{ 867 comments… read them below }

  1. Ask a Manager* Post author

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

    Please give the full rules a re-read.

      1. LetsGo(AndDontBlowIt)Mets*

        We’re approaching (American) football territory today. but hurray for insurance runs.

    1. WestsideStory*

      Yes I can’t take all this drama.

      Was offered tix to the watch party at Citi Field. No thanks, I prefer doing my stress eating at home in a comfy chair.

    1. AGD*

      Many things. Fall colors. Fresh bread from the bakery. Hanging out with three wonderful friends. A great concert.

      1. forever*

        I hope it was good. I went out for a walk with my daughter to a new fancy ice-cream shop, and had an absolutely delicious coffee-toffee swirl. And then the full moon rose over the lake on our way home.

    2. chocolate muffins*

      I was able to establish care with a PCP after waiting for about a year and he seems lovely. Also got a referral that I needed and the wait to set up care with that doctor was not as long as I had expected. A few months, but I was expecting about a year, so this was better!

    3. Valancy Stirling*

      I took a trip to a mountain town where I got to see a field of tulips, taste wine in a vineyard, see a few waterfalls, and a functioning replica of a 19th century flour mill. Oh, and a metal dragon that somehow spits fire!

    4. HBTY*

      My birthday! I’ve often read/heard that grownups shouldn’t care any more, but I have not outgrown it. I was so much in the mood this year that I told whoever I was with in the course of the day that it was my birthday, and they all seemed delighted to wish me a happy birthday, so I think it just adds to universal happiness.

      I don’t mention it in advance bc I don’t want to sound like “I expect a gift or a treat”, but on the day, I really enjoyed getting the smile and the classic response to my remark.

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        I am not at all of that opinion!

        We only get one of these a year. You never know which is your last, frankly. So having one day where people are glad you exist on the planet and say so is not too much to ask!

        Happiest of birthdays!

      2. Six Feldspar*

        Mine’s coming up soon too and I’m feeling happy about it for the opposite reason – this year I asked for people to donate to w couple of local charities instead of any gifts, and I’ll be catching up with people in the week but the birthday itself will be a pretty standard monday. It will be nice to have it completely chill!

      3. Bike Walk Barb*

        At our house we refer to it as “birthdayweekmonth” and figure it’s worth celebrating for as many days as we want. “Why not, it’s your birthday!” goes a long way at our house.

        Last year one of my friends set up a brunch with girlfriends for my birthday. I had done a bunch of canning so I took lots of jars and everyone got to take home a gift of jam or jelly or chutney or something for my birthday. That made it happy for me and for them.

      4. Hotdog not dog*

        Happy Birthday! As it happens, I am on my way to a gathering (4 of us) to celebrate the birthdays of 2 (whose birthdays are a few weeks apart.) We’re all on our 40s-50s, so we’re having fancy cake and good wine rather than traditional cake and punch.

      5. Who Plays Backgammon?*

        Nahhh. I treat myself to cake every year, with candles. now that i’m a grown-up, i can get myself any birthday present i like (although i’m usually judicious).

      1. Jean (just Jean)*

        You have inspired me to similarly glorify an ordinary task. (But if it took you an enormous effort to pull together the old electronics, I don’t want to disguise your courage and determination as “ordinary!”)

        Time again to sort
        all my clothes to wash by hand
        or by loud machine.

    5. Happily Retired*

      Getting running water back after 20 days! (Post-Helene.) Still have to boil it for drinking, etc., but the thrill of flushing a toilet!

      (We were personally very lucky; just loss of power, cell, internet, and water, which are slowly coming back on line. Nothing like the devastation that occurred just a few miles away.)

      1. The OG Sleepless*

        Oh wow, that’s a big one. I grew up with a well with an electric pump, so any time the power went out, we didn’t have water either. Not having water was always worse.

      2. Esprit de l'escalier*

        Having running water is so important in so many ways! It’s great that you have it again. I hope all of those basic services will be back for you very soon.

    6. Shakti*

      The weather finally got cooler mid to low 70s during the day and 60s at night and it’s no longer 80-98% humidity out!! Also both my children made honor roll after starting kindergarten and middle school which were huge transitions and they love it

    7. Cookies For Breakfast*

      I just woke up from sleeping 6 hours straight, which is highly unusual when I’m on my own (being alone at night in an empty house spooks me out – falling asleep took time, but at least I wasn’t wide awake at 3am).

      Probably a one-off, and I have a few more nights to get through. But still!

    8. English Rose*

      After an intensely anxious fortnight with a cancer scare, I’m clear and recovering from a less serious ailment. So grateful.

      1. Irish Teacher.*

        That’s fantastic. Sorry to hear you went through that but glad to hear you are clear and that it was relatively short lived.

      1. Clisby*

        So did I! This is the first time I’ve had an ultrasound, but they’re always suggesting maybe I should do it, so finally I did.

    9. The Prettiest Curse*

      My dog had an amusing (slight) over-reaction to a neighbour’s Halloween zombie head decoration. (It was more of a “WTF is THAT?” reaction than an “I must immediately kill this disembodied head” reaction, if you’re wondering.)

    10. Irina*

      We went to a different fish stall in the market because we’d been unhappy with the previous one and their fish was SO GOOD! We bought some salted herrings which are now in the fridge, pickled with mustard and akvavit and apple (in 3 different batches, not all in one jar) waiting until they’re ready to eat in a couple of days.

    11. RagingADHD*

      Book club started Northanger Abbey. It’s been a while since I read it. I remembered it was funny, but I forgot *how* funny

      1. Irina*

        Oh wow yes, I remember reading that on a plane to Lisbon like 30 years ago. “Catherine was all eager delight” and that was what I felt like because I dislike security theatre, and I don’t approve of flying for holidays any more, but I secretly love the actual flying. (My name obviously isn’t Catherine, though it’s one of the names I considered when I was changing mine)

    12. Forrest Rhodes*

      A local green, open space in my very big city has constructed a Labyrinth that’s an exact copy of the one at Notre Dame, Paris.

      For a long time I’ve wanted to walk it, and finally did it yesterday. It was the middle of a weekday, I was pretty much the only human around, and as I followed the laybrinth’s hilltop turns and circles I could see the mountains to the east, then the tops of city buildings to the west, and—to quote Hemingway, badly—above it all the clear blue windless sky.

      It was incredible. I plan to do it again soon.

      1. Bike Walk Barb*

        I hope they add it to the Labyrinth Locator map. I’ve used that a few times to find one to walk while traveling.

        1. Might Be Spam*

          TIL about the Labyrinth Locator map! I look forward to using it when I take my annual road trip to visit my son. I like to find outdoor spaces to take breaks.
          I always stop at Sholom Park in Ocala, Florida for a few hours. It gives me a chance to settle myself for the last hour of driving, after a 3 day drive, so I’m relaxed when I arrive.

      2. Bike Walk Barb*

        Adding a link to a piece by Antonia Malchik, one of my favorite writers. If you care about places, walking safely, the earth we live on, engaging in your community to make a difference, access to green spaces, how concepts of private property have harmed people and the earth–I can’t actually finish this list because her writing spans so many topics–you should read her. Anyway, read this for a taste: https://antoniamalchik.com/2023/11/06/the-gravity-of-a-labyrinth/.

        1. Forrest Rhodes*

          Thanks for that link, Bike Walk Barb. Next time I’ll do a circumnavigation first—but considering the surroundings, I do have to keep my shoes on! :)

    13. Bike Walk Barb*

      Last night after a week of conference travel to a different time zone I stopped by my best friend’s house to pick up something I’d loaned her. She offered me a big bag of chanterelles, freshly dug. When I opened the bag it smelled like the forest.

      This morning I’m having chanterelles cooked in butter and garlic with local eggs on bread I baked slathered in chimichurri I made from parsley and oregano I grew. It’s fantastic. Now to decide what to do with the rest of the bag.

    14. All Monkeys are French*

      Slept on my new mattress last night. It was so comfy! And it was especially nice to climb into bed because I had washed all the bedding that could be washed and aired everything else in the sun.

    15. goddessoftransitory*

      I just got the shoes I ordered!

      I’m wearing the leather sneakers now and they are soooo comfy. I like how Clark’s makes everything in half sizes so I can get 9.5s instead of squeezing my toes to death or sliding around in 10s.

    16. Trixie Belden was my hero*

      My new winter comforter arrived and it goes well with the new rug and the old curtains and I love it. It’s so hard to tell if things will look good together when ordering online. Glad I chose Caramel Gold rather that Golden Caramel!

    17. David Rose*

      I’m going to Rocky Horror tonight! I have my outfit all picked out and could not be more excited!

    18. Sic Transit Vir*

      Someone invited me to their birthday party. I am 36 and haven’t been invited to a birthday party since… I was in high school, I think! :)

    19. carcinization*

      Went to a small, free, local jazz festival today that was very nice. Before one of the sets, the singer passed roses out to the audience. The organizers were giving out free bottles of water, so we drank half of one and then put the rose in the bottle. Brought the rose home and it’s proceeding to open perfectly, better than when we buy flowers at the store!

    20. allathian*

      I bought a new shower cream/moisturizer. I’m fat, fairly tall with long legs and short arms, as well as very stiff, and using normal moisturizer after a shower requires gymnastics that leave me sweaty all over again. But now I can skip the moisturizer. Yay!

      1. Middle Aged Lady*

        I bought one of those lotion applicator thingies a while back—looks like a back scrub brush but with a flat pad at the end. It was a game-changer. But your solution sounds marvelous too.

        1. allathian*

          I got one of those for my 50th birthday, and it’s really helpful for putting lotion on my back, but it tends to leave a lot of residue because it doesn’t absorb some of the lotion like your hand does. But it’s great for putting sunscreen on my lower legs when I wear a skirt in the summer because I can reach with my hands to rub in the last of it.

    21. Six Feldspar*

      I kinda impulse bought an old digital camera a few months ago and yesterday I took it out around the local park. Going to take a bit of practice but I’m having great fun taking imperfect photos!

    22. dontbeadork*

      Spouse came home after 10 days away. And he’s taking over my share of the cat pan duty to make up for me having to scoop alone 10 days.

    1. Brevity*

      If you’re trying to haiku, you’re missing two syllables. Try this:

      Someone brought puppy
      To the office to visit
      Us, made me happy

      1. Reluctant Mezzo*

        There was a medical emergency at the Farmers’ Market where our table was, and I got temporary custody of the Kitten belonging to the poor person who was having trouble. Gave it back to the patient’s sister, though, my current cat would go nuts. And the Kitten probably wanted his/her Person anyway (small black and white kitty with an amazingly loud voice).

  2. Jackalope*

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

    I started Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley. It’s a sequel to Firekeeper’s Daughter, which I really enjoyed. This one started off well also and the author is really good, but it didn’t work as well for me as the first one did.

    1. goddessoftransitory*

      Halfway through A Night in the Lonesome October–just added it to the rotation last year but it’s already a favorite. Next might be The Ghost Variations: One Hundred Stories, by Kevin Brockmeier. It’s exactly that–one hundred one page stories, all about a different type of ghost.

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

      I’m reading Vincent Starrett’s 1929 mystery *Murder on B Deck*. It’s just okay, but I wanted a mystery comfort read. The poor author. The introduction says the fantasy novel Starrett published a year or two earlier, which got good critical reviews and into which he put his heart, sold only 3000 copies, while this mystery, which he knocked off without paying much mind to it, sold more like 20,000 copies.

      Next up, I’ll probably re-read *Lemons Never Lie*, one of the bleakest novels about Alan Grofield from Richard Stark’s (aka Donald E. Westlake’s) spinoff from the Parker series. Not my favorite of those — those would be *The Black Bird* and *The Damsel*, which are jolly adventures with a bit of an edge — but it’s what the bookstore had.

      They also had a Carl Hiaasen that I got. He’s one of the people writing today where I can pick up one of his books and feel like I’ll be okay reading it.

    3. Mobie's Mom Now*

      Finished The Long March Home by Marcus Brotherton and Tosca Lee, historical fiction about the battle/siege of Bataan during WW II. It was tough. I have read a lot of WWII fiction, but mostly set in England or Germany/Poland, etc. – the European conflict. I hadn’t read much about the Japanese/Asian conflict, so this was horrifying in a new way.

    4. Atheist Nun*

      I read and enjoyed Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange, and although it was not as fantastic as There There, it was still quite good. In this book, whose events take place before and after the life changing pow wow in There There, the theme is the connection between trauma and addiction.

      There is a quote from the book that sums up what I love about Orange’s writing style: “just the right amount of joy and wonder to make it go beyond tragedy.” His books cover heavy topics about the appalling ways that settler colonists treat(ed) Native Americans, but his facility with language and plot keep things from drifting into tragedy porn.

    5. Charlotte Lucas*

      Donna Andrews’ Between a Flock and a Hard Place. And finishing up my Dorothy L. Sayers marathon with a collection of short stories.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        I’ve praised Donna Andrews’ bird series before for having cell phone use that is normal for the date of publication. (A huge pet peeve with cozies is the conceit that even though the heroine knows she is pretty much guaranteed to wind up kidnapped, locked in a burning building, or otherwise in a spot where a cell phone would make a huge difference, she nonetheless “just doesn’t like cell phones.”) In the newest one, security cameras are more omnipresent, which I think matches both their real life ubiquity at the household level and a practical consideration if you recognize that murdered bodies drop around you quite frequently.

        1. Bike Walk Barb*

          Rats. I could use a good series to live in for a while, I like birds, and my library only has the first one and then much later books in this series. I’m guessing this might be popular enough for them to start bringing back the earlier ones if I put in the request, though.

          1. chocolate muffins*

            Your library might be able to get the other ones through interlibrary loan even if they can’t purchase them right now. That is how I get many of the books I read.

        1. Reluctant Mezzo*

          Three Bags Full: sheep solve a murder mystery. Different author, but well worth reading.

    6. Teapot Translator*

      Looking for recommendations of murder mystery classics (let’s say must have been published at least 50 years ago). I’m still in a reading slump, so I decided to read the Miss Marple books in order. I’m now reading The Moving Finger.

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        Any Dorothy Sayers. For more modern but still older books, Margaret Millar or her husband, Ross Macdonald.

      2. PhyllisB*

        I don’t know if they could be conconsider”classics,” but if you like Miss Marple, you might enjoy the Mrs. Pollifax series by Dorothy Gilman. Also Simon Brett has two mystery series with female characters. I know you didn’t specifically ask for female main characters, just adding to the Miss Marple vibe. Speaking of Simon Brett, he also has has a series featuring Charles Paris, but I didn’t really care for these and abandoned it after two books.

      3. Hlao-roo*

        The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne. The only murder mystery Milne wrote (as far as I’m aware) but it’s a very good one.

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

        Dashiell Hammett’s *Thin Man* (for more of a crazy wild ride, his *Dain Curse*).

        Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe books. *Some Buried Caesar* and *Black Orchids* are good to start with.

        Francis Beeding’s *Death Walks in Eastrepps*

      5. Irina*

        Ooh, that’s a nice one! Slow-moving but the puzzle is exquisite, there’s only very little period-typical homophobia in it, and (spoiler) none of the nice people turn out to have dunnit.

      6. Pinkbasil*

        Georgette Heyer also wrote murder mysteries and they’re very old fashioned, a little romantic. I prefer her Regency books but they might be right up your alley.

      7. dontbeadork*

        Josephine Tey’s Alan Grant novels. Can’t recall the order, but A Shilling for Candles and The Daughter of Time are two of the titles.

    7. word nerd*

      I’m really enjoying Do I Know You? by Sadie Dingfelder, recommended here recently. I have below-average facial recognition and visualization ability (possibly aphantasia?), and I’m married to a super recognizer with a vivid visual imagination and excellent navigational skills, so I’ve been him pestering him with various questions this week like “Do you think some of your excellent mental math skills are because you can visualize the numbers in your head?” It’s just fascinating to me how different minds can work so differently from mine.

      I’m disappointed by Louise Erdrich’s latest book The Mighty Red. Maybe I’m at a life stage where teenage angst or a young person figuring out their identity is not really a riveting topic to me currently, plus the very disjointed structure constantly flitting to different POVs every few minutes was annoying. I’ve loved many of her other books, so it was a real letdown!

      1. Cookies For Breakfast*

        I’m curious, if you’re happy sharing, what your husband answered to your question!

        I have a fairly vivid visual imagination, excellent navigational skills, and when I think of numbers, I’m always picturing them in my head. But my mental math is terrible! The visualising of numbers is the only reason I can scrape by; multiplying or dividing in my head takes me ages, and sometimes I end up approximating to a rough figure or just giving up (my partner does it in seconds, quicker than I can get my phone calculator running)

        Quite apart from that, rushing to look up the book now :)

        1. word nerd*

          Yeah, my husband did say he visualizes numbers when doing mental math, but his math skills in general are excellent too.

      2. Falling Diphthong*

        The two series that really worked for me recently, Scholomance and Murderbot, each feature protagonists who are not figuring out their new powers. They got those locked down some time ago. The series explore when each protagonist first became part of a team.

        1. word nerd*

          Ha, I think we’ve argued about Scholomance before (sorry, not a fan), but I do love Murderbot. It’s so familiar after all my rereads (relistens?) that most nights I put on Kevin R. Free narrating a Murderbot book with my 15-minute sleep timer on and I conk out right away.

        2. radiant*

          I loved the Murderbot series! My online book club was so lucky to get Martha Wells to join for one of them (we did the first book, and then most of us inhaled the rest).

          1. word nerd*

            Wow, that’s so cool! When I chose a Murderbot book for my book club, it went over like a lead balloon. No one was even able to finish the book they disliked it so much. Only one person read my last choice too (a PG Wodehouse). I’m considering leaving the book club because they only seem to like a certain kind of fiction and I’m getting tired of it. I don’t suppose your book club is one that’s open to the general public? :P

      3. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        That book is on my TBR list. When I first learned about aphantasia I went into the living room and had the following exchange with my husband, who is also super visual:
        Me: “So if you close your eyes and try to picture a beach, do you like, actually SEE the beach?”
        Him: “…. yes?”
        Me: “I need to sit down.”
        Him: “Wait, you don’t?”
        Me: “NO. I thought EVERYONE was using ‘mental image’ as a metaphor. I close my eyes, I see blackness.”
        Him: “I need to sit down.”

        We have concluded though that part of my reading speed is that I am not in fact spending time visualizing the events of the books in my head.

        1. fposte*

          Oh, that last is a really interesting thought. I’m a very fast reader, did it for a living, but I have super weak mental imagery and certainly wouldn’t bother with that during reading.

          I also find it’s easier to pull up a static memory than a dynamic—I can pull up a mental image of my dad in photographs better than I can of my dad in life, and we were close and he died at 89, so it wasn’t like I never saw him in person.

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

            That’s so interesting! I have prosopagnosia, so bad at remembering the details of people’s faces, but I can sometimes remember what a picture of their face looked like!

          2. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

            Me: “I can’t stand reading Tolkien. He has to DESCRIBE everything.”
            Husband: “Well, yeah. How are you supposed to imagine it if he doesn’t … oh.”

            We also think it might be part of why he can look at a bookshelf where he knows he left his drill for ages, then he calls me and I walk in and point at the drill where it’s been staring him in the face on the third shelf – he remembers what the bookshelf is supposed to look like so it just “looks normal” to him, while it’s always a new thing to me and a drill doesn’t belong on a bookshelf so it stands out. (I mean, that’s not ALL of it, he’s also just not always terribly observant, but. :P )

            If he’s asking me where something should be, I have to actually make like I’m opening the cupboard or drawer and reaching for it, but once I do the physical motions, I can tell him “it should be in a drawer under the teakettle, about knee height, on the right hand side.” I am also the absolute WORST for out of sight/out of mind. :P

        2. word nerd*

          I totally skim descriptive passages in novels where they go into great detail about how the landscape looks or what a person looks like… get into the good stuff!

        3. Falling Diphthong*

          I found this book so insightful, with lots of “… Wait, that isn’t how this works for everyone?”

          Like when I picture an apple, it is a photorealistic apple floating in Janet’s void. When my daughter pictures an apple, it’s not so detailed but it’s sitting on a table with a background.

          1. Reluctant Mezzo*

            And I ask, ‘is it a Fuji, a Honeycrisp or a Granny Smith?’ I, er, have a holodeck inside my head.

        4. Saturday*

          I find the differences in people’s mental imagery so fascinating. I’ve never thought about how this might relate to reading speed, but what you said makes sense. I’m a very slow reader, and when I read for pleasure, I have to visualize everything as it’s described, and I have to “hear” the dialogue as well.

          When I’m reading something technical, there’s not usually a visual component, but I still feel like I want to “hear” the words before I really retain the information. That’s probably what slows me down because it does feel like a multi-step (though rapid) process – read the words, capture their meaning, hear the words spoken in my head. I can do only the first two steps if I need to, but it doesn’t feel right.

          1. allathian*

            I have a very visual imagination and I’m a fast reader, probably because I don’t bother sounding out the words in my head.

        5. Decidedly Me*

          I’m a faster than average reader, but my partner is quite a bit faster than me. We discussed it once and came to the same conclusion – I’m visualizing the book in my head, while he is not, which probably accounts for me being slower. Additionally, he’ll skim over long descriptions. While I can read faster (still not as fast as him I don’t think), I find I don’t enjoy books as much when I do.

        6. Clisby*

          I know what your husband means. I definitely can see images in my head.

          Similarly, I wonder how many people “hear” their words while they’re writing. I’ve always done that, and it didn’t even occur to me that other people might not, until I was once proofreading something my 10-year-old had written for school. I didn’t tell him what to write – just made comments on his draft paper.

          Once I said something like, “The first paragraph sounds awkward.” He asked me what I meant, and I said, “Um … read it out loud.” He did, and immediately said, “Oh! Maybe it would sound better like XYZ.”

          I said yes, that’s what I meant. I asked him if he could hear what he was writing, and he looked at me like I was crazy, so I suggested that in future he should at least read out loud at least the first 3-4 paragraphs of a paper to see if he was starting off well.

          1. Reluctant Mezzo*

            I hear voices for the dialogue for my characters, and if their voice doesn’t like it, well, apparently they don’t plan on saying it.

        7. noname today*

          My husband and I had a similar discussion about remembering…he’d always say to me “try to see where you last had (the phone, $$, whatever I’ve lost)” and I would say “that doesn’t help me…”

          later on I said something about seeing a memory and he said “memories aren’t like in izombie—you don’t see memories in a flash.”And I said “um yeah. I do. That’s why telling me to see where I last had something isn’t helpful—if I could remember where I last had something, of course I would see it!”

          Never occurred to me that not everyone remembered things that way.

    8. chocolate muffins*

      I just finished A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza. It was a bit unfocused in places but overall strong and the ending was one of the most powerful things I have ever read. I am somewhat surprised that Sarah Jessica Parker played such a large role in publishing it, though perhaps I shouldn’t be – I know that actors are different people from the characters they play but this doesn’t seem like a book that Carrie Bradshaw would pay attention to at all.

    9. Valancy Stirling*

      I’m enjoying When the Crow’s Away by Auralee Wallace and A Brief History of the Celts by Peter Berresford Ellis. The former is the second installment of a series about a witch who can speak to ghosts and solve their murders.

    10. acmx*

      I just finished and enjoyed Lula Dean’s Little Library of banned Books by Kristen Miller (who wrote The Change, also great).

    11. Donkey Hotey*

      About halfway through The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. Quite enjoyable. Renaissance-ish pseudo Venice plus con men.

    12. Six Feldspar*

      I’m most of the way through Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton, I liked her previous book (The Luminaries) and the prose in this one is great too. I just have to find a time to finish the book that isn’t at 10pm the night before an early start!

    13. Cookies For Breakfast*

      Just read the last page of The Age of Magical Overthinking with my morning coffee, and the last essay about the IKEA effect and fulfilment in crafting was very wholesome to read.

      I’m halfway through Family Politics by John O’ Farrell, which I picked up randomly from the library. It’s underwhelming so far. It’s about a couple of left-wing parents discovering their son is a conservative, and it’s meant to be funny, but it feels it’s trying too hard. Maybe I’d appreciate it more if I was a British native? I lived in the UK many years, I have no problem with British humour and I’m familiar with the politics, but can’t help feeling I’m just not this book’s target audience.

      1. Nervous Nellie*

        Thank you for this! The Age of Magical Overthinking looks super! Ordered at the library. I am barely adequate knitter and artist, and a sloppy sewer, so I will greatly enjoy that chapter!

    14. Cute E. Pie*

      I’ve been reading The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray and Whiteshift by Eric Kaufmann this week. I can’t say that either brought me joy but I guess it’s better to be prepared for what’s ahead.

      1. Catherine*

        Ah yes I just read a review of that, calling to gentrified xenophobia. Was it as bad as it sounds?

    15. English Rose*

      Halfway through the latest Deborah Harkness – The Black Bird Oracle. Interesting but slightly undecided about it just now.

    16. Falling Diphthong*

      The Burglar by Thomas Perry, a thriller about a young woman who robs wealthy home owners and stumbles across a triple homicide. She tries to erase any sign of her presence, but someone seems to know she was there and be hunting for her… This was really well executed. One aspect I liked was that it avoided the trope where the killer is someone you spoke with in Act 1–instead she needs to figure out the motive for the three murders, which will tell her where to look for suspects.

      Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. The impoverished poor relation accidentally raises the imprisoned god of the dead, and agrees to help him regain his throne. Set in 1920s Mexico, beautiful sense of place and a likable main character.

      Reading Donna Andrews’ newest bird mystery, which is so far lovely.

    17. Put the Blame on Edamame*

      Wifedom by Anna Funder, on Eileen O’Shaughnessy, George Orwell’s first wife- an intoxicating read, Funder is very incisive and generous as a writer who worshipped Orwell but also wants to pull Eileen out of the “black box” history has submerged her in. 400p that flew past. My only criticism is that while Funder’s political and historical commentary is very informed,her feminist theory seems to have stopped with Woolf, with a few #MeToo references thrown in but little beyond the most obvious “sexism is bad and entrenched” kinda stuff.

    18. Gamer Girl*

      Finally getting into Elena Ferrante’s work–I’d had a hold on the first book of the four for more than a year and finally got to check it out this week! “My Brilliant Friend” is the English title. The original is written in Italian, and I’m reading it in Spanish I figure the Spanish translation has to be pretty close to the Italian!

      So far, it’s a really good read, digging into why and how we are friends with our best friends is the wider theme. I am learning so much about small Italian towns along with the story itself! I love how she is peeling back the layers of why and how the narrator became friends with her best friend. A wild, brilliant girl who is also fairly troubling to read about, while the narrator is a very by-the-book person, trying to do everything “right.”

      1. allx*

        I was late to Ferrante, too (about 4 years ago), and absolutely fell in love. My Brilliant Friend is brilliant.

      2. philmar*

        I wouldn’t call Naples a “small Italian town.” It is very focused on their neighborhood, and later in the series the distinct character of the other neighborhoods is very important, but it’s all areas of Naples.

    19. The Other Dawn*

      I just finished Angel of Vengeance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Great read, and the epilogue was very much unexpected in a good way. I can’t wait for the next in the series.

    20. radiant*

      I just finished “In Memoriam” by Alice Winn, on the recommendation of my best friend. I loved it so much. It’s a queer love story set in WW1.

    21. GoryDetails*

      Tales of Terror from the Tunnel’s Mouth by Chris Priestley, a short story collection with the framing device that a youth on a train is told these stories by a sultry and seductive woman. The stories-within-the-story are pretty chilling, and I like the “what’s really going on here” vibe of the framing story as well.

      Lost Time by Tas Mukanik, a very entertaining graphic novel about a girl who gets lost in the age of dinosaurs after a time-machine accident – and who not only learns to survive on her own but befriends a newly-hatched pterosaur that grows up to be her winged mount. Lively and charming story.

      On audiobook: Spectred Isle by KJ Charles, narrated by Ruairi Carter; it’s set after WWI, with the main protagonist being Saul, a disgraced former soldier now working for a wealthy eccentric who wants to find evidence of actual magic. And then one day Saul sees a full-grown oak tree burst into flame from no apparent source, starting his journey into a world of magic – and the sardonic but devastatingly attractive Randolph, who also witnessed the fiery tree and whose path keeps crossing Saul’s. [The book includes lots of nods to classic horror tales, from the “Saaamaaa Ritual” from William Hope Hodgson’s “Carnacki” stories to the occultist Karswell from M. R. James’ “Casting the Runes”.]

    22. Mrs. Frisby*

      Finished Wellness by Nathan Hill last night and just loved it. I bounced between listening to it (the audiobook narrator is really great–he also narrated Hill’s first novel The Nix and his style goes with Hill’s writing style incredibly well) and reading the physical copy because it’s pretty long so quicker to get through that way. It’s ostensibly the story of a couple who have reached middle age and aren’t sure who they are anymore and if their relationship works, but it’s also about so much more (the placebo effect! modern parenting! algorithms! etc.). You have to like an author who goes on tangents and deep dives and you have to like your books to be sprawling, but if you like those things, it’s a really satisfying read that made me cry a few times.

      1. word nerd*

        I loved Wellness too, including all the tangents. I agree the narration is excellent too. I liked it so much I read the Nix after that, but that one didn’t grab me as much.

    23. Nervous Nellie*

      Many for me this week!

      Luxuriating in Ruth Ozeki’s dreamy The Book of Form & Emptiness. A middle schooler starts hearing voices coming from inanimate objects. Does he have a superpower or a mental illness?

      Then, four different people in my life mentioned The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas this week. To me that’s a sign! I’ve never read it, so I picked it up. With two hands -it’s a doorstop of 1200+ pages! Can’t wait to read about the hero’s wrongful imprisonment & revenge plan. I love Penguin Classics!

      Then, for good measure, I picked up the Penguin of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Another 1000 pages of literary goodness. It’s a new translation to me, and the first 2 pages me gripped immediately. That’s my book shopping 2-page rule – I never buy a book without reading the first two pages. To me it’s the equivalent of trying on the clothes instead of just holding them up against me to guess if they fit.

      And then, a display table at the register of my indie bookstore had a signed 1st edition of the new Margaret Atwood poetry compilation Paper Boat: New & Selected Poems 1961-2023. As a homesick Canadian, I would have arm wrestled anyone for that book. They had but the one copy. It is now sitting on my desk and I am petting it like a cat. I so hope she does an audio book, as have always loved her calm & measured voice, and I would love to read along while she speaks. These beg to be read aloud.

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

        Oh, I think you will (mostly) LOVE *The Count of Monte Cristo*! SPOILER: There is some disturbing slavery stuff that happens much later in the book, though.

        1. Nervous Nellie*

          Hi! Thanks for this. Yes, I knew about that element, and will certainly view it through the lens of the era in which it was written. It will remind me that as messed up as our modern life is, a few things about it are a little bit better.

      2. Phlox*

        the traffic violence of the first chapter of Form and Emptiness was too much for me last time I picked it up, but I really want to give it another shot because the chapter after was really starting to hook me with the language

        1. Nervous Nellie*

          I hear you. Agreed, it was a tough start. There are other possible triggering subjects in the story (which is usual for Ruth Ozeki), but they are so delicately and beautifully written, I can’t put it down. Some gritty bits, and some real wonder.

      3. Rosyglasses*

        All of your descriptions sound lovely and intoxicating and I am putting these on my TBR list!

        1. Nervous Nellie*

          Cool! You can’t go wrong with Penguin Classics or Margaret Atwood, and for me anyway, I would read a grocery list Ruth Ozeki wrote. Her books have difficult moments, but they also have exciting ideas and comforting resolutions. Her visual descriptions will put you IN the scene. In her day job she’s a Buddhist priest, and that really shapes the overall gentleness of her stories. If you like this one, go back and read A Tale for the Time Being – it will blow your mind.

    24. Pam Adams*

      Lonesome October is currently serving as my “going to sleep” audio book. I am working my way through the British Library Crime Classics. (Smallbone Deceased by Michael Gilbert was up first)

      Also rereading some older juveniles by Stephen Meader. T-Model Tommy, about a young man starting a trucking business during the Depression may be my favorite.

    25. Bike Walk Barb*

      Online publications: To change things up I’m going to start a separate thread to ask what people read online, thinking of more long-form and newsletters.

      Books:

      Just finished The Locked Room in the Elly Griffiths series about forensic archaeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway, waiting for the next one that’s on hold. I had conference travel with long flights this week so that’s the third one I’ve read in about 6 days.

      Now reading The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera. Fantasy involving complicated politics, a militaristic society with refugee camps and people being rounded up and executed without anyone quite knowing why, racial castes, people who are the children of various sainted figures and have at least some portion of their powers of various types getting involved in the politics. Not entirely sure I love it but I keep reading and I do want to know what happens to Fetter, the central character (named that by his sainted father The Perfect and Kind–who wasn’t always and who left before the child was even born–to reflect that his son was a burden. Gosh, Dad, love you too).

      Not started yet, just got from the bookstore and may save it for Thanksgiving weekend–Unlocking the Heart: Writing for Mindfulness, Courage, and Self-Compassion, by James Crews. He has compiled really wonderful poetry anthologies that came out during the early pandemic just when I needed them. I subscribed to his weekly series that includes one of his poems and an associated writing prompt, and this book is the full set.

    26. Jackalope*

      I’m also going to add an interesting reading experience that I had this week. Not mentioning the specific book because I don’t want to out my location, but I stumbled across a book set in my own small-medium sized city this week. At first I was excited, because it’s not a place that frequently makes the literary scene, but then I got annoyed. The author isn’t great about settings, and I think she just picked a city about the size she wanted in about the region she wanted, and then just described it as a McCity. Some of the details she threw in were more fitting of cities like New York or Boston (for example, she threw in an alleyway scene that would have fit well in one of those two places, but not in our city where alleys are rare, mostly exist in residential areas, and are primarily for letting people into their garages that are often built in the back of the house. I don’t think there’s a single alley in the whole city that works the way she wanted it to), and some of them were just kind of… ignoring the reality of this location. For example, she said that the main character grew up in the southern part of [City]; all well and good, but I lived there for a few years and there’s a local feature that is an essential part of that area, such that it’s unlikely not to be mentioned in any description. Or currently our protagonist is living in “the outskirts of [City]”, which (like many larger cities) are actually other towns slowly being swallowed by [City], and have their own names; residents there wouldn’t use that phrase and not use the town name too. Etc. Anyone else have that feeling of annoyance when reading something in your specialty or an area you’re familiar with and they keep getting it wrong?

      1. chocolate muffins*

        Not about place, but books with professors in them typically annoy me because the authors are not academics and therefore don’t understand what being a professor really is, or really very much about academia at all. I’m guessing this is the same for any profession, I just notice it less with books where the main characters do jobs that I’m less familiar with.

      2. word nerd*

        I’m a doctor, and I’ve noticed that medical topics in, say, a novel where medical stuff isn’t even the focus is written by an author who’s a doctor, I enjoy it so much more than a novel written by someone who clearly doesn’t know much about the medical world. (I was so annoyed by Emily Henry’s Happy Place because the author just has no idea what it’s like to be a resident.)

        And yes, it’s very noticeable when authors write about a place knowing what that place is actually like vs. not if I’m also familiar with it.

      3. Seconds*

        My mother got really annoyed with a book set in Austin, where she’s lived since 1970.

        The family in the book had a tradition: a snowball fight on Christmas Day. Absolutely ridiculous. Austin gets snow every few years for a day or two, but I have no memory of a white Christmas.

        (We do have a Christmas Day game tradition, though: a family football game.)

        1. Bast*

          People seem to get really wrapped up in the whole “white Christmas” thing. I live in a New England area where “Christmas” seems to be synonymous with snowy Hallmark charm. In all my 30-odd years, I can count the times on one hand where there has actually been a white Christmas. While I can recognize we are more likely by a landslide to get a white Christmas than anywhere in Texas, it’s almost like movies and books think you can take a giant candy cane and beat the white Christmas out of the clouds yourself. It’s far from a given.

      4. New Yorker*

        It’s very rare to have alleys in New York. Maybe they’re more common in the outer boroughs, but not in Manhattan. That’s why the trash goes on the curbs — there are no alleys.

        1. Lexi Vipond*

          I am intrigued by this – what are alleys usually like in the US?

          Edinburgh is full of things that I would broadly class as alleys (although usually called close or wynd or pend in the old town and lanes otherwise), but they’re mainly shortcuts from one place to another (or sometimes just to the door of a building behind other buildings). Rubbish goes on the kerb because the bin lorry will drive down the road which has the kerbs to pick it up – a lorry wouldn’t usually fit down a close!

          1. Jackalope*

            Okay, this is why I shouldn’t write a story set in New York, for the same reasons I was complaining about! Many stories set in large East Coast cities (or fantasy cities) have dark, narrow alleys that go between two buildings and then end after perhaps a block or so. They often have tall buildings on either side with doors going into those buildings and dumpsters along the way, but their primary purpose is to provide a dead end so when the protagonist is running away from the villain/monster they get trapped at the end of the alley and have to find some way to escape. Secondary purposes are mostly dark and nefarious dealings happening in the shadows. I recently went to Boston for the first time, and I did see some alleys like this there (minus the nefarious dealings and fleeing protagonists); at least one was so narrow that I could stand in the middle of it and touch both buildings to either side of me with my elbows half bent. I’m not usually claustrophobic but that was… nerve-wracking.

            In my city, on the other hand, alleys serve a different purpose. In residential areas there will be two streets with houses lining them basically back to back, and then there’s a small one-lane alley that goes between the rows of streets. People can have access to their garages (which are often built on the backs of houses here, or as a free-standing structure, instead of in the front of the house), their back yards, and so on. So for example you might have Cherry Street and Maple Street as consecutive streets, and halfway between them you have Cherry Alley that’s used by the residents on both of those streets. These alleys often extend for several blocks and are usually decently lit, and not places you can easily get trapped (see: purposes of alleys in a story, above).

      5. Catherine*

        This is interesting aye. But I wonder how high we want to set the bar for accuracy in fiction. And how much research we really need to require of novelists. Having something documentary-level realistic is quite a big ask, in term of the research required.

        I don’t disagree that it’s jarring though.

        1. Jackalope*

          I see your point; I don’t think people should only be required to write about places they’ve lived or are intimately familiar with. And I’m probably a bit spoiled because most of the books I’ve read set in my city are written by other city residents and so are more accurate. On the other hand, I think that if authors are going to write in a specific city (instead of using a generic city that they don’t name), it is important to at least glance over the Wikipedia page or visit if they can (the author’s bio mentions that she lives in the next state over so this is a possibility). The book had some things that are not only not realistic but completely opposite our city’s reputation, which from the next state over the author could have known. Again, it’s not a huge deal; I’m not going to write to her and lecture her for misrepresenting my city. But it threw me out of the book every time she’d make a mistake about it, and is one of the main reasons that I’m not going to pick up any more of her books.

    27. Genevieve*

      Someone here recommended The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi a couple of weeks ago and I absolutely loved it!! It really hit the sweet spot for me in terms of beautiful writing but also a fast-moving and engrossing story. Now I’m bummed because it’s the first in a trilogy and the other books aren’t out yet.

      1. Catherine*

        Oh my gosh I’ve just opened the sample and am on page 5 and LOVE it already- thanks for the rec!

    28. carcinization*

      Reading O’Malley’s The Rook after it was recommended here. It’s rather fun, I think in some ways it’s filling the void that Cogman’s The Invisible Library series has left since that series is over with at least for now.

    29. Catherine*

      I read Queen’s Gambit this week as I just watched the movie Firebrand which was apparently based on it- TOTALLY different plot however which was confusing.

      Firebrand is great movie though, by the way.

    30. Rage*

      Fiance and I have started the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series by Tad Williams. It’s a re-read for me, but his first time through. He doesn’t read as quickly as I do, so I am reading it aloud, a chapter or two before bed.

    31. Ali + Nino*

      Just finished The Pity Of It All by Amos Elon, a history of Jews in Germany between 1733 (ish) until 1933. Very upsetting on multiple levels. Highly recommend.
      Now I’m reading Tranquility by Tuesday for time management advice. I hope it helps…

  3. Jackalope*

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

    I’ve continued with Stardew Valley this week. Once again I’m close to finishing the community center, and I hope I’ll get the last few items soon.

    1. Florence Reece*

      Yay for the SDV progress!

      I’ve been playing BG3 again. I’ve started a few runs, but never gotten officially into Act 2 because life has caused some extended no-games periods. I’m finally in a place where I can play a few nights a week, so I started a new run (on the regular difficulty instead of easy, too, yay me) and it’s been soooo fun.

      I’m playing a Githyanki bard and the combo of unique dialogue choices between those has been great even as a replay. The roleplay aspect of being a Gith has pushed me towards choices I wouldn’t have made previously, too. And although combat is noticeably more challenging, that’s been easy to adapt to…and I’ve been way more successful than any run before. I’m about to hit the Shadowlands and I’ve got 4.5k gold and my entire party geared up. I’m sure I’ll struggle in Act 2 without the foresight I have for Act 1, but I feel prepared and excited to do it! It’s a nice feeling at the end of a long week.

      1. Varthema*

        ooo nice! I could never really get into La’zael or any of the Githyanki creche storyline, I found them too much of a bummer, but maybe playing AS Githyanki would make it way more interesting. and I also started a replay as a bard because it’s a little annoying that that’s one of the few classes you don’t get to try out via your party members. good luck!

    2. Quinalla*

      Beat the main quest in Knock on the Coffin Lid on Friday, still more to do in the game too, very enjoyable deck builder with a plot.

      Playing the Evercraft beta this weekend, feels like Everquest but a bit more forgiving.

      1. Jackalope*

        So it’s a card game? I went to look it up and from the description I couldn’t tell if it was cards or video game.

    3. Reluctant Mezzo*

      When we all get together, my son wants to play Labyrinth: the board game as a family. A good way to socialize, too.

    4. Tinamedte*

      My 8yo son and I have been immensely enjoying Unravel Two on Nintendo Switch the past week. Laughing and collaborating, it’s been great.

      We’ve never really played together before, and I’ve almost never played any “video games” in my life, so it’s a fun new thing for me and for us! (I played stuff like Tetris, Load runner (early Mac) and Boulder Dash (Commodore 64) as a kid so… yeah, I guess that dates me, haha!)

    5. The Dude Abides*

      Any Lorcana players here?

      I’m debating on whether to pick up the Ursula’s Return Illumineer’s Quest as a way to get the whole family to play at the same time as opposed to 1v1. My wife is very much not a TCG/CCG person, so I figured it would be a good “family game night” option.

    6. Becca*

      Ooh, so many games I’ve never heard of in this thread! I’ve done quite a bit of gaming this week… let’s round it up :D

      1) In D&D, my DM says I am doing an excellent job playing lawful evil! I successfully argued that my rich, snooty PC wouldn’t have accidentally killed an NPC DESPITE the fact that he was a peasant because, and I quote, “It’s less pay if he dies”

      2) Mycelia (2024) finally arrived! I backed the kickstarter about a year ago, and WOW did the game deliver! It’s gorgeous! We didn’t have time to play a full game, but we got fairly far along and REALLY enjoyed it. I will say that “easy to learn, hard to master” rings a little hollow given that it took us at least an hour of reading and learning before we could start play.

      3) Annual board games in the sukkah event at a nearby synagogue was fun! I was looking forward to playing a new TTRPG (Dybbuks and Dreidels; inspired by Jewish folklore and tradition), but there were SO many games that Dyb&Dr didn’t get brought out. Ah well!

      4) A new local game store (very cute, very cozy) had a last-minute rental cancellation, so I got a great deal on a private game night there last night (Saturday)! We played I’m Sorry Did You Say Street Magic, a gm-less city-building story game.

  4. Fives*

    I’m in perimenopause and keep having spells of really sensitive skin. Right now the seams on my socks are bothering me. Does anyone have a recommendation for seamless socks?

      1. Fives*

        Good to know! I’ve actually been looking at them but was hesitant to order without seeing them in person.

        1. YNWA*

          Pacas are another option. Slightly less expensive than Bombas but in my opinion, they last much longer.

    1. Peanut Hamper*

      If you can’t find any, you might try some athletic prewrap and see if that helps to prevent chafing. It’s the stuff that goes under athletic tape when you’re taping up joints so that the tape doesn’t stick to your skin.

      1. Cedrus Libani*

        Also if you can’t find any…I have sensory issues, so I wear normal socks inside out (seams out) and that’s good enough for me.

        1. Lala*

          orthofeet has diabetic socks, but they do have seams…I don’t really understand this, but nevertheless…

          Anyway, supposedly they are very comfortable. though the customer service is pretty bad.

        2. voluptuousfire*

          @Fives…for diabetic socks, try the dollar store.

          My dad needed diabetic socks and Dollar Tree would have them. It was hit and miss with availabillity, but for $1.25, he loved them.

      1. Chaordic One*

        The thing about diabetic socks is that they are loose and they slip down and become baggy around my ankles. I won’t wear them in public, but I will wear them around the house (and I get to work from home 4 days a week). In big box or drug stores you find them in the health and personal care department (near the pharmacy) and they’re ridiculously expensive. I wonder if you just buy socks that are a couple of sizes larger than usual if that would work. If you can find them cheap at Dollar Tree (or some other dollar store), great!

    2. forever*

      my very bad take on this is: wait for menopause (hot flashes), you won’t need socks anymore!
      Note: did you know menopause symptoms can last over a decade? (I’m not quite at a decade yet, but I won’t be surprised if my symptoms last > 1 decade)

      1. Jean (just Jean)*

        Your comment reminds me of the time that I waited excitedly to become farsighted in middle age (as in, “I need glasses because my arms are now too short to hold my reading material sufficiently far out in front of my eyes”). I half-believed that this transformation would briefly restore perfection vision for my nearsighted eyes! Alas. I simply ended up getting transitional glasses (bi-focals or tri-focals, but without any visible horizontal lines between the different magnifications).

        1. allathian*

          I had pretty strong glasses for nearsightedness. It did improve for me, I wear trifocals now but every prescription’s been less – and more + for me. If this continues, I’ll be able to drive without glasses soon.

        2. Irina*

          oh yes, the “my eyes are okay but my arms are too short”. I told my optician I’m choir director and he made me glasses with a middle zone exactly suited for the choirbook (sharpest at arm’s length), which also works well for the laptop screen.

      2. Reluctant Mezzo*

        I’m going past a decade to who knows where. But I also take lots of supplements because otherwise I just don’t sleep. Period. So I may be prolonging the process, but hey, sleep!

      3. Fives*

        Strangely while I do have hot flashes, my feet are usually cold so socks are a must. HRT is helping with the hot flashes though.

    3. Chauncy Gardener*

      I found if I made sure my skin was super moisturized, it wasn’t as sensitive. I used Aveeno and LaRoche Possey (sp?)

  5. Literally a Cat*

    How do you apologise to your cat after accidentally stomping onto his paw? Cat is not injured, and cannot have treata due to special diet. Asking for a human.

    1. Dark Macadamia*

      “Noooo please don’t hate me it was an accident you’re my babyyyy” and then pick him up and cuddle him a bunch while he struggles to escape

        1. RLC*

          Nesting fail-this was this week’s fun thing!

          Apologizing to cat-add “I’m so sorry to hurt my baby kitty love you so so much”

    2. peter b*

      I tend to immediately go for very soft petting and apologizing in my most baby good boy voice. Obvviously he doesn’t understand English but lavishing gentkle attention seems to soothe my boy (who is sleeping on my right wrist rn, so sorry for typos lol).

    3. Literally a Cat*

      Update: after extensive grovelling, cat acknowledged the mistake was accidental, went from cautious to fully trusting again.

    4. SuprisinglyADHD*

      I’ve seen several articles saying that when a cat (or many other types of animal) accidentally hurts another, they “apologize” by grooming, excessive fawning, etc to show they didn’t mean it. I’ve seen some pets do that to their owner, so it’s likely your cat will understand similar behavior from you.
      FWIW, my cat needs a few days to forgive someone for daring to put the flea medicine on him, but after that he’s back to normal.

  6. Undine Spragg*

    What do you do about leaving sensitive information for your executor when you die or are incapacitated? I’d like to leave a list of key passwords (email, phone, password manager), bank account numbers, and other such information for easy access when needed, but I don’t want access wide open until something happens. Preferably electronic — my executor and I are 3000 miles apart and there’s no reason for them to rush out to where I am if I am dead. Any ideas?

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      I’m going to take this opportunity to sing the praise of this guide that my sister and I have been sending around to everyone we know. My mom filled this out and it’s been hugely helpful to me and my sister in dealing with her estate:
      https://www.narfe.net/site/Chapter86/files/fullName10201.pdf

      It’s designed for federal employees so it has some sections on federal benefits but anyone without federal employment can just skip those parts. It covers everything your executor will need to know, except for passwords. Everyone, make your parents fill this out and fill it out yourself.

      My mom left all her passwords in a password-protected Excel document (and then gave us the password to it ahead of time, obviously), which is the low-tech way to do it. But if you use a password program like Bit Warden, you can designate someone to have access once you die. Once you die, they submit their emergency access request and it notifies you. If you don’t respond within X days (you decide what X is), they assume you are really dead and give the person access. (They can only do that if you approved the person ahead of time, so it’s not like any random person could ask for access and just wait X days.)

      1. Ask a Manager* Post author

        Other lessons from my CPA mother who left the most organized estate possible: set up official beneficiaries for all your accounts and/or make them “payable on death” to specific people. That keeps those assets out of probate and makes settling the estate much faster. She even did “payable on death” with stuff like her car title.

        I’m going to have to start a site called Ask an Executor because I am learning tons. It will be the most depressing blog ever but upsettingly useful.

        1. Undine Spragg*

          I have beneficiaries on my accounts, except for an account in a living trust, so I’m not really worried about probate. And if I’m incapacitated, I have POA on one of the other accounts, so it should be possible to get money to take care of me immediately while the other money is being sorted out. (When my mother suffered a traumatic brain injury, I learned a generic Power of Attorney is basically useless, banks insist on their own from, which it was not possible for my mother to go in and sign.) I’m just worried about the endless hassle of tracking down accounts and bills, getting into my email, things like that. The Bit Warden survivor function is probably the thing I need. I can put my phone code in there.

          1. Kay*

            It isn’t always necessarily their own form, and it isn’t just banks that won’t accept a durable (general/generic) POA, it is often a Special POA that they are looking for with specific language. You can often mitigate this with a discussion with your institutions beforehand about what language they require.

          2. Texan In Exile*

            For access to immediate cash, my mom has me listed on her bank account as a co-owner. (I also have her financial POA, but having access to her checking account makes things a lot easier.)

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

              This was super helpful for me with my Dad. He had a separate special checking account that we were both on and that he made sure to always have enough money for his funeral in. When he was on short-term hospice, I used the POA that would expire at his death to get some money from his investment accounts and put the money in that joint checking so that there would be money available for me to start paying his debts right after he passed away.

          3. fposte*

            The piece of advice my estate attorney gave me is to make sure that the beneficiaries on any account named in the will match the will. If the will says “my beloved niece Esmeralda” and the beneficiary is still your cheating ex, bad news for Esmeralda.

        2. Generic Name*

          Has everything gone smoothly? I’ve been a witness to the disposition of 3 estates, and I’ve learned that lots of people think they’re leaving stuff “in really good shape” but it still turns out to be a shit show. I’ve also learned that courts basically put estate stuff at the bottom of the list in terms of importance because…..well, not to be crass, but the person is already dead, and it’s “just money”. I’d be willing to contribute stories or just comments in such a blog. I’ve seen everything from my uncle’s deceased partner’s niblings suing the estate to my granny writing “surprise me!!” on her church’s “special instructions” worksheet for her funeral service wishes.

          1. Firebird*

            My dad told me to mail his body to the dead letter office somewhere interesting. I told him if he put it in writing then I would do it. Apparently, I am a buzz kill, because he can’t wind me up like he does to the rest of the family.

            1. Generic Name*

              Omg, to funny. My parents are in their mid-70s, so we’ve been talking about end of life care etc. my dad said sort of joking but maybe really not that he didn’t want to have to make any decisions and just wanted someone else to do all the work. I looked at him and said deadpan, “can I get that in writing?” Fortunately he laughed. :)

              1. Firebird*

                I told him that I needed it in writing so my sisters wouldn’t yell at me. I think that made him believe that I would actually do it. He never mentioned it again.

                1. Bike Walk Barb*

                  Ah, but he does need something in writing that empowers someone to make those decisions if he isn’t willing to make them for himself now and communicate them clearly to all of you so you all know the same things.

          2. Texan In Exile*

            Last night at a gallery talk, a railroad photographer who managed the estate of his friend, who was also a railroad artist, said that the artist’s wishes were to have his ashes thrown into the furnace of a steam engine.

            The RR photographer also happened to be an executive at a railroad company and he was able to make that happen. Two of the steam engine engineers let him on the train one day and once the train was going and the fire was hot, they tossed the ashes into the flames and watched as their friend went up in smoke.

            We should all have such a friend.

          3. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

            My sister is dealing with the fallout of a friend who died without a will (friend thought they were a waste if you didn’t have kids). She put my sister on the title of her house, assuming that would be enough for my sister to inherit. Unfortunately, friend inherited her house from her parents and to sell the house, my sister needs all three of their certified death certificates and only has 2. Since my sister isn’t a blood relative, she has to pay thousands to petition the court for the final certificate. Moral of the story: don’t assume and yes you need a will.

        3. goddessoftransitory*

          I wish I’d had access to it before my dad passed–if you can include “how to make sure your parent is cognizant before signing anything” it would be priceless.

        4. Texan In Exile*

          Yes! TOD – transfer on death – is amazing! We wrote our will 16 years ago and things have changed – like my nephew, who was one of our original beneficiaries, has turned into a misogynistic, racist, homophobic jerk (and accused r@pist), so I wanted him out.

          The easiest way to do it was to put a TOD on all of our financial assets. It took only a few minutes per account and all I needed was the beneficiary legal name, address, and social security number.

          We re-did our will as well, but it took time to get my husband moving on that. :) But at least our investments were set up properly in case we both died in a car crash. The Awful Nephew still would have gotten something from the sale of our house, which I don’t think can be TOD? but not very much, as there are multiple beneficiaries.

          1. Kay*

            There are deed types, often called Beneficiaries Deeds, that transfer ownership upon death. You can also do ones that allow for someone to live in the property for the remainder of their life yet not own the property. There are options here.

        5. Saturday*

          Thank you very much for this – I’ve been thinking about asking a similar question of the people here, and this is just the kind of thing I was looking for. I’m a very disorganized person who manages to muddle though my own life, but I don’t want my disorganization to affect other people, so I really appreciate these tips.

        6. Bike Walk Barb*

          Thanks for these tips. There actually is a site at executor dot org that I found helpful when my two adult children ended up dealing with their father’s estate, which was a train wreck that involved a family member fighting them over selling a shared duplex.

          My top tip for estate planning based on that and other personal experience: Don’t own real estate with family, and don’t set up your will to leave it to the children to figure out what to do with shared ownership.

      2. Slightly Less Evil Bunny*

        Thanks for the info on Bit Warden. I’m a user but wasn’t aware of that feature. :)

    2. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      My husband and I each keep in our files an envelope with our personal stuff like that (including our computer/phone/tablet passwords and access to our individual password managers, not an actual paper list of passwords), sealed with our signatures across the seal flap, labeled “Open in case of freak umbrella accident.” Then once a year (or whenever we have reason) we have a “Review the Umbrella Contingency” appointment on our shared calendar where we sit down together and each of us opens our own envelope, updates the contents as necessary, and we ceremoniously reseal them together, re-sign them and put them back in the files. If we were to both die at the same time, our wills (which are currently informal and halfass, and we need to do better) are in the same file and the umbrella documents would go to the executors as well, along with our laptops.

      1. fallingleavesofnovember*

        We were advised to keep copies of our wills and important info in our freezer, as apparently it’s one of the last things that will burn in a house fire (a bit grim, but practical). I also feels it’s good in terms of break-ins, etc!

    3. Lifelong student*

      I created what we are calling a “Go Box.” It is a fireproof, waterproof square bag that is big enough to hold file folders. I made folders for all the relevant areas- wills, POA’s, insurance information, financial information, passwords, auto bill pay and one with descriptions of things in the house which the next generation may not know the provance of or the potential value. The folders hang in the box. The box has a combination lock on it. It will be useful for heirs if needed, can be updated easily, and is also portable in the event there is a natural disaster. I think I paid around $40 for it on Amazon.

    4. Cheshire Cat*

      This is a depressing question, but I’m glad you asked! My mom passed away last year. She sold her house and moved into an independent living retirement home several years before she passed, so her estate was relatively simple. It was mainly personal effects and bank accounts, and I was listed as a joint owner for the accounts. And my siblings & I divided her personal items when Mom had to move to a nursing home.

      But, I wish I’d had a list of all the online stores where she had accounts. I’ve closed all the ones I could think of, but I’m afraid to close her email account in case I remember another one and have to use her email to change the password.

      1. Undine Spragg*

        You should be able to report her death to the credit bureaus and at least ensure no new credit happens. Also, there’s some timeline where if creditors don’t contact the estate and request payment, the claim is no longer valid. That may vary by state, so check your local laws.

        It is true, there seems to be no way to close my father’s Amazon account without his password. They want me to email his death certificate, but that has sensitive information that I won’t send via email. I cannot get a human to respond to my queries. I’d forgotten about that.

    5. Reluctant Mezzo*

      I made an If I Am Hit By A Bus envelope full of passwords and what not for my daughter when my husband was still alive but disabled. He never would have been able to cope. I update that envelope every once in a while with a piece of paper for her to take home after one of her visits.

  7. confused by fashion*

    How long are women’s (professional) pants supposed to be? I’m refreshing my wardrobe and have gone down a deep rabbit hole of fashion trend websites. The consensus that I’ve found on these websites was that for flare pants with heels, the hem should be about 0.5″ from the ground, but just looking at those photos makes me think that’s way too long. Thoughts?

    1. Generic Name*

      Women’s fashions have changed drastically in the last few years. Ankle length pants are considered more fashionable, even for flared leg pants.

    2. Kay*

      Are you looking specifically for trendy things? Or you just need some new clothing? For something with a wider leg that sounds classically correct – you don’t want it to drag, don’t want it to bunch, but don’t want it to have it break too high either. The fit/cut will be important. For trendy I couldn’t tell you since I always buy for classic styling vs anything that will be useless in 6 months.

    3. RagingADHD*

      There’s being on trend, and there’s looking good. Wear the length that suits your height, your shoes, the top half of your outfit, and your legs.

      For example, ankle pants are everywhere right now except on me because I have cankles, and I would look ten times worse with a slice of cankle showing. I need full length, or I need to show enough leg to put them in proportion.

    4. A perfectly normal-size space bird*

      I have no idea. I keep seeing things that show pants at half an inch or all but grazing the ground and it gives me the willies in heels. Not that I wear heels but if I did, the first thing that would happen would be I’d trip on hems that low and pitch myself down a flight of stairs. Though considering even the short length pants on me drag the ground, I’ve given up trying to figure it out.

    5. Ellis Bell*

      Are we talking deep flares, or a subtle flare for the sake of fitting over boots? Even with the very widest of hems, you can definitely double that recommendation and go for a whole inch off the ground and still have that flared leg effect that the fashion writers love; most of them simply have a preference of a half inch. However to me, it just says “I have never seen a rain puddle in my life”. You don’t want to go too short with a wide flare, or you can end up looking like sails at half mast (but that look was in for a while, so if you love it, go for it). The best thing to do is see how it looks on you in a mirror by pinning or just using your hands to adjust the hem length and just going by your own preference; fashion exists to tempt your preference. It is not a rule book to be blindly obeyed. Anyway, unless you have a way of ordering pants by the exact length needed, you will need to go to a tailor or get the pins and hemming tape out anyway. It really all depends what you’re going for, your leg length, and I think the biggest factor of all is what kind of shoes you would typically wear with them, and why. Most fashion writers are assuming people want a leg lengthening effect so advise hiding your heels and creating a longer pant leg, (but some people already have long legs, some people like to show off their shoes, and others just want practicality and to look put together). The other reason for the recommendation is that if you like deep flares, the most dramatic way to call attention to the look is to go long, but again it depends on what you’re going for. My advice is 1) start with your shoes, that’s where most of your trouser decisions spring from, especially with length; I know you say heels, but is that “I love showing off my heels” or “I just want to look taller”, 2) ask yourself what effect you want to achieve: dramatic, practical, put together, smart, business-casual etc?

      1. Mulligatawney*

        And you need to have a full length mirror to check the length (or even a mirror that reaches the floor like in shoe stores). You cannot judge length of trousers (or skirts, BTW) by looking down at them, because tipping your head even very slightly to get a view changes where the bottom edges appear to hit. So stand up straight ;-) and use a hand-mirror to get a rear view

    6. Green Goose*

      I started a new job about eight months ago and almost all the women at my job wear pants/jeans/trousers/flares that end right above the ankle. In the past I would never wear something like that but now I have three pairs lol

  8. Peanut Hamper*

    In line with the “when terrible work systems become sacred” thread earlier this week, I’m wondering what “sacred” holiday traditions you’ve been able to let go of that actually made life easier.

    My mother still insists on a Thanksgiving meal, but for Christmas last year she recommended we just do appetizers. There are very few of us and no children, so just putting together a cheese tray, crackers, olives, and a few meats was super easy and satisfying and made the holiday that much more enjoyable, because there was less work and less stress for everybody.

    1. forever*

      we’re a small family of 3. I gave up on turkey when the kid was young because: I did all the cooking, and then no one “helped” to clean up. Since then Christmas has been homemade pizza (because that’s my favourite meal. No one “helps” cooking), and I convinced the kid it was proper Christmas traditions because it was red, white and green (tomato sauce, cheese, basil).

      1. Literally a Cat*

        NGL it’s infuriating when people just expect big holiday meals from one person’s labour year after year. This is from me, someone who really enjoy making big meals for 10 people and too territorial to allow help: it’s only ok if the cook explicitly stated no help wanted.

        Good for you!

    2. Literally a Cat*

      It’s ok to not get plastered for Lunar New Year in the big family gathering, then set firecrackers on fire while intoxicated.

      Retrospectively I’m glad my family still have 5 digits per hand per person, somehow.

      1. AcademiaNut*

        I’ve found the firecrackers have calmed way down over the past 15 years – the New Year’s holiday is a lot quieter and less smokey than it used to be.

        1. RussianInTexas*

          Maybe in your area, lol
          My actual neighborhood prohibits them, and enforces the ban, but in the unincorporated county fireworks start free days before JYE and don’t end until few days after. Same for the Fourth of July. And a lot of them are dang near professional looking.

    3. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      My husband and I agreed earlier this year that Christmas shopping is a struggle for both of us – we see something in like August that we want to get for the other, and either we don’t buy it and subsequently forget about it later, or we do buy it and … subsequently forget about it later. :-P so we agreed that going forth we won’t do specific Christmas presents, we’ll just give each other stuff that catches our eyes year round, and just do stockings (snacks and small trinkets) at actual Christmas time.

      I also stopped doing thanksgiving dinner.

        1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

          I actually am about to go to Disneyworld for thanksgiving for like, the fifth or sixth year in a row, so I guess that became my new tradition :)

          1. fhqwhgads*

            It’s a lot of people’s new tradition. I want to say 20ish? years ago Thanksgiving was a super light day in the park. Christmas had already taken over as a super busy time to go, but Thanksgiving took a while to catch up. Now the week of Thanksgiving is SUPER BUSY, just like Dec 24-Jan 1.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        My siblings, who have young families and busy lives, were telling me that they don’t exchange Christmas presents with their partners so it’s one less thing to do. It seemed ludicrous for me to continue expecting gifts from them, so we decided to use a secret Santa app, we only buy one gift each, instead of four, and it’s chosen on the app from the recipient’s wish list. It’s usually delivered and gift wrapped too! We are saving so much money and I no longer have to jam all kinds of new stuff into my storage systems on boxing day.

        1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

          My parents and siblings are all in a different state so I switched to just sending a Harry and David gift box per household at Christmas a few years ago. Partly because I was tired of shopping and shipping, and partly because my siblings were not reciprocating my efforts at any level anyway.

        2. Jay (no, the other one)*

          We stopped doing gifts for the adults in my husband’s family when we had kids (all three of them within two years). My family stopped doing regular holiday gifting when I was in high school. SO much less pressure and annoyance.

          My husband and I hardly ever celebrate our anniversary on our anniversary. We were married on December 23rd which made sense at the time for a variety of reasons. Our favorite restaurant closes for Christmas and I’m a Jewish doctor so I took call over the Christmas holiday for my own career and that often included the 23rd. We pick another night and either make ourselves a kick-ass fancy dinner or splurge on a tasting menu night out. The date on the calendar is irrelevant.

          1. forever*

            One Christmas morning, I was waiting in line at a Starbucks. It was near the hospital, and most coffee shops were closed, so this one had a long line. I eavesdropped on the conversation ahead of me: a Jewish and Sikh docs discussing how they always worked Xmas eve/Xmas and boxing day. And how they were usually relatively quiet days, so liked that.

        3. goddessoftransitory*

          We give each other TONS of gifts, but that’s because outside of a parental card and my sister, those are the only gifts we get. It’s basically a “stock up on stuff we needed anyway but with wrapping paper” day.

        4. A Girl Named Fred*

          Can you please share what magical Secret Santa app this is? I’ll go do some searching on my own, but a rec would be great. My boyfriend is the oldest of 15 grandkids, most of whom also have partners, and all of those folks do a secret Santa exchange. Having a better way to manage it would be SO helpful!

          1. Perpetua*

            In case the original commenter doesn’t share theirs, I’ll share that I’ve found drawnames.com to be very good for this purpose. It has random draws, you can set it up so that next year the draw can’t be repeated exactly (so that everyone gets someone else), there’s a place to put in the address, you can create a wishlist, you can even ask questions anonymously. I’m a fan, been using it for 4 years with a group of friends.

            1. Ellis Bell*

              That’s the one we use! Each year you get a new person in the gift to buy for so it keeps things fresh. I fully expected the wish list suggestions to be a bunch of junk garbage which devolved us all into stereotypes, but it’s really fun to shop on. You don’t have to shop for ideas on the app itself either. I get so much credit for “organising” this but really the app does everything.

      2. Kiki Is The Most*

        Saaaame on the presents. Thankful for small, aging family. We do little stocking stuffers and just enjoy each others company.
        Same for birthdays–dinner out or an activity of the birthday person’s choosing (movie, spa time, volunteering, etc.)
        We’ve done this now for 15 years and my life is so much easier without the stress of panic-shopping for holidays/birthdays.

      3. Moths*

        Similar for holiday gifts. The adults in my family decided not to give gifts to each other several years ago and just do stockings for each other. Spouses still sometimes do gifts for each other if they choose to, but otherwise adults are stockings only. On years where things have been especially tight for folks, we even would draw names and that was the person’s stocking that you had, so you really only needed to get some things for one stocking. In practice, often other folks would pick up a few small things and give them to you to include as well. It’s taken a lot of the stress and expense off of Christmas this way and I don’t see us ever opting to do adult gifts again.

    4. goddessoftransitory*

      Going out on NYE. Husband and I used to dress up and try to do something, and back in my single days I’d actually buy a fancy dress and go to friends’ parties. But honestly, it was never that fun for me and now we’ve even downsized from a bottle of Champagne to a split–one glass each, watch the fireworks on TV, hit the hay.

      1. RussianInTexas*

        We started staying in as well. I run over to the Russian store to get some traditional food, we watch some TV, wait until midnight, go to sleep.

        1. HoundMom*

          We go out during the day to a place that is interesting to us — bookstore, nursery, have a late lunch. We feel like we did “something” but home before everyone else is out drinking.

    5. Aphrodite*

      Quite a few actually.

      (1) No presents. I don’t want any, won’t accept any, and won’t give any. Not to anyone, not for any reason. How much more wonderful life because when Christmas lost all that debt and stress years ago. Those who didn’t like my decision live with it.

      (2) No floor-sized tree (meaning anything over about two feet). No real trees anymore became my mantra when my local tree farm closed and sold the property and I refused to buy pre-cut trees.

      (3) No ornaments anywhere, not even in bowls with pinecones / bells / whatevers.

      (4) No falling for holiday crafts. I adore reading the articles, watching the videos and even exclaiming over them at holiday fars. But buying them? Nope.

      (5) Following #4, several years ago I began to really de-clutter my holiday (autumn and Christmas) decorations. I still have three plastic bins of items for each holiday and it never fails to amaze me how easy and fast putting it up and even taking it down is. I also love the look of my home. It’s more decorated during the last three months of the year than in the other nine months but not by THAT much.

      (6) Much scaled down Thanksgiving dinner. I love turkey so I buy some slices from Gelson’s freshly roasted turkey, Whole Foods gravy, make my own cranberry sauce, buy some fresh-baked soft dinner rolls, make dressing and buy a pumpkin pie. So much easier and less expensive plus I still get to have “the” dinner.

    6. Harlowe*

      We quit doing gifts two years ago and I cannot overemphasize the weight that fell off my shoulders. My family is full of sour workaholic men with no hobbies/interests who find fault with everything. Shopping was a month of frantic stress knowing that however thoughtful I was, they would tear open the boxes, grunt a halfhearted thanks, and then return or ignore the items. I am thrilled to just gather for food and that’s it. I wish we’d done this decades ago.

    7. Owlette*

      I have fully embraced meal box Christmas dinner. I did it the first year and it was way better tasting and less effort than anything I could do.

    8. Seal*

      My family’s Christmas meal has been Simek’s lasagna with salad and garlic bread for at the past 10 years or so. We put out mixed nuts, pretzels, and Christmas cookies to snack on while the lasagna bakes. A few of us bring wine or a dessert and everyone helps clean up after dinner. So much easier than the big turkey dinners we had when I was a kid, plus everyone loves lasagna!

    9. Clara Bowe*

      1. For extended family Xmas, we do different themes. Some years, everyone brings a soup. One year we did homemade pizzas and calzones. One year was a “weird salads” theme (we are Midwestern, so we had some doozies). Basically making it easier to spread out the work load.

      2. For immediate family Xmas, we are down to two. Instead of a whole lead up, we now make a reservation at a fun hotel (only if Xmas is midweek, as hotels go dirt cheap as people tend not to travel then) and go Xmas day +a couple days. No extra cleaning or cooking.

      3. There is a culinary school near my parents’ and they do a big Easter and Mother’s Day spread as a final for the hospitality students. At this point they call us if we don’t make a reservation.

      4. You can make and freeze pies, mashed potatoes, and veggie side dishes up to a couple months ahead. I make those and toss them in the deep freeze in the weekends leading up to Thanksgiving, and thaw them week-of to bake on the day. We also paired up w/friends to do a group meal on Thanksgiving, so everyone’s workload is halved.

      Or, if I am flush, I order pies from Hoosier Mama and pick them up on the way. (Yay, Chicago.) Their cranberry chess pie is fab.

      5. I buy the following year’s holiday cards immediately after Xmas/New Year’s on super discount. I then go through and address the envelopes and put them back in the boxes for later in the year. If I send them. If I don’t, half the work is done for when I decide I want to!

    10. Cookies For Breakfast*

      Haven’t flown home for Christmas for 2 years in a row (this will be the third) and it’s been great.

      My very small family was never one for festive cheer (or cheer of any kind), so holiday meals were always quite underwhelming. I loved seeing my grandmother, and her festive cooking was superb, and the thought of Christmas at home without her made me sad. I’m not a fan of my hometown. There was always some kind of delay or trouble travelling in late December, and I’m not a good flyer on the best of days.

      Taking travel stress out of the equation, and having the whole Christmas week to relax with Partner and do cool activities together in our big city (instead of absolutely nothing alone in my middle-of-nowhere hometown), was a game changer for me. This year we’ll likely have foster cats around, which means no decorating, but I’m sure it’ll still be lovely!

      1. Chocolate Teapot*

        My Mum started cooking the turkey on Christmas Eve a couple of years ago and it means much less stress on Christmas Day when dealing with the vegetables, stuffing, pigs in blankets and bread sauce.

      2. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        If you do WANT to decorate: after years of my husband’s cat stealing the soft ornaments off the tree and then drowning them in the water bowl for the offense of “not being stuffed with catnip,” I now hang a length of garland and string of lights around my living room up by the ceiling and hang the ornaments from that instead. I get my festive, the Octopus of Trismas Past remains unsoaked, and I don’t have to rearrange furniture to find room for a tree.

    11. allathian*

      We stopped exchanging presents between adults 8 years ago and only cook the traditional dishes that at least half the family actively likes. Our son gets a few presents and that’s it.

    12. Falling Diphthong*

      I hate stuffing, and am not a particular fan of turkey. So Thanksgiving being a day where I spend all day indoors cooking a meal I’m not excited about was a bummer. My two favorite Thanksgivings by miles were the two where we were traveling, and I spent the day outdoors doing stuff and then went to a restaurant for dinner. In the past few years I’ve started doing things like make dim sum dishes, which I’m at least excited about. (To my annoyance, my attempts to build in outdoor activity and non cooking time seem to fall to everyone else’s theories about how I’d be really good at this, and isn’t it more fun to harvest and scrub tiny brussel sprouts from the garden rather than work with stuff I prepped the day before so I’d have some time?)

      In the past few years I’ve gotten better at stating that I cannot manage being on my feet all day long cooking. And my children have launched, so if they are coming home I am much more willing to make a traditional Thanksgiving dinner because they enjoy that and I’m doing it for them specifically, rather than for the culture unenthusiastically.

    13. RussianInTexas*

      We may have finally, FINALLY, broken the tradition of Christmas gifts for adults. Too many adults. Everyone can buy what they want. It’s more headache than any kind of enjoyment.
      Plus, I personally hate gift picking, so I am all for it.

      1. WestsideStory*

        I live for the day my in-laws will finally stop with adult gifts. And videotaping us unwrapping and opening each one. I just keep telling myself it’s only once a year.
        You are living the dream.

    14. My Brain is Exploding*

      I used to make a bunch of different cookies for Christmas. Lovely cookies (which were more time-consuming), and a few that were just favorites. Then I asked everyone what their favorite cookies are. No one picked the lovely cookies, they picked chocolate chip, ginger-sugar, “Christmas crack” (technically not a cookie), etc. All brown cookies. Go figure. So it’s brown cookies in festive tins!

    15. radiant*

      It became too stressful to organise Christmas with my husband’s side of the family close to Christmas – so we book a cottage somewhere at the end of November, exchange gifts then, and get drunk whilst eating cheese and crackers. Doing it in November means that a) people keep my birthday gifts and give them to me then (my birthday is 11/11) and the cottage hire is cheaper than it would be around Christmas (more money for alcohol).

    16. My Brain is Exploding*

      Oh, I have another one! We do like the family unwrapping gifts together but it was getting harder to figure out what to buy, etc. For a while my spouse and I have bought each other ONE small Christmas gift to unwrap, and asked the same of our kids. For several years now, we’ve given the (young adult) kids money for Christmas some time in November. Then they have to buy their own presents, wrap them, and unwrap them when we’re together. They get things they really want/need, they can internet shop on Black Friday, they do some crazy bargain shopping, they keep things secret from each other so it’s still a fun surprise for everyone else when they unwrap. They’ve enjoyed it and it’s so much less work for us trying to hunt down what they want. And we help out by shopping after Christmas for discounted gift wrap if needed.

    17. Not A Manager*

      No. More. Brisket.

      That was my family’s traditional meat for any Jewish holiday. Changing to pot roast might not have been “easier,” but it is absolutely more delicious.

    18. Hotdog not dog*

      We used to have creamed pearl onions for Thanksgiving, and for years they were a pain to make (cream sauce from scratch using my great grandmother’s recipe) and only my mom and I would eat them. One year we were unable to find the correct size pearl onions at the grocery store and I was frustrated enough to say, out loud, that nobody really likes them anyway so let’s just skip them. After the shock wore off, Mom acknowledged that she really could take them or leave them; she ate them because they were there. It’s been about 5 or 6 years with no creamed onions and either nobody has noticed or they noticed and thought, “Oh, thank God, none of those awful onions!”

    19. Online Pubs You Read (Bike Walk Barb)*

      When we still had kids at home and 3 of the 4 people in the house were vegetarian or vegan, I switched up the approach to Thanksgiving. I love cooking but getting the whole big meal together at one time is a marathon.

      I asked everyone what their favorite dish was, I promised to make those spread out over the 4-day weekend, I stocked up on crackers and cheese, mixed nuts, and other snacky things, and I made pie. When I felt like cooking I made one of the dishes, when they felt like eating they ate, and we had plenty of pie and treats–sometimes for breakfast.

      Tasty and enjoyable.

    20. chocolate muffins*

      We cook the day before big holidays so that we can relax on the day of and enjoy the day more.

    21. Reluctant Mezzo*

      I do a storebought turkey already cooked, still make mashed potatoes, just not that many, and buy the rolls, fruit salad etc. But I still do the celery sticks with jar cheese on them. Also, the two kinds of olives and two kinds of pickles are really easy to do anyway. Then the extra turkey meat goes into the freezer and warmed up in a pan full of gravy for Christmas.

    22. Green Goose*

      We gave up driving 2.5 hours to my cousins house for Christmas Eve. We’re part of a small family and our cousin is the only family that lives “near” us. My sister and cousin did not get along, the ride was long and it was stressful driving a long distance on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. I’m relieved we just send them a nice text and card now.

    23. Person from the Resume*

      I am 50 now. I have never married with no kids. When I was younger, we exchanged presents with my whole family (parents, siblings, niblings) and I liked it cause those were the only people I got presents from. But we stopped exchanging presents (not even secret Santa) within the last 10 years and I love it now. I very much appreciate avoiding the difficult shopping experience. I just buy myself whatever I want as a “gift.” Niblings get money venmoed to them now because they’re 19-21 years old and they just want money.

      I saw the first Christmas t-shirts in Walmart today and discussed this with my friends who all have young adult kids and are stressed about how tight Christmas will be this year and how that makes them feel as parents.

      I didn’t tell them how I’m actually excited how I don’t have any Christmas shopping to do this year.

  9. Not your typical admin*

    Just had to share my happy day. Oldest (teen) daughter had her first date with the guy she’s had a crush on for a while. He picked her up this morning, they went to Starbucks and to a park to go on a walk. Watching her be so excited getting ready, then hearing her on the phone with her best friend afterwards brought back memories of my own first dates when I was that age

    1. Ellis Bell*

      That’s a very cute plan for a teen date. It makes me want to watch the Karate Kid where they go to play mini golf.

    2. Falling Diphthong*

      There is a special sweetness to when they are talking about the thing to their friend on the phone, but where they know you can hear what they’re saying and they’re fine with that.

    3. Rocky Coco*

      I have a teen boy. I’ve watched the girl mom’s sweetly watch their daughters meet up with him. I just keep thinking-he’s not the one! He’s a mess. He’s a good dater but a hot mess at home.

      I also have a tween daughter and I would probably think her first date is adorable too.

  10. SADFighter*

    What are your best tips for staying engaged and energized during dark fall and winter evenings? Trying to fight off seasonal depression more proactively this year!

    1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      Vitamin D made a huge impact on my SAD when I lived in Seattle and went weeks at a time without seeing the sun.

        1. Where's the sun?*

          Different Vitamin D user, but I also take it for my SAD. I take 5000 IU a day which is a LOT but my doctor recommended it along with an increase in my SSRI. I tried the SAD lamp many times but it just increases my anxiety. Others tell me they like it.

          1. Ellis Bell*

            I’m taking 4000, and it was still not hitting the mark. Although luckily, this week I tried going outside with bare legs or bare arms (usually with a padded gilet or thermal tee to keep me warm) for short walks and it’s absolutely working. For now!

        2. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

          I’m not Red Reader, but I live on the Pacific Northwest and in the winter I take 2000 IU a day (a double dose) on the advice of my doctor.

          1. Reluctant Mezzo*

            I take 2000 IU–my doctor said, ‘isn’t that a lot?’, then did a blood test and said, ‘carry on’. I don’t hack up my lungs from January to March any more!

        3. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

          5000 in winter, 2000 in summer. (If it was still summer gloomy, I’d double the 2000 every other day.)

          I’m pretty sure this is also what made me a morning person. I used to struggle with getting up in the morning but once I started with the VitD, no issues at all, even if I’m getting up in the dark.

            1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

              I never paid much attention to the timing, I just took it with the rest of my vitamins (it also helps with calcium absorption if that’s of relevance to you), so it’s ranged from first-thing to right before bedtime and anywhere in between over the years. I still take it – I left Seattle 12 years ago – and currently I take it first thing.

        4. Falling Diphthong*

          10,000 IU/250 mcg

          My understanding is that Vitamin D is something your body is happy to clear the excess of–it’s not like Vitamin A. My Vit D was tested at my last physical, while I was taking my usual dose, and came back in normal range. Like, even in the lower half of that range.

          Anecdata: I am really fair, as are my children. Youngest nonetheless tested low for Vit D while playing outdoor sports every afternoon. And oldest went from undergrad in the south to grad school in the north and started getting every virus that came through, and starting Vit D helped with that.

          1. fposte*

            Vitamin D toxicity is possible, but it’s hard to do; it mostly results in too much calcium, which is not great.

          2. fhqwhgads*

            I had a specialist doctor once who was considering putting me on a medication that would make me not great at absorbing vitamin D. So she tested me for vitamin D deficiency beforehand to determine how much she wanted me to take once I started it. She sort of offhandedly mentioned 80% of the patients she tests for vitamin D deficiency, are vitamin D deficient, even though she was mostly not testing for that because of suspecting they were – the tests were generally to make sure she wasn’t about to make it a whole lot worse. I thought that was interesting.

          3. amoeba*

            I am late for this, but if somebody reads this – no, this isn’t true, Vit D is a fat-soluble vitamin, just like Vit A, and it can also become toxic in the same way! It’s the water-solubles like Vit C that are just cleared via urine and you can’t overdose!
            And it is indeed absolutely possible to get toxicity effects – which is why high doses should always be supervised/only taken if there’s a proven deficiency. Which indeed a lot of people have in the wintertime! So it makes total sense to check your levels. But please don’t just go and take more than the recommended dose (1000-2000 IU per day) without medical supervision/long-term! This is really only recommended for short terms when your levels are low, NOT for long-term, and definitely not without knowing your levels.

        5. Joey*

          This is a medical question. Even Google will tell you not to take more than 2000 iu, so please don’t rely on others here for dosage information. Your doctor can easily test for this (such as with your other annual bloodwork).

          1. carcinization*

            My doctor definitely told me to take much more than that due to how much of a deficiency I had when my blood was tested (and 5,000 IU taken regularly brings me barely into the acceptable range), so I guess I’m glad I never googled this and just went by the advice of my primary care physician!

              1. carcinization*

                Absolutely not, not sure how saying that I listened to my doctor would make someone think that I want other people to… not listen to their doctors? I was just pointing out that some people find out from their doctors that they do indeed have to take higher dosages than 2,000 IU, so it’s not the case that whatever google says is right for everyone. So if anything I was meaning that consulting google about something like this rather than consulting ones doctor is “uncool,” actually!

            1. amoeba*

              Higher doses are necessary and recommended for a certain period *under medical supervision* if, and only if, you have a deficiency. So something like 20.000 for two weeks, and checking before and after. So both things are true – it can absolutely make sense but it’s not recommended just as a supplement without actually knowing your levels. For that, the 2000 are indeed the recommended limit.

    2. Owlette*

      I changed my work hours over winter when I lived somewhere with short day light hours – I chose to start later so I walked the doggo in the morning sun (instead of having darkness at both ends of the day), then getting home later meant that there was less time to sit around in the evening pondering the dark – too busy doing dinner. I also started doing more elaborate dinners as the kitchen was cozy.

      1. Sloanicota*

        Yeah, I set up twinkly lights all over the house on a timer and have them turn on at about 4PM. I also agree with the comment above about making time to schedule a lunchtime walk so that you’re getting some of whatever sun is available.

    3. Falling Diphthong*

      I knew someone with SAD who swore by the light emitting baseball hat. Plopped it on her head in the morning while getting ready, to get in the one hour dose.

    4. AGD*

      Vitamin D hasn’t hurt, but the thing that made all the difference for me was walking outside during daylight hours every single day. Even in January, even when the weather was gray and/or terrible. Started doing this last year and felt pretty good for most of a winter for the first time in I don’t know how long.

      1. RW*

        I started eating my breakfast outside every morning back in Autumn unless it was actively raining on my toast, and it’s one of the best small changes I’ve ever made (I’m Southern Hemisphere so this was back in March). The coldest we get where I am is about 0C by the time I’m up and eating breakfast, so cold wasn’t as much of a problem as in some places, but I can’t rate highly enough getting daylight in your eyes first thing (it’s good for sleep issues too!)

        1. RW*

          overall, though, my biggest take home from this last winter (the best winter I’ve had in years) was to find the things to lean into in every season. For me that was polishing up my fancy hot chocolates, making mulled wine, stringing up fairy lights, and knitting a sweater because that feels like cozy to me! Also creating my own celebrations with friends, since we suffer from a dearth of holidays in winter (a bit jealous of you who have Thanksgiving and Christmas to look forward to as you go into winter!)
          And natural daylight!

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

      See if you can catch the new season (or old seasons) of *Death in Paradise*. The invariable sunniness of the island locale with its beautiful blue water and palm trees is a real pick-me-up on a dreary winter night!

    6. allathian*

      Now that I mostly WFH, I go for a walk during my lunch hour. I’m at 60 N and we get 5 hours beteen sunrise and sunset on winter solstice, so without the lunchtime walks I’d go for months without seeing daylight.

        1. allathian*

          Finland, but it’s the same latitude as Seward. It’s not so bad if there’s snow, but if it’s a warm and wet fall, it’s really depressing.

    7. Chaordic One*

      I have several SAD lamps. Maybe they are only psychological placebos, but I think they help. I have a Verilux Happy Light that I use by my desk when I’m working from home and also a Philips Wake-Up Light in my bedroom.

      1. allathian*

        I also have a wake up light. I generally wake up before the alarm rings. SAD lamps give me a headache.

    8. Don’t make me come over there*

      One of the reasons I joined my community chorus a few years ago was to get off the couch on dark winter evenings (on Tuesdays, at least). That, and singing with others has been shown to have positive impacts on mood. And I still take Vitamin D supplements too :)

    9. HannahS*

      Going out. My inclination is to stay home and cozy up, but that winds up being endless nights of lying on the couch with a screen. Our winters are long and dark. Having a toddler who needs a lot of exercise in order to sleep motivated us to get out every evening. We live near a museum and a mall; we have a membership to the museum and in the winter we go out about 4x a week after dinner. It improves my mood, even if it isn’t particularly riveting every day.

    10. Reluctant Mezzo*

      I bought a Lux tablet (the timer doesn’t work, and I really need to remember to wear my sunglasses when I turn it off and on). But it does make gloomy mornings brighter.

  11. cooking with tofu*

    I’m just starting to cook with tofu. Would love to see your favorite ways to cook it or use it in recipes.

    I also have a specific question about tofu. I’ve been making a recipe where extra-firm tofu cubes are pressed, baked, and then combined with other stuff. I know the idea of pressing the tofu is to remove as much water as possible, but I find it awkward and time-consuming to do. I would love to skip that step and maybe bake it longer. Would that work fairly well or would the dish really lose something essential? I wonder about that both in this dish, and whenever you’re supposed to press tofu before cooking it.

    1. tofu eater*

      I always just squeeze out the water with my hands as gently as possible and then go for it! I’ve never found it needed more time baking or sautéing. I’m a tofu rebel.

      1. I didn't say banana*

        Seconding this ‐ freezing then defrosting tofu has a similar effect to pressing it

            1. Charley*

              I always freeze my tofu! I like the texture much better that way.

              My favorite thing lately is to crumble it with veggies and seasoning to make the filling for lettuce wraps.

          1. TechWorker*

            Yes! I started doing it recently and it is SO much easier – I do press it a bit post defrosting but you can just give it a quick squeeze & it’s done.

        1. anonymous anteater*

          It is that simple! I buy the package and put it directly in the freezer when I get home. Bonus: you usually have a block of tofu available, and because there is no air, you won’t get freezer burn. But back to the technique: the most difficult thing is to remember to take it out so there is time to defrost. Of course you can always speed up defrosting in the usual ways. Take it out of the packet, drain, and gently squeeze with your hands for a minute or so. No building any pressing piles with weights, just hold it in your hands over the sink and squish, like a fragile sponge, to release the water. Although if you are tearing it up instead of cutting into cubes, you don’t even have to be gentle when squeezing. Last time I teared into bite sized pieces instead of cutting, and I think I will try it again.

    2. Might Be Spam*

      I was just reading about how to dehydrate tofu to make tofu jerky. They suggested freezing extra firm tofu for at least 12 hours and letting it drain while defrosting it. Freezing is supposed to open the air pockets and make it easier to drain. I haven’t tried it yet, but it sounds like it could work.

    3. AcademiaNut*

      The extra firm tofu is probably my least favourite version, probably because it’s the one most often used as a (bad) meat substitute.

      My favourite form is probably what’s called 100 layer tofu in Chinese. It’s a firmish tofu that’s frozen and thawed, which gives it a spongey texture. It’s good in hot pots and stews, and I like slicing it and pan frying it in a bit of oil until crispy, at which point I’ll just eat it with just a bit of salt.

      Mapo tofu is a classic. Korean kimchi and tofu stew with the silken kimchi. Egg drop soup with chicken stock, bok choy, cubed silken tofu, green onion, julienned ginger, green peas and tomato wedges. Silken tofu topped with soy sauce and finely grated ginger. Xie huang dou fu – a stew like dish with silken tofu and crab. There’s a version that also has crab roe that I mostly eat in restaurants.

      Tofu skin isn’t technically tofu (it’s a soy milk product), but it’s fun to cook with. The fresh stuff is good sliced and used in soups, where it’s very noodle-like, or mixed with pickled mustard greens as an appetizer. The deep fried dried stuff is good in hot pot, and makes a good stir fry with celery. The’s also a version where the fresh stuff is folded up and deep fried, which is really good in stir fries.

    4. MissB*

      NY times cooking has a coconut caramel braised tofu recipe that is really quite yummy. It has green beans and tofu and is coconut-caramel flavors but still manages to be very savory.

      I never have turbinado sugar so I just use regular sugar, and I never serve it with hot sauce.

      It’s been a favorite of ours all summer during green bean season.

    5. Fellow Traveller*

      Some of my favorite tofu:
      -tofu “ground beef” crumbles. Then I use it to make bagn mi noodle bowls.
      – salt and pepper tofu- coat in cornstarch and fry then toss with white pepper, salt, and a pinch of sugar.
      -bakes tofu with terriyaki sauce.
      – eat it raw with kimchi, or with a drizzle of soy sauce and sesame oil and scallions.
      I always press my tofu because I find it falls apart more quickly when I don’t. Also I find it absorbs more flavor/marinade if there isn’t as much water in it. I press by cutting it into halfs across the “equator”, placing the cut slabs on a towel on a plate. Wrap towel around and weigh it down with a cast iron skillet. I let it sit while I prep the rest of the ingredients.

    6. Literally a Cat*

      Tofu is my national dish! Tell me what you like. Sweet? Sour? Savoury? Spicy? Soft? Chewy? Stewy? I will give you recipes based on your preference.

      1. cooking with tofu*

        Oooh, so many choices! In general I don’t like sour foods and if “spicy” means “hot”, that’s not for me, so I suppose I would prefer savoury. I don’t know about soft vs chewy or whether I’d like it in a sweet treatment; I haven’t eaten it enough to have developed preferences. Until I’m more confident about both cooking and eating it, I think I’d do better with fairly uncomplicated preparations. Anything you could suggest along these (rather vague) lines would be most welcome!

    7. YesImTheAskewPolice*

      I recently discovered shredding tofu with a cheese grater, and rrally enjoy the texture it creates (when I first started using tofu, it was always cubes, so by now I feel a bit oversaturated by them).

      I fry the grated tofu with either soy sauce or olive oil, as well as some fitting spices and herbs, add a bit of honey, and use it as a topping for fries or noodles, usually together with some sauteed slices of bell peppers, onions and mushrooms. Also works great with a mix of tofu and halloumi.

    8. sb51*

      I do find pressing tofu makes a difference for some recipes! Others it’s just a hassle. Try it both ways and see? With a pre-bake like that it might be too wet to get chewy edges otherwise if that’s what it’s going for, or if there’s a marinade involved it might not penetrate much.

      My local H-mart usually has extra-extra firm tofu that is basically the same as pressed extra firm, but if I don’t want to go all the way there or they’re out, I have a tofu press. It’s worth it if you end up wanting to press it a lot. (The h-mart often also has fried-and-re-water-packed tofu which has a nice texture without the hassle of baking or pre-frying myself.)

    9. Falling Diphthong*

      I was in a specialty cooking store a few weeks ago that had a device designed just to press tofu. And while I was not quite ready to give it kitchen space, it did seem really practical if you use a lot of pressed tofu. (I make layers of large plate-paper towels-tofu-paper towels-heaviest cast iron pot. Which are all things I have in my kitchen for other reasons.)

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        From Smitten Kitchen Everyday:

        Tofu and Broccoli with Sesame-Peanut Sauce

        1 block extra-firm tofu
        1 T peanut or other oil
        1 T soy sauce
        1 T cornstarch

        1-2 heads broccoli
        2 T peanut or other oil
        salt and pepper

        1 T sesame seeds
        4 T peanuts
        1 tsp minced ginger
        1 small garlic clove
        2 T soy sauce
        2 T toasted sesame oil
        1 T unseasoned rice vinegar
        pinch of brown sugar or honey

        sliced scallions
        hot sauce

        Drain and press tofu.

        Heat oven to 400°. Cut tofu into 1” cubes, toss with oil, soy, and cornstarch, spread on parchment-lined baking sheet. Pour 1 T oil onto second baking sheet, cut broccoli into bite-size pieces (including slicing stems if present), place on sheet, drizzle with more oil and salt and pepper.

        Bake 20 minutes. Turn things over and bake another 10 minutes.

        While tofu and broccoli bake, blitz sauce ingredients in food processor. Toss tofu and broccoli with sauce in bowl, top with scallions, serve with hot sauce.

    10. mreasy*

      There is an even firmer tofu option than Extra Firm… sometimes it’s called super firm and/or high protein. I never went back once I switched to this type. No pressing needed, I would just smush the slices gently between two paper towels. Also for the protein level, it’s a godsend.

      1. RussianInTexas*

        Do you still bake it before using is say, curry or stews, meaning in sauce? I want to incorporate tofu in my cooking and the baking part is what stops me – feels like way too much extra hassle (plus I don’t run the oven between May and October).

        1. carcinization*

          I’m not “mreasy,” but I think I’ve only baked tofu for use in sauce once or twice, otherwise it’s always pan-fried, so doesn’t involve using the oven.

    11. Girasol*

      I’ve swapped it into a chicken stir fry recipe where it works well. For one person, I start with half a block of extra-firm tofu cubed, dusted in a mixture of 1T cornstarch, 1t each ginger and garlic, and a sprinkle of hot pepper flakes. Saute the cubes until they’re just starting to brown, then load in cut-up stir fry veggies (onion, broccoli, carrot, cabbage, whatever) and stir fry until they’re tender-crisp. Then add 1T each of soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice wine or sherry. Stir another minute until the sauce gets thick and glossy and eat up! Tofu that’s a little bit browned and drenched in bright flavors is pretty tasty.

    12. Bike Walk Barb*

      I read a trick I’ve been using, which is to microwave it. I cut it into whatever shape the recipe calls for, put it in a dish, microwave a minute, pour off any water in the dish, repeat a couple of times. I’m not overly picky about the texture and this seems to work fine.

      If you have an air fryer or that setting in your oven, try that. My favorite recipe involves making spicy peanut ramen and topping it with tofu in a marinade that includes gochujang. Using the air fryer setting in my oven produced crispy tofu in no time. I’d been frying it on the stove before that and prefer the oven by a long shot–lets me skip a step of tending the frying and less messy.

      For the recipe look up Spicy Peanut Ramen on VeganRicha dot com. I add mushrooms, other veggies if I feel like it and have them such as broccoli or spinach. This is reminding me to make a batch of the tofu just to have on hand for a snack.

      I’ve made a tofu scramble for breakfast using nutritional yeast and black salt, both of which help make it sort of cheesy and eggy but still vegan if you want that. On its own this isn’t that interesting so I season it in various ways or add some sauteed mushrooms, onions, bell peppers, things like that.

    13. Cheshire Cat*

      I’m not a big fan of the taste of tofu, although I still use it occasionally. My absolute favorite tofu recipe is Tofu Cornbread from Diet for a Small Planet. The cornbread is moister and chewier than usual, and it masks the tofu flavor enough that I can eat it.

    14. She wants the Bradys' mail, Larry!*

      I’m lazy, so I find cutting a whole block of firm tofu into cubes of about half an inch, then tossing in olive oil then baking at 180 degrees celcius for half an hour works great. Maybe toss once during cooking. The tofu goes nice and crispy and can be added to your meal, such as tacos, or stored in the fridge to use within a few days. Easy, no fuss protein.

    15. carcinization*

      I’d recommend a tofu press if you are cooking with tofu a lot. I used to have a Tofudee but now I have a TofuBud that I like quite a bit better. It makes pressing tofu way less awkward and a bit quicker. I didn’t like making tofu dishes at home when I skipped the pressing step, as I found it less tasty and a worse texture than restaurant dishes with tofu. As for recipes, Budget Bytes has some good ones as usual, like Sesame Tofu, and Sweet Chili Tofu Bowls (typing these recipe names from memory, but I’m sure they’re close). I know she also talks about freezing and squeezing tofu rather than doing the traditional pressing, but since I’m happy with a tofu press I can’t comment on how well that works.

    16. TechWorker*

      It’s probably not very traditional but Instagram suggested a pasta sauce recipe to me where you just blend a whole block of tofu along with veggies/herbs/seasoning/some pasta water. It makes a really thick creamy sauce. I’ve made it twice in the last month (one was spinach/edamame/parsley/lemon & the other butternut squash/bell pepper/chilli) – both were pretty great.

      1. Jean (just Jean)*

        Come to think of it, I need to do laundry also. Insert the eye-rolling emoji. I have come to loathe with the fire of a thousand suns the experience of using the communal laundry room in my apartment building. I keep trying to overcome my aversion by reframing it as an exercise in accepting the unchangeable. So far, not much success. Oh well…at least I am able to persuade myself that no matter how grim the hallway, or gross the laundry room (fellow tenants tend to throw their lint and dryer sheets on the floor not in the trash), at least I can do the task using modern machinery, not pounding the clothing on rocks in a river, and in a country that is not being torn apart by enemy bombs or civil war. Sorry to be so gloomy! I promise that other parts of my life are quite satisfactory.

      2. Cookies For Breakfast*

        Oh, yes, the damn laundry. Partner left his shirts hung to dry and went on a work trip, and I hoped I could leave the task of sorting them to him when he’s back. On the other hand. those sheets and towels in the laundry basket are not going to wash themselves, and I need the space…

        1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

          I’m fortunate in that my husband’s desk space is in the basement six feet from the laundry so he’s happy to actually do the part involving the machines, and he’ll even take it back upstairs for me. I just have to take it down to him and then put it away when it’s done, and I am bad at remembering to do either half.

          1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

            I haven’t unpacked yet, but the laundry I needed to give my husband before my vacation has been brought down and passed off to him! And I am about to go open the suitcase!

      3. Damn it, Hardison!*

        Washing the covers of the patio furniture and taking down the outside string lights. Also switching out my clothes and shoes for the season (I am really dreading this).

    1. goddessoftransitory*

      Can’t do this until Monday, but booking an appointment with our H&R Block guy for inheritance tax advice. Also, getting more potting soil.

      1. Lifelong student*

        I don’t think that is the best source for inheritance tax advice. At least in my state, PA., I would seek legal advice. In fact, in PA preparing and filing an inheritance tax return is consider the practice of law- not accounting which is what tax advice is.

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          Basically, the problem is my sister and I inherited an IRA of his where he didn’t do the required distribution for the last two years (he was mentally incapacitated.) So I just need to know what, if any, tax penalties may apply.

          1. Lifelong student*

            OK- That is not an inheiritance tax question- it really is an income tax question. I=If the decedent did not do RMD’s there should be penalties. My guess- without details- is that there might be a final return for the decedent to date of death- then the beneficiaries will have RMD requirements. Complicated issue- may need more than a simple tax preparer whose level is at basicly form filling out. I would contact a CPA in a tax practice.

          2. Reluctant Mezzo*

            I’m so sorry. You will be hosed (helped some people with similar IRA problems, and it was awful and I felt horrible for the person).

    2. Jean (just Jean)*

      Finish unpacking, in the sense of reviewing and re-stocking my toiletries bag, and wiping down the outside of my luggage. I was convinced to do this after reading an article in the Washington Post which emphasized how filthy the world is, with emphasis on grubby sidewalks, grimy airports, and the unspeakable floors of airport bathrooms.

      I retain sufficient shreds of my proper upbringing to refrain from providing additional details, but Yuck. Insert the sick-to-its-stomach emoji.

    3. RussianInTexas*

      Finish setting up the upstairs bathroom that hasn’t been used for over 5 years. It’s mostly cleaned up now, need to put up the shower rod and curtains, while the surfaces one more time.
      Clean up a bunch of rooms downstairs.
      Start packing for my next week’s trip to Spain.
      Grocery shopping.
      Watch GBBO.

    4. A Girl Named Fred*

      My boyfriend has been sick for a week and I’ve been in survival mode, so now that it’s the weekend and he’s finally on the mend I want to catch up on the chores I skipped during the week to preserve my sanity. So dishes and laundry, like several folks said, but I also need to clear the kitchen counter and our table, and organize my craft desk AGAIN (I had just put it together when he got sick and I had to fling a bunch of stuff on it so I could use the guest bed.)

      Here’s hoping I can catch up on all of it AND give myself some time to rest!

    5. GoryDetails*

      On the one hand, I was finally motivated to declutter the kitchen, living room, bathroom, and bedroom for visiting family – I’d *meant* to do it for the last couple of weeks, and finally got it done the day they were due to arrive! (I tell them they should visit more often, to keep me on my toes.)

      Now, of course, I need to sort all the boxes-of-stuff that I shifted out of the main living spaces, and – ideally – form better ongoing-maintenance habits so I don’t get myself buried again. But the pattern has been established over decades, so I don’t know if I’m going to improve now or lapse into old habits the minute they go home {rueful grin}.

    6. RagingADHD*

      1) I let my Postcards for Swing States list get away from me, so I need to address/write at least 2 pages’ worth of addresses today to get back on track. Mailing day is the 24th.

      2) My inlaws are coming to town next weekend, so I have to power clean.

    7. Trixie Belden was my hero*

      Finally organized my utility closet this morning. Had cleaning supplies, extra batteries, flashlights, duct tape and such. Didn’t take me as long as I expected.
      Received a new file cabinet last night and need to get some hanging folders before reorganizing my papers. Had to move a shelf that held several boxes of mementos and the shelf fell apart and is not fixable. Bought new shelves this morning, they arrive next week. Looking forward to reorganizing everything in my office.

    8. Scholarly Publisher*

      I filled out the contact form for the lawyer who did my will fifteen years ago so I can update it.

    9. Stunt Apple Breeder*

      I have been watching Snippets of Good Omens on YouTube while leafing through an exam prep manual. Does this count as procrastinating watching and studying, or is it multi-tasking?

    10. Clisby*

      Filing (mostly paid bills, insurance claim information, that kind of thing. It would only take me a few hours if I’d just DO it, but I hate doing it.

  12. Firebird*

    I need to declutter the spare room, so I have a place to put the stuff that needs to come out of my bedroom. Today I realized that I can put bed linens and extra towels in some empty suitcases that are taking up a lot of room. Hopefully they won’t be too heavy to put back up on the closet shelf.

    1. Cordelia*

      this was a revelation when I was downsizing into a smaller place – my sister, who was helping, suddenly shouted out “things can go inside other things!!!”. this genuinely hadn’t occurred to us before, but in our defence we were very tired. So now the suitcases have things inside them, including other suitcases…

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        When I bought my luggage, I specifically looked for a set that would nest so it wouldn’t take up any extra space, it’s excellent. :) (I also, on occasion, pack a smaller suitcase and then put it inside a larger one, so that I have an extra suitcase for my return, if I am going on a vacation where that might be useful.)

    2. Cheesesteak in Paradise*

      I’ve found the Marie Kondo method of rolling towels and sheets is a really efficient storage technique.

    3. I'm A Little Teapot*

      I’m going to gently challenge you however: if you have enough bed linens and towels that you can put some of them into infrequently used storage, do you actually need those items? Maybe you don’t need to put them into the suitcases, maybe you can donate them.

      1. Firebird*

        Good point, although these are used when my son comes to visit and the sheets fit an air mattress he uses. They’re part of my “Son in a Box” kit.

  13. Harlowe*

    Is there an app or program that will search obituary/newspaper sites for keywords (i.e., names) and send an alert when there’s a hit? I tried to customize a G00gle alert, but it did not pick up the info until way too late (I guess until it was crawled/cached?).

    1. A313*

      I believe you can do this in legacy dot com, but I don’t know how comprehensive it is, because I don’t think it would include small, local newspapers.

  14. Mitchell Hundred*

    In my 20th century European history course at university, we had to read the novel Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler. I recall it being very good, but the line that sticks in my brain is a character praising a woman’s breasts by comparing them to champagne flutes.

    All of this is to say: if anybody here knows of a book with a weirder metaphor/simile than that, I’d love to hear about it.

    1. Donkey Hotey*

      Wait. Flutes or coupes? There was an old story about the origin of the champagne coupe bring modeled after a particular woman’s breast, but not a flute. That would be hilarious.

      1. Hlao-roo*

        I read Darkness at Noon probably 6 or so years ago and as best I can remember the character said “champagne glasses.” I remember I was very confused at first because I was picturing champagne flutes and thinking “what!?”

        I didn’t know the other type of champagne glass was called a coupe, but I did somehow figure out the character was referring to a more breast-shaped glass than a flute.

      1. Ali + Nino*

        Thanks a lot, I had tears streaming down my face and guffawed and my husband gave me a confused/concerned look. 10/10 would recommend.

    2. RussianInTexas*

      I don’t know of any book on the top of my head, but I’m the hilarious “men writing women” tweeter feed I remember seeing a screenshot from a book that described the woman having a “prehensile nipples”.

      1. Chocolate Teapot*

        Coupe in French means a flatter, rounder glass. Ice cream parlours often serve sundaes in what the menu calls coupes. (coupe de fraises, coupe au chocolat etc.)

      2. Mutually supportive*

        thank you! I was trying to remember where I’d seen that series of posts and “men writing women” was it. Hilarious, and also kinda tragic.

    3. Angstrom*

      Wodehouse has some good ones. I forgot which character was described as looking like “a parrot that had been dragged through a hedge backwards”.
      There’s a book about bad hard-boiled detective fiction called “Gun in Cheek” that has some truly dreadful writing:
      “Looking like a goof who had just discovered that ice-cream cones are hollow, the man sagged to the floor.”
      “her lips wore smugness like a slipper”
      etc.

    4. Lexi Vipond*

      There’s always the Bible!

      Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins… thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim: thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus…

      1. Mitchell Hundred*

        I’m guessing that’s from the Song of Solomon?

        There’s a podcast I listen to that’s two guys reading through the Bible book by book, and when they were doing that one, one of them said: “Being horny in the canonical Bible is the most horny on main you can be.”

  15. At a distance*

    Removed at the OP’s request. (Please note I prefer not to do this since it’s not fair to people who invest time in offering advice, but I’m making a rare exception in this case.) – Alison

    1. Pentapus*

      what is your goal? if you want to acknowledge inequality can’t you just name what you saw: dear sibling, you seem to be doing all the earning money work, all the childcare and I’m worried about you. I’m willing to do X and Y for you.
      but, it sounds super complicated.

    2. Ellis Bell*

      Exactly what makes you think of this as potential abuse? Like, I see a lot of unhealthy stuff; decisions that are made unilaterally by one person are definitely no good for either party, but ensuring mutual decision making happens is a two-person responsibility. We all have a responsibility to object and push back and advocate. Do you have any sense whether he’s just going along to get along, or whether his attempts to have input get him steamrolled or punished? Is he even trying to have input or is he outsourcing all the decision making to partner? The reason I ask is because this will inform your approach a good deal. If he’s being controlled or coerced in any way, he’ll have much less tolerance for a yet another person who is telling him how to live his life, and he can yell at you without punishment. If, however, he just doesn’t have the tools to express what he wants in the relationship, someone prompting him to think about what he wants could help him find the words. Unsolicited advice usually goes down like a lead balloon, so my overall approach is to ask more than state, and support more than dictate (though I definitely struggle with this, when I care about someone). I’d probably go with something like asking how things are going, and if they’re happy and maybe mildly state that you didn’t realise they wanted a second child and if they’re doing okay. A word of warning though; I think if you step into this, you could easily be lining yourself up to simply get hit up for vacation babysitting, because all of this could simply be the stress of there never being enough childcare or respite in toddlerhood. I think you’ve also got to keep in mind that it’s not his partner yelling at the kid, that’s all on him, and I’m not sure why you’re placing that onus on someone else. I definitely remember being constantly alarmed at the chaos and rows when some of my niblings were this young – especially the relationship were they didn’t plan for any of it, and they really struggled to get by. I don’t know if my anecdata helps, but it all worked out fine and settled down as kiddos got older.

    3. Cheesesteak in Paradise*

      To be honest, sounds like a mind your own beeswax situation unless you’re specifically asked for your input.

      Nothing you write really sounds egregious anyway based on this brief summary. What are you hoping to achieve? Your sibling abandons his kids? They split up and your sibling remains there? They rebalance the labor in raising young children (which is definitely a MYOB problem)?

      1. WellRed*

        I agree, especially as you aren’t close to sibling. Also, his partner may be a terrible partner and parent m, but that frankly doesn’t excuse siblings own parenting behavior.

    4. Abigail*

      (1) assess this problem in person

      (2) acknowledge your bias (staying at home is a death sentence is likely a dramatic over simplification).

    5. Not A Manager*

      “How does that make you feel?” – “Does she take the child sometimes so you can have time to yourself?” – “Have you and she discussed how the new baby will affect your current setup?” Ask questions and listen to the answers.

      The only thing that I would directly comment on is him being so short-tempered with the child, and his apparent resentment of the child. I think that’s worth a direct conversation. But I agree with the commenter above me that there aren’t any clear solutions for you to offer other than him finding a professional to help him work through some of this.

    6. AGD*

      Several similar situations in my family – all involving easygoing people starting relationships with pushy, angry, controlling, self-centered new partners who desperately want kids. In one case, the kids seem to have done OK, but the easygoing partner long ago lost his hobbies and interests and preferences about his clothing, etc. because they didn’t meet with the approval of the person he married. I’m honestly not sure how he’s still managing to seem happy. In a second case, the easygoing partner is doing OK and has some personal agency but the pushy partner is controlling his (ample) money and making decisions that are leaving the kids often feeling sad and unheard and totally powerless. I don’t have any standing to say anything there, but it’s hard to watch and I’m not the only person in the family who feels bad for the children. In the third case…I can’t even talk about it. The situation ended in a horrific tragedy that wasn’t any kind of accident, and the easygoing partner didn’t see it coming.

      Anyway, this is to say that it’s hard to know how things will play out. If you do intervene, I’d be very gentle and supportive about how this doesn’t sound like a healthy relationship.

    7. Hard Conversations Are Hard*

      Like others, I am also unsure if you have enough concrete stuff to bring up AND the standing to say something–at least not in the direction you seem to want to get at. I think there is ALWAYS room for “are you OK?” or “you seem stressed” and “And what will you do about that?” the like, giving them an option to open up if they want that. But “your partner is abusing you/using you” is a very tough message to give or to hear, no matter if it is true or not. And way hard to tell from the (far) outside with any level of accuracy. How much of this is a values mismatch (e.g. work balance) hitting a majorly stressful time (not yet three year old plus pregnancy, oy) with bad coping mechanisms (yelling) vs sick at the core? I believe you that something seems off, but again, from the outside it is really tough to make that call with any credibility.

      And at some level it almost doesn’t matter: if it is going badly, it is going badly and that’s bad for your sibling and the kids! So instead of making a stab at a rough conversation that includes a level of confrontationalism that you’re uncomfortable with and seems pretty doomed to get you what you want, I’d suggest looking for things you can do to support them. Phone calls with the kid will be possible soon! Be a cool aunt they can chat with. Send cards. Be there for your brother. That kind of thing will last longer and be more helpful long term than a judgement that may well alienate them from you if you share it. Your brother may not even want to hear you, much less be willing to accept it.

      1. Firebird*

        Connecting with the kids is a good idea. My grandmother was the only adult who treated me like a person and I credit her with my sense of self and hope. I never knew until after she died, about the times she stood up for me with my parents about the way they treated me, but I subconsciously knew she was in my corner. I’m feeling teary now, but in a good way.

    8. Texan In Exile*

      I have to admit that this statement – “It’s been hinted but I don’t have 100% certainty that partner insisted on having the child, given it came as a surprise – not unwanted, but unplanned.” – troubles me.

      It takes two to tango and both people know what can happen as a result of that dance. If a man don’t want that result, then he can have a vasectomy.

      1. Maggie*

        Yes that stuck out to me. If a woman becomes pregnant and decides to have the child that’s her choice

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          And for the second pregnancy as well. I’m assuming Sibling knows where babies come from.

    9. Dark Macadamia*

      I do have experience with a sibling in an abusive relationship and the only thing you described here that really sounds potentially abusive to me is… your sibling yelling at a toddler and constantly blaming them for everything.

      It doesn’t sound like a happy relationship and you could certainly mention that (“you seem really burned out, it’s not fair that you’ve made sacrifices and your partner hasn’t, you really need to figure something out so you can both be good parents” etc) but having trouble adjusting to parenthood and striking a balance with a family is something most couples struggle with, moreso if the relationship wasn’t great to begin with and/or the baby wasn’t planned. Don’t call it abuse, call it a problem that needs solving (especially for the sake of the kids).

      1. Double A*

        Yes, I agree with this. From this description, the partner sounds pretty selfish and the brother sounds like a bad communicator, which is a recipe for a miserable relationship but miserable isn’t abusive and you do everyone a disservice to use that framing.

        This sounds like a couple who shouldn’t be together and definitely shouldn’t have had kids together but that ship has sailed so anything you do needs to be with in the context of supporting a healthy relationship between parents and kids. Which mostly involves listening as other people have wisely recommended.

        I know my husband really struggled with babies (and that’s not my favorite age either) but as the kids have gotten better able to communicate and listen it’s gotten better for him. But your brother is heading into the roughest stretch of parenting he’s probably going to face.

      2. I Have RBF*

        Having been unplanned child #1, I feel sorry for that kid, especially when #2 comes around. For reference, my parents yelled at each other and us kids pretty constantly. They finally divorced when I was a teenager.

        The only thing you can realistically do is be there for the kid. Not necessarily in person, but be a figure in their lives that doesn’t have the baggage that their parents do. Listening empathetically to your sibling and the kid(s) is probably your best contribution at the moment – it may help them feel less isolated.

    10. RagingADHD*

      Okay, look. A woman’s right to reproductive freedom includes the right to have the baby. I’ll be honest, that remark about “insisting on having the baby” has put my back up. Nobody, not even the biological father, has the right to pressure a woman into an abortion she does not want.

      Then you say that your sibling yells at his 3 year old because he’s mad at his partner for taking classes, or because he doesn’t get enough “me time”?

      1 day a week plus 2-3 classes is “the brunt of childcare?” Who is taking care of the child the other 156 hours of the week?

      I have no idea what aspects of this unhappy relationship you think constitute abuse, but the fact that you led off with a woman not wanting an abortion that you, a bystander, apparently think she should have had, makes me think your perspective is very skewed and not particularly reliable.

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        Yeah, I’ve got to agree. Obviously we don’t know all the details, but this is at best biased information coming from a clearly frustrated adult who’s in a situation he didn’t want.

        The second child isn’t going to make anything any easier. I think the most you can do, LW, is offer a listening ear and do NOT give them any money you can’t afford to never see again. If you want to, say, set up college funds or similar for the kids, that would be a lovely gesture, but don’t get roped into anything you can’t deal with.

    11. Maggie*

      It doesn’t sound like a great relationship but he’s an adult… he can choose to end the relationship or stop procreating with this person. It sounds like he doesn’t want more kids and is yelling at the kid he already has? Unfortunately adults make decisions and stay in bad relationships sometimes. I would think about the goal of speaking to him first.

    12. Rocky Coco*

      The outrage that your brother doing more than his fair share of child care! Having kids is completely exhausting.

    13. Online Pubs You Read (Bike Walk Barb)*

      He’s not “(left) looking after the child” or “taking the brunt of childcare.” He’s the father and he’s parenting. Partner “refuses to give up” working and learning? Gasp. Your comments feel grounded in very gendered assumptions about who’s supposed to do what.

      Whatever you know about their situation is either his version, your parents’ version, or your observations when you’re there and as you note you trigger an effect with your presence. None of these are the entire story, none of these are some sort of received truth. “Lied about the amount of money received” could as easily be “misremembered the amount”, for example.

      If they appear to you to have grossly unequal distribution of *all* the labor of being parents and running a household, you could observe that being a parent is a lot of work and ask if they ever talk about all they have to do and how it’s distributed. There may be all kinds of labor you’re not seeing that he’s expecting the other person to take care of.

      If he feels pushed to participate in activities she suggests and doesn’t appear to want to, you could observe that they seem to have different levels of interest in going out and doing things. Ask if they ever talk about whether all activities have to be joint ones or whether they could each have time on the schedule that’s just theirs to do things alone or propose doing things as a couple or family.

      He yells. He complains. He doesn’t take action to change patterns. She’s the problem? He could probably benefit from therapy.

      In other words, questions not answers, examine your underlying assumptions, and don’t say anything about the pregnancy as a basis for concern. To what end? He’s supposed to bail on a child he fathered? Any existing patterns are the potential problem, not a child, and it doesn’t sound to me like all the patterns are hers.

    14. Morning Reader*

      Experienced similar but not exactly sibling situations. For the most part, there’s nothing you can do, it’s not even clear there is abuse. Early parenting is hard.
      If you are close enough to sibling, you could gently suggest a) vasectomy, if he already has all the children he plans to have, it’s what responsible men do, and b) parenting classes or self-help books or therapy, to curtail the yelling at toddler bit.

  16. The Prettiest Curse*

    Are there words or phrases that you find less annoying when spoken than written (or vice versa?) This is inspired by the “hey girlie” letter from earlier this week, since for some reason I find seeing that phrase written down much more annoying than hearing it spoken.

    1. 653-CXK*

      “Appreciate you!” is an annoying, grating phrase that is marginally less bad when written than it is spoken. I would rather have “I appreciate what you do/did” rather than the shallow, toss-away “appreciate you!”

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        I DESPISE this phrasing, oral or written! It just rubs my fur all the wrong ways. Mind, I’ve never had it said to me sarcastically or anything so it’s not that. Just the use of “you” when what the person means is “I appreciate THIS specific thing you did/said.” Like, that’s enough! You don’t have to pretend me helping you with this pizza order is going to right the cosmos.

        1. 653-CXK*

          “You’re the best!” is another phrase I can do without, and that counts for both written and spoken. I had that two weeks ago and almost went Tommy DeVito from Goodfellas on the writer – “You’re the best how? Do my acts of getting you out of trouble relieve you of any further duties?”

        1. mreasy*

          I do appreciate people for more than just their contributions though! I’ll keep saying it. But I usually also say “thank you for X”

      2. Person from the Resume*

        I feel like I noticed this new phrasing “I appreciate you” rather than what I’m used to hearing “I appreciate ‘act you did’” very recently. Came out of the blue to me, but it obviously came from somewhere b/c lots of people started saying it.

    2. fposte*

      Well, now I have to go back and look at that letter, because that’s one of the few phrases that breaks through my “language is always changing” equanimity. But I agree with you that it doesn’t catch me in the same way to hear it.

    3. carrot cake*

      “all of the sudden” makes me rage when I see it written, but not so much when I hear it. Same for “literally” when its attached to every other sentence in writing; hearing it isn’t as bad.

      1. Forrest Rhodes*

        Do people really say that? My kids did when they were younger, and I thought it was just one of those “cute things kids say when they’re small” (like one youngster who insisted we were eating “rushrooms,” not “mushrooms”).
        I’ve never seen “all of the sudden” written—and I’m an editor!

        1. carrot cake*

          My boss says it, and I have heard it said that way on various TV shows. I’ve seen it written here (not much, though) and elsewhere. Once is plenty!

    4. Cacofonix*

      “Less” when people mean “fewer.”
      “There are less people here on the ski hill due to lack of snow.” Argh! Less snow, fewer people, for the love of all that is holy, I beg of you.

    5. SuprisinglyADHD*

      Someone recently used the term “unalived themself” out loud in person to me and I just about short-circuited! It bothers me when written online but spoken in a conversation is SOO much worse!

      1. Bike Walk Barb*

        This…is something people say?! Just looked it up because I’d never encountered it and learned it’s a way of getting around social media filters that block references to suicide, which tells you I’m not a member of the generation that coined it. Not planning to learn to speak fluent TikToklish any time soon. This one feels 100% too coy to convey the actual heartbreak.

        1. SuprisinglyADHD*

          It’s really upsetting to me that people are deliberately making it more difficult for people to talk about topics where they might need help, or find advice for a crisis. There’s already enough stigma around suicide, death, sex, and other “adult” topics without banning the words to describe them too.
          I hate making the comparison because I think it’s been waaay too overused, but I can’t stop thinking about “unperson” from 1984 and other “newspeak” words from that book. It’s so bizarre to me.

    6. Literally a Cat*

      Being referred to as “Missy”. Somehow they managed misgendering me, AND infantilising me, AND emphasising on my martial status as a gotcha; but it happened enough irl that I’m desentitised. Turned out if I can’t see the person saying it took away the filter of “this is just how Caucasians are”, and now I recognised a racist undertone as well it’s even more jarring.

  17. Andromeda*

    I have two Halloween parties coming up (non-work) and I know exactly what I’m doing for them both. Punk vampire for the first one and, more relevantly to this, Black Swan for the second. I’m planning on getting a black swimsuit and bedazzling it with black and silver rhinestones, and getting some cheap black tutus and sewing them to the sides and back. (I’ll be wearing tights too.)

    However, I’ve barely ever sewn before and am anxious to not end up with a saggy costume dripping rhinestones everywhere. Any bedazzling tips from ye crafty masses? All the tutorials I’ve seen online use superglue but I’m worried about gluing something to a flat surface that then does not translate to 3D!

    1. sagewhiz*

      If you’re in the US, hie thee to Michael’s Arts & Crafts. Get plastic “jewels” plus the type of crafting glue to attach them to fabric.

      Hint: place a piece of cardboard, covered in plastic wrap, inside the swimsuit where you glue the pieces, so the glue doesn’t leak thru to the fabric below.

      1. Andromeda*

        Thank you for the tip about the cardboard!!! I would not have thought to do that.

        I have some super glue on order. Will that do to stick the gems on or should I get something specifically for fabric?

    2. Gamer Girl*

      I would actually expand on the cardboard trick by going to a crafts store, buying black tulle netting by the yard/metre, and gluing it to a ribbon.

      This would work best if you would prefer a long instead of short tutu. In either case, I can confirm the cardboard works wonders when gluing things to fabric! You can always ask advice at the craft store. They usually have clever ideas about how to put things together and could show you a trick or two in person!

    3. Pippa*

      Expanding on the cardboard tip (upcoming pun intended) –

      Swimsuits are made from knit fabric which stretches and obviously will expand to fit your body. The gems and fixative (when dry) are solids which won’t stretch with the swimsuit fabric. Cut the cardboard wide to expand the suit like it will be expanded on your body (no need to be exact). Then affix the gems. In this way, you’ll reduce the risk that the gems will pop off because the underlying fabric stretches beyond the tolerance of the glue.

      Your costume idea sounds wonderful!

  18. Social Security & Medicare*

    Hubby turns 65 in March. In the US. Does he have to register for Social Security and Medicare before turning 65 even though he won’t be taking benefits until later years? A friend told us registering for SS should come first, then Medicare, and both should be done several months before turning 65.I don’t see anything on the SS website about registering, it just has a button to apply for benefits. How does he register on the website but not apply for benefits? Or should he call? And should he do the SS first or the Medicare first?

    1. Lala*

      I don’t know the answers to most of your questions, but I know it is important to sign up for Medicare ASAP. if he delays, I understand that it will be more expensive for him for the rest of his life. I’m assuming if he goes online there will be something about it, or maybe just call?

      1. B*

        There are very specific rules to follow for each of varied medicare situations; do not automatically sign up until you figure out which ones apply specifically to you. State and even county may affect your choices. I believe the SS site has guidance organizations you can contact for personal help/ information.

      2. Clisby*

        I’m 71. I started collecting SS at 70, because that maxed my benefits. I still am not using Medicare, because I get much better coverage from my husband’s work policy. I’ve been told by 3 different people at Medicare that I won’t face the penalty as long as I can prove my husband’s coverage was ACA-compliant. It is, because every year we get a copy of their filing showing the coverage they provide and the people who are covered – and I’ve saved every one of those forms.) If I had signed up for Medicare “right away” I would have thrown away thousands of dollars in premiums by now.

        If you don’t

    2. Lifelong student*

      He should sign up for Medicare because a delay will mean increased premiums for the rest of his life. He does not have to sign up for social security. If one signs up for Medicare it is possible to directly pay the premiums. Since the sign up age is now below th average full benedit social security age this is a good idea to maximize both. I don’t remember how to do it- but it shouldn’t be too hard based on experiences of several people I know who have done it.

    3. MMB*

      My husband just went through this. You have a window to sign up for Medicare that spans from 3 months before to 3 months after your 65th birthday. If you don’t sign up during the window you pay a penalty based on the amount of time you were not in compliance (think of the penalty as increased premiums). AARP has some good information. Typically you don’t “sign up” for Social Security until you’re ready to retire or claim benefits. Again, AARP has some good articles and tools. You can definitely call the SS offices and they can explain all of the steps.

    4. fposte*

      They are two separate things. Most people will need to get Medicare even if they have insurance through work or elsewhere, because Medicare usually becomes the primary.

      A friend of mine developed nearly fatal sepsis a month before her 65th birthday and was hospitalized for months. She hadn’t applied for Medicare yet and when she turned 65 in the hospital it was an absolute nightmare to sort out payment. So I support signing up as soon as you can, just in case.

    5. Bike Walk Barb*

      “Register for Social Security”: He already has a Social Security number, right? Just checking because of the word choice.

      He shouldn’t apply for SS benefits until he wants to get them. There’s a table based on year of birth that shows the level of benefits based on your age when you apply. If you don’t apply for benefits at 65 and wait, the monthly benefit is higher.

      Depending on the year he was born he may not even be eligible at 65. The eligibility age was pushed out a while back as an actuarial measure. I’m 61 now and I’m not eligible until I turn 67. He may be in my same group. At SSA dot gov they have a retirement planner page that shows the table.

      That page also advises applying for Medicare within 3 months of turning 65.

    6. Pain in the cheap ****

      We did this a few years ago. You definitely need to sign up for Medicare. There are rare occasions when you may not need to start using it, but you should still sign up. You need to sign up on the social security website first. This does not mean you are starting SS. You will have to request that when you are ready. When you go to ssa.gov, hit the sign in button and then create the log in. They will then MAIL YOU a confirmation number so that you can then set up your account. This account will let you view your past earnings, tell you what your estimated payments will be, etc. THEN you can sign into Medicare.

    7. Girasol*

      If he has insurance already, such as via his or your employer, and doesn’t need Medicare, it’s really important that he contact Social Security by age 65 and make them aware of that fact. He won’t be required to start Medicare at 65 but they have to know that he’s otherwise insured. If he just ghosts them until he’s ready to start Medicare he’ll pay higher premiums for life. As for Social Security, he can start that anytime between 62 and 70. The longer he waits (up to age 70) the more he gets.

      1. Clisby*

        Yes. I signed up for SS at age 65, although I didn’t start collecting benefits until 70, because that was a big financial boost. I also signed up for Medicare Part A, since there’s no premium, but not Medicare Part B (where you have to pay premiums.)

        My husband is 66, but isn’t getting Medicare yet – his insurance (which also covers me) is way better than Medicare. Once he retires, we’ll switch to Medicare.

    8. Enough*

      Do not sign up for Social Security if you are not going to take it. And check with your employer to see if they have any requirement concerning Medicare. Either way go ahead and sign up for Part A as that is free to you. Confirm with your employer that their insurance is compliant and keep a record of it.

      1. Clisby*

        Yes, and some insurance plans require that Medicare be the primary insurer once you’re eligible for it. My husband’s did not require that for either him or me, and I’m still covered by his policy. I’m very careful to file away proof that the insurance complies with the ACA standards – we get this form from the employer every year.

    9. nonprofit director*

      If hubby works in the US, he has a social security number already and is in the system. He will just need to hit the “apply” button when he is ready to collect benefits. It’s possible to create an account with Social Security so you can see your data- perhaps that is what your friend means?

      Medicare is a whole different thing and should be considered very carefully along with any medical coverage he receives either through his own employer or your employer. There will be changes to Medicare Part D (drug coverage) beginning in January 2025 that will make it important for more people who have coverage through an employer to sign up for Medicare during the six-month enrollment window due to many work plans no longer being “creditable”. I am well versed in this because I had to figure it out for my husband, but everyone’s situation is different. Based on your message, it sounds like neither of you know very much and I would strongly suggest picking up the phone and calling Medicare. Or contacting AARP. Or speaking with a Medicare-specialist insurance broker. There are a lot of considerations and a single mistake can result in life-long penalty payments.

    10. Tx_Trucker*

      If you live in or near a large City, check if they have a senior “community center.” This is a much more complicated question than you can imagine. Senior centers typically have classes or counselors that can advise you.

    11. Social Security & Medicare*

      Thank you for all the responses. AARP has some great information. We’re starting with that.

    12. Imtheone*

      We just did this. My advice:
      1. Read up on this early. Husband’s employer offers some retiree benefits. Luckily, we had already signed up for the right things to take part in those. But it would have been easy to have skipped one. An example is that if we had the optional dental insurance, we can keep it after retirement.

      2. You should up for Medicare ahead of turning 65, even if you won’t be using it right away. You sign up for Medicare through the Social Security website, which sends you to the Medicare site.

      3. You don’t need to take the SS payments right away – you just need to be in the system.

  19. Falling Diphthong*

    What are you watching, and would you recommend it?

    Watched two movies about unlikely buddy team ups:
    Wolfs is about cleaners who take care of things after awkward deaths with which the rich and powerful don’t want to be associated. Cleaner A is working on the scene of an embarrassing hookup death at a hotel when the hotel’s Cleaner B shows up, and they need to work together in a night when things just keep getting more complicated. This was good and fun, even though I found the rapid download of theorizing about what was up at the end to be confusing.

    The Instigators I recommend watching if you have ever travelled on I-93 through Boston and wondered how a car chase would work on it. Follows two guys who are roped into being henchmen on what everyone imagines is a really smart crime, but having those mastermind lays out the plan sequences turns out not to be sufficient to get real life to cooperate. Lots of ineptitude. This was pleasant but didn’t quite come together.

    1. RussianInTexas*

      Slow Horses, the new season.
      Finishing up Buffy rewatch.
      The Northern Exposure for a filter.
      For All Mankind the alternative timeline space race.
      Finishing up Ted Lasso.

      1. radiant*

        We are just starting Slow Horses, and I love it already.

        I’m in the UK so not sure how available these will be overseas but:

        – the latest Taskmaster series
        – Nightsleeper (BBC)
        – Ludwig (BBC)
        – Sweetpea (Sky Atlantic)

      2. Nervous Nellie*

        Are you liking Ted Lasso? I haven’t see it, but am waffling on getting the DVD boxed set as my house gift to myself this Christmas. Is it worth $65?

        1. Texan In Exile*

          I am in season 2 and I love it. I see why everyone raves about it.

          Can you get it from your library? That’s where I am getting the DVDs. I don’t like spending money unnecessarily. :)

          1. Nervous Nellie*

            Great idea! Thanks, yes, I would love to test drive it at the library. And I am encouraged that FD says it’s good from the get go. Cheers to you both – much appreciated.

          2. Nervous Nellie*

            And thanks! Booked at the library. I am patron #312…. and when it arrives, I will only have 30 days to watch the entire series before it will be due to #313. Yikes & yay! A marathon session will be great! Looking forward to it.

        2. Falling Diphthong*

          I loved it. (And I have no interest in sports. But I do–reading thread theme–have an interest in how people form into teams of all sorts, which in Ted Lasso’s case doesn’t include only the soccer players on the field.)

          Like Texan I would suggest seeing if your library has season 1 and trying it out that way. It’s not one of those where you have to grind through a rocky start and then gets good when it finds its feet–if you like the start of Season 1 you’ll probably enjoy all three seasons.

          1. Nervous Nellie*

            Hah! I wish they did. The library only has the full series set. I am a committed marathoner, so I will just make it work. And really, if the first season doesn’t grab me, the patron #313 will get it early! I doubt it, though. As you and others here I respect & trust loved it, I will likely be doing little else for that month. Good thing I have a compact elliptical under my desk – much TV will be watched!

        3. RussianInTexas*

          I ended up loving Ted Lasso so much. I was kind of resistant to watch it, because of all the things I’ve heard, but it’s a lot less saccharine than I expected, pretty smart, and not really about football.
          And I now use gifs of Roy Trent a lot.

          1. Nervous Nellie*

            Oh, my goodness. I just googled the gifs which led me to other links to view some snippets of the show. It’s absolutely wonderful! Plan B – buying the set today and dropping out of the library list. Thank you so much for the gif mention. Why didn’t I think of that???

    2. CityMouse*

      If you have Apple, I’d recommend checking out Shrinking. It’s Harrison Ford’s best work in ages.

    3. Falling Diphthong*

      Midway TV series:
      Season 4 of The Boys. I am sticking with this because my spouse enjoys it (he is very cynical) and even he says that this season seems to be about upping the shocking parts while forgetting to have a plot. I find it physically tiring to watch. Combined with that bane of the superhero genre, nothing can change so the plot just spins its wheels.

      Spouse is traveling, so I started The Old Man, after liking another of the author’s books. An old man who vanished himself after a CIA mission gone awry realizes that someone knows where he is. Nice and twisty. Just landed a twist that really changes how I thought about what seemed like a side plot–like the side character said “NO. I am not a fucking side character in your story. I am the main character in MY story.” Intrigued to see where this goes.

      1. Pieforbreakfast*

        Are you reading The Old Man or watching the TV series with Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow? I’m into the second season of the show and holy-moly is it good.

        1. Falling Diphthong*

          Watching on TV, halfway through first season. It was sort of on my vague radar, and when picking up The Burglar at the library I realized the same author wrote the book the show is based on.

    4. Strive to Excel*

      The Untouchables

      It’s a movie about the govt team that took down Capone. Be warned that it is rated R for period-typical violence and racist language, but is otherwise great. Sean Connery plays one of the main characters.

      I particularly like it because it peels the gloss off monsters and the mob while also calling it out. They deliberately contrast Capone’s polished appearance and behavior with the utter brutality that the men under him were committing on his orders. Also, auditor’s shoutout to the team who first figured out that the IRS could be used to deal with criminals! That’s the point at which the IRS went from being annoying to being an actual threat and I love it.

    5. Cookies For Breakfast*

      I’m on my own this week, so here are my choices for solo watching:

      – Season 2 of Tokyo Vice – at last! (I enjoy the story, though Ansel Elgort strikes me as an odd casting choice for the main character)
      – Big Mood, a UK comedy about female friendship. I loved Nicola Coughlan in Derry Girls, delighted to see her in another comedy role
      – Watched the movie Kneecap, about a trio of rappers in Belfast who sing in Irish (the band is real, the story is fictionalised). It has plenty of chaotic energy and I had great fun watching it. 100% recommend if you’re ok with lots of swearing and drug references, and enjoy rap or (like me) are curious about it.
      – Will probably put on the documentary As We Speak tonight, since I seem to be on a roll with rap music and Partner couldn’t care less about the topic.

    6. goddessoftransitory*

      Eli Roth’s horror series, which is surprisingly good, although it keeps using clips from movies that aren’t talked about during the episode–annoying.

      Just started the Inspector Allyn series on Prime and am enjoying it so far. I keep forgetting how much nudity is Just Fine on British TV! Not sex scenes, just a unscrupulous model with a taste for blackmail that comes to a nasty end, but wowsers.

    7. But Not the Armadillo*

      Bake Off!
      High Potential (on ABC in the US) – a single mom who has a job cleaning at the police department helps solve a crime and joins the police as a consultant. Smart and funny; I’m really loving it.
      High Winds (Netflix) – Navajo Nation police officers solving a series of cases in 1970s New Mexico.
      The new seasons of Shrinking and The Lincoln Lawyer; also counting the days (12!) until season 2 of The Diplomat.

      1. allathian*

        Is High Potential the French show, or is it an American remake? The French one’s great and I can’t wait for the next season. My only gripe with the show is that it’s supposedly set in Lille, but I haven’t seen any familiar locations yet, and I lived there for 6 months as a student.

    8. Keep it Simple*

      If we’re talking unlikely buddy team ups, you can’t go wrong with Outrageous Fortune – Shelley Long and Bette Midler.

  20. CityMouse*

    I’m a crocheter who’d like to explore knitting a bit more (so I have plenty of things like yarn, yarn needles, and stitch markers). Does anyone have recommendations for knitting needles to get started? Like sizes and types. Thanks!

    1. radiant*

      I use Addi needles, and have for years. They have metal ones (my preference) and wooden. Circular needles are what I tend to use, you can use them for straight knitting or knitting in the round.

      I did try interchangeable needles but didn’t really vibe with them (you get different cable lengths and different needle sizes), so not sure what the current ‘go-to’ for those is, but other people might have helpful opinion on those.

    2. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      Definitely circular over straight needles – in addition to giving you the option to knit in the round, they also keep you from losing one needle and if you’re knitting something wide, the cable helps support the knitting and is generally easier on the wrists.

      I generally prefer wood or bamboo needles vs metal ones myself, in part because if you sit on a wood needle it breaks but a metal one will stab you :P but also metal ones tend to be more slippery. (That said, it’s not a strong enough preference that I wouldn’t use metal, I’ll use whatever I get out of the drawer first, I just have more of the other two :) ) I also generally prefer to take wood or bamboo needles if I’m traveling – the TSA doesn’t bat an eyelash at knitting domestically anymore, but metal pokey things still look sketch on the scanners.

      I do like interchangeable needles because of the ability to swap out cords of different sizes or to leave the cord in one project as a stitch holder if I need to – much easier than moving stitches back and forth between needles and stitch holders.

      As far as sizes for a beginner: I would start with worsted weight and size 6-8 needles. I’ve been very happy with both interchangeable and fixed circular needles (as well as DPNs) in wood, as well as fixed circs in metal, from KnitPicks (dot com) – they currently have a “Try It” needle set on their website that comes with a couple of interchangeable cables as well as a set of wooden tips and a set of metal tips, on sale for $9.99. (Put “try it” into their search box and it should pop right up, if you are so inclined.)

      As an experienced crocheter, I would also strongly suggest that you look for knitting resources that teach a picking style (Continental, I think?) and not a throwing style — picking will be far more familiar to you.

      1. CityMouse*

        Thanks. I should note that I crochet more than I knit because when I was a teen I broke my left wrist and post injury knitting used to make it hurt. But my wrist is in much better shape. I grabbed a stitch dictionary from the library on impulse and was thinking about trying it again .

        1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

          Right on. :) I learned to crochet when I was 5 and took up knitting when I was in my early 20s, and now I have some arthritis in my left hand and wrist – and I’ve actually found that depending on how my hand is feeling, I can knit by mostly moving my left hand, or by not moving it at all, or somewhere in between, which is always fascinating to me. Hope it goes well for you this time! :)

      2. Scholarly Publisher*

        As an experienced knitter, I second Red Reader’s suggestions.

        I’m of two minds on what fiber to use. Most folks find wool or acrylic easier on their hands to knit with, and given that you have a past injury you may want to start with that. However, the advantage to a square in dishcloth cotton as your first knitting project is that it doesn’t matter if it turns out to be a misshapen trapezoid with multiple holes and a ladder from a dropped stitch; it’ll still be a useable dishcloth.

    3. Lexi Vipond*

      My preference is definitely for circular wooden needles (I find metal so slippery that my stiches are constantly escaping, and circular can replace both ordinary straight and double ended), but one advantage of metal straights is that if you have charity shops nearby you can probably buy a pair for a pound (or local equivalent) and start having a go.

      The needles I find myself using all the time are 4mm (UK 8) as a kind of generic size and 3mm (UK 11) for things which will be stuffed and need a tighter fabric.

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        … I was today years old when I learned that in UK needle sizes, larger size numbers are smaller needles. (The UK 8 and 11 are the equivalent of US 6 and 2.5, respectively.) Neat!

    4. Purple people eater*

      I agree with the other people about circular needles, but as another crocheter who then started knitting, if you prefer metal/wood/plastic crochet hooks, you will probably want the same type for knitting needles.

  21. Pinkbasil*

    I’m taking my daughter to Quebec City in December and I’ve never been. We’re definitely going to the Christmas market but would love to get any other recommendations – especially to a nice restaurant to celebrate her graduation – something that would be good for a vegetarian although doesn’t have to be exclusively vegetarian.

    1. fposte*

      Oh, the restaurant next to my hotel was great—Bistro Hortus. The veggie lasagna was to die for! Rue St. Jean has lots of other great cafes and bakeries, too.

      I am not historically a spa person, but I *loved* Strøm Spa. It’ll be a different experience in December, since a lot of it is outdoor in heated pools, but I’d still happily try it in the winter. And I have had massages at a lot of places and theirs was possibly the best I’ve ever experienced.

      1. fallingleavesofnovember*

        Seconding Hortus (I loved it as a celiac because everything is also gluten free). I recommend the pudding chomeur, very classic Quebecois dessert, basically a dry cake with rich caramel sauce, it was great with a coffee!

    2. Filosofickle*

      I was there last month and very much enjoyed a meal at Sagamité, a restaurant run by the local First Nations people (Wendat-Huron) — but looking at their menu it may not be vegetarian friendly. And while I didn’t make it to Buvette Scott, I heard raves about it from local restaurant folks.

      A special experience I loved was Onhwa Lumina, a forest night walk / light installation about 15 minutes from downtown. I didn’t have a car but was able to Uber there easily.

    3. Paula*

      I stumbled on Don Vegan while wandering through the Lower City and I thought the food was really good (same for the mocktail). They have a regular menu and a fixed price menu.

  22. Puffle*

    Just got back from holiday, only for bathroom to spring a leak and most of family to come down with gastro…

    Does anyone have any stories of coming home back from holiday to minor disasters? Funny stories particularly appreciated right now!

    1. CityMouse*

      My Dad got COVID for the first time flying back from visiting his family abroad. He’s a doctor but managed to avoid catching it for two years. He goes to visit his cousins and came down with it. He was okay though.

      1. allathian*

        My MIL had managed to avoid Covid until September this year. Then she went on a day trip with her church and got it. She has asthma and type 2 diabetes, has had all the vaccines she’s been eligible for, she’s masking in stores and other indoor spaces with strangers but not with family and friends. Apparently the church group counted as friends to her. Luckily she had a very mild case. A month later, she’s back on her usual schedule.

    2. radiant*

      We got home from a holiday and our living room ceiling had partially collapsed because of a leak from the bathroom. Luckily at that time we were renting, so the landlord was responsible for fixing it! But it ruined our furniture :(

      1. fposte*

        Once I went for a family visit trip, 16 hour round trip. Came home, sat down in my couch for a minute, and the kitchen ceiling promptly fell in.

    3. Mutually supportive*

      A long time ago (the 1980’s, when I was in primary school) we returned from a 2 week family holiday to find a very organised army of ants marching across the downstairs of our house. We think something sticky must have been spilt on the kitchen worktop, and they were coming up under the living room window, across the living room floor, across the dining room floor and up onto the breakfast bar to the sticky puddle of joy! It was so organised! There were 6 lines of ants marching in one direction and 6 in the other. I don’t remember being freaked out or disgusted or anything like that but I do remember being absolutely fascinated!

      It was a UK semi detached so not as big as American houses but still pretty impressive.

      I can’t remember now what my parents said at the time! I must ask if they remember…

      1. Ellis Bell*

        This totally happened to us, same time period, same type of house; our uncle was house-sitting and he had a habit of scattering sugar on the tea tray when he made tea. The ants found a little gap in the window frame, so they would split up to come through single file and then just reform into rows when inside. I don’t think this would happen with modern windows do you? Oh the joy of sleeping in a 1980s corner box room with a drafty window!

        1. Mutually supportive*

          There’s a scene in one of the animated films (either ants or I think it was A Bugs Life) where a column of ants is marching and a leaf falls in the way, and a top quality team of ants rushes to the location shouting something like “don’t worry, I dealt with the great twig disaster of 1987, follow me!” or similar, and marches around the leaf for the other ants to follow. Had me in stitches :-)

    4. Hlao-roo*

      When I was a kid, my family had cats. We came home from a week-long family vacation once around 8 or 9pm. I went to my bedroom because I was tired and wanted to sleep, only to find that my bed was wet! And so were my siblings’ beds. And our parents’. The cats were well-behaved for the cat-sitters but they were mad at us for leaving and let us know by waiting until we got home to pee on all of the beds. So human bedtime had to wait until all of the beds were stripped and clean sheets put on.

      For future vacations, we just closed all of the bedroom doors before we left and that took care of the issue. Guess the cats weren’t mad enough to pee anywhere else out of spite, just our beds.

      1. Cookies For Breakfast*

        Funny you mention that…my reply was also a cat story involving using the bed as a toilet, and my new theory is the incident wasn’t vet-related – I think it was one cat being mad at us for going away.

        Why do I think that? Because a few evenings ago that cat peed inside my partner’s suitcase, which was open on the floor and full of clothes he’d packed for a work trip the next morning. A “don’t go away” message perhaps? Oh, poor kitty, stuck with me alone for a whole week! (maybe she didn’t realise only one of us was going? she’s been totally fine these past few days)

    5. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      Every time I travel somewhere without him, my husband gets sick right after I get home. (I never do, so if I’m bringing him anything, I’m doing so asymptomatically.)

    6. Stephanie*

      We once came home from a trip, pulled into the driveway and pressed the button on the remote to open the garage door. And watched in horror as the top section of the door folded down on itself as the door rose. We had to buy a new garage door, obviously. Not a fun purchase, ever, but especially not after just spending a fairly large amount of money on a vacation.

    7. OmNom*

      My SIL and her family live in Town A. We’re in Town B. Sis in law and fam travelled to City C – a route that passes Town B, though they didn’t have time to stop (Towns A and B are close to each other and we see each other pretty often). After their trip to C, they travel back to A and again consider stopping by us in B, but decide against it because it’s getting late. They finally make it home… only to discover they’d left their house keys in C. And their neighbours, who have their spare keys… are visiting us in B.

    8. Cookies For Breakfast*

      I told this story a few weeks ago in another thread but here’s the short version.

      We had to take the foster cats to the vet the day after coming back from a holiday. They are not fond of human contact and hated every minute of it, and one had to be chased all over the vet’s room to get vaccinated, but they acted perfectly normal once we got home. We kept praising them for being such good girls who knew everything was fine.

      That evening, going to bed at midnight, we discovered that one of them took her revenge by using the pile of fresh laundry on the bed as a toilet. The panic load of laundry that followed to get the brown streaks out of my beautiful blue summer dress was Not Fun.

    9. Jay (no, the other one)*

      Went away for two weeks in the summer leaving contractors to work on a master bath overhaul. We knew the bathroom would be out of commission when we got back and had already moved ourselves into the guest room. Told the contractors verbally and in writing out date of return. Got home at 11:30 at night to discover the water to the entire house was turned off. My husband turned it back on at the main valve and luckily immediately spotted the pipe that wasn’t connected in the torn-apart bathroom so we didn’t have a flood. We also didn’t have air conditioning….

    10. Green Goose*

      When my parents went on vacation a couple of years ago I got a call from their neighbor, who informed me that their car was gone. I had to file a stolen car report and then a few days later I got a call that the car had been found (totally trashed and filled with all sorts of trash and weapons and stolen stuff) but the car itself was fine, just needed a DEEP clean.

      My husband and I threw on some masks and went through all the stuff in the car and the funniest item was printed off pages of a test that someone had snuck a camera into and photographed. Maybe it was the cleaning spray getting to me but I laughed a lot that the car thieves were also test cheaters.

      The cops also told me that the thieves were using my parents actual car key instead of it being hot wired so one of them literally left their car key in their unlocked car and left the country for a month! Face palm.

    11. The OG Sleepless*

      Once when we were young, we had just gotten home from a vacation we could barely afford. We walked in, set down our suitcases, and checked our phone messages: the dealership had called to let us know husband’s new truck was in. Great! Except that did mean we were about to shell out more money… We sat down on the stairs, took a deep breath, and suddenly looked closer at the opposite wall: there was a tiny hole with something moving inside. We had termites on top of all the other expensive stuff!

    12. Bluebell Brenham*

      Came home from Russia with newly adopted toddler daughter. Surprise- the basement flooded and the dryer wasn’t working! Luckily we had enough backup clothing and kind neighbors. Dryer was fixed within a week. Still- lousy timing!

    13. And thanks for the coffee*

      I remember a vacation that my family took when I was fairly young-maybe 6 or 7. We all got sick, everyone throwing up. I remember a nighttime return from that vacation. It’s better to have everyone sick at home instead of in a vacation cabin.

    14. And thanks for the coffee*

      After a week or so skiing trip we returned home and found we had an odd smell in our kitchen. When I opened the refrigerator an even more disgusting odor wafted out and everything looked spoiled. Our refrigerator had died in our absence, probably early in our absence. The smell was unbearable so we had to shuffle the refrigerator into our garage leaving all the spoiled food inside.
      Thankfully it was winter-it could have been even worse.

    15. PurplePeopleEater*

      I broke my foot literally on the uneven sidewalk in front of our house after a trip. I didn’t know how bad it was, but my husband did convince me to let him carry the luggage up the stairs.

  23. Still*

    Do you have a tried and trusted meal-planning app?

    I’m so sure I’ve seen this question asked here before but I can’t seem to find it when I search.

    What I need is:
    – Ability to store recipes with an ingredient list
    – Schedule where I can browse my recipes and pick what’s for dinner each day
    – Ability to create a weekly shopping list based on my meals
    – Preferably ability to keep track of pantry items so that I can open a recipe and see what ingredients I already have

    I don’t mind paying a bit.

    The app I’m currently trying (“Meal planner – weekly meal plan”) is okay but doesn’t tell me what ingredients of a recipe I already have and is just a bit clunky.

    1. Double A*

      Paprika does those things though I don’t use it for meal planning personally. I think this is because I’m not good at meal planning. There’s a one time fee I believe but super worth it.

    2. Cookies For Breakfast*

      CopyMeThat for the first two things on your list. It has a shopping list feature too, but I never use it, as I keep track of ingredients on a Google Note. You should be able to find a pantry feature on the paid version (I’m on the free one and love it for recipe storage, the meal plan works nicely when I remember to use it).

  24. A Girl Named Fred*

    Question for the crafty folks – what are your favorite projects for a baby and/or their parents? My brother and his wife are going to have their first kid this spring, and so are one of my cousins and her husband. I’ve already found a lovey to make for my nibling, but I love a bunch of different hobbies and would love to make stuff they’ll actually use. So what’s best? Loveys, stuffies, blankets, booties, something else?

    I currently have some experience with sewing, crochet, cross stitch, and embroidery, but I have the “I can learn how to do that and it’s fine to have a million hobbies” delusion so feel free to recommend other disciplines, too!

    1. Abigail*

      Cross stitched, personalized, Christmas ornaments.

      Handmade items for actual use (blankets, sweaters) can be tough to launder.

      1. Moths*

        I love the idea of cross stitched personalized ornaments! I would have absolutely treasured a “baby’s first Christmas”-type ornament if it was made by a friend.

    2. Two cents*

      Baby pants made out of jersey is my go-to. 9 seams and they’re great. Stretchy, washable, forgiving, and you get to shop for cute baby fabric! You can do them on a serger if you have one, or a mock serger stitch on a regular machine.

      1. A Girl Named Fred*

        Ohh, not sure how I didn’t think of pants! I’ll do a little poking around for some patterns and cute fabric. Thank you!

        1. Firefighter (Metaphorical)*

          Knitty dot com has a pattern for knitted baby jeans which are the cutest thing in the world and are fun to knit (they have an elasticated waistband etc and an embroidered fly/ button. The pattern is called “blu” and it’s also on Ravelry.

    3. RagingADHD*

      I love making a baby cardigan in whatever size they will be when it is seasonally appropriate. My favorite pattern is knit, but you can probably find something similar in crochet.

      Or I guess you could pick up knitting if you’re a hobby collector! I find that the Continental or “pick-up” style of knitting feels more like crochet than the American/English aka “throw” style.

      Do you do Ravelry? Here’s the pattern: https://ravel.me/easy-baby-cardigan-3

      1. Bike Walk Barb*

        Ah, when you describe the throw style of knitting as American/English that explains it–I learned to knit from my maternal grandmother, whose family was English, and I’m a thrower.

        I’ll add that a baby hat is a faster, easier project for a beginning knitter and very useful. No scarves–hazardous.

        Find a pattern for cute little stuffed animals you can sew, crochet, or knit.

        I don’t quite understand Abigail’s comment that handmade items can be tough to launder. Maybe that’s assuming a handmade item isn’t really meant to be used? Depends on the materials and of course they all need to be washable, not made to be an heirloom preserved forever. A friend of mine is always crocheting or knitting a baby blanket because she says by the time she finishes it, someone she knows will say they’re pregnant.

        The question gave me an idea: pretty burp cloths. I mostly picked up a diaper and threw it over my shoulder, and I think most people do that. But if you hemmed a scarflike size in a thickish washable fabric it could double as a type of accessory and yet be something that could be discarded if something didn’t come out in the wash (not much of an issue in early days). I was taking my babies into professional settings and would have liked this so I didn’t have to walk around with a diaper on my shoulder and yet would have had protection for my good clothes. If you know their fashion sense and whether to do some extra adornments (embroidery, applique, something like that) this would be different.

        1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

          Handmade items can be tough to launder if one isn’t careful in the material choices, I’m not sure what’s so confusing about that?

        2. A Girl Named Fred*

          Ohhh, I didn’t think of burp cloths but a quick google turned up several patterns that look super easy and would be very practical! If I give those a try, I’ll of course choose washable fabrics and will try to make the stitching as sturdy as possible. And will let the recipients know that I will absolutely not be offended if they don’t use them or have to toss them out, lol!

        3. Abigail*

          Handmade items are difficult to launder for two reasons.

          The first is that the materials themselves are better suited for handwashing or delicate cycles.

          The second is that most people who make clothing items do not sew in washing instructions on a tag. So when you are doing the laundry you forget how to wash them.

          From your comment it sounds like you used cloth diapers. People who use disposable diapers don’t have a diaper to just toss over their shoulder. So burp cloths are really useful.

    4. I've Been There*

      I usually do a 36×36 baby blanket. Shell stich (nice and thick) in an off-white/light ecru. Seems to be appreciated.

      1. A Girl Named Fred*

        I think my grandma made me one of those when I was born; what a lovely “passing of the torch” that could be if I do the same for nibling. I’ll take a look at shell stitch – does it work up pretty quickly?

        1. I've Been There*

          It takes about the same time as anything else the same size – maybe it uses little more yarn, since it’s thick. It looks impressive but is fairly straightforward once you get the hang of it. Also, once you get started, you don’t run into the problem of dropping stitches as the start or end of a row. There are multiple videos on YouTube.

    5. Moths*

      Having had two babies over the past few years, the things that have gotten the most use were a crocheted blanket, about 36”x36” — it’s super soft and from a slightly stretchy stitch/yarn, so it’s easy to wrap baby up in or squish down into a bag and has lots of tiny holes to make it light and breathable year round. And because it’s not a fancy yarn or a fancy outfit, I can just toss it in the washer in a laundry bag (or at least that’s what I do). Also smock-style fabric bibs that cover the whole front and tie in the back — they are great for messy meals because they are long enough to lay over their lap versus even pocket bibs that only catch what lands in there. I still have my 2.5 year old wear them for messy meals sometimes. They won’t get used until a baby is older, but I love the set of them a friend made and they get so much use. Finally, little knit hats appropriate for the age the child will be in the winter season —these are nice because they’re lighter weight than heavy hats you frequently find and can be tossed in a bag, in the car, in the daycare locker, etc.

      While I love and treasure the little cardigans and special fancy blankets/outfits folks have made, I’m always so worried about using them that I save them for something special and they end up getting used just once or twice (this is maybe just a me thing, so not to discourage folks who love to make those). But if you decide to go one of those routes, I would just recommend making sure it’s something a little more casual, so that it’s easier to get a lot of use.

      That’s so kind of you to think of your friends and want to take your time to make something special!

      1. A Girl Named Fred*

        Thank you for all this insight! I haven’t been around babies much at all in my life so having some more context about how things are useful and why is really helpful. :) Follow up question if you don’t mind – for things that were more useful when your kids got older/bigger, did you mind receiving them right when they were born? Like, was it annoying to have to store them so you would have rather received them closer to the time they were useful, or was it nice to have them there so they were at the ready as soon as you needed them?

        And thank you! I just want to show both the parents and the babies that I’m so happy for them and to have them, but I’ll admit there’s also a *slightly* selfish motivation in that I get to make a bunch of things and they’ll actually be used, not just sit around my apartment lol!

        1. anon for this one*

          Parent of two kids here. It is annoying to have to store things that are more appropriate for a later age, because you can easily forget you have them or where you put them. Save some gifts for the first and second birthdays!

    6. Falling Diphthong*

      When I was pregnant with my daughter, a knitting coworker gave me a lovely peach sweater. Sized for about age 1. That child just got a PhD and I remember that sweater, and how unique and cheery it was.

      1. Clisby*

        If you’re giving clothing, starting at about 1-year sizes is a great idea. Babies come in all sizes (my daughter, 8 lbs., my son, 6.5 lbs., my first brother 10 lbs. They need almost nothing in the first 6 months of life, and all kinds of people will be contributing newborn stuff. Give something that’s useful later, when the new has worn off.

      2. A Girl Named Fred*

        What a sweet gift and memory to have! You and Clisby both make excellent points about not overloading the newborn stuff too much and making sure there’s some things ready for when they’re bigger. I’ll keep that in mind as I keep looking!

    7. forever*

      When the kids get to toddler/preschool age, consider sewing a bunch of costumes. Preschoolers (generally) love costumes! In that vein, when my kid was a baby, watermelon/strawberry hats (toques) were popular. Ravelry will help.

      1. A Girl Named Fred*

        Ohh, as an occasional cosplayer/costumer I will ABSOLUTELY help with any and all costumes they want lol! Great point! And the different shapes/characters for hats is a great idea to start looking at too, for sure.

    8. Rara Avis*

      We still use the baby blankets we were gifted — knitted, crocheted, flannel, fleece. (My kid is 16.) some belong to the cats now, but all useful.

    9. Anono-me*

      A family friend makes 3’x3′ baby blankets out of a super thin lightweight cotton fabric that is very soft (almost like a double gauze or voile). They are perfect for so many situations in places with hot summers. Everyone loves them and I have never been able to find any that big in stores.

      Another friend makes pants with little knee pads and extra sturdy patches for crawling,

    10. Fellow Traveller*

      I sewed a bunch of flannel burp cloths when my kids were babies. There is a lot of liquid to wipe and clean up with a baby. I still use them to this day (my oldest is 12). Sure you can but them, but I sewed my own because I could pick patterns I liked and could double the fabric to make them a little thicker.

    11. Anon. Scientist*

      My mom has a pattern for essentially a hood grafted onto a towel – easy to do and the hood essentially acts as a baby/toddler/small child hook for post bath wrangling. I think she might also cross stitch a pattern onto the towel as well.

    12. Nihil Scio*

      Probably too late but the absolute *best* present from a crafty seamstress is a pair of fleece blankets. Approximately a square yard (not exact), plain but brightly-coloured fleece, appliquéd with contrasting fleece cutouts. Super easy, no hemming needed, straight stitch on the appliqués

      These blankets are amazing. Totally washable, they last forever, can be used to warmly wrap the baby in, and, best of all, act as portable ‘carpets’ to protect the child from dirty floors or to protect floors from inevitable spills and messes

  25. Dr. Doll*

    I posted a while back about supporting a friend who was very sick. Well… they are never going to get better, but have a long slow decline of many months while doing everything possible to prolong life. How to support someone in that choice?

    Specifically right now, how to help when days are getting way shorter and night is sooo isolating? Visiting hours end at 7pm, I cannot get there before 5,30 most days.

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

      It sounds like they’re stuck in a hospital or LTC facility, eh? Maybe buy them things that will make their days as comfortable as possible?

      A nice, soft robe and blanket? I particularly liked one from LL Bean (the soft plush, I think?) that was the softest I’d ever felt. Or cushy slippers?

      Some nice-smelling moisturizer?

      If they can read, some not-too-taxing books? Maybe something funny by P.G. Wodehouse? Or whatever they enjoy reading.

      If they can eat, buy them some yummy snacks, or bring a takeout dinner of something they’d like — institutional food (especially in Long-Term Care facilities) can sometimes be yucky. When my dad was stuck in a rehab but got temporarily sprung for a doctor’s appointment, we’d often stop for a sandwich at a local cafe before going back to the rehab, and it did him a lot of good. I wish I had thought to bring him food from the outside world more often — he hated the food at the rehab.

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

        Maybe a good radio with headphones to make the nights go faster? Or perhaps you could arrange to have a good-night call with them every evening when it’s a bit before they want to go to sleep?

    2. fposte*

      I’m sorry to hear that; that’s really hard. Are they up for FaceTime or Zoom? You could set it up for them. That way you could also “drop in” later in the evening. But also test the waters—I can’t tell if the concern about nights is yours or theirs, and they may prefer a quieter time as their energy dips. For that matter, a shorter visit may be better than longer, or may become so.

      Sometimes it can be helpful to be the engine for an excursion, whether it’s a walk or roll outside or just a relocation to a lounge, to break up the tyranny of four walls a bit.

      And pace yourself. This can be really hard and draining for you, so it can be useful to find a sustainable rhythm and routine you can keep to rather than overdoing early out of love and grief.

    3. Bike Walk Barb*

      I may be reading something more into your question, but “How to support someone in that choice?” feels as if you don’t agree with it. Responding to that implication, I’d say you don’t question it, ever. You talk about what they want to talk about and you don’t dwell on the specifics of their situation unless they need to dump out, in which case you offer comfort without judgment.

      For the evening, what about watching a show “together” with a phone call or online chat function to let you comment about it as if you were in the same room? I like the phone call because you can hear the other person laugh or groan or whatever. But if they’re likely to fall asleep make it chat because they won’t need to turn the phone off as they drift away.

      What about reading to them? Again over the phone, or a video connection if that seems right and is available. Like giving them an audiobook but with your personal time invested as a connection and with the ability to stop and discuss what you just read. Something that’s easy to put down at any point to respect their energy level, so maybe poetry, short stories, essays, columns by a writer you both like. If they’re able to read just fine for themselves now this might not fit, but maybe in future.

    4. Not A Manager*

      Dying is exhausting. Unless you are very, very close to the person, they probably won’t have a lot of energy for long visits very frequently. I think dropping in more often but just for a short time is really nice. You don’t have to bring something every time, and when you do it can be small or ephemeral. A hot drink if they can tolerate that, or new bed socks. That kind of thing. Put together a music playlist or find a podcast you think they might enjoy.

      Otherwise, just coming to hold their hand or sit with them for a minute can be so heartening. Non-intrusive touch is frequently missing in care settings. If it feels good to them, a hand and arm massage with a little lotion is really nice. People’s skin can get very dry, too, toward end of life.

      1. carrot cake*

        “If it feels good to them, a hand and arm massage with a little lotion is really nice. ”
        —–

        I love this. Nothing like a human touch.

    5. Girasol*

      Does your friend have an Audible audiobook subscription and headset or ear buds? Audiobooks are wonderful for long sleepless nights. When Mr. Girasol got very sick a friend sent her spare iPod with all her favorite books on it. It was a godsend. We replaced it later with a Kindle Fire that he took to the clinic because it had a handy browser, email, and Netflix as well as audiobooks.

    6. Healthcare Worker*

      My mother loved having an electronic picture frame. My adult children would upload pictures daily or weekly and we had it scheduled to come on in the morning and off in the evening. She loved “having breakfast” with her great granddaughter, and she could see the frame from her recliner. It seemed to bring her much joy and required no energy for her to enjoy it.

    7. AnonRN*

      Some thoughts about supporting them in their choice to pursue care:
      1) Some days will be better than others. If possible, let them know you’re here for the journey. Validate their enthusiasm (numbers going the right direction, a little more energy today, good PT session) even though you know it won’t last. Validate their frustrations and disappointments too; their journey will probably be one of progressive losses, large and small. Also, ask your friend what the best way to be there for the journey is…maybe they only want to hear stories about your dog and never talk about health stuff.
      2) be mindful of your own limits. Comfort your friend (as best you can) but seek your own comfort too–witnessing the ups and downs will be hard.
      3) even if you don’t say it out loud, give your friend permission to change their mind about their care. They may reach a point where they don’t want to pursue aggressive care. Give them the space to do so (some people lean into cheerleading and encouragement too much).
      4) be prepared for things to change–some drugs and conditions increase the risk of falls, or they might not be able to eat their favorite foods (or any food by mouth). With friend’s permission, I’d suggest asking the nursing staff what things the friend is allowed to have/do (ie: has their diet order changed? are they allowed to go for a walk with you? or a wheeled stroll?).

      Short term stuff: •If you have the skills and your friend is interested, help them set up systems to stay connected. Voice-assist on phones can be handy (“Hey Siri, call Dr. Doll”) for people with low vision or motor skills. •A Roku system can be connected to the hospital TV (with permission! and WiFi) and open up some more entertainment options…there’s a voice-to-text search function but the user might have to push the button first. •If talking is challenging, there are communication boards with basic pictures to point at (the hospital OT department might have them). •If you bring in cozy stuff like blankets or robes, plan to take them home and wash them frequently–ideally in the detergent of the friend’s choice so they smell nice (most hospitals can’t wash patient’s personal laundry, and things spill or get wet and need to be washed). •If friend is up for it, bring in simple things you can do together like play cards or coloring pages if they’d rather just have some low-intensity time with a friend by their side.

    8. Shiny Penny*

      Physical objects are the symbol of your love that can help a person believe they are loved in the dark wee hours of the night when spirits can be low. However, if your friend is in a care facility, it’s often true that items brought in for a specific patient will eventually disappear. That’s a pretty big deal when it’s hearing aids, and a big energy suck to resolve. When it’s a comfort/entertainment/“love symbol” item, often there’s no energy left to even begin enquiring, in my experience.

      Having learned that the hard way, I’ll always opt to give a pretty purchased throw and not a handmade lap quilt, for instance, or a cheerful mass market hat instead of an hand knitted one. Any favorite object is a big risk, including clothing. No one in that circumstance needs extra disappointment! And yet physical objects are such a great symbolic reminder for the patient that “you are beloved” during the time family/friends cannot be with them physically, that I will bring *something* nearly every visit.

      I think magazines are one of things that work really well as entertainment gifts. You can find one on any topic from woodworking to fishing to homesteading or gardening, at most big grocery stores. Just looking at the pictures can be entertainment enough on a low energy day, and if/when it disappears, it’s likely already been consumed.

      Food is great for several reasons. It’s ephemeral, it can be inherently pleasurable, and if you both eat some when you bring it in, then you have achieved the great human ritual of breaking bread together. Individually wrapped treats can also be offered to other visitors or staff, so the patient is enabled to perform a social ritual in the more high-status “host” role.

      Flowers are also great for some people. My grandma was a serious gardener, and she really enjoyed caring for cut flowers when she was in a care facility — changing water daily, adding sugar to the water, recutting the stems— it was a great hobby still. Eventually, a whole bouquet was “too much work,” so I’d bring her a single rose. She could get her gardening/plant care fix, without it being a physical or mental burden. (And it could easily be tossed without guilt, so it never ended up as a lingering reminder of “failure to perform.”) To me, that’s the perfect example of enabling a dying person to still have access to a favorite thing, even in the context of the final months/weeks/days.

      I hope you can find ways to support your loved one, that are meaningful to them, but also easy enough for you that it’s sustainable for the long haul. Best wishes.

  26. I'm A Little Teapot*

    Gift suggestions for two boys please. The family is geeky, dad’s into d&d, etc.

    12 year old likes video games, is social. I know that he likes the idea of legos but in practice doesn’t have interest in free building, but kits are good. He still loves to run around and play at the playground. Not sure about reading interests, but I usually prefer to give books to kids.

    9 year old is autistic and semi-verbal, developmentally around 4. Lacks fine motor skills, plays alone mostly. Very early reader.

    1. Double A*

      My idea for the 9 year old is kinetic sand. Satisfying texture. You can shape it and build things with it or just kind of play with it. My little kids love it and I honestly enjoy playing with it. It’s also good for building hand strength.

    2. Falling Diphthong*

      They make Minecraft Legos, to combine the gaming and building.

      For the 9 year old, might try Ursula Vernon’s graphic stories for kids, or The Magic Tree House series. The latter lacks poetry but is really good at plot, and tends to be really engaging for kids.

    3. Annie Edison*

      Do the boys play DnD too, or just the dad? I got some fancy dice sets for my nephews of similar ages for Christmas one year and they seemed to enjoy it. It sounds like a Lego kit would be great for the older one too- there are so many different fun themes and designs out now, and they’re surprisingly fun to build

    4. Aneurin*

      For the 12-year-old: Molly Knox Ostertag has a middle-grade graphic novel about kids playing DnD which I found very charming, and my 11-year-old niblings enjoyed too. It’s called Dungeon Club: Roll Call, and there’s a sequel (Dungeon Club: Time to Party) but I haven’t read that one yet.

      For the 9-year-old: does he enjoy fidget/sensory toys? Puzzles? Dominoes? The “Bubble Thing” (that’s the brand name, easily findable online) can make truly gigantic bubbles, which might be something he and his brother could both enjoy.

      As a joint gift, I’ve always liked giving siblings cooperative board games (where you all win or lose as a group). There are ones that start at quite young ages but can still be played by older children. Peaceable Kingdom is one brand that focuses on co-op games (and MindWare, the parent company, also has sensory/developmental toys & games), or just do a web search for “cooperative board games for children” to find plenty of recommendations for specific games!

    5. Vanessa*

      Kiwi co is great. We just got the ping pong ball server and the pin ball. They are fun to do solo or as parent kid activity. We did get an age above our kids level but it’s been a good fit.
      We had a mark Rober subscription before. It’s ok. There were some some fun builds but it’s hard to unsubscribe and in year 2 we are getting repeats.

    6. Nocomment*

      Magnatiles are great for low motor skills. They stay together without fidgety manipulating, and they’re pretty.
      Give the 12 year old Ray Bradbury short stories.

  27. Moths*

    I saw a post on here the other day about advent calendars and it got me thinking. Every year I buy a good friend of mine an advent calendar. It usually ends up being in place of a Christmas present. I’m really stuck this year though and can’t think of a good one to give her.

    Ones I’ve done in the past include teas, chocolates, jam, cookies, little quotes, and last year I got her the FreshCut Paper Woodland Wonderland one. I like to make sure it’s something she’ll use (or is particularly cute), so I don’t generally get one full of trinkets that will just end up on a shelf needing dusted. She’s doing a little more crafting, including taking up cross stitch and has three cats. She likes “cozy” things like forest animals and tea and is a big Disney fan (but not super childish-y stuff). She works in the biological sciences and tries to eat relatively healthy and doesn’t drink. I don’t mind repeating a theme, but it’s got to be special to do that. In general I keep it in about the $50 range, but would go up to $75 for the right one.

    I’m just stumped this year and nothing is calling to me. Has anyone seen any advent calendars that they love this year? Any and all ideas appreciated!

    1. Roland*

      As far as repeating if it’s special – Palais des Thes has a “normal” tea advent calendar, but also a premium one with high quality grand cru and single origin teas. I’ve always enjoyed their normal one and am thinking about treating myself to this extra-fancy one this year.

    2. Generic Name*

      Does she have pets? I found it great fun to give my dog a cookie and my 2 cats a toy every day in December.

    3. AlabamaAnonymous*

      I just saw an ad for a cross-stitch advent calendar. It comes with a little counted cross-stitch kit for each day. It’s available on Amazon or probably in other places as well. (I’m trying to branch out into new hobbies and am planning to get one for myself.)

      1. The Other Dawn*

        Ooh, that sounds really cute! I haven’t done counted cross-stitch is many years. I miss it.

        I noticed last night that Amazon has a lot of DIY advent calendars. They come prepainted (or plain) and have all different themes. Just put your own items in. I thought about getting one.

    4. Jessica*

      deliciousfooddelivered has state-themed advent calendars. if you’re american, maybe one from the state where she lives or is from or has visited or would like to visit? it’s a variety of foodstuffs that are a product of that state. i ordered one this year so haven’t tried it yet but they look good!

    5. Hroethvitnir*

      Oooo! Skype a Scientist got no grant money going forward and is trying a last ditch effort at community funding. I want the advent calendar but shipping to Aotearoa (NZ) is ridiculous for small businesses.

      It’s a scratch off for fun animals facts, so not sure if you’d be interested, but I think it’s cool. Link in reply to come.

    6. ronda*

      I have been giving my aunts l’occitane advent calendar for years, the price has gone up and is more than your top range…. but they all say they enjoy it.

    7. Can't Sit Still*

      Bonne Maman is great with two or more people, each with their own calendar. Since the jars are random, it’s rare that everyone gets the same flavor on the same day. Then you can look forward to/dread when you get a flavor someone else has already gotten. My favorites last year included strawberry lemongrass and a chocolate raspberry spread, while a couple of flavors were just awful. There was also a mint something, maybe pineapple? I liked it, but the rest of the group thought was vile. That’s part of the fun!

    8. Fellow Traveller*

      Wirecutter just did a round up of advent calendars- i thought it was a good mix of price ranges and ideas.

  28. SuprisinglyADHD*

    I’m starting to get paranoid, I’ve had three “nearly-an-electrical-fire” experiences recently, all unrelated… What a stressful (and expensive) month!

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

        Sorry to hear that (for both of you)! I had Year of the Leak and Mold and am now on Year of the Roaches. So many home-related plagues out there!

      2. SuprisinglyADHD*

        Oh man, this has turned into Year of The Experts for us, we’ve had to find a plumber, electrician, siding company, HVAC company, appliance repair company, and still need a roofer! Knock on wood, we’ve had really good luck in choosing each company, and found excellent local businesses.

    1. Stunt Apple Breeder*

      You have all my sympathy! We had The Year of Water, a run of All The Glass Breaking, and the Great Flea Infestation. I now have a small collection of vacuums for different purposes!

    2. Chauncy Gardener*

      Yeah, things sure seem to come in groups. Last year was the Year of Replacements: My knee, central AC, washer (twice), dryer (three times), tires, hot water heater/boiler, two cell phones, my laptop, my husband’s desktop…I’m sure there were more, but I believe I’ve blocked them out!

  29. RussianInTexas*

    Traveling to Spain next week! I’ve done a bunch of research, so I have some specific questions:
    +How does tipping work in Spain? Specifically restaurants and hotels.
    S-omeone here mentioned the legitimate bank ATMs in the airport, what was the bank?
    -Has anyone used the left bags service at the Barcelona’s Santa train station? And it appears that Atocha in Madrid does not have its own service, but there is Stow Your Bags lockers nearby. Has anyone used them? We have some few hours between the check out and train in both cities, so I would like to stash the bags somewhere.
    -Madrid Barajas airport – is it reasonably easy to navigate?

    1. Cookies For Breakfast*

      I remember every single weird flight experience I’ve had, and have no bad memories of Madrid Barajas, so consider this my endorsement :D

      Tipping in restaurants in Spain is at your discretion. Some places might add a “cover” charge if they bring you bread / olives / snacks when you sit down, but you still get to tip an extra at the end if you want to, and if you tip, you decide the amount. It’s not added to your bill, so you generally leave cash on the table as you leave. It’s unlikely you’ll see people tipping at cafes and bars, or for services like taxis. I can’t speak much of hotels, but being born in mainland Europe, the one thing I can say is there is not as defined a tipping culture or as deep-rooted an expectation as in the US – tip or no tip, no one will bat an eyelid.

      I did use a bag storage service in Barcelona though it wasn’t the one at the station. It was Locker Barcelona on Carrer d’Estruc, in case you need it – not the station but still a very central location, it was super useful and all went very smoothly.

    2. dear liza dear liza*

      Madrid airport has clear signage but it can take a while to go through if you’re flying internationally. Arriving is easy but leaving you start at the international terminal. They don’t post where to check-in until 3hours before your flight, so don’t panic if you get there earlier than that and don’t see your airline desk. After you do the check-in (which you have to do if you’re flying back to the US even if you’re not checking any bags), you go through security, and then you have to take a train to the departure terminal. Then, you have to go through another security check. The first time we flew out of Madrid, that was a choke point with people panicking about missing their flights and the airport guards refusing to explain what was going on. But when we went earlier this year, the lines were much shorter and we breezed right through. After going through the duty-free shop, you can start moving towards the gates. The actual gate won’t be posted until about an hour before departure. Sometimes the guards close access to the gates, sometimes you can go hang out there. Often, you’re asked to again show your boarding pass and passport.

      So… easier than London or Paris, but more time consuming that it seems like it would be.

    3. CTT*

      I have not been to Spain, but re: ATMs, your bank should have a list of reciprocal ATMs that they have a partnership with so you don’t get charged ATM fees.

      1. RussianInTexas*

        I do not think my bank has a partnership with any European back specifically. They do not charge their own foreign transactions AMD currency conversion fee, but that’s not the same.

        1. noname today*

          We also used atms at local banks throughout Spain. I think what the person you’re referencing was saying was to be sure to use bank-based ATMs not money-changing ATMs. The latter were prominent at the airport and finding bank-based ones was easy in Madrid, Sevilla, and Barcelona (also Segovia and Toledo). The “I’m not your bank so we charge you a fee” fee was between 5-9 euros per transaction (same cost regardless of how much you took out). Given that Chase charges $5 on my Citibank card, it’s not too bad. And you can get the fee before you approve the process.

          1. RussianInTexas*

            No, I think the person I replied to means exactly what I understood: some banks have reciprocal agreements with other banks, as in Capital One customers may use Chase ATM and vise versa (just pulling random names, but my credit union has such agreements with many other CUs) without incurring fees . No such agreements between my bank and any European bank, and I am not sure it works with European banks in general.
            I did man the back based ATMs in my original post, but was asking if anyone remembers the actual names of them.

    4. noname today*

      Just got back from Spain. Locals don’t tip. They may round up but that’s it. We tipped (NYers) and everyone was surprised (tried to give the tip back as change) and very appreciative. We have specific dietary needs (all hotels had an amazing breakfast buffet, but we needed some not-so-easy adjustments) and tipped well when they accommodated us—they were very appreciative and made sure their colleagues knew for the days they were not there (of course we tipped them too).

      All of our hotels held our bags between our check out and our departure. And remember that at Atocha you’ll need time to determine if your train is above or below, and to get through the luggage scanners and security checks, so you’ll need to get there 45min to an hour before the train actually leaves (and there was a huge amount of construction and getting across the street to the train station took for-ev-er).

      1. RussianInTexas*

        I know my hotel will hold the bags before the check – in, but did not realize they may do it after the check out, that is very helpful information! I’ll make sure and ask.
        Our train is not until after 5pm from Madrid to Barcelona, and vice versa. I don’t remember where my train goes from, but I’ll Google, since they always do it from the same level for this type of train.

        1. Roland*

          Fwiw, holding bags after checkout is not a Spain thing, it’s a pretty international thing so always worth trying if you need it :)

    5. Lexi Vipond*

      The only time I went through Madrid I was doing an ‘official’ connection – so not that I had booked two separate flights too close together, the airline set it up that way – and yet somehow ended up with only just enough time to literally run between the gates (and I was bursting for the toilet so had to make a detour – I wouldn’t have made lasted until after the next takeoff!). Still, I made it, so that may be a point in its favour!

    6. Living in Bcn*

      Nobody tips anything. However, in places catering only to people from the US they may get used to US-style tipping and pressure you if you don’t do it (e.g. during guided tours in English).
      In Bcn the bank mentioned was probably la Caixa, but it’s not the only legitimate one, just the most ubiquitous.

    7. Texan In Exile*

      IIRC, Kutxabank ATMs don’t charge a fee. There’s one just a few blocks from Atocha on Delicias at Murcia.

      For left bags, yeah, I think the one at Atocha has been closed, but we have never had any problems leaving our bags at our hotel after checkout. This is one of the few times we tip at the hotel, too – we give the valet five euros or so.

      Barajas is easy to navigate but it takes forever to get to your gate! If you are flying Delta, make sure you get your cafecito before you go to the Delta terminal – there’s almost nothing in that terminal.

      And there is a bus from Barajas to Atocha that costs five euros. The bus takes credit cards. You catch it just outside of the airport. It runs about every 20 minutes, I think. Link in comments.

      The trains are easy, but as someone noted, you have to go through security. They will find your Swiss Army knife, so – leave it at home. I got lucky the one time, explaining to the security guy that it was for cutting cheese for our lunch (which was the truth). He let it through, but I don’t expect to get that lucky again.

  30. Online Pubs You Read (Bike Walk Barb)*

    I love the weekly reading prompt here, to which people always reply with books. Changing it up a bit to ask what online publications you read. I’m thinking of things you subscribe to or visit regularly, not necessarily traditional journalism although not dismissing that.

    I’m a bit oversubscribed right now so I may not list everything I subscribe to and conversely I don’t read every post on all of these. Ones I appreciate for content and/or community listed below. I was going to give descriptions, then realized how idiosyncratic those would be.

    – Culture Studies, Anne Helen Petersen
    – Burnt Toast, Virginia Sole-Smith
    – An Irritable Métis, Chris La Tray
    – Poetry Is Life, James Crews
    – On the Commons, Antonia Malchik
    – Pocket Observatory, Meg Conley
    – Iridescent Ordinary, Ruby McGrory
    – Stone Soup, Sarah Gailey
    – Dear Good People, Dolly Chugh
    – Unflattering, Dacy Gillespie
    – The Oxherd Boy, Regina Linke
    – The Marginalian, Maria Popova
    – Pluralistic, Cory Doctorow
    – Ordinary Plots, Devin Kelley
    – Everything Is Amazing, Mike Sowden
    – Popular Information, Judd Legum
    – The White Pages, Garrett Bucks
    – Talking Headways, Jeff Wood
    – Ask A Manager, of course

    1. Aphrodite*

      They are more-or-less blogs but I really like Becoming Minimalist (both written and video) and Tips for Travelers (videos).

      I find BM’s Joshua Becker a soothing speaker and with good ideas even though I have always tended toward minimalism and don’t need to de-clutter.

      TFT is geared to cruising. I have no interest whatsoever in going on a cruise but there is something intriguing and enjoyable about these weekly video offerings from a fun guy.

      1. Bike Walk Barb*

        Are you by any chance Swiss, or familiar with Switzerland? I’m going to an international meeting leaving next Friday and have a small bit of time on either side: a weekend in Bern where the meeting is before it starts, and a day in Geneva on the end (which needs to include taking the train from Bern) before I catch a flight home the next morning.

        Tips for travel and things to do very welcome if you have any! A colleague recommends taking a train trip into the Alps. I’m happy just exploring a place I’ve never been.

        1. YesImTheAskewPolice*

          Commenting as I’m from Switzerland: Berne is a nice and relaxed city, and it’s quite nice to stroll through the historic city center (check out the Bundeshaus, the Zytglogge, and the Münster) towards the Bärenpark (stop at the Cafe Martha on the way for its nice vibe and the cellar, or at the Tramdepot for the view). From Bärenplatz you can walk along the river to the botanic garden, from where you’ll be able to easily connect back to the city center.

          Some places I enjoy in Berne are the Turnhalle (cafe and cultural venue), the Reithalle for lunch (only go later if you are there to party), the Gelateria di Berna if you are in the mood for ice cream. I don’t know too many restaurants, I liked the Bonbec, Tenz, Lokal, Okra, Santa Lucia or the Verdi. If possible, make a reservation in advance for dinner. Some local treats include Bäremutz, in two variations: Honigläbchueche and Haselnussläbchueche (kinda like gingerbread, I guess, either with honey and sugar decorations or with hazelnut) as well as Meringues. Some national dishes are Rösti, Fondue, and Raclette.

          If the weather is bad, the Alpine museum, the Museum for Communication, or the Paul Klee museum might be good alternatives, although I don’t know how accessible they are to non-German speakers.

          If you want to do a day trip from Berne, I’d do one of the following:
          1) Visit the city of Thun (a short train ride away), walk through the town and along the shore of the lake, and then take the Niesenbahn up to the Niesen mountain, which is above 2000m (so dress accordingly) to enjoy the views.
          2) Go to Burgdorf, see the little town and its castle, and then hike around the rolling hills of the Emmental region for 2 to 3 hours. If you might be interested in this, I can look up some easy hikes.

          For your train ride to Geneva: A more scenic though longer alternative to the direct route would be to first go from Berne to Spiez and then take the direct train from there to Montreux (called Golden Pass). This would also allow you to have a late lunch there and then continue with the train along the lake to Geneva. If I remember correctly, it’s recommended to make a reservation for that route, though on a Monday you probably should be fine without one.

          As for general tips, public transportion in Switzerland is quite expensive. If you download the app of the national rail company, SBB, and check for connections, you can sometimes buy cheaper tickets that are limited to a specific connection.
          Tipping is not necessary, although in cafes and restaurants many people round up to the next whole number, or sometimes to the nearest five or ten franc amount (e.g. in a cafe 4.60 to 5; in a restaurant 62 francs to 65).
          A couple of smaller street cafes or food trucks sometimes don’t accept cash anymore, and some smaller shops have a minimum amount of 10 or 20 francs for accepting debit or credit cards. Generally, I’d say Switzerland is quite card-friendly. Popular grocery stores are Migros and Coop, the later usually being a bit more expansive.
          If you are from a county in the European Union: Be aware that Switzerland is not, and therefore roaming fees for data apply. Also, it has it’s own power plugs and outlets, so check beforehand if you need an adapter.
          Some handy apps are: SBB (public transport, not just railways but also trams and buses); MeteoSwiss (weather forcast), Switzerland Mobility (app and website for hiking), PeakFinder (to identify mountains based on a picture), Alertswiss (offical alerts based on your location, i.e. floodings or power outages), JustEat (food delivery), TooGoodToGo (discounted food) and VoteInfo (in case you are interested in upcoming public votes).

        2. Cheshire Cat*

          My daughter and I spent a few days in Switzerland 15 years ago, so take this with a grain of salt.

          We had a day in Geneva and visited the oldest still-standing house in the city, which is now a museum. It was fascinating, and one of the rooms had a model of the city in it. (This might be because my dad loved model trains, but I love seeing miniature models.)

          We also stayed in Interlaken and visited Thun, Spiez, and Luzern from there; and we spent a day in Neuchatel.

          I don’t remember the names of any of the restaurants we ate at, unfortunately. We did grab lunch a couple of times at a Migros grocery store. The food was good, fresh, and relatively inexpensive.

          Definitely try some of the local specialties. We had fondue at an overpriced touristy place, but it was delicious and different from the fondue you typically get in the US.

          I found that, of all the guidebooks I consulted, the Lonely Planet series had the best recommendations for sightseeing and restaurants, at least for us. We went to Italy on the same trip, and the best food we had was in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Naples that we would never have found otherwise.

    2. YesImTheAskewPolice*

      Wow, that’s a real treasure list, thanks for sharing!

      Of the ones below I read some daily, some weekly, and many arrive in my inbox as newsletters or on a digital abo, so I read them depending on the headlines and on my mood – sometimes I also feel like I’m a bit over-subscribed. I also follow a few specific communities on reddit (AskHistorians, Ultralight, Zillowgonewild, europe), as well as way too many accounts on twitter, though even before it got a new name I was checking my feed only once or twice a month.

      Kottke
      Captain Awkward
      Politicalwire
      The Browser
      The Continent
      Five Books
      Marginal Revolutions
      VoxDev
      PBS (British Psychological Society) Research Digest
      Scienceblog.com
      Caucasian Knot
      Lawfare
      Bellingcat
      War on the Rocks
      Small Wars Journal
      ArchDaily
      Section Hiker
      The Trek
      Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science (Andrew Gelman)
      Mashable

      More traditional outlets:
      The Atlantic
      The Guardian
      The New Yorker

      In German:
      Tages-Anzeiger
      Die Zeit
      Reportagen
      Republik
      Derive

    3. Happily Retired*

      The Crucial Years, Bill McKibben
      Volts, David Roberts
      Your Local Epidemiologist, Katelyn Jetelina
      A Public Witness, Brian Kaylor
      Carolina Public Press (state news/ investigative journalism)
      ProPublica (national news/ investigative journalism)

    4. Nervous Nellie*

      Great question! Three for me:

      Mark Manson – Life Advice that Doesn’t Suck (click on ‘Articles’) – bestselling author with roughly monthly articles on self-improvement. Lately they all turn towards his subscription programs, but the early ones are inspiring. The catalog is vast.

      Ryan Holiday – Meditations on Strategy & Life – bestselling author who makes the Stoics digestible for a modern audience. He takes himself a bit seriously (Marcus Aurelius would find that hilarious), but the ideas are solid and bear repeating.

      Tim Kreider – self-named site (click on ‘Articles’). He has stopped adding to the site, but his articles are wonderful. He’s melancholic, wildly literate and his narratives read like poetry. He was a political cartoonist during the Bush era, but writes about a lot of personal situations. His books are interesting – I wish he would start back up again.

  31. Chaordic One*

    I’m something of an Anglophile who loves watching British TV shows, mostly on my local PBS station. I also enjoy shows in other languages with subtitles, although they require a bit more attention to watch because you can’t take your eyes off the screen or you might miss a subtitle.
    In general, these TV shows seem better written than comparable American shows, although I can’t quite put my finger on what they do differently. Some better (IMHO) American shows that I’ve liked recently include High Potential, Matlock, and The Equalizer. But even they have a bit of this “slick, fast-moving, American” quality to them.

    What style differences do you notice between American TV shows and shows from Britain and other countries? If you live outside of the states, what do you think about American TV shows?

    1. RussianInTexas*

      The physical perfection of the actors. Everyone in the US shows is usually model looking, perfectly groomed.
      And the clothes, especially the crime shows, which I watch the most. No one usually runs after criminals in high heels in the British shows, nor characters wear obviously expensive and tailored clothes, when they aren’t rich. And British shows have police characters actually wear uniforms a lot more, in my anecdotal observation.

      1. goddessoftransitory*

        I was just going to say this! I don’t mind “everyone’s a model” for some shows, like Almost Paradise, but I really appreciate that real looking people are shown as passionate, devious, lustful–all the things that lead people to crime and sin! You don’t have to look like Gisele to blackmail someone, commit adultery, or poison Granny’s tea.

        1. RussianInTexas*

          But even the very attractive people in the British TV usually wear more or less reasonable to the situation clothes, and don’t have the same hair that look like they all came from the same salon.

          1. allathian*

            And the teeth! It’s changed a bit in the last few decades because so many European actors want to work in the US, but a perfect set of shiny white tombstone teeth hasn’t traditionally been a requirement here. I strongly suspect that this is one reason why historical dramas, or fantasy shows set in a quasi-Medieval environment like GoT, usually hire mainly non-American actors, even when the creators are American.

            Here even dentists who do whitening treatments say that a (white) person’s teeth should never be whiter than the whites of their eyes because that looks unnatural, and that’s the typical look of American actors.

      2. Cheesesteak in Paradise*

        Similar to the physical perfection issue, more age diversity in British shows. Everyone in American shows in typically young, especially the women. Leslie Manville is conventionally attractive and typically a sharp dresser, but I don’t think she’d be considered leading lady material at her age in an American show.

    2. Aphrodite*

      I love Lucy Worsley and have also found other British historical video series wonderful. I believe the British (at least) love to present information rather than entertainment though they do it in an entertaining way. It’s always far more interesting for me to “learn-tain” than to be entertained.

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

      Some of the British shows within the last 20-25ish years or so have just gorgeous cinematography, set design, costuming, etc. Like the production values are off the charts. They really look different from British shows of the ’70s, which I assume were constrained by austerity at the BBC.

      1. RussianInTexas*

        They do look very good now, but you can still always tell. I don’t know if it’s editing, soundtrack, more realistic locations, by which I don’t mean “real Yorkshire” or something, more like flats, houses, offices, police stations, etc, look like they do look like in real life, and not what Hollywood thinks they should look.

    4. Cookies For Breakfast*

      The main difference I notice is in sitcoms, specifically the humour. Veep and The Thick of It are from the same creator and have similar subject matter, but the humour in The Thick of It is drier, while Veep is one laugh-out-loud joke after another. Speaking with friends who saw both versions of The Office, I suspect something similar applies there (I only watched the UK one). And much as Ted Lasso is based in London / loved all over the world, one of the main impressions it left me is that its target audience really were Americans who don’t know or care about football and are used to a series’ messages and values pointed out very transparently.

      I think what I’m trying to say is that UK sitcoms are less afraid of leaning on the bleak and the awkward in life and making comedy out of it, while US sitcoms go for a more feel-good vibe? However: I’m not from the US and not a native English speaker, so apologies if I explained myself badly.

    5. SAF*

      As someone who has lived in England and the US, I do want to stick up for American TV – the British shows seem better because PBS is choosing to air well-reviewed and successful shows. It’s curated, so it should be the best of the best!

    6. Gronk*

      Applause! As an Australian watching US TV shows or movies it always surprises me how often US based fictional characters burst into applause. It just happens so often compared with what I would see in “real life” but also far more often than in British or Australian productions. Maybe American people actually do applaud more often than we do?

    7. Part time lab tech*

      The lighting is different. This partially reflects differences in climate and latitude. I know nothing about fashions in lighting and contrast but I notice that it changes with time too although some of that is film and recording techniques in different decades.

    8. Pippa*

      The setting is often an important supporting role in UK TV shows – Bath is part of McDonald & Dodds and North East England is part of Vera in a way that NYC was not a central character of Friends. US TV shows typically tell us where they are located, with words and a few sweeping views in the opening credits, and then each episode itself could be anywhere USA. Cheers could be in Boston or Baltimore. Fraser in Seattle or Austin. The cities aren’t part of the stories with few expections like Dallas, Magnum PI, or Hawaii 5-0.

      1. allathian*

        Or Oxford for Endeavour, Inspector Morse, and Inspector Lewis.

        This is also true for fictional locations like Causton/Midsomer, as in Midsomer Murders.

        That said, there are exceptions. Miami is very much a character in both Miami Vice and CSI: Miami. NYC is a character in CSI: New York.

        Frasier and Cheers are sitcoms, and those were traditionally made in a studio, with a live studio audience. Even more modern sitcoms that were filmed without a live audience generally have a laugh track that’s supposed to give the same feel to the viewer. So they basically have no outdoor scenes at all, and the location is immaterial.

        1. Firefighter (Metaphorical)*

          Also, both UK and US shows are aiming at the USian market, so British shows are made for export, meaning they sell a (highly aestheticised) version of their location. I’m a Brit living in Australia and I don’t know any Brits who watch Midsomer, but (at least around ten years ago when I moved here) Australians are OBSESSED with it. Like Neighbours (Australian show geared to the UK market) in reverse.

  32. dear liza dear liza*

    I need a new exercise regime to try out. My workout partner moved away (sob) and with her went my motivation to go to the gym on my own. I do better with peer pressure, lol, so I’m looking for new classes. In the past I’ve enjoyed more dance-inspired classes like Zumba and Jazzercise, but the local offerings don’t work for my schedule. I’m not fond of bootcamps like OrangeTheory or Crossfit, and pilates and barre I find boring. Anything new out there I should look for?

    1. Bike Walk Barb*

      Hula hooping! I’m taking an intro class through my local parks and rec. A ton of fun, plenty of cardio, uses different body parts in different ways and you can be a kid again.

    2. HannahS*

      Cardio kick is fun. It’s the movements of kickboxing but no contact (I.e. you’re just doing the movements more like a dance class) and it’s with music.

    3. BigMove*

      Water aerobics! In my area it’s called AquaFit and the county offers a course at an indoor pool through parks and recreation. It’s helped me build muscle with minimal pain.

    4. Alex*

      Have you tried actual dance classes? A lot of kids’ dance studios also offer adult classes, usually in the evening.

    5. noname today*

      Pilates classes—preferably with the reformer equipment. It’s great and (added plus) while I was doing it I warded off the post-menopausal shrinking. After I stopped in 2020 ( covid), the shrinking started (7 years after menopause and after my friends all lost 3-6 inches).

    6. CanadaGoose*

      If the gyms and local municipal services don’t have classes you like at a convenient time, check the dance studios. Some will have classes for adults in the evening, often no particular prior experience required. If you liked Zumba but not barre, go for belly dancing, ballroom, hip hop, jazz, etc rather than ballet or “modern”.

  33. fhqwhgads*

    Hello kind hive-mind!
    I am trying to come up with ideas for toddler dress-up play that are not princesses and not law enforcement. So far we have doctors covered.
    This is not specifically for Halloween, just dress-up playtime.

    1. The Week Ends*

      Animals? Headbands can have ears of various types and belts could have tails attached. And various wings. Striped or spotted shirts too. Unicorns, fairies, “cute” monsters too might have weird ears and wings. Unless you want humans only.

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

      Chef? Superhero? Ghost? Cat or dog? I think anything that lets the kid act out what they’re dressed up as could be pretty fun!

    3. Costume ideas*

      Animals (bear, cat, dog, butterfly, otter), super heroes (do those count as law enforcement?), Viking, Star Wars. When my son was younger – he loved to dress up! He and his friends would just lounge around in costumes while playing games! Lol

    4. Dark Macadamia*

      Honestly the best dress up stuff is open-ended! Scarves, hats, even just pieces of fabric in different sizes/colors/textures. Belts, headbands, accessories. A toddler might not put together cohesive outfits from this but they generally seem to enjoy just walking around with a silly thing on their head, lol.

        1. Bike Walk Barb*

          Thirding. I kept a trunk of dress-up stuff and love the video of one daughter wearing a leotard and cape, jumping off a sofa and lecturing her little sister about what to do.

        1. fhqwhgads*

          They can. They do. I suppose it doesn’t have to be so defined but child in question has expressed a desire for something else but not really able to say what the something else is. Hence the asking for ideas.

      1. fhqwhgads*

        I don’t disagree! Toddler in question has a lot of that, but has expressed interest in more costumes. Not articulated in those exact words, but was pretty clearly the goal to be able to dress up as different… occupations? That’s not the right word, but is the angle I’m approaching from.

    5. Shiny Penny*

      Carpenter or forestry worker? Hard hat, or over-the-ears hearing protectors. Safety vest. Tool belt. Safety glasses.
      Old timey farmer— Straw hat, overalls
      Chef— White hat, apron
      Scientist— Lab coat, hair net, safety goggles
      Cowboy/cowgirl— Hat, neck handkerchief, vest, chaps
      Astronaut? Ghost? The Tin Man? Other Oz characters? Characters from their favorite movies?
      Historical characters like Abraham Lincoln or Madam Curie?
      Robot? Train conductor?

    6. Falling Diphthong*

      Capes styled like various things. Butterfly wings, bird wings, turtle shell.

      Investigate the world of onesies for dragons and unicorns.

      Superheroes? I think both the counter examples you give tap into wanting to feel powerful and capable.

    7. Bluebell Brenham*

      Wings, bug and cat headbands, firefighter, capes for magicians and superheroes, striped shirts for bugs and zebras. I have fond memories of the high heeled shoes my mom put in the dress up chest. Trays and plastic cups for playing restaurant.

    8. SuprisinglyADHD*

      Carpenter/construction worker is a popular one, just make sure they know to use the plastic tools for pretend and not /actually/ take apart real things. Some other ones are cook/chef, firefighters, any type of performer like magician or rock star, scientist, knight, teacher, superhero. Also, kids love to mirror what they see their parents do, so shopping and cleaning can be fun make-believes, at least until they figure out those are “chores”

    9. Chauncy Gardener*

      Gardeners, construction workers, baristas, military folks, firefolks ( is that law enforcement?), teachers, people who work at grocery stores.

      1. Orange m&m*

        You might be able to get some Halloween costumes way on sale 1-2 days after Halloween. If anything appeals to you or the kiddo those can be used for dress up.

        1. Velociraptor Attack*

          My kiddo has a fall birthday and is in a big dress-up phase (so many costume changes a day you’d think we’re hosting the Oscars), so we requested costumes from all of our family. Made out like a bandit and it was very well recieved.

    10. Alex*

      I remember as a kid having a bunch of animal costume stuff. Not really full costumes, but different noses, ears, tails, paws, etc. I really enjoyed those.

    11. Chaordic One*

      Policewoman, firewoman, emt?

      I remember my little sister playing with some little boys who were pretending to be a sheriff and some cowboys. My sister was “Miss Kitty” from Gunsmoke. LOL!

    12. FACS*

      Robin Hood characters were a hit here. They both wanted to be Little John. I can knit so made “chain mail” tunics and helms from silvery yarn and they went on quests in the yard. Astronaut is also fun.

    13. Not A Manager*

      I used to buy props from the party store/halloween store, craft stores, and from places like Renn Faires. We had a big box of jumbled costume parts that included

      – several individual yards of velour fabric (cloaks, head coverings, curtains, forts);
      – lots of hats, including chef hats, cowboy hats, helmets and crowns
      – various scarves, jewelry, and shiny things
      – small pretty bags that come with various items. Drawstring bags to hold treasure were a favorite
      – shields, swords, chaps, tutus, armor. Pool noodles make great swords
      – small toy props like pots and pans, rolling pins, household tools
      – the stuffed animals and dolls participated a lot, too

    14. Can't Sit Still*

      Princess Awesome has toddler armor, as well as a variety of STEM and fantasy themes. Everything has pockets! Despite the name, it’s not just for girls and they do have sales. (Adult armor in a full range of sizes can be found at Lorica. Also with pockets!)

    15. BookMom*

      Early childhood supply companies have tons of stuff. US Toy sells online and their quality and prices are good.

    16. sigh*

      more than specific outfits. how about a collection of parts – different types of hats (construction, police, wizard, etc), maybe some scarves, belts, tutus, capes, etc stuff fairy wings, etc. and then accessories (stethoscope, wand, colander, other random trinkets that catch their eyes.

    17. Keep it Simple*

      Knights and medieval people! Dragons! Maid Marion and Robin Hood. (The kick-ass Maid Marion, who shot bows and arrows and things.) Mythology – Hera, Artemis, Freya. Egyptians. Elves.

  34. Healthcare Worker*

    My mother loved having an electronic picture frame. My adult children would upload pictures daily or weekly and we had it scheduled to come on in the morning and off in the evening. She loved “having breakfast” with her great granddaughter, and she could see the frame from her recliner. It seemed to bring her much joy and required no energy for her to enjoy it.

  35. Filosofickle*

    My mattress needs to be replaced and it has me thinking — how long do you expect a quality (mid-high but not luxury) mattress to last? The one I have now is a queen hybrid by Serta which had a list price of around $1500 I think.

    I’m not disappointed in my mattress, it’s 9 years old and that’s a decent run though of course I’d like more. It’s still fairly comfortable with some amount of body impression, which I can tell only because it’s a little higher in the middle. I do have a lot of aches and pains but since I rarely sleep any better in hotel / guest beds that’s probably just my aging body!

    Just curious what other people’s expectations and experiences are.

    1. Enough*

      While I have used my mattresses for 20 years they should have,been replaced at 10. 10 years is what the expected life span.

      1. Just a name*

        I’m not certain how old our mattress was, (maybe 2007-2022) but when I upsized from Queen to King, I immediately felt relief from the aches and pains at the pressure points. Also the upsize was an amazing improvement. We started with a full size bed in 1990, yikes. Didn’t get a queen until 2007.

        1. Chaordic One*

          Do you think that the improvement in comfort is related to the size of the mattress? My mother kept pushing me to get a queen-size bed and when I did, I didn’t really notice that much of a difference in comfort, but I find it a bit cumbersome, just because it is bigger and takes up more space.

          1. Just a name*

            It helped with the sleep quality because I don’t toss and turn as much. Also the Mr. is a heat generator which did not work for me when having hot flashes so extra space helped with that. But the bed itself, firm underneath but a layer of fresh cushiness on top, definitely helps with the pressure points. As a side sleeper, the hips and shoulders were getting sore more frequently. The old mattress was a pillow top that had lost it’s cushion.

    2. Elle Woods*

      My husband and I just replaced our pillowtop mattress a few weeks ago. We’d had it about 7.5 years and paid around $1200 for it then. We paid around $1700 for the new mattress, which is a hybrid and supposed to last longer.

    3. Harlowe*

      I refuse to buy a mattress that can’t be both turned and flipped. All sides should be equally useable. I think pillow tops and similar features are scams to make you only get half the use out of it.

      Our mattress is 14 and still in great shape, though to be fair we are both petite/smaller people as well (I am 5’0″ and husband is 5’6″).

      1. Twinne*

        The flipping thing is such a pervasive myth, isn’t it? It’s an old wives tale that just won’t die. And it results in people sleeping on substandard mattresses for far too long, sadly.