects too. If we’re going to fight, if neither of us is particularly skilled at the thing, if it’s going to take us a month to do what a professional can get done in three hours, let’s please hire someone. :)

  23. Be the Change*

    Love of the week?

    Mine’s trains! I don’t get to take them often because sadly my area has pathetically sparse train service, but when I do it’s always so fun and convenient.

    1. Earthwalker*

      Libby – a smartphone app that connects to your own public library and lets you borrow ebooks and audiobooks straight to your phone once you input your library card number. I had a long drive last week and took a library audiobook that I downloaded the night before to lighten the trip.

  24. Solo Disney*

    So I’m a woman considering a solo trip to Disney in Orlando, in April/May 2019. Has anyone else ever done this? I’m based in the UK so it’s a pretty long journey.

    Things I’m worried about (and possible solutions):
    – Generally being alone. Will the magic be dulled if I don’t have anyone to share it with? Will I be safe?
    – Dining alone. I suppose I could take my Kindle or use that time to Facetime with family?
    – Travelling. I would try to find a hotel with free shuttles, but would I be safe using something like Uber?
    – I have a disability (CFS) so I’m worried about getting around the parks. I guess I could hire a mobility scooter?

    Things that I think are pros:
    – Single rider lines! I can probably get much more done in a day than I would with a group.
    – I can do what I want, when I want to. When I went with a group it felt like I was always waiting around for someone to smoke or use the restroom.
    – I don’t have to worry about pleasing others and I will make all the choices.

    I would love to hear from anyone who has done similar, or any tips or input anybody might have at all. Thanks!

    1. Merci Dee*

      If you stay at a hotel on-property, you’ll have access to buses that run on a regular 30-minute schedule. And they’ve got some great hotels in the budget, mid-range, and high-end price ranges depending on your budget.

      Disney is very accessible, and has some mobility options. A good friend often visits with her elderly mother, and they have gotten scooters several times when her mom starts to tire. You’ll be covered there.

      And Disney is total magic, whether you’re alone or in a group. They go out of their way to make trips memorable for their guests. If you stay on-premise, tell the desk staff when you check in that you’re traveling alone from out of the country, and ask for some recommendations for things to do. They’ll give you great ideas, and maybe even a few surprises!

    2. Elkay*

      Stay onsite in a Disney hotel, it’s expensive but 100% worth it. You can get their transport for free to and from the airport and they provide transport to, from and between the parks for free. I can’t remember if any rides at Disney have single rider lines, I know Universal do. The key to getting on rides at Disney is FastPass and staying onsite lets you book those earlier than people staying off-site.

      Disney is awesome and if you’re happy travelling alone elsewhere you’ll be fine there.

        1. roisin54*

          Expedition: Everest in Animal Kingdom and the Aerosmith Rock N Roller Coaster at Hollywood Studios also have single rider lines. I got to go on the Aerosmith ride many times thanks to the single rider line, it’s awesome.

          Definitely stay on site. Not only for the free shuttles, but for the food. Each of the hotels has their own food service area whether it’s a full-on restaurant or a quick-bite cafeteria set-up or both. It saves a lot of time in the morning with breakfast if you’re not doing character breakfasts. The character breakfasts are also good because, depending on when they are, you can sometimes get into the parks before they open and head to the rides when you’re done eating.

    3. Reba*

      Not related to Disney, but times when I’ve traveled alone I have sometimes met others in the same boat and shared some of the activities with them. I’ve been lucky I guess in that these folks have seemed to have a similar idea of how much time to spend together (for example, we shared rides to sites but then did our own thing for a couple hours when we got there). I would not have thought that I would enjoy that, but it actually was fun. So you might find that you get enough human contact via friendly strangers.

      I love traveling alone, and love reading in restaurants!

    4. Max Kitty*

      I’ve done a few trips by myself. I would not hesitate to go to Walt Disney World by myself. I would stay on property and would use Disney’s Magical Express to get to the hotel and then use Disney transport around the resort area. (My personal preference is not to use Uber or taxis by myself. I wouldn’t say they are unsafe, but is my preference.) Plus people staying on property get perks (like the ability to make Fastpass reservations for rides 60 days in advance). If the Disney resorts are out of your price range, you can also take a look at the hotels that are in the Disney Springs area.

      For meals, I just bring a book or Kindle. I would not recommend using FaceTime during dinner because that would be distracting to other diners.

      A lot of the walking around Disney is outside of the parks, so if you need a mobility scooter you may want to consider renting one for the length of your stay.

    5. Forking great username*

      I believe the Disboards website has an entire section just for people traveling to the parks alone – they ask questions, give advice, and sometimes even plan meet ups. You might want to check it out.

    6. CBE*

      I’m not a Disney fan at all, but I have done quite a bit of traveling alone. I had many similar concerns before my first solo trip and have found that I actually LIKE being alone, even for meals. Sometimes I read, sometimes I people watch. And sometimes I eavesdrop on people having loud dramatic conversations. (GASP!) I’ve used shuttle services, Uber, taxis and public transportation all over different cities and (so far) have never felt unsafe.
      Enjoy your trip!

    7. Red Reader*

      I am a mid-30s female Disneyworld annual passholder and go about four times a year, at least three of which are solo. I just got back on Thursday from a six-day trip, actually. I have never had any safety concerns at all.
      Being alone: I personally don’t find any problems with being there solo, but I like being solo, so really the question is, do you mind vacationing solo in general?
      Dining alone: I read 13 books on this trip I just got back from, between standing in lines and dining alone, haha.
      Traveling: Stay on Disney property. Someone else pointed out that it’s expensive, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be — I almost always stay at one of the three All-Star resorts, which tend to average about $110-120/night for a stay that covers a weekend. That’s not terrible for a vacation hotel anyway, then you take into consideration: If you stay at a Disney resort, your transportation to and from the airport (which is about a 40 minute trip) is included for free. They have transportation all over the Disney properties, from your resort to all four parks, to Disney Springs (which is a shopping/dining/entertainment complex), all free and included. When you’re wandering around the parks, your souvenir shopping can be packed up and sent back to your resort for you to pick up the next day so you don’t have to carry it around with you. Every day, one of the four parks either opens early or stays open late for Disney resort guests only.
      Disability: I don’t have any personal experience with that one, but my mom has rented mobility scooters at the parks on a one-day basis and there are several companies in Orlando that do longer-term rentals (as in, multiple days – if you rent it from the park, you can only use it in that park for that day, if you switch to a different park you return it and present your receipt at the next park’s scooter stand to get a scooter for that park) and deliver them to your hotel for you and pick them up at the end of your stay. Cheaper than a day-by-day, if you want it for multiple days, but you have to handle the overnight charging and whatnot. The Disney transportation does have the ability to transport with scooters, but again, I don’t know how convenient that is.

      Single rider lines: the only rides at Disney that have single rider lines are Expedition Everest and Kali River Rapids at Animal Kingdom and Test Track at Epcot, if I recall correctly. Disneyworld does fast passes instead, which is still pretty quick, but has some limitations. Their My Disney Experience app for smartphones is SUPER handy for trip planning.

      Happy to answer any other questions!

    8. Solo Disney*

      Apologies, just to add that I would also like to visit Universal Studios and IoA as well as the Disney parks. All of the replies so far have been really helpful, so thank you!

    9. Orphan Brown*

      Look into the disability access pass which would bypass actually having to stand in a line, though you still wait the same amount of time as others do, and return at a designated time. This allows you to wait for rides while eating, resting on a bench, etc.

    10. Cambridge Comma*

      Why don’t you try, in the next couple of weeks, going out for dinner alone somewhere a bit formal, going to the pub alone (I used to do the crossword), going to the pictures or the theatre alone? That might give you an idea of how you would feel about dining alone.

    11. Dr. Anonymous*

      See if the Unofficial Guide to Disney World is still published–lots of info about saving time and money and maximizing your fun at the park.

    12. HappySnoopy*

      Probably not adding much but there’s a lot of subparks in wdw. Magic kingdom, epcot, animal kingdom, etc are all seperate. Each could be a full day. The resort hotels have transport to any and all of them, and may be something to consider in coordinating a mobility scooter.

      Have fun!

    13. Jayne*

      Just wanted to chime in and say that Disney’s disability services are wonderful. One of my in-laws is disabled, and we all have annual passes so Disney trips are frequent. They are so, so accommodating.

      Don’t be afraid to call Disney directly! Their agents are great and will help with any questions you have, and will help you make all the reservations you need.

      Have a Magical trip!

    14. Amtelope*

      Disney is well lit and crowded and generally very safe. Take normal precautions against theft in big crowds (keep an eye on your purse, don’t shove cash in a back pocket) and you’ll be fine. If you can afford to stay in the park, it will make getting around easier — most hotels around the park run shuttles, but they’re not as fast/convenient as hopping on park transportation whenever you want. Also, a full day at a park can be tiring even for people without disabilities, and if you’re staying in the park, it’s easier to go back to your hotel mid-day to rest for a while before heading back out.

    15. ronda*

      rick steves program 533 has a segment on traveling solo, a couple of tips come up and it was a nice interview segment. (you can listen to it on his website)
      Segment was with an author of a book on the subject, Stephanie Rosenbloom, author of “Alone Time”
      and rick steves also does quite a bit of solo travel.

      If you are wanting to do the universal parks, switching to their hotel for the days you want to do those parks might be a good option. They do a boat ride for transport from hotel to parks and also had some fast pass type benefits for staying onsite. (I went a long time ago, so might not have exactly the set-up) Universal is much more rollercoaster than disney. And if you have time and want to go crazy Busch Gardens Williamsburg is the prettiest amusment park I have every been to. It is not nearby tho (2 hour flight or 12 hour drive). And the most rollercoaster one is Cedar Point (even further away, in Ohio, 2.5 hour flight + 1.5 hour drive or 16 hour drive)

    16. NiceOrc*

      Jen from the blog epbot.com is a big fan of Disney, and has a lot of good advice. Hope you have a great time!

    17. Arjay*

      This site has a ton of great information, including how to get high scores on the Men in Black ride! https://orlandoinformer.com/

      For Universal Orlando, if you want to ride the Hogwart’s Express from park to park, you have to have a two-park ticket. The Universal resorts are beautiful but pricey, but they do include an unlimited express pass for all the ride attractions at both parks, including your check in and check out days. So if you only stay one night, you can check in early on the first day, leave your luggage, get your express pass and head to one of the parks on provided transportation. Your room will be ready late in the afternoon for you to stay over. Then you check out of the room in the morning, leave your luggage, and your express pass is valid for that whole day too.

      We live close enough that we sometimes go for the weekend, only paying the hotel rate for Saturday night and enjoying both days at the park and CityWalk on Saturday night.

  25. rogue axolotl*

    I have a question for all the crafters out there about the ethics of profiting from crafts based on trademarked characters. Do you do it? Why or why not? Does the size of the company that owns the characters make a difference to you? What about the size of your crafting business? It’s just something I’ve been mulling over lately, since I used to be fairly ignorant about how trademark law works, but it seems very common in crafting circles.

    1. LilySparrow*

      Well, if you’re making a copy or an unauthorized derivative work, it’s a violation of their intellectual property. You might get away with it if they don’t notice or don’t have the resources to pursue it, but you are diluting their trademark. Over time, you’re undermining their ability to make money off their own work, because a trademark that degenerates into common use loses legal protection.

      I think that’s a crappy thing for one artist to do to another. Even if a large company owns the TM, they pay artists for their work, so killing those trademarks kills artists’ jobs.

      Now, if it’s a more generic product, like a pattern that could be used for multiple looks in cosplay, I think that’s different. It’s more like a recipe.

      So, for example, selling “Jayne’s Cunning Hat” = no. Selling a knitting pattern for an earflap hat, with recommendations on how to make it look like a Sherlock deerstalker, or a Christoph hat, or a Jayne hat – I think that’s generic enough to be okay.

      1. rogue axolotl*

        Thanks for your thoughts! I think what I had in mind are creative interpretations of the work–say a painting in your own style that includes a character, or something along those lines. In my mind I always kind of drew a line between unlicensed products that are just meant to make a profit off someone else’s work, and someone’s own creative work that is inspired by/incorporates elements of existing creative properties. I realize that’s not how the law sees it, though.

        1. LilySparrow*

          But piggybacking off the popularity of an existing creative property IS exploiting someone else’s work for your own profit.

          Why are their properties more popular than yours? Because somebody did a crap-ton of work coming up with it, refining it, getting it produced in mass media, and marketing it.

          That is all the labor of people, whose ideas and effort deserve to be respected and rewarded. Making the market is as much or more work as making the art.

          I’m a writer as well as a crafter. I know how much work it is to write a 100k word novel. But if I wrote a Harry Potter novel, my effort would not outweigh the effort Rowling put into her creation, and getting it published. My effort or “inspiration” gives me zero moral rights to the value she earned.

          If you want to ethically paint fan art, give it away. I actually follow a painter who does portraits of characters from an older (but still in-copyright) book series that was adapted for TV. She doesn’t sell these images, but she does post them on social media. Some of the individuals involved, who would have the right to shut it down, have given tacit approval by liking and sharing the posts.

          She sells her own original work, but the fan art does drive a lot of traffic to her gallery. There’s no ethical problem there, but if the rightful owners changed their minds overnight and and shut it down, she’d just have to deal with it.

          OTOH, you can sell all the Jane Austen, Sherlock Holmes, or Rapunzel fan art you want — as long as it’s based off the original source material, not someone else’s popular adaptation.

          The other thing you can do (which as a creative, I recommend) is to take that inspiration and go deeper. Don’t settle for the obvious image and use the existing character as shorthand for what you really mean. Extrapolate it to the essence of victory, or courage, or loneliness, or romance, or whatever that character is inspiring in you. That’s going to take you to universal places that touch people in your own unique way.

      2. Hellanon*

        Yes, it’s not so much a question of ethics as a question of illegal. For companies, if they don’t take steps to protect those trademarks they can lose them, and so the legal departments do keep an eye on any of that kind of activity – even fanvids on Youtube will get takedown orders if, for example, they are using music they don’t have permissions for.

    2. Amadeo*

      I theme my geeky stuff. On the whole, I try to be kinda nebulous, but if someone wanted to make a case about it, they’d have no problem doing it. I’ll do commissions with more blatant things (someone just commissioned a cup with the Cowboys star and the Braves A) but won’t even post photos of those to my Facebook page.

      Ultimately, no, it’s really not something any crafter should be doing, but it happens anyway.

      1. jolene*

        Thanks, posters protecting others’ intellectual property. I remember a discussion on here a while ago where someone asked about getting books for free (ones still in copyright) and I was appalled by how many people here seemed okay with pirating them.

      1. Wishing You Well*

        I’ve been repeatedly told: nothing is out of copyright due to time passing. Legally and ethically, it’s a thorny problem. Crafting has some unique copyright law interpretations. Your best move is to find a legal authority on crafting copyrights and be educated before proceeding.
        Best of Luck.

        1. LilySparrow*

          Do you mean never assume something is automatically out of copyright, and you should always check? I agree.

          But public domain is a real thing, many works are in it, and works do pass into it eventually (though not all on the same time frame).

    4. Alice*

      I am more open than the others who have replied.
      If your work is a straightforward derivative one, then sure, be ready to take it down, and don’t sell it.
      But if your work is a parody or criticism of the original, or if it’s highly transformative, it may well be legal to profit from it.

  26. going anon for this one*

    I’m not really looking for advice, so much as an anonymous place to vent.

    About four years ago, I hooked up with a male friend (MF) I had known in college. We were both a bit drunk and lonely (and I was dealing with my own separate sexuality issues), but everything was entirely consensual. To use the best comparison, MF is like Ted Mosby. He non-stop complains when he’s not in a relationship, is incredibly emotionally needy, and is sometimes the worst, and all he wants out of life is to get married.

    We attempted to hook up a second time, but during this second time, after foreplay MF said he didn’t want to use a condom because they were uncomfortable. I have little patience for men who complain about how condoms are uncomfortable, for a variety of reasons. I told MF that I didn’t want to get pregnant, so we’d be using a condom or stopping. He kept complaining about how he didn’t like the feel of condoms and then said we could deal with any “accidents” that happened together. I told him to get out of my apartment.

    Fast forward a year. I haven’t talked to MF since then, and we’re both at a bar for another friend’s engagement party. By the end of the night, a small group of us left together. On the way to the subway, a few other women mentioned needing the bathroom before getting on the subway or catching a cab, so I offered my nearby apartment. MF was among this group. After everyone in the small group left, I didn’t realize MF had stayed behind. He sat on my couch and wouldn’t leave for 45 minutes, insisting the entire time that because I was single and we had slept together before, MF could just spend the night in my bed instead of going all the way back to his apartment while he was drunk. I kept telling him no, that I wasn’t interested, and telling him he needed to leave my apartment. He kept insisting he was going to stay. I was terrified and ready to call the police when he finally left.

    It’s been two years and I haven’t seen or talk to MF since. I just received a save the date to his wedding. I’m livid. Our mutual female friends know what happened and half of them are on my side and said that MF was sketchy and they don’t want to deal with him, but the other half said while they understand why I’m angry and won’t be going to the wedding, they’re excited because ~it’s a wedding~.

    I know that both situations I was in could have easily escalated to assault (because forcing a woman to have unprotected sex is assault, I will fight anyone who disagrees), and I’m lucky they didn’t. I’m lucky that he left each time without anything happening. But I know MF most likely does not think he did anything wrong. MF thinks he’s a feminist, but these two actions prove he really isn’t because they’re slimy and awful.

    I hate feeling like I should be guilty because I’m angry these actions had such an impact on my life, but he clearly never thought twice about them. I’m not of the wind to ruin anyone’s wedding because of it, but it’s also making me feel like shit that some female friends think I’m overreacting and should be happy he’d getting what he always wanted in his upcoming marriage.

    Again, not really looking for advice on how to handle this. I’ve burnt the save the date (drastic, but it made me feel better), and angrily ranted to people who will listen, and I intend to continue keeping MF out of my life, but I guess I’m more upset that these type of situations still happen and that some people don’t think there’s anything wrong with it because “nothing happened”.

      1. AnonGD*

        Yep– I was going to say that ^

        If ANY of my female friends implied I should get over a situation like that they might still be a friend but they’d be out of my “inner circle” so to speak. I’d be really reserved when it came to sharing anything deeply personal with them since they don’t seem to respect your feelings.

      2. going anon for this one*

        Yeah, I’m grateful for the ones who are on my side completely. While I don’t think anything less of the friends who still want to go to MF’s wedding, it is a bit upsetting that they’re so excited about wedding talk and try to brush off my concerns (I brought up my reasons for not wanting to go to the wedding or hear about it/MF only once in a group text, so it’s not like I’m constantly harping on it).

    2. Lora*

      He sounds generally douchey. Hope his fiancee knows what she’s getting into, at least.

      Having had many male friends attempt to explain to me the male psyche, yeah, he probably doesn’t think he’s an a-hole, but…most a-holes don’t think they are.

      I’m confused why your female friends are so concerned that you should feel any kinda way about him? He didn’t give a rat’s bottom about your feelings for even 15 whole minutes in a row, why does he remotely deserve your consideration about anything?

      Also, as an Old, trust when I say that weddings quickly become more of a pain in the rear than a special event for anyone other than immediate family. You go through a stage where there’s more weddings than you can afford to send a gift for, a stage where there’s more baby showers than you can afford to send a gift for, and then a stage where everyone is getting divorced and it’s a new awkward conversation over beer every month. Then you get to be my age and go to funerals a few times a year…

      1. Lissa*

        Your third paragraph, yes! That puts into words my main thoughts about this. Why are people so invested in you being OK with this guy who isn’t even in your life anymore? You’re not negatively affecting his life in any way by just staying far away and telling people what happened. You’re not emailing his fiancee with dire messages about him. You’re not trying to get him fired. You just…don’t want to be around an asshole.

        Even if other people hear the story and don’t agree he’s an ass/dangerous/whatever, the fact that they are SO invested that you feel the same way says a lot.

        2. Lora*

          I know, right? Like 2/3 of the invitees to any given wedding are going to be busy digging outhouse pits in Overseas Country, washing their nose hair collection, having terrible diarrhea, testifying before Congress…what the heck difference does it make? You lost the invite in a pile of Fingerhut catalogs and Amazon padded envelopes, you thought it was a communication from the devil and had it exorcised, you were out of toilet paper and were desperate (see: diarrhea). It doesn’t matter to anyone really. Other people will go to the wedding and eat bad cake, it’s one less overpriced chicken / baked potato / defrosted veggie mix and iceberg lettuce salad with weirdly grainy tomato slice for them to buy. It’s not a big deal. Bless their hearts. I just don’t get it why they care.

      2. going anon for this one*

        I’m at the point where it’s the second baby stage, so I’m at the end of the wedding stage which is why I think people in my friend group are excited that there’s finally a wedding again. Not that it excuses it, but before I had even said anything about my feelings, people were definitely in the “yay I’m excited for a wedding!” mindset.

    3. Anonymous Ampersand*

      ” and then said we could deal with any “accidents” that happened together.”

      AAAAAAARGH JESUS CHRIST NO

      ALso your friends that don’t get it need to grow the fuck up

      1. Gaia*

        Yea I lost it at that line. We’ll deal with it? WE? Pretty sure it is the woman that will deal with it.

        I don’t even know him and I want to smack him in his head.

    4. Not So NewReader*

      I guess we have a ways to go as a society that people don’t understand what is wrong here. Sigh.

      FWIW, I would not want someone attending my wedding because “It’s a wedding.” I’d want them to come because of their caring/fondness for me and my intended person. Your friends sound like any old wedding will do and they are willing to show up regardless. It’s kind of a shallow read on what a wedding is. I agree that you have learned bunches about some of your friends.

    5. Anonymous Ampersand*

      Also you’ve not spoken in two years and he’s still asking you to save the date for his WEDDING? Honestly I think he’s deliberately skeevy right now.

      1. Reba*

        Yes, it’s astonishing that he seems to think that after those incidents, y’all are still friends. To me it reads like the whole thing is a “friend group” dynamic problem. The Creep has invited the whole group. Some people in the group are downplaying the Creep’s actions in the interest of preserving the apparent harmony of the group. They want the incidents to be “not that bad” because they don’t want the uncomfortable experience of having to choose sides among members of the group.

    6. LilySparrow*

      I think burning the save-the-date was an entirely healthy and appropriate way to deal with this.

      He is a jerk and skeevy, and your friends should STFU about the wedding talk around you.

    7. Bless The Broken Road*

      I 100% agree with you on never seeing MF again for the near assaults he pulled on you; you have my full support to tell this guy to go to hell.

      I will say in terms of your friends who are attending the wedding, a lot of past drama seems to be downplayed in favor of getting along for the sake of the big day. I was involved in two wedding (bridesmaid in both cases) where there was bad history between one of the bridal party and a guest. In one case, the two kept apart the entire night, and there was no issue. In the other case, the bridesmaid approached the guest just to say hello, freaked him out, and he took his wife and left immediately. The bride and groom were annoyed that they took off without a text message of explanation, or an apology later. It was a grudge they carried for a while.

      I don’t think it’s right, but there seems to be a belief that personal business should be kept underwraps at a wedding for the sake of the couple, so that may be where your friends are coming from. I don’t agree with it but it seems to be a common wedding mindset.

    8. Hannah*

      You’re not wrong. You have every right to think this guy is an asshole and that what you experienced could have ended in assault.

      I would definitely be rethinking my friendship with anyone who told me that my reaction was an “overreaction.”

    9. Kuododi*

      You’ve mentioned quite a bit in this thread about things you “should” do or feel regarding that ghastly drawn-out train wreck you were forced to deal with. Speaking bluntly for a moment….the only things anyone of us “should” do in life is die and pay taxes. (Not necessarily in that order!!!). ;).
      For future reference, I am a huge fan of the “punch them in the throat” rule of coping with a******s like you experienced. Just a suggestion…. fingers crossed you never find yourself in need of that option. Best regards!!!

      1. Kuododi*

        Oh… woops!!!! My apologies. I glanced through your original post too quickly and missed the part about not wanting suggestion on how to deal. Above all else… please know I am completely sympathetic…and enraged not only about Mr “Feminist” but additionally and probably more furious about all of those women friends who left you between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Sometimes I despair for my own gender. :(. Again, my true and sincere apologies. Grace and peace…

    10. Ehhhh*

      He is wrong.

      You are not wrong.

      Eff your “friends” who want to excuse his repeated behavior.

      (And if you’ve never filled up a condom like a water ballon, do. As my mother told me, “if a guy tells you he’s too big for a condom, he’s too big for you.” Irrelevant, in that “no” is enough. But humorous).

  27. WellRed*

    Going to a celebration of life today for my friend’s mom. She was an enormous influence in my life. I think we are planting a tree. BBQ and lots of wine. Sad, but looking forward to seeing some wonderful people who flew in from parts south and west.

    1. Reba*

      I hope it was a good service. I also had a similar experience recently–the mixed feelings of being happy to see people for a sad reason.

  28. matcha123*

    Are there some dating “norms” that I should know about? Especially when it comes to friends?
    I noticed that recently a male friend, who I’ve never met in real life, seems to have no interest in replying to anything I’ve posted since he officially got engaged. I post to his page maybe a handful of times a year, and we’ve always had a friendly banter until now.

    When I was dating my ex, he seemed upset when we first started dating that I had male friends. Again, people who I really only have contact with through facebook. And when we were long-distance, he would tell me about women that tried to talk to or hit on him that he rebuffed. (I didn’t really care if women hit on him.)

    I guess I don’t understand the need some people have to cut off any member of the opposite sex when they are in a relationship. If you can’t trust your partner around someone of the opposite sex, how can you trust them at all? Maybe I’ve never been so enamored with a guy that I would want to cut off friends or be rude to them.
    Can anyone help me understand this? Am I supposed to be cutting off contact with any male friend to prove that I am “serious” about a new partner? How does that prove anything?

    1. TheWonderGinger*

      I see this a lot and it always baffles me. I have as many male friends as I do female friends, some of whom I talk to on a daily basis or more of a casual chat when I run into them thing and it drives me bonkers when a romantic interest of mine or theirs gets cranky about our friendship.

      1. matcha123*

        The weird thing in my case is that before moving abroad, I didn’t have many male friends. Sure there were guys in my class who I talked to, but none that I really went out of my way to speak with outside of class.
        Now that I live overseas, the majority of my friends are male. Western women do not stay long here, and while I have many more female friends now that I’m in the big city, it’s a product of circumstance.

        1. Julia*

          “Western women do not stay long here”
          You need to meet more people. I even think I know more Western women staying here, because it’s more common for women to live in the husband’s country than the other way around, it seems. (Talk about massive emotional labor.)

          To get back on topic, I lost my closest Japanese male friend when I started dating my husband, and I have a feeling that some people only have opposite sex friends because they’re trying to date them?

          1. matcha123*

            Just wanted to say that I saw your shout-out in last week’s thread, but I’ve been buried under work, so haven’t taken advantage yet!

            Maybe it’s because I moved up here after many years in the “inaka,” but while I know a few western women here in this city, I only know one who is married to a local man. I’ve lived here over a decade and most of the western friends I have are men married to local women…

            This is a part of Japanese culture I absolutely hate. I’m expected to know intuitively stuff that I would never know…from people who have spent many years living in the US and should have a good guess as to what I do or don’t know.

            1. Julia*

              Don’t worry, I’ve been waiting for you to organize something! So far, two people have contacted me. :)

              I’m not sure if this is specifically Japanese culture, sorry. It might be, it might not be. But there are definitely foreign women who live here in the long term (one of my friends just bought a house), and I have some very close Japanese friends (female) as well, so don’t give up hope!

    2. Reba*

      I think it’s fairly common for people to dial back old friendships with people of the other gender out of “respect” for a romantic partner, or at the romantic partners demand. I think it is both dumb and pretty sad. I would not agree to be in a relationship with someone that expected this of me. No one owns my attention.

      Another, maybe more rosy, possibility for your first example is that the person is caught up in their relationship and busy–it’s definitely common for people to throw all their energy into a new or intense romantic relationship to the detriment of friendships, but ideally it’s a temporary state.

      There are people who really believe that men and women cannot be true friends. (To me this is absurd, with this logic, are bisexual people ineligible for any friendships?)

      1. matcha123*

        I wouldn’t want that, either. I don’t get to see friends that often, and when I do, I don’t want to be made to feel like I am a terrible person.
        To be clear, I am not a hugger or a touchy person. No one, is going to be getting unprompted touches from me, and I don’t wear anything sexual, or try to imply that I’d be a better partner…or even talk about dating with most guys/people…

      2. Traffic_Spiral*

        “with this logic, are bisexual people ineligible for any friendships?”
        Yup. Poor, lonely bisexuals. No friends for you!

      3. Ehhhh*

        I’ve been BFFs with a guy since high school. Some of his girlfriends have had issues with me, including a period where we didn’t speak for 2 years. It’s been more than 20 years — if I was gonna sleep with him, it would have happened already.

        Current GF met me for the first time when they visited my city. First time he left us alone, she looked at me and said, “I can’t believe anyone would be worried about you.” She gets that at this point, we are like siblings and the idea of getting together is gross. She’s a keeper!

    3. all aboard the anon train*

      I only really see this happen with straight relationships tbh. Maybe that’s because as a bisexual, I’d have to cut off every friend I’ve ever had to prove I’m “serious” about a new partner.

      It’s stupid and unnecessary, and says more about someone’s insecurity than anything else imo.

      1. matcha123*

        I agree. I have been feeling like I am crazy or somehow out of touch because I don’t immediately think to go No Contact with a male friend because he has a partner.
        Again, I am not at anyone’s home 24/7 or blowing up their phones. But if they’d been consistent about replying to messages, and then turn flake…

      2. Lissa*

        Yeah, I have never seen this in my current group of mostly LGBT people, but it has still been a thing I’ve seen around me. It really breaks down when you take out of a context where everyone’s straight, and I think sort of exposes the ridiculousness of it a bit because it’s pretty damn arbitrary.

        One of my best friends is actually an ex I dated for a year and I’ve always wondered if other partners would have an issue, but nobody ever has (for either of us.)

    4. Makes no sense to me*

      I once broke an engagement over this when my fiance expected that now we were engaged I would dump all my male friends, because “men and women can’t be friends – they’re just waiting around for us to break up so they can move in on you”
      He’d expressed zero concern about those friendships in the three years we’d dated. Not one little bit, even if I got together with them for dinner, or had them over to our place when then-boyfriend was out of town. It was no big deal, he knew them, trusted me, and it was just friendship.
      So when his opinion changed like flipping a switch, it was SO out of left field and not at all what I thought I had known about him! Seriously made me wonder what OTHER bizarre, distrustful and controlling opinions he’d been hiding.
      And that was it.

      1. Traffic_Spiral*

        Gonna say that was probably a good call. Who knows what other surprise rules he’d have thought up.

    5. blackcat*

      I have found this very frustrating, but it is a very real thing.

      I have one super close male friend. We’ve been super close for ~12 years now, since college. We visit each other, hang out together, etc. He signed my marriage license as a witness. Tons of folks were surprised we stayed as close when I got married/engaged. But our friendship had nothing to due with my marriage! He also dumped one girlfriend when they started to get serious and she asked him to dial back on contact with me.

      One of my husband’s best friends is a woman, and again, some folks commented that it was odd when I said, “Oh, I’m chilling at home while my husband gets brunch with Jenny.” No, my husband is not going on a date with Jenny. He’s getting brunch with Jenny. She’s a friend! Unfortunately Jenny is now engaged and she has stopped the individual get togethers. My husband misses her, and that is sad.

      One good friend of mine has explicitly told me that he is not “allowed” to see me one on one since he got engaged and then married. His wife annoys the crap out of me (and my husband), but she’s now part of the deal for any get together. What frustrates me is that while he and my husband were always friendly but not close, he invites my *husband* to do things one on one now. I miss my friend, and that is sad.

      Tl;dr, a lot of people expect married/engaged people to dial back on/cut out one-on-one friendships with the opposite sex. It is sad. And, as someone else said, a crappy thing particular to hetero relationships.

    6. Indie*

      No you don’t have to. I think this is about knowing yourself and finding someone who’s compatible with your take on friendships and accepting that some people are different. For what it’s worth, I don’t make close male friends when I’m monogamous (except for really old ones who are truly platonic) because for me personally, I often don’t experience instant attraction, my attractions grow out of friendships and I never know which ones will be affected ahead of time. Besides that, it’s been really common for me to find out that a man isn’t really my friend, but is slow-gaming me or he wants access to a network of female friendships. My partner doesn’t have female friendships for similar reasons except for casual level (like your Facebook examples). But those were decisions we made for ourselves, based on past experiences, we wouldnt require that of each other. There are lots of people out there who won’t expect you to adhere to their own personal guidelines like it’s a universal law. The way we manage attractions to others when we want to be faithful is highly personal and individualistic.

    7. Lehigh*

      Hmm. From the few things you’ve stated about your prior relationship, I would be surprised if this is an “I can’t be friends with women” thing. Sounds more like, “I was hoping to get together with matcha123 but now that I’m engaged that’s obviously not going to happen.” You had banter, sure, but he was also upset when you got into a relationship and wanted to talk to you about how he was rejecting other women (presumably FOR YOU.) It doesn’t sound like he was this as a platonic thing.

      3. Panda Bandit*

        Yeah, that’s my read on it too. “Now that I’m getting married I don’t need to cultivate a relationship with matcha123 anymore.”

      4. matcha123*

        Just to be clear, I was thinking about 2 different guys: One who I have never met in real life, and the other who was my ex-boyfriend. When I was dating my ex, we were long-distance for a number of years and during that time, I guess he wanted to test if I was jealous? by telling me about women at his office that talked to him or hit on him.
        Knowing him (my ex), he is probably taking “Woman talked to me” as equivalent to “Woman hitting on me.”
        The other guy, we used to chat on the phone a lot, but that was over 10 years ago.

        1. Lehigh*

          Oh. I thought the “he” who got upset when you were dating your ex was still the first guy. Didn’t realize there was a subject change there. Carry on.

    8. Harvey P. Carr*

      “When I was dating my ex, he seemed upset when we first started dating that I had male friends . . . . . I guess I don’t understand the need some people have to cut off any member of the opposite sex when they are in a relationship.”

      In my case, it’s insecurity. My fear is that she would find some reason to decide she prefers the company of her male friends and would rather be platonic with them than be romantic with me.

      But I’m (hopefully) smart enough to realize that I can’t force her to abandon her other friends. It’s a good fantasy, to have a woman who only lives for me, but in reality if I were dumb enough to require that of her, it would take away part of why I liked her in the first place. It’s my insecurity, and I have to deal with it; thank goodness I have enough self-awareness to realize that.

      “when we were long-distance, he would tell me about women that tried to talk to or hit on him that he rebuffed.”

      I sometimes talk about my ex-girlfriend when I’m with my girl friend (two words – “friend who is a girl,” as per Sheldon Cooper). In my case, I’m usually sharing a negative experience, but I still get a sense of validation out of mentioning her. I’ve had only two relationships in my life and I’m still single even though I’m in my mid-50s, and in that context any chance to mention that I have an ex-girlfriend (even if she was evil and she was a cancer and I’m better off without her), is a good one because it’s like, “hey, I’ve had relationships too, just like everyone else.”

      Can’t speak for other men but that’s how I see it.

      “Am I supposed to be cutting off contact with any male friend to prove that I am ‘serious’ about a new partner?”

      What is he doing to prove that he is “serious” about you?

      The answer to your question is: no.

      1. matcha123*

        Thanks for your perspective.
        I did think he, my ex, felt insecure. So I tried to show with my actions that I had chosen to be with him and WANTED to be with him. When he’d tell me that some girls were talking to him, I didn’t feel jealous, just annoyed that he wanted me to feel jealous.
        I have only ever dated two men and I am not the type to go out on multiple “dates” with different men. He knew this when we started dating.

          1. StellaBella*

            Hahaha :) I no longer date (am nearly 50, not that it matters, but for context), and have a lot of friends gay and straight, but can see this is a valid tactic for managing this stuff – and in fact see myself wanting to be around friends who are not single, straight, male. So yeah.

    9. LDP*

      Ugh, I hate this idea. This is why I very purposely mention that a lot of my best friends are guys on a first date, if only to judge my date’s reaction, and to give him a heads up. If he wants to date a girl who doesn’t have any male friends, then I’m not the girl for him. Especially if he thinks that males and females can’t be friends.

  29. Family drama is rough*

    TL; DR: My MIL recently (and suddenly) moved into a nursing home selected by my husband’s sibling, and sibling is now telling us that MIL’s funds have run out. and seems to expect us to pay the bills.

    Sibling, who does not have POA, has refused to provide us with financial information (including MIL’s assets and the home’s costs).

    MIL has given sibling a lot of her assets already, without discussing it with or even mentioning it to my husband, and still carries a second mortgage taken out to pay for sibling’s college. (Husband has been financially independent since 18.) Our concern is that sibling will not optimize the profits from the sale of their mother’s home (or may take money from it), and expect us to pay for everything.

    Sibling is not incurring any of the nursing costs. Sibling is married, with one child the same age as ours, and has a fleet of in-laws to provide childcare. MIL has been giving sibling money for things over the years, as recently as this year. We (Sibling, Sibling’s spouse, husband, and I) are all in our mid-40s.

    Our elementary-school aged child has disabilities that mean an independent adulthood is out of the question, as well as serious ongoing medical costs. While we have some money left each month after paying for current necessities, we also want to save to help pay for our child’s needs after we die. Also, we don’t know what additional health issues may arise for our child or me, as I have chronic illnesses.

    And while we live in a tiny apartment and wear old clothes, sometimes we like to do something nice for ourselves. We want our child to have as normal a childhood as possible, with some time that’s not spent at school, in doctor’s visit, or physical therapists’ offices. This summer we took our child on a road trip vacation to a fairly inexpensive tourist area, and sibling was pretty rude to us about it.

    The welfare of my disabled child is my top concern and anxiety. What should I, and my husband, do? I feel like the monster DIL. But my mama bear side is strong.

    Looking for advice, commiseration, or even fair criticism.

    1. Reba*

      Wow, sorry you are dealing with this.

      Who DOES have POA? You need to try to get on the same page as Sibling and you need to talk with a lawyer (maybe without sibling, who kinds sounds awful and not trustworthy at all from this brief outline). It sounds like this situation is ripe for financial elder abuse–like perhaps this is already happening.

      Look for a department of Aging, or department of Elder services in your state or county. They will have information about the resources available to your MIL and to you/your spouse, they can connect you with experts, and give you a sense of what planning needs to be done for your MIL’s assets so that she is not scammed and is eligible for Medicare.

      As for your priorities, continue to put your child first! That’s not wrong! But my gut feeling–obviously I don’t really know your situation–is that you and your spouse may need to step in and take on more responsibility, NOT necessarily financial but rather legal and logistical, to prevent things from going really sideways with your MIL. Good luck.

      1. Family Drama OP*

        I’m frustrated because we told sibling that we would do logistical work many months ago. I specifically said that I would be willing to take on the planning responsibilities. We’re still willing to do that, of course. MIL will not be turned out into the street!

        I think MIL delegated to sibling because this was part of a previous informal agreement, that sibling would take care of MIL when the time came. So maybe MIL wanted to believe in that? But I think she is blind to her sibling’s weaknesses, which include organization and planning.

        (I, on the other hand, wouldn’t be the greatest person to provide direct care, but if someone is in the hospital and needs an advocate to keep things on track, or needs someone to untangle bureaucratic spiderwebs, I’m your woman.)

        1. Family Drama OP*

          ETA: I wouldn’t be the best person for direct elder care because I’m already burned out from caregiving for my child, who needs a great deal of physical assistance with everything—dressing, eating, bathing, toileting (though thankfully child is finally out of diapers, which didn’t seem like it was going to happen), lifting in and out of the tub and bed and car.

      2. ..Kat..*

        Local department of aging or elder services can also tell you where to report elder abuse. Sibling is refusing to discuss/disclose MIL’s assets.

    2. StudentA*

      If you’re a monster, I guess that makes two of us. I wouldn’t feel right spending a dime until I get some clear answers. Either way, if it becomes clear that this elderly lady is in financial trouble, and my SIL was being truthful, I would find a way to contribute. Even if it meant I would not achieve my savings goals. But I’d focus on getting more details, while making sure I’m not giving any indication of evading responsibility to an aging parent.

      1. Family Drama OP*

        I guess it’s the “even if it meant I would not achieve my financial goals” part that I’m struggling with. Because we don’t have anyone to help us out, financially, logistically with planning, or with childcare, My own parents are a decade older than MIL and I will be their advocate soon, though they are financial in more self-sustaining shape.

        We’re not turning anyone out on the street, of course, but everyone isn’t going to be able to get exactly what they want here—like MIL might not be able to stay in this particular home, and sibling may not get to hold the financial reins—and we’ll have to put in more hours than we currently are.

    3. fposte*

      Are you in the U.S.? Then some of this may be beyond family anyway. If she’s going to need care for more than a very short term, MIL may well have to do a Medicaid spend-down, and there may as a result be a 5-year-lookback on asset transfers.

      On the other hand: a lot of this seems to be about sibling vs. sibling grasshopper/ant stuff. Which is psychologically understandable, but it isn’t necessarily the fairest approach, especially if the end goal is about MIL. Is there a reason sib is the one who’s had to make all the calls about MIL? Is your spouse falling into the common trap of undervaluing the on-the-scene labor for an elderly parent (especially common when the kid handling the situation is female) and the authority is should reasonably confer on the person who hand to handle that? You mention you didn’t get any say in the nursing home–do you know how much you would have been able to contribute to a nursing home of your choice?

      What I think I’d do in your position is find out where things stand with regard to Medicaid, talk to the nursing home directly about costs and fees, and decide with my spouse what we wish to contribute monthly to her care; if you’re more comfortable arranging to pay the nursing home directly, look into that.

      1. Not So NewReader*

        I know with my mother, we had to take whatever nursing home would take her. My former state is not known for paying nursing home bills and the nursing homes know they won’t get paid. This makes them reluctant to take people. I had a social worker tell me, “She’s going home with YOU!” I guess the SW thought she could bamboozle 20 year old me. I told her “NO.”

        I believe my state went back 7 years at that time. So that means any money mom gave sibling over the last 7 years would have to be repaid. If this is the case your sib-in-law has some real problems.

        Get with an elder care attorney and find out what your responsibilities ACTUALLY are. Sibling is not an attorney and their info may/may not be accurate. Do NOT pay for anything until you know if you legitimately have to pay for something. Both when my mother was dying and 10 years later when my father was dying hospital accountants chased me through the hallways trying to get me to pay their bills. I simply said, “Here is the name of the attorney you can call.” I never had to pay a nickel.

        1. fposte*

          Very good advice on the finances. Creditors, including health care facilities, will often try to make relatives believe they’re on the hook for debt that legally is not theirs.

          1. Not So NewReader*

            I wish someone would do something about that. That is out and out fraud and nothing is done. It happened to me in two different hospitals located in different states. So this kind of telegraphed to me that this is an industry [bad] practice.

            OP, make sure hubby does not set the precedent of paying even ONE bill. Annnd do not commingle funds. That is, do not take MILs money and put it in hubby’s or joint of yours.

            1. Family Drama OP*

              Good advice—I will let him know, thank you.

              It’s hard because I could be so much more direct if it were my parents. My husband has been avoiding being direct with his mother, and it’s driving me crazy but I can only suggest gently and not too often that he do so.

              1. Not So NewReader*

                Knowledge is power. Sometimes people can move forward if they have accurate information. If I hit this wall with my hubby, I would gather up information so he could see where the actual concerns are. It could be that your hubby is afraid you guys will lose your home. Well there are plenty of things you can do to protect yourselves. OTH, it could be that he is upset over his mother losing her capacity to live life. So then I would start talking about grief, as in grief is not just for funerals we can grieve just as hard for a person’s declining health. Perhaps he feels he will no longer have an opportunity to have a better relationship with family/mom. This also comes under the heading of grief.

                My guess would be that usually when people shut down like this it is for more than one reason. Probably you can delve into a few things that would be supportive in nature. By adding that support, he may change what he is doing. It could be that by watching you talk about these things, he finds his own words for what is actually going on with him. I have seen this also. I had a family member who was locked up pretty tightly on a topic. I just started talking about grief and the stages of grief and so on. Later, she said, by watching me talk she found words for what she could not express before. She did not know how to put it into words. It was like a dam broke, out came this flood of words. I knew she was doing better.

                1. Family Drama OP*

                  This is very sensitive and astute. There are a lot of big feelings, on everyone’s part here. I know MIL has grieved that her retirement has been spent dealing with illness, and I think my husband wishes he could do more for her but is caught up in the grief of child’s disabilities afresh, since his mother’s situation means we’ve had to go over our financial planning. I’m going to try to tell him that he has helped his mother over the years, a lot, by taking on financial responsibilities from a young age so she wouldn’t have to worry about him as she has with sibling.

                  Right now we’re certainly lacking in knowledge and it’s time to change that.

          2. Earthwalker*

            In some states the children are responsible for parents’ nursing home bills by law. I looked into this since I have a parent in a state with such a law. They don’t aim to bankrupt the children to pay the parent’s bills, though. They mainly go after children who have intentionally looted their parents’ bank accounts and left their parents destitute, reliant upon nursing home charity and state aid.

            1. Not So NewReader*

              I am not sure about current time, but in NYS if you kept the parent’s home to live in then you also kept their medical bills. Some people got lucky and got out of that one and kept the house, but other people no, they paid the medical bills so they could keep the house.

            2. fposte*

              Pennsylvania is the most famous one. But as you note, they generally reserve that for extreme circumstances. (That being said, I’ve seen at least one person with a horrible parent deliberately choose not to live in PA because of this.)

              1. Family Drama OP*

                I had read about some PA cases and they scared me. We don’t live in PA, but sibling does, and that’s where they moved MIL.

                Another reason to talk to an elder care attorney ASAP.

        2. Family Drama OP*

          An elder care attorney is a really good idea—thank you.

          We have had creditors call us (she gave husband’s name, not sibling’s , as a responsible party without asking us) before about her bills during previous hospitalizations, and that is something I’m worried about.

      2. Family Drama OP*

        No, this is all very fair. We had asked sibling for financial info months ago specifically so we could do the Medicaid planning, which we have experience in. We’ve been asking for months.

        Original plan was that sibling would provide care to MIL, and that’s why MIL had been helping support sibling. But sibling isn’t providing that care.

        Sibling is able to visit more often, though, as the nursing home is near sibling’s home 3.5 hours away from us. But sibling wouldn’t even disclose the facility’s name to us for a while, and MIL wasn’t particularly capable of communication during that time.

        My husband is the one who has handled finances and coordination of care for all the hospitalizations that have occurred in the last five years.

        Husband has tried to talk to MIL but she hasn’t been doing well, and delegated info to sibling, I think in the hopes that sibling and husband would collaborate (though given their past history, that wasn’t a founded hope).

        MIL is doing a bit better, so husband will try talking to her this weekend to get documents so we can do research.

        1. Ender*

          If he can’t talk to MIL he needs to talk to a lawyer.

          You make it sound like someone has POA? Who is that? If no one has it yet then your husband should try to get it since sibling has clearly proven they are not capable.

          1. fposte*

            I think the OP’s spouse is probably a better choice, but I’m not seeing anything that would indicate the sibling is genuinely incapable.

            1. Alice*

              Refusing to tell OP and OP’s husband where MIL is sounds to me like sibling was preventing MIL’s network of social support from contacting her. How many non-nefarious reasons could there be for that?
              This internet stranger thinks that you should request that the authorities investigate whether elder abuse is occuring.
              There was a good Boston Globe article about elder abuse by home health aides recently, and sadly relatives sometimes commit elder abuse too.
              I hope that this situation turns out well for all concerned, especially your child and MIL.

              1. Family Drama OP*

                There was also a New Yorker article about court appointed guardians who exploit elderly clients. It’s disgusting and frightening.

                I’ve actually been thinking about volunteering to be an ombudsman for long-term care facility residents in my area, because I’m horrified by the potential for abuse. (Plus, I hope someone will look out for my child like this someday.)

          2. Family Drama OP*

            I think it should be my husband, because he’s more methodical than his sibling, and has had no interest in taking money from his mom ever.

            But I try to stay out of it, because I actively dislike sibling, who has said racist things to my parents’ friends about our race, and never called my husband after learning he had cancer, has not once in almost a decade inquired about the diagnosis or prognosis of our child but yells at my husband that he’s always hiding behind child, and a whole bunch of stuff like that.

            I am cordial when I see sibling for my MIL’s sake, but I do not seek any interaction with sibling.

            By contrast I am very close to my sibling’s spouse, so I know I can get along with an in law. My husband is close to my sibling as well.

        2. fposte*

          Yeah, that sounds really frustrating; I’m sorry. This kind of situation is hard enough when siblings communicate well.

          My personal approach would be to try as best as possible to separate my irritation with the way the sibling is handling it from the question of what we could/should do for MIL.

          But some of this overlaps with the comments to the anon below whose sib is piling on degrees without ever leaving home, with the consent and enabling of their parents. This clearly isn’t going to happen the way you (and doubtless I) think it should, so your best route is to accept that as much as you can, step back, identify what it is you can and can’t do without regard to sibling, and go from there.

          1. Family Drama OP*

            Oh wow, I just looked at that professional student post below. It is a very similar situation, with a parent who directed a lot of resources toward one sibling to the parent’s ultimate disadvantage. I guess it is a common source of family drama.

        3. Jenny F. Scientist*

          If your MIL is truly a) in need of full-time nursing home care and b) now out of assets, she may qualify for nursing home care under Medicaid (as fposte notes below, there’s a spend-down and a look-back and it sucks). It’s really complicated and you may or may not need an attorney.

          Also, either your MIL is competent to make her own decisions, or she’s signed a medical and/or financial POA, or she’s not competent *and* nobody else has this power and you need to take it before a judge. Someone needs to have the authority to deal with this, and your husband and his sibling need to figure it out between them, or it’s going to get really messy really fast.

          1. Family Drama OP*

            You’re right. It’s already messy, and it’s not going to get any better without some tough conversations.

            My husband has always been confrontation-averse with his mother—I think he wanted to spare her any anxiety over anything, which is nice but not always the best move. E.g, there have been times when our child has been hospitalized and he’s said to his mom that child is “under the weather” because he doesn’t want to add to his mother’s burdens. And I’m like, how does the truth add to her burdens? She doesn’t have to hold screaming child still for the IV or stay up all night holding child in the hospital bed—I do. And I feel like it adds to my burdens because it devalues the severity of our child’s situation.

            1. valentine*

              MIL may just not have the spoons for even news of anyone else’s struggles. You are right to prioritize your child and immediate family, especially because you are already living frugally and there’s no safety net for your daughter. Don’t let anyone guilt you. This summer we took our child on a road trip vacation to a fairly inexpensive tourist area, and sibling was pretty rude to us about it. SIL is using MIL as a personal piggy bank and expecting you’ll refill it. With you/r husband walking on eggshells around MIL, would he tell her SIL has defrauded her or the truth of the situation? I would want the discussion with MIL to be like a mediation, complete with third-party witnesses, so SIL doesn’t say you promised to pay for everything or to take MIL in.

              1. Family Drama OP*

                A third party might be a good idea, thanks. I don’t think anyone has been particularly transparent here, and I’ve already seen things get misremembered/misreported.

    4. blackcat*

      I would make it clear to sibling that, while you are happy to provide certain things for MIL (visits, perhaps coordinating doctors appointments) you are not in a position to contribute financially. Don’t get into debates. Just state it. “That’s not possible” should be come a common refrain.

      Also, can you talk to MIL directly? Is she cognitively okay? If so, I’d straight up talk to her about who is paying for what and how to get POA set up. If you’re going to spend $$, spend it on getting MIL a lawyer to help her with POA/estate planning.

      1. Family Drama OP*

        I think my husband hasn’t broached things as directly with his mother as he should have. She is cognitively okay for this kind of discussion, but of course he feels terrible about her physical problems and has wanted to spare her the hassle of dealing with this stuff.

        I told him this week that he needs to talk to her now, because realistically and unfortunately she’s not going to be in a better situation to have this discussion. I felt horrible saying it but I don’t think he was letting himself acknowledge that possibility.

    5. Hannah*

      Um, heck no?

      If your MIL doesn’t have any more assets, then she will need to go on Medicaid. That may mean switching to a different home, unfortunately, but at the end of the day you can’t sacrifice your own financial stability and that of your child’s. Plus…even if you agreed to pay, you probably don’t have enough. Nursing care is expensive and whatever savings you do have would be drained pretty quickly, and you’d be back at square one.

      1. Family Drama OP*

        There are no easy answers here, are there?

        I feel like this is the worst part of adulthood, having so many conflicting responsibilities and having to make choices about other people’s care.

        1. Not So NewReader*

          Perspective. Our kids, if we have any, will not be able to support us either. This is the world we have. The best you can do here is to try to get your MIL the best resources available.

          Things do come up where we get little reliefs from the bleakness of it all . The nursing home my mother stayed at also housed the BIL of the US President at that time. This is a tiny little nursing home in a town that is a dot in the fold of a road map. Every so often a long stretch limo would pull up. A bunch of men in 3 piece suits (???) with sunglasses would pop out. FLOTUS had come to see her bro. So if First Family thought this home was a good idea, perhaps it was. I felt a bit better about a sucky situation.

          Odd stuff like this does happen.

    6. Small-town dr*

      So much great advice here. As a health care professional with many years of observing how these matters play out, please start with an elder care attorney. There is a reason that about 2/3 of folks in nursing homes or assisted living are covered by Medicare. In my rural area the cost is $4000-7500 per month. You need complete transparency with sibling as well as POA, medical POA, etc. Please don’t be pulled into “covering” at the expense of your child. Good luck!

      3. Kuododi*

        Following up to encourage you to consult with the elder Care attorney as many others have already said. What will happen though is that if she’s cognitively on point, the facilities, healthcare providers etc will look to her to make these decisions about $$, end of life concerns regarding DNR etc. (I took the liberty of having a chat with DH. Among other things, he’s an ethicist at the local hospital where we live.).

        Now, it will still be important to get living will and durable power of attorney for healthcare decisions in the event she’s unable to communicate and someone else needs to be designated to see her end of life wishes are respected regarding DNR, artificial nutrition/hydration, CPR/no CPR….

        As far as business issues are concerned, all that as well as living will etc specific to your jurisdiction would easily be taken care of by the elder Care attorney. Best regards to you and your family. This is a painful time of life. You all will be in my heart

        1. Not So NewReader*

          Fortunately if mom is still clear minded, it will cost much less than doing this later when she is not clear mind. I saw the price jump from $500 to $2000 and this was decades ago.

          It could turn out that she has been wanted to talk to you guys but did not know how to open the subject.

          1. Family Drama OP*

            I think it has been hard for her especially because of the physical pain. I understand how it’s hsrd to look past the day or even the minute when pain is overwhelming.

            The last time my husband tried to talk to her, she accused him of trying to get her money, which scared him off. It was hurtful to him, I think, because he’s spent so much time from childhood on trying not to cost her money.

            What I have learned from this is that the time to discuss end of life plans is now, in my 40s, when it’s still kind of abstract and I can be relatively logical about what I want because I don’t feel like I’m talking about my own death as something impending. It’s kind of grim, but that’s okay.

          2. Kuododi*

            Oh GACK!!! I knew the price was horrid but looking at your post as perspective almost gave me a small cardiac event!!! The jurisdiction where my MIL was living would do a low cost legal clinic once a month where people needing to address these types of issues could get an appointment for low fee help. It might be worth a phone call or two to the local county offices, also local bar association to try to find low/no cost legal help. Just a random thought!!! Best regards….

    7. LilySparrow*

      If sibling takes money from the sale of the house instead of using it for MIL’s care, then Sibling is going to be in a world of hurt when Medicare comes for their money.

      1. Family Drama OP*

        I’m worried that even if Medicaid found out, sibling will have already spent the money, and all it will do is delay MIL’s Medicaid eligibility. And my husband would feel responsible.

        1. blackcat*

          Has your husband gotten therapy? Would he be open to it?

          It sounds like he has a lot of guilt around his family, and getting therapy could be very helpful in navigating this situation. Therapy was tremendously helpful in teaching me how to disconnect and label things in my family as not my problem.

          Though, full disclaimer, I got angry before being able to let go, and that’s very normal. My parents never treated me fairly compared to my brother. Acknowledging that was very important, but very painful.

          1. Family Drama OP*

            I wish he’d go to therapy. There’s a lifetime of baggage he could unpack. But I think only a crisis would get him into therapy. He didn’t go to therapy after being diagnosed with cancer or being part of an event of mass trauma (I don’t want to out us with details), so I’m not even sure a calamity would get him to go.

        2. Not So NewReader*

          This is where collecting up facts is good support. Talking to an elder care attorney might help.

          Of course, he will feel responsible, who wouldn’t under ordinary conditions? Remember it’s ethically wrong of him to let your own fiances sink to save his mom, whose bills could end up being crazy high. You can say that, he needs to protect himself first and foremost. If he allows his finances to sink, then there is no way that he can be of any help to mom ever. He can feel responsible all he needs to, it’s acting on feeling that causes difficulty.

          I do think once he sees alternative plans, this concern will taper off some.

          Hmm. Does he have a trusted male friend who has been in a similar situation? Just thinking about you being the lone voice here. Sometimes men friends can be a substantial help with stuff like this, too.

          1. Family Drama OP*

            I wish he had someone else to talk to about this. I think most of his friends aren’t confronting these issues yet, since his mother is relatively young for this level of need.

            But given her health, we saw this on the horizon and I wish more preparation had been done.

    8. Family Drama OP*

      Thank you all for your wisdom and kindness. I now have a list of concrete steps to take, and I’ll be calling the local office on aging and getting recs for elder care attorneys.

      I will ask husband to set up a time to talk to MIL—it’ll be harder for him to avoid a scheduled call.

      I am also going to speak to my parents, who are significantly older than my MIL, to get a better sense of their plans. (They’ve already given me and my sibling lots of info, and I’m their healthcare proxy, so I’m less concerned about logistics with them.)

      Also, I am going to talk to MIL directly and tell her she can talk to me about anything she wants. I’ve been trying to stay out of it, but maybe that’s a mistake. Perhaps my own chronic physical and mental illnesses make it easier for us to relate to each other. Maybe it will be easier for her to ask me to do certain research tasks rather than asking her children.

      I mentioned above that it strikes me that it’s better to do end of life planning at my age than waiting until later, and I realized my husband and I have done a lot, because of child’s disabilities. We hired a special needs estate planning attorney and set up a lot of stuff before we turned 40.

      I’m going to give child lots of hugs and kisses now. Thank you all again. I’m feeling calmer and focused now.

  30. Villanelle*

    How much are certain characteristics you and the way you are vs environment, situation, circumstances etc?

    I’m asking this as it came up in a work situation where I have been recommended (well, told to) to work on my tone of voice and what I say. I find this hard because I am this way in general – sometimes more sometimes less.

    I have done mindfulness earlier this year, I have been on a training course to manage workload. I have also been more aware. But it still hasnt been enough :( I don’t know what else I can do – therapy?

    1. matcha123*

      I think that it’s a combination of all of the above.
      But if people are telling you your tone comes off as harsh (my assumption) and you are pushing back against that, then I guess the first question is why? Do you feel like a core aspect of your personality is being attacked?
      Personally when I talk to people, I want them to feel happy or at least neutral after they’ve finished talking with me. Even when we are tired or annoyed, it’s better to keep that in mind before snapping at someone (not saying you do that, just as an example).

    2. fposte*

      The answer to your first question is “Yes” :-). Mutable characteristics are still you. The things that have changed for you since you were twelve don’t mean they weren’t you.

      I see two possible friction points for you here, and I think it’s worth separating them out.

      The first is if you don’t think it’s fair to be asked this because it feels like changing something essential in you. As you can probably tell, I’m not on board with that notion. I think it’s one thing to say that a request is inappropriate or racist or sexist, and I would support pushback on that. But there is almost no one manner of expression that is quintessentially a person. (Obviously we always have the option of saying “It’s not worth it to me to make this change” and to move on to another relationship or job, of course.)

      The second is if you can’t figure out how to get there from here–if the feedback isn’t clear enough for you to grasp what specific changes you should put in place to achieve that result. That’s more of a skill question, and while different people will have different abilities to brush up that skill, I think with concrete guidance a lot of people can find more successful communication in situations like that. I think mindfulness is great, but we’re probably talking more communications coaching here. If this is mostly a work thing I’d say bring it up in the Friday thread and you’ll get a lot of suggestions–I suspect that there are some pretty easy advantage-gainers that you could add to your repertory.

    3. FD*

      Based on what I’ve experienced in my own life, I believe that everyone has the capacity to change most personality traits and behaviors–if they both legitimately want to change, have the support needed, and are willing/able to put in the effort. However, I also believe that how easy or difficult this is will depend very strongly on the circumstances.

      For example, let’s say that John is a natural people-pleaser. He prefers a cooperative vs. competitive approach. The amount of effort it would take for him to become an aggressive negotiator is so great that it’s not really likely to be worth it. Instead, John is likely better served by finding roles where those traits work for him instead of against him.

      However, let’s say that John finds that sometimes his people-pleasing traits cause him problems, because he finds it difficult to set healthy boundaries or say no when he needs to. It is probably worth it for him to put in the time and energy to learn how to do those things–even though he will probably always use a softer approach than people with a more assertive personality would.

      I’d say that before you can assess any of that, you need to really understand what the issue is, and what success actually looks like, according to your boss/others who are telling you this.

    4. Close Bracket*

      I’m going to hazard a guess that you are a woman. I’m going to hazard anther guess that only thing wrong with your tone and words is that they come out of a woman rather than a man.

      I suggest finding either a coach or a therapist who specializes in working with women to work on assertive communication. If you have an EAP, use that. You are in a no win situation, but if tell your boss about what you are working on, their (I’m hazarding a guess that it’s his) perception of you might change enough that you become acceptable.

      I would go with therapist over coach bc you will need one to cope with this situation.

      1. Smarty Boots*

        That may be true, or it may not be. I would say, OP, sit down with your manager and figure out exactly what you are doing that is problematic. Have your manager give you concrete examples. Then you will be better able to see if (1) it’s something you want to work on, and if it is, (2) you can better figure out — or your manager can help you figure out— how to address is , or if it’s not something you want to change, you can (3) decide if you can live with the consequences (whatever they might be)and whether you need a different job.

        Years ago I got a similar criticism. I asked my manager to give me examples because, I said, it was something that I myself did not see and since I couldn’t see it, I couldn’t fix it. Some of it was easy to fix: say hello how are you and listen to the answer before asking someone to help with a work task. Some of it was harder: really listen to people and make sure I was hearing them, rather than thinking about my next statement; make sure I thought seriously about others contributions before deciding on a plan of action, etc.

    5. LilySparrow*

      What are the things you say that are problematic? Are they actually part of your work?

      If it’s truly work-based communication, like collaborating on an idea or giving feedback appropriately, look around for co-workers who are doing this effectively. Modeling is a great way to adapt and learn. You might also take some communication coaching or classes.

      Effective communication is a skill you can learn. It takes training and practice. It may not be something you need to change inside yourself at all, but a thing you can just learn how to do.

      If others are using the same style as you but not getting pushback, then maybe there is a race or gender issue at play. Alison has written about ways to deal with this type of unfairness, and you’ll have to consider whether it’s a better move for you to try to adapt, or to look for another company.

      But if the feedback is stuff like “stop snarking about your coworkers’ appearance,” or “stop making harassing/discriminatory remarks,” then getting defensive because you’ve always been this way is not realistic or helpful. You may need to look into therapy if you’re having fundamental difficulty with being kind and respectful to people.

  31. The Other Dawn*

    My nephew just graduated basic training, and he’s now a US Army soldier. So proud of him!

    He lives in another state so my sister and I went to visit for his “welcome home” party last weekend. I decided to get him a couple small gifts. I also gave him a couple MREs as a joke, but he actually liked them!

    It was interesting to see how he’s changed: he’s more reserved, he’s serious about the Army rules around conduct, and his bedroom is CLEAN! (I think the fact that ALL his Army gear was put away within a day after coming home speaks volumes about how he’s changed; his room used to be a total disaster!) He’s home for his senior year in high school and then goes on to AIT next June at Fort Lee. In the meantime he’ll be in the Reserves. He changed his MOS from light wheeled vehicle mechanic to infantry, so he’ll be going active duty after AIT.

    I have to say it’s strange to see how he’s matured over the last 10 weeks, but yet he has to go back to high school; it just doesn’t fit together in my mind. He’s a man, but he’s still kind of a kid at the same time. I imagine it’s weird for him, too.

    I’ve been texting him to say, “Don’t forget to keep up with your PT!!” My husband was in the Army and they most definitely need to keep up with that. I worry that him having to go back to school for his last year is going to make him lazy, or take his head out of the game.

    1. Green Kangaroo*

      Congratulations to your nephew, and thanks to him (and your husband) for their service to our country.

      1. The Other Dawn*

        I think it’s something new, to be honest. I’ve never heard of that before. He’s 18 (he and his brother were held back a year in school) so he was able to join and go to basic. Him being able to go to AIT in June and then go active requires that he graduate high school. It’s so weird to me, because it seems like it will be so easy for him to fall back into old (lazy!) habits. Although he has to go to drill once a month so hopefully that keeps him on track. He’s passionate about it, though, so I think he’ll be OK.

  32. Lore*

    Traveling to Barcelona and Paris in late October. I’ll be by myself in Barcelona for four days (though trying to convince a friend to meet me) and staying with friends in Paris. I’ve got a hotel booked in Eixample and am happy to just walk around and see stuff, eat good food, etc. I’ve been to Paris before (though many years ago) but never to Barcelona. Tell me what I can’t miss!

    1. Claire (Scotland)*

      I love Barcelona so much. The cathedral – Gothic one – is amazing, as is La Sagrada of course. I have visited Casa Batllo and Park Guell each time I’ve gone as well and they’re definitely worth visiting if you are interested in the Gaudi stuff at all. I had amazing white chocolate ice cream last time I was there from a place right by the cathedral in the Gothic quarter, which I love I general – I like to just wander around and look at the buildings and the shops in that area.

      I also highly recommend a bar called Ginger for cocktails and tapas, if you like those. The Museu Picasso was really interesting. I definitely recommend walking up Montjuic and visiting the botanic gardens, and also wandering around the Raval for shopping and cultural events.

    2. Apollo Warbucks*

      The sagrada familia is well worth a visit as is Park Güell while you’re in Barcelona.

      I enjoyed the nou camp tour, if you like soccer I’d recommend that and the hop on hop off bus tour is worth checking out as it runs past a lot of tourist activities.

    3. catsaway*

      As others said, the Sagrada Familia and Park Guell are awesome. I never actually went in the Sagrada Familia but even just walking around the outside is great. If you’re into art, there is a Picasso museum that has some of his early work and if you’re into history/archeology or have a rainy day there’s a museum of the city (Barcelona history or something like that) that has exhibits on Barcelona from the time of the Romans onward, including some excavations you can walk over (on walkways of course).

    4. Sarah G*

      Another vote for Park Güell — that’s my favorite sight in Barcelona. Also La Pedrera/Casa Mila, including the very cool tour of the interior. And just walking the streets and wandering around the city.
      In Paris, I really loved the modern art museum at Centre Pompidou, and the view from Arc de Triomphe. I also ended up doing the top of the Eiffel at night, and the view was amazing — I recommend it at night. Have fun — those are two amazing cities!

    5. Aardvark*

      Barcelona is awesome! I went a few years ago and definitely want to go back at some point.
      Sagrada Familia, of course! I did a guided tour with an add-on to go up the towers, which was well worth it.
      Also: El Born Cultural Center — there’s a long history there, but the short version is that when the city decided to demolish a late 19th century ironwork market building, they discovered the basements of a neighborhood that had been demolished to erect a giant fortress. They kept the market and turned it into a museum where the ruins are partially exposed inside the market building. It’s right near the Picasso Museum.
      I also liked going up to Castel de Monjuic–nice view back down to the city.
      Markets are also great: La Boqueria is the most famous one. Santa Caterina is also really interesting — the way the old market building was renovated is really interesting.

    6. Mephyle*

      Adding to the above, my recommendation is to take a “free” walking tour or two, or three, in your first days (the economic model is that you tip the guide at the end). The Gaudi tour I took only visited the outsides of several of the main Gaudi buildings, but for some of them the guide had tips on the best and cheapest times and ways to visit the insides – then you can come back in the following days to see the ones you want to go into. Also for the Gaudi tour, the one I took ended up at the Sagrada Familia, so I planned ahead by booking my entrance for just after the tour ended, and that worked well.
      Don’t miss the Hospital Sant Pau. This has only been open to tourists for a few years, so it’s not as well known, but it is spectacular. It’s pretty close to the Sagrada Familia. Allow several hours; it’s quite big.
      Of perhaps lesser interest, but worth it if you are interested in cool architectural transformations, La Arena is a huge former bullfighting ring transformed into a shopping center.

    7. Traffic_Spiral*

      For Barcelona, stay in the gothic quarter and just wander around – try the ham-and-cava bars as well. And yes, definitely see the Sagrada. Also, Granja La Pallaresa has the world’s best churros.

    8. tab*

      Our first day in Barcelona we took a Fat Tire Bike Tour. It was a great way to see a lot of the city and get oriented. I highly recommend it. You will LOVE Barcelona!

    9. Pharmgirl*

      Barcelona History Museum! They take you below the city to see the original Roman settlement, and you slowly make your way back through time to modern day – very cool!

    10. London*

      For Paris, Sainte Chapelle is a less known sight that you might not have visited on your previous trip – beautiful old church that is more stained glass than stone. My friend was in Paris recently and did a walking tour of the Montmartre area which she loved.

    11. ronda*

      tapas in barcelona was my favorite meal of my europe work trip to prague, bacelona then leicester. Only one day in barcelona, so didn’t do much, but it was the most vibrant city I have been too. enjoy.

    12. PookieLou*

      These random guys in Barcelona have a Dali tribute exhibit in their apartment. I didn’t go, but the hand-drawn posters made it seem really amazing…..

  33. Latte syrups*

    I make my own hazelnut lattes at home, which has generally been very easy, except now I’m in a new city and can’t find hazelnut syrup anywhere. I used to be able to get it at Kroger, but since I moved, I’ve checked three different grocery stores and they don’t carry it. I’ve also looked online and those tend to be the sort of industrial sizes you would see at a cafe. I thought I might make my own instead using hazelnut extract and simple syrup – anyone have experience with this? The recipes I’ve seen online look thicker than what I’m used to.

    2. Sabine the Very Mean*

      Yes you can buy Starbucks syrup at the cafes. I like their Toffee Nut flavor but their hazelnut is top notch as well. Sometimes they don’t have enough on hand to sell you but I just ask, “Can you sell me a bottle of x today?” Very good quality.

    3. CatCat*

      Do you have a World Market near you? We’ve found hazelnut syrup there.

      We’ve also found it at Beverages and More.

    4. periwinkle*

      Latte enthusiast here…

      Many larger supermarkets do carry the flavor syrups, so you might just need to go to a larger store of the local chain. Seconding the suggestion for Cost Plus/World Market – the ones near me have a vast array of flavors. Also check out Marshalls/HomeGoods/TJ Maxx, although their selection tends to be random.

      These days I stick with Monin syrups and sauces, and the best source is directly through their website. Shipping (via FedEx) is free for orders over $20 and they regularly send out 10% discount codes to their mailing list. Monin has multiple varieties of hazelnut syrups! They even have two different sugar-free options, one with stevia and the other with Splenda (which is good because I loathe the taste of stevia). Everything is available in standard 750ml bottles with some also available in larger sizes.

    5. Old Biddy*

      Check your dollar stores. We get ours at Dollar Tree or Dollar General (I can’t remember which one). Grocery suppky places like Maine Source/Smart and Final usually have a big assortment of the large containers.

    6. dawbs*

      I have really good luck at Tuesday Morning and/or Home Goods, for some reason, getting syrups.
      For those of us who are cheap.

  34. Junior Dev*

    Mental health thread! How are you doing? What are you struggling with? What are you proud of?

    I’m having a really rough time. There are problems at the Place we Do Not Mention. My parents are in town visiting and they’re bringing my nephew, the son of my estranged abusive brother, who it’ll be much first time meeting. I’m nervous about that and I’m worried about my future and I’m not getting enough sleep or exercise.

    I guess I’m proud of making plans with friends last night. I don’t feel great about myself.

    How are you?

    1. kerlin*

      Bad bad bad week. Baaaaaad week. Sunday night, my horse got sick, and we put him on a trailer to the vet hospital in the early hours of Monday morning. He came home late Wednesday and has been making good progress (two vets and my trainer all used the word “miracle”) but holy mackerel my brain. It is gone. He’s been my whole world for almost 15 years and I thought it was all going to end.

      So, I’ve either been with him or trying to focus at work, which has been impossible. So I feel like I’m screwing up at work. And my husband (whose mental health is precarious in the best of weeks) has been bad this week as well. (If I’m not home to facilitate things everything goes south quickly.) So I basically haven’t slept or rested or even had any self-care time all week. I’m actually looking forward to a work trip tomorrow that will put me, alone, in a quiet hotel room for a few hours.

    2. Amber Rose*

      I’m having a long term existential crisis. I feel like I’m wasting my life and just letting the days pass me by and I don’t know what to do about it. Its sent me into one of the worst depressive spirals I’ve ever been in.

      I’m working on it but it’s tough. I have plans to go out today so I don’t just sit and watch YouTube videos all day.

    3. Handy Nickname*

      I’m doing okay. Started the week off with a really awful and hard conversation with my mom about our very different relationship needs- spending lots of time with my family and helping them out “counts” to me, and having long talks where we share feelings “counts” to her. She had a really hard time when I moved out 6 months ago and struggles with understanding that “I want to go home” doesn’t mean I don’t want to spend time with my family- I just need to be home at least enough to sleep and wash clothes y’know?

      Haven’t talked to her since then, but I should call her or go over today. Made the rest of my week easier though- got my whole apartment cleaned up this week and ate decent food for a few more meals than normal. Amazing what you can accomplish when you’re actually home!

    4. TheWonderGinger*

      My anxiety is in overdrive. It’s been and will continue to be a very busy time for me. It’s a mix of good and bad things like New job offer, vacation, friends wedding, Oktoberfest, Steve Trevor recovering from accident, PIP at current job. My mental health thrives when I have organization and a routine and all these changes at once is sending me into a tail spin and my compulsive behaviors are showing.

      1. Slartibartfast*

        I feel you on that. Anxiety is spinning because I hate change, I have a job offer but it’s feeling like everything is taking forever and I have an irrational fear that ahole owner of my previous job will somehow try to actively sabotage this for me. Plus I haven’t worked a 40 hour week in a very long time, and even though new job isn’t nearly as physical as old job, I worry about keeping the fibromyalgia under control. I have daycare sorted for the mornings, my car needs brakes and should probably take care of that while I’m home, even though that means credit card and what if something goes wrong on the background check, and the hamster wheel keeps spinning in my head. I just want to settle into a routine and find some stability. Go to work on time, produce a consistent product, go home and have spoons left for family stuff. It’s been a long year. Thanks for posting though, it helps to know I’m not the only one like this :)

    5. Patsy Stone*

      Mental health is not great for the past week…few weeks…few months, actually. Have been struggling with depression…situational to work and school, not living where I really want to be and not living the life I want to be living. Neither the location or the life can be changed until I finish school in April 2020. I just feel like I’m stuck in a box…I live and study in a box, I go to school and sit in a box all day, I go to work in a box (hospital, actually, but it’s pretty boxy). I made a massive career change from international adventure tourism to nursing, and am struggling to find the motivation to complete my nursing degree…been a work in progress for past 5 years, with 1 1/2 left to go. The degree is what I need to do in order to have the job I want and the life I want. Love nursing but not doing the type of nursing I want right now…I know it will change, but not until I finish my degree.

      Feeling increasingly guilty about not wanting to stay in this town/province where my parents live….I’m the only child living in the country (Canada), my sister lives across the pond in the UK. Neither of my parents have any other family, so I’m the only one who can look after them when they get older (in their mid-70’s now, good health and no concerns, but at some point in 10+ years…I don’t want them to be alone. I wasn’t nearby for 20 years as I lived/traveled the world, so now feel the need to be nearby. Where I would love to live is a five hour plane ride across the country….

      I just don’t know how to get myself motivated to push through this next 1 1/2 years. Between work, school and studying, I don’t have any time/money to pursue my passions (travel, photography, skiing, hiking, outdoors and wilderness). And even though I know the nursing job part of it is temporary and will change once I finish my degree, I don’t know how to reconcile living nearby the parents and being miserable in this town/province, with living across the country and feeling guilty for being far away.

      I feel like I just went on a massive whinge there…apologies if this sounds whiny, because I’m really trying not to. I know I have a good life, good family, and a good place to live…am working hard on trying to not be depressed, and taking care of myself, but it’s getting pretty tiring feeling down like this…

      1. WellRed*

        Late to this but want to comment. I know know it’s a struggle but keep your eyes on the prize. You have a goal with a set deadline. That’s better than having neither ; ). As to down time, I don’t know what province you live in, but it’s Canada! How far do you need to go to be in nature? Walking is free. Indulge photography with cell phone snaps. Not to trying to simplify, but just encourage you to work with what you have. Good luck. I don’t think you’ll regret being there for parents in the end.

    6. SparklingStars*

      I had a really rough start to the week (feelings of depression and loneliness flared way up, and I ended up calling my mom in desperation and sobbing into the phone). The next day I made an appointment with an EAP counselor through work. The last several time I’ve tried counseling it did not help much, but this time they assigned me to a guy who is GOOD. Sadly, I only get 3 free sessions through EAP, so he’s trying to help me find someone else who I’ll work well with (and can afford, which will be the real challenge), but I seriously got more out of that one session then I did in all the months I saw my last person. I’m actually hopeful that I might start feeling happier eventually!

      I went to a flea market this morning and did a tiny bit of retail therapy, and tomorrow I’m going to a friend’s birthday party,, so I’m getting out of the house at least somewhat.

    7. Jessen*

      I’m getting a lot better at dealing with mom issues and things like “sorry I have to go” or “sorry I’m not free” or just plain old not picking up the phone, without coming up with a giant reason why it would be absolutely impossible. It’s really hard to wrap my brain around

      I’m also planning that when thing-which-we-don’t-mention changes I’ll be moving farther away. It’ll be easier when I’m a ways away rather than right nearby, so just dropping by won’t be a thing.

      1. Raine*

        Good for you on dealing with those mom issues in a way that works for you! I’ve been working on that myself and trying to help my sister who still lives at home.

        1. Jessen*

          Thanks! I’ve been really trying to internalize the idea that you can’t reason with unreasonable people, and it’s ok to just not explain things. I’m kind of violating a lot of the normal boundary process because I know from experience that it’ll trigger a never ending battle. Frankly if I wanted to deal with arguments and rules lawyering over boundaries, I’d start babysitting toddlers.

          It’s just simpler to accept that my mother is never going to “get” boundaries. I limit contact, especially in private, and keep myself out of situations where I can’t realistically excuse myself. If I don’t have the energy, I don’t engage.

    8. Raine*

      Struggling with learning how to manage RA (so many pills) and the amount of time I have to spend laying down makes me feel useless in a way. Still coming to terms with having RA and progressive hearing loss at 19. Also, I’ve been really grumpy. I think it’s the involuntary sugar moratorium (I am in between jobs so I’ve not been able to buy my usual sweets on top of necessary expenses).

      On the upside, I started a new medication to try and calm down my jerk brain. Not sure if it’s working, might need to up the dose. This is my 6th medication and I’m hoping I won’t have to change it because it’s the first time that I haven’t had terrible side effects.

    9. Julia*

      I’ve been worse, but it’s definitely not good lately. I graduated with my master’s yesterday, but all jobs I’m being offered are for the same admin type work I did before (and I didn’t even do all admin, there was a lot of translating and interpreting involved, but people still looked down on me). Plus my husband goes back to work next week, so I’ll have a lot of time to stew by myself.
      Made an appointment with my therapist, will try to see some friends (thank God for friends on maternity leave who are home during the week) and booked my first voice lesson – of course now I’ve also caught a cold. -.-

    10. Anonymosity*

      Horrifyingly bad the last two days–I actually had to cut a half block off my walk on Friday because my anxiety was so high I could barely breathe. And this was coming off a bout of depression where I haven’t even been able to get off the sofa unless it was absolutely necessary.

      Today was much better, after going to meditation group. We meet in the very large hall of a church who graciously allows us use of their space and there is a kitchen next to the big room. The kitchen is equipped with a large pass-through window, covered by a metal shutter that’s usually pulled down (and was today, thank goodness).

      Today, not long after the facilitator started our sit, someone began doing dishes in the kitchen. You could hear the industrial dishwasher going, the bang and rattle of cups and plates, trays thumping, and water running. I’ve done dishwashing work and I could picture everything they were doing by the sounds they made. It went on almost through our entire 30-minute meditation and got louder and louder as it did. At one point, I was silently laughing and could hear the facilitator doing the same–it was kind of hilarious!

      During our discussion, we all talked about how it was a good exercise in mindfulness, in being present and not letting things get to you at the same time. I actually felt better after this instead of getting irritated by it, probably because being with the group makes such good energy.

    11. families!*

      Having a hard time..it’s the birthday of someone I was really close to who passed away and this year I miss them terribly. I’m also struggling with how I reject people even though I would like more friends and perhaps a partner eventually, including not being mindful enough so I hurt people I love. Feeling a bit defeated by it all.

    12. StellaBella*

      I hope the meeting with your nephew goes well. Am sorry for all on the thread it’s been a heck of a week, sounds like. Thank you also, Junior Dev, for this thread it is helpful to read and as a space to share that is a safe space.
      I am ok – great in lots of ways – turned in my MSc thesis this past week, and am done – just waiting 2 months for grades! So that was a big deal. But, I am not great in other ways. I need to move back home in November-ish – after wanting to move back in October – but paperwork and visas and moving with my cat etc – it is going to be done, just will take a while longer than I thought. And I would like to start working again – but …. am having a lot of anxiety about work after my last 2 jobs of dealing with very, very toxic workplaces. I took a year off to do this MSc and I am excited to move forward with it all as a refined career – just need to plan, and be careful with finances, and network.
      In other news I did get my cat a new travel crate (soft sided for the plane) and am feeding her treats in it, and she seems to rub against it – it is also on my bed so she sleeps near/on the fold out door so am hoping this lessens the trauma she may feel in a move.

    13. JaneB*

      Bad week, bad month, bad summer. Students start back tomorrow & all I want to do is hide under the duvet and cry…

      Gah, stupid brain…

    14. Alpha Bravo*

      It sounds like many of us are having a tough week (or so). I’m struggling with grief. It’s hitting me hard for no discernible reason, my face hurts from crying and I’m exhausted just trying to be some kind of normal right now. Ugh. I don’t feel very good about myself either, Junior Dev. I guess I’m proud of organizing and catering a weekly family Netflix Night at my mobility-impaired Mom’s place. It makes her really happy, and that makes me happy.

  35. kerlin*

    Does anyone have personal experience with Al-Anon? I’m dealing with high-functioning alcoholism in a close family member that is pretty directly impacting (logistically AND emotionally) my day to day life, and it’s really hard. But each time I read more about Al-Anon I get uneasy. It feels like victim-blaming and learned helplessness. I get that there’s nothing I can do to change this person’s behavior, but it really irks me to read “avoid doing things that might make them drink” because…that’s everything.

    So: is my impression wrong? Any other suggestions for place to go for help? I live in a very small rural community so I’m also concerned that I’ll have to travel a fair ways to find a meeting where I would not be known.

    1. AnonNeedsClothes*

      This isn’t the easiest thing in small, rural communities– I know firsthand being from one– but how about therapy? At the very least, therapy for you to help you deal with your family member and get advice from a neutral source. If you’re not comfortable going to someone local you might want to try the online therapy options that exist now where you can talk on the phone or text with a therapist (or even video chat if you’re internet connection is strong enough).

      It’s not cheap, but you also might not need to see the therapist for very long! Especially if what you’re looking for is mostly just tools to help you communicate with your family. My former therapist only saw me 4-5 times when I was going through a rough patch, I got some helpful advice from her on how to support myself and after that there was no need to keep seeing her.

    2. fposte*

      Why not go to one and see what you think? You can always say “Nah.”

      A relative found it really helpful, and I don’t think they found a lot of “avoid doing things that might make them drink”–it was more “stop walking on eggshells to protect them” and “you can’t save the drowning swimmer by going down with them.” (Now I’m thinking of the great quote in Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, where one attendee talks about having to bring her passed-out husband in from the lawn before the neighbors woke up and saw him, and another attendee says “Honey, just leave him lay where Jesus flang him.”)

      That being said, it’s 2018; Al-Anon was created in the years before the internet. It’s possible an online forum might provide you with similar support, if you can find a good one.

    3. Nerdgal*

      Al anon alumna here. I think your impression is wrong. No victim blaming that I remember and definitely not even a whiff of “make” them drink.
      Why not go to a meeting or 2 and see for yourself?

    4. foolofgrace*

      Al-Anon former attendee here. I found it to be a lifesaver. No blaming, just strategies or even a place to vent with no judgment. I will say that every meeting group is different — they say to try six meetings before making a determination to stay or give up on it. It might be hard to find multiple groups in a small community, though. I’m sorry you don’t have more available. Also, I don’t see a stigma in going to Al-Anon whereas there might be in going to AA, for example. It is, after all, anonymous. Some people look at Al-Anon as cheap therapy. And remember, at Al-Anon if you don’t want to talk, all you have to do is say “I think I’ll just listen today, thanks.”

    5. Dino*

      I’d say to go to one and see what you think. I went to one and found that it wasn’t helpful for me, but I’m still glad I went to check it out. I personally didn’t get much out of it since I didn’t “choose” my alcoholic (thanks mom) and had cut off contact with her so the codependence thing didn’t apply to me, and I also was never into covering up her drinking or making things appear okay to the outside world. But I think it can be a useful support group if one feels comfortable there.

    6. Notthemomma*

      Each group is a bit different in how they are set up and operate, so if the first doesn’t fit, others may. There are also online groups which may fit your needs. There has never been any victim blaming or learned helplessness that I’ve seen, my experience has been more of ‘ this is going on, this is how we can deal with it’. Good luck to you.

    7. dawbs*

      There are some problematic things about it–but it’s still often useful. I struggled w/ some of the helplessness–but I think struggling w/ admitting helplessness is part of the human condition. I never experienced the ‘avoid doing things that make them drink’ attitude, I found the ‘this is beyond your control’ countered that in helpful ways.

      I’d say it’s like finding any other group–if you go and you hate it, go to another one. Because if you go to about 3 different meetings, you’ll find 3 very different experiences.
      (It’s…kinda like finding a church. While an AOG church and a Presbyterian church and a Catholic church are all church, the experiences are pretty different)
      And, if you still need a tool and those odn’t work, consider Adult children of alcoholics (even if the person isn’t your parent-some of the tools are helpful), or, if you’re of religious bent, Celebrate REcovery.
      There are other options, although some of the struggles and problems with the groups are universal parts of the problem of substance abuse.

    8. Friend of Bill and Lois*

      Long time member of Al Anon
      It saved my life.
      No blaming.
      Good support on how to live my life while interacting with an active drinker.
      The only requirement for membership is if someone else’s drinking bothers you.
      I am dealing with the 5th family member who is on a downward slide.
      I know what my side of the street is. I know how to detach with love. It takes time but you will get through this.

    9. Jen Erik*

      I went to my local one for some years: really resented having to go – my thought was – not my problem, why should I be the one to attend meetings? – but found it really helpful. I did worry that I might know people there, and my town is small enough that I had connections to some people, but that was just okay, somehow.
      I never came across “avoid doing things…” as advice. (Have to say: properly stupid advice.) In fact, I can only remember one interaction where someone came close to giving advice, where an attendee who was very anxious about a family member had hatched a plan that was both technically illegal and medically unwise and another very experienced attendee skirted round the edges of advice-giving to suggest it wasn’t a great idea.
      As I understood it, the idea is that you come for yourself, talk (or don’t talk) about your own situation and listen to other people talk about theirs. You aren’t there to help anyone but yourself. So if you find it doesn’t help, it’s fine not to go.
      I think the ‘try it for six weeks’ idea is a good one: it was always suggested to new people. An awful lot of people spend the first meeting in tears (I fulminated instead).
      My big revelations from my years of attendance sound really trivial, but were important to me – it helped me understand something that I had accepted intellectually, but didn’t actually know – that this wasn’t my fault – and also that alcoholism is frequently a fatal illness.

  36. Fabulous*

    I’m almost 21 weeks pregnant due the end of January 2019, found out I’m having a boy, and yet I still haven’t announced it to Facebookland. Meanwhile I know several people due around the same time, some even later than me, who have shouted it to the world on FB. I feel so lost, LOL.

    FOMO is for real, guys!

    1. Sunny Day in the ADK*

      I never mentioned my pregnancy on Facebook. I did make a vague reference to needing to purchase bigger sized pants, but that was it.

    2. Reba*

      Yeah, it can be easy to feel like EVERYBODY is doing it one way, while you’re all alone doing it your way. But often that’s not true. FB is like, the ultimate medium for second guessing yourself. Hope your pregnancy is going well!

    3. Awkward Interviewee*

      I hear you. I’m 13 weeks and not really sure if/when I want to announce on Facebook. Announcing seems to really vary so whatever you do is probably fine. Husband told his work team recently. (He’s been coming to my prenatal appointments and wanted to give some context for why he’s been out for more appointments recently.) One of his coworkers said oh this is awkward my wife is having a baby next month. Uhhh when exactly was he planning to tell them he’d be out a few weeks for parental leave?

    5. NewMom*

      I posted a picture of pregnant me in January. That was our announcement on FB. We emailed close friends and family well before then–in September or so.

      I had the baby mid-February. And he was late.

    7. Traffic_Spiral*

      Don’t announce it until you want to. It really doesn’t make that much difference, so just do whatever makes you feel the most comfortable.

    1. CatCat*

      The cable car museum! It is free! Super interesting historical information about the cable car system and the museum is housed in the building where the workings are to operate the system. Super neat because you can actually see the various apparatuses that run the cables. It’s right near the outer edges of Chinatown so it’s off the Chinatown main drag and you can find some cool restaurants and shops. We went to a hole in the wall vegetarian restaurant that was good and super cheap. Get the bao if you go!

      Get a Clipper Card and load some money onto it. That will get you around the city on MUNI and BART for cheap.

      Walk along the Embarcadero!

    2. Anonymous Educator*

      Good, cheap places to eat:
      Bill’s Place
      Art’s Cafe
      Kim Son Restaurant

      Free places to walk around and/or enjoy the scenery:
      Kirby Cove
      Fort Funston
      Sutro Baths
      Twin Peaks
      Golden Gate Park (bison paddock, Stow Lake, area in between De Young and Academy of Sciences)

    3. MissGirl*

      Alcatraz but get tickets early and walking across the bridge and through the national park area around.

    4. Woodswoman*

      If you’re up for a walk, my favorite for out-of-town visitors is to start in Chinatown, through North Beach, and walk up to Coit Tower. On the inside, Coit Tower has impressive murals painted during the Depression. For a few dollars, take the elevator ride up into the tower if it’s a clear day for views.

      The key to exploreing Chinatown is to avoid the touristy places. Skip Grant Street and walk instead up Stockton one block over and poke into the side streets and alleys. Ross Alley has some cool history and murals, and the fortune cookie factory is interesting. There are some good walking tours of the neighborhood.

      City Guides, run by the SF Public Library, offer terrific walking tours all over the city for free and they’re excellent. Check out their website to see a variety of options.

      I second Golden Gate Park. One place to check out is the free observation deck at the deYoung Museum in the park. You can visit the observation deck without paying for admission. Also, although it’s a little pricey, the cafe there has excellent food if you want to have lunch in the park. Nearby also is the Japanese Tea Garden.

      One last thing. If you are driving, never ever ever leave anything visible in your car, even if it’s just for a few minutes. If you’re putting things in and out of your trunk, do it somewhere away from where you park. Break-ins are epidemic and the issue is in the news all the time.

      Have a great trip!

      1. Erika22*

        +1 to CityGuides free walking tours! I recommend the Hitchcock and Castro tours (but really any of them will be excellent!)

    5. Sunflower*

      My favorite thing I’ve ever done in SF is bike over the Golden Gate. I rented a bike near North Beach and went through Presido and Crissy Field. I think it was $30 to rent a bike for the day- which you can use to bike other places as well. I love the Ferry building also. Dolores Park is hit or miss IMO. If you have a car, I’d recommend going to Marin County- that’s where you get the best views of the city.

    6. Traffic_Spiral*

      Not cheap-cheap, but get yourself some good cioppino (Italian-American fish/tomato stew) when you’re there. It’s really something else.

  38. AnonNeedsClothes*

    So I accepted a new job this week! The reason I’m posting now and not yesterday is that I’m a little panicked about my work wardrobe. Currentjob is the epitome of casual– a coworker of mine showed up to a meeting wearing sweatpants, a t-shirt, and loud running sneakers and there was no water cooler conversation about it. That casual, ha.

    Newjob, based on my interview, is much more traditional business casual. I should be able to make it through the first couple weeks with my “dressier” clothes from currentjob but I have a huge gap in my wardrobe with shoes and pants. I got a bit lazy wearing sneakers and jeans the last couple years. If anyone can recommend truly comfortable but professional-looking shoe/pants brands I would appreciate it! Newjob has parking but it’s not directly adjacent to the building and I might even opt to take the bus instead of drive– so I need to be able to really walk in whatever new shoes I buy.

    1. TheWonderGinger*

      I’m in the same boat! Nobody blinks an eye at my leggings and chucks at current job but new job is in a hospital and I am scrambling to find real pants! I personally (30F) like Maurices brand pants, they come in multiple inseams and the waistbands have stretch to them and they wash nice. Usually can snag them at a good price with a coupon or on sale as well.

      I am a high heel devotee and I find that a block heel is much more comfortable for all day wear vs a stiletto. Also, could always wear sneakers on commute and slip into dressier shoes at office.

    2. Red Reader*

      I’m a fan of Rothys flats — they come in several styles, round toe and pointed, and many colors. They’re also ridiculously comfortable — The last pair I got, I took them out of the box, put them on my feet and went for a three mile walk with no problems, and I wore them around Disneyworld for a couple of days to the tune of ten miles a day last week. They’re a little expensive, but discount codes are available, and I’ve found that between the comfort and the durability, they’re worth the price.

      1. Arjay*

        Ooh, I’ve wondered about Rothy’s; thanks for the tip. I have a well-worm pair of Tieks that are that comfortable out of the box, but the prices are steep. I bought a pair of Flytes and the footbed is a dream, but they’re giving me those sore spots by my Achilles’ tendons. Just have to break them in, I guess.

    4. Smarty Boots*

      Walk in sneakers (or hiking boots if it’s wet or snowy), change into nice shoes work. Otherwise you will hurt your feet and wear out your expensive dressy shoes.

    5. Raine*

      Check out DSW or Famous Footwear for shoes. They are always running deals of some kind and have lots of options that are professional and comfy. Old Navy also sells some cute flats that are plain suede in multiple color options. They were about $8 when I got mine. Seconding the recommendation for Ann Taylor for pants. Banana Republic or Express can be good options as well. Second hand stores can be hit or miss, but are worth combing through if you have a few hours to go to a handful of consignment stores.

    6. Woodswoman*

      For business casual, my go-to pants are LL Bean’s Bayside pants. They have a number of different styles, colors, and lengths. I live in mine for work as well as anywhere I need to wear something less casual than jeans. They’re machine washable, comfortable, and last forever. Plus LL Bean has outstanding customer service online or on the phone, and guarantees their stuff and you can return it even after you’ve washed it if turns out not to work for you. If I’m trying something new, I typically buy different sizes and then return the one that doesn’t fit.

    7. Jenny F. Scientist*

      I stand all day and am a big fan of black clogs, like Danskos. Super snazzy, no, but definitely count as professional! They come in a lot of nifty colors but, for wide feet, only in black (alas). I’ve also had good luck with Clarks shoes (check 6pm.com – it’s Zappos’ clearance site!) – they were pretty comfy, but didn’t last as well. Rockports are nice, but tend to run narrow (their wide is no wider than a C for sure).

    8. Aurora Leigh*

      For slacks I like the Arizona bootcut ones from JC Penneys. They come in teen sizes, but I just go up one size from my usual and they fit well. I think they’re called Schoolgirl, but the fit ias actually the most similiar to jeans I’ve found. I also like Lee brand ones, but it’s a more traditional cut.

      For shoes, I really like Klogs. They’re super comfortable and long lasting. I paid close to $90 for mine, but I wear them every single day.

  39. Kick In The Pants*

    I’m desperate for motivation to exercise on a regular basis. I really do want to but I find it far too easy to make excuses. I need to do laundry, that time of the month and I don’t feel well, hard day at work so I’d rather relax than exercise. What can I do to break this cycle?

    1. AnonNeedsClothes*

      I’m a pretty lazy person by nature and the only thing that gets me exercising is knowing that I’m going to have fun. This might sound weird, but I’ve discovered yoga is actually pretty fun for me– I like the challenge of balance poses. I’ve learned to enjoy running– but it HAS to be outdoors so I can check out a new neighborhood, pet some dogs along the way, etc lol. That means that when it’s 10 degrees out I just don’t run anymore because I hateeeee treadmills.

      Since you mentioned laundry– I will sometimes use things like that to get me off the couch and moving. I’ll get up, put a load in, and then immediately go change into my workout clothes and do something for at least the 20-30 minutes I have laundry running. Don’t sit back down!

      1. Kick in the Pants*

        I’m trying to bribe myself into walking/running by saying that I can only listen to my podcasts while I’m working out. And that’s nice because all my podcasts are at least 30 min long so I’m guaranteed to be moving at least that long. I haven’t been terribly successful with this technique but at least I’ll have a huge back load of podcasts to listen to when I do get into it.

    2. Dan*

      How pessimistic do you want to be? You can tell yourself that your long-term health and what not depends on it. If you’re healthy now, do you want to stay that way? TBH, my kick in the pants was going on a transatlantic cruise with my parents. It was fun and all, but there was something really depressing: It was the largest cruise ship in the world (at the time) full of nothing but old people with very noticeable health problems. I told myself that I was healthy “enough” now, but the kicker is that I want to stay that way.

      When we got to Fort Lauderdale cruise port, there was a “regular” line for customs, and a “global entry” line (customs thing for skipping the regular line.) Except the line wasn’t set up like it is at the airport (airport has automated kiosks, this was just a separate line for a human officer), and also doubled as the “disabled” line. I actually have no idea how many people actually had global entry, but my parents went through the “regular” line, and beat me out of the customs area. Several people had difficulty standing for that long period of time.

      So yeah, that was *my* kick in the pants. I don’t want to be like that in 30-40 years.

    3. Dr. Vanessa Poseidon*

      I find that when I’m lacking time or motivation to exercise, YouTube exercise videos are a good option (I like Fitness Blender, but there are a ton out there). Not having to leave my home removes one hurdle to doing something active, and there are plenty of videos that give you an effective workout in about half an hour. I can almost always convince myself to workout if I just think, “it’s 32 minutes…you can commit to this for 32 minutes.”

      1. Traffic_Spiral*

        Yup – I do “Power Yoga” workout videos, and also bought a kettlebell that I can use around the house. Little bits of time eventually add up.

    4. FD*

      I’m desperate for motivation to exercise on a regular basis.

      You can’t rely on motivation–motivation is just a feeling. It will never be consistent enough to let you build a new habit.

      How can you create a situation where inertia is working for you instead of against you? You want to set up a situation where it feels easier to exercise than to not workout. Here’s a few tricks I’ve had a lot of success with to build habits I wanted to.

      1. Wanted to go from couch potato to working out. Rented a locker at the gym and put my makeup there (tie, good shoes, anything needed for work would have done as well). To get ready for work, I had to at least go to the gym. I didn’t have to workout, but I had to physically go to the gym. Once I was out of bed, and at the gym, it felt silly not to work out for at least a few minutes–even if it was only 10 minutes. Once you have a consistent habit, it’s easier to expand it to longer workouts.

      2. Wanted to go to bed earlier. Found it was difficult because I tended to stay up and play online instead. Bought a program (Cold Turkey–not affiliated, I get no financial gain from recommending it) that locks me out of the internet/specific programs at times I specify. Once my browser has been force-quit, it feels like you might as well turn in.

      3. Wanted to eat better. Biggest issue was impulse spending on fast food. Started carrying cash + an emergency, low-limit debit card only, which meant that the cash I carried metered how much fast food I could actually buy. Also started taking public transit and getting off where it wasn’t that convenient to walk to any fast food place.

      Generally speaking, the goal is that you want to set up something where it’s easier to just do the behavior you do want, and hard, inconvenient, or impossible to do the behavior you don’t want. Don’t spend time chasing motivation and/or beating yourself up for not having it. It’s a losing game.

      2. Parenthetically*

        “motivation is just a feeling. It will never be consistent enough to let you build a new habit.”

        +1000

      3. nep*

        Spot on about motivation. It’s a feeling that comes and goes–our health and fitness mustn’t depend on it.

      4. CheeryO*

        Yup. Discipline, not motivation. Watching the Boston Marathon on TV is motivating as hell, but I’ve forgotten the feeling by the next morning and it doesn’t matter anymore, all that matters is that I’m tired and don’t feel like it. Remind yourself why you do it, whether it’s to improve your mental health or physical health or to train for a race or whatever, and just do it. It also gets a lot easier once it’s a habit – the hardest part is the first few weeks of building momentum.

    5. Cruciatus*

      Something that gets me out of the house to go on a walk some days is Pokemon Go. It’s a virtual reality game and requires satellites so you have to interact with the real world in order to really make much progress in the game. This might be too derpy for you, but there’s also things like geocaching (finding stuff hidden in plain sight out in the world), or enlisting a friend to go with you. You may be looking for more aerobic exercise, but I’m just a walker and none of this ever feels like too much when I’m doing it and having a goal with Pokemon Go (or sometimes geocaching) makes it fun and not “ugh, I’m out here walking for no good reason!”

      Otherwise, could you exercise on the days you have to do laundry–throw it in and you work out for as long as the washer cycle takes? Or the old “just 15 minutes then I can stop” routine (this has worked for me as well). For me, the hardest part is always just starting–but once I’ve made it to that point I’m usually good for the next 30-60 minutes.

    6. rogue axolotl*

      In my experience, the hardest is when you’ve been out of the habit of exercising for a while. Once I get into a regular routine, I don’t like to stop, because I know it makes me feel better. To build up a routine, I find it helpful to have some social and/or financial pressure–joining a class, buying a pass, finding a work-out buddy. It also has to be a kind of exercise I don’t hate.

    7. Parenthetically*

      A few things that have worked for me:

      1. Reframing exercise as EXACTLY the kind of self-care I need and will benefit from after/before/in the midst of a hard day, rather than as yet another obligation.
      2. Focusing only on workouts I can finish in around a half hour. I do not have the mental energy for a 90 minute workout, or even a 45 minute one. I do heavy weights and HIIT so I can be DUNZO 25 minutes after I start. There’s a ton of free stuff out there — Dr. Vanessa Poseidon mentioned Fitness Blender, and I second that.
      3. Just putting on my damn workout clothes. Once I’m dressed for the workout, I feel like I’m halfway there.
      4. Accountability. I’m in a group where we post post-workout photos every day that we work out. I work out four days a week so I post four photos a week.

    8. Max Kitty*

      The two things that really have helped me:

      1. I paid for a two-month Pilates class. If I don’t go, that’s wasted money. Having paid for the class really makes me go.
      2. I joined an online exercise goals group. Every month we post an exercise-minutes goal. Many times I haven’t felt like getting up off the couch, but I went for a walk anyway so I could get the 10 or 15 or 20 minutes to reach the next milepost to the goal.

    10. Libervermis*

      I take classes, with a friend if I can manage. It’s more expensive than going for a run by myself or doing a video at home, but it’s the only way I consistently exercise. I just have to get myself to the location (that’s where the friend comes in handy) and someone else will take over from there. Then I just have to do what I’m told for an hour.

      And I second AnonNeedsClothes that you have to find exercise you enjoy. I do aerobics-style weightlifting and cardio dance/Zumba primarily. Are kickboxing or cycling (other available class options) or something like running or CrossFit probably better overall workouts? Yup. But I wouldn’t do them. So I stick to the classes I find fun even if it’s not the most efficient use of my exercising time.

    11. The Other Dawn*

      For me, I have to just flip that switch in my mind: just suck it up and do it. Easier said than done, I know, but that’s what I tell myself almost everyday and that’s what gets me through. It’s 45 minutes of my day and once I’m done, I’m done and I feel great. Plus it really helps my back pain; my back feels best when I’m moving. I blogged about exercise awhile back. If you care to read, I linked to that particular post in my username. It’s more about my weight loss and keeping it off, but exercise ties into it. Good luck!

    12. Ender*

      I just read 168 hours which is supposed to motivate me to see that I actually DO have the time and saying I don’t is just excuses. I’m currently in phase 1 – tracking a week – to see what I actually spend my 168 hours doing. So far I’m finding I waste a lot of time.

    13. gecko*

      I’ve been exercising at least once a week for half a year now—the longest I’ve ever kept up a habit of exercising!

      So my success is a little limited, but I’m still close enough to your situation to remember it.

      I eventually identified that my two biggest problems were:

      1. It’s really boring

      2. It feels BAD

      For 1, I chanced on a podcast (the Critical Role podcast) that hits the sweet spot of “absorbing” and “if I stop paying attention for a sec I don’t really have to rewind.”

      For 2…exercise would feel really bad to me. When you get a fever your body just has a sense of wrongness, for instance, and while I didn’t feel febrile, my body was telling me NOPE. Then I’d give up in the middle and feel emotionally bad!

      What solves that is going easy on myself—I reaalllly prefer low-intensity workouts, and I’ve learned to make sure even higher intensities don’t feel so awful.

      So what I’m saying is…be really honest with yourself about what your blockers are. Do you always find yourself skipping your yoga class? Do you just not. like. yoga? Do your only yoga pants make you feel ugly? Can you not bring yourself to call the yoga place to sign up?

      Be as picky as you want and just remind yourself, you WANT to work out. There’s a blocker there that’s not just you being lazy—there’s something that feels too hard or IS too hard. What is that and how can you make it easier?

    14. Old Biddy*

      having a few workout buddies used to help me (back when I lived near them) we’d make loose plans to exercise after work. If someting big came up, it was NBD, but having the loose plans kept us from skipping just because we were feeling unmotivated.
      Unfortunately, now I’m living at the opposite end of the country from my workout buddies and fell into the bad habit of procrastinating at my desk until it was too late to exercise and still have dinner with my husband. So now I have two nights that are workout nights and he’s on his own for dinner.
      If I’m still unmotivated, I’ll tell myself to just go to the gym and do as little as I want. I mostly find that I am fine once I get there, but once in a while I really am too tired and only work out a little bit.

    15. Woodswoman*

      Perhaps an exercise video you could work out with at home would work for you. I don’t like going to gyms, and my exercise has typically been aerobic walking, so I’ve found that videos are good if the weather makes it uninviting to go outdoors. Just be careful to do something that’s low-impact so you don’t injure yourself, since you won’t have an instructor.

    16. moql*

      When I’m having trouble with motivation I put my workout clothes in the car and don’t let myself go home from work directly. I have to go to the gym and do at least one thing. The hardest part for me is leaving the couch when I’ve sat down and this cuts that out.

    17. AvonLady Barksdale*

      To be honest, the best thing for me was to work out early in the morning. I no longer work out (that’s another issue!) but I take a long walk every morning. It worked because I’m wired to wake up with my alarm and I simply cannot get back to sleep, so when the alarm went off at 6:30 or whatever, I was up. That’s how it goes with my walking; the alarm goes off and I am UP.

      It also worked because I never had an entire day to make excuses. I got up and went to the gym and got it out of the way. Then I got to the point where I don’t truly wake up unless I’ve had some exercise; when I’m out of town, I usually find myself getting sleepy by 10am because I haven’t done my 5000 steps. So if you’re one of those horrid morning people like me, that might be something to try.

    18. Catherine*

      For about three months now I’ve been doing a short at-home workout when I get up most mornings. Every single day I do yoga while listening to a Headspace meditation; on mornings I don’t have to be at work before noon I then put on some music and do a few sets of scissor kicks, curls, crunches, squats etc.

      My big thing to make it a habit was to add it to my bullet journal so that I was forced to check it off or acknowledge that I skipped, and to integrate it into my morning routine: wake, take notes if I remember my dreams (this is actually really helpful for pinpointing the source when I’m having free-floating anxiety!), Headspace/yoga, work out, then I’m allowed to shower and start my day.

      1. Catherine*

        Also, find a way to turn the shower after into a reward! I got myself a nice shower gel that I’m only allowed to use on workout days.

    19. Nacho*

      It helps if you exercise in your own home. Buy an exercise bike or a treadmill, or just run in place (that’s what I do). Going outside can be a pain in the ass, and going to the gym even more so, but there’s no excuse for not spending at least 30-40 minutes a day, 3 times a week doing some basic cardio to stay in shape.

    20. The Other Dawn*

      As a few others have mentioned, working out at home is a great thing. There’s absolutely no excuse (that I can think of) to not be able to do it. You don’t need equipment to do it, nor do you need a ton of space. Just do some body weight exercises, like squats, lunges, push ups (however it’s easiest for you: against the wall, on an incline, or a full push up), jogging in place, etc. You can go to the Nerd Fitness website and find the “beginner’s body weight workout” and it will give you some basic exercises. Although, I feel that particular workout should be cut in half (number of reps) for a true beginner–I wouldn’t have been able to do it when just starting out.

      Also, start slow. Do *something* for five minutes a day and give yourself permission to stop. Quite often you’ll find that you want to keep going.

    21. Anna*

      Hi there, Lots of good advice already. This is my take: I do exercise because I want to stay in good health, that is my long time motivation. But I cannot really use something that might happen/not happen in years to motivate me. I thought about what would motivate me now? I really crave being alone, I am an introvert in an extrovert job. Now all the exercise I do I do alone. Walking, hiking, biking, swimming, even exercising on a mat in my living room. I hate the gym I hate classes. Now I do not think, I have to exercise, I think yes now is my alone time. I have a friend, she works alone and have no family, her motivation is the social life at gym. We both have the same long time motivation, but our short time motivation is opposite

  40. Amber Rose*

    We’re going to a virtual reality arcade today! I didn’t even know this place existed until recently so I’m kind of excited. I love VR. I am a Beat Saber master, and I can’t shoot an arrow to save my life. Good times.

    It’s been a really, really rough week so I’m hoping to have a little fun and relax.

  41. Violaine*

    I’ve been waiting all week to say this. My local library system in my new town has a “Suggest a Title” option on their website. They claim that it can take several months for a title to get approved as it’s a lengthy process. I requested Alison’s most recent book (which I own digitally but the library didn’t have anything by her) and it got approved VERY quickly. It’s on-order! Hooray!

    1. Lily Evans*

      I’d be willing to bet the website only says it’s a lengthy process to dissuade people from contacting the library to check on the request status. People are weirdly intense about library requests sometimes.

  42. Anonymous Ampersand*

    Last yearRamona Flowers mentioned the website do you 10q which is a website which emails a question a day for ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur then locks them in a vault and emails them back to you next year. I’m not Jewish, but they are ok with non-Jewish people doing it! The questions are for self reflection and you can answer as many or as few as you want.

    Last year I only answered two because of the whole “planning to leave Y” thing I couldn’t get my head rod writing more but this year, oh my goodness. Day 7 and I’m writing answers daily and I will miss it when it finishes and I already am looking forward to getting these answers back next year.

    So, on the off chance Ramona still reads the comments, thank you so much.

    And for everyone else I’ll put the link in a reply.

  43. Jackie*

    Wondering if anyone can recommend shoes for Zumba that don’t stick on the floor when you dance. My walking shoes make my knees hurt :(

    1. Lily Evans*

      You could try dance sneakers. If you have a dance supply store near you they’re usually super great at assessing class needs and fitting shoes for specific dance activities. If you don’t have a store near you, Discount Dance is a good online option.

    2. Raine*

      Jazz shoes might be a good option. We wore them for color guard and they had enough traction that we wouldn’t slip and slide across the gym floor but not so much that we couldn’t do turns.

    3. Lilly*

      No specific brand but I like the foam bottomed shoes – I’m not sure if they are sports oriented but they just slip on and are comfy. The foam really helps with turning and sliding.

    4. LilySparrow*

      I found some that were marked as “cheer” shoes – they were like cross-trainers but had a round, bald pivot point under the ball of the foot, instead of straight tread running across. Several brands make them.

  44. Windchime*

    I’m a mid-50’s woman and I’m thinking about stopping coloring my hair. Yesterday’s open thread had a discussion about not coloring hair and whether or not that’s professional. My question is: How do I stop coloring my hair so that it grows out somewhat gracefully? A super-short haircut is a no-go; I’ve never had short hair and I’m not about to start now. Currently, it’s just past my collar in a layered cut. My stylist is lightening the base so I’m kind of a dishwater blonde at this point (my natural hair color used to be dark brown). I’d really like to just stop coloring but I don’t want to live through 2 years of having the ugly grow-out line. My hair is really pretty gray underneath the color; when it was colored darker, I would get an impressive skunk-stripe down my part after about 4 weeks.

    Any suggestions?

    1. HannahS*

      How about dyeing your dyed hair to match your existing? Like that trendy grey the kids are doing? It would damage your already-dyed hair, I think, because you have to get it pretty light first, but it might work.

    2. Reba*

      Change the coloring from single-process to a highlights or balayage style application. This softens the root line that you see. Do that a few times, and then you should be good to let it just grow. It will be more expensive than single process, but you should be able to do it less frequently. Good luck and I hope your hair turns out beautifully!

    3. SpellingBee*

      Talk to your stylist about using a temporary color to get through the growing-out stage. I used to have a glaze put on my hair to add some color and cover the beginnings of gray. It lasted about 2-3 months and washed out gradually so there was never a hard line, and it didn’t damage my hair the way permanent color would have. You might have to do it more often than that, but a combination of lightening the dark bits as you’re already doing and darkening the light bits a little might ease you through the transition.

    4. Madge*

      Try highlights and low lights. You can get a great look, maintenance is less than full color and it helps the grey grow in gracefully.

    5. MRK*

      Definitely talk with your stylist. Along with various glazes and such to help blur harsher lines, there’s also way more options for grey dye now! She may have options not only to help the new growth blend in, but also to adjust the existing dyed hair. Good stylists can even put together a multi appointment plan that evolves as your hair grows out (adjusting tinting as you go, subtly moving things towards grey as you grow out, etc) I just saw one that was the end of something like an 18-24 month grow out plan, and you could see how the overall coloring was changed to match the new growth better

      1. Windchime*

        I see a stylist every six weeks for coloring and trimming. Her advice is just to start coloring lighter and hopefully it will blend in. I was just hoping to hear from others who had grown their hair out.

  45. ann other a non*

    I have an older sibling who is a professional student and our parents and other family members disagree with me that sibling is afraid or unwilling to be in the real world. Sibling has a bachelor in sociology, a masters in art history and they just finished a PHD in humanities. A couple of weeks ago sibling started a bachelors in library science and education. Sibling says they will try to get a library job and if they can’t they will go for a master in library science. Sibling is in their 30s and has never ever worked or held any kind of job. They have been a full time professional student since they finished high school. Sibling has something like 300k in student loans and if you add the new bachelors or the potential masters it could be up to 500k. Our parents support sibling, pay all the bills, sibling still lives at home in their childhood room and our mom does all their laundry and shopping. Our dad has delayed retirement to keep working so they can afford for sibling to be at home. I think my sibling needs therapy and needs to get a job and be an adult. Our parents and other family members think sibling is brilliant and misunderstood and won’t have any trouble finding a job. Even though they have 3 useless degrees and are about to get a 4th and possibly 5th and have no work history. I have put my foot down that when my parents pass on or can’t support sibling I will have no part of supporting them. I am just so frustrated and needed to vent because it is frustrating that m family is blind to what everyone else sees.

    1. fposte*

      Vent away–this sounds really frustrating. But what you have here, as you probably realize, is a parent problem as much as or more than a sibling problem. It sounds like you’ve been really clear to your parents on what you can’t do, which is wise; you’re probably also planning for the likelihood that your parents are going to be more concerned with keeping her head above water than splitting assets equally after their death.

      And if you can, try to take a deep breath and get some distance. This didn’t happen in a day and it’s not going to change in a hurry even if it ever does, and there really isn’t a simple solution; it’s not likely your sister is like this out of a conscious choice or that your parents’ cutting her off will suddenly put her on a great job track. It’s incredibly frustrating when there’s the possibility of a much better outcome that isn’t taken, but your parents have decided it’s more important to them to back your sister, about whom they are likely quite worried, than to stick to their retirement plans or keep their credit clear. I was adjacent to a similar bad-choice cascade recently, and it was really hard to see it happen, but ultimately my connections were at peace with the choice they had made, so how I felt was beside the point.

    2. Loopy*

      I 1000% understand your frustration. Also, this may not matter, or be on topic, but in the U.S you can’t get much in the library world without a masters for library science. Also you don’t need the bachelors to get the masters, so it doesn’t make sense to get it at all, if this person is in the U.S and had done any research, I think most would have said it makes sense to go straight to the masters. So I would be extra frustrated by that fact.

      I’d also probably take your stance about not supporting them in the future. That kind of debt is the kind you don’t get out of. Period. There’s absolutely no practicality in their path. I’d want to scream and shake them even though parents are making a choice by supporting it.

      1. fposte*

        I missed the new bachelor’s part–yeah, that’s really superfluous.

        I think it’s pretty likely sib will end up defaulting and parents will end up on the hook for the loans. But I imagine in their hearts the parents know that too.

        1. Loopy*

          I’m realizing my comment maybe wasn’t super helpful but it’s just heartbreaking to me that the parents will suffer for it, even though they made the choice and know it is coming. I am thinking of my own dad of course so my own situation is biasing me! Still, so much commiseration for OP!

      2. Alice*

        Applying now to academic library liaison roles in the discipline where she got the PhD has a low probability of success… But it’s a higher probability than that of getting a professional library job with a library science bachelor’s. And it’s higher than the probability of getting a para-professional library job with a PhD.
        Is the plan just to stay in student loan forebearance for the rest of her life?

    3. AnonAcademic*

      I have an in-law with similar background. I say “not my circus, not my monkeys” – they are housed, clothed, and fed so their debt and underemployment is not my problem.

      As someone with a PhD it is absolutely unheard of to do a second bachelors immediately after, and suggests book smarts paired with low life skills to me. Someone capable and focused enough to finish a PhD should be capable of getting a job. I’m sorry your parents are so blind on this. Be glad its not drugs or gambling I guess?

    4. Thursday Next*

      One irreverent observation: this is like the setup of The Librarian, a made for TV movie I adore.

      It is quite possible your sibling *is* misunderstood, just not in the way your parents think. Perhaps your sibling’s actual needs and best interests haven’t actually been served by your parents’ behavior.

      Do you have a relationship with your sibling where you can ask about their plans and concerns? Have you talked to your parents about their plans for their future?

      It’s a very frustrating situation—I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. It can be especially frustrating not to be a direct party to what’s going on, so you have all the frustration with none of the ability to do anything about it.

      1. Nacho*

        That was a pretty good movie wasn’t it. Even got a short lived tv series based on it, which I mildly enjoyed.

    5. Kj*

      Sibling will never be independent. They will and can delay entering the real world forever. I’m glad you put your foot down about what you can do for them. Keep saying it- my guess is that it will be intentionally misunderstood by everyone, so you need to keep saying it so the can’t deny knowing. I’d also make it clear to your parents that if they put their retirement in jeopardy for sibling, you aren’t taking them in. This situation is sad- your parents are being ill used, but your sibling also sounds like they have serious issues they have never been addressed.

      1. Slartibartfast*

        If they’re like my sister, they’ll eventually marry and keep going to school while their spouse works. :( She’s on her 4th bachelor’s.

    6. Ender*

      That sounds really annoying. It’s upsetting when you can see so clearly what’s best for someone but they won’t listen. Learning to let go and let people make their own mistakes is one of the hardest lessons I’ve ever had to learn.

    7. blackcat*

      I have been a graduate student for less time than my brother was. In that time, I have gotten my MS and am a couple months away from my PhD. I have been financially independent since 21 (30 now), and have been a teacher, traveled a bunch, gotten married. You know, generally handled my own shit.

      My brother took 6 years to complete a three year MFA. He has lived at home, entirely supported by my parents. He does some freelance work, but his art is expensive to produce and he spends more on art supplies than he makes in freelance jobs (though he does profit from the commissioned work, just barely. But then he spends all of that–and more–on fancy new toys rather than saving for an apartment).

      I do think I’m in a slightly less frustrating position than you in that basically my entire family other than my parents thinks this is bananas. My dad has delayed retirement, too, but he’s super bitter and angry about it. My mom wants to keep supporting my brother indefinitely. I am frankly surprised they’re still married at this point, because the issue of my brother is clearly so divisive. My parents are well-to-do, so my brother’s not in debt, but my mind is always boggled by how much money my brother blows through.

      I do actually think that your sibling could quite possibly get a *teaching* job if they have been a TA/instructor in grad school. I might offer the advice that as a part of this new bachelors, they get a teaching license for their state. Then drop. the. rope. You don’t control your parents or your sibling. You can make it clear to them that they have made their financial mess and that you won’t be cleaning it up. Ever. Your sibling may struggle, but they will find *something* to do to support themself when they have to.

      1. Family Drama OP*

        This is interesting because I have a version of this problem. I posted about it above. So what happens when the parents need help or care because they’ve been bankrupted by the sibling? Are you saying ann other should leave them in the lurch?

        1. Not So NewReader*

          Basically you have to and that is because if you take this on sibling will bankrupt you also. We don’t give addicts more of their stuff and expect them to get better and this is not considered cruel. (Although with some addictions we -society- can help them walk down from the addiction.)

          Anyway it is probably safe to assume that any money given to the parents will eventually go to the dependent sibling. So you can give them well-thought out advice, you can give them time here and there. You can have them over for dinner, this type of thing. But no, if you take on the parents’ financial derailment you will get the sibling’s mess also. The hands are tied on this one.

          It’s an even bigger deal if the independent child is married or in a long term relationship and has a person (people) dependent on their income as part of the household budget. I read in some financial advice somewhere that it is unethical to short the people we live with in order to help the irresponsible people around us. In other words, what Mom is doing to Dad here is unethical. Mom can take on 2 or more jobs since she is the one who wants to support the sib and Dad can retire.

          I know this sounds a little harsh but Dad is getting pretty well beat up by working beyond what he had planned. So life is harsh for Dad here also.

          Mom and Dad will have to see a bankruptcy attorney and follow his directions. I believe if they accept money from others that would defeat the progress of their bankruptcy filing. I could be mistaken here.

          1. AcademiaNut*

            There’s also the option of offering very tightly controlled assistance. So instead of giving cash for rent, you pay rent money directly to their landlords. Or you pay the utility bills yourself. So you can do your best to make sure that they aren’t homeless, but keep them from spending your money on a deadbeat sibling (or drugs, or alcohol, or gambling, or whatever the money drain is).

            Something else that occurs to me – it might be a good idea to talk to a financial planner (or lawyer, maybe?) *now*. Set out the situation and your worries and ask about what happens if your parents are left destitute or drowning in debt late in life. So if things go as badly as you fear, you won’t be scrambling for information and resources in the middle of a crisis.

        2. blackcat*

          Yes. It’s easy for me to say that since my mom’s health is shit and my dad’s parents are alive a and kicking in theirs 90s, so I strongly suspect my mom will go before my dad and my dad will cut my brother off or place him on a sustainable budget.
          But if my parents somehow end up destitute because of my brother, that’s their problem. It would be an amount in the high 7 figures/low 8 figures, so A LOT of $$.

    8. Stellaaaaa*

      I understand how this situation would frustrate you, but it’s also far from being the worst sibling problem I’ve ever heard about. To you it might seem like your sibling is getting perks that you’re not (free rent, a work-free life), but they’re missing out on a whole lot too. Your sibling has decided not to enjoy an independent adult lifestyle for whatever reason, and I don’t think there’s any way to change that. Some people look at the world and decide that they don’t want to force themselves into it. We’re here posting to internet strangers on a Saturday, so I’m not going to judge that one bit. I hate 80% of people too.

      As for your parents, it sounds like they know that their adult child has some issues, and they feel that when they chose to have children, they were open to the possibility of having children with flaws. Parents have to wrangle with the children they’ve got. They don’t want to kick your sibling out, and your sibling has given them no reason to. By your account, your sibling lives a quiet, small life and is consumed with going to school.

      I think you should internalize the likely reality that someone with your siblings probable issues would not be served well by being forced to be independent. It simply wouldn’t work. You can’t force someone with profound problems to normalize.

    9. Aphrodite*

      I sympathize. It is truly a frustrating situation. I agree with others you have a parental rather than a sibling problem. I also agree that there is nothing you can do to change the situation if your parents are determined to let this continue.

      I have a sister who is now 66 I believe. All of her life she mooched off others. She’s probably worked no more than about four years total (weeks or months here and there) in her entire life and the last 20+ years not at all. She is involved in drugs and booze, though less now only because she can’t afford it. My father, who had 44.5 years of AA under his belt when he died in 2012, just kept saying, “All Katy needs to do is go to AA.” He never understood she never wanted to stop her lifestyle. And now she is completely dependent on government money without theft/begging from my parents, very little of which she will get when Mom passes on and likely lose her government-assisted housing and welfare. I believe Dad was primarily responsible for her chosen helplessness and now when she is older she will be cut completely off. Creditors will take whatever she comes into as she had massive credit card debt she ignored. What I see happening–street life, death–is so awful to think about I rarely do. I don’t know why I couldn’t get them to see this coming. But those parental hopes last long, I guess.

      Best of luck to you. Try to let go. If you’ve done a lot to try and persuade your parents they are heading down the wrong road and they won’t see it, you just have to let it go. I am sorry.

      1. jolene*

        My mother did this with my youngest sibling – threw money at them for 30 years, subsidised everything, bought them a house. My sibling is now entirely responsible for our mother’s elder care and knows not to complain to me about that.

  46. Loopy*

    I forgot to ask in my first post but does anyone here like/drink dessert teas? I love the idea but I struggle with not picking up subtle flavors. My weak sense of smell may be connected to some issues with less sensitive tastebuds. Does anyone know of dessert teas they really like and have a decently strong flavor? Looking for good aroma too of course :) I’ve been scouring the internet and got totally overwhelmed! I don’t have a go to brand to start with or anything!

    1. Raine*

      There’s a brand called Celestial that does amazing holiday/winter themed dessert flavors. I love their Christmas cookie flavor with a dash of cinnamon and tablespoon of sweetened condensed milk.

      1. Loopy*

        I adore Christmas so special Christmas flavors are super exciting to me and I’ll have to try and remember to look for those in a few months. I can’t wait for December!

    2. Detective Amy Santiago*

      Loose leaf tea will have stronger flavors, so you might want to try those. Adagio is a great online retailer for quality tea. I’ll add a few links to my next comment.

        1. Loopy*

          Thank you!!! That sweet tooth sampler looks perfect! I signed up to be notified when it comes back in stock :)

    3. NoMoreMrFixit*

      I like Rooibos as a dessert tea, either hot or as iced tea. While not specifically a dessert tea, Earl Grey is my go to drink for any occasion that doesn’t call for champagne.

        1. Julia*

          I thought I hated rooibos, until I tried the green variety. (The red stuff tastes like vomit to me.) I buy loose leaf flavored rooibos tea (peach is my favorite) that can be brewed cold, and it tastes very sweet and strong after a whole night in the fridge.

  47. KL*

    Handwriting to text app for samsung galaxy tab 3.

    Does anyone have any recommendations for a handwriting to text app? I don’t mean just for note taking, something that can handle longer things. I write better when I’m actually writing, but the process of typing up my handwritten stories into a text document is driving me nuts.

    I’ve tried the voice to text in google docs, but my stories tend to have names that aren’t common in english, and more annoying, dialogue heavy, and there isn’t a voice command for double quotes. I find voice to text annoying anyway, and would rather write something out.

  48. Keladry of Mindelan*

    I’m getting married in April! My fiance and I have already booked a venue, photographer, I have my dress, and we’ve sent out save-the dates. We’re currently doing tastings to try and pick a caterer. Things seem to be rolling pretty smoothly! We’re trying to keep the costs reasonable, but weddings are so expensive….

    What are some of the favorite things that you’ve seen at weddings? Do we really need a day-of coordinator? Perusing Pinterest is fun to a point, but can get overwhelming!

    1. Reba*

      Congrats!

      For me, the day-of coordinator was a luxury that was definitely worth the money. (Getting my hair done up and getting a special hair-doodad made, for example, was fine but not really worth it.) When something went wrong, I could just say, “Please tell that to Alicia” and not think about it any more. My parents paid for a lot–thanks parents!–and the coordinator was almost like the gift my mom gave to herself (my mom has a longterm case of responsible-itis).

      After my own wedding and several others as a guest, I am pro-assigned seats and pro-receiving line. In our case, the line was a serendipitous arrangement of head table on the way to the dessert buffet, so everyone passed us. Even though those seem stuffy and old-fashioned, they work!

      Catering tastings was one of the best parts of the planning process :)

      1. Keladry of Mindelan*

        Thank you!

        Yeah, everyone we’ve talked to has said that a day-of coordinator is worth it, so we’ll probably suck it up and find someone. (How does one find and screen for a good day-of coordinator?) I don’t want my mom to get stuck with random emergencies- she’ll be stressed enough as it is.

        The tastings are fun! Especially when they let us take the extra food home with us. Really can’t wait until we start doing dessert tastings…mmmm…

        1. Washi*

          If getting a day-of coordinator is an issue, do you have a super organized friend who could help? I had a local friend who was really involved in the planning anyway offer to be our DOC as her wedding present, and it was AMAZING. We would have been super stressed and enjoyed our wedding so much less without her.

        2. Slartibartfast*

          I had my husband’s cousin volunteer for the role. Apparently the best man’s sister’s glassbowl of a boyfriend showed up at the reception (he’d originally refused to come, because controlling glassbowl), took issue with sister dancing with groom’s brother (who was an usher but didn’t have a +1 with him) during the bridal party dance. Cousin bounced boyfriend out the door like she was security at a night club, and I knew nothing about it for 6 months.

      2. Marion Ravenwood*

        +1 to the receiving line. I didn’t want one originally, for similar reasons, but having seen it at friends’ weddings it is massively helpful for ensuring you get to say hello to everyone. Our venue had the ceremony in one room and the bar in the entrance hall so we stood next to the drinks table after coming out of our ceremony, which meant we saw everyone as they came to get a drink.

    2. Natalie*

      Our favorite thing from our wedding was a Polaroid that we used to make a guest book, but it also became a fun activity for everyone. I think it was $100 or so on amazon plus some extra film.

      1. Keladry of Mindelan*

        That’s a really sweet idea! I like the creative guestbook ideas. I know I never know what to say when signing someone else’s guest book.

    3. KayEss*

      One of the best pieces of advice I’ve heard about weddings (and event planning in general) is that people aren’t going to remember the food unless it’s truly, egregiously awful or there isn’t enough of it.

      However, I can also vouch for that not being strictly 100% true, because I once went to a wedding that had a MASHED POTATO BAR and it’s literally the only thing I remember. I don’t even recall whose wedding it was. Because MASHED POTATO BAR.

      1. blackcat*

        Several of my friends don’t talk about the food at my wedding, but the wine and service at the dinner.

        My dad is serious about wine and picked it out (DH and I paid), so it was fantastic. But the truly amazing waiters were a surprise to everyone, but OMG they were wonderful! Before each course, they would find myself and my husband and gently tell us they were about to bring out X. They made sure our drinks followed us from table to table (we had an extra chair at every table so we could actually sit while visiting with people). My wedding was small (~30) and this was at a restaurant. Tip was included in the fee, but I think I sent along like an extra $100 to each of the three waiters after the fact.

      2. Keladry of Mindelan*

        Mashed potato bars are amazing! My college roommate had a mashed potato bar at her rehearsal dinner and even had a dessert variety- sweet potatoes with all the fixings!

    4. Raine*

      I was just at my cousin’s wedding two weeks ago and I loved that she had the bridesmaids in dresses that were similar in color but not all exactly the same dress. They had appetizers being passed around before dinner was served and multiple kinds of pies as well as their wedding cake so people with different tastes or dietary requirements could have choices.

      Also, after the noise ordinance was enforced they didn’t stop the wedding, it just became a silent disco with everyone wearing headphones that could be tuned to different channels so you could listen to whatever you wanted. It was wild to watch from the sidelines and more fun than I expected.

      1. ECHM*

        My brother and SIL did “wear whatever” dress for bridesmaids and we all ended up wearing single-color dresses that complemented each other well. My sister and BIL asked everyone to wear purple dresses so I could re-use my lovely bridesmaid dress from my brother’s wedding. For my wedding, we asked the women to wear something black. We provided lovely blue scarves for them and neckties for the guys. It looked so classy.

        Our wedding coordinator was super-helpful. However we did have 700-800 people at the wedding. :)

        A guest book idea I got from my husband’s cousin was those frames you can sign. We got two giant frames and have them hanging in our hallway, each with a wedding picture in it. Every day we are reminded of our wonderful friends (and the beautiful day that was our wedding).

    5. Parenthetically*

      Offbeat Bride is SUCH a good, practical resource. Pinterest is, IMO, a bottomless pit of “your wedding is never going to be good enough,” and I found Offbeat Bride to be a really refreshing antidote.

      I had a day-of coordinator who was responsible for making sure everything was decorated and in place so I could focus on having brunch with my friends and getting a pedicure and other vital stuff ;). My wedding was of the “hey, in lieu of a gift, could you pitch in XYZ for the pre-ceremony nibbles/help with setup/lend us your firepit/help me source vintage tablecloths/play guitar when I walk in?” variety, so our coordinator was not a line item in our budget, but depending on your venue, it might not be too terribly expensive — sometimes the venue will have a coordinator you can include in the “package.”

    6. Lollygagger*

      One area I found helped save a bunch of money was we had no flowers other than my bouquet and bouquets for my three bridesmaids. If you love flowers, obviously have them, but our table decorations were wine bottles and beer bombers emptied, cleaned, and painted with just the table number, and some tea lights scattered about. It cost me like $20 for supplies and maybe three hours of time.

    7. Stellaaaaa*

      Consider setting out non-alcoholic drinks before the ceremony. It’s nice for gueststo have some lemonade or sparkling cider while they’re sitting and waiting for the ceremony to start.

      If you’re planning on taking pictures during the cocktail hour, make sure the photo sessions are very short, or make sure that the cocktail hour food is a good extension of the real dinner. You don’t want people to be wandering around with nothing to eat, but you also don’t want people to feel like they filled up on subpar apps and missed out on a good meal.

    8. Valancy Snaith*

      Check out A Practical Wedding. Best wedding-related site on the internet. Pinterest is a nightmare, but Offbeat Bride was a wee bit too “your wedding isn’t good enough if every single thing isn’t handmade and a Reflection Of Your Love” for me.

      A day-of coordinator is a lovely luxury if you can manage it. It’s so helpful to make everything run smoothly, because the day will absolutely fly by much faster than you expect it, and a coordinator can help you shift from Planner to Participant.

      We saved money by holding our wedding on a Sunday morning and doing a garden wedding followed by a brunch reception. No dancing, no DJ, just brunch, cocktails, cake, and socializing. No favours. Our centrepieces were Edible Arrangements for people to snack on. Very chill and inexpensive.

    9. LadyKelvin*

      Think about feeding your bridal party/family! Our wedding was at 1pm and the reception not till 4pm because of Catholic weddings an all. So we couldn’t do photos before the wedding and just have late wedding, we did them between the wedding and the reception. We bought a couple of trays of sandwiches from the grocery store and had them for all the folks involved in the photos who could go grab a snack before dinner. We were all starved since lunch was basically not an option and it was appreciated by everyone there.

    10. Julia*

      Congrats! I got married last April, but only at the courthouse.

      Your username threw me off for a second. I was sure Tamora Pierce had declared Kel single.

    11. Ann O.*

      Yes, to day of coordinator if you can afford it. I was skeptical, but she took away all of the stress.

      In terms of favorite things, I don’t have specific ones because I have a general category: I love when there are little touches in the decorations that are specific to a couple–for example, a horror movie buff couple had bride/groom Godzilla cake toppers and a set of Whovians had TARDIS centerpieces.

      Oh! One other thing… if you’re going to do a first dance, personally, I think it’s worth it to find a ballroom studio and get a wedding dance package to have a choreographed first dance. The first dance can be really boring to watch when a non-dancer couple just does the side sway, but it’s always super fun when the couple’s put some effort into it, even if they’re objectively speaking not great dancers. I’ve also seen some cute alternatives to first dances by couples that just weren’t that into dancing.

      1. jolene*

        We also did the Polaroid thing and bought a couple of books into which people slotted the pics and wrote things around them. It was lovely and I really recommend it.

        I also recommend booking your honeymoon straight afterwards and going somewhere that gives you very few choices to make. After all the ones you need to make for the wedding, you won’t want to make any more for quite a while, trust me.

    12. Kuododi*

      DH and I got married back at the Dawn of Time before internet, Pinterest and all those assorted stressors. I didn’t have a day-of-coordinator, but my dear sister had amazing organizational powers. She was almost able to simply look at things and they fell into order. Additionally, since she was a designer she took care of all of the esthetics ……( Definitely not my skill set.). Frankly as long as all that was together, and DH and I could take our vows… everything else was extra. Best wishes!!!!

  49. CatCat*

    Spouse and I decided to hit the farmers market in an effort to eat better at home. Found some excellent produce (some especially choice pluots!). We definitely underestimated how much we would spend. We’d definitely have spent less if we hadn’t bought any prepared foods, but we couldn’t resist splitting a fresh waffle for breakfast, some awesome looking fresh loaves of bread (we know how to make bread, but only do so when the weather is cold because the oven really warms up the front part of our apartment where we hang out), some excellent fresh jalapeño salsa, and some fresh gnocchi, which I loooooove, but rarely make because it’s kind of a pain.

    We did score some bonus carrot tops from one stand. When they offered to cut off the tops, I said noooo, I like to make veggie broth with the tops. They had a bunch of chopped off carrot tops that they then just gave us. Yassssss.

    Looking forward to these foods this week!

    1. nep*

      Great.
      One of my favorite Saturday morning activities.
      (One seller has beet tops in a box for free. They are so good, and lots of nutrients.)

      2. CatCat*

        Yessssssss!! If they’d had beets at that stand, I would have asked if they had any of the tops. I dislike beets, but like the beet greens! Maybe next week they’ll have them!

  50. SpellingBee*

    There was a mention in yesterday’s open thread of the idea that women over 40 feel invisible. Coincidentally, my sister and I (both in our early 60s) were talking about this just a week ago. I understand that a lot of that concept centers around a lack of positive images of older women in the movies and TV, and also around a lack of older women (and of course women in general) in positions of power in the corporate world, with the result that older women aren’t prominent in our society. And I get that. However, several acquaintances who are of a similar age as I am have mentioned that they feel “invisible” in their daily interactions – not getting good service in stores or restaurants, for example. The thing is, neither Sister nor I feel that way at all. We posited that perhaps it’s because we’ve both been kind of average all our lives; moderately attractive, intelligent and athletic, but not gorgeous, brilliant or superstar. We’ve never been the immediate focus of attention when we enter a room, so it’s not something we regret when it doesn’t happen. In fact, I actually feel *more* visible as I’ve gotten older, because I’ve grown more confident and willing to engage. I will note that Sister and I have both been married for many years and haven’t dated as older women, so our experience in that area is lacking.

    So, women of the Commentariat who are “of a certain age,” as they say, do you feel invisible?

    1. TeacherNerd*

      It’s interesting you say this. I’ve always been, shall we say, extremely heavy, and very much on the quiet side (my own version of introversion), so I’m used to consistently being overlooked. This doesn’t mean I lack self-confidence: I’m very comfortable making myself visible, asking for what I need, and pushing back (hard) when necessary. I’m much more comfortable as a listener, although I’ve become much better at small talk. These are all skills I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older – I’m in my early 40s – but since I’ve never been athletic or eye-catchingly attractive, it’s usually been a non-issue for me, largely because I like taking people by surprise with a good retort, which then gets their attention. (I can be very funny.) :-) As you say, it’s an ease of engagement and a development of confidence, but this looks different for everyone. And I’d agree that, like you, I’m finally beginning to feel that I’m gradually becoming more visible.

      (I don’t know how to quantify “married for many years,” exactly, since I married at 35 – so, married “only” for seven years, although it’s a first/only marriage for both of us. That’s been the biggest question; seems like once you marry past a certain age, there’s an element of surprise that we had neither of us been married before.)

    2. fposte*

      That’s a really fascinating idea. I’ve generally been pretty average, looks-wise, myself, but even being fairly average I got more response on average (pardon the pun) in my twenties. However, I also think that it’s tough to posit a norm in that trajectory, and that it could be a decline *to* a norm as much as a decline from one. I also greatly appreciate having a lower risk of general cat-calling when I’m out and about. So I guess I’ve noticed some decline in attention but I haven’t necessarily considered it a problematic one, and I haven’t found much invisibility when I’ve felt I should be visible.

      I also think that there may be local culture issues at play. I’m in a pretty polite area, and I look like a professor in a university town. I don’t feel like I’m treated as if I don’t count, and if occasionally a twentysomething server or customer service person wants to pay more attention to the sorority girls next to me instead of me, I basically just eyeroll.

    3. Ender*

      I’m almost but not quite 40, but I look a good bit younger. However I used to look quite attractive and in the last few years for various reasons I have probably gone from above-average attractiveness to below-average attractiveness. And I definitely have noticed a difference in how people treat me. I used to think most people were really nice and friendly and helpful and it’s only recently that I’ve realised that that’s not really the case / people are nice and friendly and helpful to attractive people, but not so much to less attractive people.

      What’s really interesting is that this isn’t specific to men. Even women seem to treat me less well, so it’s not just a sexual thing. I believe there have been plenty of studies done on how attractive people earn more etc, so it must be pretty widespread.

      Also relevant to note that by “attractive” and “less attractive” in this post I mean what is generally regarded as attractive norms in society – youthful, clear skin, slim etc. I know that many people find different things attractive.

      I’d agree with the hypothesis that at least some of the feeling of being invisible is due to becoming less attractive (by society’s norms) and not specifically to getting older. It’s like that thing “when you’re used to special treatment, equality can feel like discrimination”.

      1. Old Biddy*

        I’m an average looking late 40’s woman who is usually lazy about clothes/hair/makeup and has been around size 14 (plus or minus one size) my entire adult life. I don’t feel like I am more invisible than when I was in my 20’s or 30’s. Having said that, I do notice that people treat me better when I’m at a size 12 than I size 16. People usually attribute it to self-confidence but I act pretty much the same no matter what size I am.

    4. Lissa*

      This is a really really intriguing topic. Kind of related but I recently had to explain to a male friend who seemed to think women get treated better than men on average in certain contexts that that’s really only true if you’re attractive and under a certain age. He was legitimately surprised and I was sort of like…how could you not know this… even looking at the media there are lots of images of middle aged and older men, but very very few of women, and most/many of them are evil! Think about how in media you see a lot of worshipful portrayals of mothers of small children but mothers of adult children are usually portrayed in a negative light.

    5. Not So NewReader*

      I live in a family-churchy type area. Perhaps that weighs in some how. But I see the opposite, now that the white hair is coming in people are less apt to let doors go in my face. I look back on how it was going out into public at age 20 and this is very different. People seem to stare through me less, they are more apt to say good morning, etc.
      Now if I drop something in a store, someone comes over to help me pick it up. When I was in my 20s I never saw that.
      I have never looked like Miss America, I have been average looking right along and I remain average looking, the only major change is the white hair.

      I do see lack of respect in movies, media, and tv. But I don’t see it as much as I used to in daily life. Again, it’s probably just various influences at work in my area.

      1. Roja*

        My mom actually said the same thing when she let her hair turn gray. Said she felt she got more respect from people in general. I’ve noticed this too, or at least I notice she commands quite a lot of respect now (can’t remember from childhood to compare) despite seeming rather quiet to those who don’t know her.

    6. Close Bracket*

      Something can be institutionally true while not being true for certain individuals. I’m 47. I happen to look well under 40, and I have good posture (people comment on how I walk). Between my preternaturally youthful appearance and a walk that stands out, I am mostly not invisible. However, I can’t get served at a crowded bar to save my life.

      1. pcake*

        Just give it time. I looked much younger till my late 50s, then I became invisible except to servers at restaurants who now talk to me like I’m a 3 year old with that “baby” voice.

    7. Stellaaaaa*

      I honestly don’t think there’s a category of women who are treated exactly as they want to be. Women who are perceived as attractive get more things offered to them, but usually implicitly in exchange for awful things (men don’t hire/promote/pursue beautiful women out of the kindness of their hearts, and those women are treated awfully or fired when they don’t follow through on the men’s horrid expectations). Women who are perceived as being less than beautiful are ignored. I guarantee that there is no woman in the world who would say, “Yes, I have always been treated with respect and dignity.”

    8. LilySparrow*

      I certainly feel more confident and like I get plenty of service & engagement when out & about. But then, I’m a middle-aged white woman with a blue streak in my hair, so I have privilege + unusual appearance.

      I do not get “flirty” male attention in the same way I did when I was younger – only from serious creeps or very old gentlemen who think they are being gallant. But my weight fluctuated a lot throughout my life, and I could definitely tell a difference. When I was thinner I was “on the radar” of men around me, even if they weren’t flirting or engaging directly. When I was heavier I was furniture.

      I don’t feel like furniture now, but that may be because I’m happily coupled and the men aren’t on my radar!

      1. Earthwalker*

        I’m 60-plus with near-white hair and often feel overlooked and invisible in public. I find that if I want to be visible, I can comb a streak of non-natural temporary color (blue, purple, magenta) into my hair and be visible again. It’s like a cloak of invisibility in reverse. It’s rather nice to be able to choose on any given day whether visibility or invisibility suits my mood.

    9. Lora*

      Oh my yes! But I plan to use this superpower to become a world class smuggler so that’s okay.

      When I was younger I was viewed as a secretary, and people who knew me for years seemed repeatedly surprised to find out that I am not actually stupid or uneducated. As I got older (around 35) I became merely invisible. Literally people just didn’t seem to see me: I remember hosting a pool/dinner party which many of my then-husband’s friends attended, and although I was running around refilling trays of food and drinks, and had greeted them as they arrived as well as having been introduced to them several times, they didn’t seem to recognize me and would complain about my interior decorating choices, family photos and so forth right in front of me like it wasn’t my house and I wasn’t there.

      At work, executives have had zero problems discussing confidential information that they certainly didn’t want to be revealed to a lower level scientist/engineer who was listening to them plan layoffs. I was frequently confused with a much more charismatic lady with a similar name. I worked on a handful of very high profile projects for several years and people would still ask “who?” when my name came up.

      I don’t get service in stores. I don’t usually mind this as I hate people bugging me when I either already know what I need or just want to look. It’s annoying when I can’t get a cashier to wait on me though, or when people cut in front of me in line. Buying a car is nightmare fuel, nearly impossible and I hate it. I prefer to contact specific people or stores ahead of time and make an appointment or ask many pesky questions so there’s a chance they’ll remember the bitch with all the questions. If a store prefers a certain type of clientele (for example an Apple store), forget it, I can’t get anyone to sell me anything for love or money. It’s at the point where I am forced to shout and make a big obnoxious scene if I really need a human to help me, because polite “hi, I’m trying to buy a thing and I need to know…” doesn’t work at all.

      It’s definitely country/nationality specific. I typically do exist for many ex-USSR folks. I definitely exist for Italians, Swiss, Venezuelans, Moroccans, Nigerians, Argentinians, and Chinese people and sometimes Irish. I do not exist for American, Japanese, Indian, Sri Lankan, Colombian, British, German, Egyptian, Kiwi or Dutch people. I’m sort of borderline-there for Chileans, Polish and Australians. I do not know why this should be, you’d think it would be similar for at least Colombians and Argentinians or Swiss and German, but it doesn’t seem to be.

      I don’t look especially beautiful or particularly hideous. Maybe that’s why, I usually have on business casual and glasses, reddish brown hair with some grey in a messy bun, minimal makeup, average height, driving a boring sedan, there’s nothing remarkable enough to remember.

      1. LilySparrow*

        That is amazingly specific. Have you lived all those places, or were these experiences through work, or how did you manage to observe this?

        2. Lora*

          Mostly through work – I’m in STEM, so we have a combination of many immigrants on H1bs at any given company, big international companies that require travel (sometimes frequently, current job is 25% travel), and partly from traveling just for fun.

    11. Chaordic One*

      As I’ve gotten older I’ve certainly felt invisible in stores and restaurants and sometime when I’ve applied for jobs. Also, I’ve noticed that as I’ve gotten older, I seem to be judged more harshly on my appearance. For example, if I make a quick trip to the grocery store and I’m wearing jeans and no makeup, people are not as nice to me compared to when I’m a bit better dressed and wearing makeup. It’s only the grocery store, for heavens sake.

      1. Windchime*

        Yeah I’ve definitely been invisible when shopping for a car or appliances. I was downright ignored for 15 minutes when trying to buy a high-end dishwasher until I finally left. I had a similar experience when trying to buy a car a few years ago. The salesman actually went inside to get keys so I could test drive — and he never came back out. So I left. The salespeople in all these situations were men.

    12. Lemonworld*

      I’m 46. I just want to move through the world and get my stuff done. I am really short and I guess I have a kind face, because I’m the kind of person who always gets mistaken for working in a place. (Seriously, I was once walking through a grocery store, drinking coffee through a straw, and someone started asking me questions and was surprised when I said I didn’t work there.)
      As I get older, I do feel more invisible, but that’s okay with me. It’s kind of like a superpower, in a way. And when I want attention, I use the “aggressively delightful” strategy, which is fun for both me and whomever I am interacting with.

      1. jolene*

        I’m definitely attractive but have never been the perfect 10 or anywhere near it. However, I am extremely charming and have a ton of personality and like to make people I engage with feel good about the interaction. As I’ve got older and put on weight with the middle-age spread, I’m still conventionally attractive but I honestly have come to feel that it’s primarily the personality and confidence that people have always responded to so well. Which is great, as it’s never too late to cultivate those!

    14. Thursday Next*

      This is a really interesting question! I think a lot of it may be different depending on where you are.

      I’m 45 and have no idea how old I look. I don’t think we’re good at judging that about ourselves, tbh. But I smile at babies, who smile back at me and consequently so do their parents; I’m polite to service sector workers and typically get good service (and tip well); and often a quelling look from me can quiet some rowdiness among teens/young men because I probably remind them of their mothers.

      I was always pretty average-looking so I don’t feel less visible now that I’m older. If anything, I’m more self-assured, and I think that helps.

    15. the gold digger*

      I get more comments (positive ones) from men I don’t know now than I ever did in my 20s. (And a 15 year old kid grabbed my butt a few weeks ago, which is just – bizarre. I pointed out to him that I was old enough to be his grandmother and he should be ashamed.)

      I am ordinary looking at best, so definitely was not used to male attention when I was younger. (I was not asked to a single high school dance. That kind of ordinary looking/not attractive. I AM NOT BITTER.)

      And I have always struggled with my weight. In a way, I am seeing the payoff from that struggle now, as decades of (mostly) careful eating and almost daily exercise, including weight training, have kept me relatively trim compared to many of my college and high school friends.

      (And sunblock! If you have lighter skin, WEAR SUNBLOCK! EVERY DAY!)

    16. matcha123*

      I’m younger than “a certain age,” but I’ve always felt invisible. And I kind of feel like the sentiment is mostly for white women? I haven’t ever had male peers flirting with me or exceptionally kind staff come to my aid when I’m out. I don’t really ever see people like me, multiracial, represented in the media. And if they do make an appearance, it’s always as a tragedy.
      The media definitely presents white women as reaching their “peak” around 25, and everything is wrinkles and saggy skin afterwards. The sassy black woman is always overweight and sassy…regardless of age, the Asian woman is prop or a non-English speaking elderly woman, the Latin American woman is a sexy prop…regardless of age.
      I definitely see age come up in Asian communities, specifically with marriage. With black communities, I don’t really recall hearing about women over a certain age being played out. Wondering if most of the replies are from white women. And…I should add that this comment isn’t meant to say “You guys don’t know,” but more that, from my perspective, the people that can identify with that sentiment tend to be only white women?

      1. Thursday Next*

        Good question. I’m a WOC. So maybe I’m used to not seeing myself in mainstream U.S. media outside of a handful of types of roles.

    18. Anonymous Celebrity*

      I’m over 60 but I’m also 5′ 11.5 inches tall and athletic, with long, white hair. I never feel invisible anywhere, but one thing that has changed, much to my surprise, is how many women stop me to compliment me on my hair. That’s a new wrinkle, and I kinda like it!

      I get the service I want in shops and restaurants, same as ever. I was never a fan of being flirted with by rando guys on the street or in stores or public transit stops – I always found that annoying and simply didn’t respond or shut it down forcefully if that was necessary – so the fact that that seldom happens anymore is a plus for me.

      I’m convinced that my height, and the way I carry myself, are the reasons I don’t feel invisible, ever. Quite simply, I’m hard to miss, especially if I’m wearing heels. Even a two-inch heel puts me over 6 feet tall. If I want something, I ask for it. And I get it. Same as ever.

  51. Cat*

    I’m pursuing my MBA, 8 years after completing my undergrad. I’m having such a hard time. Getting back into having schoolwork after so long while working full time is really hard, especially because my anxiety & depression are really affecting me. I just can’t focus and I panic every time I go to work on an assignment. I already feel behind. Aside from therapy (going back next week), any tips for navigating these feelings of panic and forgetting how to…do school?

    1. TeacherNerd*

      Oh, man, this is so, so common. Only for the past 4 years have I been a full-time high school English teacher, but I taught part-time the year before that, and I’ve taught part-time at various colleges – both two-year and four-year colleges – for 8 1/2 years now. My longest part-time teaching gig – at a community college where I still teach – is one I really love because I have a variety of students whose backgrounds reflect different ages, economics, family, and all sorts of other situations (18-year-olds who just graduated from high school the previous spring, as well as students who never attended college but who had graduated from high school 20+ years ago). And the older students are the ones who are the most nervous, for reasons that are similar (or the same!) as yours. I had one student tell me she was the youngest of 7 kids, none of whom had graduated from high school (I can’t remember if the parents themselves were high school grads, but definitely hadn’t attended college themselves). She was the first one attending college, as well as being the first high school graduate. I was able to help her develop study and school skills to help her figure out how to navigate course work for my class, as well as her other classes.

      You have a leg up because you already have an idea of how college works, so I’d say PLEASE start with talking to your teachers! We really want you to do well. At the very least our having an idea that you’re anxious about coming back helps us keep an eye on you and check in with you (to so speak), if you’d like. I know in grad school the emphasis is also being a bit more independent, but ask questions, in whatever form (email/online, in person/class, or some combination thereof) will help you Do Your Thing.

      I went back to grad school 7 years after completing my undergraduate degree; the second/last year, when I was taking 3-4 classes a semester (including during the summer session), I was also teaching 2/3 time at two different schools, so my schedule was bonkers. I, who am decidedly NOT a list person…created lists. I was getting overwhelmed just trying to keep track of what was due when for which class, so the lists helped. (I just used a notebook, but my husband, who’s an Extreme List User, uses an app that syncs between a desktop and his smartphone.) My breaking down my To Do list one week at a time was key, at least for me. I’ve seen other folks – including my high school students – print out monthly calendars (just something they found online) to write down assignment due dates. (I’m currently taking two history classes that ultimately I can use to apply for a teaching endorsement on my state teaching license, and I’m getting back into list mode.)

      Do you have a pace where you can study or work without distraction? I’m wondering what kind of environment might be most beneficial to you. If it’s a possibility for you, you might consider making use of your college library (quiet!); sometimes they have study rooms you can reserve. I did a lot of tutoring as an undergrad, and often enough I found it really helpful to have other students around as I studied, too, so I could take 5 (or 30) and have someone to chat with for a little bit about an assignment.

      Please keep me posted! You can absolutely do this.

      1. Cat*

        This was so incredibly helpful, thank you so much for taking the time to respond. I’m thinking of starting to go to the library after work some days so I have no distractions and no reason to not work. I’ve taken over my yoga room as a study room (perhaps doing schoolwork on a comfy couch under a blanket may not sound ideal, but it is comforting!), but I do think that actually going to the library will be helpful. Just gotta set aside the anxiety & do it!

        My school also has a writing center, you can make an appointment with someone who can help review assignments and give feedback. I already did that after getting negative feedback on my first assignment, and while it wasn’t super helpful because I wasn’t prepared enough, it did give me some confidence to email the professor for additional feedback. It’s particularly hard for me this first semester because all of my classes are online–I’m doing some foundations courses to fulfill requirements before I actually enter the program, where classes are in person. I think part of the panic for me as well is that I have zero educational background in business. I had an art-related major in undergrand, so this is all new to me. I’m a quick learner and generally a decent writer, but I feel like I need a bit more handholding than others in my program and I definitely need a refresher course in properly writing papers.

        It was so helpful to hear that this fear is common. I feel so alone in this, again because my first semester of courses are online.

        1. TeacherNerd*

          I am a HUGE fan of writing centers (of course, this is also my background and I’ve tutored in a number of them). It may be helpful, if/when you go back, to give the tutors as much information about the assignment as you can, as well as any questions you have – the more specific the better, but even if you tell the tutor generalities about what you’re concerned about, that’s super helpful because then they know how to tailor the session to the individual student seeking help. And, unfortunately, some tutors just aren’t as good as others, but if the writing center director is a good one, s/he is continually training the tutors, who become much better at drawing out that student and asking questions to get you thinking. I hope you’ll go back!

          Online classes can really be challenging. My entire graduate degree was an online one (not received from a for-profit college; it was a degree offered by an actual university that adapted that particular program online), and I missed the face-to-face interactions between myself, my professors, and my classmates, as well as the opportunities to get to know my classmates more and develop those relationships.

          My husband is in a similar boat you are, by the way; he graduated from college more than 20 years ago with a minor he’s only recently begun to use professionally, and within the next semester or two will likely start to take classes to refresh that skill set. We’re not sure if it will lead to a graduate degree – the classes he’ll start by taking are offered at the local two-year college – but wants to take online classes because he doesn’t want to go hang out on a college campus after a full day of working, but he’s also really nervous about what his classmates would think, like he doesn’t belong there. (I told him that the “kids” in his class won’t care because they’re already so nervous about what others will think of THEM that they’re not thinking about the middle-aged guy in the same course.) His having been out of school for a couple decades isn’t helping, either, because things have changed so much. Because I teach at the same college where he’d be taking classes, though, I could help him navigate the system (much different than doing so as an 18-year-old!), and could show him Canvas (not sure which LMS you’re using) from both the teacher’s side and the student’s.

          I’d really like to support you, however that might look. I included my email address to my user name, if you’d like to e-mail me at any point, you’d be welcome, but I also really understand wanting to keep your anonymity and privacy, so no worries either way.

        2. Red Reader*

          I did two masters degrees with most of my homework done on a comfy couch under a blanket and a dog, so if it works for you, don’t knock it :)

    2. Business Librarian*

      As you can see from my name, I have a dog in this fight! I also have experience since I got my library degree at 50 which is a looooong time after my BA. I got an academic job which meant I also needed an MBA. Luckily I’d worked in a large corporation which helped, but my undergrad was alllll humanities. Math was my biggest worry. What helped me was searching for concepts online and reading other professors’ lessons. For instance, if you google calculus derivatives you’ll see a quick definition, links to videos, a course in Khan Academy, etc. Then if you feel you’re not picking up on some concept (business or math or whatever) that your textbook or your professor is explaining, you can try someone else’s explanation and examples.

      Another strong suggestion is go the reference desk at the library. We’re there to help, we don’t give grades, and it makes us happy when we can give you resources and solutions. I know anxious people don’t want to be told to go talk to yet another stranger, but we’d really REALLY like it if you talked to us. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with returning students that ended up with me going over all kinds of things, not just their paper topic. Also if the librarian on duty and you don’t hit it off, go back at a different time. There is usually a lot of rotation at the ref desk.

      The people that break my heart are the people that struggle alone and then find out in their last two classes that there were all these people invested in helping them succeed. My daughter said the one thing she would have changed about her undergrad days was talking to professors. She didn’t need to talk to the librarians since there was one in the family!

      Since I’m writing a book, I’ll continue with this thought: the first step of a research project is feeling like you’re lost and don’t know what you’re doing and can’t succeed. It’s a step that will recur and it’s normal! If you didn’t have anxiety and depression you’d still have that feeling when starting something new. I wish you the very best, and I so hope you show up in my library.

    3. Dr. Anonymous*

      If you are overwhelmed, drop one class to lighten the load while you get used to school again. Talk to your professors now to help you pick which one. They do want you to do well.

      1. Cat*

        I’ve actually thought about that. I don’t want to delay myself too much, but if I don’t pass from taking too much on, then I will have to redo a class anyway. I’ll email my program director tomorrow. Thank you for making me feel like this is a logical option & not something to be ashamed of!

    4. NoLongerYoungButLotsWiser*

      You can do this. I went back 10 years after my undergrad, and I found that making friends and doing parallel studying (at the library, wherever) was the best. We had a study group that got together just to help each other keep on track. I focused, they worked, we took breaks together. It’s like jumping in a cold pool… once you are in, you adjust. And yes, the instructors are usually very invested – the whole program is – in your success. So ask, too. And hard work trumps brilliance…. so grinding through, to a certain extent, made a difference for me. I’d always done the reading, always done the research, always done the homework and read all the footnotes. And I reached out to help the student who lived next to me, whose first language was not english, on some idioms. Because it mattered that I kept part of me, the friendly and helpful part, even when I was not sure I was going to make it. I did, and you will too.

  52. Christine O'Donnell*

    I am going real name for this!

    I am a longtime reader & occasional commenter here (under a name I am keeping anonymous.)

    If you are in the US or Canada, I will be a contestant on Monday’s episode of Jeopardy! I will also be live Tweeting at 7pm EST at @clod1026

    2. fposte*

      Yay Christine! Good luck to you–I’ll try to have a watch. Jeopardy’s the most fun when you can watch as a huge partisan.

  53. I Am Still Furious!!*

    Well, week 1 with Mom almost in the books. My room is set up, and I’m going to spend some time getting rid of things I don’t need. Next step is to get the upstairs bathroom in working order. At Mom’s instruction, Dad gutted it, except the toilet, about 15 years ago, but Mom couldn’t decide on fixtures. A friend and I are going to Restore and I’m going to hire a plumber to hook up a sink.

    I’m glad I moved in, Mom needs company and help, she’s almost 83. She has a lot of anxiety, doesn’t sleep well, and has a lot of weird eating habits. And, to her, everything is terrible. If I could figure out a way to block Fox News and the televangelist channels, I think she’d be less stressed. She goes on about end times, wars, storms, and quite frankly it’s exhausting. LOL I ate bacon, eggs, toast, with coffee and juice for breakfast, I thought she was going to have a heart attack.

    But her house, her rules, so I just tune her out. I’m glad to be here, and intend to make the most of my time here to get my life together.

    I’m trying to empty out the house, weather hasn’t cooperated, and no luck on the cats. Mom is coming around to letting 2 of them come here, so I’m hopeful I’ll be able to keep at least 2. The 3rd fellow may be able to stay in a neighbors barn, not sure yet. Put some things on sell and swap, making headway there.

    STBEXH somehow hasn’t done the mail forwarding correctly, so his mail is still arriving at the house. In 2 weeks, not my problem. Hope he pays his speeding ticket fines, ’cause he will find out the hard way that the rules DO apply to him.

    46 days.

    2. Notthemomma*

      Do you realize that you are one of the strongest women some of us have encountered in a long time? For you and the others on this site who have had to do a 180 on your lives, make a new reality and life for yourselves, you really are rock stars! I know it may not feel like it, and there have been/will be days when you are clawing your way through the day, but dang!!! You have reset you lives for the better. These run-on sentences are just meant to say that you have a lot of people rooting for you.

    3. Not So NewReader*

      Mom may gradually start to relax at least a little after you have been around for a bit. I am glad she is just letting you take over the bathroom project. I think that is a good sign. And I think it’s good for you, too. We all need to create and build up, here is an opportunity for you to do that. I bet you will have it looking great at a very reasonable price.

    4. Woodswoman*

      Wow, your weekly posts show you’re continuing to move in a positive direction. However slow and frustrating it may feel on your end, your determination, good sense, and progress shine through. Glad to hear you can help your mom and you’re taking on the bathroom project on your own. It’s especially goo to hear the news is getting better about your cats.

      Have you closed your joint bank account yet? You mentioned that STBEXH hadn’t done it yet, and that’s worrisome with all his unpaid bills and the fact that he hasn’t even forwarded his mail. Counting down with you until it’s all legal. Almost there!

      1. Traffic_Spiral*

        Chiming in on that bank account. If he hasn’t even changed the mail I don’t think that account’s getting shut down any time soon.

        1. I Am Still Furious!!*

          I checked with his sister, as that’s where the mail is supposed to be forwarded to, and she said she is getting things for him, just not all of it. I think it’s a failure on the Post Office’s part, maybe, because a letter from his attorney clearly addressed to him ended up in the mailbox at the road. A collection agency notice did too, but it looked like junk mail, so maybe that’s why? Dunno. He told me the bank account would be closed within 2 weeks. This is the second week coming up, so if it isn’t, I’m going to do it.

          **yes I opened the collection agency letter. Good luck to them. He opened a credit card, charged $600+ and never made a payment, now he owes $750. He’ll never make payment arrangements, or make good on it, I know that from experience. And he keeps getting credit card offers in the mail! Go figure.

    5. Kuododi*

      Oooooh!!! I sympathize with the Fox news network obsession. My mother with dementia has been more and more fixated with that horrible channel as she’s been dealing with the brain injury. The worse it gets, the more angry she becomes!!! Best wishes!!!

  54. Laura in NJ*

    Has anyone seen ANYTHING about Season 12 of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” on Netflix? Like a premier date??????? Just getting anxious here.

  55. Kate Daniels*

    I wish there was an easy way to connect with and become friends with people around the world who have similar interests. I recently renewed my passport and am in the process of finalizing my Global Entry application because I hope to travel internationally a couple of times a year from now on, but this will be primarily solo travel. It’d be nice to know people in various towns and cities around the world to meet up for a meal or attend a football match with while I’m in that country… or to do house swaps at the same time so we can both save money while traveling!

    1. fposte*

      I’ve heard of people using different apps for that, but I think that’s going to be dependent on the time and the venue as to which apps make sense.

      But I’ve found the internet to be a great way to do that–special interest forums are full of people meeting one another IRL when there’s travel afoot, and you’ve got a couple of years to see who you might find congenial. If you can name a few particular hobbies and interests, people might have suggestions for good forums.

    2. Ender*

      You mean an easy way apart from the internet? There are literally hundreds of apps and fora and websites dedicated to exactly what you’re looking for! Get googling!

    3. Jessi*

      Kate – may I suggest that you look into house sitting?

      I mean you won’t meet fellow travelers that way but it is a cheap way to stay in a town as no accommodation costs!

    4. Mrs. Carmen Sandiego JD*

      Try the CouchSurfing community :) I’ve met so many people while in different countries that way. Sign up for free, then pay attention to message boards in the location you’re in.

    5. Femme D'Afrique*

      Check out the Lonely Planet site. Their Thorn Tree section is divided by continent/country etc and you can ask really specific questions about even the remotest villages and towns and get answers. The site also has a section for people looking for travel buddies or meetups.

      Happy travels!

      1. Kate Daniels*

        Thank you for the tip about Lonely Planet. I didn’t know they had a travel buddy/meet-up section!

    6. Roja*

      If you’re interested in traveling specifically, I’m part of a FB group called Wanderful Women Who Travel. It’s a pretty great group of women all over the world.

    7. Buu*

      Try Meetup.com though it’s set up for regular things a lot dont mind people dropping by. One of my meetups had this and we were able to help them plan a few things they wanted to do.

    8. Ehhhh*

      Just go. You’ll meet people. I’m super introverted at home but feel like a different version of myself when I travel abroad solo. Learn basic phrases in the local language — I find the ability to apologize really helps. “Sorry for this dumb question.” “Sorry that I’m about to ask if you speak English.” Acknowledging that opens doors. And say yes (so long as you feel safe). If a person invites you to sit with them or suggests you visit a restaurant or site, do it! And for when you don’t want to chat, ear buds work wonders. Don’t have to be listening to anything. People outside of the US recognize it as “don’t talk to me.”

    9. Overeducated*

      Two ways i found this work were through hostels and couchsurfing. Hostels tend to be full of crowds of either lone travelers or friendly groups (the groups trend young), and it’s very easy to meet people in common areas when you’re staying more than a night or two. I haven’t done couchsurfing for about a decade so i don’t know if it’s still active, but that’s a way to meet locals and many people are happy to hang out with visitors and show them around, not just put them up.

  56. I'm A Little Teapot*

    My neighbor has been quiet, which mostly means that the crazy stuff is while I’m at work. except for the night when she SCREAMED my name, then started pounding on my door. (Like there’s a fire level screaming/pounding.) Of course, I know here, so I didn’t run. I also didn’t open the door. I just told her that if she broke my door she was paying for it, and what did she want. Apparently, I forgot to turn off my sprinkler. And my sprinkler is somehow going to ruin her yard. I turned off the water, but all I can think is what is she going to do when it rains?!?

    On a happy note, I got 2 new trees planted! I’ve got a crab apple and a maple. They’re small still of course, but hopefully will grow to give me some lovely shade in the next couple years.

    1. Slartibartfast*

      Do you name your trees? It would be an odd coincidence if the crab apple was named after your neighbor…

      1. I'm A Little Teapot*

        LOL. I didn’t consider naming them. I tend to be very literal about naming inanimate objects – car is named Car, house is House. Thus far, they’ve been called Tree.

  57. A.N. O'Nyme*

    Writing thread!
    How’s everyone’s writing going? For me personally, I realized to characters are hella flirting with each other (despite never having thought about the sexuality of one of them because it didn’t matter to the plot) when writing some party banter during a writer’s block.
    As for another project…Well, to the people watching my search history: I swear I’m not a serial killer.

    1. Rockin' the 'Non*

      Well mine is a slog but then I look back and thing “gee, this isn’t too bad.” I think my male main character is kinda dull. I need to spice him up with a habit or something but I made his sister a real bitch with a Eurotrash husband old enough to be her father and let me tell you how fast THAT conversation was written. I’m at 40K works of 60K outlined so just need to push through….

      I think I need to have more fun with this so I keep at it, but I also write in the hour before work and so just when I get going I… have to get up and take a shower and go to a place and do things that are much more dull than working on a potential revenue producer.

    2. Foreign Octopus*

      That’s happened to me before.

      My character accidentally turned into a smuggler and I’m not 100% sure how that happened but I’m kind of loving it.

      Also, I googled “how to get rid of the smell of decomposing bodies” and realised how suspicious that looked in my search history.

    3. Laura H.*

      The plot bunnies are uber lethargic and it’s like pulling teeth.

      I just wanna get a fic update (or 4) done and out.

      Also, having major HOWDOI[CHARACTER]? Even though I know how… with a decade of fan ficcing under my belt, but nope still bashing into proverbial wall…

    4. Anonymosity*

      Shit, I haven’t been able to do much of anything. So anxious over not having a job after almost two years that I can’t even think straight. I HATE this.

  58. Owler*

    Can anyone recommend where to shop for an adult-sized preteen? She’s 5’6″ with size 10 feet, but she still has the body type of a kid (chunky at the waist, no chest). She wears a lot of leggings and tshirts, won’t wear jeans, doesn’t like long sleeves…ugh. Do I just stick with the sporty section of Target for now?

      1. fposte*

        Lands’ End might also be worth a look too. For both those, you may find better luck online than in brick and mortar.

      2. Anonymous Celebrity*

        She’s only 5′ 6″. That’s average height. She doesn’t need to worry about tall clothing. I agree with the recommendations for Lands End, and LL Bean might work, too. Also, Old Navy. And there’s nothing wrong with Target. Why spend a lot on clothing for a kid? They’ll just outgrow it. Sticking with separates is probably a good idea, too.

    3. LCL*

      Boys/young men’s jeans and shoes. Don’t take her with you for the jeans, get her measurements and shop yourself. Once you are into size 10 shoes, look to the men’s sizes for casual shoes and boots and socks. FYI, Nike and Brooks both make their women’s shoes up to a 12, but they run really small, especially Nike.

      1. LilySparrow*

        I have size 10 feet and fit nicely into a size 9 men’s.

        On athletic shoes, though, I find that the last is not cut correctly to fit my toe box and arches, so there are differences – they tend to run wider and boxier.

    4. SpiderLadyCEO*

      I had this trouble too, as a kid. I remember I wore a lot of Limited Too (now Justice), Land’s End, Target & Walmart. I started wearing American Eagle and Hollister’s in early high school, and those would probably work for her as well – I stayed a rail until the end of high school. H&M might be good for this, now – I’ve had decent luck wearing their men’s clothes.

      I think just sticking to adult sizes in styles that she likes – there are plenty of adults who don’t gain much in the way of curves.

    5. Smarty Boots*

      Leggings and T-shirts are fine. Don’t die on this hill.

      My son wore shorts or jeans and T-shirts forever. My spouse couldn’t stand it. Could not get spouse to back off — major drama every freakin day, with a kid who is well behaved, helpful, good student… I finally brokered a deal: Black jeans that were not to be worn except for dressy occasions, comfy buttondown shirt that I ironed, black sneakers, black sox. Tenth grade rolls around. My son starts buying fashionable clothes with his own money. Gets his haircut every month with his own money (very independent kid; we were ready to pay).

      She’s a preteen. As long as her clothes are clean and appropriate for her age, that’s a win. You don’t want your interactions with her to be angry or unpleasant for such a minor issue. You don’t want her to think that you don’t like her as she is (not rational, but completely possible).

    6. Raine*

      This was me as a preteen, same height and shoe size! Most of my clothes came from Old Navy, but I wore a lot of jeans. Converse are great shoes for people with big feet since they tend to run large. If you have a Downeast near you, some of their basic t-shirts can be awesome because they aren’t cropped or necessarily designed for large chested folks. I also love H&M for most things because they have good, cheap, but durable basics and the odd wild item, like my Doc Martenesque floral boots I got there at 13 and still wear today. If her feet have stopped growing, something like Vans sneakers can be a good option because they are really versatile and comfortable, but a little on the pricey side.

      Also, seconding looking in the boys/mens section if she likes how those clothes look because they are often cheaper for the same thing (like packs of basic tee shirts from Target/Walmart).

    7. Stellaaaaa*

      Cotton On? They do a lot of t-shirt dresses that I wear with leggings. It’s a cute casual look. The dresses are longer than the ones you’ll find at Forever 21, and the stores aren’t overwhelming.

    8. Veruca*

      Justice. They are cut long for the size, and even have 1/2 sizes that are cut slightly larger. Also they have a line of jeans that feel very much like sweatpants and have a grey sweatpant waistband, but they look like jeans. Prices are high, but watch for sales. If you sign up for email, they occasionally have $1 shipping for entire order. I order a bunch for my hard-to-fit child and then return the rest to store.

    9. Slartibartfast*

      I have a 14 year old who up to this year lived in leggings. Except they aren’t allowed in high school unless paired with a 360 degree mid thigh covering-skirt, tunic, or shorts. Justice was our go to for most of her childhood, unfortunately she’s too tall now. Of all places, Buckle had loose fitting, soft jeans that she’ll actually wear, and they hem them for free. It’s the tight stiff denim most women’s jeans are made of that she dislikes. Still looking for cargo pants. And she loves Converse.

  59. real estate advice*

    I’m meeting with a real estate agent tomorrow for our first meeting since the initial consultation. This person was referred to me personally and has good reviews online. I prepared some specification for what I’m looking for. But any advice for a property buying newbie in terms of 1.) What specifications I should prepare in advance of the meeting AND 2.) Anything I should look out for/be wary of regarding potential scams during the buying process?

  60. Chocolate Teapot*

    There is a charity clothing collection next weekend, so I have decided to put out a few binbags of things I no longer wear. It is always hard though, as you think you “might” wear something again.

  61. insuranceWoes*

    What is with health insurance in the US? I bought health insurance and specifically said I also wanted dental insurance. A few months later, I find out (yes I should have double-checked) that I don’t have dental insurance. And the company that I’m paying for health insurance won’t (can’t?) sell me dental insurance until November unless I have a recent qualifying event. I had a qualifying event back when I tried to buy the dental insurance.

    Is there some reason I can’t get insurance when I want to?

    1. TL -*

      Usually dental insurance is separate from health insurance; different companies entirely in my experience. Though I don’t know about qualifying life events – I’ve always just had it through work.

      If you asked for it and they were supposed to give it to you, I would see if an official customer complaint could be useful.

    3. valentine*

      It’s a protection racket, only, instead of not setting your business on fire, they may or may not set it on fire. They don’t know yet. It depends. They don’t want you or them to pay only for what you need. Otherwise, we’d only get insurance ahead of big-ticket stuff. Since this was an error on their end, I don’t see why they can’t make you whole and prorate the plan they were meant to provide.

      1. insuranceWoes*

        I think the problem is that I don’t think I can prove that this is a problem on their end.

        It’s odd to me that I can’t buy dental insurance when I want to buy it. They’re selling it; I want to buy it, but…

        1. Melody Pond*

          Did you go through a broker, or work directly with the insurance carrier?

          If people could sign up for insurance whenever they wanted it (without a qualifying event) most people would only sign up for insurance when they’re about to incur claims. This means that they’ve paid less in premiums than the dollar value of the claims the insurance company is going to pay. If everyone did this, insurance companies couldn’t exist – the cash coming in would always be less than the cash going out. This just isn’t a sustainable situation. Insurance companies rely on people paying premiums into the system when they don’t always have claims that need to be paid. The way they ensure that happens is by being very restrictive on when you can enroll, and sometimes even being restrictive on when you can terminate your policy.

          It might be different in other countries with socialized healthcare. I don’t have firsthand knowledge of this, but I would imagine that other countries can basically require all of their citizen population (or maybe all of their working citizen population?) to be paying “premiums” into the cash pool. By requiring everyone to do this, even the people who are healthy or don’t need lots of care, they can ensure that there’s sufficient cash funds available to cover the claims of the people who DO need lots of care.

    4. msroboto*

      You should look carefully at the dental insurance. I opted to forget it. It was about 25.00 – 30.00 a month. It would have covered 750.00 per year. It wasn’t worth it to me to pay 300-360 per year and then due to a gum condition they would not pay for their portion of even a cleaning. I opted for better health insurance.

    1. Anonymous Celebrity*

      The one that costs $1,100? Hell no! I love my $310 Android phone from LG. Unless the new IPhone gives me an orgasm every time I use it, no way am shelling out that kind of money for a damned phone.
      .

  63. SheLooksFamiliar*

    Alison, you have the most beautiful cats – thank you for posting their pictures, they always make me smile.

      1. tangerineRose*

        They already know they’re cool. The internet adoration probably just seems like something that should happen :)

      2. Anonymous Celebrity*

        They’re probably more impressed by how well loved they are. And that’s probably why they look so good. Happy cats are more photogenic!

  64. Ask a Manager* Post author

    Y’all, my brother-in-law (my sister’s husband and father to the nieces who have popped up here before, and seriously the greatest guy) had a massive heart attack on Labor Day. He had a quadruple bypass and is back at home recovering now after six days in the hospital, and the doctors say there’s no long-term damage to his heart. But holy hell, this month has been scary. (Also, he’s vegetarian and exercises regularly and has normal cholesterol and just had a physical a few months ago. So that’s unnerving.)

    Anyway, people have been WEIRD. My mom has been having to send out multiple emails to our extended family telling people to stop calling and texting my sister while she was in the ICU with him, to stop texting my sister late at night (because she was leaving her phone on overnight in case the hospital called), and that no, my brother-in-law was not ready to talk on the phone on day 2. We both had to shoot down my cousin, who emailed us to suggest that he could email my brother-in-law’s employer pretending to be my brother-in-law with some story leads (my brother-in-law is a TV reporter) so they’d know he was “looking out for his viewers even though he’d just had a heart attack.” (WTF?) My sister got kicked out of the ICU by a casual friend who showed up at the hospital uninvited and forced his way into the ICU despite being told he wasn’t taking visitors then.

    Obviously, all of this is rooted in people being upset and caring and wanting to feel connected, so on some level I don’t want to be too critical of it, but it has been very weird.

    I’m feeling very grateful for my brother-in-law though! He is easily the nicest and most well-adjusted member of our family (they married young, probably before he was old enough to realize what weirdness he was marrying into) and he needs to stick around.

    1. Jessen*

      Erm, WTF? I mean, I can totally 100% believe people would do that, but…it’s almost like some people’s need to be seen caring and helping overrides their sense and ability to listen to what’s actually helping.

      1. Ask a Manager* Post author

        My sister and I were talking about this, and she has a theory that there might be an evolutionary need to feel close to and rally around people in times of crisis, and that in some people their logic/social intelligence doesn’t temper it into “what is appropriate for ME to do in this situation.” She mentioned that when my niece had a very serious surgery a few years ago (she is fine now!), she got lots of very sweet cards from classmates she barely knew that said things like “you’re my best friend.” And so she theorizes that this might be the adult version of that — that maybe there’s some biological thing that makes us feel especially close to someone who’s having a crisis (which could indeed be good, evolutionarily speaking and otherwise) and then it just manifests in these odd ways.

        2. HannahS*

          I’m sorry; this all sounds incredibly stressful for your whole family. I’m glad your BIL is ok. To add on to your sister’s theory, I also think that there’s no cultural education around crises. By and large, we don’t live in close physical proximity with the people we care about, and have little emotional closeness to the people physically near. Add in that serious illness and death among the young is (thankfully) rarer than it used to be, and we have a whole bunch of people who have no idea how to cope and respond, because it wasn’t modeled for them. As an example wrt death, I grew up in a moderately-observant family, and my mom grew up in a small Jewish community; I went to shiva houses with my parents, I remember my parents calling people to offer condolences, or going to the hospital, or sending donations in memory of, etc. My parents told me explicitly how to behave, and I wrote my first condolence card (unfortunately) when I was a teenager. So even though not everyone I know is following the same traditions, I have some idea of how to sensitive to the needs of mourners, and what kinds of things might be appreciated. Whereas I know from talking to friends from Anglo-Canadian stiff-upper-lip ancestry who aren’t in church communities, expectations around death are just…not really talked about. So like your sister said, people have this lovely impulse to help, but just no idea of how to direct it.

        3. blackcat*

          I think that it is just that people are self centered, and when they see something BIG (crisis or even something good) going on, they want to put themselves close to the center.

          1. Sarah G*

            I would agree that people tend to be self-centered, but my impression is that it is more about egocentrism — in that people are just reacting according to their own needs rather than the needs of others, so they feel the need connect with the ill person and their family, to have the latest updates, and to be present and offer “support” — rather than considering the needs of those at the center of the crisis, and what would actually, genuinely be helpful and supportive, which is typically going to be the opposite behaviors of all of the above unless it’s immediate family (and sometimes even then).

            1. valentine*

              This came up before here, that some people are crisis/grief vampires, including crashing strangers’ funerals.

    2. Hannah*

      It’s amazing how quickly people prioritize their own feelings and needs in the face of someone else’s crisis. I’ve seen this happen in my own family several times, so you’re not alone in having family members who can’t behave during a family emergency.

      Best wishes and healing thoughts to your brother-in-law.

      1. Sarah G*

        “It’s amazing how quickly people prioritize their own feelings and needs in the face of someone else’s crisis.” This. Much more concise version of my wordy comment above.

    3. AvonLady Barksdale*

      I’m so sorry! And I’m glad your BIL’s recovery is going well.

      People are indeed WEIRD. I’ve seen it often. There is a tendency not to listen if listening means people have to be patient and wait to be contacted. It happens to me on a regular basis; when I had surgery and didn’t want to speak to anyone because I couldn’t, I still had to field calls from my family. Even this weekend, with the hurricane, I told my family that we were fine and I would call them because I want to preserve power on my phone, yet they call me twice a day to find out what’s going on. When my grandmother was in the ICU, my mother– who wasn’t even in the state anymore– called my cousin to tell her not to go to the hospital that day, which I had to intercept when my grandmother asked for my cousin specifically.

      People want to be in control, or feel like they have some control. I get that, but… I don’t get it. I wish people would spend more time listening and sending fruit baskets. Good luck and recovery to your BIL!

    4. fposte*

      Sorry about your BIL and I’m glad it sounds like he’s doing well. What’s weird about the weirdness is you don’t always know what form it will take and who it comes from. I suspect no one would have predicted a plan to pose as your BIL to his employer, for instance, which is pretty darn epic.

      1. Ask a Manager* Post author

        My mom, who is normally never diplomatic, wrote the most amazingly diplomatic response back to that. I was in awe, because I was about to send something quite different.

        1. Foreign Octopus*

          I would pay good money to see the response you were about to send.

          Also, I’m so glad you BIL is okay, and seconded that people are weird as fork.

    5. Anonymous Ampersand*

      That’s so scary Alison! I’m so glad he’s OK. Especially for your sister and the nieces. And, err, him himself.

      This is where I always think that Ring Theory falls apart. No one thinks that they’re the ones who are being inappropriate!

      1. Ask a Manager* Post author

        My mom told me she gave my stepmother a lecture about Ring Theory and explained to her exactly where in the ring she was, which pleased me greatly. (I do not like my stepmother, but irritatingly they are friends.)

        1. AvonLady Barksdale*

          OK, off topic, but that relationship would drive me CRAZY. My mother is one of those, “But she’s so NICE” people and never listens when I tell her that I don’t like someone. I mean, on a macro basis, it’s a very lovely thing that your mother and stepmother get along, but the fact that you don’t like her just makes me shudder for you.

          1. Ask a Manager* Post author

            Oh, believe me, it drives me crazy. My stepmother did some awful things while my dad was dying, and my mom just cannot see it clearly, and I want to scream at her “How can you be friends with this horrible woman who did horrible things to your family?” (And have said pretty much that. A lot.) So … yes.

            1. AvonLady Barksdale*

              *nods in solidarity* Shall I pour you a bourbon? We bought a ton of it before Florence arrived, and it sounds like you could use one.

            2. Julia*

              Someone you love being close to someone who hurt you is so hard. With friends, I tend to distance myself after a while because I can’t stop wondering if they secretly support that horrible thing, or why they don’t care about my feelings at all, but it’s harder when it’s your mother, and this also seems to be her only fault, so of course you wouldn’t distance yourself from her over this – I’m not even suggesting you should, I’m just terrible at expressing that I think I understand your hurt.

              Anyway, I’m glad your mother stood up for the family in spectacular ways, and that your BIL is on the way to recovery! I hope you don’t feel obliged to post anything on this site.

    6. Old Biddy*

      Someone at my work was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and set up a site on Carebridge to post updates. They asked everyone not to call/email/etc. I think this is a great idea, especially if people will respect boundaries. you could do the same thing with Facebook/Twitter.

      1. Woodswoman*

        Yes, I second CaringBridge/social media of choice, or alternatively an email list, and designating someone to be the person who shares update. I have been both the messenger and the recipient in such situations., and that has worked well. While there may be people who simply ignore requests for space, most people respect this system of communication.

      2. Jessen*

        Does it let people leave comments? I feel like that might also let people get there “I need to be supportive” out in a way that people don’t necessarily have to check it right away.

    7. Detective Amy Santiago*

      I am so glad to hear that your BIL is on the road to recovery.

      People are SO strange when it comes to this sort of thing. It’s like they are so desperate to do something, anything, that they just don’t think about what they are doing.

      I hope your sister and nieces are doing okay.

    8. Apollo Warbucks*

      Damn that’s rough, here’s wishing your brother in law a speedy recovery, and that people chill out!

    9. Woodswoman*

      I’m so glad your brother-in-law is recovering, and sorry to hear others in your family are being so troublesome. However well-intentioned, it’s always interesting to me how often people miss a simple step here–to ask what would be most helpful and then listening to the response.

    11. Not So NewReader*

      I am sorry to hear your BIL had such difficulty. He sounds like he is a good guy. I am glad he is going to be okay.

    12. Be the Change*

      Yikes!!!! Please tell your nieces we are thinking of them as well! It’s horrifying to have a parent suddenly collapse. Hope they are okay!

    13. LilySparrow*

      I’m sorry y’all have to deal with this and glad he’s going to be okay.

      Having dealt with too many close relatives in ICU, I don’t know how to say this more delicately – a lot of people just suck. The second they get an emotion, they seem to believe they’re entitled to be comforted and catered to by the people who are actually in crisis. A shocking amount of adults truly can’t tell the difference between offering support and demanding attention.

      The Ring Theory needs to be mandatory reading every year from junior high on up, posted on the walls of every hospital, and handed out on laminated cards by every EMT.

      1. Mimmy*

        I have to say that reading AAM has led me to look up some very interesting topics. I just looked up The Ring Theory. Agreed with you about its importance.

    15. Sarah G*

      Alison, so sorry to hear about your brother-in-law, and hugely grateful that he is going to be okay. It’s amazing how strange and thoughtless people’s behavior can be in the wake of a crisis. Hope he recovers fully and without further complications, and hope your sister and your nieces are doing okay. Hard stuff!

    16. Jemima Bond*

      Gosh it’s amazing how some people manage to make someone else’s illness all about them! (By which I mean the people bothering SisterAAM etc). I hope you can help her maintain boundaries and keep calm. I also wish BILAAM a peaceful, minimal-pain, speedy recovery and that he lives healthily ever after!

    18. ThatGirl*

      I’m a little late to this but my dad had a major, initially undiagnosed heart attack in Dec 2016, he was thin, healthy, basically vegan… it was very unnerving to see someone so healthy almost die, but he’s ok now, thankfully.

    19. LGC*

      I’m so sorry – I’m glad your BIL is doing well, but your family is acting crazy!

      I don’t have much else to add, except to say hopefully he makes a full and quick recovery.

    20. NoLongerYoungButLotsWiser*

      So glad to hear he’s on the mend. scary that there was no early warning. And a +1 on the people being weird. You may be onto something about the crisis – evolutionary thing. I’ve found that some folks don’t respond at all, for fear of being inappropriate, and some go the other direction (and have no clue they are not appropriate).
      I’ll tell my story of inappropriate closeness later. Amazing.

  65. Anna*

    We are going to Sicily. Staying in Taormina. I would appriciate tips and Idea. Family With children youngest is ten years old.

  66. Ally*

    I love podcasts when I am on public transport or shopping or excising or cleaning or going through a slow period at the place we don’t mention on weekends. I listen to a LOT of podcasts and am running low on my favourites so podcast recommendations please, any genre though preferably ones with a big backlog of episodes.

    1. BRR*

      If you like tv there are a lot of companion ones for shows. A new interesting one is this had Oscar buzz. They discuss movies that were trying to be Oscar favorites but failed.

    3. Elkay*

      Griefcast with Cariad Lloyd
      Distraction Pieces with Scroobius Pip

      Distraction Pieces has a greater backlog.

    4. Smarty Boots*

      Mortified. (Be careful listening to this if you are driving, you don’t want to crash while you’re laughing. )

    5. Detective Amy Santiago*

      All of the HowStuffWorks podcasts have huge catalogs – Stuff You Should Know, Stuff You Missed in History Class, Stuff They Don’t Want You to Know, etc.

      I’ve binged all of Han & Matt Know it All and The Trail Went Cold (which are very different sort of podcasts). The official NBC The Good Place podcast is a delight. The History Chicks is good, though I find myself skipping eps of things I’m not particularly interested in.

      A couple of lesser known ones made by people I know are Modern Myths (plays) and Disaster Area (stories about various disasters).

    6. Penguin*

      Kevin and Ursula Eat Cheap, Productivity Alchemy, and/or The Hidden Almanac, all by Ursula Vernon and Kevin Sonney! Approximately 200, 40, and 50 hours of archive, respectively. KUEC is drunkenly eating terrible food and/or discussing widely ranging topics (NSFW), PA is discussing, experimenting with, and interviewing people about their ways of staying organized (PG-13ish), and THA is a (fictional) alternate reality showcased by “encyclopedia” or “almanac” entries alternating with longer storylines (PG).

    8. Lissa*

      The History Chicks is really fun, I’m just getting into it now and it’s got a nice big backlog – episodes about an hour each, about a different woman from history. I’m learning lots, even about women I thought I knew about already!

    9. Marion Ravenwood*

      Lots of the How Stuff Works podcasts. I particularly enjoy Stuff Mom Never Told You and Stuff You Missed In History Class. Also How I Built This.

    10. Dragonista*

      You didn’t specify whether you prefer fiction/non-fiction so I’m going to recommend a few of both. I will split my recs into two posts for ease.
      Non-fiction
      All Killa No Filla: British comedians Rachel Fairburn & Kiri Pritchard-McLean explore a shared interest in serial killers. They don’t make light of the victims deaths, but they do manage to find dark humour n the topic or in their off topic tangential conversations. 49 episodes so far, (and they are just about to take their live show on a US tour, I’ve been to three of these and they are excellent)
      Book Shambles: using books as a jumping off p, hosts Josie Long and Robin Ince and a special guest each week launch into interesting discussions. 100 ish episodes.
      Made of Human: Danish comedian Sofie Hagen talks to people about how they function as humans. A different guest for each episode and lots of discussion around mental health, stigma, body positivity, sexuality. Alongside some serious discussion there is also humour and lightness. 109 episodes.
      Like Minded Friends: Hosted by comedians Tom Allen and Suzi Ruffell – Suzi and Tom are best friends and both gay. This podcast is the two of them chatting away about anything and everything. 122 episodes.

    11. Dragonista*

      Fiction
      Tincture: Western sci-fi, post apocalyptic. Also some links to Steph King’s Gunslinger/ Dark Tower. 49 episodes.

      EOS 10: Misfit crew of a space station, focusing on the medical team and a deposed alien prince working in the kitchens. Very funny, great characters. Season three is on weekly release right now.

      The Bright Sessions: Dr Bright is a therapist, with unusual patients. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but think of how you would react if you could suddenly hear others thoughts/ feel their emotions- wouldn’t you need therapy too? Each episode takes the form of a recording e.g. a session, a voicemail? This series has now finished, but there are 56 episodes.

    12. London*

      I love the Guilty Feminist – hosted by comedian Debra Francis-White, has different co-hosts and guests on each week to discuss a particular topic (e.g. pushing back, instincts, mothers and daughters). Does come with the risk of laughing out loud on public transport! – can also be very moving and serious as well. There are over 100 episodes with a new one out every Monday.

    13. Windchime*

      I’ve recently started listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz. It’s a podcast about sound. Wait–don’t scroll by! I thought it sounded weird, too, but some recent episodes have been about the people who do the sound for “Hamilton”, the emergency broadcast tone, and ultrasonic tones that department stores use to track you and your buying habits. It’s super interesting and the episodes are usually about 20-25 minutes long.

  67. LizB*

    Fellow cat owners, please assuage my insecurity: how common is it to need to reschedule a vet checkup because your little darling absolutely refuses to go in the carrier? I feel like the world’s most incompetent cat mom. We successfully made it to the rescheduled appointment yesterday (thank you, new top-loading carrier!) but I still have this deep-seated fear that I’m terrible at having a kitty.

    1. Ally*

      I have never had to reschedule because I couldn’t get a cat in a carrier (but I was told about top loading carriers by a cat guardian relative before I got my first cat, they are a godsend) but I have had to reschedule due to an inability to find the cat. Either because she was hiding in the house or because she had gone out at night and not returned by the time the appointment was (normally she goes out at night and comes back between 6-8am but this time she just didn’t).

      Sometimes cats…just do their own thing and won’t cooperate. I’m sure you aren’t terrible.

    2. Cats are weird and wonderful*

      We just gave up entirely and found a vet who makes house calls. A mobile vet is what I think we used as a search term. I think it’s about $20 more a visit? Which is worth it for my sanity not to mention the poor cat’s.

      1. Not So NewReader*

        Yep, this. The vet comes to my house for my dog. At first she had to, he did something to his hip/spine and I did not dare transport him. She fixed him right up on the first visit. And it was $20 extra.

        I hope you chuckle. I had a very timid cat, she was such a gentle soul. I went to put her in the cat carrier and she spread her front legs out to either side of her body so she was suddenly too big to go through the doorway of the carrier. I was really surprised by her cleverness. I had to fold her front legs in with one hand while holding her with the other. It was a bit of doing.

    3. Max Kitty*

      We didn’t have to reschedule the appointment, but we were a bit late because we had to extract kitty from under the king-size bed. He was right in the middle, and we ended up having to take the bed apart to get to him. We now close all bedroom doors before he sees the carrier.

    4. Lady Jay*

      I had to do that once! I’d just adopted kitty and she successfully wrangled her way out of the carrier every single time I tried to lower her into it.

      I put the appointment off, borrowed a larger carrier (from the vet!) and got her to the clinic the next day.

      Rest assured, you’re not the only one. :)

    5. Cat Person*

      I had a wee little girl who was a holy terror to get into a carrier. I finally tricked her, several times, into the bathroom where I could close the door and trap her.

      1. foolofgrace*

        That’s what I had to do. Put the carrier in the bathtub and wrangled her into it. The funny thing is that once we were done at the vet, she couldn’t wait to get back into the carrier.

    6. TL -*

      I have an exceptionally easy kitty, so take this with a grain of salt – but I actually leave my carrier out and open all the time so Kitty plays in it and jumps in and out. Loading her into it isn’t a problem at all – if I go move it she’ll jump in (it’s a top loader soft shell) and I just zip her in.

      She’s always confused when we come back, though!

      1. tangerineRose*

        I’ve heard that leaving the carrier out so the cat can get used to it is a great idea. I do it, but 1 of my kitties is very hard to get into the carrier (he is great at hiding, running, and squirming out of my grip), and another kitty usually has to be put into the carrier backwards. I’ve missed a few appointments because I couldn’t get the kitty in the carrier.

        I was embarrassed too, but the vet was very nice about it and suggested a few things.

        Feliway can help.

        1. TL -*

          My kitty is super needy and would rather be next to me than not at any point. If I’m not paying attention to her, she’ll go find a toy so she can play on the floor next to me. If I do something she doesn’t like , she sulks for five minutes and then comes and finds me to make up. When I clip her nails, I just wait until she’s napping in my lap and then clip them – she’s quite content as long as I don’t rush anything.
          So definitely not a difficult cat by any means!

      2. Marion Ravenwood*

        We do this with our two. They’ll sniff it, go in it for a little bit etc, but it’s still a job to get Loki in there. (Thor is much better with it, in a sort of resigned Eeyore-ish way.) However, the last time they went to the vet, I left the carriers out for a few hours afterwards and they plonked themselves on top of them and went to sleep! Little so-and-sos…

    7. I'm A Little Teapot*

      LOL. Depends on the cat. Mine are generally pretty good, and I’ve had to reschedule a few/been a few minutes late a couple times. Some cats however are MUCH better at hiding or squishing themselves into places you can’t get them out of. Really, it’s a matter of learning the cat, and once you do, sometimes you can take steps to improve your odds. (FYI, it’s generally impossible to get the cat out from under the middle of the bed unless you have a twin size.) You’re fine, don’t worry about it. Vet clinics totally get it.

    8. Anonymosity*

      I had to do this almost all the time with Pig. I would set the carrier out a few days before her appointment so she would get used to it being there, and then I always had to pretend to give her breakfast and snatch her up at the last second. I got a major chewing out for THAT, let me tell you.

      My vet was pretty good about rescheduling, as they knew she was an outside kitty and it was hit-or-miss to get her in the damn thing.

      So no, you’re not terrible at it. Some cat’s do. Not. Want.

    9. Roja*

      We have a furry houdini on our hands who once caused us to miss her vet appointment because we literally couldn’t find her. She was in the house, somewhere, we knew that. But despite our most thorough searching efforts, we didn’t find her until she chose to come out–naturally after we got back from taking our other cat to the vet, smart critter. Even now putting her in the carrier is a two-person job, and there have been a few times where I thought we weren’t going to be able to get her in even with two people.

      You’re not terrible at having a kitty. Your kitty just hates carriers. Hope the top-loading one is more successful!

    10. nonegiven*

      I set the carrier on end and lower the cat back end first by the scruff. They still grow extra legs that all engage to stay out of it, but that usually works. Just have to peel the claws off the opening one by one.

      Except the one cat that can’t seem to help walking into it on her own most times.

    11. Sprechen Sie Talk?*

      We tried conventional “for cats” soft carriers and our two kibble addicts hated them because I think they felt like they were a little squished in there even though they were technically the right size, and really hated having to go in the carrier. Eventually we went and got a large, hard sided carrier meant for dogs (partly because we needed it for their international flight, but we bought it a year in advance of moving to get them used to it), big enough for the two of them with space to turn around and to stand and look out at eye level. Now we just open the door, put in some treats, and in they go whereas before it was a massive fight, hiding, chasing, crying, and scratching.

      Also, if it becomes a recurring problem, does your vet do housecalls? We have a mobile vet now for various reasons and MAN is that amazing. No drama, no fuss, in and out quick. Its a bit more expensive, but the convenience outweighs the cost.

      1. tangerineRose*

        I’ve had 2 issues with soft carriers. Some of them are constructed in a way that it is possible for a cat to escape.

        The other issue is that there’s usually only 1 way for a cat to be taken out of a soft carrier. At my vet’s, with a hard carrier, they will frequently take the top off the hard carrier (unscrew it) so the kitty is still in the lower part of the carrier and feels safer.

    12. Marion Ravenwood*

      I haven’t rescheduled, but I did once have to call the vet and tell them I was going to be late because Loki absolutely refused to go in the carrier after an hour of trying. Luckily they were fine with it and said ‘this happens all the time, just get here when you can’. So it isn’t just you!

    13. Windchime*

      I definitely had to reschedule a couple of times with my manx kitty, who is no longer with us. Current kitty hates the carrier, so I lock him in the powder room before I bring the carrier inside. It’s a hard-sided carrier meant for small dogs, so it’s roomy enough. I put a soft, folded quilt on the bottom so he’s not skidding around on the plastic. He doesn’t like it, but he is pretty meek and will let me put him in without too much trouble. Once we are done at the vet’s, he is more than happy to go back into the carrier!

      I have to say that I do love my vet’s office. They have a separate door for cats to enter through, and the waiting room separated so that cats don’t have to be in the same section as dogs. The exam room for cats (who aren’t ill or contagious) has soft surfaces, some carpeted steps along the wall that go high so the cat can perch up there, and toys to play with while we wait for the vet.

  68. Fake Old Converse Shoes (not in the US)*

    Yesterday mom called me to say that she found some old photos while cleaning the garage. Today we had a look at them after breakfast. There are two big piles: one from a family holiday around the late 40’s, and some of big events around the 30’s. I was really surprised to see
    * my grandmother and her sisters wearing simple yet fashionable dresses (plus the youngest posing like a model)
    * my grandmother wearing pants (pants! in the 40’s!) while holding her kids
    * My grandfather’s family at his welcome back party from the Army, my great grandmother included!
    * my mom and her late brother enjoying a hot summer afternoon at home
    Not only we’re surprised that the photos survived, but now we’re intrigued. I always knew my grandfather had a well paid job, but having a camera (even if borrowed) portable enough to take it on a holiday and take several photos must have been no easy feat.

  69. Jessen*

    Ok, new project for the weekend – Her Majestic Floofiness is going to be introduced to toothpaste. I’m thinking of getting some of those finger toothbrushes eventually. She really isn’t a bitey cat at all, thankfully, but she tends to be EXTREMELY picky about her flavors and there just aren’t a lot of options as far as cat toothpaste. Anyone got any tips?

      1. Jessen*

        It is not, sadly. It is an accurate description however. She’s very much the “queen of the house” type of cat. She exists to lounge majestically on the furniture and demand that her fur be brushed and her ears rubbed and she be fed food in her preferred flavors. And she’s not shy about speaking up if it’s not happening.

        1. Ally*

          Shame, I have a pedigree maine coon. Her real name is something stupidly long (because pedigree cats cannot have the same name as any other, I don’t know if its the same in the US though or if it is my country specific) but we call her something else. So it wouldn’t surprise me if there is a pedigree cat somewhere with that name.

          I know what you mean about “queen of the house” cats though. I have a cat just like that. Very vocal, very insistent on cuddles when she wants it.She’s been known to knock the phone/book/drink out of someone’s hand if they aren’t giving her enough attention even if they are stroking her with their other hand. She is very demanding.

          While the other cat is happy to sleep for nearly 22 hours a day (he basically only wakes up to eat and if he gets any lazier he could be re-classified as decorative. We took him to the vets about this as we were worried he had some sort of illness but apparently he’s healthy, just really really lazy).

          1. Jessen*

            Mine is…your average shelter cat. Unknown parentage, no distinguishing features other than being solid black and shedding everywhere. Also frequently sits on my keyboard.

    3. Bluebell*

      Dog toothpaste comes in chicken flavor. Our pup really likes it. We let her lick it a little before we start in on the brushing.

  70. Wildlywatery*

    I just ate most of a Dr. Oetker’s Cioccolato pizza.
    I regret nothing.

    (It was pretty good! Decent chocolate but the crust was a little floppy…though I may not have left it in long enough because chocolate pizza)

  71. Woodswoman*

    I recently and intentionally lost the 20 pounds that I’d gained over a couple of years, a substantial amount for my small frame. At age 60, I gave myself six months to do it and had success with the online version of WeightWatchers, no meetings. I’m feeling great, my health is better, and I’m proud of my success.

    Now I’m focused on maintaining rather than losing. While I exercise and eat mindfully, I appreciate any tips people can share about maintaining a healthy weight over time.

    1. kc89*

      #1 tip that might be obvious but is worth repeating, make sure you are monitoring your weight. It’s so easy to go on vacation for a week and then want to avoid the scale and then it’s six months later and you’re back to square 1.

      You don’t want to get obsessed but weekly weigh ins are a good idea

      1. Woodswoman*

        Good suggestion. I did in fact have my first foray into that. I was away for a bit, and I made peace before I went that it was fine to gain a little and enjoy my vacation without focusing a lot on what I was eating. I’m happy to say that when I came home, I got on the scale and had gained a little but actively took it off again pretty quickly.

    2. Not So NewReader*

      I try to go by clothing size. The clothes get snug then it’s time to rope in what I am doing.

      1. Anonymosity*

        Same here. I don’t weigh myself. I used to have a job in a materials testing lab and they had a huge scale in the (railroad) oil testing area, that I could stand on. I weighed myself on it a lot, to the point where I started to feel obsessive about it. That was scary enough to make me swear off weighing entirely.

      2. tangerineRose*

        Good idea. When I gained weight (that I still want to lose!), I didn’t notice it right away because I was wearing stretchy pants. Now I tend to wear jeans.

    3. Victoria, Please*

      Good for you!! I’m at 10 lbs since mid-May, so it’s slow as hell… 5 more to GW.

      Maintenance is much harder than loss, so I hear. You might want to keep the program for another 6 months and set your goal to maintain. Essentially you’ll get another 5 points per day, is all (argh!). That will give you time to get used to it and make adjustments.

      1. Woodswoman*

        Congratulations on being well along toward your goal weight! I know what a slog it is.

        Even though it’s been quite a while since I was young, I’m still mentally surprised that I have an older body and that it’s easy to pile weight on and hard to take it off. Part of me still thinks I can run around and work off the calories just by being active. Too bad it doesn’t work that way anymore.

        1. tab*

          Yep, one of the many “perks” of getting older. I’ve read that just recording everything you eat will keep you in line. I certainly gained back some weight after I stopped recording. Congrats on the loss!

    6. NoLongerYoungButLotsWiser*

      Congratulations. I appreciate how hard it is, and what a victory! In addition to monitoring your weight, pick a number of pounds “over” your goal, which is your hard stop. IE, you let yourself fluctuate up and down in a reasonable range (5 pounds for me, since I’m post-menopausal and it’s never pre-menstrual bloat… just chinese or salty food!). Anything over that, and I pick up the pace on a few more minutes of exercise and dropping bread or butter, or something adaptation to take off a few and bring me back down to goal (not below the top of the range, back to goal). This gives me liberty for things like the holiday meal, but not the 10 pound gain some folks get annually as they age. If you reset your goal – oh, this isn’t too bad…. every time you gain a few, you are right back where you started. It is easier to take off 4 pounds than 15… and it gives you a chance to examine your eating habits to see where you need to tweak a bit, or your exercise habits to see where you can add a bit. One of my friends had added a bag of trail mix a day, and saw five pounds on by the end of the school year… once she realized the culprit, she could adjust. It’s kind of a check.

  72. Harvey P. Carr*

    Looking for an online dating service. Any recommendations? My goal is a long term relationship that will eventually lead to either marriage or living together. I’m a heterosexual male in my mid-50s and due to circumstances beyond my control, my social experience with women has been limited. Let’s just say that a while back there was a motion picture starring Steve Carell that I could have starred in the title role and I wouldn’t have been acting, and leave it at that.

    I’ve signed up with Match.com and Zoosk, and I keep getting e-mails from Zoosk saying that so-and-so has read my profile, so-and-so has sent me a message, etc., but of course I can’t find out who or read the messages unless I pay, which I haven’t. I’ve heard that some sites will send out phony messages to get you to subscribe, and I don’t want that. I guess I’m looking for “legitimate” sites. I’d rather post a profile and get nothing than get fake responses that were never going to lead anywhere.

    I should also mention that I don’t have a smartphone, so the site would have to be one I can use with a laptop or desktop. One site that I do know works is Coffee Meets Bagel, because that’s how my nephew met the woman who would become his wife. I’d sign up with them, but they’re only set up for smartphones so that leaves me out.

    Thanks for your help!

    1. David S. Pumpkins (formerly katamia)*

      I really like OKCupid–met my fiancé on there. They have a lot of questions you can answer (but you aren’t required to, although it’s better IMO if you answer some)–stuff about religious/political beliefs, sexual preferences, daily life, and other weird potential dealbreakers, so while I didn’t click with everyone I met, everyone I met through OKCupid seemed like someone I *could* have clicked with, if that makes sense.

      1. JKP*

        I had good results with OKCupid also. There are a lot of questions you can answer (the questions are a huge assortment of user submitted questions.) What worked best for me was to only answer the questions that were dealbreakers or really important to me and to skip all the questions I didn’t care that much about. Then if it said that we were a 95% match, that meant we matched on the things that I really cared about (that they also answered).

        Also, from the female perspective, I got lots of useless one line “Hi” messages from guys that I often didn’t have time to reply to. A guy had a much better chance if he sent even 1 sentence that indicated he read my profile and what appealed to him about it. Something to spark a conversation.

    2. Aurora Leigh*

      I met my boyfriend on Match! :) We’ve been together over a year, and just moved in together a couple months ago.

      I seem to remember that Match would show you who had looked at your profile and liked it, without paying, but it would just say “someone sent you a message”.

      I only paid for a month at a time when there was someone I wanted to message.

      I tried Christian Mingle, too. I liked that you could actually see the messages you recieved even when you hadn’t paid, you just had to pay to message. There’s a pretty small dating pool in my area as it is, though and the site had very very few guys on it, so it didn’t work for me.

    3. Woodswoman*

      I second OkCupid, which is easily accessed on a laptop. I met someone I was hoping to marry on the site and although it didn’t ultimately work out, we were together for several years.

      Their question format gives you a chance to share more about yourself and learn more about others. You can pick which ones you want to answer, and you can highlight which ones are most important to you to filter people out if they are the polar opposite of you on those.

      Here’s an example. Some of the questions are just basic about what you enjoy doing in your free time. For me, it’s been no big deal if those don’t match up perfectly. But others are more weighty. like a prompt asking if you’re okay with people making racist comments. For me if someone answers yes, that’s a total dealbreaker and I can just skip over to the next profile.

    4. Jemima Bond*

      I met my OH on OKCupid and he is a prince amongst men! Well he is to me which is what counts. I also had several dates with perfectly reasonable prospects iyswim – we didn’t click but they made sense as suggestion. No horrors or weirdos, at least not beyond the bounds of normal quirks.
      Actually all my hilarious dating stories were from Plenty Of Fish or Match, iirc…

    5. I Am Still Furious!!*

      I hope you keep us updated, I’m thinking about wading into that pool, too. I had no real relationship with STBEXH past we were legally married and living on 2 levels of the same house for years, and I would like to meet someone special. Love to read about what works and what doesn’t with online dating with people our age.

      1. jolene*

        Met my husband on Nerve, though that might be a bit risqué for you. Here’s some great advice about contacting women: drop a few lines saying why you like the look of her and her profile. Keep it short, non-creepy and light. Don’t overthink it but make sure it’s specific to her. 95% of men who contacted me just wrote something generic and I never got back to any of them. And make sure your photo is the absolute best it can be while still being recent and accurate enough that she’ll recognise you straight away in person.

    7. Waiting for the Sun*

      I like OKCupid and its questions.
      Some unsolicited advice from a 50-something woman:
      Don’t gush about how beautiful someone is in your first message, even if she is. :)
      Don’t post a photo of your car or motorcycle. We don’t care.
      Do post a non-blurry photo or two of yourself, smiling in at least one of them.
      Look forward to meeting some nice, interesting women! :)

      2. LilySparrow*

        Yes, a recent candid photo from a party or work or family event where you look relaxed and smiling, is much better than an overly posed selfie that’s meant to look “sexy”. Honestly, a good Linkedin professional headshot is better, even.

        And gushing about looks – spot on. Don’t do it. Better to make a connection to some hobby or activity she listed.

    8. Sack of Benevolent Trash Marsupials*

      I am 50 and met my current husband on Plenty of Fish a few years ago. It was free, not sure if it still is.

      I had to wade through a lot of crap messages and probably in the year or so I was on, I found something like 5 guys who could string a sentence together and looked remotely interesting, so keep your expectations low (volume-wise) and be patient.

      I really liked online dating because you can converse in email for a while – that was usually enough for me to know whether I even wanted to meet the person or not. (I had one guy who initially looked interesting self-select out of the pool by complaining about pretty much everything in email, including my responses. PASS.) I didn’t go on many actual dates but they were all fine.

      My best advice would be to give it a try though, and at least email with anyone who seems interesting, even if they don’t seem like a great match. You never know.

  73. Tris Prior*

    Cat owners, how do you stop freaking out after your cat has had a health scare? Our 3-month-old kitten had a trip to the kitty ER this week. She’s got an infection, and is on antibiotics and noticeably improved, but she went downhill SO fast (runny eye and sneezing a bit in the morning, laying around lethargically with the nobody-home look in her eyes and refusing food by that evening when I came home from work).

    I’m having trouble sleeping and am being super hypervigilant about her and I’m driving my partner insane. I plan on talking about this in therapy when I go next – already talked in my last session about my fears that one of our kittens was going to get sick and die or have an accident and my therapist said this was a pretty normal fear for a new pet owner, similar to the fears of inexperienced new parents. But in the meantime I have to figure out how to calm down and stop assuming that I’m going to come home or wake up to find her dead or suffering. Help?

    1. Not So NewReader*

      This doesn’t work for everyone, but I go right into the fire. So if I come home and my kitty is dead/dying what will I do?
      1) If she’s gone there is nothing I really can do. I will grieve. Then I will get another kitty.
      2) It almost feels trickier if they are still alive, do we run to the vets or are they going to pass in a few minutes anyway? Ugh. Who knows. I figured I would point the car toward the vets. If the cat does not make it, I can hold on to the thought that I did my best to get some care.

      Overall, she will grow. When their bodies are so tiny like that they are more vulnerable, stuff goes right through their systems fast. The bigger her body gets the better off she will be.

      Cats do not do well with telegraphing how sick they are. You can ask your vet for pointers and perhaps do a little research to find out what symptoms get serious fast. I prefer the idea of talking to your vet because the best thing is for you to learn when THIS kitty is in trouble. You can learn general rules of thumb later.

      Last. Not all the time and not everyone, but sometimes our pet’s vulnerabilities resonate a little too much because their vulnerabilities remind us of our own vulnerabilities. Ironically, one of the ways you stop worrying about the cat so much is to keep upping your own self-care. Keep looking for things to improve and good habits to adopt. I found it helpful to say that this is my new life style, as I increased my own self care I also increased the care my animals were getting.

      1. Roja*

        Re: first paragraph, I actually do that too. My much beloved two are now 12 years old, and while they’re 100% healthy, I know the day is coming. I comfort myself by reminding myself how much I love them, despite being sad at putting previous kitties down years back, and someday I will have more cats whom I love just as much as I love these ones now. It’s weird, and I’m sure will seem callous to some, but it works for me.

        1. Not So NewReader*

          I have to let practicality kick in or I am going to be a puddle on the floor. I seem to consistently find something unique about each pet that I thoroughly enjoy. It’s not the same, nor should it be the same as the last pet BUT that does not mean it is LESS THAN.
          The other thing I remind myself is that animal needs me to take action if it is having trouble. It’s dependent on me to do something. Love always comes with HARD work. We love our families and this means hard work. We love our jobs/home/etc and this means more hard work. Taking care of a dying pet is more of that hard work. I know the ending will be sad, but what they add to my life has been incredible. Death is a moment, it is not the entire story.

      2. Tris Prior*

        She has a followup with our regular vet on Saturday and honestly, that cannot come soon enough. The emergency vet has done a great job every time I have had to use them and this was no exception, but they tend to just treat the symptoms they came in with, unless it’s some vague symptom that needs more tests, like vomiting or the pet just generally not seeming “right.” I think I will feel a lot better once she and her brother have had a thorough once-over; our regular vet hasn’t seen them yet and I trust her.

        I’ve considered what I will do if she does die, and the part I keep getting stuck on is, I have a bonded pair. She and her brother are totally in love with each other. I can’t imagine how I would help him through it. I have had multiple cats before but never multiple cats who liked each other, much less were this bonded. That is going to be tough regardless of who goes first and when it happens.

        And, you’ve got a point on the self-care. That’s been totally out the window since we got them because I have been focused on them, not sleeping because of them playing or fighting on top of us at oh-god-a.m., and I’ve had trouble eating from the stress, though that’s gone better this weekend. The lack of sleep is really rough; if we shut them out of the bedroom one of them howls and while I have no philosophical problem with cry-it-out, we have a brand new downstairs neighbor who is a bigtime complainer already and I don’t want a noise complaint from her because the cat’s keeping her up. He’s pretty loud. :/

        1. Not So NewReader*

          Bonded pair. It’s tough when one goes. If you have a dominate care taker you may be able to find another cat for him to take care of. If you are left with the recipient of care you may find another cat to care for the recipient cat.

          Friends and I had bonded dogs. One died at 18 months. The other lived a long life but clearly missed his sis.
          I should think there are some materials available somewhere for helping a grieving pet.

          Playing/fighting on the bed with you in it. This is a huge no-no. Get a spritzer of water next to you on the bed. The only time you don’t spritz them is if they curl up and start to go to sleep. Walking around is not acceptable unless they are clearly looking for space to lay down or they need to change positions. I can almost promise you that if you use the spritzer faithfully each night by the end of the week the behaviors will have changed.

          I do this with my dogs also. They can be on the bed but they know the rules. Get on the bed, pick a spot and lay down. My cats have never been that interested in my big klutzy dogs, so they found their own solution. They went on the side of me where the dog was not. The agreement seemed to be that neither animal crossed over me the entire night.

          The first week was rough. But the more consistent you are the sooner things straighten out.

    2. dawbs*

      I”m sorry.
      There is no winning on these.
      I try to have an idea of where the lnes are decided when I’m in a non-super-stressed state. So I have a plan for what level of suffering is to much (know that’s a changing target–because ‘temporary suffering’ is different than long term suffering. I put a pet through a major surgery because the chances of coming out well was good [and it was] and I said no to a minor surgery because the chances of coming out well was pretty low). If there’s a money limit you can spend, try to be aware of it–because realistically, I spent a crap-ton on my pets, but when I was faced with $10k for surgery, I had to balk, because I just couldn’t do it.
      Knowing there’s a limited amount you can do is HARD. I have that feeling some days when my kid gets on the school bus (because really, nothing I can do will change what happens in her day), and when my cat eats stupid crap (which he does on the regular to piss me off) or my husband gets in the car–but it’s sometimes harder on creatures who can’t TELL YOU what’s happening.

      But I”m sorry, and…it gets easier?

    3. I'm A Little Teapot*

      Keep in mind that 3 months old for a cat is really young – they have very little reserves to sustain them if they get sick, so it can be very serious extremely quickly. In another month or 2, the same illness would likely play out very differently. Also, sounds like a cat cold/respiratory infection. Very common, and in older cats it’s usually not a big deal, and doesn’t even require treatment unless they don’t fight it off. It’s purely the age that made it such a problem. You did what you needed to do, got her to the vet for treatment and she’s recovering. So you are a good pet parent.

      In terms of your anxiety, if other’s people’s needs will calm you (some people it works for), the kitten will actually do better if you are calm and keep things as normal as possible.

      Otherwise, I mentally run through the list of what I should do/need to do to ensure optimal health and comfort for my cats. Comfortable bedding? Clean litterbox? Food and water? Toys? Pets and playtime? Everything appropriately clean? Medicines? Once I’ve checked everything off the list, it’s like my brain can relax, knowing that I’ve done everything I can do.

      1. Tris Prior*

        Yeah, I’ve had cats who have had colds before and it’s not been a huge deal. The fact that she’s so tiny probably did have a lot to do with how quick she went downhill. I am really looking forward to her getting bigger and filling out more. She’s been putting away a good amount of food these past few days so that makes me a little hopeful.

        I guess I’m weird in the whole “control the things you can control, let go of the things you cannot control” mindset just doesn’t work for me. My brain cannot relax if I’ve checked everything off the list, because my main fear is, I can do everything right and she could STILL drop dead out of nowhere.

        I actually had this happen a long time ago; my kitten seemed totally healthy, got sick one morning and was dead by 10 p.m. that night despite the vet saying it was just an infection. Turned out to be a serious birth defect that finally got bad enough to do him in. Zero signs of it. The vet was horrified that she’d missed it but I guess she was doing the whole horses-not-zebras thing of diagnosis; he was presenting like he had an infection, not like his intestines were snarled up and cutting off blood flow. I keep telling myself that this was a random genetic fluke, but it’s the randomness of it that scares me, if that makes sense.

        1. Not So NewReader*

          This is an example of trying very hard yet still failing. I have seen some of this in life and probably you have to0. We are powerless to some extent. And every relationship has some risk. When Control Brain starts on its tirades, tell Control Brain, “With whatever happens I will do my best each step of the way.” And that is about all any of us can do, just do our best.
          I have felt this feeling about parents, also. And I have seen other people say this about their folks. It’s actually a pretty normal thing, although a bit unrealistic goal.
          We don’t talk about it much, but sometimes part of love is the willingness to let go. I have found it helpful to view each relationship and each interaction as a gift. (I have lost a few people and a few pets. I had to figure out something for all this sadness that worked for me.) And I have found it helpful to believe that no life is wasted no matter how short. I had a dog for 18 months. I had waited eight very long years for us to get a dog. And then she was gone. Just like that. I could not cry hard enough.
          This short life taught me some things:
          1) Be more anal about keeping my dog beside me.
          2) I won’t ever stop loving dogs.
          3)Each dog has their own different personality and it’s a lot of fun to watch that personality develop.
          If you think about it that kitten you lost also showed you a few things. Not the least of which is that you want a cat in your life.

  74. Someone101*

    Hi all, hope everyone is well!
    Question…Facebook has started this thing where in honour of your birthday they donate £5 to the charity of your choice. I have decided to try and raise £100 for a charity called the dogs trust in honour of my nan who passed away a few weeks ago; she loved animals, especially dogs, and donated to them every month. I’ve been very lucky and almost hit my target, however I’ve now hit a ‘slump’ and ran out of supporters as I don’t have that many friends on Facebook lol! I’ve shared my post and contemplating asking my friends to share, however I’m the sort of person who doesn’t really like asking for money or favours and such, so feel a bit ‘icky’. I don’t want people to feel like I’m harassing them for money. So really what I’m asking is how do you feel when you see posts like this? Or how can I try and reach an audience without annoying my friends and family in the process? Any ideas on how things like this work? I hope this makes sense and thank you in advance for any info!

    1. HannahS*

      It does make sense! I’m sorry for your loss, and I think it’s a really nice thing you’re trying to do for your nan. Personally, I don’t generally contribute to things like that. It doesn’t annoy me to see a single post from someone who’s doing it, but more than one would bug me. It’s just because my ability to give to charity is limited, and I only give according to causes that are important to me, or as an honour of someone close to me who has died, with a card sent to their family. You might have better luck asking your grandmother’s friends, rather than your friends’ friends–I’m sure that people who knew and loved your grandmother would be much more likely to give than a stranger who doesn’t know either of you. Best of luck!

    2. kc89*

      I would repost the link one more time with something like “___ away from hitting the goal in honour of my nan” and that might spurn a couple of people to donate

      Most people don’t mind a couple of posts on the same subject, it’s the people who spam things that get annoying

    3. Someone101*

      Thank you so much for your replies!
      HannahS I’m the same as you, I don’t generally donate much money to charities as I don’t have a massive budget myself, I try to do more ‘proactive things’. So I give all my old clothes etc to charity, volunteer for fundraising events etc. Sadly my nan outlived her friends, and the people left who are close enough to donate have very kindly already done so.

      kc89 that’s what I was thinking, give it one last share a few days before the cutoff and hope for the best but I’m the sort of person I hate seeing the same thing shared a bunch of times. It’s so tricky as well because it is effectively asking for money which I hate, but I set up the fundraiser since Facebook was making a donation anyway and didn’t want the charity to miss out. I think at the end of the day something is better than nothing, and the amount I’ve raised will hopefully be really helpful.

      Thank you both again ☺

  75. Cherry*

    TW: self harm

    a close friend revealed to me that they used to do a type of self harm (not cutting) when they were younger (we are in our late 20s now). They told me they don’t do that anymore but holy Hanukkah balls that made me want to give them a huge bear hug (I did not). Not sure why i feel the need to share it here but not something I could share in real life. By their own admission, they’re fine now and don’t have incidents like this anymore. Is it weird I felt sad for past-version-of-friend and more protective towards them.

    1. Not So NewReader*

      It seems that through other people’s suffering they touch our hearts deeper because we clearly see their humanness. Compounding matters here, it sounds like she went through this fairly alone and not much help. Being alone like this is most people’s idea of living a nightmare. Kind of makes us want to protect the person because we understand that fear.

      I am glad she is doing better now.

  76. Handy Nickname*

    Old and new favorites on Netflix & Prime Video!
    Looking for suggestions :)

    Recent watch list:

    Groundhog Day
    To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
    Paddington
    Julie & Julia
    Coco

    Friends
    That 70s show
    Mozart in the Jungle
    The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
    A Series of Unfortunate Events (I love Patrick Warburton so much)

    1. Kate Daniels*

      To All the Boys was so good! I have The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Aociety on my to-watch list because I loved the book.

        1. Aurora Leigh*

          I’ve promised to watch with friends, so I haven’t seen it yet either, but the book was sooo good!

          On a similiar topic I also liked Land Girls (WWII british TV series) and Bomb Girls (WWII canadian tv series). Both are on Netflix.

          If you like British shows, I can reccomend a ton!

            1. Aurora Leigh*

              If you haven’t seen Downton Abbey yet, watch it! Lol. It’s on Amazon Prime, and the best sometimes soapy romance/drama!

              Netflix

              Great British Baking Show (everyone is so kind to one another, and there is delicious food to admire)

              Death in Paradise (crime solving set on a carribean island)

              Midsomer Murders (police solving murders in tiny villages)

              If I think of others, I’ll post again!

    2. Aurora Leigh*

      I’ll be watching this thread — those are the services we have too!

      Some recent favorites that I think you might like based on your list:

      Netflix:
      Parks and Rec (coworkers/humor tv series)
      New Girl (group of friends/romance/humor tv series)
      Moana (Disney/musical)
      Beauty and the Beast (the Disney live action one)

      Amazon Prime:
      Eureka (sci-fi/crime solving/humor tv series)
      Psych (crime solving/humor tv series)

    3. Mrs. Carmen Sandiego JD*

      Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (in Australia near WWI, amazing vintage clothes & Agatha Cristie/Clue-type mysteries).

      Also, The Doctor Blake Mysteries (same era)

    4. NYC Redhead*

      I am really liking

      Kim’s Convenience- Netflix- Canadian family sitcom
      Episodes- Netflix- Comedy about British writers adapt their TV show for American TV with Matt LeBlanc cast against their wishes as the lead
      Plebs- Hulu- stupid but funny British comedy: Melrose Place in Ancient Rome

      I am also very excited to start Season 2 of American Vandal on Netflix because Season 1 was great

    5. Windchime*

      I’m hooked on Poldark (Amazon Prime). I don’t know how I missed this one, but I was browsing a couple of weeks ago and came across it. Very swash-buckley and romantic, beautifully shot scenery.

  77. Harvey P. Carr*

    “TL/DR” is supposed to be a summary of a very long post, right?

    So why do I see so many TL/DRs at the end of long posts? If I’ve already read the long post, I don’t need a one-line summary of what you just wrote.

    Shouldn’t TL/DR be at the top of the post? That’s what I try to do. After I finish a long post, I write the TL/DR, then cut-and-paste it, and paste it at the top.

    Or am I missing something here?

    1. fposte*

      Because most people realize that they need a tl;dr only when they’ve finished the post, and it’s therefore become a bit of a convention. What you’re saying is logical, but I don’t think you’re going to make any headway against the popular format.

    2. Reba*

      I think it’s an acknowledgement that people skim the long posts, or read a bit and skip to the end. It’s “too long, didn’t read” in the past tense, in the reader’s voice, not “too long, don’t read” in the writer’s.

    3. Girl friday*

      I’ve seen it both ways. Some people will put “TL/Dr is at the end,” at the beginning of the post to help people out. I think it’s because most people will quit reading and scroll to the first comment, so they see the tldr at the end. That’s my best guess anyway.

    4. TassieTiger*

      Oh, how funny, I always thought “tl;dr” was used as a self-aware way of saying “wow I wrote a novel, haha, I guess if I had to sum it up-“ in other words, I didn’t know people would actually read the to;dr and only the to;dr. Your point is well taken though—I’ll post my nutshell versions on top of my novels!

    6. HappySnoopy*

      I’ve noticed that too lately. IIRC, it was used by readers who wanted to comment on the topic but may not have read the minutiae of the post.

      Too long; didn’t read = tl/dr, or “teal deer” if you try to pronounce the acronym.

      Then posters may write a summary section and then the tl/dr version with all the details.

      And I’ll stop now before I go teal deer on tl/dr (too late?)

  78. amanda_cake*

    At some point, I want to get a half sleeve tattoo. In preparation for this idea, I have started to look for shirts that go down to the elbow (half sleeve I guess lol) or three quarter length… any good ideas as to where to find a bunch? Going to the department store yields an array of things, but not always what I am looking for. I need to start prepping my work wardrobe.

    I am hot natured, so I try to avoid long sleeves.

    Probably should mention I’m kinda fluffy.

    2. Anonypants*

      If you want a half sleeve tattoo, why do you immediately want to look for shirts that hide it? Isn’t that like wanting to go blonde buying full coverage hats in preparation?

      I guess I could see if you had to for work although tattoos aren’t a big deal at many workplaces anymore.

      Just seems if you like the tattoo why not rock it visible? And if you don’t want anyone to see it, why get it on your arm?

      1. Penguin*

        Possibly because being able to choose when to display body art is still very important in many places.

        Speaking for myself, I would love to get a tattoo on my lower arm. My industry is one that probably wouldn’t mind. Unfortunately, I can’t be sure that any and all future employers will share that view, and I have family who would take major issue with such art (and who, for personal reasons, I don’t wish alienate at the moment). Until I am at a point where I am ready and willing to accept the various potential negative repercussions, I won’t be getting the tattoo. (Sadly, men’s business casual dress is rather devoid of 3/4-length sleeve shirts.) Being able to display body art (something that is still controversial and stigmatized in certain quarters) is a privilege, and not yet a universal one.

    4. SpellingBee*

      I love, love, love 3/4 length sleeves! They’re my stand-in for long sleeves, because I hate anything covering my wrists, or heaven forbid falling over the backs of my hands. Lands End and LL Bean both have (or used to have) a great selection of knit boat-neck tops with 3/4 sleeves, of which I have many. They wear well and look great with just about anything. I also have a number of Orvis wrinkle-free blouses that are 3/4 sleeves, and can be worn untucked or tucked in (I leave them out). They’re a little pricey but the quality is extremely good, and I get them when they’re on sale. All of these are 100% cotton.

    5. Zen Cohen*

      My go-to for covering my half sleeve is a Modcloth cardigan. I, too, am fluffy, and i feel like I get a lot more mileage out of 3/4 sleeve cardigans than shirts. I run hot and it’s easy to take it off in my car on the way to and from the office. I also feel like it’s a lot easier to find well-tailored sleeveless blouses and dresses and put a cardigan over them than find longer-sleeved shirts that look as good. Plus cardigans are stretchy!

    6. Jemima Bond*

      I internet-dated before I met OH and for what it’s worth, listen to yourself when you speak to your Mum or your girlfriend or whoever and they ask you, “so how was your date on Friday?”. There’s a world of difference between “well he was nice, I’d see him again” and “it was wonderful!” with a smile you can’t wipe off your face. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying love must be at first sight; I’m saying you probably know if you think about it and do a little self-examination, when something is worth pursuing and when it’s not. Having a romantic relationship is not like having a job; you don’t have to have a crappy one to tide you over until you get a good one; you only have to have a great one. And you’ll be able to tell when you think it could be great. When I first started dating OH I gave his number an individual text-alert because I realised whenever i heard my phone, I was gutted if it wasn’t him, so I made sure I knew by the sound! Everyone else who texts me just has the standard tone lol.

  79. Anon anony*

    I’m rather inexperienced in the dating world, but how do you know if someone is “the one”? I know that’s why you date, but are there any guarantees? Is it based on luck? How do you know? Do you just jump in and hope for the best?

    1. Close Bracket*

      There is no such thing as “The One.” There are probably many people out there with whom you share values and attraction. The trick is finding one of those who is also looking for a life partner at the same time that you are looking for a life partner. It is sort of luck, but it’s more “maximize opportunities and be prepared when an opportunity presents itself.” There are lots of ways to maximize opportunities, from engaging in activities you like to joining online dating sites. You will have varying levels of comfort with these, and you will only know by trying them and finding out.

      Get comfortable with awkwardness and failure. Don’t get sucked into sunk cost fallacy. Good luck.

    2. Aurora Leigh*

      There’s no guarentees in life. There’s a lot of hoping for the best. I believe things happen for a reason, everything in it’s own time. I don’t think it’s luck, but I do think you have to put yourself out there.

      Personally, the 2nd guy I went on a date with, turned out to be who I really think is “The One” and we’re planning our future. I met him online, and I just had a really good feeling about him. I tried to rationalize and talk myself down on the way to our first date, but I hear did a little flip when he pulled into the parking lot (and I am usually terrible at recognizing people from pictures).

      But I took things slow and tried to make sure I was thinking with my head and not just my heart.

      Everyone’s story is different! Just put yourself out there and trust yoyr instincts about people.

    3. Anonymous Educator*

      People aren’t puzzle pieces that just need to find another interlocking puzzle piece.

      There’s a lot that Hollywood romantic comedies get wrong, but the one thing they do get right is that people who fit well together usually have shared experiences in which they get to know each other and grow together.

      There are no guarantees. There are never guarantees.

      Also, if you have an excellent relationship that ends, then it ends. Any relationship ending is sad, but is the test of a relationship’s validity or goodness based on how long it lasts? I know plenty of married couples who stayed together for decades and were absolutely miserable the whole time and hated each other. But they were married for decades.

      1. jolene*

        I and my husband pretty much knew we were each other’s lobster on the first date (which finished with a good kiss so we knew that’d work out). You want great communication, sensitivity to wait staff, great manners, the want to please without being creepy, and of course a strong physical attraction. But I don’t like to say The One – there could be several Ones. It’s the right fit at the right time.

        Ask them about their most recent relationship. If they speak at all badly about the person, don’t go out with them again.

          1. Jane*

            To be fair, if you’re still not over your abusive relationship, it’s very unlikely you’re ready to be in a relationship again.

            1. Lora*

              Okay, but what the heck are you supposed to say about it? “I’d rather not talk about it, it was a learning experience”?

              My ex was once fairly handsome. He can make pizza from scratch. He used to like to read and he’s well spoken and can be very personable if he’s in a good mood. He used to give good shoulder rubs until the carpal tunnel spoiled it. His mother is very kind. This is the sum total of nice things I can say about him, so…

              1. Jane*

                It’s OK to share painful things about your past in a relationship but the important thing is that you have learned from the experience and that you understand what your own responsibility in the relationship was.

    4. Traffic_Spiral*

      I don’t think you “know” so much as you “decide.” You love this person and you think that you two could have a good future together (so, yanno, the boring sensible stuff like mutual compatibility, kindness, honesty, dependability, loyalty, plus the even more un-sexy “live-ability” things: financial sensibility, no substance abuse, compatible house-cleaning styles, etc.). Then you two decide that this is going to be your person and you’re going to build a life together.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gaid72fqzNE

    5. Jane*

      There’s no such thing. There are people who are good partners and have a good character and they will have successful relationships if they’re with someone they are compatible with. Then there are people who are never good partners to anyone (selfish, narcissistic, liars, unstable, etc.) who will always have failed relationships, no matter what. There are also many people who don’t have a bad character but just don’t know how to communicate and relate to others. If you want to have a successful relationship, you need to make sure first that you can be a good partner and try to learn the communication skills you’re missing. Then when you date you need to be wary of signs of bad character and dishonesty and make them an instant deal breaker, no matter how attractive the person is. You can never make a relationship with a selfish liar or an emotionally manipulative work. Ever. Also, make sure you’re not one yourself.

      Then you need to make sure you’re as attractive as possible because that gives you more choice. And try your best to meet as many people as possible and get to know them. Then you’re looking for someone you feel attracted to who also feels the same way. Make sure you’re as confident as possible because confidence is sexy (and if you’re a heterosexual man, then a lack of confidence can be a major turn off for ladies but it’s important for everyone). Then make sure the person you feel mutual attraction with shares your core beliefs and values and they want to have a similar lifestyle. But keep in mind that there will be differences and you will need to learn to compromise and work with your differences. Even if you’re very similar now, you will probably start having differences in the future. If you can’t work with differences (for instance, they like different types of music or are more introverted than you) then you’re not ready to be a partner. Being in a relationship always means you won’t get to do everything you feel like doing and you’ll need to change something. Always. As long as the differences you have are not because of a bad character or a betrayal of trust (you shouldn’t accept compulsive lying or cheating or being talked down to), then there are ways to make it work. There’s no “the one”. There’s maturity and two people trying their best to make each other happy.

    6. The New Wanderer*

      My best friend asked me the day before my wedding, how did I know he was the One? I didn’t really have an answer for her at the time and I still don’t. What I said at the time was, I felt like I could finally be myself with him. That’s part of it for sure, but not sufficient.

      The closest I could explain is bits from everyone else’s posts: we have very similar values on all the big topics (religion, politics, money, family) and outlooks on life, we find each other physically and mentally attractive, and we met at the time we each were available and ready to have a serious relationship with the understanding and hope that it would lead to marriage and kids. If any of those things didn’t align, he wouldn’t be “the One”. On the other hand, there might have been a number of other guys who met all these criteria except for “we met” – I didn’t meet them, I met him.

      And my criteria aren’t what the next person finds necessary. So, no really good guidelines except the ones you make for yourself. Well, except maybe: not every guy has the potential to be The One to you (aka don’t try to make it work with just anyone). And even that I had to learn for myself!

    7. Empty Sky*

      Well, it’s usually not that hard to figure out if somebody isn’t ‘the one’. Typically it will become apparent fairly quickly, usually within a year and often a lot quicker than that. So that narrows the field to start with.

      After that you’re in the ‘maybe’ category. At some point it’s worth having conversations about life’s big challenges – finances, careers, views on kids, that kind of thing – just in case any of them are deal breakers. Then if you are more or less on the same page regarding what you want out of life, it becomes a judgement call on whether you would be happiest spending the rest of your life with them.

      I had a pretty good idea about my wife not too long after I met her, but the event that made me 100% sure was right after we had a really big argument about something (a rare but not unheard of event for us) and I was reflecting on it. I felt myself trying to do the thing I do where I withdraw emotionally, reclaim my independence and set about cutting myself off from the relationship and I just… couldn’t. It became clear that she was really important to me, and bailing out wasn’t going to be an option. Which was quite terrifying at the time, because it meant that I was going to have to be a grown-up and actually solve my problems instead of running away from them for once. But when I got over that I decided that it had been a useful thing to learn all the same.

  80. MsChanandlerBong*

    Can anyone recommend some kind of contraption made for walkers/runners to be able to carry stuff with them? I had to start exercising to get my heart stronger after my heart attack. I’m lucky to live across the street from a huge park with walking trails and tennis courts; I literally have no excuse not to exercise. But I’m having trouble taking everything I need. I have to carry nitroglycerin and chewable aspirin with me in case I have chest pain. If my husband isn’t home, I also need to take my keys. Since the sun literally never goes away here, I also need a bottle of water with me. I’ve been keeping my nitro in my bra, but that’s probably not the best place for it. Is there a “holster” of some sort that doesn’t interfere with exercise?

      2. MsChanandlerBong*

        I was hoping to avoid anything that hangs around the waist. I’ve had multiple abdominal surgeries and hate having anything rubbing against my scars.

    4. Anono-me*

      A lot of places carry these little wrist things that look like sweat bands that have a pockete for keys and ID another small thing or two.

      You can get little pockets that clip on to your bra strap or little pockets that fit over the tongue of some shoes.

      Please consider carrying something with your name and an emergency contact number and the fact that you had heart problems with you also.

      2. MsChanandlerBong*

        I have an app on my phone that has my whole medical record available. It can be accessed even if the screen is locked, so EMS personnel can see it even if I am not conscious/able to unlock the phone.

    6. Book Lover*

      I have leggings that have a little pocket with a zip. Enough for a tiny ziplock with the aspirin and nitro and space for a key. The water, though…. there are those camelback ones, maybe.

    7. Undine*

      Runnur makes sash-like things that can go over a shoulder. They have multiple pockets. I bought one but it can’t hold a full wallet & is a bit stiff.

      Also all those stretchy runner belts, if you can get them big enough can go over a shoulder instead of the waist.

    8. runner girl*

      I hate carrying anything when I run, but when I have to, my women’s cut small Camelbak is perfect. I believe the version that exists now is the Camelbak Charm. I’ve had mine for close to 15 years now.

  81. LuJessMin*

    I have a 2 year old laptop that I just paid off (2 years same as cash financing). October is the month everything comes due on it, Microsoft, Webroot, Geek Squad. I’ll pay for Microsoft and Webroot, but Geek Squad wants $190 for one year of service (last year it was $150). Is it worth paying for another year?

    1. Sam Foster*

      I’d put the money aside towards a new machine and make sure I had all my important stuff was backed up. Then replace it when it fails.

    2. BunnyWatsonToo*

      Did you use Geek Squad last year? If you didn’t and you’re comfortable solving minor issues, my guess is you don’t need it. My Geek Squad expired in August. I didn’t renew because I had only used it once in 2 years, when I first bought the laptop.

    3. Anonymous Educator*

      Those service payments are never worth it. Pay it to yourself. Chances are, you won’t need it. But if you keep paying yourself $150/year, you can just pay for a new laptop straight away next time instead of doing a 2-year financing plan.

    4. Nacho*

      How expensive is your laptop? I usually get low end ones for $300 or so, so I’d never spend $190 for a 1 year warranty, but if yours is high end, it might be worth it.

    5. Someone Else*

      $190 service contract/extended warranty on a 2-will-be-3 year old laptop is not worth it unless it was a $2000 laptop to begin with.

    6. Teach*

      For $199, a local repair guy just replaced the hard drive on my MacBook. I would bank that $ and start reading Yelp reviews to find a trustworthy local shop for repairs/cleanup/virus removal/advice.

      1. Anonymous Educator*

        Honestly, I know people are shy about tech stuff, but most things people can just do themselves without a professional shop. If the drive is replaceable (i.e., not soldered to the motherboard), you usually just need the right kind of screwdriver and a YouTube video.

        MalwareBytes and DetectX Swift are both free and fairly good at cleaning up malware.

        Not saying you were wrong to pay your local repair guy. Just saying people who feel that’s a lot of money may want to look into doing some tech stuff themselves.

  82. Nervous Accountant*

    Nothing new on the mom front. She’s going back to home country next month for 3 months. Just as difficult as ever. I try to be sympathetic. But then she does something that enrages me and to cope I take a Xanax. I consider it a good week if I can go w/o a pill.

    I’ve tried to find outlets to deal with this. Last weekend I went in to the office.. for no reason… clear example of “pissing in my own bed” like someone pointed out to me yesterday.

    My husband is supportive, he knows how she is but he wants to keep a good relationship with her. He’s a gem. I haven’t seen my friends since April and I kinda want to and kinda don’t. Work is going ok can’t complain. Made a really good friend and guarding it like a bank vault. idk what analogy to use but yeah.

    1. valentine*

      Can husband take Mom out so you can have your house to yourself regularly? Can she stay in home country or literally anywhere else? It sounds like you’re running yourself down and you won’t be able to focus on yourself as long as you’re enduring her abuse in your own home/space/face.

      1. tangerineRose*

        All of this. From what you’ve posted in the past, your Mom is emotionally abusive to you, and you need space from her.

  83. Neighbours*

    What’s the worst experience you’ve had with a neighbour?

    It’s just that my upstairs neighbours seem to be entertaining some very heavy-footed friends, and in order not to get too annoyed at this (relatively small) annoyance I’d like some worse-neighbour stories so I can keep things in perspective.

    1. Not So NewReader*

      Cut down a tree on our property, dog crap every where, rats everywhere. Girls making out on the front porch on a mattress, house in total disrepair, lawn never mowed, garbage strewn about. Yelling, name calling and mocking us.

      Second worst: All this plus, “You can shovel the shared driveway yourself. I won’t shovel it.” From a person twice my strength.

    2. MsChanandlerBong*

      I lived in one half of a duplex, and the bad neighbors lived in the other. Problem #1 is that they were filthy. For some reason, they had a glass aquarium in the back yard that broke, and they just left the broken glass there for months on end. The front porch was littered with junk and toys. At one point, I took the outlet cover off one of the outlets on the shared wall between our units. Cockroaches came pouring out of it. Yes, I realize you can get roaches without being dirty (we occasionally get one here because our house is right on the ground and they get in through cracks in the stucco), but this was an infestation caused by their total lack of regard for cleaning. When our old landlord sold the house to the new landlord, he had to rent a truck and have literal tons of stuff hauled out of the basement of their side of the house. Problem #2 is that they were constantly screaming and carrying on. The mother would get a new boyfriend, and he’d move into the house within weeks. At one point, I had to place a call to CPS because I heard the boyfriend du jour telling a 7-year-old kid that he was going to cut his balls off. They were night owls, too, so when we were sleeping and trying to rest before getting up for work at 5:30 a.m., they’d be screaming, and running the washing machine, and standing outside smoking and talking. The 7-year-old kid came to our door multiple times asking to use the phone because no one was home and he didn’t have a key to the house. The sheriff also showed up multiple times, mostly because the kids were truant. I told the sheriff’s deputies–you can’t really blame a 7-year-old for truancy. It’s his mother’s responsibility to make sure she gets to school, and she can’t do that when they’re all awake and screaming until 2 a.m. The city’s solution was to fine the mother $209 and each child $209 for each case. I don’t know how fining an incredibly poor family $627 is going to help. Anyway, the day we moved out was the best day ever. I drove past the house last time I went back east to visit, and I couldn’t believe it, but it looked even worse than it did when we lived there.

      1. Aardvark*

        ….the sheriffs fined a *kid* for being truant? a SEVEN-year-old??? (Fining them at all seems inhumane, but how the *#&$% is a child supposed to pay that back?)

        1. MsChanandlerBong*

          Yeah, each person involved would get a fine. So the mother would get fined $209, and then Kid 1 would get fined $209, and Kid 2 would get fined $209. It was ridiculous. It wasn’t the sheriff doing the fining; it was the district magistrate (the sheriff’s office just served the papers). I felt so bad for those kids. I tried to intervene a few times, but CPS was overloaded, and I could never get anybody to take any real action.

    3. ano*

      Pretty low on the “horror story neighbors” totem pole, but my last apartment got bad the last year I lived there. My next door neighbors were super nice but had 2 very young children. They were good kids and I can’t complain but it’s inevitable that young children will be loud. Fortunately my apartment was set up in such a way that I couldn’t hear them in the bedroom, so it didn’t bother me too much. I don’t care how loud you are when I’m in my kitchen/living room/dining room – I’m not trying to sleep in those rooms. My down stairs neighbors were awful. They were chain smokers who didn’t work. All they did all day was sit under my window/ventilation unit and smoke. I couldn’t open my windows or run my heat/ac without filling my apartment with smoke. I’m very sensitive to smoke and would have to leave my apartment because I had such horrible headaches. They were also very loud and would wake me up in the middle of the night having loud sex. Sort of amusing. My apartment had a balcony and it was set up in such a way that I shared it with the apartment across the hall – just a railing in between. Those neighbors had dogs and they used their balcony as the dogs toilet. I couldn’t sit out on my balcony or leave my screen door open because there was dog poo and urine soaking the carpet on their side and the smell was awful. They also smoked pot every day. I am not a pot smoker but am firmly pro-legalization and it was funny how hard they tried to hide it. Um, guys, every time you light up the entire building smells it. If anyone cared we would have already reported you.

      Hilarious story: I am an EMT. My uniform is very similar to what police in our area wear., in fact my shirt is identical, just with EMT and I’ve had people double take because they think I’m police at first. One day pothead neighbors were outside with their dogs when I got home from work. They took one look at me and literally ran away. They never realized I wasn’t police because they never let me close enough after that day. I would walk outside to get my mail and they would run from me. It was a shame, because I could have told them I didn’t care what they did and wasn’t police but they were terrified of me.

      1. ano*

        That’s supposed to say my shirt has EMT patches instead of saying police. My phone battery was dying and decided to randomly post while I was still typing!

    4. AvonLady Barksdale*

      We live in a detached, single-family house that is close enough to a college campus to walk, but when we moved in, my partner was the only student on the block. As in, it’s very quiet. It’s basically a single block street with very old houses on small lots, close together. When we first moved in, the neighbors on our north side were a kind of weird middle-aged couple; they weren’t terrible, just annoying and a bit strange. They used to have cell phone conversations on their porch, and the husband walked around in bare feet and pajamas a lot. I once spotted him engaged in a transaction on the street involving a big SUV with tinted windows. So there was a lot of weed, but whatever, live your life.

      Then the couple moved out and his stepson moved in. With two friends. In their very early 20s; I actually think the stepson was 19. For the next year, it was a revolving door of roommates, and every. single. time. one of them would come home, or their friends would come over, they would get out of their cars and yell. They started hanging out on their porch and playing music, which was annoying at first, then became a nightmare. They would stay outside, yelling and shouting, until 2 or 3 in the morning. They woke me up regularly and prevented us from getting to sleep. The houses are close enough that we could hear every single word in our house, especially since they were freaking loud. Almost every single night after 11pm, my partner would go out and ask them to please take it inside. Sometimes they would. Eventually they got really hostile with him and sent him walls of text messages chastising him for being so rude. It was just awful. When I say every night, I mean it. EVERY. NIGHT. For a year. So in the scheme of things, it wasn’t the worst, but it was really rough on me. I had a white noise machine and still heard them over it. I used to be so afraid of being woken up that I had trouble getting to sleep.

      They moved out after a year. They told my boyfriend they were being kicked out because the landlord was selling the house. This turned out not to be true (HA!) and a new tenant moved in a few months later. This guy? We barely know he’s there.

      We also got some new across-the-street neighbors who decided to have a raging party their first weekend there, and we ended up calling the cops when their music was still banging at 4am. I can’t stand them because they park their cars directly across from my driveway– never in their own driveway– and make it tough for me to get out, but whatever. Their next door neighbor is a real curmudgeon, so I let him handle their jackassness.

    5. Good Neighbor*

      I used to live next door to a group of college kids who rented the entire multi-family house and regularly threw keggers. On tuesdays. At 3am.

      At the same time, the young girls who lived below us were usually OK, but would also occasionally throw huge parties that shook the entire house with the music. It was so loud I couldn’t watch TV in my own house and things fell off of shelves due to the noise. When I asked them to turn down the music, they said “If you didn’t want it to be loud, you should move. Nothing about this is illegal.”

      In a different place that I lived, my landlady was also my neighbor (she lived downstairs). Her adult son lived with her, and he had a huge substance abuse problem. He would beat on both her and his girlfriend. I had to call the police several times, and one time stumbled upon him being arrested on my front porch as I was leaving to go to work. Awkward!

      That son also used to break into our apartment when we weren’t there and eat our food. I think he just used it as a space to use drugs out of sight of his mom.

    6. Aardvark*

      I think it was the next-door neighbors who left a Labrador puppy on a 9×9 patio 24/7 for at least 2 months and rarely or never cleaned up after it. We moved before they did anything about the dog.

    7. Aurora Leigh*

      My first apartment was in a converted house and I had a revolving door of neighbors that were real doozies. Someone was dealling drugs of some kind so there were always cars driving through at all hours.

      The entire building always smelled like pot (illegal in my state).

      My neighbors routinely drank and smoke and had loud conversations on the front porch (which was right outside my bedroom window). These conversations could be very personal in nature — such as the young woman who though her boyfriend was gay, but then decided she must be a lesbian, because her mother was.

      My upstairs neighbor once fell down the stairs repeatedly while trying to go back up after a particularly hard night of partying.

      The couple across the hall had a baby, which cried a lot, and that they dealt with it by cussing at the kid. The cops were called on this matter, and the mom and baby moved out.

      Someone shot a mirror once. I know this, because I heard a shot and the next day a mirror with a bullet hole was by the garbage.

      Also, the building had minimal heat in the winter (it was roughly 50F inside, and the furnace died all the time) but the landlord insisted this was not his problem, even though he owned the house and the furnace was for all units.

    8. Anonymosity*

      I used to live in an apartment in a strip of four apartments, right next to a large historically interesting old house that a sort-of slumlord owned and rented out. Most of the people he rented to were okay, but there was one bunch of folks–hoo boy.

      They completely trashed both the inside (according to the tenants after them) and the outside of the house. The lawn was covered in garbage. It literally looked like someone had upended a dumpster. They had two teenage kids I tried to befriend who would steal butts out of my cigarette can (I smoked at the time, outside, and used a can as an ashtray) and upend the can all over the damn place. When I resorted to putting water in the can, one night, they threw a bottle at my front door and dented the bottom of the storm door. I made sure my landlord knew it wasn’t me. Oh, and they were EXTREMELY noisy. They finally skipped out, leaving the mess behind.

      Then there was the meth house across from where I live now. They kept pretty much to themselves. It was far less noisy too, until the night they got busted at 3:30 a.m. Cops yelling, lights, the whole schmear. It was fun explaining at work the next day why I was so tired.

    9. Foreign Octopus*

      My neighbour was either hard of hearing or just rude but they would watch TV at deafening volumes and, for two nights running, watched it until six am.

      I was furious and, in my sleep deprived brain, composed a tirade of Spanish that failed me when I banged on the door and just begged them to have some respect for their neighbours.

    10. Red Reader*

      Once upon a time, I lived next door to a building that was labeled as an Asian grocery store. However, all their clientele would pull up front, a passenger would jump out of the car while the driver kept the engine running, look furtively around, run into the store, run back out three minutes later with a brown paper wrapped package under their arm, jump back into the car and peel out like they were at the start line of the Indy 500. We used to sit out front and count how often this happened; the record was something like 14 times in an hour and a half one Fourth of July. We never went in to check the store out ourselves, but between the weird behavior of their customers and the fact that we regularly found syringes and drug paraphernalia on the sidewalk, we were pretty sure we lived next door to the quietest little drug house on Capitol Hill. We never had any direct interactions with them though, or even saw anyone we could reliably identify as living/working there, just the weirdly suspicious customers.

    11. Lora*

      First apartment in grad school was in the ghetto. Seriously, pizza places did not deliver to this neighborhood. The police were there about every other day. One neighbor had his car broken into and $20 worth of change and a very elderly radio/tape deck stolen by another neighbor. Whenever it was garbage day, the neighbors would line up to dumpster dive. I couldn’t leave the sliding door that led to a little courtyard unlocked with only the screen shut, no matter how hot it was, because random children would walk into my apartment and take food out of the fridge and help themselves to teevee and refuse to leave, steal anything laying out. We’re talking ages 4 – 8 years old. When I got home from work/class, I had to walk through a crowd of random drunk/high guys making comments and elbow them out of the way to get to my door. Being asked if you had any drugs was routine, both by neighbors, landlords and by police searching everyone who went into the apartment complex.

      And people ask me why I will never move back to the big city. It looked cute enough during the day, and there was a housing shortage, and everything was mad expensive anyway.

    12. Tris Prior*

      We lived above an apartment that was rented out to four aging fratboys. There were a LOT of parties and they’d smoke right under our window so our apartment always reeked. One night, we were awakened by incredibly loud music BLASTING so hard that it was making our floors vibrate. (Even better, that night we had an out of town guest sleeping on our couch.) Boyfriend went downstairs and banged on the front door to tell them to knock it off. No answer. He went around to the back door…. which was open. He called out. No response. He cautiously stepped inside. No one there. He walked through the entire apartment. No one there. Either the place was entirely empty of fratboys and they’d left at 3 a.m. with the music blasting (?), or their apartment had hideyholes that ours did not. Anyway, he found the stereo, unplugged it, and blessed silence.

      The guys downstairs never said anything to us about it and I still have no idea what was going on.

      There was also the upstairs neighbor who flooded our unit three times due to various illegal plumbing shenanigans that she’d had done to her place. And this was a condo – so while her insurance paid for the work because liability, we had to manage the logistics of getting walls, ceiling, etc. ripped out and replaced due to the severe water damage, and all the anti-mold stuff too. I had to miss a lot of work to let repair people in and that made me really angry.

    13. Extra Vitamins*

      Some sound-related problems from different neighbors, in no particular order:
      (1) learned to play the bass guitar, at night
      (2) tried to teach his dog to howl along with tapes of wolves howling
      (3) left bathroom fan on for several days at a time
      (4) very fond of theme music from “Annie,” causing whole building to involuntarily memorize all the words over about 6 months
      (5) forgot to turn off 6 am morning alarm before going on 2 week vacation.
      (6) so many late-night barking dogs

    14. Smarty Boots*

      Apartment #1. Two kinds of rhythmic noise at 2 am: bassline of bad 70s rock and, right against my bedroom wall, Wham wham wham ooooooooh! Wham wham wham ooooooooh! They did take a break on Sunday nite!

      Apartment #2. We returned after vacation to discover a giant chunk of plaster fallen out of the ceiling of the living room, a hole in the curtain, a groove on the window frame, a hole and cracks in the window. Yep, someone had been celebrating New Years.

      Same apartment: wee hours of the the morning, we can see the guys in the building next door, cheesy rock cranked to 11, stumbling around in their underwear and knocking back a stupendous number of beers. I will say, they were awfully nice when we yelled out the window at them. They turned down the music, but alas, we did still have to see their beer bellies and underpants…

      1. Empty Sky*

        I’ve had apartment #1 before, although it was the guy upstairs from us. He once turned the music on at 3am at a volume that shook the whole building, then turned it off and tried to pretend it had been someone else when I knocked on the door. After I threatened to call the police if he started it up again, he left it off but bounced a tennis ball against the floor for 20 minutes.

        The same guy would throw cans and random trash out his back window, which would accumulate in the little fenced patio area that belonged to the ground floor tenants (right below us). They came door knocking one day trying to figure out who was doing it.

    15. Windchime*

      They were making meth. Skinny, scary people coming and going at all hours of the night and day. People hauling propane tanks in and out. That was on one side of the house. On the other side was a house that was owned by an extended family. They all moved out, but then a half-dozen of the men used it as a party pad every weekend with drinking and loud music till all hours of the night.

      I was terrified the whole time I lived there and I sold the house at a loss just to get out.

    16. Woodswoman*

      I was in a duplex and my neighbor was an unemployed alcoholic. He would blast music in the middle of the night and have loud shouting conversations with people who visited. When I told him to keep it down, he’d come over during the day during a sober moment and apologize. The cycle repeated. Eventually the landlord evicted him.

  84. Nervous Accountant*

    I’ve been meaning to ask this for months now but. Procrastination.

    1. Need to sell a concert ticket. No luck on stubhub.

    2. Going to the first big concert of my life (yes…. slow I know). What should I expect/not expect? It’s at a giant football stadium. Can I drive and is easy to find parking? Do shows start later than normal?

    1. Girl friday*

      go an hour and a half early for sound check! If you park close it’s easy to find your car after, if you park far away you get to leave first. I personally wouldn’t rush either coming or going! You might have better luck selling your concert ticket at the venue, or closer to the event?

    2. Lily Evans*

      For the concert give yourself more time than you think you’ll need for parking. My experience with stadium concerts is that parking can be incredibly slow going and sometimes you have to walk a bit to get to the entrance. Stadiums usually have plenty of parking and they know how to coordinate it, but you’ll likely have to pay extra to park which is info you should be able to find on their website. It also takes forever to get out of the parking lot and away from the stadium at the end of a show, so plan for that too. Most shows will have separate opening times and show times, the opening time is usually when the doors open and the opening act(s) start shortly after, the show time is usually for the main performer, but I have seen some places do a show time that starts with the opening acts, so if it’s a tour you can google to find the typical time the headliner starts. Googling the start time of performances has always been reliable for me, once a tour has a pattern they don’t deviate too much. There’s also usually a good half hour between openers and the headlining act for last minute bathroom or refreshment runs before the show starts.

      If you’re not used to concert levels of noise (stadiums are LOUD) bring ear plugs. It sounds weird, but a lot of earplugs muffle the audience noise while still letting you hear the actual performance. You might not need them, but it’s better to have them just in case. A lot of stadiums have a weird rule where they don’t allow drinks to be covered, like they’ll give you a water bottle and keep the cap, which is a pain for someone who likes to go to concerts alone and has no one to watch their things, but less of a big deal if you’ll be with other people. Some venues will also have super strict bag policies. I recently saw Taylor Swift and all of the emails about the stadium’s clear bags only policy went to my spam folder, so check that beforehand!

      1. Nervous Accountant*

        Omg that’s great thank u!!!!

        Any tips on how I can somehow meet the artist too. LOL. I want to meet them so badly!

        1. Lily Evans*

          Unfortunately at a stadium show you’re probably out of luck unless you already bought a VIP package. The only time I’ve met an artist was at a small (~200 person) show and they surprised everyone by doing a meet and greet at the end. Stadiums are just way too big for that sort of thing. I have heard that some artists will pick people from social media posts to meet if someone posts something interesting and mentions which show they’ll be at, or if you show up in a cool, relevant costume it might grab someone’s attention. But both of those things are a pretty long shot, haha.

          1. Nervous Accountant*

            Ahhh unfortunately this artist doesn’t do VIP or sell M&G from what I’ve gathered, if so I totally would have spent the $$.

            Ahh well can’t wait.

            As far as selling the ticket at the venue, is that legal? I’ve heard of ticket scalping, I obv don’t want to rip anyone off or get arrested, and I’m totally ok w selling it for less than I paid for it.

        2. Forking great username*

          I can’t possibly imagine that happening at a stadium show. You have the occasional artist, like Taylor Swift, who will have their team pick a handful of people from the crowd for this. But it’s luck of the draw, and odds of being selected are incredibly small to the point that it’s really not worth hoping for.

          Other bands that don’t do the packages, just no way. Like my husband and I are seeing Foo Fighters next month. They’re his favorite band ever and he would lose his mind over meeting them. But it’s just not going to happen. Then don’t do special packages like that, they play to huge crowds, and it’s just impossible. 0% chance. Don’t get hung up on that and let it dampen your experience.

    3. Sprechen Sie Talk?*

      Is there a relevant fan forum for this band? I am part of a very large, global fan base for one band in particular that tends to either sell out or close to sell out large shows like this. Best place to buy/sell tickets? The fan forum – there is inevitably someone who bought tickets 7 months prior who now can’t go, but want a “real fan” to get it at face value or small reduction, without the fees charged by stubhub, etc. I’ve picked up plenty of tickets this way, including some really good seats at very small venues (when they’ve played them) and everyone is cool about it due to shared love of the band.

      For the stadium show – some of my key guidelines are:

      – If you are standing: be prepared for some shoving/jerks pushing their way through halfway through the show to get a better spot, although the closer to the front you are, the more people will defend their territory.
      – If you are seated or standing: be prepared there may be some people who prefer to talk through the entire show and try not to get annoyed by it.
      – If you are seated: be prepared that some may stand in front of you or, if you choose to stand, check that the people behind you are as well.
      – Seated or standing, know your exit route – after a very scary experience many years ago at one show being shoved up against the stage barrier by crowd pressure, I now ensure I know where my closest exits are whether I am standing in the pit or seated up top.
      – If you are standing, take gum/mints/hard candies – your mouth will get dry (and gross) by the end but its also a great ice breaker to share with those nearby before the show.
      – Earplugs are a must – sometimes the mix desk doesn’t always get it right and there can be too much bass or treble and it can hurt your ears, alternatively the sound may be murky due to venue size/poor acoustics and earplugs can help.

      Finally – get to talking with the people around you! Its fun and people love to share stories of their love for the band and bond over the music.

      Regarding M&G or meeting the band – the whole VIP/early entry/M&G malarky is a pain but I see why it exists, however the extensive pricing and tiering seems to be particularly bad in the US for this compared to shows in other countries. The bigger the band, the more exclusive the M&G – I’ve only met one member of the band mentioned above (my favorite so thats the only one I cared about :)) and stood within 15 feet of another, but that was only because it wasn’t the whole band and it was side projects/small shows supporting that project. If the members of your band do any side projects, a record signing is usually the best place to catch them as they tend to be smaller/far less known bands and the known-member is the draw.

      Alternatively, you may need to travel if they aren’t as large outside the US – smaller venues/less notoriety = far more likely to actually have a proper M&G, and for less money, than a US stadium show OR the venue is small enough to linger at the stage door for a while. That’s actually more fun than it sounds as you tend to meet other fans and get to chatting – I did this last year for a well-known, influential, but older, artist at a small venue in Sweden and all twelve of us waiting went for a drink afterwards, and some of us got together a few weeks later for drinks before the big stadium show (in a different country) for the first band mentioned (the two have an overlapping fan base).

      Have fun, go enjoy it, and then go do another one!

    4. The Librarian (not the type from TNT)*

      The answers you got above were terrific and pretty much said it all, but I’ll add a few things.

      Re: the show starting on time — this almost never happens. Expect the main act to go on anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours after the posted time on the ticket, depending on the number of opening acts and how temperamental the main act is. But, every once in a blue moon, there will be no opener and the main act will go on just minutes after the posted time, so don’t plan to be late.

      Opening acts: 95 percent of the time they are super lame, and this will be made worse by the crowd having no energy because they don’t want to see opening acts. But the other 5 percent of the time, you get a terrific one and it’s real serendipity to discover someone new.

      Parking: Depending on the stadium, getting a spot shouldn’t be hard. It’s leaving the stadium lot afterward that will take a long time. Expect to do a fair amount of walking unless you get there right when gates open (3-4 hours early).

      Other stuff: (1) Concerts have this weird custom where the show stops for awhile toward the end, and all the lights stay off but everyone stays there and claps, anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes. Then the band plays an encore. This may repeat one to three times. When lights come on and soft music plays, the show is over. I personally hate this–it feels like they’re playing a game. (2) Depending on the band, there may be a 20-30 minute period where all the musicians take super long and tedious solos. This is the time to go to the bathroom. I’m probably making this sound awful, but actually I love concerts!

  85. Anonymous For this*

    So here’s my dilemma. I have been dating this guy for just over a year. He’s always broke. I have to pay not only for all of our dates but also if he needs clothes or shoes or is just short money for Transit.
    At first it was just small things, like socks and underwear and I wanted to buy them. But then it got harder because there were things he needed and I felt like if I could do them I should try and help him out. After all that’s what you do for people you love. Except he seems quite comfortable with this continuing indefinitely. He won’t get a job that pays more and he won’t quit smoking and he won’t give up smoking pot both of which are expensive. And any extra money, which to be fair is very little, he wants to buy comic books and videos and toys for himself. To make matters worse he has four kids by four different women. Three of them he has to pay child support for.
    I know all this sounds terrible but I really do care about him and I don’t want to be Judgy yet I know on paper this sounds pretty bad.
    The problem is when I date guys who aren’t as broke and poor ass as he is they treat me like I am some kind of social pariah because I can’t afford to travel or do whatever things they want to do. I have a pretty modest life I can afford to go out to eat and buy myself nice things sometimes and pay my bills
    If I saved I could probably afford to go on some small cruise or something but I’ve chosen to put most of my monet into my home.
    And he’s very respectful and kind. I have dated so many horrible people and he’s really nice to me. I just can’t afford to keep paying for everything and when I say that he seems to feel bad but then in a bit we are right back in the habit of me doing everything And buying everything
    I know part of this is my fault because tend to be a bit of a pushover and I like taking care of people. But also a big part of it so I just feel guilty having more than him
    We were going to move in but all of that fell through with Christmas job. To take a better one. Or so it seemed until he couldn’t handle the pressure of it. And he’s partly blaming me for it but he’s trying to also take some ownership of it but here I am again feeling guilty.
    I did very much for shipping to quit the job he dated her Threatening to quit. Now he says he was never going to quit he was just complaining. Anyway I don’t really know what to do. I don’t really want to break up but I don’t want to keep this pattern going. I don’t know why I keep doing this.
    I am 47 and he is 45. I have one grown son who is married and we owned the house until recently together. My son a his wife bought me out and I’m buying a condo. With a modest mortgage for this area.
    I like security and I take a lot of pride in being a professional. He seems to be comfortable living hippie type lifestyle.
    Sometimes were really good for each other and bring balance but we don’t seem to have any balance when It comes to money. Or honestly sex either but I’m not gonna talk about that here. LOL.
    I’m not sure if anyone can really offer any advice or if I just needed to vent. So thanks for listening.

    1. stellaaaaa*

      He isn’t going to change. I know it’s hard, but you have to ask yourself – are you ok with things being this way for another year? Another 5 years? What if it meant postponing your own retirement indefinitely, because he hasn’t saved for retirement, he gets sick and needs long term medical care that he has no money for, he owes child support, etc?

      The longer you are with him, the harder it will be to leave, and I understand it is already hard to think about leaving now, after a year. But if you are not ok with indefinitely paying for all your dates, all your vacations together, his basic needs, and potentially much more for him, it is way better to break it off now than prolong it.

      And whatever you decide, please don’t put him on the deed to whatever property you buy on your own.

    2. HannahS*

      I’m sorry, but I really don’t think this is going to change. It doesn’t sound like he’s motivated for it to. Captain Awkward has a great principle called the Sheelzebub Principle (it was named after a commenter) that goes like this: if things stayed exactly as they are, would you stay another month? Another 6 months? A year? Five years? Twenty years?

      It sounds like he’s really nice to you, but what would happen if you stopped paying for stuff? There’s nothing wrong with paying for a date if your partner can’t reciprocate, but it sounds like you’re doing way more than that. So I think you’re well within your rights to sit him down and tell him that you’re happy to take him out sometimes, but you’re not giving him any more money. Because if he would stay in your life and continue to respect you and be kind to you, then you would be more comfortable, financially, and still have a boyfriend. If you stopped paying for things and he left you (or threw a tantrum, or refused to listen and continued to guilt and bug you), then you would be learning that his kindness, respect, and love are offered for money. And if that’s the case, you’re better off single or with someone else. Reciprocity matters. I have friends who don’t contribute financially to their marriages, but they’re at home cooking and cleaning and raising kids and helping to make the most of their husband’s paycheck. They act as partners. And it doesn’t really sound like this guy’s doing that.

    3. Mallory*

      People are not projects. Things will not change. You’re either ok with this or you are not, and if you are not you should break up.

    4. Hannah*

      What would happen if you stopped buying him things?

      Would he still be nice to you and would you have a nice time together anyway? Would he be angry and guilt trip you for making him go without? Would he take responsibility for himself and somehow manage to support himself and meet his own needs? Would he walk around with no pants if you didn’t buy them?

      Is some of your feeling of obligation to support him based on fear that he might leave if you don’t? Because no, taking responsibility for someone else simply because they don’t want to take responsibility for themselves isn’t something we do for someone we love. That shouldn’t be part of the expectation of a partnership of two people who are otherwise able to take care of themselves. It is one thing if there is a temporary situation, or if one of you is disabled, but supporting someone who simply wants to live beyond their means with no other plan for increasing their means other than asking you for money? No.

      And on top of that, he’s blaming you for his situation? I think you have every right to nope right out of that one.

      Please, please please don’t let this guy move in with you, unless what you want is another child to take care of.

    5. foolofgrace*

      What are you getting out of the relationship? I don’t mean that in a snippy way, just a question to ask yourself. It doesn’t sound like you’re getting all that much. How bad would it be if you broke up — what would you miss? What could you do with the money you’ll be saving?

    6. LCL*

      Before I met my current partner I broke up with a very nice man who sounds similar to your boyfriend regarding attitudes towards money. He had grown up quite poor, and had decided that working full time was a fool’s game, and as long as he had a roof over his head he was good. But he didn’t like for me to spend my money on him. I broke it off, even though he was kind and decent and we got along, because I didn’t want to live on the edge of poverty if I had a choice. And I had just started my first professional job, making more money than I ever had in my life, so I could make that choice.

    7. LilySparrow*

      Would you let your grown son live off of you and not get a job that supported himself? And his children? Would you let your grown son spend your money on pot and then claim he “needed” you to buy him food and underwear? That is a person you actually brought into the world and were responsible for keeping alive for 18 years. You love him, right? So why do you think he needs to be responsible for himself?

      Because he is an adult and it would not be healthy for him to live off his mom forever.

      I’m sorry to be so cynical, but I think the reason your boyfriend stays underemployed is because the court can’t garnish the money you give him and make him pay child support with it.

      As Hannah said, how long do you think he’d stay around if you stopped subsidizing him?

      There are more men in the world besides leeches and snobs. You don’t need to feel superior or inferior in your relationships – you can be partners. So give him room and let him step up to be a partner – if he’s willing to. If he’s not, then you are free of a leech. Win-win.

    8. Thursday Next*

      I think being “judgy” gets a bad rap sometimes.

      If you were my friend, I’d tell you that it’s completely fine to be skeptical of a 45-year-old man who relies on your money to keep him in socks and pot. Full stop.

      It sounds like you’ve had some bad experiences with men who make more than you, and you feel a bit insecure because you’re not able to afford the things they can. In contrast, your current bf makes less and relies on you, and that can be a gratifying feeling. It’s nice to be needed, definitely.

      But—is this why he’s nice to you? To keep you supporting him? And how much are you jeopardizing your long-term goals and needs by subsidizing him? I’m going to be blunt: I’m 45, and things that might have been tolerable for longer 20 years ago are less acceptable at this age, from an emotional and financial perspective. This will impact your prospects for retirement.

      Focus on what you’ve accomplished. You have a grown son who is married and independent. That’s great! You’ve clearly valued certain things for your son. Don’t value less in your partner, and by extension, for yourself.

      1. Triplestep*

        I think being “judgy” gets a bad rap sometimes.

        Yes it does! “Judging” really just means “forming an opinion” – good or bad. But people use the word “judgmental” interchangeably with the word “critical”, and suddenly it’s a bad thing to do. Don’t make this mistake, OP – use your judgement here. Take a step back and ask yourself why this looks so bad on paper. If you don’t want to end the relationship, then at least end your financial support and see if that changes the dynamic. It may turn into a relationship you don’t want to maintain for other reasons, or you might be pleasantly surprised.

        I also like the advice to focus on what you’ve accomplished. Sounds like you launched your son with a great foundation – time to focus on you.

    9. Penguin*

      You are allowed to decide that a particular relationship doesn’t work for you because of practicalities. Sometimes relationships don’t work despite the people involved caring deeply for each other, being decent human beings, etc. You also don’t have to settle for people who treat you like crap. There ARE people out there who will treat you with respect and like an actual person who can/will find ways to compromise on problematic things.

      If I can channel Captain Awkward here (definitely read her blog if you don’t; she addresses things like this often) I’d suggest that love and respect are completely independent of wealth and income.

      You’ve said:
      “I have to pay not only for all of our dates but also if he needs clothes or shoes or is just short money for Transit.”
      “He won’t get a job that pays more”
      “he won’t quit smoking”
      “he won’t give up smoking pot”
      “any extra money… he wants to buy comic books and videos and toys for himself”
      “when I say that [I can’t afford to keep paying] he seems to feel bad but then in a bit we are right back in the habit”

      Is someone (a grown adult!) who expects another adult to support them without attempting to make changes to help both themself AND the person they claim to care about/love actually “very respectful and kind”? Expecting their partner/lover/romantic interest to act as their parent is… not particularly respectful. Or kind.

      How would you feel if you told him that you can’t keep paying for his things and he replied “ok, I will stop smoking tobacco and pot until I can get a job that pays well enough that I can afford to manage my basic needs and wants by myself without draining you”? How does that compare to how you feel about what he has actually said and done?

      Because he earns less money does not somehow automatically entitle him to your money. Nor are you somehow obligated to try to make up for the hand that life has dealt him. That you WANT to is laudable and kind and I rather imagine you are a wonderful person! But if he is “quite comfortable with this continuing indefinitely” despite your speaking up and saying that you cannot continue to do this… I question whether he actually appreciates YOU (as opposed to your money).

      I am not suggesting that he is some kind of monster. It may be that he merely needs a wakeup call to realize that his behavior is problematic. But his life is HIS responsibility, not yours, and you are NOT obligated to sacrifice yourself to provide him with things that he COULD provide himself but CHOOSES not to.

      You have choices, too. You CAN set a boundary for yourself, that you won’t date men who don’t respect you and your particular socioeconomic state. THIS IS OK. (And yes, this applies to people who would view you as your money and not as a PERSON regardless of who makes more money.) You CAN (and SHOULD!) listen to the part of your brain that has prompted you to post this question here, that is prodding you with “hey, no, I don’t think this stuff is ok” and that is causing you to question things. Please listen to that little voice. PLEASE.

      The other commenters all make excellent points; whether you listen to me, please listen to them.

      You are a person, you have worth, and you do NOT have to listen to the societal norms that insist some of us have to put aside some part of ourselves, or our feelings, or our belief in our own value, to make others happy or not rock the boat or because “it’s the thing to do”.

      You have responsibility to yourself to live the best life you can. Surround yourself with people who value you and will DEMONSTRATE that by listening to your concerns and finding ways to address them. Do it for your future self.

    10. Close Bracket*

      Or honestly sex either but I’m not gonna talk about that here.

      Life is too short to have bad sex. Just break up. Being single and celibate is sooooo much better than being in a lousy relationship.

    12. Quandong*

      I was in a relationship with a very nice guy. He had a high-paying thing but his financial literacy, habits, and values led him to be in crisis mode at all times (think, getting loans from lots of friends to buy groceries & train tickets crisis mode).

      I let the nice guy part override my better judgement and didn’t break up soon enough, so I lost money I had lent to him. Months after we broke up, he contacted me to ask if I’d ‘invest’ in a new business he was attempting to start!

      If you want my honest advice, here it is: break up with this dude. Spend your money on effective therapy to help you establish boundaries with people like him. You will be so much better off.

      I’m 45 and won’t put up with such a disparity between a partner and me ever again. Does this make me a judgemental person? I don’t care what other people think about this, it’s my life and my decision to make.

    13. Foreign Octopus*

      I’m sorry but I don’t think he’s going to change.

      Why would he? You’ve already shown to him that you’re willing to pay for his lifestyle and he doesn’t have to contribute anything.

      I think that your past relationships, which you say weren’t great, have made you slightly blind when it comes to this man who – I’m sure has his good qualities – isn’t the right man for you. I remember reading somewhere once that man who treat women badly set the stage for mediocre men as women will be grateful to have a man who doesn’t hit them, or shows them more kindness than the last one, and that means that women will be hesitant to leave because the next one might not have any good qualities.

      Relationships only work when they work for both people and it doesn’t sound as if it’s working for you, particularly since you don’t seem compatible in the sex department (not a deal breaker but when added to the other issues, it might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back).

      I don’t know if you’re the type of person who wants/needs to be in a relationship, and if you are then that’s great and there are so many men out there who’d be honoured to be your partner, but I recommend stepping back from this relationship and focusing on yourself for a time being.

      Date yourself! Treat yourself to nice things. Do things that interest you. And through that, maybe, you’ll meet someone who deserves you.

    14. Not So NewReader*

      Respectfully, this is not a nice guy. A truly nice person pays their own way. They understand that is part of adulthood.
      I have a male friend who lives on the edge like this. He freely states that he prefers this life style. I. can’t. do. it. I have to have a financial plan, I have to know that things will get paid. I have a few things on a payment plan such as heating oil so that I make equal payments each month and I know I will have my winter oil bill covered.

      The difference between my friend and your BF, is that my friend finds ways to help me. He enriches my life. It could be that he does a minor repair for me. Sometimes I come home and find he has mowed my entire lawn and expects nothing in return. If I am having a problem with something he will talk around until he finds relevant information that I can use to remedy my problem. Some things seem small but add up quickly. For whatever reason my friend is good at doing adjustments, he will adjust my dog’s hips/spine for me. It saves me $150 every time he does it. (The dog , for his part in this, tells my friend when he needs help.) Conversely, my friend got hit with a huge car insurance bill. I helped him cut that bill in half by introducing him to a new agent. We have a back and a forth like this.

      There are many, many things people can do to help each other that cost nothing yet save the recipient lots of money/time/resources. And they don’t have to sponge off of us.

      Saying this gently, there is a biggg difference between you and this guy versus you and your former “richer” BFs.
      In the earlier relationships, you were (and still are) a self-sufficient person. You were not asking these guys to pay your monthly bills. Your bills are covered. THEY chose to go on trips and such that were beyond your means and nothing you would chose if left to you own decisions. This is because you live with in your means, you are self-sufficient on your own. The fact that they broke up with you over this, says a lot about their character or the lack of character. Please do not compare the two scenarios, this is an apples to oranges comparison.

      Your current BF is not self-sufficient on his own. You are paying his bills and he is paying for “hobbies”. The rule of thumb is that hobbies come second, necessities come first. It is not judgey to say this or believe this. This is just common sense, it’s necessary for survival. I will say that again, it is necessary for survival that we pay for the things we need in life first and pay for hobbies second.

      Which brings me to this: you can ensure this guy’s survival but he cannot ensure your survival. He can only drain you of everything you have without making any substantial contribution. This is not being judgey, this is practicality and it is also protecting yourself.

      See, part of being a life mate or even being a LTR is to help each other cope in this world. It’s a big world out there and a lot comes at us. It’s absolutely essential that our partners add to our quality of life in some ways that is significant. He is nice to you. That is great, but it’s not everything. People have to be nice but they also have to contribute to our lives in other ways.

    15. London Calling*

      He isn’t respectful and kind. He’s leeching off you, is prepared to carry on doing so unless you call a halt, and doesn’t support his children. He’s neither respectful or kind to you, his children or their mothers. You have got what Mumsnet calls a cocklodger. Don’t FGS let him move in.

        1. London Calling*

          There are all sorts of variations on the term which I can’t recall ATM, Mumsnetters being an inventive bunch who don’t hold back on the invective or the opinions.

    16. Jane*

      If it sounds bad on paper it’s because it’s objectively bad but you can’t see it because your rose colored glasses. He’s bad news. Just because he’s not as bad as your exes doesn’t mean he’s good enough for you. Having higher standards will only benefit you. Good luck

    17. WellRed*

      Pot smoking 45 year olds who prefer to spend what little money they have on toys and videos and comics have not grown up and will never do so. I mean, I would have run upon first hearing four kids with four different women, but I am comfortable with being “Judgy” on that. You deserve someone better.

      1. Anonymous For this*

        Wow. Thank you everyone I didn’t expect to get so much advice and support and honestly I’m really overwhelmed with all of you taking time to help me out with this. thank you.
        There are so many things that have been said that are quite profound to me, and insightful.

        I agree and you’re right deep down I know that this has to end and I totally do need to do work on myself. Before I met him I’d actually been single for a couple of years.
        Anyway thank you all so very much.

        1. NoLongerYoungButLotsWiser*

          sending you a hug. you got great advice. You reached out, I’m guessing, because you do think you need to go, but you need to put it on paper and have a sanity check. All the lovely people on here are so helpful… and right on target. I can’t tell you my story right now, but please listen. Coming from the other side of very hurt, you will otherwise look back in a few years, and regret not making a move to take care of you, now. What’s the phrase? You need a partner, not a project.

  86. Anonymosity*

    Today, my Doctor Who nerd group had a garage sale to raise money for our shenanigans–we all threw in items of our own to sell. There is a small comic shop (new) near my house and we had it in the parking lot. We made over $400. I ended up buying a small (cheap) Marvel collectible from the shop. :)

    I also got a mattress and boxspring set our group’s organizer was ditching for $20, because I want to replace this horrible futon I’m using as a sofa with a daybed. The mattress and boxspring are old and kind of meh, but they’ll do until I can get something better. Now I have to 1) get a job and 2) find a not-too-expensive daybed frame.

    We have one of those At Home stores and I know they have cheap daybed frames (kinda ugly, however). I like them. If I have a houseguest, I can put them in my room and sleep on it. This futon is just too low, too uncomfortable, and I am SICK of what it’s doing to my back. Urgh. I never liked them much, but when my old daybed broke, a futon was cheaper than a sofa.

    I’m planning to have a garage sale of my own soon, to downsize a ton in case I have to move. I’m half tempted just to put it in the garage sale and lounge on the mattress on the floor until I can get a daybed frame. Assuming I can get it out the door, LOL. It needs tightening up (it’s gotten a bit rickety over time) but if I took it apart and sold them both together, then whoever buys it could reassemble it more solidly. They’d still get the perfectly serviceable mattress. That might be better; I could get maybe $25 for the frame and mattress together and then it would be OUT OF HERE.

    Do y’all think that’s a good idea?

    1. Aurora Leigh*

      I say do it! I think bigger items are a good draw for garage sales, plus some college kids are still outfitting dorms or apartments this time of year so it’s probably likely to sell.

      I love running garage sales, I’m planning one for the 1st weekend in October, so I really need to get off my butt and start sorting stuff!

      1. Anonymosity*

        God, I hate them. Last time I had one, I worked my ass off getting it ready and only made about $90. In this neighborhood, all I ever get is old people with handfuls of change.

        I need to downsize a lot though, so if I’m selling furniture I might make more than that. The problem with this is that I don’t know what I’ll need to hang onto–if I can’t find a job very soon, I’ll probably have to move in with my mum for a while (NO NO I DON’T WANT TO) but if I can find one, I’ll be staying here for a while. For example, if I end up here for longer, I can’t dump the snow shovel, but if I have to leave, I can’t take it with me.

        I wish I could just get something out of town or out of state or whatever so I could dump everything instead of being so up in the air about what goes and what stays.

  87. Aardvark*

    I’m heading to London with a friend and we would like to go out for a fancy special occasion-type meal to celebrate something that happened recently. With tax, drinks, and tip, we’d like to stay around £200 each, give or take. No strict dress code–we’re not fancy people and aren’t planning on traveling with formal wear. We’re pretty adventurous eaters and are comfortable navigating in cities, so any reasonably close-in location and most types of cuisine are fine (not vegan, pretty much). Where would you recommend we eat?

    3. Jemima Bond*

      £200 will go a pretty long way for dinner even in expensive London. If you are from the US, remember that a tip of 10-12.5% is fine here (waiters and waitresses can’t be paid in tips; they must be extra) so whilst you can of course tip more if you like, don’t worry about having to earmark forty quid or more just for a tip.
      I once had a truly wonderful meal at Le Coq d’Argent at number one Poultry (yes Poultry is the name of a street in the City of London. We are odd.) – it isn’t cheap; mains between £25 and £40 ish, but two courses and wine and you could stay under £200 easily. And there’s a set menu for £34.50! It is a bit fancy so I’d say avoid trainers/jeans and chaps wear a proper shirt not a t-shirt, but it’s not like you need a suit and tie or a posh dress. It has a roof garden and you go up in a special individual lift.

    4. Sprechen Sie Talk?*

      Seconding Hawksmoor – make sure you get a reservation, though (can do this online). No formal dress code but they have a pretty good menu and love their cocktails (the Aviator is one of my favorites). Covent Garden branch is good, Spitalfields is a little too tight, too informal. You would have to work to hit £200 a head or have a very nice wine- we did pre-theatre one night at the bar with several cocktails, snacks, and mains for a little under £90 total for two.

      Hawksmoor may be a bit too informal/routine – next step up would be St John in Smithfields (by Barbican/Farringdon). Steak + traditional British and nose to tail cooking, Michelin-starred, they also have a wine company so know wine. Their menu changes depending on the market and whats good, so it will be more adventurous than Hawksmoor (which is a smallish chain specializing in steak). You would definitely be able to hit £200 a head easy here if doing three courses + wine. I have been twice and during the week at dinner you get suit-types but we went in business casual and it was fine – its very relaxed, less touristy than Hawskmoor can get. The restaurant is three or four floors and the main dining room is rather large on the third floor, and can get loud. Make reservations – the food is very good, very well cooked and unlike something you can do at home on your own.

      I would suggest looking at the food blog Cheese and Biscuits – he covers a lot of London and has tried plenty of places (and writes a great review in a non-snotty way) that may also be worth perusing to see if there is anything that sparks your interest.

      1. Sprechen Sie Talk?*

        Sorry – one more I forgot about in (roughly) the same area – Quality Chop House. Smaller than St Johns, a little cheaper, good wine list. May be more intimate.

    5. Dragonista*

      Bob Bob Ricard! It’s a restaurant in Soho, the menu is English & Russian classic dishes, with a little reinvention. There’s a champagne button at every table! We had a meal there last year and it was fabulous.

      1. jolene*

        Bob Bob IS fabulous and special and fancy. I second that suggestion. However, it’s smart and shiny – the Russian part is the giveaway. If you don’t want to dress up, you will feel out of place. Andrew Edmunds, around the corner, is London’s hidden gem and much less staffed by gorgeous thin black-wearing receptionists.

        I also recommend the Ivy brasseries which are truly smart, inclusive and well-priced.

    6. Jerry Vandesic*

      One of my favorite places to eat in London is Quilon on Buckingham Gate. High end Indian is how my wife described it. Service is top notch, and the food is a interesting melding of flavors. My Indian friends like it, but they do point out that the chef has taken some liberties with traditional recipes, which is fine by me.

      1. Bob*

        Had a birthday dinner at the Heston Blumenthal restaurant at the Mandarin last year (Dinner by Heston Blumenthal) very nice. Not the fancy experimental stuff The Fat Duck is known for!

  88. Mallory*

    I need some good coffee mugs. I like 16oz mugs, not a wide top. Heavy/with some heft. I had a set of 2 perfect mugs that I randomly got at Fresh Market c. 2009 but they both broke and I can’t replace them.

    I have little kids so nothing tippy/slosh prone.

    2. NDR*

      Bed Bath and Beyond Everyday White line has lots of great mugs. We have 2 sets of the 16 oz latte mugs (bought a backup set just in case) and really like them. I will link in a reply.

    3. The New Wanderer*

      I swear by travel mugs, they’re almost always 16 oz or larger size and mine saved me from a massive coffee spill a few weeks ago (my own small child bumped it). They are mostly pretty heavy (one is from Tim Horton’s, ceramic with a rubber lid, the other is stainless steel but I’ve seen a dozen different brands that all look like it).

      1. curly sue*

        I got a pair of travel mugs from my father that had been some kind of promotional gift from a yacht club, designed to be all but tip-proof on a boat. They’re vaguely pyramidal in shape, with a very solid, decently heavy base that has a rubberized no-slip bottom. They’re absolutely fantastic — I’ve propped one on the passenger side of the dashboard of the car during a road trip and it hasn’t budged. The only drawback is that they look like travel mugs rather than nice-for-company ceramic.

  89. Lcsa99*

    I am gonna do some research myself, but hoping people can give me some idea of what we’re in for. We just came home from a nice day out to see that the bathroom mirror fell and broke. It was mounted to the tile so the brackets that held it are still in place, there is just a big blank spot on the wall now. Will we have to get something similar that fits the brackets or can we easily do something different? If we want to do something completely different, I am kind of imagining we will have to have the tiles currently holding the brackets replaced, and others drilled to fit the new mirror. Am I making this out to be more work than it actually is? Or am I right in thinking we will have to hire someone to replace this silly thing?

    2. LilySparrow*

      My concern would be – why did it fall? I’ve never seen a bathroom mirror mounted in tile just fall off the wall spontaneously.

      I think you (or a pro, if you’re not construction-savvy) need to check for moisture problems, structural issues in the wall, the integrity of the brackets, whether the mirror was too heavy for the type of bracket, etc.

      Obviously the prior arrangement wasn’t sound, so I wouldn’t recommend just putting something else up there until you know the issue.

      1. Lcsa99*

        Well the woman who owned the place before us didn’t do a great job on a few other things, so it’s possible she cheaped out, but we also have no idea how old it is so it may have been hanging there forever and just finally gave up. As for why now, well we usually don’t close the door but we have a house guest this weekend and the door sticks a little, so my theory is all the thumping from opening the closing it just shook it loose. We’re just grateful it didn’t fall on someone’s head!

        1. Like a Virgin Mojito*

          If it just “gave up” or was shaken loose, that definitely suggests a poor installation. I seriously recommend getting the infrastructure looked at before you hang anything else on those brackets. It should not be possible for it to give up or shake loose, and it’s dangerous that it could have/did. Don’t take the risk!

  90. Aurora Leigh*

    We scored a 3 piece set of luggage for $40 in the clearance aisle at Walmart!

    I’m super excited, although I don’t know where we’ll store the huge thing. Boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Iceland next year and now we have the luggage!

    Need to apply for my passport and get his renewed, planning to do that this month or next.

    Anyone else have great deals to share? (Or tips for Iceland vacations?)

    1. StellaBella*

      I went to Iceland in March 2010. Go in winter – January to see the Northern Lights – or December maybe – but check online for the aurora meters to see what is a good time to visit. Check out the Casual Travelist website for tips – but get out of Reykjavick, find a farm stay or local place to stay, rent a car and drive – go see the waterfalls and horses and coastlines and tiny villages. Gas, food, etc is all very, very expensive so look online for stuff like that to get an idea of budgets and needs. See the glaciers. Go on some tours or go to the National Parks. Depending on how much time you have I’d say try to see more of the tiny villages and parks and landscape. Bring warm rain gear and layers and be prepared for wind and cold. Have fun!

      1. Chocolate Teapot*

        I had a couple of days in Reykjavik over the summer, and did a day excursion to the Golden Circle. There are lots of different tour companies offering excursions, including whale watching and the Blue Lagoon.

        Iceland is expensive, but it seems to help if you research in advance to have an idea of food costs.

      2. Aurora Leigh*

        Thanks for the tips everybody!

        We’re planning for late summer, like end of August or first part of September. We want to camp! :)

        Right now we are looking at Crazy Puffin tours — it’s a 5 day bus tour with 4 nights of camping.

        We’re a little anxious about just renting a car and driving around in a foriegn country. This is my first time out of the US and bf has only been to Mexico in college.

    2. David S. Pumpkins (formerly katamia)*

      If you go in the summer, it’s worth looking into an eye mask or something similar for when you sleep because it stays light so late there. Also, I thought the Phallological Museum in Reykjavik was quirky and fun. Took maybe an hour, maybe less–it’s not very big.

    3. fposte*

      Things I especially loved in Iceland: riding tour (they’re set up for all levels of experience); going to a local neighborhood swimming pool where everybody around me was speaking Icelandic.

  91. curly sue*

    When trying to replace the battery on my laptop, I managed to strip one of the teeny screws holding the back on to the computer. It’s stuck in there really tightly now, and none of the internet-approved fixes have worked. We’ve tried the rubber band (too thick), super-glueing an older bit into the screw (glue didn’t hold), a larger screw bit (too large), and the last thing I’m going to try is epoxy-ing a bit into the screw and trying to turn it that way. I don’t think it’s cross-threaded, which gives me some hope, but so far it hasn’t budged.

    The only thing I’ve seen on the lists that we haven’t tried yet is drilling out the screw head, or drilling in and reversing to unscrew it with the drill — the screw is so darned tiny I don’t think we have a drill bit that will work without annihilating the computer.

    If the epoxy doesn’t work, does anyone have any suggestions?

    1. Penguin*

      There are tools that are essentially reverse-threaded screws on a screwdriver handle; as you turn the handle counter-clockwise, the threads bite into the stripped screw until they’re sunk in enough that the screw turns and comes out. I don’t know if those tools are made small enough for laptop battery screws (and for the life of me I can’t think of their name, I’m sorry!) but that might be something to look into?

      1. Curly sue*

        I’ll give it a look – thank you! I trust myself with hand tools far more than motorized ones on this scale.

    2. Jerry Vandesic*

      If you have a Dremel rotary tool, you might want to use a small cutting disk to cut a notch in the head to allow you to use a straight screwdriver. That might require you to to cut into the nearby plastic, but it probably won’t be more than cosmetic and you can fix it after you get the screw out.

  92. Plant Lady*

    A couple of weeks ago I posted about contacting a 2nd cousin regarding dealing with a property issue following the death of another relative. She ended up contacting me, so it wasn’t that big a deal. However, now I have another question: Does anyone have advice for contacting a real estate agent and an attorney all the way on the other side of the country?

    This house that she and I now own is apparently, to be blunt, a big ol’ mess – bought in the early 1960s with only minimal updates since, and unoccupied for at least the past 2 years. Still full of personal possessions and “junk”. She said she contacted a realtor and was told that if we put it up for sale and if anyone bought it, it would only be of interest to a house-flipper and wouldn’t sell for much. I have no reason not to believe her, but I don’t want to just accept things blindly, either. I want to contact my own realtor to get a second opinion (and maybe a third and fourth) and also a lawyer to have ready if and when agreements need to be made. Nothing against her specifically, I just don’t trust handshake deals. However – I’m on the West coast, 2nd cousin and the house are on the East coast, and I don’t have the time or the finances to fly cross country to deal with this.

    I’ve asked around among friends and family, but nobody has any personal recommendations for real estate agents or lawyers in the greater Philadelphia area. Any thoughts on how I could go about finding someone?

    1. Temperance*

      I live in the Philly suburbs. Here’s my suggestion: check out the neighborhood FB group for wherever the home is located, and check for recommendations that way. It’s really neighborhood-specific here. There are some suburbs that are hot and even a junky house would sell for $$$, and some places where that’s not the case.

    2. LilySparrow*

      IIRC from your last post, your share in the house passes from a trust, and the relative who just died was living in the house but did not own it, so the relative’s estate is separate from the trust. Is that right?

      Is the attorney who prepared the will and/or the trust agreement still in business? They or their surviving partners can probably recommend a realtor. There’s going to have to be an attorney involved at some point to unwind the trust before your name is actually on the deed. Who is handling that?

      Do you know if the deceased occupant had a will? The deceased’s personal property inside the house must be dealt with by their executor or representative. It wouldn’t normally be included as part of the house, unless it was also part of the trust (like antiques or something.)

      Do you have a CPA or tax preparer? That’s another potential networking line to get an attorney/realtor recommendation.

      Otherwise, I’ve had good luck with realtors on Dave Ramsey’s list of endorsed professionals.

    3. Not So NewReader*

      Ugh. My take on this is if you break even you have done well. Cleaning up old house and doing enough to get them sold is time consuming and money eating.

      Bringing in your own peeps makes sense on your end but it could read badly on your cousin’s end. She could read it like you don’t trust her. Additionally, she may get frustrated because you seem like you don’t know how huge a mess this is. Based on experience, I can say, “assume that this is how it will go if you decide to bring in your own people. It will NOT read as you are trying to help. It will read poorly.”

      My suggestion is to use phones/other devices and remote in. Walk through the house with her over the internet. Let her show you and tell you what the concerns are. Remote in to meetings with the lawyer, real estate people and others.

      See, if you bring in your own people, this will make everything take MUCH longer, you will lose more money. And there is no dollar value on ill-will that may happen here.

      Your best bet, in my opinion, is to be that friendly, involved, supportive cousin on the far coast. You will cover more ground by using honey than you will by using suspicion. If you want to you can google these people and find out something online about their reputations.

      I understand the desire to want other opinions. But I have been where your cousin is. I have worked 16 hour days trying to clean up a house and the others involved had no idea of all. the. problems. The other professional opinions ended up being the same as the first opinion and everyone’s time was wasted, the house had deteriorated even further and the whole thing was a bigger mess. Any extra money you get from this strategy will be pennies, I assure you.

      In one case the house was eventually used as a “practice burn” for the fire company. Yep, they deliberately burned it to the ground because that was all that was left of it by the time anyone actually could work on it. So much time was wasted by cousins who were sure they had something of value. (When they came to see it, they were totally grossed out by all the rodents and rodent poop and rodent nests in the house. They never came again.)

      As an aside, these old people who leave us their worn down, poorly maintained houses do us NO favors. Just a little pet peeve of mine. I have emptied out 4 houses in the course of settling estates. I no longer think of getting a house like this as a gift. I think of it as “you can clean up my mess”. I no longer am willing to accept roles as an estate executor. This is back breaking, mind draining work.

      1. Rovannen*

        +1
        I’m terrified that I am going to be left to deal with the family house. I am in the will and it’s a bigggg bigggg mess. Definitely not a gift.

      2. LilySparrow*

        Best thing I ever did on clearing the latest house I had to deal with was hire an estate sale company that specialized in small estates and vintage items (rather than high-end antiques).

        I paid a modest deposit (couple hundred) to cover advertising. They priced, displayed, moved, arranged the sale date, got rid of everything that didn’t sell, and cleaned.

        I was able to hire them on my last visit, go home, and they sent me a check. Awesome!

        A family friend was concerned that they might “rip me off.” But I was staying in a hotel, missing work, and would’ve had to hire movers, rent a truck – I came out way ahead over doing it myself.

        I don’t think there’s any harm in having an additional realtor look the place over, or even just getting on the phone with the first realtor and hearing what they have to say. If you don’t know this cousin at all, it’s perfectly reasonable to want a lot of transparency. This whole process isn’t going to happen overnight.

        Who is the trustee? If the trust owns the house, then you and the other beneficiary can’t sell it. It either has to be sold by the trust and the money disbursed, or it has to be transferred to you jointly. So there’s automatically another layer of people/accountability in there.

    4. Sarah G*

      If you have a local (to you) real estate agent you trust, ask them if they have any contacts. My west coast real estate agent, who granted is incredible in going above and beyond, used his network family member a real estate agent in the midwest. He even interviewed two agents to find the best match. I’m assuming he got a kickback, but it was a huge help, and family member was very pleased with the agent. Of course you have to really trust someone’s judgment.

    5. Plant Lady*

      Thanks for the advice, everyone! A couple of things…I don’t remember the exact terminology on all the legal paperwork (and my copy is sitting somewhere I can’t get to it right at the moment) but the way the deed was written, 2nd C and I are now the owners of the house and the house is separate from any estate that RCD (recently deceased relative) left. The house wasn’t part of a “trust” in the traditional meaning of that word. If there were lawyers involved, they’ve long since left the scene.

      I have gotten the impression that 2nd C is dealing with a lot of grief and stress, and I’m trying to let her know that I do not want to be the cause of any additional stress. However, that being said, she also suggested in our initial phone call that I could just “sign over” my share of the house and she’d pay me back after it sold. I’m going with an assumption of good intent – that she thought this might be the quickest, easiest solution to the whole thing, but…no. Hence my interest in having my own real estate agent and attorney involved.

      I’ll post another update if anything interesting happens.

  93. Cherry*

    I’ve noticed lately that my right hip (?) cramps up sometimes when I bend over for too long (TMI ahead) or ummm during activity with the spouse.

    Any exercise I can do to combat this? Also, I Don’t know if this is relevant but I have very straight hips. I do get toe cramps from time to time as well.

    1. LilySparrow*

      Is it in your hip flexor? I’ve found that if my hamstrings are tight, I get achy/crampy hip flexors and lower back pain.

      The annoying thing is, my hamstrings get tight from running, and they also get tight from not running. But you know, more hamstring stretches are almost always a good thing anyway.

    2. Gaia*

      Oh man yea that sounds like the hip flexor. Mine is absolute trash (right side more than left). For years I thought I had an issue in my back that was causing my hips to be off. Turns out, I have tight hip flexors that are causing lower back pain. Ugh. Lots of people have this issue because we sit way more than we are supposed to.

      I have two stretches for this:

      1. Lay on your back with the knee of leg 1 bent (foot flat on the floor, leg at about a 45 degree angle). Take leg 2 and set your ankle on the knee of leg 1. Leg 2’s knee should pointing out. Push down (gently) on leg 2’s knee. You should feel this stretch your hip and glutes (tight hip flexors often also mean tight glutes). Switch and do the other side. This is my favorite go-to. It is easy and I can feel it

      2. Sit on the ground and do the same stretch as above but with leg 1 stretched out in front of you. When pushing down (gently!) on leg 2’s knee, rock (gently!) back and forth at the hip (like a hinge)

      And finally: have you ever used a foam roller? If not, I suggest you pick one up. For hip flexors you can sit on it, rotate so that your hip is on it (not your butt) and roll up and down from your hip to your knee. If you are really tight this will not be very comfortable. If you find a spot that hurts, that is what you need to work try staying there for a few seconds with steady pressure. You’re getting the muscle to relax.

      Hip flexors are tough because there are several of them and some are very deep and hard to work. If these don’t work, I’d suggest a massage therapist and/or physical therapist. Good luck!

    3. Not So NewReader*

      Not a doc, just someone with a lot of random aches and pains.
      This sounds like low calcium levels. You can test this out in fairly short order. Get some a good quality calcium supplement. Put in the time to find a quality brand. Take it with food. If it is calcium loss you will notice in a few days that you feel better. Again, not a doc so YMMV.

  94. Serious Pillowfight*

    I’m struggling with getting rid of items I don’t need. I would love an organized, minimalist home. I have a mild amount of clutter all over the place. I hang onto most of it because I tell myself I can sell it and make some money, but then I never do. I feel like selling it online or in a yard sale might lead to sketchy encounters with sketchy people, or that I’d need to clean it up to sell it (example: I have five formal dresses in great shape that I think I could sell or even give away, but I’d have to dry clean them and the cost isn’t worth it. So they just sit in my closet taking up space). But I can’t bring myself to just throw these things away. Any advice?

    1. Snoring Pup*

      Good Will? That’s always my go-to. They never question any items you hand over, they just grab it and run.

    2. TL -*

      I don’t think you’d have to dry clean the dresses – I wouldn’t assume a formal dress I bought had been dry cleaned (and it would probably be cheaper for me to buy used and dry clean than to buy new.)

      Also, I’ve sold things online. It’s been fine; no sketch encounters or stetchy people. I’d say just give it GoodWill or sell it online as is.

    3. Marion Ravenwood*

      Is there any kind of local charity that does things like dresses for prom/other formal events for people who couldn’t afford to buy them otherwise? Could you maybe give them to something like that?

      Otherwise, I’d say Goodwill or charity shop, as they are. Like Snoring Pup says it’s probably a lot cheaper for someone to buy used and get the dress dry-cleaned if it needs it than get something new.

    4. valentine*

      I donate to an org that will pick up just about anything packed. I schedule it online and just leave everything outside. It’s glorious. When I decide to part with something, I get rid of it immediately, if possible. I spent many years cycling through I should sell, but selling it means storing it longer, which defeats the purpose.

    5. Not So NewReader*

      I have a yard sale every year.
      I am not sure what sketchy people would do to you. The only problem I have is antique dealers come and they are greedy. “Do you have anything in the house for sale?” NO, just what you see here in the yard. NO ONE goes in my house, ever.

      When I set up my sale, I assume some things will get stolen, I think that is just being realistic. I place the larger items away from where I sit and the smaller items are on a table next to my chair. Interestingly, a good deterrent for shoplifters is to be conversational with everyone. Greet them, ask them how their day is going, talk about the weather. And really, if they steal it, so what. It was going to just get donated if I didn’t sell it anyway. No big loss. Maybe a friend would sit with you while you do your tag sale. I have motivated friends to join me by telling them to bring their own stuff over and we sit together.

      As far as the gowns, you can get those home dry cleaning kits and use your own dryer. That will at least freshen the garment up somewhat.

      From my own experience, the dread of dealing with the item is greater than actually dealing with the item. I just got rid of a ton of VCR tapes. I never watch them, ever. I so dreaded this task. Actually doing the task was far less cumbersome than my dread.

        1. Aurora Leigh*

          I’ve bought several things off craigslist and I’m not sketchy :)

          For smaller items, meet in a public place, some comminuties have designated areas in front of the polive station. For larger items (furnitire, appliances) , have someone else home with you when the buyer comes to pick up.

          My boyfriend was sort freaked out by the idea of craiglist sales, but now he’s gone with me a couple of times (recent finds were a dryer and kitchen cabinets) and he’s much more on board.

      2. Snoring Pup*

        Tagging onto the yard sales, if you’re nervous about doing one outside your house, there are lots of community yard sales you could bring your stuff to. You might pay a small fee for the space but you can sell alongside others who are doing the same thing.

    6. NicoleK*

      When I want to declutter or downsize, I host a swap meet (essentially a gathering where friends bring stuff they no longer want). My items are usually in excellent condition and I’d rather they go to someone I know who can use them. Items left over from the swap meet will be donated to a local charity.

    7. LuJessMin*

      I’ve been clearing stuff out of my house and shed all summer. The really good and collectible stuff goes on eBay (I had a bunch of kids’ meal toys that have netted me a good profit). I was going to have a garage sale for the good stuff, but I decided it was easier to donate it to Goodwill, Salvation Army, et al. I have some bigger stuff (a cast iron fireplace screen, an electric heater, cookie jars) that I’m planning to put on FB Marketplace. I usually set up a meet at the McDonald’s nearby and only during daylight hours.

    8. WellRed*

      Is there a consignment store that could take the dresses? Or some sort of organization that takes formal dress donations for girls that can’t afford prom dresses? As to craigslist, or the facebook marketplace (where I have had waaaaay better luck), they are people just like you and me. Just meet in a public place you are familiar with. Lots of local police departments also allow you to meet there.

    9. Sarah G*

      I have trouble with organizing in general, a huge mental block, and the only book that has helped me is Spark Joy by Marie Kondo. Your local library should have it. It’s a great reframe of how to approach organizing and choosing what to get rid of.

  95. Gaia*

    Okay, I’m hoping for some guidance here.

    I have stock options that I need to exercise. Previously, I’ve exercised by buying all in cash at the grant price and holding all shares. I cannot do that this time (it is way too much considering I’m currently not working). I have the option to exercise by selling to cover and holding the remaining. They do not withhold any taxes (even if I sold all they wouldn’t withhold taxes, even though I would definitely owe them). So here is the question:

    I know if I sold the stock within a year of exercise I would owe income tax on the gain in value (capital gain tax if > 1 year after exercise). But do I owe tax if I sell to cover (so I don’t ever actually receive the money)? Of course, I’ll be having a tax accountant review my specific situation next spring (for this and oh-so-many other reasons) but I’m just generally curious and would like to plan for the possibility that I get hit with several thousand dollars more in tax than I will have paid…eek. If that is the case, I may well wait until after Jan 1 to exercise these.

    1. Enough*

      I would say yes you owe taxes. It’s about sale price vs purchase price. And if you sell less than a year after purchase I believe you pay at the regular tax rate not at the reduced capital gains rate. So if you pay $1000 and sell half for $1000 you could/would owe taxes of 10% or more on $500 depending on your overall income for the year.

  96. Tara R.*

    Just a vent. I met the guy my mom has been dating for the last few months. I… don’t like him. I thought my little brother (12) was just being kind of bratty carrying on about how annoying the dude is, but honestly now having met him I totally agree. I wouldn’t be too bothered by him being a bit socially awkward, but he seems to just straight up ignore the people around him when he’s focused on something. Example: we were leaving the observatory, he wanted to show me a star, I was saying “I’m actually really tired and cold, can we just leave?” and he didn’t acknowledge me at all (I repeated myself at least three times) and just started pointing at the sky and talking and not moving until he was done showing me the thing he wanted to show me. He also has absolutely zero filter for what other people might find interesting– he goes on long rants in very minute detail about really technical stuff from his work, which no one knows anything about.

    I’m also worried that things are moving too fast. I’m sure a huge part of why my little brother doesn’t like him is that he’s in the house overnight once a week and I think they’re doing at least one other activity all together on a weekly basis (my mom’s seeing him more outside of that). That’s an awful lot of time to have your space invaded by some random dude you dislike! He also kind of weirdly oversteps his bounds with J (brother), like insisting on showing him how to change a car filter (J said no, but he just ignored him and forced the issue… are you seeing a theme here). We have a father who is active in J’s life and J isn’t really interested in my mom’s boyfriend trying to play pretend dad after four months of dating. I get the sense that my mom having a kid is a plus for him (he’s quite a bit older than her, and I think biological kids are an improbability at this point). My mom’s definitely told him to back off, but I met him after that back off conversation, and I still felt like he was coming on really strong with J.

    Anyway, I’m venting here because I don’t know what to say to my mom. In the end it doesn’t really matter how I feel about the dude– it’s her relationship, all that really matters is that she’s happy. I told her everything J told me but didn’t editorialize with my own thoughts about them moving too fast, etc. I just kinda said “Yeah, he’s a bit awkward huh, but he seems nice”. I don’t even know if my dislike is fair. I’ve spent about 6 hours with the guy. He was awkward and kind of rude, but he was also probably nervous. J dislikes a lot of people, and especially adults who he feels like are “trying” with him (hopefully that makes sense– think about the cat who prefers to be ignored on the first few meetings). She hasn’t seriously dated in ~6 years (since I was about 15), and I’m definitely having some of my own ~feelings about the way it will change our relationship if things last with this guy, so I’m worried that that’s colouring the way I’m seeing the whole thing.

    I think I’m warring internally between “I want my mom to be happy and I guess if this guy makes her happy then I guess that’s good” and “Good god I don’t want to have to talk to him ever again please don’t let this last”. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    1. TL -*

      Someone who explicitly ignores your request to leave (3 times!) sounds super annoying – especially if he’s doing the same thing with your brother.
      I think it’s fine to tell your mom that Dude struggles with social cues and you’re going to be polite but you are also going to do things like go to the car and/or the door and/or leave if he’s completely ignoring you. And I would encourage J to do the same – as politely as he can, but if he’s 12 and he puts earphones in and ignores Dude because Dude won’t let something go, oh well.

    2. valentine*

      Trust your instincts and advocate for J. Don’t let dude control anything. Offer to drive J/take separate cars. You can say it’s for sib time.

      1. usual*

        Oh Lordy, he’s an Old Geezer™. They usually respond very well to cheerful, firm handling by a younger woman. Laugh at his jokes, make him feel interesting but shut him down whenever you need to.

      2. blackcat*

        Maybe I’m just super blunt, but I’d have a pretty honest conversation with mom.

        “Boyfriend is coming on too strong to J. J needs more space and doesn’t want another dad. If you keep this up, J is going to end up really resentful. I get that you’re happy to have someone new in your life, but J has some pretty reasonable complaints. J’s preference to be left alone comes way before Boyfriend’s desire to play dad. Things may change in time, but 4 months is still very early in a relationship. I strongly suggest you only see Boyfriend when J’s not around for a while.”

        Can you take J for sleepovers once or twice a month? Try to have fun sibling time?

        1. Tara R.*

          I wish I could. I live 4.5 hours away, or 6-7 hours by public transit (I don’t drive). That’s part of what makes this frustrating; I’m not present in a day-to-day way. It feels so awkward to just bring this up on the phone (the actual visit was a couple weeks ago, obviously it’s been bothering me since then!) I think I’m mostly worried about coming across like I’m trying to tell her how to parent? It’s not like she’s ignoring J here. She’s worried about the fact that they don’t get along and told her bf really bluntly that something like the car filter can’t happen again; when I asked if he was spending every weekend, she said she keeps it to one night a week because she doesn’t want J to feel like his home is being invaded all the time. She’s trying to do what she thinks is best for him.

          We’ve had conflict back when I was a teenager about me trying to parent too much or criticizing the way she does things. (It’s a long story involving several years of 50/50 custody with my dad during which he decided to abdicate all actual parenting to me, and it being very difficult to flip from pseudo-mom back to sister on a week-to-week basis). So I know that she’s going to be upset if she thinks I’m telling her she’s doing the wrong thing for him, and also probably pretty hurt, because she thinks she’s being careful.

    3. Snoring Pup*

      I’d be honest with my mom. I was around J’s age when my mom started seriously dating a dude. He wasn’t nearly as bad as your mom’s BF sounds but he was very blunt and to the point. I told my mom what I didn’t like and she took my side and told him to chill around me. Their relationship ended after two years for other reasons but my mom told me she was happy that I was honest with what I didn’t kike about him. So maybe you and your brother can be honest with how he’s rubbing you the wrong way to your mom.

      2. Tara R.*

        Yeah. I mean, J’s been pretty honest with her, but it gets kind of… clouded behind 12yo brattiness. (E.g. Mom: “Oh no, [BF’s name] is sick.” J: “Good!” Mom: [angry lecture])

        She’s definitely heard his concerns, and she’s worried about them, and she’s talked to dude about them. I’m not sure whether talking to dude has had any effect, especially because at this point it would take a lot to change J’s mind about dude. He gets pretty set in his opinions.

        The only thing that J told me that he hadn’t told mom was that when dude was showing him how to change the car filter, he said, “I’m probably the only one who can show you how to do this.” J repeated this to me a couple times, with just a kind of baffled/unsettled tone, and when I was like “That’s a weird thing to say, you have a dad already” he agreed with me pretty emphatically. But when I asked mom about the car filter issue, she said that when she asked dude to explain himself, he said that he just thought it was cool because it was some kind of hidden filter in his car that isn’t common knowledge and J would enjoy it. So I’m guessing that’s probably what he meant by the “I’m the only one who can show you how to do this” comment. I still passed it on to my mom, and she wasn’t happy about it, but she seemed kind of baffled that he would say something like that.

        I guess I could be honest with her too. It just feels weird to be like “I, your 21-year-old daughter who lives hours away and sees you once a month at most, dislike the guy that you are dating”.

    4. Triplestep*

      OK, I was ready to stick up for the guy (I married a socially awkward man when my kids were 8 and 14, and it was rocky at first but has worked out incredibly well as he improved and they matured.)

      But him spending the night there with your brother at home? No. Wrong. Your mother needs a lecture about this. Spending too much “family time” together is bad, forcing your brother to do “father/son-like” activities is bad, but making him confront their sex-life (implied or real) is WRONG.

      I was fortunate in that my kids spent enough time with their dad that I could have occasional overnights at home with my now-husband without the kids there. I realize that all unmarried mothers don’t have this luxury, but it sounds like your mom might. Lots of parents have a notion that it is good to show their children that they are happy, and I’m sure that within reason, that is true. But everything that I read about being an unmarried mother indicated that kids – especially pre-teens and adolescents – do. not. care. about their parents happiness when it comes to situations over which they have no control. Be prepared that your mother might use this line of reasoning; it needs to be shot down.

      When I was dating my now-husband (about 15 years ago) there was data on the likelihood of promiscuity of girls whose mother had overnight or live-in “guests”. I would look for some up-do-date information on this that includes boys and show it to your mom the next time you talk about this with her. Good luck – you’re a good sibling!

      1. Triplestep*

        I just want to add one more thing: I firmly believe that children do not get a veto when it comes to the people their parents chose as partners. This assumes, however, that parents are picking people not just for themselves but for their kids. If they pick someone who does not blend well the existing parent-child unit, the new person needs to learn how.

        I picked an excellent step-father for my kids, and the fact that my son didn’t think he was “cool” at the time (he wasn’t – what can I say?) was not going to influence my decision to date and then marry him. The fact that your mom’s guy is older, or that he is unskilled socially aren’t reasons why your mom should not date him, and I encourage you not to let her conflate the issues when you talk to her about this. She’d be within her rights to say that you and your brother don’t get to choose who she dates, and I know you’re not trying to say that. It might take some effort to keep the conversation focused *away* from that, and on your brother’s experience at home since this guy entered the scene.

      2. Tara R.*

        She could probably manage the occasional overnight if they stopped having them with my brother home. (He probably spends one night every couple weeks at my dad’s, and has occasional sleepovers with friends). I kind of feel like it’s too late to put the cat back into the bag on this one, but I guess I can tell her my thoughts on it. I don’t think I can lecture her though. I’m her kid, albeit adult kid, and I’m not going to lecture her about her relationship.

        I get the impression the dude is hella needy, honestly, and she feels like she’s not giving him enough time as it is.

    5. HannahS*

      You sound like a great big sister. Keep talking to J and advocating for him! It sounds like he’ll need you to, and your mom sounds like she’s willing to listen, to some degree.

    6. tangerineRose*

      “all that really matters is that she’s happy.” No. If your mom’s kids were all adults, then sure. But she has a 12 year old at home, and she needs to at the very least make sure that her boyfriend isn’t forcing her son to do things. Yes, she told him to back off once. She needs to protect her kid. 12 can be a rough age anyway, on the bring of teenage years, needing more autonomy. The kid doesn’t need someone else telling him what to do like this.

      1. Tara R.*

        Yeah. I mean, that talk happened literally while I was there, so hopefully she’ll be more vigilant going forwards.

        God knows I know that 12 is a hard time for any disruptions to your life to be happening… I was 12 when they divorced and it was a whole roller coaster.

  97. The Other Dawn*

    Tell me your workout soundtrack!

    I’m always looking for songs to add to my playlist that are good for weights and body weight-type exercises, so I’d love to know what you listen to that keeps you going and motivates you…or just helps you slog through and not quit midway.

    Here’s mine:
    1. To warm up I usually hit the treadmill for about 15 minutes and read. If I choose to do a few warm-up exercises it’s either Given Up or Bleed it Out by Linkin Park. That always gets the blood pumping.
    2. ‘Til I collapse by Eminem
    3. State of My Head by Shinedown
    4. Feel Invincible by Skillet
    5. Not Afraid by Eminem
    6. Jekyll and Hyde by Five Finger Death Punch
    7. Closer by Nine Inch Nails
    8. Dead But Rising by Volbeat
    9. Remember the Name by Fort Minor
    10. Break Stuff by Limp Bizkit

    Sometimes I go long enough to play either Wildside by Motley Crue or Still Counting by Volbeat, but that doesn’t happen all that often.

    1. The Librarian (not the type from TNT)*

      Break Stuff by Limp Bizkit. Oh man, that takes me back.

      I don’t listen to actual music while I run, since one unfortunate incident when I got lost in a really good song playing on my MP3 player and nearly ran straight into a two-door Saturn a bunch of years ago. But I keep a mental soundtrack that lately has included a lot of Philadelphia-themed music, since I’m training for the Philly Marathon. So of course, there’s the Rocky theme (regular and disco versions), the theme from Soul Train, and “Philadelphia Freedom” by Elton John.

      Judging from your post, you’re more into metal, which is much cooler than anything I’ve just posted. My designated Linkin Park song to get pumped up is “One Step Closer.” I’ve also really appreciated it when I’ve heard the Ramones, AC/DC, and Pat Benatar (“Hit Me With Your Best Shot”) blasting from random people’s boomboxes while running recently.

    2. KR*

      The whole “Dying is your latest fashion” album by escape the fate. When I run my goal is to run through that entire album (it’s roughly 45ish minutes)

    3. Waiting for the Sun*

      “Lose Yourself “ to add to your Eminem collection.
      Guns N’ Roses’ “You Could Be Mine,” which also could’ve gone in my post about refreshing radio playlists.
      Iggy Pop: “Repo Man.”
      DMX: “Party Up (Up in Here)”
      TL: “Bring em Out”
      Parental Advisory on all these tracks, BTW.

    4. Red Reader*

      I have a playlist of about 125 songs that I shuffle during workouts, ranging from Eminem and Godsmack to Disney tracks – I’m mostly looking for pace, so anything with the right tempo works for me. But when I had an MP3 player that let me set a “power song” – that is, oh god I need that one particular song Right Now to power my butt up this hill – it was Charlie Daniels Band, Devil Went Down To Georgia.

  98. The Librarian (not the type from TNT)*

    Maybe I read through everything too fast but I didn’t see a running thread. So here goes!

    I’m more than halfway through training for the Philadelphia Marathon and results have decidedly been mixed. All my runs went strongly for awhile but now things are kind of up and down as my body begins to tire. On my 16 mile long run two weekends ago, I ran completely out of energy around mile 13. Repeated the distance this past Monday and was happy that I finished the whole thing with at least a quarter tank of gas to spare, but was dismayed that my left knee hurt like hell for two days afterward when I’ve never had an issue with that knee before. But it vanished after those two days, and I’ve done two runs since with no trouble, so I guess it was just soreness.

    The main takeaway here is that it’s much harder for a 38 year old, 169-pound person to run a marathon than a 27 year old, 154-pound one. By the way, that weight I gained is probably muscle and not fat; my clothes are starting to feel like they’re hanging off me. But either way, the extra weight makes me feel slow and sluggish and I’ve kind of plodded through most of my runs this summer, even when I’ve mentally felt great. I’m also not nearly as resilient as I used to be and have basically lost my ability to run back to back days. Put all this together and I’ve scaled down my expectations for the marathon; I’ll now be really thrilled if I finish it at all. Honestly, that may not be a bad outcome because I always put pressure on myself to do well.

    LGC, I’m almost too late but good luck in the Newport Half today! And good luck to everyone else that’s out there running today.

    1. runner*

      When I was training for my first marathon years ago, I developed a very informal group of people who were also all beginners training. We were all slow and our fitness was probably comparable in general terms but I was about 10-12 years older than they were and that really made a difference. In that, we’d do our long run and they were planning to go out later that night; I did my long run and was basically done for the day.

      1. The Librarian (not the type from TNT)*

        It makes it all the more amazing to me that my father ran his FIRST of nine marathons at 53 years old. (If all goes well, this will be my sixth marathon at age 38.) I always admired him for this, but now I REALLY admire him.

    2. CheeryO*

      I’m a 28-year-old whippersnapper, and I’m always battling a variety of aches and pains. As long as it doesn’t make a reappearance, try not to worry too much (easier said than done, obv). Keeping expectations low can never hurt. You might surprise yourself!

      Very much a mixed bag over here too. Getting closer to weekly mileage PR territory at 53 miles, but I failed my 8 mile MP tempo pretty hard on Thursday. It was warm and humid and I had to take a couple breaks just to meet my heat-adjusted pace. Called it quits after 7 because my heart rate was through the roof. My Tuesday workout was good, though, and I felt pretty strong this morning during my 16 miler, even though it was on the slow side. Meh. Gotta keep on trucking.

      1. LGC*

        Honestly, though? I think that’s everyone, or at least everyone I know in my area. (NYC metro what up!) I’ve had…very up and down training so far myself. (The number of tempos I’ve “failed” at this summer is embarrassing. Hell, I have proof on my left forearm of one of my fails!) Maybe I’m a slacker, but I wouldn’t consider only doing 7 out of 8 a complete fail – that’s still a huge amount of time at tempo!

    3. LGC*

      I knew I forgot something! (My best friend and his fiancee had their engagement party yesterday. I live in NJ. So do they. Our friends on Long Island hosted it. Suffice to say, yesterday was long.)

      So anyway – I think part of the issue is just…you’re 11 years older now and at a different point in your life! And you’re returning to the marathon after a bit of an absence. Also, I think EVERYONE was struggling this summer – my feed on Strava has been a string of people bailing early on stuff and talking about how terrible the weather is (including me). One person I know put it really well where she said that she hasn’t really been able to gauge her fitness just because it’s been pretty oppressive in general.

      I like your outlook on it, though. I’d probably add on, “and have a fun time doing it,” because if I remember – THAT was the sticking point before! Hopefully you should be able to run it well and feel as good as you can after running 26 miles.

      Newport went…not as well as I’d hoped. I ran a minute slower than I did at Racefaster Half (which I did last week), and I felt a LOT worse during it. This was probably because I ran my first 5k at sub-6 pace! (Today I learned that while I am many things, I am not a 1:18 half marathoner. Yet.) At least it went better than last year for me, but a LOT of guys had issues.

      1. The Librarian (not the type from TNT)*

        Today’s weather was exactly why I’ve started to skip Newport even though I immensely love the course… it was hot out there today. (By this summer’s standards, though, it was not too bad at all.)

        That you did two halfs in two weeks and only slowed down by a minute — especially considering the heat today — sounds pretty incredible to me. Good going!

        As for my marathon, I’m definitely going to have fun as long as I make it there. :-)

  99. Anna*

    Do any of you have experience with disaster thinking? I am easily worried and my thoughts starts spinning. It especially surrounds questions about health. What if I cannot work until a decent retirement age, what if my insurance go up and things like that. I had a time of my life, when I was young when these things where a real concern, but they are not any longer in reality. But I still carry the worry in my thoughts.

    1. Not So NewReader*

      Take care of yourself in current time. Seriously. I do a lot of worrying about the future myself. We can get our ducks in a row, financially, materially and healthwise. The best protection for our future is using good judgement today. I started eating better, I got interested in my dog’s health. I got interested in natural cleaners and recycling.
      We can educate ourselves about various things, be it practical learning such as refinishing a bookcase or something with a bigger picture view like reading about environmental philosophy. People who teach themselves things seem to remain healthier longer.

      In my mind I have answered these concerns this way: I watched my father lose most of what he had paying off my mother’s medical bills. The same thing happened to me when I lost my husband, but I landed a bit better than my dad did- still not great though. I will work until I die. Insurance will continue to go up until this country makes a different plan. It’s a good idea to work at keeping other recurring bills down so you have the wiggle room to keep paying insurance. And back to increasing your self-care. I am amazed at how much damage occurs inside the body when we don’t drink water and we don’t eat vegetables. The actual challenge here is to do these things every day without fail. Once I started doing home cooked for my dog his vet bills plummeted. And once I started eating simpler I found my quality of life went right up.

      You can allow your worry to nag you into staying on the course of learning how to keep yourself well and to keep your environment around you safe and happy.

      1. Anna*

        Thank you very much. The way you write gives a very good perspective: the spinning thinking make me feel powerless, but you remind me, that I do have a lot of things I can do, that I have agency. Thanks again

    2. Reba*

      Yeah, catastrophizing or magnifying is a common anxiety pattern. If you search those terms online you will find a lot of tips.

      Interrupting the thoughts–like actually saying to yourself “Stop, this is not helpful!” and then I personally imagine dropping the thoughts into a moving stream–can help. I also find that talking about my worries with others is helpful, just brings the thought stream back closer to a realistic scenario. Or you can do a kind of imaginary version of that conversation with a friend. Ask yourself what you would say to a friend who came to you with these worries.

      I also find it helpful to just answer the questions sometimes. Much more soothing than saying “that won’t happen” (because what if it does?). Like, “what if I have to stop working earlier than I want to?” “Well, I am saving as much as I can now, let me try and look at the budget again. If it comes to that point I will probably move to a smaller home, that’s ok. I might not get to travel as much, that’s ok.” Etc.

      Good thoughts to you.

      1. Anna*

        I wrote a long reply but it got eaten. Thank you very much for this helpful advice. I am going to try the moving stream thing. thanks again

  100. KatieKate*

    Does anyone volunteer with CASA? I’ve been wanting to for awhile as a path to becoming more involved in the foster system (I want to be a foster parent eventually) but I can’t get a read on the time commitment. My schedule varries a lot even with a 9-5. Will I need to commit any buisness hours? Does a CASA do home visits? What about transportation? I don’t have a car and I’m in a huge city. What else should I know about what’ll be required? I can make things work, I just don’t know what I don’t know, so to speak. Thanks!

    1. Max Kitty*

      I don”t volunteer for CASA but have looked into it a little bit. There will definitely be some commitments during business hours–for example, you’ll have to attend court proceedings on behalf of the kid. I believe you’ll also need to talk with medical personnel, teachers, and social workers, which is more likely to be during business hours. My local CASA says training is about 40 hours, and once you get an assignment it’s about 3-4 hours per week. They ask for at least an 18-month to 2-year commitment.

      Contact your local CASA and they’ll be happy to speak with you about the requirements.

    2. Julianne (also a teacher)*

      My mom used to volunteer as a CASA. (She doesn’t anymore because my parents moved to another state.) Yes, there are definitely times when you’d be needed during business hours. My mom needed to have a car because she was in an area with very little public transit, but also because some of the kids on her caseload got placed (temporarily or permanently) with extended family who lived in other towns. (I think the furthest she drove was about an hour.) She did visit kids and families at home, sometimes with other professionals working on the child’s case, sometimes alone.

      I second Max Kitty’s suggestion: reach out and find out requirements in your local area.

    1. runner*

      Yes! the logistics of it all seemed daunting. Her husband would meet her at different aid stations so she could pump and how sometimes getting from one aid station to the next took too long. Amazing story.

  102. nep*

    Has anyone here put out a podcast? I’m producing one–expect to put out a kind of intro and the first episode in a week or so. Talk about putting yourself out there. Loving the process–Having fun and learning a lot.

  103. Kate D.*

    Anyone else have different priorities/interests from most people, are mostly confident with your choices, but still get annoyed when other people imply your choices are inferior and you deserve to be pitied (even if they don’t necessarily try to be insulting)? Comments run the gamut from “You’ve been at this company for X years and you’re still only a [non-management position]?” to “I’ll help you find a dress that flatters your body type.”

    1. fposte*

      I think that’s common. Pretty much all of us have encountered somebody who sees a difference in how we do things as a deficit on our part. I therefore don’t think there’s any way to prevent it; a “thanks, I’m good!” for the drivebys, and a discussion and/or detachment when it’s people who are repeat offenders or intimates.

      1. Not So NewReader*

        Agreed. The real problem areas are with people who uncharacteristically remark like that, or people who we actually cherish. For those people I put in the extra work. “okay, what makes you say that?” And then I listen. They will feel better for getting it out in the open and because this person is of dear value to me, I might hear something that I can use/apply.

        1. fposte*

          That’s a really good point. It also allows for the possibility that you’re in a version of the visiting Danish teenager situation, and somebody may actually be imparting some valuable information.

  104. Serious Pillowfight*

    Exchange student update!

    Still massively enjoying this kid. But there’s an awkward situation. I honestly don’t think he has showered in over a week. He also doesn’t seem to brush his teeth very often. He doesn’t really smell bad, or at least not as bad as you’d expect. I’ve dropped hints, I’ve had conversations about showering in general, I’ve asked him if he wants anything different for the shower like products, but it doesn’t seem to hit home. He’s 16, so I can’t really see myself ordering him to shower. Obviously he knows better and otherwise he’s really self sufficient. He has showered a couple times since he’s been here so I know he knows how to use our shower. Not sure what to do, if anything.

    1. The Other Dawn*

      I have very little experience with teens, especially ones from another country, but maybe you can talk about the culture he’s in now vs. his own culture. Such as telling him “this is how we do things here.” Maybe not so bluntly, of course, but along those lines.

      1. HannahS*

        Yeah, I think this is the right approach. If you don’t act awkward about it, it won’t be awkward. Maybe do it right before you guys go to bed. “Hey student, I want to let you know that while you’re here, you should be showering every other day and brushing your teeth in the morning and before bed. We have enough hot water that you can shower in the morning or at night, whatever you prefer.” Let him know! I’m sure that if I was in Korea (or here but I live alone so…), my habit of showering twice a week and washing my bath towel every other week would be looked on in absolute disgust, and I would want someone to tell me.

    2. Rebecca*

      It may be influenced by where he’s from. Perhaps they have severe water shortages, and he doesn’t realize he can shower every day.

    3. Not So NewReader*

      Stop hinting. “We love you, we want you to succeed. But you have to shower (daily/every other day/whatever).
      Americans are massively concerned about body odors and even a small amount of odor is not acceptable. You have a small amount, you absolutely must shower more often/daily/every other day. This is a totally fixable thing and it will save you a lot of other problems. I am telling you about it nicely and quietly, others will not be nice and they will not be quiet.”

    4. Falling Diphthong*

      I recall a professor once mentioning that with all his foreign grad students he gave them the “Shower every day; wear a clean shirt every day” speech right off. This is in a way easier to hear from strangers, where there’s not the emotional investment and you are just cluing them in to expected norms.

      So seconding all the advice to be blunt, be specific, and do it soon. And borrow from the “how are you” = “I acknowledge your humanity, fellow human” school of explaining cultural differences. It doesn’t have to make sense for it to be a cultural expectation, like driving on the right or whether you should clean your plate (indicating deliciousness) or leave a little (indicating bounty).

      This is alway tough because it’s very difficult to smell ourselves–the brain tunes out familiar smells. (Thus “whoa litter box” being a thing that hits you when you walk into a place.) So people figure they are normal and everyone else is weird.

      1. usual*

        I had this with a visiting male French friend. After three days of his increasing stink I told him to shower. He was very “you are a bourgeois Englishwoman with repressions” but did finally go and do it.

        Not a friend any more.

        Re the kid, it’ll be easier if a guy tells him. Having said that, I’m a woman and have told two nephews they stink and we are very close still…

    5. Étudiante*

      I might be late to the game…
      This is a fairly typical situation we always talk about to our in/outbound students (my country in general is on the daily showering side).
      As a host family, it’s absolutely okay if you explain that where you live this is the cultural norm. You can start by admitting that this is an awkward and personal thing but it’s beneficial for him to know that in your culture/community you are expected to shower daily. If you want to add a reason why it’s done this way, you can mention the climate, air pollution etc. if it is the case.
      Once you told him this briefly, do what Alison suggests after awkward conversations and just change the subject to something upbeat and light.
      Good luck!

    6. Smarty Boots*

      You should also encourage him to launder his clothes frequently, or to put them in the laundry hamper every day, if you are doing his laundry.

    7. Teach*

      It’s kind of a teenage boy issue too, at least until they discover romantic attraction!
      I like the scripts from others-and would add-
      In the States, most people shower daily or every other day. They put on clean clothes and deodorant daily. Teeth should be brushed morning and night. They perceive the smell of shower soap/toothpaste/laundry soap as clean and attractive, more so than cologne, etc. We are going to ask you to follow American customs because we know it will be easier to make friends and join groups at school if you fit in this way.

    8. Scandinavia*

      I seem to rememder he is from Scandinavia? I am too. Even though it is not as normal in Scandinavia to shower every day as in the US many people do or do it every other day or twice a week. It is most certain normal here to wash yourself everyday in the sink, even it you do not shower, brush your teeth twice a day, new underwear everyday, use deodorant everyday

      1. Serious Pillowfight*

        Not sure anyone will see this, but thanks all. To be honest, I don’t shower daily and I am born and raised American. I do brush my teeth every single morning. He is from Denmark, which seems like the U.S. in many ways from my limited knowledge of it. If he were from a place with different hygiene rules or water shortages, I’d have been unsurprised but this threw me for a loop. I wound up discussing how often hubby and I shower while I was in the car with just the student, and he said he isn’t good about remembering. I told him he should shower that night (Sunday) to start the week fresh. I need to have another convo about teeth brushing, I think. Would putting a Post-It note with a friendly reminder in Danish to “brush your teeth” be rude?

  105. The Other Dawn*

    Has anyone tried, successfully, to use fresh herbs in unique ways? I have a TON of fresh sage, rosemary, thyme and oregano in my garden and no idea what to do with it. I know I can freeze it or dry it, but I’m wondering if I can use in some other way.

    And now it’s time to whine…I hate when I buy fresh ingredients and then decide I don’t feel like making the recipe. I bought some blackberries yesterday so I can make blackberry jalapeno jam, and can it, but of course now I don’t feel like it. But I have to use them in the next day or two because they’re not cheap and I don’t want to let them go bad and waste my money. I also bought some tomatoes this morning to add to my own home-grown ones and make Bulgarian mish mash, but I don’t feel like doing that either. Mish mash is easy, though, and I’m not canning it, so I’m sure I can get through that later.

    I spent a ton of time and hassle yesterday making tomato sauce for canning and then realized all I’d get is two 32 ounce jars. Why bother with canning that small amount? I stuck it in the fridge. I’m also not that thrilled with how it came out. I followed the recipe that’s specifically for canning, which didn’t contain the onions and fresh garlic, and I think that’s the issue. It’s OK, but not great. I’ll just use it as a base for meat sauce maybe. I think I’ll stick to using canned tomatoes for sauce and fresh for other things, like salsa.

    1. HannahS*

      Can you freeze the blackberries for use at a later time? For fresh herbs, oregano is really good in Greek salads. Or any chopped veggie summer salad. I don’t know about using sage, rosemary, and thyme, though, because I use those in cooked soups, stews, and roasted things, so while the flavour is nicer with fresh herbs, it’s not particularly creative! I know people use fried sage leaves as a tasty garnish for sweet potato or squash dishes.

    2. Reba*

      Drying the sage, rosemary, and thyme is super easy and very worth it. Spread out on baking sheets and dry in a very low oven for an hour, turning once or twice.

      Sage butter sauce is a classic for a reason. I also love sage in potato soups, and fresh thyme on almost any vegetable or a simple salad. And fruit combos — I think a thyme blackberry compote would be AMAZING. I love baking with those herbs, too. Biscuits, cornbread. And why not try adding some to your sauce, if it’s too bland? :)

    3. Bluebell*

      If you freeze the blackberries, remember to do them on a cookie sheet and freeze them separately so that they defrost nicely and as whole berries, rather than a big block of berry mush. I’ve done this with raspberries and it’s worked pretty well.

    4. GoryDetails*

      For the sage, have you tried frying the leaves? They crisp up in a few seconds, and make a lovely little snack in themselves, or an interesting addition to a salad or side dish. I’ve also found some nice recipes for ice cream and beverages that use fresh herbs; rosemary seems to work really well with citrus flavors.

      1. Étudiante*

        Fried sage is an excellent side dish to some Mediterrenean fish for instance. Brings back great memories, thanks for sharing the idea.

    5. Étudiante*

      There are some good icecream recipes with fresh herbs. I know basil is great with raspberries and I did a quick search and also found oregano ones. I have never made them so no personal experiences but might be worth a look.

    6. Sarah G*

      I love making socca (chickpea flatbread) with fresh rosemary — super-easy, healthy, and delicious! It’s easy to find recipes online — the only ingredients other than herbs/seasoning are chickpea (garbanzo bean) flour, olive oil, water, and salt. The flour can be found in bulk at Whole Foods, if you are in the U.S.
      Various recipes call for different amounts of time to let the batter sit — I’ve found that an hour is plenty of time. I also prefer it without the cumin that some recipes call for, but you can experiment. I make it on the stovetop, but if you have a cast iron skillet, some recipes call for finishing it in the oven.

    7. Dr. Anonymous*

      Hope this isn’t too specific, but there’s a fabulous herb-marinated pork loin recipe out there in the world. It does use a decente amount of fresh rosemary and your whole neighborhood will smell magical.

    8. The Other Dawn*

      Thanks for all the suggestions! Even though I know the plants will grow back every year, I struggle with wasting what’s out there right now. I don’t want to waste it!

      I made the blackberry jalapeno jelly and it came out pretty good. There’s definitely a lot of heat in this batch! I’m glad I just went ahead and made it, because a few of the blackberries had started to mold already. Guess I know why they were on sale!

  106. dear liza dear liza*

    Best place/brand for women’s oxford shirts?

    I love the classic look of an oxford button down, but I’ve yet to find one that doesn’t make me sweat profusely, isn’t too boxy, isn’t sheer, buttons far enough up for work, and holds up well. I don’t have any particular challenges like extra-wide shoulders or a larger-than-average chest, so it seems like this would be easier.

    Bonus points if the shirts come in more than white.

    4. Kate*

      JC Penney’s Worthington line has a great button down with a variety of sleeve lengths. I wear the classic and the cap sleeve ones to work exclusively.

  107. tink*

    We adopted a cat and we are picking her up today! I’m very excited but also a little nervous, because we didn’t think we were going to get to bring her home until next weekend, so we’re still missing a few things (mainly a mat to catch extra litter and more than a week of food).

    2. Aurora Leigh*

      Best of luck! You’ll be fine!

      This happened to us with our dog. We went to the rescue to fill see some pups and maybe fill out an application. Most people we talked to who had worked with that rescue said we wouldn’t be able to bring a pet home till the following weekend.

      Well, we fell in love with our pupper, and the shelter was a little overcrowded, so they called our references and then told us we could bring him home! It took less than hour! We bought a collar and leash at the shelter and then took the little guy to the pet store to buy food and bowls and treats lol.

  108. Bluebell*

    Any pointers for a good mattress topper? I’ve decided that the egg crate type bumps on our mattress are bugging me too much, and the mattress pad is not thick enough to make a difference. I prefer something that does not off-gas, and I’m usually a side sleeper. Thanks!

    2. fposte*

      IME outgassing is very brand variable, and it’s mitigated if you can let the thing air out for a while (also if you zip it into a cover on the mattress).

      That being said, latex generally outgasses less than memory foam. Most side sleepers will want a fairly soft latex as a topper.

  109. Anonymous Ampersand*

    Walked past the ex and medium child going the opposite way on an escalator. It may not sound traumatic but it was.

    I didn’t expect a huge fuss from child, it’d only been a few hours, but it felt very weird that he just smiled and didn’t even say hi. Also, my friend thinks ex’s new gf was there but I was so focussed on child I don’t even know.also I still haven’t met his new gf and I’m annoyed, I told him I wanted to meet her by the time the kids went back to school.

    1. Anonymous Ampersand*

      Just for the record traumatic was probably a bit strong, but it certainly left me feeling shaken up.

      1. Ruffingit*

        I get that. It’s a sad, surreal kind of feeling. And sometimes you’re just not expecting the intensity of the feelings. HUGS!

    1. Aurora Leigh*

      You’re back!!

      BEST: Dinner with bf and his parents Friday night. They’re so kind and welcoming to me. We hadn’t seen them for a bit and his mom was really glad I suggested going out together.

      WORST: I’m tired of the 90 degree heat.

    2. DoctorateStrange*

      BEST: I saw the tour performance of Les Miserables yesterday. Before that, I had an amazing dinner at Macaroni Grill.

      Worst: I’m stressed about school.

    3. AvonLady Barksdale*

      BEST: I finally made decent bagels. They still need work, but I figured out what the problem had been, so that makes me happy.

      WORST: I made the bagels because I needed something to do. With Florence and all her unknowns, we’ve been stuck in the house for almost four days. It’s very, very wet and my neighborhood is full of old trees, so I don’t know what’s to come. This area is really flooded.

      MAKES THE WORST TOLERABLE: We only lost power briefly, we’re leaving soon to have dinner with some friends, and it’s so much worse at the coast, which is heartbreaking.

    4. HannahS*

      Best: Had a phone date with a good friend, went to new! local! friend’s birthday, having a phone date with another friend tonight. Feeling very happy about it.

      Worst: So stressed about school and doing absolutely nothing to address it. Gah.

    5. Anona*

      Best: Had a baby 3 weeks ago and have been doing ok with her so far, breastfeeding, and dealing ok with the sleep deprivation.

      Worst: Dreading going back to work. She’s just so teeny and reliant on me. I want to do right by her, which I had thought was modeling a career for her. I just have a big commute which will mean even less time with her :/. But great health benefits. Life is hard!

    6. Mimmy*

      Welcome back!!! I’ve missed these threads!

      BEST: Presentation on Wednesday was very well-received!

      WORST (which actually spans more than just this week): Finding out a relative is/was in jail and has had previous legal run-ins. Not saying the relation or what this person did for privacy reasons, but this person was fairly prominent in my family’s life when we were younger.

    7. Ruffingit*

      Best: Getting more sleep after a very busy vacation.

      Worst: So much to do. And I don’t want to do any of it.

      By the way I’ll be around here sporadically for awhile. Crazy days at work for a little while longer.

  111. DoctorateStrange*

    It’s official. I have to cut myself off from ohnotheydidnt. It was always a guilty pleasure reading, and I liked keeping up to date on things, but it really carries the worst parts of the Internet. It also makes me anxious that I am being unfair to certain people/matters because some of the commentators can get so reactionary that it could affect you. It’s rather disturbing. I should have honestly done that ages ago. My anxiety and depression has been worsening.

      1. DoctorateStrange*

        I like it when books are talked, there can be some really smart threads there, unfortunately, the issues have taken over too much for my liking.

    2. Stellaaaaa*

      That site definitely attracts people who can’t really hang anywhere else. They once told me to kill myself when I was talking about something fairly innocuous.

      1. DoctorateStrange*

        I’m sorry you dealt with that. I definitely do not regret being only a lurker there, who knows what they would say about me or towards me. On a not-too-long-ago post, the comments were awful regarding actors with disabilities wanting to play more roles.

  112. Cruciatus*

    I need persuading to get a kitten… So, my friends found a kitten in their yard/woods (they think they saw the mama dead nearby). It’s gotten a clean bill of health (and no one claimed it). But I will move eventually (still with my parents). It feels wrong to get a cat now just to uproot it again in a few months (though I guess cats go through worse). I have another cat (we put our 2nd cat down on Tuesday. I’m sad, but OK. She was 18). I don’t know how current cat will react. And I don’t know if she’ll come with me when I leave. I feel bad introducing this kitten and then maybe separating them (I don’t know if current one would stay with me when I leave. That’s TBD.) But then they might hate one another and it’d be for the best anyway (though at this moment I’m leaning towards taking current cat with me since my parents plan on moving anyway, though she’d be OK staying with them wherever they are). It just feels a little messy but this cat needs a home (my friends can’t keep it–they took in a shot, pregnant cat found in their woods last year and now have 3 cats–they’ve done their duty!). I’m going to get a cat eventually… So do I go for it now and see what happens? Is there something I’m not considering or are all of these surmountable issues?

    I’m not sure why I’m this hesitant. I think I just know how much a kitten can change your routine (and current pet’s routine). This happened when we got the current cat 9 years ago! I worry about upsetting current cat, and then the moves that are coming for current cat either way (either mine or my parent’s). But…free kitten! Sigh.

    1. Aurora Leigh*

      Kitten!!!

      Obvs, I can’t tell you what to do, but moving a cat isn’t that terrible. I also adopted a very sick found kitten a couple months before I moved out of my parents house into my first apt. She was fine.

      After about 18 months, I moved her and my second cat to a new, smaller apt. She settled in fine, although she did spend about a day hiding under the futon. All her familiar things were there. Her sister adjusted fine.

      A year after that, I moved them again, this time to my bf’s house. I swear they started giving me side eye when I brought in moving boxes. But they’ve settled in just fine and have even gotten well adjusted to the resident cat and dog (the first month was a little rocky).

      1. Trixie*

        All this plus it’s not a bad time to bring a new personality to the mix both for your family and the adult cat. It is an adjustment for the current cat but sounds like they are already used to a second feline in the house. Most animals adjust pretty quickly but those first weeks/month needs to happen. (As Aurora Leigh mentioned.)
        If you do bring kitten in, do yourself a favor and take her often in the carrier for car rides. So much calmer and even relaxing for future rides, moves, vet visits. I also started handling my cat’s back legs/paws as a kitten so I could more easily trim his nails.
        Have fun and enjoy this small, small window of kitten time!

  113. Looking for women's belts*

    Anyone in the U.S. have tips for brick-and-mortar stores that carry a nice selection of women’s *real* leather belts? It seems to be more and more difficult to find anything other than “bonded” leather or other crappy composite leather that falls apart within a few months.
    I’ve tried online, but it’s hard to find ones I like, and I hate not being able to try on. I like belts with a clean, fashionable, modern look, preferable with some cool but low-key detailing — NOT fancy braided belts, nothing ultra-feminine or blingy. Thanks in advance for suggestions!

    1. Anono-me*

      You might want to check out your local western wear and saddle shops. You will probably see more ornate belts out front, but there should also be some more simple ones also.

      1. Looking for women's belts*

        Thank you – I’ve tried this on occasion, have found some cool casual belts but also need something a little narrower and sleeker for work.

  114. kiwimusume*

    That cat is looking particularly kissable this week. I saw in someone else’s comment recently that those are your cats – do you have any info about them on this site?

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      They are my cats! There’s no one place I’ve compiled info about them, although there’s some scattered randomly through weekend open threads. There are four of them: Eve (here), Olive, Lucy, and Sam.

      1. kiwimusume*

        Aw ❤️ I’ve always loved the cat pictures on the free for all threads. If you don’t mind telling me, which cat is which with the other three, and what are their personalities like?

        1. Ask a Manager* Post author

          Sure! From oldest to younger:

          Sam = large orange cat — very laid back
          Lucy = smaller orange cat — somewhat high strung, believes she is in charge of the others
          Olive = calico — extremely dainty but snorts like a pig when she plays, adores Eve (started as a foster but we couldn’t part with her and so adopted her)
          Eve = grey — also started as a foster and wouldn’t let us touch her for the first five weeks, but she is now is the happiest, most affectionate cat in the world

          Here are many, many photos:

          https://www.askamanager.org/cats-2

  115. Triple Anon*

    Stopping by late to say that there is a litter of feral kittens living in the yard next door! My dog is going crazy. They’re adorable. I’m trying to decide what to do. There are four kittens and a mother cat. They live under the house and are currently all playing together in the yard, being incredibly cute. All five are calico with short-ish but fluffy fur. They’re beautiful.

    The house isn’t abandoned exactly. The neighbors have been remodeling it for a long time while living somewhere else. For a while, they had some relatives staying there, but it’s been unoccupied for almost two years now. They stop by every so often and work on the remodel.

    This is a city with a huge feral cat population. The feral cat rescues are full. The city shelter has a high euthanasia rate despite all their efforts to adopt out as many animals as possible. So I’m trying to figure out who I could call and if it’s my place to do so considering that they’re not on my property. I would just rather the little ones have a chance of finding a home than live the rough life of an urban feral cat.

    This is the same property that I rescued my dog from. He belonged to one of the relatives staying there and got left behind when they moved out.

    I have a phone number for one of the owners so maybe I’ll text him and let him know. I hope something works out for these little furry ones.

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