weekend open thread — August 3-4, 2024

by Alison Green on August 2, 2024

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

Here are the rules for the weekend posts.

Book recommendation of the week: The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, by Dorothy Gilman. A bored widow in her 60s walks into the CIA and walks out with a job as a secret agent.

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

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  1. Ask a Manager* Post author

    The weekend posts are for relatively light discussion and comments should ask questions and/or seek to discuss ideas. Recommendations or one to two updates on things you received advice about in the past are fine, but “here’s what happened to me today” personal-blog-style posts will be removed. We also can’t do medical advice here.

    Please give the full rules a re-read.

  2. Morning Dew*

    Has anyone subscribed PBS Passport before? If so, when you decided to cancel, was it difficult/cumbersome to do so?

    All streaming services I have/had are so easy to cancel but it looks like PBS Passport isn’t as “simple”as clicking on cancel button like other streaming services. They tell you to email the local PBS station directly if you want to cancel. I’m just wondering if it’s actually simple to email once to cancel and be done? Or was it a bother to go through the cancellation process such as emailing (or calling) more than once because it wasn’t done right the first time?

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      Mine has been cancelled by accident a half dozen times over the years when I forgot to update my payment card, no emailing anybody needed. (And easy enough to reinstate too by just adding a new card.)

    2. Noworries*

      I canceled with no issue when I moved out of state and switched my local membership station. It might take a few days to get a response since your request will need to be processed by a human, not an automated system.

    3. I DK*

      Hmm, hadn’t thought about that … LOL like AOL in the good ole’ days …. haven’t checked in a while as I was disappointed in the actual content, but if they have continued the subscription, then at least the money is going to a good place. Of course now I will have to check – I never cancelled per se, just thought my subscription would run out. TY, Morning Dew.

    4. Indolent Libertine*

      Passport is a benefit of membership in your local PBS station. You don’t pay extra for it, as far as I know, it just comes along with whatever level of membership you’ve chosen. So if you want to stop being a member of your local PBS station, you handle that with them, and if you want to keep on being a member, enjoy the Passport account that comes with it at no extra cost beyond what you’re paying to be a member.

  3. Jordan*

    I love all the Mrs. Pollifax novels. I am not sure if they were ever made into TV, or If I’ve read them so often that the pictures in my mind became memories.
    One can tell they were written in another publishing era, because the iron curtain was still very much in place. But I first read them when that was accurate and her adventures were so exciting. (I was a younger and less jaded person then, but they are still old friends.
    Dorthy Gilman’s other books are well written too.

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

      I loved them when I was a kid too. I think they gave me a less-biased view of what being a little old lady could be like. Now that I AM a little old lady, I still enjoy them, especially the early ones.

    2. Calyx*

      I love Mrs Pollifax! And many of Dorothy Gilman’s other books. I love that in one murder mystery, there was a reference to a much-loved children’s book—and she wrote that book too! (The Maze At The Heart Of The Castle)

        2. run mad; don't faint*

          The Tightrope Walker and A Nun in the Closet are two of my favorites! The Mrs. Pollifax series are all fun to read as well.

    3. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

      I also love the Mrs. Pollifax books. I also liked Dorothy Gilman’s The Clairvoyant Countess and The Nun in the Closet.

      I remember a movie based on the first book with Rosalind Russell. There was also a TV movie with Angela Lansbury that I haven’t seen.

      1. Jordan*

        I’ve read both of those too. Our copy of “a nun in the closet” is shoved/intentionally placed between the cabinet wall and printer paper because it has no spine left.

      2. Chaordic One*

        I remember seeing the movie, “Mrs. Pollifax – Spy,” starring Rosalind Russell on TV when I was a kid. It was based on the novel, “The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax.” It must have been 40 years ago, but I liked it at the time. I’m not sure how well it might hold up, but I’m going to have to look for it and watch it again. I’m also going to look for the “The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax” starring Angela Lansbury. I didn’t know about it before. You would think that the series of books would be something that a TV/movie producer would jump on. It has the makings of a great BBC-style miniseries.

    4. Falling Diphthong*

      Another Mrs. Pollifax fan here. I like to think of her laying the groundwork for books like Killers of a Certain Age, in which no one suspects the little old lady.

      My favorite is The Tightrope Walker, about a young woman who has spent her whole life shut down, and starts to expand outward when she discovers a mysterious note in a music box.

    5. Teapot Translator*

      Another fan of the Mrs. Pollifax novels here! Anyone has recommendations in the same vain? I’ve read Killers of a Certain Age (loved it)!

      1. Bluebell Brenham*

        I so want Killers of a Certain Age to be made into a movie! Can’t believe that Geena Davis hasn’t optioned it yet!

      2. BookreadingRN*

        The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen
        The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood
        Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murders by Jesse Sutanto
        The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

          1. dontbeadork*

            There’s a new Vera Wong due out next year (?). Amazon dragged the pre-order in front of me when I was looking for something else to read.

        1. dontbeadork*

          Second recommending Charlotte Macleod. She wrote different series, so if the younger Sarah Keller Bittersohn doesn’t appeal, you may still enjoy the older Peter Shandy mysteries. (Note: Younger and older refer to the age of the protagonist, NOT to the target audience).

          As Alisa Craig she gives us the Canada-based Grub-and-Stakers mysteries and the Madoc Rhys novels.

          I find all four series to be delightful. I wish she’d written more, but I’m that way about ALL my favorite authors.

      4. dontbeadork*

        If you can get past the language sometimes used (it’s rare but there in a couple of books) you might enjoy the Asey Mayo books by Phoebe Atwood Taylor (written in the 1930s- early ’50s) or her Leonidas Witherall stories (writing as Alice Tilton).

        Like Mark Twain, her writing was very much a product of her time, and the language and some stereotyping reflect that.

    7. E*

      The Unexpected Mrs Pollifax is a 1999 movie with Angela Lansbury and it’s pretty good! I do wish theyd make all the movies with Judi Dench maybe.

      1. Jules the First*

        Sadly it won’t happen with Dame Judi, at least – she has retired from acting because she has advanced macular degeneration. She can no longer read a script and its now starting to impact her ability to navigate a film set safely. So no more long-format Judi Dench…sob…

    8. Alice in Hinterland*

      I’m so excited to see others who enjoy one of my favorite series of mysteries/spy novels! I started reading these when I was a teen and had forgotten all about them until today.

    9. goddessoftransitory*

      My experience with Gilman is, so far, The Tightrope Walker and The Clairvoyant Countess, both of which I adore. They are very seventies, but really capture that “I feel like I’m discovering this thing, for real, along with the characters.” I especially feel that way about the former, which does the “novel within a novel” trope exceptionally well.

      1. Carol the happy*

        I adore Mrs. Pollifax! When I was in bed with the measles, someone gave me 3 of Dorothy Gillman’s earlier books, (wonderful!) and when I found Mrs. Pollifax, it was like someone opened a magic door! The whole idea was so fresh- so I decided that International Spy would be a good career option. (I was 8, and the stories were so possible to me.) They also helped in my Social Studies classes because Mrs. Pollifax traveled, so I had to find the places in our atlas.

        My Dorothy Gillman books got read to death or borrowed but not returned; the last one was duct taped and I think lost in a move.

        Thanks for bringing them back to mind.

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

          The Mrs. Pollifax books in my local library are all torn up too — very popular!

          1. Chaordic One*

            On rare occasions I’ve found reasonably-priced copies in my local used book stores, but not often and they don’t seem to stick around for very long.

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

          You reminded me about how seeing women doing a certain job always opened it up as a viable career option when I was growing up in the 70s.

          Maybe because there wasn’t all that much representation of women doing a variety of jobs, when I was very small, I used to think I had to be a nurse.

          I was so excited where I saw that Pink Panther movie where there turns out to be a female jewel thief. I announced I was going to be a cat burglar too.

          I think that’s one of the reasons I adored *Charlie’s Angels* when I was younger — the Angels got to try out a whole bunch of different careers while they investigated.

          1. Falling Diphthong*

            I also loved Charlie’s Angels as a child! They had adventures! People told them they couldn’t be cops, and so they got an even cooler crime fighting job. Weirdly I remember it as one my parents wouldn’t let me watch, but I read book versions?

            I have a soft spot for the 2 films, because the premise is that of course these women are hyper competent.

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

              Ooh, yeah, the books! I had the book where Sabrina falls for the older Polish dissident. I loved it!

            2. Chaordic One*

              I liked them, too. The original TV series. People were dismissive of them at the time. (I was told it was because they didn’t wear bras and jiggled. I never noticed.) I thought they were good role models for feminism in that they were smart, worked together and got things done. The actresses who played the parts all seemed to have have worked well together and gotten along well, too.

              1. The OG Sleepless*

                Yes, for sure! I was in elementary school when it came out, so I wasn’t quite allowed to watch it, but I just saw a bunch of glamorous women who got to do all kinds of interesting stuff with their friends.

          2. Texan In Exile*

            My role model was Nancy Drew, so I wanted to be a titian-haired detective.

            Decades later, it still sounds like an awesome career.

            1. Chaordic One*

              At about the same time the original Charlie’s Angels TV series came on in the 1970s, there was the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries TV series. I loved Nancy Drew as played by Pamela Sue Martin. I remember her Nancy Drew being described as a “Malt Shop Charlie’s Angel.”

    11. Clumsy Ninja*

      I read a bunch of Mrs. Pollifax books years ago and totally forgot about them! They were so much fun!

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      My last spare room got painted today! And, while we found another stripper special (what WAS IT with this woman’s fixation on gluing stuff to the walls, Indianapolis is not like, earthquake territory or something), we worked around it and the room is now a nice cheerful red and I’m very pleased with it. (The flooring is supposed to be done by month end, and then I can set up my craft room properly.)

    2. chocolate muffins*

      We had a lovely family outing that involved several very fun firsts for our toddler as well as a delicious dinner by the ocean. A+ day, would do again, relaxed me all week to remember it.

    3. Middle Aged Lady*

      Harvesting onions, zucchini, squash, eggplant and tomatoes from our backyard plot, then sauteeing them, and of course, eating them!

      A monthly happy hour with a dear friend.

    4. Harlowe*

      My closest grocery store didn’t previously carry my preferred flavor of kombucha, so I had to drive to the other side of town if I wanted it. Suddenly, they have it!

    5. Knighthope*

      Saw Jackson Holliday of the Baltimore Orioles hit a grand slam as his first homerun in the major leagues! The ball landed outside the stadium!

    6. goddessoftransitory*

      FINALLY 99.9 percent moved in and set up! Husband still has to assemble that last bookcase, but otherwise, we’re home!

      I am especially enjoying our favorite game, Arrange The Books. We have a kind of eclectic system that’s partially alphabetical by author, partially grouped by subject, partially “it fit there, shut up.” It’s great to have all my mysteries, Japanese novels, and so on put together on the new shelves.

      1. Banana Pyjamas*

        Yay! So happy for you. Plumbing troubles are stressful, and settling back in is such a relief.

    8. Cookies For Breakfast*

      I’m applying for a big writing opportunity that, if successful, could help me start answering the big “what am I doing with my life” question that’s been haunting me the past few years.

      The application involves a sample translation from a book of my choice. I’m having tremendous fun working on it, and just the other day, in a surprising twist of events, I got introduced to the author. Who lives in my same city! And didn’t mind spending some time on the phone with me answering text nuance questions! And said we should meet up!

      One-year-ago me would be pinching herself in disbelief. I mean pinching herself in disbelief for days. Even if I get rejected, which is highly likely.

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

        That is amazing! And kudos to you for seeing something you aspire to do and going for it!

    9. Bethlam*

      Rain! Finally! My grass was so crunchy. Got 1.8 inches in a nice soaker on Wednesday, another inch on Thursday. Could still use more, but grateful for what we did get.

    10. BellaStella*

      Traveling on a short trip for three days to see good friends, seeing museums and the beach!

    11. AGD*

      On a hot day, I accidentally found a coffee shop I’d never seen before and got an iced tea, and it was incredible.

    12. Irish Teacher.*

      Yesterday, I went to see this improvised murder mystery play. It was good craic. They asked us to come up with “secrets” that the cast would choose to read out and would then become part of the storyline.

    13. Venus*

      All my gardening work is done for now! I did a bunch of physical labor the past couple months and it was all done late last weekend. I have the usual mowing, weeding, and picking veggies for the season but I’m even caught up for now. There is more labor-intensive work similar to what I did this year in a different part of my little yard, but I’m not doing it until next year so I can truly enjoy my garden for the rest of this year!

      1. BikeWalkBarb*

        That feels so great. Congrats! I’m mostly done although my tomatoes still are growing like Little Shop of Horrors after 3 prunings and I’m wondering if I need to do one more. They’re absolutely loaded and I’m going to be happily drowning in cherry and grape tomatoes in particular pretty soon. I planted 11 varieties and that is…a lot. Oops. Darn farmers’ market tempting varieties.

        I got the book Vegetables Love Flowers: companion Planting for Beauty and Bounty by Lisa Mason Ziegler. For the first time ever I’m going to do some real planning ahead for future seasons.

    14. fposte*

      I got tickets to Taylor Tomlinson! She’s one of the few comedians my comedy-going partner actually recognizes—usually my friend just goes to whatever I suggest and hopes for the best.

    16. Elle Woods*

      Helping my parents declutter their basement. Four full carloads out this week. Every little bit helps!

    17. Girasol*

      I’ve been trying to revive the artistic skills I had in my school years. My drawing has been going depressingly badly. So I went to the art museum and looked at some really awesome, beautiful, inspiring art and see how the artists handled the techniques I struggle with. And then I saw some not so awesome art: the sort of modern art that’s just a few scribbles or a big square of all one color. So I came home, drew a modern art piece with two squares and a scribble and drew a frame around it to make it look like official. It really did look like some of the work I saw in the museum. So I drew a very expensive price tag. I feel much more encouraged to continue working on my awkward perspectives and uneven shading now.

    18. BikeWalkBarb*

      My husband and I are taking a class in waltz and swing dancing at our local parks and rec center and had our second class this Friday. We’ve already taken three months of swing classes through another source so that’s review with a few new moves to learn. We took waltz and other ballroom dances years ago and needed the refresher. We ride our bikes down to the center, take the class and dance for an hour, go out for dinner or dessert, and ride home in the balmy summer evening air along the water near our home.

      Utterly delightful and it feels so good to dance with my sweetheart! We’ve been signing up for the classes to make sure we have dates with each other in addition to our daily walks and it’s the best thing we’ve done in a long time.

    19. Tisket*

      My son passed his his first martial arts test (tang soo do, which is a Korean style) and jumped ahead four belts! He’s young and new, so at this point he’s mostly evaluated on showing up to class, paying attention, following instructions, giving it an honest effort, etc. He did break a board though. My husband and I are so proud of him!

    20. NeonFireworks*

      I sat on a park bench and watched a pair of one-year-old twins chase ducks. Or, rather, try to chase ducks, but not very quickly, with a lot of falling down in the process.

    21. run mad; don't faint*

      My daughter got her driver’s license. She’s been working towards it for quite a while and finally felt comfortable and ready to take the test. I’m really happy for her!

    22. The OG Sleepless*

      I had a big repair in my basement that was finally completed after over a year. This week (actually this morning) I have finally finished the paint/drywall/cleaning/reorganizing and I now have a functioning “game room” and weight room after fifteen months of mess and piles of junk. It really doesn’t matter because we don’t use the game room that much (we use the heck out of the weight room) but having that nice space instead of a nasty pile of grossness downstairs is making me so happy.

    23. the cat's ass*

      nausea from my new meds is FINALLY dissipating!

      Kid is having a great time in Japan even though it’s hotter than Satan’s butt crack!

      Hubs is seriously considering retirement and i am thrilled for him!

    24. not my usual self*

      Went to brunch at a place that’s opened up very close to home; didn’t look like much but the food turned out to be really good. Also, my first day back at Place that Must Not be Named after summer break was on my birthday, and a normally-not-very-warm-and-fuzzy colleague gave me a small gift including a coffee gift card, so that was really nice.

    1. Hedgehogadjacent*

      The audiobooks are fantastic! So much do that I have gone and listened to other books with that reader.

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      If Laurie sees two cats lying next to each other, he always inserts himself in the middle of them, no matter how little room there is (as happened here with Fig and Stella).

      2. RLC*

        He’s a little gooseberry! My parents had a Siamese who would insert herself between any two humans who were sitting or lying next to each other so we called her the gooseberry (aka feline chaperone).
        One of our cats has a variant of this-if two others are lying next to each other she plops on top of them, pyramid fashion. Occasionally she sits on someone else’s head and things get silly.

      4. Sandwich middle cat*

        My only cat does this between me and the sofa arm, or between me and another person. Doesn’t matter if she doesn’t fit, she will MAKE herself fit goshdarnit! It is very cute, but also looks uncomfortable more often than not. Guess who gets to hear her complain, loudly, when she finally gives up?

    4. I DK*

      I am not a cat person, and will probably never become one, but of all the cat pics on the internet, Alison’s are the best IMHO.

  9. Falling Diphthong*

    What are folk watching?

    I’m still doing a rewatch of Justified, which is still excellent. Great character work everywhere. I had forgotten so many parts, like the world’s slowest foot chase.

      1. Jordan*

        Reruns of good shows from previous decades,
        But yes, there’s nothing good on consistently (until the rare moment there are 3 good things on different channels at the same time)

      2. Pamela S*

        I’ve been rewatching Queens of Mystery. Only 2 seasons so far but we have been promised a third.

    2. Teapot Translator*

      I’m watching Vera (nearly finished). I’m wondering what to watch next (on BritBox).

      1. Jordan*

        Love Vera, feel so sorry for her staff though.
        Is “Mrs. Bradley mysteries” still on Britbox?
        You might enjoy those

        2. Andromeda*

          I binge watched Vera for a while but had to stop because it’s set near-ish where my parents live and it was pinging my anxiety — I figured it would be a cosy mystery series but it’s not!!

          My favourite mysteries are the Law and Order NYC series. I’m very particular — has to be New York, I have no interest in the spinoffs; and I like some seasons much better than others.

          2. Arrietty*

            I’m laughing at the idea of Vera as a cosy mystery series – I can’t think of anything less cosy!

      2. allathian*

        I’m watching Vera, too. It’s a smmer rerun here so they’re showing half an episode every day in the 5-6 slot. Even when I go to the office I’m usually home by then. I start early so I can stop early.

        1. allathian*

          Yup, although I wouldn’t enjoy working for her. She’s almost as sarcastic as Inspector Morse! Although I do enjoy the fact that a rather ordinary looking middle-aged woman is the boss.

          1. Rosyglasses*

            I am a fan of Inspector Morse as well, and there is a Scottish one that I watched all the way through awhile back that is older – can’t remember the name; but I find that I like the more laid back, “normal” and ordinary leads. Probably also why I favor British/UK shows more than American.

            1. Bingo Little*

              The Scottish one may be Taggart – the tagline of which was commonly seen as being “There’s been a MURrrrrDERrrrrr”

    3. Rain*

      The Decameron on Netflix – Inspired by by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio’s short stories, is great fun.

      Elsbeth on CBS – A spin-off of both the good wife and the good fight, but much funnier than either.

      Boston Legal – this isn’t current but my son and I rewatch it together every summer.

    4. Damn it, Hardison!*

      I’m on the last episode of Justified season 5! Season 2 is my favorite. Next up: Succession.

      1. Just me, Vee*

        season 2 of Justified is my favorite, too. Matthew Mcfayden is wonderful in Succession…but I love love love him as Mr. Darcy.

    6. Mobie's Mom Now*

      Resident Alien, with Alan Tudyk. Also did a rewatch of the first 4 seasons of Brooklyn 99.

    9. goddessoftransitory*

      Chainsaw Man, an anime that is VERY bloody and NSFW but also extremely well done and touching.

      The new Batman: Caped Crusader series.

      DI Ray.

      We’re finally done with Murdoch Mysteries and I don’t know what to do with myself until my other favorite series like Midsomer Murders or Death In Paradise get going again.

    10. allathian*

      Just started the second season of House of the Dragon. I’m enjoying it, but if you didn’t like GoT, don’t bother, it’s more of the same.

      Watching Enterprise with our son, we’re about halfway through the third season, I’m really enjoying it. It’s been so long since I last saw it that it’s like a new show, I don’t remember most of the episodes.

      1. allathian*

        Also the Olympics.

        We also finished The Acolyte. I liked it, even if it got a bit of a show start. Don’t buy the poor ratings, there’s an army of racist and misogynistic trolls out there giving poor ratings to everything that doesn’t have a white cishet man as the main character.

          1. allathian*

            Indeed. This show must have the highest death count of any Star Wars movie or show. I’m not counting the faceless and nameless dead on exploding planets and Death Stars, just real characters we’ve seen.

    11. Rosyglasses*

      I always have a cycle of shows – some I “watch” in the background while working, others are my brain candy, some I watch with dear husband or my son. A selection:

      Amazon Prime
      Taskmaster – a lovely and witty British “game” show with comedians

      Netflix (in no particular order)
      David Chang Live – featuring chef David cooking for guests and it’s mildly funny at times
      Blacklist – rewatching from the beginning
      How I Met Your Mother – watching from the beginning

      Hulu
      Modern Family – rewatching from the beginning
      The Kardashians
      The Bear – watching Season 3 – not sure how I feel about it
      Fargo – I think we’re on Season 4? intermittent watching

      Cable tv
      Bravo – Real Housewives franchise (New Jersey, Dubai & OC currently)
      Alone – survivalist reality show
      Hotel Portofino – PBS Masterpiece show about a hotel in Italy in the 20s (during the rise of Mussolini)
      Big Brother – seriously considering not watching the rest of this season
      Olympics

    12. Chaordic One*

      My PBS station has been showing an interesting Canadian miniseries called Little Bird about a young woman of First Nations decent adopted by a Jewish family. A first year law student, at her engagement party she overhears her future mother-in-law make racist comments about her which triggers flashbacks to her life before she was adopted and sends her on a journey of discovery and empowerment. Most of the story is set in 1985, with flashbacks going back to 1968. Filmed in 2023, the costumes and sets are so good that when I first saw the show I honestly thought that it had been filmed in the 1980s.

    13. Vio*

      I’ve been watching Travelers on Netflix. It’s a Canadian sci-fi about time travel but with an interesting twist that they can only send their minds back in time and so have to take over a host body, so they choose somebody who would have been about to die.
      Just watched an episode that I’d assumed was heavily based on the covid pandemic… until I found out that it originally aired in 2017! The fact that it’s a time travel show makes it oddly hilarious.

    14. Apex Mountain*

      About halfway through an Israeli show on Netflix called A Body That Works, about a couple struggling with infertility and the surrogate who they hire. Intense show but great

    15. Falling Diphthong*

      I tried out My Spy and My Spy 2. A tough CIA agent is made by the nine year old he’s supposed to be observing, and she agrees to keep her mouth shut if he trains her. They were okay. The sort of show where the actors are very good, and there are some good ideas, but the writing and execution keep it down at the “generically acceptable to watch” level rather than the delightful caper I feel it could have hit.

      In this vein but much better is Gunpowder Milkshake, in which the assassin, the rescued child/protege, the assassin’s absent parent, and the other assassins who raised the main character when parent assassin left are all women. Adding: HA! I was just thinking about how I prefer the way they handle the child character in this one, realized they look a lot alike, and it is in fact the same actor, Chloe Colman.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        I was inspired to rewatch Gunpowder Milkshake. Even better than its fond place in my memory. Great fight choreography, a truly unique car chase, and every character–even the child–is active.

        Also illustrates my theory that smaller stakes make for more investment, since it feels like failure is an option.

    17. mreasy*

      I have just finished another rewatch of House MD. And now I’m just hiding my time for Severance.

    18. GoryDetails*

      Olympics, mostly – between several channels and the replays on Peacock it’s a challenge to keep up with my favorite events! Equestrian, gymnastics, synchronized diving have been great; some of the track-and-field events are holding my interest, and I’ll dip in to things like kayak and surfing. Looking forward to the sport climbing events.

      And if I get tired of all those sports, I have the original Manchurian Candidate movie on DVR!

    19. fposte*

      I just binged Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office, both out of interest and to keep up with my Scottish friend, who is obsessed with the case and desperately wants to be able to talk to me about it. She performed independent inquiries on government agencies for a living so has strong professional views; now that I have context I really want to hear them.

    20. Filosofickle*

      Having a hard time finding much that isn’t a crime type procedural! Currently watching old shows — Murder She Wrote, The Closer, and Republic of Doyle.

    21. BikeWalkBarb*

      “Battlestar Galactica”, which I didn’t get around to earlier, now in season 3, interspersed with the Olympics.

    22. PX*

      As a sports fan, this is my favourite time as the Olympics are on. Currently watching the mens singles archery finals which have been great, 2 shoot offs and looks like the two guys who will go for gold are in excellent form so should be a tight match!

      It also goes even faster than rugby 7s, just match after match from the quarter finals straight through which is wild to me. It seems hard for the athletes as there is barely any time for you to recover (mentally) from one match before you’re off to the next!

      Definitely see why their coaches are introduced as part of the entrance as it’s definitely a mental sport as well vs. just physical!

    23. The OG Sleepless*

      The Olympics. I could literally watch any Olympic event; they’re always so interesting and inspiring. We just started The Lincoln Lawyer as well.

    24. Pterodactyls are under-cited in the psychological literature*

      Rewatching Good Omens with my kiddo, having a grand time. “_Danger_… OSITY” is now a family phrase.

    25. Quinalla*

      Rewatching Legion (what a weird, dark, and fascinating show) and watching the new Batman animated series reboot on Prime.

      Looking forward to the next season of Pachinko later this month and Silo in September!

  10. Teapot Translator*

    Are massage guns any good? I have really tight muscles in my legs and the physical therapist recommended using a rolling pin, but I find my hands get tired very fast.

    1. ThatGirl*

      We have one I like for loosening up aches but they can be heavy to hold, helps if you have a partner. Can’t you sit on the rolling pin or a foam roller? Roll your body, not the roller?

      1. Teapot Translator*

        Foam roller is worse for me because of the strength in my arms vs my body weight ratio. :-D
        If the machine is heavy, that’s no good either, though. :-/

        1. ThatGirl*

          Theraguns are lighter and more comfortable than the knockoff Amazon one I got, but still have some heft. Maybe the PT has one you can test out?

        2. Filosofickle*

          Exactly me with foam. I do not have the arm/core strength or control to balance my large body on it!

    2. Harlowe*

      I bought my husband a Theragun and he’s barely touched it. He’s a rather bony guy (fit but lean, like a distance runner) and he claims it’s actually painful. Only recommend it if you have some meat on your bones.

      1. TPS reporter*

        the theragun is amazing but not for the faint of heart or light of meat. you want to get it right on a thick muscle area and not bones or any delicate places

        1. Indigo64*

          Seconded- my PT uses one occasionally and I found it extremely painful. With her expertise, she was able to adjust and make it tolerable, but I would not use it on my own. For the record, it did work, it just….hurt.

        2. Teapot Translator*

          Any massage is very painful for me, and I have an abundance of meat. It’s more the weight of the machine itself that worries me. And if they work.

          1. Falling Diphthong*

            I tried one out in a fancy department store (in NYC with daughter last year) and was impressed precisely because it seemed to provide enough force to actually make a difference. But I am someone who gets regular deep tissue massage, and I know my tolerance for this is way above most people’s. If any massage hurts you, it might not work.

        3. Osage*

          Light of meat hahaha.
          I am bony and this is SO TRUE. I have to use mine on the lowest setting and my husband needs the highest which would actually kill me

    3. Shiver me timbers*

      My dad’s does manual labor, so he’s always pretty sore and loves his massage gun. He is pretty chubby, and he often enlists the kids and wife to do the back of his legs and feet. Get one with different heads.

    4. hehethat'sfunny*

      I just bought a mini massage gun. It’s got a bit of heft but much more manageable than the full size.

    5. WoodswomanWrites*

      I suggest you look at the massage gun options created by two professional physical therapists at their website, Bob and Brad. You can check out their YouTube channel by the same name, which professional PTs that I know recommend. They have all kinds of tips, exercises, and stretches that are safe and helpful, and the videos are entertaining. It’s not surprising that they have more than five million subscribers.

    6. Maestra*

      I have the theragun mini. I don’t find it too heavy – the internet says it weighs 1.5 lbs. You don’t have to put any of your own effort or force into it so that might help compared to a rolling pin which I feel like you’d have to really put a lot of arm strength into. A foam roller using your own body weight would help. If you need to roll out your quads, you lie on it face down, if you need to do your hamstrings, you basically sit on it.

    7. A Girl Named Fred*

      My boyfriend and I have a Theragun and we love it (me a little more than him, lol!) I don’t find it too heavy but you could try the mini one if the full size looks heavy. Like some other folks said, it can be a bit sore/painful depending on how tight the muscles are, how hard you push in, and your general pain tolerance. I can tolerate way more than my boyfriend can, but I have a much higher pain tolerance than him. He still really likes it for his calves, hamstrings, and feet, we just have to skim more lightly than when I use it.

    8. Lily*

      I have a mini-massage gun (not a theragun, a knock-off) and I really like it for those days when my muscles feel stiff – painfully stiff – because when I get to that point, stretching doesn’t seem to stretch the muscles, if you know what I mean. The massage gun loosens the muscles. I did opt for a mini one, because the bigger ones seemed very unwieldy and heavy.
      If it’s mainly your calves that get tight, you could also roll them out with a cork ball (or tennis ball). Just sit down, put it under your calf and roll on top of it a bit. It’s amazing. A foam roller is also a thing, but I’ve found that it doesn’t work for me, I tense my quads and hamstrings in order to be able to roll. This is why I got the massage gun.

    9. fposte*

      I have one but use my tennis ball and foam roller about 20 times as much.

      If the problem with the foam roller is that you put too much weight on it, can you cheat the weight some? Put piles of cushions on either side so you sink a little lower than the top of the roller but don’t put all your weight on it? You don’t need a ton of rolling room, just enough for some back and forth.

    10. My Brain is Exploding*

      I would also recommend trying myofascial release therapy. A good therapist will also teach you how to do releases at home. These are long, slow holds v using a foam roller or massage gun.

    13. run mad; don't faint*

      I have one and it does help. I work out sitting positions which enable me to rest the butt of the massage gun on the sofa. That way I don’t have to bear the full weight of it with my hands and arms.

    14. Fluff*

      I love the gun and also this little guy – the nextrino infinity ball (vibrating 4 speed). They run 20-30 $. Especially for butt muscles, hamstrings, calves. You can make it softer by putting the peanut on the bed and sitting on it and then transitioning to hard surfaces. This thing has been a lifesaver. Neck, back, hams, etc.

      I got it first before the gun. I love this little vibrating peanut ball so much I gave it as presents for b-days. Best present ever.

    15. Morning Reader*

      I have never heard of one until this thread, but, I was just watching the special about Paul Simon, “in restless dreams,” and I saw him in one scene using a massage gun on his left arm while taking a break from playing guitar in his studio. If it’s good enough for a professional musician, it must work! (And now I know what that thing is called, thank you!)

  11. Teapot Translator*

    I know there’s been discussions here about apps to help develop habits. I discovered Finch recently. I quite like the UI.

    2. heckofabecca*

      OMG I love Finch! I’ve been using it for about 50 days :-) Recommended by my therapist, who also uses it XD

      1. Marz*

        I’ve done both Habitica and Finch (but to be fair, Habitica a long time ago, I’m sure they’ve made significant changes/additions).

        Finch is really great, it doesn’t feel like a chore, is just the right amount of ” i want to check this box/send my birb out on an adventure” without feeling overwhelming/demotivating. i love that it offers exercises and breathing stuff and reflections. i do ftp and it has more than enough for me but if I wasn’t so cheap (cheep!) the subscription seems worth it

    3. Fluff*

      Question – do any of these help with habits where you need to do a $ per week, but not on specific days?

      I love Habitica but it does have that limitation. I may want to spend 10 min working on junk drawer 3x per week. As long as I do it once per day and 3x per week, I am good.

      1. Teapot Translator*

        I’ve just started using it, so I don’t know all the features. But you don’t lose points if you don’t do something one day, so you could set your habit every day and just do it three times a week. I’ve also seen an option that says “Keep this goal until complete” but I haven’t tried it.

    4. SuprisinglyADHD*

      Finch is really cute, I’ve been using it for a few months and I really like it! Habitica worked well for me for many years but like all helpful tools for me, it eventually became less useful and more like a chore. I like Finch because there’s no penalty for not checking in and you can’t lose any progress, plus the Birbs are really cute!

  13. Andromeda*

    I have COVID. Not seeking medical advice, but would quite like to know how to pass the time when your mood truly feels rock bottom. I just started new antidepressants and my work has been suffering lately because it turns out I was ill and didn’t realise. YouTube is my normal switching brain off activity but nothing feels comfortable.

    1. chocolate muffins*

      Read and/or watch things that are fun and don’t require much thought? (I am sure many of us would be happy to give recommendations if you’d like some!) Nap? I really like baths but I’m not sure how that would be with COVID – depending on your symptoms, being in hot water for a long time might not be a good idea. I also like being outside – it might be nice to sit on a porch or balcony if you have access to something like that. And warm tea and apple cider are comforting to me, though it may be too hot for those right now depending on where you are.

        1. Double A*

          Golden Girls or other comfort sitcoms, especially any that you feel nostalgic about (like, Friends would be my other go t0).

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

            Comfort sitcoms! And preferably ones where you don’t have to watch but can just listen, so you can enjoy with your eyes closed. The Mary Tyler Moore Show is pretty good for that.

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

              Also, maybe reality TV that has low stakes? I’m a bit off my game right now myself and find myself watching *Say Yes to the Dress* and things like that.

        2. chocolate muffins*

          Shows:
          Schitt’s Creek
          The Office
          Parks & Rec
          The Good Place (I think this is the best one on my list, though Schitt’s Creek is probably the most comforting one to me)
          Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
          Jane the Virgin
          Kim’s Convenience
          Law & Order & associated things (SVU, etc) if you want something formulaic
          I just started watching Brooklyn 99, enjoyed the first few episodes, and have heard many others recommend it – especially people who have also recommended others of the shows I’m listing above

          A few books off the top of my head – I read a LOT and might come back with others, especially if you have specific genres you like or don’t like, or have read any of the ones below and have feedback about whether you liked them or not:

          Book Lovers by Emily Henry – romance that upends some tropes common in romance, fun banter. I also liked People We Meet on Vacation by the same author, but most people who like Emily Henry like Book Lovers and people are much more split in their opinions of People We Meet on Vacation, which is why I’m recommending Book Lovers primarily.

          The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune – cozy, a tiny bit fantastical, everything turns out well in the end. I don’t like fantasy-fantasy but this was mostly not fantasy, just focused on non-human beings, so it worked for me. From way long ago I also very much enjoyed The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, which was similar in terms of having non-human beings but not being too fantasy-ish for me. There are also movie versions of The Neverending Story but the book is VASTLY superior.

          Good Talk by Mira Jacob – a memoir that is all cartoons (is that the right word for things that are drawn but are more serious than what people watch/read on Saturday mornings when they are children?). Serious topics (racism, difficult family relationships) but the memoir itself did not feel heavy to me. I also very much enjoyed Mike Birbiglia’s memoir The New One. He is a stand-up comedian and the memoir is funny, though also about serious topics (the transition to parenthood, which was not easy for his family – or probably most people’s families).

          1. ThatGirl*

            I adore Crazy Ex-Girlfriend but feel like it needs a content warning that despite the silly name, it deals with some heavy mental health issues.

        3. chocolate muffins*

          Oh! Also! John Mulaney’s stand-up specials, which I think are on Netflix, are some of the best comedy I have ever seen.

        4. Falling Diphthong*

          The Repair Shop is streaming on BritBox. A team of craftspeople restore old items. Like Bakeoff, it’s a celebration of craft.

          1. GoryDetails*

            Seconding The Repair Shop (also available on YouTube – they’ve dropped full episodes regularly). Charming, low-key, relaxing… I adore it.

        5. RedinSC*

          I really like audio books. I can tune in and or zone out and kinda nap and just rewind as needed.

          My library has 2 free apps, Hoopla and Libby, so I can usually find a book that will entertain me.

          I just finished the Manners and Monsters series via hoopla written by Tilly Wallace and that was just charming fun, without being taxing.

      2. Quinalla*

        Rewatch something that you love, but that you don’t have to pay full attention to since you’ve seen it. This is best for me when I’m sick as I can nap/zone out/etc. without any issue, but it’s something I love so enough of a distraction from pain/discomfort. And yeah, something with a lot of dialogue is good.

        If I can read, I’ll do that, usually an old favorite as again, easy to move in and out of reading as needed. Audio books even better sometimes, but can be too slow when I’m still.

        I also like lowkey computer games or phone/tablet/handheld games. Something with zero timing/speed requirements, again so I can go as slow as I want and chill out.

        Also, organizing my GTD lists. If you have some kind of system where you track tasks, etc. this can be a great time to organize it if you can access it from phone/tablet. Also clearing out emails, etc. That kind of thing.

    2. ThatGirl*

      Dumb mobile games. Comfort tv shows. Reading, if you have the ability to focus, or audiobooks or podcasts. Hope you feel better soon.

    3. Canuck Gal*

      My comfort mindless tv is: Frasier (original), Mindy Project, Brooklyn 99.

      Palm Royale on Apple tv was fun, tho there is drama there too.

      Really liking Abbott Elementary, and totally random – rewatched Under the Tuscan Sun this week and loved it. I forgot how much of a favourite it was for me.

      Hang in there, you’ll get through Covid. Sending get well soon vibes :)

    4. RagingADHD*

      When I’m too sick to think or read, I like to put on period pieces or listen to NPR. Interesting enough that it doesn’t get horribly annoying, but kind of smooth and slow paced enough that I might drift off and not mind.

      Seasons 1-5 of The Crown got me through the worst days of Covid.

    5. Pop*

      I love to read romance novels – queer are my preference just due to my own life. I describe them as being like candy. They’re light and fluffy and delightful to read when your brain can’t do a ton.

      1. RedinSC*

        I call them brain candy, and they’re in one eye and out the other. Meaning, I don’t have to actually remember what I read to enjoy it.

    6. I didn't say banana*

      It can help to have a daily “routine” when you’re sick – morning shower, food, couch and phone time, cup of tea, bed nap, afternoon shower, food, bedtime etc. Breaks the day up a little. Can you ask friends to keep you company by text?

    7. Autumn*

      When I had COVID and was also going through an awful time at work (horrible co-worker) I did a huge jigsaw puzzle while listening to episode after episode of the Smartless podcast. Even though I could have had it playing through the speakers, I had it on headphones because there’s something about the immediacy that keeps me focused. There are so many episodes, there were lots of people who I wanted to hear chatting amiably with those hosts. I hope you feel better soon.

    8. Victoria, Please*

      last time I had covid I just lay in bed and watched endless episodes of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD. it was actually kind of nice.

    9. LizB*

      Podcasts with your eyes closed? Myths & Legends is one of my favorites where it doesn’t matter too much if I drift off, and the narrator has a very calm voice. Audiobooks could also be a good choice here, especially of a story that you already know (Harry Potter as read by Stephen Fry?).

    10. My Brain is Exploding*

      I would try my mom’s advice (if you feel up to it): shower, wash your face, brush your teeth, put on clean clothes (even if they are jammies). Mine: try to find a youtube video of breathing exercises and maybe one of restorative yoga poses (hold gentle poses 3-5 min each). These things will help your mind and your body. Hope you feel better soon!

    11. Girasol*

      What raised my spirits most was sitting out on the porch in the morning with a coffee and a paper or a book, imagining that the fresh air and sunshine and bird song must be immensely healing. When it got too hot to stay out I sipped diet soda all afternoon to cut the paxlovid taste and binge watched movie series that I’d started long ago and never finished. When you get over covid it can take a startlingly long time for your energy and mood to bounce back so be sure to take it easy on yourself for awhile.

    12. Peanut Hamper*

      Sometimes when I’m bored I’ll go to Wikipedia and use the “Random article” link. It’s amazing what you can find out about.

    13. Ali*

      When I had Covid I found mystery audiobooks very helpful. The Mrs. Jeffries series by Emily Brightwell was ideal because they are charming but fairly brainless. Also went through a ton of Agatha Christie audiobooks. I just lay in bed and listened and drifted in and out of consciousness.

    14. MissGirl*

      I feel you. I have COVID for the first time. I’m on day four and it still feels like a cold. I’m on “vacation” and I’m supposed to fly home tomorrow. I’m trying to figure out other options. My mom is with me and I want her to go home while she’s still healthy but I don’t think she will leave me. It’s a 14-hour drive over the Sierras and I think that would kill my sinuses with all the up and down and up and down. I want so badly to be home. Four years of nothing and then it hits at the worst possible time.

    15. The OG Sleepless*

      When I had it, my brain was so foggy I couldn’t even follow a TV show I hadn’t seen before. I watched the entire run of Firefly, some episodes of The Office, and A Man Called Otto (I hadn’t seen the movie but I’d read the book).

    17. DannyG*

      Old, familiar movies or TV programs or audio books. When I’m sick I like the comfort of the familiar, plus if I doze off I can still pick up wherever in the program I wake up.

  14. Harlowe*

    Do your pets have seasonal appetite changes?

    I bunker down and eat my feelings in the cold versus only picking in the heat, but my (neutered male indoor) tabby is absolutely ravenous during the heat waves we’ve been having. (And yes he has a clean bill of health.) His begging and acting out is way OTT compared to fall through spring.

    1. Seasonal cat*

      Our cat eats so little in the summer, sheds & is soooo skinny that she just looks terrible. In winter she eats and eats and becomes a triangle shape. Her coat gets thick & shiny and she’s beautiful. She gets so skinny in summer that I time her vaccinations for winter so the vet doesn’t think she’s abused or underfed.

    2. TPS reporter*

      my cats only seem to be more thirsty so they do want more want food at times. does your car eat wet food?

    3. goddessoftransitory*

      Peanut eats less the hotter it gets (one silver lining of having to stay at the Air BnB was it was air conditioned and his appetite really improved.) He’s a little old man and we need to keep his weight up, so it’s kibbles throughout the day and wet food/tuna mash morning and evening.

    4. Cookies For Breakfast*

      I do remember a past foster cat getting both skinnier and hungrier in the summer! I was concerned because he had stomach troubles just as last summer started, and I worried it might be that continuing. But no, just the way he is, it seems (he is absolutely thriving in his forever home now).

      The two we have now seem unfazed. We notice slightly more begging, but in the end, their usual quantities and meal times work just fine.

  15. AlliCat*

    After being in denial for years, I have come to accept that my 7yo is autistic, in the vein of what used to be called Asperger’s. He’s very high IQ and after doing a little reading, I can recognize that a lot of his inappropriate responses and his lying are because he is very smart but has no idea how to track what will make us happy or angry or anything.

    I am not telling anyone in our circles at the moment because I feel like it’s his private information, but I needed to tell someone.

    Autism evaluations are being scheduled 6-12 months out at our local child neuro/behavioral/psych offices, and I can’t even get them to call me back yet.

    I am trying to learn as fast as I can how to adjust how we talk to him to make expectations clearer, to give him better scripts and routines for conversation and social interactions.

    What don’t I know? What should I be reading? What can help me internally process this?

    He has autistic acquaintances and friends, but they display a lot of more serious aspects – nonverbal, aggressive, incontinent, generally unable to function normally – while my son is good at masking. I don’t know how to explain to him that he is like them.

    Forgive insensitive or incorrect language from me. This is all new to me.

    1. AnonParent*

      I am not expert, but just to say he isn’t like them, he is like him. His brain works differently from many peoples’ and that’s why he sometimes has trouble figuring out how to connect, what you want, etc. I would keep it simple like that and tell him you’d like to work on better understanding him and for him to understand how to make himself known better.

      I let my kid’s probable ADD go for a long time until his lovely teacher said ‘but don’t you want to know how his brain works? I’m neurodivergent and I’d want to know!’. I have found neurodivergent/neurodiverse to be a useful term.

      FWIW my kid has a buddy who is extremely bright and and autistic. You wouldn’t figure it out When he was younger he’d get upset by classroom conflict or sudden loud noises or the teacher occasionally snapping. He’d go sit under a desk. His friends would crawl under and sit with him quietly until he felt better.

      1. AnonParent*

        Sorry I had a real point – to reassure that IME kids now are very cool and can deal with stuff in a kind and matter of fact way, like ‘x is good at math, y is upset by yelling’. And that now at 12 the friend has outgrown those things and is great and will be super successful, as will your son. He is still his lovely self. And this waiting period is anxiety producing, but once you get going you will have answers quickly I hope. Also seconding talking to his teacher / school if you haven’t already. You may get access to testing and / or IEP or other supports even before you get a neuro consult.

        1. Banana Pyjamas*

          Social stories can be a great tool. You have to be cautious though as they can sometimes focus on teaching children to mask. I saw a good post recently breaking down neuro-affirming social stories. I’ll post a link if I can find it.

    3. AnonParent*

      I am sorry you are in the awful waiting period!

      I wouldn’t say he is like them, he is like him. It’s such a broad spectrum and each person is different. His brain works differently from many peoples’ and that’s why he sometimes has trouble figuring out how to connect, what you want, etc. I would keep it simple like that and tell him you’d like to work on better understanding him and for him to understand how to make himself known better. It might be a relief to him.

      I know this stage is super anxiety producing, and I’m glad you started the ball rolling and hope you get good help soon. I let my kid’s probable ADD go for a long time until his lovely teacher said ‘but don’t you want to know how his brain works? I’m neurodivergent and I’d want to know!’. It did help and once started we got answers pretty quickly. I have also found neurodivergent/neurodiverse to be a useful catchall term … and we are all a part of that.

      FWIW my kid has a buddy who is extremely bright and and autistic. You wouldn’t figure it out, maybe just think he’s a bit overeager. When he was younger he’d get upset by conflict or sudden loud noises in class etc. and would go huddle under a desk. His friends would crawl under and sit with him quietly until he felt better. I am in awe of how kids now accept people and just … deal. He’s now 12, great, deals with the world brilliantly, and I am sure will be very successful. So will your child.

    4. RagingADHD*

      Please do not explain anything to him about himself based on a home diagnosis. Neurodivergence (if that’s what it is) presents in many different ways, and can have many different comorbidities.

      I have a friend (ex friend, actually) who has really done a number on her kid by home-diagnosing her with various problems (sometimes counter to what actual psych professionals have said), telling her all kinds of things are “wrong” with her, and trying to self-administer therapies she doesn’t understand and isn’t qualified to use. That poor kid has a lot more problems now than she came into this world with.

      I know the waiting list is long, but wait, and in the meantime you can talk about changes in your parenting strategies (if you need to explain anything) as “trying to listen to him better” or “trying to explain things better,” etc. Frame it as choices you are making about your own side of the relationship.

      I think the most important things to process are: whatever label you or a doctor may put on your son’s difficulties, he is the same kid. The goal is to help him be happy, healthy, and secure in himself. Because he is a unique individual, there are guiding principles but no magic buttons. And it’s important to distinguish between problems/symptoms that are bad for him, vs traits that are harmless but make you uncomfortable.

      I wish you all the best, and hope that the waitlist goes faster than expected. IME, it’s worthwhile to call back in one-third to one-half the time they originally quote you, because stuff changes. For example, we got screwed over waiting for an ADHD assessment because the provider retired and they didn’t bother telling the wait-list people, because we weren’t official patients yet.

      1. nd stuff*

        I second this. Wait for the consult. I myself was diagnosed by someone who was not a medical professional, and it’s made untangling who I am and how I navigate the world more difficult.

      2. Observer*

        Good points.

        Because he is a unique individual, there are guiding principles but no magic buttons. And it’s important to distinguish between problems/symptoms that are bad for him, vs traits that are harmless but make you uncomfortable.

        This is probably the most crucial pair of points.

        Regardless of the diagnosis, waaay too much energy goes into dealing with non-problems. And too much argument into the One. Right. Way that will magically make everything all better. It doesn’t exist. Don’t make yourself crazy looking for one.

    5. LGP*

      When you are looking for resources, please make sure to prioritize writings/videos/posts from autistic people themselves. Often, discussions about autism are framed around “how to help neurotypical parents deal with their annoying autistic child” (not saying that that’s what you’re implying, but it is sadly all too common). It’s so important to familiarize yourself with the experiences of people who are actually autistic. In fact, the hashtag #actuallyautistic is widely used on social media by autistic people to share their own stories. Every autistic person is different (just like every neurotypical person is different), but hearing a variety of autistic people’s experiences might help you better understand how your son’s brain works.
      (I recommend @neurodivergent_lou on Instagram. She presents lots of info in an easily-digestible way.)

      2. Arrietty*

        Yes! My recommendation is a book called Loud Hands, which is a compliation of writings by autistic people.

    6. Irish Teacher.*

      The first thing I will say is look into the “double empathy problem,” even just by googling it, as it looks at how the problem with communication is with autistic and NT people communicating differently, not with autistic people being bad at communication and you can also find some suggestions about how to communicate better.

      If you are on facebook, “The Autistic Teacher” has a lot of good stuff to look at.

      Also to help internally process it, look up the positives of autism. There are lots. I may or may not be autistic; I dunno, but I would say my autistic like traits are more a positive in my life than a negative. The negatives (for me; everybody is different) are that I am a very picky eater, find crowded places stressful and can be kind of socially awkward (I say I haven’t been programmed with those set answers everybody else appears to be). Neutral traits are that I fidget a lot, talk a lot about history and autism and stuff like that. Positive traits are that I am very good at focussing, I am that person who always has things done before they are required and rarely, if ever, procrastinates. I think I had a easier time as a teenager than most people because I wasn’t bothered by peer pressure. I didn’t want to smoke or drink or skip school or try drugs and it wouldn’t even have occurred to me to feel like I needed to in order to fit in. I have a very good memory. (I think my sister may have envied this sometimes, as she would spend hours trying to memorise something they had to memorise for homework, whereas I would have the same thing by heart just by reading it twice.) I am very honest, to the point that I used to be given out to for not lying when I was a child (“you can’t always tell the truth! You have to lie sometimes!”).

      I joke my colleagues “keep me around for obsessing purposes” because I’m sort of the go-to person for finding new resources, researching new curricula, etc. I try to avoid interaction with parents but I reckon it’s fair enough to leave that to the year heads when I do a lot of other stuff in return.

      Assuming he is autistic, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It just means he’s different.

      You could tell him that all autistic people are different just as all NT people are different. I’d only raise it if he says something like “does that mean I’m not going to do well at school/won’t be able to speak properly?” or something else that indicates he thinks autism is something bad. If he does, then you can say that autism affects everybody differently and that some people with autism have problems with speaking but he doesn’t, just like some people who are NT get really good grades in school and some people who are NT never get good grades, it’s the same with autistic people.”

      I wouldn’t bring it up preemptivitely, because it could sound like you are indicating autism is something bad and he is “lucky” not to have it as “bad” as other people or as if you are suggesting he should try and be like NT people by masking and try to avoid being like other autistic people. (I know you don’t mean that, but to a 7 year old, it could come across that way.)

      You could also teach him about some well-known successful autistic people. Admittedly, a lot of the older ones are speculative because autism wasn’t understood, but there are a number of successful people recently who have gone public about their diagnoses. We’ve had a politician do so recently in Ireland – Luke “Ming” Flanagan. Personally, I also suspect our taoiseach (prime minister) is and he has a brother who is autistic and it does run in families. I also suspect even more strongly that de Valera, a previous taoiseach and the guy who wrote our constitution was (a lot of people agree on the last one)

    7. Goldie*

      I have two kids with dyslexia and adhd, sending a hug on handling these differences. In my experience, drs aren’t all that helpful, so balance out expectation to learn more and what might actually happen.
      For us staying flexible and in the moment has been very helpful. My kids change every few months.
      He’s still young-I think it’s a great idea to not promote the label. Focus on supporting him and responding as best you can with the behaviors. Trust yourself to know your kid and know what he needs.
      Also there is so much that he can achieve. Believe in him. My nephew who was nonverbal just graduated from college and is working. Barely any symptoms now.

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

        Seconding the point to not sell kids short, whatever diagnoses they may get. Assuming that a kid can’t do something can be so damaging and infantilizing.

        I took a class with a student who was nonverbal orally but attending college and doing quite well as an English major. One of the class assignments was writing a poem, and her poem was much better than any of ours. She wasn’t just squeaking by — she was thriving.

        As a counter-example, I was really irked when my friend thought her niece, who has had some anxiety issues, couldn’t learn to drive. The kid’s driving just fine now, but the negative attitudes of adults about what she could or couldn’t learn were NOT helpful.

        1. Irish Teacher.*

          I had a student who was unable to read or write and had a speech impediment. He got an A on the higher level paper on his history pre. The pre is a practice paper taken 3 or 4 months before the actual exam and generally before the course is even finished. He got the highest mark available without even completing the course. Only about 10% of students would get that in the real exam and a) that’s of those that take the higher level paper; out of the full number of students, the number would be lower again, maybe 8% and b) most students go up a grade from their pre, so the numbers getting that in the pre would be tiny.

          I was just thinking how 20 or 30 years ago that kid would not even have the opportunity to take the exam, but with a reader, he not only managed to complete it; he outperformed maybe 90% of the population nationally.

      2. anonymous anteater*

        I recently attended a workplace seminar on neurodiversity. The expert started with a long bit about definitions, and I had a huge Aha moment. The scientist who originally coined the term neurodiversity, meant it to be analogous to biodiversity, as in, people have differently functioning brains, and the overall population is more resilient and capable because of that diversity. In hindsight, why didn’t I understand that sooner, but it was a wonderful perspective shift for me.

    8. Jules the First*

      There’s a lot of overlap between Autistic and Gifted behaviours, but they often happen for different reasons. Gifted kids often struggle with emotional labelling even when they aren’t also autistic because it doesn’t occur to them that there might be an emotional rather than rational reason why someone is doing something. So don’t tell kiddo they are like anyone else until you have a formal diagnosis – because they might not be.

      As for you, I always send people to Tilt Parenting as a starting point – they do a ten day welcome email series that will really help you get your head around your feelings around this and then there are loads of materials to signpost you towards helpful resources and techniques. I also like The Neurodiversity Podcast with Emily Kircher-Morris, which covers a ton of useful topics both theoretica and practical.

      1. Banana Pyjamas*

        Also remember that Autism and giftedness aren’t mutually exclusive, people can be twice exceptional.

        1. Jules the First*

          Oh absolutely! (2e gifted/add over here raising a 2e kiddo) But so many people forget that giftedness is also a form of neurodiversity and, in my experience, parents and teachers are much quicker to jump to “autistic” than “profoundly gifted”. I’ve had half a dozen friends whose kids have been evaluated for autism at the request of parents or teachers and have come out of the assessment with a diagnosis of highly gifted instead because the general community does a poor job of understanding the difference in different degrees of giftedness.

          1. Banana Pyjamas*

            That’s interesting, and it makes a lot sense. I’ve read several people’s experiences where schools refuse IEPs for 2E kids because they’re doing well academically, and I feel like this is the missing context.

      2. Cedrus Libani*

        As a highly gifted kid who also gained and lost the autism diagnosis several times – final answer no, which is probably correct, though there were very good reasons to suspect it – this. A small child with obviously high IQ is likely to have autistic traits. Think of it as distributing one’s skill points in a non-standard way. They will have gaps, even in “easy” skills that most kids get without trying.

        It’s also the case that adjusting yourself to match the wavelength of people whose minds work differently from yours is a highly advanced social skill. It is normal and developmentally appropriate for a seven-year-old to struggle with it. You don’t normally see it with average kids, because they spend lots of time with their peers. But if you put an average seven-year-old in a classroom where everyone else has a serious intellectual disability, you’d get the same symptoms: a confused, angry kid who just can’t seem to get along.

        If it’s at all possible, get the kid time with real peers. This will develop the core social skills on “easy mode”, building confidence for the inevitable return to “hard mode”. Also, nothing fixes gifted kid arrogance faster than losing a nerd fight to someone who is qualitatively smarter. Yes, I know that from experience.

    9. Hyaline*

      Was going to say the same thing as others–instead of focusing on who is like, or what traits he shares with others, put the focus on him. Help him find words to describe how he sees himself and then lean into those. He’s old enough to have Opinions about himself and the world, and leading with him sharing those might be really enlightening and give you a good foundation. These don’t need to be formal diagnoses or terms–if he says “It’s overwhelming when XYZ happens” then you have a term to use together–overwhelm.

      Waiting on professional help is frustrating–but don’t let it paralyze you! Yes, there’s a lot of value in professionals and their opinions, but he’s your kid–you know him well. And at 7, he’s starting to know himself well, too. Trust him and trust yourself–frequently, you don’t need a formal diagnosis to be like “Well, lots of noise and overstimulation is too much to deal with, let’s avoid situations that put this kind of pressure on us and find coping strategies for times when it’s unavoidable” or whatever the situation is. (In my house it’s “Mom cannot handle too much noise at once, it scrambles her brain and makes her anxious, so Mom wears earplugs sometimes,” for example. I did not need a neuropsych to tell me this.)

    10. Generic Name*

      My son was diagnosed as autistic when he was 14. He is now 17, about to enter his senior year. He has 2 large groups of friends, and plans to go to college in his preferred field of study. But there was a time before his diagnosis that I was worried he’d even make it through school because of his severe behavior problems. He could not control his anger and got suspended at least once a year for years.

      Here’s what helped my son the most:

      -I got him into therapy, and although he didn’t participate all that much, the therapist recommended a screening.
      -He got diagnosed at age 14. I told him about his diagnosis and told him it’s information about how his brain works, and his brain works differently than most people, which is why he might sometimes feel different. I’ve told family and close friends, and I let the school know. I told him it’s his medical information, so he can choose who to tell or not tell. I know he’s told at least his best friend.
      -I put him in ABA therapy. This type of therapy is very controversial. Lately, I’ve heard the terms “compassion based” versus “compliance based” to describe the “good” and “bad” types. This therapy can be very intense, and requires many hours. My son is type 1, meaning he needs less support than type 3, and he had therapy for 6 hours a week. Two sessions. The therapist came to our home and I was present for every session, and I have no idea how the therapy worked, but I noticed a marked difference. From what I could tell, the therapist just talked to my son while they played cooperative games, did chores, or worked in a workbook.
      -I put my son in Boy Scouts. Again, maybe controversial, given the organization’s past wrongdoings, but it really helped my son socially. He was in a troop with my best friend’s sons, and her husband was a leader. The older boys are taught to be leaders and to be good examples to the younger boys, and it really helped my son to not only see the example of the older boys, but they would correct him (and the other younger boys) when they got too squirrelly or when they generally misbehaved.
      -This one might sound weird, but working a part time job as a dishwasher in a restaurant kitchen has also helped. He is much more confident now overall, and his interactions with waitstaff at restaurants has improved immensely. He used to put his head down and mumble his order and generally looked really uncomfortable when telling them what he wanted. Now he speaks up clearly, looks at the waiter/waitress, and even jokes around a bit.

      Right now, you need support. I’d look up local support groups for parents. Google your county or state or metro area with the words “autism parent support”. It’s really helpful to talk to other parents who get it. I would caution you about the Autism Speaks organization. I think they mean well, but no autistic people are involved in it and they use terms like “cure”. There is no “cure” for autism because it isn’t a disease.

      I know it’s overwhelming, but you are doing the right thing for your child. If they get a diagnosis, nothing has changed about your kid. They are the same kid you love with your whole heart. Honestly, my only regret in this whole journey is not getting him diagnosed earlier. Not because it would have been easier for me but because I think it would have improved his elementary school experience and helped him earlier. Hugs if you want them. You got this.

      1. Banana Pyjamas*

        ABA is “controversial” because it’s actively harmful to Autistic folks. Many Autistic people develop PTSD/c-PTSD as a direct result of ABA.

        1. AGD*

          Seconding (I’m neurotypical but a cognitive scientist). Look up Ariana Cernius, who voluntarily withdrew a article she’d written in the Harvard Law and Policy Review earlier about ABA once she learned how ghastly it is.

          1. Nightengale*

            wow I wish I’d see that before the two talks I’ve given in the past year in professional settings about the evidence base against ABA. I’m adding it to my resource list now.

            (The evidence base against ABA is actually quite strong. The study linking to PTSD had serious methodical problems but presents some compelling data. There are both the studies suggestive of harm and the studies demonstrating minimal gains. A 2020 meta-analysis could not find enough randomized controlled studies to recommend it. Julie Roberts, an autistic speech therapist, just put all the evidence together in a new book, “The Gold Standard Fallacy of ABA: A Reference Guide for Therapists, Educators, & Parents”

    11. LizB*

      Echoing all the others who say to wait for an expert opinion before you apply any labels. There’s also no need to compare your son to his autistic friends. As the adage goes, “If you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person” – each individual is going to be unique, with their own strengths, differences, and needs. You need to find out more about your son’s unique brain and how best to communicate with him more than you need to find out about Autism writ large. You will be okay, he will be okay, and you are on a journey to a stronger relationship and a kid who has the tools he needs to thrive!

    12. Cj*

      I have heard and read many, many times that you should avoid anything from the organization Autism Speaks.

      1. Lucien Nova, Disappointing Australian*

        This, 100%. Autism Speaks is more interested in making money off autistic people while conveniently not letting anyone who actually has autism have a say.

      2. Irish Teacher.*

        They are absolutely shocking and have shared some really horrific, offensive and inaccurate things about autism, implying that it is the absolute worst thing a person’s child can have and that it can be and should be cured. Yeah, avoid at all costs.

      3. Just another autist*

        VERY important point, Cj! There are, unfortunately, several autism-focused organizations that promote crazy ideas about autism, making the world a worse place for anyone on the spectrum. Age of Autism is another of those.

        AlliCat, best of luck navigating this unexpected situation. Looking back, I would say I presented a different set of challenges to my parents, not necessarily a larger set, on the whole. It may help once you’re able to get the diagnosis and work with professionals to develop a plan; I had blind spots and genuinely didn’t understand that my brain was somewhat different until high school, and that was a complicated realization. Eventually, I spoke to a professional who put down her pen and told me, “This is an easy diagnosis, but it’s up to you if you want me to put it in writing. It might open the door to more resources, but having it on your record might also lead to pre-judging you.” I opted not to have it recorded, which I think was a mistake. So I hope having the information early helps you all.

    13. Mrs Claus, Maybe*

      Coming from another angle, as the sibling of an autistic person – if you have any children, please be careful how you treat them. My brother always, always, always got preferential treatment – some of which looking back may have been what we might call “reasonable accommodations,” but of course as a kid it didn’t look like it to me.

      Which brings me to my more important point: our mother never told him he was autistic (and never told me either – a guidance counselor at our school let it slip). I believe that was the fashion at the time (90s/00s), but it also prevented him from finding community, and must’ve added a layer of confusion in the way he navigated the world. Once I found out, I did understand him better, although we still don’t have any kind of relationship.

      I completely understand not wanting to be defined by a label, but (assuming a diagnosis) keeping that kind of information from a child (and later an adult!) is… icky at best.

      1. ReallyBadPerson*

        I agree with the others to wait for the evaluation, but there are things you can do now, regardless of his eventual diagnosis. The most important of these is to have a script for every social activity to set him up for success. In the most basic sense, this is just talking in advance about what will happen and what will be expected of him. Don’t lower your behavioral standards, just talk about them.
        As far as explaining to others, I don’t think you need to. Adults and older kids generally know when someone isn’t typically developing. Younger kids don’t really need to know. They just accept people as they are. Sure, labels are freeing, but usually only to oneself, as in, hey, there’s a name for what I’ve got, so I must not be too weird.

    14. Oink*

      I really feel for you with the waiting. I got my son’s diagnosis in 2021. After covid lockdowns, a lot of doctors weren’t even adding you on a waitlist because it was so long. I only managed to get an assessment after 3ish months because of a cancellation.

      After discovering my son was autistic, I went through a period of crazy researching on everything. I looked into therapies, books, podcasts, parenting courses, vitamins, CBD gummies, acupuncture and whatever else. Looking back, it was my way of trying to process my anxiety and profound sadness in discovering my son has a lifelong disability. It was a coping strategy for me to distract myself from my feelings and to feel like I had a measure of control in a daunting, unfamiliar journey ahead.

      I want to share that I love my son’s autism now. I cannot imagine my son without autism any more than I can imagine myself without limbs. He is a teenager with little self consciousness. He asked out a girl he likes and when she said no he shrugged it off and went on with minimal embarrassment (I would have had to change schools if I got rejected by a boy that age lol). He still comes to me for hugs. Given his sensory issues I have zero concerns about him smoking or drinking or even parties. His special interest is in business. He’s researched a lot about investments and based on his advice we made 12% returns last year.

      There are some tough times too. What helped us was working with a therapist who specializes in autism. She provided much needed education about what adjustments we had to make in our parenting to suit an autistic brain, rather than what we were used to or expected in our neurotypical brains. She gave tips on how to make and keep friendships with advice specific to autism. It was much, much more useful and helpful than general therapists who might only have a text book understanding of autism.

    15. Mom of Autistic boy*

      My 15 year old son is autistic, likely much like your son. Here’s my advice:

      – Get on the waiting list of the psych place when you can – perhaps see if there are other options.
      – Talk to his school about doing an educational evaluation. He may not need accomodations at school, but they can do an assessment.
      – Check out aspergerexperts.com – they have been immensely helpful for understanding & therefore helping my son. They have courses & books you can read. They have reasonably priced courses & books and far more expensive one-on-one help (but it doesn’t sound like you need that help).

      My son has both an educational diagnosis & a medical one for autism. Getting accomodations at school has been very helpful, but also challenging because you have to always make sure they are actually providing them.

      Encourage your son to not mask as much as you can. That’s challenging, but the more he masks, the more likely he is to burn out – and that will take a very long time to recover from. So if he needs to do something (a stim of some sort), make sure he’s allowed to do it. If he needs to do something that’s distracting to others, have him out of view when possible. (As an example, if he’s pacing or flapping his hands in class, he should be at the back of the class so his classmates don’t get distracted.) Accomodate any sensory preferences. (My son insists on wearing pants & fleece year round. Not so great for marching band practice when it’s in the 90s. So we make sure he drinks lots of water, knows the signs of heat stroke, and the marching band director knows what the issue is and is willing to work with him, partly because he also has an autistic son.)

      Seek out other parents of autistic children. There are good facebook groups. Or hopefully you have good groups in your local area.

    16. Observer*

      I don’t know how to explain to him that he is like them.

      Don’t even try. He is not like them.

      In general, it’s a bad idea to assume that anyone who has a particular diagnosis is “like” everyone else who has that diagnosis. And that is true even when a diagnosis is fairly discrete and with low variability. When you are dealing with something like autism, it just has no relationship to reality. There is a reason the term used is “spectrum.” There is a just a huge level of variability.

      Stop and think about it for a minute. You that these children are “nonverbal, aggressive, incontinent, generally unable to function normally” while your son is verbal and functional and does not display these other issues either. So why would you say that they are “the same”. Sure, they (probably) have a similar diagnosis. But that’s not close to being the same.

    17. Banana Pyjamas*

      You say your child is high-masking, so I want to share some experiences with you that are common in the Autism groups I’m in on Facebook.

      The first is that the evaluators don’t build enough trust with the child before beginning the assessment and the child ends up masking through the evaluation. Alternatively, they see a social enough child who can make eye contact and refuse to evaluate.

      The second is evaluators refusing to take input from parents about how their child typically behaves because the evaluator “doesn’t see it” (see above) and/or school/child care does not report those behaviors. The thing is, it’s normal for high masking kids to behave differently at home because masking all day takes it out of them.

      The last is the worst. High masking children are often misdiagnosed and treated with medicines or therapies that are contraindicated, sometimes making things even worse. I’ve seen people have to take kids to evaluations three or more times before getting on the right track. This doesn’t usually happen because of parents seeking a specific diagnosis, but because their child is worsening so they seek a new evaluation.

      I don’t know if it will help, but I’m keeping a list of all the behaviors we’re seeing while we wait. I might put it into excel or Google sheets.

    18. denton*

      Check out the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and Autism and ND Advocacy organizations. They have good information for parents. Kaelynn Partlow’s online website and information is great as she is autistic herself. neurodivergent_lou’s content on Instagram is helpful too. Definitely look for a neurodiversity-affirming or autistic-led parent support group for yourself, take care of yourself and get that info and that support. The book Unmasking Autism by Devon Price is recommended but I have never read it. Finally, you mention speaking, I would look at speech/language therapy, riseandsigntherapies on Instagram is great to learn from, and Occupational Therapy helps too, rather than any kind of behavior modification/forced masking. Remember that he is neurologically processing more information than a typical brain, including sensory information. Helping him learn how to regulate his body and emotions will be important, and know that his needs are just as important as anyone else’s, there isn’t anything wrong with him and he shouldn’t ignore his needs to look “normal”. Things like visual prompts, routine and consistency, allowing sensory breaks (Zohan headphones are fantastic), and respecting all forms of communication are helpful. Be sure he gets an IEP and 504 and collaborate with the school – they have resources for him, for free, they sometimes have SLPs on staff. You’re doing an amazing job just by acknowledging and asking for help! The neurodiversity movement recognizes there are many strengths of autism and that it is like a salad bar of traits not a severity spectrum. The thoughtfulness in your comment tells me that you will support and uplift his strengths, he is lucky to have you. The symbol for autism accepted by the autistic community is a rainbow infinity sign or a gold infinity sign, by the way, if you are a parent who likes merch, the organizations I mentioned have some. It is 4 a.m. where I am, so I really truly apologize that I could not structure this comment any better, but I am sending you so much positive energy and best wishes to you and your son.

    19. Rachel*

      We opted for DIR/floortime instead of ABA. I like it because it emphasizes teaching my kiddo how to make connections with other people and respects her individual different. If you are in the US, we use a company called Positive Development that has a handful of locations nationwide. They do their own assessments (won’t replace neuropsych but can speed the process) and take our insurance too.

    20. The OG Sleepless*

      My 24 year old son has what was then called Asperger’s. In our case, one thing I wish I’d done differently was pay more attention when they offhand said “oh by the way, we think he has ADHD too.” Looking back, his struggles in school had a lot more to do with the ADHD than the neurodiversity.

    21. Cardboard Marmalade*

      Strongly recommend reading the book Unmasking Autism. For me, the biggest takeaway was learning the importance of giving myself guilt-free opportunities to recharge by a) not having to mask (either by having alone time or quiet, not over-stimulating interactions with one or two other ND folks), and b) large, unstructured amounts of time to get deep into my special interests. The mental relief of allowing myself these things has had a huge positive impact on my ability to self-regulate and do all those day-to-day executive function things that used to be impossible/intolerable.

    22. anon non-neurotypical school psych*

      That seems like a very long time to wait for an evaluation. I understand that you may not be in the US, but even if you aren’t, your child should be able to be evaluated at school much sooner than that, which as other folks have mentioned, could lead to helpful accommodations and supports even for “what used to be called Aspergers.” In the US, this is the case even if a student is not enrolled in public school (i.e., the pertinent public school district still has a “Child Find” duty for those students as well so an evaluation would still be completed). Just something to consider.

    23. Nightengale*

      autistic doctor to autistic and otherwise neurodivergent children here

      I do not know your kid and this is not medical advice.

      The book I recommend the most to families is The Explosive Child. The author, Ross Greene, has online resources and podcasts as well. It outlines a collaborative problem solving approach between adult and child.

      One of my favorite favorite things about this approach is that it looks at specific problems, not diagnosis. Greene notes – and after a bit more than a decade in the field – I agree – that we overfocus on diagnosis. Parents and professionals often expect a diagnosis to explain things and sometimes put problem-solving or therapuetic approaches on hold pending a diagnosis. Which yes is running 6-12 months in many centers including my own. I find diagnosis useful sometimes when considering medications and also useful for a person to understand themself and parents/teachers/etc to understand them better. But you don’t have a diagnosis and won’t for months and even if you get a diagnosis (which may or may not be autism) your kid is the same kid and has the same strengths and challenges and those are going to be at the heart of moving forward.

      I wrote a whole piece about the new challenge of explaining autism to an older kid who knows autistic people with higher support needs and may not see the similarities (or whose adults may not see the similarities)

      nightengalesknd.dreamwidth.org/2018/04/03/

      I see others have mentioned Social Stories. Real ones can be great. Carol Gray has on her website a checklist to make sure a Social Story follows the guidelines of explaining a situation. There are a lot of things out there that call themselves social stories that are actually behavior plans.

      More broadly, I generally send parents to resources by autistic adults to get a sense of what to say or not say. ASAN (the autistic self-advocacy network) has a free online book for parents called “start here.” They also have a book/video called “welcome to the autistic community.” I don’t recommend those for a 7 year old but for parents to set the tone.

  16. Not your typical admin*

    Advice on helping teen girl deal with “mean girl” subtle bullying. It’s happening in my daughter’s cross country team to her and her good friend. Lots of eye rolling, making faces, making underhanded comments. Most of it has been done where the coaches can’t see. Today turned a little physical where one of the girls (intentionally it seemed) bumped into my daughter’s friend, pushing her off balance and then stepping all over the towel she uses for cool downs. Had a long talk with one of the coaches, and while they’re aware of the situation, they’re having trouble addressing it because most of it is done so quickly and subtly they don’t see it. My daughter doesn’t want to be a whiner or cause drama.

      1. Not your typical admin*

        That sounds like a great book and exactly what she’s dealing with! Plus she’s looking for another book or two to get into before school starts back!

    2. Shiver me timbers*

      Oof.
      I would go full Alison on this. Your daughter is being subtlety bullied, and I’m afraid it’ll just get worse. Your daughter is not a whiner because she wants to be treated decently. Prepare your daughter with responses if things happen.
      These suggestions are untested, but try…
      “That comment was not appropriate.”
      “Are your eyes bothering you?”
      “Do not shove me or my friend.”
      “Please respect my personal property. There is no excuse to deliberately step on my towel.”
      If they EVER lay a hand on your daughter or her friend, tell her to report it. It’s not drama if your daughter is physically affected.
      Honestly, you might want to document this stuff. That way if there’s any questions, you can pull out a list of Jane’s bullying tactics.
      This is a tough situation and I hope your daughter makes it out emotionally stronger.

    3. matcha123*

      I think that the coach is taking the easy route to avoid any conflict. They absolutely know what is going on and don’t want to deal with it.
      Cross country is, imo, a pretty “rich kid” sport. I could be wrong, but I’m assuming the other girls might have moms that hold some influence, either as PTA heads or some kind of exclusive mom group thing? And if the coach calls them out, they will have to deal with parents who will not only not take care of the problem, but who will also probably try to get the principal to pressure the coach.

      I taught some first graders after school for a few months and one boy was loved to push other kids to do “bad” things and then see them get in trouble. I told him straight that I overheard him telling another student to do something and it needed to stop. His “defense” was that he said nothing, did nothing, and either way his mom paid for the class so I couldn’t tell him what to do…

      If parents and adults don’t step in, it will continue. If they are in high school, they should be reminded that their reputations also come into play when getting letters of recommendation for colleges and college sports. If you yourself attend games or practices, talking to the other parents about things would be good too, imo. The coach isn’t going to be able to kick people off of a team if they think that the parents will just complain and get their kid back on and the coach fired.

      1. Shiny Penny*

        So true! It would be incredibly helpful if adult leaders actually addressed this stuff!
        If only they actually acted as role models, and demonstrated how to articulate describing bullying behavior. How can you describe behavior that is mean or aggressive and not ok, but confusing and murky? How can you articulate behavior changes that are needed? How can you effectively counteract plausible deniability?
        One of the many awesome things Alison does here is effectively articulate troublesome behavioral or interpersonal problems. You don’t list the 15 ways a report is treating a manager/coworkers disrespectfully, you sum it up. ‘People here must treat each other respectfully, and insubordination is grounds for dismissal.” (Just as an example.) You don’t get into the weeds of describing the way they roll their eyes at Jane in payroll and scoff at John’s lunches.
        If only bullying in school was addressed in similar ways!

    4. Shiny Penny*

      Personally I feel that the victim can get back power by saying almost anything to make it clear that Something just happened, and they SAW it and they are calling it out. Which can be a useful opposite of “silently dying inside, and slinking away feeling like shit.”
      Very similar to responding to sexist/misogynist comments, in other circumstances! (I’ve seen websites devoted to teaching the strategy in this context. Caveat— safety awareness is, as usual, critical.)
      Almost anything works that’s short and said with eye contact and the correct sort of “hard” energy.
      Burn!!! (Like you are appreciating and applauding their awesome snarkiness)
      Rrrrriiiiight! (Emphatically, and drawn out, conveying that you can’t believe anyone just said that)
      Wow! Well, OKAY then! (Bright and clear, with a blink)
      Oh, don’t mind ME, standing right here!
      Oh, EXCUSE me, did I bump into you?

      Often helpful to change the subject, or walk away like the company sucks too bad to stay any longer ( “Well, I am outa here!” “Well, I am gonna get started on our Actual Assigned Task” with a vibe of …because this bs is clearly not worth my time). But other times, just make the throw-away comment and otherwise pretend it’s no big deal.
      I am SO much more skilled at this, with sexism/misogyny/bullying as an adult. But I sure wish someone had taught it to me as a teen! I stumbled along with an imperfect version of it, mostly dealing with some awful family members as a teen, but even that was so much better than downtrodden silence!
      I hope your daughter finds something that works for her.

        1. Shiny Penny*

          She is awesome!
          With one particular relative I like to say, “Thank you Sir!!! May I have another!!!”
          Because that relative likes to pretend he didn’t just metaphorically punch me in the face, and I enjoy making it clear to him and the surrounding audience that he, in fact, did. lol.
          (What movie was that from?)

          2. Trixie Belden was my hero*

            If he escalates you can follow up with

            “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life”

      2. Shiny Penny*

        Also— while I love the plain real talk that can happen between friends, I do feel like troublemakers and bullies are riskier. In my experience, it’s better to never fall for “a discussion” because they are not dealing in good faith. They’re just trying to trip you up and get more ammo for mockery.
        I instead agree with whatever they say to excuse/justify “what they just did.”

        So, Target Kid:
        “Oh, don’t mind ME, standing right here!”
        “Oh don”t worry about STEPPING ON MY TOWEL, I didn’t really need it anyway!”
        Bully: What do you mean? Oh I didn’t see you there. I didn’t mean to do that!
        You: I know, right! I was right in the way! My towel was nearly falling into the mud on its own!”
        Said with sincerity…

        Because it’s really hard to describe or put into words “what just happened”, especially as a teen being bullied. It’s hard enough to capture and articulate those kinds of problems *as an adult*!
        When I was/am targeted, it’s a safer bet (and a more powerful position) to not fall into that kind of no-win conversation in the first place. “Sincere agreement” or exiting the location both work better/more safely.
        (But this is all just my personal experience!)

    5. Ellis Bell*

      I really like Shiny Penny’s suggestions about just naming it in the moment; from a teacher’s perspective, I would hope the coach is just in surveillance mode in order to better address this, but if your daughter feels unsafe for more than the merest period of time, consider noping out of an untenable situation. What is permitted is promoted. One interesting thing that research has turned up on anti bullying measures recently is how important it is for adults, and kids too, to keep their focus on positive behaviours as an expectation. Like, if I was talking to that coach I would say “Ok, you haven’t seen anything negative, but have you seen anything positive or kind from these students?” If they’re not addressing a lack of positive interaction on a sports team I would find that concerning. I was reading recently about one school which has successfully tackled bullying by making students ambassadors for anti bullying behaviour and these students would recognise and reward small acts of kindness by giving out wristbands when they saw people being awesome to each other. Apparently the bullying issues staff were addressing just plummeted, but they already had robust actions for tackling active negativity. I always think it’s a cop out when you make kids responsible for tackling bullies, either by telling them to stand up for themselves or putting them in the position of having to report the same thing over and over, but I think telling them to give their attention to people who are doing it right (while staff tackle those who are doing it wrong) has a lot of merit. Bullying is an attention seeking behaviour, and sometimes people forget that there are behaviours more worthy of our time and attention.

    6. Generic Name*

      The coach needs to handle the situation, so if you can, insist that they do. I might also show your daughter the question and update from a bully who will never work at a major employer in her location because the girl she bullied is a rockstar there. It won’t help your daughter now, but it might give her a teeny bit of hope in the meantime. Whatever you do, please don’t say “just ignore it” or “she’s just jealous of you”. That’s what my mom told me when I complained of bullying, and it didn’t help one bit. I’m glad you’re doing something. Bullying continues because adults allow it to. We cannot leave children to “work it out themselves”.

    7. Hyaline*

      Does the team or sponsoring organization have a policy on bullying? It might be helpful to familiarize yourself with it so that you don’t get caught in a tug o’ war of “I’d like the coaches to Do A Thing” and they respond with “Yes we’re aware and…” and nothing happens. If the policy clearly states consequences, or protocols, or processes, work within those. Use the policy language whenever possible to avoid any miscommunication. Ask the coaches what would be needed to escalate the conversation if it comes to it, again using their own policy language. For example “Your policy states that team members are to be given one warning on bullying or exclusionary behavior, then they will be suspended. Have the girls been warned? Why not?” If there is no policy, strongly advocate for adopting one!

      Something I’ve noticed, though–many orgs and schools adopted “zero tolerance” policies that put them in a corner when it came to actually dealing with the problem. That is, if ultimately kicking students out of the sport or team isn’t an option…how exactly do you practice “zero tolerance?” What we’ve seen is that the bar keeps getting raised on what “bullying” actually entails, with strait up bullying behavior being re-labelled so that teachers/admin don’t have to actually follow through on their policies. So be aware of that, too.

      I think your daughter is best served avoiding these jerks whenever possible, sticking with her friends, and generally staying above their mud slinging. As much as I love Alison-style scripts, if she uses one, she needs to be prepared that preteen and teen girls are very likely just going to laugh at it and possibly mock her seriousness. (ex: eyeroll “Oh is this *nOt AcCepTaBLe* I guess write up a report on it” laugh giggle eyeroll) I’m not saying she shouldn’t call it out, but that it’s not the conversation ender it would be with actual functioning adults, and she needs to be prepared that it can even make her a continued target.

      1. AGD*

        I got picked on a lot in school, and yeah, unfortunately, when I stopped fighting back, the other girls would just mock my nonconfrontational response. Nothing I could have done would have changed the underlying reason for the behavior, which was that the girls had contempt for me. Barbara Coloroso’s work might help here, but basically I second the recommendation to document everything and try to get adult intervention. I’m so sorry your daughter is going through this.

    8. allathian*

      Your daughter isn’t a whiner, and I’m glad that she has your support.

      I hope that her school has a policy to deal with the bullying and that the bullies get suspended.

      But if not and especially if things get worse, please consider withdrawing your daughter from the team. Or at the very least, tell her that you support her if she wants to quit. Sometimes a strategic withdrawal is the only way to deal with bullies, even if it means they’ve “won” by driving you away from an activity you’d otherwise enjoy.

      At least you can quit an extracurricular, it’s worse if the bullying happens in class. Mean girls are especially good at the sort of exclusionary bullying that happens in class right in front of the teacher because much of that is non-verbal, but both the bully and the victim know exactly what’s going on.

    9. Cardboard Marmalade*

      I get that your daughter doesn’t want to inadvertantly invite more nastiness in the form of snide remarks about “it’s not that serious” or the like by making a big fuss over this, but I think the really important things to keep in mind here is that humans, especially young humans with still-growing brains, learn about themselves from the way other people treat them. It is very, very hard to not internalize that you deserve cruelty when you are being treated cruelly on a regular basis. It may not seem like something that can be doing lasting harm, but I think that’s why it’s your job as the adult to really go hard for your daughter here and make it clear that she doesn’t deserve this and it’s not something she’s doing wrong if the behavior continues. It’s the job of her educators to provide a safe environment for her to learn in. Period.

    10. StrayMom*

      I was bullied in middle school by a terrifying older girl…I was the new kid in class, just relocated to a new home and school district, and shy and awkward (7th grade feet do NOT work as well as you’d hope). Her friends approached me, asked if they could “borrow” one of my cherished books, and it never got returned. When I approached the teacher, she said I should confront them. When I approached the group (and the bully) Bully laughed and said “you mean someone stole it?”.
      Fast forward a few years later…Bully’s younger brother and I fell in love, and eventually got married. Bully has been an angel to me ever since.
      And yes, my book was returned. She threw one of her then-peeps under the bus, but she knows and I know…
      All this to say, time wounds all heels.

  17. anon for this*

    There is an advice giving phenomenon I’ve seen happen in these comments and on social media that I dislike, and instead of just being annoyed about it, I’m trying to be curious about it. The situation is that someone asks for a recommendation (for a product/movie/book sort of thing) with very specific parameters, and advice givers suggest things that are outside those parameters.

    Here’s an example of the kind of thing I’m talking about:
    Question: I’m looking for a green dress. I’m short, so I need petite sizes. Lands’ End didn’t have anything. Any suggestions?
    Answers:
    – Have you tried Lands’ End? Most of their clothes come in petites.
    – Dresses are terrible. You should just wear pants. That’s what I do.
    – I love the dresses from ClothesForWomenOverSixFeetTall[dot]com.
    – Here’s my favorite place to buy red sweaters.

    As a question asker, I hate this because I’m not looking for general advice; I’m looking for a very specific thing. The internet isn’t like a dinner party where it would be rude to ignore the question and the specifications are right there so you can review them if you forget partway through answering, which takes care of the two biggest reasons I can think of for giving these kinds of answers.

    If you’re a person who gives this kind of advice, tell me about your thought process! I’m trying to understand.

    1. Maggie*

      I don’t give that type of advice but I have noticed people here will ask for extremely specific product recommendations with 5+ parameters and measurements so some people might have missed a couple parameters.

      1. Nicosloanica*

        Yeah the first or second requirement makes them think Oh, I have a suggestion! and maybe they skim the rest or skip ahead entirely to post. But to be fair I usually skip recc requests as I don’t find them very interesting. Maybe the people who are responding are doing it from a sense of karma as they have their own extremely specific request they’re planning to post next.

    2. Double A*

      I don’t think I’ve gone that blatantly astray of what someone is looking for, but I do think I have given suggestions that are not always in line with the original ask. The reasons is usually because I have had a desire similar the original ask, or have considered something similar, but something else worked for me that they may not be considering.

      This doesn’t quite explain the dress example you give, because that’s pretty clear about what they’re looking for and why and what they have rejected. But like if someone is asking for hotel recommendations near a wilderness area they plan to visit and hike in, and someone recommends cabins that are half the cost of hotels, to me that makes sense because they might not have considered cabins as an option and it’s reasonable to think someone interested in hiking might be open to cabins.

      I would guess book recommendations are the worst, because I know I’ll be reading a request, and a book will spring to mind, then they’ll be like, “But I don’t like X genre” and in my mind I’m like, “But maybe THIS X genre book you will like.” I do try to not actually make that recommendation, but the impulse to recommend it when it’s kinda sorta if you squint what they’re asking for is real.

      But a lot of times it’s a reading comprehension/skimming issue (which I have also been guilty of).

    3. Not A Manager*

      Have you considered sending this question to Captain Awkward?

      JK. I think people do this because they assume that the person with the parameters hasn’t thought outside the box. And, to be faaaaair, sometimes in real life this is true. My friend will tell me she absolutely can’t find, IDK, half and half and I’ll ask her if she’s thought of using whole milk and heavy cream. Or whatever. People do this all the time.

      When it’s online, I’ll try to couch it as “if you really can’t find a green dress, you might want to consider a red sweater,” although I suppose that’s equally annoying.

    4. Harlowe*

      People on the internet are just too lazy or distracted to read the entire question thoroughly. They get partway through and their eyes skim to the end.

      1. The Prettiest Curse*

        Sometimes I miss details when I’m reading questions here (even if I read the question and answer(s) more than once), just because I’m usually reading those before 6am UK time and my brain isn’t fully in gear yet.

        Also, I think people often feel that it’s better to give a response that isn’t 100% what the person is looking for – firstly, out of a desire to be helpful and secondly just because it’s rare to get 100% of your criteria for anything in life. If you’re posting one of those questions, maybe do it more along the lines of must-haves, nice-to-haves and absolute deal-breakers when listing your criteria so it’s easier for the people who read it.

      2. Peanut Hamper*

        This. The internet makes everyone feel like the smart kid in the class who thrust his hand up in the air first, and they just rush to give their thoughts without actually paying attention or caring about what the person is actually asking for.

    5. HardAgree*

      I see this a lot for books. This drives me bonkers. In fairness, I will sometimes go slightly adjacent to what’s being requested, but I’ll explain that and why (this isn’t exactly within your parameters but I found X had a lot of the same feel as book Y you mentioned liking).

    6. Blueprint blues*

      I’ve occasionally given an answer that ignores one or two parameters in a list. it’s usually because I get interrupted when reading the question, and I don’t start reading again from the beginning– or I think I do, but I miss half a line. so, it’s not a deliberate ignoring of the criteria, it’s having a dozen things going on at once. If we were chatting in person, you’d see that I got interrupted 3 times listening to your question, and either repeat the question or realize it’s not a good time to chat, or laugh at me for forgetting what we’re talking about.

    7. RagingADHD*

      I think a lot of it is because people are responding to the question as a general conversation prompt and free-associating on the topic, rather than trying to be a free vending machine for hyper specific Google searches.

      I tend to try to give top-level related answers if I can, or explain the reasons why if I go off topic (ie, “I think the reason you aren’t finding seven red lines drawn with green ink is that is physically impossible. Have you considered using red ink?”).

      But I will sometimes follow a line of unrelated chitchat on a second or third level comment, if the chitchat is interesting. Because we are all here for entertainment.

      1. fposte*

        I agree with this. I think the person asking feels like they’re doing a Google search, while the people responding feel like they’re in a conversation about the general subject.

        Which is giving away a bit of my read on the situation: that the problem also lies in the expectation of the asker, or at least it does if they find such responses a problem. I asked a different forum about a possible New Zealand trip and people told me other countries I should visit instead. And especially with that particular forum, I knew that was likely to happen and hey, maybe I *do* want to see Costa Rica sometime.

        The problem is much worse on forums with an interface that collapses responses automatically, because people don’t expand or know to expand and miss earlier answers and additional information. But in general, people in their free time mostly want to have a chat, so adjust your expectations from reference librarian to general convo.

        1. Fellow Traveller*

          “But in general, people in their free time mostly want to have a chat, so adjust your expectations from reference librarian to general convo.”
          I think this is such a great way to phrase it. I mean, know your forum and all, but on this forum, I appreciate the wide range of tangents that some times crop up – the plethora of personal experience is great. And even if my specific query isn’t answered, maybe someone with a similar ask/conundrum/etc. would get something useful. And it’s just as easy to scroll by if you aren’t getting what you want. People want to be helpful, I think.

        3. Patty Mayonnaise*

          Yeah, I tend to think that if the question asker wants a google-like response, they should just google it. The advantage of asking other humans is that they can make suggestions google isn’t going to “think” of, because they are adjacent solutions the question asker might not have thought of.

          1. Grim Tell*

            Most of the time these question askers begin by noting that they’ve tried Google/looking online already, and not found what they need, so they’ve turned to here to see if personal experience can add anything. Dismissing them as “should have Googled it” is missing the point of such queries entirely.

            But then, the reading comprehension of the average commentors is often alarmingly poor if their responses are anything to go by, so it’s probably unsurprising that they struggle with this.

        4. Rockett Squirrel*

          Yeah, people prioritise their own desire to say something – often anything – over actually being helpful. It’s often not useful or kind to the asker, but a lot of people will just say something so they can FEEL like they helped, because that feeds their ego.

          It’s why I’d never ask for help or advice on these open threads, because I wouldn’t be able to stay polite to such individuals.

      2. design ghost*

        Yeah, sometimes people ask for advice with parameters that are literally impossible to have any kind of advice for. Like I see threads sometimes that go something like this:

        OP: “My husband got his dream job across the country, but I have MY dream job and don’t want to quit. Neither of our jobs allow working remotely, and living separately or divorce is absolutely out of the question. What should we do?”

        Commenter: “Which job pays more and which city is more appealing to live in? Maybe use those to guide your choice.”

        OP: “I’ve already said neither of us wants to give up our dream jobs, choosing between them isn’t an option.”

        And like what advice can you possibly give that doesn’t go outside the parameters? I think it makes sense to give answers that don’t meet every criteria of the asker because in many cases if you stay within those parameters there’s nothing to actually say.

    8. allathian*

      I’ve noticed it mostly in the book recommendation threads, and I admit to having done so myself… Especially in nested comments several levels down the posts often go a bit OT. Especially in the open threads, I think that people see the original post as a conversation starter rather than a topic to stick to. Alison rarely mods the open threads unless someone’s breaking the rules and posting something offensive, or posting about work on the weekend thread.

    9. Sharing*

      I am guessing the ones that completely ignore stuff didn’t read (or read and didn’t fully process) the words in the posts.

      Things that are tangentially related, or fit most but not all parameters (especially if there’s an explicit acknowledgement of that) I generally categorize as “really excited to share”. I have probably been that person. Usually there’s some hope that the person will find it helpful if there’s nothing bang-on. So if they have to compromise, maybe the suggestion will be useful in the end. Not always right, but at least trying hard with good intentions?

    10. David*

      I’ve seen it happen *a lot* that someone asks a question with really specific parameters, but ultimately winds up liking an answer that’s slightly outside those parameters. (In fact I’ve been that person pretty often.) Usually when this happens, either it involves a “huh I never thought of that” moment, or the thing they were actually asking for turns out to not exist or not be available, and then a not-quite-right fallback becomes the best option. So the reason I do this sometimes is that it’s actually helpful – not always, not even most of the time, but often enough to make it worthwhile.

      This can sometimes be related to a common pattern called “XY problems” (at least that’s the name I know it by) which people talk about a lot on certain technical forums, but it pops up elsewhere too. When a person wants a solution to problem X, they might start thinking about one particular way of solving it, Y, and by the time they reach out for help they’re laser-focused on how to do Y when their real problem X might have a good solution that has nothing to do with Y at all. Like in your dress example, the real problem (X) could be “I need something to wear to a St. Patrick’s Day party”, but the person asking gets focused on finding a green dress (Y) because they’ve always worn dresses to parties and of course you “have to” wear green to St. Patrick’s Day events because that’s just the thing that is done. In that situation, if a green dress isn’t available, pants could be a useful suggestion. Same with wearing another color. (Probably not red in this case, but I have no fashion sense and have never been to a St. Patrick’s Day party in my life so I dunno.) Now, of course it’s possible that the asker already has green pants and dresses in eleven colors other than green and so these alternate solutions aren’t useful to them, but the people answering don’t know that, and if they didn’t offer advice just because of a chance it wouldn’t be useful, they’d probably wind up never giving anyone advice at all, and where’s the fun in that? :-p

      That being said, when giving an answer like this I do think it’s important to phrase it in a way that recognizes it’s not quite answering the question that was asked. Like, if someone actually said “Dresses are terrible. You should just wear pants.” then yeah that’s rude. If it were me (who somehow wound up in this very hypothetical scenario where I am advising someone on clothes shopping), I might phrase it like “Does it really need to be a dress? Because I know of this website that sells green pants in all sizes with free 2-day shipping.”

    11. Ellis Bell*

      Some people really like parameters and treat them as non negotiable, and other people operate on the principle that you only use them as starting points and never rule out the alternatives! This kind of thing is in the same category for me as all the people who comment on online recipes, having changed massive portions of the ingredients and totally just made up their own instructions, and yet still feel able to talk about whether the original recipe is great or terrible.

    12. Irish Teacher.*

      I’m not sure many people will recognise themself as somebody who gives that kind of advice because I don’t think it’s usually done deliberately. My guess is that people either misread or they just get caught up in the thread and lose track of the original question. Like somebody asks for recommendations for somebody who is petite and somebody else responds with “oh, clothes shops seem to assume everybody is the same size and have very little for those who are taller or shorter than the average. I’m over 6 foot and have trouble too” and then people get caught up talking about tall people and somebody forgets that the original request was for petite.

      Or sometimes people just…aren’t good at judging stuff. I mean, your examples are very clear, but sometimes it’s more, “well, I don’t know about petite sizes but I’m over six foot and found such a shop has really good stuff in non-traditional sizes so they might have good stuff if you are petite too.”

      I probably have done this at some point because I’m sure I have misread stuff on posts, especially when I try to reply on the train to work and realise it’s about to pull into the station so I am rushing. But I’m not really sure, because I suspect it is done by people who are not aware they are doing it. If they were, they probably wouldn’t. You know?

    14. Falling Diphthong*

      I think a lot of it is skimming a long text thread, thinking “Oooh, I know something relevant to this one!” and missing details.

      But it might help to think of it like the advice to apply to jobs even if you don’t fit all the qualifications. (Oldest just got a job like this.) Only a subset of the advice is going to actually apply even if it’s perfect. If you’re getting a wider range of possible advice, there’s more chance for something you hadn’t thought of to hit perfectly.

      Counter is one of the most frustrating subthreads on here was that a person asked for advice you would give to your younger self. Great topic! Lots of good ideas! But rather than enjoy launching a thread that got a lot of interesting engagement, and privately pick out the parts that worked for her, the OP kept arguing because she wanted only advice that would be clearly applicable to herself… even though she had provided no details about herself.

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

      Guilty, for sure! Sometimes, it’s that I read the first part of the request but then skimmed the rest and missed an important part. Other times, I think it’s me conceptualizing of the thread as not being just for the person who started it but also for anyone else who might have a similar need without the same parameters as the original asker.

    16. Hyaline*

      Sometimes I’m responding to a root of the question–someone asks “does anyone have recipe recommendations for gluten-free recipes?” for example, and I don’t have a specific rec because heck if I know what the original asker likes, but I know a great website with lots of good options, and I suggest that. Or “scripts for dealing with my intrusive in-laws” and the root problems in the questions suggest that “maybe your husband should have this conversation instead” or whatever.

      Maybe it’s because I teach–but I’ve learned that people often ask the wrong question, and that the roots of the problem articulated in question form are often buried. So I guess I have a habit of poking the question to see “wait, what are you really asking about?” Student says “I’m having a hard time coming up with ideas for another two pages of this paper” and a quick read of their first page tells me “that’s because your real problem is not having a clearly defined thesis and no guiding main idea.” Their real problem isn’t what they asked about.

      That said, the example is so clear even I wouldn’t go past the surface of that one!

    17. Bitte Meddler*

      I have deleted my questions in soooo many forums because of this.

      Me, in a forum for caregivers: “My elderly mother has asked for a treadmill. Does anyone here own one with padded safety rails for under $500 that they like? The rails are a must because my mom is unsteady on her feet.”

      Comment1: “Why not wrap your mom’s arm around yours and go for a walk in a park?”

      Comment2: “I have a great under-desk running pad. I love it because it doesn’t have any rails.”

      Comment3: “My mom hates treadmills but loves her exercycle. Buy your mom this: [link].”

      Comment 4: “She should take up swimming! It’s sooo much easier on their joints.”

      Comment5: “Have you looked at the Big Expensive Gym-Quality Treadmill? It’s $2400, has all the bells and whistles, and weighs 300 lbs, but your mom will love it!”

      Me: [deletes question]

    18. Just Me*

      If someone is asking online people for suggestions, I assume they’ve already googled whatever they’re looking for and are struggling to find something that fits their needs. If they’re REALLY specific in their needs, it’s possible they’ll have to settle for something that isn’t perfect but that’s “good enough.” In that case, I might offer a suggestion that fits at least some of their parameters, because I figure “good enough” is better than nothing. (I would explain how it was imperfect but might be helpful anyway. If I couldn’t think of anything that at least somewhat fit the parameters, then I just wouldn’t comment at all.)

      But, yeah, sometimes the responses to advice posts make me think, “What is wrong with this person? Do they have no reading comprehension skills?”

    19. ecnaseener*

      I don’t think I’ve ever gotten to the point of actually hitting the post button, but when I feel tempted to do this it’s because I’m so excited at the opportunity to recommend a thing I like that I don’t pay full attention to the parameters. Like, omg someone wants a green dress? I get to gush about the amazing dress I recently found and feel helpful at the same time!

      I imagine it’s a similar thing for people who do the “don’t wear a dress” type responses, they’re eager to share their wise advice and don’t stop to think whether it’s truly going to be helpful. I once made the mistake of asking a coffee forum how to get better results out of my late grandmother’s vintage percolator, and all of the responses were just “don’t.” Like, thanks, I have noticed that glass percolators aren’t popular anymore because we have better options, but I’m trying to feel close to my grandmother here!

    20. Put the Blame on Edamame*

      I have definitely been guilty of “it hits 50% of your parameters” advice, though I try not to be – but then my assumption is, this is free from the hive mind, you get what you pay for. No, the very specific request won’t be as likely to be filled as the general ones – but asking the question is inviting a range of responses, from people volunteering info for nothing in return except maybe a thank you. So when I’ve made similar posts asking for something and not got what I wanted, I just shrug. Luck of the draw!

    21. Jellybeans*

      This is very true, but the flip side is people who ask questions like, “I need suggestions on professional workwear for women. I cannot wear dresses, skirts, trousers, shorts, jumpsuits, or any form of fabric, and I can’t shop online, and live in a remote Alaskan village with no shops.”

      Or, “I need recommendations for lunches to prepare at home take to work, I don’t have access to cooking facilities and can’t eat sandwiches, salads, fruit, or those prepared noodles you pour boiling water over.”

    22. MissCoco*

      I have sometimes suggested a different answer because I think to myself “oh that is a product I also want and have been totally unable to find and this alternative was my best compromise” often when the asker has a list of very specific needs.

      I think the other times people suggest completely off-topic answers is likely just someone who saw the first few specifications and then excitedly went to answer. I sometimes scroll up to re-read a question before answering, but I often assume I’ve remembered well enough, and I’m sure that assumption is sometimes wrong.

    23. BikeWalkBarb*

      I’m a “victim” of one particular person on a specific topic and I have a couple of theories about this: Some people just like to tell other people they’re wrong in their needs and desires, and some people use a question as a platform to repeat a rant they’re fond of delivering. I’m guilty of that latter one myself, although I do at least try to relate it to the question and actually consider the question first.

      Scenario: I’m on a particular home design etc. advice site where I was seeking ideas for a kitchen remodel. I know the space is full of experts and amateurs alike, and I’d read many of the responses that wander far afield because the asker didn’t provide enough parameters to guide the commenters (which happens here too).

      I had made a lot of decisions already and wanted the answer to one very specific question about faucet type recommendations for my giant workstation sink. I wanted two faucets, not one, so my husband and I could both be at the sink getting water for different purposes. (Heaven forbid the coffeepot go empty just because I’m doing something else.)

      My post was very clear about decisions already made and what I wanted advice on. I got several that were basically “You don’t need that big sink” and “You don’t need two faucets for a big sink”. One person pointed that phenomenon out with a post that started, “In response to the question that BikeWalkBarb actually posed, here are some ideas”, which I loved for calling out the behavior.

      In searching other threads on the same forum I found one person in particular jumps into every discussion of a bigger sink to lecture people on why they don’t need it, how she knows because she ran a catering company for years with a small sink, and how wrong-headed they are. She does this regardless of the question. She just wants to scold people. The kicker is that her profile labels her a professional designer. I can’t imagine being in an online space where presumably I’m there to find customers and demonstrating so clearly an inability to listen to people and a desire to set them straight.

      For the record, I adore my giant sink and the faucets I found.

    24. anon for this*

      Thanks for all the insight. I have a better understanding now of how other people look at requests for advice.

    25. Medques*

      I try not to do that. But sometimes I can’t help myself. The best example I can give happen just recently. Somebody was asking if a particular MRI office, which was a much lower cost than the one her doctor practice is at, was a good quality and, did anyone have any experiences with them. She explained that her co-pay at her doctors recommended office would be more than what the other facility was charging straight up.

      As we had just gone through this with a similar test, I posted to say I did not have any experience with the facility she (I think it’s important to acknowledge the person is asking for first) but that we had had very good success with our local hospital offering to pay privately for a test that would’ve cost over $3000 if we’ve gone through insurance. She was very sarcastic in her response, which I understand. But it is a situation where I thought she might not have thought to ask what the price was without going through insurance. For us it was literally 10% of what the insurance would’ve cost to have this test.

    26. Andromeda*

      agree with other commenters that it’s often a mix of spiralling OT comments and free association that lead to weird recommendations — but do wish people would stop with the “I’ve decided that your problem is actually X” (the dress/trousers thing).

      It would be one thing if they were like “hmmm, you mention that you want that dress for working in the fields. Would you be interested in reconsidering your outfit choice completely?” but some people will bulldoze in and double down even when you’ve said in the original post that you need a green dress for a green-themed wedding reception or whatever. Yes, this metaphor is deeply stretched now. But it reminds me of that one letter about women whose desks wouldn’t let them wear skirts or dresses to work, and a good deal of the comments were sniffing at them for not wearing trousers

    27. Quinalla*

      I think it is typically folks are not reading the entire post. I see this same thing with work emails where folks don’t read past the first question when there are say three questions in the email. It’s frustrating, but it happens a lot, even outside of the internet where folks tend to be more casual.

      Sometimes folks are also just doing their best to give advice and don’t really understand the problems the OP is running into. Maybe they don’t know that the clothing store they recommended clothes all run tall because that fit works for them so they don’t get it. Or sometimes folks really want to participate and just post something that isn’t really relevant.

    28. Bast*

      I’m in a lot of groups on social media — recipe groups and community specific groups in particular. I notice what you are asking for ALL THE TIME and I can’t figure it out either. I realize, as someone pointed out, some people are narrowing their parameters to the point of making something (nearly) impossible, but I can’t tell you the amount of times I’m facepalming when someone says something along the lines of,

      In the community forum — “Looking for a nice restaurant for my wife’s birthday that is not Restaurant A.” There will be at least 5 people that recommend Restaurant A, the one place they specifically said they did NOT want.

      Recipe group — “Need recipes for dinner tonight. Please, no seafood.” Response: “How about shrimp scampi? Here is my recipe.”

  18. Jackalope*

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

    I just started The Ride of Her Life by Elizabeth Letts based on a recommendation from one of you lovely readers. It’s about a Maine woman who loses her fame and decides to heck with it all, so she buys a horse and sets out to ride to California. A lot of fun so far and I’m almost 100 pages in.

    1. Double A*

      I’m almost done with Starling House and I love it! Haunted house, romance, very engagingly written.

      1. Dark Macadamia*

        It’s so good! I listened to it on audiobook and the whole “omg he’s so scary and ugly” intro I guess gave me the impression he was really old? So I was super confused at first when there started to be some romance lol

        1. Double A*

          Haha it does mention in the beginning that he seems only a little older than her. Eventually I just started picturing Adam Driver and it made more sense.

    2. Mobie's Mom Now*

      Just finished Crazy Rich Asians, and got the next 2 from the library today to start those! In the meantime, I’m reading Wander Lost by Laura Martin. It’s a middle grade book about kids who can enter board games, and have to do so to save their mom. I really enjoyed a couple of the author’s other books, Float and Vanishing Act, so I have pretty high hopes for this one!

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        I love those books! They’re fun and well written, and contain a LOT of Asian history that I have never run into anywhere else.

      2. the cat's pajamas*

        Have you seen the movie for Crazy Rich Asians, and if so how much did they change? I generally find books to be better than the movies, but that’s one I’ve only seen the movie of. I didn’t know it was based on a book until later.

        1. Sparkle llama*

          It has been a while since I read them – read after seeing the movie. I liked the books better and they did change a fair amount. I don’t recall what changed but I think it made it so they wouldn’t be able to make the 2nd and 3rd books into movies.

      3. Annie Edison*

        I loved the Crazy Rich Asians series, especially the descriptions of amazing street food and wild luxury goods. It very much made me want to travel and try all the delicious foods described

    3. Indigo64*

      I just finished Why We Love Baseball by Joe Posnanski and I really wanted to love it but i found it hard to read. Best book I’ve read recently- Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.

      1. Snacattack*

        Ha, I wanted to love the Posnanski book, too. And I did! Possibly the best book I read in 2023, almost certainly the best nonfiction I read that year.

      2. word nerd*

        I’m excited to see the Project Hail Mary movie starring Ryan Gosling (coming out 2026 apparently).

    4. Dark Macadamia*

      I’m listening to Spinning Silver on audiobook and really enjoying it! I had high hopes for Naomi Novik after all the recommendations here but was so disappointed by Uprooted I just figured her books weren’t my thing. This one is MUCH better.

      1. AGD*

        I had the same experience! Read Uprooted; thought it was pretty good but kind of frustrating, wasn’t sure whether to try Spinning Silver, but SO glad I did because it blew my mind.

        1. RedinSC*

          Oh, I’ll have to read that one then. I did enjoy uprooted, but not enough to pick up the next one.

    5. goddessoftransitory*

      Reread continues with one of my favorite secondhand bookstore finds from back in the day, Ian Walker’s Zoo Station. It’s a nonfiction account of his time in West Berlin in the 80s, when the Wall was very much a solid, daily reality and no one thought it would ever disappear.

    6. Tiny Clay Insects*

      I’m re-reading Northanger Abbey for the first time in probably 15 years, and very much enjoying it.

    7. Atheist Nun*

      The last book I read that I really enjoyed was One!Hundred!Demons! by Lynda Barry. Of course it was brilliant because all of her work is. Someone in my neighborhood left it on the curb, and I am so glad they thought it was worth sharing.

      1. fposte*

        Oh, I haven’t kept up with Lynda Barry and I don’t know this one. Thanks for the mention!

        1. Atheist Nun*

          It’s 20+ years old–I have not kept up with her either! In one of the chapters she is obsessing about the 2000 election votes controversy, and it brought up so many anxious memories for me that I guess I was suppressing subconsciously.

    8. Apex Mountain*

      I’m about halfway through The God of The Woods, by Liz Moore and it’s great so far.

    9. Falling Diphthong*

      I just reread Micaiah Johnson’s The Space Between Worlds and am now rereading its sequel, Those Beyond the Wall. Really gripping books about a post-apocalyptic future in which a scientist found a way to pass between a limited number of worlds that are fairly similar to our own–but only if you don’t exist in the world you’re trying to go to. Which immediately makes society’s most neglected people, who have died in most of their iterations, very valuable. First book followed one of the people recruited to do the traveling; second book follows a minor character from the first.

      Impressed to realize how much of the second book apparently existed in the author’s mind as background when writing the first, which was a one book contract. Great execution of the rule that you should know the background but not actually put it in.

    10. PhyllisB*

      I just finished Every Time I Go On Vacation Someone Dies. Very enjoyable. Now I’m reading Miss Julia Happily Ever After. This is the last Miss Julia book and it makes me sad. I’ve so enjoyed those books over the years.

    11. chocolate muffins*

      I finished Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan. I enjoyed Commencement and Engagements, both of which she also wrote, and Maine is about multiple generations of the same family trying to learn how to relate to one another, which is usually the kind of book I very much like. But Maine seemed to … drag on without much of a point? The beginning was exactly what I was looking for – a nice story that didn’t require too much thought – though it was hard for me to keep track of all the characters. But it seemed too long to me and the story didn’t feel like it went anywhere, or at least not as much as I wanted it to.

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

      Just started *The Sun Also Rises*. Already tired of the anti-Jewish snark. WTF, Hemingway?

      1. Filosofickle*

        Older works can be so challenging in this way! There is value in reading the greats and appreciate the art separate from its context, but sometimes I just decide I don’t want to spend time there. (My problem lately is books riling up my feminist rage.)

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

          Yeah — I feel like I *should* read Hemingway to be a more educated person, but I finished this book and overall did not enjoy it or feel like it improved me. I might try to plow through some of his other stuff, just to get it over with, but I am concerned to read that critics think this is his best novel. Yikes.

          Meanwhile, next on my list is another Percival Everett novel, which I expect to be delightful and which will hopefully get the stench of *The Sun Also Rises* out of my nose.

    13. GoryDetails*

      What Abigail Did That Summer by Ben Aaronovitch, another of his “Rivers of London” books that mix police-procedural with magic. This one focuses on Peter Grant’s cousin Abigail, a precocious young girl who’s already dabbled in the supernatural. (She reminds me of Shuri from “Black Panther” – snarky, brilliant, takes no prisoners!)

      Non-fiction: Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X by Deborah Davis, a look at the creation of one of Sargent’s most iconic works – and the effects of its popularity on the model, Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, of French Creole ancestry and from a Louisiana plantation-owning family. (I admit I’d never given any thought to the model for that now-iconic portrait, but the story’s quite fascinating – if often frustrating. The original portrait, with one of the jeweled straps slipping off of the model’s shoulder, was apparently considered scandalous – despite the presence in the same art show of many, many pictures featuring total nudes.) I’m also learning more about Sargent’s works; the one that impressed me most so far is the portrait “Dr. Pozzi at Home,” featuring a spectacularly-handsome man in a scarlet dressing gown. (Pozzi was a noted gynecologist in his day, but if someone who looked like that walked into the room while I was awaiting an examination I think I’d flee in flustered overheatedness!)

      Audiobook: Am now listening to The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear, narrated by Orlagh Cassidy, the 18th and final book in Winspear’s “Maisie Dobbs” series about a woman who was a nurse during WWI and became a private investigator and sometimes secret agent in the ensuing decades. I enjoyed the first book and several of the subsequent ones, though I rather dropped off from the series as Maisie got more involved with espionage in the years leading up to WWII.

      This novel picks up in the aftermath of the war, with England suffering many privations – and a spate of homelessness, as so many people lost their homes to the bombings. Four such lost ones are squatting in a house that has connections to Maisie’s past – and that also houses someone with close ties to a dear comrade… I’m enjoying this one so far, though it does spend a fair amount of time providing “story so far” bits to catch new readers up on Maisie’s complicated past. And it seems that Winspear is trying very hard to bring in pretty much every significant character from the series, whether recalling the ones who’ve died or reuniting the ones long out of focus – a nice way to tie things up, even if at times the story seems to suffer a bit.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is the Sargent that always makes me stop and stare at it for a long while.

    14. Annie Edison*

      I’m the commenter who asked for advice about solo traveling a few months ago, and about happy song recommendations two weeks ago, and I wanted to come back and say a huge thanks to all who commented on both threads.

      To those who took time to share stories, advice, and encouragement about solo travel- thank you times a million! I’m just back from a week-long solo camping trip in Olympic National Park and it was such a lovely, healing experience. I’m feeling more confident and more myself than I have in a long time.

      To those who shared favorite happy songs- I complied many of them into a delightfully eclectic playlist that brought me a lot of joy and helped pass the long hours in the car getting to the park last week. I loved the variety of genres and the mix of things that were already familiar to me alongside brand new music. I’ll share a link to the spotify playlist in a reply comment below in case anyone would like to access it. I’m sorry if I accidentally skipped your song- there were so many that I might have missed a few!

    15. Sus E. Baka*

      I’ve just started reading through the Culture of Critique trilogy by Kevin MacDonald—really fascinating stuff!

    16. Rara Avis*

      I’ve been bouncing back and forth between two mystery series, Rivers of London and Ruth Galloway. Both very British. But I also read Carl Hiaassen’s Bad Monkey this week. I think I like his sense of humor filtered for young readers better.

    17. JudgeM*

      Based on a recommendation here, I read Killers of a Certain Age. It was a lot of fun and fast paced.

    18. Lizard*

      I’ve been reading The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louis Erdrich for book club. I’m enjoying it (just a few pages left), but it feels like a book with a lot of meaning below the surface. So I’m hoping that there’s some good discussion at book club.

      Also reading Babel by RF Kuang, which is a great read so far!

      1. Annie Edison*

        I loved Last Report so much! Have you read “The Night Watchman” by the same author? It was also fantastic, and I think I enjoyed it even more. I’ve really loved her writing style

        1. Lizard*

          I haven’t read The Night Watchman yet. This is my first Erdrich, but I’m really looking forward to reading more!

          1. word nerd*

            The Night Watchman is probably my favorite Erdrich, but it’s hard to choose from her many excellent books :).

    19. Annie Edison*

      I just finished “On Trails” by Robert Moor. It’s a delightful wander through the concept of trails, inspired by the author’s fascination with the Appalachian Trail. The book is wide-ranging and includes bits of science, history, and general philosophy, with chapters devoted to (among other things) Native American footpaths, the first prehistoric creatures to develop movement, insect trails, animal herds, and the development of long distance hiking paths like the AT, plus more modern “trails” like the internet (a trail connecting knowledge) and highways.

      I’m not quite sure how to describe it, but it was a lovely read, especially this summer while I’m doing a lot of hiking. Would highly recommend if you’re into sciency/naturey/history/philosophical musings, and especially if you’re a lover of the outdoors.

      2. GoryDetails*

        I loved On Trails as well! Really lovely book, with info about trails that I hadn’t encountered before.

      4. BikeWalkBarb*

        That’s in my TBR pile. You might also enjoy A Walking Life: Reclaiming Our Health and Our Freedom One Step at a Time, by Antonia Malchik. From pre-history to urban planning that destroyed the walkability of towns, it’s well-researched and movingly written. I read her newsletter On the Commons, where she writes beautifully about where she lives (Montana), the research she’s doing now for a book on land ownership vs. land relationship and what that shift in mindset created, and other topics. Highly recommend.

    20. Tisket*

      Currently reading “Burn Book” by Kara Swisher, a journalist who has been writing about tech since the early 90’s. Part memoir and part a history of tech. She’s incredibly sassy and an excellent writer.

    21. I DK*

      Finished DragonSword by Gael Baudino this past week – not a swords & sorcerers fan usually, but it was easy to slide into the Gryylth world. (WiFi was out) Currently working through The City by Dean Koontz (I know, I know, working through my TBR pile-bought it at a yard sale so no $ to the RWM) Haven’t invested in Koontz/King/Patterson since I started reading AAM daily but have discovered a world of truly talented (in some cases more talented) writers since. TY all for for your recs and for the treasures that I have discovered.

    22. BikeWalkBarb*

      Fiction: Finders Keepers by Stephen King, the sequel to Mr. Mercedes. I haven’t read his work for many, many years. This series doesn’t have the paranormal qualities of some of his works but murderers are spooky in their own way and he’s so good at building that slow suspense, although this one isn’t pulling me in the same way that Mr. Mercedes did.

      Nonfiction: On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes by Alexandra Horowitz. She goes for walks in NYC with various experts who open her eyes to the many ways you can look at a city block or two and see something you never saw before. Her first walk is on her own striving to be super observant and being very proud of herself. The second walk is immediately humbling–it’s with her toddler son who notices and is fascinated by things she ignores, which takes her into a bit on neophilia, the love of new things, and child brain development.

      I’m in chapter 3, a walk with a geologist, and now want to go find some limestone to look at thanks to the description. Not as common just lying around in my part of the world (Pacific NW, western Washington); we have a lot of basalt and ancient lava. But we probably have some of what’s described on the rocks in Central Park: Evidence of the scrapings caused by ancient glaciers that serve as a form of directional wayfinding if you know which way the glaciers went and if the rock hasn’t been moved by humans. I’m looking forward to the rest of the chapters for more in “This world is truly amazing”.

    23. Some Day I'll Think of Something Clever*

      Earlier in the week, I reread Ian McEwan’s The Children’s Act. It was so much more sad, complex and poignant than I remembered. Now I’m on a McEwan bender, compelled by his renderings of the psychological nuances of intimate relationships. I’m onto Nutshell, which has a very different feel to it. All the tongue-in-cheek philosophizing and inverted literary references might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I think this will be the closest I’ll ever come to understanding (and enjoying!) Hamlet.

    24. carcinization*

      Almost finished with Fforde’s Red Side Story. It’s definitely been quite a ride!

    25. Elizabeth West*

      I’m halfway through Stephen King’s Fairy Tale and omg it’s so good I don’t want to stop! But at the same time I read a chapter and then stop because I don’t want it to end, haha.

      It’s been sitting on my shelf since last summer — I was trying to re-read some stuff I already have to decide if I wanted to keep it or not.

    26. RedinSC*

      For book clubs, I’m reading

      James – by Percival Everett. I am not loving it. I think it’s well written, but I’m just having such a difficult time with the Jame’s reality of being a run away slave. I think I’m just not in the head space to read it right now. This is the telling of Jame’s adventure from Huckleberry Finn.

      Summers at the Saint – by Mary Kay Andrews. This is a light summer fluff read and I’m enjoying it so far. This is the story of an early 40s widow trying to keep the family’s old school resort afloat in the challenging economic market of post covid hotels.

    27. So they all cheap-ass rolled over and out fell out*

      I started reading “I Hope This Finds You Well” by Natalie Sue. As far as I recall this is the first AAM recommendation I’ve tried. I am not sure if I am going to be able to finish it. I am about 10% through and the back-of-the-book blurb situation has finally appeared, which I hoped would pick things up a bit. But I am offput by the amount loathing the POV character exudes of every single person in her life, including and especially herself.

  19. Jackalope*

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

    Our D&D game this week went well. We finished the fight that started at the end of last week and my players are moving on to something else fun. We’ll see how it goes.

    1. Jay*

      Game related:
      I’m working on a task at work that, while important and requiring high physical skill and experience, carries a very low mental load.
      So I’m binging podcasts as I’m doing it.
      A new favorite of mine (just one episode in and already loving it!) is “Get In The Trunk”, a Delta Green game stream. So far, I can highly recommend it.
      If you are unfamiliar with Delta Green, it’s a sort-of X-Files-ish-Army-ish-Monster Hunter-ish-Supernatural-ish game featuring a team of “agents” taken from all walks of life and tasked with dealing with assorted supernatural threats and eldritch horrors. It’s part of the H.P. Lovecraft Extended Universe.

    2. Dr. KMnO4*

      After getting pretty thoroughly destroyed in a few games of 4 player Commander (a Magic: The Gathering game mode) last week, I built a couple of new decks in preparation for this week. I built one from scratch and the other one I retooled from a Standard deck into a Commander deck.

      The new deck is a Green/White deck focused on adding counters. I demolished my opponents with that one. The retooled deck is a nasty Red/Black deathtouch deck, built around a card I found that gives my instants and sorceries deathtouch. I did well with it, though I just didn’t draw enough instants/sorceries to win.

      I’ve also played more Tears of the Kingdom, and while I like it more than I did initially, I still prefer Breath of the Wild. It’s a good game, just not one that I’ll probably ever replay once I’ve finished it.

    3. fposte*

      I am still happily grinding in the major update of Godus, an old sandbox game now only on mobile. It’s had a ver troubled history, including a problematic Kickstarter, so there’s a crude divide between people too soured in it to go near it and people like me who came on the scene after the dust up and who just like it as is.

    4. Clarabow*

      Just getting back into gaming over the last few years. Played FF 13, which I already had, but never completed. Enjoyed it, so found a 2nd hand copy of FF13 2. Just finished that a week ago (enjoyed it as well) so now starting on the 3rd Lightning Returns. I know lots of people didn’t like it, and I can’t say I’m enjoying the battle system, but I want to finish it to complete the story.

    5. I DK*

      Currently playing Township (I know, that’s not a ‘serious’ game, but I love the farming/town-building element.) Played Big Farm for 3 years previously but ran out of rats’ keesters to give for that one. TY Jackalope for the Reading & Gaming threads – the reasons I don’t skip the weekend thread! LOL when my WiFi was out all last week (grumbles too intense for this thread) I played Treasures of Montezuma 3 – what a hoot!

      1. Jackalope*

        Glad you enjoy them! And no worries; there’s no requirement for a game to be serious. (I know you know this but underlining it for people new to the thread.) Anyone who enjoys gaming can have easier or sillier games that they like; it’s fun sometimes to play something like that to balance things out.

      2. Banana Pyjamas*

        My son loves Farming Simulator. We’re getting a DLC for it Friday.

        I’ve only played Tropico 5. That has a heavy focus on farming, but it’s actually about colonialism and regimes.

  21. Blueprint blues*

    I’m getting a new fancy leather couch. my cat will put her claws into furniture as a way to get attention. any advice for me? I’d obviously like to preserve the couch.

    1. Sloanicota*

      For a brand new couch I’d throw the book at it. Trim kitty’s claws, put some new scratchers nearby, spray the couch with tea tree oil AND use those temporary adhesive strips on the surfaces she’s most likely to scratch. And maybe rattle a penny jar / squirt a spray bottle if you see her try it anyway.

      1. Blueprint blues*

        ooh, tell me about the temporary adhesive strips. I don’t think I’ve seen that before.

        1. Rosyglasses*

          We have some that we ordered off amazon – they are amazing – you can just search for clear couch protectors for cats and it should come up. They come in sheets and you can cut to size if you want, and they also have tacks if you have an upholstery couch. I’d want to read some reviews on adhesive with leather to make sure you’re not going to ruin anything with longterm adhesive, but generally I find it’s only on the corners that our cats want to try and scratch.

          1. BikeWalkBarb*

            I didn’t have any luck with the sticky sheets when I tried them at an AirBnB I was in for an extended stay. They brushed off onto my pants leg every time I came close. If the piece is in a location where contact isn’t going to be a problem they may work. It partly depends on your cat; I also tried them on a counter mine liked to jump on and he didn’t seem to mind the stickiness one bit.

            I landed on Claw Withdraw. It’s a spray of water, lemon verbena, and rosemary. Cats don’t like citrus scents. I’m using it on several upholstered pieces and some wall corners. No sign that it’s doing anything to the upholstery but for leather I’d test it. On the walls it leaves a bit of a yellow liquid where it runs down and pools on the top of the baseboard. I just wipe that off shortly after spraying (or much later, TBH, if I forget).

            He stays away from the things I spray that on. I do have to apply it regularly; it’s becoming a morning routine and if I forget he heads for one favorite chair in particular.

            I also have several scratching posts and reward him with treats (crunchy bits that are supposed to be good for his teeth) when he uses those, to reward the behavior I want. Some of those are right next to the wall or sofa corner he would otherwise scratch and I think that helps because it’s meeting his desire to stretch and scratch r-i-i-i-g-h-t t-h-e-e-e-r-e.

      2. SuprisinglyADHD*

        A warning I was given: Tea Tree Oil can be deadly for cats! It can be absorbed through their skin or ingested off their fur, and it can cause muscle tremors and liver failure.
        My mom used mothballs as a cat deterrent in new furniture but I can’t stand the smell so now we rely on easy-to-access scratchers and redirection of scratching behavior.
        I usually look up Jackson Galaxy for advice on a specific behavior, he usually has a good explanation of why the cat does that and how to encourage different behavior.

      3. BikeWalkBarb*

        A thought on the spray bottle: In a cat behavior book I read, they said the cat will associate an action like the squirt bottle with *you*, not with the behavior they’re supposed to stop doing. Their little cat brain takeaway is that you’re the source of negative stuff, not that the sofa is off limits.

        I can’t recall the title; it was by someone involved with a program on cat behavioral research that certifies veterinarians and others and their information seemed solid. They endorsed rewarding the good behavior over punishing the bad so you don’t become The Punisher, in the same vein that slapping them to get them off a counter would make them see your hand as an enemy and then they’ll claw at you when you come at them with your hand upraised. (Not something I would do anyway!)

    2. Hazel*

      Would it totally ruin the point of a new couch to get a slipcover? Mine is from Wayfair – inexpensive stretch velvet and it’s really nice looking and soft. I take it off for guests and especially allergic people – voila clean unscratched couch.

      They claim you can divert cats’ scratching to a suitable object like a hemp stretch post with catnip attached to the couch but I am unconvinced. Cats know you react to what you don’t want scratched! But if you can show the cat another way to get attention it may work.

    3. Ellis Bell*

      We found that plush Sherpa blankets, folded up and placed on the seats of the couches was a good distraction for our cat. He was able to get snuggly on the blanket and push his claws into the blanket but without reaching the couch. He was still tempted to scratch the leather so we blocked off the outer arm that seemed to call to him the most by strategically placing a scratching post in the way. We also had offcuts of carpet that we wrapped around the backs of the couches, and blocked off his access to going back there unseen.

    5. Random Bystander*

      One thing that works for my mom–you know those clear plastic/vinyl runners that you can put on carpet with the little nubs that grip into the carpet? That, except upside down (so the bumpy part is up) … and whenever she wants to use the couch, just flip that off and sit/lounge.

  22. Not A Manager*

    Recommendations for anti-brassiness (blue or purple) hair conditioners? I had been using Prose and really liked it for a long time, but recently my hair has been reading more “light blond” than “silver” and I think the purple conditioner is either not working or is leaving a yellowish tint.

    1. mreasy*

      I just started using Keracolor hair masque platinum (it is purple in color) and it is great. I also use their “kick brass” (lol) purple toning drops in my conditioner during the week, and bought the masque in my usual order on impulse. It’s quite an improvement though I do think I’ll need to use it every week. I’ve used it twice so far. Otherwise, I used to use a purple shampoo made by Barcelona which worked well back then. I’m an olaplex lifer otherwise and my stylist likes their purple shampoo also. (I will put the purple drops into the Olaplex hair perfector deep conditioning treatment and that also works well.)

    2. Juneybug*

      Look into COOL BLONDES Neutralizing Range collection by Schwarzkopf. Orginally it was the Blonde Me collection but they branched out with the Neutralizing Range.

    3. Passionfruit*

      When I was dyed platinum blonde, I used a purple shampoo from Redken that was really nice.

    4. Bluebell Brenham*

      L’Oreal is serviceable and I’ve also tried Acure. Prepandemic there was a brand I liked at BB&B but I haven’t seen it other places, and I’ve sadly even forgotten the name. John Frieda is what I’ve been using lately.

  23. Heather*

    I have read all of the Mrs. Pollifax stories and loved them all. My favorite is this first book and Mrs Pollifax and the China Station.

  24. MozartBookNerd*

    Puzzling hotel policy!

    The other night I needed a hotel room near my house, so I made a reservation at the closest Best Hilyat Comfort Express. But when I arrived, the clerk turned me away as soon as he saw my ID! “Sorry sir, we have a strict policy against allowing any guests who live in this city, or within 40 miles.”

    What the heck could the reason be for this? The clerk didn’t know (he was just carrying out orders). But locals must pretty routinely need hotel rooms sometimes! Construction on people’s houses; fumigating; isolating for Covid as in my case; etc.

    A clerk at another chain, where I stayed instead, had one theory. Four years ago there were brutal forest fires nearby, and the Red Cross was putting up the displaced in the hotels. “And some of the people they were putting up were abusing the hotel rooms, for example taking hotel belongings.” But this doesn’t explain a blanket ban as opposed to, say, a security deposit or other precautions. Especially years later.

    Seeking peoples’ thoughts and experiences please! It was a shock to be summarily turned away. I’d hope to at least understand it a little better.

    1. Bella Ridley*

      Sometimes hotels will block local guests in an effort to limit partying or drug and prostitution business. Depending on the area (touristy?), hotels will also restrict local guests because tourists being in more revenue because they’ll eat in the restaurant, visit the spa, that kind of thing.

      1. Texan In Exile*

        As the person trying to sleep in the room below the room where a local mom held her 13 year old daughter’s sleepover birthday party – did you know teenagers can stay awake and make noise ALL NIGHT LONG? – I am very much in favor of such a policy.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        Yes, I’m thinking needing a spot for your prostitution ring.

        Though I am probably going to be in this spot soon re home renovations, and am currently isolating in my (absent) son’s room because I have covid, so there are a lot of perfectly anodyne reasons a person might want a hotel near their home.

      2. Anono-me*

        I suspect it has more to do with people renting for parties and to avoid dealing with people who are unhoused.

        It is my understanding that people dealing with successful/large criminal activity are more likely to be well behaved in public environments and less likely to use their real name/ correct ID (The old saw ‘Don’t speed with a dead body in the trunk “.) And it would be just as easy to make a fake ID with the name of a city far away.

    4. Rosyglasses*

      I did see that in my hometown (rural Oregon)! I was shocked as I’d never seen that either – but it was a Best Western (or Comfort Suites, I don’t remember) and it looked like it was a corporate policy.

    5. Cheesesteak in Paradise*

      Probably because they assume you might want the room to do something you wouldn’t do in your own house – drugs, parties or prostitution. Things that either damage the room or get the police involved on their property. It’s easy to enforce a blanket policy for the employees than to have them decide who looks like they are up to something.

      1. Jordan*

        I wonder if it’s more likely in a “chain” or corporate hotel. For the interesting and plausible reasons above.

        We have stayed several times in a hotel 5 miles away. But it’s not a chain.
        Most recently over 4th of July, About half the guests were locals/staycation, because a) the hotel was air conditioned, while homes locally are not. b) swimming pool

    6. Ellis Bell*

      I can see why they’re not more upfront with this policy, and that they only mention it at the ID stage; it’s the most inhospitable thing I’ve ever heard of. If I knew about it then I wouldn’t want to stay there even if I was “allowed”. Also, I’m sure I’m falling into the stereotype of “England is a country where 100 miles is a long way”, but it wouldn’t occur to me to classify something 40 miles away as ‘local’!

      1. UKDancer*

        Yes quite, that’s a very strange policy. I mean occasionally I’ve stayed in a hotel in London despite living near there, mainly when I was having work done in my flat. For example when I had a lot of work done meaning the water and electricity were switched off while I had a new bathroom fitted and then painting done I moved to the Premier Inn around the corner for 2 nights.

        40 miles away is definitely not local. I used to live about 40 miles from Oxford and I would definitely stay in a hotel when I went there for cultural activities.

        I mean I could understand if it was 6 people booking in for a wild party but otherwise, I’d not expect to be turned away for living nearby.

      2. Goldfeesh*

        I’m firmly in the center of the US and wouldn’t consider 40 miles away local. That’d be two towns over.

    7. mreasy*

      I just read about this on a Reddit thread. The consensus there was generally because they’ve had an issue with local people renting hotel rooms to party and then trash the place because they don’t have to clean up, or drug users may rent a room to get high / go on a bender.

    8. Goldie*

      Partying and avoiding unhoused people. I have a friend who was homeless for years snd I would get hotel rooms for her occasionally and she’d run across this.

    9. fposte*

      I’ve been reading a hotel workers’ forum and this is super common. Local rentals have a higher proportion of trouble, for reasons the other commenters are giving.

    10. Manders*

      I believe AirBnB has a similar policy to reduce partying and trashing of homes by locals. But trafficking makes sense as well.

    11. Generic Name*

      Ugh. I wonder if those policies are advertised anywhere or if they’ll tell you about it if you call ahead and ask. There are multiple wildfires burning in my area, and we have valuable/sentimental items piled in our living room as we speak in case we get an evacuation order. We have a local hotel picked as our evacuation meet up location, so it would be really annoying to try to check in and be turned away.

      1. RagingADHD*

        I’m sure if you call and ask, they will tell you. And in an evacuation scenario they are likely to waive it anyway.

      2. Kay*

        I recently booked my first hotel where I saw this policy. I, like the OP, was shocked, and I found out 24 hours prior to check in, when I had to accept the no locals policy. I think with the larger chains you are more likely to be safe, but I would call ahead since in my case I definitely didn’t notice the policy prior to check in (and I read them all).

    13. ecnaseener*

      Wow, that’s bizarre. I see the other responses saying it’s to avoid locals throwing parties, which, okay but FORTY miles?! And you’re in a city, so there must be a lot of people in the surrounding 40 miles!

      Really shitty blanket policy for the reasons you mention as well as unhoused people, people who need to get away from an unsafe home…

    14. I DK*

      I get the anti-party/drug/prostitution stance, but the ones whose AC’s konk out in August (stayed at Holiday Inn) or have house renov’s (can’t afford that yet) going on are screwed with this policy. I used to book weekends at local hotels just to have a type of mini-vacation (no laundry, no vacuuming, time to read). I have no answer, just as perplexed as you are Mozart.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        This! What if I wanted to treat myself and go downtown for a weekend? This city is so dense that a policy like this one would exclude an awful lot of people.

    15. MozartBookNerd (OP)*

      This was a Best Western. I’m very curious to figure out if it’s chain by chain, “property” by “property” within a chain, etc. But it sounds like the independent places, or some of them, don’t have the policy.

      :( Seems like it’s some corporate hotshot V.P. with a “brilliant idea.” Prevent an occasional problem — by completely neglecting people’s predictable and sometimes severe needs. Yes: abusive partners; fresh paint jobs; broken A/C in a sweltering summer; Covid isolation.

      The magic of capitalism . . . .

    16. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      40 miles is insane. I get the parties thing, but 40 miles can be a 2+ hour commute in some places. Also good to know because when our A/C went out we considered going to the only hotel in town which happens to be a Best Western.

      I wonder how long until they get sued because someone tried to stay in the hotel because the 30 mile drive home was too icy. I’ve stayed at the hotel near my old job because I didn’t want to do 10 miles of icy snowy country roads with big side ditches in the dark.

    17. TheBunny*

      So it’s for the reasons that people have mentioned…but also another that’s a lot sadder. It’s not unheard of for people to rent hotel rooms so their families don’t have to deal with their remains after they die by suicide.

      A friend of mine worked as a night auditor at a hotel in a beach area and had this happen twice in a hotel she worked at. Both of the deceased were local and the hotel changed their policy on locals following the 2nd.

      1. allathian*

        That’s really sad.

        That said, lots of hotels in my area changed that policy in 2018 at least temporarily when we had a long heatwave in 2018. Lots of people, especially senior citizens, went to the nearest hotel for a few nights to sleep. This was downtown where most buildings were built in either the 1920s or the 1950s, and where AC basically doesn’t exist. For many senior citizens, this was probably lifesaving.

  25. Two-Faced Big-Haired Food Critic*

    Carried over from one of the mortification threads: I told about making a fool of myself in front of Sandra Bernhard, the American comedic actress. Except autocorrect added a T. Didn’t change the first name, but still prompted confusion with the French dramatic actress Sarah Bernhardt, which would have required a time machine! Anyway, I do have an anecdote about someone confusing one with the other. But it’s not mortifying, just funny, so I’m posting it here.

    —————————-

    So I took French all four years in high school, as did my friend C. Third year, we had to write papers on a French historical figure, and I chose Sarah Bernhardt. We handed our papers in, and the next period was lunch. C and I were discussing our papers, at the same table with M, who took German. I was telling C about Bernhardt’s antics, including an incident where she assaulted a (female) critic who gave her a bad review. A whip was involved, no joke.

    M: Wait, when was this?

    Me: Oh, eighteen-ninety-something. [Note: 1990 hadn’t happened yet.]

    M: Wh- You mean nineteen-eighty?

    C: She means *Sarah* BernhardT. With a T.

    Me: Yeah, a French stage actress, late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

    M. *Oh.*…Well, you gotta admit, that’s something *Sandra* BernharD might also do!

    1. fposte*

      A friend of mine, in her oral exams for her PhD in English literature, referred to John Bunyan as Paul Bunyan throughout. And I could see Pilgrim’s Progress involving a big blue ox.

      1. Tisket*

        In sixth grade I was supposed to write a paper about Martin Luther King, Jr. I wrote one about Martin Luther instead. (I was raised Lutheran by extremely devout religious parents and I was in the middle of my catechism classes so Martin Luther was very much on my mind.) Even after my teacher told me I had the wrong person, I thought that Martin Luther King, Jr. was Martin Luther’s son.

    2. AGD*

      I once lost some points on a vocabulary test because one of the words to learn in advance was “sundry” and I wrongly assumed it was a transitive verb mostly used to talk about tomatoes.

  26. goddessoftransitory*

    So, a kind of reading-adjacent thread/query:

    When we had our recent upheaval, we hired a moving company to pack/unpack us. They were lovely, professional guys in their early twenties.

    When they were packing us up, Husband said one of them asked “Are you a scientist?” because of all our books, and when they came back to move everything back in, another asked if he’d “read ALL of these?” They seemed genuinely bewildered that people could own/read physical books as a thing if it wasn’t required by a job.

    Have you guys run into a lot of comments or similar “???” reactions to your reading habits/library?

    1. Jackalope*

      The thing that got me was the recommendation that you display your books with the spine toward the back of the bookshelf so the pages would be facing out since the colors of the pages were more likely to coordinate. I mean, not gonna judge someone who thinks that books are for decoration, but if you have that many books maybe you want to be able to tell them apart?

    2. Book dragon*

      Not particularly, though I did have an interesting discussion on physical verses digital with a much older colleague who prefers digital.

      He was not aware that libraries also lend out e-books so I was glad I could point him in that direction (yay for libraries!!!)

    3. Cookies For Breakfast*

      A few very popular genres are not my thing (I don’t do well with classics, historical, fantasy and sci-fi), and I tend to pick whatever looks interesting at the library rather than jumping on what’s new or trendy. So others assume I only read very highbrow and / or outlandish stuff.

      The comments I get sound half awe and half pointed remark, like “oh wow, you do really read A Lot, don’t you”. Often, when friends discuss books, their jaws drop when they ask for my thoughts on the latest thing they’re reading and I say I’m not familiar / it may not be for me (in my twenties it used to be Twilight, only a few months ago it was ACOTAR).

      I don’t think of anything I read as particularly intellectual or obscure! In fact, there are successful books I’ve had to drop because I thought I could take them on and my brainpower begged to differ. And the books I read in a year are very far from the impressive numbers I see people post on social media. And also, I often pick up recommendations from reviews and bookish people tweets – hardly anything obscure, it’s just that it can take me years to read a book after it’s published. So yeah, consider me puzzled.

    4. A Family of Readers*

      Oh goodness yes. My husband and I are both readers and we are passing that on to our kid. We live abroad and so books in English are harder to come by. My parents have gleefully taken to supplementing our kids books collection with packages from the home country. (I am eternally grateful!)

      I would say 9 out of 10 parents coming to our house for the first time make some sort of comment about how many books we have. My favorite one was “You can’t possibly have read all of these!” I mean, she was right in the sense that some of them are books on my to-read list or long series that I bought all of that I haven’t read yet, but I’ve read at least 75% fully cover to cover… Including the kids books, regardless of language. And that is including things that would land closer to the “reference book” category or stuff that we tried and didn’t stick.

      Anyway. Totally mystifying to me.

      (I suppose that would be an interesting question, if not a little derailing: what percentage of the books you own have you read cover to cover?)

      1. Irish Teacher.*

        I would say about 95%+. I do have a number of books on history that I just dip in and out of and there are some books I didn’t finish because they aren’t very good, but the majority I have read and mostly read numerous times.

      2. I hate being old*

        Cover to cover: definitely not all. My partner and I have a fair number of textbooks… So even the ones I refer to often are not read cover to cover

      3. Can't Sit Still*

        Hardcopy books? All of them! Digital books? My TBR pile is 1k deep and climbing. I read about 700 books a year, so it’s not an insurmountable number, but no matter how much I read, there are still more!

      4. goddessoftransitory*

        For me, 90%, I’d say. Nothing goes on the shelves until it’s read and I know I want to keep it. Doesn’t mean the pile of unread ones by the bed is shrinking, though…

      5. fhqwhgads*

        Of the books in my house? Half. But those are my books. Spouse’s books I haven’t read, but they’re here too.

      7. Kay*

        Everything except the few I’ve purchased with the intent to read, and one of my husband’s which I’m meh on (which right now is only 2-3 at most?). So I’m probably near 99%.

    5. UsuallyALurker*

      The dentist was impressed that I could read a book more than once. Of course, he also said that all he reads is non-fiction, so there’s probably a reason why he doesn’t reread books.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        It is very rare for my spouse to reread or rewatch anything, and he reads and watches fiction. He also doesn’t want to go back to the same place on vacation.

        I’d say in the past decade or so he’s become more likely to do this. Partly that it’s been long enough that he doesn’t remember them; partly that you can get new things out of something if you’re at a different point–he enjoyed a return trip to Zion when our kids were ten years older and so able to lead him on strenuous hikes.

      2. Nightengale*

        I think it’s more of a personality thing – I mean I re-read both fiction and non-fiction all the time. . . I may even re-read non-fiction more? I especially like revisiting a book down the road when I know more things. I’m thinking of some of the books I read about health care before I was a doctor and re-reading them now. I’m re-reading an anthropology book from the 1990s now and also a re-reading a cookbook.

    6. anon24*

      My last move was long distance and not a happy one, and I ended up having to get rid of a lot of things including some of my precious books. I still brought a good amount with me. At destination a friend was helping me unpack and putting my books on the shelves and randomly asked if she could throw out my Latin-English dictionary since “you certainly don’t need it anymore for school”. She was baffled when I told her it was never for school, it was because some of the books I read have Latin in them and I like to be able to look it up, and I’m still so offended that she wanted to just throw out a book!!!

      1. Elizabeth West*

        I donated about half my library before moving (and still ended up with ten, slightly smaller, bookcases!), and that hurt. I didn’t want to give up any of them but given how small this apartment is, it’s probably a good thing that I did!

        If someone tried to straight-up throw out my books I’d have to tackle them.

      2. Paint N Drip*

        HA people don’t get this!! I love to have reference books around. I’ve probably purchased roughly the same amount of textbooks or reference books outside of college that I did during

    7. Ellis Bell*

      I teach literacy to students who are behind in their reading skills at secondary school, so this is an attitude I encounter quite a lot. Like I only have a very small basket of books in my new reading room because we are not moved in yet and a student who is joining us next year opined that “Even though you are a teacher, you won’t have read absolutely all of these”. He was shocked to hear that most of them have been read more than once, for fun. I often get more buy in from students who can’t decode (sound out the words they see, even when an unfamiliar word) than I do from from good decoders who are poor comprehenders. The latter group say “I can read” because they have no technical issues with reading, but their vocabulary and syntax knowledge is woeful, because they see no point in doing it and have the idea that nobody really does it, in everyday life. It is classified in their minds much the same way as science experiments because it’s something they only experience at school rather than at home. One of the kids who scored really poorly in a reading test (he’s 13 and got a reading age of 9 on the test) said to me: “I don’t understand why, because I know I can read. It doesn’t matter that I don’t understand some of those long words on that test, as long as I can read ordinary words.” I said to him “What kind of things do you want to be able to read?” (At his age, I was well aware that I didn’t understand some of my parents’ adult novels, but I knew I would get there), and he replied that he had read everything he ever wanted to read already and had no interest in new words..I said that even after two degrees I love encountering new words, and books that teach me something I didn’t already know. His response was: “What’s a degree?” In other news, my boss recently told me that a lot of the mothers at her toddler group are quite open about the fact that they don’t read to their children, and have no books at home.

      1. LizB*

        Oof, that last point makes me sad. I have a 7 month old and I read to her basically every day, even though she is barely getting anything out of it at this point! I go to the library weekly for a new batch of board books so my spouse and I don’t get bored out of our minds rereading the same things all the time! We know how good it is for kids to be read to from a young age, and not choosing to do that (when you have time in your day to attend a regular toddler group, so it’s not a working-multiple-survival-jobs issue) is so hard for me to understand.

        1. A Family of Readers*

          She Is getting something out of it! The rituals you start now are huge. And she’s spending time with you and hearing your voice and listening to your reading voice which is different from your talking voice and hearing different sentence structures and looking at pictures that connect with the words….

          And yes, the state of the reading thing for kids is so sad. I’ve gotten comments like “you’re so lucky to have a reader” and I’m like.. Luck had nothing to do with it. If someone complains to me about their kid not reading, the first thing I ask is if they read to the kid. The second thing I ask is if they ever read themselves. If the answers to both of those are no, then… I’m not surprised. To be clear, some kids come to this stuff late or have challenges or whatever and I’m not judging! Just… We as parents have so much influence. If you want a reader there are things you can do!

          1. Double A*

            I’ve always read to my kid but it’s only recently that I’ve realized I should read AROUND my kids (age 5 and 3), like just reading my own books. I feel guilty that I’m “ignoring” them or I should be cleaning or something but I realized I need to model reading.

            1. A Family of Readers*

              You can read a full sentence in a book with two kids aged 5 and 3?! I’ve only got one kid so far and I’d be interrupted in 0.3 seconds until relatively recently. Too curious!

              Seriously, don’t feel guilty, it is not at all too late. One thing I do is talk about the books I am reading at the time with my husband or even with my kid if it fit into the conversation. And then yeah, sometimes if I had a break I’d have a book out when he came over at the end of it. But reading in the same room without being interrupted? Not at age 3, no way.

            2. Banana Pyjamas*

              Same. My kids ask to play on my phone because they see me on it, but I’m almost always reading. I ask if they want to read a book, but since they don’t see me with a book they don’t want a book. I think they’re finally gentle enough I don’t need to worry about book accidents.

        2. goddessoftransitory*

          She is getting SO much out of it–not least, imprinting that books are A) something that exists and B) association of books and love. That is so, so important.

        3. Mrs. Frisby*

          Just want to agree with others: she is absolutely getting a lot out of it. The best thing you can do for your kiddo in terms of school readiness is read to them daily, from birth. She’s soaking up all of that language even though she can’t speak yet and she’s learning a lot about literacy just from seeing things like how you hold a book and flip the pages. Those baby brains are wired to learn and you’re teaching! (I’m a children’s librarian and we talk a lot about this in our storytimes and do a lot of reading on the research behind reading and growing readers so this is something I think a lot about!)

      2. I DK*

        This was kinda me in the 10th grade … I could read but why?? Well, I had assigned reading due on Friday so I decided to ‘just do it’ and plowed ahead, skimming sometimes, but going back to re-read the parts I skimmed as they became important (I had a paper to write, after all) And to my astonishment, and I still remember this to this day, I finished The Great Gatsby in the supply room of the chemistry class that I was TA for at the time, and thought “Wow, that was good!” It changed my thinking about reading and when I discovered SF/Fantasy there was no stopping me. But if it hadn’t been REQUIRED reading, I might still be avoiding the written word.

        1. Ellis Bell*

          This was satisfying to hear about and massively helpful on my “It’s fun to read, I promise, mission”.

    8. Jen Erik*

      Yes, and I had an epiphany about it recently.

      My entire close family have been playing Baldur’s Gate this year – so lots of discussions and an amount of sitting in the room while one or other of them are working through it. And they enjoyed it, and it’s been something they bond over, so entirely a good thing.
      But I find it deeply, deeply boring – more than that, even – it low-level makes me physically uncomfortable to sit watching them playing.

      And I suddenly realised that this might be what people mean when they ask ‘Have you read ALL of them?’ – it’s maybe more ‘ – And you have voluntarily constrained yourself to endure the uncomfortable sensation reading a book produces, that many times?’

      1. allathian*

        Indeed, and they can’t understand that for a voracious reader, reading for fun is pretty effortless (reading when you need to remember what you read requires some effort, but not as much as trying to cram the same info into my brain any other way).

        On my long vacation this year I reread Robin Hobb’s The Realm of the Elderlings books. One day when my husband and son went on a day trip without me, I read The Mad Ship in pretty much one sitting. It took me about 9 hours and I only took bathroom breaks. I read while I ate something I’d reheated in the microwave. It was a lovely day, so I read most of the book out on the deck under a sunshade.

        We rented our old apartment from my MIL and she let us stay there for an extra month rent free when we moved into our house. So we could move in slowly and didn’t have to move in everything at the same time. We bought a covered trailer when we built this house and used that. We have a library downstairs with the ubroken walls covered in books. Our son has half a wall of books in his room. I sleep in the master bedroom and keep my favorite books on a shelf there. There’s a bookshelf of non-fiction in our “spare room” or rather, my office/my husband’s bedroom (the bed’s behind my chair but it can’t be seen on camera even if the background doesn’t work). My husband’s office is in the library/movie room. Having books in the movie room really improves the acoustics as well.

        But we get to have a relatively uncluttered living room! I realize that we’re privileged because we can afford a 5-bedroom house in a nice neighborhood.

    9. Blueprint blues*

      yep, often! especially books. we just had movers, and we had about 90 small boxes of books. all the comments! as annoying as you can imagine.

    10. Morning Reader*

      I haven’t, very much, but I don’t try to collect books (using the library mainly), it just happens. I’m very surprised that people who work as movers haven’t encountered moving a lot of books before. Maybe most people have them all packed in boxes when they arrive so they don’t notice?
      Anyway, I have the opposite reaction when I visit a home and there are no books. I’m like…. Where are all your books?
      Currently most of my books are downstairs in the finished basement, and I noticed I didn’t have any upstairs in my living room. I finally moved a bookcase upstairs, for better access on what I am currently reading and plan to read soon, and so that I don’t seem to be a cultureless, bookless cretin when people visit.
      I’ve never heard of decorating advice to turn your books around. What is the point? Most pages are white or beige, so you’re trying to match your realtor-beige apartment walls? Book spines look good. Actually some people put books they have never/would never read in their decorating because they look good and class up the place.
      I also don’t understand the frequent decluttering advice to get rid of books. Just, why? They are not clutter. They don’t take up much room (with a good bookcase, usually bringing the floor space in only one foot from the wall, you can fit hundreds.) I understand if you’re never going to look at them again, but how do I know what I might want to read or re-read in the future.
      As for my books, they are a small percentage of books I have read because I usually borrow.
      Parents who never read to their kids. I still do not understand this. I assume their parents never read to them. Among the most precious moments of parenting. My fav photo of my dad and my baby daughter is him reading to her, on his lap, heads bent toward the book, both heads matching with sparse hair over their mostly bald pates.

      1. RussianInTexas*

        I did get rid of a lot of books in my last move, given that I read almost exclusively on Kindle. Mostly paperbacks and things I would never re-read. I got rid of most CDs as well. They are heavy to move, and yes, they do take up a lot of space. I only kept the books that were collectible, out of print, or beautiful to look at.
        I don’t remember my parents ever reading to me (in fairness, I have almost no memories of age before 6), but when I learned to read myself at 6, I became an avid reader.

        1. RussianInTexas*

          My partner (who is an avid reader too, and also on Kindle) and I now get comments about the number of board games we have.

    11. Falling Diphthong*

      More when I was young. Though it does surprise me to go to a home with no bookshelves. However:

      My husband has a much older sister and much older brother. The first embraced the “it’s not clutter if it’s books” viewpoint and the second “doesn’t like books as wallpaper.” Both read, it’s just that one doesn’t keep the books around but instead passes them on. And with decades for this approach to play out, I find that even as a big reader–That beautiful two story home library with the rolling ladders is not actually in my present or future, as much as I like it in magazine pictures. The dusty stacks of books hoarded because “they’re books, it’s not clutter if it’s a book” was much more likely. And so I became more ruthless about whether I would revisit this book, or ever read it if I’d been putting it off for seven years now.

      1. Texan In Exile*

        My dad was in the military and the military moves you every few years but will only move X tons of your stuff. Which means books are the first things to be tossed, as cooking equipment and beds are more important.

        So I have never developed the habit of accumulating books! I did, however, develop a library habit very young. The base librarians would let me take out ten books at a time on my mom’s ID card – I wasn’t old enough to have my own. And even now, I am at the library at least once a week. One of the reasons we bought the house we did is that it’s only three blocks from the library, so I can walk there.

        (I have held on to my copy of “A Wrinkle in Time” since I was 12, though. :) My favorite book ever.)

    12. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      For being someone who routinely reads 200-300 books a year, I have remarkably few physical books in my house. But that’s because I do 99% of my reading as ebooks, because I’m either reading on vacation (and am saving space) or in bed in the dark (because I don’t want to have the light on). I also very rarely reread, and even most of my ebooks come from the library or Kindle Unlimited.

      1. Maggie*

        I subscribe to the Jerry Seinfeld “they’re books, what do you need them for after read them?” mentality so I don’t have tons in my house either

        1. Lala*

          wow, I was hoping for a cheapish “staycation” this year, sometime in the fall. One to two nights in a very, very local hotel where there is a pool, was my thought. I hope this isn’t going to be a problem.

    13. anonymous anteater*

      Not personally, but I vividly remember when the first season of Big Brother ran in my home country, and one of the contestants declared that he owned zero books and didn’t know of Shakespeare. It made big waves because he represented a slice of the population who would normally never receive a public platform. So it was both exciting for people who could relate, and bewildering for people who could not.

    14. GoryDetails*

      Heh! Yep, I’ve heard the have-you-read-all-those and how-many-books-do-you-HAVE – but I’ve also escalated my book-throughput due to a couple of hobbies. I still read a lot – multiple books in progress at any one time, and I finish a book every day or two on average – but I also acquire more books than I want to read (plus duplicates of books I’ve already read) so that I can register them on BookCrossing and distribute them around the region. People who find them can choose to journal them online, and I’ll get to see who found them and what they thought – can be a lot of fun.

      I’ve also embraced the Little Free Library movement, including becoming one of the official stewards for my city’s collection of LFLs – and setting up one of my own. I love to discover new LFLs while driving around New England, and I hit up thrift stores and yard sales and online book-bargain sites to stock up on more books to spread around. So at the moment I may have a couple of hundred books on my personal to-be-read shelves, but three or four times that many waiting to be released to LFLs, left posed decoratively on sculptures or historical markers, or otherwise cast to the winds.

    15. fposte*

      Yes, but it’ less common these days since I live in a university town. So they see the books and say, “Oh, are you at the university?” And *then* they ask if I’ve read all these books. (And, truthfully, no, but most of them.)

    16. Well that’s a relief*

      Yep. Back in my grade school days, everyone else was taking a test, and I wasn’t. (Long story.) It had been a two day test, and I’d been allowed to go to the library the day before. I ask permission to go that day, then pull out a big stack of novels I’d read and needed to return. My teachers jaw dropped, and she’d asked if I really had read all of those.
      “Yeah, most of them.”

    17. Buni*

      The last time my parents helped me move my mother looked around the carnage (and cartonage…) and said “Have you ever considered….[i]not[/i] buying books…?”.

      Like she wasn’t my first dealer…

      2. Jackalope*

        My dad did the same thing! Although in his case he likes buying and reading books but he never rereads them so he always gets rid of them after the first read.

    18. Library School Dropout*

      I certainly get these kinds of comments and because of my books people tend to assume I’m smart (which is flattering). I grew up in a house full of readers and full of books. I love reading and read for fun. (Although a lot of what I read could probably be dismissed as “trash.” Not everything is literature.) I know a lot of my local library staff and a lot of my local bookstore staff by name. To my shame, I did go through a period where I was a bit judgemental of people who did not have books in their house or who did not read very much. I looked down my nose on them. I try not to do that anymore. I hope I’ve matured and am no longer so judgemental. Different strokes for different folks.

      I would imagine that the kind of people who read Alison’s blog and who leave comments on her site tend to be highly literate and would be the kind of people who read a lot and would own a lot of books. Everything being intersectional, this is one of my tribes. The commenters here, almost all, write well and the comments are usually thoughtful and well-written.

    19. So not using my real name for this.*

      The reasons for this are many, but Poverty can play a huge role in this. My spouse grew up on a single mom/working poor household. Books and the time to read them were a huge luxury. (TV with antenna is a one time expense and can be watched while doing something else. )

    20. Kay*

      I had a contractor not too long ago say to me “Oh my gosh, its a bookshelf with books in it! You don’t see much of that anymore!” and I wasn’t sure how I should feel about it. I’ve settled on mostly sad.

    21. I DK*

      I read a lot, most of which is not worth commenting about but still worth my time, and I used to try to keep them all to build my ‘library’ – that is until I moved into a 3rd floor loft and the boxes of books that I would probably never read again made no sense. My apartment complex has a library, so I ‘donated’ those books, keeping only my heart-touching favorites. They don’t know where the new books came from, but I was secretly delighted when I saw a couple of them in my building manager’s office the other day … so now, if it isn’t a super-special read for me, I just read it forward.

    22. Quinalla*

      Honestly yes, folks usually do not believe how much I read until they get to know me or read a book with me or give me a book to read and we have a discussion. I read very quickly compared to everyone I know except my one brother & Mom who ready pretty much just as fast as I do.

      I have one bookshelf that is FULL of books plus various books around the house in other spots. I also have a kindle with a ton and I listen to audio books often as well. Most audio books are from the library and I also will borrow ebooks & physical books too sometimes. Usually I read two books at the same time (one audio, one physical book or on kindle) and sometimes three if there is a book I’m reading for a group at work (usually DEI or leadership).

      I have come to the conclusion that I am very odd in this way, most folks do NOT read books like this, but when I find someone else that does it is great as we bond so much as they too get the weird looks/comments/etc.

  27. Lizzie (with the deaf cat)*

    Certainly have had similar comments! And I probably only have half the number of books I used to have. My library sells books that have been donated but are not wanted in the system, and also sells ‘expired’ library books – what a trap that book trolley is. I am currently trying to do the one in-two out routine. I have made a useful change by allocating one bookcase to books I have acquired but not yet read – so I do point to that bookcase and say Well I haven’t read these yet. Growing up in a house inundated with books, it seems quite normal to have piles of them everywhere. My cousin grew up in a home which did not have a single book in it – the tv was switched on by the first person who got up, and switched off by the last person who went to bed. She became a teacher!

    1. Anono-me*

      I understand having lots of books, but I do not understand having lots of unread books. How do you not immediately devower new books?

      1. Lizzie (with the deaf cat)*

        I devour them as fast as I can! But a backlog does buildup… I borrow from the library as well. When I buy new books, I donate them to the library afterwards, so there is movement… my best explanation is that unread books are breeding in the bookcases, hence my decision to corral them and whittle them down faster.
        And I have stopped reading AAM’s recommended books thread, which introduced me to so many more enjoyable things to read (which I mostly bought from Better World Books).

      2. Jackalope*

        I currently have several books that all came in on hold from the library at about the same time, some of which have other people waiting for them when I’m done. So those automatically go to the top of the list. and when I buy books I often get a number of them all at once. I love reading but have other stuff that takes a lot of my time (including that pesky place we don’t discuss on the weekends), and so it takes me longer to go through books. (I often read a book or two on the weekends, but weekdays I usually don’t have the time to finish a book.) So that’s how they pile up. Sometimes I’ll also get a book by, say, an author that I’m really fond of, and hang on to it until I’m having a really rough week (or I do a Hard Thing), and then read it as a reward.

      3. Book Beetle*

        Sometimes it’s just not the right time for that book. I have a large TBR pile of physical books, and an even bigger number of unread ebooks on the Kindle, and I buy new books pretty often, but sometime I just want to reread an old favourite, or do a series reread, and new books have to wait. Sometimes a new book just isn’t what I’m in the mood for!

  28. Book dragon*

    So due to recent events I’ve realised I have never actually read a book with an intersex protagonist or even a major character who is intersex. Does anyone have any recommendations? I’m open to most genres though for some reason sci fi has always been a genre that I could never finish a book in.

    1. Pizza Rat*

      Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides is the obvious choice. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002.

      1. Cleo*

        Except that the author isn’t intersex and didn’t do any research into being intersex, so it’s not a good choice if you want to learn more about what it’s like to be intersex.

        1. Ali + Nino*

          That’s not what OP asked for. They mentioned books with an intersex protagonist or character.

          1. AGD*

            No, but it makes sense to add a disclaimer given that the OP wanted recommendations, and this is something that might make the book a little trickier to recommend. (Anything’s possible in the real world, I guess, but I didn’t really like Middlesex – the portrayal of the intersex character was so fanciful it actually undermined my suspension of disbelief.)

    2. allx*

      Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides. Pulitzer-prize winning novel exploring gender identity through the coming-of-age story of an intersexed person raised as a girl.

    3. Morning Reader*

      I read a book years ago that had (what I recall as) an intersex protagonist. It was historical fiction. As is typical in the genre, the person interacted with many real historical characters. They presented as male sometimes and female others. I think they sometimes worked as a courtesan or a spy and I remember being impressed how they could tuck their penis up in a girdle while female presenting so that it didn’t interfere with their outfit or blow their cover. In my recollection this book was set in Europe. However I can’t seem to locate it or recall the author or title. Does it seem familiar to anyone else?
      I might be getting it mixed up with The Persian Boy by Mary Renault. The character is not trans or intersex but an enslaved person who had been gelded. He was a companion to and lover of Alexander the Great. For some reason this book pops up in my memory as possibly relevant to your request, even though it doesn’t match your specs. It may be of interest as a character outside our binary gender perspective; in any case, it’s good historical fiction (part of a whole series) if you like that kind of thing.
      As for Middlesex, I liked it at the time but checking for “intersex” book recommendations, some reviewers didn’t like it due to inaccuracies. If you’re reading for entertainment, not information, it might do.

      2. GoryDetails*

        The historical fiction may have featured the Chevalier d’Éon – not biologically intersex, but presenting as both male and female during the course of a long life. (I first heard about the chevalier via a manga loosely inspired by d’Éon’s life.)

      3. TuxedoCat*

        Your first recommendation sounds like one of the several books and historical fiction written about the Chevalier d’Eon, a french courtesan, diplomat, spy and soldier of the 18th century (who probably wasn’t actually intersex, but is presented as such in certain accounts). Can’t recommend a specific one (most I’ve seen are in French and children/YA historical fiction), but read up his wikipedia page (in French if you can, very detailed).

      4. Buni*

        Sounds a bit like Virginia Woolf’s ‘Orlando’, except the character in that literally changes sex.

    5. Hedwig*

      Maybe not quite what you’re looking for, but The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks is a brilliant book

      2. Hedwig*

        It’s probably worth noting that the preferred terminology is now Disorders/Differences of Sexual Development (DSD) rather that intersex, which is considered outdated.

    6. Falling Diphthong*

      Sideshow by Sheri S Tepper has protagonists who were born as conjoined intersex twins, and raised as one male one female.

    7. Alyn*

      Not sure if you like Fantasy (some people include fantasy in sci-fi, some don’t), but Across the Green Grass fields by Seanan McGuire is a novella that features an intersex protagonist. It’s part of her Wayward Children series, but can be read as a standalone.

    9. Bluebell Brenham*

      Not exactly intersex, but i thought Detransition Baby was a really interesting read. One character has detransitioned, and another is trans. The author, Torrey Peters, is trans. I read Middlesex years ago and enjoyed it. Maybe Morning Reader is thinking about Orlando by Virginia Woolf, which was also a movie w Tilda Swinton? Her character isn’t intersex, they change sex at one point in the novel.

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

      If you’re interested in non-fiction, Pidgeon Pagonis, an Intersex activist, has written a 2023 memoir: *Nobody Needs to Know*. They are also the subject of a good short documentary, *A Normal Girl*.

      1. Ali + Nino*

        I actually just read this recently and I was very glad to get her perspective and hear her experience. I’d recommend this book too.

    11. GoryDetails*

      An unusual one: the manga series Requiem of the Rose King re-imagines the life of Richard III as an intersex person. The story includes historical characters and events, but reinterprets them pretty wildly – but it does present some of Richard’s torments as being due to finding it so difficult to accept his own body.

    12. Jamie Starr*

      Herculine Barbin: Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-century French Hermaphrodite (Herculine Barbin, Michel Foucault)

      It’s nonfiction. Herculine was French, born in 1838 and assigned female at birth. As an adult, she was legally reclassified as male. In the 1970s, French philosopher Michel Foucault found her memoirs (which she titled The Story and Memoirs of Alexina B.) while doing research in the French Department of Public Hygiene and had them published, along with medical reports, legal documents, and a short story adaptation by an Italian writer.

      (Herculine’s birthday, November 8, is marked as Intersex Day of Remembrance.)

    13. RagingADHD*

      Relatedly, Lady Colin Campbell wrote an autobiography called “A Life Worth Living.”

      She is a cis woman, but was AMAB due to a congenital deformity and raised as a boy. She was not able to have corrective surgery and get a corrected birth certificate until she became an adult. So she has a first-person view of having a gender chosen for her due to her body that did not fit expectations for either sex.

    14. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

      It’s not quite right, but As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto is a biography of David Reimer, who was given gender reassignment surgery after a botched circumcision and raised as girl based on his doctor’s recommendations. His life, when it became known that, contrary to the doctor’s public statements, David never thought of himself as a girl, led to doctors reassessing whether gender surgery for intersex babies was a good idea.

      The doctor will make you angry and it has a sad conclusion, but it is a good book.

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

        There’s also a documentary about what happened, called *Dr. Money and the Boy with No Penis*. Yeah, the whole story is very, very sad.

        Re: the movement to ban surgery for intersex kids until they are adults and can make their own informed choice, the Human Rights Watch report “I want to be as nature made me” (easily searchable) is also a fascinating read that will make you very angry on behalf of these kids and how knowledge and medical agency have often been withheld from them. One young person had to resort to breaking into a doctor’s office and stealing medical records to even figure out that they were intersex.

    15. goddessoftransitory*

      Jeanette Winterson’s The Powerbook is a collection of stories (the premise is the protagonist will write a story to order for you and you alone over the internet) that contains several intersex characters. A lot of her earlier work has gender fluidity as well. (And her book Christmas Days, now that I think of it!)

    16. Rosyglasses*

      If I remember correctly, Ursula Le Guin wrote a sci fi novel called Left Hand of Darkness in which either the narrator or the planet that the narrator was on was an intersex species except that they literally decided which genitalia they would have at certain parts of the year when they felt like having relations. I should re- read it – it was fascinating but I am only remembering bits and pieces.

      1. cleo*

        Left Hand of Darkness is great. I wouldn’t call the inhabitants of the planet intersex though. They don’t have any genitalia except once a month when they’re fertile.

  29. Nausea*

    I hope this is not too medical but I started a new medication that is making me pretty nauseous at times, usually worse in the morning. I’m trying to figure out if what and when I eat make a difference but in the meantime, what do you do when you feel nauseous? My go to is hot peppermint tea but maybe there are other things that might help?

    1. Falling Diphthong*

      Sea bands (acupressure bands) are the go tos for motion sickness, and can be helpful for other types of nausea–people have used them for pregnancy and chemo nausea.

      Personal anecdote: Long ago I was out on choppy water with my sailing spouse, and decided that either sea bands didn’t work or I had positioned them wrong. So I took them off. A couple of minutes later, I was like “…. Oh. Maybe they were in fact doing something” and put them back on. They were doing something. That was when I figured out that they dial the nausea down about two notches: mild to none, medium to mild. Above that level I would prefer to solve the problem by getting off the boat–extreme down to bad isn’t enough of a change.

      1. Jordan*

        Definitely. Sea-bands or the equally and cheaper generic acupressure or morning sickness or chemo bands are the fastest and easiest. I get dizzy/vertigo frequently and have tried. It. All
        I find the bands have the same effect as the prescription scopolamine patches without the side effects.

        Also mecklizine , which is over the counter pills. The ER gives them out, but OTC is usually accessible.

        Lastly, when nausea is really bad and I just have to wait it out
        -cold.
        Like the fan, as few clothes as possible, ice packs on arteries
        The sensation of cold overrides other inputs.

    2. Grits McGee*

      Ginger is my go-to for nausea: candied ginger, ginger drinks, ginger chews, anything with that’s mostly real ginger (as opposed to a standard grocery store ginger ale). I think Trader Joes still has a powered ginger drink mix that might be a good supplement to your peppermint tea.

      1. Girasol*

        If eating is okay and calories aren’t an issue, Nabisco ginger snaps can be helpful. I used to use those for airsickness and they really helped a lot. The brand matters though. Cheap ginger snaps tend to be low on actual ginger like cheap ginger ales. (Vernors ginger ale used to be a standard remedy in local hospitals, I’m told.)

        1. GingerSheep*

          Ginger is often recommended for nausea but doesn’t work for everyone – I love ginger, especially candied, but it does absolutely nothing for nausea for me.
          What worked incredibly well – I really mean miraculously well – for me during my pregnancies was doxylamine tabs. As in, I stopped taking them a couple times because I hadn’t felt nauseous in days or weeks, and immediately became so nauseous I was almost non functional. Be aware that they cause (sometimes intense) drowsiness in a lot of people, so it’s recommended to take them in the evening, but I’m apparently completely immune to that side effect and always took them first thing in the morning.

    3. Rain*

      This is going to sound bizarre but – there are a number of studies that show that smelling isopropyl alcohol is an effective antiemetic.

      I also suffer nausea from a medicine that I’m on and can note that at least anecdotally, it works for me fairly often.

    4. chocolate muffins*

      When I was pregnant a midwife told me that eating protein in the morning helps with nausea. Not sure if that was only pregnancy-related nausea or all kinds, but it did help me when I could manage it (protein was not always appealing but something like cheese usually felt okay even when meat didn’t).

    5. Harlowe*

      I’m prone to nausea from cluster headaches and migraines. Getting as cold as possible helps me: ice packs, sitting in front of a fan, lying in a cold tub, etc.

      1. noahwynn*

        I probably look crazy, but laying on the cold tile floor in the dark bathroom helps me the most of anything. Seems to make the nausea pass faster.

    6. Venus*

      What and when you eat absolutely can make a difference. Meds that tell you to take with a meal, for example antibiotics, are because they cause nausea and taking antibiotics with food makes you less nauseous. There are meds that need to be taken with meals for other reasons, so it isn’t exclusively nausea, but if you are experiencing nausea then eating with a meal will hopefully help.

    7. Squidhead*

      My multivitamin makes me nauseated and taking it with a slice of cheese helps. Really amy protein would probably do it; cheese is just my protein of choice. Or I could follow the instructions on the bottle and take it with a meal, but…

      I also like licorice or licorice-mint (candy or tea) for nausea.

    8. Kathenus*

      Ginger ale or coke, very cold preferred, and/or saltines (name brand definitely best) are my go-to items. You can also get Cola Syrup at the pharmacy over the counter (as opposed to the ‘Coke Syrup’ that used to be sold in my youth but now is not available), which stays good basically forever at room temperature – putting it over crushed ice and sipping it can really help too.

      2. Quinalla*

        Saltines is my go to as well. I can’t do peppermint or ginger or anything strong, when I’m nauseous, it just makes it worse for me. Staying away from anything strong is key for me. Cold also helps as does fresh air.

        Dramamine or other anti-nausea meds may help too if not counter-indicated for your med you are taking.

    9. Llellayena*

      I’m a bit of a sugar junkie, so my go to is the mint gummy candies. The ones that are shaped like leaves. I also use Mint Medley tea, which would probably be good cold. Flat coca-cola has worked for me too. Must be coke brand though, not Pepsi.

    10. Miss Buttons*

      My oncologist prescribed Zofran and Compazine, two anti-nausea meds. Worked well for me. If you don’t want to go that route, I suggest trying not to let your stomach get empty. Keep dry saltines at your bedside, munch early in the morning. Also, are you supposed to be taking your new med with food? Makes a difference with some meds. And you don’t say whether you’re vomiting – I hope not. Staying hydrated is so important.

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        Dehydration can cause nausea on its own, too, I find! Keeping your electrolytes in balance is important.

      2. NauseaTricks*

        Be aware that Zofran can cause severe constipation. A lot of doctors don’t seem to be aware – they still question it when I tell them until they explicitly look for it in the known side effects. Thankfully I had a really good pharmacist who looked it up for me and told me that it is, in fact, a relatively common side effect. I was ready to report it to the adverse effects folks if it wasn’t already a documented side effect because it clearly was caused by the Zofran and, in my case, very severe. I’ll spare everyone the details.

    11. Can't Sit Still*

      I drink a nutritional shake with meds that cause nausea or stomach upset. They are easily digestible and you can put half of it back in the refrigerator for next time. They taste much better (for a certain definition of better) refrigerated. I was recently on a regimen of Tylenol and Advil every 4 hours and I definitely didn’t feel like eating at 2 am! The shakes definitely made a difference.

      In the US, we’re constrained to sweet flavors like vanilla or chocolate, but outside the US, there are savory flavors like mushroom soup available.

      Shakes intended for weight loss do not help at all.

    12. wireknitter*

      If the peppermint tea helps, Altoids are an easy way to get strong peppermint into your system fast. I consider them my miracle cure.

    13. Rainy*

      Dry toast, made from bread that isn’t very “healthy” so not very seedy or chunky. A piece of dry white toast is very good for nausea for me.

    14. LizB*

      In addition to the many good suggestions already here, sour candy (lemon drops, sour gummies, etc) can help a lot with nausea – the citric acid makes you salivate, which promotes gastric emptying (moving stuff in your stomach onwards) which helps nausea. Also, if it starts first thing in the morning, eating a tiny snack while still in bed as soon as you open your eyes could be helpful. Generally having an empty stomach will worsen nausea (which feels like a cruel joke when you’re nauseous). All of this advice comes from my experience with pregnancy nausea, but I think it will likely work on other kinds too!

    16. NauseaTricks*

      It doesn’t work for me – haven’t found anything that really does – but several doctors and nutritionists have recommended ginger chews.

      I have found that if I eat white bread toast or white flour saltines it can help me better tolerate eating real food later and if I don’t there are days I often can’t tolerate food until the late afternoon or early evening. It doesn’t actually help with the nausea, it just makes me better able to tolerate real food while nauseous. Plain oatmeal can also sometimes help, but usually it’s more effective after I’ve had some toast.

      Good luck!

    17. RLC*

      I’ve found plain unsweetened applesauce to be a good neutral nausea relief food, also saltine crackers or oyster crackers (the smaller size of the oyster crackers makes them a bit easier to eat). I have cyclical vomiting syndrome and one of the recommendations I’ve seen frequently is to consume mild simple carbs such as plain toast and Cream of Wheat cereal; it helps me. Weak chamomile tea also brings some relief.

    19. anon24*

      Slowly snacking on pretzels and getting as cold as possible. I’ve stuck my entire head under cold running water and I also love putting ice packs on my neck. I’ve found that cold and a breeze in my face are also amazing for preventing motion sickness as well.

    20. NauseaTricks*

      I realized I left out an important component – I explicitly mentioned white flour but forgot to explicitly mention whole grain, whole wheat, grains, and other “better for you” breads/crackers do not help the nausea and sometimes makes it worse. It has to be simple, unadulterated white flour bread/crackers.

    21. SuprisinglyADHD*

      Lipton noodle soup, pretzels, gatorade, and apple juice are the few “safe foods” I have when I’m already queasy. They’re gentle on my stomach, and if the inevitable happens they’re not as miserable to throw up, either from texture or flavor. In general, salty or sweet, and non-acidic foods are the easiest, and starches are lighter than proteins.
      If I’m trying to prevent nausea from a medication or something, I take it with a meal, or at least some protein and starch (toast and cheese, or yogurt and crackers), and avoid chugging water to wash it down. For some reason pills with water are about the worst thing I can do to my stomach…
      In the last-ditch effort category, laying down on one side sometimes lessens the nausea feeling, and a hot pack on my stomach might be soothing. Slow, deliberate breathing sometimes helps a little but if I’ve gotten to that point it’s usually pretty inevitable.
      There are also anti-nausea prescriptions that dissolve on your tongue, I use those to help keep migraine medications down long enough to work.

    22. Rage*

      How often do you have to take the medication? I had a med once some years ago that used to give me a bit of a headache and nausea and I just switched to taking it before I went to bed. The side effects weren’t enough to wake me, and by the time I woke up the next morning, the feels had passed.

    23. dontbeadork*

      Ordinary saltine crackers crushed up in a small glass of milk. You’d think it’d make you want to hurl even more, but (at least for me) it’s soothing and easy on the tum as well.

  30. Grits McGee*

    Out of curiosity- how many folks are in the still-haven’t-had-COVID/never-tested-positive club? I never did; I thought there might have been genetic component because my parents didn’t either despite one of them working in a hospital for all of 2020 and most of 2021, but they recently got COVID from some of their friends. Are any of the big government or academic institutions still doing COVID resistance studies?

    1. Alyn*

      My husband and I have never had it. But we’re also very cautious – masks at work, don’t eat out in restaurants, no large indoor events, utilize curbside pickup/delivery instead of shopping in stores, etc. We also get every new booster/updated vaccine as it becomes available.

      1. Peanut Hamper*

        This is where I am. I do go grocery shopping, but I’m always wearing a mask. I don’t wear a mask on the one day a week I have to go into the office but I am fairly isolated there. But I do my best to avoid people.

    2. Goldie*

      I know a lot of people who got it this summer for the first time. So I think it might be a combo of good habits and good luck for you.

      Sadly my dad had managed to never get it, but his health was pretty bad and he got it in a nursing home and died from it the summer. So it’s still very serious.

    3. Sloanicota*

      Technically I’m in the club – never knowingly had it, and never tested positive. And to be fair I’ve never had an illness with the classic symptoms. However, I do assume I have had it and was either asymptomatic or mild – and now that we understand more about testing I probably wasn’t persistent enough after getting a negative test – because I wasn’t as careful as some, and particularly once vaccinated I was in fairly crowded indoor spaces for work.

      1. A Girl Named Fred*

        This is where my partner and I land, too. We’ve never tested positive or had the classic symptoms, but he works retail so we find it hard to believe that we’ve never gotten an asymptomatic case and just didn’t know.

    4. Scientist*

      My mom is the only person I know who still has never knowingly gotten it (and she does test after known exposures or symptomatic.) She is also an RN who took care of many Covid positive patients in 2020 and beyond, including a couple times where she took her mask off to communicate better briefly. She masked for awhile but hasn’t in at least two years.

    5. Rain*

      I’ve never gotten it/tested positive despite my son & husband both having it twice AND being immunocompromised and not being able to get the jab until a year after it was available.

      It is just 100% luck, but definitely odd

    6. acmx*

      I haven’t tested positive yet. I take a test when I come down with a cold but my symptoms have not been other than typical cold symptoms.

    7. WellRed*

      Haven’t had Covid at all. A friend last week was diagnosed for the first time. I have two coworkers who also haven’t gotten it but the rest have gotten it at least twice.

    8. ThatGirl*

      I have never tested positive, despite several exposures. I can’t rule it out 100% since asymptomatic infection is a thing, but as far as I know I’m a member of the no covid club.

      My husband was too until last year – he tested positive while I was gone for the weekend and so took precautions to avoid exposing me.

    9. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      I never had any reason to believe I had Covid and have never had a positive test result. My husband had it … twice? I forget if there was a third. Both times we barricaded him in his office and dropped Gatorade outside the door. :-P

    10. RMNPgirl*

      As far as I know I never had it and neither has my mom. We’re pretty sure my dad had a mild case in spring 2021 but no positive test to confirm that. Once the vaccines came out, I stopped masking or taking other precautions because I don’t have any underlying health concerns. I’m guessing at this point it’s just been luck or an asymptomatic case.

    11. Inkhorn*

      This is me, afaik. I finally came down with *something* last month – first bug I’ve had since the Before Times – but I tested negative, and the coworkers who had the same symptoms around the same time tested negative, and it felt like a regular cold, so I guess not covid?

      And this is despite working in an open-plan office which has had multiple covid outbreaks, as well as being a non-driver who catches public transport everywhere! Apparently I have an immune system of steel… or just good luck. Getting every booster I’m eligible for and living alone probably help too.

    12. Alex*

      Me. I did come down with a cold once and tested and tested, but it was always negative. (And the illness wasn’t super COVID-y anyway–lots of sneezing, but no cough or fever or any of the other symptoms that are typical.)

      I am vaxxed, but otherwise am not super cautious and I take public transportation.

      Strangely, my closest friends also haven’t gotten it! In spite of one of them having a roommate who had it.

    13. GoryDetails*

      I’m still in the never-had-COVID club (knock on wood). I live alone and am retired, and most of my hobbies can be solitary ones, so that made it easier for me to avoid risky situations. I also went full-on mask/hand-washing/distancing early on, and am fully vaccinated.

      Among my friend-group, over half have had COVID – mild cases, thankfully. And my sister’s family has had it as well, due mainly to her and her husband having jobs that took them into contact with lots of people. Again, mild cases.

    14. Anonymous Educator*

      My spouse and boss have never had it. I know one other person, too. So that’s three. Everyone else I know has had it at one point or another.

    15. Lore*

      I have had two instances where I was sure I had it but continually tested negative over 6-7 days. (And in both cases I was at my office or otherwise among groups of trackable people right before or at the end of symptoms and no one any of those groups had COVID so I feel like that increases the likelihood it was something else.) I have been exposed multiple times for sure, most recently when my dad got it while I was visiting them. (And in that case, my mom, who is 80 and has an autoimmune disease and refused to let me go to a hotel so she and my dad could sleep in separate rooms, never got it either.) It’s mysterious.

    16. Not That Jane*

      Me, hubby, and 5 and 8 year old kids have never had it. But, we mask consistently when we are indoors in a space other than home (including work and school), and mainly socialize outdoors. We have also tested frequently, including every time we have any possibly symptoms, so I’m pretty sure we didn’t get a stealth case. Admittedly we are at the cautious end of the spectrum: we lost some loved ones early on, and we know two people who have been severely disabled by long COVID.

    17. fposte*

      Me. But I think it’s mostly good luck—I was able to work remote, and then I retired, so I’m only at the occasional group event and in places that have stepped up the ventilation.

    18. Kathenus*

      I’ve never gotten it. I’m on the cautious side, still mask for sure in some crowded areas and especially doctor’s offices and airports including N95’s when flying, don’t do a lot of big crowd type things since it’s not my favorite anyway, and am generally a bit of a homebody anyway. I’ve gotten a couple colds, have always tested negative during them. My adult brothers haven’t gotten it either to my knowledge – one has health issues and is very cautious, the other not so much but we’re not as close so he may have had it and not mentioned it if mild. So not sure if nature or nurture for me. But since even a cold is totally annoying after a couple years without one due to masking all the time, I like the cautious approach even to just avoid ‘normal’ seasonal illnesses.

    19. Covid free*

      I think maybe I had it in early 2022 – but it may have just been a really bad cold. (I didn’t have Covid-y symptoms like loss of smell, but was more tired than with previous colds.) I’ve never tested positive for it. I’m in NYC so have definitely had exposure to lots of germs on the subway. Haven’t masked since whenever it was no longer required; never got any booster shots.

    20. Manders*

      I finally got it a few weeks ago after attending an overseas conference with 600 people (an immunology conference, LOL). But I’m surprised my boss hasn’t gotten it – he gets EVERYTHING, especially because he has 5 kids and a grandkid that live with him. Almost all the kids have gotten it, his wife had it, and he never quarantined himself when they were sick. But somehow it’s been 4.5 years and he’s still never tested positive for covid.

    21. Rainy*

      I’ve never had covid. I mask at work (although honestly at this point it’s mostly because I know it bugs leadership–they can’t stop me but they HATE it), and I’ve gotten all my vaccines and boosters etc. We also don’t go out as much as we used to, which probably helps.

      A couple of people I know who hadn’t had it got it recently so I think the new strain is different enough to be a problem.

      Worth noting that I have vaccine reactions and I don’t get regular vaccines anymore per doctor’s orders, but part of why I get so sick is that I have what is euphemistically described as a “brisk immune response” which also tends to give me very long-lasting immunity.

      1. talos*

        I should say, I’ve had all my shots and boosters, but otherwise have taken basically zero precautions since the end of 2021 (I was tired of getting hassled in public about having a mask on).

    24. Lucky Novid*

      never had it that I know of, I’ve tested when I’ve had colds. been around people that have had it but been lucky. always wondered if it’s a genetic thing because I’m not vaccinated (not as common where I am) and I only masked when it was required by law.

    25. Clisby*

      My husband and I and our 2 children (28 and 22) so far have not had Covid. Our college-age son twice had a roommate/suitemate get Covid, but he never tested positive – he came home to us to isolate and tested negative after. We all did get vaccinations/boosters, and at least my husband and I, by nature, do not like being in a crowd of people so we avoid events like that. We all get the flu vaccine every year too, and (knock wood) have managed to avoid that as well. I haven’t heard of any studies on Covid resistance, but that would be interesting. I do know, of course, that people can be asymptomatic with Covid, but since I don’t test weekly or anything like that, I don’t know how I’d ever know that.

    26. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

      Technically, I’ve never had it, but I did have something that acted a lot like COVID in the first months after it arrived in the US, but I didn’t have enough symptoms to qualify for the test at that time.

    27. Cj*

      I have never had it. my husband has had it twice. I didn’t even catch it from him, and though we did take some precautions like not sleeping in the same bed or sitting on the couch together, we didn’t do things like either of us masking in the house.

    28. goddessoftransitory*

      I caught it last year, a very mild case, which I think is due to keeping up on my boosters. Husband has never had it to his knowledge despite falling behind on boosters, humph.

    29. SofiaDeo*

      I haven’t had it, unless the 2 respiratory illnesses I had tested negative (clinic, not at-home, tests) in error. I’m immune compromised with a leukemia & started a treatment early Covid so really immune suppressed, no B cells to make antibodies. I did & still do mask religiously, wore wraparound glasses in crowded stores, and gloved for things like pumping gas, & used hand sanitizer. I also have air sanitizers in car as well as house, and traveled with one to use in hotels or extended clinic visits. Since I have seasonal pollen allergies, I was already in the habit of wearing a hat outside, leaving outer layers & shoes at the door.

    30. I'm a NOVID*

      I’m a NOVID! As is my spouse. We are vaxxed, and during the height of the pandemic were relatively careful but both worked with providing service to the public in person, so we were likely exposed at some point. I hope I’m not jinxing myself here.

      I also participated in the Eureka study that tracked COVID symptoms, infections, and test results (all self reported) and tied it to our DNA which they got (with consent) from the bone marrow registry. They did find a gene mutation that might be tied being a COVID dodger or being asymptomatic. Article is out for peer review last I heard. I was sad that they weren’t able to tell me if I had the gene mutation.

      Based on your user name, I assume you like grits. Me too. Wonder if grits consumption is prophylactic?

    31. Chaordic One*

      Never had it. I did get vaccinated, wore masks and isolated. Worked from home full-time for a couple of years. Now I work from home 4 days a week. I had many coworkers who caught it after they had to go back to the office one day a week. Mostly lucky, I guess. My elderly parents have managed to avoid catching it, too. I plan to get a booster shot later this fall.

    32. Cleo*

      If you’d asked this a month ago I would have had a different answer. But I caught COVID for the first time last month.

      1. Cleo*

        Also, I’m fully vaccinated and still mask in public. I caught COVID when I went to California for a wedding.

    33. Mimmy*

      Both my husband and I have escaped COVID this whole time. I did test positive last fall with a home test (my work had advised we all test after a positive case in our facility) but when I went to the pharmacy to do their test the next day, it was negative. I had a bit of a cough but wasn’t sick, so I’m not sure if it counts. I did work virtually that whole week just to be safe.

    34. Filosofickle*

      I never got it, or never tested positive — I had a day or two of nasal stuff that any other time I’d have chalked up to allergies except that the partner I was living with and not making any effort to separate from had Covid. So that’s a maybe. Otherwise, nothing I know about. My dad and mom, both in their 70s and one immuno-compromised, never got it either despite being only somewhat cautious. My sibling got it only recently, and until then we were looking like a rather resistant family!

    35. Indolent Libertine*

      I was in the club until 6 weeks ago. Masking everywhere, no socializing unless everyone tested, all shots, etc. But I had to take a transatlantic flight, and took my mask off just to eat, which I couldn’t get through a 12 hour flight without doing, and the person behind me was coughing/sneezing and that was enough; tested positive 3 days later. Got boosted 3 weeks before the trip, even, so should have been maximally protected from that, but the latest variants are more immune-evasive than prior ones. Sigh.

      1. Lala*

        my mother never tested positive, despite multiple pcr tests, at different intervals. but she definitely had it. it was in the winter of omicron. everything else indicated and she was really sick. can’t figure it out, except maybe it was because she had had a booster m maybe 2 weeks before she was sick.

    36. Kay*

      I have yet to get it, same with my husband, and I knew someone else who up until a month ago had never gotten it.

      I still mask most places, but have gone to restaurants regularly, traveled, and been to a few concerts, including indoors. My husband has gotten much more lax recently with mask wearing, using it mostly for travel. I still use it most places except for restaurants, though I have done a few indoor shopping trips where I didn’t have my mask. I think I’ve missed the last booster or 2, but was fully vaxxed/boosted before that.

      Most of the studies I’ve heard of have been symptom studies vs resistance.

    37. Morning Reader*

      Well… if I report that I’ve never had it, doesn’t that mean it’s more likely that I will get it, tomorrow or next week? Still hoping my luck holds.

    38. Tisket*

      I’ve never tested positive, but I’m almost certain I had it at the very beginning (March 2020). I actually went home from work sick the day before they closed down the city where I live. I called my doctor and he told me that my symptoms are textbook Covid, but they’re textbook flu. At that time you couldn’t get a test unless you knew for certain you had been exposed. Not knowing was … really aggravating.

      1. Indolent Libertine*

        If you still want to know, I *think* there’s an antibody test you can take that will show evidence of previous infection, as opposed to vaccine-generated antibodies. But of course the real issue was wanting to know back then, when you were sick. Whatever it was, I’m glad you’re still here!

    39. Bibliovore*

      I have not had it but I am a very consistent masker. I don’t do things that put me in the middle of crowds like concerts or bars. I am usually the only one on a flight with a mask. I still shop at non crowded hours. I work more than half time from home. If people are staying with me they test. I test if I have any symptoms or have been in contact with someone who tests positive. No one steps in my office and staff stays home if they have any symptoms of illness.
      I am immune compromised.

    40. RagingADHD*

      I’ve known a couple of people who definitely had it, diagnosed by multiple doctors based on their clinical assessment (including one with long covid) who never tested positive. There’s a lot of weirdness around that virus.

    41. samwise*

      I have not had Covid nor tested positive for it. Haven’t had a cold, even, since 2019.

      My parents (in their 80s) haven’t either, and most of my siblings haven’t either. Several of them have health conditions that would make it very very bad to get Covid (or flu or pneumonia), so they are exceptionally careful.

      I get the vaccine and wash my hands a lot, but otherwise have not taken any special care since early 2023.

    42. David*

      I’ve also never had it as far as I know. I mean, of course I can’t absolutely rule out never having had an asymptomatic case or having it with symptoms that mimic another disease, but I do run at least one test (usually PCR or molecular) any time I feel sick or am in a high-risk environment and they’ve always been negative. In the earlier days of the pandemic I was really diligent about avoiding crowds and indoor events, and wearing a mask any time I had to be around other people, and that surely helped; lately, though, I’ve relaxed my standards somewhat (e.g. still masking on trips to the grocery store, but not at work where I know people are conscientious about staying home if they’re sick), so I’m sure I’m getting somewhat lucky.

      1. Charley*

        Tsu tsu tsu/biting my tongue, I’ve never tested positive. I’ve had a few ambiguous upper respiratory tract symptoms, but they’ve always resolved quickly and I’ve tested negative.

        I was working with a high risk population in early pandemic days, so I was vaxxed very early compared to the general population, and a while after that I had the opportunity to participate in a research study where I got vaccinated against a less common variant. I’m boosted and still mask in some spaces, but not as consistently as I used to. I no longer get regular monitoring tests for work, so I certainly could have missed an asymptomatic infection, which wouldn’t surprise me since I don’t usually feel ‘sick’ even when I’ve been positive for things like strep.

    43. CantStopIsolating*

      I have never been tested. I have Covid symptoms every day of my life, am super high risk, am medically unable to wear a mask, medically unable to drive, and live in a semi-congregate living space (high rise apartment building) – an intersection of horrible when it comes to Covid. It was decided I would isolate and only care if I needed to go to an emergency room/be hospitalized.

      I am still isolating, in large part thanks to people who didn’t do what was needed to stamp things out. At this point, it’s not clear how to move forward in a way that’s remotely viable – it doesn’t help that very few folks are taking precautions anymore. It’s not just safety, although that’s a large part of it, it’s also that I cough semi-continuously and that’s not acceptable to the world, and my world is also one that relies on crowded public transportation/interacting with drivers and passengers.

      1. bibliovore*

        yeah, I have a lot of Covid symptoms just living my life. I test because if I do have it, my primary care physician wants me on inhaled steroids and paxlovid right away.

    44. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      Me and both my kids (high-school and college). My husband got it right before Xmas last year but the rest of us managed to avoid it.

    45. Slightly Less Evil Bunny*

      BF and I have apparently never had it. We’ve definitely never tested positive. Both of us are vaccinated and multiple boosted. We don’t currently mask, but of course did so earlier on when it was required. He’s in retail, so wasn’t working as much during the height of things – mainly due to limited opening hours, so fewer people needed per shift. I’m an essential government contractor so I worked almost totally onsite through the whole thing.

      As a former life scientist, I’d be pretty interested in seeing if there were some sort of common thread running through those who’ve never gotten it.

    46. Goldfeesh*

      As far as I know my husband and I haven’t had it, but we might have had a light version or asymptomatic. We aren’t really cautious now, but we do keep up to date on the shots and were pretty cautious in 2020-22. I didn’t attend a concert until late 2023 and masked for it because the people in the seats next to me were (and I had brought a N95 to use).

    47. Nightengale*

      me!

      But I’m still masking everywhere indoors around people (stores, the bus, work) except very briefly when eating at work, which is around 1-2 other (vaccinated) people.

      A friend gave me a ride last fall on a Saturday. We both wore masks in the car and at the event except when eating which we did outside. She tested positive for COVID on Monday (presumably caught from her kids who attend school.) I never got it.

    48. BikeWalkBarb*

      I’ve never had it, or at least I’ve never tested positive. I had one bout of feeling slightly under the weather after a big conference after I’d been vaccinated (maybe the first round of vaccines? late 2021?), did lots of home tests, then went into our healthcare provider for a test because I didn’t know if the home tests were really sensitive enough and still tested negative.

      I’ve gotten every round of vaccines available, stayed very careful about masking well past when others stopped although I don’t mask now, always tested pre and post travel once I started going to conferences again, and I live in Washington state, which had the earliest measures since we were believed to be the first place a case appeared. I’ve been to conferences at which I had dinner and extended conversation with people who then texted later to say they’d tested positive. I test every time that happens. Always negative.

      I had one truly terrible case of the flu last winter despite having had a flu shot, so it’s not that I don’t catch respiratory diseases. If there’s a study sign me up.

    49. Quinalla*

      I am still in the club as is my husband and our three kids. We’ve kept our vaccinations up to date and masked during lockdowns and when masks were required after and still mask when either we are sick and have to go somewhere or when we go to doc offices where a lot of sick people are likely to be. My kids have caught a few other random colds and strep once since masks stopped being a thing at schools, but otherwise we’ve been lucky!

      It is of course possible we’ve had mild or asymptomatic cases and just didn’t know.

  31. The day after*

    I just came back from a super exciting work conference and now I’m sitting all alone in my apartment (I live alone) and I am having trouble transitioning back to my regular life…any suggestions to not go mentally downhill?

    1. Sloanicota*

      it sounds like a good opportunity to text around to invite a friend to dinner? Sometimes the desire to socialize tips me over fear of rejection haha.

    2. Venus*

      When this happens to me I push myself to get out and walk more. Physical exercise and seeing neighbors, even just passing by them on the street, helps calm me.

    3. Elisa*

      Make plans to do something this weekend with a friend or friends? Dinner, theatre, a movie, botanic gardens, a museum? Or go on a solo adventure – is there something where you live that you’ve always thought about doing but never actually got around to? Maybe make some plans to do low-key but fun things over the next week – meet a friend for coffee, see a movie, go for a walk somewhere new. Anything that sounds fun, is low effort and gets you out and doing something.

      When you’re at home, maybe treat yourself to a nice meal delivered, get some fresh flowers and/or a nice candle, or whatever makes the space feel a little bit special for you.

    4. Unkempt Flatware*

      I actually recommend you ride the wave of excitement and see if you naturally start to come down. Dive into some forums on your subject. Geek out a bit. Geek out while watching your favorite yet over-watched shows or movies. Geek out while ordering in. Allow yourself the chance to see if you start to naturally wind down a bit.

    5. AGD*

      This happens to me too. What helps is opening a Word document and writing down the whole story as a sort of diary. That way I know I can go back and relive the excitement later if I want.

  32. Irish Teacher.*

    goddessoftransitory’s thread about people being surprised by their books made me think of something else. What about you can people really not get their heads around?

    I find a lot of people really can’t understand that I just…don’t really like watching television. I watch Fair City and I watch occasional detective shows and sometimes the news, but I’d say I watch maybe…3 or 4 hours of TV a week. And I regularly get people asking me stuff like “so what have you been binge watching recently?” “I don’t really watch much TV,” “but did you like such a TV show?” “I haven’t seen it,” “it’s the one such an actor was in,” “like I said I haven’t seen it,” “do you really not remember it?” “I haven’t seen it,” “so what were you watching then?”

    Yeah, I have regularly gotten “did you see X?” “no,” “but the first time it was on?” “no,” “don’t you remember it at all?”

    Or I get “you are very disciplined.” Um, no, this isn’t intentional. I’ve been planning to watch this documentary on the historical Jesus since like last Easter and said, “oh, I’ll watch it when I get my summer holidays.” Two months later…still haven’t gotten around to it. It’s probably an hour long at most. Or “but don’t you find yourself just sitting in front of the TV, watching one more show and one more show?”

    1. Sloanicota*

      Ha I only have the bunny ears, and people find that pretty hilarious – but then they’re generally surprised what you can see on the bunny ears. I don’t stream. Money is tight for me and I find it best to avoid subscription services generally, because they add up – I’d rather spent the money to rent something one time if I’m so eager to see it. For different reasons, I also rarely use or download apps, which drives people crazy about me. There is usually a workaround, or maybe I just won’t go to that restaurant. I’m just not a tech person and I don’t like the data privacy implications. It does seem like I’m going to have to adapt to the world eventually though, as it’s getting worse and worse.

    2. Pharmgirl*

      Maybe it’s just these people in particular? Just seems odd that they are so insistent that you’ve seen it/know what it is when there’s just SO much TV available in general, and when people’s tastes vary so much. I think it’s common to get an initial “have you seen X” but usually when I answer no the response is “oh you should its’ so good” or “I wouldn’t recommend it”. If someone is really gungho about me watching something, I tell them I’ll add it to my list. It’s rare for them to ever follow up. Is it the same people asking you?

    3. Ellis Bell*

      For me, it’s the fact that I don’t drink and that I don’t like sport. I’ve had similar comments about my level of discipline for not drinking, but since my alcohol palate became disused, it all tastes disgusting, so not much discipline is actually needed! People really struggle to wrap their heads around the fact that neither me or my partner enjoys sport, and a relative of my partner said something like we must have a really unhappy household because there isn’t any football in it! We are in a football mad city, and when we reveal that we aren’t crazy about it they become curious as to what type of sport we do like; it’s intensely curious to some people that we don’t like any.

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        I agree totally with both, but especially the alcohol–I don’t drink and it’s because I don’t like the taste of just about any drink, ever. I hear people going on about beer tastings and think “to me it all tastes like straw that a horse peed on.”

        I have no objections, moral or otherwise, to drinking (or most sports in and of themselves) but they are not for me.

        1. David*

          Me too, I have no objections to drinking but I’ve never met an alcoholic drink that I liked the taste of. Nice to be reminded there’s a bunch of us out there :-)

    4. Falling Diphthong*

      I think a surprising number of things fall into this–things that people imagine must be effortful but they are routine for others. (Or if effortful it’s not superhuman levels of magical powers, just discipline and effort to make something a routine.)

      Googling your coworkers, from here: OP claimed everyone who didn’t do this was either lying or a sociopath who didn’t care about others. Not drinking alcohol, for me–this takes no effort. Being good at managing finances is one that often gets treated as a combination of magic and luck, that money just materializes in a relative’s bank account, and so should be given to the mooch because otherwise it will vanish just as mysteriously and at least this way you know it went to family.

      Recycling when I was in Germany–the ABB had bins for paper, glass, metal, and plastic. If you’re within a system that functions, and you learn how to fit into that system, lots of stuff is easy.

    5. RagingADHD*

      I live in a sports – obsessed region (American football) and went to a basketball – obsessed university, and I couldn’t care less about sports. I watch TV, but am usually years (or decades) behind whatever is currently out. But I cannot think of any occasion when I’ve been caught in a loop of people repeating themselves like this, because I immediately tell them other things that I do like, and it is usually pretty easy to find a topic of mutual interest.

      There’s a misconception that people who are gregarious and want to make a lot of casual social connections are all highly skilled at it. Nope. A lot of people only have one, maybe 2 opening conversational gambits, and if those fail they don’t know what to do. And they don’t want to just turn their back and walk away, because that would be really rude. So they get stuck.

      You could (if you want) short-circuit the floundering by offering some other connections, like saying you like music, or you’re a big reader, or you love to cook, or whatever might be a fairly common interest.

      They’re just trying to socialize, not interrogate you. Help them out.

      1. fposte*

        Totally agree with the last. “No, I’m not watching the Olympics, but I’m looking forward to the Paralympics” or “but I’ve been getting out and kayaking” are fine. They tossed a conversational ball,and however you toss it back is fine.

        1. Nightengale*

          that is pretty much what I say – I am boycotting the Olympics until the Paralympics gets media parity. The fact that I don’t follow any sport and wouldn’t have watched the Olympics anyway is irrelevant. (I do watch some of the Paralympics depending on what the media decides to let us see)

      2. Irish Teacher.*

        Honestly, they are usually people who know me well and are well aware I’m a big reader and love plays. I don’t think they are interrogating me, more like they hear “I don’t really watch much TV” as “I’ve been trying to cut back on the amount of TV I watch because I really need to spend more time on work/chores/whatever” and it doesn’t occur to them that not being bothered about TV means not having watched all the Father Teds/Fawlty Towers/other popular series.

        One recent comment was along the lines of “you shouldn’t deprive yourself like that.”

        And yeah, whether somebody is introverted or extroverted/enjoys socialising or not is not particularly related to how good their social skills are and I definitely know people who start each conversation with a single topic – I have one colleague who pretty much starts every conversation with “the days are getting much longer now. It wasn’t dark until…” or “the days are getting much shorter now. It was dark by…”

      3. Ellis Bell*

        You’re not wrong; the approach you’re describing definitely works like 90 per cent of the time but it does absolutely happen that people simply cannot believe it and will.not.let.it.go. I have had people interrogate me about whether I am an alcoholic, or whether I thought they were alcoholics for not wanting to drink. I had a young student who wanted me to “prove” that football was not interesting (It was kind of amusing and not as contentious as it seems in print). People aren’t necessarily interested in interrogating you, even when they end up doing it, but some people are genuinely amazed when they meet someone who has preferences that are different to theirs.

    6. allathian*

      Mine is that neither I nor my husband are active on social media. We use Whatsapp (and our son’s been on that since he was 10, with our permission), mostly for texting people on our contact lists. It was worse 15 years ago, but so many have quit social media in recent years that it’s no longer as weird as it was.

    7. The Prettiest Curse*

      People don’t understand that I don’t care at all about the (British) Royal Family. Like, they could all fall into a volcano tomorrow and I would just shrug.

      I also didn’t know the names of a couple of William’s kids and I’m annoyed that I accidentally learned them because I feel it’s taking up space in my memory that could be used by something more important. If you’re on the throne or first in line, I’ll try to remember your name but even then I’ll resent having to do so.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        I think you’re getting into that point in life where your brain is like “I could remember your bank password, or your license plate from 7 years ago…. yup, choosing number two.”

        On the plus side, if I am ever quizzed about the whereabouts of Goldbug on every page of Cars and Trucks and Things That Go I will smash that task.

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          Heh, I remember a great Roz Chast cartoon about that phenomenon! “So long, how to make risotto, ’cause here comes my new fax machine!” (Obviously a pretty old cartoon.)

      2. UKDancer*

        Yeah also not caring about the Royal family. I’m vaguely aware of who the main ones are but that’s about it. I leave town to avoid royalty related events if possible because it means I’m not falling over tourists and queues. I went to an event early this year and was introduced to a minor royal and a young and talented but comparatively unknown dance choreographer. No idea about the royal and not interested but I knew the choreographer’s work and was so excited to meet him.

        Also no knowledge of reality TV stars, I was apparently behind some in a queue at Eurostar departures last month and had absolutely no notion who they were or what they’d been on. I think they were quite annoyed they weren’t getting more attention to be honest.

        1. The Prettiest Curse*

          Yeah, I wouldn’t recognise most reality stars, either. I might know their name just via headlines, but not whar they look like. Same with influencers – unless they’ve been involved in some big scandal or controversy, I probably won’t know who they are.

      3. ecnaseener*

        I have that feeling (the “don’t want this taking up space in my brain” feeling) about tv commercials. My family likes watching them for entertainment value, talking about the best ones, etc and they think I’m weird for muting them.

      2. Clisby*

        We do, too! I rarely use the landline, but we live in hurricane country, so it’s a little bit consoling to have a backup to cellphones. True, so far we’ve never lost landline or cellphone service during a hurricane, BUT IT COULD HAPPEN.

          2. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

            I don’t think most have VOIP. Ours is because it is much cheaper, but we had to go out of our way to set it up. But we kept a landline when the kids were younger because it is cheaper than having an extra cell phone when they didn’t have one and now because why would I want all the crap calls to come to me. We use the land line number for most public facing stuff, utilities, subscriptions, etc. We still actually have an ANSWERING MACHINE on our landline because we have the same phone we bought 25 years ago and it still works just fine.

          3. Indolent Libertine*

            I mean, technically no, VOIP is *not* a landline, it’s a home phone. We have a 100% old-school non-VOIP copper AT&T landline. We live in earthquake and wildfire country, and in the last several fire seasons we have had numerous “Public Safety Power Shutoffs” sometimes lasting several days; these are where our utility company, which has the same initials as Pigs, Goats, and Elephants, completely shuts down the transmission lines through certain areas because they tend to spark if the wind blows and they’ve been responsible for burning down several towns because of that. Thankfully, they’ve now gotten around to some of the decades-neglected maintenance projects they’d been ignoring, so those affect smaller areas for shorter durations. But when we’ve had them, our copper landline still works.

            AT&T recently tried to be relieved of the responsibility of being the “carrier of last resort” in California, which requires them to keep having and maintaining landline service (in previous years, thry fought like hell to have that status since it gave them a monopoly on service in most areas). The public, especially those in rural areas with lousy cell coverage, AND emergency services folks rose up in outrage and the PUblic Utilities Commission denied the application. Then AT&T tried to get a special bill through the state legislature to do the same thing, as an end run around the PUC, and that got squashed also.

            I have some feelings about landlines.

      3. Spacewoman Spiff*

        Jealous! I’ve wanted one ever since, a few years ago, I lost electric for a couple days. My cell connection in my apartment was so bad that I relied on WiFi, and I wound up having almost no one to contact people from my home (even texts didn’t go through 99% of the time) until power was back. But my apartment after that had no phone jack, and now my phone doesn’t; I know I can set up a voip phone and plan to eventually, but it doesn’t address this scenario!

    9. TuxedoCat*

      I’ve recently had exactly this type of conversation with a couple of strangers at a party who Could. Not. wrap their head around the fact that I do not enjoy dancing. At all. Ever. I am not ashamed of my body, I am not ashamed of my moves, I do enjoy music and concerts (all part of their suggestions to why I do not dance), I just don’t feel any pleasure in getting hot and sweaty with aching feet when I can bask in the music comfortably sitting down and sipping a cool drink.

    11. Alyn*

      I’m familiar with that conversation. My Dad will sometimes still ask if I’ve seen X show and I’m like …. Dad I don’t have TV, remember? We do have a streaming service (Disney + Hulu, and Amazon technically since we have a prime subscription), but even then, we rarely watch stuff. Maybe 2 episodes of something once every month or two? Watching TV takes away from reading & gaming time, so it has to be something that really grabs our interest to spend time watching.

      1. Clisby*

        We got rid of our TV when we moved from Ohio to Atlanta. Before our daughter was born, we were cleaning the house and straightening up, and just rolled the TV into a closet (at the time we watched maybe 3 hours of TV a week). We brought it back out when our daughter was 2-3 months old just in case the babysitter wanted to watch something, and then it went back into the closet. When we actually moved, we said, you know, we haven’t watched TV in more than 6 months now – if it turns out we miss it we can buy a new TV in Atlanta. So we gave it away. Just never got another one. It wasn’t for any kind of motivation like “we want to protect our child from TV”, it was just “why get it if we don’t watch it?” Even now, when we go on vacations and stay in a place with all kinds of TV channels, we’ll sometimes scroll through what’s available and say, “Nah, not worth it.”

    12. goddessoftransitory*

      I don’t drive or have a cell phone. The former is usually handwaved, since a lot of people don’t want to pay for cars in the city, but the latter has almost gotten me burned as a witch (I exaggerate, but honestly only a little.) We keep saying we should get them but just never do.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        How cool if you really were a witch though and were using telepathy and suggestions more effectively, so you resented the idea of paying for inferior power just in order to blend in and conform.

    13. Chaordic One*

      As someone who spends their days working on a computer all day and who is reasonably computer literate, people are surprised (and even I am surprised) at how computer illiterate I can be. I’ve never really mastered my smart phone or the “multi-media center” in my newish car.

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        I don’t know how to use Excel. I could probably figure it out, but God knows what I’d do to my laptop in the process.

        1. Clisby*

          I use it to track my blood pressure, but that’s it. When I was a computer programmer, knowing Excel was just not important.

        2. londonedit*

          I don’t really know how to use Excel either. I’ve never needed to use it for work, and I wouldn’t have anything to use it for outside of work!

      2. Tisket*

        This happens to me a lot. I used to be a software engineer, and my whole family started treating me like I was an IT tech or a desk support person. I had to explain that’s not really what I do.

    14. Just Me*

      I don’t wear shirts that are multiple sizes too big for me.

      I’m a very petite woman and end up buying a lot of children/teens clothes. An adult small is loose/big on me. But people have tried to pressure me into accepting large size (or x-large or xx-large) shirts. Usually it’s some sort of free swag, but I can remember at least one person buying me a large shirt as a gift once. They say I can just wear it around the house or I can wear it to bed. I do wear only loose-fitting clothes because they’re comfortable, but several sizes too big is too loose for me. If someone wore large size shirts, I wouldn’t try to convince them to wear an xx-large, so I don’t understand why people try to push the equivalent on me.

      1. Just Me*

        Was thinking about this more. My employer had an event where they gave away t-shirts recently, and when someone at the t-shirt table asked me what size I wanted when I was passing by, I told them I could only wear a small, and I was excited that they turned out to have a pile of smalls! But a larger person next to me was like, “You know, most people like stuff that’s loose and comfortable so they get a bigger size.” I was wearing a loose-fitting shirt and told them the small would be loose on me. :/ I don’t understand the instance on wearing oversized shirts. I don’t see people out in public wearing huge shirts. (Granted, I also don’t pay much attention to what people are wearing.)

    15. Forensic13*

      That I can’t understand/remember verbal directions that are more than one step. Can’t do it! I don’t care “if it’s really easy!” “But have you tried practicing?” Ughhhh.

    16. Chauncy Gardener*

      Ha! I don’t watch any TV as well.
      No one can understand it AT.ALL.
      I am apparently an alien life form. :)

    17. Tisket*

      I also don’t watch tv, or movies for that matter. It can make it more difficult to socialize.

      Even moreso, I don’t really like a lot of really popular foods, like pizza and mac and cheese. When people find out that I’m lactose intolerant, they go “Ooooohhhhhhh” like they just solved a big mystery, and then I find out that they assume that I actually love pizza and mac and cheese, but I don’t eat them because of my intolerance. And it’s not true. I’ll concede there might be something going on where my body is trying to tell me not to eat it, but I actually find both types of food a bit disgusting and I was not a fan even before I realized I was lactose intolerant.

      (My husband and 6 year old son are also not great pizza lovers, and that also tends to surprise people. They both LOVE their mac and cheese though!)

    18. Bibliovore*

      Yes, this was pretty much me. Mr. Bibliovore liked what I called “talking head shows.” News, politics, interviews. I would be in another room reading.
      I would rather be reading.
      When he died, my therapist actually proscribed tv watching to help with the profound grief.
      I wasn’t able to read.
      That’s when I discovered the cable was out. Yikes.
      Actually the weekend threads have been great for me- many suggestions of what to watch and what to binge.
      I do find tv does help turn off the grieving brain for a bit.

    19. Cookies For Breakfast*

      I get “you are very disciplined” about being able to say no to drinks / stop at just one, and never craving fast food. I don’t want to go into the real reason (to do with disordered eating I used to struggle with), so I nod and smile. At an old job with a big drinking culture, this came up every single team lunch or social event, it was exhausting. Or its alternative – people assuming I’m a snob who looks down on the things they like.

      Also on food: I grew up in a place that is renowned for its wines and cheeses. I don’t drink any red wine, and dislike most cheeses (smells play a big role here for me). People lose their minds when they find out. Growing up, all adults would openly act as if there was something wrong with me.

      Non-food ones are that I don’t watch any reality TV (not even Bake Off, and I’m obsessed with baking), and don’t find running easy. I’m an averagely active person, but jogging feels like torture, no matter how little the distance and how slow I take it.

    20. Nitpicker*

      I have a lot of friends who travel at every opportunity and do not understand why I don’t want to. I resist the urge to ask why they don’t want to stay home.

    21. The OG Sleepless*

      I’m not much of a TV watcher either. If I lived alone I’d probably hardly ever turn it on. My husband watches a good bit of TV so he will find things that we both like, so I’ll watch something with him for an hour or so in the evenings. I find the noise of the TV really irritating so I avoid the room most of the time when he’s watching something. Right now I’m on the desktop computer in our study. I’ve realized that we will always need to have a study/office that’s separate from the living room, but close by, so I can be somewhere quiet while he watches TV.

    22. londonedit*

      Mine is films. I’m just not very interested in watching films, and people can’t seem to get their heads around that. It’s a running joke with one of my film buff friends, who will start talking about a film and then sigh and say ‘I bet you haven’t even seen it, have you…!’ Nope, probably not. It’s not about attention span, because I can happily spend two hours of my life on a football match, it’s just that I don’t really like any genre of film. I don’t like violence, gore, horror, psychological thriller stuff, war films, the vast majority of rom-coms, sci-fi or fantasy. And there isn’t much left after that! The only things I do like are silly films like Muppet Christmas Carol.

      People are always trying to get me to watch films, or to find the ‘one film’ that will cure me of my lack of interest in cinema, but it’s just not really something I’m interested in. I suppose I’m the same with TV – I don’t have any of the paid-for streaming services and I don’t ever seem to like any of the big trendy TV series even if I do have the platform to watch them on (because again I’m not going to watch anything violent or fantasy-ish, and it seems like that’s about 80% of TV programmes these days). My TV viewing is mainly stuff like Great British Sewing Bee, Match of the Day and Masterchef.

    23. Quinalla*

      I do watch TV, but I’ve gone through periods where I didn’t watch any. I was very busy, so I just said I didn’t have time which was true. Folks didn’t really push it after that. I feel like the folks you are interacting with are being kind of weird and REALLY into TV. Maybe try responding with some other light conversation topic and see if you can get them off their track. Like “No I didn’t watch that, but I did listen to this great podcast/go to a concert/eat at a new restaurant/etc.” Maybe they are so thrown that you have no response, they are getting stuck in the conversation :)

  33. PeaPuffer*

    My cousin’s baby shower is coming up and they have asked for a book instead of a card, inscribed with a message

    I have a hard enough time coming up with what to write in a card, let alone a book for a future child.

    My cousin and I aren’t really close. She’s a lot younger and we don’t live in the same area. I really only see her at weddings, funerals, etc. so her children won’t really know me well.

    Anybody have any suggestions for how to sign book instead of a card?

    1. Not A Manager*

      Sure. Just take the theme of the book and turn it into a message. “Wishing you a lifetime of kisses, Little Bear.” “Don’t forget to share the strawberries, young mouse!” “Oh, the places you’ll go, little cousin.” It might not be as profound as she’d like, but I think it will be fine.

    2. Ellis Bell*

      You seem good with the larger task of choosing a book; which book have you chosen and why? I’d start there. Otherwise, it doesn’t have to be life changing. Just inscribe it as “Dear baby surname, welcome to the family. I hope you enjoy this book and the fact that you have wonderful parents (or whatever). If you’re reading this at bedtime, I hope you have sweet dreams, love, PeaPuffer.” If it feels too weird to address the child, there’s no law which says you have to, just write what you would have in the card. “Dear Cousin, congratulations on your impending arrival. (Optional: May you and the baby have many happy hours with this book) love PeaPuffer”.

    3. Falling Diphthong*

      When my niece had a baby I bought baby books that had been meaningful to myself, daughter, son, spouse, and soon-to-be son-in-law. I put a post-it on each describing what it had meant to the person who chose it. A one sentence post-it size thought, not an essay.

      For example, The Snowy Day is the most checked out book in the NYC public library system (niece lives in NYC), something I was delighted to learn on my tour of the exhibit the NYC has in their museum. (There’s a museum! It has The Snowy Day, the first copy of the Declaration of Independence printed by a woman, the original Pooh, Tigger, and Kanga…)

      Whereas for Hippos Go Berserk, it turns out I have a real fondness for counting books in which increasing levels of chaos break out. (See also Ten Minutes ‘Til Bedtime.)

        1. Fun book*

          Yes, Ten Minutes ‘Till Bedtime seems so simple at first. Not many words. But children will delight in discovering new things on each page.

      2. BlueScrubs*

        From a practical perspective, I appreciate that you put your comments on a removable post-it. Every bring-a-book shower I have been to, the new parents end up with tons of duplicates, and if people have written in them they can’t be exchanged/returned. So now the new parents have 12 copies of Goodnight Moon. Sigh. (Extra frustrating for me was that my in-laws LOVE writing messages in books they give the kids – and not for altruistic reasons, purely because they are super competitive one-upers. They also are focused on quantity over quantity (because they’re trying to win some grandparent competition that only they are playing), so we are flooded with poor quality dollar-store books without rhymes/plots/themes/etc. Non-surprisingly, these never end up being the treasured favorites, so I spend a lot of time scratching out identifying names before dropping them in the charity bin.)

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

      It doesn’t even have to be a super-special message! I like the suggestions above, or you could just write the year and “With Love from your big cousin Pea Puffer.”

    5. goddessoftransitory*

      Goodnight Moon. Can’t go wrong with that one. Message something kind and general, along the lines of “Congratulations! So happy for you and your little one!” Don’t bother trying to make it super personal.

    6. Mrs Claus, Maybe*

      I love asking for books folks remember from their own childhood! Bonus if you remember reading it with your cousin (I see you’re not close… but potentially it was a book that lived at grandma’s house…). So you could do that, and say, “I hope you love this as much as I did! Love, Big Cousin.”

    7. Vanessa*

      If you have any shared history that would make a nice note. For instance if cousins parents made any impressions or shared grandparents, “this book made me think of when aunt so and so (your grandma) would take us for banana splits at the local ice cream place yada.
      Even if you didn’t do things together with your cousin.
      Also just fyi I had a couple notes that were so lovely to read. Like a little 2 am pep talk.

    8. Hyaline*

      I think you can be very simple but meaningful—just pick one of your childhood favorites and share why you love it. “I loved this version of Sleeping Beauty when I was a kid. I hope you enjoy the illustrations as much as I did! Much love, PeaPuffer”

  34. acmx*

    Anyone have a recommendation for meal planning services?

    I’m over the process of getting myself fed lol

    1. GoryDetails*

      Are you interested in meal kits or do you just want the pre-planned-menu/shopping-list type?

      If the former, I’ve been reasonably happy with Hello Fresh (though I do skip weeks fairly often when the menu gets same-y).

      For menu plans, take a look at Budget Bytes; their “meal plans” page features a variety of plans, from freezer-friendly to vegetarian to quick-to-make, etc. You can preview some to see if that suits your taste. They do charge for the plans, but the prices are reasonable.

      1. TX Lizard*

        I’ll chime in to say that for me, meal kits like Hello Fresh have been great for getting new ideas/recipes into rotation, but didn’t save me any time on the actual cooking/preparation. So if you are exhausted by the planning side (trying to figure out what to eat every night, grocery lists, etc) they might be helpful. We do a week or two every year and just keep the recipe cards. They help get us out of a rut and give us a break from planning meals.
        However, if the actual cooking every night is the part you are tired of, a “ready to eat” service might be better. I find that a lot of the meal kit recipes vastly underestimate how much time they will take, especially if you are making something for the first time. YMMV though!
        We have a local chain here that makes pre-made oven reheat/microwaveable meals that are so good. Not like a TV dinner at all, very healthy/fresh and dietary restriction friendly. I think they have a membership model where you can pick up x number of meals per week as meal prep. You might see if your area has something similar.

      2. acmx*

        I guess my reply this morning was eaten.

        Pre-planned menu is what I’m considering.

        I’ve used Budget Bytes but not the meal plans. I’ll check them out. Thanks.

    2. Kathenus*

      At the risk of not answering the question asked as referenced above, I tried the meal kits and they didn’t work well for me. But what does when I’m having a ‘over the process of getting myself fed’ period is to hit up a local grocery store (not my usual one) that does really good prepared foods. So I’ll get things like lasagna, parmesan encrusted chicken, teriyaki salmon, etc. and they are easy heat and eat things that I only have to add sides to which I find a lot easier than preparing the main course when I’m in the wanting to eat well but not have to do the cooking phase.

      2. acmx*

        Unfortunately, my grocery store makes food I can’t really eat lol (spicy and/or cilantro) but this is a good idea and I’ll keep checking :)

    3. Not your typical admin*

      We had blue apron for while and really enjoyed it. I loved that everything was portioned, and we got to try lots of new foods and ingredients. We stoped when my kids got older. They didn’t have a way to get enough servings for all of us, but for a single person or family of 2 (or two with small kids) it would work well.

    4. Can't Sit Still*

      I use Dinnerly meal kits for their 30 minutes or less options. They’ve helped expand my repertoire of recipes and they’ve revamped their timing so that if they say 30 minutes, they mean 30 minutes from pulling the ingredients out of the fridge to plating dinner. They also sell ready to eat meals and prepared breakfast foods. I’m pretty sure you could get 3 meals a day from them if you really wanted to. I’m in a HCOL area and Dinnerly is absolutely cheaper than delivery or buying prepared food at the grocery store.

    5. Pharmgirl*

      I’ve used cooksmarts at the recommendation of someone here. It’s just the meal plans, but it allows you to choose variations on the meal (vegetarian/vegan, gluten free, paleo) and adjust the servings, and then gives you the grocery list. I used it for about a year when I was in a rut and really enjoyed it.

        1. Lala*

          this is not a solution for a lot of people, and ultimately wasn’t for us, but you might look around to see if a local private chef does any kind of prepared meals at an affordable rate. we wanted prepared food that was healthier but not unaffordable and we found someone like this in our area. she met with us and went over what we wanted, as well as things like allergies and dislikes and made a suggested meal plan. Everything was included and she delivered.

          it would have been perfect, but…the food wasn’t any good.

  35. Forensic13*

    Does anyone happen to still be playing Pokémon Go? I’ve got events that require making a new friend and noooobody is playing in my area.

    My friend code is 173244934115, if anyone would be willing to help out!

    2. peter b*

      I’m stuck on the exact same quest and have bee for a while – sent a request! And mine is 6647 6267 2195, for anyone else who’s still playing.

      1. Manders*

        Hmmm, it couldn’t find your code. My code is 1099 1977 1935 for anyone who wants to add me as well.

    3. LGP*

      I still play! I sent you (Forensic13) and Manders friend requests. Peter b, your code didn’t work for me either.
      My code is 4525 9779 1820 if anyone wants it. :)

      1. Canadian in Scotland*

        Also note that if you’re still IRL friends with any of your PoGo friends you can un-friend and then redo it and it counts as a “new” friend :)

          1. Manders*

            Oh, get them to log in and give you the referral code after you unfriend them – you will earn a lot of bonus stuff.

      2. peter b*

        I mistyped – shared mine above (correct, now) but have sent you a request, ign Dialethia!

    5. Not That Jane*

      I want to join the party! (No pun intended) I share this account with my kiddo: 885194697405

      :)

      1. peter b (dialethia)*

        LOL, yes! I almost got an apartment there last time I moved – I’m in Old Lou now though, which is a dream for kid me who wanted to be near Kentucky Shakes when I grew up. Small world!

        1. Manders*

          crazy small world! my friends and I do raid hour on Wednesdays at Village Market in Paristown if you are ever nearby.

  37. Valerie Loves Me*

    I recently moved for a job and to be closer to family that moved to the area years ago. I’m not from this place and to be honest, don’t know too much about it, beyond the areas my family lives in. Needless to say, it’s taken some adjustment. I had to change everything I knew about life and work and it’s left me a little disoriented. My routine is completely demolished LOL.

    I’m working on getting my bearings and it’s really only been a couple of months, but I’m getting real tired of not knowing who I am in this new space. Any tips for acclimating and finding some comfort?

    1. Past Lurker*

      My usual strategy when in a new place is to find a locally owned coffee house, because I find they tend to have local employees that tend to be friendly. If they’re not busy you can chat with them and ask what they like about the area, etc. This could of course be changed to other businesses or institutions that your interested in. A farmers’ market, for example.

      1. Sloanicota*

        Adding to this I’d say make a point to hit local establishments at slow times when staff will be more willing to chat and there may be more of a “regulars” vibe.

    2. I hate being old*

      Lots of commiseration! Just this weekend I moved across the country for a new job.(I don’t like my interactions with the company, and making 15% less than I used to. But I was unemployed for >1 year).

      My tip would be to sign up for lots of activities, stuff you like, stuff you’ve not done before– pottery, French classes, knitting, neighbourhood trash pick up, biking group. It’ll take a year or two to find yourself but in the meanwhile throw yourself at everything.

      1. Clisby*

        Of course it depends on the type of neighborhood you’ve moved to, but if there’s a neighborhood association, go to the meetings and attend their events. (I don’t mean an HOA – I mean a traditional neighborhood with a volunteer association focused on meeting neighbors, discussing common problems, etc.)

    3. chocolate muffins*

      I have moved around a lot and also find routines helpful; finding a routine that works for me in the new place can really help me feel settled. I try to unpack immediately (like, everything put away in a few days, art up on the walls within a few weeks is my ideal, though I’ve had to adjust when I started moving with my husband instead of just on my own). So if you have stuff still packed up, it might help to put it where it goes.

      Another part of routine for me is knowing how to do stuff in the new place. So I try to find a grocery store pretty quickly and figure out whether it makes more sense to drive or walk, etc. Then I know that every other weekend, that’s where I’m going, and after I’ve done that a few times I adjust to the newness of it. If you go to the gym regularly, or get your hair done, or need to find a laundromat, or whatever, I’d try to find places to meet those needs/wants and start going there to get used to that part of the routine.

      To find these kinds of places, I might ask neighbors, which also gets to the other thing I do that helps me feel settled, which is getting to know people in the place I moved to. The place where I currently live has an e-mail list that someone told me about and which I joined immediately. Then when anyone sent a message (most of which were things like “who is a plumber that you like” or “I am looking for electrician suggestions” but also stuff like “I am interested in having a block party, does that sound fun to anyone else”), for a while I would reply to just that person, say that I was new, and ask if they wanted to get together for an hour or two. I got to know some of my neighbors this way and then they introduced me to other people they knew. You can also meet people through Meetup/Facebook if that’s a thing where you are, or through activities (like say hi to people at the gym, join a place to worship if that is your thing, etc.). If you like your family and trust their judgment in people, maybe ask them to introduce you to people? I also hang out with colleagues outside of work but I am an academic, an industry in which it is extremely common to move around a bunch, so people are perhaps more up for this kind of thing than they might be in other workplaces.

      One last thought is to potentially bring some of your old place to you. For instance, can any of your friends from the last place you lived come visit for a weekend, or even talk on the phone sometimes? Did you have something you especially liked about the last place that you lived that you can recreate in your new place (hanging up a favorite painting in a similar place, setting up a room in a similar way, etc.)?

      Moving can be so hard, especially as you get older and people are more settled (not all moves are like going to college where everyone is looking for a new social group all at the same time). Good thoughts to you.

      1. Camelid coordinator*

        I recently moved to a new city also and really appreciate this advice! For health reasons I haven’t been able to fully unpack but I could do a little more work on setting up routines. My schedule should be more consistent later this month after we drop kiddo off at college.

    4. Rain*

      Sorry no tips but I have to ask – is your user name based on the song of the same name by Material Issue?

    5. Valerie Loves Me*

      thanks everyone! These suggestions are awesome and will give me something to review when I’m feeling out of sorts!

    6. I DK*

      Just find something you can do everyday that is comforting and repeat it every day. Mine was a banana and a yogurt in the park during my upheaval. I know this is stupid, but it helped me hold the rest of my exploding life at the time together and now every banana and/or yogurt reminds me of how resilient we humans can be. Hang in there, VLM!

  38. Cj*

    I was wondering if there are any bakers here that would have a solution to this.

    I want to make a marble cake, and absolutely can’t find a mix for it at grocery stores near me. I can order a mix from amazon, but I would really like to make it today.

    the last time I wanted to make one, I Googled how to turn a yellow cake mix into a marble cake. there were two things that were recommended a lot.

    the one that was mentioned the most is to add cocoa to a portion of the batter. there were responses to this that Coco is to bitter, which I had thought before I Googled how to do it.

    the other recommendation was to use Hershey Chocolate syrup. I tried that, and it wasn’t too bad. but it wasn’t chocolatey enough, probably because I was afraid to add too much syrup to the better because I was afraid that the additional liquid would affect the texture of the cake, if it would rise properly, and stuff like that. and also seemed to be a little too sweet, and would probably be even sweeter if I did add more syrup.

    does anybody have any other ideas?

    1. Fellow Traveller*

      I find I get the most chocolate-y taste by using melted baking chocolate and adding a touch of espresso powder. The bitterness of the cocoa isn’t a bad thing in my mind, though – it creates a contrast that would make the flavour more distinct.

      1. Let me grab my apron*

        Yeah, I would melt chocolate, then add cocoa powder. The kind of chocolate is up to you. Fellow Traveler suggested baking chocolate, which will probably be the easiest to melt and incorporate, but if you’re feeling indulgent, buy a nice bag of chocolate chips.

          1. sagewhiz*

            Nestle’s chocolate chips are just about impossible to melt—hate, hate, hate ‘em. But Costco’s Kirkland brand, oh my, those are wonderful! Melt smoothly yet hold up nicely in choc chip cookies.

      2. Cj*

        that sounds delicious! I love mocha flavored stuff, so I already had a little bit of instant coffee that I’ve disolved in a little bit of water to the frosting. so

    2. I hate being old*

      Can you make two cakes? Buy one yellow cake mix, one chocolate and make two cakes or one cake and some cupcakes

      1. Cj*

        There will only be myself and my husband eating, but making a cake to eat now and then cupcakes that I would freeze would work pretty well.

        I would worry a little bit about the yellow cake to chocolate cake batter ratio. using two cake mixes would mean I have half of each flavor, and I think when you are able to get a marble cake box mix, you mix the chocolate flavoring with a third of the batter, so the ratio is different.

        1. office hobbit*

          Can’t you mix 2/3 yellow and 1/3 chocolate for the “main” cake and then make single-flavor cupcakes with the remainder? (Or have a little experiment and make 2/3 choc and 1/3 yellow for the second cake, just to see what happens)

    3. Not A Manager*

      Cocoa powder is fine. If your cake batter mix calls for water and it’s not too difficult, divide the mix in half and heat up the water for the chocolate portion, then dissolve the cocoa powder in the hot water. Let it cool before adding to the cake mix.

      If it’s too much of a pain to do that, mix up your yellow cake batter, divide in half, pull out a small portion of the batter and carefully stir your cocoa powder into that small portion. Then mix that into the rest of the chocolate cake part of the batter.

      I would start with 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder for half of a cake. Taste the batter and add a little bit more if you think it’s not chocolatey enough.

    4. fhqwhgads*

      Any reason not to get one box of yellow and one box of chocolate cake mix? My grandmother, who was generally an amazing baker and made everything else from scratch, made marble cake this way for decades.

    5. Jay*

      You can also try Dutch Processed cocoa powder with a pinch of salt added. Way less bitter than the regular kind.
      Or even try hot chocolate powder, if you want!

      1. allathian*

        I always add Dutch processed cocoa powder when I make a marble cake. I use the same thing when I make a chocolate cake, too. But I’m in Finland, and I think that our dessert preferences mean that our cakes tend to be much less sweet than American ones. I mean, I add lemon juice to the yellow cake portion of a marble cake for a bit of zest.

        1. Jay*

          I love lemon cake!
          I’m going to have to try that next time I make a marble. It’ sounds fantastic.

    6. Nightengale*

      Most marble cake recipes I know of use cocoa – it isn’t usually too bitter because the cake is already pretty sweet. It’s not like trying to eat the cocoa straight!

  39. Annie Edison*

    I’m the commenter who asked for advice about solo traveling a few months ago, and about happy song recommendations two weeks ago, and I wanted to come back and say a huge thanks to all who commented on both threads.

    To those who took time to share stories, advice, and encouragement about solo travel- thank you times a million! I’m just back from a week-long solo camping trip in Olympic National Park and it was such a lovely, healing experience. I’m feeling more confident and more myself than I have in a long time.

    To those who shared favorite happy songs- I complied many of them into a delightfully eclectic playlist that brought me a lot of joy and helped pass the long hours in the car getting to the park last week. I loved the variety of genres and the mix of things that were already familiar to me alongside brand new music. I’ll share a link to the spotify playlist in a reply comment below in case anyone would like to access it. I’m sorry if I accidentally skipped your song- there were so many that I might have missed a few!

      2. GoryDetails*

        So pleased to see some of my suggestions in there – along with many other songs that I like. Glad you enjoyed the songs!

    2. Filosofickle*

      Thanks for reporting back, I’m so glad it went well! I’m taking a solo trip in September and it will be, by far, the longest I’ve ever attempted alone. Traveling alone has always been fine for me, but I’m a little nervous about so much time.

  40. TV advice*

    I’d like to buy a TV, as my old one no longer works, and the technology has changed a lot since I got that one. Are there any brands that are more reliable or is it like microwave ovens that are all made in the same factory in China and then they slap on a brand name?

    Also, I don’t know what features to look for, unless all TVs are the same now except for size? I want to be able to watch over-the-air local stations and to stream from my laptop to the TV. (I am very low-tech on my phone; almost everything happens on my laptop.) Is there anything else I should be thinking of doing? I look forward to watching programs on a bigger screen than my laptop while sitting in a comfy chair.

    1. WellRed*

      I’ve had good luck the past several years with Vizio brand. One I use with Roku, the other just with apps and have successfully casted shows from another device to either TV. I found set up reasonably straight forward.

      1. Cj*

        we have a number of Vizios also, and have found the picture quality to be good and for them to be reliable. they are available at Walmart for reasonable price. they go on sale frequently, so if you don’t need to get one immediately, wait until they are on sale because it’s usually quite a discount.

        we also have a couple of Samsung TVs that we really like. and you can get a ton of Samsung Plus channels on them that come with no charge.

        1. Cj*

          forgot to say that you should make sure you get a smart TV that connects directly to the internet. then you won’t need to stream stuff from your laptop. they don’t cost much more than a TV that isn’t a smart TV. I actually don’t know if they even sell anything but smart TVs anymore.

          1. WellRed*

            I’m not sure they sell non smart tvs. The Vizios are inexpensive (under $200 for the most part at Target).

    3. office hobbit*

      Most of my advice will be outdated and not useful, but here’s a few things:

      Make sure the TV has all the ports you need. This will include a port for your digital antenna; as many HDMI ports as you need for your laptop, dvd/blu-ray player, etc. so you’re not having to move the cord whenever you watch something; and if you still have something like a VCR that connects with an older connection, make sure it has ports for that too (or that you can get an adapter).

      A lot (most? all?) TVs will be able to stream on their own now, without needing to be connected to a laptop. This can be very convenient, but it won’t completely replace streaming from your laptop. It won’t work for things that don’t have a TV app or that you don’t want to make an account for.

      The original reason I started replying, before deciding I would try to be slightly more responsive to your actual question: make sure whatever TV you get allows you to turn off the settings in this article: https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics-computers/tvs/turn-off-these-3-features-in-every-tv-a6127578314/ My friend got a new TV a couple years ago and the super clear, super smooth picture quality is very unpleasant to me (I’m used to a 10-year-old TV, which I would still consider quite new). If you end up feeling the same, you’ll want to be able to toggle those settings off.

      1. Cj*

        good point about having the the ports that you need. it’s pretty easy to get a hub with a additional HDMI, USB, Etc ports. but I rarely see TVs that have component inputs, and I have found it really hard to find adapters for them.

        if it’s just an old VCR that uses component connections, you can get a new VCR for something like $49 now, so it might cost less to get a new VCR then it would to purchase a more expensive TV just to get component inputs. in our case we have a combination vcr, radio, and really awesome sounding surround sound that uses component inputs, and it would cost a lot of money to replace all that.

      2. Peanut Hamper*

        It is also possible to buy HDMI and USB splitters. I use a couple of HDMI splitters in my home office, so I can switch between my work dock and my personal dock without having to unplug anything.

      3. Observer*

        Make sure the TV has all the ports you need. This will include a port for your digital antenna; as many HDMI ports as you need for your laptop, dvd/blu-ray player, etc.

        Yes. But.

        You are going to need fewer hdmi ports if your TV does wifi, because you can connect your laptop (and anything else that has wifi) to your network. Smart TV with wifi is a really good way to insure maximum flexibility.

        Having said that, you should still absolutely look for something with at least 2 HDMI ports. And if you have a lot of stuff that it makes sense to leave connected to the TV, then definitely factor that in. If at all possible, try to have one “free” HDMI port, after counting all the things that you think you will leave connected.

    4. Chaordic One*

      Vizio TVs, as recommended by WellRed, have a mixed reputation for reliability with some people saying they quit for no apparent reason and could not be repaired or that they cost more to repair than to buy a new one. I bought one anyway, figuring they were fairly cheap and if it quit, I’d just buy another TV. I ended up going to Costco and I bought the cheapest and smallest TV they had (a 32″ Vizio) and an antenna. (It is not rabbit ears, just sort a flat plastic square that with a cable that runs to the TV. I have it hanging on the wall above my TV. My local Costco has since quit carrying TV antennas, but you can still buy one at a big box store such as WalMart). It has been a couple of years not and it works fine and I can connect it to my laptop to stream.

    5. Just Me*

      I had an Insignia TV that I bought from Best Buy. Worked great for several years until someone tripped and knocked it off the TV stand (the screen cracked). Bought another Insignia in 2019, and it still works great. Neither TV was a “smart” TV, I just hook up to a Roku, so I can’t speak to what a newer one would be like though. As far as not having problems and having a good quality picture, Insignia has been great for me so I would recommend it.

      1. TV advice*

        I wonder if that Insignia is the same company that makes Insignia radios. I bought 2 Insignia digital radios years ago because that was the only way to get my local NPR station. I am an old-school radio listener, have a radio in every bedroom and bathroom and of course in the kitchen, but I’m ready to watch TV again once I figure out what to get.

    6. David*

      I heard a somewhat out-of-the-box suggestion a while ago that actually makes a lot of sense: consider getting a computer monitor instead. These days there’s not that much difference between monitors and TVs. Granted, I don’t know if a monitor would suit your needs better than a TV, but I’d say it’s at least worth looking into.

      I bring this up because a lot of TVs sold these days are “smart TVs”, which come with some advantages like being able to directly connect to streaming services and browse websites, but also some disadvantages like transmitting data on what programs you’re watching to the TV manufacturer or inserting contextual ads into whatever you’re watching. (Even if you’re not using the TV’s own built-in streaming app – there was a lot of noise a little while ago about a feature in some smart TVs called Automated Content Recognition, where the TV takes screenshots every few seconds and analyzes those to figure out what you’re watching.) There have even been concerns about smart TVs with built-in cameras and microphones being hacked to spy on their owners, or even without hacking, about the TV manufacturers inappropriately recording the environment. Not that these things are common, but they are real risks. Getting a computer monitor is a pretty reasonable way to get around all of these issues because they typically don’t come with ACR or cameras and microphones. (You can also find some “dumb” TVs that are marketed as TVs, but they can actually be more expensive to offset the fact that the manufacturer won’t be able to sell the data they collect from your viewing habits.)

      As for brands, I honestly don’t know what’s good these days. Personally, my TV and computer monitors are from Samsung and I’m quite happy with them, but they’re also 15 years old and things may have changed since then. I’ve also heard some people share good experiences with Vizio and LG, but there’s just as much in the news about them using shady practices at the corporate level as any other company so I don’t know if they’re really any better. Sorry I can’t be more helpful here… good luck finding something!

    7. SuprisinglyADHD*

      Figure out what inputs you need and check that any tv you consider has them all. For example, we needed an antenna hookup, Red/white/yellow from the DVD player (is that called A/V hookup?) 2 HDMI inputs (Roku, and a long cable that we use for computers), and the correct output for our stereo system (I don’t actually remember how it’s hooked up but our TV has some type of audio-only output to the stereo which then goes to all the various speakers).
      I suggest you avoid smart TVs, they tend to be laggy and glitchy and can’t do anything that your laptop can’t do. Depending on your antenna for local TV, you might be able to use something advertised as a Monitor, like for a desktop computer. Your laptop can plug in and be set to use it as a second screen.

    8. TheBunny*

      Sony Bravia if you are looking for picture quality. I won’t buy anything else. The OLED are still pretty expensive but you can get the 4k ones now for a pretty reasonable price. They do tend to run pricier than other TVs but IMO you get what you pay for.

  41. TX Lizard*

    I am looking for a lip color (preferably a tint or stain with staying power) for a pale complexion. I want something a little deep, more red/brown than pink, and sheer is fine. I normally wear Clinique black honey but I want something that’s a little more drama. The problem I’m having is that every tint/stain I’ve tried either ends up being a berry color/too pink, or a super bright orangey red. I have seen products in the color I want, but never in a tint or stain. I am open to other formulas, I just hate feeling a lot of product and end up eating it off my lips. Anyone have recs? I’ll see if I can link the colors I’m looking for.

      1. TX Lizard*

        Yes, they just tend to look more bright/berry than I’m looking for. That type of formulation is exactly what I want, I just wish they had a wider shade range!

    4. Reba*

      If you are open to shopping online–and digging through online reviews to view the colors–Asian beauty brands are deep in the lip tint department. For non glossy choices, the étude ones are very inexpensive, Peripera has a zillion colors, I personally really enjoy the Amuse dew velvet.

      1. TX Lizard*

        Thank you!! I have tried TonyMoly and another one I can’t remember. Ill look into those!

    5. Rosyglasses*

      Violette.fr has amazing lip tints (Petal Bouche) that are very pigmented and you can layer them but are definitely a stain/tint. She does her homework when developing colors! I’ll link in a comment below.

    7. HamlindigoBlue*

      I like Il Makiage. They have a generous return policy, and they’re very helpful matching you to the right color. You can sort their colors by family, and it looks like they may have a couple of options that will work under the brown category.

    8. Ron McDon*

      In case you’re still checking back :)

      Doll 10 do a ‘lip wardrobe’ of, I think, 8 lip stains called ‘speak your truth’. They’re in the form of a crayon-style chunky pencil, there’s a mix of colours some are light, some are dark. They go on very creamy and smooth but stain the lips a little – I like to blot them down further with tissue. I find the colour lasts well, and I like having a range of colours to pick from. There are a couple of darker colours in the mix I bought.

  42. TX Lizard*

    I need some enablers:
    Should I buy the gluten free foccacia mix that can only be bought in an 8-box case that I would have to do a little pantry re-arranging to store?
    And what favorite foccacia toppings should I also purchase?

    2. Two cents*

      Foccacia is soooooo delicious. Buy it! Buy it!

      My favorite toppings are:
      -classic rosemary and sea salt
      -cherry tomatoes and zatar
      -Italian herbs dumped into the dough and parmesan cheese on top (drop the amount of olive oil on top because the cheese has so much fat in it already)
      -garlic cloves (but add this last on top because the garlic will kill the yeast and disrupt the proofing otherwise)

        1. Two cents*

          Yes, so it’ll roast on the top. I usually add it before the oil so the garlic gets coated too, directly before shoving it in the oven, but that’s just me. If you’d rather keep it carmely and with no possibility of unevenness which can become bitter at the toasty bits (which I like), roast it separately to your liking and add it relatively late in the baking process.

          1. Two cents*

            Come to think of it, I usually do all the toppings last before shoving in the oven. But with garlic that’s way more important than with the other things. With other things, you can get away with dumping them on before the second proof but with garlic you can’t. What you can do, though, is add garlic flakes to the dough without repercussions,which is also delicious…

      2. Two cents*

        Oh I forgot some!
        -Pesto and anything you like with pesto
        -Black olives, or olive tapenade

        Basically, anything goes well on foccacia….

        1. Falling Diphthong*

          Just thinly sliced. Brushed with olive oil and usually some sort of fresh herb.

          I would happily devour this and I have no food restrictions–“put more starch on the starch” is not something that would have occurred to me. But will add that it’s a cheese-free thing close to pizza, for those with late life dairy allergies.

    5. Esprit de l'escalier*

      Oh, you definitely need to get this! And report back next weekend!

      Also, what brand is it? I’m GF too and the thought of easy-to-make GF focaccia is very enticing.

      1. TX Lizard*

        Chebe! I can’t find it in stores anymore :( Their foccacia is by far their best product.

        1. TX Lizard*

          Also HIGHLY recommend Mom’s Place Gluten Free for baking mixes (especially the soft pretzels!!!!!! and ginger cookies)

        2. Annie Edison*

          I’m so excited to know about this! I’ve been GF for years now and haven’t come across any foccacia yet, and I miss it dearly

          1. TX Lizard*

            It’s a very easy bake too! I have also made their cinnamon rolls. The only downsize is unless you can find them in stores, you sort of have to buy in bulk.

    6. Generic Name*

      You’re saving money buying in bulk. And doesn’t your pantry need a good cleaning and rearranging anyway?

    8. Turtle Dove*

      My favorite bakery stopped making my favorite focaccia years ago. The toppings were pesto (just a light layer; barely noticeable), sliced tomatoes, and parmesan cheese. I always ate it at room temperature. Fantastic! Now they sell focaccia with rosemary and sea salt. I miss the old style.

  43. All Monkeys are French*

    I was struck by something RagingADHD said upthread in response to the advice question: “I think a lot of it is because people are responding to the question as a general conversation prompt and free-associating on the topic…”
    This describes the vast majority of social interactions I have these days. It is incredibly rare to have a conversation with someone who listens and asks questions instead of just jumping in to tell their own story. Do you see this playing out in your social interactions? Does it happen more in some spaces/populations than others?
    I’m trying to expand my social circle but I keep running into this and I find it discouraging. I try to model the conversational behavior I want, but it’s draining to do all the asking and listening without reciprocity.
    Thoughts?

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      In my experience (in more ways than one :-P ), the “jumping in to tell their own story” is frequently a way to attempt to show empathy – “I get it, here’s my creds to show you I get it, and we can have this shared experience.” Especially from folks who are, ahem, maybe otherwise not good at displaying empathy. That might be a gentler way to frame it to yourself, rather than assuming someone is just trying to take over and be the center of attention, if you have a bit of wiggle room to assume positive intent.

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        The trick is that people who find themselves going this path don’t always have the nuance of social eptitude to recognize that it doesn’t always land well or with the intended result. (I’m in my 40s and well aware of this tendency of mine and I STILL miss when I’m doing it sometimes.)

      2. Just Me*

        When I “jump in with my own story,” I’m usually trying to make the other person feel better or offer advice. Like, if they say they feel stupid for making some mistake, I’ll tell them about the time I did the same stupid thing. Or if they’re dealing with a problem/something difficult that I’ve experienced before, I’ll tell them what helped me or what I learned from it and would do differently if it happened again. (Like, I have chronic medical issues, so I can give advice related to some of that stuff.) I’ve read that if someone’s telling you about a problem, you should ask if they want to vent and have someone listen, or if they’re looking for advice, which makes sense but I’ve never remembered to put it into practice.

    2. Frankie Bergstein*

      This is so sad but a really good topic. I got a great analogy once — someone telling you something is like them throwing you a ball. They want you to talk about the ball, not what the ball reminds you of.

      Also – maybe it’s speed? Like, it takes some slowness to think and respond to what someone is saying. I’m often stuck pausing before responding because I was too busy listening when they were talking.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        Perhaps part of it is people still feeling semi-feral after the pandemic, and so they are like “Ball! Person threw me ball. There is a thing I do now… Yeah! Hey, this is a ball and I have seen balls before! Ball is a noun!”

    3. Charley*

      This doesn’t bother me at all when people do it. I see it as them trying to relate to me. I’m not saying you’re wrong to prefer a different conversational style, but it honestly might not occur to people that it bothers you, which might make your modeling less effective. If there is someone with whom you are developing a closer relationship, it could be worth taking the time to have a deliberate conversation about how you communicate and what your preferences are.

      1. Unkempt Flatware*

        I agree with this. I don’t like the doom and gloom of “now-a-days-ing”. We interact with so many more people now than we ever did before. No reason to label or judge the way others interact. How people socialize ebbs and flows and always will. Where someone else may say that no one knows how to interact anymore, another person will say that they finally feel comfortable socializing. For example, I used to follow the “rules” that I was to smile and be open to a stranger who poked me to get my attention and get me to take off my headphones (this just happened to me on a plane. I had my headphones on and the woman next to me POKED me in the arm to get my attention. She only wanted to know if I was in school, FFS). I now am on the bandwagon of “you don’t get to have access to a stranger on your whim” and would only respond to that person by asking them not to touch me again, just as I did to that lady.

      2. Sloanicota*

        Reminds me of the interruption debate. Some people feel very disrespected by any interruptions, others see it as a collaborative conversational style demonstrating engagement.

        1. All Monkeys are French*

          Interruption as a collaborative conversational style? That’s new to me. I find it rude. I guess I’m stuck in the mindset I was raised with. This one’s going to be a hard one to let go of.

          1. Still*

            Search for “cooperative overlapping”. It varies strongly by region but is also generally more common in close relationships (even people in regions with less cooperative overlapping might do it more when talking with a close friend).

          2. I hate being old*

            Yes. I’m from a culture where interrupting and overtalking are signs of a dynamic engaging conversation. Collaborative conversational style is a good way to label it.

            1. Jay (no, the other one)*

              Yup. I went to a new synagogue yesterday and one of the men I met disagreed with something I said. It took me a few minutes to code-switch into the kind of fast-paced intellectual debate that I grew up with in the NYC area. This includes a fair amount of interrupting. I no longer live in that part of the country and I learned through painful experience that people don’t appreciate that style of conversation here – especially from women.

              1. I hate being old*

                yep, I’m Jewish too. The interrupting and tangents and conversation just for conversation’s sake is definitely part of the culture!

          3. Expectations*

            In most places I’ve worked you’d never get your say if you waited for a noticeable pause in the discussion.

            Growing up, it was the way adults speak. I felt like I’d graduated from child to baby adult when I was allowed to start interrupting the adults in my life during social settings.

            It was also something that noticeably shifted in educational environments as I got older. Raising a hand became less prevalent and discussion-style conversations that flowed back and forth organically started taking over in many classes.

            1. Charley*

              My family used to make fun of me as a kid because I would just sit there with my hand raised while they all were talking away under and over one other. School habits died hard in me :)

    4. Just Me*

      Conversations with my family members and conversations with my managers and coworkers are draining like you describe. It seems like I’m usually the one that has to “carry” the conversations. I have to bring up topics and keep asking questions, otherwise there’s awkward silence, but people don’t ask me questions in return so I mostly just listen. It feels like a lot of work.

      The question-asking and listening is reciprocal with my best friend, and those conversations feel great in comparison.

    5. Sloanicota*

      I think this comment is on-point; apologies if it doesn’t resonate for you – sometimes, I have to give myself permission to *stop doing the thing* and then I suddenly find myself less annoyed with everyone else. I was raised to be very stoic, not show a lot of emotions (god forbid any unpleasant emotions, which are completely forbidden) and to always be bend-over-backwards nice-y-nice to everyone else. Always putting them first and trying to make everyone else comfortable, etc. Nobody I know in my current city operates under these “rules.” They’re allowed to ask for help, cry, whine, etc etc. I was getting really annoyed at my friends until I dropped my end of the rope (that they never asked me to hold). So instead of “mirroring the behavior you want to see” – something that has never served me particularly well – do you need to assert yourself more, be more direct, ask for exactly what you want (and give yourself Permission to Flounce if you don’t get it?). Just a thought.

      1. BikeWalkBarb*

        I have a close friend who’s very direct and did me the great favor of saying something along the lines of, “Let’s keep this focused on me for a minute” when I was relating and showing I understood by turning the spotlight to my experience. I now catch myself when I’m with her if I’m about to do that (sometimes in mid-sentence, admittedly). It’s helped me with others, too.

    6. Maggie*

      I haven’t run into that much, but I generally assume that people sharing their own story are trying to relate to me vs just talk about themselves

    7. Ellis Bell*

      Ha, I think your modelling is doomed to failure tbh. What your describing is the exact same conversational style that was painstakingly taught to me as a child by my extended family, as was the virtue of having so much to say that you’re interrupting. If you let the conversation pause, if you let the conversation dwell too long in one spot, if you aren’t constantly refreshing it with links to new branches of thought, you would get left way, way behind and people start to wonder if you’re actually interested in the activity of conversation (because the conversation is not about a person, or a story, but about conversation). I think if you want the other person to ask questions about what you’re saying you need to explicitly ask. I think you’re hesitating because you think they should know they’re being rude, and therefore asking for the alternative feels patronising. But if you stop thinking of them as “jumping in to tell their own story” and instead think of it as “jumping in to add momentum by contributing to the general topic”, it’s less weird because you’re just asking for said momentum in a different way, like asking for the salt when someone hands you the pepper. Phrases to use as lead ins to your story (indicating that you need back and forth on it) are: “I need some advice about something that happened to me recently.” or “I really need to talk this out and hear what you all think. The situation is…” or finish your story with your own prompt question: “So, does that strike you as strange/reasonable/…” If people are still going off on tangents, don’t feel like you can’t interrupt or revisit what you were saying, people shouldn’t be offended; that is the cost of being a fast talker, and any fast talker will know you may have to U-turn occasionally. You can do this as softly or as pointedly as you like: “As I was saying”, or “This is the part where we talk about the original thing I was saying”, or “I’m dying to hear this story, but let’s talk about mine first. So…”

      1. All Monkeys are French*

        This is an interesting way to approach it. It sounds a little exhausting, but it might help me have a more satisfactory conversation.

      2. Cookies For Breakfast*

        This approach makes a lot of sense. Reading it made me realise I have unconsciously learned to do this if there’s something I really hope to get out of a conversation. And also that I don’t mind people keeping me on track like that, when I share my personal anecdotes to keep momentum or show empathy.

        I also know there are people I’d never try it with, because it’s pointless, and they definitely only want to insert their own stories to get attention. Chatting to my neighbour is the perfect example. Early in our interactions, my partner and I noticed she enjoys telling stories that she thinks will create some drama, and doesn’t mind exaggerating them. So if there’s anything specific we need from her, we know to ask directly and right off the bat, because a quick stint of useful informationnmay follow, but the rest of the conversation will go on a massive tangent.

    8. I DK*

      Not my singes, not my cirque, LOL I may need to seek out new conversationalists, but mine are on the more one-up side — they tell their own stories, but when I tell mine they try to tell more that are better than mine. There’s a few that I don’t mind, because they are encyclopedia-like smart, but alas, with the post-pannini era and WFH, the office is a lonely place now and I will pretty much chat with anyone no matter their idiosynchs.

    9. RagingADHD*

      I think you took something very different from my comment than I intended. (Perhaps because you are free associating what it means to you).

      General conversation that goes off on tangents is what I consider normal social conversation in a group, or with people you’re getting to know.

      To my mind, an intent talk with someone entirely focused on you and asking follow up questions about how you feel, is for 1-on-1 interaction you might have with a good friend or a date, or when someone is giving emotional support during a hard time.

      “Dinner party” chat doesn’t work that way and isn’t supposed to.

      Maybe the issue is that you are trying to jump to a deeper level of friendship too quickly, and your new social connections aren’t prepared / willing to engage with you like that yet.

      1. All Monkeys are French*

        I’m not talking about wanting a full-on therapy session. I’m talking about showing interest in someone. For example, Person A mentions that they took a lovely day trip to a nearby town last weekend. Person B says, “I went last summer with my kids. We got great ice cream from that little place and wandered on the