weekend open thread – January 2-3, 2021

by Alison Green on January 2, 2021

This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand.

Here are the rules for the weekend posts.

Book recommendation of the week: Park Avenue Summer, by Renee Rosen. This part is true: When Helen Gurley Brown became editor of Cosmopolitan magazine right after publishing her notorious Sex and the Single Girl (a book I stole from my mom and read incessantly as a teen), her plans to sex up the magazine created scandal and she faced aggressive opposition from people (mainly men) who were shocked and outraged by the content she wanted to run. The novel is a fictionalized account of a young woman who moves to NYC in the ’60s and becomes Helen Gurley Brown’s assistant in the middle of all this. It’s fiction, but it’s based what really happened and it’s pretty fascinating.

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

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  2. Your Local Cdn*

    Does anyone have favourite beginner workouts that don’t require special equipment? I’m in a tiny condo and just don’t have room for more stuff, but I do have 10 lb weights.

    1. MBK*

      Do you like video games? Ring Fit for the Nintendo Switch is great, and while it does require the console and the exercise ring, they’re pretty small and unobtrusive when not in use. (I’m sorry, I know the request was for stuff that requires *no* additional equipment, but this one is so good and includes such a wide variety of workout options I thought I’d speak up.)

      1. Disco Janet*

        I second this! Helps me work out much more efficiently, and the time passes by more quickly.

    2. Lemonwhirl*

      I’ve been using the 7 Minute app, which is decent strength workouts that take about 8 or 9 minutes including the ‘rest’ of a few seconds between exercises. All you really need is a yoga mat. The workouts are good – you do 30 seconds of each exercise and do about 14 exercises altogether. You can do an overall workout or focus on an area. I’ve been doing the overall and arms and it’s definitely helped with my strength.

    3. Kiitemso*

      Bodyweight exercises can take you pretty far. Planks, squats (especially with added weights), burpees, pushups, crunches (I’m not sure what the verdict on crunches is, but my physio told me to avoid them due to my lower back issues), other stuff I’m not thinking of right now.

      You can also do yoga routines through youtube videos. There are some starter yoga routines that are very easy (and therefore not very physically demanding either) that you could combine with bodyweight stuff.

      And if you don’t have downstairs neighbors or don’t think that minor noise will be a huge issue, a very good cardio can be jumping rope. If you genuinely want no extra stuff in your place, just jump at the rhythm you would for a jump rope routine. 15-30 mins is usually enough for me, it’s very efficient.

      1. Nessun*

        Second body weight exercises! I work out in my apartment when the gym is closed…for whatever reason. I do squats, push ups against the countertop (if you can’t stretch out along the floor, or cant go all the way down to the ground), and if you buy a band ($5 – $10) you can use it for stretches and working your arms and legs. There are lots of videos on YouTube, you can search by body type, size, or fitness level.

        1. Kali*

          Nerd Fitness had a basic routine of push-ups, pulls ups, squats, and planks, with ideas for how you could level them down to start with and then up as you improved. I’ll put the link in a reply to this comment (since links take a while to come through), but if you google “nerd fitness angry birds” it comes right up.

          We got an Amazon Echo thing for Christmas, and I’m using her for stretching. There are some skills others have made with basic routines, and it’s pretty easy just to make your own routine of “Alexa tells you which stretch – wait 30 seconds – repeat with next stretch”. I struggle a lot with muscle stiffness, especially in my neck and shoulders, so just a few minutes a day makes a huge difference for me. Other than that, I like walking and I’ve found it easy to get the weekly recommended active minutes (150 mins moderate intensity, recommended by the NHS) that way.

      2. The Other Dawn*

        I third body weight exercises, though I consider burpees to be more advanced. But I hate burpees and can’t do them anyway (back surgery <1 year) so YMMV!

        I'd say squats, walking lunges (or alternating lunges standing in place if there's not enough room to go about seven to eight steps in one direction), jump squats, squats with an upward press using one 10 lb weight (or just hold the weight near your chest), wall sits, planks, flutter kicks, and crunches (assuming no lower back issues).

          1. The Other Dawn*

            Haha! This is when I’m happy I still have some doctor-imposed physical limitations. If I didn’t, my trainer would make me do them!

      3. AdAgencyChick*

        Yes! Google “Crossfit travel workouts” — a lot of Crossfit gyms have a list of workouts that require no equipment that members can use when traveling, and that would work great in an at-home setting too. Scale as needed — if you can’t do pushups on your toes, do them on your knees or elevate your hands on your coffee table or couch.

        If you have dining table chairs that will bear your weight without moving around (or you can back one against a wall with a towel on the back to keep from marking the wall up), try step-ups: Plant one foot on the chair and, using the foot on the ground as little as possible, step up so that both feet are on the chair. Start off with body weight, then work up to holding your 10# weights while stepping up.

    4. Bee*

      I really love the Fitness Blender you tube channel/website. Some really great workouts on there that use body weight only or just dumbbells

    5. VictoriaQ*

      You can try also looking on youtube for no equipment workouts (I personally try to find 30-day workouts if I can, since it saves me the hassle of repeats or trying to find new videos). I just started Holly Dolke’s 30-day workout quarantine edition. Her stuff is real short and fairly simple, with no equipment so far. And I haven’t really needed much space for it either.

      1. The New Wanderer*

        I found a ton of options on YouTube by searching HIIT (high intensity interval training), which advertise low impact and no equipment, plus varied times and levels of difficulty. I did one last week by Popsugar, 30 minutes and they showed and talked about modifications which is great when you’re starting out.

        Yoga with Adrienne just started her 30 day series to kick off the new year, and her previous series are on YouTube as well.

    6. Fran*

      Fitness blender has a lot of beginner workouts and on almost every workout they offer beginner modifications.

    7. LST*

      If you are up for trying an app I can recommend Centr – huge range of workouts and you can filter so just have no equipment workouts (that will definitely be a good workout!). It is a paid app but they have a trial period if you want to try it (just go to your account settings to cancel). Has a nice Facebook community too that I’ve found encouraging.

    9. nep*

      A lot of great comments and suggestions here. Just here to echo many of them–please don’t think that if you don’t have much special equipment or space, somehow that degrades your workout and what you can get out of it. Far from it. You can build strength, mobility, and flexibility; or just get/stay fit–whatever your goal–with bodyweight exercises (and using the weights occasionally if suitable).

      1. Lifeandlimb*

        Agreed. I first started working out in my little 10×10 ft apartment bedroom, on an area rug on my floor in between my bed and dresser. I did mostly body weights for the first year before progressing to a few small weights.

        I love working out at home. I would always find reasons to avoid the gym and feel weird around strangers there!

        1. nep*

          Same. I worked at a gym pre-COVID and didn’t work out there except the group ex classes I led. At home for me, all the way.

      2. Parenthetically*

        Yes, absolutely. It’s not less legit to work out at home and without equipment. You can be fit as HELL doing bodyweight workouts in your living room.

    10. Seeking Second Childhood*

      I’m going to be starting in with Jack Lalanne. I found an official channel on YouTube. He made it to 96, and my mom who followed him regularly made it to 94, so maybe that will keep me on board.
      For people who don’t remember him, his big thing was exercises that 1950s housewives could do in their living rooms with little prep.

      1. GoryDetails*

        Oh, gosh, that takes me back! When I was a kid we’d watch Jack LaLanne’s show and follow along with the exercises – kind of silly in retrospect, for a kid who spent the reset of the day climbing trees, galloping around pretending to be a horse, and/or engaging in lively games of tag, but I guess for me it was a fun challenge to mimic his movements.

        1. Seeking Second Childhood*

          Me too. I didn’t do much formal sport, but was always in motion. Mom didn’t skip his show when I was kept home from school sick, so finding him on my firestick was a nostalgia blast (with a flashback to chickenpox).

    12. Sp*

      I use Nike Training Club – you can tell it what equipment you do have and how much you want to work out and it will create a workout plan for you. Also free.

    13. Girasol*

      I do the UNC Tarheels medicine ball routine with a 10 lb medicine ball as a light morning workout, and you could do it just as well with a 10 lb dumbbell. It’s a good warmup or beginning workout if you’re working up to more serious bodyweight exercises. Just google it.

    14. Stephanie*

      I’ve found resistance bands to be useful. You can use them like weights for strength training (and they take up less space than free weights).

      1. Nessun*

        Bands are great! I use them at home for strength and auxiliary training, and they’re a huge help. (When I go to the gym I do weight training, and my endurance and my PRs ate fantastic with all the home work using the bands!)

    15. not_salad*

      If you have amazon prime, there’s a series of 20-minute workout videos done by Maggie Binkley that I love. She has a schedule of videos recommended for M-F, and increasing levels.

      1. Heffalump*

        What’s good specifically for cardiovascular fitness? My doctor recommends that I take a daily 20-minute walk. It’s not that I absolutely can’t do this, but it’s hard to motivate myself to do it in these cold, rainy winters in Seattle.

        I have a dumb flip phone, not a smartphone, so anything that requires a smartphone is out, but exercises that I could run on my desktop computer would be OK.

        1. TextHead*

          I jog in place inside. I’ve done it while watching TV, talking to my partner, on non-video calls, etc

        2. pcake*

          Can you get a cheap folding exercise bike and do 20 minutes of moderate effort per day while watching TV? Less motivation as you wouldn’t have to get dressed or go anywhere, and watching TV can take your mind off.

      2. Rescue Dog*

        Thanks for the recommendation! I tried one today and it was perfect for where I am right now. I also enjoy Joe Wicks’ workouts.

    16. violet04*

      Highly recommend Fitness Blender. Lots of free videos for all fitness levels. On their website, you can search workout videos based on difficulty level.

    17. All Hail Queen Sally*

      The Jazzercise studio in my city is all on line now and offers 0ver 40 classes a week. I live in a super tiny apartment and had to move furniture to clear a 6-foot square to exercise, but it is working very well for me as I prefer the dance-type moves. The owner has had people from all over the US and a couple of other countries join because of the variety of classes. It’s not cheap though–I think it is about $65 a month to join now. I justify the expense because it is for my health.

    18. Why isn’t it Friday?*

      I just started watching Blogilates videos on YouTube for workouts. A ton of them don’t require any equipment at all and can be done in small spaces. They’re also short and intense – think 15 minutes of abs – but still leave me sore. Enjoy!

    19. Intermittent Introvert*

      For those who are less young, Silver Sneakers has a bunch of great workouts and other exercise options online. No cost.

    20. Seeking Second Childhood*

      If you did yourself wanting smaller weights, try filling plastic jugs or bottles to measured levels. 9.5 cups of water weighs 5 lbs.
      Water bottles preferred to milk bottles in case anyone forgets and goes to drink it later. I also added blue food coloring for same reason. It triggered some silliness when spotted on a club Zoom: What ARE you drinking!?

    21. Ranon*

      There’s a book called “You Are Your Own Gym” that has very good bodyweight routines and difficulty progressions.

      The same author has one targeted towards women but it’s exponentially more full of toxic diet culture b.s. so I’d skip that one.

      There’s also a website called MommaStrong that has really good minimal equipment (e.g. cans, rolled up towel) home workouts (they also have PoppaStrong, the workouts are different to accommodate basic physiology stuff like pelvis shape, etc.) – they’re designed for parents so they’re short (15 minutes) but they cover basically all the ways you need to move your body to continue having a functional body. More maintenance, less progression, but really really solid technical foundation for not getting yourself hurt and fixing stuff that does hurt.

    22. Disguised as me*

      I like Git LIIT with Amy for her low impact cardio workouts, with and without strength intervals. (She also has HIIT workouts. For the light weights, I have used water bottles. Mobile Fitness and Pilates has some beginner mat classes and her instructions are very clear. If you are open to inexpensive, unobtrusive resistance bands, I like Achv Peak, since they show how to get the right amount of resistance without attaching the bands to anything. (They are generally under your feet or looped around the body.)

    23. bluemasonjar*

      Search for fitness blender on youtube. It’s been life changing for me since the pandemic started. They have several apartment friendly and low impact workouts (no jumping).

    24. Not Your Sweetheart*

      I like belly dance workouts. I don’t remember the name of the ones I’ve used (I’m not at home, so can’t look), but your local library probably has a few DVDs. They’re low/no impact, but work all the muscles, especially the core.

  3. Analyst Editor*

    I mean, Cosmopolitan magazine as I know it (“10 ways to wake him with a BJ!”) is honestly awful, though so are lots of non-sexed-up things. It probably made a lot of money but was it For The Best in some grander sense? I don’t know.

    1. Kali*

      I read UK cosmo sometimes and they do have some good hard-hitting articles. They did one on abortion, one where a journalist wore a full burqa for a week and diarised her experiences a la Black Like Me, one on seeing your parents die…

      There’s a lot I don’t like, like the way they keep calling stem people “boffins” as if we must be another species and not literally their readers. What a message huh, cosmo readers can’t be scientists or mathematicians? That’s a nasty stereotype – stem isn’t fem – that needs to die. They also wrote an article on a face cream that claimed to change your skin by changing your epigenetic markings (literally turning genes on and off), and presented that as if it were possible and reasonable and would not give you super-cancer.

      … So, I have the impression that UK cosmo does things a bit differently to US cosmo, but it’s still a bit hit and miss.

      For me though, this ties into feelings of anger about the idea anything women – especially teenage girls – like must be frivolous and damaging and should be criticised at all costs. So I’m going to be inclined to keep finding and pointing out the good bits of UK cosmo – and to their credit, they keep bringing it – even if it’s not perfect. Yeah, some things could be better, but few of the things aimed at women deserve all the vitriol they get. Like Barbie. She’s a doctor, president, astronaut…if anyone thinks she’s a “dumb blonde”, that’s coming from the idea that anything feminine and pretty must be stupid, not from the character herself.

      This is also what the “not like other girls” thing is about. Lots of women go through a phase of “I’m not like other girls, caring about frivolous things, I care about cool and important things”. And it’s not because most girls are shallow, it’s because we’re told they are and so we think we must be unusual for being human.

      This is almost a complete tangent, but the movie Jumanji: Into the Jungle really stood out to me because there’s a teenage girl – portrayed by Jack Black for most of the movie – who cares about her looks and her social life, and is less interested in academia or hobbies like reading or video games, or whatever is approved of as not-girly-and-therefore-stupid. In most films, she’d be mean and dumb and her character arc would be about learning the error of her ways. But, this movie actually seems to like her and see her as a person. She’s searching for her phone, a character gets in the standard dig about how some things are more important than her social life, she’s frivolous, blah blah blah, and she points out that being able to make a phone call would be very useful under the circumstances. A lot of her moments aren’t so much about her growth but about other characters and the audience seeing she already had something within her that they’d missed because they saw the stereotype and not the person. She does develop some new hobbies – like hiking – and gets some character growth, but the movie doesn’t act like she’s fundamentally wrong and must change as a person to be acceptable. And I didn’t realise how unusual that was until I saw this movie.

    2. Jen Erik*

      Also, maybe depends when – historically – you came across it. My sister and I read it (UK version) in the 70s, when I swear to you, our entire sex education was – I have since come to think – the biology unit on the life cycle of the rat. I assume they thought we’d make the connection, well, if that’s how rats make babies…

      So our entire real sex education came from Cosmo, which was not entirely perfect either, because they did tend to dwell on advanced sex ed – G-spots and the like, and not cover the basics, but it was a window into a world where women’s jobs were as valued as men’s, and where women were entitled to choose whether to have sex and could expect to enjoy it.

      I haven’t read it for many years, but I’m grateful it existed.

    3. WellRed*

      I’m not old enough to know what magazines were like when HGB came along but I can imagine. I’d say what she did is for the best if she put sex and other topics in the hands of women who might Not otherwise have access (remember: no internet but also in the sixties many women didn’t make their own money.)

      1. Chocolate Teapot*

        Don’t UK and US editions of magazines sometimes pool material? I am thinking of an interview with a particular front cover star, and an article I read in UK Glamour magazine about “Powering Up” your career, but was illustrated with an American electric plug!*

        UK Cosmopolitan did a good campaign “The High Heel Vote”, in which they tried to get more young women to vote in the next general election, since the age group who were the demographic of the magazine’s readers were the age group least likely to vote.

        (*Side note. I can’t help thinking US plugs don’t look very safe, but maybe you need to be used to them)

        1. ThatGirl*

          Three-prong grounded plugs exist here! They’re just more common on higher voltage products – hairdryers, microwaves, large appliances. The two prong ones aren’t inherently unsafe, and US electrical systems are a lot safer overall than they used to be.

          1. Urt*

            It’s not so much that they are two pronged. But that they usually appear not to be sunken. So the plug hangs unprotected on the outside.

            1. Urt*

              And it appears that the prongs are completely conducting. The prongs here are typically covered by plastic for almost half their length, so by the time plug and outlet make contact and start conducting, no conducting parts are still uncovered and could be touched. At least for the typical Europlugs. Schukos are different type of behemoths but they two rely on being sunken into an outlet.

              Japan is pretty similar and, yes, it feels very unsafe and flimsy.

        2. Seeking Second Childhood*

          For what it’s worth, US runs lower voltage on most lines. 120V is standard; lines for 240V appliances have special 3- or 4-prong plugs.
          What boggles me is Norway: 230V and 2-prong plugs. I got badly zapped on a visit, when I jostled a plug retrieving something that had fallen behind a sofa.

        3. Curly*

          Yes, I used to travel back and forth often about 15-20 years ago and I used to buy magazines to read on the plane (you know, before I was able to bring along multiple devices stuffed full of all my media with me). They did share articles and what was really interesting is that they often didn’t run in the same issues. So I would read an article in the US version and then 6 months or a year later, see it in the UK version. Having said that, the UK versions did have unique content as well.

        4. Heffalump*

          If it were up to me, we’d adopt British-style type G plugs in the US. They joke about the plug being bigger than the device on the other end of the cord, but they’re very safe.

      2. Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain*

        I’ve run across vintage women’s magazines in antique shops around here…there was a lot of advice for women on how to please and take care of men or run a household (with again emphasis on making it comfortable for their husband) and not a lot for…gasp…Single Women!, taking care of herself and her needs, and career advice for women. Including sex articles aimed at female pleasure was the click bait of its time…come for the mysterious and debated G-spot, stay for the article on the fight to end child marriages.

    4. Queer Earthling*

      I run a sex blog, which is kind of the descendent of that kinda thing, so I’m actually going to defend the “sexed up” articles.

      My first exposure to sex positivity was from magazines like Cosmo or YM, often sneakily read at friends’ houses in my early teens. I was raised in a very sex-negative Christian home, and magazines like that were my first introduction to the idea that sex was a thing that you could enjoy, even if you were born with two X chromosomes. They weren’t the be-all and end-all of my education, nor should they have been, but they were the first time I was presented with the idea that having a sex drive did not make me a bad person, and that adults who had sex outside of heterosexual, monogamous, Godly marriage weren’t basically The Worst.

      Then again, now in my 30s I’m non-Christian, queer, polyamorous, and review adult toys, so maybe it was a slippery slope after all lmao

    5. Judgey McJudgemental*

      I think it is one of those things that has its good points and its bad. It was something I started looking at in the 1970s when I was teen. I never actually subscribed or even ever bought one, but if it is sitting on the table at a hair salon I’ll pick it up and thumb through it while I wait. It is what it is.

      Apparently it was just a bland family magazine until 1965 when Helen Gurley Brown (the author of 1962’s groundbreaking, “Sex and the Single Girl,”) was named as head editor. With Brown as editor the magazine became salacious with sexually provocative articles and covers and photos of scantily-clad women (and men). It championed her view that single women should be able to experience and enjoy sex without shame and stigma and so I think it was very sex positive and worthwhile in that way. Through the years it has provided (and continues to provide) a lot of valuable information about birth control, contraception and the risks of STDs.

      It was an early advocate of equality in the workplace and featured articles about how to advocate for equal pay and for jobs that had been traditionally held only by men, so it was generally good in that way. From time to time, it featured pictures of nearly nude men for women (and gay men) to enjoy, which hadn’t been done before. It informed readers about controversial subjects such as “swinging” and “polyamory” in a usually non-judgmental way (although the article titles were usually pretty provocative).

      I remember watching a talk show in the 1970s where Helen Gurley Brown was a guest and she made a salacious comment about her readers experimenting with sex and having multiple partners. Like have sex with someone, then go somewhere else and have sex with someone else like an hour later. The talk show host responded with, “Wouldn’t you hate to be the second guy? Ew!”

      Through the years it made some blunders. I think the worst was in the late 1980s it published a false article claiming that women were unlikely to contract AIDS even if they had unprotected sex with an HIV+ man which was just untrue. I don’t know that I buy the argument that Cosmo targets children or teens. Teens are going to naturally be curious about things and it will have some appeal to them, even if it isn’t targeted to them. OTOH, Cosmo did show poor judgement in having covers, photos and articles about underage celebrities who were legally minors.

      I always felt uncomfortable about some of the articles that (I feel) advocated behavior that is unethical and/or immoral. (I’m admittedly a very judgey mcjudgmental person.) I’m paraphrasing and exaggerating slightly here, but over the years there were a few articles along the lines of, “How to have an affair with a married man,” “How to break up your boss’s marriage so you can have him all to yourself,” and “How to have a discreet affair without your husband finding out.”

      Then there were the inevitable follow-up articles along the lines of, “How to get along with your husband’s bitter first wife and stepchildren after you’ve broken up their family,” and “How to save your marriage after you’ve been caught cheating.” There’s value in discussing those kinds of issues and weighing the pros and cons of them, but still.

      1. Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain*

        I might be misremembering things but i thought some of those “how to cheat” type articles were written sort of sarcastically or with a twist at the end that made it more “don’t actually do this” than the read-bait headline made it sound.

        1. Judgey McJudgemental**

          Or I could be misremembering. I recall the “How to get along with your husband’s bitter first wife” article ended with the writer saying that when she was driving to the country club in her Mercedes she just didn’t think about it.

    6. All Hail Queen Sally*

      I read Como (US) throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s and I thought it was great. There were some “scandalous” articles, but nothing anything like Playboy, Hustler, and such. I happened to run across a Cosmo from this year in a doctors office recently and was appalled at how awful it was. Mainly, I couldn’t understand half the articles as it seems the younger people like to talk in acronyms that I have no idea what they stand for. The articles I did understand I thought were stupid. Perhaps it is all due to the generation gap now that I am in my middle 60’s.

      1. Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain*

        I’m in my 40s and I’m with you. It’s written for a 10 second attention span with a lot of text speak and teasers to check out the real content on their social media…i assume because it’s easier to track/monetize clicks and likes than page flips in a magazine.

    7. Otter Dance*

      1970s Cosmo reader here.

      What was wonderful about it then, that wasn’t available in Seventeen or Ingenue or even the more grown-up women’s magazines, was the idea that sex wasn’t just to please a man. Women could, and should, enjoy sex. Orgasm was a perfectly reasonable expectation, and a man who didn’t at least make an effort to give a woman equal pleasure was a selfish jerk.

      I’m not sure exactly when the focus changed to articles about how to please HIM, instead. But that gradual shift was a big part of why I stopped reading Cosmo back in the 1980s.

      1. PhyllisB*

        I read Cosmo in the 70’s, also read Sex and the Single Girl. I even have a copy of her cookbook that was published then. (Still use a few recipes from it.)
        Cosmo generated a storm of controversy when HGB started working with it (never read it before, so don’t know what it was like then.)
        I didn’t agree with a lot of what was printed, but it educated a lot of women about sexuality, myself included. I had never even heard of an orgasm until I read about it in Cosmo.
        I know that’s hard to believe in this day and age, but mid-century Southern ladies did not discuss such things.
        Haven’t looked at a copy for maybe 30 years, but it did have its place.

  4. A.N. O'Nyme*

    Writing thread! How’s everyone’s writing going? As usual, this thread is not limited to fiction writing.
    The only thing I got done was for That Which Shan’t Be Named In This Thread, but I’m still quite proud of it anyway.

    1. DaisyAvalin*

      Started another fanfic story, despite having several I’m supposed to be working on! Actually making progress on this one, and hoping it kickstarts some movement on the others.

    2. Kali*

      Working on an essay on how/if race should be considered in identifying skeletal remains of those who’ve died within the last 100 years. My essay is either brilliant and ground-breaking or complete nonsense, and I’m not sure which.

    3. CatCat*

      We’ve been doing “Unlock” escape rooms in a box. We have yet to escape in the time allotted!

    4. Mystic*

      I’ve been writing fanfiction for the past year, and the website tells me stats. Turns out I’ve written 55K words! I’ve never written that much before. I’m proud.

    5. Elizabeth West*

      Haaaaaaa omg whyyyyyy did I do this

      I forgot I’d said on my blog that I would do JaNoWriMo, and then on January 1, I had to commit. Lucky for me I already had 1,961 words jotted down for Book 3, because I am FLOUNDERING. But is okay; the point is to get started. While also studying for the Project+ thing and editing Book 2. Watch me get a job now and the whole thing will implode.

      Someone please stop me, lol.

      To be fair (to be faaaaaaiiiirrrrrr), Book 2 leads directly into Book 3, so I already did most of the background work. It might be easier than I think since I don’t have to work that up from nothing.

  5. A.N. O'Nyme*

    Gaming thread! What’s everyone been playing this week? As usual, this is not limited to video games or even “real games” (whatever that word means) so feel free to discuss how you utterly crushed someone at Monopoly or how you finally got past That One Level in a free game you play on your phone. Also feel free to ask for recommendations or for help tracking down the title of a vaguely remembered game.
    Also for the person who asked for recommendations for a Christmas present for a gaming husband two weeks ago: I hope he enjoyed his gift!

    2. Kali*

      Fiance and I have beaten the rest of the household at scrabble, trivial pursuit, pictionary, and cluedo. My mother-in-law threatened to murder me.

    3. Seeking Second Childhood*

      I thought this group might be interested in an article on the epilepsy/Cyberpunk 2077 issue. I’m going to spin it off into a separate comment because it might also interest non-gamers.

    4. Firefly*

      Loving CodeNames Duet for two player coop fun. And I am solo playing Overcooked, and for the first time I used a walk through for three stars.

    5. Curly sue*

      The family is slowly working through Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy it at first, because combat-focused games usually aren’t my thing at all, but this one is incredibly compelling story-wise. Especially playing it after we finished Breath of the Wild & Champions’ Ballad! It’s a lot of fun, even when we get our butts kicked.

    6. The Other Dawn*

      I bought my husband and I the Atari Flashback for Christmas. It’s a lot of fun, but, man, we are NOT as good at it as we used to be!

    7. Holly the spa pro*

      Im patiently waiting for the Stardew Valley update to come to consoles so my husband and i can have the co-op farm ive always dreamed of!

      Still working through Fire Emblem: Three Houses. It’s still not gripping me the way FE:Fates has but now that the battles are getting more complex, its getting better. Im also enjoying some of the quality of life system changes.

    8. DarthVelma*

      This weekend we finally got back to tabletop gaming and I really enjoyed both games so far.

      Thursday and Friday we played Cthulu: Death May Die. It took us 4 tries to beat Episode 1, but there was SUCH a feeling of accomplishment when we finally did. Episode 2 went much easier, but was still a close thing at the end to defeat the elder god. (In both victories, my partner’s character died right at the end to give my charachter the chance to finish off the big bad.) BTW, the miniature for this game are glorious – especially the big Elder Gods. So. Many. Tentacles.

      Yesterday we finally cracked open Aliens: Bug Hunt. The rules are set up in an interesting way, but that also makes it a bit more difficult getting started with just 2 players. We were getting slaughtered in game one, re-read the rules, realized we were making things WAY too hard on ourselves, and started over. The re-play seemed to go way too easy. So we re-read the rules again and watched a game play tutorial. We’re hoping to play again today now that we understand things better. Even with the rules issues, we had a good time. The basic setup and functioning of the game seems well thought out and it may be the easiest combat system ever.

    9. GoryDetails*

      I got quietly addicted to the ornament-smashing game in this year’s Jacquie Lawson Advent Calendar; it’s a kind of Tetris-style game of finding groups of matching ornaments for maximum points, with a series of grids of increasing difficulty. I suppose one could devote a lot of strategy to it, but for me it was a pleasant, semi-mindless “click and watch the ornaments shatter with a satisfying little tinkle” activity {wry grin}.

    10. Lifeandlimb*

      Started playing Arise, a really beautiful stylized adventure/puzzle game with great design and color palette. It’s based around the main character’s memories and plays with time, a little like an old game I love, Braid. Also there’s a co-player option where one player can control movements and the other controls time!

    11. CatCat*

      We’ve been doing “Unlock” escape rooms in a box. We have yet to escape in the time allotted!

    12. So they all rolled over and one fell out*

      We started going through a T.I.M.E. Stories module Estrella Drive. It’s kind of a mystery solving game.

    13. Seeking Second Childhood*

      LOTS of time in Wintersday in GuildWars2….and rollerbeetle collection in progress.

    14. Coenobita*

      My spouse and another couple have been having semi-regular game nights for a long time – we moved online this year, of course, so we’ve been playing a lot of stuff on Tabletopia. This week we tried The Crew, which is a cooperative trick-taking game. It’s nominally about space but you could totally just play it with two decks of regular cards. I’ve never played a cooperative trick-taking game before (and one of the other couple isn’t normally a fan of trick-taking games in general) but we all really liked it!

      Last time, we played Dominion, which I previously swore up and down that I hated (due to a previous experience playing with people who had basically memorized the entire deck and were obnoxious about it). But as with most things, it turns out that if you play with people you actually like then it is fun. :)

      1. Cedrus Libani*

        Had the same reaction to Dominion. That was the “study break” game for my partner and his college buddies; they’ve all played thousands of games. I played it maybe twice, got beat like a dirty rug each time, and refused to play again. It’s probably a great game if you can play with people at your level…

        Also why I can’t play Set anymore, except with my own college buddies, because we’ve played thousands of times and will crush anyone who hasn’t.

    15. Office Grunt*

      I’ve found a free version of Ascension, and am tempted to ask for a tabletop version for an anniversary gift.

      Due to Christmas spending on the little one, I’ve had to ease up on the MtG purchases.

    16. HamlindigoBlue*

      I built a gaming PC for my son last week. We were supposed to build it together (his idea), but it turned into me doing it alone. :( Since then, he’s been playing Cyberpunk. We also broke out the family edition of Trivial Pursuit, and we played a few rounds of that. I bought a couple of new board games (Ctrl and Second Thoughts), but we haven’t played them yet.

    17. Finny*

      I beat Shantae and the Seven Sirens, but only at 99% item collection, as I never managed to get the one last heart squid from the dance mini game. Also beat Shantae 1/2 Genie Hero with 100% item collection. It’s not as fun for me as the other Shantaes, as it’s more linear than dungeony like Pirate’s Curse and the rest.

      Other than that I’m bouncing between Seven Sirens in the “more magic, less defence” mode, Shantae: Risky’s Revenge, Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse, Shantae: 1/2 Genie Hero in the assorted alternate modes, Goblin Sword, Wonder Boy and the Dragon’s Trap, and Freedom Planet, all on my Switch Lite. Yes, I love platformers (particularly Shantae–there’s a reason Limited Run Games got all my money this year for collector editions of all the games on Switch–and Gameboy for the original–so I now will have all the Shantae games in physical editions for the Switch, except for Pirate’s Curse which I will have to track down second hand for way too much money), but prefer 2D ones, as my visual issues (legally blind and no real depth perception) make 3D platformers ridiculously hard–looking at you, New Super Lucky’s Tale!).

      The husband, on the other hand, has been alternating between Animal Crossing New Horizons, Trials of Mana, and Mega Diminsion Neptunia VII. He muchly prefers RPGs to platformers.

      1. A.N. O'Nyme*

        If you don’t mind some very dark humour and very grindy gameplay (as in: I recommend having some paper with you to take notes on so you don’t forget what you’re collecting and what you’re collecting it for), Graveyard Keeper might be a good one. It’s essentially Stardew Valley in a graveyard. I haven’t gotten around to buying the DLC yet so I can’t really say how good those are.
        You could also have a look at slime rancher, where you go to a different planet to farm all kinds of adorable slimes, because apparently their poop is valuable? Haven’t gotten around to that one either yet, but you bet I’d be farming all kind of cat slime in no time if I did.

    19. TextHead*

      I beat the main game of Control last night and am onto the DLCs. I’m glad there’s more because it was really fun.

      I bought my partner the board game Spirit Island for Christmas and we played that the other day. We barely won using all the easy mode set ups, so we still have a lot to learn!

    21. Nicki Name*

      I’m participating in the 58th annual St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, which is a map rally. You follow the instructions and travel virtually across the US on a paper map, then try to answer questions to see if you took the correct route. Signups are open until Valentine’s Day. I’ll put the link in a reply.

    22. Nynaeve*

      I’ve started playing Spiritfarer based on several people’s recommendation here. Overall, I’m really enjoying it!

      However. I am SUPER ANNOYED at Gwen right now for being such a needlessly picky eater. She won’t eat fruit, she won’t eat the same thing twice, and also, she apparently won’t eat steamed mussels? I want to grab her and yell, “Look, you prissy little prima donna, eat what I make you or starve to death. Your choice!” (This is why I shouldn’t have kids, lol.)

      I am literally out of all the food she could eat and she’s hungry again. It doesn’t help that basically every fish just turns into “grilled fish,” so even though I have tons of different fish, it’s pretty much only one thing I can offer her (and she’s already eaten it). Same thing with vegetables. I even tried planting odd seeds in the hopes that it would help, and it just grew, like… jewelry? Not even food! NOT HELPFUL! Can she die if I don’t feed her? I feel like she’s probably going to die at this rate, and not the way she’s supposed to, ushered peacefully into the next world, but just… ignominious starvation. *sigh* Too bad, because overall, I really do like her…

      Realization: I think I’m tapped out on trying to support people and manage their needs right now, which is why this is making me so mad! Clearly, I need to take a break and play a game that doesn’t demand that of me until I calm down.

      1. Telgar*

        I also just started Spiritfarer and I find it enjoyable but weird. Also uncomfortable controls.
        People don’t die if you’re not feeding them. Also, you can give Gwen the same things several times, you just have to alternate (as far as I can tell, I’m not very far in).

    23. lady gamer or something*

      We started playing the Resident Evil 2 remake after enjoying the 1st remake a few years ago. I only played the originals for 1 and 3 (skipped 2), so I can’t speak to the accuracy of this remake, but it’s been pretty fun so far!
      Also started playing Let’s Go Pikachu a few days ago and I’m basically back in the 90s. Yes, there have been many changes, but it’s basically how I pictured it as a kid anyway.

    24. Seeking Second Childhood*

      We just (mumble mumble spoiler for Guild Wars 2 mumble) in Kourna and the traps were diabolical! Hurrah for the Ranger’s staff leap. First stage roller beetle collection wrapped up too.

    26. Elizabeth West*

      I’ve given up on games for now, except for the stuff on my phone. My consoles are still packed and I don’t really have time to play on the PC. The games will wait until things settle a bit.

    27. Casey*

      I’ve been playing so. much. Hades. I’m on winter break, so I think the stat is about 80 hours in the last two weeks?
      I don’t normally get the urge to 100% games, but Hades is fun and accessible enough that I’m willing to sink some time (and paper) into it. Getting close!

    28. Formerly in HR*

      I played The Room: Old Sins – started it yesterday and just finished it. Years ago I played the first three games and last week revisited them. The second time felt like I needed to rely on the cheat sheet too much and there wasn’t much excitement. But the new game got me gripped, the puzzles were interesting, I was happy to figure out clues before the tutorial would guide me (but also managed to botch some and then hiss at the tablet that I already did what they suggested – only it wasn’t quite as it should have been.

  6. Anónima*

    I wanted to give an update on the PCR-Covid-test-before-travel-abroad question I posted here a few weeks ago. It doesn’t really have a happy ending.

    I had been worried about being about to return my test via courier in time to get the results before flying, but I ended up finding a clinic 3 miles from where I live which could test me in the actual clinic, so I returned my postal test for a refund and booked an appointment with the clinic 2 days before I was due to fly out.

    However, the UK government suddenly advised against foreign travel, and Spain banned entry for all but nationals and in an emergency (I’m not a Spanish national) so it turned out I couldn’t go anyway – even if my dad had been alive, because as it happens he unfortunately died the day before my test.

    I have been devastated. I saw him via video chat only a few days before he passed. I hadn’t seen him in the flesh for over a year. He was cremated the day after; the funeral home did not stream the service so I was unable to attend his funeral either.
    The day after that was Brexit.

    Man, this year…the holidays, Covid, and Brexit, a sad and difficult combination.

    2. allathian*

      I’m sorry the funeral home didn’t stream the service, if I were in your shoes, that would probably be the most devastating part of the whole thing. That doesn’t mean you can’t hold a memorial service of your own if you feel like that would comfort you. Even with covid restrictions in place, it should be possible to do something over a video call. Do you have any family you’re close to in the UK? Do you have any contact information for your father’s friends? I would suggest grief counseling if at all possible, either religious or secular. Losing a parent is an ordeal for most people and I imagine it’s been even tougher for you because you weren’t able to say goodbye to him, either in person or at the funeral.

      I wish you strength and comfort in dealing with the aftermath.

    3. PollyQ*

      I’m so sorry for your loss, and for how awful the circumstances around it were. Yes, so much of 2020 was terribly sad & difficult.

    5. Zooey*

      So sorry for your loss and all of the things making it harder. I hope you have a good support network.

    6. Crowley*

      I am so very sorry. That’s a hell of a lot to go through. Sending hugs if you want them <3

    7. Not So NewReader*

      Losing a parent is a life changing thing. I am so sorry for your loss especially at such a difficult time.

      Be sure to take good care of you, even if you go through spells of “not feeling like taking care”, each day is a clean slate to try again.

      I wish you peace for your aching heart.

    13. Miss Pantalones En Fuego*

      Oh no, this is such a terrible combination of circumstances. I’m sorry for your loss.

    15. Anónima*

      Thank you everyone – I have been reading your comments all weekend, and it means a lot to know that people are thinking of me. You’re so kind.

  7. Billy No Mates*

    (Quasi)Friend break-ups – how do you do them?

    I moved to a new city a few years ago where I knew absolutely no one, so I have been an active friendmaker. As with all things in life, sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesnt. My dilemma isnt quite what I tend to see on Captain Awkward (ie people you’ve known for a really long time) – but more for those in between friends. Usually people I’ve gotten to know for maybe 6-12 months, and initially things seemed to be going well and you had enough in common to enjoy each others company.
    But as you start to approach that point where you see each other more frequently or you start to find out more about them/their personality/background/whatever, you realise actually maybe you dont like this person as much as you thought you did. How do you gracefully extricate yourself from this situation? Slow fade? Do you say something? If so, whats a good script? And how do you deal with the people where you have a friend group in common, and its like – I dont mind seeing you in a group context, but really dont want to hang out 1-1 anymore?

    1. Lena Clare*

      Slow fade for me. I think being on the receiving end of it – can you think of a way that would hurt less if someone were to say it to you?

    2. Nela*

      I had a few situations like that and just slow faded. Stopped initiating contact or suggesting hanging out, politely responding to their messages, being unavailable when they suggested hanging out.
      I still have one ex roommate who I get together with once or twice a year which is fine with me, always at her invitation. Others I don’t keep in contact with anymore at all, but if we run into each other it’s fine. No big conversations or awkwardness.

    3. Kali*

      I just…stop hanging out with them one-on-one.

      I know Captain Awkward has some posts on the African Violet of broken friendship, that might be worth a Google?

      1. RagingADHD*

        I think the African Violet treatment is overkill when the friendship never really solidified in the first place.

        Slow fade is fine.

    4. Not So NewReader*

      I am not sure what you are doing that you need to extract from. Perhaps you have a shared activity? Or perhaps you call each other regularly?
      If it’s none of these things then I’d say go for a slow fade and say nothing.
      Overall I am big fan of saying nothing, unless the person actually did harm. Hurtful people are more of an issue in my mind. They can be told to stop it but probably the best thing is to just move away from someone who is hurtful as soon as possible.
      What I like about saying nothing is that if you run into this person in years to come, you don’t have to struggle to remember what was said, what the emotions were at that time and so on. You can focus on some fun times you had together and let it go at that. See, my thinking is that it’s my luck that I will run into this person again, we will cross paths later. Don’t leave things awkward so that you have to clean it up in the future. Just find a peaceful place and leave it there.

      1. Pharmgirl*

        Yes, a slow fade allows for reconnection in a situation where the person isn’t hurtful, but you just don’t click.

    5. Dwight Schrute*

      Slow fade! It’s always worked for me and it isn’t awkward if you have to see them in a group setting agai.

      2. Billy No Mates*

        See, this is probably the one I struggle with more because when you see them in the group setting, it seems to trigger that thing of “Oh, we havent hung out in so long! Lets plan something together!” and then I have to politely dodge another invitation to hang out.

        1. Dwight Schrute*

          I always just say oh sure, something vague and never reach out to make plans and most of the time they don’t either

        2. Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain*

          Sometimes though it triggers a public, “why aren’t you making plans with me anymore? Why are you avoiding me?” A slow fade sounds nice if both sides are coming to the same conclusion that they don’t really have much in common, but what sometimes happens is one thinks the friendship is over while the other thinks they’re getting closer. I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all answer. Slow fade if both sides agree; or honest answer if one side is becoming attached…it can just be as simple as “I’m sorry but I’m not interested in [these 1-on-1 activities] anymore. I’m still looking forward to [other activity] with the group.”

    6. Billy No Mates*

      It looks like the group consensus is slow fade which is indeed probably the best answer. Having thought about it more, I guess my main issue is I feel like one of them is the type to eventually just come out and ask why I never have time to meet them – which…how do you answer that?

      2. Miss Pantalones En Fuego*

        If anyone asked me that in such circumstances I’d probably say something like how sorry I am that it never seems to come together but I’ve been so busy with this and that, blah blah blah. Especially if it’s really just a vague reason why you decided you don’t like this person as much as you thought, and not because they offended you in some way.

        1. Billy No Mates*

          Thanks. This has been a good exercise in figuring out that apparently I have a very weird line about things that I feel fine to give as an excuse when slow fading and things that I dont (lol). But overall, I think the group consensus of slow fade, and any further probing gets bland excuses about why I cant make it is probably the best way to go.

      3. Washi*

        I don’t think anyone has ever asked me point blank why we’re not hanging out/why I don’t like them anymore. I know there are some folks who wouldn’t pick up on the cues, but in my experience, the majority can sense the difference between:

        “Haven’t seen you in so long, we should hang out some time!”

        “Yes, that I would love that! I’m pretty free next week”
        vs.
        “Oh yeah haha I’ve been so busy! Hope you’re doing well!”

        1. Fern*

          I *have* had someone (repeatedly) ask me why I don’t have time for them anymore, after attemping a slow fade. It was someone I knew I would see with some frequency (small town, kids in shared activities), so I was really endeavouring to keep things friendly so we could still pleasantly chit chat when we ran into one another. Knowing this person’s explosive temperment, I had no interest giving them a real reason. It’s caused me a lot of stress. For the time been it’s been solved by the pandemic – fingers crossed once we can see people again they will have moved on.

    7. allathian*

      Slow fade works. I’ve also been on the receiving end of it and it’s not something I ever actively think about, unless I get a reminder, like this post.

      That said, there’s been one case where I really had to be cruel because she just wouldn’t get my hints. She always initiated contact and seemed needy in a give her an inch and she’d grab a mile way. Being around her got exhausting because she was so intense. I’m not even sure why she latched on to me like she did, but in the end I had to flat out tell her that I wasn’t interested in hanging out with her anymore and to please leave me alone. This after I’d been avoiding her, not returning her calls or texts for more than six months and she’d contacted me at least once a week. Luckily for me we didn’t have any friends in common, so I never saw or heard from her again after my outburst. I’m not proud of what I did but there really wasn’t any other way to make her understand.

    8. young professional*

      just a comment on the slow fade. maybe just my bad luck, but I slow faded a new friend and he did NOT pick it up. I one-word replied texts, then straight up stopped replying, and he still initiated contact 10 (!!) times in a row with no response back on instagram, facebook, text, and whatsapp, until I had to straight up say “do not text me anymore I don’t want to hang out.”
      Just be mindful if it doesn’t seem to be working. My script at the end was “It was super fun getting to know you but I’ve been busy struggling to maintain longtime friendships/work/school, so I would rather we not attempt to hang out anymore because I don’t want to be in this weird space of not prioritizing time with you.”
      I just accepted it was an awkward convo

      1. Billy No Mates*

        Ahaha yes, this is basically something I’m a bit worried about happening. Thanks for the script you provided, hopefully I wont have to use it, but it provides a good starting point!

    9. Marillenbaum*

      Team Slow Fade for life. I find it comparatively gracious, especially with people you would like to keep as acquaintances/friends in a group context. I might not invite you to my wedding, but we would exchange holiday cards, if that makes sense?

  8. Lena Clare*

    Seeing the cats cuddling and knowing that they’re rescue cats really warms my heart – especially Laurie. I don’t know why, but Laurie and Hank’s situation really touched me and I was so delighted that Alison adopted them (and, of course, we get updates via the pictures!) That’s a beautiful photo, Alison.

    To my questions: do you set NY resolutions? If so, how? What are yours?
    I tend to not bother because I usually fail, but I do like to do Danielle LaPorte’s Desire Mapping – focus on how you want to feel rather than tasks to complete.
    I actually do want to make a weather scarf though; inspired by the knitting posts on here, I’ve decided I’d like to get back into it as I haven’t knitted for years.

    I haven’t made a start on anything though – too tired so far. A trip to the local Abakhan is coming up today though.

    1. Kiitemso*

      I’m pregnant and fast gaining weight. I know it’s not a big deal right now, but I would like to fit into my old clothes post-partum so I am making a loose resolution to go on regular walks during my maternity leave and try to lose 10k-15g off the pregnancy weight. I’ve lost weight before in my 20’s but I know metabolism makes it more difficult to lose weight in your 30’s, so I will be gentle and forgiving to myself if this resolution doesn’t come to pass. Slow and steady does it.

      1. Fran*

        Life with a newborn in a pandemic is tough. Keep the gentle and forgiving approach and do your best for yourself and your family.

        2. tangerineRose*

          One year I made a resolution to not make any more New Year’s resolutions. I was able to keep that for a few years.

      3. Blackcat*

        Just a comment… I rapidly got back to my pre-pregnancy weight, but few of my pre-pregnancy clothes fit correctly. I was the same weight but it was distributed differently and my pelvis was permanently widened. So my pants fit all wrong. And a lot of shirts/dresses didn’t fit until I weaned my son (and my boobs went back to their normal size).
        So even if you hit your weight loss goals, your pre-pregnancy clothes may never fit again….

        1. allathian*

          Yeah, this. I think that the celebrities who can afford to hire a PT and spend hours every day working out and have someone else to babysit their baby are giving new moms false expectations of what is normal, when they’re showing off their sixpack 8 weeks post partum. For the record, I think their priorities are out of whack, but whatever…

      4. Jim Bob*

        Good for you!

        It can in fact be done, despite what you hear all over the internet. The post-30 metabolism change might lower your TDEE some, and require an adjustment, but it doesn’t negate the laws of thermodynamics. I lost 40 pounds with basic calorie counting since May, despite turning 32 this year.

        1. Tired of Covid-and People*

          This will do it every time. A three thousand five hundred calorie deficit is needed for each pound of body fat lost. People can choose to lose at a fast, slow, or medium speed just using this principal and a reasonable calculation of the caloric requirement at their present weight. Meeting the reduced calorie allotment with a balanced diet is sustainable for the long haul. Not sexy, and people just want a quick fix, but slow and steady wins the race.

      5. Zooey*

        I am also pregnant right now and I am doing a workout programme called Mommastrong which I’m finding SO helpful. It’s focused on strength and function with 15 minute daily workouts. I’ve been cut off from my normal workout options for my whole pregnancy due to the pandemic (oh how I miss swimming!) so it’s been brilliant to have something that’s so doable – 15 mins a day is easy to squeeze in. I’ve had to watch my weight gain a bit during pregnancy for health reasons and I think this has really helped – and it’s definitely helped me deal with the changing stresses on my body. Sorry to evangelise a bit – I swear I’m not getting paid but just saw your post and wanted to share something that’s helped me so much!

        1. allathian*

          Yeah this. I did some exercises recommended by my ob/gyn when I was pregnant, but in retrospect I wish I had done more. Life post partum is so much easier if you haven’t been sedentary during your pregnancy. Of course, for some pregnant people that’s the only option. If you get put on bedrest for 16 weeks, you’re going to be out of shape when you’re allowed to get up again.

    2. Kali*

      I’m not making any this year, but in previous years I’d start by doing a brainstorm of the generally thing I wanted to do more/better and then try to think of how to measure improvement and specific actions that could be taken. Like “fitter” would branch off into “exercise more/learn a new skill (eg, dance, fencing, kickboxing)/walk more)”, and then I’d pick whichever was most feasible based on money, classes nearby, etc, and decide to do it X times per week. I did krav maga and pole dancing in different years, and one year I just walked a lot, up to 12 miles a day.

      1. Kali*

        Forgot to add, if it turns out you don’t like the specific thing, this approach also means you can just go back and pick one of the other options instead, in pursuit of the original higher-level goal.

        I take it back, I am making resolutions. I’m going to do some stretching and go outside, every single day. Even if it’s just one 20 second stretch and one step outside the kitchen door.

        1. Kali*

          A big part of it was replacing my commute (bus) with a walk, which was 45 mins to 1 hr (I had two different jobs at the time, and one required working at a bunch of different offices, with varying distances from public transport). That was easily 5-6 miles. And then I’d go out for a 5-6 mile run in the evening. I wouldn’t hit 12 miles every day, but I was consistently hitting 8. If I didn’t run, I’d nip out to the shops (15 minutes each way) or loop around the cemetery opposite where I lived at the time, which was about a mile and a half around, or just go for a 20-minute walk at lunch. I walk a mile in 17-18 minutes.

          I guess a large part of the context is that, while I was doing that, I’d recently gone through a break-up and was heartbroken, and running/walking was a big part of helping me to sleep and getting out of my own head. I didn’t want to wait for the bus and have time with my own thoughts, I wanted to just get going, and, at each bus stop, it just kept seeming easier to keep walking than to start waiting, so I did that. I’d listen to audiobooks and podcasts, and that plus the physical motion stopped me thinking too much and brought me some inner peace.

          Atm, I walk maybe a mile or 2 on a good day – if I leave the house at all – and I can’t imagine building up to that distance again unless I ended up with another nice commute. One of my jobs involved either a nice hour’s stroll along the canal or a crowded train journey and the former was definitely nicer.

        2. Kali*

          I walked two and from work, which was generally around 3 miles each way. I’d hit 12 miles if I also went for a run that day. My average was closer to 8. I walk a 17-18 minute mile, so 144 to 216 minutes per day, which is a lot, but the commute was a huge chunk and then a lot of the rest was much shorter walks, like 20-30 minutes during lunch or 15 minutes to the shop and then back. I lived near a cemetery at the time, and a lap around the outside was a mile and a half. It was a good walk for audiobooks and podcasts, because there were no roads to cross and you just kept turning the same way, you didn’t really have to pay attenion.

          Important context is, I was heartbroken at the time and walking was important to the healing process. I felt like I couldn’t sit still and needed to be out there, especially running, because it’s hard to fret and run at the same time.

    3. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      Not so much resolutions but goals? I’m tracking my books read again, I want to have more plant successes than failures, and I want to set up and do a project on the inkle loom I’ve been afraid to take out of the box for almost four years.

    4. Seeking Second Childhood*

      I used to cringe away from this because I had some really strident “personal improvement” perfectionists in my earlier life. I started getting the fun of it back after I ran across Flylady (house cleaning & organization for the chronically challenged). She used the phrase “progress not perfection”…. and something clicked.
      It’s been my goal ever since. This year my focus will be on paperwork (including electronic records).

    5. Dwight Schrute*

      One of my goals is to be able to comfortably touch my toes without bending my knees. I can’t remember the last time I was able to touch my toes comfortably!

    6. My Brain Is Exploding*

      I have a mix of goals (one year one of them was to learn to do a shoulder stand in yoga) and a list of ideas: people I want to travel to see, top vacation ideas (oops, COVID), ideas for hobby projects to pick and choose from, ideas on house projects, etc. One for this year is to read a book a month (I have a LONG list to choose from) on the subject of race/racial history.

    7. PhysicsTeacher*

      I’m not sure if I’d call it a New Year’s resolution per say, but I’d like to read 24 books in 2021. During the times I’m off work I tend to just read organically, but during the school year I come home feeling like I’ve used up all my brainpower. I’m hoping that having this goal will keep me more consistent.

      Started yesterday on The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin.

    8. Jim Bob*

      I prefer to set personal SMART goals rather than resolutions and make sure to include concrete plans to achieve them. Been doing this for a few years, and it works much better for me than traditional resolutions.

    9. Wishing You Well*

      I used to set New Year resolutions until I realized I tend to break all of them by noon on Jan. 1.
      Daily to-do lists are more effective for me. The specific nature and short deadline of the lists are more helpful to me. I keep my bigger goals in mind when I make my lists.
      Happy New Year!

    10. violet04*

      I don’t make resolutions. I like using a habit tracker to keep track of certain things I want to accomplish each day. For example, I’m really bad about drinking enough water. So one of the items in my tracker is to drink one bottle of water each day. This is one of those large Swell bottles so it’s a good bit of water.

    11. Disco Janet*

      My resolution is to do one thing every day to help me feel more confident in myself. I like it because it’s broad and pushes me to do just one thing, even something small, to get out of my ruts I tend to fall in. It can be working out, making a healthy choice with my eating habits, painting my nails, taking a nice luxurious bath to relax and get my skin all soft, trying out a makeup look, even something as simple as taking a shower (hey, if you’ve ever suffered from depression you know that sometimes just forcing yourself to take a shower feels big!)

      As I type this list I realize it might sound a bit superficial to others – but I’ve been very down on my appearance since pregnancy hormones wreaked havoc in my hair, weight, and skin, and the goal is for all those little baby steps to eventually lead to bigger changes. Last year I lost 20 pounds and managed to (mostly) stop picking at my skin, which was a big deal for me!

      The kids set resolutions too – they would like to play more board games as a family, learn how to ride a bike without training wheels, and try gymnastics when it’s safe to do so.

    12. lazy intellectual*

      I actually prefer to set small quarterly goals rather than big year long goals. Probably because my ADD means I will forget what grand resolution I made halfway through the year.

    13. Arban*

      I like to set resolutions that are more about a practice than about a specific achievement. This year I’m doing “go outside, every day” – this is an easy one because I’m very close to doing it anyways but those few days I don’t are always bad for me ( and if it goes two days in a row I feel mentally and physically awful). I’ve already told the kiddo it’s a new rule so I expect I won’t even need to do the enforcing, lol.

  9. anon for this*

    I wanted to thank everyone who offered suggestions and/or kind words in response to my dermatology dilemma months ago, or even those who read my note and considered. I posted because things were out of control. My face is extremely oily, my dermatologist told me to stop washing it altogether, and I have some sensory issues including a lifelong aversion to gooey or creamy substances against my skin. The combination had me a little bit miserable. My face felt gross all the time, left huge oil stains on my pillowcases, and itched so badly it was waking me up every night.

    Experimenting with some reader ideas, I started washing my face ONCE a day and then putting on a liquid moisturizer with aloe vera that isn’t gooey (it just dries). Things are much better and I am immensely relieved. There were also some very thoughtful words from readers going above and beyond, which have stayed with me. I am deeply grateful and hope to be able to return the favor somewhere in all this!

    2. Batgirl*

      I’m so glad! As someone who’s had skin issues your question stayed with me and I wondered how you were.

    4. Generic Name*

      I’m glad you found a solution! Honestly, I think the idea of washing one’s face/hair less to control oil is a bit of a myth. I mean maybe there are a few people out there who are truly overwashing, but some people just have oily skin, and not washing it leads to the problems you described. I have oily hair, and I’ve been washing my hair every other day (rather than daily) because I’ve gotten lazy during my pandemic isolation, and 9 months on, my hair is maybe very slightly less oily the second day than it was at the beginning. I’ll go back to washing it daily when the world opens again

      1. ampersand*

        I wash my hair daily to control the oil/because it feels better to have clean hair, and I’ve struggled with wanting to wash it less in an attempt to cut down the oil production but not being able to because it’s gross and unmanageable if I skip a day. It’s nice to hear that there’s at least one other person out there who is pro-just wash it vs pro-wash it less!

        1. Generic Name*

          Yes! I think there are definitely hair types that benefit from less washing, but those hair types tend towards dryness, and washing makes things worse. Honestly I think the thought process of telling someone with oily hair that looks and feels better when washed daily that the secret (and more evolved) way to care for their hair is to wash it less and that their hair will then magically be not oily is just weird to me. Just no. My hair is oily, and nothing will make it not oily, and not washing it just means I have oily and dirty hair.

      2. Emily*

        “Wash it less” helped a lot for my face when I was struggling with acne, and I think (this was a while ago, my memory is fuzzy) that I could see improvement within a month or two. “Wash it less” has only helped to a certain extent for my hair – I do prefer to use more gentle shampoos and not wash every single day, but I will experience oily hair and scalp if I try to stretch it out for longer than a few days, despite trying for much longer to get my hair to adjust.

        I think it can be worth considering, but that the results will be very person-dependent and it’s okay if someone trying it realizes that it doesn’t work for them!

  10. Loopy*

    Warning for semi related covid talk.
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    I know a lot of people have already posted about how to deal with struggling with resentment for those going about normal life while some have been taking covid precautions since March but man, this week it was doubly (triply?) hard for me. I use Facebook for a lot of really good stuff, animal and baking groups, so I hadn’t wanted to delete it. But the photos of travel and the NYE gatherings hit me in the gut lately. It was so pervasive and at times really unexpected. I feel overwhelmed by the thought of trying to unfollow everyone who is flaunting the guidelines. I was so looking forward to seeing family and friends again post-vaccinr but I lately I’ve found myself so resentful of the same people I was looking for are to seeing when it’s safe. It’s really started some negative thoughts and severe jealousy of those who haven’t had as a hard of 2020 in terms of giving up social events, travel, family and holiday gatherings- because they just chose not to!

    I feel like my relationships are going to be impacted if I keep Facebook but am sad to deactivate for the good bits I’ll lose. I’m looking for folks to help me make the jump I guess. I suppose I need to hear that it’s only going to get worse in terms of struggling with those feelings for people I really care about and like otherwise. I feel like if I keep seeing the behavior, I won’t have anyone to reunite with when it’s safe I’ll be so angry! So, am I right in thinking Facebook has GOT to go?

    1. Pamela Adams*

      I am currently staying off FB- I found it easier to leave it alone. It’s been several months now.

      1. D'Euly*

        This is what I do generally–I still *have* FB, but I never log in; I just do messenger instead. Much less of a headache.

    4. Meh*

      You can just unfollow but remain friends with everyone and only get the groups in your feed. That’s what I did after everyone got political and I didn’t need that in my life. Though I haven’t checked facebook in a couple of weeks and haven’t missed it so that may be the better route anyway.

      1. Loopy*

        I liked the idea of u following at first but the activities that frustrate me pop up so much I feel like it would quickly just become a game of wack a mole and I’d be upset everyone I had to do it.

        Probably just better off leaving it. I have before but recently have been enjoying groups related to my interests. Fortunately, I think I’m going to explore Reddit as an alternative for that! Feeling a bit better since I thought of Reddit as a potential way to get the best of both worlds.

      2. Seeking Second Childhood*

        This is what I did. I have posted some things I want to remember, but mostly I read only groups.

    5. Purt’s Peas*

      I’d say it’s worth using it less and seeing how you feel. I haven’t deactivated mine but I just…don’t use it anymore. Deleted the dedicated app off my phone. I reduced my usage in 2016 and pretty much stopped after announcing my engagement in 2018.

      It might be very possible to *just* visit the groups you like—especially if you don’t mind having unread notifications up there. You could make a quick post about reducing facebook if that would feel less like ghosting, as well.

      But yes: I can personally attest that getting off facebook was a good freakin decision. I didn’t get much good from the platform after college, and I was constantly getting slugs of misery and anger.

      1. Loopy*

        I’m a little sheepish admitting this… but I’m not entirely I have the discipline for a minimalism approach. I *know* I don’t want to spend all my time scrolling or clicking on those stupid articles, but I’ll be darned, I end up doing it anyway! And now clicking Facebook is so habitual, I like the idea of just not going to the site….but can see myself failing!

        Though I’m glad I’m not alone in how negative the experience can be!

        1. Purt's Peas*

          That’s entirely fair and it’s barely a matter of discipline: the entire system is concentrated on one thing and that is Spend Time Here. It’s incredibly successful at getting to spend time there.

          It did take me a while to break the habit of going to facebook–I’d have a cycle of tumblr-facebook-twitter to check each compulsively for new content. Making it harder to get to facebook really helped. (Removing the app, deleting any favorites, etc.)

        2. Homophone Hatty*

          I took the app off my phone, logged out of Facebook on safari on my phone, and added the word REMOVE to the password in my password catcher (so I still have access to the password if I need it, but it won’t automatically log me in like it does with other apps and websites.) So if I need to I can log in, but it’s a real pain.

          I am still logged in to Facebook on my laptop but not having it on my phone has reduced my use a lot. Also I’m really not a fan of their new desktop interface so that helped too.

        3. Marillenbaum*

          I don’t have discipline either, so I use my phone to do it for me. Since I have an iPhone, I use Screen Time to limit how much I can use certain apps on a given day–often, I’m only allowed 30 minutes of my problem apps during the week, with an hour on weekend days.

    6. Not So NewReader*

      Since the main source seems to be FB, then I think it’s gotta go. Or at least go temporarily.

      A good number of people engage in various forms of risky behaviors. Hang on to this thought. I am not saying it’s right. I am not saying you have to accept those behaviors. I just think it’s wise to realize that people take risks all. the. time. and in so many different ways. Stepping back might be just the thing for you to get through this time right now.

      Another thing to think about is, why do these behaviors upset people so much? Well, we don’t want to lose our friends/family. And it’s not comfortable thinking that a friend/family member might cause harm to another person because of their own risky behavior. And yeah, there is some of this “I want to be able to do that thing, too” going on. It’s no one reason, and when there are multiple reasons for an emotion that emotion is going to need a bit of work to redirect.

      Life is much more fragile than we like to think about. It’s good to think of every moment as a gift and every interaction as a gift. We can focus more on what we appreciate right now, while we are in the moment. I never did a lot of FB stuff. So for me to keep my appreciation levels up, I had to dial back on the news. The news reports are super repetitive and there is not much new added that often. We don’t need to have the news on all day.

      I have also had to think about how I am using this down time. I have tried to work through some old projects or neglected life issues. My wise friend used to say, we can use down time to build ourselves up in some manner. FB is bringing up a lot of energy for you, you can channel that energy into something that might improve your life or improve your future in some small way. One problem with worrying about other people’s vulnerabilities is that we lose concentration on taking care of our own vulnerabilities. Focusing on what we CAN do is not only practical but it can be therapeutic, also.

      1. Loopy*

        Thank you for such a thoughtful reply.

        I think hopefully moving away from social media and reconnecting with my love of reading will help shift my perspective. 2020 has been a hard year and my mental health has really not been great so, approaching emotions logically hasn’t been the easiest. I probably wont be able to manage my emotions as well around social media just because I haven’t had access to a lot of my favorite healthy outlets that help keep me happy and positive. So I should probably just stay away more for now and focus on what I can do to feel better in general.

        1. freed*

          I deactivated fb and deleted twitter in 2017 and it was the best thing. I see many more birds, read more books, write more, look at news less (still working on that particular addiction), and generally agonize no more about what others do or think. I’m lucky because I have a partner in my de-social media-ing crime, but it is great. I text or even email (old skool) the friends who were able to make the transition (most of them) and let the rest go. The frenemies mattered not a whit, and I just needed to see that clearly.

    7. 00ff00Claire*

      Unfollowing a lot of people is what has helped me. And finding other things to occupy my time so I’m on there less. I don’t have the app anymore and just check it on the mobile version or my laptop. After this week though, I may continue to edit down until I’m just seeing puppies and kittens in my news feed :)

    8. LGC*

      Honestly, don’t fully disconnect. But do disconnect from the News Feed?

      The easy way is to not visit the News Feed at all, at least for a time. (So think of it as social distancing for your news feed.) The hard way is to snooze or unsubscribe from people who do things that make you feel angry (they’re not going to know that you unsubscribed from their updates) – I say it’s the hard way because you have to do that individually for each person.

      For what it’s worth, I don’t often check my News Feed anymore – I’ll be honest, the more I’ve learned about Facebook in the actual news, the more I’m convinced that the News Feed is by far its most toxic product. (It’s also its core product, which…um.) Facebook’s algorithms don’t care why you’re paying attention – or rather, they can’t care why you’re paying attention. They just care that you are.

    9. Jenny*

      I’m struggling with this because one of the people traveling and doing stuff like going to parties is my older sister. My mom is of the opinion that it is okay because she lives alone and if she didn’t see her friends she’d be by herself. But yeah I’m not cool with it.

    10. Holly the spa pro*

      I deactivated facebook 5 years ago for the exact same reason. The people i love were making me hate them. I cant even imagine how it would be in current year. Id guess you wont miss the good bits as much as you expect and its honestly a good litmus test for friendships in the sense that people need to make an effort to reach out to you. I found i made more meaningful connections with friends when i had to reach out to them off FB or vice versa.

      This is kind of a hot take but ive chosen to end or pull back from some relationships due to the exact thing you are describing. Not necessarily because certain people have had an easier time of the pandemic but if they are being reckless, going to parties, not masking, or otherwise being selfish then i dont want to keep spending time and energy on those people. But if that isn’t your path then at least not seeing it on FB will help.

      If you want to keep FB an option is to “mute” people in your feed. No drama from unfollowing people but you wont see their dumb opinions pop up in your news feed either.

      Everything you are going through is very relatable, best of luck.

    11. Chilipepper*

      I just . . . stopped FB at some point this summer. I also used it for some good groups that I enjoyed a lot. But for me, I guess I made up for the good bits but doing other things IRL and online. I started crocheting (yay to Alison and the commenters here for inspiring me). I go to specific crochet sites online, and I follow some YouTubers and generally just search for videos I like to watch.

      It was not my reason for jettisoning FB but an added benefit has been that I am not seeing all the ppl who are breaking protocols. I am having a hard enough time with the people in my neighborhood I see breaking them or ppl IRL who tell me they are breaking them. Without FB, I avoid all the news I don’t want to see and I avoid getting angry at people for the kinds of things you describe.

      For me, getting rid of FB was much easier than I expected and much more beneficial than I expected.

    12. ThatGirl*

      I very briefly had a Facebook account when you needed a college email address to sign up, and deleted it less than a year later. At the time it was for seemingly silly reasons, but I’ve rarely regretted it (only on rare occasions when I missed news from friends). Now? I’m extremely glad to not have an account. Facebook is honestly terrible, all-around, and people tend to report feeling better, less depressed and anxious, after deleting accounts. Do it. You don’t need your account, I promise.

      1. D3*

        How do you KNOW it’s terrible if you’ve been there so little?
        IMO, all social media can be terrible or it can be great, and it depends on how you use it. It’s honestly been a life saver for me during this pandemic, I would be terribly isolated without it. But then I am very careful about who is in my social media, and I use the unfollow and snooze liberally as needed.
        But your opinion that it’s terrible is a very uneducated one, since you’ve not been there at all in such a long time. You come off as a snob who thinks you’re sooooo much more elevated for avoiding it.

        1. ThatGirl*

          I know it’s terrible because the company’s policies are terrible. They foment misinformation and don’t do a damn thing to prevent conspiracy theories from spreading. Their privacy policies are horrible too. And they contributed to genocide in Myanmar. This is not hyperbole. I’m not talking about an individual user’s experience so much as a societal level.

          1. Marillenbaum*

            As someone who works with refugees from Myanmar–THIS. That misinformation has lead to people I work with losing homes, losing family, losing years of their lives and education living in refugee camps. Truly, a horrific business.

        2. Purt's Peas*

          I’ve been there plenty and I know it’s terrible ;)

          You sound like an unusual user of social media, and it’s great that facebook works you and I’m so glad it’s helped you through the pandemic. Also: facebook’s actions as a company and platform don’t reflect on you as a consumer. Your choices as a consumer in this case are fine, just as someone’s choice to avoid facebook is fine.

        3. Morningstar*

          You keep tone & language policing everyone’s comments & letting them know how they “come off.” Do you think that’s an appropriate or necessary thing to do here? You “come off” as someone who unnecessarily bristles at a lot of things … genuinely hope this perspective helps.

        4. Homophone Hatty*

          I was on there a lot until recently and purely from a single user experience it is pretty much the worst social media I’m on these days. Wasn’t always so.

          Plus, you know, the conspiracy theory propagation and the links to genocide and such.

      2. Loopy*

        Honestly, I’ve had both extremely negative and positive experience on Facebook in my personal experience. For perspective I raised $800 this year through a baking fundraiser that I was doing all my myself. I couldn’t have possibly reached as many people as I did without Facebook, and I was just overwhelmed by the love and generosity of people I hadn’t even spoken to in a while! In the same span of a few months, the political postings near drove me absolutely out of my mind in terms of emotional stability. So I guess I’m saying I totally see that it can really truly go in either direction- and sometimes both at the same time!

        I’ve deactivated quite a few times in the past and have always appreciated the time away- yet I’ve always had a reason to jump back on. So I guess I appreciate both perspectives :)

    13. HannahSnow*

      It’s definitely hard, especially if some of those people had been posting early on about how we all have to do our part and such. If you’re not ready to entirely pull the plug, something weird that has helped me when I want to cut back on the amount of time spent: logging out and not saving my password on my device. I have to take a few extra steps to access it, which is just enough time to decide if I really needed to be on there.

      I’d also consider whether there’s another platform where you can find the baking/animal content you want without the personal life stuff intruding. I’ve been spending a lot more time on YouTube and Instagram to get my hobby fix with less Facebook.

    14. Blackcat*

      If you use it for groups primarily, you can make sure to only browse from the “groups” tab. That will restrict your feed to just stuff from the groups you’re in.
      And I hear you. I have a couple great groups that keep me on FB, but I do think about ditching it for good sometimes. (Though, to be honest, my real COVID-related FB problem right now is vaccine envy. Many of my friends are medical professionals so my FB feed is full of vaccine selfies)

    15. RagingADHD*

      I’ve just let social media go dormant.

      You can delete the app off your phone without deleting your account. Make it less convenient to go on there and just work on breaking the scrolling habit.

    16. Disco Janet*

      At least unfollow those who aren’t taking precautions! If you have friends who are taking precautions and who you like keeping in touch with over FB, that might make sense as a middle ground option.

    17. Bluebell*

      Since Thanksgiving, my approach has been to do a 30 day snooze for anyone posting a vacation or extended inside unmasked get-together. It’s definitely thinned out my newsfeed, and there’s some satisfaction as I click the snooze button.

    18. Jay*

      Over the summer I realized I had to detox from politics. I didn’t want to lose the social connections on FB and I participate in two communities that pretty much require it, so I didn’t want to delete it. I did a few things. I got out of every even vaguely political group and unfollowed or unfriended people who posted a lot about politics, even if I agreed with them. I also stopped following every news outlet I could. I closed the tab on my browser so I don’t look at FB on the computer and I set a one-hour limit on my phone. It’s worked for me. In your case, you could use the “mute for 30 days” button for people who are posting photos of unsafe gatherings. I totally get it – I have been struggling with some of the same issues and I muted a bunch of people after Thanksgiving.

    19. Malarkey01*

      I really struggled with FB, not with CoVid but with politics and racism, but was using it for groups and didn’t want to lose that. One night I deleted my account in a fit of anger over some truly horrible things I read…honestly, for me, it was the absolute best thing in the world. I didn’t realize how much I was really going on there, how the negativity was sucking up brain space, and how my blood was boiling over stuff I didn’t need to engage in. I found out that there are lots of great ways to engage with groups other than FB (and also discovered some benefits in more reading and less social engaging on some topics), and in the year since I quit it’s surprising when someone mentions they are so mad about what so and so did on FB and I start to get annoyed and think if mom hadn’t told me this I would be blissfully unaware.
      I’m in the camp, that for me and many others (not all), FB is toxic and breaking that habit lead to happier and healthier life. If you try it and hate it there’s nothing to stop you from going back.

    20. I'm A Little Teapot*

      Is it such a bad thing if relationships are impacted? If you kick puppies regularly, then people probably aren’t going to like you. If you ignore covid precautions, then other people may decide that you’re selfish, lack empathy, or are simply dumb. These people have told you who they are. It’s ok to believe them.

    21. Loopy*

      Wow, I didn’t expect so many to respond to this- and I’m very grateful. I’m surprised at how many advocated for me to try and make a shift in my Facebook use rather than immediately jusp to deactivating. Yesterday, I felt skeptical I could do this approach but I decided to see if maybe I could find a more healthy online outlet in Reddit. I started a newsfeed (I don’t know if thats what you call it over there?) of really positive subreddits and have already started replacing my Facebook time with Reddit time.

      So far I’m finding it easier to moderate my time on and more positive- so maybe I will be able to find a better way to use Facebook/use Facebook very minimally. Thanks to everyone, I’m feeling like maybe there is a good middle ground and way to keep FB without exposing myself to all the nativity as much.

    22. Invisible Fish*

      I don’t know if permanent deletion is the answer, but the temporary deactivation is a must. I went off all social media in the summer in order to be able to actually be able to keep people in my life when things are less physically dangerous due to the pandemic. I miss the cute pictures and keeping up with friends casually, etc., but my mental health has been MUCH better.

  11. Kali*

    Is anyone else really enjoying the reboots of 20-year-old TV shows?

    I got a Disney Plus subscription for Christmas and I’m doing my first rewatch of Boy Meets World since the sequel, Girl Meets World ended. The first series follows Cory and his friends from 12 to graduating from college, and the sequel picks up when Cory’s daughter – born a few years after the first series ended – is 12 and ends when she’s 14.

    The one who really gets me is Cory’s friend, Shawn. He doesn’t know he’s different to Cory until season 2, the first time he’s rejected by a girl because he lives in a trailer park. From there his upbringing plays more and more of a role, and on this watch, I know where he’ll end up in his 30s and how he’ll get there. :(. Just to name a few things, his mother leaves and his dad leaves him to be fostered by a teacher while he chases her. He struggles with school and a lack of confidence, and with his lack of familial support. He’s unhappy enough to nearly fall victim to a cult, he struggles with commitment phobia and a fear of being left and hurt, he finds out his mum isn’t his mum, his dad dies, and he develops an alcohol abuse disorder. Despite his fears, he does succeed in developing a successful relationship by the end of the series and he gets into college and goes on to have a career as a photojournalist. I like seeing the few bits of school he really gets into and enjoys, and seeing him gain confidence in his abilities. Plus his amazing language skills, which are treated as a running joke but presumably help a lot with his career. And the whole time he has Cory. In the cult episode, Cory holds him and won’t let go and tells him “this is how you hold someone when you love them and you want them to know”. Shawn goes to New York with Cory and his wife.

    But… In girl meets world, we learn that the night Riley was born, Shawn left and he’s only rarely come back. When she confronts him, he confesses that he didn’t feel like there was a place form him (paraphrased from memory). We learn he still sees his father’s ghost some 15 years later. We learn his relationship didn’t work out, though they’re still friends. We learn he’s still lonely and struggling, it wasn’t just happy ever after.

    Because girl meets world is a generation Cerix, Riley’s friend, Maya, has similar struggles. Her father left – something she blames herself for – and she barely sees her mother who must work multiple jobs to keep them afloat. She and Shawn are able to bond over that and see their similarities. And Shawn ends the show married to her mother. Maya has a father figure she loves and her mother can be around for her more, and Shawn finally has his own family.

    I also love that Shawn’s actor, Ryder Strong, hit his adult height (5’8) at around 12 and towers over the other actors until they slowly creep up and surpass him. I was the same – tall until I was 15 and then, suddenly, average height (5’6).

    I’ve been rewatching That’s so Raven too, and I love knowing that she ends up in a happy two-mommies parenting situation with her best friend Chelsea. Even though, because it’s Disney, the show makes it very clear there are bunkbeds in their shared bedroom!

    I know Full House got a reboot, and Lizzie Mcguire had one planned, but I didn’t watch the former until adulthood and I wasn’t that into the latter. I didn’t grow up with them like BMW. Are there other shows?

    1. Kali*

      *generation Xerox – on phone, couldn’t see the line as I was typing it, please forgive other typos.

    3. Queer Earthling*

      I haven’t watched GMW yet, but BMW is one of my comfort shows so it’s been on my list. When I was in high school and my older sister was still living at home, we would watch the reruns on Disney Channel when I came home from school almost every day and it’s one of the nicest memories I have from childhood. My sister absolutely loved GMW, I just have to find time to watch it. (Also I love that it got Will Friedle back in front of the camera! His anxiety has apparently been so bad over the years that he’s stuck with voice acting, which is fine because he’s an AMAZING voice actor, but I love that he loved that show enough to manage the sequel series!)

      1. Kali*

        I’m disappointed that Disney Plus doesn’t have more of Will Friedle’s old movies like My Date with the President’s Daughter and HE Double Hockeysticks. I’d like to see those again.

    4. Double A*

      I’m not sure of this is a reboot or remake, but I really enjoyed the remake of One Day at a Time. I never watched the original, though, so I’m not sure how it compares. But Rita Morena is incredible. And I never watched the original of most of the shows that are being rebooted but they don’t interest me a lot so I probably won’t.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        This is one of the very few reboots I’ve really enjoyed. I like it better than the original. Unfortunately, after Netflix (stupidly) canceled it, it went to Pop and I don’t have that.

        Netflix seems to be throwing a lot of weight behind new shows and then dropping them even though they’re good, as they move on to the next shiny thing. I was really upset they abandoned The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. But we are getting a second season of The Witcher; they can keep going with that forever, as far as I’m concerned. There’s lots of source material. :)

      1. Marillenbaum*

        Wait–MASH is on Hulu? This is amazing news! In high school, I spent many wonderful afternoons not doing my homework because I wanted to watch Hawkeye and Hoolihan and the gang.

    6. Potatoes gonna potate*

      I really loved reading your take on BMW. I watched it obsessively in its original run and then again as an adult in 2012, right before the announcement of GMW. Didn’t watch GMW though. In the original series I hated how cartoonish Cory and Eric became. The writing for both of them just became very poor.

      1. Kali*

        Yeah, they definitely did Eric dirty. :(. I was never there for Cory in the first place, but thinking about, I think you’re right there too.

    8. Analyst Editor*

      I’m suspicious that it’s jsut all cynical money-grubbing based on name recognition and nostalgia. The live-action Disney remakes and the endless Marvel and Star Wars spinoffs feel that way a bit.

      I watched the new Magic School bus and think it’s far inferior to the original. I don’t like the new teacher or how they did the kids. I was watching Daniel Tiger, a sort of reboot of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, and it’s pretty nice for toddlers but even there are elements of things being dumbed down when they don’t have to be (I’m specifically thinking of the episode with he crayon factory, if anyone cares.) I haven’t found a new kids’ show I really like yet.

      I need to check out reboots of Clifford and Busy Town by Richard Scarry. You can tell it’s new because the animation is computerized, the voices are different of course, and the style is hair different than what I remember from as a kid. But for now I opt for the originals.

  12. Lifelong student*

    Yarn thread- what’s on your hook, needle, or loom this week?

    I did something unusual for me this week- put aside one WIP to do another item and made a 7 day sampler baby blanket. Finished it in the 7 days. It was a stitch along (SAL) with new parts of the pattern each day. Now back to the first work in progress (WIP). I don’t like leaving things half done.

    1. Kali*

      I crocheted a little boat on a blue doily for my friend, who’s last name is Ocean. Then made another for my grandad in law who was in the merchant navy.

      I’m slowly working on a pair of Sanquhar gloves, which are my knitting everest.

    2. Seeking Second Childhood*

      I added handles to finish off the crocheted basket that my daughter took over in the middle. It’s lumpy, it’s floppy, and it’s going to absolutely delight her grandmother. The crafting gene continues.
      I started a small afghan doing just double-crochet stripes, using the muted colors my daughter’s into, and I’m hoping she takes over some of this project too.

    4. Likethecity*

      I’m still crocheting a C2C graphghan that was supposed to be a friend’s Christmas gift but it’s taking longer than I expected. Luckily, she’s a knitter who understands that particular dilemma as she’s still knitting something for me, haha! I’m getting ready to do the first two days of a temperature blanket and the first square of a CAL blanket I want to do.

    5. Tortally HareBrained*

      I started the Forest Fair Isle stocking yesterday, but not sure I made a smart decision to have my first waistcoat stitch be a project in the round with slightly smaller yarn than I’d normally use. Excited that this pattern has different options for animals and names though. Can’t wait for next Christmas to use our rabbit and squirrel stockings.

    6. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      I’m on chart 3 of 3 of a Star Wars double knitted scarf, rainbow on black. I didn’t have a particular plan for it, but my husband (who is a total Star Wars nut) has started expressing interest in it as I’ve been working on it, so that’s nice, and if he wants it when I’m done he can have first dibs.

    7. Hotdog not dog*

      I’ve been stash busting for a few months, and got tired of looking at all the same yarn! A local friend had the same problem, so we swapped stashes (we bagged everything up and I dropped mine in her driveway and picked hers up, so no contact other than waving at each other like lunatics through her window!) I’m currently working on a new blanket from her stash, which included a super soft bamboo yarn that I am in love with.

      1. Tortally HareBrained*

        What a fun idea! I love this concept, though I think the few friends who might be interested have much more expensive yarn tastes than I do and it wouldn’t be fair at all.

    9. HamlindigoBlue*

      I just finished a chunky sampler crochet throw that the cat has decided belongs to her (photo link in comments). My next project is going to be a pair of socks for my mom. She sent me a pair of her favorite sleep socks that are on their way out and asked if I could make something similar. I found a pattern that will work with a few modifications (Toot Sweet Socks from Knit Picks). I just need to check the yarn I have to see if I have anything that will work. I’m sure I do.

    10. Not A Manager*

      I’m crocheting an afghan for a friend in a bobble ripple stitch. The pattern itself is lovely, and the yarns I’m using are lovely, but as I’m working I don’t really like the hue very much. It’s a gradated series of grey blues (which is one of my favorite colors), but it’s working up to look very… elderly. Sort of like your granny’s blue hair.

      It’s weird because when I look at the colors themselves I really like them, but when I look at the finished work, I don’t like it that much.

    11. Pippa K*

      I need to make a baby blanket for the new baby in the family. I’ll probably do it as two separate panels on my rigid heddle loom, rather than double-width all at once. Just need to figure out a stylised Maori fern pattern (to reflect the baby’s heritage), so if any experienced weavers have ideas, I’d love to hear them! Right now I’m thinking clasped weft, but maybe there’s a better way?

    12. MissCoco*

      Started my first diagram-only pattern! Also my first pattern where mistakes keep stacking, so I’ve had to restart/tear out at least 5 rows, but it’s been fun to watch it move along :)

      Also found out a friend is pregnant, and I’m eagerly planning colors for an afghan

      Anyone have favorite methods to design or pre-plan colors for more complicated squares?

    13. The Other Dawn*

      I decided to get back to crocheting. It’s been probably 10 years or so. I only know the simple stitches my late mom taught me, but it’s enough to make a small blanket for one of the cat beds or something like that. I still remember how to do it, but I need a little practice. I had to buy a variety of hooks since I owned only one and I had no idea that different yarns need different sizes. Who knew?

      I’ve been trying to find one of those old-fashioned wood or metal framed fold-and-carry yarn/craft project bags (when it’s open the frame looks like an X), but pickings are slim online. They don’t make them anymore so I have to either get something used (they’re not in great shape) or get one off Etsy (start at $49.99). I found one this morning at Walmart online and ordered it, simply because it was cheapest ($29.99) and I can’t find anything better. But I’m going to continue to hunt for one I like.

      1. The Other Dawn*

        Oh, and I caved and bought a new counted cross stitch kit. I have a bunch and I haven’t done cross stitch in years due to my back problems and sitting, but now that I’m recovered from surgery and working from home, I’d really like to finish the one I started years ago and then start a new one.

        1. The Other Dawn*

          Haha that’s the one I just bought! And now I remember it was Michael’s and not Walmart. I mostly want this specific type because it’s nostalgic for me–my grandmother had one and so did my mom. I’m not excited that it’s black since I have a million cats, but it’s a decent price, especially with the coupon I got in my email.

          If you go to Etsy and search “Antique folding knitting bag, wooden frame, tapestry style fabric” (PaulinesEmporium) you’ll find the one I was eyeing. I love it, especially the height, but I think it might be too small for cross stitch because of the hoop and all that. Plus the shipping is 50.00+ since it’s coming from France.

          1. Otter Dance*

            If it’s solid black, why not decorate it? Embroider or appliqué something to make it less boring.
            You could also try whether you could replace the fabric section entirely, just saving the wooden frame. I had a kit to make one, but that was years ago.

            1. The Other Dawn*

              It’s black with a white polka dot pattern. It’s not that it’s boring, it’s that the base color is black. Black doesn’t mix well with pet hair. If it’s gets to be too annoying then I’ll probably just look for another one.

              1. Elspeth McGillicuddy*

                That bag looks extremely simple to make. You should be able to take a pattern off it and make a new one in a material you like better. Just need a yard of fabric, so it shouldn’t be too expensive either.

    14. Em*

      I’m restarting my 5 year old’s baby blanket….

      I had purchased acrylic yarn on two separate occasions for the blanket and the second skein turned out to be spun much more loosely than the first one. I mistakenly assumed because it is an industrial, synthetic product that purchasing the yarn on separate occasions didn’t matter. The blanket is in 5 panels so the first one is probably about 5 inches shorter than the second one…

      So while this project has been dragging on for years (and I’ve finished numerous ones in the meantime), I’m restarting. That said I’m enjoying updating the pattern (and expanding it to make large enough so he can snuggle in it as he grows) and excited to use some lovely superwash wool. My son was able to pick his favorite color. So while this is no longer a “baby” blanket and I’m restarting after putting a lot of work in, I think the final product is going to be a much more cherished item.

    15. Seeking Second Childhood*

      Temperature blanket makers what’s a good resource for figuring out temps & yarn colors/quantities for a long-ago year? I want to make myself one some day. I love the joyful summer-flower mixup of colors and it would be a nice change to work with those instead of the muted colors that have been on my hooks for so long.

      1. All Hail Queen Sally*

        One thing I accomplished this past year was to dig out and sort all my yarns. I discovered that I have TONS of acrylic (I have cats so anything that is put out, like blankets, has to be made of cheap yarns. ) I want to make a temperature blanket too, but do not want to buy any more yarn so I decided different temperature ranges would be “light, med, and dark yellows,” and “light, med, and dark blues,” etc. Then I will sort my yarn in groups of light, med and dark of the same color and just use this light blue here and that light blue there. I hope it works out OK. I just can’t decide if I want to make a really big blanket with 365 rows.

      2. Pharmgirl*

        I googled average temps for my area for each month to get the range I would need to cover, and then honestly, just picked the colors I liked and put them in my range. It took a bit of rearranging to get the scale I wanted, but I went with colors I like vs trying to mimic online pattern. If you want brighter colors, go for it! For my temp blanket, I started with pastels for colder weather, then deeper colors for cool going into warm, then bright for the warm to hot days.

        The fun thing about temperature blankets is that you can use whatever color scheme you want – from a rainbow to different shades of one color or whatever takes your fancy.

        If you’re trying to make one for a prior year I think there should definitely be a site somewhere that should have all the temps for the whole year. Find the highest and lowest to figure out your range, then figure out your increments and pick colors for each one. I’m in New England so I went with 0-100, a new color for every 10 degrees. I only crocheted the high of the day so my blanket only goes from the 20-100 range and two colors didn’t get used at all. Since you’re doing an already complete year you’ll be able to plan accordingly and get to use all your colors.

    16. Princess Flying Hedgehog*

      Panna frost flower lace shawl in a pale blue-grey. Been working on it on and off since June. Knitting again and finally in the home stretch.

    17. All Hail Queen Sally*

      I am knitting small (4.5 inch) squares in garter stitch to sew together into a sampler afghan. I plan to make each square from a different colored yarn. So far I have 18 different yellows. I have tons of scrap yarns so I will be making scrap afghans for at least the next five years.

    18. Otter Dance*

      I finished my KAL ADVENTure cowl. I had exactly one foot of yarn left. Talk about yarn chicken.
      Today I started a new shawl with worsted weight yarn on size 11 (8 mm) needles. They feel like kindergarten crayons, so big and clumsy, after a year not using anything larger than a size 7 (4.5 mm). I realized that none of my dozen shawls goes with purple, so clearly I need to make another, right?

    20. Can't Sit Still*

      I’m weaving a couple of placemats in plaid, with Brook’s Bouquet on each end. I haven’t decided how fringe-y the ends are going to be yet. I need to get them off the loom before my weaving class next weekend, though.

  13. aarti*

    I asked a question last week about not experiencing early pregnancy symptoms and I think I jinxed myself lol! Because this week I’ve had terrible nausea (worse in the morning, but present all day). So I’m especially grateful to everyone who responded with tips and tricks for combating it.

    This is very much a wanted pregnancy but I’m sort of surprised at how little excitement I feel. I think maybe it doesn’t seem real to me yet? I look the same and I just feel really sick all/most of the time. So, when in the pregnancy did you start feeling excited? Right away or did it take some time?

    1. Fran*

      The first few months were filled with anxiety. I think I started getting excited around the 20 week scan. Congratulations and be gentle to yourself.

    2. Firefly*

      Honestly, I was actually surprised to end up with a baby at the end of my pregnancy. I think I had been so worried by my mom’s very challenging pregnancy experiences when I was a child that I didn’t let myself connect pregnant to baby. My pregnancy was uneventful, everything went reasonably smoothly birth-wise, and then I immediately fell in love with my baby – who is now fifteen. So, I wasn’t excited through my pregnancy, but was thrilled to have a baby at the end of it!

    3. Kiitemso*

      I felt excitement fiddling baby clothes, thinking about baby names, discussing the baby with family, my partner and friends, and feeling the non-painful kicks. Weirdly enough I also felt excitement budgeting various baby things like the bassinet, pram, approximate food budget, approximating the nappie budget etc. I guess I really just like budgeting, haha. But the first trimester can be fairly miserable, and we did wait until week 15 to tell most family and friends, just in case something went wrong. We discussed names and bought one tiny baby overalls amongst ourselves, and both me and my partner told one very close friend each, so we had somebody to share the good and the bad with.

      My nausea cures: eat every 2 hours (small portions), drink plenty, eat immediately after waking up (within 15-20 mins of waking up). Some people also mention ginger sweets or ginger ale as helping them. My least fave symptom was heartburn, which came as soon as nausea left me, though thankfully I got OTC medication for it. And my fave symptom was – oddly enough – cravings! I loved desiring random things. Pico de gallo, cottage cheese, Nutella and banana sandwiches, baked beans with fried tomatoes and eggs.. It could be a weird mix, simultaneously grossed out by some things, and alternating between nausea and cravings.

    4. Hotdog not dog*

      You’re growing a human….parts of that process are awkward and uncomfortable, but no less amazing! I mostly felt sick and bloated, with interludes of excitement. Just roll with each day. I wish you a healthy pregnancy and a fast birth!

    5. Jenny*

      Don’t worry, it’s totally normal to have mixed feelings. It’s a lot because yes being a parent is great (I love toddlerdom) but the baby has to come out and that part is hard and painful and the first couple weeks are very hard (getting breastfeeding going was very hard for me). So it’s something you want but it’s also going to involve a lot of hard and unpleasant stuff (it gets better, I promise).

      But society also guilty you for those bad feelings too because how can you not immediately be blissful with your new baby.

      It’s okay to feel weird.

    6. MissHell UK*

      I was excited after the scan to detect abnormalities was over and done with, I felt I could relax. While I was lucky and didn’t have morning sickness at all I did get extremely bad heartburn during the last few weeks of pregnancy but it was worth it in the end xx

    7. 30ish*

      I got much more excited when the nausea faded after the first trimester. Nothing worked against the nausea and I was miserable for 2 months, if I got pregnant again and experienced nausea again I would get medication for it.

    8. Stephanie*

      Yeah, I really did not like being pregnant, even though both were planned and very much wanted pregnancies. I was nauseated for the first 5 months with my first, then had heartburn for pretty much the rest of the pregnancy, so it was not fun. But, I did feel some excitement. It just came later, I think. The first few months are tough–even if you’re lucky enough to not have much nausea, you’re tired all of the time, and you just don’t feel like yourself. It got better for me mentally when I was actually showing, I think it made it all feel much more real.
      I didn’t comment last week, but two things really helped with my nausea: 1) Avoiding a completely empty stomach was a huge help. I had a sleeve of Saltines and a glass of water on my nightstand every night and would eat a couple of crackers before I even got out of bed in the morning, and I would eat one or two if I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I also carried crackers with me everywhere, along with things like Nutri-grain bars or granola bars, and I snacked often. 2) Good old fashioned ginger ale was super helpful. I stuck with Canada Dry because it actually has real ginger in it (Vernor’s doesn’t). One of the keys was to just sip it throughout the day, not guzzle it. Drinking it too fast just made me feel more bloated and gassy, but sipping more slowly calmed my stomach. If you’re not a soda person, a ginger tea would probably work, or you could just make ginger water (a small chunk of ginger root in a bottle of water).
      Don’t worry about not feeling excited right now. You are growing a human inside your body. That is some serious stuff, and there is not really a right or wrong way to feel about it. And it’s hard to be excited when you’re nauseated all day. Be kind to yourself, and those feelings of anticipation and excitement will come.
      Congrats on your pregnancy! As unpleasant as it can be, it’s also pretty amazing, and it is all worth it in the end!

    9. ten-four*

      Ooh seconding 30ish: I also took the anti-nausea meds the second time I was pregnant and it made a WORLD of difference in my entire experience of pregnancy. I have some lingering anti-med biases from my family of origin, and my mother LOVED being pregnant so I kept thinking I’d get better and could gut through it. And the nausea did die down eventually! But it really set the tone of the pregnancy for me, and I really wish I’d taken the anti-nausea meds and avoided things like vomiting in the alley on my walk in to work.

      Being pregnant IS weird (and cool!) and I heartily recommend doing whatever you can to make it as easy as possible. Anti-nausea meds are a game changer! I had a lovely, easy second pregnancy with hardly any barfing at all.

      1. Double A*

        Unisom & B6 are seriously a miracle in the first trimester with the added bonus of helping you sleep!

    10. Blackcat*

      I hated the whole first trimester and any excitement I felt was drowned out by the nausea and fatigue. Honestly, the year I was pregnant was awful personally and professionally, and I never got super excited. Pregnancy was very, very hard on me. HG during the first trimester devastated my body in a way that made everything harder later on–I lost some huge fraction of my muscle mass, not just fat, so I didn’t have the muscles needed to stabilize my pelvis. My kid had colic as a newborn, so I’m afraid to say it didn’t really get better until he was like 4 months old. So my “when were you excited” answer is like… once he was a socially interacting tiny human. I enjoy parenting a lot more now. I knew I wasn’t a baby person. Everyone said it would be different with my own… and it wasn’t. And that’s okay! One of my aunts–who is also not a baby person–offered me the advice long ago to not try for a baby when I was a year away from wanting a baby, but to try when I thought I was 4 years away from wanting a 3 year old. And now my 3 year old is a lovely delight!

      More nausea tips if you want them
      1. Preggie pop drops, at Target or Amazon, or some other extremely tart hard candy.
      2. Homemade lemon ginger tea. Buy fresh ginger to make it from. Make a tea, add some lemon juice.
      3. Almonds or other nuts every ~1hr to keep a steady flow of protien

    11. Parenthetically*

      I wasn’t excited at all when I first got pregnant with my son! Very much a wanted pregnancy, right on schedule, and I just felt kind of… ambivalent about it, when I wasn’t feeling anxious all the time. I did eventually get excited, but I didn’t have a context for it because I’d never experienced it before so the whole thing seemed really abstract — whereas with my daughter, I was excited right away because I had the experience of knowing that this was a real person who I would get to meet in a few months, and not just an abstraction or an idea.

    12. Not A Manager*

      I was lucky in that the nausea faded after my first trimesters, and in my second trimesters I got that surge of energy that people sometimes talk about.

      I started to feel real excitement when the baby started to move. That was very cool, and I was very excited, but it still didn’t feel connected to an actual child. The initial flutters were more like a magic butterfly inside me. Over time, as the bump got larger and when the baby moved you could see that it was a fist or a foot, then I started to feel more of a connection.

    13. Em*

      During pregnancy, I loved seeing my first one kick (didn’t like feeling it so much, especially near the end)

      But actually excited about the whole having a baby thing?…. not till #1 was almost a year old.

    14. RagingADHD*

      I was excited finding out & sharing the news, but I didn’t stay excited the same way the whole time. It comes and goes, that’s normal.

      40 weeks is a long time, and there’s a lot of regular living to do where you’re just going about your day. It’s also really normal to have different, sometimes unexpected, feelings crop up – there’s all the physical changes to your body, all the life changes of becoming a parent. It affects all your relationships, your social life, everything. Of course there are a lot of different feelings.

      I think it got really real, less abstract, when I started feeling the baby move for sure. There’s those early flutters that might be gas, and then it gets more definite. That was a big turning point, because I could tell the baby was having her own separate life going on in there.

    15. Disco Janet*

      Being completely real with you here – I felt excited once my son was born. It is okay to not feel excitement during a wanted pregnancy – it doesn’t say anything about what you’ll be like as a mother! Maybe you’re not worried about that, but I did – I questioned my maternal instincts a lot during pregnancy, but they just didn’t kick in until there was an actual baby there to see and hold.

      I thought I’d feel excited right away…it didn’t feel real. Then when it did feel real, I was honestly kinda weirded out by the whole having a living, moving thing inside me aspect of it. But then he was born and I fell in love ❤️

    16. allathian*

      I was lucky enough to avoid most of the nausea, and I too kept crackers and water by my bed so I could have something before getting up. But I was tired to the point that I’d sleep 10 hours a night and fall asleep at my desk at work. That’s how my boss found out about it before I’d planned to tell her, she found me sleeping at my desk. Luckily that exhaustion faded somewhat in the second trimester, but it was no fun. I only really got excited when I could feel the tiny kicks, but I didn’t really believe we were going to have a baby until I saw the ultrasound scans.

      Congrats again. I wish you a trouble-free pregnancy and birth.

    17. Lizy*

      Still waiting. Had my 3rd kid in May. Don’t get me wrong – I actually really enjoyed being pregnant. I just never felt that connection. I also talked about “it” for each one. Even though I knew if it was a boy or girl and for the most part we had names picked out. Until it’s born – it’s an it lol

      1. allathian*

        LOL
        A big deal for me was not knowing if I was going to have a boy or a girl. I had my scans at our NHS and they will confirm your suspicions if it’s really obvious, but they won’t try and turn the baby just to confirm its sex. I don’t get why people want to know. Especially since it’s not really foolproof unless you do a genetic test or one of those 3D scans. Most of the baby clothes I got before birth were in gender-neutral colors anyway (I’m in Finland and we invented the “baby box”).

    18. Ranon*

      I think I was excited, oh, about six weeks after the baby was born? I didn’t really like being pregnant and after the baby was born I was too tired to be excited. Oh, and I guess scheduling my induction was a little exciting because of the whole “going to be not pregnant/ finally meet this baby” thing.

      Our kiddo was 100% planned/ wanted/ etc and I still spent most of my pregnancy going “oh my, what have we done?” It’s a big thing!

  14. Seeking Second Childhood*

    Here’s the item i mentioned in the gaming thread above.
    I thought this group might be interested in an article on the epilepsy/Cyberpunk 2077 issue. Short version, the developers have responded quickly & appropriately & involved the woman whose game-testing triggered a grand mal seizure; there’s also background on the industry, fan reactions (spoiler: some bad), government/legal policies, and even development/testing procedure changes to prevent/reduce re-occurrences.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/12/31/cyberpunk-2077-seizure/?itid=hp_dontmiss
    (Yes this one counts towards the Post’s articles-per-month limit for non-subscribers.)

    1. Catherine*

      I’ve been around online gaming communities long enough that it doesn’t shock me that people would harass Ruppert over calling attention to the issue (although I am still angered by it), but I absolutely think the deliberate attempts by other commenters to trigger subsequent seizures for her ought to be considered attempted murder.

      1. Observer*

        There is so much that is toxic about a lot of the gaming community.

        As for attempted murder, I’ve heard that before. And every time I hear of some reason it couldn’t work. In any case, it would probably have to be assault, because a seizure would not necessarily be life threatening. Which is probably one of the reasons why prosecutors would not want to deal with it.

  15. nep*

    Kitties.
    It’s been 3.5 years since we had to put down our dear cat. We were finally ready to get another and started to look when COVID hit, and we left it be. Well an opportunity recently came up to adopt two 7.5-month-0ld sisters via a friend. They are so lovely.
    We went to visit them at friend’s home the other day. They were shy…barely went after a toy when we held it and they stood behind their cat condo peeking out at us. The current self-designated foster mom is due to bring them over to our house today.
    I gather that it will take cats this age (as opposed to 8- to 12-week-old kitten) longer to acclimate, just because they’ve gotten used to foster family and that ‘territory’…is that the case? It varies from cat to cat, I reckon.
    I’d greatly appreciate any tips/insights around helping them be at ease here, and just tips about what we should watch for. We’ve set up a nice room for them, where we plan to visit quietly–never forcing them out of hiding places or forcing them to come to us. Just letting them take the lead. (Friend is loaning us one of their cameras so we can monitor them down there.)
    I’m super excited, and nervous.

    1. mreasy*

      I adopted a 5 month old little girl earlier this year, and she was quite shy/anxious at first. I would spend an hour or two at a stretch every day just sitting in “her room” without making any overtures toward her, and eventually she got curious and comfortable with me and came over to say hello. It took some time, but now she’s extremely comfortable in her home and an extremely demanding lap cat.

      1. Not So NewReader*

        Yep this is what my husband did with two of our shy girls. He sat on the floor and quietly read. Even when she came out and sniffed his shoes, he did not budge. He just kept reading.

        Both of ours were several years old when they came to us. The first one stayed in the guest room. When she started opening the door on her own we knew she was ready for change. She came out of the guest room and lived in our bathroom for a while. I moved her food and litter into the bathroom because that was where I planned to keep them long term. It took her a full year to be able to go into any room in the house.

        The second cat hid longer, I got a little scared for her. She stayed under the bed for 3 weeks. Just when I started thinking I needed to intervene, she came out on her own. Perhaps because of the differences in breeds, the second one was much more adventurous. She got used to all the rooms in the house much quicker. And she also climbed into spaces we could not get her out of, but she got herself out when she was darn good and ready.

        Both of them went on to be normal cats and live normal lives. Initially our baseline rule was safety. They could do as they wished as long as it was reasonable to think they were safe doing it. Interestingly, because of their bashfulness they never really put themselves in an unsafe situation. Their shyness worked for them and protected them. Once they pull themselves together there is no looking back. It’s just a matter of putting in the time, letting them regroup and get themselves oriented to life with you.

        I should think sisters would be a lot of fun. They will help each other along which probably means they will adapt quicker.

          1. tangerineRose*

            I agree that reading while hanging out in the room with the kitties should be helpful. You’re there, but you’re not being threatening, they get a chance to get used to you. I usually try to keep a new kitty in the main bedroom so they have a bed to hide under when they feel like it.

        2. It'sTrue!*

          We’ve adopted 5 senior rescues by now (we have two at a time, and some were over 10 so they, well, weren’t with us for more than a few years)… and they all reacted differently. It takes awhile to get to know them, and them you. One lived under our couch for a month! Came out at night to eat and do the litter thing that we kept upstairs for her only during that time.

          It’s so interesting, the courtship process. One was pretty fractious, and I decided to have naps with her. She ended up being my biggest cuddlebug and I miss her still. But we figure we’ll get to know MORE cats this way, adopting seniors, and it is so rewarding.

      1. nep*

        Thanks! New year, new family members. I’m giddy. (And I just love the idea of keeping the sisters together.)
        The account of your experience is reassuring, and I’m really hoping that will be the case here. I really like discovering cats’ different personalities.
        Appreciate your input.

    3. Cat and dog fosterer*

      I would ask the foster family if the kittens are openly friendly with them now, and if they did anything special to get them friendly.

      Kittens that have been born indoors and well socialized at 4-8 weeks tend to be outgoing even around strangers. I take mine on occasional outings to the pet store or to see neighbors outside in warm weather so they get cuddles from strangers, and they have a lot of confidence when meeting strangers or in new situations.

      But if they arrive after 8 weeks from a life outdoors then they almost always need to build trust with each new human that they meet. Ideally they are comfortable with their foster home and just need time to settle.

      If they were rescued much older, after about 12 weeks, then they have deeper trust issues with strangers. They will need more proactive work, but if they are friendly with the fosters then they will be friendly with you. I can provide tips and tricks for socializing a semi-feral kitten, but we do those as specialized adoptions so I’m assuming that yours are typical Slightly Skittish, Just Need Time.

      Have them in a small room with a few toys and kibbles. When you visit, bring wet food and wand toys (active play at a distance). If they like the wet food then gently stroke them as they eat, to associate your touch with good things. Ask their foster if anything worked well for them.

    4. Teatime is Goodtime*

      Yay! New cats! I’m so excited for you!

      I got my girl when she was six or seven… And she felt right at home immediately. She’s the opposite of skiddish, though. I will say that her behavior did change a bit here and there over time for a good year plus, so be aware that feeling comfortable in the house isn’t the only factor. :) But yours are young, so maybe they don’t come with quite so much baggage.

      1. nep*

        Thanks. I’m excited.
        They will be so loved here; they just don’t know it yet.
        I so hope they’ll come to love their new home.

    5. Damn it, Hardison!*

      Congratulations! I think you have everything arranged very well already, and you have the right mindset going in. It my take some patience but so worth it. I adopted two cats in March (who were not related or in the same cage) and set things up the same way that you did. I got incredibly lucky – they bonded immediately, cuddling together in the same cat bed (after huddling together under a bookcase for a few minute), and within an hour they were sitting with me and my husband (actually on us). We were anticipating a long settle in time but they certainly surprised us! I hope everything goes well and they settle in beautifully.

    6. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      Husband adopted two 9 month old sister cats at the tail end of 2015 – they’d never been fostered, but went from the street to the shelter to us. One of them had some health problems, including a repeating eye infection that ultimately led to an enucleation around her first birthday. The other one actually was the one that picked us — I was standing in the lobby in front of a bank of kennels waiting for him to hurry up and pick cats already, when suddenly I could not move my head, because the kitten in the kennel behind me had reached out with both paws and grabbed hold of my bun. After a minute I waved at one of the workers and was like “Can you stick your head in that room and tell the guy in the green shirt that his cat has his wife by the head out here?”

      I already had a one year old sighthound at that point, so for the first three months we had the cats they were mostly in their own room (with regular people visiting) so that we could slowly acclimate the dog to the kittens – after that, they got free reign of the house, including an entire floor that the dogs aren’t allowed to access.

      Now, five years later, the cat who had the enucleation (Captain Kyna Whitepaws, SCOURGE OF LAND AND SEA) is totally fearless, scrambles all over the house, up in everybody’s face, thinks she’s a dog. Her sister (Princess Kiara Scaredyfluff the Dark and Unseen) is a total chicken who almost never leaves my husband’s office (but totally rules the roost in there) – like, she’ll come down the stairs and sit at the bottom and watch me in the living room, but if I so much as stand up off the couch, she practically teleports back upstairs to the office. (But if I go in there, she’s all up in my face demanding pets and even belly rubs, which are not actually a trap, because that’s her comfort zone. And she still grabs me by the bun if I get within range of her cat tree.)

      So basically, they might react pretty much any which way, and they won’t necessarily react or adjust the *same* way. :) Have fun!!

      2. Seal*

        One of my cats picked me the same way. I thought I was just looking but he grabbed my hair when I was standing next to his cage and made such a racket that I came back the next day to adopt him. He was only 4 months old but already an outgoing acrobat who was very deferential to my older boys. Interestingly, despite all the noise he made at the shelter he’s not very talkative at home. He’s almost 9 now and still into everything though!

    7. nep*

      Looks like we’re holding off for now. I think it’s to do with current cat mom’s approach, but all day yesterday she worked on getting them into a crate (off and on), and around 7pm decided she’d try again today. They have eaten some, but she’s also used food as a way to lure them in. I don’t understand exactly how it’s going down over there, but I don’t feel good about the cats going through this for another full day. (As of noon, they’ve not gotten them into the transport crate.) I’m telling her to hold off. The transition would be tough enough; I don’t want her to keep this up with them–they’ll end up being too traumatized and that will just add to troubles, no doubt.
      We’ll see what happens.

      1. Generic Name*

        Uh, has this woman had cats before? Of all the cats I’ve had in my life, I’ve only had 1 who would willingly go into the cat carrier and he’s a very tolerant boy who will let you do literally anything to him). All the rest I had to grab and shove them in the carrier. Some took up to 30 mins of searching for them and wrangling them from their hiding spot, others resisted a ton, and others I just scooped them up and placed them in.

        1. Not So NewReader*

          Yep. If you wait for them to be willing, forget it. They will just choose not to go in there.

          My first cat was a kitten when I got her. I had gotten her from someone at work. To keep her at work I used a very tall box, probably about 40 inches high or so. She had bedding and food/water. It was a big box. For transporting, I tucked her in my coat. She was actually quite happy inside my coat. She settled right in.
          (It was also very funny to watch people’s eyes as I pulled this kitten out of my coat. You couldn’t tell that I had a kitten in the coat because it was a big, puffy winter jacket.)
          I suspect foster mom is have regrets about giving them to someone else.

          1. nep*

            As things evolved–as it were–I was half-thinking that foster mom had promised to husband or other family members–OK, I’ll try to adopt them out, but if for some reason it doesn’t work out, we keep them.
            She seemed genuinely excited to have them go to a friend. She had put out a flyer in her Christmas letter. And the family already has a few other cats.
            Who knows. Anyway, I’m relieved in a way because the kitties needed to just get back to their routine instead of this long drawn-out thing foster mom was doing.

        2. Figgie*

          We drove two cats from the upper Midwest to California and then flew with them to Mexico. One of them was fine in the car while in the carrier, as long as the door was left open. She didn’t leave the carrier, but she didn’t howl as long as the door to the carrier was left open.

          The other one (who I swear is a dog in a cat body) was like: “why have you never told me about traveling???? I LOVE traveling!!! Can we get in the car now??? PLEASE!! I’m getting in my carrier!! Take me out to the car! NOW!!! Is this a new hotel?? I LOVE hotels!! See, I’m rolling around on the bed like it is catnip”

          Weirdest cat on the planet! My spouse said that if we would have let him, he would have hung his head out the open car window with his tongue hanging out and his ears flapping in the breeze! :-)

        3. Jules the 3rd*

          My new feral kitten ran for the carrier when she realized that I was pulling her out of her favorite hiding spot. It was full size, and dark, I don’t think she even realized it was a carrier.

          Her brother, otoh, was a full 20 minute wrangle. And he’s usually the easier one.

      2. Ethyl*

        That is really odd. I mean, not that I’m cruel to my cats but they also do not like their carriers and we manage to get them into them for their vet visits just fine. We burrito the really difficult one in a towel, put the carrier on end and deposit the cat with the towel, and shut the door. If she’s doing something that is taking all day, you’re likely right that it’s upsetting and traumatizing them way more than necessary.

        1. Elspeth McGillicuddy*

          Very odd. Cats have to be shoved into crates, sometimes with a good deal of force and strategy. It’s how cats are. (With exceptions.)

          Especially with two. Are they sharing a crate and have to magically enter at the same time, or is one getting shut in her crate for hours while the other gets slowly baited in? I don’t see either working.

          Car rides are usually stressful for cats anyway and new houses definitely are. An extra two minutes of mild stress at the start isn’t going to traumatize them. They’ll get over it!

          1. nep*

            Of course. Exactly.
            I learned all of this only in real time. So I told her thanks for all her time and efforts but stop.

      3. Cruciatus*

        Here’s a link to a photo of me trying to wrangle my cat into a carrier for the vet last year, and, joy of joys, I get to do it again on Tuesday. It sucked and took about 15 minutes. He hates the carrier, but he got over it very quickly (after we were back from the vet). But on this day I actually got sweaty trying to get him into that damn thing! https://ibb.co/SwDJ22f

        1. Not So NewReader*

          Ha! That could be one of my girls. I had one bright one who figured out if she put her front legs out side ways, like wings on an airplane, I would not be able to push her through the door of the carrier. I. could. not. get that cat into the carrier for the life of me.

          1. It'sTrue!*

            I put the carrier on end and lower the cat back legs dangling first into the carrier… then it’s a matter of taking each front paw and delicately unhooking them from the carrier door (or from your new sweater that is now ruined).

        2. Seeking Second Childhood*

          How did you get a picture DURING teleportation? (Because seriously cats teleport when they don’t want to be in the transport box. Or at least ours did.)

          1. Cruciatus*

            We had reached a standstill. Despite how it looks, I was trying to comfort him (without him getting away). He went stiff. I decided to just chill for a second and I realized I had my phone on me and took the pic. I think he tried to escape 1 second after I took the pic.

      4. nep*

        Odd, yes–completely agree. This, I’ve concluded, isn’t about the cats. It’s about the current mom/family. And that’s fine. I’m taking things as they come and I told her I didn’t want her to continue whatever she was doing (trying to lure them with food, etc) because I didn’t want whatever was going on there to be the beginning of the transition.
        The part I disliked most about having cats was wrangling them/putting them in the carrier. Of course no cat goes willingly. (!) As I said, whatever her approach is, it’s not how I would do it and it sounded more traumatic to me than the quick, one-off discomfort of grabbing them and putting them in the crate.
        I’m very much go with the flow here. Our kitty sanctuary is ready for whenever the right cat/situation comes along.
        Really appreciate everyone’s input, insights, tips, etc.

        1. Ethyl*

          Y’know……it sure seems like every time we have decided “ok we are ready for a new cat,” it sort of happens on its own when it’s meant to be. I don’t much believe in the supernatural or anything, but damn if we didn’t have:
          1) a kitten show up on our porch and literally jump into my arms
          2) a coworker find a kitten in her flowerpot on her porch and ask us first if we wanted her
          3) stopping at the adoption center in Petsmart only to be accosted (accosted I say!) by a cat who *really* wanted my attention (and had a sister that they didn’t want to separate from him, that one was a two-fer!)
          4) roommate’s boyfriend’s parents found a mama cat and litter of kittens in their shed
          5) cat showed up on back porch and refused to leave

          Maybe a cat will happen to you, too, now that the universe knows you are ready!

          1. nep*

            Thanks.
            Yeah–we thought this might be one of those, as we’d stopped actively looking during COVID. And we loved the idea of adopting from a friend. When we saw the pics and info, we thought, maybe this is the moment. But no.
            As I said, I’m very much ‘go with the flow’ on all this. The right thing will happen at the right time.

    8. Generic Name*

      My mom recently adopted an older cat (I think she’s 11). She’s a very sweet kitty and spent the first few weeks hiding. My mom got a feliway plug in and she emerged just after that. Now she sits on my mom’s lap and is very affectionate.

    9. Ethyl*

      Also, make sure you have a variety of types of toys (furry, feathery, skittery, crunchy) to try out. If you can find one specific type they really love, you can use that to bond and socialize with them, to build up those associations of “these people = good times” :)

  16. Pomp&Circumstance*

    Single late 30-something lady grappling with the biological clock and wanting to hear how others are doing/have done it. It’s been on my radar for a few years now and over that time I’ve had some preliminary testing done with regard to fertility as I have some gynaecological issues which would most likely make any type of conception harder. I’ve always wanted to be a mom and just figured it would happen the old fashioned way with a partner but haven’t had any luck meeting the right guy, despite my best efforts over the last few years since coming out of a very long relationship. Most of my friends are younger or older and settled with families so I don’t have many people to talk to about it!

    With hopes of finding the right guy fading (even before COVID) I’m exploring alternatives so to speak but it’s such a huge decision and lifelong commitment that I never get much further along than thinking it’s a possibility…..but at the same time I’ve been thinking about it for years. I can’t even begin to know how people make a decision around having a child with the help of a donor, and I wonder if I cross my fingers will the need to be a mom eventually just subside. I’m just fearful of silencing it until it’s too late and then regretting it…if that makes sense?

    1. Not So NewReader*

      Childless person here, so this may or may not be relevant because it’s too general. I don’t think anyone gets through life without some level of regrets. I also think that if we let go of one thing, it’s super important to decide what we will do instead at the same time. Every time we let go of something, that means we have room for something else that we would not have had room for otherwise. If you do not have children, what do you think you would like to do that you would not have done if you had kids to consider?

    2. Kali*

      I’m 32 and I struggle with this too.

      For me, my mother had her ovaries removed when I was about 6 or 7, and she was in her mid-twenties. I didn’t understand exactly what was happening, and I somehow got it into my head that women went through menopause really early, around 30. It did not help that the last 5 generations of my mother’s family had their kids in their late teens. Even though that impression was corrected later, I still had that feeling and it really affected my relationships in my early 20s.

      It also didn’t help that I studied genetics, so I know exactly what’s happening to my eggs. Very simple summary, they were formed almost exactly 33 years ago, when I was a foetus, and have just been hanging out in there this whole time like par-baked rolls waiting for their final development step to occur as I ovulate each month. That’s why the chances of birth defects increase with maternal age, because the eggs get older. Men’s sperm stem cells also form very early, but they’re earlier in their development – like flour or dried yeast instead of par-baked rolls – so they’re not affected as much by time. The cool thing about this is that your very first cell can be 2-4 decades older than the rest of you.

      I did consider having a child with a donor, but the other things affecting me are where I am with my career, my feelings about monogamy and relationships, and my relationship with my own parents (bad) and how it affects my own feelings towards motherhood (very negatively). I’m now accepting that it might be something that doesn’t happen for me – though we would consider adoption later on – or, at most, we might have one biological child.

      1. another_scientist*

        thanks for this explanation, very interesting! Also thanks all for contributing to this thread, lots of food for thought.

    3. HannahS*

      I’m not exactly in your situation, but my attitude was that if I reached a certain age (mid-late 30s) without meeting someone, I would take an amount of time (say, a year) to make it my top priority. Dating is really hard and not something that I ever enjoyed, but if I gave it my best shot and didn’t meet someone, I knew that I want children too much to keep waiting. I never really got farther than that–I wound up meeting someone before that time. But I have a few others in my life who are still single who have a similar plan. I can’t imagine a future for myself where I don’t have children; it’s always been very important to me. If you feel the same, then I think you should look seriously at your life–is your income/lifestyle/career suited for being a single parent? Who will be your support system? Do some googling—you must be able to find blogs and articles by women who’ve done it. See if there’s a Facebook group that you can join.
      As NotSoNewReader says, no one gets through life without regrets. But reading your letter, it seems like maybe you feel overwhelmed or fearful. I think the best remedy to that is research. Learn about all kinds of different lives, and see which ones feel right to you.

    4. Ali G*

      I’m in my early forties and childless by choice, but in the last 10 years, I’ve seen all my friends go through variations of what you are going through. I have one other friend childless by choice, 2 others not by choice, but have found other ways to fulfill themselves (one is a very involved and amazing aunt) and a couple that really struggled getting pregnant (but did!).
      I think if you really want to be a mom, you should at least give yourself the chance to see what that would mean and what it would take. It might be too hard and you decide you will be OK with no kids, or it might solidify this is your future. Arm yourself with information and options and see what works for you.
      Also, I recently read an article where people are basically online dating but for co-parent partners, not romantic partners. I thought that was an interesting prospect for people that want to reproduce, but want a little more than a donor (also better for men that want to be dad’s but not donors).

    5. Blackcat*

      Two of my good friends are single mothers by choice, one by IVF (at age 42) and one by adoption (40).
      COVID has been BRUTALLY hard for them (loosing childcare and having no back up is HARD–for both of them, their parents are too old to help), but neither regrets their decision at all.
      That said, I think it’s better to regret *not* having a kid than regret having one….

    6. Jules the First*

      So I am 37, single, and currently 17 weeks pregnant with my donor baby. Like you, I have some health issues that made it a bit less likely that I’d get pregnant, so it was my doctor who started the conversation four years ago. I did a few sessions with a therapist, had a fertility evaluation with a private clinic, read some books, listened to some podcasts, talked to a few people, ran the budget numbers, and found myself no closer to making a decision than before. So I had one last conversation with my fertility clinic who said that in all honesty, I probably had a few years to make up my mind before my fertility cratered but that my best chances of success would be before I turned 40, and that if we needed to go beyond a simple insemination (IUI), that could take a couple of years to work through the process. I’ve spent much of the last three years turning it over in my head – was I being selfish? cavalier? getting in too deep? If I held my breath, crossed my fingers, looked the other way, threw myself into being an auntie, would the decision make itself?

      Finally I poured my heart out to a friend over drinks one night, confessing that I thought I’d reached the point where I could live with never having a baby, but not with never having tried, but that I was still not sure whether I was being honest or foolish and self indulgent. The next morning, she turned up at my doorstep with strong coffee and painkillers (for the hangover) and a box of ovulation tests. Her advice? Pee on the stick. When the line goes blue, you’ll know, one way or the other. She was right – the day after the line went blue, I called the clinic and started the process. It takes about four or five months to work your way through the tests and consultations; choosing a donor is bewildering and overwhelming and fairly surreal (a cross between internet dating and trying a new Chinese takeaway…); and the actual act is very much like getting a pap smear from a bunch of munchkins who are strangely enthusiastic about it (followed by two weeks of nervily pretending you are pregnant while you wait for a test to work, while also trying to be rational about the odds of it actually happening, which are pretty slim). I won’t pretend that I made peace with the decision to do this solo immediately – I don’t think I felt really secure in the decision to try until the clinic got my sperm shipment – but it absolutely feels right now. Happy to chat more if that would be helpful…

    7. Lulu*

      I am 31 and had always expected the usually house, husband, children scenario but none of those have appeared. I know with my energy levels I simply won’t have neither the physical nor mental capacity to go through childcare alone. Maybe I will find someone to share my life with and have kids with but I don’t worry about it because no matter what happens right now I am content with my life. Wishfull sure but not anxious about maybe’s because I know I need a partner first and he doesn’t appear, well fine, I won’t be an exhausted single mother.
      (Let’s see how I feel about this in ten years time..!)

    8. Double A*

      “The old fashioned way” ended up working out for me but I had definitely thought about what to do if it hadn’t as I got married a bit older.

      After I had my daughter I was like, “Oh. I would definitely have done this alone if I had to.” As in having her and having known I always wanted kids, being a single mom by choice would have been the right choice for me if it came to it. Basically, I’m saying if you want a kid, then go for it.

    9. B*

      Which would you regret more 1) pursuing having a kid on your own ( and all that being a single parent would mean for you and the kid) or 2) choosing to not have a bio child (whether or not you might consider adoption).
      Another point to consider is that some or the pros of having a partner are not guaranteed. People get divorced. People are together and have kids and struggle with division of labor/parenting styles.
      I think a more important question is what your support network is like. Will your parents/ siblings be supports. If something happens to you who will be guardian.
      I struggled with not thinking the traditional path would happen for me. It did. We had three kids (twins!). These kids are the best thing that ever happened to me. It’s hard. I’m tired. But I can’t imagine life without them.
      I wish you peace in your path.

    10. All Hail Queen Sally*

      If you want kids now, do it (adoption, sperm bank, whatever). I never had the biological clock alarm go off so I just continued on a fun adventurous life (I spent 11 years living in five different countries), and then one day I realized that I had forgotten to have children! I tried the step-mother thing, but it was a disaster all around, so I got out of that situation as fast as I could. When my friends started having grandchildren is when I really started regretting not ever having children –but it’s too late now. (Now my friends are having great-grandchildren.) I keep all my pets neutered and spayed, so I’ll never have grand cats or grand pups. And now that I am staring senior citizen ship in the face, I am starting to worry about who is going to take care of me if I get dementia or am otherwise incapacitated! When I was in high school (early 1970’s) I had planned on moving up in the mountains somewhere in the western US and having 12 kids. That never happened, but I did have a fun adventurous life though!

    11. Anona*

      I’m not sure when she decided to become a mom, but my friend had a kid as a single mom by choice through ivf at around 41 or 42. I know it was hard getting pregnant, but since then she’s had an additional child, also through ivf.

      I thought, and still think, that it’s an incredibly brave thing to do. She’s a certified bada** in my book.

    12. Me*

      Being an older mom is just fine, if that’s part of your concern. The mom of one of my son’s friends is an older single mom by choice. I don’t know much about the situation other than she chose a donor. She was definitely an older mom when our kids were growing up. But heck when my kid was in kindergarten I realized that the age of the parents of my kid’s classmates varied wildly. I felt young or old depending on the kid.

      My boss is the same age as me and had her child at 45. She wanted one for years but her long term relationship just wasn’t working. She ended up marrying a different guy a few years later and then became pregnant, giving birth at 45. My kids are in grad school or finishing their undergrad studies and her kid is in 2nd grade.

      If I remember correctly, being pregnant at any age over mid-30s is a geriatric pregnancy. Don’t let that wording sway you if you want a kid. Don’t feel like you need to make that decision this year. Let the idea roll around until you are sure.

  17. Goose*

    Cross country movers—what’s a budget friendly way to do it? It would be a 4 day drive with a cat who hates cars, otherwise I’d rent a trunk but I can’t subject either one of us to that. I don’t have much stuff—less than ten boxes and a duffel bag. (*maybe* my bed and mattress if a truck is the only option.)

    Has anyone shipped their stuff through the mail? Or used the same commercial flight heir on and just paid for extra bags/boxes? What about something like upack? I’m looking for reliable alternatives that aren’t likely to break my few things

    1. peasblossom*

      I had a fantastic experience with ABF/u-pack when I moved two years ago. Nothing got broken, the company was very easy to work with, and it was by far the cheapest option. You’ll just want to invest in a good lock for your cube (they recommend what to get); otherwise it’s so reliable and inexpensive that I’d recommend it to anyone.

    2. Teatime is Goodtime*

      I moved abroad twice, so it was over an ocean and a truck wasn’t an option. But, with that caveat, we shipped once and had movers for the second. Both worked fine for the most part. When we shipped, we didn’t pack breakables well enough and the postal folks were NOT gentle with our boxes, so a few things broke… but we would totally pack them better next time. YMMV.

    3. TTailor*

      When our daughter moved to Newfoundland, she flew across the country with her cat and basic luggage. She was staying with a friend for the first month.
      We mailed most of her small household goods, clothes, art supplies,books. We mailed boxes, but also mailed large suitcases full of things. It was surprisingly less expensive to use Canada post than we anticipated. I think it worked out to close to 1$ per pound. So I sent a 50lb packed suitcase for close to 60$.

    4. Little Miss Cranky Pants*

      If you’re in the US, check Amtrak and Greyhound too. They have specific requirements for boxes and shipping stuff, and of course, you have to go to the station and pick it up yourself, but it’s pretty cheap. I’d say for nonbreakables/nonprecious items, it’s worth checking into.

      For cross country too, it sounds like you’re mostly taking boxes. For the most part, no furniture except special heirlooms and pieces you’re emotionally attached to, is worth taking. It just isn’t. You can buy sofas, coffee tables, bookshelves, all that stuff in the new town, maybe at a thrift/consignment store and complete your new place inexpensively. I’m contemplating a possible big move in the next year, and the only piece of furniture I’m taking is my Dad’s dresser that’s been in the family since the 40s. :)

      Good luck with your move!

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        This is what I did when I moved from Seattle to Indianapolis – I shipped about 15 boxes via Amtrak and in 2012, that cost me under $300.

        I had a few boxes of books I wanted to keep and I mailed those to myself via USPS media mail. I think DVDs can also go media mail, but check, they’re sticklers about what qualifies. (And if you do that, for the mail carrier’s sake, keep the boxes small, the ones I used were 12x12x8 I think and they still ended up on the heavy side.)

        1. Seeking Second Childhood*

          Also tape them *MUCH* more than you think they need. All the way around in all directions as well as corners & sides. My fatherinlaw shipped his favorite cookbooks across country when he moved back — and the box broke. None of the books were found.

    5. Reba*

      I have used the U pack cubes twice, they are good! It sounds like Goose doesn’t actually have enough stuff to justify one, though. A friend has used a U-pack service where you load your stuff in a big truck, and pay by the foot so to speak. It worked because she had a few pieces of furniture, but it has the long wait time of a traditional mover.

      I have also shipped stuff via UPS, and taken some as extra luggage. It just depends on the weight and fees what is more cost effective. Some airlines no longer allow boxes to be checked. You can also ship suitcases as well as boxes! And then you can schedule a pick up and not have to haul everything to the airport :)

      1. Coenobita*

        We did something similar to the upack truck thing – I forget exactly what it was called. But you basically share a truck with other people, so it’s a good option if you don’t have a lot of stuff and you’re not in a hurry. In our case, my spouse and I were moving (back) in together after being long distance, so we already had a household set up at the other end and were fine with the longer wait time.

    6. Wandering*

      Drove 3 days with two cats, each in their own carrier. They did not enjoy it, but we had a system. First, the vet said no to meds (interferes with their temp regulation) said feed only at night to avoid car sickness, just water in the morning.
      Day one, they sang the song of their people for half an hour. I pulled over & explained that that wasn’t going to work. They shut up. Phew. After that they’d fuss for 5 min or so each time we started out – starting out for the day, after refueling, etc. Put their litter box in the motel bathrooms. One hid under the bed the last morning, but I offered treats & she came right to me. Overall it went much better than I’d feared, so if driving is your best option – & weather is cooperative – it will probably be ok for each of you.

    7. Holly the spa pro*

      As others have said, i also highly recommend ABF. Ive done several cross country moves and i had about as much stuff as you are describing. It will seem silly to see your cube with only the corner full but it is so worth it. You can do the pay-by-the-foot trucks from them too which might be more economical but i preferred the cube method.

    8. Not A Manager*

      Whenever these questions arise, I recommend looking into U Ship. It’s like Taskrabbit but for shipping. You post the items you want to ship, and truckers bid on what they will charge to haul them for you. They get to fill up odd spaces in their loads, and you don’t have to ship a full pallet or whatever minimum a moving company requires.

      The truckers are community vetted by stars and reviews, so you can choose the one who seems best.

      I’ve used it twice and had a good experience both times.

    9. Nicki Name*

      I know someone who shipped their large book collection via UPS when they moved some years ago. For a shipment that big UPS was willing to come to their house to pick it up.

      PODS would be an option too, these days, but I have no idea how the price stacks up.

    10. I'm A Little Teapot*

      Get something from the vet to chill the cat out. With any luck, said cat will be fine for the move. My cats didn’t like cars, and they were ok. Not precisely happy, but ok. No idea what the vet gave me, but the cats basically just slept most of the time in the car.

    11. I don't mean to be rude, I'm just good at it*

      have you researched LTL trucking options. Put everything on a pallet and let the trucking company pick it up, drive it to your new place and deliver it. I’ve done it in the past and it was economical, but i’m old so I don’t know what it costs today.

    12. FutureLibrarianNoMore*

      Used a small POD to pack what I had to move halfway across the country. They have a lot of sizes, and in 2016, I think we paid about $1500 or so for everything. You pack it yourself, and supply your own lock.

      I can’t remember exactly what I brought, but I would say maybe a queen size mattress/box spring, dresser, bookshelf, desk, futon, and general stuff. I didn’t fill it, but we roped everything together/down.

      They drop it off, pick it up, and bring it to your new location! Well worth it, IMO.

  18. Shiara*

    Packing books separately and mailing them at media mail rates is the cheapest by weight way to handle them, when renting a truck isn’t an option. My family does this for international moves as well. Between that and paying for extra luggage has usually been enough., But it’s been ages so not sure how current pricing would affect things.

  19. Goose*

    Podcast thread! What are you listening to?

    I’ve been going through the Sawbones back catalog (weird medical history) and just finished Chameleon (recent Hollywood scam investigation). I’m looking for more non-murder investigative podcasts if you have any suggestions!

    1. Foreign Octopus*

      I listened to one of the BBC’s In Our Time: Culture podcasts this morning on Dante’s Inferno that was quite interesting. I enjoy all of the In Our Time series though I wish the host would just let the guests speak uninterrupted as I’d prefer to hear from the experts rather than Melvyn; although, saying that, he always does his homework so he’s not asking layman questions.

      1. Grits McGee*

        I love In Our Time! The gin episode is really great too. I really appreciate that Melvyn isn’t forced to do that thing that almost every other similar podcast does (looking at you, RadioLab), where the host plays “super slow-understanding audience stand-in” and instead assumes the audience will figure things out on their own if they aren’t explicitly explained to them.

    2. LGC*

      I have so many Sawbones episodes I need to get caught up on. (And FANTI episodes. And shockingly, I have yet to subscribe to MBMBaM.)

      Okay, so. Non-murder (but still really graphic content):

      – It depends on how you define “non-murder,” but both seasons of Dr. Death were fascinating. (For almost entirely opposite reasons.)
      – If you enjoyed The Vow, you need to listen to the very first season of Uncover by the CBC. (Which is what I think really kicked off the current wave of interest in NXIVM.) Actually, all of Uncover’s seasons are worth a listen, although I do think most of them have murder elements (Season 5 – or whatever the Satanic Panic season is – is just about murder allegations).
      – Finally, one that lives in my head rent free is Once Upon A Time In The Valley, which is about (famous and infamous porn star) Traci Lords. Because of the subject matter, it’s…very explicit, and deals with sexual violence and drug use.

      Let’s see…now that I got the ones that were super graphic:
      – WeCrashed is about WeWork’s fall from grace. It’s a story that’s been told a lot, but it’s still interesting to have an extra perspective.
      – Bad Batch (which is the third Wondery series I’ve recommended – Dr. Death and WeCrashed are also by that studio) is about unregulated stem cell therapies. This isn’t quite as intense as Dr. Death is, at least IMO, but it still does mention people getting very sick and dying.
      – …like, honestly, I know I’m being a studio shill, but the majority of Wondery’s shows are six-part investigative series. And yes, they did one on Joe Exotic because they needed to get in on that Tiger King money.
      – And now that I think about it…there was another pod series that mentioned the wider world of big cat exhibitors (Cat People, I think? I’m going to have to look it up).

    3. fposte*

      The Taskmaster podcast is going back to the series beginning to cover all the episodes, and I am very excited for a listen and rewatch.

    4. CTT*

      I’m currently trying to knock off all the podcasts from early 2020 off my queue; there are some that I know will involve a higher level of concentration – like a Kaiser Health News analysis of how health care works in other countries – that I usually would save for when I was traveling and had uninterrupted listening time. That obviously has not happened this year, so I’ve got a pile of those.

      One on that list is the last two episodes of “Wind of Change,” which may be up your alley. It’s by Patrick Radden Keefe, who’s a New Yorker writer, about a rumor he heard that the CIA was somehow involved in the production/distribution of this hair metal song “Winds of Change” that was big in Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War. It’s half investigation and half history, and I thought it was super-interesting, but I just haven’t found a good moment to finish it!

    5. KeinName*

      I am not a monster (about a mom from the US who lived in the ISIS capital)
      The Theranos podcast from ABC about the lsboratory industry scandal/fraud

      1. LGC*

        The Theranos podcast from ABC about the lsboratory industry scandal/fraud

        The Drop Out? That one was good.

        (I have still to read Bad Blood, but yeah, that was informative.)

    6. mreasy*

      I am listening to Chameleon now – what a WILD story! You’re Wrong About will always be my top recommendation. They get to the truth of the media storms and scandals of the past, just brilliant.

      1. comityoferrors*

        I found You’re Wrong About recently and I listen pretty much non-stop now. So so good.

    7. Glass Piano*

      Not quite investigative, but with a similar vibe, is The Edge, about the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal. I’m not a huge baseball person but I found it to be really gripping, especially since the journalist doing the podcast is personally intertwined with the events of the series.

    8. Forensic13*

      The Dream is great—an investigative look at MLMs in season one and alternative health fads in the second.

    9. Bobina*

      This doesnt fit the investigative theme, but my podcasts are generally about people because I think people are fascinating. So a good one for anyone who wants is Changes by Annie Mac.

      People in the UK may know her as a radio host and dj, but she started podcasting last year and I’ve really enjoyed them. Essentially its just talking to people who have had big (or small) life events and how that has affected them – and its just a lovely insight into the lives of people who have had interesting things happen to them.

  20. nep*

    Anyone else adore looking at home interior pictures? There’s something about it–not only does it inspire and make me want to tidy up and beautify my space…it’s calming and just brings simple joy, which is especially welcome in these times.
    I used to love birds-and-baking on tumblr, but apparently the curator has made it so only those with accounts can access. Here’s another absolute beauty that I love: https://damn-heavenly-place.tumblr.com/
    Any suggestions for other sites along these lines? I like when the photos are large enough, not just the small grid.

    1. Chaordic One*

      This is something that I can waste a lot of time doing. I’ve never really gotten into Tumblr or Pinterest, but love HGTV and decorating magazines. Some of my guilty pleasures are magazine like “Traditional Home,” “Elle Decor,” “Veranda,” and “House Beautiful.” As a practical matter, I should probably be looking at magazines about cottages and apartments.

    2. Tex*

      Remodelista, Apartment Therapy, Elle Decor (esp the UK version which has a different sensibility than the US designs).

    3. AGD*

      I am the same way. My own house is decorated very plainly (I am a bit of a minimalist), but I love looking at other people’s spaces and choices. I sometimes poke through Apartment Therapy.

    4. Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain*

      Me too! I use apps like Pinterest to “curate” the mid century modern home I’m never going to buy and HGTV Design Home to play at decorating a room based on their requirements. I second Appartment Therapy and add Domino dot com.

  21. Yarn?*

    Does anyone know a good place online to buy soft wool or alpaca yarn? Looking for bulky yarn to make a rug.

    1. nep*

      I don’t have answers for you, but I’m interested–how are you making the rug? Do you have a loom? I am looking to revive a loom we’ve had for years in the rafters of the shed. My grandma made countless rugs on it. I have no idea what’s up there, but I’m determined to lay it all out and see whether / how I can salvage it.

      1. OP for this*

        Hi.

        I was thinking either punch needle or latch hook. I have not used a loom before but would be open to it as well.

        I have a pattern in mind and wanted to do something with that. (Geometric dogs)

        Thanks.

    2. Washi*

      I like Knit Picks! It’s a step above what you would get at a craft store, without breaking the bank (definitely a factor for me with a project like a rug that needs a lot of yardage.) Curious why you want the wool to be soft though? I’ve knitted several rugs and I wouldn’t bother using a fancy soft wool like merino when the bottoms of my feet can hardly tell the difference.

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        Softer yarn will also wear faster, which I think is probably not as good for a rug.

        1. Wishing You Well*

          I’m also concerned about using soft wool for a rug unless the rug won’t walked on. Knitted wool will felt with friction and moisture. I’m more familiar with homemade rugs of tightly-worked cotton.
          Whatever your vision, I hope you find the perfect yarn!

      2. OP for this*

        I have in my mind that wool yarn is scratchy? But that may just be ignorance on my part. I don’t know how much I’ll be walking on it but I can picture my dog napping on it and want it to feel cozy for her.

        1. Pippa K*

          If it’s a small rug for dog naps, you might want it to be washable, so maybe some bulky cotton yarns? Also, Yarn dot com has an end-of-year sale on until tomorrow.

        2. Washi*

          A lot of wool yarn is scratchy right against your skin, particularly sensitive areas like your neck. But in a rug, I doubt even the scratchiest yarn would be a problem. Or at least, I have a rug knitted out of a yarn I would never wear on my body, but it’s totally fine on the feet (and probably for a dog!) Something like Wool of the Andes from Knit Picks would probably work well.

          I haven’t had a problem with the yarn felting, but it does tend to pick up bits of lint and I imagine it would similarly attract lots of pet hair. I don’t have a dog or cat so I can’t really speak too much to the hair + handmade rug thing but you might want to make it out of a yarn similar in color to your dog for that reason :)

    3. DistantAudacity*

      When I crocheted a rug (using a 20mm hook), I bought jersey bedsheets (on sale), and cut them up into one long strip to make up the “yarn”. Good to walk on, durable, quick and easy to make and, with the jersey being stretchy, easy to work with.

      (My design was a simple single-crochet circle, which ended up about 1m in diameter).

    4. DistantAudacity*

      Oh – and to answer your question – I’ve had good experience with woolwarehouse (dot co dot uk) – they ship worldwide (but I’m Europe-based).
      I’ve also got good experience with Rito Hobby, but they are focuse on the Nordics, and I’m guessing that’s not where you are :)

  22. Peppermint Patty*

    I was organizing our storeroom and ran across a box of my high school and college memorabilia. In the box were two of my old journals that I wrote in during my college years. I am struggling with what to do with them. I am mortified to think that when I die, someone will find them and read them. I’m sure there is a lot in them that I won’t even remember anymore and I am really curious about what I wrote. Knowing I am a much different person now, I think I am going to spend some time reading through them, but then what? Do I put them back in the box for the time being? Do I burn them so no one else will ever be able to read them? Has anyone else run across old journals or writings? If so, what what the most surprising thing you wrote? Did you end up keeping the journals or getting rid of them?

    1. nep*

      I can’t stand reading what I wrote in journals from years past.
      I destroy/burn them.
      (Meanwhile I’m little by little typing out journal entries of my grandpa–50 years of daily entries. Of course his content is infinitely more interesting.)

    2. Asenath*

      I kept mine. I’m not going to be worrying if anyone reads them when I’m dead, and in any case, unless you are survived by very close relatives it’s unlikely anyone will read them. I actually went through them all, and found it interesting to see what I was like, how I have changed in some respects and repeat the same unchanged patterns in others – and how my memory of some things differed from what I wrote at the time! But I also had separate places where I wrote the most personal and private stuff and those documents have long since been destroyed once they’d served their purpose of allowing me to let off steam privately. I knew someone who went through their diaries later in life and tore out anything that was too private to leave. And I’ve known people who found reading diaries provided a fascinating view of someone long dead. In some cases, that might be a stranger who wrote well or lived through interesting times, or an ancestor who wrote about the reader’s own family. So there are a lot of options.

    3. Dwight Schrute*

      I toss them. I hate re reading what I’ve written in them so I always throw them out when I finish them

    4. Washi*

      I am team Keep, but while there are plenty of really embarrassing things in my journals I wouldn’t want shared, there’s no deep secrets or anything. Partly it’s because I know it takes ~10 years for me to complete the cycle from writing something, maturing, being embarrassed I wrote it, maturing some more, then finding it fun to look back at how I’ve grown. Like I’m glad I have my middle and high school journals because now that I’m way past that stage, the stuff I thought was humiliating is mainly kind of funny, or at least a learning experience.

      I don’t think I am worried too much about someone reading them when I die, though I would want to leave a disclaimer that I mainly wrote in my journal when I was unhappy, so it’s kind of a skewed look at my life.

    5. Workerbee*

      Depending on your comfort level—

      —my first thought was to fictionalize them and publish a novel! I should dig out my own. They will be mortifying, but maybe useable or at least spark ideas.

    6. GoryDetails*

      I have some of those in the basement somewhere; maybe this year I’ll get around to dealing with them (and everything else that’s piling up down there!)

      It’s fine to destroy them if you want to, but what I’d suggest is browsing through them to see if there are tidbits that might be worth preserving – good memories of family members, holidays, a vignette from a hot summer day, thoughts on the moon landing (if you’re my age or older!), etc. If so, you could transcribe those into a document – or, for nostalgia points, scan the page and use the image directly – to compile your own “best of” memories, to be shared with friends or family if you like.

      Given that this could take some time, especially if you were a prolific journaler in the day, it might not be worth it to you, but I know that in among the embarrassing bits and the boring ones, I have a few tidbits I’d like to save.

      Similar-but-different issue with the collection of letters I have, mostly from my late father, who wrote regularly from the time I went to college until fairly late in his life. I don’t want to just discard them, but have been putting off the “browse for specific bits worth saving/showing to family” – yeah, I do a lot of putting-off these days.

    7. Blue Eagle*

      Interesting question because I just found an old journal of mine. I wrapped it in a plastic bag with a twist tie and tossed it in the trash.
      And for a twist – after my Dad passed I found the old letters that my Dad wrote to my Mom before they were married which she wanted to keep. It didn’t feel right to read them after she passed and it also didn’t feel right to throw them out, so I had them buried with her (near her feet so they wouldn’t show).

    8. D3*

      A friend of mine burned hers. And then super regretted it when her daughter was college age and thought she was the only person EVER to have those kinds of struggles. My friend tried telling her daughter she’d been there, done that, but the daughter didn’t believe it. My friend WISHED she could have let her daughter read them!
      And also, if you think other people’s diaries/journals are infinitely more interesting than yours, well, that’s what everyone thinks. I promise they’re not as bad/embarrassing as you think.

    9. Shell*

      I’ve been keeping a journal and asking myself the same question. I am thinking about scanning it into my computer, and saving with a file name nobody would ever want to open. Specifically, I’m a historian, so I think hiding it among my dissertation files with a name like “whig_party_draft” would pretty much ensure nobody would ever see it.

    10. Generic Name*

      Ooh, interesting question. I used to journal fairly regularly starting from about age 8 going into young adulthood. Sadly, I stopped journaling when my relationship with my ex husband started getting serious. I’m not sure why, but I now wonder if I had kept up with my journaling practice if I would have recognized how toxic my marriage was earlier. Anyway, I started journaling again sporadically about 3 years before my marriage ended. Once I divorced, I started journaling more regularly on the advice of my therapist. It’s a good way for me to process my feelings, and I enjoy going back and reading earlier entries. I’m married again now, and it’s really lovely reading my entries from when we were first dating. I was a little unsure of being in a relationship with him at first (largely due to past trauma and class differences between us) but he consistently made me feel amazing, and that continues to this day.

      I recently read my diary from high school, and I honestly felt so sorry for 15 year old me. :) what a tough age. I plan to keep all my old journals, and I’ve decided I really don’t care if my grandchildren read my explicit entries about a guy I slept with for one month. I’ll be dead anyway.

      For me, reading old diaries has been a good way to help my personal growth, but if it brings you pain or embarrassment, I say toss ‘em. I had a similar concern over keeping photos and memorabilia from my first wedding. For a while after my divorce, I kept them out of a sense of obligation to my son in the future. Like maybe he’d benefit from looking at that stuff. I actually asked for perspectives on here, and the comment that helped me the most was from a person whose mother had kept her wedding album for decades after her divorce and then showed it to the commenter who said that while they enjoyed looking at the old photos, they wouldn’t have been pining away for them if they didn’t know the photos existed. It was healing and cathartic to unceremoniously chuck them in the garbage. So keep your old diaries only if you want to.

    12. RagingADHD*

      I look through them and decide what to keep or trash based on whether they describe things I’d like to remember and read again, or not. Some stay, some go.

      Not necessarily because of negative or embarrassing things – sometimes they’re just irrelevant or dull. I journal off and on as a way to process things. When something is fully processed, there’s no point keeping it (to me), unless there are good memories or entertainment value. It served its purpose.

    13. Not So NewReader*

      I shredded much of my old stuff like that. It wasn’t helpful to keep it. I never looked at it, all I did was tote it around though life with me.

    14. They Don’t Make Sunday*

      I thought I was going to shred mine, but then I started reading. Although all the stuff I wouldn’t want someone to find was definitely there, I was also surprised to see how I learned something valuable about myself at a pretty young age. Unfortunately, selective shredding isn’t possible. Everything good is inextricably bound up in everything potentially embarrassing. So far I haven’t shredded. Not sure what I’ll do later.

    15. Analyst Editor*

      Save them for you kids, who might inherit your struggles too and might want to know that you too were fallible in youth – and conrstualize it for them (e.g. “I only wrote in this when really stressed, thai is not me 100% of the time” or whatever is true).

    16. Nela*

      I’ve shredded mine. The most surprising thing was reading about my suicidal thoughts at age 13. I completely forgot about that, and it gave me more context for my present time mental health struggles. I was a lonely and misunderstood kid and the journals were painful to read. And when I started dating, that was just nonstop drama. Nobody ever needs to read that.

  23. NotBatman*

    Does anyone with frequently-misspelled last names have recommendations for how to help people achieve the right spelling the first time?

    My last name sounds the same as multiple common nouns, a first name, and a more-popular last name, all with different spellings. This causes me to miss many emails as individuals misspell my last name, not in the least because I work mostly with undergraduate interns who are new to email. (E.g. if my name was Bruce Wayne, then I’d have far too many emails going to colleagues named B. Wane, B. Wain, Waine B., and B. Wayn.) Mnemonics make the situation worse, not better. So far signing my full name and email address at the bottom of every correspondence has not helped. Does anyone have recommendations for how to impress the correct spelling on new interns and minimize errors? Thanks!

    1. AvonLady Barksdale*

      My surname is long and somewhat unusual. People often add a letter at the end to make a German word into an English one. The best I can do is ask people to spell it back to me (usually CSRs) or send the first email just in case. I also remind people to be careful when sending me messages. If I’m expecting an email and don’t receive it, I always call the sender and make sure they spelled it right. I try to keep my sense of humor up because it’s super annoying, but I have people in my life I’ve known for 10 damn years who can’t spell my name.

      Fun fact: my first passport was also misspelled, with the extra letter, and because of the font I had no idea until someone was copying my name and got it wrong. This was pre-9/11 and not an issue (and an easy fix when I renewed) but damn.

      As you might imagine, I am hyper careful when spelling names!

    2. Chilipepper*

      I’m not sure of the circumstances surrounding how you first interact with the interns and if it is only the interns you need to fix this with. But can you point out the problem in some way when you first meet them or as part of the materials you hand out (if you do hand any out?)?

      We have a similar issue at work, we hand out a set of instructions that involves an email that people misspell all the time. When I hand it out, I have a quick script I use. I say, Here are the instructions with the email address. People often misspell the email and the task does not get done, so be careful how you spell it.

      That seems to work to cut down on the lost emails.

    3. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      Maybe bring that up when you first meet them? “My name is Wayne, W-A-Y-N-E, people misspell it a lot and if you get it wrong your email will not get to me, so for both our sakes, please double check when you are emailing me!” I’m not thrilled with that wording, but if someone I would need to email told me up front they often have a problem with people getting their name and subsequently their email address wrong, I (no, that’s LastnameSON, not LastnameSEN) would totally understand. :)

    4. Janet Pinkerton*

      I certainly don’t have any advice for the first time, but I usually have success when someone calls me Janice in an email (despite my name being Janet in my email address and signature) with saying, right before email signoff: “By the way, my name is Janet, not Janice.” It usually embarrasses people into remembering.

    5. Sylvan*

      I don’t stress about it in print. People who misspell your name while it’s in writing right in front of them would misspell anything. Correct it once or twice, bluntly, and then move on.

      Out loud, I spell it out whenever someone needs to write or type it. It’s one letter off from a well-known last name, so if someone’s having a hard time, I say “It’s Othername with an extra X” after spelling it out.

    6. aarti*

      I also have a frequently misspelled last name (there’s no “e” and everyone loves to add an “e”!)

      The one thing I’ve found that works well is when someone starts in my department (or somewhere like HR or security), I email them first, something like:

      “Hi this is Aarti Correctlyspelledlastname. Wanted to share my email, as it’s really common for my last name to be misspelled and I can miss your important emails. Feel free to save this email as my contact. Looking forward to working with you!”

      Once my email is saved in their system, it pops up when they start to type my name and I don’t have to worry if they know the correct spelling.

      Since you’re working with interns, I think this makes it even easier. I’d send all new interns some sort of intro email and ask that they please reply so you know they’ve saved your email correctly. I was worried when I started doing this would rub people as pushy, but I think with interns you have a lot more leeway to demand certain behaviours. Plus you’re doing them a favour. People have lots of different last names and having some attention to detail about it will help in their future careers. Best of luck!

    7. LQ*

      Saying it right up front is very helpful for this. “It’s John Johnson, there are lots of other John Johnson’s in the email system so please make sure you use john.johnson@emailaddress, anything else will go into the black hole of email and I won’t be able to help you!” If this is a mailed letter you’re expecting email responses to I’d include a slightly less jovial version of that. Or is there another way of handling the physical to email? (I know no one likes qr codes anymore but…) If it’s digital to email then make sure it’s always a link.

      I think that this is something you can’t just expect people to figure out because it’s so easy to correct and so weirdly hard to get right. You have to tell them.

    8. CC*

      If there is a common misspelling, could you claim that incorrect name email & have it auto forward to the correct email?

      1. NotBatman*

        The issue is that people often type in part of my name, the server autocompletes a different coworker (e.g. Wayne Jones or Bob Wane @companyemail.com) and they do not double-check that they’ve got the person before sending. If the email addresses were unclaimed, then senders would probably catch their own errors in time.

        1. Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain*

          I’ve had that for years at my university and all us “Bruce Waynes” in our various spellings have just gotten to forwarding on the emails to the intended person and cc the sender…”Hi Bruce Wine, I believe this might be a question/info more suited for you. Cheers, Bryce Wynn.”

      2. PostalMixup*

        This is what I did for my personal email address after I nearly missed an important document (ironically, they misspelled my last name but spelled it correctly in my husband’s email address, so we still got the info we needed). We have one of those German “two Ns at the end” names that people like to truncate to a single N. I set up the one-N address to automatically forward to the two-N address.
        But our surname is unique enough that there’s only one other person at our large multinational employer (yes, we work together) with the last name, and that person is on a different continent, so it’s not really an issue for us at work.

    9. Chaordic One*

      If you’re already signing your full name and email address at the bottom of every correspondence, I don’t know. I guess you just have to make a point of constantly reminding people and correcting them, which is a PITA.

      I have a fairly common last name that is not spelled the way it sounds. There are quite a few celebrities sharing the same last name, but people don’t seem to make the connection. (The name has a silent consonant and an extra vowel in there.) Think of a name sounds like “Wooster,” but that is spelled like “Worcester”.

      I can always tell when a telemarketer calls, because they inevitably butcher the pronunciation of the name.
      Sometimes I will tell people my name is pronounced like “War-Cess-ter” so that they will hopefully spell it correctly. Often that doesn’t help, but sometimes it does.

      Curiously, when I had my DNA analyzed by Ancestry.com, I found I have some distant cousins who spell our last name exactly the way it sounds (think Wooster).

    10. Epsilon Delta*

      I spell it out. My maiden name was a long Dutch monstrosity and people didn’t know what to do afterthry got past the “van” part, so they welcomed it. My married name is mercifully shorter but has a lot of letters that get confused for other letters and is kind of hard to understand if you hear it spoken. So I use something close to the Nato alphabet when I say my last name. Example “B as in Boy, Y as in Yeti, Z as in Zebra…” It’s annoying but really cuts down on misspellings.

    11. Not So NewReader*

      What I have been doing and now I am seeing people at work do it- is to just spell the whole email address out each and every time.
      I am not exaggerating when I say a person will spell out “bob smith @ email.com”. I thought, his name is Bob Smith, how hard can this be? Well apparently for some people it can be very hard and they conclude on their own that the speaker said, “rob smyth @ email.com”. I guess getting the habit of spelling it out each time is not a bad habit to have.

    12. RagingADHD*

      I have a short but often screwed up surname, and I spell it aloud with one or two slightly unusual letter designations, like “B as in Bungee” or “L as in Lemon”. The rest will be ordinary ones.

      Or else I’ll use one of the common nouns it resembles, but alter it. So if it were Frack, I’d say “It’s like fracking without the -ing”. (Sorry, couldn’t think of a better example off the top of my head).

      Seems to help, because people I have done that with nearly always get it right from then on. I think the slightly unexpected tweak makes it stick.

    13. Jay*

      My last name has only four letters and people get almost all of them wrong. It’s compounded by the fact that my first name is a common name with an unusual spelling. People remember “something is weird about Jay’s name,” can’t remember what, and decide to adjust the last name instead of the first. One of the letters in my last name is also easily misunderstood over the phone. I automatically spell it “N-as-in-Nancy, A, M-as-in-Mary, E”

      At this point I am direct about it. “Since people often have trouble remember the spelling, I remind everyone to double-check before they send me an Email.” With new folks I use it as an opportunity to show them how to use the lookup function in Outlook (which seems to be a mystery to a lot of people). I also will offer to send them an Email first so they can put me in their address book (and then show them how to do that if needed).

    14. Sunflower*

      It’s odd you’re dealing with this in the context of email. Your last name is in your signature. People should know if they want to spell your last name right, copy and paste from that. It doesn’t seem like this a matter of you have an odd last name, it’s that the interns don’t understand etiquette.

      Of course it’s fine once in a blue moon but generally if you are emailing someone and all of their contact information is right there in front of you, there’s no excuse to get it wrong. I think you’d be better off explaining that if you don’t know a person’s name spelling from memory, that you should copy and paste and sending emails with spelling errors is unprofessional.

    15. tangerineRose*

      Can you tell them about the problem and also send them an e-mail and suggest they use that address?

    16. Seeking Second Childhood*

      Sympathy! My name is one letter varied from a very common one, with one pronunciation difference to go with it. When I tried to give people a cultural reference for spelling, it mucked up their pronunciation. So I just say “it’s a variation of $CommonName” and spell it out slowly. At work I used to say “so-and-so get each other’s email frequently”….and that seemed to help people watch for pre-fill errors.

  24. Dwight Schrute*

    Has anyone used Curology before? I just started my one month trial after battling adult acne for what feels like most of my adult life. I’m hoping this helps! I find it embarrassing to be an adult in a work place and still struggling with acne.

    1. Holly the spa pro*

      Ive not used Curology personally but wanted to drop in to say that adult acne is super common, which is not a huge comfort but just know that you arent alone. Especially now, people who never or rarely struggled with acne are having a huge resurgence due to wearing masks.

      That said, have you ever seen an esthetician and gotten professional facials? I would highly recommend that for acne just because there are so many individual factors to consider for which ingredients will work best for you. Are you oily acneic? Dry acneic? Cystic? Horomonal? Sensitive? Combination? Youd tackle all of those different ways so its really helpful to have someone see and touch your skin up close. Professional facials also give you access to treatments that you wouldn’t be able to do at home.

      Please update on how the curology works for you though. Id love to hear about it.

      1. Dwight Schrute*

        I have in the past! I opted for curology because no in person visits and the convenience of having it mailed to me, and it’s fairly affordable. It’s been a while since I’ve last had extractions and peels/facials done.

      2. KoiFeeder*

        My dad’s in his sixties and still gets acne. It’s not as bad as it was when he was a teenager, but it happens. His is hormonal, and spiro’s contraindicated for him, so he just has to live with it but I’ve never noticed anyone acting like he should feel shame or guilt about it.

        Now, I also have bad acne that I can’t get rid of, so I’m also very interested in the curology results.

        1. Dwight Schrute*

          It’s something I’ve always been self conscious about but it got worse after my face temporarily cleared and my former boss commented on it!

      1. Dwight Schrute*

        Yay! I’m hopeful it will work for me! So far my face just feels really soft which I’m enjoying

      1. B*

        I struggled into my early thirties. I worked with teens in the legal system. It was tough. My dr put me on accutane. It has been life changing.

        1. Dwight Schrute*

          My friends have tried accutane and unfortunately most had to stop using it because of side effects. Their skin looked great though!

  25. Ginger Sheep*

    So this is a long shot, but maybe worth a try. I am trying to identify a cartoon/movie I saw when I was a kid, of which I have no recollection whatsoever, but whose theme song became incorporated in family lore. The issue is that it sort of became a mashup with Casper the friendly ghost, and with our family pet, so it’s become hard to identify the original motif in our version of the song. So our family song goes « [Some name] the ragtime cat, friendliest cat can be, he’s going to the city where the good times are to see what he can be ». I’ve tried online searches of several variations on the latter half of the sentence to no avail. Due to family circumstances, we are definitive we saw it in Canada between 1985 and 1989 (but it could easily have been an older rerun). I would be very grateful if any commenter here has an idea of what it could be!

    1. Come On Eileen*

      There’s a good subreddit for stuff like this called Tip of My Tongue. If you don’t get any good leads here, maybe try over there!

      1. Ginger Sheep*

        I really can’t remember anything… It seems to me the main protagonist was some sort of animal (a cat? A bear?), and that there was something about a tree in the song as well. (I have a feeling it wasn’t positive – either he’d been scared up a tree, or others made fun of him because he lived in a tree? I’ll try to dig further in my memory, but am not very hopeful.)

    3. AGD*

      If nothing turns up here, TVTropes has a page called ‘You Know That Show…’ that exists to crowdsource the identification of things like this. Might yield suggestions!

    4. GoryDetails*

      The first one that came to mind was “Top Cat” – I don’t think “ragtime” was in the lyrics, but the general tone seemed similar. If you search for “top cat theme” you should get a clip of the song, to see if it’s the one you’re looking for.

      1. Ginger Sheep*

        What a good suggestion – and it worked! I’ll have to check further but I’m fairly sure it’s Banjo the woodpile cat! I’ll confirm later on.
        The commentariat here is really amazing !

        1. MissDisplaced*

          I love that this worked! I didn’t think there were really all that many animated cats from that era, which probably helped narrow it down.

          I personally do not remember Banjo the woodpile cat, but yeah Don Bluth had a lot of characters.

    6. Not A Manager*

      Felix the cat, the wonderful wonderful cat. Whenever he gets in a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks.

    7. Ginger Sheep*

      Thanks everyone, you are wonderful ! The cartoon is « Banjo the Woodpile cat », a 1979 animated short by Don Bluth, and the actual lyrics are « Banjo the woodpile cat, as good as he can be, is off to the city where the good times are to see what he can see / Banjo the woodpile cat, he’s always up a tree, is off to the city where the good times are to see what he can be! »
      I’m so relieved I found the answer, I’ve been searching on and off for the origin of that song for over a decade!

      1. AGD*

        Hurray! I love being able to solve ancient personal mysteries like this. I spent 20 years looking for one video series before a clip finally showed up on YouTube.

  26. fposte*

    Ugh, ice. We got iced up here on NYE and branches are still coated, so I’m guessing walking surfaces are too despite their innocent look. I have Yaktrax but am still nervous about going for a walk, which I usually do several times daily and missed very much yesterday. My driveway has a slope that I’ve slid down before so there’s no real noncommittal exploration possible. Any ice negotiation tricks or tips?

    1. LGC*

      Walk like a penguin. (Which I’m guessing you already do – I’m assuming since you have Yaktrax, you have more experience with ice than I do.)

      Other than that…I just want to commiserate! Yesterday morning I made the mistake of running at 6 AM across two grade crossings (two commuter rail lines merge in the town just south of mine, and both lines cross the street). I learned that rubber apparently freezes before asphalt. It wasn’t even that cold – it was 25 degrees.

      1. fposte*

        Oh, man, and there’s a little extra added thrill when anything goes wrong in a crossing!

        I’m going to hold off and see if things melt a little by afternoon, since right now I’m not even seeing dog walkers out. We’re unfortunately expecting ongoing precipitation and temps that waver between just above and just below freezing, so I may get my money’s worth from the Yaktrax.

    2. Reba*

      There are reddit forums for these kinds of questions that might get more eyes on it. :)

      If it was an old cartoon, you might poke around the Cartoon Research blog by Jerry Beck and see if anything rings a bell.

    3. Miki*

      Use Yaktrax! Trust it, I climbed on the frozen waterfall with Yaktrax. Make sure they are on your shoes correctly, and take them off before you shred your floor/carpet. Also have a ziplock bag to store them/carry around.

        1. Miki*

          It was a smallish waterfall in Turkey run State park (Indiana). Lots of canyons where you can walk around in the summer. A couple of years ago we had a very cold snap and I figured it would be nice to go: that time I didn’t bring Yaktrax and promptly slid off the waterfall (no injuries, aside of bruised ego) Photo of where I fell: https://photos.app.goo.gl/3Y6iXACEhtgDt7ER7 Next weekend I came prepared: Yaktrax on, and had a wonderful time passing all other people that were sliding left and right on the trail and finally having to bail.
          https://photos.app.goo.gl/5Zpfe1pe25sjL7fE8 It’s a very popular park, with lots of fun trails.

    4. LQ*

      If you have grass walk on the grass. Anything but sidewalk if you can manage it. Yaktrax are great if you can get traction, but they can be more slippery on barely slicked smooth sidewalks, you’ll be lots better off going for anything that looks crunchy. If there’s snow with ice walk on the icy snow. Don’t walk with your phone in your hand or your hands in your pockets, keep them out (ideally well mittened up) as balance tools. If you have hiking poles or ski poles take them. If you have a bad moment they can keep you upright. I’ve snapped one or two, but better the pole than my bones!

      Don’t wait and go after peak of the day if you can, go earlier or at peak, the thaw and re-freeze is dangerous.

    5. Myrin*

      A complete tangent but I just had that weird thing I experience all the time where I misread “NYE” as “NYC” and was like “… wait. I’m pretty sure fposte isn’t from New York?!”.

      1. fposte*

        Correct! And I bet NYC would have throughly salted surfaces so I might not have this problem there.

    6. Purt’s Peas*

      Do you have any dirt or snow you can walk on to avoid the icy pavement? Those surfaces will be better on yaktrax than pavement will be. Plus in the future—I used microspikes when I went out to walk around Lake Superior a few years ago, and those are REALLY effective on thick ice and icy dirt. Dangerous on pavement, but they might feel more secure than yaktrax on a slope.

      1. fposte*

        It’s all pavement, unfortunately. The upside is that if I do faceplant there are people around.

    7. Stephanie*

      Shuffle like a penguin and put the YakTraks on shoes with good traction. I used them with my winter boots a lot in grad school in Pittsburgh (which is hilly and icy in the winter) when I had to walk or take the bus to campus.

    8. Wishing You Well*

      Wear socks OVER your shoes to walk on driveway ice – if you must. I’ve tried it with cotton socks and it WORKED!
      (Still can’t believe it but it was the only way I got back to the house on a sloped driveway!)
      As for a walk on ice, wear wrist and elbow guards in case you fall. This is not the time for an injury.
      Best Wishes for Smooth Sailing

    9. Doreen Green*

      As someone currently recovering from a concussion as a result of slipping on ice, I encourage you to be cautious! It’s not worth it!

    10. fposte*

      I went (I saw dog walkers out) and the surfaces were okay (though they may ice up again tonight). It was pretty wild. I could hear the tinkly rattle of ice shivering off of the trees, and I saw a startling scene on the grass of long rows of tubular ice pasta—about 1” diameter by 4” in length—and finally realized it had blown down from neighboring utility lines.

    11. Mella*

      Yes, don’t do it. My wrist has never been the same since my fall during the Valentine’s Day ice storm of 2018. Losing a few days of exercise is better than permanent ligament damage.

    12. ThatGirl*

      You’ve gotten good tips, but just a quick funny story from me.

      It’s been snowy and just above freezing here, and I walked out to the mailbox to get the mail today, with my old Uggs on. Crossed the snow, thought the pavement was clear, skidded and totally did the arms flailing and wheeling about for what felt like a full minute before I regained my balance and made it to the mailbox. I felt like a cartoon character!

  27. Venus*

    How does your garden (planning) grow?

    For those in the southern hemisphere, do you have gardens that are growing well?

    In a month or two I will start growing my seedlings, and I am wondering if I should plan for more than my typical tomatoes and maybe a few herbs.

    I am thinking this year that I will do raised beds in a new part of my little yard. I have tried for several years to grow tomatoes between the asparagus, because they are so wispy and I didn’t think they blocked much light, but any plants in those areas fail to thrive so I can only conclude that I should maybe add more asparagus and definitely give up on that area for anything else. I will likely have work done on the inside of my home this spring / summer (planned for last summer but delayed a year) so I want to have something manageable outside as I expect to be distracted and tired with renos.

    1. fposte*

      It’s still early, but I’m thinking about winter sowing some veggies. I am amply supplied with containers this year and have had good luck with starting flowers that way. And I have plenty of containers this year, that’s for sure.

    2. LQ*

      I’m still doing the indoor gardening. I’m on the same cherry tomato plant for about 5 months now and still producing quite a bit! I’ve got 2 more growing up to replace it but I’m getting a meal’s worth a week or so.

      I don’t know about asparagus all that much but I know when I was little and we grew a lot of it, nothing else got grown in the asparagus area. Some things we would put together, but never anything with the asparagus. It also gets…wild, so I wouldn’t trust it around anything else. More asparagus!

    3. Seeking Second Childhood*

      I fwas finally able to put in my little box of daffodil bulbs after Christmas. (Weekday w*** hours were crazypants for most of fall….then we froze… happily the area where I wanted to put them is downhill of the roof runoff so it defrosted along with our snow. Fingers crossed they don’t rot.
      I’m planning to take up the little white garden rocks from the 2 beds alongside our front walk. Two patches that are about 2.5x6ft long (almost a meter x 2), and almost full sun–rocked up. If it turns out to be total bedrock under that, I’ll either do raised beds or brick it properly so I can roll planters in & out after we get too old to lift them. Just no more weeding gravel beds for me.
      I’m going to have to move tender perennials around to make space for seedling trays–thanks for the reminder.

    4. GoryDetails*

      My trio of high-end amaryllis bulbs are sending up stalks and showing healthy buds. I ordered them too late for them to bloom for the holidays, but it’ll be nice to see them during dreary, icy January! [That is, if the cats don’t knock them down; I’m having to set up protective barriers to keep them away from these new “toys”.]

      My Aerogarden crop of mixed lettuces is at about 20 days and already has a nice crop of leaves large enough to start harvesting – not for a whole salad yet, but it’s lovely to grab a tender leaf or three as a small snack. And the bright light and green-and-red leaf colors are very welcome as the ice/snow/slush mounts outside.

    5. Hotdog not dog*

      Asparagus roots are heavy feeders, so anything you interplant with it won’t get enough nutrients. I top dress the asparagus bed with compost at the beginning of each season so it keeps giving me a nice healthy quantity of new shoots each year.

      1. Venus*

        Thanks, I feed the asparagus with compost yearly and there is a lot of space between them, so I thought it might be okay (they form a perimeter of a larger area). But I think I will just add a bunch more in the middle and abandon greater ambitions.

    6. Girasol*

      Did my Christmas day seed selections and vegetable garden map for next year. I did my own tomatoes from seed on the windowsill last spring, successfully for the first time ever, so I’ll try that again this year. I can’t get any of my favorite old reliables from my favorite seed seller this year so I’m branching out to Brandywine, a fairly common heirloom, and a specialty one with the fabulous name “Pink Berkeley Tie Dye.” Every year I plant something new – last year it was woad and salsify – so this year I’m trying a new short season celery. I’ve never had luck with regular long growing celery but I do love celery. Meanwhile there’s a dusting of snow on the garden bed and nothing out there except last year’s woad all mulched to winter over.

      1. Me*

        Have you considered lovage? It’s a perennial but can be used in place of celery. Mostly the leaves but you can use the stalks too. It’s stronger so I use less than I would if I had celery.

        I bought a lovage plant from a farmers market quite a few years ago. One fall I gathered the seed pods before the rains started and then put them in the fridge. It won’t self seed here because our winters are too mild. But a bit of artificial cold stratification gave me many more plants, many of which I gave away.

        Anyway it’s a tall showy plant that takes zero effort each year other than tying a string around the stakes beside where it’s planted. It wants to tip over once it gets to about 5’ or so.

    7. PX*

      Some of my bulbs are sprouting already! I’m so excited to see new life. Its the Duch Iris and Ranunculus which I planted in mid November. I planted the anemones late, but looking forward to those as well.

      I also ordered some grasses and a hosta bare root which I planted but obviously are still pretty dead for the moment, so just anxiously waiting for the days to start getting warmer and lighter so I can find out if my vision for the patio will come true.

      I also have some seeds I’m attempting because why not. Attempt #1 has failed I’m pretty sure, but have a few more so will see what happens.

      The only cherry tomato plant that was fruiting has finally died, the other one still looks healthy-ish but not a single flower has formed at any point, so I’m basically just keeping it for…entertainment at this point I guess?

    8. The Other Dawn*

      I’ve been thinking a long time about a large flower garden in the side yard, something to match the time period of my house (1735). I’ve now realized I really should get going on the planning. I don’t even know how big I want it to be, though I definitely don’t want something small. When I go to Old Sturbridge Village or Colonial Williamsburg, I really enjoy walking through the gardens, so it would be something along those lines.

    9. RagingADHD*

      I pulled out the catalogue and started planning yesterday!

      We have guinea pigs now, so I’ll be dedicating more space to lettuce, cucumbers, and making another attempt with bell peppers, which I haven’t has success with in the past.

      Then our normal tomatoes, green beans, carrots, and summer squash. Maybe try again with okra. We had a good run with okra for a few years, then a bad summer for bugs. Time to try again.

    10. Not So NewReader*

      This was an interesting question to me, so I did a quick google. Apparently asparagus are among a few plants that just do not want anything else near them. Like walnut trees can chemically choke out other plants so can asparagus. There’s not a lot of research on this and most of it is lore or word-of-mouth info. It sounds to me like your conclusion is correct. Have a dedicated asparagus bed and that is all you have in that area.

    11. RagingADHD*

      Oh, no – asparagus and tomatoes are both heavy feeders, so I wouldn’t think they’d do well together.

      I have heard of interplanting strawberries with asparagus. Haven’t tried it myself.

      1. Venus*

        Good to know about strawberries, I’ll look into those! The asparagus form a wide perimeter and I feed with compost so it wasn’t an unreasonable option, but I know to give in when mother nature is telling me what doesn’t work.

      2. Me*

        It’s totally normal here in the PNW. We have mild winters. We did have a night of freezing weather last week so I made sure the bed was well covered with straw.

        I usually feed my garlic in February.

    14. Em*

      We’re getting new raised beds this year. We did some work on our house this summer and our yard was destroyed. I’m going to do our new garden plan today or this week. I’m super excited!

      I’m planning on using plant starts from a local nursery, but hopefully in the next few years I’ll transition to seeds. I have tried to use seeds for a late summer second planting of winter vegetables…but my very curious son got into container I was starting them in and destroyed everything. I was surprised–he is a fantastic helper in the garden. But I guess they didn’t look like plants yet…

      What do you all use to start your seeds?

      1. Nita*

        Raised beds are great! I tried for the first time last year. Started most of the seeds right in the beds, and very late (late May and early June) but still got a pretty good crop of beans and tomatoes, and even some zucchini.

      2. Me*

        I have a rack that I bought from Lowe’s. Just one of those stainless metro racks- maybe 6 shelves, 4’ long shelves. I added casters to the rack. I also bought 4’ LED light fixtures from Lowe’s. Nothing fancy, just basic LED. Think: shop lights.

        Anyway I hang those from the top of each shelf using chain and hooks, so they can be lowered right down to the plants and moved up as they grow. For the very top shelf, I just plop the light on the top of the rack and put really tall things there.

        When I start things, I use flats- the kind that you’d find at a nursery. I buy the ones *without* the holes in them. Once things sprout, I move seedlings into individual 4” pots (unless I’m doing micro greens and then those just stay in the flat). I’ll up-pot plants like tomatoes and peppers usually one more time, putting them in the gallon or larger pots.

        At first I’ll only need to use one shelf of the rack and then I’ll suddenly need all of them. Things grow fast. I have a partially underground unfinished basement that stays about 3 degrees cooler than the rest of the house. I start them down there, because it’s easy.

        I harden off on a covered porch for a few days, bringing them in at night. Not everything gets hardened off at once- tomatoes and peppers get hardened off towards the end of May.

    15. Me*

      I bought seeds last week, just to fill in the ones that I was running out of. I keep my seeds in two big plastic 4×6 photo sorting boxes, each one has about 18? smaller boxes in it.

      I still have three Birdie beds in my basement, unopened and certainly not set up. I just couldn’t get it done before winter, and we’ve nearly bought a different house twice this winter. I’m finally convinced we are staying put so I’ll clear off the space for the last three beds and get them set up, likely during the month of February when things warm up briefly. I have 5 set up already so I’ll have 8 total. I think I could fit another two in the fenced garden area but I may just coast this spring and stick with what I have for now. I’d really like to get a short one for potatoes but I may just get another tall long one instead, because my knee really hates bending right now.

      I’m reworking my herb garden this year. I kinda lost it amongst the alpine strawberry plants last summer so I need to hack out a bunch of those and find the herbs again. I’ve left part of that garden unplanted and I think I’m going to (over)commit to thyme. I use a lot of it, and my one thyme plant just isn’t enough. I’m also going to put some rosemary plants just off the front porch in the south facing bed. I’ve been growing annuals there but it gets quite warm and sunny there so the rosemary should thrive. I’ve been clipping some from my brother’s bushes whenever I’m over there. His rosemary bushes are huge and he doesn’t seem to use them much!

  28. IntoTheSarchasm*

    Seeking input on exercise equipment. We used a NuStep recumbent stepper at our gym and liked it very much, being very out of shape, but we have moved shortly after discovering it and no longer have access. We have looked into purchasing one but the price is daunting, cheapest model is north of 3000.00 USD and used ones are rare and often old/no longer supported for repair if needed. We prefer a stepper over a bike d/t to hip mobility issues, something with limited rotation is preferred. We found a Physio Step HXT which has less rotation that seems like a possible option, wondering if anyone has experience with this machine or can suggest something similar. Input is appreciated and thank you!

  29. HannahS*

    I’m buying a lemon tree! A dwarf meyer lemon. I’m soooo excited!

    For the outdoor plants, we have a tiny balcony (it’s literally 18 inches wide) so not a ton of room, but it’s south facing. I’m thinking some cherry tomatoes, in addition to the herbs we’re trying to keep alive indoors right now. It’s tough, because we’ll likely try to move in May or June, which will necessitate moving the plants. So I’ll reign in my excitement and limit myself to maybe two cherry tomato plants and some basil; they co-plant well together. But oh, I can’t wait until we have enough space for tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, eggplants, peas, radishes, potatoes….mmmm.

    What’s your favourite cherry tomato that’s suited to a container garden?

    1. Venus*

      I grew whatever cherry tomato was available from a local seed company, as it happened to be an heirloom and I hope those are sturdier. I think almost all of them tend to do very well with enough sunlight.

      I look forward to lemon updates! Good luck.

    2. Tris Prior*

      Red Robin does really well in containers, in my experience. Small, squat, thick plants that produce well.

    3. Nita*

      Cherry tomatoes are relatively hassle-free. Usually I save some seeds if I’m eating one and it tastes good. They always come up very nicely. The hard part (for me) is making sure they have enough light and water. If you have a nice sunny spot, they shouldn’t give you any trouble.

  30. Sleep Number Mattress*

    Sleep number beds! Tell me the good and the bad! How has it held up? Good for heavier people? Light people? Extra-curricular activities?

    1. Beautiful Dreamer*

      I have had a C4 sleep number bed for almost 10 years now. I consider myself a meduim person at present, but I have had 100 pound weight swings in both directions while using this bed and I have enjoyed being able to adjust the firmness on the fly. I have found that, for heavier people who like a non-firm mattress it is possible to “bottom out” in the center depression, and they’re basically sleeping on the floor. My dad had that issue, and so my parents did not get a sleep number bed. But, that had not been a problem for me.
      There have been no extra curricular activities in this bed, so I can’t speak to that. I have the Forever Alone (single chamber) version so it acts very much like the high end air mattress that it is.
      The main issue I’ve had with the bed is that the seasonal temperature swings of my home state affect the firmness of the mattress. As in: when I get in the bed it’s saggy due to being filled with cold air. I firm it up to my sleep number (55) and fall asleep. My body heat begins to warm the air in the chamber causing it to expand and I wake up in the middle of the night on a slab so rock solid that I can feel my hips and shoulders starting to bruise. I adjust the air back down, and the cycle repeats most nights, all winter.
      I don’t regret getting my sleep number, but I am starting to consider getting a memory foam topper as, like I said before, it’s been nearly 10 years and the minimal padding it came with has compressed pretty completely now.

    2. Holly the spa pro*

      If you have to share the bed with someone, i dont recommend it. Epsecially if there is a large weight differential or if you like to be close in bed its not a good choice, imo

    3. Jay*

      We are on our second. The first lasted about 15 years, and during that time we both weighed north of 300 lbs. We love it because we have very different firmness preferences so he can have his (IMHO) way too soft mattress and I can have my (in HIS HO) hard-as-a-rock side. When the first one died, we had no question about buying a second. Not crazy about their sales approach, which tends toward the pushy upsell, but love the bed.

    4. Call me St. Vincent*

      My friend has an adjustable one and says that the base is very, very heavy. Like so heavy you can’t move it at all. She wanted to replace the rug under the bed and her husband said she had to wait until they buy a new bed because it’s literally impossible to move!

  31. Seeking Second Childhood*

    Home accounting 101 question: learning it as an adult & teaching a young teen. I’ve been tracking my teen’s allowance on the calendar since initial lockdown. I’d like to set it up more formally because I never was taught good money-management skills, just to be frugal (*bordering on tightwad).
    Where do I begin? There’s so much online it’s overwhelming.
    As a side note this is a kid who loves math and problems with perfect answers so I’m thinking it’s worth introducing her to business finance.

    1. Chilipepper*

      Why do you want to track her allowance? Shouldn’t she do that? Not sure what you mean, tracking what she spends it on?
      I’d suggest an app like Mint or others, there are many good ones! Try them out. My son, in his 20s, found some focus on what you have left and others on what you spent and he preferred one over the other.

      I would also recommend the book The Index Card as a good financial 101 tool. It covers all the basics of good financial planning so that your teen has an idea of what is coming in life.

    2. GoryDetails*

      Are you looking for tools or tutorials (or both)? I’ve used Quicken to track my own household expenses, and found it very easy to use and quite helpful. (I did drop it back when things got so tight that I couldn’t bear to look at my bottom line any more – ironic, as that’s when the software would be the MOST helpful – and once things improved again I didn’t pick it up, so I don’t know how the latest versions are, but there should be a mix of tools and tutorials with the software. Also, graphs and charts!)

    3. fposte*

      Do you have access to Excel? Just playing with it is a great teacher. There are sample budgets and budget templates available to start with, and you might turn her loose on the household finances as well (on a read-only basis). I agree with The Index Card as a read, too.

      1. Kiki*

        Seconding Excel. My parents are both accountants and made us use excel from an early age to track our earnings/savings/etc. The experience was helpful both for my money management and my knowledge of excel, which has been helpful for every job I’ve ever had. I also personally liked this approach compared to specialized worksheets and tools because it made me realize I was managing my money on my own– I didn’t need help. But everyone is different!

    4. CatCat*

      The book “Blue Chip Kids” is targeted to young teens and teaches about money. Super good book.

      YNAB (“You Need A Budget”) is great for learning budgeting skills and definitely something a teen could learn.

    6. AGD*

      Thank you for this question! I’m going to be up against the same thing – all I was taught was to be extremely careful with money, and I grasped that so early and firmly that I never learned how to budget.

    7. Seeking Second Childhood*

      Sorry I edited out some early morning rambling and took out too much explanation. I literally mean tracking the total of what she’s saved, not what she’s spending it on.
      Because all of us are working & going to school remotely, there’s not much cash used in this house anymore. We write down down her allowance instead of handing it to her. We write down when she gets us to order something online for her. With no casual shopping or street fairs, she’s saved up quite a bit. It’s just long past time to move it off the calendar — if nothing else, we’re into the new year and a new calendar.
      And when I say I didn’t get any training …. I mean I never even got taught to balance a checkbook. I’ve just kept a bigger buffer than would be needed if I were good at this. And got lucky that I’ve never had a crisis that required me to be careful. I don’t wish that on anyone else.
      I’ll track down “The Index Card” as a first step and see if that’s part of what’s in there — thanks.

      1. KR*

        I think a checkbook and the two of you looking up how to balance one together would work fine if you want a low tech option. She can “deposit” her weekly allowance and make “withdrawals” when you two buy something online or give her cash.

      2. Green great dragon*

        Ah yes, I do much the same (and you remind me I’ve got a deduction to make). A spreadsheet does fine for us – really simple just to keep a running total with date/what spent on*/amount/running total.

        *as she’s reasonably maths literate I’d definitely put in a couple of cells of explanation – say ‘clothing’ as a category and ‘orange hat’ as item, then if _she_ wants to track her spending all the info’s there and she can do anything from spending by category/per month to charting patterns over time, as her interest and Excel skills dictate.

      3. Malarkey01*

        Not sure how old your child is, but I’d second the idea of opening a bank account. We’ve gone so far as to also get a credit card with our son as an authorized user. Translating money in an account to using a card/phone online or in a store and then paying a Bill was crucial for us and him. It made money “real” in a way that’s a struggle as so many of us move away from physical bills and online ordering can seem like it doesn’t involve “real” money. So many cards have apps that allow you to monitor things if you’re a little worried in the beginning about their level of responsibility.

    8. Girasol*

      Do either of you use spreadsheets? Although there’s financial software out there, I prefer a spreadsheet designed to track what I want to know. What do you want to know? You could help her set up a simple spreadsheet that shows how much she gets each week and when, if it’s saved, there will be enough for something she wants. You could expand it to subtract her spending, so if she wants to buy something this week, she can see how much longer she’d have to wait to have enough for what she wants. For adult financial tracking we use one to categorize everything spent on our credit/debit cards (utilities, groceries, medical, etc.) so I know where our dollars go and can budget. Then we can figure out how much we can save and how that will grow with interest. If your child is old enough, perhaps she could do some of that work and begin to get a handle on household finance. I wish my folks had started me early on that.

    9. Stephanie*

      I third YNAB! Their method really worked for me for earmarking funds and seeing my actual spending. Should be easy enough for a teen to use. You could also just work on zero balance budgeting with her in a spreadsheet. It might be good to have her figure out a reason for the savings, if that makes sense. I was never great with having savings for a nebulous purpose and if you gave me $10 or $1000, I would have only a vague of idea of what happened to it. Even something vague like “this is my money for if I get laid off and it needs to be $X” was more helpful than “I need to have an emergency fund.”

    10. Dan*

      I’m not entirely sure what you’re after here, but I’ll try…

      I grew up pretty broke, but my dad was adamant about saving money. When I had jobs (where I grew up, you could get restaurant jobs at 14, and we lived in a big tourist town) dad made me set up different sets of savings accounts for “short term” and “long term” planning.

      As an adult and a mathematician, I do think an area where we fail as adults and that we should be teaching kids in age appropriate ways is the financial value of money over the long term. I mean, most people know about “the power of compound interest” and inflation in the abstract, but that’s about it.

      What we don’t do is teach people how to compute these things outside of college level finance classes. But with college as expensive as it is now, knowing how to compute what college is likely going to cost when your kid gets there, and how those bills are going to fit in your kid’s long term financial planning is kind of important. So I’d think about teaching how to actually do that math. Along with it comes retirement investing and things like that. “Everybody knows” that the sooner you start that 401k, the less per month you need to save to make that nest egg, but can people really do that math?

      I’m going to go out on a limb here, but if I were working with a numbers geek kid and trying to teach them money math, I *might* consider trying to teach the Financial Math exam that actuaries have to take. I studied to become an actuary at one point, and my recollection that the math behind the FM exam isn’t all that hard, it’s just that there’s a lot of it and it’s very precise. Bonus: If the kid likes this stuff, being an actuary is a pretty good career.

    11. Jessi*

      Why not just open her a bank account – one account for savings and one for spending? Then you won’t need to keep track of it all at. I would encourage you to read the barefoot investor, both for your own personal interest in finance and to help teach your teen.

      The barefoot investor is an Australian guy, so his book is made for an Aussie audience. This means its both very easy to read, and that some parts won’t apply to you unless you live in Auss. I am a kiwi who lives in the UK and still found this book life changing for my finances

    12. Generic Name*

      I set my son up with a teen bank account at our credit union. It’s set up as a joint account with mine so I have full access to it (but I never withdraw money from it). I like it because it’s really easy to transfer allowance to his account and he’s learning how to use a debit card and now he can walk to the convenience store and buy stuff with his own money. Since I have full access to it, I can see when I’ve paid his allowance. I’ll have to check to see if it removes me as a joint owner automatically when he turns 18 or if I’ll have to go do that myself.

      1. Enough*

        You will probably have to remove your name. But the process is more likely to be close the existing account and open a new one.

    13. Jr. Woodworker*

      Just wanted to second (third?) looking up The Index Card. I’ve a similar background to what you describe (very frugal but not financially literate) and it was a very useful read, lots of foundational knowledge. Also helped with my confidence re: finances a lot :).

    14. Lady Alys*

      The website vertext42.com has lots of budget spreadsheet templates, including at least one for kids – search for “kids-money-manager” on the site.

    15. OyHiOh*

      Check with your bank, especially if you bank with a credit union. Many financial institutions have financial literacy for teens programs, either live/virtual classes, or workbook style materials.

    16. Banker here*

      I would also recommend a kids saving account. You still technically own it until the child turns 18 and you can set up access for your child. Then you can transfer money to the account and your child can learn to use a debit card or transfer back to repay you as you purchase items at their request. Need Wallet would be a good resource to look into one that best fits your needs, such as where you live, access options, etc.

  32. My Brain Is Exploding*

    Movies suitable to watch with parents? No sex scenes, very little violence, very little bad language. (Just watched The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and it was FABULOUS! )

    1. Chilipepper*

      I just watched Knives Out and enjoyed that.
      A helpful way to find similar titles is to look up a movie you like in Amazon and then look at the “customers also bought” and “customers also viewed” recommendations.
      We have Novelist at the library for finding book recommendations (in case that is ever relevant to you).
      There is a website that makes movie recommendations, I’ll post in a reply. It is bestsimilar dot com.

        1. WoodswomanWrites*

          I poked into this thread and I’ve never heard of that website and plan to check it out. Thanks for the tip.

      2. Coenobita*

        Knives Out is also my suggestion! There’s, like, adult themes and stuff but it’s PG-13 and utterly charming. I’m super picky about movies – I think this was the only movie I saw in theaters in the past two years or so – but I loved it and I’m looking forward to watching it again now that it’s on streaming.

      3. PhyllisB*

        AARP does a write-up titled Movies For Grown-ups. I don’t know how often it’s published, but you might check on their website to see if there’s some in the archives. They usually have some good titles mentioned. I remember watching Shall we Dance? with Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon after seeing it mentioned there. It was very good. Calendar Girls was also good. (You may want to read what’s it’s about. Has no bad language or sex, but if they’re conservative it might be a bit much for them.)
        Does anyone besides me think it’s funny that while our parents used to screen movies for us now we screen movies for them? The circle does turn.

        1. allathian*

          Yeah, it is odd. I doubt they have any illusions about their kids not knowing what sex is or what swears are. It’s just that watching some things with your parents can feel uncomfortable for both the kids and the parents, even if none of them are particularly conservative in their viewing habits otherwise. It’s a bit like humor, I admit that my sense of humor is pretty immature in many respects, but that doesn’t mean that I’d want my parents or my boss to see me laughing at off-color jokes.

          It’s been ages since I’ve watched any movies with my parents, I don’t remember doing it since I moved out at 19, with the sole exception of going to see The English Patient with my mom and sister in 1996 when I was in my mid-20s, and that was because either my mom or my sister had some free tickets. My dad doesn’t like watching movies for some reason, I don’t think he’s been to a movie theater very often since he and my mom were dating in the late 1960s, definitely not since he took me as a preschooler to watch some cartoon reruns from his own childhood at a local movie theater. I’m not sure how often, if ever, he watches movies on tv, although he has mentioned James Bond so probably sometimes. My mom watches British crime shows and period dramas (both of us enjoy Poirot and Downton Abbey), documentaries, sports, and the news. My dad pretty much sticks to documentaries and news most of the time. My mom used to go to the movies once a year with her coworkers until she retired, but I must admit that I have no idea what kind of movies she likes… Maybe I should ask!

        2. My Brain Is Exploding*

          This is for a friend and her parents and partly about awkward watching with your folks (they live with her). But the same applies if we were watching with our own adult kids, no one wants to watch steamy love scenes with their parents OR their kids! Also her parents prefer not to watch violence/sex/bad language (they do not use bad language at all), although friend is more open to it. It’s not about screening as much as selecting things they would enjoy.

        3. Esmeralda*

          Haha, my sweet 80 something mom has always loved murder mysteries and horror. Just sent her Parasite on blue ray. She’s gonna love it.

    3. Dwight Schrute*

      The newer Jumanji comes to mind! Clue but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it so I can’t remember if there was bad language or not.

    4. All the cats 4 me*

      Fisherman’s Friends

      Ten fisherman from Cornwall achieve a Top 10 hit after they are signed to Universal Records by a cynical London music executive.

      Heart warming, great music, we thoroughlyv enjoyed it.

    5. Llellayena*

      My parents enjoy movies that are adaptions of historical/real events. So Filomena (sp?), Lincoln, Monuments Men and similar movies. Can’t guarantee no violence or cursing, some of them are war settings, but many are more drama and people. Depending on your parents general interests and age, some of them might cover events they’ve lived through (Apollo 13?).

    6. ???*

      Enchanted
      Sense and Sensibility (the Emma Thompson version)
      Dave
      Pride and Prejudice (Keira Knightly)

    7. pieforbreakfast*

      I watched First Cow last night and enjoyed it. When I last spent time with my mom, almost a year ago, I remember watching and enjoying Judy, Zootopia, and The Two Popes.
      She’s also a fan of Christopher Guest movies- Best in Show, Mighty Like the Wind, Waiting for Guffman.

    8. Squeakrad*

      Saving Mr Banks – A fictional story of how Disney worked with the author of Mary Poppins.

    9. Seeking Second Childhood*

      you & your parents? or your kids and you?
      Things that have come up in the last 15 months that we & our 14yo all loved —
      Abominable. Karate Kid. Namiya. The Spy Next Door. Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Coco.
      One that I’ve read but not seen and the book “felt” like Guernsey — “Miss Pettigrew Lives for the Day”.

    10. Voluptuousfire*

      I like Grumpy Old Men and Grumpier Old Men. A little bad language, slight nudity (Jack Lemmon sitting for a sculpture his wife is making) but overall a hoot.

      The best scene is when Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau’s characters are fighting like they did as kids and Jack Lemmon’s
      Characters’s dad breaks it up and is like “damn kids.” The two characters are 70 and the dad is 94. LOL

    11. Lindsay*

      Little Women (new or 90s), Pride and Prejudice (miniseries or movie), Knives Out, Bright Star, Emma (new one), Yesterday, Pixar movies (Soul was good), The King’s Speech, Jane Eyre, Bend It Like Beckham, Blinded by the Light, Billy Elliot (ok there are a lot of f words but the movie is really not objectionable otherwise), Coco, the Untouchables, the Walk, the Princess Bride, the Princess Diaries, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Ever After, Enchanted, The Secret Garden (90s one), the first couple Harry Potter films, Flight of the Navigator (or basically most stuff on Disney Plus lol). These are all things I’ve seen fairly recently that aren’t objectionable.

      1. PhyllisB*

        Yes, my 90 year old mother and I loved Little Women (the recent version.) I didn’t really want to go, having seen it years ago, but she did, so off we went. So glad I did, it was great. We also liked Murder on the Orient Express. I could kick myself for not going to see Knives Out. I didn’t know any details, but the title made me think it was a ninja movie. By the time I found out different, it was too late. Also A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood was good.

    12. Cheesesteak in Paradise*

      * Hunt for the Wilderpeople (moving)
      * The Biggest Little Farm (feel good)
      * Leave No Trace (this is sad tho and feature a PTSD major plot point)

  33. Anono-me*

    Happy 2021!

    I received an Alexa for Christmas. I like it, but am having some difficulty with playing music by specific artists. For example, I ask it to play songs by ‘June Carter’, I get songs by both of the Cashs instead. I ask for songs by the ‘Lady A’ or the ‘Original Lady A’ and I get songs by Lady Antebellum instead. (I know that I
    could request songs by a specific Album name and then on to the next etc., but I like just having a mix of one artist playing all afternoon without having to babysit my sound.) Does anyone have any advice?

    Thank you for your time and any advice.

    1. fhqwhgads*

      I don’t have one but my understanding is its algorithms should adjust to you in particular the more you use it. So without any info, it assumes when you say those things you mean the most popular result. But I think if you do intentionally request specific songs or albums, repeatedly for a while, after having done so it will be more likely to interpret the prompt the way you mean. Especially if you never otherwise play the other stuff. It might take a few weeks though.

    2. Dan*

      I ditched my amazon prime music hd subscription, mostly because of the things you’re getting at. If I wanted to play music by an artist, it would play one song by the artist and then start playing random crap by whomever. And most of the time, the subsequent tracks weren’t anything like what I was trying to play.

      I stopped after the free trial.

    3. Doctor is In*

      You can create your own playlists, name them and tell Alexa to play your (named) playlist. If you find Amazon Music doesn’t find the artist/songs you want you might consider upgrading to Unlimited. You would think 2 or 3 million songs would be enough but we upgraded to 10 million and it always finds what we want.

  34. GoryDetails*

    Reading thread! What are you reading to start the new year?

    I just finished the beautiful – and wrenching – THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END, by Adam Silvera, a YA book about two teens who meet after receiving notice that they’ll each die that day. [This is set in a world where such notifications are a fact of life, despite there being no logical way that could work. It did make for an involving story, though, as we get glimpses of many characters whose lives are affected and/or ended on the same day.] I read it via audiobook and totally fell in love with the characters.

    Then there’s THE SILENT TRAVELLER IN BOSTON by Chiang Yee, a Chinese poet and calligrapher who wrote a series of personal travel books in the ’50s and onwards. This one’s from 1959, and features lovely illustrations and a charming sensibility about the author’s experiences visiting Boston – really delightful. [And poignant, in these “shouldn’t be traveling” days…]

    And my current audiobook is MONSTER, SHE WROTE by Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson, about women authors of speculative fiction, including well-known names like Mary Shelley and Edith Wharton, and more obscure ones as well – a fount of titles-to-add-to-the-wishlist!

    1. AdAgencyChick*

      I didn’t quite manage to finish “The Glorious American Essay” compilation in 2020 — I wrapped it up yesterday — and am now starting “Me” by Elton John, which should be a much breezier read!

    2. Blue Eagle*

      Just finished reading – The Big Door Prize by M.O. Walsh. It dovetails nicely with your book in that the small town recently got a DNAmix machine that would use a swipe of your DNA to reveal your “Potential Life Station”. The book follows several people and some of the stories are quirky but the changes people make in reaction to their “potential life station” provides funny comic relief.

      1. GoryDetails*

        The Big Door Prize does sound interesting – and a more upbeat spin on the forecast theme. [The description of the way it works sounded a lot like the stories in the marvelous “Machine of Death” anthologies, in which people learn HOW they’ll die but not when; some truly marvelous and inventive spins on the basic concept in that collection, and even though they all do involve death, some of them are surprisingly heart-warming.]

    3. Loopy*

      I was gifted the Mistborn trilogy (fantasy series) after a few people raved about it. Anyone else read it? I’m about 130 pages in and liking it but still curious as to what’s got people over the moon about the series. Hoping its just too early for me to be at that stage!

      1. Annie Moose*

        Oooh, I am a massive Brandon Sanderson fan, so I’m always excited to see someone else reading his books. Without giving anything away, his books are infamous for the “Sanderlanche”… the endings tend to ramp the tension up and have a bunch of plot twists or otherwise unexpected turns that nevertheless make perfect sense in retrospect. The second Mistborn book (The Well of Ascension) has my favorite plot twist/reveal of all time.

        If you can correctly guess the ending of the trilogy… well, I’d be very impressed!

      2. LDF*

        I was kind of over it by the middle of book 2 honestly. I did finish the trilogy to see what the hype was about but greatly disliked almost everything by the end. I don’t want to tell you to stop reading it if you enjoy it though. Without going into spoilers, I think the worldbuilding spirals into an overcomplicated mess and as a leftist feminist I dislike the themes by the end.

    4. TextHead*

      I finished Ready Player Two. I really liked it! The pacing was faster, though, and I think the first book was better. I read the criticisms of the book after the fact and don’t disagree with most of them, but none of that took away from my enjoyment of it.

      I’m currently reading The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, which is a short story collection by Stephen King. It’s quite good!

    5. udon the day away*

      I’m reading/re-reading all the Alan Garner and Robert Macfarlane I can get my hands on.

    6. tangerineRose*

      Wow, those books sound intense! I’m re-reading a cozy mystery called “Murder she barked” by Krista Davis. It’s a fun read.

    7. Monty & Millie's Mom*

      I finished Hench today, Alison’s recommendation from a couple weeks ago. I liked it, although not usually my thing. I think I’m going to purchase it, though, it’s TOTALLY up my husband’s alley!

    8. Sparkly Librarian*

      Started 2021 with American Royals, a bit of fluff — and I’ll be checking out the sequel. Next up: Conversations in Black (interviews by Ed Gordon) and Small Island. I have a half-full book basket left over from 2020.

    9. Foreign Octopus*

      I’m reading A True Novel, by Minae Mizumura. I’m not sure if it’s good yet but it’s definitely interesting.

      As I’m trying to read more short stories this year, I’ve also got Fragile Things, by Neil Gaiman on the go for when I’m waiting between lessons or only have 15 minutes to spare.

    10. Seeking Second Childhood*

      I spent a chunk of Christmas to New Year’s Eve reading some YA fantasy — the Bayern series by Shannon Hale. (GREAT strong female leads in all 4 books of the series. If you read them, realize that the publisher pushed for the characters to be made younger than the author originally intended for market focus. I learned that after reading “Goose Girl” so I re-read — and it changes the feel of the storyline for me for the better.)
      Now back to some non-fiction: “Brick: A Social History”, by Carolyne Haynes, and “Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames”, by Lara Maiklem

    11. Smol Book Wizard*

      I have been giving another try on the Lymond Chronicles, by Dorothy Dunnett (first one, The Game of Kings)… I read the first book twice and the second book once in high school but really failed to click with it. It’s very much a “rousing adventure tale about a witty, amoral scoundrel who turns out to have deep feelings after all” type of book, which is not my usual type. But the writing is good enough that I very much want to continue anyway – and goodness only knows it’s time I stretched my Plot brain a little more, my writing could use it. Haha.

  35. Kay*

    Happy 2021! Trying to remember the title/author of a novel I read as a kid. It was probably a gothic type romance of the 70s/80s.. Was old when I read. Anyway what I remember of it. – the heroine returns to a place where there are horses. She is pretending to be someone else who is afraid of horses when she really is quite a good rider. Not sure why but it’s been driving me bonkers to figure it out…

      1. Kay*

        Thanks…. Didn’t think of Mary Stewart.. Plot sounds similar but I thought it took place in US…. Maybe not remembering right.

      3. Weegie*

        Definitely The Ivy Tree. It has a Canadian back-story. Brilliant novel! Uses Josephine Tey’s Brat Farrar as an inspiration.

    2. PX*

      Ahh. This sounds vaguely familiar (or the plot has been re-used) but I definitely couldnt tell you who its by. As others have suggested, Reddit can be really good for this if you want to try there?

    3. MissDisplaced*

      If you Google “a gothic romance novel with horses” and view the image results, you’ll see a whole bunch of book covers. When this happens to me, I can usually recall the artwork on those older paperback novels as they could be quite dramatic!

    4. AGD*

      If nothing else, Loganberry Books in Ohio has a site where you can pay $4 and post an ad for this kind of thing.

    5. Volcano*

      Could it have been “Ring of Fire” by Anne McCaffrey? It’s one of her few non-SF/fantasy novels. I only read it once but your description made me think of it.

      1. Seeking Second Childhood*

        Do you mean “Ring of Fear”? That’s got a disturbing enough situation that I would think readers would remember it especially from teen years.

        1. Volcano*

          Oh! Yes! That’s the one I meant. (It’s very appropriate that I subconsciously changed it to “Ring of Fire” given my user name!)

  36. Coenobita*

    Covid vaccine content below, skip if you don’t want to talk about it!

    I have an ethical question about getting the covid vaccine. (Let’s not make this about politics or vaccine safety/efficacy, please.) I’m a lay/non-clinical volunteer for my local medical reserve corps. I’ve been helping out a bit with a county covid vaccine clinic, where they’re currently vaccinating EMS, firefighters, and other high-priority municipal employees. My job is to run around and do stuff like bring more band-aids to the nurses who are doing the real work. It’s fun – as a public health nerd, I love getting an inside view of this sort of thing and of course it’s a good cause. But I also have a day job and can’t do it very often.

    As a volunteer helping with the clinic, I get moved WAY up on my state’s priority list to get vaccinated. In my “real life,” though, I’m rightfully at very the bottom of the list as a healthy 30-something with no caregiving responsibilities and whose day job is fully WFH (not to mention that I’m white and financially comfortable with good health insurance, and live in an urban area full of well-resourced hospitals). My spouse has to work in-person in an office a couple days per week and we go to the store when we need stuff, but other than that I basically have no exposure risk.

    In my shoes, would you take this opportunity to “jump the line”? My dad (an actual doctor) says it’s justified for public health reasons, almost as much for modeling good public health behavior as for actually increasing the number of vaccinated people. But, like, I don’t deserve it. I’ve mostly been sitting on my butt doing non-essential work and feeling guilty this whole time. What are your thoughts?

    1. Blue Eagle*

      If you get COVID, you aren’t going to be able to help out at the clinic, are you?
      Shouldn’t that be your answer.

    2. Llama face!*

      I understand wanting it to go who those who need it most. On the other hand, I think it does make the whole community a little safer with each person who gets the vaccine so it isn’t just a “selfish” choice to take advantage of this opportunity (in quotes because I don’t think it is really selfish). One other data point from a fellow healthy 30-something: it appears that our demographic is more likely to get long COVID symptoms so that is also something to consider when making your choice.

    3. Courageous cat*

      It sounds like you’re still getting exposed to nurses who are getting exposed, yeah? If so, just take it. You’re supporting the people who do all this stuff, and it sounds like your job is important enough to them that they want you to not get sick, so it doesn’t create a wave effect.

      1. tangerineRose*

        That’s what I think too. Seems like you’re at more risk than most because you’re around the clinic a lot.

    4. Alex*

      If you are continuing to volunteer, you should get it. There is a reason that they want to vaccinate their volunteers! They want their staff vaccinated. It doesn’t matter if you are carrying bandaids or performing complex medical procedures.

    5. MissGirl*

      Interesting question. I just read that my state hasn’t yet distributed more than half the vaccines that they received. There are delays in who and how. So I’m not sure that by you skipping it that it’ll go right away to the next needy person. If they allot 500 to your group and only use 490 how quickly would those ten be redeployed or would they simply go back to storage for a bit and in the meantime more come in. It’s hard to say.

    6. fposte*

      I don’t think it’s jumping the line. It’s not like the virus will swerve around you at the clinic because you have a different paid job. It’s about proximity, not paycheck. To paraphrase Alison on another matter, go get your shot.

      2. Coenobita*

        The idea of the virus swerving around me made me laugh! “I’m not a clinician and feel guilty about it- so YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” Maybe that is the real secret to stopping transmission. :)

        The clinic itself is SUPER safe – tons of thought has gone into the spacing, ventilation, number of people per hour who can come through the space, etc. Also everyone is on their very best behavior because it’s so high-profile (we actually had a little briefing about it like “do not even THINK about coming within six feet of someone if you don’t have to, the last thing we need is for someone to post a picture of us looking unsafe”) and because it’s a closed clinic not open the public. I’m sure there’s less exposure risk there than in the grocery store. But you have a good point, of course.

        1. Grey Barrier Reef*

          Other commenters may or may not agree with me (and I’m curious to see those opinions), but I run these clinics and it worries me that you feel like it’s “super safe”. It’s not safe. It is as safe as they can possibly make it.

          You are seeing many many high priority people every day. They are at high risk of having been exposed and being infected already. This is not safer than the grocery store (tho probably safer than being a worker in a grocery store). Real risk is present, and the healthcare providers there know this (both during the every day routine vaccination, but also when adverse reactions occur).

          I’m moderately concerned that you don’t understand the risk – if everyone feels that way, it can be very dangerous *and* I do think that we have an ethical obligation to make sure workers including volunteers understand the risk involved. If you don’t, I worry you are a risk to yourself, others and also that you haven’t made an informed decision about your presence and contribution.

          1. Coenobita*

            No, that’s fair. It feels “super” safe relative to the horrible, absurd covid-denier situations that I encounter (online) via my day job and the people who walk around the grocery store not wearing masks and my in-laws who won’t stop eating indoors in restaurants and the staff in my 94-year-old grandma’s assisted living place who have to work in multiple facilities to make ends meet so they’re bringing the virus with them between jobs. All risk is relative, no? It feels safe(r) to be around people who take things seriously and can take steps to reduce risk to the best of their ability. This particular clinic is also a safer setup than others I’ve seen in the past. I deal with statistics and risk calculations on a daily basis and do understand it mathematically and practically (if not, perhaps, emotionally when it comes to my own self-worth).

            1. Grey Barrier Reef*

              Yes, I get it 100%. I’m immersed in it but I still oscillate between understanding it from a population perspective and seeing and processing it as an individual. I think we all do. I hope I wasn’t too curt, my filter got clogged and discarded sometime mid April.

              PS I have that stamp!

              1. Coenobita*

                Definitely not, I really appreciate your comments! Understanding from a population perspective
                vs. processing it as an individual is exactly where I’m at, especially since most of the time I just sit at home over-thinking things (like this!) :)

    7. The Other Dawn*

      You’re volunteering with a medical reserve corps and working alongside nurses. Just get the vaccine and don’t even worry about getting it earlier than you normally would have.

    8. BRR*

      Get vaccinated. It’s for the overall public good and it’s important for your position. This sort of reminds me of people who feel guilty about surviving lay offs. Your feelings about this a make complete sense but i would 100% get the vaccine if I was you.

    9. Blackcat*

      “I’ve been helping out a bit with a county covid vaccine clinic, where they’re currently vaccinating EMS, firefighters, and other high-priority municipal employees.”

      I frankly want anyone who is coming in contact with vulnerable people–which obviously includes those assisting with vaccine administration!–to be vaccinated. It’s not about protecting you, it’s about protecting those who you are coming in. Honestly, if you are offered the vaccine, I think you have two choices: take it and continue your (great!) volunteer work, or decline and stop volunteering.

      1. Coenobita*

        I think if they had offered it to clinic personnel in advance, I’d take it with no hesitation! But the first responders/frontline health staff are still a higher priority than me, so I won’t get my appointment until *after* they get their first doses. For all I know, I’ll get mine after my day job’s schedule heats up and I can’t volunteer anymore. I think that is where a lot of my weird feelings are coming from.

        1. Miss Pantalones En Fuego*

          Well, even if you can’t volunteer anymore, you will at least be contributing to reducing the risks for your day job and anyone else you encounter in your daily life. Everyone deserves to get the vaccine, you just might get an opportunity to get it earlier than you expected.

        2. Courageous cat*

          You are def overthinking this IMO. Let them give it to people in the order they deem appropriate. It is a good thing you are getting it, and letting your feelings of being over-privileged get in the way serves no one in this instance.

    10. Stephanie*

      Nah, it’s not quite jumping the line. I had a similar thought — I got bumped up to like group 1C (i.e., behind the first responders in the end of the first wave, but before I would have gotten it otherwise as a healthy 30-something) since I have a non-medical non-remote role (I’m a manufacturing engineer and there are projects I work on that have to be done in-person).

      I would trust that your public health agency isn’t letting you get it sooner than you should — plus it’s in the common good to have anyone in the medical arena get vaccinated.

    11. Dr. Anonymous*

      Logistics aren’t perfect. Take it when it’s offered. We had a few doses at our large medical group clinic given to people who weren’t in the first group because the designated people couldn’t make it to their appointments and the vial was open. Quick! Rustle around the building and get someone in the second or third group so we can finish off the vial before it goes bad.

      1. Malarkey01*

        My sister and brother in law got vaccinated this way. There were 2 doses left in the vial and they live next door to a nursing home and are friendly with a few staff. The staff called over the day they ran the clinic at the nursing home and said if you can be here in 5 minutes before we wrap up we can vaccinate you (my sister was in the middle of coloring her hair and threw a scarf on it haha). They both feel guilty for “jumping ahead” but she’s a teacher in an economically challenged school and he is a former combat vet- I told them this is just karma repaying them.

        1. Observer*

          To be honest, teachers should have been put higher than they were in most places – while it’s true that schools are not the big spreaders, whenever a teacher gets sick, the impact is very high. Keeping schools – ESPECIALLY in economically challenged areas – running safely is a major boon to the health of the community.

      2. Person from the Resume*

        This! I know of 3 non-clinicians who work for 2 different healthcare providers who have posted on FB about getting the vaccine. AFAIK they were working from home/mostly working from home. One was a social worker not seeing clients b/c her clients were high risk, but I’m not sure they’ll resume home visits until the clients have the opportunity to be vaccinated.

        Logistics! I presume their clinic got a number of vaccines and prioritized their employees. If you don’t get it, I’m sure it won’t go to waste, but it will go to someone below you and not a nurse or doctor at another facility.

    12. Grey Barrier Reef*

      You aren’t jumping the line, you are being vaccinated based on priority. It causes more issues when you second guess the process, as now that priority group has one less vaccinated person, and they’ve spent time and resources trying to get you classified and vaccinated – and you aren’t vaccinated.

      And it sounds like you are prioritized correctly.
      You are supporting and interacting with essential workers, including those who are not yet vaccinated (read: are getting vaccinated by your team). Of course you need to be vaccinated – otherwise you create risk for all those essential people you are interacting with. Put your own oxygen mask on first!

      Things are different if you aren’t prioritized correctly based on guidelines, wherein I think there is an obligation to report actual misclassification so the teams can verify processes.

      Priority groups are broad brush strokes. The team should have mechanisms to check that the system works (generally) and address issues of equity etc. But *you* should just get vaccinated and move on.

      You are a “public health nerd”, but end with the idea that you don’t “deserve” to be vaccinated yet… this doesn’t connect. I encourage you to dig more deeply into PH concepts – what a perfect time to do it!

      Thank you for the work you are doing. You *are* part of the essential team. Source: vaccinating large populations.

      1. Coenobita*

        Thanks, I needed to hear that! I guess a lot of this is just my own hangups about feeling privileged and useless this past 10 months. A lot of my friends/family are “real” healthcare or frontline workers, while I push paper around and don’t use my MPH – but you’re absolutely right that my own issues shouldn’t have anything to do with this.

        1. Not So NewReader*

          Yeah, there’s some over thinking going on here.

          If you were on an airplane and the plane was in trouble, would you pass YOUR oxygen mask to someone else AND still expect yourself to be able to help people?

          There’s a reason why front line people get it first.

    13. LGC*

      It’s not often I say this here, but: your dad is right and you’re wrong.

      I was going to launch into a rant about how I hate that you said “But, like, I don’t deserve it. I’ve mostly been sitting on my butt doing non-essential work and feeling guilty this whole time” when you’re literally providing support to front-line workers for free, but honestly that’s way too much to put on you personally.

      Basically, though, I can make a few arguments about this:
      – The concept of “herd immunity” has been corrupted thoroughly, but before COVID, the premise in human epidemiology was that we vaccinate enough people that diseases can’t spread – whether they’re “deserving” or not. It’s why people get the influenza vaccine, regardless of whether they’re at high risk for complications (like my 88-year-old great aunt who’s a former smoker) or low risk (like me, a 36-year-old runner).
      – There are a lot of people with doubts about the COVID vaccine, so I think that good health behavior needs to be modeled. This is a case where efficacy and safety do play into it – I think people will be more convinced of safety if they see their friends and family getting it.
      – You just stated that you volunteer in a moderate-risk environment (a health care setting, but not with direct patient contact). You don’t work there every day, but it’s still some risk you have in your life. (This is a risk that you should have in your life.) There is a clear reason why you were offered to “cut the line.” It’s not like you magically turn into a different person every time you go to the clinic – you’re still you, and that’s as much a part of your real life as your WFH job.

      Sorry if I got a little ranty (I…actually toned it down a bit here). But dude, you absolutely deserve it – because everyone deserves to be vaccinated ASAP.

    14. Wishing You Well*

      Get the vaccine. You’re an essential worker. (Being a volunteer is irrelevant.)
      And THANK YOU for helping in the pandemic! The nurses are grateful for your help!

    15. Laura H.*

      Ok here’s the thing. Forget your socio economic and raicial status for two seconds. It matters but… what matters more is your volunteering in a field where you are at a higher risk. I think you should get it.

      Ditch the “jump the line” framing-you are assisting in a medical adjacent capacity.

      I’m Covid positive at the moment and I’m still gonna get vaccinated as soon as I am able- likely in general public- but just like I’m stopping my spread now by staying put and adhering to the suggested protocol – you getting vaccinated also helps slow the spread.

      Social responsibility has many forms. In this case, it takes the form of getting vaccinated.

    16. Not A Manager*

      This is a really interesting question. I’m super frustrated by the lack of coherent COVID guidelines in general, toothless “mandates” that are really honor system, people denying science in favor of their own gut feelings, etc.

      If there were one very clear, national vaccination protocol and you happened to be erroneously misplaced on a list, then I would agree with you that you should refuse the vaccine, call the mistake to someone’s attention, and the next person on the list who actually qualifies for the vaccine should get your dose. But that’s not what’s happening. In real life, some front line health workers who absolutely qualify for the vaccine are refusing it. Unused doses are literally waiting for hospitals to decide where to distribute them, because there’s not a clear upstream distribution system for them to be returned into. Different states, counties, hospitals all have their own protocols for interpreting and fulfilling the general recommendations about who to inoculate.

      In this context, I would say that the fact that you are on your clinic’s list in itself demonstrates that you “qualify” for the vaccine, by some definition of the term “qualify.” Your unilateral decision that you don’t qualify isn’t likely to improve our chaotic system, and it would mean one less person with immunity in your immediate medical community.

    17. Parenthetically*

      Get the shot. You’re volunteering at a vaccination clinic. You need to be immunized.

    18. ....*

      It’s not jumping the line if you’ve been given that spot in line by the vaccine roll out plan. If you want it, take it! There’s no way that it can roll out perfectly from absolutely most deserving to least. So if you want it and it’s offered, take it.

    19. Sam I Am*

      I’d get it if I were in your shoes, simply because you volunteer with medical staff who have higher exposure. If your community has a distribution plan, sticking with the plan will help it run smoother.
      I’d also like to mention that some time ago, I worked hard to rid myself about thoughts regarding who “deserves” medical care. We all deserve medical care, and no one “deserves” to get sick. If you’re in the US, as I am, you have been living in a society that puts these labels on healthcare, and I realized I disagreed with this train of thought and worked to break myself of it. I’m a lefty, and have always supported access to medical care, but these ways of thinking about things colored my thoughts none the less.
      Good luck and thanks for your volunteer work for the community!

    20. RagingADHD*

      The clinic doesn’t want you vaccinated for fun. You’re in contact with high-risk people, and they want to keep the system working smoothly by keeping you healthy.

      And they want to reduce the risk that YOU might infect the other frontline workers by being an asymptomatic carrier!

      When they tell you it’s your turn, take your turn. You are taking one set of doses, but helping facilitate distribution of many hundred doses.

    21. Nicki Name*

      Trust your public health authorities. If they’re saying you need to be on the priority list, you need to be on the priority list!

    22. Owler*

      My friend had to deal with this question, and she said that if she allowed herself to be skipped, she would create more work to make sure she got a vaccine in a future round.

      Take it when it’s offered. Fill the gap.

    23. Anon for this*

      I had a similar dilemma, but when asked I was told that the shot would go to another person like me, not someone who I envisioned needing it more. So I had the shot. If offered, TAKE IT.

    24. Cedrus Libani*

      I was in a similar position during the H1N1 vaccine rollout – and I took the shot. I wasn’t a healthcare worker, but I was running around the hospital and potentially exposing people who were at much higher risk. I think that was the right public health decision.

      Now, I could technically play the essential worker card, but I’m not going to. I’m 100% WFH, as is my partner, and we’re both healthy 30-somethings. I will wait my turn.

    25. Venus*

      Don’t take it for yourself, take it because nothing is guaranteed in the clinic even with good precautions (as you say, only lower risk) and people attending your clinic are higher-risk and they should be able to enter a place where people are vaccinated and unlikely to transmit the virus to them.

      If you were to stop volunteering at the same time as you get the vaccine then there is no rush, but you will be better protecting all those who visit you after your vaccination.

    26. Hard cider*

      Since you’re volunteering at the clinic you are supporting your local health care system and potentially exposing yourself to the virus more than you would be otherwise; I don’t think you’re “skipping the line” at all. I am in a very similar situation – also a healthy 30-something, doing non-essential work from home, have good health coverage, etc. When I took the New York Times quiz that tells you where you’re likely to be on the vaccine priority list, it said there would be 286 million Americans ahead of me in line. However, since I work for an academic medical center, even though as a non-clinical employee I’m very rightfully in the last ‘tier’ of those who will be offered the shot, I’ll be able to get it weeks, probably months, before I would if I were doing the same job for a different employer. I have also been wrestling with the ethics and have decided to get vaccinated when it’s my turn. My hospital is getting enough doses for all its employees (our state seems to be doing pretty well with the distribution, from what I can tell so far) and since I’m at the very back of our internal queue I will not be taking a dose away from any of my colleagues who have a greater need. I will be helping us move toward herd immunity in my own small way and by (hopefully!) not having any ill effects from the vaccine might convince some of my more at-risk family members who are expressing reluctance to get their own shots. I hope that’s helpful!

    27. I'm A Little Teapot*

      Get the vaccine. The people deciding those priority lists aren’t just randomly picking people out of the phone book – they have thought it through. And no, they don’t know or care who you are specifically. They said “people doing x jobs need to get the vaccine first.” You are person doing one of those jobs. Thus, you get the vaccine. If you don’t get the vaccine, then you need to stop volunteering. You’d be putting people at risk.

      And you don’t need to feel guilty. That’s your jerk brain coming out. Ignore it. (reference to Captain Awkward if you don’t read)

    28. Observer*

      Take the vaccine. The exact order of priority is far less important than getting the most people vaccinated, and the process is going way too slowly as it stands.

      Obviously if we could have speed AND solid prioritization, that would be ideal. But that doesn’t seem to be happening. So, if you are getting a legitimate bump (ie you are not breaking any rules or saying / doing anything unethical) you are doing a good thing by getting the vaccine. And don’t worry that you are taking it away from someone who needs it more – if that were the case, you probably would not be getting the chance.

    29. Ranon*

      Just get it. The supply stuff we’ll get sorted, the logistics of immunizing people are trickier- if someone wants to put a vaccine in your arm, take it and let them move on down the list. It’s not worth anyone’s energy to try to make super specific decisions about each person, if you meet the guidelines, get the shot.

    30. AnonoDoc*

      The clinical staff 100% need the support staff like you to be able to do their jobs. So you are not “jumping the line” as a favor, they are trying to keep their entire clinics fully staffed!

    31. Cambridge Comma*

      You don’t say what country you are in but in some countries the clinic volunteers are being given leftover doses that would otherwise spoil, say, if someone doesn’t show up for their appointment. So you might not even be taking a dose someone else could use.

  37. clover*

    Starting therapy next week (yay!)
    Any tips/advice for people just starting therapy? Or what to expect from an initial consultation?

    1. Juneybug*

      The first step is the hardest, but moving forward with your mental health journey is so important. Sending a virtual high-five to you!

      Some therapists ask what are your end goals for the sessions – reduce anxiety, deal with a childhood trauma*, figure out a toxic work situation, etc.
      Some will ask about your childhood, parents, family, current activities/hobbies, etc., to get to know you and what your world is like.
      Some will ask what kind of skill sets/tools you will like to develop.
      Some will just listen to you talk and not set any goals.

      *Heads up – talking about trauma could drain you emotionally and physically so take good of your self after sessions. Most of the time (YMMV), I would feel lighter after discussing my issues.

    2. AwkwardTurtle*

      The first few sessions will be a “getting to know you” phase. I think it would be important for you to write down some goals to accomplish or topics to talks about or things to work through in therapy. Ask your therapist how they work with clients or what kinds of therapy they use i.e. CBT, DBT, etc…

      To get the most out of therapy, you have to put in the work. Meaning putting the tools provided in therapy to your everyday life, such as breaking down cognitive distortions and seeing a more realistic point of view.

    3. Llama face!*

      It will depend a fair bit on what style of therapy they do. Usually the initial appointment has a bit more focus on getting info and sorting out the procedural minutae.
      Fyi, it will be awkward at first. It’s fine to ease into talking about things and to tell your therapist if you are not confortable going into a certain subject. And not everyone finds a good fit with the first therapist they go to. If you try a few sessions and are not comfortable with that person/that style of therapy it is totally fine to shop around*. It isn’t a failure or anything. Best wishes in your therapy!

      *assuming availability of multiple practitioners and that you aren’t restricted because of insurance limits, etc.

    4. Coenobita*

      Congratulations! The first step is absolutely the hardest so you deserve kudos for starting!

      Here’s what I wish someone had told me: you should give it a chance, of course, but it is also 100% fine if you are not getting what you need out of it. It is 100% fine to decide that you want a different therapist or that you have achieved what you want and now it’s time to stop. It’s like a job interview – a good one involves both parties deciding if it’s a good fit!

    5. Dan*

      I’m not saying you should know these things Day 1, but the sooner you know them, the more successful therapy will be.

      1. Know what you want out of therapy.
      2. Know what *you* are willing to change about yourself. The answer may be nothing (and that’s fine, to some extent) but if you’re going because you need to improve a relationship you have with someone else, it will be an uphill battle if you are trying to get other people to change without changing anything yourself.
      3. Some therapists are better than others, and you’ll connect with some better than others. There’s no guarantee that you’ll get it right on the first try.

    6. Washi*

      This is pretty naive…but I had no idea when I started therapy how much mental work it would be! If you are older and wiser than I, then this will not be a surprise, but I had almost thought of it like a mental massage. I would pour out my thoughts, the therapist would say insightful things, I would have a series of aha moments, and then I would start feeling better. In my mind it was a semi-passive process where the therapist would be doing most of the work. Probably because this is what therapy often looks like on TV?

      Anyway, I was not prepared for so much of what my therapist said to be counter-intuitive or even just plain annoying! I was really stuck in my ways and depressive mindset, and the CBT stuff irritated the crap out of me at first. And it was so much work!! It was a whole long process where first I had to try really hard just to be aware of my thoughts, then a very long period where I would be belatedly aware of them, then another long period of “use unhelpful coping mechanisms, shoot I’m not going to to do that, course correct, agggh I’m doing it again” to finally now being able to catch myself quickly and shift to a better perspective.

      As someone who has always been a high-performer and authority-pleaser in work and school…it was tough and discouraging at first. I actually took a break for a while in the middle and read CBT books instead of going to therapy (there’s a word for this, bibliotherapy!) I realize now that a better analogy would be getting in shape with the help of a trainer.

      This is not to discourage you, I just wish I had more realistic expectations going in of what it would be like. Getting a handle on my anxiety/depression is literally the thing I am most proud of and it was totally worth it!

    7. L*

      I cried during each consultation but it was a good cry. Don’t schedule anything after the appointment, you will probably be spent. Good luck with it!

    8. Jay*

      The most therapeutic thing about therapy is the quality of the relationship between the therapist and the client. It has to be a good fit. You will know if it’s not. It may take a few sessions to be sure, and it’s totally OK to change therapists. You deserve to be comfortable in that most vulnerable of relationships.

      The initial consult will likely be a bit of getting to know you and a bit of exploring goals. The getting-to-know-you part should be mutual. My therapist also spelled out her cancellation policy and her approach to scheduling as well as how payment would work.

      Good luck. Therapy has been hands down the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.

    9. WoodswomanWrites*

      Pay attention to how you feel about the therapist after you leave the session. Are you comfortable and looking forward to working with them? Are you leaving thinking it doesn’t seem like the right match? While it’s true you can’t always tell after just one session, especially if this is your first time with a therapist, it’s also true that if you don’t feel you’re meshing well with them, that’s important to note. It’s okay to feel like this person isn’t a good fit and you want to see someone else. I knew after the first session that they weren’t the right one. I subsequently saw a different therapist, and they have been perfect for me.

    10. Lena Clare*

      Drink water! Therapy is brilliant with the right therapist, but it’s emotionally draining (or it can be!) so keep hydrated.
      Wishing you the best. This is exciting for you as well as a bit trepidatious I imagine!

    11. All the cats 4 me*

      I suggest asking your therapist how they see the process proceeding? What is their system? How do they measure results? How do they figure out what you want and what you need (which may be different things)? How do they deal with you saying something doesn’t work for you, or you aren’t comfortable talking about something?

  38. Puppy!*

    Ok.
    We are training. She gets all of her meals through enrichment either Kong, lick mat or dispenser or snuffle mat.
    short walks. 2 playdates a day.

    I need more indoor energy games.
    I can’t seem to get her interested in “find it” games. she just doesn’t “find it” even if the treat is super obvious and not actually hidden.
    The best is up the stairs, down the stairs.
    5 months- any idea when she will stop getting up at 5:00 am? Is the end in sight? Last call is at 10:30 pm.

    For those who missed it.
    first comment- pictures of the very good dog.

    2. Coenobita*

      I had a (big!) foster dog whose favorite game was running up and down the stairs. We live in a townhouse and our staircase is against a shared wall – I’m sure our neighbors felt like their house was falling down. Anyway, playing fetch on the stairs can be kinda fun if your setup allows for it to be done safely. You pitch the ball up the stairs like you’re playing skeeball, and the dog runs up after it. This particular dog also liked me to just stand at the bottom of the stairs and shout “boo!” and play-bow at him, then he’d run up the stairs and back down so I could do it again.

      1. Ali G*

        When I first got my dog I lived on the top (5th) floor of my condo building. When the weather was bad and we couldn’t do walks, I created a game in the stairwell. Dog likes to run up the stairs and so I would tell him to “wait” and he would sit and wait for me to then say “GO!” and we’d race each other up the stairs. But then if he got too far ahead, I would say “wait!” again and he would stop, and wait for me to give him the “go!’ command again. It was a great way to get some of his energy out and also reinforce training.

    3. Dear liza dear liza*

      How’s her “stay”? If she will hold it for more than a few seconds, you can play hide and seek, with you as the hider. You’re probably the highest value treat for her so she’ll want to find you. :)

      You can train her to know the names of toys, and work on commands. They are little sponges at that age.

      My dogs love Nina Ottosen food puzzles.

      Re waking up at 5:30- at 5 months, she should be able to hold it a bit longer. What happens if you Keep her crated/ignore her?

    4. Not So NewReader*

      We play chase here. It’s an odd game where we keep switching roles. I “catch” him by tapping him and then I become the one who is chased. I let him “catch” me and then I give chase. He just so gets this game. Just watch on bare floors because they slip/slide. Rugs are better.

      I also throw soft toys and let him catch them. I never did get him to learn to return the toys so I could throw them again. sigh.

      You might be able to teach her some tricks such as roll over. I can’t find it atm but there was a video of a young woman who taught her dog to dance to Queen’s “You’re my best friend”. It was so cool.

    5. Lucette Kensack*

      Why do you need more indoor energy games? What’s your goal?

      I’m guessing it’s something like wanting to tire her out or have some downtime when she’s not asking for your attention. If that’s the case, brain work is going to be way more effective than (more) exercise. Spend 5 minutes several times a day teaching her obedience commands (sit, down, stay, come, etc.) and tricks.

      If she’s nagging you for attention, the mental work will help — but you’ll specifically want to work on a “quiet” or “mat” command. Your goal here is to teach her to be comfortable just hanging out, not needing engagement from you. You’re teaching her to have downtime. For a puppy, that’s going to be really short, but as an adult you’ll want her to be able to spend an afternoon hanging out without bugging you for attention all the time.

      2. Puppy!*

        I will try this. I appreciate the advice. We do training for 5 minutes at a time almost every hour or so. sit, stay. on /off. In (the crate) out. wait. Its just too cold out side for her usual ten minute walk sometimes.

    7. Dog and cat fosterer*

      If you are looking to substitute for a walk then you might try Target Training, where you reward when they touch something. Friends taught their fat cat that it got food if it nudged a ball at the other side of the room and then it would run back to get fed two kibbles when they clicked for success. Youtube videos seem to focus on targeting hands, but I’m thinking of nudging a plastic lid or toy or even a piece of furniture. You start by giving them a treat when they look at the item, then when they approach it, then when they touch it. You can then move it further away. If that works then you could potentially do a variation on Find It, but if the purpose is to get exercise then you don’t need to do anything fancy, just put the item far enough away and get used to a routine.

      I have had my puppy a week and I am starting to question my intelligence and when I will get a full night of sleep again. I love her a lot, as she’s smart and sweet and the perfect balance of confidence with submissive, and I knew it would be work as I have had many fosters, and yet… this one doesn’t have an end date on her time with me, and I am already dreaming of a larger bladder and the end of being bitey and teething. I think the bladder depends on the size of dog and luck, plus take up the water earlier like maybe 7pm.

      Such a good dog!

        1. Venus*

          Yay! It will get better, even incrementally. Celebrate the wins! I’m trying to remember to do the same myself… although I return to work tomorrow, so I will have to be more careful about my time with puppy as I won’t have as much flexibility. We are working on crate training despite the fact that I am not going anywhere, but I know it is so important to ensure they are relaxed even when we aren’t home.

          1. Bibliovore*

            let me know how the crate training goes. mine not so well. we are doing the slow acclimating but she has very little tolerance for it.

    8. B*

      My fav dog game is standing across a field or park from my husband and the. Alternating call backs (with yum treats) our high energy dog loved that game when he was young. Also lazer pointers.

      1. Seeking Second Childhood*

        Oh that reminds me of something that friends did. If there are 2 of you working at home, it might be useful for you too. They’d trained their very active working dog to bring things upstairs (ie small mouth-safe groceries they’d leave in a staging area in the downstairs garage for dog to bring up to the kitchen). They’d trained her to “Go see $OtherPerson”. Third step was to give her an object and “Go see $OtherPerson” so the dog could really run errands.
        Sometimes the object was a note saying “I need to concentrate can you keep the dog with you for a half hour?”
        :) Anything that gives a working dog a job…
        But come to think of it, maybe stick to sending toys back & forth until puppy finishes teething.

      2. Elspeth McGillicuddy*

        We had great fun with the laser pointer. We convinced the dog that the little red dot lived in the air vents and that it was his job to chased it away. It always appeared on a air vent, always disappeared on an air vent, and never broke off in the middle. We’d all be telling him, “Get it, [dog]! Kill the monster!” Occasionally he would go up to sniff the air vents to make sure all was still secure.

        He eventually did figure it out but still has great fun with the laser pointer. It always offends the cats when we are playing with them, then here comes 50 lbs of dog to get in on the action!

        Gaslighting people=no good
        Gaslighting dogs=hilarious

    9. Me*

      We do puppy tennis to reinforce (or in the case of our new puppy, introduce) things like come, sit, down. Two people, each with some small soft and tasty treats (we use string cheese).

      One person stands about 5’ away (move further as they start getting the game), and the person farthest from the dog calls him. (Puppy name): Come! Light and happy, and when he comes, say yes and reward. Then the other person calls, same thing, yes and reward.

      Now smart pups will try to predict who is gonna call next, or maybe just assume they’re going to bounce back and forth. No reward for coming without calling. Fun with three or more people too. When you have two dogs and one is 90 lbs and the new puppy is maybe 10, out the older dog in a kennel else you’ll have a smushed pup, run over by 90 lb older dog.

      We do puppy exercises too. Sit, down, stand, sit, patience for the treat (hold it in a closed hand until they leave it alone and then give it, progress to open handed treat with a “yes” to release), repeat on and on. It’s tiring for a dog to go from sit to down and back up again.

      But hide and seek are super fun. We also have a retriever breed so throwing a ball down the hallway while sitting on the couch: easy peasy and super lazy for us. Puppy however needs to crawl on us so not as easy. Did I mention that two dogs playing together wears them both out, lol?

  39. AlexandrinaVictoria*

    Anybody else dealing with a parent in the advanced stages of dementia? How do you stay sane?

    1. Dan*

      Mine’s probably in the early to mid stages, but 600 miles between us helps a lot for the sanity.

      And, accepting these goes along way:

      1. You cannot make a legally competent adult do things they don’t want to do.
      2. We’re all responsible for our own actions, come hell or high water.
      3. You don’t have to put up with anybody’s sh!tty behavior if you don’t want to.
      4. Learn to develop a thick skin for guilt trips and the manipulative types.

      I divorced a disordered spouse a few years ago, and I had already had to learn these lessons once. For better or worse, they’ve stuck.

      Although, when it comes to a parent, part of your coping strategies are going to depend on whether parent’s spouse is still in the picture, and if you have siblings. If other parent is not in the picture and you’re an only child that lives far away, things will be a bit dicey.

      1. Office Grunt*

        The part about the parent perfectly fits me right now.

        350 miles away, no spouse (nasty divorce six years ago) or siblings of mine that give a shit (I’m by far the youngest, and the only one who maintained contact). He’s currently in a nursing home a state away, but the long-term plan is to get him in a place closer to me, as he’s to meet his granddaughter or my partner.

        1. allathian*

          How advanced is his dementia and how old is your daughter? If it’s very advanced, I would suggest that you don’t introduce him to either your partner or your daughter. He won’t remember either of them. Before long, you’re going to be lucky he’ll be able to recognize you. And if your daughter is older than an infant, seeing an old person who doesn’t understand what’s going on is likely to frighten her, especially if he has any unpredictable angry outbursts, which people with dementia commonly have. Why put her through that when she won’t be able to have a meaningful relationship with him?

          I was in my late teens when my grandmother was finally in a bad enough shape to be put in a nursing home. In the end she didn’t recognize her own son, or her own face in the mirror, although she did recognize herself in old photos from the time when she was in her 20s and 30s. She finally starved to death, because she refused to eat and drink and her veins were in such a poor shape that it was impossible to put a line in. It was shocking to me as a teen, I grieved for her long before the funeral. We lived on the same block, in part to make it easier for my parents to help her, and I spent lots of time after school with her in my early teens. (I didn’t do any extracurriculars, college admissions are decided on a purely academic basis with a few exceptions, but you certainly don’t have to fill your schedule to have a chance of getting into the college of your choice, admissions are based on our matriculation exam and entrance exam results, and in some fields the general suitability of a candidate is assessed; if you apply to veterinary school, working with animals as a volunteer can be a merit.) On the days when I couldn’t go to a friend’s house after school, or invite one to our house, I visited with my grandmother. We enjoyed doing jigsaw and crossword puzzles together and I’m convinced that all this brain exercise helped her to stay functional for as long as she did. When she finally went to the nursing home after walking out in the middle of winter in nothing on except her underwear and getting lost when she’d gone around the corner from her house, she deteriorated very quickly and was dead within a year. When she died, it was a relief for all of us, and I certainly didn’t feel any guilt about that then or ever.

      2. Deanna Troi*

        I usually agree with Dan, but I have to strongly disagree that we are all always responsible for our own actions. Those who can’t wipe their own butt when they go to the bathroom, can’t go up and down stairs because they don’t under the concept of stairs and so won’t lift their foot high enough even when they are physically capable of it, who don’t remember their own name or what they did for a living cannot be responsible for their own actions. It isn’t fair to them to treat them as though they are. They are terrified enough as it is (see my post below on my experiences with my father).

    2. Becky S*

      I haven’t dealt directly but have friends who have. Some have handled issues well, others not so well. The mother of one woman would ask about ‘Pop’ the mother’s father who had died years before….. Is Pop here?? she would ask. My friend would say ” not right now” and the mother would calm down. If my friend had explained where ‘Pop’ really was, it would have been like the mother experiencing his death over and over. It’s arrogant of me to offer suggestion, but take care of yourself (I know, easy for me to say!).
      Find a local support group, try Meet Up or just google and see what pops up. You can probably find groups meeting via Zoom or other software so you don’t have to go out. Those groups will help you take care of yourself.
      I wish you the best!
      B.

    3. Not A Manager*

      I am. It’s sad and difficult.

      If you want to, could you clarify what “dealing with” means for you? Is your parent living with you, or are you their main daily caregiver? Are you trying to navigate the logistics of a parent with impairment who refuses to cede any control to you?

      In my situation, things were infinitely more difficult with my mother when she was impaired but not incompetent, and still wanted to live independently but couldn’t. Her disease is so advanced at this point that all of those issues are moot. It’s still sad and difficult, but nothing like a few years ago.

    4. Hotdog not dog*

      Sanity is relative. We are caring for my MIL who has Alzheimers. It helps to remind myself (and my spouse) that his mom and the lady we’re taking care of are not the same person. Unfortunately, Mom is mostly gone. The “new mom” gets belligerent and likes to argue with my spouse, who also likes to be right all the time. It’s easier to just agree with her and play along as there is zero chance that she will realize, for example, that she is not a 25 year old bride. (She’s anxiously planning her wedding that occurred almost 60 years ago.) It’s easier on everyone if you just talk about flowers or the dinner menu. Definitely make time to step away and do things that feed your soul. For our family, that means we have to pay a relief caregiver so we can have a break. It’s financially difficult, but a necessity. Good luck to you and your family, and hang in there.

      1. Not A Manager*

        I would suggest that it’s also much kinder to the individual to play along. You didn’t ask for input, but I do hope your spouse isn’t arguing with his mother about whether she is actually a 25 year old bride.

        1. Hotdog not dog*

          He actually was. He seemed to think if he could force her to see “reality” he could get his mom back. He has since stopped doing that after a come-to-Jesus talk with her doctor. I wish for both of them that things were different, but for now her mind is very much buried in the past and it just feels kinder to meet her where she is, not where we think she ought to be.

          1. I'm A Little Teapot*

            It’s called therapeutic lying, and it’s a real thing.

            Your husband isn’t wrong to want his mom back, and that’s what makes it so hard. Because he can’t, and won’t get her back, and he has to grieve that. It sucks.

        2. Washi*

          Yes, I work with the elderly and it is absolutely a best practice to be with them in the moment and not try to correct them! So what you describe, like talking about the food and flowers is actually perfect.

    5. Mella*

      Yes. He was forcibly moved to a care home against his/our wishes. The facility has been locked down since March. We try to visit via Skype, but he is no longer verbal, and only whistles and swats at the camera.

      They say they can reopen once they have 30 days with no positive tests, but that doesn’t seem feasible. Cases keep rising. I am trying to mentally prepare for the possibility that we will not see him again.

    6. Not So NewReader*

      It takes a team of people to meet all the needs that are going on. So I hope you are not doing this alone or with just one or two other people. Part of your answer may be to drag in more people if this is the case.

      I’d suggest joining a support group with the idea of finding new ideas for recurring issues.
      It’s possible that you had a poor relationship right along (I did). You may benefit from some therapy for yourself.

      If you had a good relationship, there is still the emotion of grief. We can grieve people’s final illnesses just as hard (and sometimes hardER) as we’d grieve their loss. So perhaps grief counseling would be appropriate here.

      Self-care is a huge topic. I know. There’s not much time for self-care. Here’s a fact- the caregiver can end up dead before the care recipient. Heads up, eyes wide open. We cannot inhale/exhale for other people. If you are working so closely that you feel like you are doing their breathing for them, you are too close. Start stepping back.

      The harsh reality is that we are totally responsible for our quality of life up to our dying day. I could not make my mother chew her food and swallow it. When she decided to play the pocketing game she made yet another self-defeating choice. She won the battle, I did not get her to swallow. But she lost the war in a big way.

      Think about the parallel here. No one could make me take care of myself during this period. Just like i could not make her swallow her food. Likewise, no one can make you or anyone else take care of themselves. All we can do is put it out there- “take care of you”. I could tell my mother she had to swallow her food, but she was the one who had to actually do it. So you are the one who actually has to put the time in to getting what you need in place so you can take care of you. It almost seems cruel, but in order to keep yourself from unraveling by all that you see you have to find ways to get good things into you, such as rest/hydration/foods and nutrition. And do something to help your mind and spirit. These things can be whatever you think is a solid idea. Even a weak, half baked attempt at helping yourself will give you some benefit. It’s not an all or nothing thing.

      I’ve been through my own version of this. From first hand experience, if you feel like you are dying on the inside, it’s well past time to pull in help for yourself and delegate out the help your mother needs.

      1. allathian*

        Like I posted above, I definitely grieved for the grandmother I lost long before she actually died. She starved herself to death. She didn’t know much, but she did know she no longer wanted to go on living. I don’t call that losing the war, I call it the circle of life and death. There was nothing to mourn when she died, just an empty shell. The person I had loved had gone long before and I’d grieved for her.

      1. Rescue Dog*

        Thank you for that essay. It helped deepen my appreciation for my dad’s selfhood as he changes.

    8. Loves libraries*

      I lost both of my parents this wa, 4 1/2 years apart. I would tell my children that even if their grandparents don’t know us , we know them. It helped me as much as them. I also knew that if the situation were reversed, my parents would care for me. So sorry you are going through this.

    9. Washi*

      If it’s communication stuff, there’s a great video on youtube by Kristin Belfy called How to talk so Alzheimer’s can hear you. She’s actually having a conversation with her grandmother, who has dementia, and it’s so awesome to see all these techniques you read about in articles being put into practice!

      I think the hardest thing is letting go of the “shoulds” and “used tos.” I work with elderly people, often with dementia, and it’s so much easier in a professional capacity because I didn’t know the before, just how they are now. With my own family members with dementia (I’ve got a strong family history, woo!), especially the ones I had a difficult relationship with prior, it’s much harder to stay patient and present and flexible.

    10. Bibliovore*

      May I suggest
      Loving Someone Who Has Dementia: How to Find Hope while Coping with Stress and Grief by Dr. Pauline Boss.
      a lifesaver for caregivers.

    11. Deanna Troi*

      I know I’m late, so I hope that you see this. My father has advanced dementia. He is in excellent physical health and has always been extremely fit and a healthy eater. Also, he is in his early 70s. This makes it easier, because it is easier to handle him physically, and he isn’t as much of a fall danger, but also harder because it is more heartbreaking to me that he could live for another 20 years like this.

      The most important thing to remember is that people with dementia are scared. Often all the time. Their world has changed in a confusing and terrifying way. If I can view his behavior through that lens, it makes it much easier to deal with him. The times that I came closest to breaking down in front of him were one time when he said to me in a small voice “I’m scared” and when we first moved him into a facility, he looked down at his hands and said softly “Please don’t do this.” I can barely type that out because it was so devastating to me. But remembering it makes me more patient with him.

      I have special permission to enter his facility as I participate in his care-giving. I get tested regularly and can only go to his room and no where else on campus. I work full-time but visit one day on the weekend. I bath him that day and take him for a long walk. As I said, he is in good shape physically, and can walk briskly for a couple of miles. I work from home, isolate very seriously, and get tested.

      It is important that they have caregivers that they feel comfortable with. He needs help going to the bathroom, bathing, changing his adult diapers, getting dressed, his food needs to be cut up, he has to be told to eat each bite. Interesting, he still reads – novels, newspapers, magazines. I don’t know how much he retains, but he enjoys it (he was a college professor, so reading was a big part of his career).

      When he first moved into this facility, before COVID-19, I made sure I was there when he met each aide that would be working with him. For their first shift, I gave him a shower with them there, I wiped him with baby wipes when he went to the bathroom, I fixed his food, cut it up, and encouraged him to eat it. I chatted with the aide and him to try to make him feel comfortable with them, because I knew that it was scary for him to be with them when I’m not there. For now, he remembers who I am and feels comfortable with me.

      As Becky S. and others have said above, don’t try to correct them, just move the conversation along. My dad asks about his dog, and my sister snaps at him “you don’t have a dog anymore!” That just upsets him. Instead, I say “oh yes, I took him for a walk and I’ll make sure I feed him later.” There is no point in correcting them because not only it is upsetting, but they won’t remember it, and you’re going to have the same conversation again tomorrow (or in an hour or in 15 minutes), no matter what you say.

      A book that really helped me is “The 36-Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring For People Who Have Alzheimer Disease, Other Dementias, and Memory Loss” by Mace and Rabins. A big piece of advice that I learned from this book is not to say “oh, you remember.” They don’t remember, and it embarrasses them when you say that. Often people would visit him and say “oh come on, of course, you remember Aunt Louise.” That makes them flustered. I say “I remember when Aunt Louise dropped the turkey on the floor, the dog licked it, and she didn’t tell anyone until after we ate our Thanksgiving dinner.” I don’t ask him if he remembers or prod him. Usually he laughs when I say things like that. Several people above have mentioned this, and I just wanted to mention how I handle it.

      Just talk to them. I’m a chatterer, so I just talk about everything – the weather, sports, family members, whatever. I pause so he can respond if he wants, but as I said in my last paragraph, I don’t have an expectation for a response nor do I prod him for one. He often says nonsensical things, but I don’t respond as though they are nonsensical and just carry on as though we’re having a normal conversation. So, for example:

      Him: I noticed that the trees have been coming in at night at night and stealing my socks.”

      Me: I don’t actually think they’ve been stealing your socks, because I forgot to tell you that I took your socks home with me to wash them. Hey, take a look at the window – the trees are turning beautiful colors! I love fall! I remember when you used to take us hiking in the fall and we would collect pretty leaves and take them home.

      It’s exhausting. I know he has excellent care, and I only go over once a week, but it is emotionally draining. I don’t have any advice for you on that, but I sent you all of my positive thoughts.

  40. Laura H.*

    Little joys thread.

    What’s brought you joy this week?

    I caught Covid sadly but my little joys are that I’m able to self-monitor, that the worst thing is I can’t taste, that it waited till after Christmas, and my workplace handled it well and promptly.

    (I took all precautions I could, and am taking the precautions I need to now. I ask please don’t dog pile on me like I was blasé about it. Nothing is 100% effective.)

    Please share the little joys in your week.

    1. fposte*

      Oh,Laura, I’m sorry! I’m glad it’s not too bad for you and hope you’re done soon.

      I bought myself a pair of beautiful pottery bowls off of Etsy and after initially finding them dauntingly larger have discovered they are perfect for salad. I’ve been getting excellent baby spinach from the online farmer’s market and doing spinach salads in my lovely bowls. Apparently I can be retailed into good nutrition!

    2. Coenobita*

      I hope you feel better soon, Laura!

      My little joy is online shabbat services. After 10+ years of hardly engaging with my Judaism at all, I am now a (paying!) member of a congregation for the first time in my adult life – and I’ve never even set foot in the same room as any of the other members! I joined a small reconstructionist congregation near me that I never even knew existed until they started having zoom services during the pandemic. It’s just lovely. I think I like online services better than real ones – I love that I can participate from my couch under a blanket. I love that I don’t have to feel self-conscious about my singing or worry about what to wear. I love that I can doodle or take notes or drink tea if I want to. It’s all so homey and comforting!

      1. Jay*

        Welcome to the Reconstructionist fold! I’ve been an active member of a Recon congregation for years and I’m stunned at how much I love Zoom services. I’d gotten away from Shabbat services over the last couple of years and I’m now attending regularly again.

      2. Jean (just Jean)*

        Another Recon popping up to say “welcome!” (I’m actually a Recon-at-heart who joined a Conservative congregation for multiple good reasons such as my spouse grew up Conservative and a longtime friend of mine strongly recommended the rabbi of this congregation). Family obligations these days prevent my being as active as I’d like to be but bottom line, it’s a wonderful heritage that I’m delighted to have in my life.

    3. LGC*

      (Sidebar since I think this goes best here: I hate that a lot of people treat COVID as if it’s some individual moral judgment – basically, we treat COVID like it’s an STI and people who get it are filthy and do The Wrong Things. It’s not, and it shouldn’t be treated that way. STIs shouldn’t be treated that way either.)

      Sorry that you got sick! It sounds like you’re on the mend, and hopefully you’ll be back to health soon. I guess my little joy is that…we’re in a new year, and it’s not quite as bleak as I thought it was going to be. In fact, it’s almost 50 degrees out, so I’m going to lace up my running shoes in a minute.

      1. Stephanie*

        Yes, this! I don’t know if you’re in the US, but if you are, the spread is so uncontrolled in most parts that you shouldn’t attribute it to some moral failing. Hope you feel better soon.

        1. Venus*

          A coworker of mine was super careful. Wore a mask when grocery shopping, only shopped when needed which was maybe every few weeks, wfh, and interacted at a distance while masked when they saw people outside. And yet they got covid. Being careful doesn’t eliminate risks, it only reduces them greatly in order to alleviate pressure on the healthcare system. Definitely nothing moral except that some people are jerks!

          1. Seeking Second Childhood*

            Dittoing this too — especially because the mask seems to work best to keep you from spreading a virus. By catching it, well, you just had someone else’s virus land on you. Thank you for being careful now that you’ve got it.
            (Assuming you’ve told anyone you saw last week at the holiday in case you took a long time to develop symptoms so they can assume they may be asymptomatic & also isolate.)

    4. PX*

      Get well soon!

      I definitely had something this week that I thought would be perfect for this thread and now I cant remember what it is. So joy for this week shall be playing with my friends dog today, and stopping at my favourite cafe to buy cake on the way home. They had run out of my favourites, so I ended up trying a polenta cake which was delicious and feels like it was about 90% cream cheese (it wasnt, but it definitely tasted that way). And as a bonus, I can now get my gluten-free friend to eat it because I’ve vouched for it being tasty!

    6. Laura H.*

      I forgot

      I also got serenaded through my window and we got some awesome jambalaya from our friends who WE serenaded and gifted lasagna to last week (pre-symptoms, pre test, with all precautions adhered to) It was cute and I hope I can eat this again once my senses are back to normal cause man this is GOOD, even without taste and smell.

    7. The Other Dawn*

      My filing cabinet for my new office arrived. Unfortunately the desk hasn’t yet, but it’s coming Monday! Today I’ll be touching up the paint on the walls, that way I don’t have to work around the office furniture.

    8. Parenthetically*

      My little joy: we finally moved Little Brackets #2 from our room into Little Brackets #1’s room — we’ve been putting it off waiting for the perfect time and realized yesterday that there would never be a perfect time, so we practiced a few times with the Little Bracketses and then just did it — and Y’ALL, I can sit in bed in the evenings with my lamp on and read a book and have a normal-volume conversation with my husband again!

    9. Blackcat*

      “(I took all precautions I could, and am taking the precautions I need to now. I ask please don’t dog pile on me like I was blasé about it. Nothing is 100% effective.)”
      One of my friends got sneezed on at the doctors office, by a medical assistant who *pulled down her mask to sneeze.* Then got COVID.
      Folks can be super, duper careful and still get COVID. I think this is important for people to remember!

      I made a bunch of cartoon character kids masks and gave them to friends’ kids. Much joy was had by all

    10. WoodswomanWrites*

      I’m sorry to hear you’re sick, and wish you a speedy recovery! It’s such a kindness that you offer this thread.

      I’ve been going through my closets and giving away things on Freecycle. A coffee table book of wilderness photos has gone to someone who knew the author before he passed away, and a backcountry water filter went to someone who is resuming backpacking after a 20-year hiatus.

    11. Dr. Anonymous*

      I’m so sorry you got sick!
      I bought a weighted blanket to try to reduce my restless leg symptoms that weren’t responding to iron supplements and stretching. My legs are tons better and I slept really soundly, maybe 10-15% more restful than my normal sleep. I’m a terrible sleeper so this is a big deal.

    12. Voluptuousfire*

      Getting two lamps I bought for my living room set up. I currently live in my family’s (now my) house and am slowly making it my own. It’s great to have more light in the living room. I also replaced the silverware with my own set and reorganized the medicine cabinet so it’s easier to access. A weight has been lifted since I got so much done.

    13. Potatoes gonna potate*

      I learned that the Pioneer woman has a line of household items at Walmart and I am just so joyed at it. I love and adore anything floral which is mostly her aesthetic.

      A friend dropped off a housewarming present for me and a holiday gift for the baby. It was joyful but made me so painfully aware of how much I miss seeing people and interacting with friends.

      A former coworker now acquaintance had a baby. She moved to about 20m away from me and we’ve been talking more now the last few months. I dropped off some baby supplies to her as well as food from a super busy & popular chain. That made me feel happy.

    14. Bibliovore*

      Sitting on the back porch in the sunlight, snow on the ground yet warm and cosy on the porch curled up with the dogs napping and reading.

    15. Seeking Second Childhood*

      I just did something for myself — the living room has my home office set up again AND the Christmas tree still. (It stays up at least until Epiphany….and this year it might stay up until Orthodox Epiphany because it is so cheerful.
      (I lost use of the dining room to do it, and it was totally worth it. I’ll clean that up tomorrow night.)

  41. Rare Commenter*

    So, I got a BlendJet for Christmas, which is a single serving, portable blender. I had no idea this was a thing, but apparently someone had been getting Facebook ads for it and thought I would like it for the gym. I’d like to find some way to utilize it, but… how? Do I have to carry frozen berries with me and make a smoothie at the gym? Make the smoothie and then transfer it to another container and then ice it until after I’m done? I’ve tried so hard to find the utility in this thing, and I have landed no further than that it’s useless for me unless I’d like to somehow become the kind of person who regularly makes smoothies.

    1. PX*

      Lol. Sorry but this is so amusing. I feel your pain on people buying you pointless gifts.

      Can you just use it as a normal blender? Use it for small portions of sauces or soups?

      If all else fails, donate it would be my suggestion!

      1. Rare Commenter*

        I actually think she may have gotten the idea when I casually mentioned I wasn’t going to make something because I’d given by blender away! I’d used it maybe twice in the 10 years it had been in my possession. But it’s certainly humorous, and I’m hoping to find some way to make a little bit of use of a thoughtful gift.

    2. GoryDetails*

      I’m imagining how I’d use such a thing – maybe camping? (I do love smoothies, but wouldn’t necessarily want to schlep a gadget along on a camping trip just so I could blend things.) If one had a backyard pool and wanted to whip up smoothies or frozen margaritas at poolside it might be handy. And if it’s a multi-person house with a small kitchen, a smoothie-lover (or frozen-margarita lover – you can see where my imagination’s heading here) might enjoy having a portable blender that they could use without having to elbow others for limited kitchen space.

      1. Rare Commenter*

        Well, it looks like we’re having a strawberry daiquiri summer. I like where you took this, haha.

    3. TPS reporter*

      In the before times I had one in my office so I could make a breakfast or mid afternoon snack smoothie. Or if I was running out somewhere and I needed to eat on the go I could make a smoothie quickly to have in the car

      1. Rare Commenter*

        I guess that’s where I get lost. I either have to drag around extra ingredients, or something larger than an average to-go tumbler, for it to be portable! For me, at least, that negates the convenience.

        1. TPS reporter*

          Oh that is weird. Mine is detachable and portable. At my office I can keep ingredients though. Also I used to take it on trips so I could make smoothies at the hotel. I need extra protein as a vegan

    4. Observer*

      I don’t know about this particular brand, but the NutriBullet that I have (same idea) had a cover for the container, so you can do your blending then just cover the container and take it with you.

      If you like smoothies, then these things can be useful. If you have no interest, I suspect you’re not going to find much use in this thing.

      1. Dwight Schrute*

        The weird thing about the blend jet is that it doesn’t come apart so you are literally carrying around the blender part too which just seems silly

      2. Dwight Schrute*

        The weird thing about the blend jet is that it doesn’t come apart so you are literally carrying around the blender part too and not just the cup with the smoothie

    5. Dwight Schrute*

      I’ve watched reviews on both the blend jet 1 and 2, and honestly I haven’t come up with a way that a portable blender is super useful. The only thing I can think of is camping. Otherwise I’ll just make my smoothie or whatever at home because otherwise I’d be carrying around frozen fruit and whatnot which seems silly

  42. Be the Change*

    Advice about apologies, please?

    I apologized to a family member for something I thought might have hurt her. We’re not close but we should be. It would be better if we were closer. I am pretty sure it was a good apology; no explaining or excusing, just admitting my hurtful action and asking her to forgive me if she could. Her response was, “I’m not angry about Thing.” That was the entire response, but she’s always terse.

    I didn’t think she was angry. I thought she was hurt. So…I’m not sure we’re in the clear here. Should I gently nudge this in any way, or call it done?

    2. Llama face!*

      I would consider it settled. If she is hurt, well you already offered the apology. If you keep nudging in hopes of getting a better response it may become more of a frustration than the original offence.

    4. D3*

      Leave it be.
      I’m sorry you didn’t get the immediate response you asked for. That is hard.
      But if you were apologizing only to elicit a response, that’s….not a great apology.
      I’m curious about your phrasing that you “should be” close. Maybe your desire to be close is not matched? Maybe she’s not wanting the same relationship you do? Can you be okay with that?
      Family members don’t have to be close.

      1. Be the Change*

        Gee, D3. Of course I didn’t apologize to elicit a particular response. I apologized because I wanted to make it right. *Given* the particular response, I’m wondering if it’s indeed right. Everyone’s opinions here seem to be that if it’s not right, the ball is now in her court.

        Our entire family’s life would indeed be richer if this specific relationship were closer. Ultimately I’m wondering how much of it is my responsibility to cultivate.

        1. fhqwhgads*

          I completely disagree with the concept of “X would be better if A and B were closer” or “A and B should be closer”. To my mind, that’s just not a thing. You can’t make it happen. It will or it won’t. Pushing it usually makes it worse. You’re fine vis-a-vis the apology. It is now in the other person’s court, but I encourage you to put it out of your mind that there’s a “right” way to make this relationship better other than mind-reading.

        2. D3*

          You absolutely DID expect a certain response. You expected the “thanks, things have been made right now” response. You didn’t get it. Family member does not seem to share your desire to be close.
          And you don’t get to have everything your way in families. If she doesn’t want to be close, if she doesn’t want to perform the “apology accepted and forgiveness granted” script you were hoping for, she doesn’t have to do it.
          Leave it be.

    5. Reba*

      It was good of you to apologize, and I think you can feel good about that and let your act be the thing that “closes” this interaction, because it looks like she is not going to give any more closure. I also don’t think getting more insight about what exact flavor of upset this person may be will go anywhere.

      Let it lie, and meanwhile re-examine the “should” — I admit that perplexed me, should according to what rule? Do you *want* to be close? Does *she* want to be close?

    6. Not A Manager*

      That sucks. Sometimes “I’m not angry about Thing” means “I’m actually angry about something else. Now you guess!”

      Those games make me angry, so I tend to not engage with them, at least for a while. But if the relationship really matters to you, you could try to address things more generally. “Relative, I’ve always wished that we could be closer. Is there anything that I can do to make that possible? I feel that you are frequently terse with me, and I wonder if I’ve somehow offended you. Is this something we can talk about?”

      But honestly, I’d only do that once. If someone wants to carry a grudge (or maybe if someone doesn’t have a grudge but just doesn’t like me very much, it could happen!), then I need to just accept that.

    7. Annie Moose*

      The difficult thing about apologies is that we always want them to immediately fix things. I want to be able to say “I’m sorry” and the other person to say “I forgive you!” and then everything can be perfect forever. But realistically, that doesn’t happen. We can–and should–apologize for things we believe we’ve done wrong, but that doesn’t guarantee that the other person will react the way we hope they do. Maybe she is still hurt despite the apology, maybe she doesn’t forgive you, or maybe she didn’t think it was a big deal and doesn’t want to dwell on it.

      Either way, I don’t think there’s more you should do. You’ve apologized, she’s acknowledged that you gave an apology even if she didn’t do it the way you’d hoped, the only thing to do now is to go forward with the intent of not hurting her again.

    8. RagingADHD*

      In the moment, I might ask if there’s something else wrong. But since there’s been a time lapse, just leave it alone.

    9. Not So NewReader*

      We don’t get to pick people’s emotions for them. What most of us might call hurt/pain she may call it anger.
      No way to know and she has put up a wall so you may never find out.

      Call this one done and over. Yeah, there will probably be more because this is a tense person, so it’s likely that other things will be issues for her. I am not saying it’s her fault or your fault or anyone’s fault. Tense people have their own story line going on and we have very little way of figuring it all out UNLESS they tell us.

      It might be helpful to remove the framing “we’re not close but we should be”. I am not sure why you feel you “should be” but she doesn’t feel this way at all about you … and maybe other people too. Technically speaking there is no law, nor is it written in stone anywhere that any two given people should be close. It would be nice if you were close with her. You’d appreciate her friendship/companionship, perhaps. But her thoughts are somewhere else on this whole topic for reasons that may never be clear.

      There is a middle ground where we can hold the door open for a closer relationship later on and for the time being stop trying so hard. From what you say here, it feels like you try very hard with her and get no where. Accept you have done your best and settle back to wait for her to come around. Sometimes giving people the space they need does more than all the words in the world.

    10. Not A Manager*

      Just want to pop in and say that I completely understand why a family situation might be better for everyone if certain people were closer. It baffles me that anyone could find that mysterious or controversial.

      You can’t always make that happen, of course, but the general sentiment seems almost tautological to me.

      1. D3*

        I can assure you that different perspectives may very well disagree with that. My parents definitely think it would be “better for everyone” if we reconciled. But from my perspective, NOPE. It baffles me that some people cannot understand that concept. You wanting to be closer to someone does NOT equal “we should be closer”
        It means “I want to be closer”

        1. Not A Manager*

          I’d like to clarify. I was estranged from a close family member (my choice, not hers). I did not in fact reconcile or become closer to her even though she and other people wished for that and pushed for it.

          Nonetheless, it WOULD have been better for everyone if we had been closer. We couldn’t be closer, in my perspective, because she couldn’t behave herself. “It would be better for everyone if we had been closer” is completely compatible with “but we couldn’t be closer for Reasons.”

          I don’t think there’s any reason to castigate Be The Change because she thinks it would be a better state of affairs if she and her relative were closer. It might not be possible, but her perspective isn’t therefore *wrong.*

          1. D3*

            And I’d like to clarify that what she actually said was that they “should be” closer. The “should” implies more than “it would be better but we can’t for reasons”
            Relative probably doesn’t share the “should be” and she’s trying to force it. I’m suggesting she rethink her should and take the relatives desires and perspectives into account.

      2. fhqwhgads*

        Part of my reasoning for my comment on not comprehending “better if close” is I don’t think it’s possible to know if it would be better or worse for two people to be close, unless they are close.
        I guess I’m wondering if by “close” you mean something more like “enjoy being around each other”? Because I think that’s separate.

        1. Not A Manager*

          I can’t answer for Better If Closer. If I had said, “Our entire family’s life would indeed be richer if this specific relationship were closer,” my background would have been that my estranged family member was also a family member to people I loved and cared about. We had what would have been shared obligations to some of them, and we had what would have been shared affection for all of them.

          Because (in my perspective) she became borderline abusive to me, I was unable to be in the same space as her. This meant that our family couldn’t share important experiences with both of us, and it meant that each of us had to miss important family experiences. We couldn’t coordinate on the care of family that we had shared obligations toward. My adult children had less of a relationship with her, and I had less of a relationship with her adult child.

          If I had said, “Our entire family’s life would indeed be richer if this specific relationship were closer,” I would have meant that I wished that we could have coordinated a response to our elderly relative. I wished that we could have attended family events at the same time. I wished that our adult children didn’t feel a distance from each of us due to our distance from each other.

          This is putting aside my own feelings of missing the person that she once was and the relationship that we once had.

    11. All the cats 4 me*

      Have you considered saying something like, “the other day when I apologized because I thought I had hurt you has made me think about things. I would really like to feel closer to you because (insert your Why here). Is that something you would like too?”

      That may open a conversation about why you feel you aren’t close, and how to get there?

    12. Be the Change*

      Thank you for the input, everyone. Chuckle — this was like having people do inductive Bible study on my Ask a Manager post.

  43. Crowley*

    I have what I feel is a really stupid question.

    I have three huge, heavy IKEA wardrobes in my bedroom. I need to get them out, but little me is never going to be able to do it on my own. Who do I need to pay to do this for me? A handyman doesn’t seem quite enough but a carpenter or joiner seems like overkill!

    I’m in the UK FWIW.

    I will obviously ensure everyone is suitably masked and distanced and that windows are open for air flow. I would wait, but it’s been slowly working away at my mental health reserves for ages now and I just can’t stand it any more :-|

    2. LGC*

      Are they fixed to the wall? I feel like it’s the figurative “two friends and a case of beer” thing – obviously adapted for COVID Times™, but it doesn’t need a professional.

      On the other hand, you’re…in the UK, so I’m not sure what’s possible for y’all right now. (From what I understand, the southern part of the UK is on total lockdown.)

      1. Crowley*

        It’s been over 9 months since anyone was allowed into the flat other than my sister who is my support bubble.

    3. Laura H.*

      Got any helpful neighbors or friends?

      That’s the avenue I’d look into first… if it’s just lifting and moving them out rather than disassembly.

    4. PX*

      I’m assuming you want to deconstruct them before taking them out? If so, IKEA things are surprisingly light in their component parts, so if you’re feeling brave, you could just start taking them apart slowly and then carrying the bits as appropriate. But I’m also the person who constructed my IKEA double bed and sofa on my own, so maybe not the best advice :D

      If you definitely need someone to do it – this is what I find neighbourhood Facebook groups perfect for. At least in my area, you often have people willing to do small/odd jobs, or the local man with a van type person who advertise there – so you can contact them and see how much it will cost.

      Alternatively, charity shops! The larger ones (Shelter, BHF) will often pick things up for donation, so might be worth looking into that as an option.

    5. Llellayena*

      Most IKEA furniture disassembles as easily as it assembled (so reasonably easy but with some cursing). Maybe take it apart first and then take the pieces out individually?

    6. Teapot Translator*

      No idea if it’s available in the UK and I’ve never used it myself, but there’s a platform called TaskRabbit, where people offer their services for odd jobs. Maybe it’s worth a look?

    7. Filosofickle*

      You’re looking for a small mover or odd jobs / household task type person. I don’t know what exists in the UK, but in the US I’d turn to community sites like Craigslist or NextDoor where people go to pick up a little work. They’ll need to bring a 2nd person but they’ll know that if you describe the job properly (including stairs).

      If you have concerns about the quality of the work — as in, not wanting things to get dinged up — you might favor someone who’s a professional mover / hauler versus a random person who’s looking to pick up a few bucks doing odd jobs. That doesn’t mean it has to be a proper moving company. There are lots of “two guys and a truck” type side businesses.

    8. Jessi*

      Put up a post on your neighbourhood or nextdoor asking for two strong people to come and lift them out? My partner works for a moving company and this is the sort of thing his coworkers would do for cash if they were close by

    9. Not A Manager*

      My Ikea wardrobes disassemble even without my help on occasion.

      In my experience, it’s very hard to disassemble Ikea stuff in a way that they can be reassembled. The best you can do is unanchor them from the wall and move them in their built form, which can be difficult. A lot of charities won’t even accept donations of presswood furniture and some moving companies won’t guarantee them.

      Unless you are planning to sell them, or you have a recipient in mind, I would say just tear them out however is least damaging to your walls, and throw out the pieces as trash.

      In a different era I would say to freecycle them to whoever is willing to show up and remove them, but I’ve had spotty luck with people being responsible and considerate in showing up for freecycle items. The last thing I’d want right now is a couple of folks to show up in my space, dick around for a while, and then leave without taking the items.

      1. Stephanie*

        When I moved a couple of years back, the moving company made me sign a particle board waiver, saying that particle board furniture wasn’t durable and that they weren’t liable for damage, ha.

    10. Batgirl*

      I would ask a man with a van (and permit) to dismantle and discard for you. Deconstructing Ikea wardrobes is a doddle (If you have a Phillipshead screwdriver to undo the screws and the back of a hammer to pull out any tacks you can probably do it yourself). The real challenge is to get someone to cart it to the tip (my local authority won’t let householders use vans in case you’re not domestic and are dodging paying for business permits). Google local handymen and do your due dilligence because you dont want to pay someone who just flytips it.

    11. Crowley*

      I’m in tier 4, which is the case for like 80% of England. No one is allowed into my house except my sister (support bubble), and no way could we do it :(

      Well. No one is allowed in… except for people I pay, obviously *rolls eyes*

      I started to dismantle the first one myself… nearly 3 years ago, errk… and it’s just far too big and unwieldy. The middle one is nearly 2 foot taller than me. And even if I could dismantle it I physically couldn’t manoeuver it all out of the house. It’s already been dismantled and remantled once before it came here and it doesn’t owe anyone anything. I just need it out because every time I look at it I want to cry.

      …You may have realised there is more to this than a purely furniture moving question. They used to belong to my ex-in-laws, they are far too big for my bedroom, let alone my needs, and every time I look at them I basically feel like a pathetic failure for not dealing with them before now. They are pretty much empty and my clothes are on the floor. It’s bloody ridiculous.

      So, also, any helpful pointers on how to stop beating the crap out of myself and actually do something about it also gratefully received.

      1. Crowley*

        Just measured. The big one is 2ft 2 inches taller than me. No frigging way could I do it alone. I honestly don’t know how the ex got them built in the first place.

      2. Miss Pantalones En Fuego*

        Well, if you don’t want to keep them and just want them gone, maybe you can get a big hammer and just smash them into bits you can handle. My local council will collect bulky stuff for a reasonable fee, and I’ve used it to get rid of all kinds of stuff in the last few years (concrete chunks, old chairs, broken appliances, mattresses, broken bits of a fence that got blown down in the wind…). Yours probably has a similar service.

        1. Stephanie*

          Yeah, my dad and I did something similar for a particle board dresser that I wasn’t going to move. We just knocked it down and took it to the dumpster in manageable pieces.

        2. Crowley*

          I’m 100% ok with paying the council’s fee for bulky item collection. I just need them to be outside first, and it looks like that will happen soon. THANK GOODNESS.

      3. FutureLibrarianNoMore*

        I see in other comments that you’ve found someone to do it, which is fantastic :)

        To stop beating the crap out of yourself, I suggest the next time you start beating yourself up, say “STOP” out loud, and then talk to yourself as you would a child or a friend.

        For example, if I make a mistake at work, my old response would have been something like, “OMG, you’re such an idiot, how could you be so stupid? You’re going to get fired” etc etc etc and on and on. Now, I say “STOP” and say something like, “Hey, everyone makes mistakes. It’s okay, you’re okay! You apologized, you fixed it, and now you’re just upsetting yourself. Take a deep breath, forgive yourself for being human, and let’s get back to work.”

        It felt stupid at first, honestly, but I’ve stuck with it and it’s gotten easier with time.

        I’m also in therapy, and highly recommend it.

        1. Malarkey01*

          I agree with this approach. I also read once to think about how you’d react if you heard a friend or family member talking about themselves the way you are talking to yourself. That helped me get a lot of perspective with a particular issue I had. I’d never agree that someone blaming themselves for this situation was accurate, so why in the world was I blaming myself. Talking out loud to yourself sometimes let’s you actually hear your inner voice and react to it more reasonably.

    12. Crowley*

      Someone is coming to take them out on Wednesday for thirty English pounds. Thank you everyone, clearly i just needed to splurge my feelings before I could take action!

      1. Dr. Anonymous*

        Just saw this after my reply. I’m so happy for you! Sometimes things with emotional baggage are very hard to do.

        1. Crowley*

          Thank you :) I feel so much better knowing they will be gone soon! And I’ve been really lucky to save a lot of money through the pandemic, so I’m glad to put it back into the local economy.

      2. Seeking Second Childhood*

        I have some IKEA units I wish I could get replacemnet hardware for… but I’m in the US. A little far for me to help. And I see you found someone. :D

    13. Dr. Anonymous*

      Start calling random handyman services until one will either do it for you or refer you to someone who will. The economy is bad right now everywhere and someone will be glad to get a phone call about some paying work. You will have contributed to the economy and you’ll get a stressful eyesore out of your life. Don’t make it hard for yourself; you’ve suffered enough.

    14. MissDisplaced*

      I’m not sure about the UK, but here in the US there are some APPs called TaskRabbit and Thumbtack that are kind of like the Uber for handy people (or Taskers) to hire for smallish things you need to get done around the house or yard.

    15. Colette*

      Here we have junk removal services that would handle that. There’s a cost based on how much junk ($100 and up).

  44. Green Mug*

    I recently found out that my dog has mast cell cancer. My dog had surgery to remove the tumor, but the vet said that the cancer already spread. Is anyone willing to share their experience? Would you do anything differently? Did your dog live? I appreciate any advice. I am powerfully sad. I don’t want my dog to suffer.

    1. Ins mom*

      So sorry to see this. Have been there, twice. Our first dog had tumors in her lungs, no treatment but lasted 18 months. Some days better than others, but she walked a quarter mile with me to the mailbox one day, and quit eating the next, to tell me it was time to give in. She had 12 good farm-dog years. The second had surgery but had already spread. Six weeks and she too could tell us when it was time. You will know when there are no good days.

    2. Black Horse Dancing*

      I am so sorry! There is chemo and pet cannabis. Ask your vet for painkillers. I’ve lost two dogs to cancer, different types of cancer, different dogs at different times of my life. One we tried surgery but it was too far spread and the other was in the bone. So we did painkillers and quality of life.

    3. Pippa K*

      I’m so sorry. Some years ago I had a Labrador diagnosed with mast cell cancer. Like your dog, she had a tumour removed but it had already spread. I don’t know if treatment options have expanded since then, but in her case all we could do was keep her comfortable as long as possible. It was a sadly short timeline, but she didn’t suffer. The one consolation was that, being a dog, *she* didn’t know she had cancer, so she wasn’t worried or frightened, and when meds couldn’t keep her comfortable any more, she went for one last fun ride in the car, got lots of petting at the vet clinic, and gently went to sleep. I really think from her perspective, it wasn’t traumatic or awful. It was for us, of course, but as they say, that’s the price of admission for having companion animals. I wish you and your dog the best luck and the kindest circumstances possible.

    4. BellaDiva*

      I am so sorry! One of our girls has had two surgeries to remove tumours (the most recent one five weeks ago), but fortunately we caught it early enough and there was no spreading. We’re very diligent to inspect any new growths we find.

    5. I'm A Little Teapot*

      Not dogs, but I’ve done hospice for several cats. Write a list of what makes life good for your dog, and what would make life bad. From their perspective. Then periodically revisit the list. When you’ve crossed off about 2/3 of the good stuff, or more than 1/3 of the bad stuff is happening (or any deal breakers have been hit), then it’s probably time to let them go. This will help you make decisions in the dog’s best interest, without your emotions getting in the way as much.

      It will still hurt. There’s nothing you can do to stop that. But you can at least spare the dog the pain and keep it mostly to yourself.

  45. Drtheliz*

    Baking thread? I’m trying mixing up my “breakfast bread” at the moment, and my advice is this: when making a fruit bread, don’t use fresh fruit! When you try to knead it into the dough everything will become slimy and weird, and will need an extra 50g of flour to even function as a loaf. (Did produce a lovely even raspberry flavour, though).

    1. Jules the First*

      Raspberries are tricky no matter what!
      If adding fresh fruit to dough, always plan to reduce the liquid from the recipe or add extra flour; for berries, I freeze them first and knead them in frozen, other soft fruit like peaches or pears can be chopped to size then baked in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet at 375 or 400 for about 20 minutes, then cool before kneading them in and they’ll stay sturdier and need less extra flour.

    2. Not A Manager*

      If you’re using anything damp, don’t knead it into your bread. Before your final rise, gently pat your dough into a rectangle about as long as your bread pan or free form loaf, let it rest for a few minutes, and then sprinkle your add-ins onto the dough. Roll it up like a jelly roll and pinch the seams.

      It’s easiest to then just pat that football into shape and drop it into your loaf pan/arrange your free form loaf for the final rise. You’ll wind up with swirls of fruit in your bread.

      If you want the fruit to be more evenly distributed, you can let your rolled up football rest for a few minutes, gently roll and pull it to elongate it into a fat worm, and then twist it up so that your fruit is more spiraled.

      Alternatively, you can pat your dough into a rectangle, put half your fruit onto it, fold it three times like a business letter, let it rest, pat it out again and repeat. Which technique you use depends on how much you care about even distribution and how wet or fragile your filling is.

      1. Drtheliz*

        For some reason, I… forgot that this technique was a thing? The bread recipe was originally raisin bread and called for a cinnamon-raisin swirl just as you describe, but for some reason that useful info was just… not in my head. Thanks!

    3. Miss Pantalones En Fuego*

      I made a cake using some frozen fruit a few weeks ago and I cooked it into a kind of coulis to reduce the water a bit first, then substituted it for some of the liquid in the recipe. Perhaps something similar could work for bread?

    4. D'Euly*

      Ooh, fresh raspberries in bread would be a lovely flavor, though I can imagine what a mess it made of your dough!

      I’m making melonpan today and my baking scale was behaving oddly-as if it took longer than usual to respond, so as I trickled in the flour the numbers would move slowly and then take a big jump. Battery issue? Lack of caffeine (in me, I mean)?

      1. Drtheliz*

        Post-bake, it is a lovely flavour :) I’m looking forward to hitting one of the crystallised ginger pieces!

        I think the lesson I learned is “just use dried fruit, it’s not worth it”. I’ve got two plans in the works for the next little while: try something savoury (tomato/garlic? Would be amazing with cheese) and to experiment with some rolls of different fruit mixes – raspberry, apple, mango…

    5. GoryDetails*

      Some of the baking shows featured the use of freeze-dried raspberries; sounds like it’d be a good way to get the flavor and color without as much mess.

      My most recent experiment was a dark chocolate stout cupcake; reduced a bottle of Guinness to about a third of its volume, made a dark chocolate cupcake batter with some espresso powder and the Guinness syrup – came out beautifully dark, with a rich flavor and some nicely bitter notes. (Made a brown butter ermine frosting for it – very tasty indeed!)

    6. Cheesesteak in Paradise*

      It’s not a bread but Ina Garten’s blueberry crumb cake is one of the best things I’ve ever baked. Recipe on Food Network. More of a dessert or for breakfast.

  46. Teal*

    Has anyone done a full service move recently? Do they really just pack up all your stuff (minus plants, hazardous items, and any belongings you specifically don’t want packed) and you get to stand out of the way? How much to you tip each mover?

    My husband and I have been apart for 2 years while finishing up military training/schools and he was finally assigned a duty station. He’s been living out of a suitcase and will move to the duty station shortly, but I’ll be at home prepping for cross country move. I can’t believe we’ll finally be together again! We’re in our mid 30s and this the first time we’ll finally be somewhat settling down in our 10+ years together (until the military moves us again).

    1. BRR*

      I did a semi full service, we packed some things to save on cost since we were paying hourly, and that’s basically it. It’s amazing and some of the best money I’ve ever spent. I had to google how much to tip and the results varied wildly. I went on the high side because I figured hazard pay and they were good and quick.

    2. Lifelong student*

      Both of my sons are Navy officers and each has moved halfway around the world more than once! The military arranges and pays for all the moves and storage for what can’t be moved. I suppose if you have some things you want to insure are packed the way you want, you may wish to pack them yourself. Don’t know if they tipped the movers- My guess is, if the move is being funded by the government, all costs are included.

    3. acmx*

      Yes, they pack everything unless you specifically tell them not to and they will pack essentially trash if you don’t watch out.

      I’ve tipped $10-20 per mover depending on circumstance (which I can’t recall due to too many moves lol). As a single person with about 3500# of HHG, its usually the driver and two packers. Driver has been the point person for me. Also, I had a coordinator who checks up on the move.

      I’ve moved in hot climates so I’ve had bottles of water for them.

      1. acmx*

        Clarification: pre covid and non military (although my separation move was full-service way back when).

    4. My Brain Is Exploding*

      Yes, they do, and it’s kinda exhausting to watch! (You will also be checking how they are labelling box contacts and the list of sticker #s/descriptions of each box or object going into the truck. We did a number of military moves and did tip, but that was years ago and I don’t remember how much! At the very least it is nice to have beverages and snacks available and offer to get some pizzas for lunch. Definitely read the list of what they will take/won’t take; put everything you don’t want them to take in a separate secure area (spare bathroom with a lock or your car); containerize loose items and make sure other containers you have will close tightly (hello pins all over inside the box); if they take legs or cushions off of furniture they should be boxed and labeled, not just tossed in the truck at the end of the load. Good luck and congratulations!

    5. Stephanie*

      Yeah, I did one like 2.5 years ago via a corporate relocation. They very much will pack everything, including trash. You’ll have to stay there with them to make sure they’re not packing things you don’t need immediately. I didn’t have a truckload worth of stuff, so they had to combine my load with another load and keep it in storage until they had another load traveling the same route. Took about two weeks after I moved for my stuff to arrive. So you may need to pack things to have immediately. I took a couple of suitcases and my cello (I was driving to the New City anyway and I knew adding something expensive and fragile would add another level of complexity).

      I had a roommate at the time (who wasn’t moving) and I had to label cabinets with “Do Not Pack.” My roommate forgot to set some things aside and I wound up with some of his stuff (I paid him back).

      I think I tipped $20-30/mover on both ends because the first place was a third floor walk up and the second place had a manual elevator that was a PITA.

    6. Ariadne Oliver*

      Make sure that you sort out anything that you don’t want packed. We moved ourselves, our suitcases and pets to a hotel the night prior to the movers coming. Things that were staying behind we marked with ‘do not pack’. The movers, as other posters noted, will pack everything except hazardous materials and anything liquid. They will pack canned groceries and spices, so no need to get rid of them. Make sure that you keep an eye on things when they’re packing. I’ve done five military moves in the last ten years and the quality of the movers has been inconsistent at best. They managed to basically destroy all of our lampshades and several lamps during one of our moves. We generally provide water and lunch and also tip anywhere between $30-$50 per person. However, our last experience was so bad that we tipped nothing and filed a complaint with the transportation office. Also, take photos of everything prior to the move. It will make it easier when you have to file a claim. You have 70 days to do so. If you do file a claim you do not have to settle for less than replacement value. It helps when you can supply proof of replacement value when filing a claim. Just google and take a screenshot of the item and attach to the claim.

    7. All Hail Queen Sally*

      Retired military person here (11 moves through 3 different states and 5 different countries) Movers for the military will swoop in like a swarm of locusts and pack everything and anything–do not leave your trash cans full of trash or they will be packed. Take anything important you don’t want packed, and put it in your car or at a friend’s house. (passports and other documents, plants, suitcases, the clothes you need until your flight/drive, etc.) They will even pack your food–don’t let them pack things that will spoil like bread (true story) or attract bugs like opened bags of dog food (another true story). Take apart anything that needs to come and apart put all the little screws and nuts in a Ziploc bag and tape it to the item so they don’t get separated and you won’t be going crazy looking for them when you are trying to put that bed frame back together! Pack up small valuables into larger boxes and seal them (I learned to pack my jewelry in small Tupperware containers and put the Tupperware containers in a larger container.) If you have boxes with the Styrofoam in them for certain valuable items–like a sewing machine–put it in there! Don’t let the mover tell you it won’t get broken! (Another true story from my first move!) Keep in mind that you will have to pay for any excess weight you have over your allowed weight. I am a book collector so always went over weight. Good luck!

      1. Malarkey01*

        I’m interested if this is a military move or other full service move situation. I helped my sister twice with military moves, and those guys had a large two bedroom (1800 sq ft) apartment packed in under 60 minutes. It would have been impossible to label or watch or assist. They literally put giant plastic wrap around the dressers and moved with all the content in the drawers, had special boxes for dishes and they emptied a cabinet in under a minute.

        This was base housing but after being there for the first, we learned that anything we didn’t want moved needed to be packed and in a car and then we stood out of the way.

    8. Person from the Resume*

      They will pack everything (trash, towels on a towel rack) unless you tell them not to – I recommend you remove everything you don’t want them to pack for you or create a pile in the corner of a room and tell them not to pack that.

      They should not pack liquids because they can leak or break all over other stuff but you should remove it so they don’t accidentally do so.

      You may want to pack your own clothes (or at least your underwear), delicates/breakables or not.

      Set aside cleaning supplies and trash bags since you need to clean after the movers empty the house.

      They will pack everything. They are good and fast at it. They have so much protective wrap. It is recommended you watch them pack and label boxes but you may need help with that since they may divide and conquer your house.

      You need to figure out what you need first on the next end and put that together and label that box well.

      Also heard horror stories of cats getting packed. It was probably the cats fault climbing into a box but you’ll want any pets gone while the movers are there. Also the doors will be open all day do animals can escape too.

      1. AvonLady Barksdale*

        Wow, I have never heard that cat thing but… oy. Yes, keep pets as out of the way as you can. Our dog will go to daycare and stay overnight (we’re getting packed on one day, moved the next) and when we did long-distance, he went to his daycare, we picked him up for the drive to our new city, then he did a trial day at a new daycare while we moved in.

        1. Person from the Resume*

          It came to me as a rumor so who knows if it really happened just one time, almost happened, or was someone’s nightmare.

      2. A Cat named Brian*

        Lol. We ended up with our full trash can at new place…. That’s when I learned to make sure it was empty before movers come. That, and I packed my family heirlooms.

    9. AvonLady Barksdale*

      We did a full service move (long distance) in summer 2019 and we’re doing it again in two weeks. They really did come in and start packing while I stood out of the way. Sometimes I wiped stuff down. It was glorious.

      I usually give a generous tip for the crew, and for full service it’s particularly generous. For our last move we had two guys do the whole thing, including overnight travel, so I think I gave them $200 each. This time we’ll have three guys going from one high rise to another a mile away, so I will probably do $75 each. Plus plenty of Gatorade.

      Full service is so great. The only downside was learning the guys wouldn’t pack liquids, but that just meant finding room in my car for all the liquor and vinegars. I also ended up with a foot injury right before we moved, so it was even more worth it.

  47. Mystic*

    Weird Hobbies!
    What’s a weird Hobby you either participate in or want to do?
    My Weird Hobby is Ghost Hunting. I love watching a lot of paranormal shows and I love going out and hanging out in cemeteries in the middle of the night. I find it fun.

    1. Grim*

      How many have you caught? Asking for a friend who also likes these shows and wants to start her collection.

      1. Anima*

        That’s an interesting hobby! I keep shrimp as pets. And no, they are not for eating. They are tiny, muddy colored or red or blue, and I live them.

      2. Mystic*

        You name it, I’ve probably caught it. The only thing I’ve not really caught/seen has been a full-blown apparition, but one day.
        I’ve seen shadows, heard disembodied voices, footsteps, caught EVPs, had objects move on me. I’ve even had… something attack my car while I was in the car.
        I would caution against the later seasons of Ghost Adventures.

    2. The Other Dawn*

      A friend of mine loves the paranormal. She has all sorts of real ghost hunting equipment, and she and her sister regularly (before COVID) go to known locations to do overnight ghost hunts.

      A former friend of mine is into that, too. I went with her on a ghost hunt to a very old theater in my state. It was run by the people on one of those shows–Ghost Adventures, I think, or maybe a few lesser-knowns on Ghost Hunters. It was fun. They turned off all the lights throughout the building. The only thing we saw was a light going on and off on the stage when they were trying to talk to a known spirit.

    3. Mella*

      I used to do competitive aquascaping. I was inspired by Takashi Amano, and he died in 2015 in the same month I was laid off, so I lost both my guru and my spare cash in the same timeframe.

      It is really freaking hard to declutter when you have a bunch of niche hobby materials. I have some unopened discontinued products that aquascapers would love to get their hands on, but I’m out of the scene and lost all my contacts. General aquarium keepers wouldn’t care, because they’re meant for specific biotope aquariums.

      2. Mystic*

        That sounds cool! I’m not entirely sure what it is, though. Is it like, doing special landscaping for Aquariums, like that Tank show that’s on TV?

        1. Mella*

          It’s recreating a real place in an aquarium, using the correct live plants, substrate, and wood/rocks. (I also had the correct fish because I maintained my tanks, but some people don’t use animals because they build solely for shows/competitions.)

          If you look up the AGA Aquascaping Contest, under the category “Biotope Aquascape”, they have photos by year of the winners, and explanations of what biotope they are meant to display. They’re beautiful and otherworldly.

          They’re not always lush and fancy, though, because they’re meant to resemble reality. Brackish biotopes, for example, are mostly rocks and roots, because the edge of fresh/sea water isn’t conducive to a lot of plant growth.

          TL;DR: it’s being a “Well, actually” environmental nitpicker about keeping an aquarium, but make it fashion.

      3. Breast Solidarity*

        oooooooo I love aquascaped tanks and am just putting in an order today for more plants and wood.

        Fortunately/unfortunately, we do low tech only and have much larger tanks (45-120 US gallon) so lighting and CO2 are issues.

        May I ask what biotopes you had?

    4. GoryDetails*

      I like visiting cemeteries, too – though more for the atmosphere and the history; I love ghost stories but don’t believe in actual ghosts.

      My weird hobbies of the past included D&D games – back before it became a more widespread activity; I really got into the miniature figures and the many-sided dice, and still have a huge collection of both, though my gaming time has diminished over the years.

      Current hobbies that some people seem to think are weird include geocaching (“treasure hunting”, where the treasure might be a tiny magnetic key-holder hidden in a guardrail somewhere – or something much more elaborate) and BookCrossing (leaving uniquely-labeled books around for others to find, in hopes that they’ll log their thoughts online before passing the books along). The latter hobby has slowed down since COVID, as stray objects found lying around in public spaces wasn’t especially safe or appealing, and long-distance travel isn’t as safe either; I used to set up full-day road trips to leave books in as many interesting and/or scenic spots as I could, while fitting in some geocaches and some good pubs or restaurants. This last year I’ve mainly limited my trips to Little Free Libraries in nearby towns – still keeps me busy, as lots of people have installed LFLs during COVID! – but I miss being able to breeze off to the seacoast, prop some books up on benches with a lovely ocean view, and dart away before anyone can ask me if I’ve forgotten my book…

    5. Ginger Sheep*

      Competitive cookie decorating ! Already unusual in the US, but downright weird in my corner of Europe!
      Was planning on entering my first international-standard competition last April, but the best laid plans etc… Hoping it’s only postponed!

    6. Dwight Schrute*

      First off, what a cool hobby! One of my dreams is to search for Bigfoot. I’m not sure if this counts as a weird hobby or not, but I keep rats as pets and I adore them! They are hilarious little creatures

    7. Ethyl*

      I collect vintage pens! Parkers are my jam, but I (used to) love hitting the flea markets and garage/estate sales and hunting for all kinds! It’s also fun because I can usually get a bunch for cheap, because dealers at those types of places don’t want to deal with selling such fiddly small items, and then ebay the ones I don’t want to keep. Hopefully by spring the flea market and garage sales will be a lot safer to go to and I can go on the hunt again.

  48. Mella*

    I know there are several places to find makeup dupes for discontinued products, like Temptalia and DupeThat. Has anyone seen a similar option for clothes?

    I have a knack for getting hooked on specific items that get discontinued. (I thought I was just grumpy and paranoid about it, but multiple family and friends have noticed. It’s now a joke that I’m cursed, and nobody should like what I like, because it’s going away soon.)

    1. MissDisplaced*

      You mean like you would want some custom designed clothing to replace what was discontinued? Or just something similar but current? It seems that might be hard to do as clothing styles change rapidly. I have seen bespoke made to measure clothing like Eshakti, but I’m not sure that’s what you want.

      I am like that with shoes, because older shoes/boots were often made of better materials. My best bets have been to scour Ebay, ThredUp, Mercari and the like. I actually found the 9 West chunky heel penny loafers that I had in the 1990’s and loved but wore out.

      Other than that, most clothing guru’s would say to buy multiples of things you really love, like jeans, cashmere sweaters, and the like.

      1. Mella*

        Just similar, but current.

        Something like WornOnTV but for discontinued stuff. “Here is a pencil skirt in a color and cut just like this popular one J Crew made last year” or what have you.

        I assume it doesn’t exist because fashion makes no money if you don’t buy new stuff constantly, but I’ve learned what works for my body and what doesn’t, so trends are not my friend.

        1. MissDisplaced*

          Hm. No, I haven’t seen a specific site for that.
          The one thing you could try is to load a photo of the item to Google and search by image. It should find similar looking items. I think Shopbop kind of does that too. Mostly though, I’ve seen this for finding knockoff purses and such.

    2. Generic Name*

      Ohhhh, thank you for the makeup website! I was just complaining to my husband today that the mascara that I like has been discontinued. I tend to find a product I like and use that forever (lord help me if burts bees lip balm ever goes away). I’m no help in the clothes. Unless something is a classic staple and can be found at places like Talbot’s or Ann Taylor, clothing fashions move on and the perfect t-shirt you love goes away after a few years max.

    3. Ranon*

      If it’s only been a few years or so I just check Poshmark, the number of people who not something and then never wear it is high enough for common brands that I can often find a replacement

      1. Reba*

        I have done this several times. When I find myself saying, oh I wish I’d bought more of this, or I wish I gotten the other colors…often you can!

        I actually bought a dress on ebay that I wasn’t able to get in my size when it was originally release, I set an alert for it and a few years later, I got a size up. I laughed at myself but if you’re still thinking about it after the fact, I think it’s worth it.

    4. RagingADHD*

      The only things I can think of are resale sites like Thredup.

      If you can sew, you can make patterns off of ready to wear clothes. The tricky bit is finding fabric you like, because the texture and drape tend to be key in making a piece awesome, and mainstream fabric stores usually focus on quilting, home decor, baby stuff, and special-occasion fabric.

      You can find better quality apparel fabrics online, but it gets pricey real quick.

  49. RagingADHD*

    Anyone here a guinea pig owner?

    We got a bonded pair of young females at the beginning of December. We’re first-timers, and they are just so adorable and sweet.

    As soon as the Christmas decorations come down next week, we’re going to start on a proper cage upgrade (the pet shop starter cage is too small for long-term).

    Any recommendations on sites, YT channels, resources, tips & tricks?

    Favorite stories about your own piggies?

    1. Not A Manager*

      I learned from sad experience not to trust the care advice given by big chain pet stores. Also those little pamphlets they sell you are bunk. And frequently friends who own the same small mammal or fish don’t know a lot more than you do about them.

      Find a good, reputable resource regarding care of your pet and read the background info as well as the immediate care instructions. Our guinea pig did survive for most of his lifespan, but I think his life ended prematurely because we just didn’t understand guinea pig biology.

      1. RagingADHD*

        If you don’t mind, what seemed to be the issue?

        I’ve been reading a good bit about their diet, making sure they get the right kind of hay, which fresh veggies are safe, getting enough vitamin C but not too much calcium, etc.

        I certainly want to learn anything that can help!

        1. Not A Manager*

          I believe that somehow we got the impression that they liked hay, but not that hay is essential to their metabolism. This wasn’t helped by aforementioned friends who started to give their guinea pig less hay because he was getting overweight, and substituting fresh veggies instead. I think all of us just had the idea that fresh stuff was better and that hay was a poor substitute.

          Our guinea pig lived to be over five years old, so that’s within the lifespan of a captive guinea pig, and he did have access to hay, but at his last vet visit the vet mentioned something like “they are hay digestion machines” and I realized that I hadn’t known that. He died due to a digestive complication and I’ve always felt that if we’d known better that might not have happened.

          1. RagingADHD*

            Aw, that’s sad. Yeah, everything I’ve read says “unlimited hay,” so we keep them topped up all the time.

    2. Sunflower*

      Make sure they are both definitely female and neither are pregnant. My sister got one and we woke up one day and bop- another was in there! We assumed the other was female and next thing we know, more showed up. Those things will multiply like crazy. I don’t know exactly how to handle situations like that but definitely make sure that’s not a possibility.

      1. RagingADHD*

        They’ve had a checkup at the vet, so I assume she would have informed us of any surprises. But yes, I’ve heard they breed like tribbles.

    3. Never Nicky*

      Welcome to the joys of guinea pig companionship. After a gap of 8 years in piggie ownership, we started fostering a pair of long haired males in November and it looks like we’re going to be failed fosterers .

      My top tips:
      feed nuggets rather than muesli style mixes; give them lots of hay for bedding and feeding every day; lots of cuddle time;
      you’ll learn the ‘tells’ when they want to pee and if you consistently put them back in their pen at their signal, they’ll learn to signal more clearly and wait;
      don’t trust some of the big brands and chains about ingredients in mixes and treats – some stuff in them isn’t safe

      Most of all – enjoy!

      1. RagingADHD*

        Thanks! We are all hurting a bit for cuddle time right now, because they’re being treated for ringworm. But we make sure to put on an apron and give them some lap time and pets every day when they get their medication.

        We are only giving them 1 scoop of the plain vitamin-fortified pellets at night, along with their hay. In the day they get fresh veg & hay. They don’t seem to like the pellets much, because the bowl is still mostly full in the morning.

    4. AC*

      Some lessons learned after several years of guinea pig companionship:
      – Make sure you have a reputable vet who is experienced with small mammals. This may be more expensive, but is so worth it. Even if you didn’t adopt, your local rescue will probably have a list of recommended vets they can share.
      – Weigh your piggies weekly – a drop in weight is the first sign that they are not feeling well and may need some care. I just use a large mixing bowl on my kitchen scale to do this.
      – If you’re looking for a place to learn more about their health, I recommend reading through the Guinea Pig Lynx website. I found their information most helpful when my piggies got upper respiratory infections (the most common GP ailment) and for diet guidance
      – Speaking of diet, make sure they are getting either a vitamin C tablet or liquid supplement daily

      For cages, we got our from the guinea pig cages store, size medium for 2 pigs. We started with a “kitchen” area that had carefresh in it, but eventually moved to all fleece – it’s just easier to clean up, ime.

      We also splurged for liners for Guinea Pig Dad about 6 months ago, and they’re still going strong. After years of using regular fleece and changing it several times I week, I think this was worth it for us as now we only have to swap them out weekly and they stay much drier, which is healthier for the pigs.

      For food and hay, I would recommend Oxbow brand, unless you have local timothy hay available (we could sometimes find this through smaller, local pet shops).

      1. RagingADHD*

        We started with Oxbow and then when I needed a refill, the shop was out so I had to get Kaytee.

        Won’t make that mistake again! It was horribly coarse, all massive stems.

        I have Oxbow on Amazon autoship now. It’s so much nicer.

    6. Seeking Second Childhood*

      When I was a kid, I would take my guinea pig’s wire-bottomed cage off its base and carry the whole thing out to the lawn before it was mowed. She’d hide when I lifted the cage, and come right out to nosh on the grass when we got there.
      Unfortunately I was little enough that I didn’t carry through on cage cleanup like I promised when I begged Mom to let me get her, so she was re-homed. Asking the adults – is this good for guinea pigs like I thought it was when I was little?
      (That said, guinea pig merch on etsy is sometimes hysterical. “The Wheek Squad” , the “Wheeeking Dead”, you get the idea.)

      1. RagingADHD*

        I have read that they like fresh grass if the weather is warm enough. We’ve only had 1 day mild enough to take them outside since we got them. We put them in a playpen. They nibbled a bit but didn’t seem too interested, maybe because it’s pretty dry winter grass right now, not very succulent.

      2. HoundMom*

        My kids each had a guinea pig and my middle child set the rule that no one could participate in any activity until every cage was clean. The three of them lived between 7 and 9 years.

        They were cuddled a lot — one hung out in my daughter’s sweatshirt hood and wrapped himself around her neck. Another loved the sweatshirt front pocket and learned how to play dead.

        Seconding everything from Oxbow. Chewey had it at a good price (we buy it for our bunny).

        Enjoy!

    7. Workerbee*

      How wonderful! I’m a very long time guinea pig person, and three years ago we got a bonded pair of guinea pig sisters when they were perhaps two months old. Up until then, we’d had single-caged guinea pigs who didn’t want to bond. :)

      —Our vet said we didn’t need to get them spayed as they were bonded, but I wish we did as they go into heat and just because there are no males around, it doesn’t mean they won’t be incredibly interested in each other. This manifests in grumbling, jumping, disgruntlement, squealing…I’ve explained that it doesn’t work that way, but they don’t listen.
      —You may already know of the wonders of a cubes & coroplast cage, but I’ll still recommend the website guineapigcages dot com. There is a minimum square footage per pig. Also consider a ramp to an upper story. They love running around on different levels.
      —We use a recycled paper bedding for most of their cage, but their upper floor is fleece lined with fleece couches and fleece blankets. We also have low-slung hammocks. They love snuggling.
      —Include lairs in the form of boxes or overhangs.
      —Floor time regularly! We make sure all the cords are out of reach and put up little fences across doorways. They love to run and stretch their legs. We have a long hallway and run up and down it together (when they feel like following me.) They will jump over low obstacles like blocks and stand up like little T-rexers to reach things. If you’re in their way, they’ll try to “move” you.
      —The more you interact with them, the more intelligent, playful, and affectionate they will be.
      —Vitamin C = big yes, but watch calcium contents as they can lead to kidney stones. Unlimited hay. No alfalfa after they’re a year old (unless that’s changed). We sourced a brand or two on Amazon that delivers a big box of fresh hay that our girls love.
      —If they don’t drink water, don’t worry. I had water drinker pigs up until our last fellow and these girls. It’s weird! —but they seem to get enough water from their romaine. The vet isn’t worried.
      —Check out guineapigtanks dot com.

      It already sounds like you’ve provided a loving environment for your little dears!

      1. Might be Spam*

        We used to use wooden kindergarten sized blocks to make mazes for our Guinea pig. She usually stayed in the maze and knocked over the outside blocks to make “windows.” The mazes were about out 10 by 8 feet and took up most of the room.

        She was very friendly and we took her to school during “mammal week” to show a few classes. The kids sat in a circle and she walked around the circle and let them pet her.

  50. fposte*

    Hey, nep, I thought of you this week and the conversation we had about Angélique Kidjo years ago. She turned up on YouTube in one of YoYo Ma’s Songs of Comfort (which is a fabulous series). I’ll put a link in followup.

  51. Chaordic One*

    During COVID I’ve been spending time rewatching old movies, television movies and TV shows from when I was a kid and a teenager. Since other people have asked for help in finding the names of cartoons and novels they couldn’t recall, maybe the commentariat could help me find the name of an old movie I can’t seem to find. I’ve already googled this and looked at several websites that are dedicated to finding movies based on their plots, but I have come up empty. I’ve also tried to locate it through cross-referencing the names of actresses who might have been in it through imdb.com and have come up empty. This was possibly a TV movie that was made in about the early or mid-1970s.

    A beautiful blonde American woman with a shortish pooffy bouffant hairstyle shows up at the European country estate of a rich man claiming to be his new wife and that her husband will be arriving shortly after her. She arrives in a Rolls Royce (either a Silver Cloud or a Silver Phantom) that supposedly belongs to the owner. The main house is a white stucco villa with an orange tile roof and orange tile on the floors and steps. It is surrounded by vineyards. I seem to recall that the movie was set in Spain, but it could have been France or Italy. The actress playing the American woman sort of resembled several blonde actresses from around that time such as Barbara Rush or Barbara Anderson or maybe Barbara Bain and was probably in her mid-30s to mid-40s.

    The owner of the estate is apparently a notorious playboy, so the staff is skeptical about her claims of being his wife, but they make her welcome and put her up in his suite. They wait for him and the owner never shows up. The 30-ish black-haired spinster sister of the owner speeds down the narrow roads through the vineyards up to the villa in her Mercedes-Benz 230 SL with the top down, her hair tied in a bun, wearing large dark glasses and looking severe. After arriving she cleans up, takes off her glasses, lets her hair down and is revealed to be a beauty. The sister is dismissive of and curt towards the blonde American and also skeptical of the American’s claims of being her brother’s new wife. And they wait some more and the new husband still fails to show up. Meanwhile, apparently unrelated to the goings on at the villa, at some point in the movie, someone finds a Rolls Royce hood ornament at a rock quarry fairly near the villa.

    A dark, handsome, plainclothes police detective shows up to investigate the missing husband and questions the wife, the sister and the staff. He comes and goes and displays a doggedness similar to Lieutenant Columbo (although he is much younger and more handsome) always coming back to the villa to ask more questions of the increasingly annoyed wife, sister and staff.

    He tells the American woman a story about his cousin (or maybe his sister) who thinks all American cars look alike (big and covered with chrome) and that she can’t tell the difference between them. Then he says something along the lines of some people might think that all Rolls Royces look alike and can’t tell the difference between them, but that he knows the one she showed up in is not the one owned by the owner of the estate. Apparently he is aware of the Rolls Royce hood ornament found at the rock quarry and he puts two and two together and has figured out that the owner of the estate is dead and that his body was put in his Rolls Royce and then pushed into the rock quarry where the car was buried with rocks. I’m not sure if the American woman actually married the owner of the estate or not or if they ever found his body or how she murdered him or where she got the second Rolls Royce, but she apparently ends up being arrested for his murder and is hauled off to jail. The end.

    Any ideas?

    1. fposte*

      Wow, I don’t recognize it but that sounds totally up my alley. I hope somebody can name it.

    2. Squeebird*

      Is there any chance it might be an episode of a TV show you’re remembering, or is it definitely a movie?

      1. Chaordic One*

        I’m pretty sure it was a movie, and I think it was probably a TV movie and not one that had a theatrical release. It ran for 2 hours with commercials. I can sort of imagine it being the pilot for a TV series, but it really seemed to give the most attention to the murderer and not the detective. If it was a pilot it must never have been picked up. I never saw anything else with the detective and I don’t recall ever seeing the actor who played the detective in anything else.

          1. Chaordic One*

            Do you remember who any of the actors were? If I could remember that, I could probably track down the name of the movie.

    3. Urban Prof*

      Do you know about the Internet Movie Cars Database? It’s amazing. You can look up a particular car make and model and get a list of thumbnail photos from every movie (theater and TV) that car has ever been in.

      I just did a search on the Mercedes-Benz SL, and got 8 pages of possibilities. The Rolls-Royces had more hits (28 and 34 pages, I think), but at least this could be a starting point for you!

      https://www.imcdb.org/search.php

    4. Seeking Second Childhood*

      I just had a thought and looked at reddit and there are several different subreddits for finding movies. What movie was this, what movie is that, what’s this movie….you get the idea.

  52. Vacuum Cleaners*

    Does anyone have a vacuum cleaner they would recommend? I have a cheap Dirt Devil one that is fine, but I have to do several passes on my rugs to get them clean. I recently got an Amazon gift card from work and I’m thinking I’ll put that towards buying a new one.

      1. Generic Name*

        Yes! I’d love a dyson but can’t afford to pay $600 for a vacuum cleaner, so I got a shark. I love it!

      3. peasblossom*

        My shark has been worth every penny! I have cats and the difference is huge from my last cheap vacuum.

    3. Girasol*

      If you like canisters rather than uprights I’m fond of a hoover wind tunnel. I find way more dust in its catch box than in any vac I’ve ever had, which says our house has never been so clean.

    5. pieforbreakfast*

      I’ve been happy with my Miele for like 12 years. It was more than I ever thought I’d spend but worth it in the end I think.

    6. MissDisplaced*

      Recently purchased a new Shark Navigator to replace my old vacuum. It’s my 2nd Shark (previously had an old 2000 version) and I like the light weight and brush cleaning features on the new ones. Some people do swear by Dyson, but with the price difference between about $200 for the Shark and $500 for the Dyson, I’m not totally convinced the Dyson is really worth it or lasts any longer. But hey, some might say they are.

      My husband and I tend to be fairly hard on vacuums, and plastic parts tend to break as we’re prone to banging them around. Hence, I go for the cheaper non-Dyson.

    7. Deschain*

      I have a cordless Dyson that I’ve had about a year and a half. It it so awesome. Vacuums 1,400 square feet without needing a recharge.

    8. Doctor is In*

      I just bought a Shark ( from Target on line), $300 or so and works well. Shark and Dyson are tops in Consumer Reports ratings.

  53. Lady Alys*

    This isn’t really an “allowance-tracking” answer, but allow me to suggest that you both read “The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to be Complicated.” It’s a good introduction to moving beyond stashing all your spare $ in a savings account.

  54. OyHiOh*

    Bird thread!

    What’s shown up this week in your favorite watching spot?

    I saw a bald eagle yesterday, at our local state park. I know they live there – the visitor’s center has a next out on the back veranda that they pulled out of a downed tree – but hadn’t actually seen one in the five years I’ve lived here. They’re all over my parent’s part of the upper midwest but seeing one fly by, just above eye level and with a backdrop of rocky mountains was something different.

    1. GoryDetails*

      Just the usual suspects bird-wise – though I’m always happy to see those. But I did get a lovely sighting the other day: a big beautiful fox strolled across my yard, showing off its winter coat and stunning floofy tail to best advantage. Of *course* I didn’t have a camera handy, but was delighted with the sighting anyway!

    3. Reba*

      A few new ones for me over the holidays. Last week we saw tundra swans!!!!! Who would have thought? Hermit thrush. Kingfisher. And on a reservoir in town, some ring necked ducks, among other impossible to ID waterfowl.

      1. Reba*

        Why are so many birds named for nearly invisible features?? (The ring on the duck is dark brown on black.)

        1. OyHiOh*

          And also, why are there like sixteen varieties of finches and thrushes each, whose identifying characteristics read something like “white stripe on face just above eye” vs “white strip on face just below the crown of the head.” ?????????

          My thirteen year old is an enthusiastic identifier of birds. In those situations we end up with “well, it’s probably one of these 3 kinds of finches but who knows which one, exactly.”

        2. Reba*

          So, I actually researched my complaint-question about obscure field marks. :) It has to do with the way birds were studied in earlier eras — after being trapped or shot down, i.e. up close.

          That reminded me of reading about 19th century women naturalists who started the trend of observing birds with lenses rather than shooting them with guns!
          https://www.ladyscience.com/victorian-women-and-birding/no48

          1. OyHiOh*

            All three of my children are currently fascinated with the ladyscience link. Thank you for that! Anything to show my velociraptor son a softer way to approach investigation, and show my daughters that they do belong.

            1. Reba*

              Yay! I thought that article was really thoughtful in the way it was framed.

              I also just enjoy the image of ladies in fine dresses hitting the trail with their opera glasses.

      2. OyHiOh*

        I hear you on mystery waterfowl! There are at least two species I see regularly, that seem to not exist as far as my bird ID books/app are concerned.

        Tundra swans! That’s super cool! This birding thing started when a crane stepped out of the brush some ways down the path from me and a friend, and then proceeded to walk towards us. At one point, I thought it was going to peck my friend the photographer’s camera lens. Ever since, walks have held a sense of mystery and wonder: what is going to appear out of the bushes this time.

    4. Generic Name*

      I’ve been a real hermit lately, so I’ve just been seeing our neighborhood birds like Canada geese and house finches. I did have a Cooper’s hawk visit the other day, which was pretty cool. I think you’re in Colorado, right? Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge is a great place to spot bald eagles.

    5. Cheesesteak in Paradise*

      Wild turkeys. They weren’t around for a bit and now we see them all the time again. My theory is they lay low around Thanksgiving to avoid becoming dinner!

      1. OyHiOh*

        There is a story deep in the Oy family lore, of a Thanksgiving Day on which a turkey had been consumed as per tradition, and washing up proceeded, in advance of serving desert. And during this interval, in which several Oy family members were gathered around the kitchen sink, a male turkey in full fall regalia, tail unfurled just as broadly as possible, promenaded across the front yard as if to say “nah nah fooled you again, suckers!”

    6. Elspeth McGillicuddy*

      Not quite birding, but bird related so some of you will probably enjoy it-I have a new favorite artist, Xavi Bou. I saw his Ornitographies and just fell in love. They are the coolest and most beautiful way of looking at a bird in flight I have ever seen.

    7. Birdlings*

      Well, this is pretty humble compared to the other sightings, but I live in a big city in an apartment building, and I’m not going outside…so I put peanut butter out on my fire escape and I’ve had Customers. First the crows came, and were regulars for a few months. Then they mysteriously disappeared. Now I have a pair of dark-eyed juncos (so beautiful!), and recently a blue jay has started showing up too. It makes me very happy.

      1. Reba*

        Juncos are so pretty and sweet.

        It will be interesting to see which species pass through and which ones are there all year!

      2. OyHiOh*

        Peregrine falcons are surprisingly well adapted to human big city environments, although I don’t think they’re attracted to peanut butter! It wouldn’t surprise me at all if you continue to see a bigger range of birds coming in, than you expected. Juncos are pretty little birds, and if you have them and jays, you may get a visit from a cedar waxwing. They’re one of my favorite winter birds.

    8. Bibliovore*

      A Barred Owl. I had never seen a owl in the wild. Its been hanging out for the last few days. Even saw it swoop down for a rodent snac.

  55. Wannabe cook*

    Does anyone have any suggestions for learning how to cook? I am truly a beginner and just want to make simple lunches and dinners (mostly vegetarian). Recipes never seem detailed enough for me, but perhaps I haven’t found the right cookbook. (For example, if the recipe says something like “sauté for 5 minutes,” I find it confusing because I don’t know what level of heat the stove should be on.)

    Any suggestions for really basic cookbooks, YouTube videos, or cooking classes?

      1. BRR*

        Seconding Salt Fat Acid Heat. The food lab is amazing but it’s long. It Teaches a lot of the basics and also why those methods are the best methods.

    2. Purt's Peas*

      Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything is a great cookbook; old Julia Child videos may be fun; Food Wishes with Chef John videos on Youtube are fun and fairly basic but you have to get used to his voice. Good Eats is a really solid show for basics, but Alton Brown is not an unproblematic figure.

        1. Reba*

          Third, I’ve had the veg Bittman for like a decade now and truly learned to cook from it. I use it less nowadays, not all the recipes are brilliant but it’s still a great reference–there is a method in there for almost anything! It also instills a really great attitude about food and cooking, I think.

    3. Squeebird*

      I really like the cookbook “Clueless in the Kitchen” (and its companion, “The Clueless Baker”) by Evelyn Raab. She originally wrote the book for teenagers who are cooking for themselves for the first time so it is truly from the ground up basics, and written in an entertaining and down-to-earth style.

    4. TPS reporter*

      Endless repetition of shows on food network like Rachel Ray that do pretty basic cooking. I’m a visual learner

    5. Generic Name*

      Betty Crocker cooking basics cookbook. The first section talks about cooking terms and what they mean (what is simmer versus boil??) and it also has simple recipes with lots of pictures.

    6. 00ff00Claire*

      Check out the Cooks Smarts website. They have very basic lessons on cooking skills. The Budgetbytes website has a look of vegetarian recipes and all of them have step by step instructions with photos of almost all the steps. I learned a lot of cooking skills when I was a child, but I still appreciate the step by step instructions.

      1. Pharmgirl*

        Yeah seconding cooksmarts – it’ll give you a meal plan to choose from and then each recipe is broken down properly, to the point where they have videos on how to chop the vegetables in the recipe. There’s lots of how to videos on their site.

    7. Just a PM*

      If you have Netflix, I highly recommend “Chef” — it’s with Jon Favreau and Chef Roy, based on Jon’s movie “Chef” but still kind of “introductory” in terms of cooking. Each episode is about 30 minutes and you can learn basics like cutting/dicing, seasoning, baking 1010, etc. It’s pretty much Roy teaching Jon how to cook and the two of them going to restaurants and working with other chefs to cook their specialties.

      I tried a lot of different YouTube videos, recipes, and cookbooks but this show was the one that worked for me. YMMV though.

    8. Nicki Name*

      Try the Fannie Farmer cookbook– it starts with a detailed introduction to kitchen equipment and procedures. Later on, each section with recipes for a particular ingredient starts with a discussion of that ingredient and how to use it in general.

      1. AvonLady Barksdale*

        Seconding this! I used to work in the very large cooking section of a very large book retailer, and when people came to me with this dilemma I handed them the Fannie Farmer cookbook. As well as a copy of the previously mentioned Bittman How to Cook Everything.

      1. Best wishes, warmest regards*

        My college aged children have been Olympic level in learning from some fantastic YouTube videos. We have started watching them as a family and truly learned some great tips. Adam Ragusea is fantastic and shares SO much knowledge. My husband always struggles with cooking the perfect steak. After watching Adam’s episode on steaks, hubby grilled the best steak ever. Adam also dispels some commonly held wisdom while explaining why and even delineates why you don’t get certain perspectives from pro chefs because they’re usually cooking with gas and many of us cook with electric. The other option that is more entertaining than educational is 4 levels from Epicurious.

    11. MissDisplaced*

      If you have streaming I’d really suggest going back and watching old episodes of Alton Brown’s GOOD EATS show.
      I knew how to cook from my mom, but I learned how to COOK from Good Eats. Alton is very good at explaining the mechanics of cooking, such as why you do certain things, and what temperature things should be cooked at, saute versus braise, types of pans to use, cuts of meat to buy, how to season, etc.

  56. Too much loss*

    Has anyone lost multiple loved ones within a short amount of time? I posted here after losing my dad unexpectedly in October, and a lot of people had some good suggestions and insights. I felt like I was working through that grief, but then a week ago I lost another much-loved family member unexpectedly, someone I loved very much. Not to mention that I lost a friend in August and an aunt in September, and another aunt earlier this year (none have had COVID).
    I just feel so overwhelmed with the cumulative grief, it’s surreal. I’m single, and although I have a strong support system, I am also somewhat introverted and find it really easy to isolate, which I know isn’t always healthy. It’s also been difficult to focus at work — I’ve been working from home since COVID times started, and since my dad died I’ve so much trouble staying focused and productive; my work is project-based and largely autonomous — I need to manage my time well. My manager is great and supportive, but having the bandwidth for work is really tough right now. So although I know this isn’t a work thread, and this post is primarily not about work, I’d love some advice around that too — just how to find that balance and energy and focus again, and how to be patient with myself in the meantime. I’m looking for other people who can share their experiences or insights — anything that might be helpful. I’m not looking for sympathy — not to sound picky but would rather people post stuff about their experiences or suggestions. Thank you in advance.

    1. Sam I Am*

      I think that the cumulative aspect of losing so many people is a particular thorn you have to tend. I would suggest some sort of “processing” whether it’s therapy, journaling, or creating (painting, writing music, woodcarving, whatever you like to create) but that you use this action to focus on your grief, not distract from it. If you write, write about these people. Write about what it’s like to lose them. If you sing, sing about them. If you carve, carve something that makes you think of them.
      Exercise is great, of course, and if I’m angry it’s what I turn to.
      Also, you may want to “make yourself” cry.
      It sounds like with so many losses, staggered out over time, that you probably have different layers of grief that are all in different parts of your greiving process, and it’s overwhelming.
      Basically, if you’ve been treading water to stay above the wave, it might be time to dive into it to see if that can get you on your way back to shore.
      Best of luck to you.

      1. Too much loss*

        Thank you for your insights and suggestions. I do have therapy, but I canceled it the week after the most recent death, because I just wasn’t up to even having a conversation. But I do plan to keep my appt this week. I also need to re-focus on exercise — I was running and hiking regularly since COVID, until my dad died, and then all my routines just went out the window.

    2. WoodswomanWrites*

      Dealing with so much at once is hard. When I lost two people close to me within three days, I found it helpful to join a local grief group led by trained volunteers. Everyone in the group had lost someone dear to them, and being with others and hearing their stories in a comparable situation was very helpful. That particular group was offered by a nonprofit, and it was a drop-in for whenever you needed to go. You could make a donation or attend for free if you couldn’t afford it, and there was no pressure either way. I’m wondering if there’s something similar where you are.

      Even if you can’t meet in person during the pandemic, there may be groups online you can join. The advantage of that is you may be able to join a group that’s meeting anywhere, even if they’re not in your area.

    3. Valancy Snaith*

      This was me in 2019. My aunt died at the end of July, an uncle (same side of the family) in September, my mom at the end of October, one of my mom’s best friends around Christmas, and my aunt (the widow of the mentioned uncle) at the beginning of January. During this same year, I suffered a miscarriage, and my husband was involved in a death at work. It was a hellishly hard time, and then we rolled right into the dumpster fire of 2020.

      What helped? Time. I know it’s not a useful answer to you right now, but just time, and patience, and listening to myself helped. I pretty much relied on my subconscious to tell me what I wanted/needed. I like to run, and I did a lot of running, just because I’d have the feeling “a run would feel good” and I’d go do it. I worked a lot of overtime because it helped take my mind off things. I did what I could to take myself out of my head, because I’m relatively introverted as well, and the more I dwelt on things the worse it got.

      At the same time, along with listening to myself, I didn’t necessarily shove away the grief when I felt it. If I was having a rough day, I cried. If something reminded me of what was going on, I just let it happen. It was just part of generally rolling with the punches, unfortunately. I know this isn’t an incredibly useful answer because it boils down to “time,” but that’s what helped the most, in my opinion.

      1. Too much loss*

        Thank you, and sorry for your losses too. I’ve been telling myself this — it just will take time — but it’s tough to function in the meantime. I do need to reprioritize exercise, as I was running and hiking a lot until my dad died, but since then it’s been very sporadic and not nearly enough. The craziness of this time, and working from my living room without the change of environment and the interpersonal interaction that work normally provides, definitely isn’t helping.
        Thank you for your response. I really appreciate you validating my instinct that the real answer of what will be most helpful is time — it is hard to give in to that, but it feels true. In the meantime, I just need to find the balance and bandwidth for work, because I already took 3 weeks off after my dad died.

        1. Valancy Snaith*

          I wish there was something else that would help–exercise really did help me in keeping my head on straight, and working was also hugely helpful in giving me another point to focus on. My dad has found a huge amount of support in his grief group, which is made up of people who’ve lost their spouses within the past year or two, and even though they’ve gone to Zoom on and off this year, he still finds it massively helpful to just be able to interact with people who are on the same plane as him.

        2. Colette*

          If exercise is too much right now, that’s ok. I spent the month after my dad died playing Super Mario. It was what I could handle. Don’t put pressure on yourself to do things if they’re not right for now.

          1. Too much loss*

            Thank you for that anecdote — I have been watching more tv than usual, and it’s actually very comforting to hear your experience and helps me give myself permission to just do what I can handle.

    4. Not So NewReader*

      You are wise to realize grief snowballs, it is indeed cumulative and yep, it’s overwhelming.

      Perhaps you can find a grief group or books on grief to help you process everything that continues to happen to you. Grief groups and grief books are not horrid. Some can be down right uplifting. Think of it as knowledge is power. In a small example, let’s say you learn that grief can manifest as being sleepy all the time, constantly wanting to sleep. You can make a plan for set bed times and perhaps an occasional nap here and there. Accept it as part of your process and weave it in to your overall coping plan.

      Ask your supportive people for specific helps. Be strategic, get the helps where it will give you benefit. Let’s say you are always super tired at the end of the week. This means you’d like help with X that you always do at the end of the week. Figure out how to get that help.
      Going in a different direction perhaps you just need someone you can call at 2 am. Hey, these people exist, I know this first hand. Find out who in your group is okay with 2 am calls.

      It’s okay to take quiet time. Matter of fact it’s probably beneficial. But when that quiet time goes for weeks, that is more like isolation. Don’t let a week go by with out reaching out to someone. Set a time limit if you like, “I will call my good friend Jane and talk to her for 45 minutes this week.” There, done.

      When I was in the thickest of grief I found that one or two activities for an hour each was ENOUGH for one week. Now activities might look like a zoom get-together or a phone call. My point is to keep it small and keep it doable, so you actually get there and do it. The trick is to keep doing it. Maybe Jane will agree to call you on Thursday if she has not heard from you before then. Perhaps ask Jane to keep you accountable for reaching out.

      Next, grief zaps our bodies of vitamins and minerals. You might like a drink with electrolytes in to help brain function. If you find yourself not caring about meals perhaps a protein drink is just the thing. A lot of people benefit from B vitamins while in grief. Check with a doc of course. Fresh fruits and veggies can add a boost. If you want, you can juice them or soup them, drink your veggies and fruits. This is actually great because when the foods are broken down it’s much easier for the body to absorb what it needs. I have noticed that salmon or chicken for dinner cause me to have a stronger day the next day.

      Tears. This is super important to remember. Tears cause a chemical reaction in the brain that help to keep the brain healthy. I can sit down and blat like a child tonight and know for a fact I will do better tomorrow. I have done this so many times, I see that it is true. When I was in the thick of my grief, I had days where I was pretty wound up but the tears just would not come out. I put on some music that I know will make me cry. Yep, the tears came and I calmed down.

      Watch what you read. Read things that are either supportive for navigating your situation or read uplifting things. I went through one point where Chicken Soup for the Soul books were like brain candy. I just would crawl into that book and live there.

      Take in enough news so you know how to keep yourself safe, then turn the news off. Most of the news is repetitive anyways.

      I went to a picnic one time with 10 adult family members, my husband and my dog. In the moment, I could feel something from the eternal plane but could not figure out why. Within 5 years all of them were gone, even the dog.

      Like you I don’t want a ton of sympathy, it helps me to move along to think about others who have it harder than that. But this thought did not get me through the symptoms of grief. I was walking across the living room one day and the floor started moving. What really stressed me out was realizing that it was all in my mind because I know the floor is actually fine. Self-care is critical. Rest, hydration, good foods and something for your mind and heart- be it friends, good books, therapy or whatever suits you. It’s fine to not desire sympathy, but that is only one decision in a list of many decisions about how we want to deal with what we have lost. It takes multiple activities to get ourselves in a stronger place.

      While it may feel like forever collecting up more and more coping tools, it’s not forever. See just as grief is cumulative so are the coping tools. As we put more tools into action things get a tiny bit easier incrementally. Coping tools are cumulative, too.

      1. Too much loss*

        Thank you for your thoughtful response and for sharing all these suggestions and insights — I appreciate it!

      2. WoodswomanWrites*

        So sorry to hear you’ve experienced so much loss. Your suggestions for moving through grief are wise, and I will refer to your post should I need that guidance down the road.

    5. Anono-me*

      I think grief also is a physical burden as well as an emotional and mental weight.

      I have found reading to be helpful in hard situations. I could lose myself in a good book and have a sort of time out from the pain that was always f-ing there. The pain didn’t feel any better when I put the book down, but my body felt a little rested and healthier. (If you are not a reader maybe there is something else that you can loose yourself in 100%. Basketball, movies, online adventure games, etc.. ) I also took a multivitamin and ate alot of breakfast bars, since I was not eating well.

      Wishing strength and stamina for you as you get through this.

      1. Too much loss*

        Thank you — I’ve actually been doing a lot of reading too. I appreciate what you said about grief being a physical burden too — I hadn’t really thought of it that way, but it’s a valid point, and I agree 100%.

    6. Best wishes, warmest regards*

      I wish I had an easy answer but the answer will be different for everyone. For months, I couldn’t even talk about my losses while tearing up so a support group wasn’t an option for me. Here’s what I did, I gave myself permission to grieve. That meant taking several weeks off of work. I didn’t care what the policy was. I just did it. My children had never seen me cry and all of a sudden, I’m crying in the car, I’m weeping while taking the dogs for a walk, I tear up when I’m on the phone and I didn’t care. I pride myself on being resolute and stoic so this was very tough for me. I didn’t wallow in it but I needed some space to process. I looked for quick volunteer efforts that would infuse me with a brief shot of positivity. I tried to be kind to others even though I wasn’t turning that focus on myself. I didn’t eat better or work out. I just did whatever emotionally healed me.

      Hugs to you. I would encourage you to feel no pressure to grieve a certain way or adhere to timeframes or expectations. Don’t talk about it if you don’t feel like it. It will get better, soon the memories will make you smile instead of crying.

      1. Too much loss*

        Thank you. I am considering taking a little more time off of work even though I already took 3 weeks off after my dad died, or maybe just working shorter days for a few weeks. I’m going to play it by ear, but reading other people’s experiences gives me a little more permission to allow myself to whatever it is I need to do to get through this.

  57. Squeakrad*

    Ovid risk question- I’m in the SF bay area which is been in lockdown for a few weeks and probably a few weeks more. Just before the lockdown I had started a course of physical therapy — once a week at a local hospital clinic which is taking many many precautions as you might imagine around Covid. I wear a mask, the practitioner wears a mask and a shield, there are HEPA filters everywhere, social distancing etc. But with this new strain I’m suddenly panicked about going to any medical facility At all. I’ve talked to each of the practitioners I’ve worked with a name assured me they do everything they can to keep people safe. And there certainly haven’t been any stories of an outbreak from this clinic. But they are seeing a normal load of patients and not staggering appointments the way they had them back in March. I am in a fair amount of pain and it really does help which is why I kept going after the lockdown. And I’m wondering if there’s anyway to assess how at risk I actually am.

    1. Dr. Anonymous*

      Hard to know for sure. I will say that I’m a doc in a busy ambulatory clinic and have been seeing close to full load since August and NO ONE in my clinic or any sites where my friends work has gotten sick. Risk is there anytime you leave your house and go indoors with someone, you don’t live with but with mask and shield and air cleaners I think risk is likely low, especially if you can stay in your car until time for your appointment instead of hanging out in a waiting room with a bunch of people.

      1. Squeakrad*

        Yes I just wait outside till it’s time to go in. I do take Uber there and back but everyone here is masked and most Ubers now have a plastic partition between the driver and the passenger. I don’t go anywhere else except our local grocery which is really really good about masking and cleanliness. I’ve been stay at home work since March 9.

  58. Filosofickle*

    Advice on looking for and identifying bed bugs?

    My partner got a row of itchy bites on his leg in that perfect line that bed bugs create. I didn’t see them until after he scratched the hell out of them so I don’t know what the initial bite/bump looked like. They scare the bejeesus out of me — while I’ve never had them, my brother spent months and months fighting them and it was terrible.

    I’ve stripped the bed and looked all around the edges/corners of the linens and mattress. I’ve heard to look for little tiny blood spots. I don’t see anything — no little bugs or spots. Are they hard to see, or if I don’t see them then they’re probably not there? I understand how to heat treat affected items if I find any so I’m doing that with all my bedding just in case.

    1. Reba*

      They are hard to see. They may also be living comfortably in your walls and transiting to the bed (i.e., not nesting there). Sorry. Hopefully this means you are catching the infestation early–when you see more than very minimal signs, it’s already bad.

      *Please* *I beg you* look up and deploy diatomaceous earth. I’m such a booster for this product, it’s cheap and it works.

      You can also try, if your bed frame would allow for this, bug proofing the bed with traps that the feet of the bed sit in.

      If you are renting, find out if your area has laws about landlord responsibility for bedbugs (but don’t count on the landlord to take care of it properly).

      Good luck!!

      1. Reba*

        Sorry, to be clearer, the bugs themselves are spottable, the other signs less so until the infestation is more advanced. It would be normal to not necessarily see any bugs, even if you have a minor infestation.

      2. Just Lurking*

        I second the diatomaceous earth recommendation! It comes as a fine powder, but the individual crystals are sharp enough to cut up the insect exoskeleton which leads to death via dehydration. Our exterminator used a similar product all along where our carpets met the walls. We didn’t even know they were in the carpets until we found their little carcasses along the based boards. At that point they were easy to vacuum up before we reapplied the powder.

      3. Filosofickle*

        Thank you! I’ll get diatomaceous earth — it’s the easiest place to start. And no, I don’t expect my landlord to be helpful unless/until it’s a gigantic problem. Possibly not then.

    2. Just Lurking*

      Unfortunately I am well-qualified to advise you (I got bedbugs years back after a furniture delivery).

      Bedbugs looks similar to apple seeds: they have the same brown coloring as well as the same “tear drop” sort of shape. They are similar in size, but a bit smaller. Definitely something you could see with the naked eye.

      In addition to blood spots in bedding, you could also look for their waste. It appears as lots of little brown dots (almost like pin pricks) all close together. The critters congregate in the folds and seams of mattresses, as well as other furniture – including wood furniture or carpets.

      If you can, try looking at the bedding at night. I’m believe that’s when they tend to be more active. I’ve heard they’re attracted to the CO2 humans breath out (not sure if that’s true), so you may want to look after you’ve laid in bed a bit. I was allergic to the bites and had welts for months before I actually saw a bug (of course, while I was laying in bed) with my own eyes. I think at that point the infestation had finally gotten big enough to be noticeable.

    3. NRG*

      Also look for carpet beetles. They will look a bit like bedbugs, so you have to look closely- there are good pictures online. They are very common, and while they eat wool and hair and related “debris” rather than bite, many people are sensitive to the hairs the larvae have. If you are sensitive, you get marks that itch and maybe burn, and looks like bites. If you have them, you’ll have to get rid of them, but it’s easier than getting rid of moths.

      1. Filosofickle*

        Ooh, I’ve had carpet beetles before. I didn’t have a lot of wool but what I did have got ruined. My expensive wool drapes have tiny holes that make me mad every time the light shines through!

    4. NRG*

      You can also make a lure/trap for bedbugs tohelp detect them. There are some hormone ones you can buy, or you an use the fact that they are attracted to carbon dioxide and make a trap with a yeast culture.

      1. Imtheone*

        You can also use dry ice and baby powder to detect them. The dry ice attracts them. Spread the baby on a hard surface around the dry ice. Their trail will be visible.

    5. Nynaeve*

      My condolences! If my experience is any consolation…I thought I had bedbugs once, but it turned out to just be fleas (which was a pain to deal with, but not nearly as bad as bedbugs would’ve been). I hope this is the case for you also. If there are any vectors (dogs/cats – yours or someone else’s you visited, mice/rats), that might be it. If you recently stayed in a hotel or recently brought in used furniture, it might be more likely to be bedbugs. You might want to call a pest person either way. Or you can try washing all your sheets in hot water and spraying down the mattress and edges of the room with a natural flea and tick spray. I believe diatomaceous earth also works with fleas, as well as bedbugs. Get food-grade if you have pets.

      1. Filosofickle*

        That’s what I’m hoping! Ether it’s something else like fleas — which would be more likely given there are nearby animals and there’s been no travel or new furniture — or a one-off deal from one of his hikes. I also had a scare years ago after a trip, but other than one string of bites one time I never found anything so it must have been a fluke. Fingers crossed.

    6. Fiona*

      I echo what folks here are saying – that said, hopefully your experience will mirror ours. One day my partner and I both woke up with a row of bites on our sides. We both freaked out and examined our sheets really closely for the next few days. (My partner’s old apartment had bedbugs so he was familiar with the signs). We didn’t see anything and we never had those types of bites again – this was a year or two ago. We’ve lived here for six years with no issues. So fingers crossed it was one of those freak bites!

  59. LGC*

    From what I understand about B.1.1.7 (the new strain), it just has a higher chance of causing illness if you come in contact with it – something like 50% higher. Which means that if you do something in a way that has a 10% chance of getting infected normally, that’s now a 15% chance – and if it’s an 0.1% chance of getting infected, it’s now an 0.15% chance. The reports are that it doesn’t cause more severe illness than “standard” SARS-CoV2 variants, though.

    It’s scary! And I don’t think you’re wrong to be worried, especially since cases have already been discovered in your state (with the caveat that you live in California, which is huge). But…I’ll be honest, you also live in California, which is already going through one of the most severe spikes in the country (although it’s really centered on Los Angeles as opposed to the Bay Area).

    There was a risk calculator that I saw a few months back that I’m going to link in a reply – it helps to visualize the risks of doing certain things.

  60. Analyst Editor*

    So I recently came across a historian who didn’t really know much history, even about their general region, outside their narrow area of specialization. Let’s say for example their specialty was 20th century Eastern Europe, and they don’t really know anything about the Great Schism of the Orthodox and Catholic churches or anything in the way of which central European countries had which religious traditions. Or mainstays of general European history that presumably they should have learned in high school even or college, not to mention during their PhD.

    Am I very off-base? Is this a common thing?

    1. Generic Name*

      On the face of it, yeah, that does seem strange. I think some people have a lot of knowledge about a broad range of topics, and some people…..don’t. And I don’t think education has anything to do with it. My husband has a high school diploma and he regularly beats me (with a masters degree) in Trivial Pursuit. I think it’s entirely possible to get a PhD only knowing about your narrow area of interest. I remember taking my sister’s pet turtle to an “expert” at out local university to tell us what kind of turtle it was and what the sex was (this was pre-internet). He said he didn’t know what species it was and that telling the sex was “really difficult”. I’ve had a single graduate level herpetology class, and I later realized that the professor had no idea what he was talking about.

    2. Goose*

      I don’t know–my brother in law has a very specific masters degree and even more specific career based on that knowledge, and cannot for the life of him answer questions “around” the topic that aren’t specific to his degree/career. Sometimes being so specific derails all general knowledge

    3. Valancy Snaith*

      I would say it’s not hugely uncommon, depending on the area of specialization. There is just so, so, SO much history out there that it’s hard to have a general grasp on stuff, and once you’ve specialized in your PhD area for however many years, a lot of that other stuff just falls by the wayside. I have a Master’s in an extremely specific area of First World War history, and while I have an OK grasp of like, the war in general, if someone starts asking me about the causes leading up to it in the late part of the 19th century, I can’t help you with that. And that’s directly relevant!

      I’d say it depends on the area of expertise. Just taking your example, 20th-century Eastern Europe is a gigantic area. Should they have a handle on which areas are which religion? Probably. Does that require them to know anything about something that happened a thousand years previously? Well, not really, no. And by the time they’ve gotten to their PhD, the stuff they learned in high school is….many years in the past. I don’t think it’s that strange, no.

    4. fposte*

      I have a PhD in English. There are huge swaths of literary history I’ve never encountered in a classroom; survey courses just weren’t a thing in my undergraduate or graduate education. What scholars often have is deeper, not broader, knowledge and a theoretical underpinning that allows them to quickly contextualize outside of their specialty. I can’t swear to you that it’s the same in history but I wouldn’t be surprised.

      (If he’s American, he may not have gotten much European history in high school, either.)

      1. Blackcat*

        “If he’s American, he may not have gotten much European history in high school, either.”

        Yeah, I’m American, from California, and I got more Asian history than European history. This drives my husband nuts because he (also a scientist!) thinks it’s ridiculous I don’t know basic facts about European history. But I also sort of thought it was bonkers he never learned *ANY* Asian or African history (like, not being able to name a single Chinese dynasty and not knowing that Kingdom of the Kongo was a real, organized, formal state that existed). I do think this reflects the fact that he attended schools that were vast majority white, and I attended schools where whites were a minority or near-minority (we’re both white), and the curricula reflected the student population.

        History education really varies. I find my experience–almost no European history instruction but a lot of Asian history with a dash of African history–to be super unusual. But yeah, I would not expect an American to have a broad understanding of European history, even if they pursued advanced degrees in history.

        1. Analyst Editor*

          I don’t know if this is true outside of the united States – i.e. major gaps in knowledge about things outside one’s domain; probably not limited to the US; I’m biased, because “I’m for Bree in most matters”, but we aren’t universally as idiotic as that.

          But in my immediate acquaintance, none historians, could probably arrive at a collection of generally known geogepahic and historical facts, with approximate dates. I don’t mean “all the monarchs of Elbonia in order” or anything. But without that context, how can you claim to understand a history?

          It seems, just reading popular books, that a lot of really old history and ethnic lines and religious disagreements shape events to this day — even across continents, as various ethnic groups migrate. So, if you don’t study much outside of your narrow window, can you claim understanding? Is your theory really well-founded, you know?

          1. Purt’s Peas*

            It probably is well-founded. I mean, you don’t have to trust everything that comes out of this person’s mouth. But in their area of expertise, yeah, they’re a well-trained expert. Part of that is in the act of research—analyzing previous scholarship,
            discarding something if it’s not relevant, maybe even not remembering certain things but knowing where to look them up. And the slice of “generally known” history is frankly a lot narrower than you’d expect, I think; a lot of it is probably genuinely not relevant.

            But—outside of that area of expertise? Yeah, this person is still a person and a phd certainly doesn’t confer knowledge and authority on every subject, even every historical subject. It’d be kinda annoying and a misrepresentation if they’ve been claiming something like that.

          2. Reba*

            A big part of advanced training is learning how to research, how to think and to argue — as fposte described above, it’s tools for working with your material. It’s not about amassing a series of events or names, with recall ability. (The question of what shared context we all “ought” to have, and who will determine it, is a whole other kettle of fish!)

            I totally agree with you that the past, even the deep past, resonates in the present. I don’t think any historian would disagree! It’s that in a PhD historian’s work, they are asked to contextualize their work sufficiently to do whatever it is they want to achieve, to answer a particular question or make an argument. Most researchers are not being asked to account for huge sweeps of historical events, and they probably don’t need to in order to answer their questions. They can claim understanding (however imperfect it always must be) of what they deeply know, of the question they are seeking to answer.

            Of course, other readers may determine that events or factors they excluded from analysis really are necessary to grasping this or that — that’s why there’s debate, and many books on similar topics, and changes over time in the way research is done and the frameworks scholars use.

            In further defense of historians and related researchers, the most important trend I see today can be thought of as kind of globalizing the past — profoundly expanding the range of geographic and cultural context in which we look at events and people, who affected each other’s worlds despite being continents apart. Often because conventional training is by time period (for European/Western) and by region (for all other places) it is difficult to learn how to do this, but that’s changing and much for the better.

        2. Stephanie*

          I’m American. I had a broad world history class sophomore year…and then never took another world history class again. We did have an AP European History, but it was an elective and I had a conflict with another class. I can see how it happens!

    5. Nicki Name*

      Mr. Name has a history degree and says yes, this is a known problem with people who do the concentrated studies for PhDs (and this is why he didn’t go for a PhD).

    6. Blackcat*

      So as a STEM PhD… some folks don’t follow stuff outside their specialization except for what they teach. But it’s pretty normal for a theoretical computational chemist to teach say physical chemistry or a biophysics experimentalist to teach statistical mechanics.
      I’d say it’s a general expectation that any PhD in STEM can teach the full undergraduate core curriculum and advanced undergraduate electives and graduate classes in their specialty. It’s the teaching, more than the research, that enforces well-roundedness in the field.

      1. Analyst Editor*

        But then doesnt it kind of cast doubt on when the average PhD opines on anything outside of their area of specialization?
        Like if someone is a PhD in condensed matter physics I don’t expect them to be up to date on the latest in epigenetics, or nanomaterials every new development of string theory, but I’d expect them to be conversant on string theory.
        For someone with a history PhD I’d expect they’d like history in general more than the bare minimum of their en required courses for their degree.

        It just kind of shook my trust in a random expert claiming expertise.

        1. Blackcat*

          “I’d expect them to be conversant on string theory.”
          Maybe it’s my circles, but I actually know very few physicists conversant in string theory! But maybe that’s because my friends are mostly experimentalists… String theory is specialized enough that most folks won’t see it in school unless they’re in a field where it’s relevant. And most physicists I know sort of sigh and admit they don’t know anything about string theory. They shouldn’t, in general, opine about something far outside their specialty.

          I’ve been to a lot of good talks far outside my area of expertise, and great questions are always of the sort “You said X. Basic physics says Y. How do X and Y fit together?” Seeing how things connect is part the training, applying “basic physics” (by that I mean the core quantum/stat-mech type reasoning that applies broadly) to hard problems is normal.

          I opine on basic stuff outside my specialization all the time. Like when people were all “get a UV sanitizer for your phone” and I burst a lot of bubbles by saying “Uh, anything that *actually* kills viruses in 5 minutes with UV light is gonna damage plastic.” But that’s pretty basic physics/chemistry. You got enough energy to break carbon bonds efficiently? Cool! Do not point that at plastic.

        2. actual physicist here*

          “Like if someone is a PhD in condensed matter physics […], but I’d expect them to be conversant on string theory.”
          Why? I have a PhD in Condensed matter physics. At the time I got it, it was from one of the top 5 condensed matter grad programs in north america. There were no courses (or faculty) in: particle physics (including string theory), or astrophysics, nuclear physics and probably a few other relatively major physics disciplines. So the expectation is off-base.
          As as side note, I actually got a master’s in particle physics, but still know no string theory (it’s not the only game in town). Because, frankly, it takes more than two years of courses and research to get a deep enough understanding of QFT to properly understand strings. (I switched uni’s between MSc/PhD).
          Now, should a non-expert carry on like they know everything? No. But general, well-rounded knowledge in the field is not what a PhD is about.

          1. Jules the First*

            I love this site.
            Where else could you throw out condensed matter physics as a random example and find a commenter who says “hi! I’m a condensed matter physicist. What would you like to know?”

          2. Jules the First*

            I love this site.
            Where else could you throw out condensed matter physics as a random example and find a commenter who says “hi! I’m a condensed matter physicist. What would you like to know?”

          3. Blackcat*

            “Because, frankly, it takes more than two years of courses and research to get a deep enough understanding of QFT to properly understand strings.”

            Yeah, I toyed with cosmology for a year. I took a LOT of QFT. Still don’t understand string theory, like at all. The only nuclear physics I sort of know is the stuff I memorized for the physics GRE. Which is (was? this was a long time ago) a crappy test that rewarded memorization over understanding. And I know a lot of *immediately adjacent* stuff! TBH, I know just enough to be super skeptical of string theories and super symmetric theories. Just too many free parameters for my taste. BUT I probably just don’t know enough to make sense of it. The conceptual connections to the physics I do know is weak, so I don’t really have enough knowledge to properly sense-make around it.

            I actually really pride myself on a well-rounded knowledge of basic physics and chemistry (living between those worlds). Some of that comes from being a high school teacher before graduate school, and seeing the value of a really broad knowledge base. But, if anything, in the decade+ that it’s been since I left high school teaching, my knowledge base has *narrowed.* I’ve forgotten a lot of stuff.

            The main thing a PhD means, for me, is that I 1) am one of very, very few true experts in my exact research area and 2) I can learn new stuff in my field really fast if I want/need to. Particularly as an interdisciplinary researcher, I have some pretty glaring knowledge gaps in my secondary field. I never did the undergraduate major in it! I did my primary field + education (see: high school teacher), so I have a better knowledge base of say, critical race theory and 20th century philosophers of education, than I do organic chemistry.

          4. Analyst Editor*

            What would be something you’d expect of any physicist to know? Presumably any physicist could explain the basics of a field outside of theirs? Would any physicists be able to explain to a lay person something about physics, in answer to a dumb and naive question, “what is string theory”?
            A higher level of cross-field knowledge would be being equipped to assess the work of someone outside their domain. Or teach an undergraduate course on any topic expected of undergrads. Perhaps string theory specifically isn’t something undergrads see. I’m not sure.

            In the analogy to humanities, maybe what level of knowledge in the broader field is reasonable? Not meaning that YOU have to answer this question, but it’s an interesting thing to think about when you consider how you receive and process scientific or academic information of any kind.

            1. Blackcat*

              “Perhaps string theory specifically isn’t something undergrads see.”
              String theory is only something a fraction of theoretical high energy physicists see. It’s not even offered as a course at many (most?) graduate schools in physics. I think some of that is that a large number of people don’t believe it to be true. It’s not a particularly important or foundational idea in physics, IMO. It’s one possible competing theory to be a “grand unified theory” but lots of folks don’t think it’s the most compelling thing. It’s reasonable for a physicist to know little to nothing about it. I can pick up journal articles in a fair number of areas far away from my specialties and follow the core ideas, which is the point you’re making. I can’t do that for string theory, nor can the physicists I know who are not theoretical high energy folks. Part of that, honestly, is why there’s skepticism.

              It’s sort of like asking if a scholar of ancient Japanese history to explain the fall of the Soviet Union. They are likely to be like “Uh, yeah, that is a thing I know exists and economic instability often accompanies the failure of governments….”

              Any physicist should be able to tell you fun facts like relativity matters for GPS to work (some GPS satellites are REALLY FAR AWAY, like 1/10th the way to the moon, much further than the other things we shoot into space). But string theory is WAAAAYYYYY past general physics knowledge. Like, not the same ball park.

        3. Miss Pantalones En Fuego*

          I suppose it might cast doubt on that person’s sense of ego, if that’s the right way to put it.

          I’m an archaeologist. I would definitely claim to be an expert and have more knowledge of my general subject in certain contexts, especially where there is widespread and persuasive misinformation and misunderstanding (like so-called ancient aliens, misidentified artifacts and hoaxes allegedly found out of place, and so on).

          But if I’m dealing with things that fall into my general field but not the thing I specifically studied, then I would never claim to be an expert. My expertise is in a specific aspects of prehistoric cultures in the US and the Iberian Peninsula. If I’m working on an excavation at a Roman site in England I’m certainly not going to claim to be an expert over a colleague who doesn’t have a degree but has spent years studying and working with Roman archaeology.

          2. Reba*

            hmm, yes, perhaps what Analyst Editor experienced is more a personality issue than a PhD issue.

            Your work sounds very cool!!

    7. Chaordic One*

      I have a relative with an advanced degree in English Literature and she will review, write and discuss at length various novels. However, she has no knowledge about (and apparently no interest in) the lives of the authors she writes about or how their lives shaped the books they wrote. At a family gathering before COVID she was going on about how much she admired the writing of Shirley Jackson and I made, what I thought was, an innocuous comment about Shirley’s life. I was shocked to learn that my relative knew nothing about Shirley’s life and she acted like I was trying to put her on the spot. I wasn’t, I was just trying to make small talk and it was awkward for a moment as I moved the conversation onto something else. Personally, I like knowing things like that and think it helps explain where the author is coming from and the context that they are working in. Her not knowing anything about the author’s life struck me as being a bit weird when she was going on about what a great writer Shirley was, but I guess that’s just the way it goes sometimes and apparently it is common.

      1. Reba*

        In addition to however your relative likes to read (different strokes!) there are major different schools of thought on this question, so it probably points to her training/who she studied with, too.

      2. Analyst Editor*

        This is the sort of feeling I was talking about, and I’d think I’d probably be surprised in that situation as well.

    8. Not So NewReader*

      One thing I have seen over and over with education is that what people learn is not what I think they would have learned. For example the English teacher who never learned the difference between “talking at you” and “talking with you”.

      In fairness I have to believe that we all have our saturation level, where we just decide that enough is enough.

    9. WS*

      This is an absolute classic for people with doctorates. They probably did learn that general history but it’s long since been overwritten with their specialty. I was doing my MA in a foreign language and for several months I forgot how to speak English (my native language) properly or spontaneously. In an English-speaking country.

      The flipside (which I think is more annoying) are the people with a specialty who then think it qualifies them to talk about anything vaguely related, even though they know next to nothing about it!

    10. peasblossom*

      I’m a medievalist (PhD medieval lit), and, in my experience, I think this is more common with people who work on “modern” fields (post 1700). Especially if someone didn’t receive a broad, period-based education, it’s easy to get focused on your specialty. And from my perspective a lot of people (including academics) foolishly fail to see the importance of premodern history to their specialization. It also takes a lot more work to learn about early periods.

      I’ll also echo a previous comment that history is huge! I work on late medieval religion, and if you asked me for more than basic details of the Great Schism I might not know—not because I’m uninterested or haven’t studied it, but because academic specialization emphasizes depth rather than breadth at the doctoral level. So I might know a crazy amount about the Avignon papacy but only know the broad strokes of the Hussite rebellion.

      1. Miss Pantalones En Fuego*

        I have a PhD in my field and specialised in a fairly niche area. I now work in a totally different country and with completely different materials and I basically started all over again. The things I spent years studying are separated by hundreds of years and miles from where I work now, so even though the overall methods and techniques are the same my background knowledge of where I am now is very basic. It doesn’t surprise me that much that a historian focused on modern history would only have a vague recollection of something that happened hundreds of years before their time period of interest. It will still have repercussions for the modern world, sure, but not necessarily an acute influence on their particular niche.

    11. Carahgh*

      Some people tend to be generalists in their field – they read and study a wide range of things, but not in great depth. Others are specialists who dig deeply into one thing, but don’t pay much attention to the broader field, beyond what they need to understand their specialism. Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, but neither is inherently better. It largely depends on personal preference, and the intended goal of their work, which will be more useful and appealing to an individual.

    12. D'Euly*

      And this is something that a lot of Ph.D programs are addressing right now. The idea of the ‘classic’ Ph.D candidacy exam was that the candidate should prove that they know enough about *everything important* in their field before they start their own research to add to that. But now many programs are, or have already, come to the conclusion that a) the amount of research in the field is now too big for that to be a possibility, and b) perhaps it never really was a possibility–perhaps it depended on a very narrow and, quite possibly, prejudiced understanding of what was important.

      1. Stephanie*

        I did a research masters in engineering (sort of the first two years of a PhD) — in my department, my friends just had to pick one subject exam (that usually was related to their research) to pass. I had a friend in a different engineering department who had to take subject exams over all the big topics in her field — she said it was pretty brutal because her research was on A, but she had to be tested on B, C, D, E, and F and proceeded to forget everything that wasn’t A after she passed.

  61. Reba*

    I mean, one’s brain only has room for so much? Gotta ditch the battle of Hastings to make room for the deep dive into that one decade in Poland or whatever!

    But also, sure, there are people in every line of work who aren’t good with all of it!

    I have a PhD and I’m certain to be shockingly ignorant about lots of stuff. :)

    2. Yes?*

      I had one of the employers at a job ask me what the PhD meant that one of the bosses had. I told it means he knows a lot about one thing.

  62. Potatoes gonna potate*

    Hope this is ok to repost!

    Any advice or suggestions on how to stop clenching jaw? Over the last few weeks I’ve noticed I’m always clenching it so I stop it. I’d like to prevent it from happening before I end up needing dental work if that makes sense.

    1. Chaordic One*

      Do you find it happening unconsciously when you are awake? Or does it happen when you are asleep? Or both?

    2. Not So NewReader*

      Try rubbing that connecting tissue between the upper and lower jaw, see if you can get those muscles to relax.

    3. Chaordic One*

      Frequently it is stress-related and you might need to do things to relieve the underlying causes of the stress. It can be made worse by your having arthritis of the jaw or by excessive gum chewing. Not So NewReader is right about massaging your jaw muscles to reduce the tightness and tension. There are exercises you can do that can help a bit.

      2. Potatoes gonna potate*

        Thanks for this. I don’t chew gum and my source of stress is never going to go away, it’s something I have to live with that I’m trying to figure out.

    4. RagingADHD*

      IDK if this is relevant, but teeth grinding or clenching can be an uncommon side effect of some medications, like some antidepressants or ADHD meds.

      Can also be related to sleep apnea or to anxiety.

      1. Potatoes gonna potate*

        Haven’t taken any meds (took a Xanax a few weeks ago to head off a panic attack and that was a disaster), it’s definitely 1000% related to stress and maybe lack of sleep.

        1. RagingADHD*

          Active physical & mental management of stress levels is really important in a chronic stress situation.

          Exercise, stretching, meditation, emotional support, relaxing activities (like massage, hobbies, games, creative pursuits), positive & relaxing mental inputs (like music, podcasts, media, reading).

          And the basic physical care stuff – nutrition, water, sleep.

          I’ve been in enough rolling disasters to know that the instinct to shut down and gut it out will betray you if the situation is longer than a month or 2. You have to take proactive management steps to minimize the damage, or your body will rebel.

          1. Potatoes gonna potate*

            I can do the stress management. There’s a single source for my stress that will never go away

    5. Mella*

      Masseter Botox and night guards.

      I have all the effects of lifelong clenching and grinding (erosion, root pockets, jaw clicking, etc.) and those two things have been the only useful options.

        1. Anono-me*

          Fyi-my dentist warned me against the hot water moldable bite guards. (I don’t remember why.) So you might want to research those vs the ones that are not hot water molded (bonus-they are usually less expensive. )

          Hot packs on my jaw sometimes help if I already have a tension buildup in my jaw.

          1. KoiFeeder*

            Mine’s a bite guard that also functions as a retainer, because my teeth are terrible and frightening. I think (think) the warning against the hot water ones is that they don’t hold your teeth in place?

      1. Potatoes gonna potate*

        Eh no insurance right now so no dentist. Once I do Get insurance I have like 50 other things that need priority. :-/ was hoping this could be something that can be self helped since it’s caught early enough :-/

    8. Lore*

      My dentist says your teeth should never touch unless you’re chewing. He recommends actively stretching the jaw (just opening and closing a few times) anytime you notice that your teeth are touching, or every few hours in any case. It’s definitely made me more conscious though I still find myself clenching occasionally.

      1. Potatoes gonna potate*

        Hmm maybe I described it wrong then. My teeth don’t touch or grind but I find my jaw coming forward and tensing up. But the jaw stretches sound like a good idea

    9. Brushandfloss*

      Biteguards won’t help if you’re clenching while awake. I used to clench thorough out the day, I trained myself to keep my teeth slightly apart all the time

    10. Stephanie*

      I have the same problem, and short of getting a bite guard, a couple of things help me. First, massaging the muscles around my ears and jaw area helps. Second, stretching my upper back and neck help a lot, too. The best way for me is to lie down on a foam roller, with the roller lined up with my spine, and just resting the base of my head on it (with my upper head hanging off a little). I just spread my arms out into a sort of T shape (but comfortably so, they don’t have to be straight) and just stay that way for several minutes, and breathe deeply and let my muscles slowly relax. If you don’t have a foam roller, a rolled up yoga mat or even a couple of rolled up towels or an oblong or rectangular pillow would work. Alternatively, you can do a similar type of stretch in a doorway or a corner, placing your hands on either side, just above waist height, and lean forward a bit until you feel a nice stretch in your shoulders and upper back. But I like the foam roller stretch better, it seems to be more effective for me.
      I’ve also found that heat helps. I filled a sock with dry rice, tied it closed, and heat it in the microwave for about a minute and then use it as a small, heating pad on my neck and shoulders. It’s especially good to do it before I stretch.

  63. CatBookMom*

    Thanks for your column, your good advice. Do you ever share the names of your Feline Overlords? I love the photos on the weekends, but would enjoy knowing their names. Stay well.

    1. BRR*

      I don’t personally know the names, others do and I imagine will chime in, you can click on the picture and see the names in the site address.

    3. D3*

      I’ve also learned that if I hover over the photo on my desktop I can see the file name at the bottom of the browser, and the photos are often named with the kitties names. Clicking on the photo shows it bigger! Today’s photo is “Laurie-and-Wallace-in-cube”

  64. Mid*

    I just wanna vent into the void for a minute.

    My grandfather is dying, and so I quarantined for two weeks, got tested, drove to my hometown, quarantined again, more tests, and then finally got to see him. I talk to him every week on the phone and we’re very close and it’s been tough.

    Because I was gone for so long (over a month), I decided to have a housesitter stay at my place, and she was a friend of a friend of mine. She seemed very nice and normal when we met to discuss things. We signed a standard contract.

    But she trashed my apartment. Her cat peed on things. Two of my rugs are ruined. All of my plants are dead. There’s a visible layer of dust. She broke my garbage disposal and clogged my kitchen sink. There is makeup smeared on the walls and she ruined my bedding. Everywhere I look, it’s something new and awful.

    And honestly, it’s not even about the costs and time of fixing everything. It’s the violation. This apartment is my baby. I spent so much time making it into my sanctuary. I got it when I was leaving a horribly abusive relationship. I’ve been putting so much effort into making into the most perfect home for me. And it just feels…damaged now. I feel like my safe place is broken. And it really sucks. And it’s a really bad way to start off my year.

    I can technically take her to court for the damages, but having a house sitter in my complex is kind of a legal grey area (subletting isn’t allowed) and also I’m just drained by everything else going on in my life and don’t want to drag things out more. I’ve spent the last two days scrubbing everything and I still have at least another full day of cleaning to go, and then I work on Monday. I don’t have the time to pursue this further, nor the money to hire a professional cleaner. It just…sucks.

    1. Jean (just Jean)*

      Ouch. I hear you about feeling violated. Sympathies, and a series of thinking-aloud questions…
      – Do any parts of the signed contract oblige the house-sitter to leave your home in the same condition in which she found it? Or spell out penalties for not doing so?
      – You said that the house-sitter was a friend of a friend. Can you ask your mutual/connecting friend to help mediate the problem, or to help set up a mediation session (instead of going to court)? Or can you take her to small claims court?
      – It’s a pain to have to clean up someone else’s mess, but it’s also debilitating to have to find space for one’s (totally justifiable!) anger at being so violated and inconvenienced. Maybe it’s worth digging deeper into your emotional / logistical / financial / physical energy reserves if it ultimately gets you a more solid, more long-lasting sense of having obtained justice.
      – As I’ve told various family for whom I’ve advocated, “You are worth fighting for.” You might want to tell yourself the same thing. I understand all about feeling overwhelmed, but sometimes it’s worth it to dig in and defend oneself even if it’s massively inconvenient in the short term.

      Caveats: I’m no lawyer. And I’m in the U.S.; if you are elsewhere, my comments may not be helpful.
      Bottom line: Her behaviour was just plain lousy. Grrr. I wish you the best in regaining your sense of well-being.

      1. Mid*

        Thank you! We do have a contract and it does specify that she’s responsible for any damages caused. But actually getting that money is a whole different issue. And I’m not sure it’s worth it.

    2. WS*

      Oh no, that’s awful.

      I think that if you made that apartment your baby once, you can do it again, and doing things yourself is probably going to be less violating than having professionals in to do it at this stage. Tell your friend about this and let them know they’re free to pass on this information.

      I agree that going to court will just drag things out. If there’s any way you can enforce what’s in the contract (not paying her, taking damages out of any fee) you should do that, but otherwise save your energy for yourself.

      1. Mid*

        Thank you!

        You’re totally right. I’m trying to convince myself that this is a good thing—I’m deep cleaning everything, rearranging stuff, and throwing out a lot of things (that she ruined, but still!) I’m trying to frame it as a whole cleanse of my apartment and a chance to refresh things.

    3. RagingADHD*

      Oh, that’s awful. Definitely tell the mutual friend, so she doesn’t inflict her on anyone else.

      I hope you kept your money and didn’t pay her. That’s disgusting.

      1. Mid*

        Thanks. I did let the mutual friend know, but it’s also looking like the damages are going to be a lot. Like, I need to replace two entire sets of bed linens, most of my towels, two of the three rugs I own, a bath mat, my kettle, my garbage disposal, two curtains, and possibly some of the wood flooring.

        Oh well. Live and learn I suppose.

        1. acmx*

          Wow, she is a really horrible person. How (and why) could she do this to your place? Is she friend’s with your ex (kidding)?

    4. allathian*

      I’m so sorry, this is truly awful. Did you pay her in advance? I hope you can at least withhold payment for the remainder. I trust that you took photos of the destruction so you can prove that you have cause to withhold payment if necessary?

      1. Mid*

        I did already pay her, but I took photos of most of it (I cleaned some of it up before I realized I should document it.) I’m not sure if I’m going to do small claims court or not, but I’m getting documentation ready just in case.

    5. AvonLady Barksdale*

      Two questions: did you take photos of the damage and did you pay her? I hope the answers are “yes” and “no.”

      You can take her to small claims. Don’t worry about your complex, since she’s not a subletter– you hired her for a service, right? What’s in your contract? I imagine it’s something like, “You take care of my stuff and you get to stay here.” That’s a transaction. She didn’t uphold her end.

      I know your energy is sapped but I am so pissed off on your behalf that I hope you can make her cover your costs. Save every receipt. What did she say when you pointed out the damage? If you haven’t said anything, a strongly worded email is in order.

      I used to house-sit when I was younger. I did it to spend time away from parents or in a bigger apartment closer to work. I was FANATICAL about cleaning up after myself. All of my clients got a thoroughly cleaned home to return to, sheets changed, the whole bit. It’s not hard to do. This woman took advantage of you. Sometimes people mess a few things up, stuff breaks, stains happen, but allowing someone else’s home to go to seed is the sign of a pretty awful human and I am really, really sorry.

      And one more thing: if not for COVID, I would suggest reaching out to a friend or two and asking for help with cleaning. Not only would that ease your burden, it would help realign the energy in the space for you. So if there’s a person or two you trust, and you feel comfortable, ask for some (masked and sanitized) help for an hour or so.

      1. Mid*

        Thank you. I did pay her, and she was actually supposed to leave two days prior and surprised me by still being there. It was a whole mess. She said she would pay for a cleaner, but she’s also now blocked me on everything.

        Luckily a friend of mine heard what happened and came over to help me clean today and it really really helped. She’s a very Covid safe person and so it was really nice to have another set of hands for scrubbing and moving furniture.

    6. Not So NewReader*

      I wonder if there is enough to call the police.

      At any rate, where the heck was her head that she would think this all is okay. I am so sorry this happened to you. She let you know waaaay to much about the person she actually is.

    7. Potatoes gonna potate*

      I am so angry on your behalf!!!! That’s so terrible I’m sorry you went through that.

      Apologies if I missed it in the original post but did you mention any of this to the sitter? If yes what did they say? Honestly if they refuse to acknowledge the damage and make you whole (at least financially) I’d tell the mutual friend and I would so post this on social media. Let them face any backlash. People who shamelessly destroy your property deserve the shaming IMO.

      Also, I know you’re exhausted but I think you will regret not doing anything. Take a break if you need to from it, cleaning etc and then look into taking her to court or other legal avenues.

      1. Mid*

        I did mention it to her, she acknowledged it, and then blocked me on everything. I’m seeing if I can find a mutual friend to mediate or something, but I’m also getting documentation if I do decide to go to small claims.

    8. The Other Dawn*

      Did you talk to the sitter about it? Did you take pictures? Did you already pay her?

      Even though you don’t think you’d ever get the money for the damages, I’d still take her to small claims court just because she shouldn’t be able to get away with what she did with no consequences at all. I’ve done it and from what I remember, the fee wasn’t much and it was all done by mail (CT). I had to write up a summary of why I was bringing them to small claims and provide any correspondence, pictures, invoices, etc. to backup my case. I also had to pay to have the people served by the marshal. It was up to me to collect the money, of course, but it gave me the satisfaction of not letting these people get away with something. Unfortunately I have to do this again when the pandemic is over and even though I absolutely know I won’t get any money and don’t even care, at the very least a small claims judgment will go on their credit report and stay there for 7 to 10 years.

      1. Mid*

        That’s actually a good point. She regularly house sits for people, so I don’t want this to happen to anyone else. She was already paid so that’s difficult, but it wasn’t a super large amount.

    9. Observer*

      I tend to agree with the people who recommend small claims court. It’s a much simpler process than a regular law suit, and generally faster as well. Which means that you don’t have to get sucked into a process that just keeps the mess firmly front and center in your life for a long time.

      1. The Other Dawn*

        Right. And you don’t even have to physically go into court unless the other person contests it. I’m sure it caries from state to state, though.

    10. Lena Clare*

      How the hell do you ruin bedding and get makeup on a wall??? I mean, she sounds like an animal.
      Sorry this has happened to you.
      Speak to her about it, withhold payment, and take her to small claims court – if you can.
      Otherwise, it is a clean it up yourself job, replace what she wrecked, absorb the cost yourself, and emotionally deal with it.
      I’m not saying one is better than the other, it really depends on what you feel you can cope with. Sometimes just cutting your losses is easier than trying to reclaim them because of the emotional cost of having to be in touch with someone who you feel violated your space. It’s natural to not want anything more to do with them.

      1. Mid*

        Thank you. I have literally no clue how she made so many messes. There’s literally coffee on the ceiling and mysterious stains all over. It’s gross. A friend of mine came over today to help me, and I think it’s mostly cleaned now. The sheets are a loss, and a few other things, but I don’t think it’s worth court yet.

  65. WoodswomanWrites, cleaning out closets*

    I’ve lived in the same small apartment for about 15 years. Even though I don’t tend to buy a lot of stuff, over time I’ve accumulated things. I started with my bookcases a couple months ago and got rid of what I didn’t need so there was room for all my books to fit there instead of being stacked up on a side table.

    When I realized I had run out of places to put some things and they were starting to pile up in a corner of my living room, I knew it was time to wrestle with the contents of my three closets. I picked the easiest one first, than the middle one, and those were pretty straightforward. It’s felt good to find new homes for things I don’t need or use–from bedding to books–and put the rest in a box to eventually take to Goodwill.

    I finally started on the most intimidating closet today, the one where I would just toss stuff I didn’t know what to do with. It’s like examining geologic strata. So far the most random thing I found was a 2015 ticket stub to a movie theater that no longer exists (it must have fallen out of a pocket since I don’t typically keep those) and the best thing was one half of my favorite gloves for wintertime birding which had been lost for so long that I had long since gotten new gloves.

    I’ve got quite a way to go before I’m done. To keep myself motivated, I’d love to hear some of the discoveries you’ve made when sorting through your own closets.

    1. Llama face!*

      Yesterday I was digging in my closet and found a floppy green hat that my dad gave me when I was around 12. One of those real stylish (lol) khaki green fabric ones with the neck drawstring that has an optional snap to keep one side of the brim folded up. It was the hat he wore to go gold panning when he was a young 20-something guy. I used to wear it all the time as a child when we went camping and felt like such an adventurer in it. There was some fishing stuff and a compass tucked inside it. I tried it on and it still fits so I guess I now have some gear for if the zombie apocalypse hits this year!

    2. Not Australian*

      We’re doing a more generalised de-clutter, having reached retirement age and starting to think about downsizing to a smaller home. (2025 is the intended date for this, barring major health problems in the interim.) Mr Not is selling many of our surplus goodies on e-Bay and so far, including a rare book we put into a private auction, we’re something like £1000 better off than when we started. The oddest things seem to attract the attention of bidders – old computers, photos of actors, coins and banknotes, etc. I’ve also got some vintage costume jewellery I’m thinking of contributing, so by the time we’re finished we should have raised enough to pay for a substantial part of our next planned long-distance holiday.

    3. GoryDetails*

      Congrats on getting started! I do enjoy a little indoor archaeology among the stacks of boxes in the basement or the heaps-o-things in the closets. Staying in one house for decades does encourage the buildup of clutter even though I’m not a packrat by nature – at least, I have no trouble getting rid of things once I’ve gone to the trouble of unearthing them.

      Things I tend to turn up – as in, this has happened more than once – include books I thought I’d lost, holiday cards I meant to send for the holiday just past (usually Christmas and/or Halloween, with a few Thanksgiving or Valentine’s Day cards in the mix), items of apparel that I’d set aside to be mended and then stacked something on… I’ve even turned up the source of a moth infestation once, having inadvertently left an container of nuts in the stacks-o-things such that it became a food source. [That was… fun!]

    4. Stephanie*

      My mom found my undergrad diploma when she was doing a similar deep clean. I was just thinking I was going to finally frame my diplomas (because I’m stuck at home all the time and need new things for my walls) and was glad I didn’t have to pay for a replacement.

    5. Chaordic One*

      Last summer my sister was helping our mother clean out her kitchen cupboards. My mother lives in a house she inherited from her mother (our grandmother). My grandmother moved into the house when it was new in 1994 and passed away after living in it for less than a year, and my mother moved in in 1995. Anyway, when cleaning out the spice rack she discovered a small box of spice (I can’t remember what. Alum maybe?) that had a use by date of 1967 on it! We think it was something our grandmother bought and never threw away, but it could have originally been our mother’s.

    6. WoodswomanWrites*

      I was out all day birdwatching, and I’m only seeing these replies now. Although I’m posting pretty late, I appreciate reading all of your stories!

  66. All Hail Queen Sally*

    Did anyone participate in the Goodreads book challenge this past year? I first heard of it a year ago here in this site and signed up to read 50 books. I figured that one a week was about my limit. However, since I spent so much time at home this year, I was able to read 109 books (29,538 pages). I have signed up to read 75 books next year. I really enjoy all the book recommendations in this site. I am reading a lot of different types of books and broadening my horizons. Thank you all.

    1. acmx*

      Great job with 109! I read 80 last year. I average 73/year. I’m almost the opposite. Since I’ve spent so much time at home, I feel like I read less than I would have. It’s been hard to focus. So currently, my goal is 50.

    2. Pamela Adams*

      I’ve read a lot- close on a book a day, but mostly rereading. I’m hoping to get back to new books in the new year.

      1. allathian*

        Yeah, same here. I don’t keep track of what I’ve read, though. I read for pleasure, so if I’m not feeling it, I don’t read.

    3. Foreign Octopus*

      I only managed to read 36 last year, which is now by about 50% on my normal book total because I was extremely busy this year – I’m an ESL teacher and, over lockdown through various countries, demand for lessons increased. I’m hoping to return to at least one book a week this year as reading regularly is so important to my mental health.

    4. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      I read 281 books last year, but I’m somewhat of a freak of nature, hence my username. (I’ve read 4 so far this year, though that includes finishing the last one I had started in 2020.)

    5. Pharmgirl*

      I did! I’m a little disappointed, I was one book short of hitting the goal. I tried to find time, but with work and the holidays and the book being longer than I thought, I didn’t finish till last night. But it’s also the most I’ve read since starting the challenges, so I’m going to up my goal for this year. I wish I could go as high as many of you have – I read 27 last year, so I’m going to try for 30 this year.

    6. Person from the Resume*

      50 has been is my normal annual goal (including audiobooks) since I finished grad school about 10 years ago and thanks to COVID I read more like 90. I do have to go back and make sure that the 5-10 books I didn’t started, didn’t finish but gave a 1-star rating this year aren’t included in the GoodReads count.

      This is mostly a COVID thing. I read for comfort, and I didn’t watch any more TV than in normal years. Extra time home alone made room for more audiobooks (which I alternate with podcasts).

      But I’m reading more graphic novels and novellas published as standalone books (because that’s become a thing) than I used to. Because of that I just upped my annual goal to 55 books this coming year.

      OTOH I love to read and this is more of an achievable goal than something I have to strive for. There are times when I can blow through 100 pages in a night or a whole book in a weekend. And others when I don’t finish anything because what I’m reading hasn’t gotten engaging yet or just ever be a page-turner. Some non-fiction is fine, enjoyable, and edifying but never becomes a page turner so I get stuck reading on it for a long time.

  67. Nessun*

    I’m trying to think of better times in the future, and one thing that makes me happy is the idea of traveling. I’ve also always loved the rain; it makes me feel calm and at peace, everything from a soft patter to a massive storm (though I don’t live in a place that gets much rain). Combining two interests, I’d like suggestions where I may one day travel to, to enjoy a really rainy vacation. So, assuming no travel bans and good health, in the future where could I go (and when in the year is the best time to go)? A hotel with a view, some books, and a lovely rainfall for ages – now that would be something to look forward to!

    1. Looking Forward*

      Inn at the Market in Seattle is lovely. I stayed there once and it was wonderful. It has a view of Puget Sound (if you get the right rooms) and a rooftop deck (in case you like sitting in the rain!). It’s near everything. Seattle is pretty rainy I understand much of the year but maybe someone else will come along who knows when is best. I’d also say Paris but if you really just want to stay in it would be cheaper to go to Seattle (if you are anywhere near there).

      1. Looking Forward*

        p.s. Inn at the Market is quite expensive, but there must be less expensive places in Seattle.

      2. NRG*

        Seattle is dry in the summer, from usually from June to September. Also the rain there has long weeks of light, tiny droplet misty continuous rain between the “regular” rain. February is probably the rainiest.

    2. WoodswomanWrites*

      The Pacific Northwest sounds like what you’re looking for. On the coast of coast of California just south of the Oregon border is the location of redwood forests with lots of rain. The redwoods are magical in the winter and you’ll have a lot of solitude. The range of places to check out is between Crescent City to the north and Eureka/Arcata to the south. Those two are the sizable towns in that area and everything in between is small.

      Coastal Oregon is lovely and the entire coast is accessible to the public by law. There are many little towns with places to stay, and winter is the off season for tourism so places are relatively inexpensive. Newport and Coos Bay are the larger towns. Smaller places are Florence, Yachats, and others.

      1. NRG*

        Ooh. I recommend the Sylvia Beach hotel in Newport. It has a reading room on the top floor, and all the rooms have literary themes. It’s less expensive than Seattle, but not really inexpensive. The food is good also.

        1. Chyll*

          Seconding the Sylvia Beach Hotel. My friend and I stayed there once fifteen years ago and it was a lot of fun. Each room is based on an author, so they are all unique. They have hotel cats, too! We were able to drive around to different towns and attractions from there relatively easily.

    3. Never Nicky*

      If you can make it to Europe, the Lake District in the North of England is very scenic but the wettest part of our fairly wet island. The Pembrokeshire coast, West Highlands of Scotland and the Hebrides too.

      1. allathian*

        Yeah, and Ireland fits the bill as well. It’s one of the countries I’ve always wanted to visit.

    4. WS*

      Australia isn’t what you think of when you think of rainfall, but the southern coast of Victoria – the Great Ocean Road and the Otways – is rainy and beautiful through May-September, and so is Tasmania. It’s chilly but not really cold, maybe 5 nights below freezing a year.

    5. DistantAudacity*

      Bergen in Norway is well known-for its rain. All year round, really, but the most miserable would be in winter :) climate is similar to US seattle area and UK north/Scotland.

      Also, Iceland.

      I would recommend a weather service (like yr dot no) to check out the annual rain patterns.

    6. Morning reader*

      Near the volcano on the big island, once it stops erupting. It has that lush rain forest ecosystem and rains every day although not constantly.

      1. All Hail Queen Sally*

        I too come from an area with not much rain (and when it does rain, we get slammed for 10 minutes or so).
        Several years ago, I was walking through the beautiful botanical garden in Hilo (they went into an old-growth forest and planted lots of tropical flowers) when it started to rain the most beautiful sprinkly rain and I kept walking thinking how beautiful everything was while all the other people stayed huddled under a shelter. I thought it was magical.

    7. GoryDetails*

      Paris in October! Not guaranteed to be as rainy as you’d like, but odds are there will be grey, rainy days. I had a lovely visit there long ago at that time of year, and recall the way the gold of the leaves contrasted with the grey of the rain on the Seine…

    8. Nicki Name*

      Come to Portland, Oregon pretty much anytime other than July and August. If you want to see even more water, take a trip up the Columbia Gorge and admire our waterfalls.

    9. Alex*

      The temperate rain forests in British Columbia. They are SO amazingly beautiful–like nothing I’d ever seen before.

  68. Anonymous for this*

    What do you do when you have an amazing relationship with your partner–best friends, common interests, great communication, compatible lifestyles, affectionate in non-sexual ways (e.g. cuddling)–but they no longer feel sexually or romantically attracted to you? Can the attraction be rekindled, or is the relationship doomed? Or is this just normal in a long-term relationship?

    This is the situation I’m in with partner of 5 years (who I’ll call A). Despite a strong physical connection early in the relationship, the frequency of sex has dwindled to once every couple of months, and the romance is mostly gone as well. The thing is, I have a very high libido and still feel very attracted to A but they no longer feel the same way about me. A still has a sex drive, so it’s about our dynamic in particular and not A’s drive in general. We’re currently in couple’s therapy (and have been for a while) but so far nothing has improved. This has bred feelings of resentment and rejection in me and guilt in A.

    A says they don’t know exactly why they find me less attractive now and that they feel really bad about it. I’m giving in bed and my body hasn’t changed much. My mental health and self-confidence have taken a hit over the past few years for various reasons, but I do my best to control how they impact our relationship, and lots of people are still attracted to their partners even when their mental health isn’t 100%. A’s mental health has worsened over the years as well (mostly due to grad school stress) but I’m still attracted to them.

    We both love one another deeply and neither of us wants the relationship to end; we really are very compatible in so many ways outside of romance and sex. We both want to work on this, but we’re at a loss. As I said, A doesn’t really know why they find me less attractive and so they haven’t been able to give me any guidance for how I can be more attractive for them.

    I feel so stuck. I feel like if I end the relationship over this I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. On the other hand, the lack of sex and romance doesn’t feel sustainable for me. Has anyone been in a similar situation? Are there any resources or strategies you found helpful?

    1. allathian*

      You say your partner is finding you less attractive. That’s a really off-putting statement. It may just be that A is the kind of person who needs to be in a new relationship and madly in love with a new partner for their libido to spike, and they lose interest once the relationship is established. If that’s the case, I don’t think the relationship can be salvaged so that both of you will be happy, because you’re past the sell-by date for your partner. To me it sounds like your partner has fallen out of love with you, and by this I mean that they can very well love you, as you say, but they’re no longer in love with you, as they were at the start of your relationship. That said, most couples have more sex at the start of the relationship than once the first stage of being totally in love passes, usually within two years, and is hopefully replaced by a deep contentment of being with the person you love. Unfortunately there’s nothing you can do to make them to feel the way they used to about you, and I suggest you shouldn’t try. It takes two to keep a relationship going, but only one to check out of it or break up. Do you know anything about your partner’s past relationship history? Have they been in long-term relationships before?

      That said, if your partner is having issues with their mental health, a very common symptom of depression is low libido. Some people react to stress by losing all interest in sex. I know because I’m one of them, but luckily it passes as soon as I can deal with the worst of the stress. Sometimes my husband, who has a stronger drive than I do, wonders if I’m stressed because I’m not interested in sex. That’s often a heads-up for me to deal with the stress, usually by scheduling some PTO to take a long weekend.

      If you want to continue in this relationship, how do you think your partner would react if you suggested opening it up? It’s not fair on either if you if you’re so badly matched in libido that both of you are unhappy about it. Pressuring someone to have sex against their will, either implicitly or explicitly, won’t improve the relationship in the long term, but I don’t think it’s fair on the higher-drive partner to go without for long periods of time, either. How would you feel about seeing someone occcasionally just for sex? (I know it wouldn’t work for me because I’m very monogamous, I can’t imagine enjoying sex with someone I don’t have an emotional and romantic attachment to, and I can’t imagine myself ever being romantically involved with more than one person at a time.)

      What do you think is so valuable in your relationship that you think you’d regret it for the rest of your life if you broke up? If there’s little sex and no romance, you’re roommates, not partners. Sure, sexless and aromantic relationships can work, but only when both partners are on the same page. Honestly I think you deserve better than this.

    2. PX*

      I strongly second all the things allathian has said. The points I want to emphasize:
      – A’s mental health struggles – this is a really obvious one. What are they doing to resolve this?
      – Opening up the relationship – I’ve seen this work and save relationships/marriages, so have you considered this?
      – difficult in the current climate, but if you feel part of this may be due to being in something of a rut, have you tried doing new things together with A? There was a great thread on here a few years ago where people discussed how one of the things that can keep long relationships/marriages alive is experiencing new things together – it can sometimes replicate that experience of dating when everything is new and exciting. So either travelling to a new place together, starting a new hobby together – just doing something to break the monotony.
      – finally, if you are unhappy in a relationship, you dont have to stay in it. It doesnt matter how good everything else is, if you are unhappy, thats enough reason to end things. The framing that Captain Awkward often uses is picture yourself 5 years from now and nothing has changed. How does that make you feel? Is it still worth staying?

    3. Yennefer of Vengerberg*

      I’m a lot like A. When my husband and I first got together, sex was a multiple times a day thing. Part of this was our age, part was the new-ness of the relationship, and part was alcohol. A couple of years ago, I hit a rough patch with my mental health – my sleep and libido tanked. And I mean tanked. Sex was more and more infrequent until eventually it was a once every few months thing. As I’ve put more focus on my health and have been making changes to my life and healing from my inner turmoil, I see an upswing in the frequency of sex. But throughout this time, we maintained a very intimate relationship even without the sex. It helped us keep the romance alive while I processed and got over what I needed to. I think it actually strengthened our relationship. We’re still not back to every day and I doubt we ever will be. But that works for us.

      Honestly, I can’t imagine if, on top of my own internal struggle, my husband pressured me for sex during this time. I’m sure it would have driven me further away because I already felt guilty and self-conscious about it. What my husband did very well was to maintain the intimacy and to respect my lack of libido. He would either wait for me to initiate sex, or he would initiate gently and stop if he saw I wasn’t feeling it. I never felt pressured and I always felt safe and loved. He never made our problems or our relationship about sex. (Please note, I’m not judging your reaction OP. Sex is an important part of a relationship, and I just want to share my honest feelings and experience and what worked for us.)

      I don’t know how long this has been going on, how big of a difference there is between your libidos, or what your partner is going through that could have brought this on. This could very well be a fundamental and long-term incompatibility in libido – in which case you have to consider whether that means divorce, accepting the infrequent sex or or opening the relationship – but I don’t think continuing to pressure your partner is the answer.

      However, I think it’s possible you’re focusing on the wrong thing here and so my suggestion is:
      Put the pressure, sex, and talk of “attraction” on the backburner for a while and focus instead on intimacy, romance and communication. Start small if you need to. Hold each others hands while walking through a park. Cuddle on the couch watching a movie. Find a hobby you both enjoy doing together. Have a candle lit dinner. Plan a romantic weekend getaway (in the city). That kind of thing. Focus on repairing your relationship and bringing romance back in – hopefully the sex will follow.

      1. Blackcat*

        “Honestly, I can’t imagine if, on top of my own internal struggle, my husband pressured me for sex during this time. ”
        Yeah, having been there… it’s really, really rough. I had no sex drive the entire time I was pregnant and breastfeeding our kid, and my husband constantly pressured me, pouted, and just generally made me feel like shit about not wanting to have sex (and it being painful when we did have sex. But a 3rd degree tear that doesn’t heal right will do that! PT eventually helped). That nearly killed my marriage.

    4. Sam I Am*

      Dan Savage is a great resource.
      If sex is important to you, feeling rejected is going to shred you in the long term.
      I second that opening things up, in some way, could reignite the spark, and his columns and podcast are a treasure trove of ideas for this. It’s not just “ok we have other partners now,” it’s really about conversations of keeping each other safe, making each other priorities, seeing each otger in a new light, bridging the times when libido are mismatched.
      If you find this unappealing after learning about it, don’t let yourself stay in a relationship where sexual rejection is the norm. Sex is important, and pretending it isn’t doesn’t do anyone any favors. If your sexual relationship with your partner is over, perhaps it’s time to end this arrangement so you can be good, loving friends in the future after you’ve grieved the loss.
      You’re going to be ok, take good care of yourself.

    5. Ranon*

      Try Emily Nagoski’s book Come as You Are. She has a lot of really great stuff around sexual attraction, including the idea that you need to get rid of the inhibitors (“brakes”) before you can have success with arousal (“the accelerator”). It’s especially focused towards people who identify as women but the general concepts apply to anyone.

      1. Ranon*

        Also grad school is a libido killer for lots of people for so many reasons, your partner might find Burnout by the same author to be a really useful resource. She’s incredibly good at clarifying the mind-body interactions and giving body strategies to make the mental stuff easier.

    6. RagingADHD*

      It is normal for the frequency of sex to slow down in a long-term relationship, and for either or both partners to experience ups & downs in terms of interest in sex.

      That can be due to life circumstances like work stress, having kids, changes in health. It can also be due to communication problems or tensions in the relationship. Usually these things can get worked through or come back into balance over time, if the rest of the relationship is healthy and both partners are willing to see it through.

      The idea that A is still interested in sex, but not attracted to you, is a very wierd and hurtful thing to say.
      I would suspect that there is something going on emotionally that they are not fully aware of, or not prepared to talk about yet.

      One example of the kind of thing that comes up in LTRs, is if A feels they have been doing all/most of the “heavy lifting” in the relationship outside the bedroom, they could start feeling like sex is a chore, or that they are serving your needs without reciprocation. You mention that you are giving in bed. What about the rest of life?

      If your mental health needs have been prominent for a few years, and A is also experiencing stress from school, they may feel somewhat burnt out.

      There’s a cliche in traditional gender role relationships, that the sexiest thing a man can do is the dishes, without being asked. Regardless of gender roles with you and A, it’s worth looking at the big picture of your lifestyle and consider whether there are things you can do spontaneously that would make A feel relieved, refreshed, or supported.

      The emotional & physical give & take in a LTR can be one-sided sometimes, that’s normal. But if it feels that way too long, the partner who feels overstretched may need some time to regroup, or get some extra “caretaking” of their own non-sexual needs, before the spark comes back. It’s all about balance.

      The fact that you both want to work through it is the best indicator that you will be able to. Nearly anything can be worked out if both people are trying in good faith to make it work.

      Best wishes!

    7. Generic Name*

      You don’t mention either of your genders, so I don’t know if you are in a hetero relationship or not. Nevertheless, I’ve recently discovered the “DrPsychMom” blog. She’s a therapist and she writes a ton about relationships. She talks at length about sex in relationships. It is very gendered and heteronormative, but I’ve found it helpful information. There might be a helpful article or two for you in her archives. Link to follow.

    8. Anonymal*

      I’m in a very similar position to A at the moment, so I’ll speak a little from the perspective of someone else who is there? I’m not sure how much this will overlap with what A is feeling or how A is reacting, but it might give some ideas for conversations worth having between the two of you.

      1. You mention that A is in grad school – honestly, the stress of grad school largely killed my libido. It was hard to identify at first, but for me the stress resulted in really weird “spikes” of desire. Like, for a few minutes all I wanted was to jump someone’s bones (sometimes my partner) but then it would get overwhelmed by the amount I had to get done and my feelings of anxiety and depression about myself. The thought of hooking up with someone else seemed to ignite my libido more, but at the end of the day it was because I knew there wasn’t any pressure or follow-through attached to that. It wouldn’t be anything that would likely actually happen, and so taking the pressure off made me feel like I could fantasize about it without feeling bad about my lack of follow-through. This had nothing to do with my partner, just with my own mental health and life circumstances (and the guilt about it didn’t help either!). Having my partner be understanding and both of us knowing it was time limited helped. Also, negotiating breaks to help get my life in balance was helpful for reconnecting together.

      2. I second another poster’s comment about looking at the rest of your relationship, and the balance there. When I feel like my partner is not picking up their part of the housework / budgeting / chores / etc. I find it really hard to make time for sex just because all of the undone chores are weighing on my head in weird ways.

      3. Have you had conversations specifically about sex, and what they currently feel attracted to / not attracted to in that area? Five years is a long time to be with a person, and desires can change! When my partner and I started dating we were very into BDSM, and had multiple scenes a day. Now that I’m older and under more pressure elsewhere in my life, I’ve found that the things that brought be satisfaction before actually really were not a turn-on anymore. It took me a while to wrap my head around this, and for a while sex just seemed less appealing because I hadn’t found what made me feel good! Having a really open and honest conversation about what was attractive to me, setting new limits, and experimenting to figure out what worked and what didn’t was really helpful for my partner and I.

      Important in this was that I could always say no or stop an encounter at any point – it helped because sometimes we would start and I wasn’t 100% into what we were doing, but then after some long snuggles and make-outs would get more into it and turned on. Having patience with myself and my body, and getting back into having a connection with it and my partner, was key to re-igniting my passion.

      4. Is A really not romantically or sexually attracted to you? How do they feel curled up with you, or doing other things with you? I think this is a really important distinction. Even when I was low and not sexually attracted to my partner I was still romantically in love with them. If the love is just gone, that’s something that is going to be harder to recover, but it doesn’t sound like the case for you. It might be worth waiting it out and seeing if things change post-grad school, if you think you can make it that far.

      Overall, it’s a crummy position to be in for both partners but I think (hope) it can get better! Best of luck for both of you. I think honest and open communication is really key for getting through it.

    9. Courageous cat*

      Romance and sex are typically the exact two things that make a relationship different from being… roommates. You say “if I end the relationship over this” like those are two tiny inconsequential flaws. I think what will happen is that, if you break up and find a partner who desires you a lot more, you will feel like you would have regretted STAYING for the rest of your life instead.

      It’s not sustainable if you’re not compatible, IMO. I don’t think I would ever regret leaving a relationship like that, because life is short and you deserve more.

    10. Not A Manager*

      I’m going to suggest two concrete things that you can try. They might or might not be impossible to try simultaneously.

      The first one is opposite of what some people are recommending. When I have had times in my personal life that I wasn’t so interested in sex, it was *hugely* helpful to me and my partner to schedule sex nights. I know that many people are saying not to pressure one another, etc. and I respect that that approach might have been right for them. For me personally, if my partner would have waited for me to initiate sex or if he had gently initiated but backed off if I did not reciprocate, then we would never have had sex. On the other hand, no one would have benefitted if he had “gently initiated” and then NOT backed off if I wasn’t interested!

      With the help of a marriage therapist, we decided in advance on two nights a week that would be sex nights. My partner didn’t have to worry about approaching me right or not right, and I didn’t have to worry about whether I would or should respond to something I didn’t feel that interested in. We committed in advance. In fact, for us, I found that the more I actually had sex the more I enjoyed it and the more interested I became. Whether we would have sex at any particular time became less loaded with obligation and ambivalence for me, and fear of rejection from him.

      Again, I’m not saying that other perspectives are wrong for other people, but you might talk with your partner and your therapist about this approach as a possibility.

      My other concrete suggestion is delayed orgasm. If your partner finds that concept at all interesting or sexy, try a few hours or a few days at a time of deliberate tease and denial. This has the advantage of combining cuddling and less-sexual intimacy with some sexual excitement, and it also can remove the pressure for immediate, orgasm-focused, sexual intercourse (however that generally occurs in your relationship). And for some people, sexual release starts to look a whole lot more attractive when it’s been delayed for a while.

    11. Generic Name*

      Thinking about this some more. Are the two of you married? How old are you? You say A is in grad school which makes me wonder if you are quite young. Making a TON of assumptions here: if an unmarried childless couple in their twenties who have been together 5 years is having problems with their sex life (one person isn’t feeling it anymore), I think it may be best for you to move on. My answer would be different if you had been happily married for 20 years and this was a new development, but losing the romantic aspect of your relationship 5 years in (and before marriage/kids??) just isn’t a hopeful sign.

      I’m so sorry that you are still into your partner but they aren’t into you. That has to be so painful for you both. Best of luck whatever you decide.

    12. Theodoric of York*

      You might want to head over to reddit/dead bedrooms to read about other people in your situation. The commenters over there are pretty quick to advise leaving the relationship, but most are pretty understanding.

      From my reading, it seems to me that the determining factor is your partner’s reaction to your description of the problem. If A is dismissive or unwilling to work on it, then your relationship is probably not salvageable.

    13. Double A*

      You don’t mention genders so this may not apply, but birth control and hormones can have a big impact on libido and attraction. If A has changed what sort of hormones they’ve been taking over the years (even what brand of birth control), it’s worth looking into. If this applies, that is.

      I haven’t read it but I want to read Ester perrells “Mating in Captivity.”

  69. Foreign Octopus*

    Favourite book of 2020 thread.

    What was the best book you read last year and why?

    For me, it was Unnatural Causes, by Dr Richard Shepherd. It’s about a the career of a forensic pathologist (Shepherd) and his role in some of the major events in recent British history and the effect it had on him. It’s a really interesting read and taught me a lot about what goes on during autopsies that I thought was fascinating.

    1. Sam I Am*

      The Mirror and The Light. (Mantel)
      I was actually slowing myself down in the last several pages, knowing what was coming, and I just wanted to savor it, knowing that this first read would never happen again, and having enjoyed the trilogy so much.
      I don’t recall ever being enthralled with a series of books before, where the series hadn’t been complete when I started reading. The anticipation was wonderful, and I was reading along at the same time as so many others. It was a new experience for me with books!

    2. CJM*

      My favorite book that I read in 2020 was I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, which I discovered here after Alison recommended it. I’d never heard of in a long life of reading, and it’s a treasure. The setting, characters, atmosphere, narrator, plot, and relationships all delighted me.

    3. kiwiapple*

      @foreign octopus. That sounds like a great read and reminded me of two book I read last year along the same sort of lines: Forensics: The Anatomy of Crime – Val McDermid and All That Remains: A Life in Death – Sue Black.
      My book of the year is probably How Do You Like Me Now? – Holly Bourne (one for anyone who has been in an awful relationship and not realised it).

    4. Three Pines Visitor*

      Seconding The Mirror and the Light. In prep for the final volume, I re-read Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, and then stalled for a couple of months until I picked up the third, and just felt so mournful when it was over with, not because of the ending (which I’d known was coming because Wikipedia) but because there wouldn’t be anything else coming in this series.

      Mantel’s writing astounds me, and the planning that went into it — things in the final volume are prefigured in the early pages of the first, for instance.

    5. My Brain Is Exploding*

      Katy Bowman’s Move Your DNA. It’s changing the way I move and his much I move, and it’s going to help me to get healthier, stronger, and (I hope) to age better!

    6. GoryDetails*

      Re Favorite Book of 2020: It’s hard to pick just one, but I’ll go with:

      Le Road Trip: A Traveler’s Journal of Love and France, by Vivan Swift, a mix of travel-journal, sketchbook, and personal memoir, with humor, some practical advice, occasionally unnerving episodes, slice-of-life stuff, all accompanied by really lovely illustrations. For a minor sense of its tone, it opens with a charming set of instructions for use: “Hold upright, turn one page at a time… Do not use as tinder, a flotation device, or bait…”

  70. Mourning Reader*

    My family lost another member last month, the last of my siblings. I feel a profound sense of mourning, for my family of origin, also for all the lives lost to the pandemic, and all the rippling effects of it, for my country and the world.

    I’m feeling the urge to display this mourning somehow. While Victorian and other traditional mourning symbols may have been over the top, we need something more for this culturally, especially now. Especially as our usual rituals, funerals and memorials, are not available.

    I want a black armband, a flag at half staff, a black veil for my hat. I want an easy way to warn people not to wish me a merry Christmas. I want to drape my house in black bunting and listen to the blues and old hymns.

    If there was ever a time to develop new rituals of loss and death, this would be it. Could we invent or reappropriate something? Like the gold star in the window? A badge or sash with the names of your honored dead? A bracelet like the POW or livestrong ones we wore in previous eras? I feel like if people saw the extent of the losses, there might be less complacency or resistance to public health measures. Could also be a way to extend a bit of grace to each other, as the old saying goes, you can never tell what another person you meet may be struggling with.

    What do you do when grieving? What helps? And what outward signals do you use while mourning, if any?

    1. Not A Manager*

      I’m very sorry for your losses. I completely understand the wish for clear societal mourning rituals and public symbols of loss. Our society is poorer for not having them.

    2. Hugs to You*

      Hello Mourning,
      My heart feels for you.
      I have not used outward symbols of mourning but I like the idea, a lot. I think bringing back armbands would work. Many people would know what it meant if you wore one. Renewing the Victorian symbols (hair rings, etc) wouldn’t work because momento mori have been in vogue for several years now and people wear them just because. If an armband seems too much, you could just wear a black ribbon. Like the breast cancer ribbon, but black.

      As far as what helps….time…and remembering that grief is not linear, it comes and goes unexpectedly, and that it’s ok to feel however you feel whenever you feel it. And after a while, a bereavement group helped me a lot. I wasn’t ready at the beginning when my mom died, but when I finally was ready, the group really helped me even though I was skeptical.

      Wishing you lots of warmth during this hard time.

  71. LGC*

    (Warning: mental health issues, and I might make some slip-ups.)

    Yesterday, my neighbor Arya (we live in the same apartment building) cursed me out and threw her coffee at me because I didn’t say “good morning” when I apparently passed her. This isn’t the first time she’s lost it at me out of the blue, and it’s not even the worst time – although I do think this is the first time she threw something at me particularly. Arya also has a significant mental illness (she’s told me, so I know).

    We used to be close friends – I would take care of Arya’s pet when she was out of town, so I had a key to her apartment – but we’ve drifted further apart lately, and finally I decided to give her key back. I ended up giving it to our building manager Sansa since I am afraid of confrontation needed to drop a few other things off anyway, and Sansa asked if I was giving it back because of what had happened that morning. Sansa wasn’t there to witness the altercation, but apparently Arya had confessed to her earlier and said she felt bad and that she couldn’t apologize to me.

    So, here’s the question: I honestly am a little scared of Arya right now. (I’m not sure if I should be scared, but that’s how I feel.) I don’t feel like talking with Arya ever again (at least right now). But a part of me feels bad for not being able to forgive her – and another part of me feels like it’s patronizing to feel like I should forgive her because she has mental health issues. So what should I do? Should I reach out? Should I tell her how I feel – that I understand her, but I don’t want to be assaulted? Or do I just sit there and wait for her to reach out?

    1. BRR*

      Mental health issues don’t give you the right to throw coffee at people. I’d be permanently done with her and try to avoid her at all costs.

      1. LGC*

        Kind of hard to do when we live in the same small building! (And when you share some friends in common. Pre-plague, a bunch of us used to go out to dinner together fairly regularly, including me and Arya.) As much as I want to wash my hands of this entirely, I can’t.

        I think the part that’s hard for me is that I feel like I should be mad at her because obviously. (Your logic is airtight, and I’d tell anyone else the same.) But I’m not, even though I still feel like I’m over it.

        1. Reba*

          One slight silver lining is that it will still be quite a while before “hanging with a large-ish group of friends” is a thing again. So you have plenty of time to figure out how you feel and want to move forward before the social situation comes up. You can set the group dynamics question aside and focus on safety in your living situation.

          I’m glad you spoke to the building manager and they are aware. Did they seem to take it seriously, and will they be able to help you in a meaningful way if this gets worse?

        2. Observer*

          You don’t have to be mad – in fact, it’s probably a good thing that you are not. But you STILL should cut as much contact with her as you can. It’s not about being mad or punishing people or anything like that. It’s about keeping yourself safe.

          Even if someone is in your friend group, you don’t have to have much of a relationship with that person. If your friend group is composed of mostly reasonable people, either Arya will behave herself or people will understand why you are keeping your distance around her.

        3. Anona*

          Sure, you won’t be able to avoid her entirely because you live in the same building, but it’s ok to move her mentally from “friend” to “acquaintance.”

          I personally wouldn’t engage her in conversation. She threw an object at you. It may not be “her fault” but it still doesn’t mean it’s acceptable. If she said something to me in passing I’d nod and continue on. If needed I’d make an excuse “sorry, late for a zoom, don’t have time to chat.” “Sorry the roast is in the oven, don’t have time to chat” “sorry I’m late don’t have time to chat” or just “oh, don’t have time to chat, gotta go”.

          And regarding the friend group- just because you got together pre covid doesn’t mean you have to do the same pattern post covid. You can get together with her in large groups, but you also don’t have to. You can do events with the people who don’t throw things at you, maybe individually, maybe in groups.

          I strongly recommend checking out captain awkward’s website. She has a lot of info about navigating situations like this, where you feel boxed in by someone else’s behavior.

    2. PX*

      Aaackkk. Is my initial reaction to this.

      So question: why do you feel like you need to do anything right now? Do you need to do anything right now?

      I’m the kind of person who generally needs some time to process things, because my initial reaction to something like that would probably not be very helpful, so I’d take a few days to sit on this. But given everything you’ve said, I’m not sure why you feel like you need to reach out. I personally would be very much on team “I am done with this person, and dont need to see, speak or hear about them ever again”.

      I think a common refrain is that mental health isnt an excuse to be a bad person, and I think this is a situation where while her mental illness may be a factor, you are still allowed to say that her actions have made her a person you dont want in your life.

      1. Not Australian*

        You can be sympathetic to a person’s situation without ever wanting to have anything more to do with them; it’s called ‘compassion fatigue’. Sounds like the building manager has your back, though, and will be a useful buffer if Arya tries to force her way back into your life.

        1. LGC*

          PX: I am exactly the same way – when it happened, I just kind of froze, and I’m still working through what happened. (And honestly, that’s kind of why I asked what I should do. It still doesn’t quite compute.) I think part of it, too, is that…to be honest, this isn’t the worst thing Arya’s ever said to me, although this is the first time she’s gotten physical with me. So it also feels weird to be like, “Okay, I let X and Y really bad things slide, but this is the last straw.”

          I didn’t notice that all the options I gave put the options on me until you and BRR pointed that out, though!

          Not Australian: I don’t think Arya will try to force herself back, thankfully. And you’re right – the manager was pretty supportive, partly because of Arya’s history.

          You’re exactly right about the compassion fatigue – I feel flattered in a weird way because I have my own issues it seems like she does this with guys she feels are “safe,” but also I’m tired of being “safe.”

          1. RagingADHD*

            There is no Cosmic Court of Legal Obligation that judges whether your personal “last straw” is justified.

            You get to draw the line wherever you want. Sometimes it’s cumulative.

            Whether it’s because this time it was physical, or because it was one time too many, you are always 100% entitled to decide you don’t want bad treatment.

            And it is not flattering to be someone’s chosen target for abuse. That doesn’t mean you’re “safe.” It means they see you as a mark who won’t set reasonable limits on their bad behavior.

            Is it possible there are some Geek Social Fallacies operating here? You don’t have to be friends with Arya just because your other friends are willing to tiptoe around her.

          2. PX*

            Agree with RagingADHD I think there are some Geek Social Fallacies here, both in terms of feeling like because she’s in a common friend group you have to be friends with her, which probably also ties to feeling “flattered” that she was like this with you.
            Is it like a badge of honour, now I’m in with the cool kids kind of thing (even if she is really mean to me)? Because that tends to lose its appeal after a while…it could just be that you’ve finally gotten to the point where you are tired of it. No weirdness, I think there are lots of things where it builds over time and eventually one thing becomes the “and now I’m done” moment.

    3. Batgirl*

      Honestly, I would either call the police or put her on notice that any more physical assaults and that’s what you’ll do. Nobody gets to throw items at others in a fit of spite unless you’re three. She’s either in control of what she throws and doesn’t care or she isn’t in control of what she throws, and that’s pretty dangerous for both her and you. I know that American commentators can be very dubious about calling the police in certain circumstances, so adjust my ‘call in the cavalry’ plus ‘make it clear this is Actually Serious’ advice to suit the circumstances. It may be that calling the landlord with a formal complaint, or just having a Stern Word is more appropriate. It’s not a correct state of affairs that she lashes out, then doesn’t make any amends or reassure you of concrete steps she’s taking to get her shit together. This “I made an oopsie” comment to someone else is appalling. No wonder you are afraid! She’s not capable of personally reassuring you or taking responsibility and it would be for her own good if someone told her this approach does her no favours. People often misunderstand forgiveness. Forgiveness is what you do to someone who’s serious about making amends AND they are someone who makes you genuinely you want to move forward and build a better relationship. You don’t owe anyone and everyone forgiveness.

      1. Observer*

        Forgiveness is what you do to someone who’s serious about making amends AND they are someone who makes you genuinely you want to move forward and build a better relationship

        Not necessarily – you can forgive someone and still not want to move forward with a relationship.

        1. Batgirl*

          I know some people subscribe to that definition and it actually does describe what I typically do. I just call it letting go or wishing them well. That is forgiveness though I suppose. I would say forgiveness is a spectrum? OP seemed to think full forgiveness was in order just because of a prior relationship

      2. LGC*

        I figured I’d reply to this: I mentioned I left out some details – the building does have a social worker in it! (That’d be Sansa.) So Sansa’s probably going to let the appropriate parties know what happened, and hopefully Arya can get at least some assistance. That’s one thing I’m not letting myself worry about.

        I don’t think that calling the cops would have gone well. Aside from the police’s…spotty record of handling people with MHI, I don’t think they’d be pleased to be called because someone had a cup of to-go coffee thrown in their general direction that missed. (Thankfully.) And the cops in my town literally have nothing better to do!

    4. Jean (just Jean)*

      Solidarity. Frankly, after someone has thrown coffee at you they can’t be surprised at your lack of warm fuzzy feelings for them! For the sake of inner peace I hope you can soon regard Arya with non-reactive detachment.

      I have cut people from my life after debilitating conversations (one long one in which the other person said vicious things about my loved ones). In one long-ago case it was their mental illness talking, but at the time I was already overextended by my own intractable life challenges. More recently it was the other person’s sour outlook. I’m again overextended (different reasons) but I think I’ve simply lost my patience with coddling interpersonal “not a good fit” relationships. I used to feel pangs of guilt; now I simply think “well, we didn’t get along” without any other intense emotion.

      Also, don’t dismiss your inner sense of uneasiness. Arya may not be a ticking bomb (100% reliable source of danger) but you’re right not to expect her to ensure your safety.

      1. Observer*

        Also, don’t dismiss your inner sense of uneasiness. Arya may not be a ticking bomb (100% reliable source of danger) but you’re right not to expect her to ensure your safety.

        YES! Arya has given you good reason to be worried about your safety. Don’t second guess yourself on this.

    5. GoryDetails*

      So sorry about this situation! I have no idea what I’d do – other than do my level best to avoid Arya, difficult as that might be – as I’m confrontation-avoidant and would want to go hide in my room with a book, a cat, and a big glass of wine until I felt better. [Given the previous friendship, I might suggest composing a letter spelling out regrets for what can no longer be and establishing new boundaries – for me, it’s easier to edit the wording in private, so I can get any bursts of anger or tears out of the way before polishing a final draft. Whether you actually delivered such a message could depend on how you feel and/or what else has happened by the time it’s ready, but if that idea appeals to you, it coul be a way to work out some of your questions.]

      Your situation might be a good one to submit to Captain Awkward, who has marvelous scripts for coping with different aspects of interpersonal conflict, including those that involve mental illness, broken friendships, and situations that are difficult to escape from. Whether you try there or not, I hope you can find some peace of mind!

    6. Purt’s Peas*

      What would make you feel most safe right now? Take the question of forgiveness and move it over to sit next to you, I think that’s secondary and can come later. You know that this is a person who is fundamentally unpredictable to you; who you will come into contact with in the course of your day-to-day; who does care for you but can’t control some impulses. Would it feel more safe to be back on her good side—scrupulously say hello, etc; would it feel more safe to avoid her; to add a deadbolt to your door so your apartment feels more like a haven; etc. This wouldn’t need to be a permanent alteration to your way of life but you deserve to feel safe.

      Once you have a couple possibilities I think you can pick back up the question of forgiving her. I personally think that forgiveness is too broad a term that encompasses things like having understanding for a person, trusting them, changing your behavior towards them. You can understand a person and still not trust them; you can not understand why someone did something cruel but change your behaviors toward them so you’re no longer fighting; you can trust that something won’t happen again but never return to the old relationship.

      It sounds like right now you understand why Arya came at you; I don’t think you need to or should offer her a blanket forgiveness: you don’t trust her; you don’t want to forget about it. I think it’s still OK at this point to primarily think about how you’ll feel safest, and then figure out how you’ll operate long-term with her once you’re on more solid ground.

      Tldr you’re perfectly justified in not reaching out but do what you’ve got to so you feel comfortable in your building.

      1. Observer*

        who does care for you but can’t control some impulses.

        What makes you think that Aray cares for the OP? All the OP *actually* knows is that Arya is acting in ways that are abusive and unsafe.

        It also doesn’t really matter whether Arya cares for the OP. The bottom line here is that she’s doing certain things to and around the OP, and the OP needs to act based on those things, regardless of how much Arya does or does not care for them.

        1. Purt’s Peas*

          I’m suggesting possible factors that OP might build into their analysis and I don’t know the situation more than you do. They know their relationship with Arya and, when I wrote this, had suggested they were friendly in the past. Is this still the case? Does this matter? Neither you or I know. We can’t perform this risk assessment for the OP.

          1. Observer*

            I’m not performing a risk assessment for the OP.

            I’m pointing out two fallacies in your list of factors for the OP to consider. One is the idea that Arya “cares” for the OP – in fact the nothing that the OP says indicates that this is true. The second fallacy is that it matters whether Arya cares about the OP. In fact, from the safety point of view, it really doesn’t matter whether she cares about the OP or not. What matters is how she behaves.

    7. Observer*

      There are a few different pieces here.

      If she actually has mental health issues that she has been trying to deal with, then it’s not condescending to forgive her.

      But that has nothing to do with whether or not you have a relationship with her. It doesn’t matter WHY she is acting as she is – she’s volatile and abusive, and she’s gotten to a point where physical violence is not off the table. There is simply no reason to think that you “should” continue to have a relationship with her.

      I would try to forgive her – but also I would NOT try to convince myself not to be afraid of her. Her behavior IS genuinely scary. I would absolutely stay away from her. I would not reach out to her – and if she reached out to me, I would NOT engage with her unless she gave me REALLY good reason to think that something has changed.

    8. Juneybug*

      It’s great you are so kind but your kindness towards Arya hasn’t improved her or your relationship. It sounds like she’s become meaner/less predictable over time. Which is not your job. It’s her job to become a better person/less mean/not use violence to get someone’s attention.
      And not being able to apologize to you is a coop-out. She’s hoping you will forgive her so she can move on without having to show remorse or be responsible for her terrible actions.

      I am an research to see what are my possible next steps type of gal so here are my suggestions –
      Call the non-emergency police line and ask what are your options. You don’t have to press charges or get a restraining order but know what are your possible next steps for protection.
      Talk to your building manager and ask her what are your options. Maybe it’s Ayra moves to another apartment, leaves the building, you move to another apartment, etc. Again, you don’t have to do anything right now but knowing you have options can give you some peace of mind.
      Talk to the your friends. Have they had problems with Ayra? What helped/what didn’t help? What do they think should be the next steps in ensuring all of you feel safe in our building?
      I hope Ayra gets the help she needs.

    9. RagingADHD*

      There is an important distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation.

      Forgiveness is when you release someone from the “debt” of their offense. You aren’t trying to punish them or wish them ill, you aren’t harboring a grudge.

      Reconciliation is when you restore the relationship to the same standing it had before.

      You can’t have reconciliation without forgiveness, but you absolutely can have forgiveness without reconciliation, or with only partial reconciliation.

      Go ahead and forgive her, for your own peace of mind. Be a civil and polite neighbor as best you can.

      But there’s no reason you need to be friends with someone who is volatile, hostile, and who physically lashes out over imaginary slights. She isn’t safe to be around, and you aren’t obligated to be her punching bag out of pity.

    10. Not A Manager*

      It’s perfectly reasonable to not be angry with her, and also to be done with her. If she’s really out of control of her own behavior, then a lot of the moral reasoning that underlies blame (and maybe therefore anger) is missing. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take steps to protect yourself, including your own mental and emotional equilibrium.

      If she can’t control herself any more than the rain can control raining on you, for example, you might not feel angry at Arya any more than you feel angry at a rain cloud. But you still take an umbrella when you go outside. You don’t have to frame “not talking to Arya ever again” as a punishment for her, or even as a consequence for her. It’s just your own personal umbrella to protect yourself from unwanted experiences. (I feel that I should say that this is an analogy. I understand that acting badly from mental illness isn’t exactly like a force of nature.)

      In terms of your friends group, I’d take a wait and see approach. In the future, you might feel safe and comfortable in the same large group as Arya, or you might not. But I’d base your choices off of what works for you, without worrying about what is fair to Arya or comfortable for your friends.

    11. Not So NewReader*

      Regardless of mental health status, some people need to be told directly, “Do not do x.” I think it’s fine to say, that assaulting you is not acceptable. Notice I did not say anything about “not wanting to be assaulted”. Word choice matters when you draw that hard line.
      Don’t tell her you understand her. Many people have difficulties and they do not assault others. And reality is you don’t understand her because you are saying here that you are a little scared. (FWIW, I think that is exactly correct, I’d be a little scared also. I wouldn’t understand why she would assault a good friend and I would not understand that it won’t happen again.)

      I don’t think you need to reach out to her. I do think that she will try to send other people to talk to you about it. Those people will relay what you said to her. She can reach out to you if she wants and you can choose to talk with her or not. It’s okay to tell these third parties that they should be careful about becoming a relay between the two of you.

      I have a person in my life who I have moved to the perimeter of my life. While Person did not assault me they did do other things such as trash my house and let my pet out loose in a raging winter storm. (It was very scary and upsetting trying to get my pet back, but I did.) There were other actions that took place, too, that were also deal breakers for me. Trust was irretrievably broken for me.
      I really did not have much issue forgiving my Person that was in part because I decided that there would be new and strict boundaries in our relationship. We chat maybe a few times a year now. Phone only, no in-person. Oddly, we still have the same level of familiarity such as we can talk about very personal concerns that we wouldn’t talk about with casual friendships. This is how I learned that Person did tell their doctor that their issues cost them a long time friendship. I am not sure how the doctor responded to that statement or if the doctor even did respond.

      I have heard it said that people test us to see if we will put up with their poor behavior or their abuse. Sometimes we only need to see poor behavior once and know it’s a good idea to shut it down HARD.

    12. LGC*

      Okay, I should have expected this would bring quite a few replies, but still though!

      Like a lot of people here, I left out some background details, although y’all are right about a lot of stuff. (The GSF call-out stung, mostly because it’s true!) My initial instinct was to just wash my hands of it as much as possible, and…I’ll be honest, I did want a bit of a reality check that I wasn’t jumping to conclusions.

      I did feel like saying something to Arya, and y’all suggested some good framings (that I should say that what she did was uncalled for instead of saying that I didn’t appreciate what she did). But I think I’m going to wait to see if she apologizes first before I say anything – you’re right in that I can forgive her and also say that I’d rather not be friends with her. And that it shouldn’t be on me to say the first word.

      Thanks!

  72. AvonLady Barksdale*

    I need some help with an aggravating smell situation. We move in about 10 days (I AM SO EXCITED) but our current apartment stinks of weed almost all day, especially during the week. It comes up through the vent in our main living area, so it basically comes right into my kitchen and spreads to my living room. When my office door is open I sometimes smell it in there too.

    We live in a non-smoking building. Management has gotten involved and told the person to stop, but obviously that didn’t take (SO GLAD WE’RE MOVING). Marijuana is legal where I am so the cops don’t need to get involved– the person is violating their lease but not the law.

    So basically I’m looking for ways to minimize the smell, which completely stresses me out (non-smoker, for one, but mostly I’m pissed because someone else’s habit is invading my home), but because we’re moving, I don’t want to get an air purifier or anything like that. I clean regularly with vinegar– should I just spray it at the vent? (I’m half joking, but I will if it will help.) Any ideas welcome.

    1. Elspeth McGillicuddy*

      Is is just the one vent? Could you block it off and use an area heater instead?

      It really is a nasty smell. I always think there is a skunk, then remember I am in the city, not the country. At least country skunks are adorable, city ones are just rude people

      1. AvonLady Barksdale*

        Just the one, but it can’t be blocked off– it’s the vent on our HVAC closet. Hard to describe, but the HVAC unit is situated in a closet (that is locked and can only be accessed by maintenance staff, which is typical in this type of building) and the smell comes through the vent on the other side of that closet.

        It’s so annoying. I’m not even anti-weed, but a) they stuff they smoke is horrid and b) I don’t want it in my home. I keep wondering if my dog is going to start getting bleary-eyed, it’s that bad.

          1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

            “Dear neighbors: Seriously, there are better quality options out there. Please find them.”

        2. Venus*

          It’s hard to know what you are describing for vents, but would it be feasible to tape a plastic bag (or any piece of plastic big enough) over that vent? It might limit your heating, but apartments tend to have residual heat from nearby units so it might be worth it for the last bit of your lease?

          I am sorry this is happening to you. Good luck.

    2. Reba*

      Do you have pets? I would try spreading baking soda in trays near in the vents.

      And maybe some strong scented candles.

      Good luck with your move!

      1. AvonLady Barksdale*

        Thanks! I do have a doggy. I don’t think he would eat a tray of baking soda, but I don’t want to tempt him. I also have visions of baking soda dust flying all over!

    3. Juneybug*

      Could you have a fan blow air into the house to bring in fresh air and dilate the smell?
      Could you close off the vent where the scent is the strongest?
      Could you point fans toward the apartment below? Hey, they are smoking so obviously don’t mind the smell. :)

    5. Hospital-grade room deodorizer*

      Hospital-grade room deodorizer. Seriously. You can get it off of Amazon.

    7. Parenthetically*

      Box fan, good 20×20 furnace filter. Turn the fan on high, stick the filter on the *back* of the fan so the suction holds it on — make sure the airflow arrows are facing the right way. Faster than any air purifier I’ve used, and cheaper to boot. And then when you move, you can just keep using the box fan.

    8. Not So NewReader*

      Set out bowls of vinegar. That might work. I did this once in a freshly painted room that had a strong paint smell.
      The paint smell had to go because there was going to be a group of people using that room. So small bowls of vinegar around the room was the plan and it really seemed to help.
      One person said to me, “Well then it will smell like vinegar!” If you can smell the bowls of vinegar then you are not smelling the paint or the pot. If the vinegar gets over bearing, back off one bowl at a time until you find a balancing point.

    9. Bobina*

      Baking Soda or Activated Charcoal – basically I’d be looking for things that absorb odour.

      Actually, I dont know much about Febreeze but if they have a solid version that you could put where the vent is that might help. The only thing I know that exists is Boot Bananas (geared towards putting in shoes to reduce odour). Depending on how your vents are shaped/located the goal would be to get them as close as possible (or even in it) – I think that would help.

    10. D3*

      I’d call the landlord emergency number every. single. time. it. happens. at this point. You’re moving out. They’re not taking sufficient action. Time to make them wise up to the frequency.

    11. creapy arms*

      Can’t you just deal with it for the remaining time? I know it is horrible, but just think you will gone in 10 days.

      1. AvonLady Barksdale*

        I’ve been “dealing with it” for months. Trying to make the last week here less annoying. I start a new job tomorrow and I would rather not have to smell it. It’s not like I’m pounding on my neighbor’s door in a fit of rage– if I weren’t leaving, it would probably come to that.

    12. KoiFeeder*

      Experiencing anaphylaxis in front of the RA was how I handled this sort of thing in undergrad. It’s safer to use baking soda or the hospital deodorizer, though.

    13. Batgirl*

      My boyfriend literally had this exact problem and solved it. Weed smoke coming through a vent as well as his windows. To complicate matters he has the nose of a sniffer dog; bicarb was too mild to cover the weed, he could still smell it and most air fresheners overwhelm his nose and give him a headache worse than the weed. He tried Neutradol orbs, not expecting much and yet these were a great success! Destroyed the smell entirely, along with the smells of the same neighbour’s pungent cooking. It was such a relief because he’s had some horrific migraines from the pot smoke and was at his wits end.

    14. Mid*

      As someone who is fond of the “green stuff”, a dryer sheet taped over the vent helps a lot with the smell, and Ozium spray!

  73. Elspeth McGillicuddy*

    Anybody know some immersion videos for learning Spanish that are in Latin American type Spanish? I’m trying to pick the language back up and found a very helpful series of videos that are a few minutes of a beginner level content in 100% Spanish. I really love that there is no lesson (which bore me) and no subtitles (which I would read instead of actually listening), but that there is video to help show whats going on. They’ve really helped bring my skills back in just a few days.

    Only problem is, they are very much in Spain Spanish. I want to learn more Latin American type, since I hope to vacation there post-Covid and am much more likely to run into Latinos here in the US than Spaniards.

    Anyone know of such videos?

    2. Hi there*

      This isn’t a video, but you might want to check out the podcast News in Slow Spanish Latino. I liked hearing news about Latin America and thought the way they integrated a grammar lesson into a conversation was clever. What is keeping me from subscribing these days is that it is pricey and incredibly (and annoyingly) gendered. (The women clearly do all the work while the guy hogs the spotlight and talks about sports.).

  74. Canuck girl*

    Happy 2021 AAM friends :) I wanted to give my thanks for the great advice a few weeks back about my kitten and what toys / activities to keep him busy with and for the funny movies (similar to The Birdcage) that folks took the time to recommend. All such great tips! Grateful for this wonderful community :) Kitty is doing good btw, up to lots of cat trouble and discovery haha, and he follows me around like a puppy, which I never expected from a tabby. He’s a total joy to have, esp. as we’re going into a rather long winter..aand to top it off…in lockdown. Wishing you all a nice Sunday evening.

    1. Flower necklace*

      Glad your kitty is doing well :) I have a tabby, too, and, in my extremely biased opinion, they are the best!

    2. Sloth*

      My Norwegian Forest Cat (we think that’s what she is, and btw, she looks like Hank) follows us around like a dog. She also throws herself on the rug and rolls around in happiness when we come home — like a dog. And sleeps at our feet — like a dog. You see where this is going. Have fun with kitty!

    3. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      One of my husband’s cats totally thinks she’s a dog. Hangs out on the puppy pillows, plays with the dogs’ tennis ball, lines up with the pups at time to go outside (even though she doesn’t get to go outside). I got a picture of her just this evening, curled up on a dog bed with her head resting on one of my dogs’ chewy bones.

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