{ 817 comments… read them below }

  1. Ask a Manager* Post author

    The weekend posts are for relatively light discussion — think office break room — and comments should ask questions and/or seek to discuss ideas. “Here’s what happened to me today” personal-blog-style posts will be removed (because they got out of control in the past). We also can’t do medical advice here.

    Please give the full rules a re-read.

  2. Squirrel Nutkin (the teach, not the admin)*

    What a beautiful picture of Wallace! He looks like he’s sitting for a formal portrait.

    1. Black Cat Lover*

      Agreed, it is such a nice picture.

      I wonder if there are any other people-who-are-owned-by-AllBlack-cats particularly, and have tips on how the heck to get a good picture of them.

      1. Dark Macadamia*

        I’ve gotten lucky a few times when my black cat is on a windowsill at the right time of day, lol. Bright light source but also a high contrast angle, I guess?

        At first I thought Wallace was holding a flower. Such a gentleman.

      2. Literally a Cat*

        My late girl looked most beautiful in a black background, and all you can see were two big golden eyes, and a pink little mlem.

      3. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        The best picture I’ve gotten of my husband’s cat (who is a tuxie but buttons her jacket almost all the way up to her chin to almost completely hide her blouse) is in daylight, curled up in a cream-colored bed next to a window in a light colored wall.

        1. StrayMom*

          I managed to catch a picture of my void boy, Binx, when he decided to sit on my desk on a pile of papers. His head and shoulders were framed by the glow of a computer monitor behind him, and his tail was curled around his paws, looking very much like the poster for Le Chat Noir.

    3. Nervous Nellie*

      He absolutely does! The picture reminds me of school portraits in primary school, where the dressed up, neatly combed little boy sits at a desk with his hands clasped on top of a book. A 70s flashback from a pet portrait! Sweet.

  3. Jackalope*

    Reading thread! Share what you’re reading and give or request recs.

    I’m reading The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst. It was recommended by someone in this very thread! I’m enjoying it a lot so far; it’s very cozy and the author is making fun use of magic, and the characters are fun.

    1. Gentle Reader*

      I am reading Unraveling Oliver by Liz Nugent. It is sort of a psychological thriller. Highly recommend.

    2. Dark Macadamia*

      The Witch’s Daughter – it’s fine but not great. I’m about 3/4 done and it still doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere. I’m also appalled that Goodreads calls it partly a romance because the only relationship they could be referencing is both terrible and boring.

      1. Dark Macadamia*

        Forgot to include – I’d love recommendations of historical fantasy (witchy is a plus but not necessary) that does NOT include SA/excessive violence against women. Something similar to Once and Future Witches where it’s more literary than fluffy but not super bleak.

        1. Falling Diphthong*

          I quite liked the trilogy that starts with Jade City, by Fonda Lee. The Godfather collides with wuxia. Set in an analogue to Asia in the second half of the 20th century. They’re one generation out of a world war, which was the formative experience of the middle aged but barely remembered by the young adults. This felt believably layered to me–like you could see how this society would evolve over time, traditions on top of traditions reacting to new problems, but you would never set it up this way if starting from scratch.

          1. Dark Macadamia*

            Oh yay this is already on my hold list! I’ve delayed it a couple times because it was available when I was in the middle of other books but I’ll move it up :)

        3. allx*

          Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke. I read it based on a recommendation here and loved it. It is a book about the history of magic in England. It is very long. Some criticize it as boring and about nothing. Not so. Not even a little bit. It is a wonderfully creative work, and I am not even a fan of historical fiction.

          1. the cat's pajamas*

            I love that book! The audiobook was well done and was easier for me to finish than the print version.

          2. Dark Macadamia*

            Haha I think this one was on my Goodreads until I noticed the page count. I want to give it a try but my attention span is terrible these days!

            1. word nerd*

              If Strange & Norrell seems too long (which I get!), maybe give Piranesi a try? It’s by the same author, Susanna Clarke, but very different and way shorter. It’s not a historical fantasy, but there is an undercurrent of Greek mythology. It’s one of my favorite fantasy books and you’ll get a sense of how she writes. I got completely immersed in this other world. I highly recommend the audiobook version if you can get your (metaphorical) hands on it.

            2. epicdemiologist*

              There’s also a short story collection, The Ladies of Grace Adieu, set in the same world as Jonathan Strange, if you want to just dip a toe in.

          3. Six Feldspar*

            To be fair it is long and there’s a lot of the book setting up the pieces for the final act, but when it comes, wow!

          4. GoryDetails*

            I adored Strange-and-Norrell, both in print and in audiobook. (The increasingly-long footnotes with all the world-building and faux-history delighted me, and the lyrical prose and mix of dry humor, mystical faerie-roads, and touches of outright horror made a perfect blend.) Also loved the stories in Ladies of Grace Adieu. And Piranesi, while very different in its own way, was a marvel that I like more each time I read it. [All have very good audiobook versions too.]

        4. ampersand*

          You might want to check out The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo. I’m reading it now—I think I’m about 20 percent through it—and so far it checks the boxes for what you’re looking for!

          1. Dark Macadamia*

            Ooh thank you! She’s been really hit or miss for me (loved Language of Thorns, not into Shadow and Bone) but this sounds promising :)

    3. Falling Diphthong*

      We Solve Murders, by Richard Osman of Thursday Murder Club fame. With nods to everyone who suggested I hit Elliot Bay Book Company in Seattle, where I found a signed copy while wandering around.

      This was fun. Amy is a body guard, whose assignment to a private island off South Carolina goes wonky when someone tries to kill her. (Her, not the person she’s protecting.) Steve is her father-in-law, a retired cop living in the exceedingly charming New Forest, land of pub quizzes and wild ponies and organic vegetables Amy sends him but Steve does not actually eat. She needs backup and calls on him for help. Multiple points of view, the pleasures of watching some people be coolly competent, and some congratulate themselves on brilliant plans that will not be coming off as envisioned. It reminded me of Killers of a Certain Age.

      I would say not quite hitting like Thursday Murder Club (which I’d recommend to people who don’t do mysteries as their usual thing). But as a stand-alone story of playing cat-and-mouse across the world, with likable main characters, well executed.

      1. Geriatric Rocker*

        I was talking to one of the elderly visitors at work about her weekend and she said that she bought the latest by an author whose name she couldn’t remember. She said she’s read four of his other works and they are wonderful – murder mysteries but without the blood and gore. Richard Osman? I said. That’s him! she replied.

        We can both thoroughly recommend the Thursday Murder Club series.

      2. No name yet*

        Also just finished We Solve Murders! And 100% agree – it was fun and a good read, but I didn’t like it quite as much as the Thursday Murder Club series. I had been wondering if I was just feeling a bit ‘done’ with Osman’s writing style, so good to know your experience was similar.

        1. Falling Diphthong*

          I always hate giving these sort of “quite good, would just say that if I’d only read/watched this one, just not as excellent as the thing to which I’m comparing it” reviews.

    4. Shiara*

      I’m rereading Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey in preparation for reading the sequel Red Side Story. It’s so delightfully bizarre.

      1. Reluctant Mezzo*

        Yes, it is Different in the good, brain-hurty way truly great SF can be. I adored both books immensely. Fforde also created a great weird society in Early Riser.

    5. word nerd*

      I read The Spellshop a couple weeks ago and enjoyed it! Although since I got it from a rec here I imagine you heard about it from that person or someone else. :)

      Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton is not my usual sort of book but definitely drew me in, especially the last third. I’m also planning on reading her previous book, The Luminaries.

      Ok, y’all, who remembers the classic epistolary novel Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster? I remembered liking it as a kid, so I decided to read it again and I was astounded by how yucky the older romantic interest was through my adult eyes. The orphan protagonist is sweet and spunky and well-written (definitely some parallels with Anne of Green Gables), but I was so sad that she didn’t see how controlling and weirdly secretive this older dude was. I was not optimistic at all that he would somehow become less controlling once they were married. Agggghhh don’t marry him!!

      But one random thing that was interesting for me as a Julia Whelan fan was listening to her narrate Daddy-Long-Legs. She recorded it in 2011, and it doesn’t sound like her more recent audiobook narrations at all. Not badly done or anything, but her voice sounds so different!

      1. Jessica*

        Have you read the sequel, Dear Enemy? Possibly you’d like that more. Judy seizes control of the orphanage she was raised in and installs a college friend as the new matron. It’s also epistolary and delightful, and College Friend extricates herself from a relationship that she had to keep making herself smaller for and finds a more interesting and egalitarian happiness.

        1. AcademiaNut*

          I like both books, but while Dear Enemy has less icky relationship stuff, it has significantly more eugenics.

          2. Nightengale*

            yes that is where I learned about eugenics. .. very helpful for me later professionally that I had first learned it through a 1915 novel read on my own as a teen rather than in a med school class.

        2. word nerd*

          No, I haven’t, but I did put it on hold at the library after I finished Daddy-Long-Legs, because I did like Judy. We’ll see if I feel any better about how things turned out for her after reading it!

        3. I take tea*

          I love Dear Enemy in spite of the eugenics. The idea of fostering children to be independent, active and questioning authority is refreshing, and I love the idea that it’s ok to get a divorce just because you don’t like each other. I also love when Sally says that the fact that a child is illegitimate doesn’t make any difference in the child.

          I don’t like the eugenics, but she does have a point, that an adult person with the brain of a child is more of risk of being used by other people. The answer is of course not to incarnate them on a farm, but to give them support to understand the world. I’m reading Flowers for Algernon at the moment, so the theme is somewhat similar.

      2. GoryDetails*

        Heh! Yeah, Daddy-long-legs is more problematic than I thought it was when I first saw the Fred Astaire movie (though even then the age difference is troubling). I didn’t read the book until long after I first saw the movie, and it does change the focus a wee bit.

    6. goddessoftransitory*

      Supernatural Tales from Charles Dickens, the first volume of the Vallencourt collection of spooky stories, and a coworker just lent me Jeanette Winterson’s Art Objects; can’t wait to read it!

    7. Aphrodite*

      Every October I read either Dracula or Frankenstein. But this habit fell off during Covid so this year I am listening, for the first time, an unabridged edition of Frankenstein. It is very well read and I find myself caught up again in this magnificent and deeply sad story. But what I had forgotten or perhaps not caught on in exactly the same manner previously is how furious I feel at the narrator, Viktor Frankenstein, who seems to be one of the most self-serving, self-pitying people ever. So many people he loves die because of what he created yet he never speaks up, never takes responsibility, just moans about how terrible it all is and how awful the (poor, lonely) monster is and how he, Viktor, is the true victim here. While the writing is compelling–nineteenth-century language was so beautiful–the story has gone from sad to infuriating to me. I wonder if I will ever be able to read or listen to it again without these new feelings.

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        He’s such a tool in that way! It’s not that he doesn’t feel bad; it’s that he spends so much time bewailing his fate when it was ENTIRELY self inflicted!

        Victor’s got a perfectly good point that if he tried to tell anyone about what he’d done he would be dismissed as a madman–anyone today telling that kind of story would also be quietly steered towards therapy and medication. But even to himself, he refuses to take any responsibility for what he’s done, or the creature he abandoned into a world that could not cope with it.

      2. Two cents*

        That is part of the tragedy of the tale, though. I always saw it as part of the story of human nature played out in the book–all the flaws that come together to make the sad and hard hitting story. Which isn’t to say that your feelings are wrong or your assessmentincorrect, but just that taking that away would so fundamentally change everything as to make it lesser as a whole.

        1. Ellis Bell*

          Yeah, the fact that he wanted to create a saviour with answers instead of a child with questions is part of the irony; he was never fit for the responsibility, but someone who was might not have been driven to do it. A really interesting comment on scientific responsibility.

      3. Falling Diphthong*

        One of the things that has really struck me re great stories is that they mean different things to us at different times.

    8. allx*

      I just finished Jeanette Winterson’s Frankisstein, a love story of sorts and interesting retelling. Not sure I liked or “got” the ending, have to think about it a bit. I tried to read this a couple years ago and fizzled out. This time it took. This was another reading thread recommendation. Seems like most of the books I read come from this thread, so thank you, people.

      Next up for me is the newly released paperback of Susanna Clarke’s The Ladies of Grace Adieu, which I am about to crack open. It’s a book of stories loosely (?) related to some of the characters in Jonathan Strange. I’m so excited.

    9. the cat's pajamas*

      I’m listening to the audiobook of Rebel Wilson’s memoir, Rebel Rising. I’m about halfway through and enjoying it. I didn’t know much about her personal life, she’s had a lot of challenges. She’s hilarious and a great storyteller!

    10. Six Feldspar*

      Finished Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton, the prose and the intro/middle was great but it didn’t stick the ending for me.

      Now I’m reading Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian, the first of the book series about Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. I read several a few years ago and loved them, and it’s been great to read through and remember that enjoyment again. I also always think of them as summer reads so I might try to get as far through the series as I can before autumn rolls around again…

    11. BlueCactus*

      On the fiction side of things, I am re-reading A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland, which is a lovely queer romance set in a fantasy world with very rich and interesting worldbuilding. The main character also has what we would call a severe anxiety disorder (he calls it “the fear creature”), which is not something I’ve seen in many fantasy novels.

      On the nonfiction side, I just finished In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction by Gabor Maté, about his work as a physician in a housing community for people dealing with addiction. It was published originally in 2008 and some of the neuroscience and terminology are out of date, but it was one of the first works to strongly advocate for harm reduction and to discuss the influence of poverty and trauma on addiction.

      1. allx*

        I loved Gabor Maté’s book on ADHD, Scattered Minds. I read a lot of ADD/ADHD writings to try to understand how the people in my family who have ADD think and approach life’s necessities. Scattered Minds was a good eye opener to the condition and its various manifestations. The addiction book probably has relevance to me too and I’m putting it on my reading list.

        1. Genevieve*

          I haven’t read much of his work, but if you’re not ADHD yourself, I’d recommend taking Gabor Mate’s opinions on it with a grain of salt. It could be that his stance has changed since he wrote that book, recently he’s said some pretty wild things about ADHD. And a lot of psychologists (Gabor is not one) have some strong feelings about it, too. I can’t speak for addiction because that’s not something I have experience with, but I am ADHD and personally find his take on it to be pretty wrong, and frankly, demeaning.

          Which is not to discredit everything from him! He has a lot of valuable things to say and has done a lot for a lot of people. But I think, like many people who spend a lifetime honing and defending a particular worldview, he has a lot of blind spots.

          1. allx*

            Oh wow. Thanks for that insight. It’s something I had not considered, and I feel a bit foolish in promoting him. I tend read with the idea of taking what seems helpful/relevant/realistic and discard things that don’t resonate so it’s entirely possible that I missed the overall flaws and/or tone. It’s a good lesson for me to consider how information might land to me versus to someone with ADHD. What has been helpful is being a consistent reader of the comments on this site from ADD people and becoming aware that ADD/ADHD isn’t a one-size-fits-all.

            1. Genevieve*

              Oh, no, I’m not trying to make you feel foolish! Again, I think he’s taken some good ideas and managed to popularize them, especially as relates to the emotional well-being of children.
              But some of his ideas are pretty far from the mainstream, and in particular, his theory that ADHD is caused by childhood trauma and can be reversed is icky in a few different ways.
              I did dive into this a bit and apparently a lot of people with ADHD do like that book, and it sounds like the book might be more nuanced than his interviews/website/blurbs, so there’s probably good stuff in it! And major kudos to you for trying to understand what it’s like to have ADHD. As someone who was diagnosed in my 30s, I’m still trying to figure out all the ways it affects *me* and a lot of people in my life are also playing catch-up! I do think our paradigm on neurodivergence in general is probably going to go through a big shift in the near future – who knows how we’ll all be thinking about it in thirty years.

              1. allx*

                I think I am more immersed in trying to understand how different minds think. The more exposure I have to the ADD world, the more I realize how varied ADD is and how personal. I’m always on the lookout for things that make interpersonal relationships with and ADD-brain easier. Not to hijack the reading thread, but I want to mention the Time Timer, which has helped my family who have time blindness/lateness issues. It’s like a kitchen timer but shows the passage of time with a colored portion that gets smaller as time goes by. It’s set up the opposite of kitchen timers though where, for example, if you set it for 15 minutes, the timer puts that at the “9” position, and it runs down to zero at the “12.” I guess what I mean is that it runs clockwise and visually that helped my people. I bought 4 of them, and then another for myself. It’s a great timer.

                Good luck with your journey of self-discovery. Thanks for being so kind and thoughtful in your response.

            2. Genevieve*

              Oh, and I wanted to add – the comments from everyone with ADHD here are a big part of why I finally ended up getting diagnosed! It has been suggested to me by a therapist a couple years earlier but I didn’t know much about what ADHD actually looked like (especially in an adult woman), but after relating really hard to a lot of the commenters with ADHD I realized I probably did have it!

              1. anonymous ADD (hold the H)*

                I recently finished How to ADHD by Jessica McCabe is also good. Her YouTube channel has many helpful videos, too.

                1. Genevieve*

                  I haven’t read the book (I have four other books about ADHD I bought before I got diagnosed, lost before I read them, and then found them but still haven’t read them…so I’ve put myself in ADHD self-help jail) buuut I love her YouTube channel. And fun fact, she’s the reason Alie Ward from Ologies got diagnosed!

    12. Pickle Coke*

      I am currently reading The Pirate Menace: Uncovering the Golden Age of Piracy, by Angus Konstam.

      I’m also hoping to read Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck this weekend too.

      1. Reluctant Mezzo*

        You might enjoy A Pirate of Exquisite Mind by Diana and Michael Preston, about William Dampier who wasn’t all that great as a pirate but sent lovely naturalist papers to the Royal Society (who still don’t like talking about him very much. Probably feel like those in that fictional world using papers written by that nice Dr. Lecter about psychology).

    13. Bookish Drake*

      Spellshop is a fun read or listen!
      I’m working through Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett via audiobook and I’m reading Can’t Spell Treason without Tea by Rebecca Thorne.

      2. dontbeadork*

        The sequel to Can’t Spell Treason, A Pirate’s Life for Tea, is out now. I think I liked Treason better, but I am also aware that the little bonus story is probably coloring my feelings about the book overall.

        This is not to say that if a third is written I won’t buy it…

    14. Falling Diphthong*

      Just started The Grandest Game, a sequel to the Inheritance Games series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. Fun, fast-paced, don’t squint too closely at anything, and enjoy pretending you’re on a mysterious puzzle-driven race around the world to win $17 million. (Also discovered at Elliot Bay Book Company.)

      The set-up for the first in the series, The Hawthorne Legacy, is that a Texas billionaire has been grooming his four grandsons to be his legacy. And then he dies and the will leaves everything to a random homeless high school student from Connecticut. It’s like a massive bowl of popcorn: fast moving plot, fun, nothing deep, and shouldn’t all billionaires focus on building elaborate puzzles into their estates, so that their heirs can play mysterious games solving all the clues the billionaire left behind?

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        As I pass the halfway point in this book and we’re still trying to solve the first locked room, it is dawning on me that this race is going to be told over more than one book. Which is frustrating.

        Amazon suggests two books, with the second coming out next summer. Sigh.

        1. IG*

          I haven’t started that one but I’m glad the first three were all out when I got into them! If you’re interested in writing at all, highly recommend looking up podcast interview with the author — she’s a former psychology professor who specializes in the psychology of fiction and fandom and has used some interesting theories in the creation of this series.

    15. Cookies for Breakfast*

      I managed to start three new books in the same week, because this seems to be the year of reading at a snail’s pace and entirely based on mood.

      1) “Big Swiss” by Jen Beagin – I have high expectations, but from the first few chapters, the main character is coming across as a bit of a caricature. Hope it picks up, I heard really good things about it.

      2) “All That Glitters” by Orlando Whitfield – the story of the author’s friendship with a major art fraudster. One third in, what strikes me the most is how outlandish the lives of the very well-off protagonists sound (these people are my age! While I was arguing with university housemates over the cleaning rota, they were travelling the world, meeting all manner of famous artists, and brokering dodgy art deals for thousands of pounds! What have I been doing with my life! /sarcasm).

      3) “If you were there” by Francisco Garcia, about the people left in the wake of loved ones disappearing, inspired by the vanishing of the author’s own father. This is kind of research for my novel-forever-in-progress, but also tangential to my unsolved disappearances true-crime rabbit hole, so I hope it’s as good as I’ve heard.

    16. The Week Ends*

      I was lucky enough to reach the top of my library’s hold list for audiobook Somewhere Beyond the Sea, sequel to House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. Narrator brings the characters to life and it’s a sweet story of family and belonging.

    17. Genevieve*

      I’m a chapter away from finishing the second Scholomance book, based on a recommendation I got here a few weeks ago. I started two days ago! Trying to figure out how I can convince my husband to just let me out of parenting duties this afternoon so I can just sit and enjoy it (he actually tried to let me do that this morning but a certain toddler of mine decided mommy was the only one he wanted, and despite my husband’s valiant efforts to stand in for me, the screaming got so loud I gave up because I wasn’t enjoying myself anyway).

      I just started reading again, asked for recs once, and right now this commentariat is 2/2 on awesome reads – so thank you!!!

      1. Not That Kind of Doctor*

        The end of the second Scholomance book is the closest I’ve ever come to hurling a book/reader across the room. Read it as soon as the ebook came out and had to wait a year for TheGolden Enclaves!

    18. Nervous Nellie*

      Two for me this week. First, I have finished Ruth Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness (wow, just…wow), and started into the Pevear & Volokhonsky translation of Anna Karenina. When buying Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo last week I went a little crazy buying several ‘Russian bricks’, the 1000+ page Penguin Classics of Russian novels. I have my winter figured out – lots of Dostoevsky, Gogol, Tolstoy (the new translation of War & Peace, holy cow, the first 5 pages grabbed me immediately) & Bulgakov (because who doesn’t love a cat who’s really a devil?). With a little Dumas sprinkled in the middle, that should see me through to spring.

      And second, I am collecting a hold at the library today – Want, by Gillian Anderson. It’s a 21st century Secret Garden – a compilation of anonymous fantasies from women all over the world. Paired with Anna Karenina and her questionable romances, it could be interesting. I haven’t read any samples or reviews, but we shall see.

      1. word nerd*

        I read The Master and Margarita just in the last year and I loved it! Just the sort of weirdness I love.

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          I actually saw that first as a very well done play and it made me seek out the novel!

          1. word nerd*

            Ooh, I can totally see how it would work really well as a play and be fun for the play-within-a-play type stuff.

    19. GoryDetails*

      From my horror-novel stash:

      She Is A Haunting by Trang Than Tran, which I picked up due to the eerie cover-art of a woman with flowers coming out of her mouth as a single tear runs down her cheek. It’s about a young woman who travels to Vietnam to visit her estranged father, who’s trying to restore a French colonial house. (The endpapers feature a lovely/creepy image of the house, with cracks in the walls and vines covering the windows. It reminded me of the Casita Madrigal from the movie “Encanto” – though this house isn’t nearly as benign as that one!)

      On audiobook:

      Waiting for the Flood by Alexis Hall, narrated magnificently by Will Watt. (This is the updated edition that includes the original short novel plus “Chasing the Light,” a longer follow-on that deals with Marius, the ex-boyfriend of “Flood” protagonist Edwin.) Both stories involve people having a surprising meet-cute with someone who’s a better match for them, though it’s taken each of them some uncomfortable years before they get to that point. Sweet, sexy, adorable!

      1. Fellow Traveller*

        I just started Waiting for the Flood on audio too! Oh my what a sweet swoony book it is so far.
        I was looking for something cozy and warm and the combination of Alexis Hall and Will Watt is proving just what I wanted.

    20. PastorJen*

      I’m reading The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. Despite the heavy topic, it’s not as dark as I feared it would be. It’s been excellent so far!

      2. A Pocket Lawyer*

        I recently finished it and it’s excellent. If you like Tana French’s books, you’ll appreciate this one.

    21. Random Bystander*

      Currently reading a pretty interesting mystery series … I’ve finished five. Judge Marcus Flavius Severus … Roman judge set in 2nd century Roman Empire (primarily in Rome, but he does travel a couple times). Lots of fascinating tidbits of daily life in addition to the mysteries.

        1. Falling Diphthong*

          Lindsey Davis.

          I will say that I loved this series and learned a lot, but the follow-up focused on his daughter didn’t work for me at all.

    22. Meh*

      In need of romance or fantasy or thriller books. Suggestions for stand alone books preferred (unless you think the series is excellent) I mistakenly started 6 series this month and I don’t want to take on any more.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        Thriller: The Burglar by Thomas Perry. A young woman makes her living burgling the empty homes of LA’s wealthy. Until she stumbles on a triple homicide, and while she tried to erase any hint of her presence, someone seems to be stalking her. (She is: a small, pretty woman; a burglar; the person to stumble over three dead bodies. So while she’s pretty sure it’s the third part, she can’t rule out the first two as explanations for any particular encounter or near miss.)

        Romance: Funny Story by Emily Henry. Peter and Petra have been friends since childhood, purely platonic–right up until Peter’s bachelor party, when they realize It’s Always Been You. This is about what happened to the fiancée and boyfriend they had to blindside to embark on their Happily Ever After. Henry is great at depicting the nuances of relationships, and here that’s the budding friendship between our socially awkward librarian heroine and one of her coworkers. I treasure one bit about trying to figure out where the line is between “cold and standoffish” and “yuck tmi,” which is a narrow strip actually socially awkward people struggle to land on.

        Fantasy: The Monsters We Defy by Leslie Penelope. 1920s DC, rooted in the falktales of meeting a stranger at the cross roads at midnight, who offers you your heart’s desire…

      3. Hlao-roo*

        Romance: You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi

        Fantasy: Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. A riff on Rumpelstiltskin.

        She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan. The first book of a duology, so not technically a stand-alone but I haven’t read the second book yet (He Who Drowned the World) and I might never get around to it. The first book ended in a place that I was satisfied with.

        I also second the recommendation of Mexican Gothic as a blend of romance, fantasy, and thriller.

      4. WheresMyPen*

        One of my favourite Youtubers, Lucy Wood, has just released her debut novel Rewitched. It’s fantasy, witchy, has some romance I believe. I haven’t got round to it yet but it’ll be on my Christmas list!

    23. RedinSC*

      I just finished Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherworld by Heather Facette. I enjoyed it. I read her Encyclopeadia of Faeries.

      So I just started Autocracy by Anne Applebaum.

      I was almost done with A Peace to End All Peace, but had to return to the library. So back on the waiting list for that.

    24. Squirrel Nutkin (the teach, not the admin)*

      Carl Hiaasen’s *Tourist Season*–journalist-turned-private-investigator tale. Content warning for some yucky deaths and racist/homophobic slurs so far.

      Hiaasen is a good writer, and overall, I am reasonably enjoying this as escapist pulp, but I think he leans into the yucky details and slurs just to be shocking at times. He could write as good a tale without them.

      1. Squirrel Nutkin (the teach, not the admin)*

        For tone, I would describe this as John D. MacDonald meets Donald E. Westlake — a cynical take on South Florida crossed with a strong sense of the ridiculous.

    25. March*

      Hogfather by Terry Pratchett! I adore Pratchett. His wit and his worldview are heartwarming and inspiring. I’m working my way through the entire Discworld series for the fourth? time at the moment.

    26. bay scamp*

      Currently reading Stiletto, the second book in the Rook series. Not as good as the first, they’re kind of belaboring the story of the tragic history of one character, but I’m still enjoying it and getting through it quickly.

    27. IrishEm*

      I’m back reading after many years unable to thanks to the power of audiobooks, and I finally found an audio of Marita Conlon-McKenna’s seminal novel Under The Hawthorn Tree, about three young children living through An Gorta Mór/The Famine (*cough*genocide*cough*) in Ireland in the 1840s that traumatised me as a kid. I also found the two sequels but I prefer UtHT. I haven’t started it just yet, but I will this week.

    28. WheresMyPen*

      I’m reading the 4th book of the Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman. It’s a really cosy, funny series set in the UK where a group of residents of a retirement home solve murder cases. I’m sad it’s the last in the series. My mum loves them so much she’s reading them all again!

      Also just finished the audiobook of Last Night at the Telegraph Club. It’s about a young, Chinese American girl navigating her way through the LBGT+ scene in San Francisco in the 50s. Really enjoyed it.

  4. Jackalope*

    Gaming thread! Share what you’ve been playing and give or request recs. As always, all games are welcome, not just video games.

    I’ve been on a bit of a dry spell this week. Other stuff was happening in my life so no video games, and our D&D game was cancelled for Life reasons. Hope someone else is getting more gaming in out there!

    1. Crazy cat gamer*

      Just had a board games evening with friends – played Ticket to Ride, Dominion and Calico (definitely one for cat people). Tried Sandwich Masters recently but I think we either need to shuffle the cards better or adjust rules as we found it impossible to get any points.
      Video games wise,if you haven’t played Subnautica yet I highly recommend trying it – especially as Subnautica 2 is due out next year. I got into Assassin’s Creed earlier this year, finished Origins and Odyssey, and just started Valhalla.

      1. word nerd*

        Have you ever played Boop? It’s a cute cat game that’s surprisingly harder than you’d think just from looking at it!

        2. Dark Macadamia*

          Lol my family has multiple cat games because it’s an easy way to get the kids invested. We have a Halloween edition of Boop and also Isle of Cats, which I love.

    2. Jenesis*

      My Band of Blades game is also sadly on hold because the DM is dealing with Life issues, BUT I discovered the contingent of my LGS that plays/runs Candela Obscura and I’m super hyped to go back! My first game was Oct 13 and I’ve got two more sessions lined up for Oct 30 and Nov 3.

    4. Shiara*

      My Ghosts of Saltmarsh players are demanding a heist on Gellan Primewater so now I am trying to figure out how to run one. If anyone has recommendations for something fun to borrow heavily from please let me know.

      I’m trying to get a better feel for nonD20 systems, and have been listening to the Haunted City which uses Blades in the Dark. It’s a lot of fun so far.

    5. Literally a Cat*

      Just got Slay the Princess. Loving the art and style, but not sure how I feel about the game itself.

      1. Jackalope*

        Ooh, just read up on that, and… I’m not sure how I would feel about it either. If you think of it, check in on future threads and give me an update. I’m curious what you end up thinking about it.

    6. SparklingBlue*

      About halfway through The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom–had to reconfigure my Switch’s left stick, but figured out you can skip 90% of the water dungeon.

    7. Porch Screens*

      In the spirit of it being spooky month, I’ve been playing horror games and games with horror elements! I’ve also been in a point-and-click mood so a lot of the games have fallen into that category as well. So far, I’ve played through: If On a Winter’s Night, Four Travelers, The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow, Scratches: Director’s Cut, The 7th Guest, and am currently working on Phantasmagoria.

      In addition to the above, I’ve also been working my way through the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Collection and have played through FF1 and FF3 so far :)

    8. March*

      My fiancee has just finished Kingdom Hearts and now she’s in the middle of Kingdom Hearts 2 and I watch as she plays and make inane remarks and lots of squee!noises. When we’ve finished this, I may take another crack at Fable 2. I loooooove the Fable games for their sandbox-ness, weird British humour and delicious graphics.

    9. WheresMyPen*

      Kluster is a really fun, easy game that’d be great to take to dinner, a party or gathering with friends, holidays, great for kids etc. You get a piece of string in a circle and magnetic rocks and everyone has to take turns placing the rocks in the circle without their rock joining on to the others.

    10. RaginMiner*

      I’ve been playing My Time at Portia and My Time at Sandrock! Highly recommend for people who enjoy low-ish combat, cozy games, and NPC relationships!

      1. Middle Aged Lady*

        Same here! Leaves are turning, sun was shining, the winds have started to blow a litttle. Everything feels brisk and alive. Bonus joy: the neighbor’s half-grown kitties who visit my yard and play in the leaves.

    2. Falling Diphthong*

      Survivor made changes to the fake merge that actually fixed a bunch of problems with the fake merge.

    3. Voluptuousfire*

      I moved into my new apartment and I got an offer for a a place we don’t speak up on the weekends.

    5. Knighthope*

      Unusually warm October weather meant I could eat an excellent roast beef sandwich and drink the best canned/bottled iced tea I’ve ever had, outside in the sunshine!

    6. Forrest Rhodes*

      Correcting my “joy” post from last week:
      I said I walked a labyrinth that’s like the one at Notre Dame, Paris.
      Problem: There is no labyrinth at Notre Dame.
      The one I walked is a copy of the labyrinth at the Cathedral of Chartres.
      Apologies to all—the error was my bad.
      But that peaceful hour or so is still with me, and I’m still planning to repeat it soon.

        1. Forrest Rhodes*

          I’m excited for you, too, that you’ll be seeing the Rosicrucian Museum. You’re right, it does include a labyrinth that’s also like the one at the Chartres Cathedral.
          The one I walked is on a hilltop at Forest Lawn Glendale, in Los Angeles, but it’s just as open and beautiful as the one you’ll be seeing in San Jose.
          Have a wonderful visit, anon_2!

    7. Rose is a rose is a rose*

      There are spawning chum salmon in the estuary by my house. I can stand on my deck and watch them jumping all around! Today I counted 20 bald eagles, there are seals and sea lions cruising the deeper water, and bear tracks everywhere!

      1. Two cents*

        It sounds like you live in a nature documentary! Does David Attenborough narrate your life?! “And now, Rose is a rose is a rose is making a sandwich….”

        Seriously, though, that sounds amazing. :)

        1. Rose is a rose is a rose*

          Hahaha sometimes we bust out our best Attenborough impressions! I’m pretty lucky to live where I do, that’s for sure.

    8. Six Feldspar*

      Went to the zoo to practice taking photos with my DSLR camera, I had a lovely time and got to see the platypus swimming all over its tank, it looked like a cat having the zoomies! I’ve been to that zoo several times since I was a kid and never even seen the platypus before, let alone get a performance like that!

    9. RuthG*

      My nearly three year old was a horror on Monday, so I was dreading having to take him to work on Thursday – I run a sling library where I help people with Babywearing.

      he was good as gold, watched his tablet, waved at the babies, then he wanted up so I popped him in a carrier on my back and he rubbed my neck and played with hair for 10 minutes while I helped a family with a 3 week old baby

    10. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      I got a surprise boop on my security camera – my dog climbed up on a chair, with her paws up on the back of it, and snuffled the camera with her giant snoot. Super cute.

    11. The Other Dawn*

      I recently discovered a website that sells all kinds of wraps, kimonos, and capes. I ordered a cape during the mystery sale and it arrived this week–and it’s all my favorite colors! I generally don’t like mystery sales since they can be a real crap shoot, but I lucked out.

    13. Girasol*

      Tried out watercolor pencils for the first time. Bought a basic box of Crayola ones at the grocery. They go on like colored pencils but touch them with a wet brush and wow, they really are watercolors! They’re fun to play with.

      1. allathian*

        I loved those when I was a kid! It also looks great if you wet the paper first and then draw on top. You can get great textures if you use a light shade first, wet it, and draw with a darker shade of the same color on top while the paper’s still wet.

    14. Valancy Stirling*

      Spring flowers. I’m not a fan of the heat (especially because it feels like summer already), but the jumble of colors and scents delights me.

    15. GoryDetails*

      Lovely weather in southern NH, with the foliage season just starting to wind down – but with patches of spectacular color still visible here and there.

    16. Cookies For Breakfast*

      One of our skittish foster cats is becoming extra affectionate. She comes to the sofa to seek affection every evening, and while so far she’s been showing Partner more love than me, today she gave me lots and lots of very sweet head bumps and eventually fell asleep on my leg.

      I’m feeling downbeat this week, so I really needed this (and the fancy slice of white babka we took ourselves out for this afternoon).

    17. DannyG*

      My wife has progressed to walking with a cane after her surgery 3 weeks ago, so progress is happening.

    18. Squirrel Nutkin (the teach, not the admin)*

      Early voting started in my state today, and when I got there, I saw a line, which I never see! I teared up a bit seeing all those people who felt it was important enough to go early.

    19. I take tea*

      My partner and I went for a hike and gathered lots of what Wikipedia tells me are called winter mushrooms. We gave most of it to my partner’s mother, who can’t pick them herself anymore, and she was so happy. It made me glad too.

    20. carcinization*

      I finally made the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Squares that I make every fall, they turned out just as good as always!

    1. Peanut Hamper*

      If it’s a rare enough thing that it makes the news I’m not entirely sure that it’s worth my worrying about. It’s like plane crashes. Sure, you hear about the tragic plane crash that happened today, but you don’t hear about the tens of thousands of plane flights that happened over the past several months that took off, flew to their destination, and landed without a hitch.

      1. allathian*

        In spite of air disaster shows being so popular, flying is statistically the safest way to travel. It’s far more likely that you’ll crash your car on the way to and from the airport.

        I only noticed the potluck news thanks to AAM. I’m in Finland and office potlucks simply don’t exist here. I’ve never participated in one, neither had any of my friends when I asked them a couple years ago. Sure, people sometimes brought goodies to share before the pandemic, but it’s always been one person bringing something at a time, and there’s no judgment if your goodies are store bought rather than home made.

        We do potluck Christmas dinner, but apart from that, potlucks remind me of my days in college when none of my friend group could afford to host a party on their own.

        1. Seashell*

          Air travel may win statistically, but I have survived multiple car accidents in my lifetime without any injury. I don’t know anyone personally who has survived a plane crash.

          1. Charlotte Lucas*

            Way back when I was in college, a dorm mate’s mom survived 2! (My understanding is that both occurred on takeoff or landi.)

          2. HBJ*

            Again, it’s the whole make the news thing. I know many people who’ve survived plane crashes. But because no one died (or in one case, one person died), it doesn’t make huge national/international news.

        2. HBJ*

          Right? I probably go to more potlucks than the average person – never gotten sick. Never worried about it either. And I know quite a few Filipinos. I’ve eaten a TON of potluck pancit. It’s the most popular item, everyone gets excited when so and so shows up because there’s it the best.

        3. Observer*

          Sure, people sometimes brought goodies to share before the pandemic, but it’s always been one person bringing something at a time,

          That’s actually a pretty good description of what happened here, though. Sure it was a potluck, but essentially, if the health department is correct, that was not the key issue because it was the food of one person. So if they had brought it in just because they were celebrating something, it would have been the exact same outcome.

    2. NotBatman*

      It was pancit? Oh jeez, now I’m having flashbacks to the story about the guy who ate old noodles and had to have four limbs amputated from the severity of the poisoning.

      1. Nicosloanica*

        I think it’s funny that it was *in a seafood factory* yet apparently the culprit was a noodle dish. Botulism (or whatever, I haven’t heard what it actually was, but it did seem to come on fast) is a tricky beast!!

        1. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

          Botulism is tricky! I know someone whose mother (an active woman in her 60s) ended up in a nursing home and brother (in his 30s) had months of after effects after the emergency room misdiagnosed their botulism twice and sent them home.

  7. Jenesis*

    So after numerous back and forth talks with the husband about “well, if we want a cat, what do we need to do to make this happen?” it appears we… have a cat?

    Found her under a parked car two Sunday nights ago, lured her into the house with food, and she hasn’t left since, except to go to the vet (it was a weeklong struggle to wrangle her into the carrier, it seems we’ve found the one cat in the world that HATES BOXES). No collar, microchip, or spay scar. Based on her demeanor, recognition of certain objects/sounds, and overall cleanliness we concluded she must have lived in a house before and wasn’t on the street that long when we picked her up. County law requires us to make “reasonable efforts” to locate the prior owner for a month (I’ve been daily checking the LOST CAT listings on Pawboost to see if anyone’s lost cat is a match), but we’ve already fallen in love with her and if a month goes by with no owner contact, we are 100% set on formally adopting her.

    Oh, and Husband is allergic to cats, but she wandered all over the condo on the first day here and he hasn’t had any bad reactions so far… so if that isn’t a miracle I don’t know what is.

    Any cat-raising tips would be appreciated!

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      The carrier isn’t a box, it’s a torture device. :)

      Plan to get her medically up to date (vaccinations primarily, anti-flea and deworming medications as a precaution if the vet recommends, but definitely spaying as long as she’s old enough) ASAP; cats in heat are a DREADFUL thing on so many levels. Your vet can easily chip her for you as well — mine prefers to do chips while they’re under for the spay if feasible, just because it’s less discomfort for them than doing it while they’re awake.

      Begin as you mean to go on — if you don’t want her doing it forever (whether “it” is climbing on your counters, jumping on your head in the middle of the night, yowling for food at 3am, whatever), don’t let her do it now. WAY easier to train her that she’s not allowed in the bedroom now, than after you’ve been letting her do it for three or four years. :)

      1. Lala*

        not to derail, but can people tell me about chipping? we’ve always been reluctant fir various reasons, but I’m starting to question that. I just really don’t want our cats to be uncomfortable (or in pain) their whole lives. and I know it isn’t supposed to be like that, but it still, I don’t know, squicks me? I want to do what is best for the cats though, and that seems to get the recommendation.

        1. Roland*

          I’ve never heard anyone mention that their pets had any problem with a chip. I’m sure it’s possible, but I would imagine you could just get it removed if that happens.

          Cats are known for over-grooming spots that bother them, so since most cats are not walking around over-grooming their chip spots, I suspect they don’t feel it at all.

          1. NotBatman*

            We just adopted two kittens who are newly spayed and chipped, and they definitely find the spay sites irksome (lots of grooming) but pay no extra attention to the chip sites.

            Also: think about the number of humans who have larger objects permanently embedded in their bodies without pain. My dad has three screws and a rod holding one of his bones together. My childhood friend had the end of a pencil embedded in his arm, and mostly ignored it. Mike McCoy had a 2″x 6″ piece of wood in his leg for decades without knowing about it, due to a childhood tree-climbing accident, and played professional football without pain.

            Sorry if these examples are adding to the “squick” factor. I just find it interesting that (counter to what we see on fictional medical dramas) bodies are excellent at incorporating foreign objects without issue.

        2. Jackalope*

          None of my cats have shown any discomfort with theirs, even the ones who had it when I was watching. The reason I recommend it is because cats can get lost so easily, and if they have a chip then shelters or vets will be able to contact you. So many cats look very similar to other cats unless you know them personally; this is the way to make sure you get your cat back if she gets lost. Which can happen even for indoor-only cats; they can escape like lightning.

        3. Ellis Bell*

          They shouldn’t know it’s there at all; it’s positioned in a particular place where there’s a lot of padding (where their mum can grab them with her teeth painlessly) for that reason. I once had a birth control implant inserted in my arm, where there’s no roll of fat or fur padding and I could only feel it if I used my fingers and hunted for it.

        4. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

          All my pets are chipped and none of them has ever batted an eyelash about it, like I have my vet check everybody’s chip when they go for checkups to make sure they’re still there because they’re completely not noticeable otherwise. The chips are small – they’re inserted through a large-bore needle and can absolutely be done without sedation in a pinch, it’s just far nicer to do it if they’re already going to be out anyway. As someone else mentioned, it’s very similar to a birth control implant on humans, but even smaller.

          Additionally, it protects you as the pet’s owner – two stories, both with happy endings! My brother has a cat that he rescued after he literally saw her owner throw her out of a car into a snowbank. Five years later, they scanned her (not sure why, it was her regular checkup and nobody knew she was chipped?) and she had a chip assigned to someone else, and the vet’s office was legally required to reach out to the chip-registered owner on file and let them know who had their cat. They had two weeks to respond and claim her, after which the chip was able to be updated to my brother’s name and info. In his case under the circumstances he was fully prepared to tell them to sue him if they wanted her back, but they just never responded luckily, and she is officially his now.

          My coworker, on the other hand, had her dog stolen from her yard a few years back, and got a call from a shelter last year that they’d scanned a stray brought in for a chip and it had her name on it, and she was reunited with her stolen dog after like three years.

          1. Observer*

            My brother has a cat that he rescued after he literally saw her owner throw her out of a car into a snowbank

            I just *gasped* reading that! What is with people?!?!

            I can see why your brother was ready to be sued, and I’m glad they just didn’t respond.

            1. Jenesis*

              Some people are just horrible.

              One of Husband’s friends got a cat because his girlfriend was at the animal shelter when she saw someone toss a cat out their car window and drive off. The shelter said “We technically never did intake for this animal, so we won’t charge you an adoption fee if you just want to take him…” and she did! To the best of my knowledge he is living his best cat life now.

        5. dontbeadork*

          All of our animals are chipped (well, not the fish and shrimp, but the odds of them getting outside the house are pretty slim). We’ve been having it done for decades and not one of the cats or dogs seems to have noticed them.

          Ours get chipped the same time they are being neutered.

        6. Can't Sit Still*

          The only potential issue with a chip is that it sometimes migrates away from the original insertion area. That’s not a huge problem, it just means that they need to scan using a handheld scanner.

          Years ago, I adopted a senior cat from the local rescue. He had been adopted from the rescue and chipped. Eleven years later, he was found living on the streets, ill and injured. Because he was chipped, first they tried to reach his adoptive family, then they treated him and returned him to the rescue for adoption. If he hadn’t been chipped, instead of being treated, he’d have been euthanized due to his age and injuries. That was actually in his shelter notes – he was scheduled for euthanasia before they found his chip, which had migrated down one of his legs.

          I adopted him after he’d been at the shelter for several months. He was the sweetest, most loving cat, and even though we only had about 18 months together, it was worth it. He had all the food and toys he could want. I even got him a kitten and he was an excellent grandpa! He passed away painlessly in my arms, in a quiet dark room, instead of terrified in the kill room at the county shelter.

          The bottom line is that if you chip your animals, and keep your information updated, they can come home to you. Worst case, even if something happens to you, a chip shows that they aren’t feral and are adoptable.

        7. GoryDetails*

          Re chips: mine have never shown any discomfort at all with theirs. I can feel the chip on my ginger cat, but even when I touch it while stroking him he doesn’t seem to feel a thing. And while my cats are all indoor-only, I find it comforting to know that if one did get out the chip would help in getting him back to me.

    2. Anonymoss*

      So yes, make sure she’s up-to-date on shots, get her chipped, etc. I would also work on training her just like a dog. Get her a harness and get her used to it (just put her in it for a bit and give treats to get her used to it) and then when she’s comfy, get the leash on her. It’s much easier to take your cat places when you can walk her on the leash.

      I would also work on getting her acclimated to being in the car so that she’s good for car rides, and maybe work with the crate to see if she’ll be less freaked out by it (some of this will depend on how old she is and how scared he is) and at the least it won’t take a week to catch her.

      One thing I’ve learned is also make sure that she’s getting plenty of play time so that she isn’t destroying your furniture and knocking things off tables. It’s like a toddler, any behavior you give into is one she’ll repeat because it’s getting her what she wants (food, attention, treats, etc).

      1. Jenesis*

        As far as age: the vet estimated her age at 9-12 months, so still a kitten but close to being a full adult. We haven’t thought about leash training her to bring her outside on walks (lot of dogs in the neighborhood) but will keep in mind!

    3. Ginger Cat Lady*

      I leave my carriers open in a corner and put a few cat treats in them once or twice a week. They’re very acclimated to it because they go in there regularly. When we go to the vet, we just make sure they see us putting some in there, and then we close it behind them and go.

    4. Black Cat Lover*

      Get kitty fixed ASAP!
      (Better for their life, birds lives, your life.)

      Play with kitty a lot!
      (Helps you bond! It is fun!)

      Don’t make your hands or any part of your body a cat toy (feet under the covers!).
      (You don’t want to encourage them to scratch or bit you. And their play naturally can include scratching, biting. What could seem fun at first could be not so fun very quickly… like pouncing on your feet at 2 am.)

      Get a few scratching posts for inside.

      Teach kitty what not to do, nicely.
      (My current youngest kitty was doing love bites, but they were too hard for me. I started saying “Owh!” loudly every time and stopped petting him / moved away from him, etc. He has learned to rarely do that.)

      Be sure to reach out to pet pros for advice.
      (I called my local humane society for tips, some months after I adopted my kitty. They really want to help. Also, there is Vancouver vet on YouTube with good advice.)

      Have fun!!!

      1. Isabel Archer*

        Thank you for reminding me of the Vancouver vet! His channel is a balm for the soul. I could watch him for hours, and I don’t even have a cat.

    5. Jackalope*

      Definitely get scratching posts so she has something you’re okay with her scratching. There’s a catnip spray you can spray on them to entice her to the post if she doesn’t go automatically (I’ve had cats go either way). Wand toys have been a favorite with all of the cats and kittens I’ve had, and the small ping-pong-sized balls you can get at pet stores for cats.

      Also, clean the litter box every day, no skips. Cat have… opinions about this.

      1. Jenesis*

        So when we first brought her home, I caught her scratching on the couch several times, and although I’d try to deter her every time I knew I couldn’t keep it up forever (she’d just learn to do it when I left the house). We bought a scratching box but even when we sprinkled catnip over it, she wouldn’t use it. Then one day my husband texted me “This cat tree is $150, can I buy it?”

        We placed it next to the couch where I caught her scratching before. It took her a while to figure out how to climb to the top, but she loves it now (she is currently laying in the u-shaped trough at the top). We make a point of treating her for scratching the tree and not the couch and we’ve had zero problems since.

        1. Ellis Bell*

          This is the true wisdom of behaviour management; redirect to the behaviour you want to see and reward it.

        2. Banana Pyjamas*

          In case scratching becomes a problem again, my mom had a cat that wouldn’t scratch vertical cat scratch posts. We bought a board one meant to hang from a doorknob and payed it flat on the floor. She loved to lay with her front paws on it and do mama paws.

    6. Six Feldspar*

      Congratulations, a cat has acquired you!

      Apart from all the other advice, once she’s settled in and knows you are her caretakers, I would work on getting her comfortable with having her ears and paws handled (less stress when it’s time for the vet) and getting comfortable with boxes. If you can make her car carrier a bed normally it should be easier to get her to the vet because the carrier is familiar and safe.

      Also think about how you’re going to plan any decorations to make sure she’s safe. Tinsel is definitely hazardous and she might see other decorations as new toys or climbing walls (you can google “cat proof christmas tree” for a laugh and some ideas)

    7. Forrest Rhodes*

      Just wanted to congratulate you, Jenesis, for confirming that the International Cat Distribution System is still working just fine! :)

    8. Love me, love my cat*

      I’m just don’t trust cat collars for taking kitty outdoors. They’re designed to come apart! And cats are born escape artists–they figure out how to back out of the collar pretty quickly. By the time I’m sure it’s tight enough to prevent that, I’m worrying I’m strangling the poor cat with it:) I use a (snug!) halter.
      My cat also hates boxes. I never knew such a creature existed, and now I see more than one exists! Getting him in a crate is impossible. My sweet boy turns into the Tasmanian Devil. Long story, but he now has a travel hamper. It’s a cheap plastic one with lots of holes, and a much larger opening than a crate to drop him into. Duct tape ready to secure the lid, and we’re off!
      So important–get your kitty used to you holding his paws. Trim his nails right from the start. Don’t squeeze the toes too much when trying to trim the nail. It can hurt, and obviously make your cat flee when the clippers come out!
      Be careful with treats. A fat cat is an unhappy, unhealthy cat. It’s hard to get weight off a cat, so it’s best to avoid the problem from the start.

    9. RagingADHD*

      Lots of good advice. I’d add to start working on regular nail trimming and brushing, and if possible bathing, ASAP while she is still a kitten.

      Most cats don’t need routine bathing, but if something happens that they do, you don’t want it to be scary and traumatic. So it’s better to create the habit so they can tolerate it. We failed to do that, and there have been a couple of situations where the cat got into something they should not lick off, and it was a bad scene.

    10. Lizzie (with the deaf cat)*

      Jackson Galaxy is the cat guru man, he has books and you tube videos and many interesting and sensible things to say about being a cat parent.
      My cat’s basket is an old wicker one and is usually accessible and sometimes has a treat or two in it, so all of my cats have seen it as just another place for a nap. As it is wicker, I do put a puppy pee pad underneath the blankie before we go in the car.
      If you talk to her a lot, in a conversational tone, she might become chatty in return! I had a cat once who was so chatty that she would miaw and chirp and squeak to people on the phone if I held it near her and they spoke to her. She always had a lot to say about everything. I hope you have many happy times together!

    11. Jenesis*

      F/U to the main comment since I’ve seen a few people mention spaying: we do intend to spay and vaccinate her as soon as possible. However, since we picked her up off the street, we have no way of knowing whether she mated before we found her, and if she’s already pregnant my husband will insist we not terminate the litter (he’s Catholic, go figure). About how long would it take before we can definitely confirm she’s not/pregnant? She’s a very slim longcat so she’s definitely not ready to pop anytime soon, but we’ve only had her two weeks.

      1. RagingADHD*

        Average cat gestation is around 65 days, and a vet can usually confirm pregnancy by about 14-20 days along. Visually, she would be “showing” to some extent around 30 days.

        Their heat cycle is between 14-21 days, so if she starts acting desperate to get out, etc, that’s a good sign.

    12. happybat*

      Congratulations! I got my cat in January, and since then she has never stopped learning or making progress. Just recently she learned how to pounce with claws in (at least four times out of five) which means that playing with hands and feet is much nicer for the human. She also allowed a stranger to pet her on the head yesterday which is a lot better than charging, hissing and yowling, which is where we started out!

      I would say that its a good idea to work out as clear as you can what you need (sleep, minimal to no puncture wounds) and what she needs (food, water, litter access, things to chase and claw, viewing spots and nests, to suck obsessively on her back foot while purring hysterically), and then the rest is negotiable. For example, I dislike her in the bed with me, but I NEED her not to be on my pillows, so the compromise is a special cat cushion on the bed, made out of a fabric she enjoys. We also recently established that while she will allow me to install a harness, wearing it will plunge her into a deep and enduring misery, so the harness has gone in the bin. But cats can learn and grow, and it’s lovely to watch them doing it.

    13. HD*

      You might try leaving the box out with the door open and letting her investigate it and maybe decide it’s nice to sit in. My cats usually walk happily into their carriers and don’t realize their terrible mistake until we’re in the car halfway to the vet.

  8. Teapot Translator*

    What’s cooking this weekend? I have beef and orzo, so I pulled a recipe for a Greek beef stew from the Internet.

    1. Pam Adams*

      I made macaroni and cheese from the standard blue box and added cannelini beans. A touch of cream cheese and a handful of shredded made it extra rich.
      Quick comfort food with added protein.

      1. Peanut Hamper*

        I sometimes throw a can of tuna in there for more protein, along with a couple of slices of American cheese.

        If you like it spicy, throw in a can of chili beans.

        1. The Other Dawn*

          That reminds me of trying to make my own mac and cheese as a teenager. Even though I knew that mac and cheese either came out of a box or was homemade using milk and other ingredients, I couldn’t be bothered. When my parents weren’t home and I would make plain macaroni, put slices of deli cheese on it and then microwave it until melted. Very thick and gooey, but SO GOOD. I haven’t made that in years. Now I’m thinking I might want to tonight. :)

    2. Peanut Hamper*

      The weather has turned cold, so I’m planning on making chili and split pea soup and throwing them into the freezer for weekdays when I don’t feel like cooking.

      I would love to see that recipe for Greek beef stew!

    3. Esprit de l'escalier*

      I had half a pound of Great Northern white beans and a small pumpkin, so I made smittenkitchen’s very good black-bean pumpkin soup but with white beans. She calls for canned beans and canned pumpkin so her version is easier (and I would use canned pumpkin the next time). It made a lot, and I’m hoping for that “tastes even better the next day” effect as I eat it up over the next several days.

    4. goddessoftransitory*

      I made southwestern creamy chicken soup and last minute veggie burritos after arriving at the store and discovering they were out of eggplants, so no moussaka.

    5. CtheRocker*

      Venison burgers, home made french fries, and fried green Creole tomatoes tomorrow. Sunday will feature field peas & snaps, and Mexican cornbread. (The venison we harvested and the tomatoes we grew in our garden. So yummy!)

    6. Six Feldspar*

      We’re currently in the part of spring that seems designed for hearty salads! I’m making carrot salad with tahini dressing and chickpeas, and Thai-inspired beef and noodle salad (both originally from Smitten Kitchen, but I’m generally a “recipes are more like guidelines” type of cook).

    7. Ellis Bell*

      I made cornbread in a cast iron pan for the first time (the last time I tried making it, it had a soggy bottom) and it was perfect. It’s not part of my upbringing, being British, but after dunking it in chilli, to soak up the sauce it is now! I need to think of other things to eat it with (strawberry jam?)

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        I like cornbread best with just a bit of salted honey butter. (I always buy unsalted butter so I can control the salt myself, if you buy salted butter you can probably not bother to salt yours further.)

      2. The OG Sleepless*

        If you’re feeling it, when you make turkey for Christmas, make another batch of cast iron cornbread. Crumble it up in a bowl and shred up a few slices of white bread. Add diced celery and onions. Add enough chicken broth to make it a bit soupy and stir in a little sage. Pour it into a baking dish and add a few tablespoons of buttermilk and stir lightly. Bake. Voila: cornbread dressing, the traditional side dish with turkey in my part of the American south. (We don’t stuff it in the turkey.)

        1. Clisby*

          That’s how I make dressing/stuffing, except I don’t add bread. If I stuff it in the turkey, it’s stuffing; if it’s baked by itself it’s dressing – doesn’t change the recipe.

      3. The Other Dawn*

        I made a cornbread recipe in my cast iron pan a few years ago, which called for bacon. I think it was bacon cheddar cornbread. The recipe said to fry the bacon and then leave the grease in the pan after removing the fried bacon. You then use that grease to bake the cornbread. It made a really crunchy, delicious crust.

      4. GoryDetails*

        I love cornbread, especially when cooked in cast iron! (I first had it via my father’s people in Louisiana when I was a kid, and prefer that less-sweet, more-crumbly style to the muffin/cake-style that’s more common where I live now, in New England.)

        If you haven’t seen it already, check out The Cornbread Gospels by the marvelously-named Crescent Dragonwagon (also noted for some lovely children’s books); it features the history of cornbread, including the different regional styles, and loads of recipes from basic to elaborate. Also has recipes for sauces and side dishes.

    8. Falling Diphthong*

      Spouse is traveling, so I went to a place near my Thursday medical appointment that does healthy carry-out and got a bunch of vegetable salads. One of them is a mystery box: appears I got some sort of cabbage slaw in place of my intended cucumber salad.

      Eating the vegan kale salad last night, and Destructobot suddenly realized she might be into this. Normally she is enamored of dairy products, so don’t know what this is about. Possibly just that she has a great deal of main character energy.

      1. apricots*

        is destructobot a child, or a pet? I can imagine dog. Less so cat, but my cat eats popcorn and triscuits, so you never know.

        1. Falling Diphthong*

          Destructobot is a cat, maintaining eye contact with you while she slowly shoves all your nouns off their surfaces. She is a small orange cat with orange eyes, and rejects anyone’s orange cat stereotypes.

    10. Girasol*

      I finally figured out how to fry a pancake of grated potato, cheese, and onion, and discovered I’m crazy for potato cakes.

    11. GoryDetails*

      My last Hello Fresh box included “Spicy One-Pot Vegetarian Lentil Chili” – and I liked it so much that I kept the recipe card so I can make it again. (The basic recipe isn’t all *that* spicy; it included a long green pepper, Tex-Mex paste, and a savory paprika spice blend. I threw in one of my own jalapenos from the end-of-season glut, and that brought it up to my version of “nicely spicy”.) The recipe included canned lentils, but I have lots of dried lentils and they’re so quick to cook that I’ll probably use those next time I try it.

    13. UKDancer*

      Thai red curry chicken last night which was really good. I tried a new brand of curry paste from a Chinese supermarket (rather than the usual brand from Ocado) and it was really good and a bit spicier and more intense with bamboo shoots and red pepper.

      Not sure about tonight. I am defrosting a stuffed chicken breast I made earlier but it may not be defrosted in tine in which case I’ll have it tomorrow and probably get a pizza tonight.

    14. carcinization*

      We had leftovers for dinner Friday and Saturday (I’d recently made an old Cooking Light recipe for Tamale Chicken Pot Pie that I can’t find online anymore, and we had different sides on different days — yellow rice and then blackeyed peas), today I’m making breakfast tacos (broken up pan sausage with eggs scrambled in once the sausage is cooked, tortillas warmed up individually in a small skillet, adding cheese and salsa during the assembly process) for lunch since we ate pumpkin chocolate chip squares for breakfast, and we’re having Budget Bytes’ Sweet Chili Tofu Bowls for dinner over some brown rice.

    15. Middle Name Jane*

      Chili in my slow cooker. It makes a lot, and I lile to portion it out into freezer containers.

  9. BellaStella*

    The news of Phil Lesh’s passing has me reeling. Any other Deadheads here who are sad? I very clearly remember where I was when Jerry passed and now Phil too. Box of Rain is on repeat.

    1. Peanut Hamper*

      It’s very sad. But he gave us so much, I feel he is entitled to his rest.

      He passed the test. He will diminish and go into the west and remain Phil.

      And for that, I am thankful.

    2. Middle Aged Lady*

      Listened to it a few times today myself.
      It took me back to fun times long ago, camping and kayaking with college friends who were dedicated to the Dead.

  10. Old Plant Woman*

    Personal mysteries? Just fun stuff. Many years ago I lived in a third floor apartment, downtown old town, hardwood floors, art tile, fancy iron fire escape balcony. You get the idea. My lovely room mate brought home a sweet pregnant stray cat. We were starving students, so no vet visits or kitty supplies like I have now. But we fed her and loved her until she got fat and sassy then rehomed all the kitties. Now here’s where we messed up. There was a big flower box on the balcony. No flowers then, just dirt. So of course we used the dirt, but we didn’t take the used out to the dumpster. We just tossed it in a hearty trash bag on the balcony. For months. Then we decided to move two blocks away. Guess we wanted a better alley view. Another story. We polished that apartment, went out on the balcony, stuffed the bag whole into maybe five layers of bags so we could muscle it down stairs into the dumpster without it breaking. Didn’t have the nerve to open and divide. Then decided we’d better leave it for the morning since we were tired and too comfortable after a couple bottles of wine.
    Next morning it was gone. Just gone. Mop broom bottle of wax was there. Bag of used paper towels. Seventy pounds of cat sh$t gone. Doors locked. Imagine two goofy hungover girls trying to ask the manager was could have happened without admitting what we did.

    1. Old Plant Woman*

      One more bit. Manager, spicy old lady, was so happy with our cleaning she added a bottle of really bad wine and stale cookies to our security deposit refund. Then she gave us the look. Nobody’s been in here. You really think somebody got in here to steal your trash?

    2. Ginger Cat Lady*

      Bought my daughter a really fun toy for her second birthday. Hid it really well. So well she’s 27 now and we still haven’t found it. And we have moved to a new house!

      1. Seal*

        When I was a kid my brother and a few of his friends had wrist rocket slingshots. They’d go to the vacant lot down the street and shoot rocks at whatever was there, usually cans, bottles, bigger rocks and the like. Never at birds, animals, or people (including each other) though, for fear of getting grounded or worse. One day my father asked where my brother’s wrist rocket was since he hadn’t seen him use it for a while. My brother said my mom took it away but didn’t say why; my mother insisted she hadn’t done so. But she also had a habit of stashing things and forgetting where she put them, and since no one could find the wrist rocket everyone – including my mother – assumed that’s what happened. The missing wrist rocket became a running joke in our family, but it never turned up, even when we moved across town.

        When all of us kids were in our 30s, the truth finally came out. My mother didn’t take my brother’s wrist rocket, the police did! My brother and one of his friends were playing with it in the vacant lot when a cop car drove by, saw what they were doing, and pulled over. The cop claimed wrist rockets were illegal and said he had to confiscate it. My brother and his friend, who were 8 or 9 at the time and terrified, handed it over and took off. They were afraid their parents would find out they got in trouble with police, so they agreed not to tell anyone what happened. My mother’s habit of losing things was the perfect alibi if anyone asked what happened to the wrist rocket.

        As adults, we agreed that if a cop pulled something like that on one of our kids, there would be hell to pay. In fact, my father said had he known at the time what really happened, he would have gone down to the police station that same. But mostly we thought the whole thing was hilarious, especially the lengths my brother went to covering his ass for 25 years. Our mother was vindicated and to this day reminds us she KNEW she didn’t take the wrist rocket all those years ago.

      2. Cookies For Breakfast*

        In my early teens, I had an emerald green GameBoy I was obsessed with. I got it one Christmas after much pleading, and really treasured it, because my mother wasn’t much for getting me expensive toys / the popular stuff other kids had. I only had two games on it but played the hell out of them. One day, it just…disappeared. Nowhere to be found in the entire house. It never turned up again.

        A friend’s theory was that another friend stole it because they were jealous I had one. But we were in and out of each other’s houses all the time and it never showed up (also, I think that friend’s parents would have given it back immediately if they’d seen it).

        There’s no explanation that doesn’t sound unlikely, and my latest, which only dawned on me this year, is that my mother might have thrown it away or given it away because she thought I played with it too much. Which is strange, because I’d have been totally fine with agreeing set playing times if she’d suggested it. But also, hazy as memories are, I don’t recall her being very upset about the loss of something she’d spent money on, and I’ve seen her lash out at way smaller stuff. If I asked her even now, she’d deny fiercely, so we’ll never know!

      3. PhyllisB*

        Same here!! Every year I would hide the Christmas gifts in a “safe” place and without fail one of them would go MIA. The kids got accustomed to getting a Christmas happy in April or May when it finally surfaced.

            1. apricots*

              Ha. I moved this year, and found easter eggs hidden for my kid. We haven’t done easter in at least 3 years.

    3. NotBatman*

      Our current apartment has a pair of panties on the roof. They were there when we moved in, and we cannot figure out how they would’ve gotten there — it’s not accessible from the ground or any windows, and if the underwear were blown there then it would’ve taken a hurricane-force wind. We keep trying to knock them to the ground by throwing rocks or leaning out the window with a broom handle, without success. At some point we’re going to give up and file a panty-removal maintenance request, but we both feel so ridiculous about it that so far we haven’t.

      1. The OG Sleepless*

        Reminds me of the pumpkin that appeared on the top of the spire at a college…I think maybe it was Radcliffe? Nobody could figure out how in the world it got there; even the most enterprising student would have had an incredibly difficult time climbing the spire. Nobody could get it down either, and finally bits of rotten pumpkin started falling on people as they walked by.

        2. epicdemiologist*

          Fans of this sort of shenanigans might enjoy the book “If at All Possible, Involve a Cow”, and/or the MIT hacks gallery (“hacks” in this case meaning pranks, not hacking): https://hacks.mit.edu/

    4. AGD*

      While travelling solo, I once took a ferry ride at sunset and there was clearly an outline of an island to the north. I looked up maps later and there were no islands in that direction.

      At first I thought maybe I’d hallucinated, but discovered I’d taken a couple of photos of this clearly island-shaped thing on the horizon. After that I figured it was one of those mirages you get at sea sometimes (like ships apparently floating in midair), but none of the kinds of mirages I read about could have easily accounted for what I’d seen.

      I studied the map more carefully and discovered that if you go far enough north there is a large island, eventually…but how on earth could I have seen any of it from waaaaaaaay down where I was?

      For years I didn’t have a good answer. But then one summer I was talking to a cartography specialist and he was intrigued. We used a 3D topography/mapping program of parts of the Earth’s surface to model where I’d been and what I’d seen.

      The island far to the north is actually really mountainous! It’s basically two peaks sitting on the seabed and then poking out above water. Well above water. I’d seen the tips of those peaks next to each other, and they were tall enough to still look like an island even though I was far to the south. I had not taken the possibility of vertical extent into account, heh.

      1. Banana Pyjamas*

        It’s totally believable. On a clear day you can see the Chicago skyline from Michigan City.

        How cool you were able to get with a cartographer!

        1. AGD*

          Oh man, I just Googled it and that is WILD. Thanks for sharing! I drove up that way once while on a road trip through the Midwest – stopped in Benton Harbor for a bit but didn’t even think to look for the skyline!

          I’m spoiled when it comes to access to people with interesting specialties and tools! My role is sort of an all-purpose academic (interdisciplinary student advising, but I also technically have a faculty position and sometimes teach), so I get to hang out with some pretty cool people. And I work in Canada, where most campuses have geography departments!

    5. A313*

      I was about 13 in our new house. Storm woke me up in the middle of the night. I can see *something* on the ceiling. It’s about the size of a baseball, attached to and hanging from the ceiling, and there is thunder, lightning, and rain, for effect. It’s a new house, so I’m scared! I have 2 younger siblings, so my first (rational) thought is: they’ve done this, but what is it? After studying it for a while from bed, curiosity and some fear get me up and I get closer. Still can’t figure it out! How did my siblings do this? After a minute, I notice there is dripping coming from what I can now see is this smooth bubble hanging from the ceiling. I go tell my Dad, who knows exactly what happened — there was a roof leak, and the water pooled above my ceiling and drained until it expanded the paint in one smaller spot. He nicks the bubble, and water drains out. My siblings were blameless, this time!

      1. The OG Sleepless*

        Interesting! Isn’t it amazing how different things look in the dark?

        Similarly, in the late 90s I had a neighbor across the street, a younger single dude. Early one morning, I was leaving the house and I looked at his front window. There was a silhouette that looked like a man standing with his raised arm against the window. I had a mental picture of the guy leaning against the window and staring at me. Very creepy. When I came home, I looked over there again and saw a cardboard cutout of Anakin Skywalker holding up a lightsaber.

    7. MeetMoot*

      A friend of mine managed to lose a pot of soup once. She lived on the third floor of an old apartment building that faced the street. No trees nearby, no external staircases, no balconies or anything. The outside windowsill was maybe 30-40cm deep (just over a foot) but the distance between windowsills, both horizontally and vertically, was such that you couldn’t reach between them. You would have to have been a professional climber like Alex Honnold to reach the windowsill, regardless of where on the building you started.
      One evening my friend had a friend over and they made a big (cast iron!) pot of creamy pumpkin soup. The soup was too hot so they popped it on the windowsill to cool while they tidied up the kitchen.
      After about 5-10 minutes they went to bring the soup back inside and it was gone. Wasn’t on the ground below, wasn’t on a different windowsill, nothing. Completely gone. To this day we have no idea what happened to that pot, and nobody has been able to work out a plausible explanation for its vanishing.

      1. Old Plant Woman*

        They were inside the apartment and knew for sure that no soup napper could have come in? Very strange. Love it.

    8. Rage*

      This was in late 1983. I was 9 years old, and we lived outside of Minneapolis, MN. I had a strange dream one night – I won’t go into all of the details, but the dream featured a building made of dark red bricks, an elevator, a staircase with a landing (the wall there was also dark brick), and a school cafeteria with 2 low walls (you know, for the students to line up), again with the dark red brick. The wall that was by the staircase landing was blank, just plain dark bricks.

      Later that year, we moved to Bucks County, PA.

      A couple of years later, living in PA, I had the dream again. This was probably around early 1986. The dream was exactly the same in every detail (it was one of those dreams that I could NOT forget….if you know what I mean) – except for one thing: the blank wall now had a picture hanging on it, a picture of a man’s head in profile.

      Later that year, we moved to Albany, GA.

      In 1989, I was a freshman in high school, attending Westover Comprehensive High School. One morning, I awoke after having the dream a third time; this time, it was the same as the 2nd time, featuring the picture of the man’s head on the stairway landing wall.

      While riding the bus to school, I mulled over this unusual dream. I had not experienced a dream before that remained so clearly in my mind, every detail meticulously saved in my memory. I was still musing about it when we arrived at school. I got off the bus and walked through the school, and down the main staircase to where my locker was. I was about half way across the large open area when I stopped. I turned and retraced my steps. Yes, there was the cafeteria, in dark red brick, with the 2 low walls. There was not an elevator, but a trophy case in the same dimensions stood at the foot of the stairs.

      I turned to look up at the stairs. The landing, with the brick wall. A mural was painted of our high school mascot, The Patriot – a picture of a man’s head, in profile, wearing a tricorn had. It had been painted by an outgoing senior – signed, and dated, 1985.

      I am now 50 years old. I remember every bit of that dream as if it were yesterday; I still recall the utter chill of recognition and understanding that came over me on that day when I realized where I was. I never had the dream again, and I never truly understood why I had such a clear pregocnitive dream. I had never heard of Albany, GA before I moved there, let alone knowing which of the 4 high schools I would attend. I have had at least 1 other precognitive dream, and that one…well, let’s just say all parts of it eventually came true. But the first one…aside from eventually being there, none of the other aspects (getting tossed out of the elevator, having to climb down a cliff, and riding a boat out of the cafeteria with 2 cloaked strangers – yeah, seriously) came to light. Maybe that was for the best?

  11. Halloweenie*

    What is your Halloween strategy? Passing out premium candy? Putting a candy bowl in your front door? Hiding in a dark house?

    1. MissGirl*

      My neighborhood is the one people drive their kids to for trick or treating. Last year we made the national news for decorations. I love it. I got about 250 kids before I ran out of candy. Since I get so many, I can’t do big candy bars but I do decent candy. I just sit on my porch with my kid-loving dog and hand it out. My neighbor does hot dogs and another does music with creepy scenes broadcast on his house.

    2. Knighthope*

      I’ve done all 3, at various times. One year, someone stole all the candy not long after I put the box out (I had a lot of grading to do) which made me angry and discouraged. My neighborhood was voted “Best for Trick or Treating” by the city’s magazine. There can be up to about 300 kids!

    3. Old Plant Woman*

      We only get about thirty kids a year and I love little Hershey’s bars and Kisses. So go for the good stuff. We have way too much candy “hidden”in the fridge in a paper bag closed with one staple. So who is gonna break the staple? Maybe the husband and I will… let me think. Few days after Halloween we’ll sucker someone to take it all away.

    4. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

      People can’t see my front door from the sidewalk, so I never get halloween visitors (except for the few years my next door neighbors had children). For those years, I picked up a bag of gum (because I can’t chew gum and I wasn’t tempted).

    5. Jill Swinburne*

      Our neighbourhood has a strictly opt-in system. I take my kid but put some treats outside as our contribution – if people come to the door our dog will do her nut, which makes a miserable evening. As far as ai can tell people are fair.

    6. Dark Macadamia*

      I’m at the end of an uphill culdesac so I’m pretty sure the only kids we get are the ones who also live in the culdesac. I leave a bowl with candy and a bowl with little toys/prizes while I’m out with my kids trick-or-treating. This year I’m participating in a trunk-or-treat so I’ll actually get to hand things out myself!

    8. ImOnlyHereForThePoetry*

      I do the premium candy bars from a local candy maker. I get roughly 80-90 kids an evening. The little kids don’t recognize or care about the bars but the bigger ones do. One year, a group of middle school boys came to my door three times.

      It is fun for me.

      1. Pam Adams*

        I lived in a gated mobile home community for a while with a circular road. The neighborhood kids just kept going around and around.

    9. Rara Avis*

      I’ve run out of Halloween energy, and I’ve found over the last couple of years that I really hate the constant interruptions. On a weeknight I just want to veg. So a token effort and then lights out.

    10. Six Feldspar*

      It’s in the wrong season down here and it won’t get dark until after 8pm, but I do like seeing how we try to interpret Halloween. (I also appreciate Halloween for doing its best to hold the line against Christmas taking over the whole year. November is lost but it could be much worse…)

      1. Lala*

        used to get lots of fun size candy, plus other variations until covid. Basically made a big fuss, as we live on a street with many kids. I enjoyed it for a while, but am not unhappy not to be doing it anymore. tiring, expensive, and our lawn was always covered in candy bar wrappers the next day.
        Now I come straight home from work (always worried about hitting a kid who is trick or treating), eat and go to bed.
        maybe someday things will be different again, but I think kids go out a lot less now too: mostly it is trunk or treat now.

    11. Two cents*

      I live abroad, so halloween is not a ntive holiday. It is making major inroads, though, and in our old neighborhood we went trick or treating. The houses that wanted visitors always had the porch light on AND some sort of halloween decorations, and some folks definitely opted out. We lived in an apartment building so never got anyone at our door specifically. We moved in spring and now live in a house but also in a different town…so I’m not sure what will happen! I should get some candy, though, and a pumpkin to say we are participating. And maybe I’ll do a jack-o-lantern again, though we won’t be able to display it quite so fantastically like in our old place–upstairs window facing a big busy street. It looked great.

    12. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      We never have more than a couple kids come by, we’re in a cul de sac and there are much better candy neighborhoods nearby. My dogs also go bonkers with someone on our porch. I usually get a bag of candy anyway and just put it in a bowl on the driveway along with a creepy Lurch mannequin. Last year is the first time anyone actually took ALL the candy, usually the honor system has worked. I don’t know what I’m going to do this year, I forgot it was coming up to be honest.

    13. Not That Kind of Doctor*

      I’m torn this year. I live in a dense inner-ring suburb. When we moved in 15 years ago we’d get probably a couple hundred kids, but the number going door-to-door declined steadily until 2020 and then tanked and didn’t really recover. There’s a trunk-or-treat at the high school a few blocks away, and I suspect a lot of the kids go there and call it a night. I’m not really into the trunk-or-treat idea, but not doing it is beginning to feel like opting out of trick-or-treating entirely.

      1. Reba*

        The whole idea of trunk or treat is so depressing to me, oof. No shade to those that organize them, they are trying to meet a need in their community! I just feel like it’s a sign that “living in a society” is going downhill.

    14. Falling Diphthong*

      We get very few trick or treaters (the sidewalk is on the other side of the street), so it’s always a question of whether I want to get a bag of candy I will have no problem resisting, or a bag I’d be happy to polish off.

    15. The OG Sleepless*

      I pass out decent candy, nothing special, like M&Ms and Reese’s and so forth. We usually get 60-70 kids. Introvert me is always kind of glad when it’s over, but it’s fun. My dog snarls LOUDLY at anybody who comes to the door and her crate normally sits near the front door, so on Halloween night we move her crate to the basement and leave her there.

    16. FACS*

      I live across from a large city park toward the end of the street. We really dont get anyone
      However, the street behind me is the one where everyone decorates and hundreds of children come. Folks on my side buy good candy and donate it to the busy houses.

    17. Harlowe*

      I’ve lived with teachers my entire life (parents, roommates, and partners), so we always GTFO and leave the house dark on trick-or-treat night. Having students know where you live is no bueno.

      1. Reluctant Mezzo*

        My husband was a teacher, and one year we got TP’d so high up on one tree I have no idea how they did it–it was really high even for a someone who could throw extremely well. We just left it and let the weather take care of it, since it rained a few days later.

    18. epicdemiologist*

      Usually pass out fun-size candy bars at the door, but THIS YEAR ONLY we’ll probably put out a bowl…because my daughter’s getting married! Her fiance had been waiting years for a fiance visa, and it finally came through this year–and those of you familiar with the US process may know, that gave them a short time limit to get married. So it’s legal wedding on Halloween, fancy shindig next year when we’ve had time to plan properly!

    19. Liminality*

      My first year in my own apartment (with a roomie) I had Stuff to do on Halloween but I didn’t want to be just another dark house, so I found the biggest bowl in the house, (a huge metal mixing bowl that barely fit in the cupboard) filled it with fun size candy and left it on the porch with a note that said “Please Take One”.
      I fully expected the first kid there to take it All, but what can you do?

      Friends, they took the entire bowl. Literally, the Bowl Itself was gone when I got home! I was upset. It took a while before I participated in passing out treats again.

      Now I wait by the door with Halloween fruit snax and store bought rice krispie treats cause they’re gluten free. :)

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        Are you sure? I have multiple gluten-intolerant friends who lament that they cannot eat Rice Krispie treats unless they’re homemade with the specifically GF Rice Krispies, because the regular ones (including the treats) have malt, which comes from barley and has gluten.

    20. Nightengale*

      I live in a small apartment building (maybe 20 units) and in the 10 years here, none has ever come trick or treating although a couple of kids do live here. It’s one of the few times I miss living in garden apartments. I used to decorate my porch with a witch on my bicycle.

      Fortunately I’m a pediatrician so I get some Halloween fun at work.

    21. Marcela*

      We have left a bowl out in the past when our kids were of trick or treating age, but it never ends well.

      In 2020, we clipped fruit snacks to strings strung on our front porch. It worked better than bowl, because I guess fruit snacks aren’t as desirable.

      We’ve barely gotten any trick or treaters in the past 2 years or so, so I don’t think we’ll be getting much candy. There’s maybe one family on the street with little kids, and a lot of the elementary school-aged kids in town go to areas where the houses are super close together. (Pre-Covid, I went to one of those places and one house gave out little cups of wine to the parents. That was nice!)

    22. Dandylions*

      Gonna have a fire pit in the driveway, roast brats and dogs, and have the bowl in front with aight in it near the jack-o-lantern.

      That way the kids won’t be ringing the doorbell and waking up the baby. :)

    23. goddessoftransitory*

      We’ve never gotten a single trick or treater: living in an apartment in the city it just never happens. We used to buy candy for ourselves but basically got kind of sick of it, so now I make pumpkin chocolate chip and walnut cookies with lemon glaze as our treat.

    24. PhyllisB*

      Sadly, we don’t get trick or treaters anymore. I used to love seeing all the kids in their costumes. I always bought good candy but I had to wait until the day before so the “goblins” ( meaning me) didn’t consume it early.

      1. PhyllisB*

        Oh!! And I have a hint for if your kids can’t trick or treat because of rain. One year the grandchildren were so upset because it was pouring rain, so what I did was give all the adults bowls of candy and sent them to different rooms and told them to shut the door. Kids went to each room, knocked and yelled “Trick or treat!!” They made about three rounds and got quite a haul.
        They were thrilled, and even though their in their early twenties/late teens now, they still remember that.

    25. MissB*

      No one trick-or-treats around our neighborhood except for one street. I still always buy a bag of candy just in case, but eh, haven’t worried about it for years.

      All the new families find out about the TOT situation pretty quick. I told a new neighbor last night not to bother buying any candy.

    26. Banana Pyjamas*

      I’m thinking about taking my kids on a road trip to the Detroit area. I read about a neighborhood there where they hand out home-made pierogi.

      The main thing holding me back is my mushroom allergy.

    27. dapfloodle*

      Unless we’re going out on Halloween (a rare occurrence these days), my husband and I usually try to make something fun for dinner (ramen burgers, “mummies” made with hotdogs and croissant dough, etc.) and hand out candy. We usually only get like 5 or so trick-or-treaters though so then we get to parcel out the rest of the candy to ourselves over the next couple of weeks (at least on my part, sometimes my husband eats it faster).

  12. Hatchet*

    I need a gut check on the unspoken rules for getting off airplanes, especially if you have a short connection to your next flight. What’s reasonable? And what’s rude to other passengers?

    I’ve been an occasional flyer for decades now and I guess never paid attention to plane exiting, except for the few occasions where the pilot has asked those not with X reason to wait until those with X reason get off the plane. However, if flyers have short connections, are they supposed to call it out as they try to make their way up the aisle? Or something else that I’m missing?

    And what about those who storm their way up the aisle with no apparent reason forcing their way ahead of those who are waiting their turn for their row to exit the plane? (I’ve had a few interesting experiences my last few flights and need to know if it’s a me thing or if these people were totally being jerks.) Thanks!

    1. California Dreamin’*

      Usually if the flight is delayed, they’ll know that people connecting to certain flights are going to need to run for it and they’ll ask people to wait for those folks to deplane first (memorably recently my family was on a Richmond—-> Boston flight that was delayed two hours… there was a group trying to make a connection to Dublin and they had them raise their hands so that everyone would let them off. I was so glad all I had to stress about was a missed dinner reservation and not a transatlantic flight!) If the flight is basically on time and you just have a run-of-the-mill tight connection, I don’t think you have any standing to deplane ahead of others. And yes, it’s polite to do so in an orderly fashion row by row. People who push ahead are indeed being jerks.

    2. Knighthope*

      You may be familiar with the power of a “teacher look.” Someone behind me on a plane was trying to push past me to deplane, while I was politely waiting for the 2 people across the aisle to leave first. Impulsively, I blocked the aisle with my “teacher arm.” Fortunately, Ms. Impatient didn’t break it!

      1. Nicosloanica*

        I do think it’s a bit funny that someone with no bags who’s good to go is supposed to wait while others fumble around packing up and getting bags out of the overhead bins, but I also know the quick person *will* be right in the way of the overhead-bin-getting, so there’s no getting around it. I have seen people who are not ready wave others ahead, which is always a kindness.

    3. Falling Diphthong*

      My experience has been that we get off by rows, and people abide by that: when the row ahead of you starts to move into the aisle, you grab your stuff from the overhead bin and then take your turn.

      1. Hatchet*

        This is what I feel as well! If you know you aren’t going to be able to get overhead bin stuff out quickly, you move to an empty row and wait. Otherwise, wait your turn and let the people in the row ahead get off!
        I had people from rows behind me standing in the aisle and blocking my way to get out of my seat, and storming by me on a recent flight, and I was too stunned and tired to say anything; thankfully the guy next to me (also waiting to get off) was on the ball and said out loud what we were all thinking! (Flight arrived in the evening but wasn’t running late, so no flights to connect to.)
        On another trip, I had someone breathing down my neck in the aisle to get off. (The plane had issues opening the door once we landed, so we were all stuck there in the aisle.)

    4. mreasy*

      If you have a short connection, ask the flight attendant for help before it’s time to deplane. They are the ones who can let you depart before anyone else. I wouldn’t want to rely on my fellow passengers.

      1. Random Bystander*

        While it’s been a very long time (like 20+ years ago) since I flew, the flight attendants/gate personnel may be able to help in the event that the connection gets *too* tight. I once was taking a flight with a connection at Chicago O’Hare … if you imagine the terminal involved was shaped like V … I arrived at a gate on the end of the left-hand slant, and had the departure from the next-to-last gate on the right-hand slant … which meant that I would have to travel pretty much the entire V on foot … Well, my comfy 1.5 hour span between the two flights had dwindled to 20 minutes due to delays on my first flight. They called ahead and got me transport and a hold on the plane so that I didn’t miss my connection (though perhaps that was partly because you could say it was “their fault” for the delays that ate up over an hour of time).

    5. Fly a lot*

      I’ve rarely seen the crew try to get just a few passengers off who have very tight connections because it seemed like it rarely worked. For example, on a flight delayed by 2 hours there were people who were late for important meetings and were not waiting for tight connection people. The only time I’ve seen “stay in your seats,” work is in medical emergencies.

  13. Cat Feeder*

    I desperately need sweater recommendations or stores-to-search recommendations. I’m looking for somewhere to buy cotton sweaters, but I just don’t know enough brand/store names to search since I’m not super into fashion (and searching through Amazon results is a nightmare and google isn’t much better these days.) They have to be 100% cotton or cotton/silk blend, because I can’t stand the itchiness of wool and any sort of polyester makes me sweat. Pre-pandemic, I lucked onto some at Banana Republic, but they’re looking pretty rough these days and I’d love to replace them. I’m willing to go to individual store websites to search if people will throw some names at me of places that are nice enough not to make everything out of polyester. I’m straight-sized and live in the U.S. Thanks for any help!

    1. Fellow Traveller*

      Are you looking for workwear or weekend wear?
      I’m female and love Uniqlo’s 3D cotton knit sweaters. They are a little slouchy, but still fitted enough to not look sloppy on me.
      Also Duluth Trading company has some super cozy cotton sweaters, though those are more weekend wear, not business casual like BR might be.

      1. Cat Feeder*

        Good question, I should have said! (Also forgot to mention I’m a woman lol.) I’m looking for more work wear, something that’s not too tight not too baggy, just your standard sort of classic sweater cut that doesn’t change much between decades.

    2. Aphrodite*

      LL Bean for pretty standard issue cotton sweaters that are of outstanding quality and decent pricing.

    4. Jean (just Jean)*

      I’ve had good luck at various times with ordering online from LLBean and Lands’ End and shopping in person at Talbots (last year) and the Gap (um, not for about 6 years–which is how long the last two Gap cotton cardigans have lasted!). Everyone’s regular prices can be quite expensive but they all have sales. LLBean and Lands’ End in particular frequently offer discount codes which can be quite helpful if you’re already in their online sale sections.

      Read product descriptions or labels very carefully because many clothes these days seem to be made of multiple different materials.

      Good luck, and solidarity from another person who finds wool and polyester garments impossibly uncomfortable.

    5. Clara Bowe*

      Men’s section of Old Navy. I’ve also found some in the women’s section, but the men’s is chock full. Also, J Crew 1989.

    6. The Prettiest Curse*

      Boden has a good selection of 100% cotton sweaters that are good quality and durable too.

    7. Grandma Mazur*

      colorful standard don’t have many styles but they do have a lot of colours! (think they’re portugal-based so they may or may not ship to your country)

    8. Falling Diphthong*

      I like LL Bean: their clothing is comfortable and lasts. I just checked and “women’s sweaters, cotton” brought up 52 hits, and the first is pure cotton not a polyester blend.

    9. mreasy*

      I have recently, after many podcast ads, tried Quince, and I really like what i have of theirs so far.

    10. Elle Woods*

      I picked up a couple of 100% cotton sweaters at J.Crew Factory recently at a really good price. They’re classic (one’s a round neck pullover, one’s a cardigan) and comfortable. One thing to note though about them though is that they run a bit on the small size, so shop accordingly.

    11. GoryDetails*

      Maybe give the Vermont Country Store a look? They have some 100% cotton sweaters listed. (I haven’t bought sweaters from them but I have bought other things in the past, and have found them very reliable.)

    12. rabbaroo*

      I love Quince! They have a lot of 100% cotton sweaters, good quality, priced reasonably. I had a beloved but kind of ratty cardigan (think it was American Eagle) that I spilled house paint on and ruined, but I replaced it with a similar one from Quince and I couldn’t be happier.

    13. Squirrel Nutkin (the teach, not the admin)*

      Leon Levin has nice cardigans. If you wind up liking the style, there are many colors available.

    14. Observer*

      I’ve also had good luck with LandsEnd. And, yes, look at their sales stuff and any codes. It can make a real difference. Their return policy is pretty reasonable, too.

    15. nonprofit director*

      Completely with you on this. I just picked up a couple of 100% cotton sweaters at REI that were reasonably priced and are fitted enough for work, but loose enough to be comfortable.

  14. Literally a Cat*

    This is absolutely a “how do I deal with this” question, not a “how do I make others change their behaviour” question.

    I use the public library a lot to work in. I love it, good vibes, good plugs, lovely people. Once in a while, I would have another person sit next to me, whose entire body odour is another level. For context, I’ve worked in autopsies and it’s worse than that. I think a lot of this are access issues, and I do think libraries have a duty to be a safe place for people who don’t have access to stable housing or washing. But also, I physically struggle with the degree of smelliness here. Are there any ways to become more desensitised?

      1. Red Maple*

        This is the way. I change adult diapers and I put Vick’s Vapo-Rub directly under my nose when needed.

    2. Likes Libraries Too*

      Can you figure out which seats in the library have good air flow or worse air flow? Then experiment to find which ones to avoid or choose?

      If you don’t need a desk, can you move a chair to be in a more isolated place? Or where the air flow is favorable?

    3. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

      Does your library have study rooms you can check out for a few hours?

      I don’t know about desensitization but hopefully others will have advice for that. If the suggestions don’t work, what about taking a break, going outside for a few minutes (with your stuff) then settling in another part of the library?

      1. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

        I should say, I’ve the break and resettle elsewhere when the problem was a patron who seemed to have bathed in Axe body spray and my asthma could not handle it.

    4. mreasy*

      People are still wearing masks so you could do that – plus a menthol upper lip as another commenter mentioned. (I will use my Burts Bees lip balm in a pinch, specifically when driving on the 5 in Southern California, iykyk.)

    5. Come On Eileen*

      My personal solution would be to get up and move to a different seat/table! Not making a show of it, but just quietly for my own sanity.

    6. Unkempt Flatware*

      Well, it’s perfectly acceptable to get up and walk away. You can not want to be around them at the same time as thinking of them in a charitable way.

  15. Sparkle Llama*

    I posted two weeks ago about trying to find a house cleaner that met my needs related to chronic illness (mainly being willing to work with a house that is likely not prepped for them with picking up all clothes or doing all dishes). I had my house cleaned on Thursday and it was amazing! I am so happy and the two women come as a team and one of them does kitchen and bathroom while the other one does things like dusting and vacuuming but she also organizes! So the first week we decluttered my bedroom. Thanks for the advice all!

    1. Ready to clean up*

      Happy to hear your home is sparkly clean, Sparkle Llama! What did you end up communicating in your ad/to the company–any tips on what worked? I’m interested in what worked for you, because I’m spending more time cleaning for the cleaners than they spend at my home. Also, did you go with a company or independent workers? I’m leery of hiring off NextDoor or Craigslist.

      1. Sparkle Llama*

        It was sort of happenstance! Someone in a local neighborhood group had recently asked for recommendations and people listed who they used. I called one and asked what her expectations were since I had a chronic illness that could prevent prepping and she said while she wants things prepped she would give me grace since it was due to illness. That didn’t leave a great taste in my mouth but was better than nothing. Then I looked at one of the others recommended and they had a recent facebook post saying to not spend your weekend cleaning because they will take care of all of it with some before and after pics showing decluttering with the cleaning. When they came for the initial deep clean we talked more and learned about what they all do.

        The one I went with is an LLC that charges sales taxes. It is just the two ladies though. Which is perfect for me. I wanted the legitimacy of an actual business but also didn’t want someone not cleaning my house taking a profit.

        1. Hroethvitnir*

          That’s great! I too hate how cleaning is such back breaking labour and 90% of the money goes to people who do nothing in any kind of chain situation.

          Happy to hear you found someone(s) fairly quickly.

      1. Retired now*

        I don’t have a chronic illness, but I’m older and when we’ve had housekeepers, I’ve never prepped. I let them know that I’m hiring Cleaners because it’s hard for me to do some of that day-to-day prep. No one has ever been a problem.

  16. Nibbles*

    We have a cat who like to bite things. She doesn’t bite people but she loves chewing on things more than any other cat I’ve known. Are there any good chewing toys or treats for cats? For dogs, you can give them chewies and bones that take them a while to nibble on. But for cats, that doesn’t seem to be an option. Any suggestions?

    1. Black Cat Lover*

      Can you try boxes? A friend’s cat will chew on boxes, and hang out in them, and play in them.

      Does your cat like catnip (not every cat does). If it does, try treating cat-chewable objects with it. Spray a box. Stuff a big sock with catnip. Of the kind of things she likes to chew, buy her something made of that material, and spray catnip on it.

      Is your still a kitten and not past teething?

    2. NCA*

      Do you think a puzzle toy for treats would be of interest for your cat? Mine are big fans of chewing on cardboard, so I tend to give them any non-printed packaging that I get in – might be another option.

      1. Florence Reece*

        Yes! Silvervine has a similar allure and effect as catnip, comes in a woody texture, and is safe to chew on. I get silvervine balls but same idea.

        Also seconding Nicosloanica’s idea of kicker toys! I bought some extra-large kickers from an Etsy shop called Henry Noodles. When my cats are bitey, they love to lay down with one of those kickers, lick it for a while, then go absolutely feral lol. They’ve held up really well, too.

    4. Nicosloanica*

      I buy my little bitter “kicker” toys (that seems to be what they’re called) and she often chews on them. They are bigger and softer than the usual cat toys. They’re made to be kicked while the kitty lies on her back but that’s also when she’s really bitey anyway.

    5. Can't Sit Still*

      There are cat chew toys! They are usually marketed as dental toys for cats. You’ll need to monitor your chew toys, because a determined chewer will eventually destroy the toy and eat it.

      I just bought some rope toys for cats from Retro Shaw on Amazon and they work as both chew toys for wire chewers and as kicker toys. One of my boys pretends he’s killing a snake. It’s quite vicious! My girl loves to chew on wires and, so far, she is enjoying chewing on the rope instead. They came saturated in catnip & silvervine but no chemical smell.

  17. The Dude Abides*

    …holy shit that Freddie Freeman grand slam.

    Immediate comparisons to Kirk Gibson, as Freeman’s still not at 100%.

    1. Pandas*

      I was multi-tasking the first half of the game but glued to my seat for the last few innings. What an ending.

      1. The Dude Abides*

        Same – wife fell asleep and missed the ending.

        Rooting for the Dodgers out of spite – I married into a bunch of diehard Cards fans, so seeing Flaherty and Edman doing well pisses them off to no end. It’s all I have as a White Sox fan.

        1. Jean (just Jean)*

          I’m not an active sports fan myself but had to wave hello because I grew up in a family of diehard Cards fans. Thanks for the brief, pleasant, blast of nostalgia. Ah, the sounds of the voice of Jack Buck wafting over the KMOX radio airwaves into the hot, humid, St. Louis summer evenings.

          1. Snacattack*

            I grew up a Cardinals fan in Chicago, long story, and could often get KMOX after dark on my little radio if I moved the dial just right and angled the radio just so. Those were the days, my friends…

    2. Forrest Rhodes*

      Totally with you, Dude—what a great game: extra inning, best players in the game facing off against each other … wow. Can’t wait for tomorrow!
      (Wasn’t so happy about the fan interference—couldn’t you just hear the guy thinking, “Yes—payday!” as he reached in to grab a ball in play?)

      1. The Dude Abides*

        He’s also likely banned from the stadium for a while, if not forever. Sucks for (I assume) his son that was with him.

    3. Jenesis*

      I’m not usually a sportsball fan but I do live in LA, so I felt an obligation to be at least aware of the current World Series. I googled the score after dinner, saw the Dodgers were losing at the top of the 10th, then was flabbergasted checking the result a while later, then was frantically looking up the game-winning play on Youtube. Finding out he did it with a bad ankle was just the icing on the cake. Has me hyped for the rest of the series.

    4. WestSideStory*

      The mistake was walking Mookie Betts. He would have been good for the third out. Freddie Freeman is a monster hitter….I gotta say the ending was epic.

      1. Forrest Rhodes*

        Agreed, WestSide Story. The Yankees gambled on Freeman being more damaged than he was … turned out to be a bad bet!

  18. NCA*

    I just cooked my first turkey breast ever today! It’s been on the ‘scary list of things I don’t have to cook because I’m single’ for awhile, but one was on sale a month or so back at Aldi and I finally worked up the nerve to take it out of the freezer this week. My cats are extremely disappointed they weren’t allowed to partake (too much garlic and onion), but it’s completely edible! Anyone else have any culinary or hobby goals they are trying out this week?

    1. Jean (just Jean)*

      I’m hoping to make spinach quiche using frozen spinach and pre-made pie shells, either this weekend or in the near-ish future.

    2. BlueCactus*

      Last weekend I made croissants! It was enormously time consuming. I am almost annoyed to report that they were so phenomenally good that the effort to quality ratio is actually reasonable even though it took SEVEN HOURS on day 1 (admittedly mostly rising and chilling time). They’re going to be a holiday and vacation-only phenomenon, though.

    3. Bethlam*

      Lol, I got one out of the freezer today to cook tomorrow! Have always cooked a whole turkey, even though there’s only two of us, and neither of us likes dark meat. So, same as you, bought 2 when they were on sale.

      Also trying to use up ground venison before it’s hunting season again (in a month, here), so tried the John Wayne Casserole this week. Husband found it on the internet, was more labor intensive than the recipe indicated, and it wasn’t as good as it looked in the picture.

    4. Six Feldspar*

      I made my first meal with sardines tonight! A delicious spicy tomato pasta sauce with sardines, olives, capers and some basil that apparently managed to survive the winter and has come back swinging. I’m trying to expand my palate and get more nutrients, and oily fish is on the list.

    5. Cookies For Breakfast*

      I’m making pumpkin bread for a lunch with friends that is Halloween themed. Scoured the Sally’s Baking Addiction website for a recipe and that’s what I landed on.

      Challenge 1: I never had American-style pumpkin bread before (where I’m from, “pumpkin bread” is a soft yeasted loaf or roll, ever so slightly sweeter than regular bread). First time cooking with canned pumpkin puree, and my attempt at a pumpkin cake family recipe a few years ago (with roasted pureed pumpkin) was not good. Challenge 2: there will be Americans at the lunch, who most likely know what to expect!

      I made a small batch of pumpkin oatmeal cookies (from the same website) to make sure I didn’t end up with leftover puree, and they’re quite nice, so I’m feeling reassured.

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        If you like it, you might also try banana bread or zucchini bread in the future – I don’t like either personally but they are very popular, especially with chocolate in. (And my friend swears by making French toast out of them.)

        1. Cookies for Breakfast*

          Haha, I also don’t like either – glad it’s not just me. I strongly dislike the taste of both banana and zucchini, so would never even dream of baking with them. Friends who totally know this keep talking up banana bread as if it was the best thing on earth, and even send me recipe links I never asked for (“since you love baking so much!”). What I do I like is coconut bread, and I’d like to make it at some point :)

          1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

            I had a work friend whose wife LOVED to make quick breads and send them to work with him, and he was always trying to share. “Still don’t like banana bread, David, but thank you anyway!” She did make a LOVELY lemon loaf though, and even was thoughtful enough to only put poppy seeds on one half so that folks could have it with or without.

    6. Makare*

      I want to try making chocolate fudge for the first time this weekend! My nana used to make it all the time, but then one day she just stopped and denied any memory of the recipe. So if this goes well I may try to recreate the fudge of my childhood.

    7. Nightengale*

      I made brownies with cocoa powder not because it was a goal but because I haven’t been able to get unsweetened Baker’s chocolate at my local grocery. Since my usual recipe is the one from the inside of the Baker’s chocolate box this is quite a departure. Also I didn’t have the right size pan and had to improvize.

      So far the crumbs taste OK but I have not sampled a whole one as I am bringing them to a Halloween event tonight. I didn’t frost them but put orange and yellow sprinkles on top before baking and then piped a pumpkin on each one.

    8. Trixie Belden was my hero*

      After seeing my filled freezer and pantry, I didn’t buy any groceries for the week and resolved to eat what I have (have enough bread and milk to last til Friday)
      Last night, cheese tortellini with garlic butter, cracked black pepper and grated parmesan.
      I just put one of my favorite recipes, Garlic Brown Sugar Chicken Thighs in the crockpot (added a couple of legs too)
      Cut up some “getting old” red potatoes and onions, added olive oil, garlic powder and paprika to roast as a side. Will also have a cucumber/radish/olive salad or applesauce or frozen corn.
      This will be enough for 2 more meals this week.
      Tomorrow some defrosted mahi mahi pan seared and maybe a corn/black bean salad?
      Went thru my recipes yesterday and picked out some favorites that are freezer/pantry friendly and some that aren’t and tossed the rest that had too many ingredients or too complicated.

    9. Clara Bowe*

      I made a kaboucha squash soup today that turned out really well! I had some leeks from a CSA box, along with a small onion. I kind of free handed the veg mix, added some chicken broth, and a roux. Fresh ginger was a great add, Lao g with a sprinkle of ground nutmeg. I think a white wine deglaze would be great in it, but I did not have any on hand.

      I also made some falafel in the air fryer. It worked surprisingly well!

  19. Pam Adams*

    It’s nice that the Dodgers won tonight, but my dog wishes everyone would stop with the fireworks.

  20. Porch Screens*

    Gift suggestions! I like to get my coworkers each a small gift for Christmas and I’m always open to new ideas. I’ve done things like scented gifts (small candles, travel-size lotion, hand soap) in past years with pretty good success and I also usually make a tin of pretzel-kisses (Hershey kisses melted slightly and smooshed between two square pretzels to make little sandwiches of sorts) for each department as well. We all work in healthcare though, so maybe everyone would appreciate nice pens this year? :)

    (I’m no one’s boss or superior in terms of authority and please trust in me when I say that I do account for things like scent preferences, allergies, skin sensitivity, and whether or not any particular person celebrates Christmas or would want/like a gift or not, to the best of my ability without being nosy/intrusive. Thank you!)

    1. The Prettiest Curse*

      For communal gifts, a gift box of teas or coffees (with a selection of herbal and non-caffeinated options as appropriate) might be a good thing to leave in the kitchen. Nice pens does sound good as well, since it’s the type of thing people can re-gift if they can’t use.

    2. Liminality*

      I did a large-ish bowl of the little travel sized hand sanitizers from Bath and Bodyworks. Lots of different scents and people who stopped by my desk were able to choose their own. I put up a little sign that said “Have a Happy and Healthy New Year!” (This was for Christmas of 2019… I’d like to think that I was picking up on some vibes in the universe for the adventures of 2020 but…)

    3. Deanna Troi*

      I just bought some bags of fancy pasta to give as gifts – they are dog themed with pawprints and bones. They had a bunch of different themes, including different universities. They are for people whom I know eat pasta. A little expensive for pasta, but cheap for a cute gift that doesn’t create clutter.

    5. Janesfriend*

      I’ve done little rosemary plants in small ceramic pots before; it’s easy to grow, smells nice and can be used in cooking. Other herbs would probably work too.

  22. The Prettiest Curse*

    Let’s discuss archiving failures and lost works of art! This week, I watched a compilation of rare musical performances from the BBC archives. They mentioned that, early in his career, Bob Dylan made a guest appearance as himself on what sounded like a sitcom about flatmates. He performed several songs during his appearance – which is lost to history because the BBC destroyed the film in 1968. Consequently, the BBC archives have a grand total of one Bob Dylan musical performance (from a different show.)

    Which archiving failures would you undo if you could? And which lost works of art would you most like to experience for yourself?

    1. Anna*

      I cannot remember the titles (sorry, tired brain and no notes), but there are so many lost silent movies I’ve read about that I’d like to see. And even talkies!

    2. Nitpicker*

      Shoulder to Shoulder was a wonderful series about the women’s suffrage movement in England. It should be rebroadcast periodically but I read somewhere that no one can find it.

    3. Charlotte Lucas*

      There was an early US TV sitcom called The Goldbergs. It was live and very popular. Unfortunately, it aired back in the days when studios didn’t record and rerun shows. I think it would be interesting to see.

      Also, the lost Shakespeare works.

    4. Girasol*

      I wish a local PBS station had archived a documentary that they did about Mozart. About forty years ago my stepmother was a director at a PBS station. I did not realize until she was gone and Dad insisted that I should have “Mozart’s desk” that his weird old table unfolded into a hidden desk that had been a PBS show prop. I wish I could see where this desk came from.

    5. Chaordic One*

      This is really obvious but another BBC TV show where there are a whole bunch of missing episodes is the sci-fi classic, “Dr. Who.” The last I heard was that 97 of 253 episodes from the program’s first six years are currently missing, primarily from seasons 3, 4 and 5. They had believed that many more were missing, but film of some missing episodes have turned up in archives of TV stations in countries outside of the U.K. It seems like every once in a while another one is found, usually outside of the U.K.

      BBC rival, ITV, supposedly lost many of the early episodes of “The Avengers.” (Personally, I don’t think the show really ever took off until Diana Rigg joined the cast in the 1960s.) Still, a bit of a minor tragedy.

      1. David Rose*

        This was going to be my answer! Thinking about all those episodes that just got taped right over always makes me sad :'(

      2. The Prettiest Curse*

        The Beeb was certainly over-enthusiastic about destroying old footage back in the day. It’s amazing that so much of it has shown up in random places over the years!

    6. *daha**

      The Universal Studios fire, June 1 2008, took out an archive holding 40,000 – 50,000 video originals and 118,000 – 175,000 audio master recordings, including perhaps half a million individual tracks. There are still existing lower-quality versions of much of what was destroyed.
      There’s an extensive article on wikipedia. Search on 2008 Universal Studios fire.

  23. Clean Air Club*

    I recently moved into a new apartment and made the unfortunate discovery that cigarette smoke from a neighbor seeps into my space. Yuck!! Does anyone have experience with an air purifier? I’ve read conflicting reports on whether they’re effective against smoke. Or any other suggestions for cleaning the air? I do not like air fresheners (sprays or plug ins) and cannot move. I’d like to get rid of the smell and dangers of secondhand smoke. Thanks!

    1. Manders*

      Ozone machines work great for that! You must have all living things out of your home for the period of time that it’s running, but it is very effective.

    2. Manders*

      Also, my friend had this issue in her last apartment, and also a pest problem. To combat the pest issue they sealed around her water heater, which previously was not properly sealed. It ended up stopping both the pests and the smoke smell from next door.

      1. Imtheone*

        We had an apartment where the area under the bathroom sink was poorly sealed, letting in cigarette smoke. That area could be caulked.

        Maybe you have something similar.

    3. illuminate (they/them)*

      Might a Corsi-Rosenthal box work? it’s essentially a box fan and a few cardboard air filters taped together, but scientifically it’s quite an effective air purifier, and I believe it should work on smoke, though if the smell is in the wall paint, etc it may not help. You can just Google “Corsi-Rosenthal box” and should find instructions.

      1. epicdemiologist*

        I use a Corsi-Rosenthal box, and it definitely helps with pollen and dust. I have heard anecdotally from people out west whom I follow on Mastodon that C-R boxes help a LOT with wildfire smoke–so definitely worth trying. I’ve built two; they’re not difficult, though the materials aren’t cheap if you get the good (MERV-13) filters. Here are instructions: https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2021-08-17/diy-air-filters-for-classrooms-experts-are-enthusiastic-and-a-citizen-scientist-makes-it-easy

    4. Can't Sit Still*

      I have a Coway Airmega with auto mode in my condo. I leave mine set on auto, and it kicks in whenever it detects smoke, particulates, or odors of any kind. My condo is tiny, so I only have one, but I would keep one in my bedroom as well if my neighbor were a smoker.

      Burnt toast, wildfire smoke, neighbor’s cooking smells, and cats digging incessantly in the litterbox have all sent it in to high gear. There have been times it’s come on and I have no idea why, then come to find out there’s a wildfire nearby or there is a particularly pungent aroma in the hallway. Since it’s been illegal to smoke indoors or within 200 feet of an entrance for a long time, I have no idea whether it also works on cigarette smoke, but it seems like it would work the same as it does for other kinds of smoke and particulates.

      You will need to replace the filters diligently, but the air filter should tell you when it needs to be replaced. I replace mine on a schedule (depending on the time of year) or whenever the sensor comes on, whichever comes first. If your neighbor is a hardcore smoker, you may need to replace them a lot more frequently, but better that than filtering the smoke with your lungs.

    5. Spacewoman Spiff*

      Ugh, I’m sorry. I had this a couple apartments ago and it was awful. Can you figure out if it’s coming in a specific place? I realized that the smoke was coming in through my bathroom exhaust fan (likely because my neighbor was blowing her smoke into HER exhaust fan) and once I taped plastic over the fan, it helped a lot though still stank. (The apartment management couldn’t make her stop.) Other than that I always had Levoit air purifiers running, but nothing really resolved the smell until she moved.

    6. Air purifier*

      I have a levoit air purifier that I got for air quality days but it worked like a charm when my next door neighbor temporarily smoked in their apartment for a bit. As someone with asthma, I was really worried. I walked into my apartment after being gone for about a week (with my air purifier off), realized how much it stank, put the air purifier on high and it cleared it all out. I opened a closet I had left closed a few days later and the smell of smoke hit me at once. So I do think it worked and not just that I got used to it.

      FWIW, it has also worked when other neighbors stink up the hall with the other type of smoke.

    7. Squirrel Nutkin (the teach, not the admin)*

      I had a situation like that once and did get an expensive air purifier that was specifically rated for smoke. It was okay, but I eventually just turned off the shared heating/cooling system that was letting smoke in and opened the windows.

  24. BellaStella*

    What are your favourite brands of tea? And do you use loose leaf tea or bagged? And if bagged tea are the bags compostable / recyclable? I just discovered Kusmi teas and have found a few black and herbal flavours I really like. They come in both loose in tins and in bags (supposedly compostable /recyclable).

    1. NotBatman*

      I don’t have favorite brands, but I definitely have favorite herbs. I love hibiscus, lemon peel, rosehip, ginger, and rooibos. Since I don’t have any fancy tea shops near me, I mostly go to the tea aisle at the grocery store and read ingredient lists until I find ones I like.

      1. NotBatman*

        I should also add that (due to the nature of my job) I often end up steeping my teas for anywhere from 20 minutes to 4 hours before I can get around to drinking them, so part of the reason I always drink those teas is that they don’t get bitter if left to brew for too long and still taste good cold.

    2. Clara Bowe*

      I really love a local chain called Adagio Teas. They ship all over and do both sample sets and one-offs. And they do user-made blends! I found them because they do runs of fandom blends and one popped up on my radar.

      They have a range of options and qualities. I’ve really liked some of their Masters series (single-source) but their standard lines have all been solid. They also have an advent calendar on sale now if you want to try a range for a reasonable price!

    3. Julie*

      I love the brand Plum Deluxe. Everything is good, but their Decaf Toasted Marshmallow is my favorite — and I don’t usually drink decaf!

      I just received a tea advent calendar from them that I’m very excited about…

    4. Bella Ridley*

      For high end, Mariage Freres is very lovely, as is Palais des Thes. I usually get those loose. For bagged, I like Harney and Sons or Stash for grocery-store level, though I don’t believe H&S is compostable.

      1. Helvetica*

        Mariage Frères is also my recommendation – so lovely and beautiful flavours, both in sachets and loose. Taylors of Harrogate is good for proper English breakfast, Earl Grey and Yorkshire tea.
        But in general, I suggest you find a tea shop where they sell tea themselves, as I think that is usually the best in terms of options and quality.

    5. Blue Cactus*

      I love the Tea Table, they have an amazing variety and they’re great about giving free samples!

    6. Texan In Exile*

      I like the bulk/loose herbal tea from Woodman’s (a Wisconsin grocery chain), but I would probably like any loose tea just because I hate the idea of the microplastics in the teabags. And I have let it sit overnight in the fridge before and it still tastes fine to me.

      1. Workerbee*

        If you haven’t ventured to this shop yet, Weeds in Cedarburg has great loose leaf mixtures. I also like Fava Tea.

        And! Ginger-citrus honey mixture in large jars at various Asian-esque supermarkets.

    7. Girasol*

      For everyday tea I like Stash, particularly the chai. But a friend gave me a big bag of Harney and Sons loose leaf “Paris” tea that was the most heavenly stuff I ever had.

      2. StrayMom*

        I just today experienced for the first time Harney & Sons – I had Hot Cinnamon Sunset tea and it was delicious! I’ll be on the lookout for Paris! I also love Stash Christmas in Paris – my daughter “accidentally” left the remainder of her box behind last holiday season and I am hooked! Or maybe it’s just Paris…

      1. Rose is a rose is a rose*

        You would think they would be compostable but an aggravatingly large number of companies use some sort of plastic in their tea bags. I try to buy looseleaf teas because a nice hot cup of microplastic is not what I want. I also have a home compost, so I don’t want the plastic in there either.

    9. Writerling*

      I love Kusmi teas! Seconding the Palais des Thés mention. I also like Tea Forte, but my favorite of all time are from Lupicia (chestnut being my favorite, but I haven’t tried my latest yet, Haskap). I think for US orders Lupicia Hawaii might be the way to go?

    10. Mrs. Pommeroy*

      Twinings – especially their English Breakfast and Earl Grey,
      and
      Kusmi – especially their Anastasia,
      are my favourites and daily staples. I have both as loose leaf tea and use compostable tea filters for them. We do also have tea balls for loose leaf tea but I find them astonishingly annoying for how often I would have to use them in a day (3-5 times).
      The Kusmi tea is quite pricey, so I only have one cup of it a day, but it brings me much enjoyment and relaxation so I am willing to spend the money on it.

    11. Grilledcheeser*

      I like Steven Smith teamaker teas, from Oregon. Loose leaf & bagged. Their bags are plant-based, no plastics or glues or staples! Fully compostable. I have a cup of Portland Breakfast every morning.

    12. slowingaging*

      I love Harney and sons and I keep the tins and reuse them for all sorts of things. We compost tea and coffee grounds

    13. Jay*

      Red Rose is a good, reliable, basic “teabag in cup, let sit, milk and sugar, drink” kind of way. It’s been my family’s favorite for three generations now.
      I drink a fair bit of Builders. It’s a British brand that is made to be very robust and has more caffeine than most teas. I will sometimes drink it instead of coffee if I need a bit of a kick, but don’t want to be wired. Also, the teabags don’t have a string. I find that very convenient, as I leave the bags in, most of the time.
      For luxury teas, especially loose leaf teas, I order from a place called Angelina’s Teas. It’s a very nice tea shop in North Carolina, but they ship everywhere. Their pre-packaged teas are fantastic, with their Cochin Masala Chi being the single best tea that I have ever drunk.
      Link: https://www.angelinasteas.com/products#!/Vacuumed-Packed-Teas/c/61098853

    14. Chaordic One*

      One of my favorites brands is “Tazo.” I love their “Wild Sweet Orange” blend. Every once in a while I’ll get a box that seems like it is old, but it is generally very good and so naturally sweet that you don’t need to add any sugar to it. Some of my local stores no longer carry Tazo, but I still find it in my local Kroger.

      Another brand that I really like is “Traditional Medicinals.” Most of their teas are organically grown and they specialize in herbal teas that, in addition to having medicinal benefits, are so good that I drink them when I want a cuppa. I’m especially fond of their “Throat Coat” line of teas, especially the original “Throat Coat Slippery Elm” tea which is wonderful for when you have a sore throat.

      I’m a bit lazy and usually rushed so I do usually use traditional biodegradable tea bags. Sometimes the extra steps of filling and then cleaning a tea infuser with loose tea is more than I’m up to. Sometimes plain old Lipton Black Tea hits the spot.

    15. Two cents*

      Too many to name (and I find it comforting that I know almost all the ones posted already), but I have two that I am not seeing: Upton Tea and TeaBox. Upton is great for everything, whereas TeaBox is a cut-out-the-middle-men company in India and they only do indian teas. Both have such great variety, from blends down to single estate teas, lovely sampler packs and they (usually) provide the harvest date, which matters most at the highest grades. Lovely shops, both of them.

    16. RussianInTexas*

      Harney and Sons is my go to.
      Paris
      London Fog
      Dragon Pearl Jasmine
      Hot Cinnamon
      Decaf Vanilla Comoro
      Russian Country
      Bangkok
      White Peach
      I may have a tea issue lol

    17. HannahS*

      I love Yorkshire Gold for English Breakfast, but their decaf tea is truly the best I’ve ever had. It’s bagged, compostable.

      Yama Moto Yama is my go-to for green tea. I’ve had their regular tea, genmaicha (green tea with toasted rice,) and hojicha (roasted green tea, which is lower in caffeine. ) All excellent. They sell loose leaf and compostable bags.

    18. carcinization*

      My online faves also haven’t been mentioned: Tea Embassy, and Capital Teas. I believe I’ve ordered Earl Grey Creme (or Cream) from both of them, which is the variety with cornflower.

    1. PhyllisB*

      Okay. Since I considered it more “life” advice I thought it would be all right. I’ll ask again next week on Friday.

  26. NotBatman*

    We just adopted two kittens! So far they’re settling in nicely, but this is our first time having cats. Does anyone have things they wish they’d done (or were glad they did do) during their first week with new cats?

    1. Nicosloanica*

      Cat fosterer here, and I’d say it’s really easy to use your fingers/hands as toys when they’re cute little kittens (wiggling your fingers them etc) but in general you have to work hard to teach them now that humans are *not* for biting/clawing. That’s the way they play with each other so it often takes patience and repetition to get the message across, and you don’t want to accidentally reinforce the habit. It’s less cute later.

      1. Julie87944*

        This 100%. They’re at a malleable age now where the tone sets how things play out long term. Don’t rough house with them if you don’t want them to be rough housers! Also get them used to being handled and picked up, and used to seeing their kitty carriers and them not being a ‘bad’ thing. You’ll thank yourself when the time for vet visits comes! Enjoy the time getting to know them and their personalities.

        1. Sloanicota*

          Good point about being handled. Get them used to you gently taking their paws and popping the claws out, which you will do to trim the claw later. Get them used to being picked up. I got lucky with my last one and she was willing to be carried around “baby style” which no other cat I’ve had has ever put up with. It’s about 50/50 within kittens in a litter whether they like it or not, I find.

          1. Random Bystander*

            And get them used to the comb/brush … it took awhile with my former ferals that I brought indoors when they were approximately 6mo old (they’re now approaching 4 years of living indoors). It was much easier with my baby Pandora (another former feral who I managed to catch when she was 11 weeks). Which is a good thing, because Pandora is a medium hair (vs the short hair for everyone else), which means she needs more combing than the others.

    2. I didn't say banana*

      Don’t buy anything expensive – beds, blankets, toys, feeding bowls, climbing towers etc – at this stage. Wait to see what they need and like. I have several untouched cat beds in my home and they ended up needing cheap slow feeder bowls after I bought fancy tilted ones.

    3. Shiny Penny*

      I constructed a ritual with my feral kittens that when I came home from work we would all rush over to the designated cat scratching object and all of us would sharpen our claws together. (Ok, I scratched at the post using my sad human excuse for claws.). I would start saying, “Claws! Claws! Claws!” as I rushed to the scratching post from the front door, and kept repeating it as we all scratched for a while.
      It was a very amusing ritual that gave us a happy group activity, and it helped them attach “clawing” to *that* object/texture, and served as an “event” in their day. After we all clawed awhile, they were pretty content to let me change clothes and take a minute to myself, before interacting with them more.

      I think I initially got the idea from reading that cats like communal scratching rituals? Or, it’s a way they greet each other sometimes? I can’t remember the details exactly. But it really did make mine happy. Also, over the long haul, these cats were great about only scratching things I specifically authorized.

      1. NotBatman*

        That’s amazing! I’ve been laughing at my husband because he keeps using the scratching post (while loudly narrating what fun he’s having using it instead of the couch) but it does seem to be working somewhat.

  27. Julie87944*

    For anyone who has experienced seller’s remorse when selling their home….does it eventually go away? Or has it haunted you ever since. I’ve just accepted an offer on my home…and the cold feet have appeared out of nowhere. I’ve had an up and down couple of years and when I started having some issues with the house itself and the neighbors I just said ‘enough!’ and put it up for sale. I have kind of a love hate relationship with it, compounded by other life stuff, so it felt like the next right thing to just offload it….until someone actually wanted to buy it! It’s all pretty new so I’m navigating how I actually feel about it but for anyone who has ever regretted selling a place did the regret subside once you moved on to pastures new?

    1. Sloanicota*

      Have you found the place you’re moving to, and do you like it? If possible, I’d try to transfer all these feelings into excitement about my new place. Decorating it, exploring the neighborhood, etc.

      1. Julie87944*

        I don’t have anywhere to go to! I figured I might rent for a while but I don’t know. I’m also between jobs so no real anchors to anywhere new or old. Perfect storm of life changes!

        1. Sloanicota*

          I think that’s very important context! Of course you’re uncertain right now, moving from a place of stability to one of ambiguity (which doesn’t mean you’ve made a mistake! Just give yourself credit for doing a hard thing right now!).

        2. Saturday*

          I wouldn’t put too much stock in those feelings because now you’re in the “now what?” phase of your plan. Try to focus on your reasons for selling in the first place and on what you’ll do next. When you get settled somewhere new, I think you’ll likely feel like you’ve moved on from the old house emotionally.

    2. What’s possible?*

      Sometimes life gives you a little shove in a new direction. You initiated this house-selling process for a reason, so maybe imagining yourself back in that situation will help you discern if you really want to keep it … or are just feeling jitters about stepping into a new phase of your life that’s yet to unfold. Any change like this will be unmooring and cause a mix of feelings. How would you feel a year from now if you stayed there? Cozy and content? Or experiencing the same frustration that prompted you to sell? What could actually be possible if you sold the house and had the freedom to make new choices? You probably can back out of the sale if you want to keep the house … but is that what you really want? Or is there something yet to be discovered once you’ve created that space for something new to come in?

    3. Falling Diphthong*

      It sounds like you’ve stumbled into “But what if all the things holding me here suddenly weren’t holding me here? And I could go anywhere?” And it can be disconcerting when that actually comes off. Feeling unmoored is normal when you are unmoored.

    4. Still*

      Sounds like you have graduation goggles.

      People who are happy in their houses generally don’t put them up for sale. You must have been pretty annoyed with it if you hit that threshold. Now all those things are probably annoying you less because you know that there’s an end in sight.

      Five years from now, do you see yourself living there and dealing with those same issues?

    5. Frieda*

      I’ve sold twice in the last ~6 years and for sure, there is a rush of “oh no, what was/am I thinking,” IME. Especially if you’ve done a bunch of work to get your house clean and spruced up!

      Moving is really disruptive, and moving along with a job change sounds like it could be a lot all at once. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad choice.

      I miss some very specific things about my last house, for instance how easy it was to see the garden from the kitchen, but as I gently reminded my very sad then-adolescent the first time we moved “Asgard is not a place” (a line from the movie Thor: Ragnarok.) The specific dwelling spot is not what constitutes your life, although of course some spots and some homes are better suited to you than others.

      And the new place you find (personally and professionally) might well be what you need and better than what you’re leaving behind! The garden that I miss looking out on was only separated from the neighbors on three sides by a kind of dubious chainlink fence, which I do not miss at all – this house has a lot more privacy and is in a more interesting part of the city.

    6. Peanut Person*

      I guess I view it as a new season of life :)
      I just moved earlier this summer and there are things I miss about the old place. (Window in the bathroom! the basement, deep freezer, and storage space. bigger garage.) But I also had reasons to move, so I focus on the positives and celebrate the things I’m excited about in the new house. (location, high ceilings, better floor plan, lower mortgage payment, front porch)

      I think we live our lives too afraid of negative emotions and regrets, when we should sometimes just say, “yep, it’s okay to feel this way, and I will be stronger from it in the end.”

    7. Egg carton in the fridge door*

      I’d like to get a new refrigerator to replace my 20-year-old Kenmore. Twenty years ago refrigerators often had a compartment in the door that had a lid and was sized to hold a standard egg carton. I don’t want a water dispenser in the door or a built-in ice maker, but I do want that kind of egg-carton compartment — I have one now and I really like it,

      I haven’t been able to locate a new fridge model that clearly has has such a compartment; I can’t be sure, since you don’t always get a clear view of door storage when you search online. Is there a single-door standard-depth model that does offer it?

    8. I take tea*

      Quite normal, I’d say. It’s a big thing to move. We moved last year and all the time we were moving and fixing up the old apartment I occasionally had “what have we done”-feelings. Now when it’s sold and gone and we’re settling in here, the feelings have eased up. There are still a lot of things I miss with the old place, but it was the right decision anyway.

  28. Tattoopse*

    Alright team, I’m in a pickle of my own making. I have a new (as of almost a year ago now) tattoo. I know my parents aren’t going to care for it, but I like it. I live far away and don’t see my parents very often; I’m also old enough that their opinion isn’t actually super relevant. The tattoo is large but not in a very visible place, so the one other time I saw them, this didn’t come up. Obviously I wish I’d said something, but at the time I was just happy not to be Disappointed At and didn’t want to spoil the mood. I talk to my mom via text often so she would feel outraged that I didn’t mention it as I was planning it / getting it done – but like I said, I knew they wouldn’t like it and didn’t really want to get into it. It’s not my first tattoo and they don’t like the others either, but those are smaller. So, I’m going home for Thanksgiving and I feel it’s going to come out eventually. I’ll be changing or something. Or in six months we’ll go swimming. Like, I’m not going to be able to keep it hidden forever. How would you, if you were the parent in this situation, feel about an email before me meet that’s like, “Hi parents, I got a new tattoo, just wanted to let you know before we get together?”

    1. ecnaseener*

      You know your parents best, but my first thought is that it’s making a Big Deal out of something that might not have to be. What would happen if you just went about your business as usual, and whenever they eventually notice it, you said “oh yeah, I got that a while ago” in a bored tone? and laughed off their pearl-clutching with “yeah I know you don’t like tattoos, but you know I do, so *helpless shrug*”?

      1. apricots*

        Exactly what I was going to say. It’s done, don’t make a big deal. You’re presumably an adult, you don’t need their approval for this. So don’t seek what isn’t there.

      2. Saturday*

        This is the way. It acknowledges that you know they don’t like your tattoos, but also acknowledges that tattoos are your decision, and you’re going to handle these things on your own.

        I think it would also be fine to not mention it this time, and if tattoos come up sometime between now and swimming season, mention that you have another one that you’ve had for a while. Just if it comes up naturally in conversation. Same message – yes, I have them, yes, I know you don’t like them.

      3. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

        Agree, I would not just not make a big deal out of it. If they get on you about “why didn’t you tell us”, you can just say you know you disagree on the subject.

      4. Bereavement Bear*

        Same, as a person with tattoos whose mother did not enjoy tattoos. If she noticed a new one, I’d be like, “Yep” and then not belabour the point/issue, and move on to something else.

    2. Tattoos and piercings*

      Who cares what your parents think? If you’re old enough that their opinion isn’t super relevant and you’re financially independent it really doesn’t matter whether they like it or not. It’s your body and your life.

      I think sending an email is making it into a bigger deal than it actually is – of that it needs to be. I wouldn’t say anything and if they see it and say something you can just say, “oh, yeah; I didn’t tell you? Must have forgotten.” (Or something along those lines.

      I got my nose pierced after college (in the late 90s) and when my parents saw it they weren’t too excited but what could they do? It’s my body and my life. I also have several tattoos and they know about zero of them.

    3. Qwerty*

      The email feels weird.

      You say your mom would be upset at not hearing about it during the planning stage or right when you got it, which means she values hearing about your life as it happens. So lean into that. Some options

      – When it gets seen: “Didn’t I tell you? It’s a raven, I love it, here’s a good picture of it..” – be excited to talk about it in the moment and act like of course they’ll love the tattoo but emphasis enjoying talking to your mom about the newly found tattoo.

      – Work a detail or two into another story and treat it the same as any other boring old news. “yada, yada about a summer day….it was fun but I got really bad sunburn on my pokemon tattoo …yada yada”. They’ll pick up on it immediately, and you go back to the above example where you excitedly tell them about it

      Alternative – switch some of your text conversations with your mom to phone calls. Give her a call this weekend because you wanted to hear her voice and catch up. Basically, lean into her knowing about your life so that the stuff that you keep to yourself doesn’t sting as much.

    4. WellRed*

      Either you’re building this up in your head to be a bigger deal than it actually will turn out to be, or your parents have the problem, not you.

    5. Peckish*

      their opinion really isn’t super relevant, as you say, and even if it was there’s nothing you can do about it now! I think you’re overthinking it, why do you need to tell them in advance? If they notice, you can say “oh yes, I’ve had it for a while”, and if they make a drama out of it “see, that’s why I didn’t tell you!” in as light and humorous tone as you can manage, and move onto another topic.
      I can’t imagine being the parent in this scenario actually, as I don’t think my adult children’s bodies are really something for me to have an opinion on. But if I got an email like this I would probably assume it was huge, shocking and very visible, and that’s why you were warning me in advance…

    6. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      When I was 19, I went through a bad breakup and moved back in with my parents, while I was also working for my father. I already had several small tattoos which really annoyed dad, and he LOVED to go on about how they were SO OBVIOUS AND UNPROFESSIONAL AND NOBODY ELSE WANTS TO LOOK AT THAT and I just rolled my eyes and ignored him for the most part. (To this day, and I now have 26 of them, none of them are visible if I wear a garden variety business casual long-sleeve shirt and pants.)

      Anyway, I was sitting in my office one day working on the daily invoices, and Dad comes in and sees the edge of a tattoo poking out from the back collar of my blouse, on the back of my neck. (I had short hair at the time.) He started up. OH IS THAT WHY YOU WERE HOME LATE LAST NIGHT, OUT GETTING MORE OF THAT GODDAMN INK CARVED INTO YOUR SKIN, blah blah blah. I waited him out, and said “…. No, I was at a birthday party last night. I got this tattoo six months ago, I didn’t realize you hadn’t noticed it before.” And he NEVER SAID A WORD ABOUT THEM AGAIN.

      So my vote is let it go, don’t say anything ahead of time, don’t worry about trying to hide it, and if they notice and say something, your answer is “Huh? I’ve had that for years, no big deal.”

    7. Not A Manager*

      What I notice here is that your parents will be “Disappointed At” you that you got a tattoo, and they will be “outraged” that you didn’t tell them in advance that you were getting a tattoo.

      I disagree that this pickle is of your own making. I think they made it by setting up a situation in which you’re punished for disclosing and you’re punished for not disclosing. I also question whether it’s actually true that their opinion isn’t super relevant to you.

      I think you need to accept that if you choose to live your own perfectly ordinary life, they might have Feelings about it. You can’t control or manage their feelings, so stop trying to. My vote is to let them discover the tattoo whenever they do discover it, and be very bland about their reaction. “Yeah, I got this a while ago, I don’t know why you’ve never seen it before.” On the other hand, if they really pitch a fit and you can’t manage blandness, you could say, firmly, “maybe I didn’t mention it because I knew you’d react like this. Please stop.”

    8. Harlowe*

      Absolutely do not announce it beforehand because then you’ve made it A Thing. Wait for a comment if they see it, then respond in a matter-of-fact tone, as if you’d forgotten to even think about it because it’s not a big deal.

      You have to train them how to react, like when a little kid falls and waits to see if the grown-ups act scared/concerned before bursting into tears. I say this as the daughter of a man who flipped out about me getting cartilage piercings in my mid-40s.

    9. RagingADHD*

      I would feel a bit weird about the wording, because I would have thought my kids would send me a picture to show it off when they got it done, the same way they show off a new hairstyle or if they bought a car.

      But it also sounds like we have a different relationship, and while I would have some concerns about my kids thinking through whether they want a long term commitment to a given image, there wouldn’t be a disappointment aspect that they got a tat at all. I’d just tell them it was cool, even if I didn’t personally like the aesthetic. I’m not the one wearing it.

      Could you just text them a photo and act like you expect them to give you a compliment? If you lead the way in being casual about it, it may help set expectations. Whereas the email is very much setting expectations that this will be A Thing.

      I mean, it might well be A Thing with them, but that doesn’t mean you have to feed that energy. You can counterprogram it.

      My mom was pretty judgy about some of my decisions, and I found that the best way to approach it (for me) was to set the tone very clearly and kind of railroad her into being okay with it because she had no choice.

    10. Falling Diphthong*

      Honestly I would announce nothing. If at some point they say “Is that a tattoo on your shoulder blade?” you can say “Yup, it’s the car from The Lincoln Lawyer.”

    11. Dark Macadamia*

      You say you text with your mom a lot so I would just text her a picture like “new tattoo!”

    12. Still*

      Emailing them about it makes it a) seem like a big deal, and b) seem like it’s any of their business. It’s not.

      People who reacted negatively to your earlier tattoos have lost the right to hearing about new ones.

      If they ever see it and comment on it, say “oh yeah, I’ve had it for ages, I love it!” and change the subject.

    13. allathian*

      By their negative reactions your parents have forfeited any right to information about your personal decisions before you make them and very limited info afterwards. It’s your body.

    14. Ellis Bell*

      I agree with others that a confessional email is just going to make something that’s not a big deal into a big deal, and something that’s not their business into something they need to respond to. It depends why you want to send it. If you want a) to get it over with before you see them, I agree that positively phrasing just a picture as “new tattoo” is better than phrasing it as something you have to admit. I do think it’s better to just decide that you don’t care about their reaction (as hard as that is). “Oh that? yes I love it; has it for ages now”. “Why didn’t I tell you? I’m more likely to choose conversation topics you’re into, and other tattoos have taught me that it’s more my thing than yours”. But seriously is the “why didn’t you tell me” rule from your mum because she likes supporting you, or because she likes being sought out for advice and permission that you don’t need?

    15. anon24*

      My parents don’t approve of tattoos or piercings and I have a very obvious tattoo and a lot of piercings. I don’t care whether they like what I’ve done to my body or not. It’s not their body, and they are free to keep themselves tattoo/piercing free. The only reason I’m don’t have more tattoos than I do is because I’m broke AF, I have about 4 more tattoos planned that I someday hope to be able to afford.

      Very different situation here, because it was a stranger and not someone close to me, but I had a woman comment on my tattoo and tell me she didn’t like it. I very cheerfully said “oh that’s ok, because I do and I got it for me,” and then changed the subject.

    16. Bluebell Brenham*

      I wouldn’t tell them. I’m actually on the other side of this. My young adult daughter has been adding on tattoos over the past year. Rather than a cohesive sleeve, they are all different. I don’t like the way it looks, but agree it’s her body, her choice. I’ve told her she doesn’t need to send me photos when she gets a new one.

    17. StrayMom*

      All of my adult kids have tattoos. Do I like all of their choices? No. No, I do not, but their bodies, their choice. What I do love, and appreciate, are the stories that they all have behind the symbolism of their choice of artwork. And it IS artwork! Full disclosure, my father and brother served in branches of the military service in the 40’s through 70’s, and tattoos were just part of the unofficial uniform (“Stewed, scr3w3d and tattooed”, I think Dad once explained), so I grew up thinking these were no big deal. But maybe, if your parents do say anything “Disappointed At”, you might tell them what the artwork means to you.

    18. Anono-me*

      I understand your wanting your parents to get over their tattoo trama while you are not there. However, I am concerned that if you email or otherwise officially announce to them that you got a tattoo that you are legitimizing their belief that their feelings about your tattoos are problem.

      It sounds like you love your parents and they you, but maybe there is still have some parents and child-child dynamic happening rather than parents and adult-child dynamic. If you think that you might still be following old childhood interaction habits, consider changing your part in them to be more adult to adult responses.

      I’m sure that the new tattoo feels a bit like the Sword of Damacles; but can you just wait until they notice it and then just calmly but firmly tell your parents “Yes, I, an independent adult, got another tattoo.” If they say anything else, point out that tattoos are mainstream now. If they continue past that second chance, polity but firmly push back that they are being rude and keep the discussion there.

    19. Observer*

      I agree. Don’t send the email.

      It probably would have been best to let them know in the early stages – but at a point where you weren’t going to be around them, so you could more easily ignore their reaction.

      But having not done so, just let nature take it’s course. Don’t try to hide it and don’t try to make sure they see it. When / if they see it, just respond matter of factly that you got is “a year ago” or whatever the time frame is. And then just change the subject.

      And if they try to bring it back to the tattoo and Why You Did Not Tell Them! just matter of factly say that you didn’t think it was important enough, and keep changing the subject. If they won’t let it go, you could point out, once, that their reaction is a perfect example of what you were trying to avoid. And if necessary walk out. Whether it’s leaving, or just going to your room, or whatever. Not with a slam or a bang (even though you might be tempted to do that), because you want this to be “I’m being a reasonable adult here, and we’ll be fine if you go along with that.” while not getting bogged down in the argument.

  29. Sloanicota*

    I have a friend from childhood who I love. She has diagnosed mental health challenges but is in therapy / on meds / has a supportive family nearby. She’s married with a young child. We see each other a few times a year. She also loves phone calls, but I can only do that like, once a month or so, as the calls are draining for me. Mostly we text. The issue for me is, fairly often, she will send, mid-day, a text about something hard going on in her life, often about something awful her husband or MIL has done (not abusive but insensitive). These no-context cris de coeur are difficult for me to process and respond to. I’m in a meeting at 2PM on a Wednesday and I get these sadness bombs, usually a single text: “Spouse said X hurtful thing” or “MIL let me down in this way.” I truly hope it’s helping her to send these, but it doesn’t feel good for me to get them. I rarely have time to respond as much as I perhaps should (these are also quite frequent, remember) – just something like “aww I’m sorry honey that sounds rough.” I do get bummed for her and feel sad and helpless. I never do this to her and never would. Later, she doesn’t talk about it like it was a big deal. Do you think there’s something different I should/would/could do here? I’ve thought about asking her how she’d like me to respond or what she’s hoping for when she does this, but I think she’d just hear “you’re annoying me, stop.”

    1. RagingADHD*

      I think externally you are responding perfectly fine. Internally, it sounds like you are taking it more seriously than she is. I don’t think these are as high stakes as you are perceiving them.

      She is an adult with agency. She has a therapist and supportive, local family. She is fine and doesn’t actually need any help from you, so there is no reason to feel helpless.

      She texts you to vent about random, insensitive things her husband or MIL did that make her feel bad in the moment but are not actually abusive or important enough for her to do anything about, like go to couples therapy, go low-contact with her MIL, or get a divorce.

      Some people process their feelings verbally, and the “loudness” is not necessarily related to the seriousness.

      This seems like a pretty ordinary way for friends to vent with each other, and “Aw honey that sucks,” is a good response. If it bothers you to get these at work, mute her and don’t respond until later.

      1. SleepyTime*

        +1

        I also think texting back (when it’s convenient to you) something like “sorry just seeing this text, was in and out of meetings today” or “ sorry was traveling” might get the message across that you’re responding later bc of xyz. But if she’s not the type to get upset if you don’t respond right away, I wouldn’t worry about it.

        As RagingADHD says, a quick “oof, that sucks” or something to that effect is fine.

    3. Not A Manager*

      Well, she is annoying you, in a way? I’d follow Captain Awkward’s advice and put her on a communication schedule. Silence her texts during the workday, or the work week if you want, then respond at a time that works for you with one overarching reference to her texts. “Hi, I can’t [check my texts/respond to them] [during the work day/work week,] but I wanted to check in with you. Hope your day/week got better and that MIL isn’t still acting up! How’s Baby doing?” It might help to be consistent with your own response times so that she comes to expect that she will hear from you on Wednesdays and Saturdays, or only in the evenings, but not at other times.

    4. Dark Macadamia*

      Turn off notifications for her and manually check for messages in the evening (or your lunch break, etc) when you have the capacity.

    5. Saturday*

      When you get these messages, try to keep in mind that later these things probably won’t feel like a big deal to her. They might not even feel like a very big deal in the moment. Either way, I think she just wants someone to vent to, and if you’re okay responding as you have been, I think you’re fine.

    6. allathian*

      Mute her texts when you can’t deal with them and respond later. You don’t have to manage her feelings for her.

      1. Generic Name*

        This. Muting notifications from one specific person was such a godsend before my ex was ordered by the court to only communicate with me via a monitored service.

    7. Hyaline*

      I would give her a blanket “btw, when I’m at work I often don’t see texts until later” whether this is true or not so that you can establish some buffering here—if you don’t respond immediately, fine. If you do want to respond, cool, but if you’re feeling like diverting that emotional energy mid workday is the annoying part…just stop. It clearly helps her to send vent-y texts; how much you choose to engage with them is up to you.

    8. Shiny Penny*

      Similar situation, except close family member w mental health issues, sending walls of texts that varied btwn general downer topics, to personal attacks, but with a few important action-required texts scattered in randomly. Sigh.
      I put all their texts on silent and only looked at them once a day. I figured in a true crisis they’d call, so I decided batching my exposure was safe enough.

      For less messed up situations (Ie, less problematic people) I sometimes just send back 5 or 6 cry/hug/heart emojis. It’s a good point that some people just need to text a friend, to feel a hit of comfort imagining you thinking supportive thoughts their way. Like, that all happens inside their own head and little action may be needed from you right then. When we talk next, I might even wait for them to bring it up in case they’ve already erased it from their brain and moved on!

  30. Zelda*

    Hi everyone! So I’m going to my grandboss’ wedding, but there was no registry or mention of gifts, so I was initially planning to show up with just a card. But I’ve heard some advice to bring cash… but also that it’s strange to give cash to someone higher in the work hierarchy.*

    Also, I already organized a group card from the team… would it be overkill to show up with another card from just me? (I always organize team celebrations, so she knows that it was my idea.) Please send etiquette help!

    *Sorry, wasn’t sure if this belonged in yesterday’s or today’s thread!

    1. WellRed*

      Omg, do not bring cash to your grand boss! If you know they enjoy, oh, a good Merlot or sea salted caramels from the local place, I think that would be thoughtful and appropriate.

      1. Observer*

        Agreed with this.

        No cash at all.

        You don’t need a second card. But, yes, a small personalized item would be nice, but absolutely *not* necessary.

    2. Bella Ridley*

      I would just give cash. It’s not like you’re giving them a crisp fifty for Christmas or something, and cash is a pretty universal wedding gift. I wouldn’t feel compelled to give a ton of money or anything, but I think you’d be pretty safe with a card with cash in it. Especially if they have no registry.

      I’d also do a card just from myself as well if I was the only one attending the wedding.

    3. BlueAlaska*

      If there isn’t a registry or mention of gifts, the soon to be married couple doesn’t want any! A personal card sounds lovely. Don’t overthink it, just go and enjoy.

    4. Ellis Bell*

      It’s your grandboss, and they probably don’t want to solicit gifts from subordinates, so that’s probably why there’s no registry etc. If you bring anything, I would go for very cheap and cheerful; a couple of tissue wrapped champagne glasses, nicely boxed wedding cookies, a nice photo frame, date night idea cards (super cheap standby of mine from Not On The High Street. com), ring dishes, or breakfast tray etc…

    5. wedding gift?*

      I would assume that they do not want to get gifts unless maybe from family and very close friends with whom they reciprocate for Important Gift Occasions. If you would feel uncomfortable about coming empty-handed, I very much recommend consumables over permanent objects.

      It’s easier for the recipient to regift or dispose of unwanted wine or cookies than any physical item, and since you probably don’t know what they already have and their style of home decor and their fondness for odd tchochkes, you won’t annoy them with a random object they have to do something with and thank you for through gritted teeth.

      And absolutely do not give cash to your grand-boss, or a gift card or anything else cash-adjacent.

      Really, I advise bringing a nice card with your good wishes written in your own words in addition to the printed text if there is one.

  31. WFH4VR*

    Electric Stoves – recommendations? My beloved electric-coil stove is nearing the end of its days. The new induction ones seem so ridiculously expensive. Any recommendations or observations on electric stoves? People who have switched from coil to flat-surface, any regrets?

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      I went the other way — I have issues with flat top stoves, so I replaced mine with an electric coil stove. And then I realized how much more annoying coil stoves are. The burner pans get so gross and are such a pain to clean, and then getting the coil back in straight is fiddly, and the inconsistent surface means it’s hard to use the stovetop as a resting place in a pinch, and the pans NEVER SIT STRAIGHT on the coils, and it was just super frustrating. After three years, I got so annoyed with it that I impulsively rage-bought a new flat top stove instead, and while I still have issues with that, I’ve found ways around them that more or less negate the big ones.

      I get SUPER ANNOYED if people set stuff on the flat stovetop by itself like it was a counter, because that’s how the Tupperware gets melted, but I got what I’ve heard called a “noodle board” off Etsy that is a wooden cover tray thing with handles that sits on top of the cooking surface when it’s not hot/in use, so I feel better about using it as a counter extension. (Mine is pretty, the wood is assembled and painted in a pattern that looks like a quilt block.)

      Another advantage of a flat-top is that they usually come with a lock button (which I’ve never seen on a coil stove or a gas stove, personally) so that nobody’s turning on the stove burners or oven by accident – my dogs don’t counter surf and the cats don’t walk on the counters, but I’m paranoid about critters accidentally turning on the stove, I don’t even know why, but now they CAN’T.

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        If you search “noodle board” on Etsy you can see a bunch of different designs and styles for flat-top stove covers, there’s some really cool options. :)

    2. Generic Name*

      We got a regular flat top after having the coils. I liked it. It was easier to clean in general, but to get it really shiny there was a special cleaner, which was a bit of a process. I don’t remember it being crazy expensive, but it was non-induction. You can still get the coil type stoves.

    3. apricots*

      I got a flat-top induction after coil. It has a safety feature that if you accidentally hip-check a burner and turn it on (happens near daily – hate the buttons at hip level), the burners turn themselves off after 30 seconds. However, I super super hate how you can’t shake a pan on the glass top without scratching the glass. So, if shaking/jiggling a pan is important to your cooking style, know that the glass will get damaged. And, while the under-coil areas can get gunked up in a coil stove (boiled over milk!), that didn’t bother me. Now, when something spills over, I have to clean the glass immediately, or it will damage the glass.

      1. Anono-me*

        I hate cleaning the glass top stoves, they gunk up so quickly and scratch so easily. (For my coil, I had a duplicate set of burner pans, so I could switch out the icky set, soak it overnight, and then scour it.)

    4. Reba*

      The Frigidaire induction range is not so much more than standard electric, and is well reviewed. Induction is awesome!

    5. The Prettiest Curse*

      If you get an induction or flat-top stove, you can get an inexpensive protective cover. I keep mine on my induction stove-top all the time and it works really well.

      As someone who’s constantly worried that I forgot to turn off a burner, I love that the induction stove top automatically detects whether something is still on the burner and will automatically turn itself off after a short amount of time.

      I got a lower-power and less expensive induction stove top because I rarely need to cook with more than two burners at a time. (It has the standard 4 burners, but if you use them all at once, the power on two burners might be slightly lower.) I like it a lot, especially the way it heats up and cools down really quickly.

    6. allathian*

      I love my induction stove! It’s as safe as any electric stove and gives almost as much control as gas.

    7. Angstrom*

      Just went from an ancient gas cooktop to induction. Had electric coils growing up. Still in the learning phase, but liking it so far. Faster to heat than the gas.
      We hadn’t thought about how much we used the grates on the gas cooktop for drying large items(pots, bowls, etc.) after washing and hot-pan cooling. Not having that has been an adjustment.

    8. Random Bystander*

      I’ve been looking at a stove myself (Mom and I can’t remember exactly when this stove and fridge were purchased, except we know it was before Grandmother passed away in 2004, but not sure if it’s as long ago as 2000, but not more recent than 2003–so I know I’m getting to be on borrowed time … the stove and the fridge are the only things I have yet to replace since moving into the house in 2011). I’m sticking with coils, but that’s because I have an inherited cast-iron skillet (great-grandmother’s) that I ended up with when Mom switched to the flat top in her house.

      I’m planning to go with basically a replacement (except I’m going white instead of almond) GE, which right now the self-cleaning model (1:1 replacement) is $579 at my local appliance store (I only buy from them–they have an in-house service department and sell a $125 warranty for 5 years–comes off any service call, and if you don’t use it on that appliance it is a $125 coupon on your next appliance purchase).

    9. Six Feldspar*

      I have a portable Ikea induction stovetop and it’s doing great! Only one stovetop but I don’t need more than one generally, it’s easy to clean, heats up quickly and I can put it away if I need the space. When I renovate the kitchen I’ll get a permanent induction top but this one is doing great as a test!

    10. Middle Aged Lady*

      We got a flat top Samsung a couple years ago. I love it! It has a warming burner and the two burners have different size options for different sized pots. We have had two before this one and have never forgot and set something hot on it—I don’t know how! But it’s been great.
      The oven part also has a bread proofer, a keep warm, and an air-fryer setting. We have used all three.

    11. Observer*

      Two things to keep in mind with induction cooking.

      Firstly, you need the right cookware. Your existing pots might work with an induction stove, but if they are not metal, they almost certainly won’t. (An easy way to check is if your pots will hold a magnet.)

      Another possible issue is the wiring. You have an electric stove already, so there is a good chance that what you have will work with an induction unit, but do yourself a favor and check before you make the purchase. You want to make sure that you know that actual cost of the the whole set up before you make a decision.

      Lastly, for anyone who observes Halacha (Jewish Law), please check with a competent Rabbi about using these for cooking on the holidays. The consensus I’ve seen is that you can’t use the, but I have not really checked into this as I’m unlikely to be buying a new range any time soon.

      PS You can get a flat top that is not induction, so that could also be a choice to look at.

  32. Qwerty*

    I’m thinking of getting a french press for making tea and was curious about other people’s experience? Are there better materials to look for or recommendations on cleaning the strainer? Is there a difference in french press pots made for coffee vs tea or is that just an advertising thing?

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      My husband has used his regular French press from Ikea for making both coffee and loose-leaf tea with no issues. Obviously just clean it well in between :)

    2. Last Alys*

      I have a stainless steel insulated press which is fabulous (I broke *2* Bodum glass carafes in one week so no more glass for me.)

    3. Jay*

      Like Alys mentioned, stainless steel is the way to go.
      The glass ones are fragile and way too prone to breakage.
      If you are lucky and don’t mind shelling out a little more money, I’ve heard some good things about thermal insulated versions so you can steep longer without loosing temperature, and have longer to drink it all up, rather than having to toss half a pot when it gets cold.

    4. Two cents*

      Personally, I can’t stand french presses for loose leaf tea! Unless you are draining all the liquid in one go, as in you have a small, one-cup or one-mug size french press, the tea at the bottom still steeps in the remaining liquid. Because of the reduced surface area, it does steep slower, but it still steeps. Which means cup/mug 2+ are not ideally steeped! (And I am shuddering at the thought of sharing any of my tea stuff with my coffee drinking husband–unfortunately I can absolutely taste it, even after thorough washing.)

      But many people swear by them, so it may just mean I am more sensitive to the changes in flavor than others. YMMV.

      1. Roland*

        Yup. For herbals it doesn’t matter as much, but over-steeping actual tea will taste gross. With loose leaf, you can’t just take out the leaves from a french press, you have to pour the tea out. While with most tea-specific pots, there’s some kind of removable contraption that the leaves go in, so they’re easy to remove.

  33. Is it Friday yet?*

    Inspire me! Share how you remind yourself every day how awesome you are. Any mantras or affirmations to keep self-care top of mind?

    1. Genevieve*

      When I remember, I like to spend some time thanking my body for being alive for so long and everything it does for me. I’ve had some ups and downs with my body, especially lately, and so I’m trying to be in the mindset of being grateful for what it does do, even when it’s not doing what it used to or what I’d like it to.

      …I promise that for me this is helpful and not toxic positivity, but writing it out I can see how it’s a very YMMV situation, so I offer it with a heap of salt if needed.

      1. Is it Friday yet?*

        I do this whenever I’m reflecting on gratitude for various things. Like my feet and legs for always taking me where I want to go. My brain for having some unique or out of the box idea, etc.

    2. Maryn*

      Mine’s kind of silly, but it helps. I’ve struggled with my weight and self-esteem all my adult life.

      Five years ago, I moved from a larger city to a much smaller one in Wisconsin. A far greater percentage of the people here are overweight. Suddenly there are plenty of clothing choices in my size, and attractive women young and old who are larger than I am.

      So when I dress nicely and check myself out in the mirror with dissatisfaction, I also look at the little note that’s stuck in one corner: It’s Wisconsin, and You Look Fine!

    3. Sitting Pretty*

      This is a great question and I’m excited to see what others say!

      As I go about my evening bedtime routine, tidying up the kitchen and washing my face and stuff, I give myself a little pep talk. Like out loud. I say a few of my small accomplishments from the day, tell myself how well I handled Things X or Thing Y. “We did pretty great today, didn’t we?” All out loud, like I’m talking to a friend.

      At the end of a tougher day, the pep talk might be more compassionate or forgiving. “We did our best in a hard situation, we learned some things, we can try again tomorrow.”

      2. Shiny Penny*

        Aw, I do this, too!
        I talk to my body like it’s a beloved and faithful old dog, doing its best for me.
        Now that I’ve actually had so many beloved dogs get old, and have cared for them in their many infirmities with so much true and total love and patience and acceptance, I have an easier time navigating to a place of kindness and acceptance and appreciation towards my own body and its disabilities. I can envision one of my very good dogs, and then channel all that love back towards myself. It makes it so much easier to locate the compassion and encouragement that I want to feel for my body.
        “It was a hard day, and we did really good! We tried our best, and we stopped when we needed to stop. Tomorrow we will try again…”

        I have heard a number of suggestions along these lines— treat yourself like you would treat your best friend, or like you would treat your own five year old daughter. For me, “like your own beloved dog” is the mental maneuver which really helps me access that bone-deep level of kindness and love.

        1. Is it Friday yet?*

          I kind of love this! Channel how I think about my cat, who I’m infinitely patient and understanding with, towards myself.

    4. Six Feldspar*

      1. I have a habit tracker app that lets me tick off lots of little things each day (meals, stretches, shower, brushed teeth, etc) and it’s very satisfying. I’m finding a lot of self esteem is keeping the basic maintenance going.

      2. Ymmv but I also got a *lot* better about self care and self esteem when I started treating my body like a pet. The body needs food and sleep and exercise every day, and it needs enrichment and socialisation and variety and healthcare regularly! If it doesn’t get them, it’s going to do something equivalent of chewing the furniture or howling all night!

      For me this also extends to body acceptance – I have a golden retriever body, it’s naturally stocky, runs to fat easily, has lovely thick hair and loves swimming. Trying to turn it into a greyhound body will achieve nothing but a lot of stress and angst, so I’m doing my best to take care of the retriever body the way it likes best.

      3. Whenever I’m doing housework or self care work and it’s a struggle I remind myself that this is *work* and it’s no small thing to have the knowledge/skills/time/resources to do this. The ancient Greeks (and many other mythologies I’m sure) had a goddess for this kind of work because it was so important!

    5. Shiny Penny*

      “Don’t be complicit in your own oppression.”
      I love this so much. I use it to help divert my own thoughts, if I’m getting unhelpfully self-critical.
      It (or a variation) is also my response when someone I care about is doing “that thing”— Self denigration as a reflexive appeasement to the universe? Mental self harm? I verbally label it now, because it gives them an example of a different, kinder view. I say, I cannot listen to you speaking to yourself that way. You are an awesome person (citing brief examples). Please don’t be complicit in your own oppression.

    6. Kathenus*

      Not sure if this will be interpreted by all as an affirmation or mantra, but it works for me. While I’ve always looked young for my age, I’m definitely looking older these days (59 yrs old), including having inherited my mom’s droopy eyelids. I also don’t wear any make up and since my hair has gotten harder to control over the past decade I just choose to wear it up or braided all the time since it’s easier. Basically I go through life ‘as is’ for the most part. At times when I look in the mirror and see this older self who chooses not to do anything to look ‘better’, my mental saying is “Don’t like, don’t look”. I’m at peace with being and looking older, too lazy to spend much time on that aspect, so consciously deciding not to care it others don’t like it.

    7. Might Be Spam*

      When I find myself dwelling on the past, I remind myself:

      I did the best I could with what I knew at the time.

      It was a reasonable reaction to an unreasonable situation.

  34. Morning Dew*

    Medication financial assistance from a foundation question:

    My spouse is applying for a financial assistance from a drug manufacture’s foundation for his medication. One of their requirements is last year’s tax return to verify income (copy of first two pages).

    Of course the first page includes both of our SSNs and I’m super paranoid about our SSNs “exposed” like that because I am just so wary about many eyes looking at sensitive information.

    Would you feel ok to to send in the first two pages as they are? I asked if the numbers can be blocked out and I am waiting for a call from a supervisor because the person I was talking to couldn’t answer.

    But I wanted to know if I am just being overly paranoid or you would feel ok for something like this?

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      It wouldn’t really bother me, I don’t think. If I’m applying to a foundation for financial assistance, then presumably I have reason to believe that the place I’m applying to is legit and has security practices for document handling. If I didn’t think they were reliable enough to be handling documentation appropriately, I probably wouldn’t be trying to work with them anyway.

    2. Flower*

      Block it out. And make sure it’s done properly — hold it up to the light and see if you can still read it. Usually what I do is when I copy it I cover that part with a temporary strip of paper so it doesn’t copy.

      1. Retired now*

        I would do this and if they need the numbers, maybe you can give them over the phone. We went through this a few years ago and I don’t believe we had to provide the SS number on the actual document

    3. A313*

      Personally, I’d send the return with the SSNs redacted. Let them come back to you if they need it, and you can ask them why, and decide from there. It may well be that they won’t bat an eye, because people are much more protective of their SSNs now. (There was a time when people would have the bank print them on their checks underneath their name and address — those days are long gone, for several reasons.)

    4. AGinGA*

      I too had to provide tax returns to verify income so I could qualify for free medication from a foundation run by a pharmaceutical company. I redacted the SSNs and the direct deposit info on the return. I qualified and they never questioned it.

    5. Rocky Coco*

      Hackers already have your info. You could block it out but there is no point in worrying too much. It’s all available already

      1. Observer*

        I’m sorry, that’s a terrible piece of advice.

        Maybe your information has been compromised, maybe not. But each exposure does actually increase your risk.

        Please do not encourage people to be careless!

        @Morning Dew is right to be concerned. I would suggest redacting it, unless they are using a secure portal of some sort, and even then, it makes sense to do so unless they actually do requite it (which they might.) If they need it and don’t have a secure portal, call them with the information.

    6. RedactIt*

      I redact stuff like this from supportive documents all the time. If I feel like it’s information that they don’t need for their stated purpose I redact it. I’ve only gotten pushback once, ironically from my landlord who insisted I not redact anything from my proof of renter’s insurance (I had redacted how much I paid for the policy which should have been irrelevant but clearly they wanted to do market research – very annoying!).

      One other consideration is how you’re sending the application. If it’s going via email you have a genuine privacy/security reason not to include any sensitive information (bank, ssn, etc) – I know folks who wouldn’t send any financial info that way at all. If they want online submission they should be using a secure portal.

      Also, if they complain about having private info redacted, offer to call them with it. That’s what we do at my 100% remote job for forms that require SSN (insurance enrollment forms, etc).

  35. AlexandrinaVictoria*

    You all were so helpful with my refrigerator question a while ago. I’m back asking about stoves/ranges. I need to replace mine, and I’m looking for a smallish gas stove. Any recommendations? Anything I should avoid?

    1. Falling Diphthong*

      I’ve got a Samsung gas stove; it doesn’t have any specific name that I can see. This was a purchase near the start of the pandemic, because our old stove was getting flaky.

      It seems to be the standard that the bigger hotter burners are near the front, which is a mystery to me but apparently how things are–all my gas ranges did this, with the simmer and lower/smaller burners at the back.

      My current one has five burners, the middle one being long and skinny and designed for deglazing your roasting pan to make gravy. Or using an included griddle, but we normally use our existing griddle pans on a round burner. (Pancakes are spouse’s department.) I do like this configuration because it pushes the other four burners outward a bit, which means I can use all four, pot centered over flame, with less crowding.

      Gas stoves can have weirdly small broiling areas–like it’s never the width of the oven but an element 4″ across, so I broil things half a roasting pan at a time.

    2. Double A*

      We had to replace our gas stove quickly after we bought our house as the one that was already here was on its very last legs, and what I regret is… replacing it with a gas stove. I wasn’t aware of the research about the risks of gas stoves and if I had been I think I would have switched to electric. However, I do recognize that in a power outage a gas stove can be preferable.

      We don’t have great ventilation and can’t have a hood because of how the kitchen is set up. The stove has a downdraft but that REALLY reduces the efficacy of the burner to the point that it makes it almost unusable. So avoid a downdraft. If we had better ventilation in the house I might be happier about the gas, but yeah. I mostly regret it didn’t even occur to me to think about switching to electric.

    3. Chauncy Gardener*

      I have a Viking that is now probably 18 years old and it’s been pretty good overall. I guess it’s a standard US sized stove with oven underneath. The oven does not heat evenly throughout. The convection works pretty well though. The stove part has low and simmer settings for each of the four burners, which is really nice.

    4. Observer*

      If you need small, look for a 4 burner rather than 5 burner unit. That 5th burner can be useful but adds a lot of width.

  36. Amber Rose*

    Your favorite crockpot soups, please. I’m begging. I know exactly one soup recipe, and now I’ve decided to try more soups since they make basically a week of lunches. I prefer not spicy, and not beef, but i’m willing to try either if it’s that good.

    As an offering, I made Recipe Rebel’s crockpot potato soup and it was lovely.

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      You can do pretty much any chili in a crockpot. The slow cooking is exactly what it needs.

      America’s Test Kitchen has an entire cookbook of crockpot recipes that I would recommend, too.

    2. Myself*

      My favorite is butternut squash soup. I cut up a squash and throw it in the crock pot with onion, carrots, a potato, bell peppers or whatever vegetables I have on hand and seem like they’d work in the soup. Pour in broth (chicken or vegetable are both good) till everything is covered. I generally throw it together at lunch time and cook on high for dinner. When it’s done I blend it with my immersion blender and add parmesan cheese and whatever salt it might need.

    3. I just really can’t think of a name*

      Our household favorites are Alton Brown’s Lentil Soup on foodnetwork [dot] com and Kale Soup with Potatoes and Sausage from Molly O’Neill on [cooking [dot] newyorktimes [dot] com. And an old recipe for Broccoli-Spinach soup that I think was from either the Moosewood cookbook or the Enchanted Broccoli Forest (if you happen to have either). I just make them on the stovetop, but I think the internet can provide instructions for converting to crockpot.

    4. HopeYouLikeIt*

      I make a crockpot beef stew from America’s Test Kitchen that the family loved the moment I made it. It’s called slow-cooker hearty beef stew. Here’s the gist:

      Cook diced onions (2-3) for 8-10 min then add 6 cloves of minced garlic, 1 teaspoon dried thyme, 1/4 cup of tomato paste for 1 minute. Then add 1/3 cup flour and mix until everything is coated, about 1 minute. Add 1.5 cups of chicken broth and whisk/stir until you loosen any stuck bits. (Don’t cook this down.) you’ll end up with a thick paste, lumpy in places. Don’t worry about it. Add mixture to crockpot.

      Cut meat (4 lbs boneless beef chuck eye roast) into 1.5 in cubes, trimming any excess fat, then lightly salt and pepper. To crockpot add 1/3 soy sauce and 2 bay leaves, 1.5 cups of beef broth. Add meat.

      Cut red potatoes (1.5 lbs) into 1 inch cubes and carrots (1lb) into 1 inch pieces. Lightly salt and pepper. Put these on a large piece of foil and fold/crimp edges so you end up with a large packet. Place this packet on top of the meat and cover.

      Set crock pot to low for 9-10 hours or high about 6 hours. When it’s done, I gently open the foil packet and empty the contents into the stew. I use tongs bc it is HOT.

      -I adjust the type of onions to whatever I have bc I nor my family can’t taste the difference and sometimes I just use 2 onions bc that’s all I have. Lol.
      -we love potatoes and carrots so we cut as much as can fit inside the foil packet when it’s placed in the crock pot. I use russets bc again, that’s what I typically have and it tastes great.
      -the foil packet gets the veggies cooked but not soggy/overly cooked. Don’t overlook this.
      -I use 1 can of chicken broth and 1 can of beef broth bc I thought it a waste to leave so little of the broths for a later recipe. I haven’t noticed a difference.

    5. Chauncy Gardener*

      I make homemade broth in my crockpot. Just throw everything in (cooked chicken bones, piece of celery, one cut up onion, a few garlic cloves, sage leaves, rosemary leaves, s&p and water of course). Cook that forever then strain. You can also scoop some out, put into containers to freeze, then top off with more water and let cook some more.

      Then you can use that broth for anything! Chicken noodle soup, for instance. Just add sliced carrots and celery, shredded chicken (or raw boneless chicken pieces) and cook all day. There is a difference of opinion about how to add the noodles. You can add them toward the end of the cooking or cook them separately and then stir them in.

      Lentil soup doesn’t even need broth if you use a lamb shank (no beef, right?). Just brown the shank in a bit of olive oil, then add chopped onions and celery and garlic and saute a bit. Then add lentils and water and cook all day. Then you just pick the meat off the bones and stir it back into the soup.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        That’s how my mum makes lentil soup, except she uses bacon ribs. The bones make the stock, and you get a few ribs in each bowl to pick up and nibble on day 1, by day 2 the meat is falling off the bone into the soup.

    6. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      cheater’s veg/minestrone: a large can of diced tomatoes, two cans of beans (black, kidney, whatever sounds good) and a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. (Or instead use whatever leftover veg you have that appeal, or both.) Dump them together in a crockpot, and add enough broth (veg, chicken, beef, whatever you have handy) to give it the consistency you want. I season mine with S&P, garlic powder, Italian seasoning and a couple of bay leaves. Vegan as is, also good with salad shrimp or smoked sausage or leftover protein of whatever floats your boat if you are so inclined. Sometimes I serve it with pasta, sometimes I don’t — if you put the pasta in it right off it gets soggy with the leftovers, so I always leave the pasta out up front and add it if I’m feeling it at eating time.

    7. Pieforbreakfast*

      Budget Bytes’ Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup
      Red Lentil and Chickpea Soup from Kalyn’s Kitchen
      Slow Cooker Potato Soup from Gimme Some Oven.

    8. Not That Jane*

      “Senate bean soup”:

      1 lb dry white beans (navy beans are good)
      1 small cured ham hock or shank
      About a teaspoon of smoked paprika
      Generous grinds of black pepper
      1 yellow onion, diced
      Water to cover

      Cook on low from breakfast time to dinner time. Around 3 pm, I usually remove the ham from the soup & cut or shred it, then return the meat to the pot. Salt and hot sauce to taste at the table.

    10. Anono-me*

      Pea soup.

      -Carrots 1/2 cup (Microwave for 3-4 minutes if fresh.)
      -Onion 1/2 (cut off tops and roots)
      -Dried split peas 1/2 bag (rinse and check for debris)
      -Water 5 cups (adjust to preference thickness)
      -Bay leaves 3

      Combine and cook in slow cooker on high for 3-4 hours until peas are mushy.

      Remove bay leaves and add garlic paste and ham bullion to taste (I like 1 teaspoon of garlic and 1 tablespoon of Better than Bullion).

      Return to heat for 1/2 hour .
      Let cool until safe to handle.
      Puree with blender or hand mixer until smooth.
      Reheat to serve.

      –
      It is good beef, and super super easy. Cut of cheap beef and a jar of decent spaghetti sauce. Cook on high for atleast 4 hours, then shred the beef and cook on low until it is time to eat. Serve over, noodles, or rice or potatoes.
      –
      Before you cook dried beans in a slow cooker, check on the risk of PHA for that type of bean, as PHA can make people sick.

    11. Marcela*

      Minestrone – https://soupsisters.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/garden-minestrone/

      America’s Test Kitchen Old-Fashioned Chicken Noodle Soup – https://www.food.com/recipe/old-fashioned-chicken-noodle-soup-450670 (the recipe I use is similar, but just has 1.5 lbs. chicken breast and no chicken thighs & it’s plenty of meat)

      Turkey chili – https://girlcarnivore.com/slow-cooker-turkey-chili/

      Pumpkin turkey chili – https://www.skinnytaste.com/crockpot-turkey-white-bean-pumpkin/

    12. Beans, beans, the magic food*

      I like Slow Cooker Gigante (White) Beans by Alaxandra Safford BUT I use small white beans like great northern or cannellini. I don’t like the giant beans plus they’re outrageously expensive for … beans. Soak dried beans overnight first or just use canned beans to avoid that. Cook the soup for 10 hours or so.

    13. carcinization*

      Budget Bytes has a lot of good ones, including Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup, and Slow Cooker Vegetarian Lentil Chili.

      1. carcinization*

        Forgot to say, Half-Baked Harvest also has some nice ones, the only one I have bookmarked is Crockpot Crispy Caramelized Pork Ramen Noodle Soup, but I know there are a bunch of others.

  37. How to be Sick*

    Resources for the newly ill?

    My partner is dealing with serious illness for the first time in his life. He’s not used to processing any medication instructions more complicated than “take this if you need it”, he doesn’t bother to read the info that comes with the new medications, and he has no coping skills for dealing with the days when he doesn’t feel perfect. I’ve had to cope with chronic illness for a long time, so I have skills but no idea how to teach them. Are there any resources I could point him toward that would help with any of this?

    1. Girasol*

      On medication, if he’s having problems with keeping a schedule, how about setting his phone alarm to say “take two of this med now?” Re: coping, I’m not sure what to say about days but when my husband became chronically ill he got a great deal of comfort from audio books when he couldn’t sleep.

      1. How to be Sick*

        Keeping the schedule isn’t a problem, it’s more about, for instance, figuring out that “twice a day with food” probably means at breakfast and dinner, not taking two doses five hours apart.

        (Yeah, it would help if prescription directions were more specific. But knowing that they get written this way, a guide to figuring out the actual meaning would be useful.)

        1. Samwise*

          I made a list of all my husband’s meds with dosage and timing and why he’s taking it (make photocopies, stick one in his wallet and one in my notebook I take to all his appts

          Then I make a list of what he is taking when, with specific times or “with breakfast” or “eat a granola bar then take this med when you have X pain”. I list all the items in the correct time order. I include a description of the medication (name of med, blue capsule – or – name of med, yellow tablet cut in half). I used to set them up in labelled containers for him, but he mostly does it himself. We have an agreement that if he gets confused, he will stop and get me to help and I promise to help without complaining lol.

          If your husband has cognitive problems or trouble with executive function, I would say it’s safer and better for your peace of mind to do something like what I’m doing. Help him organize and understand the medication, then let him be in charge of setting up and taking the medication.

    2. Harlowe*

      How can you possibly help someone who refuses to read the directions on their medication? (Assuming, of course, that you’re not talking about a problem with actual literacy.) Gently, he needs to suck it up and “adult” this, without you mothering him.

    3. WellRed*

      I mean, you can try to offer some advice using yourself as an example, but you can’t teach basic common sense.

    4. WestSideStory*

      My late MIL kept a notebook that told her when she needed to take which meds, there was a page for every day. She would put a check mark when she had taken each. Combined with the phone timer suggestion above, would that work? Also, if it’s just pills, those plastic pill boxes with sections for days/times might be a good prompt.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        It can also help to keep some sort of record of how you’re feeling, which can identify what makes the problem better or worse. Like it’s more likely to flare on Friday, or improves if you remember to do a short walk every day, or the walk makes no difference but swimming does.

    5. Falling Diphthong*

      Is there a support group for his illness, which could point you toward either specific counseling or websites/books? Thinking particularly for the “how to adjust on a day the problem is flaring” side, which can vary a lot depending on the problem.

      I will also note that before covid, it was routine to be able to bring a loved one to your stressful doctor visits, who would help with asking questions, taking notes, and remembering/interpreting what the doctor said. Then covid really scotched that.

      Some practices have gotten good about handing out a BRIEF packet with clear instructions, about what for example is meant by “apply the cream twice a day.” (When I was making the precancerous spots on my forehead extremely angry so they would peel off.) Others not so much–I could really have used a sheet from the oncologist about what exactly they were concerned about when they checked that I got regular eye exams and emphasized that I should make sure to do that while on this drug. My lovely eye doctor spent time researching possible side effects of the drug and then did extra tests, which it turns out the oncologist wasn’t actually worried about–they just wanted a glaucoma screening.

      Beyond that, though, I think it’s a fair point that he needs to figure out how to ask the questions, read the directions, etc himself. It’s not fun to go from never needing to think about something to thinking about it–my athletic children now each get to think about the knee that had surgery. But they are over 18 and so don’t try to outsource that to me.

      My spouse does physical stuff for me that I cannot, because I can’t direct too much force across my damaged chest muscles. But I don’t ask him to figure out my medications. I bought myself those seven-day pill holders because I soon couldn’t figure out if my memory of taking a pill was from 10 minutes ago or yesterday.

    6. Spousal sickness*

      How open to guidance is he from you? If he is willing and open, that makes this a lot easier. If he’s pushing back on you (even if it is just transferred frustration or unhappiness at not feeling top notch) that will make teaching things way way harder.

      As for practical suggestions: if it were my spouse, I would offer to be involved in all parts at first, until he got the hang of it. So for meds, I’d read all the package things and add the unwritten rules, make him a schedule and so on. (Yes, he shouldn’t “need” this “mothering”, but I’d rather guide him myself than have him fall on his face needlessly–but this only works if he consents to it and even actively welcomes it, which my spouse would). I’d also offer to go to any appts with him, when able, and make question suggestions for the docs. I’d mention my experiences re:spoons and being out of them, engage him in talking about his feelings and validate validate validate before any concrete suggestions for action. All of this would be punctuated by frequent check-in questions to make sure he’s still OK with what I am doing.

      But that’s a lot of emotional labor and wouldn’t work with just anyone (see for example my father). In a less than ideal constellation, I’d pick my battles very judiciously (e.g. only make a suggestion when it really sounds like an safety issue).

      Good luck and I’m sorry your spouse is going through this!

      1. How to be Sick*

        Thanks. There’s no pushback, it’s more him just not thinking about things that he’s never had to think about before.

        I unfortunately can’t make it to most of his appointments, but he’s open to suggestions about “you should tell them this” or “you should ask this”. I’m just starting to consciously realize what a large, specialized body of knowledge is involved in being the patient.

    7. WeekendsAreBest*

      Some of the other posters mentioned this but I’m also wondering how much of this issue is him being overwhelmed with the reality of his new diagnosis? Is he generally a person that needs guidance on “adulting” or is this situation unusual for him? It might be beneficial to find a support group, facebook group, etc to help him process his feelings.

      I agree going with him for a doctor’s visit to be a support person could help him and you would be there to write down what the doc says. Whenever I pick up new medications, the pharmacist asks if it’s new to me and when I say yes, I get a rundown of when to take it, what to take it with, precautions (like if it makes me drowsy, etc), possible side effects. Is your husband saying “no” when he gets asked this question? Or is he saying yes and then it’s just too much info at one time for him to remember? Sometimes the instructions on the label are minimal bc the assumption is you’ve either spoken to the pharmacist or you’re familiar with the medication. Alternatively, maybe husband can call the pharmacy and ask for the teaching again so he can write down what the pharmacist says. Maybe in-person teaching is too much…

      1. How to be Sick*

        I think a big, big part of it is having to adjust to thinking of himself as A Sick Person. He’s a perfectly competent adult in other areas.

        He’s fine at retaining instructions and warnings if his doctor or the pharmacist volunteer them, and he reads what’s on the bottle, but he doesn’t ask questions, and he doesn’t read the full drug information that gets sent with the new prescriptions.

        1. NancyDrew*

          I have to say this all sounds very odd! Have you had a frank conversation with him about this pattern of behavior?

          1. Samwise*

            Not odd at all, if you’ve never been seriously ill. It’s a huge adjustment. You have to see yourself differently. You interact with the world differently. It’s really scary. It can make a person depressed or anxious, which btw can affect a person’s ability to manage “simple” tasks, to think well, to remember what you need to do…

            And, some people have more tools, so to speak. Some people are more resilient, self reliant, tougher.

        2. WeekendsAreBest*

          It’s definitely an adjustment! Serious illness or chronic disease management changes your daily life, long and short term goals and in little ways that feel endless (sometimes) bc you were once able to do xyz and now you have to take extra time, energy, resource, money to work around it. When you’re healthy, you take for granted how easy it is to get out and about, eat what you want to eat, recovery is as expected/routine, etc…

          All this to say that the impact can be profound in both the mundane daily tasks to “big” lifestyle goals and it’ll take some time and support to change one’s mindset and devote the bandwidth to pivot to the new reality.

          Maybe making a general list of questions for your husband to have handy when he gets new medications so he refers to that list will help him to remember to ask when he picks up his meds. And asking the purpose of his doctor visits so he has a clear understanding then you can maybe suggest questions he should ask doctor. I sometimes avoid asking questions bc of anticipatory fear and not bc the topic or answers are an actual threat. Could that be part of reason why husband is not asking questions or seems reluctant to be knowledgeable/proficient in the diagnosis?

    8. Shutterdoula*

      It started out as a joke, but my daughter made me a literal sticker chart when I was dealing with some big issues and new, complicated medicine routines. (18 new pills and 2 new injections daily – some two pills twice a day, some one pill 3X a day, some with food, some without, etc. thankfully only for about a month until I had surgery) I had alarms on my phone set for 6, 8 & 11 am and 3, 7 and 10pm. Those reminded me that I needed to take meds or do an injection. Then I went to the sticker chart to see what I needed to take and gave myself a gold star for taking the meds.
      Mostly it was having a list for each time of what needed to be done at each time that was helpful, but who doesn’t like giving themself a gold star?

    10. Rocky Coco*

      I’m going to say something harsh. You can’t fix this. You have to focus on your own health. Be supportive but your partner can Google things and make notes and cheat sheets. Don’t hurt yourself trying to help them.

    11. Indolent Libertine*

      Are there any Facebook groups or other online forums for people with his particular illness? You do have to be careful, there are snake oil sales folks out there, but someone here pointed me to a fabulous FB group for hip replacements when I was getting ready for mine and it was invaluable. His doctor might even know of or recommend one. Not feeling like you have to create all the knowledge you need from scratch is really fantastic.

    12. Ellis Bell*

      I disagree that these skills are to be expected or to come naturally; you’re underestimating your own expertise in this area. If you’re really interested in teaching him, it will take time and you can’t teach everything at once. Start with the simplest and most necessary things and allow time for them to become embedded habits before going on to the next things. Comparisons to things he already knows how to do are helpful; is there any other part of his life where he would do research, set schedules, read instructions? If not, then this is truly new ground and start small.

    13. ManagingMedical*

      The problem is there’s no static lust of things to learn for most people. It’s an ever evolving landscape of what’s possible and what isn’t at any given time coupled with an increasing frustration that people don’t understand (especially people who should like doctors, etc). I can tell someone my physical limitations and provide examples thst should be fairly illustrative like I physically can’t crack an egg but the idea is so foreign to people that they still consistency expect me to do stuff much harder than that frequently, with no preparation, and without any special effort. I suspect part of your partner’s problem is this mindset (a combination of it shouldn’t be this hard with a realization that it is that hasn’t been fully internalized).

      Ultimately, it’s up to them to figure out how to handle it. You don’t have to read every insert if you know and ask the right questions – I’m legally blind (predating my other disabilities and most of my chronic illnesses) and I’ve never been able to read them. I ask specific questions about risks and side effects when I’m assigned new meds and hope that’s good enough.

      So I guess if I give you any advice at all, it would be to communicate this will be a lifelong process that will evolve and (hopefully) improve over time and it won’t be ideal at the start. Allow some grace for mistakes – even with the medication unless it’s genuinely life threatening (most medication schedules have some give or can absorb small deviations – your pharmacist can advise which ones can’t) – encourage your partner to work on one thing to start. Asking questions when a new medication is added may be the right place to start, or maybe it’s being more mindful about symptom tracking. Also know some things that work for others won’t work for specific people. I have never successfully kept a food/symptom/whatever journal/tracker and if I try it always turns into a frustrating/stressful failure. I know this and tell medical folks this tactic doesn’t work for me. I am pretty good at jotting down notes about things that are unusual and we use that as a basis for follow up discussions instead. So also know what works for you or other well meaning folks giving advice may genuinely not work for your partner.

  38. rabbaroo*

    I recently became a full-blown crazy plant lady. Any other plant people? I’ve gotten a little overzealous with the propagations, and it’s turning into a jungle. I also chopped my pink princess philodendron, as the newest growth was looking healthy but the rest of the plant was worse for wear; the cutting looks like it’s successfully rooting in water, and I see some nodes activating on the stem of the original plant, so fingers crossed I end up with two plants from this and not zero.

    1. HoundMom*

      I am a crazy plant lady — I have about a hundred house plants. I would love to to be able to propagate with more certainty, but it truly is hit or miss with me.

      When I am having a bad day, taking care of the plant babies helps a lot.

    2. Not That Jane*

      Kind of! We only have about … hmm, a dozen houseplants? But I’m a huge vegetable gardener and even have grown more complicated or uncommon things like flour corn and okra and melons.

      We just got some new tradescantia cuttings from a friend today, and I’m super chuffed about them. I love tradescantias and I’m sort of collecting new varieties now? :D

    3. MissB*

      When starting seeds this spring, I got some cacti-mix seeds, some hen/chicks seeds and rainbow hedgehog cacti seeds.

      Of course I planted allll of the seeds. They grow slowly- like 1/2” a year, so they’re pretty tiny.

      I just transplanted a lot of the seedlings into small pots. I do not have nearly enough small pots, lol.

  39. Falling Diphthong*

    What are you watching, and would you recommend it?

    Tried The Lincoln Lawyer and it was surprisingly engaging. (I’m usually eh on legal dramas.) I like all the characters, and following one long arc mystery for the season plus smaller problems that crop up. It’s nice to see a show where the exes all respect each other and get along.

    I will return to The Old Man, but was really disappointed that the end of season 1 didn’t resolve anything–I really expected things to tie up, and then season 2 would be some of the same characters with a new problem.

    Bakeoff has been great this season.

    2. ampersand*

      Also watching Bakeoff, and it’s been good!

      We’re watching Agatha All Along and…I don’t like it as much as I anticipated. It’s a little disappointing—it doesn’t seem as well made or intriguing as WandaVision. I don’t *not* recommend it but I would temper expectations if you watched WandaVision!

    3. Pieforbreakfast*

      The Old Man is the story continued with some wild turns. Worth it, IMO.

      You might like “The Tourist” on Netflix

    4. Reba*

      Have started Pachinko. It’s gorgeous and SO SAD. I read the novel so I knew it was sad, and indeed it’s extremely sorrowful, lol.

    5. Voter*

      Just finished re-watching The Diplomat (the one with Keri Russell on Netflix) in anticipation of season two, which starts on Halloween. The rewatch totally stood up. It’s a really great show.

      Finished watching parts of the second season of The Rings of Power. MEH. Pretty much lost my interest only a little bit into every episode. I kept watching hoping it would get good but no….

      Resident Alien. I hated the first episode but really liked the series as a whole.

      And if y’all haven’t seen Jury Duty, which came out a year or two ago — it is really great. A guy is put on a “jury” he doesn’t know is totally fake. It’s really amusing and charming.

    6. Emerald*

      I’ve made it to episode six of Love is Blind season seven and it’s almost upsetting how much I am into it.

    7. allathian*

      We’re almost done with Enterprise. The 4th season’s a wild ride, it’s just too bad that the finale’s such a crapshoot.

      Just started watching The Sopranos for the first time. Generally I’m more interested in cops rather than criminals, but giving this one a shot because I really liked both The Wire and Boardwalk Empire.

    8. The OG Sleepless*

      We’re semi-binging The Lincoln Lawyer and we really like it too!

      We’re also slowly watching Yellowstone. It’s very good. For whatever reason, we can’t take binging it. We have to watch one episode every few days and digest it. In a good way. It’s just a lot.

      I’ve been watching Designated Survivor, which I missed the first time around, while I’m on the treadmill. Really enjoying that one too.

    9. Clisby*

      We just watched the first episode of this season’s Dalgliesh.

      I think Murdoch Mysteries is coming along soon.

      Also waiting for more My Life is Murder, Brokenwood, and Midsomer.

    10. dapfloodle*

      Just found out there’s a new season of “Ink Master,” which was a nice surprise. I’d recommend it if you like “Ink Master,” haha, but not otherwise! No more Dave Navarro, Oliver Peck, or Chris Nunez in case those are concerns.

  40. BlueCactus*

    TV show recommendations?

    My partner and I are long distance right now, and one of the things we’ve committed to is having a TV show that we watch together – it gives us a common focus of attention and something to chat about other than our days, which is nice. Unfortunately, we’ve been having a hard time finding a new show after finishing Dungeon Meshi on Netflix (highly recommend). We generally look for fairly light, usually a fantastical or sci-fi element, and good writing. Other things we’ve enjoyed are the first season of the Witcher (probably a bit too dark for my partner), all of Demon Slayer, and the Good Place.

    1. Falling Diphthong*

      I quite enjoyed Dead Boy Detective Agency. Two ghosts have a detective agency that looks into problems for other ghosts.

      The Librarians, in which libraries are of course magical places with teleporting doors to anywhere.

      Medium rather than light, but I quite enjoyed Continuum, a time travel story in which a group of terrorists/freedom fighters zaps themselves to the past, accidentally bringing a few other people, including our protagonist, a (normal person who doesn’t want their neighborhood blown up/cop working for a fascist state). I thought it was good at revealing how the characters had largely chosen their side based on the other side shooting at them. And cogs on all sides can be normal people who just want to live their life. Also enjoyed the 2015 Dark Matter, in which six people wake up on a space ship with no memory of how they got there.

      1. Pieforbreakfast*

        Seconding Resident Alien.
        If you get Peacock, Mrs Davis was fun.
        Bodies, Bodies, Bodies on Netflix wasn’t necessarily light fare but created conversations between my husband and me after watching each episode together.

      2. Blue Cactus*

        I just finished Dead Boy Detective Agency! I will definitely suggest Resident Alien, though my partner will have to deal with all my comments on accuracy :)

    2. Double A*

      Resident Alien on Netflix. Alan Tudik plays an alien that crash lands on Earth and steals the identity of a local doctor. Light but with heart.

      2. Blue Cactus*

        I’ve actually seen Good Omens (I am a huge fan of the book), and it’s the perfect tone. Thank tou!

    4. Dark Macadamia*

      Based on your description I was about to suggest The Good Place but since you included that, how about Pushing Daisies? It’s about a man who can temporarily wake the dead and uses his ability to solve murders, but it’s very quirky and colorful and more whimsical comedy than detective show.

    7. dapfloodle*

      Have you seen “What We Do in the Shadows?” I am a total horror wimp (as in, I don’t watch horror movies at all because if I do I have nightmares for years), and nothing in it has been too scary for me, and it’s quite funny and even endearing at times. Also, I dunno if the “Dirk Gently” series is available anywhere, but if it is it also seems like it’d fit the bill!

  41. Can't Sit Still*

    Pajamas! I know lots of people don’t bother with PJs anymore, but I’m still hoping for assistance. I am AFAB, on the border between straight sizing and plus sizing, with a generous bosom and booty, and short arms and legs, a longwinded way of saying menswear doesn’t fit me well, even for loungewear.

    I am looking for comfortable, warm pajamas with a pocket/pockets, ideally in natural fabrics with a bright color or pattern, with long sleeves, a crew neck, a top that doesn’t ride up (no crop tops) and jogger or long john type bottoms. I prefer French terry or jersey knit and dislike fleece anything. Smartwool base layers meet all the requirements except pockets. I don’t care where the pocket is located. I use a cane, so pockets are no longer optional.

    Regular sweats are fine, as long as they aren’t primarily polyester or Lyocell. I’ve lost enough weight now that my old comfy PJs just slide right off and the tops have way too much fabric to be comfortable to sleep in. I’ve gone down approximately one dress size per year over the past 4 years, so no worries about the new PJs not fitting anytime soon.

      1. Bluebell Brenham*

        I just ordered some of their pajamas and the legs are just too long, even in petite sizing. Plus the fabric didn’t feel that soft. I’ll be returning them. I didn’t order flannel though.

      2. Can't Sit Still*

        Lands End is nothing but wide legged, v-necked polyester and modal, unfortunately. LL Bean has cotton and crew necks, but no slim fit pants or jogger style.

    3. Generic Name*

      I agree with the other suggestions above and will add a suggestion for Eddie Bauer. I’m shaped similar to you, and also have the middle-aged spread. I used to be rail thin and could wear a boys xl, so remembering I have huge boobs and hips now is a challenge sometimes, ha ha. I’ve found that stores that offer classic cuts for an older (I guess that would include me now) crowd work better than the younger/more athletic brands.

    4. Not A Manager*

      I have the Pajamagram brand flannel night shirt. It’s 100% cotton flannel, very soft, and I love it. It has one breast pocket that I definitely use, but it’s not very large.

      IDK how you feel about Amazon, but it looks like you can buy women’s flannel PJs as a set, or you can buy the bottoms separately. The women’s PJ’s don’t have pockets in the pants, but the men’s do. If it were me, I would buy them as separates and get the men’s pants and the ladies top. Wash them before you alter them in any way, they do shrink a bit.

    5. The Other Dawn*

      Since you mentioned looking at Smartwool, I’ll recommend wool&. The prices seem to be about the same. Look for the aspen jogger or cascade jogger. Both have pockets. They also have t-shirts in long sleeves with a crew neck.

      If you haven’t visted the website, it’s wooland dot com.

    6. My Brain is Exploding*

      cudlduds? They come in different sizes and fabrics and I have a pair of bottoms that have pockets and a knit cuff, so if they are too long, they won’t drag.

    8. Chaordic One*

      You might look at “Duluth Trading Co.” Many of their pajama tops and bottoms are sold separately, but they do have some pajama sets and quite a few of their pajama bottoms have pockets.

      1. Retired now*

        It’s been a while, but I got great pajamas that fit this exact description – and I am very close to you in size – from JCPenney, the Liz Claiborne brand. There’s actually not a Liz Claiborne brand anymore, Penney’s brought it, but their pajamas are great.

    9. Two cents*

      This may be a silly suggestion, but it is absolutely something I would do so I want to throw it out there: would you be willing to buy a needle and thread and sew a pocket on to your existing, otherwise perfect PJs? Pockets are relatively easy to add on the outside and don’t require major sewing skill or a machine. I would probably cannibalize old PJs for the fabric if I cared about it matching, but anything strong enough would do and can add some pizzaz. And then you get to pick the size and placement of the pocket, too. This is a project I would totally do in the evening in front of the TV, so I wouldn’t even lose brain time during the day.

      Might not be your jam, though, in which case I’m crossing my fingers that you find the right thing pre made in a shop!

      1. Can't Sit Still*

        I was focused on seam pockets, but you’re right! A patch pocket would work with the right fabric. I have sashiko thread, which is even easier to use, plus it actually would be a practical application where I could practice my stitches. I could even do a kangaroo pocket on the tops. Or both!

        Yay, thank you! I get hyper focused on the trees and miss the forest completely sometimes.

        1. Two cents*

          Oh yay, I’m glad I was helpful! And don’t we all focus too much on the trees sometimes. :) I wish you much pocket success!

    10. nonprofit director*

      I like Garnet Hill. Most of their fabrics are natural and you can purchase tops and bottoms separately.

    11. Hazel*

      It’s actually a great time of year to look for fun pjs as all the stores get them in for Christmas. If flannel works, check out Old Navy flannel jogger pj bottoms on the website – they have a pocket but are sold separately from the tops which are waffle cotton; or you could pair them with any long sleeved T-shirt. They come in petite. They also have flannel sets which show the model’s hand in pocket, but they aren’t jogger gathered bottoms. They also have joggers and sweatshirts called So Cosy which are listed as 90% cotton.

    12. Seashell*

      I am short and not slender, and I tend to go with pajamas with capri pants. They’re longer on me than they would be on average height people, but not so long that they drag on the ground.

      I usually get pajamas at Kohl’s, but I don’t know if they have much in natural fabrics.

    1. Chauncy Gardener*

      If we’re not having company, I like to make a big pot of chicken korma and homemade naan. It’s very festive, delicious and time consuming to make, so it’s great for a cold day where we’re (immediate family) just hanging around together but want to eat something special.

      1. Vanessa*

        We read the best Christmas pageant ever and I just found out there is a new movie version coming out in November. I’m so excited.

        1. Pam Adams*

          I have a bunch of kids Christmas books, plus Connie Willis’ Miracle collection. I pull them all out and read them at the holiday.

      1. HoundMom*

        Cutting down the tree at the same farm we go to for multiple pick your own things and then going through the ornaments. The ornaments are all handmade from the various places we have been so each one is a memory. It is funny what my (now adult) children remember fondly (and how awful some of their taste were as children).

    4. Chaordic One*

      As a child I absolutely loathed potatoes while my parents, and especially my father, absolutely loved them. “They’re low in calories and so nutritious!” they would say. But they were also oh so bland and tasteless unless you add something to them that does have a whole bunch of calories. (Like butter or gravy.) When I was 12 or so it occurred to me that Santa Claus might want to put a potato in someone’s Christmas stocking. And ever since then potatoes have been among the things that show up in our Christmas stockings.

    5. Six Feldspar*

      On Boxing Day we make rice paper rolls out of the Christmas leftovers – it’s generally hot enough to not want anything heavier, it uses the leftovers differently, it mostly needs shelf stable ingredients so we can buy them before the Christmas rush, and it’s just engaging enough to be entertaining while we relax.

    6. Fellow Traveller*

      We listen to the audiobook version of Best Christmas Pageant Ever, narrated by Elaine Stritch while driving to see the Christmas displays at Longwood Gardens every December.
      Also:
      Christmas Eve Masss.
      Tuba Christmas
      Reading The Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve- we have several different versions and we take turns each reading a page and then we compare pictures.
      And ALL the Hallmark Holiday movies we can fit in.

    7. Sloanicota*

      Lately I’ve become the one to buy the stocking stuffers (there are no kids at this point on that side of the family) and I find it really fun. The gifts are low pressure, silly, not expensive – I’m mainly looking for good volume and light enough weight haha, sometimes it’s office supplies or fun little things from local stores I always want to buy more from. I start picking up stuff around this time of year (it takes a LOT of small things to fill both my parent’s giant stockings) and keep going until Christmas. I especially like doing it because for 40 years my mom bought the stuffers and my dad – sweet but a little oblivious – never bought anything for hers, so she filled her own and always had visibly less than everyone else. So I make sure she gets one full of surprises now.

      1. Sloanicota*

        Part of the reason I like the stockings is because we have pretty high gift expectations in my family, despite my repeated appeals to take it down a notch. Our cultural tradition is that the gift be *very* thoughtful and personal, beautifully wrapped, and available to open during the Official Ceremony (doesn’t have to be that expensive but has to have some heft to it). I am always stressed by this expectation – for all five people, twice a year (birthdays and Christmas, with the birthdays all unfortunately clustered close-ish to Christmas, argh), whether we’re together or not – and I am *really* trying to get out of the additional Mothers/Father’s Day plusup – so the fun, lighthearted stocking gifts are a balm to me.

        1. Chocolate Teapot*

          I always like a slice of Stollen for breakfast on Christmas morning, plus there are various things I buy in the run up from Christmas markets (gingerbread etc.) I happen to be fortunate to have good markets near me, and one has a stall selling mugs of coffee and hot chocolate, but for a supplement, you can have a shot from a selection (rum, cognac, vodka, Baileys…).

    8. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

      We have the open one gift on Christmas Eve tradition.

      My parents would give me and my sibling a new Christmas ornament every year, so we had a bunch of ornaments with good memories when we moved out and had our own trees.

      When my dad was alive, he would hide money every year – in the new ornament, inside a small jewelry box with a pair of cheap earrings, in a book, and (his crowning achievement) inside a walnut carefully cracked open and resealed with glue and put in the stockings.

      1. Clisby*

        We did this too – open one gift on Christmas Eve. Also, our big Christmas dinner was on Christmas Eve, and anybody who wanted to go to church normally did it on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day was for lying around, opening other presents, eating stocking candy, and snacking on leftovers.

    9. Vanessa*

      Also husband makes these amazing Australian style sausage puff pastry for breakfast. It’s pretty easy. Can be prepped the night before. When the kids wake up we pop them in the oven and they are ready for after Presents.

    10. Might Be Spam*

      It isn’t Christmas unless there’s Sprecher root beer under the tree. We started getting it because it doesn’t have caffeine (which caused problems for my 4-yr old.) It evolved into a whole Thing.
      We didn’t explain it enough to my daughter’s boyfriend. He wound up thinking that I really like root beer and I don’t. I get myself the cherry cola and everyone else gets root beer.

      My son is OK with caffeine now, but it is unthinkable to not have root beer under the tree.
      One of the reasons I drive 3 days to visit my son, is to bring him a root beer supply, because Sprecher isn’t available where he lives. We are not affiliated with the company, but I live near the brewery and they load my car for me.

    11. MissB*

      Christmas brunch with my siblings and their families. It’s not usually on Christmas, or even on Christmas Eve. We just aim for a day sometime before Christmas when all the fam will be in town. My two siblings live near me along with a niece, so we rotate hosting responsibilities.

      It is much easier than Christmas dinner. Lots of light hearted conversations with plenty of mimosas.

    12. epicdemiologist*

      One I invented! The Ceremonial Reading of the Snotty Footnote, which accompanies Good King Wenceslas in the Oxford Book of Carols. “This rather confused narrative….” It’s all about how dumb the story is, and how the editors hope the delightful tune will return to its proper set of words (“Spring has now unwrapp’d the flow’rs”). Big ol’ PHPPT to all gatekeepers and anyone who doesn’t think “hey, take care of the poor” is an appropriate Christmas message.

    13. Bereavement Bear*

      My husband and I like to drive around and look at Christmas lights… pretty normal, right? Except that we have to make sure to listen to McCartney II during the drive. There are traditional Christmas songs/albums on the playlist too, but it’s not the yearly Christmas excursion without that one. When we were usually at my mom’s place on Christmas Day, we’d leave to go back to our place sometime in the afternoon, and our usual tradition became to split a bottle of decent red wine at home afterward. At a book club gift exchange a few years back I was given a garish bedazzled Christmas-y wine glass that is nowhere near my taste, but I bust it out for Christmas night regardless, then carefully hand-wash it on Boxing Day and put it up for another year. I’m sure we have other ones, but I’m trying not to think too hard about the ones that directly involved my mom since it’ll be the first Christmas without her and all.

  43. Let's blow this joint*

    Favorite joint/bone/cartilage to pop? I have always loved cracking the thumb joint that connects my thumb to my wrist. It hurts so so good. I also love popping the joint where my baby toe meets my foot–so the joint below the first joint of the toe. My boyfriend pops his sternum and it upsets me so much but he loves it. What is your favorite?

    1. ecnaseener*

      Ooh, hard to choose one. My right ring finger, left thumb, and right big toe are probably the top contenders.

    2. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      This is isn’t popping a joint per se, but if I point my toes on my left foot, then further flex my toes up and down, the front of my ankle makes sounds like I’m twisting bubble wrap. Doesn’t happen on the right side, just the left.

    3. Hroethvitnir*

      Definitely way down my spine just above the sacrum. I can’t always get it, but it’s such a satisfying thunk and feeling of relief.

      It seems to tie into my hip stiffness and at least temporarily alleviate it.

    4. AGD*

      My joints don’t pop! I’ve never understood this.

      I do get tendons snapping somewhere at the tops of my legs if I’ve been crouching for a while before standing up. That feels painful-then-enjoyable.

    5. anon24*

      I love the sternum pop too. It’s so hard to do but it’s instant relief across my chest, shoulders, and upper back, and it feels like it makes it so much easier to breathe for a bit.

    6. The Dude Abides*

      On my own – I can use my right big toe to pop the toe next to it, and can do this near-perpetually. I can also bend or extend qmy right knee at just the right angle and pop it multiple times per day.

      When I get adjusted – upper back.

    7. Jenesis*

      I can’t pop joints on command, but sometimes my knees get stiff and it feels satisfying to do a few bicycle kicks to pop them back into shape.

  44. LMLee*

    I dreamed about AAM last night. It was strange because I was straight-up just talking to Alison and she was like “I don’t have any content for this afternoon” which would never happen haha and then I … offered my sister’s services as an improv musician? “She can do a live video and take requests!” I said, and the idea was received very enthusiastically.

    No idea why I thought that would be a good fit for this blog. And I would never shill my sister out like that but she is actually a very talented improv musician and in the dream (when I got past her surly 6 kids) she was down. I guess I’m better in dream-world at supporting her career than I am in real life.

    (I am not making content suggestions for the blog.)

    1. Six Feldspar*

      I would pay a significant amount of money to see Whose Line Is It Anyway or Dropout do some of the stories here! Some of them would fit right in to the character prompts…

    2. Shiny Penny*

      What a great dream! I was cackling, reading that!

      Coincidentally, I had a dream last night in which I sternly took someone to task over a) being a poor leader, b) failing to support his dependents/allies, and c) failing to maintain correct and essential boundaries with adversaries. I concluded by firmly advising him to read Ask A Manager every single day going forward, in order to most quickly remediate his egregious deficits.
      It was a very polite but scathing speech, in which every word fell exactly into place and I was (in the dream) gloriously fluent and authoritative. And, obviously, giving great advice!

      (I also battled a goose that turned into a bear, but that was later on in the night. Grabbing hold of the neck of a goose is a good beginning to winning that fight, but the same is not so true when battling a bear. I was still doing pretty well when the dog woke me up, though!)

  45. AnotherSarah*

    I’m wondering if anyone has any good and easy methods for keeping track of personal expenses so I don’t go over a certain amount. For example let’s say I net 1k a month and have $400 of regular bills and want to put aside $100 for savings and some of my expenses are cash (coffee etc) and some are on my card but some get reimbursed. That means I’m spending over my limit but but after reimbursement I’m under. Basically, how can I make sure my non-regular bills + ATM withdrawals total less than $500? Is the easiest way just keeping a sheet that updates when I add a new expense?

    2. vargas*

      Can you:(1) put only reimbursable expenses on the card (2) take the cash you’re willing to spend out of the ATM. then when you’ve paid your bills and spent your cash, that’s it for the month. Spending money as cash gives you a visceral sense of where you are in spending for the month.

    3. Formerly in HR*

      Advice out there is to pay yourself first. I.e. transfer/ deposit the planned savings immediately after receiving the payment, before paying bills. This part can be automated and then the goal is achieved every month. Then the rest can go in a simple Excel, for several months, for tracking as well as for being aware of balance. At the end of each day/ week add the expenditures made in cash and by card; use simple formulas to sum each category and calculate balance.

      1. Is it Friday yet?*

        I use Excel for my overall budget that gets updated 2-4 times a month. And I also keep a Note in my phone with my weekly spend amount that I can update as I spend money. So for something reimbursement, I’d note that but not take it out of my weekly allowed spending.

    4. Literally a Cat*

      My method definitely do not work for everyone, what I do is calculate out $40/day “free to do anything I like” money, take it out as cash, and throw the rest into my offset account. The important thing is no cheating: if I have left overs for a fortnight, I don’t confiscate it off myself, but have the option to splurge next week.

      The freedom of not over controlling myself means it doesn’t matter if I overspent a day, as long as I don’t overspend every day. I feel less micromanagey about myself, and in turn it’s more plausible to stick to it, than strict write everything down.

    5. Generic Name*

      Some banks let you have an unlimited amount of sub-accounts. Maybe put the amount of money you want to spend in its own account and withdraw from that?

  46. WoodswomanWrites, disliking potlucks*

    Other threads have gotten me thinking about potlucks socially and at work. While the concept of having people all bring a dish to share is really popular, personally I dislike prepping food, even a basic fruit salad. My default is to buy sparkling unsweetened fruit juices which are welcome for people like me who don’t drink alcohol and offers a fancy alternative. That works fine for everyone.

    I’m fortunate that I know people who bring all kinds of delicious food to potlucks and are conscious of having alternatives for people with dietary restrictions. Even though I always eat well and benefit from the creativity and generosity of others, I still get a sinking feeling when invited to these events.

    To all non-fans of potlucks, let’s come out of the shadows!

    1. Generic Name*

      All the parties my friends and I throw (well, most of them) are potlucks. I usually have no problem throwing a salad or something, but this time I just wasn’t feeling fixing something. So I bought a bunch of pre-cut pineapple and sprinkled Tajin on half of it, and I’m also bringing premade shrimp cocktail. We do potlucks to spread the pain of providing food and beverages, not to brag about what great cooks we are. If you were my friend and you told me this I’d tell you I wanted you more than a creative dish and rolls or chips and salsa are more than welcome. As is sparkling juice. I do drink, but I like alternating alcohol with nonalcoholic beverages. I’ve also been known to cut cider with flavored soda so the alcohol content is pretty weak.

    2. Peanut Person*

      In college, I went to a small potluck BBQ. I spent about $20 on ingredients (considering my average was $2 a meal, that meant I went all-out) plus the time to assemble. (I can’t remember what I made.) I got some compliments… but so did the person who went out and bought pre-made bean salad from Wal-Mart! And he got to take back his leftovers.

      Since then, I’ve tried a couple times to do the homemade thing, but the above experience has been repeated. Going forward, I only want to do homemade if the rule is for everyone to be homemade!

      And a serious thank you to the people who try and accommodate for food preferences or allergies! It sucks to be the person who “I will make something at least I know I can eat,” and then end up eating only my item + the veggie tray. Which is what happened to me at my family event last summer.

      1. WoodswomanWrites*

        No kidding on the folks who are accommodating. It’s so nice to know there will be something vegetarian for me, and for others there will no doubt be something vegan and likely gluten-free as well.

    3. Chaordic One*

      Theoretically, I don’t have anything against potlucks and in the past I’ve really enjoyed cooking things for my coworkers. However, lately, my personal life has had me very occupied and busy. The thought of making something to take to work for my coworkers to enjoy just seems like one more burdensome hassle on my already very full plate and I kind of resent it. I’ve resorted to buying overpriced (and usually mediocre) deli food from my supermarket. Often it will end up being uneaten and I end up taking it home.

    4. Sloanicota*

      Yeah, this is kind of culture-dependent in my friend group. I have one circle where there’s a lot of thwarted cooks who really want to make fancy recipes but don’t have a general use for them, so they occasionally like to make fussy dishes for a potluck; that’s their joy, and that’s fine, but if that’s the order of the day I’ll stick to a big bag of chips or something, since that’s not a space I’m looking to “compete” in. Those people actually just want appreciation and admiration so I am serving that role when I roll up with paper plates and chips! Other times it’s genuinely a “spread the pain” of food prep situation, so I might try to make something easy and hearty or at least filling – chili or something, but I’m not holding it up as some kind of exemplar of excellence. For work I stick to store bought, because there’s always too much anyway and I don’t want to be the person who sends 46 coworkers to the hospital.

      1. Chaordic One*

        This brings back memories of the “To Die For” chocolate brownies and chocolate cheese cakes that were popular back in the 1990s. The people who brought them really did like them, but I couldn’t stand them. They were so rich I could only eat a tiny little bit of them. And they were messy to eat. You inevitably dropped something and made a mess or stained your clothes. They were just more trouble than they were worth.

    5. Clara Bowe*

      I do love cooking for potlucks, sometimes. Other times I am just. EH.

      If it is a work potluck, I just sign up to bring flatware/paper plates/napkins/etc. Aldi has those at a reasonable price and they tend to last for a few gatherings. Plus, they are easier to haul on the train.

    6. Jenesis*

      My go-to for potlucks is to be the person in charge of bringing paper plates/plastic cups/utensils/other “boring” things that aren’t fun party dishes but are nonetheless needed to have a successful event. I don’t even cook for myself, much less other people.

      If the people hosting the potluck are the kind who like to make fun party dishes, they will probably appreciate someone taking on the “boring” role. If the people hosting the potluck are doing it because Mandatory Fun and aren’t excited about it either, then they can’t hold my non-excitement against me. If I am somehow forced to bring a food dish, it will be a generic vegetable/cheese and meat platter from the grocery store.

    7. Rara Avis*

      I like to bake but am a reluctant cook. If I don’t have time to bake something for a potluck, watermelon is my go-to. And I love it when someone brings fun drinks!

  47. Bibliovore*

    How do I fix this?
    My husband’s brother and his brother’s family has stopped speaking to me since my husband died. My husband spoke or texted his brother almost every day. They were very close. I wasn’t so much. Just not a lot of common interests and I work full-time- they and the husband were retired.
    They crossed some boundaries. My sister-in-law asked for my husband’s car two days after he died. I found his brother going through Mr. Bibliovore’s desk (I asked him to stop), his cousin found the brother going through Mr. Bibliovore’s dresser (in our bedroom) that evening. They showed up on my door step uninvited the next morning. (I asked my brother to send them away as I was weeping uncontrollably and needed to get myself together to go to the bank. They live ten minutes away) They told my brother, that it was okay, they would just let themselves in while we were out. He asked them not to.
    We did invite them to dinner that week and invited them to participate in the service but they declined (mother, father, 2 adult kids) I offered and gave them Mr. Bibliovore’s things that I thought they would find meaningful.
    It is now three years later. I have seen them and interacted pleasantly at family occasions (Thanksgiving etc) Unless I initiate the conversation, we have no contact. I have dropped off meals when there was an illness in their home. Other than that basically they ghosted me.
    This year I am finally ready to do a family meal and will be doing Thanksgiving (well-know to be Mr. Bibliovore’s favorite holiday) of course I invited them. I got a pleasant text in response to the invite.
    Now, I heard second hand that the sister-in-law told one of the cousins that the niece will not be inviting me to her wedding in December (this is a thirty-year-old adult) because of the way I treated her father when Mr. Bibliovore died. Again his brother and wife have not expressed anything negative to me.

    As I write this, it is so convoluted, I don’t know what to do. My feelings were hurt when it seemed that they weren’t speaking to me but I reminded myself that “hurt people, hurt people.”

    My friends tell me to leave it alone. Let go.
    Part of my traumatic grief is memory loss. I really have very little memory of the whole first year.
    I know that the worst apology is “could you tell me what I did to hurt you so I can apologize?”
    Do I contact the niece and ask if she wants to talk? Truthfully, I do not want to go to the wedding, AND I don’t want this to become a “thing” when she should get to focus on herself and the joyous occasion. I sent an appropriate amount of cash for gift as that is what the couple registered for.

    It just makes me so sad and I wish I could fix this. Thoughts?

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      Don’t get caught up in games of telephone. You literally are hearing this stuff about the niece being mad through third-hand gossip at best. But if they really aren’t interested in keeping up a relationship, since you pointed out you were never close, you can’t force them to.

      My husband and his brother are close. I am not close to his brother. I would not put any effort into maintaining that relationship if something were to happen to my husband, because it’s not my relationship to maintain.

    2. RagingADHD*

      If you don’t want to go to the wedding, Im not sure what there is to fix?

      But if you want to maintain a relationship with your niece, just reach out to her directly at intervals, and don’t mention the issue of the wedding invitation at all.

      It’s very likely that the brother being mad about “the way you treated him” just refers to your very reasonable response to his awful behavior. But if you want to open that can of works, you could send a note and say that it has always bothered you how the strain of the immediate aftermath of Mr B’s death seems to have driven a wedge between you, and you’d like to get together to talk things out if they are willing.

      Maybe some good will come of it. Maybe not. If you were never close to begin with, you’re not likely to be close now.

      1. Jenesis*

        I agree, Bibliovore, I don’t think there is anything to “fix.”

        It sounds like you are grieving two things: first your husband, but second the “family relationship” with your in-laws that appears to have died when your husband died. It’s okay to grieve, and to wish for what might have been. But right now, you admit that you weren’t close to them, you don’t have much if anything in common, they never reach out to invite you to things, and you don’t even want to go to the most recent thing they didn’t invite you to anyway. It sounds like they have decided what relationship they want to have with you, as an individual – which is no relationship – and the best thing you can do for the both of you is to reciprocate.

    3. jm*

      You haven’t done anything wrong-they did. Don’t beat yourself up. If you are able to have a superficial relationship, that’s good enough for now.

    4. Bazzais10thisyear*

      I didn’t like your brother in law, when your husband died. I still don’t like him and his family. He never said what he was looking or that Mr Bibliovore had promised something to him on his death. He just thought he was entitled to go through stuff and take what he wanted. If you had allowed them in when you were out, they would of taken everything, it wouldn’t of mattered whether they had room or not to put it.

      It sounds like you have a good group of friends. You have mentioned and spoken of them fondly. If you have to be the one to initiate contact with brother in law and family to get together, just stop as they’re not doing this in return. I’m sorry but I think your friends are right.

      3. Anono-me*

        “I offered and gave them Mr. Bibliovore’s things that I thought they would find meaningful.” I am sorry, but to be blunt; I think from what you have shared about the behavior of this person that the problem is you assuming he wanted meaningful not valuable.

        Maybe think about how much of your disappointment about this situation is that you want these people in your life for themselves and how much is it that these were Mr B’s family and you want to maintain that bit of connecion to him?

        Also, maybe the niece isn’t inviting you for one of a million other reasons or maybe she will invite you. (Or maybe she head a different version of the your interactions with her father. ) 3rd+ hand gossip is not very reliable.

        If you want to open the possibility of a relationship with any of them going forward, I say send Holiday Cards with a few handwritten sentences and don’t ask for or do anything more. Maybe in the spring, invite someone that you feel more compatible with to a flower show or other very low stakes outdoor thing that you would enjoy solo.

        1. Ginger Cat Lady*

          I think your point that he was looking for things that were valuable (and therefore sellable) rather than meaningful is spot on. His behavior was likely a money grab and that’s why he reacted poorly to not getting to rummage around.

      4. WellRed*

        Yes, reading this brought back the anger I felt when you posted about these awful people at the time.

    5. Comma Angelica*

      There’s nothing to fix here. I’m sorry you’re sad, but that may just be something you have to process and deal with. These are people you were never close to, who behaved badly towards you at a difficult time. You don’t have to have a particular elationship with them. They don’t have to have a particular relationship with you. And the niece gets to decide who to invite to her wedding, and if she doesn’t have a close relationship with you or feels unhappy about things that happened in the past, she gets to make that call.

      Don’t try to manage everyone else’s feelings about this stuff. They feel how they feel and they’ll decide to do whatever they choose. You aren’t responsible for fixing things you didn’t break.

      Let it go is great advice here. Maybe try reflecting on why you don’t seem to want to do that. What are you trying to accomplish here? Why do you feel responsible for all of this?

    6. NotBatman*

      If you consider your brother-in-law a valued friend you’d like to keep around, then I think the thing to do is to reach out to him directly. Something like a text to the effect of “Hi Jim, I wanted to see how you were doing. I know that following Mr. Bibliovore’s passing we both came into conflict more than we wanted to, which is one of those awful things that’s common during grief. I am sorry if I communicated badly at any point during those hard days. That said, you were a wonderful part of Mr. Bibliovore’s life and I’d love to continue to have you as a friend and a link to him. Would you be in for that? Lots of love, Bibliovore.”

      None of what you describe is your fault or warrants an apology from you. But as my dad always said: sometimes you gotta choose if you want to be in the right or if you want to be in the relationship. And if that means sometimes saying “I’m sorry for the impact my words had on you” after having done nothing wrong, then there are some loved ones out there who are worth doing that once or twice.

    7. Ellis Bell*

      I think the goals here are understandably a little muddled, so I’m going to theorise a couple of the goals you might be wanting to achieve; only you can know which, if any, apply:
      1) To have a closer relationship with the brother than in the past because you were both close to your husband and you feel that should, somehow create a bond of mutual loss.
      2) To have a closer relationship with the brother now because your husband isn’t here to maintain this link, and you feel you should do this for him.
      3) Losing these relationships, even if they were never strong, feels like one more loss, one more change you’re not in charge of, and you want to stem the tide of people being being lost to you.
      4) You want to make doubly sure you didn’t do anything hurtful or objectionable during a time when your memory wasn’t reliable.
      5) You felt mystifyingly snubbed in their reaction to you, and now you feel there is a possibility of solving this most perplexing mystery if people are talking about it in concrete terms.
      6) You want to know whether these are good people or not. These are people who were trying to go through your husband’s belongings without your consent when you were at your very lowest; maybe they were just looking for keepsakes rather than valuables, but you must have felt deeply violated by such entitlement and ignorance at such a time. They don’t seem to have approached you on any level as someone who was grieving and in need of comfort; ironically this level of thoughtlessness tends to make us feel like we must be the one who has done something wrong to them.

      1. bibliovore*

        Wow. All of the above. I have been perseverating about this for a few weeks now. I talked to my therapist but all he said was that I put out reasonable boundaries and they didn’t like that and that I couldn’t fix it. And yet if that was all that was going on, why was I still thinking about it so much? I hesitated bring it here because this is the opposite of “light break room chat”.
        Thank you for taking the time to unweave the tangled thoughts I was having.
        I feel an incredible lightness about the situation now.
        Mr. Bibliovore has one other brother who I talk with a few times a week who lives cross-country. I do not want to discuss this with him nor have I said anything about it to him at all. We have a good relationship.
        I suddenly reminded that I shouldn’t go to the hardware store for oranges. Maybe that was what I was trying to do?

        1. Observer*

          I suddenly reminded that I shouldn’t go to the hardware store for oranges. Maybe that was what I was trying to do?

          That’s an EXCELLENT analogy.

          I’m glad that you seem to be seeing your way forward here.

        2. Ellis Bell*

          Yeah. I won’t say that his brother and his family are monsters, I’m sure they’re grieving and miss Mr Bibliovore, but I think their characters are unimpressive and not really up to the standards of your existing friendships or what you’re used to. Sadly, I’ve seen this vulture of grief type behaviour before, where they descend uninvited on a person’s things like this, even when they have no claim and there aren’t really any valuables worth speaking of; I don’t know where this urge to claim stuff comes from, but you didn’t cause it. Without a basic level of character, or Mr Bibliovore’s influence they don’t have any reason to be human or empathetic to you, and I honestly wouldn’t trust them, or put too much stock in their opinion of you. I would trust your memory more than I would trust these people. Your memory maybe might have hidden something from you, but you know these people were hiding something from you. When people show you who they are, believe them.

    8. Texan In Exile*

      I am so horrified at your experience – “My sister-in-law asked for my husband’s car two days after he died. I found his brother going through Mr. Bibliovore’s desk…his cousin found the brother going through Mr. Bibliovore’s dresser….that evening. They showed up on my door step uninvited the next morning….They told my brother, that it was okay, they would just let themselves in while we were out.” – that I don’t know if anything can be fixed.

      If it can be fixed, it needs to happen from their end. They are the ones who did it wrong. Who shows up right after a loved one has died to take that person’s stuff? The only showing up should have been for communal grieving.

      I am so sorry you had to go through this. You should not have had to experience this.

      1. Generic Name*

        I completely agree with this. Bibliovore, you didn’t do anything wrong, and from an outsider perspective, your in-laws behaved poorly. At best they were gauche and money grubbing, at worts they were trying to rob you, the widow, of your legal possessions. The reason they reacted poorly to your offering of sentimental items is that they were not acting out of sentiment. They were acting out of greed and wanted to take items of value. You are kind to want to repair the relationship, but they wronged you. They owe you an apology.

    9. Observer*

      How do I fix this?

      You can’t. This is not about anything you did and you cannot “fix” other people and their issues. Especially since they are not talking to you and just gossiping with others, which also means that you really don’t have any information.

      My friends tell me to leave it alone. Let go.

      I think that they are right. Either your niece will invite you or not. If she does not invite you, realize that this is her issue to deal with.

      I’m so sorry you are dealing with this.

  48. WoodswomanWrites*

    Thanks to everyone who provided outdoor suggestions for my visit when I was volunteering in southwestern Michigan. I stayed with a family member’s friends in South Haven and it turned out that my volunteering took up most of my time there. Happily, I got to spend a bunch of time in St. Joseph neighborhoods which commenters had recommended. It’s a beautiful town for sure.

    I wanted to spend time with my hosts so my free time was otherwise limited, but I did get to visit a local forested park for a hike, the name of which I can’t recall, and it turned out that my hosts’ place was spectacular enough that I didn’t feel motivated to go far. They put me up in an apartment above their garage with a gorgeous view and I could walk down a couple flights of steps to their own private beach at Lake Michigan. It was paradise.

    And I got to indulge in Michigan apples. I so miss those in California, and brought some back. Yum.

    1. Finnish Toast*

      oh wow, thanks for reminding me about South Haven! I’m originally from St Louis and we used to drive there for vacations. Loved going into “town” and the beach. One year we visited Holland (Michigan), I still have a souvenir wooden shoe and windmill at my parents’ house. Great memories!

  49. Is a cat your child?*

    My local newspaper carries the Heloise column, which is a combination of useful life hacks, pointless / totally obvious wannabe life hacks, and one item per day about the cute thing someone’s cat or dog does – almost all of this is submitted by readers with an occasional entry from Heloise.

    Today’s pet tale felt kind of creepy to me because the OP used the term “my daughter” to refer to their cat, which I only realized a sentence or two later. Do people now refer to their pets as “my daughter” or, I suppose, “my son”? Could it be a riff on “childless cat lady”? I’d appreciate that, but my impression has been that people who submit “my cute pet story” to Heloise are quite in earnest about it.

    1. RagingADHD*

      I have seen a lot of “my son” and “my child” in reference to pets on social media for a couple of years now, but it predates the Vance comment about childless cat ladies.

    2. Six Feldspar*

      I’ve seen it used long before the childless cat lady remark, there’s also “furbaby” which I first saw more than ten years ago.

      I wouldn’t use either of those terms myself mainly because a cat would feel more like a housemate to me, or an eccentric great aunt/uncle/cousin!

    3. Maggie*

      I only say it with a couple people but yes I call my dog my son (obviously YES I realize it’s not the same as a human son but I do say it)

    4. allathian*

      My parents never directly referred to their two cats as their kids, but they did do so indirectly. The cats were kättens from the same litter and called them my sister’s and my furry brethren as a joke, but only with us.

    5. Literally a Cat*

      I’m extremely not maternal, and I would not use this term. I don’t mind people I know saying it if I know them well, but I wouldn’t write this to a local newspaper.

      1. NotBatman*

        Yes! I made jokes all the time about the family dog being my parents’ favorite child, and about our recent vet bill being “to provide for the children,” but I’d never use those terms when talking to strangers. It risks being confusing at best and disrespectful at worst.

        1. Literally a Cat*

          I found it can be disrespectful for people with children, but also essentially dimishes my own agency of choosing to not have children. If my animals are like children, no way I’d have them.

    6. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      I never refer to my dogs as my children but my husband and I (both childfree) both refer to myself as their mama. I do refer to them as each other’s sisters, as in “No, you can’t go over there til your sister finishes her supper.” And we never refer to him as their dad or father – we are Mama and Misser Beardy Face Man, when we are being silly and either of us is talking for the dogs, because yes, we both do that too. To his cats, we are The Puppy Lady and Box-Cleaning Guy.

      So no, I don’t know *why* “daughter” would be a step too far, as I clearly anthropomorphize my pets to an absurd degree, but I agree, it would be too much for me, the same way calling my husband their daddy would be.

    7. sswj*

      Ugh, no.
      I detest “furbaby”, and while I occasionally refer to the pet herd as ‘the kids’ they are in no way my children. I’ve never wanted children, if I did I would have found a way to have them in my life.

      What I want and have is a household that includes animals. They are my friends first and foremost, and my family in that I am responsible for them. So, my daughter/son/baby? Nope, never.
      Dear friends? Yes, absolutely and with wholehearted love.

    8. Falling Diphthong*

      When “life hacks” became a thing (the aughts?) I was like “Wait. These are just Hints from Heloise with a snappy new label.”

      Goodness. I thought “Is Heloise even still alive, given I remember reading her column in the 80s-90s?” And learned that column was a continuation after the original author died in 1977.

    9. apricots*

      My adult kid occasionally complains that the cat is the favorite child, but then I point out the difference in their college funds.

      1. Shiny Penny*

        Bwahahaha!
        I say, “…but luckily I don’t have try to get him ready to go off to college and be successfully independent” which makes anyone who’s met my dog cackle at the very idea.

    11. Shutterdoula*

      About a decade ago, a local politician listed her “grand-dog” as one of her qualifications and I was like….you don’t even have your own dog and you think it’s relevant?

    12. goddessoftransitory*

      I sing “Mama’s little man!” to Peanut cat, but just as an endearment to him. I would never ask the general public to accept my cat as my child.

    13. Jenesis*

      I will jovially refer to myself and my husband as the cat’s “mommy” and “daddy”, but I would never refer to the cat as “my child.” Not sure why – probably because in the absence of existing context of cat, a child is always expected to refer to a human, and I don’t have (nor want) human children?

      I’m also not opposed to the term “furbaby”, but I know enough people hate it that I wouldn’t use it except in company that I knew already liked it.

    14. Might Be Spam*

      We used to refer to our dog as our brother. In a family of 5 girls, it was our only chance for a brother.

      My son is his roommate’s dog’s uncle.

      I am Grandma Kitty to my daughter’s cats. She bought me two engraved picture frames. One frame says Grandma and the other says Kitty, so we can switch them around. (Of course they included pictures of the cats.) We aren’t sure if I should technically be Grandma Kitty or Kitty Grandma. (Although I’ve caught myself refering to myself in the third person, as Grandmama, when I talk to them.

    15. Shiny Penny*

      A sweet family member was sending Mother’s Day cards to all the relevant family moms one year and included me. I was low-key horrified, and had to have a kind conversation about it. No, I’m the head of a mixed-species household. All the responsibility for care and management and enrichment is mine, and I love my critters beyond words. But I am not their mother. And I don’t feel sad about not getting a Mothers Day card!

  51. Ali + Nino*

    Best recommendations for routines and products for dry lips? it’s not even November and mine are already so chapped :(

    1. Damn it, Hardison!*

      I love the Laneige overnight lip mask (Sephora, Amazon) which is similar to Vaseline in texture but better in my opinion. Trader Joe’s also has a lip mask which is great (and less expensive); last year they offered it in a gift pack of 2 or 3 pots in different flavors. For day-to-day, I use Fresh’s Advanced Lip Therapy (also Sephora, Amazon). It’s a splurge but it’s the best I’ve ever used. Fresh usually has a big Black Friday sale on their website (last year it started the week before Black Friday) so I stock up then. I also use a lip scrub occasionally; Fresh has a good one but honestly Burt’s Bees version is just as good and less expensive.

    2. Falling Diphthong*

      Aquaphor. It’s hard to beat for any random dry scaly part of your body.

      First put onto it by surgeons for wound healing.

      1. GoosieLou*

        Aquaphor, but splash or rub water on your lips directly before you apply it – it doesn’t add moisture so much as seal what’s there, and I find that when I help the moisture along I wake up with much happier lips than when I put aquaphor on by itself!

    3. Call me St Vincent*

      Naturium lip mask is great and only $12 for a big tub! I also love aquaphor but the naturium has a nice very light vanilla taste and doesn’t get in my mouth as much as aquaphor does.

    4. Sugar lips*

      Biggest recommendation is to drink more water – hydration is key. I then use the Burt’s Bees lip balm to nourish and moisturise my lips, applying it as part of my morning and evening skincare routines as well as throughout the day whenever they feel dry.

      The Laneige overnight lip mask gave me the worst chapped lips I’ve ever had, so while many people love it, I did not.

      If they’re really chapped, I scrub them very very gently with a little sugar mixed with honey to remove flakiness, and wet them then coat in honey for a few minutes to help them heal, then seal in moisture with my lip balm.

  52. Christmas Carol*

    There were a whole raft of older episodes of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson that were owned by NBC and were subsequently erased. The later ones were acutally owned by Johnny Carso. These were kept, and still can be seen re-airing on one of the oldies chanels.

    I find it telling that I feel the need to specify the with Johnny Carson part. Back in the day, when you referenced The Tonight Show, Carson was the assumed host.

      1. Christmas Carol*

        Who hosted together for a total of only 9 years. Carson did 31, and Leno about 20 or so. I’m actually too young to have watched Carson back in the day, I’m more of a Leno kid
        (and yes, this was a nesting fail, I meant it to go under the archiving failure thread)

    2. Shutterdoula*

      Assuming Johnny Carson as the host really just dates YOU. There were several before, and have been several afterwards. Everyone assumes the current host unless otherwise specified.

  53. Food alternatives*

    I’ve always craved chocolate chip cookies and chips when stressed and menstruating. Recently I had to eliminate added sugar and processed foods for five months. I’d just be a really cranky monster during a craving. All the medical issues cleared up and I no longer have any restrictions. BUT, I don’t feel good after eating sugar/fried food, so I mostly avoid and it’s been great.

    I had the worst craving during my most recent period which coincided with an increase in life stress. I ended up caving and eating did relieve the craving. Predictably I felt awful afterwards. I’d really like to not repeat this experience. Anyone have any suggestions of alternatives to experiment eating instead? Thank you!

    1. Sloanicota*

      Can you get granular about the craving and try to identify what your body is seeking? Sometimes I have a volume thing – I don’t want “just a bite” of anything, I want to be able to eat a lot, so I could do something like rice pudding or oatmeal (sweetened) to get the feeling I once had from ice cream. Other times it’s the richness of chocolate I’m craving, or the creamy/fatty mouthfeel – I wonder occasionally if the reason I crave chocolate specifically on my period is an iron thing, or what. I try to remind myself there’s “good sugar” too, particularly if it’s part of a dish that also has protein/fiber. Sometimes I think I’m responding to *wanting* to spike my blood sugar, the exact thing I’m not “supposed” to do, and I wish I had access to data … am I actually low or is this emotional? Hard to say.

      1. Food alternatives*

        Yes, thank you for the probing questions! The answers will help me find the something else that satisfies my body’s needs without making me feel crummy afterward.

    2. MedicinalChocolate*

      Chocolate genuinely has some pain killing properties. In my case, it was one of the few things that provided some relief from my very heavy menstrual cramping and also helps alleviate some migraine pain.

      My endocrinologist and nutritionist both independently told me that if I stick to dark chocolate the genuine nutritional aspects do somewhat balance out the less positive aspects. I have been given the okay to have as much dark chocolate as I want (presumably with an implied expectation it wouldn’t be the only thing I eat).

      I try to always have what I call medicinal chocolate on hand.

      Of course, you may have specific medical concerns that invalidate this general truth regarding dark chocolate so check with your own doctors.

      1. Sloanicota*

        Yeah I’ve also made some cool, not-so-sweet dishes with a lot of coco powder – even a mole sauce might be interesting – if I was actually craving the chocolate element itself and wasn’t as compelled by the sugary/fatty element. I seem to recall a bitter version of hot chocolate that was very rich but not very sweet. But TBH I also give myself sugar/fat if that’s what my body’s asking for. I just try not to go too overboard.

      2. Food alternatives*

        Thanks, I hadn’t considered the pain aspect. I do love dark chocolate, and thankfully can tolerate it well. :)

    4. tab*

      I keep dark chocolate covered almonds (from Nuts.com) in my fridge, and let myself have 3 every night after dinner. They are delicious, and pretty healthy, and eating them means I don’t mind skipping dessert or donuts. I only mention the source, because other brands seemed too sweet to me. I don’t have any affiliation with the company (except I keep buying their product).

      1. Food alternatives*

        Thank you, thank you! I love chocolate covered nuts (especially almonds)—I’ll try swapping next time.

    5. Chauncy Gardener*

      I make a packet of instant oatmeal and add a couple of pieces of dark chocolate to it before microwaving it. It’s really satisfying!!

      1. Food alternatives*

        This is exactly bow I got myself into eating oatmeal for breakfast eons ago, and then I dropped the chocolate for berries. I’ll try this for the next craving and see what happens. Thank you!

    6. Girasol*

      I’m a recovering sugar fiend. I drink milk for calcium but I kinda hate milk, so I make it into cocoa. I use a mix of 2 parts baker’s cocoa and 1 part sugar, from which I take 2 teaspoons per 12 oz mug, so it’s less than a teaspoon of added sugar per serving. Then I drizzle in a little vanilla for marshmallowy flavor. It’s enough sugar to help with cravings but little enough to not upset my stomach or set off rebound cravings. Also I scarf roasted nuts when I’m cravey.

    7. RagingADHD*

      Chocolate has magnesium, and sugar cravings can be related to low iron.

      Both of which make sense during your period. If you supplement them a few days before & during your period, it might help.

  54. MedicinalChocolate*

    I realize you said you had a craving…I realized I didn’t connect the dots; I was wondering if at least part of the craving is craving some pain relief. But again your mileage may vary.

  55. Will it ever be me?*

    I had a terrible date with my boyfriend of 5 years last night. So bad that I know it’s the end. He just stopped caring about me. I was so excited about last night. I looked forward to it for so long. And he just couldn’t show up for me. Barely alive. Barely present. It made me realize all my relationships have ended with the man either doing this or treating me really really terribly until I end it, which could take a long time considering how long I’ll let someone crush me. Will someone ever like me enough to want to spend time with me?

    1. Shutterdoula*

      Yes, I believe you can have a more fulfilling relationship.
      But you should do some deep thinking about why/how you seem to be choosing partners with similar behaviors might be a good idea, so you can be aware and avoid that pattern in the future.

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        I agree. If you find a pattern of thinking you only deserve love if you can “make” people want to treat you well, therapy might be in order to break that chain of thought.

    2. Of course!!*

      Of course!! But you have to start liking *yourself* enough, first, to know on a deeper level that you deserve better than what you’ve settled for in the past. As others have suggested, therapy can identify and address those old habits, beliefs, and patterns that serve an old agenda. I would also suggest, but this is just MHO, a break from relationships until you’ve had a chance to really recalibrate the way you look at yourself, potential partners, and what a fulfilling, respectful, and reciprocal relationship would look like for you.

    3. nnn*

      I think it’s worth asking why you were excited for a date with someone who treats you like this and why you are sad to end things with someone who mistreats you.

      1. Will it ever be me?*

        I know why. My dad. He’s a not-good guy who smothered me, treated me terribly, forced me to spend time with him, and I felt guilty for pulling away. We’re estranged now. But he’s the source.

        1. Chauncy Gardener*

          Do you think he’s a narcissist by any chance? Not trying to armchair diagnose, but once I realized my mother was a classic narcissist, I was able to address my horrible sense of self worth and find a really good partner.
          If this is the case, I have found Jerry Wise on the Tube of You to be super helpful dealing with all this.
          I’m so sorry you’re going through this! You can get better and find a good partner that will treat you really well.

          1. Will it ever be me?*

            Yes, he is def a narcissist. I was always his fix or fuel. Thanks for the suggestion!

        2. Observer*

          Yeah, therapy is the way to go. But find someone who can work behavior – CBT / DBT are good approaches to look at. There are probably other approaches that focus on behavior / response to situations to look at as well.

          You have a good handle on the source, so at the moment you don’t really need help with that. But you *do* need help to break the pattern. It’s easy to say “just do it” or “just” whatever. But in real life, it’s not that easy, as you are finding out. Getting someone to help you figure out how to change that recording in your head and / or how you respond to it can be a life changer.

    4. Anono-me*

      I think you are setting the bar too low and it sounds like a big part of it is because your father (and other adults who owed you in childhood), failed to give you the stability and support to say, “I deserve a good partner”. The therapy and reading suggestions from others will help you get that foundation.

      But until then: may I point out that the three basic questions when dating that each person should be asking “Are they a good person? Do you like them? and Do they treat you well?” There are more things to consider when choosing a partner; but the answer to those three should always be “Yes.” unequivocally.

    5. Ellis Bell*

      I think you’re not giving yourself enough credit; you know what you deserve and clearly you’ve decided you’re not putting up with less – you’re taking action now. I’ve definitely been there, thinking we just needed to both show up on the date, and it would all happen, but it’s actually a massive disappointment because one date will never fix someone’s entire attitude. To get that balance you have to find someone who’s as equally bought into the relationship as you are; fellow buyers are harder to find than renters or freeloaders but they are not rare, and they are looking for you too. Benchmarks to look for are people who are jazzed and excited (within proportion) about you from day one, and remain pretty positive even when things are not a river of honey; they are willing to do some work, show patience and to show care for you (yes, from day one!). Sometimes initial excitement wanes off and it’s always better to address it sooner rather than later. It’s okay to show your own patience and want to do some work (that’s what makes you a buyer) but hold the other person accountable and lack of effort or response is the same as telling you “no” they aren’t committed.

  56. anon for this*

    I know it is late in the chat- but I hope to get some responses. Situation- partner- who pays the bill when we go out- will often add the tip to the credit card receipt. Note- this is after the bill has been presented and the credit card given- it is after the credit card has been processed and returned. I think the wait staff does not receive a tip in that scenario- so gently inquired. My question may not have been specific enough. I was told that a tip on a credit card does go to the staff. I suspect I should have asked if a tip on a credit card receipt results in payment to the server. Now, I have been told that partner is a lousy tipper by a wait person who I have a cordial ‘s with. I think I did not ask the right questionI think my choices are 1. Educate partner-which would be a challenge 2. Add a tip myself- hopefully without partner seeing- hard to do. 3. Educate wait person about partner’s lack of knowledge, give wait person some significant sum to make up for past omissions of unknown amount. BTW- partner does not like to be educated. Partner would never intentionally be a lousy tipper.

    1. Morning Reader*

      What? Where is the tip on the credit card going? I do that all the time. Is it split among all staff, not just the server? Or is the restaurant stealing tips?

      1. Morning Reader*

        Coming back to see other replies this morning. Clarity on the credit card tipping issue but it seems that you may have other, deeper issues. Partner does not like to be “educated” and you seem to be walking on eggshells around them. Is your relationship so fraught that you can’t say, “I’ve heard sometimes the servers don’t get the (full amount of) tips on credit cards. Can we leave the tip in cash?” Then they could say “I don’t carry much cash” or “I like to get the points on the card” or whatever the reason is for that preference. A simple discussion with partner should not be so fraught.
        Then with your friend the waitperson: are they telling you their employer is ripping them off? Or implying it in a way designed to get you to slip them extra money? The idea that your partner would be offended if you left a cash tip, and the idea that you might secretly give the server extra money, are both problematic. It sounds like both these people are manipulating you.
        I wish you best of luck with both relationships! But you’ve got bigger problems than how to tip.

    2. My Brain is Exploding*

      Even when we pay with a credit or debit card, we leave the tip in cash. This ensures that the wait staff gets the tip immediately (some places withhold those tips until the cards are processed), and the wait staff gets the entire tip (I’ve read about how some unscrupulous managers take some of the wait staff’s tips). This eliminates the above scenario. I believe that usually if they run the card, they then bring it back and you fill out the tip line and sign it, so the tip would be paid (eventually) to the server. When we pay by card by tip by cash, we always write “cash” on the tip line and make sure not to leave cash unattended on the table. Occasionally that means handing it to the wait staff on the way out.

      1. anon for this*

        I think – because partner write it on the credit card recipt – rather than on the bill presented before the credit card is given- that the staff person is not getting a tip. I looked at the record of charges on the account- they don’t seem to include the tip. So perhaps the server is not getting it. I think -but am not sure- that this is a matter of pieces of paper getting confused. A bill is presented, a credit card is given, the card is processed, a receipt is given. I think partner is writing the tip on the receipt- and the server does not get anything because that is never processed.

        1. Might Be Spam*

          The tip goes on the signed copy that goes to the restaurant. It sounds like he’s putting it only on the copy that he keeps.

        2. The Other Dawn*

          You say “a receipt is given.” Restaurants typically give you two copies: one for you to keep and the other for you to add a tip, sign, and then give back to them. Which one is your partner writing the tip on? That part matters and it’s not clear from your comments. Based on the fact that the charges on the account don’t include the tip, it seems like your partner is writing it on the wrong one.

          1. Falling Diphthong*

            This is the only scenario where I could see the partner is doing something wrong.

            Normal to me is:
            They bring me the bill.
            I hand them a credit card.
            They bring the card back to me, along with a receipt where I add the tip and sign. There might be a second customer copy of the receipt; I don’t normally take it.

            Putting the tip on the post-card-run receipt, rather than the pre-card-run bill, is very normal.

            They are starting to run the bill at the table in the US, at long last, in which case there is no receipt-and-sign step and they hand me the machine to enter the tip.

            1. Anono-me*

              Please consider taking the second copy or atleast scratching it out. Most people are honest, but it only takes one to switch out the copies and increase the tip. Yes, you would probably win a dispute, if you caught it. But why run the risk.

          2. Sloanicota*

            Still, I’ve accidentally written the tip on, and then left, the “wrong” receipt, and the tip does go through as long as the receipt has a tip line on it.

    3. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      Note- this is after the bill has been presented and the credit card given- it is after the credit card has been processed and returned. I think the wait staff does not receive a tip in that scenario

      No — That’s the standard way of doing it, in literally every restaurant I’ve been to in my life. It is definitely not the norm that if a tip is added after the card is run, the server doesn’t get it — potentially pursuant to the restaurant’s tipping policies, which may well include tipping out hosts/bussers/bartenders etc, but a tip-out policy should be consistent whether the tip is added on card or cash or whatever and is not a secret from the server, they generally know ahead of time about tip-outs. They run the card for the total on the bill and bring it back to the table, the cardholder adds their tip and signs the slip, and the transaction is modified to add the tip to the total before the transaction is completed and posted. Your partner may still be a lousy tipper (?), but this process does not have anything to do with that.

    4. YNWA*

      I’m a bit confused. The usual process is 1. the server brings the bill 2. the server comes back to take the credit card once the bill has been seen 3. the server brings the (usually) 2 slips back to you and you write in the tip on the one that goes to the business and the second slip is for your records. Is your partner not writing the tip on the slip that goes to the business and only the slip for the records? Because then yes, they’re not really tipping the server. If they’re writing the tip on the slip that goes to the business then yes, they are tipping the server.

    5. California Dreamin’*

      Is this in the US? If so, then yes, this is completely standard. They bring the bill, you give your credit or debit card, they take it away and run the card and come back with 2 copies of the receipt… one will say customer copy and one says merchant copy. Both will have a line to add the tip and then a line for the Total. You fill out those lines on the merchant copy (and on your customer copy if you wish) and leave the merchant copy behind. This is a completely normal way to tip and the servers will be getting that money. As folks have said, you have the option to tip in cash, but that’s not necessary. A lot of people don’t carry much cash.

    6. Generic Name*

      No, this is the normal way to tip, other than leaving cash. Note how the receipt that the credit card holder signs has a line to include the tip, and a line for the total amount to put in the card, and a line for the signature. If your main concern is that the server gets tipped fairly, why don’t you offer to pay, so you control the amount of the tip, or barring that, offer to pay the tip and leave cash?

    7. Jay*

      I always ask the waitstaff if they get the tips.
      I also try to do it at a time and place where management is not going to overhear and they are not on camera/microphone.
      And don’t just ask one person, either.
      Do this with a couple of people.
      For example, the best delivery Chinese place in my area has one manager who will screw some of their people out of their tips, if they can get away with it, but others know the owner and have since before this manager started. He is afraid of doing anything too evil to them. So I’ve more or less memorized this managers schedule and don’t order on days he works, and if I accidently do, I know who I can tip by card and who gets cash only.
      If I just asked the senior delivery person about tips, I would not have found out.

    8. Dinoweeds*

      Former server here – the card is run, the tip is added, totaled and signed. At the end of the night the server closes out all their cc slips and adds tips there. Problems happen when people leave with the signed receipt with the tip on it, if that happens then the server gets nothing. Credit card tips are taxed which is why it’s preferable to at least tip cash. If your server directly told you they haven’t been tipped well, then you need to discuss that with your partner.

      1. Sloanicota*

        I had to read this a few times: “leave WITH the signed receipt with the tip on it” – yes. At first I read “leave the signed receipt” and was like wait no! To possibly clarify, the issue is if the customer TAKES the signed tip receipt with them, rather than leaves it on the table for the server.

    9. Glazed Donut*

      As long as your partner is leaving the little paper with the written tip, the tip should be charged and added. If you’re not seeing the tip reflected in your credit card statement, then there’s a fair chance your partner is scratching through the line and leaving no tip. The total charge should reflect receipt amount + tip.
      You do not write the tip on the little paper before the card is run – at least not in the US.
      It sounds like you think your partner is a cheapskate, though, and I’m not sure there’s much you can do about that besides finding a new partner or paying for it all yourself!

  57. My Chemical Moments*

    I think the answer is this will not work but….Is anyone a chemist or know a thing or two about chemicals? I use three household chemicals for insect control (I understand some are against insecticide. I live with the Arizona Bark Scorpion so this isn’t an option for me). I learned I cannot combine them in one sprayer/applicator or they’ll counter each other or ruin each other–basically they stop working when combined but I don’t know the right term. Will the same be true if I added the chemicals to a powder like baking soda, combined them in one applicator, and applied them? Would the powdered forms also cancel each other out?

    *Note–I know in general to never combine chemicals without knowing you can but I did this accidentally once by adding one insecticide chemical to a bottle containing another and realized the efficacy was impacted.

    1. Generic Name*

      I think the short answer is to follow the label instructions exactly. I would contact your county’s agricultural extension and ask them these questions. You can also look at your state’s website to see if they have any fact sheets on controlling the pests in question. Those fact sheets will have info on the most effective pesticides.

    2. Shiny Penny*

      I personally would look for the manufacturer’s 1-800 phone number on the packaging, and call them for advice.
      There’s so many critical details with chemicals, that accurately conveying what exactly you are dealing with feels like a point of significant hazard.
      I’ve frequently called the 1-800 numbers regarding flea medications, livestock treatment products, and other household chemicals. (Like, how can you calculate the correct of bleach to add to water to safely store it long term when the bottle label doesn’t include the concentration percentage?! Grrr. Anyway.) I’ve always successfully gotten the info I need this way.

      Does seem that all the company headquarters are on the East coast, so I get through best if I call at 5 or 6 in the morning, Pacific time.

      (Also, house scorpions?!?! Wow. Guess I’ll stop complaining about house mice now!)

    3. Yikes!*

      I have no chemical information for you, but my curiosity led me to the Wikipedia page. And oh, my! The photos are particularly disturbing. You have my sympathy. And I thought roaches were awful. Good luck.

    4. RagingADHD*

      The chemical information I have is that you should not be trying to DIY insecticides. Just buy a product for the purpose. There’s an exterior treatment called “Demand CS” that performs very well in tests, according to the extension service.

      Diatomaceous Earth is effective against anything with an exoskeleton and nontoxic to mammals.

      1. My Chemical Moments*

        These are the three chemicals used by the “green” pest control companies in my area.

      1. ewwww bugs*

        All this experimentation sounds really dangerous. We don’t want to hear your house blew up, or that you sustained burns when a combination overflowed. Also some mixtures release toxic fumes. Can you instead contact the EPA for info? Or there must be insect experts at some university somewhere? Or hire a real pest control company?

      2. possibly*

        I still don’t understand where you’re going for this. And don’t add baking soda. If the chemicals are meant to be used in solution (to spray), do you plan to sprinkle it dry? Do you just want to combine the dry compounds and then add water? I suspect you’re actually not going to make an explosive compound, but I don’t think this is what you want to do. I think Bifen, Permethrin can be used over the same area, but you can just spray twice, give it a couple of days in between. I think one attacks the growth hormone in eggs and the other is a neurotoxin. But, if this is not something you regularly do, contact professionals.

          1. My Chemical Moments*

            But their food sources do. The powder suggestion was made by another forum I saw. It allows the critters to cover themselves in the poison and carry it back to their families and hiding spaces while also having their exoskeletons slowly dry up.

        2. Stunt Apple Breeder*

          Contact your local extension office and ask for assistance with Insect Pest Management (IPM). They can connect you with an expert on controlling insect pests around your home following the laws in your state. You can also ask a Master Gardener but they will probably redirect you to an Extension educator.

          Be sure to follow label instructions completely, as they will inform you of the personal protective equipment you will need and how much product you can apply at a time. The signal words (e.g. Caution, Danger) indicate the relative danger of using these chemicals. Be careful following online advice. It’s better to ask a local expert familiar with the pests and pesticides you are dealing with.

  59. Middle Name Jane*

    I used to hand out candy, but even before Covid, the number of kids coming by had dwindled to the point where I stopped buying candy. I live in a suburb, and a lot of churches organize trunk-or-treat events. It’s a shame that kids aren’t really doing neighborhood trick-or-treating anymore, but I also understand the safety standpoint of an organized activity with people you know.

  60. Middle Name Jane*

    My mom–who was raised by a pair of narcissists–is an emotionally abusive narcissist herself, and sometimes it gets especially bad. From the reading I’ve done and the forums I’ve visited, I know I’m not alone. But it feels lonely (no siblings or other family besides my parents). Since my dad’s health is fragile, I can’t go no (or very low) contact.

    I’m in therapy, but I don’t know how to deal with my mom anymore. Any coping advice when you can’t cut contact?

    Sorry if this is too heavy for the weekend thread.

    1. Ginger Cat Lady*

      Why can’t you cut contact? Sure, your dad’s health is fragile, but what about that means you can’t cut contact? Are you letting them use poor health to manipulate you and keep you engaged?

    2. Observer*

      Since my dad’s health is fragile, I can’t go no (or very low) contact.

      Why? I’m serious. If your parents are being abusive, why do you have this obligation? If you had gone low contact before he got ill, and you did not know about it, would you suddenly have developed an obligation even if you didn’t know about it?

      I think that this is something that’s worth discussing with your therapist. Also, @Firebird has some good suggestions. And if you can’t get any help from your therapist on dealing with the whole situation, maybe think about if this is the right therapist for you – are they really being helpful to you in other ways?

      1. Middle Name Jane*

        Because my dad isn’t abusive at all–my mom is. He is dependent on her for care–she manages his meds, takes him to doctors’ appointments, etc. And she verbally abuses him, but he takes it. Rarely does he call her out. I can’t in good conscience cut contact with him. I love him. But it means dealing with her.

        1. Venus*

          Captain Awkward has some really great advice specific to this. Try googling captain awkward as well as Alice, as that was one of her first posts about narcissism and has more detail.

          As well as advice, she suggests: Dr. Karyl McBride’s Will I Ever Be Good Enough? and/or The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists.

  61. Firebird*

    The Grey Rock approach really helps. I try to be as boring as possible and keep answers as short as possible. They want to get a reaction, so sound as dull as you can and show no reactions either positive or negative. Don’t show joy or fear or sadness or anger.

    Remember that you don’t have to answer any questions unless you you want to. It helps to only communicate by email and text so you can take as much time as you need or want, to prepare your answer. It’s also a good way to have a written record of their behavior. If they ask any questions you don’t want to answer, just ignore it and talk about something else.

    Don’t share personal information, they will use it against you. My ex mostly leaves me alone because I am boring and don’t have anything he wants. Actually I have a pretty good life, I just let him think I am needy and lonely. The more I ask him to do, the longer he stays away.

    Codependents Anonymous helps me a lot. There are online and in-person groups. I like that I don’t have to explain a lot because they are going through this, too.

    Boundaries get easier with time. I grew up not being allowed to have them. It really helped when I realized that I actually deserve boundaries,

    Good luck and virtual hugs

    2. I've Been There*

      Second the recommendation for Codependents Anonymous. Also ACOA – Adult Children of Alcoholics and Disfunctional Families (may be listed as ACA on Alanon meeting lists). Despite the name, ACOA is not limited to children of alcoholics and I found it amazingly helpful.

    3. Middle Name Jane*

      Thank you. I have cut way back on what I tell my mom, but it’s a struggle because she’s my mom and I love her, and I want a supportive mom who won’t weaponize things against me. I never know if she’s going to be loving and empathetic, or if she’s going to turn on me. It’s a gamble every time.

      I wasn’t allowed any boundaries growing up. Asserting them now as a woman in my 40s means I regularly get called selfish. I will look up Codependents Anonymous. Thank you.

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