Winter won’t end so I’ll throw more pomegranates at it. I always learned that pomegranates have iron, and vitamin c, and unicorn blood in them so they’ll cure anything. Let’s talk of superstitions and ways to end the cold. And if you live somewhere with warmth and sunshine, well, talk about something other than your warmth and sunshine. What are you winter comfort activities? Tell us all!
Tags: open thread, the bartender
It was 6 degrees Fahrenheit when I got to work this morning. The local news helpfully informed us that it was warmer in Alaska. I’m usually relatively okay with winter, but this one is REALLY getting to me.
Toastfriends, do any of you use Fitbits? I’ve had mine for almost a month and I’m really loving it (p. sure it’s my Valentine this year) but I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a friendly step count contest? My one friend has one but there is a Man in it that I find particularly insufferable and then I get annoyed and increase my step count just to spite him and win. That’s *probably* not the best way of going about things.
tl;dr would anyone be interested in a Toastie Fitbit group, or just to be Fitbit friends? I want to step in a friendly way, not a spiteful one. I’m elyseexplosion!
Here, I made a thing! Bit O’Toast! https://www.fitbit.com/group/22QWSH
I’m in! I’m now kind of a fitbit evangelist. I’ve had mine for almost two years, and then I FLUSHED it (the waistband kind, not the wrist kind). I felt so dumb. But I wrote to them, and they said as a “gesture of goodwill,” they’d send me a new one! So now I’m back on track and ready to help y’all spite the menfolk.
This reminds me of the time I lost my Pokéwalker because I fell on the chair lift while skiing. It was not recovered, and Nintendo weren’t nearly as nice. 🙁
I must say though, I laughed so hard at the thought of it going down the toilet (I have the One and keep it clipped to my bra, I hope this never happens!)
Oh, god, I know, it was so ridiculous. It was clipped to apparently-flimsy pajama pants, and then all of a sudden it was like “Oh…well…there it goes!” The customer service people didn’t even laugh at me though! A ski lift sounds like a much more reasonable place to lose something. 🙂
I joined! I’m Terry. Thanks for putting this together!
Yay! Thanks so much for throwing this together – if anyone wants to be individual friends still, go right ahead and send a request! I will assume that any random people are toasties otherwise 🙂
great! I have not quite figured out how to set up my fitbit (it’s just a patience thing), but once I do, hopefully this weekend, I will message you! and possibly join the Bit o’ Toast.
Wanted to add: I try to be very mindful that I’m in a primarily female space as a male, so if this is a no dudes thing, I’ll happily see myself out.
That’s adorable, but no, please stay, and then we can joyfully crush your step count, and all will be well in the Land of Misandry.
Sounds good to me!
I joined! I got one for Christmas, but I forgot to charge it after it died initially so I haven’t been using it. I am glad of something to motivate me!
I joined. I had the most steps. I felt bad. I left.
But I like this idea and I genuinely hope everyone in the group has a good time with it!
Aw, you should come back! Give Elyse someone to chase!
Give me a run for my money, please!!
If you’re sure!
(thank you both for responding kindly to my anxieties)
Certainly not a problem 😀 Your step count is awesome – do you work in a field that is conducive to walking a lot?
No, but my commute to “work” (I am a grad student) is a 20-25 min walk, plus I am training for a half-marathon which helps a lot with getting steps.
I totally thought that’s the case based on your run charts. i decided i’m training for a half marathon and ran 10k on friday and then fell down with strep/sore throat and can’t move for 2 days ARGH.
My response on seeing your step count was an appreciative “DAMN girl, look at you go!” So, don’t feel bad!
This is a great idea, thanks for setting it up and Elyse for thinking of it.
I just joined, my name is Brooke. Been sitting way too much lately and this may help me get off my ass a bit more. I had to quit running this year because of a knee injury, so that hasn’t helped.
I joined! (I’m Beth). Currently bringing up the rear, since I didn’t wear my Fitbit for a week or so.
Joined! Also checked out my FitBit profile for the first time ever, glad to see that the public view privacy statements are so delightfully alien in their connotation-less syntax: “Body area is private” ; “Sleep is private” ; “My Body is private.”
I joined! I’m Jen. And I apparently haven’t been walking much in February, probably because it’s been cold.
This is great, thanks! I joined, and I’m Leah.
Oh man, I am so bummed – I’m getting an activity tracker soon, but the garmin one, not a fitbit. It does sync with myfitnesspal, if there are toasties on there??
Oh I’m there and I’m horrible at it. Does it have groups? I’d join up with Toasts there.
I’ve had my fitbit for a while but haven’t been wearing it since winter is so very prominent. This was such a good idea! I joined. Hope to get back into it.
This weekend is my divorce-aversary (seriously, it’s when he announced it, and when the papers were final a year later). There’s a big swing dance in town and after 2 years of going in the same 4 thrifted dresses I stopped in after running an errand for my mom to look at a dress at the outlet stores. I figured I could buy myself a new dress to celebrate.
Yeah, even at $40 off, I couldn’t jusitify it. And it looked awesome and I could use it for work AND dancing. But nope. Texted my sister and she just got a really expensive valentine’s present–a new washing machine!! This is what we are like. Too darn practical.
Apologies for the unsoliceted-advice-ness of this, but if you don’t use a budget, it might help to try one? I find it much easier to buy myself nice clothes, both in terms of affording them and in terms of not feeling bad about spending the money on them, if I have used my budget to put aside some money for them every month. I use this software. Your milage may vary, of course.
Oh, no offense taken. My problem is that I just got out of grad school and I’m a single mom with three kids. A budget is great but right now I’m in the negative with part-time work. I’ve got a spreadsheet and a budget, but they have band, braces, growing feet…etc.
Fair enough! May you get through this to a time of nice dresses sooner than you expect.
Yay, thank you! I need to find my Force, it’s in the bathroom collecting dust because of the rash issue… I’ve got the Charge HR ordered but BACKORDER so, there’s that.
I think that righteous dislike of and spite toward A Man are perfectly acceptable motivators.
Just wanna announce that already this thread has motivated me to go get some steppin’ in today, so yayyyy thanks Toasties! (Kristin, I’m comin’ for you!)
I was in a shitty mood for the last couple hours about the lack of work/life balance going on right now. But this is put me in a good mood and motivated me to get a FitBit and have fun while I toil for the man.
Oh my god what a great idea! Joined. Finally someone to chase!
I decided to pass on a really nice house in a neighborhood I love. Being responsible sucks.
I took my partner and our housemate to go see it yesterday, and they both liked it fine, but neither of them were as psyched as I was, and I was thinking about it afterward, realizing that the whole reason I want to be in this neighborhood is how it feels to me to be there. It’s the nice part of town. Pretty houses. Big backyards. Elite. And it makes me feel accomplished to be there.
But for the amount of money we’re paying . . . we could go to a less elite part of town, where the neighborhood is still quiet and family-friendly and walkable, but less fancy, and get so much more for that same amount of rent. More space, an extra room or two, 2 bathrooms instead of 1. It makes more sense.
I bring all this up to my guy and he says he hadn’t wanted to say anything, because I was so excited about this house, and he tries not to rain on my parade when I’m really passionate, but now that I bring it up . . . wouldn’t it be better to sit tight and spend the next few months working off more of my debt, instead of doubling my expenses just as my financial situation is turning around?
He is right, of course. So my new plan is to pretend I am paying the extra rent for the next few months, and use that additional money to pay off debt. That way I will get used to spending X amount of money monthly, and will be certain I can keep up with it. And I’ll have a lot less debt by the time our lease is up in five months.
I’m proud of the decision, but it’s still so hard. I want a HOUSE, not an apartment. I want hardwood floors instead of ratty carpet, a quiet neighborhood instead of rowdy college kid neighbors and a busily-trafficked street, an office in my home instead of working at the library because we have such close quarters here that I can’t work. I want these things, but I don’t need them. It’s still hard to be patient when these things matter to you.
I want your stories of being financially responsible even when you really want things. Are you glad you waited?
I feel you, dude. I live in a shit neighborhood too, but I am saving so much money by just hanging tight, accepting that this is a temporary situation, and using sound-reducing headphones.
I fell in love with a house when we were looking for one. It was the same size as the one we ended up buying, but about 1/3 more expensive, because it was in a “nicer” neighborhood and all, and it was just generally fancier. Still, I’m happy we didn’t buy it, because now a) we can easily afford the mortgage, instead of it taking up half our income, and this gives flexibility in all kinds of things and b) we’re kinda lazy slobs, for which the neighbors in the fancier neighborhood would probably have resented us. In other words: it feels disappointing, but in the end, it’s probably the wise decision.
Well… as something that’s kind of the opposite of what you’re asking for but might make you feel better: my husband and I moved out of a small apartment and got our first house last summer. It’s great, what with all the space and yard and such, but the extra expense has had me in a perpetual state of stress ever since. If I had thought about it more– really, really thought about it– I probably should have decided to do the more responsible thing and wait. The anxiety isn’t worth it.
Everything that has to do with buying a house is so, so stressful. If I say more than that i’m going to start rage/stress crying at work so I’ll just commiserate. It sucks.
Unfortunately (?) I am so financially responsible, I have no idea what it feels like to not wait to buy things. Seriously, I am the worst at treating myself.
This is where I shine in our relationship. He keeps us from making heedless stupid decisions, and I make sure we go out and indulge in extravagant stuff just for funsies now and then. It works pretty well. Go take yourself out to dinner! It’s awesome!
I was going to take myself shopping (thrift store shopping, but hey), but I just wore myself out going out to the garage to pull stuff out of the big freezer.
So ready to be fully recovered from this stupid flu bug. Maybe next weekend!
Sounds like a really good time to spend a little extra money to have someone bring you delicious hot soup. (EYEBROW WAGGLE)
I really really really hope your mind is as filthy as mine and you mean what I’m inferring from your comment.
This is kind of my life, and I think we even live in the same city (We met, once, right? Back in The Hairpin days at a meetup? Or am I getting you confused with another username?).
I’m really, really happy that we ended up buying a modest house in a modest neighborhood versus what we could technically afford according to the mortgage brokers. My husband’s industry is fluctuating downward, and even though my income is pretty limited, I know I can make enough to pay our mortgage each month if he gets downsized. Many of his coworkers with fancier places are … not in the same boat.
It’s easier than it could be, because I’m happy with our house and bad at Having Nice Things anyway (In a fancy place, I’d have to decorate a formal living room???). But sometimes it’s like, man, it must be nice to have a dedicated master bathroom, or a bedroom that could fit more than a queen bed. But the lack of stress and the knowledge that it would be really hard to end up living on the streets is so worth it. Good luck with your plan, which sounds extremely smart.
I’m in a perpetual agony of constant desire for stylish clothing that fits my large-boobed and narrower-than-usual-especially-in-the-torso-for-my-boob-size frame. I’ve never found anything that REALLY fits since age 9-10 or so. This includes button-down shirts, woven-fabric dresses (sob!), more bras (I currently own two 32H bras and they don’t fit perfectly because I bought them at a slightly cheaper/less knowledgeable specialty bra place than usual and it was all they had), a more flattering coat, a bathing suit, and a bunch of basic long- and short-sleeved t-shirts. Clothing fitting badly increases my body dysmorphia and bums me out. I haunt DD-Atelier and Pepperberry all the time. I’m also very picky and only like natural fabrics, mostly only woven rather than jersey or stretch, and only in certain colors. We can’t even hardly afford daily stuff, let alone expensive specialty clothes, since I’m unemployed and my husband is underemployed. I also really, really want to learn how to sew these things and am making some progress, though my sewing machine refuses to do automatic buttonholes like it’s supposed to, and this hobby is also too expensive (in Canada, and I’ve also been haunting much, much cheaper American online fabric stores that cost an arm and a leg to ship here, because I’m a masochist). I feel sadly virtuous that I’ve refrained from making myself happy with clothes/fabric/etc. But! My husband just got a better-paying new job that will also help us transition to the US better, so I can stop being so virtuous soon.
My sewing machine also claims to do automatic buttonholes, but so far all I can find is the Automatic Thread-Snarling feature, which is not as good.
Our sewing machines must be related! I even had seamstress friends take a look and they were like, “welp, I dunno.”
Friends who are younger than me currently will not shut up about their condo-hunting process. It makes absolutely no financial sense for me to be looking at buying a place because my apartment is huge and rent-controlled and so much cheaper than a mortgage would ever be, but DAMN IT I WANT TO. And it is not fair that these younger friends have family wealth and no student loans, etc etc, ugh.
So basically, right there with you.
Exemplary adulting.
Honestly being financially responsible when we really want things is something we are TERRIBLE at, but fortunately the things we really want tend to be a slice of strata and a cup of overpriced coffee (the brunch I just finished) so this has not yet thrown us on the rocks of financial disaster. But your story is very inspiring; perhaps we should something clever and similar.
I decided not to go on a spur of the moment weekend skiing trip and instead am going to spend that money on “getting married” and “paying off credit card debt” UGH
Late to this, but I feel you SUPER hard. We’ve lived in the same, small apartment for 10 years, and I am over. it. And now that (knock on wood) we will have a baby coming, I desperately want a place with an in-unit washer/dryer and slightly more room. But my job also ends in June, and if I don’t find something else right away, moving will be irresponsible. UGH.
Being house-poor sucks and you are doing the right thing.
Years ago, I was living in a tiny condo in an expensive part of the country, and I made an offer on a cute little house. I wanted to garden. It was a stretch for me, but they still didn’t take my offer. Then I lost my job just as the housing market crashed hard in that part of the country. I can only imagine what a disaster it would have been if I had gotten that house, which is now worth far less that what I offered. I did find another job in a different state, and bought my dream house. It burned down. So now I buy practical houses. The one I live in now, I got extremely cheap (foreclosure, had been empty forever) and fixed up myself. It’s almost paid off. Having the financial security of a tiny mortgage makes me so happy. Happiness from buying stuff fades, but I get to be happy every time I look at my shrinking mortgage.
Good day, Toasts! I hope you are all well and also eating pomegranates, which are delicious.
It has been A Week and I am bored-but-not-TOO-bored of talking about Fifty Shades and trying to educate people on my FB feed on the difference between an abusive relationship and BDSM, which often feels like shouting into a blizzard but it’s entertaining. Today, MrChouffe is interviewing for a job for which he’s desperately overqualified and I’m not sure how he’ll handle being told that, if he is told that. Any tips?
If they mention it in the interview, he can always remind them that yes, he’s overqualified, but THEY are the ones getting a good deal. I’ve been passed over for being overqualified, but in the job I have now, I started out overqualified and my employer took advantage, and now I’m irreplaceable.
Does he really really want the job? Or is he desperate for work? Kindof both?
He really does need a job, but he’s far more likely to stay at something that’s challenging and fun and probably less corporate than this one, so I’m not sure if it’s a good idea. The thing is that before this week, he hadn’t gone on a job interview in twelve years, so he’s a bit out of practice and he’s pretty much always gotten whatever job he’s applied for, so any sort of rejection would be a new thing for him.
Update: they offered him the job on the spot, but the pay scale is… not good, in that we would lose the house in a matter of about two months. So.
Oof. Well, at least it’s encouraging to have the offer, and he can go on more interviews with confidence?
Yes, I think so. Actually I’m really really glad of the tiny money, because it keeps him from having to string things out while a couple of other interviews/offers percolate.
I had a similar thing happen to me because they didn’t publicize the pay rate and were trying to get someone with an advanced degree and five years of experience to work for far below entry-level pay. That was an uncomfortable conversation. Sorry it didn’t work out 🙁
I really hate when pay rates aren’t even mentioned as a minimum. Especially for academic positions, since we’re all supposed to be selfless and devoted to the pursuit of truth and guiding future generations and not at all interested in moving cross-country because we’d be paid $5K/year more. Sigh.
Or it’s just assumed that everyone applying has a trust fund.
I’ve been in the process of applying for jobs recently, and so have been reading a lot of Ask A Manager. I was genuinely astounded to learn that in the US (I’m in the UK) it’s normal to not post salary details in the job ad, and not to discuss salary until really late in the whole process. It seems like such a waste of everyone’s time, and I’m sorry it didn’t work out for your husband.
OMG SO BORED OF 50SOG
toasties, i just bought a ticket TO SEE THE REPLACEMENTS. i never in my life thought i’d get to see them, so i am over the moon.
The ‘Mats! OMG, I’m back in 1981 and very very happy about it!
‘mats 4ever! i am too young to have seen them in their heyday, and when they first announced their reunion, i was bummed, because i wasn’t about to shell out for a coachella ticket, not even for paul westerberg. but now they’re playing a smaller show in san francisco and i am super super excited!
I saw them last spring (my friend is a HUGE fan) and I had such a great time! And then my friend who is a huge fan just about DIED he enjoyed it so much. Have fun!!
thanks! and yes, my friend who is a fellow huge fan saw them at coachella and just about expired from happiness. i think i’ll probably be in the same boat!
YOU GUYS. My best friend from middle school found me on Twitter THROUGH MY TOAST ARTICLE YESTERDAY. We follow each other now. YOU GUYS.
Also, in spite of the article going up, I managed to be reasonably productive at work! Between obsessively refreshing comments and social media shares and such, of course. I love you all the most, and that goes double for those of you on Twitter. Be my Valentine. <3 <3 <3
THAT’S AWESOME! I recently found one of my long-lost high school friends through Linked In! We met up on Sunday and it was like absolutely zero time had passed and that made me feel awesome.
<3 <3
The wind was blowing all night, and it made me sleep poorly and gave me nightmares. Most of them I can’t remember, but there was the one, with the weird guy in our bedroom. He could control things with his mind and was making things like scissors fly around to hurt people. I took them away, to the basement, and as I was walking back up I tried to think thoughts that weren’t judgey about the guy, because I didn’t want him to read my mind and get mad.
All this made me get up with a faint miasma of anxiety all around me. Anyone wanna share some cute fluffy gifs?
I HAD IT ALL READY TO GO
have a cute mousey valentine! (from here!)
Pusheen!
Please enjoy this video of KITTENS SO FLUFFY THEIR BELLIES ALMOST TOUCH THE GROUND playing with ROBOTS
Be careful, you Might Be in a Murakami novel!!
Don’t eat any spaghetti and stay far away from talking cats.
Here’s a gif that always cracks me up. I miss Ann, but I really really really miss Drunk Ann.
My brand-new nephew is in stable condition in the NICU. He’s so smaaaaaall. I’m pretty sure I’ve had meals bigger than this kid. I can’t visit because they only allow parents and grandparents in there, but I’m probably going to go visit for Easter since he should be home by then – I have a 4-day weekend so plenty of time to cuddle him and read all the baby books I’ve bought for him. I can’t wait to get started on aunting!
I keep catching myself thinking, “Hey, I could totally have my own baby! That might be fun! I’d probably be pretty good at it!” which is disconcerting after 26 years of being staunch in my resolve not to have children. It will probably go away (I am definitely not unhappy in my baby-less state), but what if it doesn’t? I’m just concerned that I might have a baby and then realize it was a bad idea and secretly resent the baby and it grows up all maladjusted and unhappy.
“I’m just concerned that I might have a baby and then realize it was a bad idea and secretly resent the baby and it grows up all maladjusted and unhappy.” — this is how I feel, too. Sometimes it seems like an interesting experience. But I suspect I might hate it, and what then?
I’m glad your nephew is doing okay! Aunting is the best!
I feel you on the baby thing. I’ve always been pretty ambivalent about them, but for the last few years I feel like my baby switch has turned on. I’m still not a baby person, but now I occasionally see one and go…oh I want one of those! But I also think that one day when I have a baby I might resent it. Because, freedom and time and money etc. So I’m gonna let time figure this one out, because I sure can’t decide now.
Ohhhh tiny nephew. Let the aunting settle in for a bit, and see how you feel. You can always change your mind TO have a kid!
I moved from “I never want kids ever, proudly childfree,” to what you said above, to “I really want a child but I have so many stresses about it, including the state of the world and what if I have a kid with a serious disability/other issue?”. You’re still young, so you have years left to decide whether you really want kids or not. I’m 30 now, and I’ve only recently started really wanting to have a kid. I definitely think people should contemplate the decision more than many do–my husband and I have talked about it a lot, and I think we’d both make good parents who could work together and watch for each others’ flaws. But some people really shouldn’t have kids. It’s something to really contemplate. I’d recommend the book Why Have Children? The Ethical Debate by Christine Overall. She’s a philosopher and her book is about the ethics of having kids. Great read.
I am child-free by choice. I could have had babies. I have fun with other people’s children. I’m very good with children. None of that changes how I feel about parenting. Correction, about my *being* a parent. If I could sign on to parenthood for, say, five years, I could do it. But this lifetime commitment is far too much for me. It takes too much time/energy taking care of myself and my emotional struggles. Not enough left over for the parenting every child deserves.
So, ask yourself, am I distinguishing between enjoyment of children and parenting commitment?
You are not me. You have abilities I will never have. And I trust your judgment. Just wanted to share the sliver of clarity I had to struggle decades to find.
Congratulations Auntie!
I hear you on the momentary “heyyyy I could have one of these, I could do this,” thoughts. What always gets me is thinking about the post-baby, post-toddler years, and then I realize that Aunting is where I’m more comfortable.
A baby! Congratulations! Aunting is pretty great.
I definitely have moments where I think “I want a baby girl to love and raise her to be strong and happy” but….I mean, to some extent, when you have a kid your identity is going to center around the fact that you are A Mother. I hate the idea of being defined so completely by my relationship to someone else. I mean, of course I am a daughter, sister, aunt, etc., and those relationships are part of my identity, but when you’re a mother you’re essentially devoting your life to someone else for 20-odd years (anyone who says 18 is lying, I’m 25 and moved out but you better believe my first call after getting mugged was to my mom). That’s such a scary thought to me. What if I have to put aside goals and friendships and relationships? Is it worth it? Or would I resent it?
My other Big Fear is that I won’t have children or get married but all my friends will and I’ll lose them to their families.
Sorry if this comment made no sense, it’s 3 pm and I haven’t had coffee yet.
I have two kids and I don’t think you have to do this. I am a reader and a writer and a cook and an overanalyzer and also a mother and the mother part doesn’t change the importance of those other things. Yes,it will take more logistical overhead to fulfill the other parts of yourself but it is IMO necessary for women to reject the idea that your other identities are secondary. It’s important for my daughters to know who I am outside of being their mother, too.
If you define your life as devoted primarily to your child, how do you deal with their need to individuate? What do you do after they grow up? What if they don’t appreciate your selflessness? Of course you give a lot to your kids but don’t ever give away your SELF.
Thanks for this post Maryaed, very reassuring to hear this from someone who’s already a mother (twice over)!
Also, ugh dads never have to think “will I lose my identity when I have children?”
The fact we even think about this shows how unequal (in general) childrearing still is…or society’s expectations of it are anyway.
Congratulations, Auntie! Glad to hear your nephew is stable.
So glad to hear your nephew is doing well! Keep us posted. Inquiring internet strangers want to know.
I SO FEEL YOUR QUESTION!!!
We decided to have one kid and see how things went, and i was panic-stricken because i had never liked kids all that much, and hadn’t babysat, or dealt gracefully with neighborhood children or anything useful. I managed for the most part by applying grad school behaviors to the process (research everything, document everything for future reference) but when it was time to meet the pediatrician she made the mistake of asking if I had any questions. I, having done my reading, had no actual questions concerning babies, but had MANY EXISTENTIAL WORRIES. And I think I even asked “what if parenthood doesn’t work out for me?” and she rolled her eyes so hard she sprained one and I am certain I became the punch line to all her work jokes for a week. But it was something i worried about.
The happy ending is that I decided I could parent, and I had a crazy supportive husband, and a bunch of friends who’d gone before and hadn’t fucked up too badly, and I had a danger-child I adored. The danger-child is the one where you pick them up and think “If I could have one EXACTLY like this I could probably parent just fine.” And then I had not one but two. Which is another story.
Toasties, big news! After a few weeks of serious house hunting (and many months of non serious house wishing) my husband and I bid on a house and got it! It was a very dramatic process which involved much back and forth and for a while we thought we’d lost it and we were very sad. But in the end, we stayed firm on our lower price (like this) and got it anyway! Much rejoicing! The owner (it’s a flip) wants us to close in three weeks! So it’s all happening very quickly! But then we’ll be homeowners!
OMG CONGRATULATIONS THAT IS SO EXCITING AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Next week I’m going to New Orleans for a work thing and I am sooooo pumped not to see snow for four days. SUCK MY BUTT MASSACHUSETTS
nice!! have a fabulous time and when you get back, tell us all about what you liked best. i’m planning a spring trip to new orleans with a friend, and toasties give the best recommendations!
Will do! Fun stuff will be mostly food-based because I’ll be at a conference during the day, but I gather food is half the fun of New Orleans anyway.
oh absolutely. it’s basically going to be a food vacation, with maybe some time for museums and music in between/while simultaneously stuffing our faces.
Can I stow away?
If we get that promised foot of snow here in coastal Mass, I may opt to be car-free for a while. I can get to work with a coworker as long as he’s mobile, and the pantry is full of things like lentils and rice, so I won’t starve.
Jeallllllousss.
It’s 45 degrees right now and everyone is complaining about how cold it is.
That’s amazing, bless you all
I hear they have those weird things in New Orleans called grass and trees and flowers. What even are those.
I’ve heard that, but honestly I think it might be an urban legend
I will keep the space in front of Woodstar dug out for you if you will have beignets and CDM cafe au lait for me at Cafe Du Monde?
Valentine’s Day = baking madness in my house. Does anyone have good things to say about a food coloring-free red velvet cake, maybe with beets? I’m thinking of trying this one out tomorrow, maybe with some citrus or herbs in the frosting and possibly jaggery to replace some of the sugar.
Also–I want to get into sewing! But I didn’t grow up with a mom or grandmother who could teach me, so I’m starting from scratch. I can hand-sew a little. Anyone have recommendations for buying a sewing machine appropriate for a beginner? I’ve been told often to buy a good machine used, but that’s pretty hard in a major city when you don’t drive.
My mom actually counseled against buying a used machine, because so many people sell off machines with problems instead of repairing them, and then you have to repair it. If you’re starting out and want one that works out of the box so you can just get to it, you can get a pretty solid machine from amazon for ~$150, or even a basic one for under 100. Singer and Janome will both do you very well, and people seem to like Brother which I haven’t used. You don’t need a ton of stitches – you’ll probably never use more than like three, so don’t worry about the extra 67 decorative stitches unless that’s the kind of embellishment you really want.
Thank you! Okay, so maybe I should just buy a thing and stop overthinking it? The most popular models on Amazon have a ton of ratings but it’s pretty hard to sort out the 30-years-experienced experts disgusted by cheap machines these days from people who’ve just opened the box, neither of which are particularly useful.
I like the looks of the $136 Singer “heavy duty” model. It means business.
Yes! To whip up some clothing patterns or curtains, and not feel like you bought a $300 doorstop, that Singer will do you just fine. Is it as well-made as everyone’s grandmother’s machine from between the wars? No; nothing is. There’s plastic involved, there’s electronics to go wrong, it won’t last a hundred years. But you’ll watch some instructional videos and be sewing things pretty much immediately on opening the box, and that’s how you get started.
If you really take to sewing, when you outgrow it you’ll be able to sell yours on craigslist (you can note that you’re just upgrading and it has no problems and is a great beginner machine!) and then you can get one with a quilting table, or seven buttonhole types, or a featherweight to carry everywhere, or whatever you’ve realized will make your life more perfect. But you won’t need those things at first if ever.
oh DANG I have a Singer Tradition and a Singer Heavy Duty (4452), and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the feed mechanism on the HD, it’s a liiiiittle different from other Singer machines in a way I am unqualified to describe but is definitely great
I’m also delighted by how unspeakably unattractive the machine itself is, A+
it is worth noting that it’s not heavy duty like an industrial machine. The foot clearance is standard for a domestic machine, so sewing through a pile of denim or corduroy or wool coating (probably, haven’t tried this one yet) is still going to be tricky, but it can definitely be done with a combination of a walking foot and the judicious application of a hammer and handsewing.
I…I can elaborate on how and where if that feels necessary to anyone.
My machine is from Sears and it’s perfectly fine. I mostly just use it to hem curtains and basic stuff like that, but I originally got it to make ren fair costumes, so it’s sewed fake leather and all kinds of shit, no issues.
Hey if you want some rad sewing books, I’ll send you a few. (I thought I was going to start sewing more but it hasn’t happened and that was uhhhhhhh four years ago) email me dangerflakes at hotmail
mine’s from sears, too! it was probably about $100 brand new.
it was given to me as a gift almost 20 years ago and it’s still going strong. i’ve done projects from costumes to home decor, used fabrics from leather to lace. it’s a total workhorse. i clean it occasionally with the vacuum and keep it oiled and it’s perfectly happy 🙂
and as said previously, you’ll use 3 stitches 99% of the time. i only use the fancy ones to do faux blackwork on renfaire garb.
Sewing is great! I’m making a dress this weekend if I ever get round to it…
Machine-wise, what’s your budget? If you can spend it a little, you may as well get one that you will grow into over time (I have an Elna 2800 which is far too sophisticated for my current needs, but I’m starting to use more of its features now). If you want to just see if you’re into the hobby then I’d go for a basic machine that can zigzag and reverse stitch (think most can do this but my first ever machine was a tiny (like…7 inch high) sewing machine that just went forwards…it was ok except it would move across the table because it was so small and light).
I have a bad habit of spending $300 on things as soon as I get to a reasonable level of competence and then never touching them again. (Sorry, beautiful handmade bodhran.) So maybe $150?
Looks like lots of people have ideas! I’m from the UK so our prices are a little different but I did a quick search of US sites and found this: http://bestreviewsadvisor.com/top-10-best-sewing-…
Apparently this one is amazing: http://www.amazon.com/Brother-Feature-Rich-Built-…
I bought an $80 Brother machine at Wal-Mart and it’s perfect. I mean, I don’t get a shit-ton of fancy embroidery stitches, but it’s perfect for a relative beginner like me AND not super pricey! The only time I have trouble is with stretchy fabrics, but from what I can tell that just kinda happens.
I also have a cheapish Brother and love it! Mine cost in the range of $120; I’ve had it for about five years, sewn a bunch of projects on it, and never had a problem except that, as I mentioned upthread somewhere, the automatic buttonhole function doesn’t work for shit, but I am told that’s the case for automatic buttonholers generally. It has something like 22 stitches, including a whole range of stretch stitches, and it sews mildly stretchy fabrics like jersey easily (I haven’t tried it on very stretchy fabric). The one thing I’ll say against it is that some Brother models call for specialized bobbin sizes that can be hard to find, but overall, it’s a great little machine.
For sewing, I’d say to start with a basic machine with good reviews – you can probably find one for about $150, and as a beginning you definitely don’t need all the bells and whistles. Then, as you learn to sew and get used to your machine, you may start to notice annoying things or features you wish it had – keep those in mind, and if you decide to continue sewing, make sure to look for those in a new, more pricey machine.
Also, even if you go for simple, see if there’s a place where you can go check it out first – JoAnn Fabrics usually has some price-friendly options, and they have a lot of locations. It’s important to get a general feel for the machine and make sure the buttons aren’t cramped, the pedal feels ok under your foot, it seems to feel good for the size of your hands (some machines are made for tiny hands, some the opposite). And a solid, preferably metal bottom is best – some of the cheapies are all plastic and it seems like they’ll tip over if you just look at them funny, which is no good for if you’re feeding heavy fabric through.
Have fun!! I love sewing 🙂
Do you like beets?? Literally last night I was making cookies and added beetroot powder to them for coloring because the internet told me I wouldn’t be able to taste it. I added 1 teaspoon and the entire batch tastes like dirt. But I don’t like beets so maybe that’s an okay thing for you.
For a sewing machine buy new. All you really need is a cheapo machine that can straight stitch. If you’re thinking of sewing clothes then a zigzag stitch for sewing stretch fabric is good and maybe a buttonholer if you’re fancy.
yes I love beets, I would lap up straight dirt if it wouldn’t result in heavy metals poisoning
Sign up for classes at your local fabric shop, like Jo-Ann’s. They will have machines you can try out *and* people with experience and advice.
I have thought about this! Jo-Ann’s is, alas, an hour an a half away, and my actually-local shop schedules classes at delightful times like 4pm Thursdays. But someday, especially if it’s genuinely helpful…!
I think it would be good if you could try the machine out first.
I have a fairly cheap machine, and it’s mostly fine, but it has kind of a weird relation between foot pedal pressure and speed – if I push down lightly, it barely goes at all, and if I push down a teensy bit harder, it speeds up quite a bit. It’s tricky to get it to sew at a slow-but-not-glacial speed. It’s not a huge thing, I can work around it, but it’s kind of annoying and it’s the sort of thing that it might be hard to find out without actually trying a machine. It would probably be more annoying if I didn’t have some prior machine sewing experience.
get one with a drop in bobbin. This is my only advice. I have a book called the Sew Anything Workshop (or workbook? Or something?) I got it a few years ago so maybe there’s better stuff now, but it takes you through what everything means on a pattern (and comes with some patterns also) so it’s a good way to get started as instructions with patterns can be….vague.
Yeah, for vague instructions reasons, I would not go with Big 4 patterns if I were introducing a brand-new sewist to garment sewing. I think that’s part of what put me off it for years and years, following vague instructions for simplicity patterns, making mistakes I had no way of knowing I was making, missing vital information about the necessity of finishing seams, and then getting an ill-fitting garment that fell apart after an hour of wear.
Indie sewing patterns have come a long way in the last decade! I like Sewaholic and Colette Patterns and Closet Case for lovely stuff with thorough instructions, although I’ve been messing with McCall’s 6610 for a TNT pants thing and the instructions are not terrible! A little tricky to fit, as one might often expect of fitted pants though.
I just read a fascinating blog post about making a red velvet cake with no beets and no food coloring, just the color changes from the interaction of buttermilk with cocoa! The guy was a contestant on Master Chef and has a fairly successful pop up restaurant. Here is the link: http://benstarr.com/blog/real-red-velvet-cake-wit…
omg “the cake of a wife time” !!!
Honestly, naturally-coloured red velvet recipes will only ever have a pinkish tinge. It’s still pretty cool that that happens, but if you’re expecting a deep red it might be disappointing.
I think the thing is that dutch-processed cocoa is no longer acidic, so it doesn’t have the red reaction? But it used to be acidic??
I think you can still get a reddish effect from un-dutched powder, which is more common than the internet seems to assume. (Hershey’s basic natural cocoa is undutched, for example, and so is Nestle’s. I have a hard time finding dutch-processed.) I personally don’t care if it’s red at all–this is by special request–but I think I’ll tinker with some beets to boost it.
FALLEN LONDON THREAD! I’ve been a bit bored the past couple of days, actually. I’ve defeated the giant rat, zailed around in my zubmarine, acquired a basalt gymnasium for my lodgings, and now I don’t really know what to focus on. I’m glad the Feast of the Exceptional Rose has started since it will be my first time playing it.
What is everybody up to?
WAR OF THE FALLEN LONDON THREADS
Sympathetic About Cross-Posting Concerns is increasing…
I defeated feducci in a duel, and now I’m not sure quite what to do with myself. I need to do more hunting of monsters for the labyrinth of tigers, but I got the easy one and I’m not sure where to search next.
I also need to decide who I should sell the location of the cave of Nadir to, or if I should hold onto it for a while.
Once you have a little On The Hunt, there’s an option in Wolfstack Docks to talk to Mr. Inch about the beasts, and he’ll give you a list of where to look! It costs wine, though, so make a note of what he says so you don’t have to keep doing it.
I’m also wondering if I should sell the location of the Cave and if so, to whom. (I’m leaning toward Hell because I could use that scrap fo fancy organdy for my future wedding gown.) Some people on the official FL forums seemed quite opposed to the idea of selling it but I don’t see what the benefits are of keeping it all to yourself when there’s profit to be made.
Pretty sure deciding not to sell it is simply a role-playing decision. Unless they decide to add content later which utilizes your choice, the material reward and potential altering of who you’re Closest To is currently the only repercussion.
I’ve been a bit bored by it for the past few weeks now… I’m mostly playing opportunity cards, but those are getting mighty repetitive. And I have so much amber! Like 10.000+.
Any tips as to what I can do? Aside from the feast, obvs.
Are you Notable enough for your taste? You could trade all that amber for secrets, converts them up to get Making Waves, and summon the Amanuensis.
ALSO what is everyone’s FL username? I think it would be good to have a roll call and see who’s who. I am Vipsania Beauregard.
I am Elsajenish!
Oh dear, I think I sent a calling card to someone who is not you last week, and who was likely confused by my Toastish burbling. Whoops.
Oh no, there’s also an account under the name Elsajeni that is technically mine, only it’s associated with a twitter account that I can’t get into anymore. So it was probably me! Just not where I would see it.
Oh good!
I am Cordelia Blackburne and I wish to exchange Feast gifts with Toasters!
I am Theoretta Rizing! I just got back from a vacation so haven’t been doing much except starting a newspaper, but am looking forward to Feasting with Toasties.
an_ocelot ; feel free to send menace reduction requests my way, as I have been playing for a long time and have lots of ways to shed menace.
I am also happy to exchange non-Fate Masquing gifts; 1-Masquing gifts will be returned with a Glass of Teeth, 2-Masquing with a Buttered Chess-Piece.
Inpiun, available for menace reduction, interviews and just about anything else (especially Feast-related).
I’m hallucinokim!
I am Avis Webb and I am PSYCHED for the Feast. Honestly I’m generally PSYCHED for the feast starting approximately January 6 each year.
I am Bryn (Plus Others)!
I am gallimaufry (with no underscore) over there. Happy to exchange Feast gifts, accept menace reductions and generally make mischief.
I finally got my ship this week (so much grinding, god) but have yet to take to the zee.
Cordelia de Havilland here!
I’m Grover Boniface and I’m SORRY to everyone I kept thumping at the waxy-stabby game. Your brass rings were delicious though.
I am Fayezer, and also Elodia, and ALSO Theodora Thundersmith because I wanted to try all the different storylines.
OliviaPJones, and I’m adding you all (hope that’s not creepy).
Cynthia Hawthorn!
I’m onelittlefish! I will occasionally take a break from Fallen London for a few weeks, but I respond to social actions even if I’m not actively playing.
Late to the thread, but I’m Chercheuse, and I’d love more Toastie acquaintances! I’m always happy to help with menace reduction and social whatevers. I’ve been a bit busy with real life, and also am stuck grinding various ingredients for the moment, so I haven’t been as active as usual lately, but I’m excited about the Feast of the Exceptional Rose.
I’m Lady Nora, and I’m very late to the thread, but I’d love to become acquainted with some Toastful Fallen Londoners!
I’m Briarwoods, shamelessly adding everyone else.
I’m BaronBenas – I had ‘one of those weeks’ so I’ve only got to the delights of Masquing this morning, but I am super-down for it and will send out as many gifts as I can on my stash of secrets.
I’m Agatha Sleet, I just started the game after procrastinating for forever, and seriously digging it!
I have 100 Dangerous!!!! I did it!!! Soon I will be SO IMPORTANT!!!!
Aw, mother of pearl, the second one I have to get to 100 is Persuasive and even with my modifier at almost +20 I’m nowhere close.
NEVER MIND, I WILL NOT BE IMPORTANT ANYTIME SOON.
I’m just trying to get my two low stats up to 100 so I can become a Person of Some Importance… and doing some random things here and there. In kind of a lull while those stats build up.
I’m trying to get all 4 past 100 – the thing is though that depending on which clothes/shoes I am wearing, I can get 3 past 100 (not at the same time), so the Barrister has already come, so yeah. I’m carrying out heists in The Flit while I wait.
Yeah I have two over 100 with gear, though my shadowy is very close to being natuarlly over 100. Need to get my dangerous and persuasivness up (everything is hovering in the 80s – 90s ranges – so close!)
FALLEN LONDON THREAD
COME HERE to accidentally lose your posts about going to jail and finding severed heads in bushes!
The Feast of the Rose just started like 20 minutes ago and I am pumped to exchange gifts with people. Come at me bro.
Update on the video-essay about female immaturity at the movies! We (i.e. me and the owner of the youtube channel who helped me edit it) objected to youtube, and I fashioned a nice little bit of legalese defending that it’s fair use. In the meantime, psss, it’s on vimeo (https://vimeo.com/117122283).
In other news: this has NOT been a productive day. I keep promising myself to do better, and then sinking back into procrastination. Oh well. Almost the weekend. And in less than an hour, I’m seeing Inherent Vice by myself, and treating myself to a nice glass of red wine during. Has anyone here seen it? I read the book at some point, but I remember little of it. Still. I’ll watch any movie PTA directs, they’re never not interesting.
Aw, your link seems to not be working!
Argh, the parentheses did it. Here’s the correct link: https://vimeo.com/117122283
yes I saw Inherent Vice with my other half who is obsessed with Pynchon and PTA.
I found it really involving and funny (and well directed) , but a bit complex from a feminist standpoint:
-the brutal (and short) sex scene where he smacks her butt and then takes her, tho she admittedly was basically shoving her naked butt in his face? weird dynamic. wondered how that scene was written in teh book.
-the fact all the female characters were complete caricatures, ie. the sexy one who is a bimbo and only wants a guy with money, the friend who is there to give helpful advice to the Hero so the Hero can then save the day, the husky-voiced sex workers who turn out to be lesbians….etc
But then I thought maybe all the characters are caricatures? just that the men were 3D caricatures and the women were 2D caricatures.
Maybe I should read Pynchon. There’s too many women writers to read in my free time first tho…. 🙂
That sex scene was fascinating, wasn’t it? It’s quite kinky: she’s basically daring him to spank her, lying across his lap and telling him about all the men she slept with. I don’t remember the scene from the book, but I barely remember anything about the book, so it could be in there.
I think the description of the men being 3D caricatures and the women being 2D caricatures is spot on, and that’s a little disappointing. It’s probably the source material, though: PTA films have had well-rounded female characters before, and he managed to give even his female porn star characters in Boogie Nights emotional complexity, so I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Toast, I have made it to the the end of this week upright, conscious, and without having a meltdown/freakout/general full-body dissolve over work. I plan on being very happy with myself once I’m not so tired.
What are your small victories this week?
Essentially the same as yours. Plus I saw a bunny!
YAY BUNS!
Got car insurance and did some push-ups. Feeling adult as hell.
I survived four eight-hour days in a row after having to use four days of sick leave last week with the flu. Took today off, though because JFC exhausted.
But! Four days of working after being the sickest I’ve been since 1996, yay!
You’re feeling better now? So glad you got through the flu.
Yes! Not feeling good, but definitely better. Thank you, bb!
i actually did research and found three potential therapists. now i just need to call their numbers.
Fantastic! Calling is hard, but you can do it.
I made it through yesterday (errands, then gym, then full day of work, then volunteering, then more errands, then dinner at 10 PM, then BED) without collapsing! (Until the bed part.)
I went and renewed my membership at the YMCA (I had to round up a lot of paperwork for that one since I get financial assistance) and then I actually went yesterday. Between work and school and the holidays and then moving, the gym had dropped off my radar for a couple months, but I’m happier when I go.
Now to just get into a semblance of a routine.
I worked out three times this week and am planning on a fourth tonight. I also tried out a new scarf tie today, and I quite like it!
The preschool where I teach is in the middle of a lice/pinkeye epidemic. I have thus far avoided both lice and pinkeye (knocks wood frantically).
We dropped the kids off on time every day but today, and made it out of the house today to go eat breakfast rather than holing up in our room with no blood sugar for hours. So yay!
I am sorry your work is so awful.
I accepted two social invitations and extended two more. I am contemplating extending a third, since my second hasn’t gotten a response. This is me, taking a vacation from my spinster’s cave.
Navigating multiple medical appointments, acquiring both a walking cast and a disabled parking permit. Am hobbling with greater facility than at the beginning of the week.
Just found out I got selected as a writer for our local 24-hour play festival at the end of the month! On Friday night they pick teams and reveal the mystery theme. Then I’ll have to write a 10-minute play overnight, and the actors and directors will get it the next morning. Performances are on Saturday evening.
Last year was my first time, and I was full of nerves for weeks. It turned out to be a great experience – it wasn’t as difficult as I had thought, and I had SO much fun.
This year, of course, my brain is convincing me that last year was just a fluke and I will fail miserably. Well suck it, anxiety brain. It’s going to be fun. FUN, DAMMIT. All the Toasticles think it will be fun. Right, Toasticles?
Yes, it will be fun, it is basically impossible to fail at a 24-hour 10-minute play.
You got this. Anxiety brain must sit in the back. All it’s good for is energy. Funnel all those anxious vibrations into the project. If it moves from the back to the front of the brain at all before the event, write out some potential plots. Brainstorm potential themes. Suck that anxiety energy dry.
And absolutely it will be fun. Tell anxiety brain I said so.
That honestly sounds like loads of fun. Last year was definitely not a fluke. Enjoy!
That sounds like so much fun! I would love to do that! It will all fall into place once you start writing it and the ideas build on each other and it will be a great success.
As I’m sure we’re all aware, one excellent winter activity is to curl up in the corner of a dark and warm pub and drink things with people who make you laugh. Next weekend I’m driving up to Portland, Maine (because I have terrible ideas about what makes a good winter vacation) and will be doing this with my boyfriend at the best beer bar I’ve ever found.
In the meantime, what are your favorite beers?
Ones I have enjoyed recently:
Founders Rübæus – tastes like fruity, yeasty battery acid.
Jolly Pumpkin Oro de Calabaza – sour and weird and very fun to drink
Also a Founders scotch ale but I can’t remember the name… it was like rotten drinking chocolate, in a good way.
Lookit you with your Michigan brew love!! <3
Rübæus is one of my absolute favorite beers ever, but only in very small doses. I like to mix it with Founder’s Oatmeal Stout to cut the sweetness.
Ummm what else. I’ve been drinking a lot of Lagunitas Pilsner lately, for some strange reason. We had a beer festival in town last weekend (it was COLD; we didn’t stay long) and I had a big hit of Hopslam, a delicious something from Short’s, a Lagunitas Cappucino Stout, and a Brewery Vivant Big Red Coq.
Ooh, the Dirty Bastard scotch ale? Love that stuff.
I’ve been drinking a lot of Ommegang brewery stuff lately. Cannot get enough Three Philosophers. That hint of cherry lambic, man. It’s just so good.
Ommegang has so much great stuff! Hard to find up here 🙁
I love Jolly Pumpkin! It’s one of my local breweries and even though I usually get the exact same beer every time I go it always tastes a little different. I’ve been drinking a lot of winter brown ales lately but I can’t for the life of me remember what any of them are called.
I’m really into Boulevard 80 Acre right now. Hoppy and wheaty, at the same time!
Which beer bar in Maine? Thats where my fav one is too! I forget the name but its pagan themed, has an amazing list and a great patio for summer use.
Novare Res, their beer menu is the size of a phonebook! They also have a pretty nice patio, if I remember, but I’ve never been when it’s been warm enough to use.
Novare Res is wonderful! I’m from Portland, and whenever I go home to visit I always make time to go.
If you haven’t already, you should also check out In’finiti on Commercial St (they brew their own beer and distill their own spirits, AND they have amazing mussels), and The Hunt & Alpine Club at the top of the OId Port. It can be easy to overlook since the sign is just a neon symbol, but they have incredible cocktails as well.
Have so much fun in Portland!
I am checking out the Hunt & Alpine Club’s website and it sounds like it is right up our alley. Thanks for the tip!
I’m from Portland, too! (SoPo, but close enough).
Yay Maine!
I miss it. Although less in the winter, when my mother sends me many many many texts with pictures of large piles of snow.
Stay safe and warm!
I actually live in Alaska, now, so I think of Maine winters with warm affection- but they are getting so much snow this year! Makes me feel terrible for my dad. Yay Maine!
Spiteful Alley Time is my new go-to everyday favorite. That used to be Lakefront Fixed Gear, but not being in Milwaukee anymore makes that a little hard to find for an everyday beer.
I’ve also been enjoying cider lately, now that I’ve discovered Seattle Cider Co Dry Cider! It tastes like one of those fancy English or French super-dry ciders without costing as much.
For Valentines Day we are making a chocolate pie, and my sweetie is drinking some godawful-to-my-taste quadrupel bourbon barrel thing I bought him as a present a long time ago. I told him his present to me had to be a beer I would like that pairs well with chocolate pie, so he found a cranberry Ephemere and some kind of wild sour raspberry thing. We are going to drink these and eat pie and watch 90s high school rom-coms.
Taking a wild guess here, but Novare Res? If so, that is a delightfully dark and warm pub and I am envious of you.
Yup! It’s almost worth the trip to Maine on its own. Great place.
I’ve been spending a lot of time with someone who Cares A Lot about beer so my palate is finally getting a little more refined than just being able to distinguish between PBR and Not-PBR.
Southern Tier Pumking is my favorite pumpkin beer.
Last night I tried a chocolate-cappuccino-raspberry stout, but I forget the name.
Dirty Little Freak – coconut, caramel, and chocolate, but hoppy.
But my Very Favorite Beer is Great Lakes Christmas Ale. The bar in my college town used to serve it with a cinnamon-sugar rim <3
These threads are always so sadly full of unattainable fruit for me as a Canadian, but if anyone is in Ontario/Quebec (and maybe the NE states?), Dieu Du Ciel’s Aphrodite/Aphrodisiaque is a hell of a delicious stout.
Also love Ommegang Hennepin.
Oooh! I do love me some Allagash Curieux, but most of my faves are California-based. On my last trip to the US, I was really digging Ballast Point’s beers: Grapefruit Sculpin is more suited to warm weather I think, with the light body and citrussy hopping and grapefruit essence to up the bitterness. For more wintery fare, I am OBSESSED with their Indra Kunindra. It’s a porter seasoned with cumin, cinnamon, kaffir lime leaves, and basically lots of things suited to curries. It sounds nuts, but the flavors come in waves like a gobstopper, so it never seems too jumbled. Be still my heart!
Others that I’ve enjoyed a lot recently:
Base Camp Brewery’s Saison de Chetco
High Water Campfire Stout (tastes just like a s’more!)
Craftsman Holiday Ale- Pasadena, CA based brewery whose holiday ale is an American brown ale flavored with spruce. It’s amazing!
Rogue Hazelnut Nectar. YUM.
A GAME: reply by hitting ctrl-v only. If it’s boring hit Paste on your phone instead. NO CHEATING.
An updated well search was performed on November 15, 2013. One industrial use well was found within one mile of the site. The industrial well is locaed approximately 5,228 feet to the southwest of the subject site. Contaminant of concern (COC) concentrations have been delineated, therefore, impact to this well is not anticipated.
shit I have nothing interesting anywhere so maybe enjoy some boring work-ese about a gas station?
Pretty sure mine would have been a long paragraph about standardized index pricing if I hadn’t gone looking at boots on my lunch break.
Yeah it’s a thing that I’d rather not post.
http://youtu.be/Lp_tjoX-ank
This can be summed up by saying: Rich People.
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=869810956381…
It’s an armadillo playing with a toy!
I did this but got like 85 ISBNs which my employer would probably appreciate if I did not post on the internet
“And what are you wearing for the wedding?” on my phone. Wow this was for over a week ago when I was attending my friend’s poolside wedding! The night before I figured I’d check with my bestie so we could coordinate.
uh oh mine is my address!
“XXXXXXXXXXXXXX San Francisco, CA XXXXX”
Notes
[wow that was so anticlimactic, I hadn’t been on my computer since yesterday so I was very curious!]
http://blog.ted.com/2015/01/20/40-idioms-that-can…
Idioms!
“Slide in on a shrimp sandwich” will be used in my next Sick Burn for sure
Those Swedish ones are definitely worth remembering. I really like that article. I need more international idioms in my life/brain.
guys I really appreciate how many of these are pictures and/or videos of animals
https://41.media.tumblr.com/cf3e6816c4a7906c7b7f5…
I don’t know what that is but I hope it’s not embarrassing
OH my goodness.
That is so cute that my face is just contorted into a smile and I can’t get it to go back to normal.
I’m so glad it was that, that penguin in the penguin books sweater kills me every time.
Aww it’s so cute! The sweaters are so detailed! Apparently this 109 year old guy also contributes to the penguin sweater effort http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/austral…
I pasted it and then deleted it since it’s about 30000 non-human-readable characters — my Clicker Heroes save. (Why am I still playing it. It is only marginally more interactive than Progress Quest. But it is satisfying in the dumb part of my brain to take a minute every once in a while to hit some buttons and make numbers go bigger.)
“They completed a W-8BEN and requested completion of an institutional contract.”
(I’m at work, working on work things, not on the Toast at all, no)
THRESHOLDS OF SIGNIFICANCE
Paraphrasing from Appendix G of the CEQA Guidelines, a project would normally result in significant noise impacts if noise levels generated by the project conflict with adopted environmental standards or plans, if the project would generate excessive ground-borne vibration levels, or if ambient noise levels at sensitive receivers would be substantially increased over a permanent, temporary, or periodic basis. The following criteria were used to evaluate the significance of environmental noise resulting from the project:
•A significant noise impact would be identified if the project would expose persons to or generate noise levels that would exceed applicable noise standards presented in the General Plan or Municipal Code.
•A significant impact would be identified if the construction of the project would expose persons to excessive vibration levels. Groundborne vibration levels exceeding 0.3 in/sec PPV (peak particle velocity) would have the potential to result in “architectural” damage to normal buildings.
•A significant impact would be identified if traffic generated by the project would substantially increase noise levels at sensitive receivers in the vicinity. A substantial increase would occur if existing plus project noise levels would be 3 dBA Ldn or greater where exterior noise levels would exceed the normally acceptable noise level standard (60 dBA Ldn) or if existing plus project noise levels would be 5 dBA Ldn or greater where noise levels would remain at or below the normally acceptable noise level.
•A significant noise impact would be identified if construction related noise would temporarily increase ambient noise levels at sensitive receivers. Hourly average noise levels exceeding 60 dBA Leq, and the ambient by at least 5 dBA Leq, for a period greater than one year would constitute a significant temporary noise increase at noise-sensitive residential land uses.
http://www.6pm.com/frye-carson-pull-on-burnt-red-… for me
From the phone… “Croquembouche”
http://the-toast.net/2015/02/13/valentines-indiff…
$173.18
And on my phone, my clipboard contains the eISBN for Outlander because I started reading it on kindle app yesterday when The Luminaries became too difficult for my brain, and I wanted to tell Goodreads that I was reading the kindle version.
Um, this link paste from my phone comes with a content warning for descriptions of unbelievable misogyny, rape apologism, and MRA-ness.
http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/02/12/memespla…
Wow, that is astoundingly awful.
It’s like reading the musings of a poisoned evil psychotic mind.
>gi|74844189|sp|Q8WP90.1|PBGP9_SOLIN RecName: Full=Pheromone-binding protein Gp-9; Short=PBP; AltName: Full=Putative odorant-binding protein Gp-9; Flags: Precursor
MKTFVLHIFIFALVAFASASRDSARKIGSQYDNYATCLAEHSLTEDDIFSIGEVSSGQHKTNHEDTELHK
NGCVMQCLLEKDGLMSGADYDEEKMREDYIKETGAQPGDQRIEALNACMQETKDMEDKCDKSLLLVACVL
AAEAVLADSNEGA
This is the protein sequence for a gene I’m doing a project on for my molecular evolution class haha
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/movies/submitti…
A.O. Scott’s hilarious 50 Shades review.
Just posted this on another thread, guess you lucky folks get to see this gif more than once today. Long live Drunk Ann!
God I love this show.
Same here. I don’t want it to end. Hate the fact that there are just two weeks of new episodes left.
*crying*
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Avis~W…
Whoops that’s my Fallen London profile, that is
http://the-toast.net/2015/02/13/toast-points-week…
In an IM to my partner. We are now cackling about Jonathan Franzen.
http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/curried-ground-s…
…aka tomorrow’s dinner!
that looks delicious! what drink will you pair with it?
Mine is just my cat photo from the cat thread!
On my phone it is ‘Who knew what I needed in my life was a man towing a henry hoover round a stage with his cock? NOT ME.’
I went to see the Circus of Horrors last night and one of the acts was a dude lifting weights with his vulnerabilities.
Nothing to add, just expressing my appreciation for the phrase “a dude lifting weights with his vulnerabilities.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/13/ruth-bad…
Notorious RBG!
Pickup would be at 1pm at the Park Place in TC. From there, we’d proceed to Mawby, 45 North, Northern Latitudes, possibly one other stop TBD, the Greilickville Harbor beach or coal dock (TBD) and finishing up with a drop-off at The Cook’s House, on Wellington. I anticipate getting back into town around 5 or 5:30pm–we’d be stopping at each place for a taste and toast and a little bit of exploration, probably 25-30 min at each place.
It won’t be anyone’s first time at these locations and a couple of us, myself included, work at Mawby.
[Now you all know my photo plans for the wedding.]
http://pplaintnogood.tumblr.com/post/109896808843…
Our partner is really into Nick Cave so I thought he might like this. 🙂
http://amazingdata.com/amazing-pictures-weird-fun…
[I am trying to convince a co-worker to make this. no luck so far]
ö
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/12/f-…
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/feb/13/contact-lens-magnifies-blink-of-eye
This is actually pretty cool, in a “we’re living in the fuuutrrrrrrrrre” way!
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-tip-j…
In response to a conversation earlier this week as to whether or not they caught the girl yet.
http://therumpus.net/2015/02/the-rumpus-interview…
https://www.goballisticcase.com/shop/lg/g2/urbani…
Boring, but nothing on my phone at all.
“I tried registering for this, and twice was given the message invalid submission, but no clue as to why. Seeing as it is mildly frustrating to have to register separately for this program anyway, I am feeling more frustrated”
Late night ‘contact us’ message to my bank about trying to register to see the rewards program….
Sigh.
They can unfollow/ mute me here.
[too much time on twitter just before the weekend]
New Balance WT10v2 Minimus Trail-Running Shoes
You notice three chaos butterflies flying nearby.
Damn it.
Apparently I copy and paste random bits of game text late at night…
http://www.autostraddle.com/50-shades-of-grey-cat…
https://medium.com/matter/the-women-i-pretend-to-…
[The Women I Pretend to Be by Naomi Alderman]
THIS COURT ORDERS THAT
Hi [name],
Are you looking to upgrade all three of your systems (dev, test, and production)?
Thank you,
Lauren
—
WOW HOW BORING, this is what I do all day!!!
http://www.wired.com/2015/02/galentines-day-tribu…
Galentines gifs with Leslie Knope! (not very good ones but luckily we all know this show in our mind’s eye anyway)
Oh my goodness, I never get to the open thread before it has 200 comments!
Do any other Toast people live in places that do Mardi Gras/Carnival? What are your plans?
I live in St. Louis, land of the supposedly 2nd largest mardi gras in the the US. I had plans to go, buuuuuut I decided to celebrate by seeing the garishly campy Jupiter Ascending instead.
If I still lived the neighborhoods, I’d go! Though I am sad that I keep forgetting to stop by the mardi gras pet parade that’s held every year too.
I live in the St. Louis area. I’m waking up quite early (for a Saturday) to go to a friend’s house party where we will eat a huge breakfast of jambalaya, biscuits and gravy, bacon, and whatever else shows up. A keg of local brew will be tapped and consumed at 8am. Then we’ll walk down to see the parade and wander around for a bit, then stumble back to my friend’s place to continue drinking (or fall asleep, whichever). I’m pretty good at day drinking, but it’s gonna be an early start!
Another St. Louisian! Enjoy mardi gras for me.
Not this year’s plan, but funny story about St. Louis Mardi Gras a few years ago. I had planned on going to St. Louis for other reasons, and was bewildered to find the train full of people and coolers in the aisles, all busily busy about starting celebrating off *right* while on Friday afternoon Amtrak. Usually the Friday afternoon train to St. Louis is full of bored, tired people wanting to get home/to Chicago–
I spent the ride trying to decipher the madness, but finally, after being accidentally smashed into the conductor by some of the partiers, I asked him, ‘what?! is going on?!’
With the weariness of a man pushed so far beyond his endurance that he no longer cared, he said:
St. Louis.
Is the
Second Largest
Mardi Gras.
You have never heard the words Mardi Gras spoken so dolefully. I was all ‘O, that explains it’. The conductor nodded and we never spoke again.
I just finished reading Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet and the end is just making me so mad. Anyone else read this book and want to discuss?
Comfort Activities: 1)SUPER SOFT FABRICS – lounge wear / throws/ sheets/ pillows– actually primarily that. If I have my soft things I feel better doing nearly anything else.
there is a giant (like king size!) incredibly soft blanket at the high school in the theater, and as any production wears on it covers more and more students as they attempt to self-soothe during the times they are not onstage or backstage
fuzzy wins! I love that the current technology has improved incredibly soft fabrics so that they are softer and stay softer longer
Also, wanted to flag for the int’l misandrist community that Rs in a public hearing this weak blamed the weak US economy on black single mothers. Testimony available online. During a break when 1 of then didnt know i have super sonic bat hearing, a panelist admitted to another that NONE OF HIS TESTIMONY HAD ANY EVIDENTIARY BASIS.
I have many thoughts on this.
Ah yes, the secret cabal of black single mothers. They are the true puppet masters, surreptitiously pulling the strings to uphold Crony Capitalism.
Yep, when I think of groups with enough power to scuttle one of the largest economies on earth, the first thing I think is “black single mothers”.
A cabbie overheard me tell my sister that I was planning to sell my used iPad, and he offered to buy it from me. I said that I didn’t have it on me, and was planning to auction it on eBay. He was like, but sell it to me. I said, how much? He says, $100. I said, I am pretty sure I can get more on eBay. He kept insisting, asking repeatedly why I didn’t want to sell it to him. Toasties, am I missing something? Doesn’t an online auction guarantee that I will get the highest possible amount? Why on earth would I prefer his cash for the guaranteed-larger amount of cash that I can get from any other total stranger? I feel like he thought he could take advantage of me, and the whole situation was gross.
Ugh, men who feel they can push women around by being aggressively persistent.
uhm….people/people. I’ve seen this behaviour between and amongst all genders.
okay, Toastfolk, I need movie recommendations from you! Movies that I could potentially take out of the library for DVD date nights with A Boy. No genre preferences, he just doesn’t like “drivel”.
How close are you and this boy? My S.O. Goaded me into watching Obvious Child and I was very very glad she did. (Probably want to verify he’s pro-choice first?)
Hm. I’ll keep that in mind for down the road. I know everyone here loves ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’ so I thought I’d throw that one in the mix. Otherwise I’ll just watch it by myself! Speaking of Tilda, I still need to watch ‘We Need To Talk About Kevin’.
I mean, at least he’s not asking me to watch the entire filmography of Woody Allen? I think that would be a dealbreaker.
seconding this! might be a little awkward to watch in the early stages of a relationship, though, or else a great conversation starter.
Nostalgia-y classics? For me that’s things like Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, Ferris Bueller.
No genre preferences, he just doesn’t like “drivel”.
Rent Captain America, but change your TV settings to black and white.
you always get me with this gif. swoooooooon.
Have a Capper:
aaaaaand this one. i am at work! you can’t do this to me!
bless you and bless this handsome meatball.
That is a great eyebrow raise. Holy cats.
ok WHAT is this from because I think I may need to see the extended version
I honestly do not know. I’m sorry. A better fan would probably be able to tell from his hair and beard styling. Maybe The Losers?
Just walk this gif over and over for approximately the length of a movie. Definitely not drivel.
You need more likes for this suggestion. It is a great one.
this is legitimately a great idea.
I’m not entirely caught up on all the Avengers/related movies so I wonder if he’d sit through a marathon. 😉
mmmm bonus Richard Armitage, at least for a brief stint
HA HA! 😉
I am not entirely sure what he meant. Maybe he doesn’t want to be tormented by bad dialogue/dodgy acting? So no Transformers sequels?
The fact that you qualified that to Transformers sequels gives me joy. Because, yeah, the first one was pretty darn not-horrible!
My inclination would be to hold a forced screening of the ABC Family original film “Cyberbully” in order to demonstrate to him that indeed, he DOES enjoy drivel. “I found this low budget film about man’s struggle to reconcile our humanity with increasingly invasive personal technologies,” you’ll say.
I am a stubborn contrarian and you should probably not take my advice.
OK that movie is amazing though
I have never heard of that. I’d probably watch it. /says the girl who watches all the schlocky stuff SyFy puts out, whenever Space schedules it
I like “Topsy Turvy.” It’s arty and not obnoxious about it, thoughtful, and funny, though it doesn’t have a lot of defined laugh lines. Directed by Mike Leigh, who has an unusual artistic process–I’m waiting for his new one, “Mr. Turner,” to come out on DVD.
“The Station Agent” is one of my favorites of all time.
Oh! Yes! I liked The Station Agent. I just wish I could stop mixing the title up with The Last Station, the one about Tolstoy.
The Fall (2006 movie with Lee Pace) is the best movie. Miyazaki movies are always good.
d’aw Myiazaki!! That is all pretty and happy and worthwhile.
I think these could cover a wide range of movie preferences – Moon, Whip It, Rocket Science, 21/22 Jump Street.
Oooh, Moon. I loved that movie. I would definitely watch it again.
I think “Once” could be a good option — sweet but not sappy, pretty original.
My Gentleman Caller took me to see Begin Again on our second date. Excellent choice.
He sounds boring 🙁
The Secret of Kells if you liked animated movies (and if you are on The Toast, enjoy stories about illuminated manuscripts and Vikings and magic and ghost cats. FYI The same director’s second movie Song of the Sea is out in theaters and everybody should go see it. I love it so much and it has the best animated dog out of all animated dogs.
3 nights in a row of incredibly intense, vivid, lucid-feeling dreams. The first night involved me being thrown a surprise engagement party (no idea who I was marrying) but I had overslept and everyone was mad and mean as shit to me and thought I was on drugs or something, and I was in a hoodie and a baseball cap, but then I ate most of my hat, and went around asking people for hats but NO ONE had a hat I could really wear. Top hats, cowboy hats, etc. At one point, a famous football coach was there and he was holding a hat, and I asked whose it was, and he said “it’s Louie’s” and, well, for some reason I thought I couldn’t possibly wear Louie’s hat, so I moved on. My mom was really mad at me cause I wouldn’t come into the party and was making announcement over a speaker system. Also, before I left for this party thing, I stumbled out of my room and a guy opened the front door and said hello? I said oh hello, um can I help you? And he said, do you not remember me?? Turns out I had cheated on whoever the fuck I was marrying the night before, his name was Garret, he was tall and gingerish and had come back because he left his puppy. The puppy was very cute. I thought it was one of those back flipping puppy toys, but no, real puppy. The next night in my dream, the world ended in horrifying, tragic fashion, and Zachary Quinto was there, as was a guy from General Hospital, and they both told everyone to just give up, quote, “THIS IS HAPPENING”. Brad Ptt was also there and he looked PERFECT. He was eaten by zombies though. The military killed us all in the end. I also hooked up with a friend on a bus during this dream (you could only stay alive if you had a bus) even though we were being attacked by something resembling zombies. Priorities.
The engagement party was by far the more upsetting dream.
You guys have any weird, fucked up, or party awake dreams lately?
I’ve been having super weird dreams too. The kind that aren’t really nightmares but are unsettling and uncomfortable. Is it the moon? The weather?
I’m going moon.
In my case, it’s the copious amounts of Nyquil.
Also, I’m thinking about setting up a camera to film what I do in my sleep because these dreams are starting to make me think I’m getting up and maybe doing shit in my sleep? I don’t have any evidence really, but I have done certain “personal” things in my sleep ( high five, bro, you know what I mean) at least once, so. Anyone else have this concern?
Also! I think I was probably marrying a woman, and that’s why it was a ” surprise” so that my mom could get her cookie for being mother of the bride, without acknowledging who I was marrying by oops, not inviting them. And! My best buddy sat me down at one point to calm me down, and he had CHARTS explaining that getting married would be fine, I wasn’t perpetuating archaic traditions, fuck it, look at all the government benefits, etc. It was ridiculous.
I have so many of these marriage not nightmares but very upsetting dreams. Always a stranger or someone terribly inappropriate to marry (a dog once, and a robot once, but usually just someone I kinda know whose gender/orientation doesn’t mesh with mine), and I’m always thinking “do I just roll with this and see how it goes? Maybe it won’t be so bad? Wait, is this for LIFE?”
Something something brain doesn’t like big life decisions something something.
I have those too! I don’t think I’ve ever had a happy marriage dream. In one dream, I was sort of going along with this arranged marriage thing but getting increasingly distressed; I think I woke myself up by saying “Wait, this is LEGALLY BINDING.”
I’ve always associated that dream with the scene in Monty Python & the Holy Grail where that one king says he hopes the princess will consider him “her own dad, in a very real and legally binding sense.”
“brain doesn’t like big decisions something something”
Yyyyup, sounds about right.
I get those too! Like it’s the morning of my wedding and I haven’t planned anything, I literally don’t have a dress or a venue or anything and then suddenly everyone is like “IT’S YOUR WEDDING DAY!”
I had a dream this week that I was nursing a puppy.
i had money anxiety dreams last night, i was all in a panic about having to pay for a destroyed library book (i tore out the last chapter! why did i tear out the last chapter?!) and a $90 bar tab run up by several other people who walked out and left me with it.
and then i woke up and had to have a conversation with DHS about my medicaid eligibility and even though it was all good news the woman made me feel extremely terrible about myself, so, hi friday.
One time I had a dream that I was in a bar with my best friend and Zachary Quinto was our bartender. He and my best friend were flirting and I was really happy for her, and then for no reason he just leans over and puts out a cigarette on her! So I beat the shit out of him.
Is Zachary Quinto Inception-ing us?
A friend of mine recently had a dream that Hugh Dancy had gotten a restraining order against me, which was probably prophetic.
WE’RE ON TO YOU, QUINTO.
omg I had the most vivid crazy dream last night, and I woke up twice and each time went straight back into the dream when I fell asleep again.
It involved: vampire-cannibals taking over by biting/sucking the blood of various members of a Freedom fighters group (of which I was a founding member) in a dystopic world (bit like that series The Walking Dead? tho I’ve never seen it!). They had a powerful Vampire Queen who we kept trying to kill but she would reappear more deadly than before in even more billowing robes, on hilltops.
The narrative (i never have narratives usually!) got more and more complex to the point where I ended up having to pretend I was one of them to survive, so ate raw meat (I remember thinking “animal not human”) and tried to act like the vampires, whilst not letting them smell my skin (that would give away that I was still alive and normal?)….meanwhile I had to also avoid getting shot by a silver bullet from the last few Freedom fighters who were trying to hunt down the vampires and thought I was one of them!
OMG.
I ran to the toilet at like 6am, convinced there were dark figures coming up the stairs. Very very vivid.
Wtf are dreams/nightmares anyway??
Real quick, before I read everyone’s comments so far and so this doesn’t get too buried: If you currently follow me on Tumbr, I’m hosting a giveaway to thank all my current followers. This is not a drive to get more followers, just a thanks to those who’re there already. But just in case you miss it on your dash, I didn’t want any of my possible Toastie followers to miss out on the opportunity to enter.
Just a quick question, slightly related: do you find Tumblr to be a good platform for marketing your work? I’m currently using Photobucket to download and edit my images but haven’t yet made the leap to a “formal” site.
PS. Love my bloomers! (This is you, right?)
Honestly, I haven’t found any platform that works for marketing myself. I think maybe my bloomers are such a niche market that there is no good option for that? Most of my sales–like, all but two of them–have been from people I’m somehow connected to, either in person or through the Toast, or people who know me because of shared fandom interests. So happy to hear you like yours! YAY!
Good to know! I might have to bite the bullet and set up a Facebook page but I really, REALLY don’t want to…too much work & hassle!
Sent from my iPad
Oh Toasties, this week I had to deal with my estranged father getting in touch with me to say he’s planning on coming to my city and wants to see me. I do not want to see him. I told him no and he said he’d respect that, but the whole thing was very emotionally exhausting and brought up a lot of stuff and now I can’t wait to curl up for the weekend. But! Going back and re-reading the comments on the post Mallory made about estranged parents was really comforting and affirming, so thank you Toasties, for being there for me across time and space.
The upside to all of this is that I learned some things about myself. I learned that I am much better emotionally equipped to deal with this than I used to be. I learned that the pain I used to get in my chest, that I haven’t gotten for years now but which immediately returned when he contacted me is from stress and anxiety (which, duh, I even had a doctor tell me that once but I seriously did not make the connection until now). I learned that I am more resolved than ever that cutting off contact was the right decision for me. It has been a good week for self awareness. Now I am tired and I can’t seem to get warm (that is winter’s fault).
So often we don’t acknowledge how draining it is just to set boundaries. I commend you for taking care of yourself, and I’m happy for your self-awareness, even if it comes with a toll. Limiting contact with my father was one of the hardest, and healthiest things I’ve done, and every day I meet more people who have had a similar experience. We are not alone, and we are not wrong.
Thank you. It really does help to hear from other people who’ve been there.
Just have to say: what a way to ignore an obvious boundary! Hairline-close to inviting himself over, which is inappropriate for anyone over the age of 6.
Thank you, yes, when I cut off contact years ago I said that I would contact him if I ever wanted to be in touch with him again. I was very clear! There was no way to misinterpret it. Also I found out that he got my home address from one of his family members who I had requested not share it, so it has been a boundary-violating fest all around! Boo.
Wow, that is horrifying. Any time you go behind someone’s back to get their address is like???? Not what normal people do? I’m so sorry. Congratulations on your strength, sounds like you need it to enforce those boundaries.
You are protecting yourself. Good work. I hope you feel proud. I am sure I’m not the only one here who thinks so.
Thanks. I feel mostly exhausted, but I am pleased with with my ability to do what’s right for me. This is one of the hardest things I deal with in my life, so I feel like if I can do it here, I can do it for anything.
Ugh I am sorry you had to deal with that, but you did an excellent job. I hope your weekend is full of lovely recharging activities that fuel your well.
Hot tea for getting warm? Hot buttered rum? Hot spiked chai?
I’m also estranged from my father and if i found out he was coming back to town I’d be a complete wreck, so kudos for handling it so well, and my thoughts are with you
Hello, Toasties! May I ask a fashion question? What are your favorite clothing stores for semi-casual clothing? I want to dress kind of like a dirtbag teenager and kind of like a professorial old gentleman, but also to have a semi-defined waistline, and maybe occasionally to wear a skirt. Does anyone have any store recommendations?
I like H&M they have a basics section and also a businessy section and a dirtbag teen section.
*whispers* forever 21
hear me out! it’s loud, it’s crowded, it’s messy, sometimes it’s a 3-story behemoth of pounding techno music and crop tops and you will definitely have to look through clothes that are weirdly made out of plastic or don’t look like they will actually fit human beings. but they have a section (“love21”) that has pretty great business-casual offerings (blazers, pencil skirts, blouses) that often still have interesting details rather than just being basics. and the rest of the store is great if you want to buy a pair of just…ripped-up boyfriend jeans or a huge slouchy cardigan or whatever without breaking the bank. and they have a pretty solid range of sizes. i’ve honestly never had a problem with the quality before and i’m pretty hard on my clothes.
my only misgiving about shopping there is that it is the epitome of “fast fashion” and they almost definitely treat their workers horribly, from the people that make the clothes to the people that sell them on the floor.
Uniqlo forever. My entire outfit today except for shoes and underwear is from Uniqlo. (For the record, that is a tunic-length gray cashmere sweater, black tank top, skinny lavender corduroys, and heat-tech socks because damn is it cold here.)
Uniqlo is the best! I have like 6 pairs of their ultra stretch jeans in various colors and they are perfect.
That sounds like H&M to me! http://www.hm.com/entrance.ahtml?orguri=/
H&M is a good place to start for basics! I have a gigantic slouchy cream sweater with faux-leather elbow patches that I just adore. I wear it with ratty leggings and combat-esque boots for that exact combo of dirtbag-teen/professor fashion.
It’s not cheap, but I love love love Madewell. If you shop their sale section and have a student/teacher ID (15% off!) you can get good deals on nicely made stuff.
My greatest achievement this week is perfect scores on my IT practice exams. If this continues, I’ll be moving on to my next big goal 3 months early.
Also, I’ve been using Cold Turkey, which is a PC program that lets you block yourself out of distracting websites and applications. So I’ve gone all week without Skyrim and I am making up for it this weekend, you better believe it.
Hi Toast! I’ve been around all week and I must say, I’m in love with you all. Thank you for your brilliant and incisive wit.
This is a weird Valentine’s Day for me because I’m thousands of miles away from my good friends, somewhat estranged from my family (more my choice than theirs), and totally, ludicrously single, so I don’t have anyone to celebrate with. Not that I’m complaining, as LAST YEAR, when I was broke, marginally employed, and also still thousands of miles away from friends and fighting with family, it was the worst Valentine’s Day you can imagine.
The media/society keeps telling me my alone-ness means I should be miserable, but I just ate four macaroons in a row (courtesy of a coworker) and I actually feel radiantly happy because these are the first macaroons I’ve had since I was in Paris in 2010.
…My needs are much simpler than people keep telling me they should be. Does this mean I should go to therapy? Do I just have low expectations? (This is actually a semi-serious question if anyone wants to take a crack at it.)
Comparison is the thief of joy, bb. Don’t let other’s needs determine your own. Also, less politely, fuck those people. I mean seriously, what the hell.
Thanks for saying this. By “people” I mean my mother, who keeps asking me things like, But aren’t you lonelyyyyy? And also: Why don’t you call meeee?
I love my family but they can be suffocating and even controlling. This is the first time I’ve had any real distance from them, and I must say, it is a peaceful experience so long as I maintain a delicate balance of limited contact.
This is wonderful grown-upness, and it sounds like you are in a great place. Don’t let other people drag you down because they can’t relate to it. Having few desires is pretty wholesome and more of a path to stable happiness than constant craving. And I want to steal Clever Manka’s first sentence.
We can steal it from Teddy Roosevelt together. =D
Only if you have a Teddy Roosevelt gif? With a wiggly moustache?
I vote congratulate yourself on being so sorted that all you need to bring you joy is macaroons, and enjoy your contentitude.
Now I want macaroons.
It’s actually quite simple: Are all the beings you are responsible for (spouse, children, pets, disabled parents, etc.) warm and dry and do they all feel protected? If yes, you’re done. Obligations fulfilled. Enjoy.
Frankly, you sound awesome. Enjoy your happiness!!
Why are people telling you that your needs ought to be complicated? I mean really, where do they get off on this? If you are satisfied, you are. What business is it of theirs?
You might websearch on satisficer vs. maximizer and see if that sheds any light; satisficers are often happier. 🙂 (It is just one of those theories of humans, not an ideology, but you might find it interesting!)
NO NO THERAPY IF YOU ARE HAPPY!?!!??!!!
Ahem. Excuse me. If you are easily amused, you win. If you are currently amused, you win. If you anticipate being amused, you are going to win. Plus and also, friends will be drawn to that lovely aura of quiet amusement you carry so effortlessly, and they will want to hang out with you, and watch you become radiantly happy over the application of macaroons. This is all a huge win.
And as for anyone who asks if you aren’t unhappy, give ’em Spock eyebrow and the silent treatment. Or something. I don’t know how to answer that, actually, except to ask them why they want you to be unhappy when you are not.
Any Toasties in SW Virginia? ( Doin’ that whole ‘move someplace you hardly know anyone for your first job out of school’ thing.)
What part of SW Virginia? I sort of suspect if you’re moving down here for work, you probably won’t be coming too close to me, but I live near Bristol (though in Tennessee, 10 minutes from the Virginia line).
I’m closer to Roanoke, but I love Bristol! (Grew up near Knoxville and I’m real big on the Carter Family)
Ah, yes, Roanoke. My family’s all from the parts of SWVa that are like 10 miles from the Kentucky border, so I always forget that places farther east are still indeed technically part of the region. I live elsewhere in the Tri-Cities myself, but Bristol’s about the only city that people away from here have heard of.
Na na na na na na na na CAT THREAD!
Let us approach the mighty hunter…
…as he stalks his favorite prey:
This week my cat ate all three tiny leaves off the plant my husband had painstakingly sprouted from a seed, then puked them up, then shit on a rug (not related to the leaves). Because she is terrible.
Here is Oliver, chilling on a convenient pair of legs. He’s a big fan of video games because it means a nice long term lap becomes available.
You guys, I narrowly missed getting some great photos for you! Moxie continues his fascination with ungulates, so when I saw a couple of fawns prancing around on the road outside I let him out figuring they’re small enough I could shoo them off if things went south. They were fascinated by him and one of them walked right up to him! The problem is, I chose the wrong place to stand so I couldn’t get a good shot with Moxie in it. This is the best one I got:
Moxie decided even the baby deer were a bit too big for him and started crouching down nervously out of the shot, and I couldn’t move around to get a better shot without scaring the deer away, so sadly this is the deer checking him out without him actually in the photo:
And then I decided he’d had enough and “saved” him from the fawn.
May this cat-deer love saga continue forever. *weeps with joy*
This is brilliant.
My eyes are actually welling up with pure, unadulterated joy.
Snuggly kittens in a box. They bring me joy.
I moved a couple weeks ago and I have a cat now! Or well my roommate has a cat, but the cat and I are already BFFs and that’s all that matters. She’s the best.
Oh man that’s massive. Sorry that is so massive.
Whatcha doing, human? Have you considered dropping it and awwing at me?
Diesel enjoyed our lazy day over the weekend and spent much of it under the covers with his dad.
I’m excited about moving in with a friend next week. I’m early 30’s and she’s middle-aged, so ideally, this will cut down on the bullshit one encounters in the twenty-something years. No kids or significant others (yet). We are looking forward to saving a shit load of money through this co-habitation. We are both progressive, feminists with a wicked sense of humor who appreciate boundaries, British TV, reading, cheese, and quiet time. She’s not a regular Toast reader but she would fit right in with the commentariat (sp?).
Is it weird that I just want enjoy spinsterhood for bit? I mean, I’ll dive into the gay scene soon enough but right now I want to enjoy the pleasure of splitting big bills while taking a break from emotional commitments. My roommate is straight which always leads to extra sentences to address non-verbal questions. For example: “I’m the lesbonian, she’s straight.” “Yes, you can be a hard-core feminist and desire teh menz.” “No, I’ve never been attracted to her.” “Separate sleeping quarters”
Fellow Toasties, do you have any advice for peaceful co-habitation when you are past the “dorm years” and may or may not be set in your ways? Also, can anyone recommend a good stand alone pantry? I purchased one of those build-it-yourself deals from Home Depot but I’m not sure it will survive the move. I want a BIG pantry with doors!
Having seen a couple of roommate situations go south for my fiancee, I’ll just toss out some pretty standard advice – communicate openly. One roommate was pissed for a long time about something relatively minor, but never mentioned it, so there was never any chance to fix it. It’s tough to do, admittedly, but makes such a huge difference.
It is not weird at all, it sounds lovely.
We live with our partner & our two kids with said partner and also a housemate, because it is the living arrangement which works for us all and everyone is happy. But yes people do make the strangest assumptions. 🙂
A friend uses a jelly cabinet for a pantry. Her house had no pantry and when she measured the available floor space in the kitchen, it was the only furniture that would fit. Works great. And the top is perfect storage for the mixer.
I’m trying and failing to think of anything wiser than “continuous communication.” I live with 3 other people right now and the tiny unresolved resentments have been building for 9 months to the point where it’s just a terribly tense and unpleasant environment where we all avoid each other. Sigh. It doesn’t have to be super-serious/polite “Would you PLEASE do the dishes”; if you have this kind of relationship I think it’s actually better to be more like “HEY BUTTMUNCH, DO YOUR DISHES.” You know, expressing that there is an issue without making a big deal out of it.
A good friend of mine and I have been discussing moving in together. I kind of love the idea, think it would work (now that I’ve gotten over my unrequited crush on her) but right now we have a very adventurous friendship – movies, bars, museums – something new every weekend. I’m worried that we’d actually hang out LESS if we moved in together.
Buttmunch is what I call the male-child AKA my assistant at work. Of course, I don’t say it outloud…
My best living arrangements have included formal or informal meetings, semi-regularly, where housemates have had an open forum to discuss things. When I lived with five other people, these were serious business and there were often issues to be aired (we also had a chore wheel). With my super-terrific roommate several years ago, we had “meetings” across the street at the bar which could be anything from bitching about bad dates to hammering out bathroom arrangements. It was great.
Of course, in order for this type of thing to work, you must be open to- well- being open. If you have one or more passive-aggressive people, it will not work. On THAT note, leaving notes for each other sucks unless you’re both super into it, in which case go for it. I HATE roommate notes, but we are different people.
Part of my actual job right now involves “developing a vocabulary” for describing… sputum.
Tell me your gross job stories, Toasties, or your favorite gross words if you’ve got them. I’ve worked with plenty of gross things but I think sputum is the worst so far.
I was working at a gas station during a cicada year– if you’ve never lived through one of these it is the all-around grossest thing that will ever happen to you, on the job or not. But part of my job was to sweep up all the dead ones that piled up in the parking lot and, somehow, inside the store. That store was already pretty gross, but piles of dead bugs, each the size of your thumb? Oh hell no.
I think the grossest thing I have done for work lately has been to sample an open sewer while looking like something out of Breaking Bad. That was AWFUL.
Though I must say that thinking of the colorful vocab you must be coming up with right now is…illuminating. (viscosity immediately comes to mind)
That’s an easy one: cleaning out the grease trap at a bakery. It’s pretty much scooping out poop scented greasy sludge. I actually threw up a couple of times. Eventually convinced the owner to hire a professional with mechanical equipment rather than have us do it by hand
Ooooo I did NOT enjoy my time working in a bakery. Fair point.
And now that I think about it, my teenage years working in an Arby’s may be worse than sputum. Maybe.
Sorry if this is a weird question but…. why… poop scented? Just asking for the next time I buy something from a bakery…
The grease trap collects grease that has been rinsed down the drain. After a few weeks of buildup, the grease becomes rancid. The trap also collects bits of other food which rots. Grease traps are usually accessed (at least in every bakery and restaurant I worked in) away from food production areas. Hence the poop smell. Professional grease trap cleaners come in with a machine that sucks up all the grease/debris and haul it away. Way better than having your wedding cake decorator scoop it out with a trowel. The health department has rules about drains and grease traps so that water that backs up doesn’t re-enter the usual water system or the sinks and plumbing of the bakery.
So it’s gross to clean, but better than sending that sludge to the water treatment plants to gunk up their systems.
Yeah, you got me beat. I thought I was so pitiful, having to answer cocktail party questions with, “Mr. Rose studies a slime mold. And I edit all his papers.” I bow to the new monarch of gross.
Slime molds are so cool though! Sounds like A+ cocktail party conversation to me.
I want to be invited to the parties you go to.
Hmmm. Maybe my eagerness to talk about slime molds and sputum reveals something about the frequency of my party attendance.
Grossest job experience for me was while I worked grounds crew at a University. I had to empty trash cans around the football stadium, and I had one of the bags split just as I was tossing it into the dumpster and spent the day smelling like hot garbage water.
That, or taking a hit directly to the face from the sprinkler system, which was fed from the pond on the golf course, which smelled strongly of rotten eggs.
Oh god when I worked at the gas station mentioned above people would always throw away half-empty beverage containers in the trash cans, which were already filled with god knows whatever else people need to dispose of when they pull into a gas station on the side of a highway outside Methville, Nowhere. And when I emptied them our cheap trash bags would ALWAYS drip nasty trash fluid onto my shoes and pants. I always wore the same pair of shoes to work and never, ever wore them anywhere else because they were garbage shoes that smelled like garbage.
Since then I always take care to empty out any cups I throw in the trash.
Oh man. So sick. And reminds me of all the many cups and bottles of chewing tobacco spit/sludge people would leave all over the place after games. That crap is nasty.
Ew, yes, I used to clean campgrounds and we called it “garbage juice”. Sadly, it wasn’t the grossest part of the job, which was picking cigarette butts, used condoms, and Kleenexes out of wet ashes since the fact that there was a fire ban on didn’t stop people from throwing garbage into the firepits then pouring water on it and my employer refused to buy us gloves.
It’s not that bad, but one time I was ringing up a guy for some books and he said “oh, hang on a minute” and walked away, and then came back with sweaty crumpled money that he explained he had been keeping in his shoe.
I think that’s pretty bad. At least no one expects me to touch sputum with my bare hands.
And this, kids, is why you should never, ever put money in your mouth.
oh man. i think most people who have worked in service have been handed sweaty money at one point or another, but that doesn’t definitely doesn’t lessen its disgustingness.
Cleaning the dairy fridge at Starbucks of all the ancient sour milk spilled at the bottom. 🙁
Last summer I was dissecting hundreds of sculpin for a project. They are these tiny little fish we’d catch, kill, then remove various organs from. Unfortunately, this area had unusually high loads of tape worms, so we’d have to pull the living tape worms from the dead fish’s stomachs to dissect. You could see them wriggling around in there before you even cut the fish open. There were so many that in one fish 1/3 of it’s totally body weight was tape worm.
Oh! And then there was the project where I had to fly around the tundra pouring a mixture of rotten beef blood and concentrated skunk scent on posts to attract wolverines and bears. The smell was astoundingly bad.
That is really, really extremely gross!
I spent one summer isolating DNA from an assortment of carnivore shit. Just like, various carnivores. It was gross but I think your one is grosser.
Biology is the grossest. One of my coworkers has a new baby. I asked her if cleaning up all the body fluids was gross and she just looked at me and said “you of all people should know that I have done things far grosser than cleaning up a bit of baby vomit”
Oh god I just shuddered so hard I think I pulled a muscle.
Getting projectile-vomited on multiple times in my unpaid job as a mother. Hours suck too.
One of the responsibilities of my previous job was to fish through a medical journal called–simply and evocatively–Wounds, looking for articles I could write up.
Oh man, Wounds! That used to be one of the most interesting journals to put out at a hospital library.
I work in a lab and part of my job is throwing away these big marine worms when they die and start rotting. My boss doesn’t want to throw them in the trash though because that’s wasteful, so he tells me to bury them in the dirt outside. They smell so bad I almost threw up one time.
Invertebrate research is a different world, eh?
I hope that didn’t sound snobby, my mind is boggling at having to bury the dead worms outside the lab!
It’s not as bad as some of these others…but I’m an office manager and sometimes people forget their Thai food in the fridge and yours truly gets to walk it across the hall to the big trash can after six weeks.
when i worked in a small-batch ice cream store, we scooped the ice cream out of a “dipping freezer”—basically a big freezer with lids on the top. we would put the buckets of ice cream in there, and so much of the time, scoops would fall to the bottom of the freezer and collect around the bases of the buckets.
every sunday, two of the workers lucky enough to work the closing shift would have to unplug the freezer, take out all the buckets and wipe them off, store them in another freezer, and scoop the ice cream detritus from the bottom of the freezer before scraping down the ice that had formed on the inner walls. the ice cream luckily wouldn’t really go bad, since it was a freezer and all, but it would all coagulate into this disgusting dairy slush with fallen tasting spoons and broken cone bits. as the freezer defrosted, it would melt into a goop and very quickly start smelling like rancid dairy.
somehow, it did not put me off ice cream.
I had a sow in labor with a large breech stillborn piglet with his back legs and pelvis hanging out. She was getting tired and couldn’t get it out on her own and I had to pull it. This was surprisingly not as gross as I expected, mostly I guess because it needed to be done. More live piglets came out after I got the dead one out, so that was good news. Sometimes the ones in the pipeline behind the dead one suffocate if they have to wait too long.
Another time a panel of metal fencing fell over in the pig pen and got all covered in mud and poo. When we went to stand it up, the overhead bit dripped mudpoo into my hair. I was very unhappy.
AND just after I posted this, went out to find a new litter of ten little piglets. And one dead and partially eaten. Probably by rats because the other pigs would have just eaten the whole thing. EWWWWWW
The ten seem to be doing well though.
PIGLETS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Worst thing: Pulverizing mouse embryos. Worst words: “Post-coital plug”.
On my very first day at a new job several years ago, I arrived early and parked one parking lot too far over. It was early spring and a lovely morning, and a mama duck and her very very new baby ducks were trundling along on a route parallel to mine. They approached a curb, and the mama duck hopped up and began encouraging her babies to follow her, but they were so small and new that they were actually shorter than the curb and couldn’t get up. After taking some hysterically adorable photos, I leaned down to give one of the babies a boost. The next thing I knew, Mama Mallard was squawking and flapping at me and also projectile pooping on me.
I made it to work, in utter disbelief, and ran to the bathroom to try to sort myself out. It became clear VERY quickly that I could not, in fact, work in a restaurant while covered in horror-smell duck shit, so I found the manager, gestured futilely at my stinky clothes, and told him that I really needed to go home and change, but if he could please note that I was actually early, that would be great.
I got back to my car and the smell was so bad I had to drive home with every window down just to avoid retching.
That is a very close second to an incident that took place the year I worked at a beachfront cafe at a relatively large resort during an alewife summer. If you aren’t familiar with them, alewives are sardine-like fish that die off in the Great Lakes every few years and wash ashore. The resort, obviously, had a vested interest in their beach not being covered in dead and rotting fish, so they’d groom the beach at night to make it slightly less obvious that the dead and rotting fish were there. This worked as well as could be expected, until one day an unsuspecting tourist was strolling along the beach and placed her foot onto a weak patch of sand, which promptly burst, literally burst, with rotted fish and maggots. She came tearing up to the cafe, covered in fish guts and other matter, and insisted she needed to speak with someone immediately. Which she did. No one had a nice day, that day.
OMG these are both amazing.
That’s horrific but baby ducks are so damn cute it probably wouldn’t deter me from trying to help one in the future.
Maggots are item #1 on my “things that are too gross to even think about” list, so this post wins most disgusting by a mile. Holy hell.
Actually, sputum is clearly grosser, but I was once tasked with determining how familiar various healthcare professionals were with the Bristol stool form scale. http://www.colonicsupplies.co.uk/product/bristol_…
Fascinating! I may actually use this idea.
My boss said that she wanted us to be able to discuss sputum like wine lovers discuss fine vintages.
she wanted us to be able to discuss sputum like wine lovers discuss fine vintages.
One time I accidentally stuck a scalpel into a vein in the placenta I was dissecting (what, I’m a molecular biologist, organs are sooooo far outside my expertise). The placenta was fresh enough that the blood was still pressurized.
I was very surprised.
WOW
Honesty compels me to reveal that it was more of a vigorous burble than a spurt, but it was still very unexpected.
noooooo D:
as a public librarian at a small branch library with no custodial staff I’m the designated person who cleans when someone messes up the bathroom. Thankfully it’s so far been pretty rare, but dealing with feces in random places in the public bathroom is not fun.
Having been a lifeguard for years and cleaning poo and vomit out of YMCA pools helps, though that was also pretty gross.
My mother is the manager of a GP practice, and tends to be the person who has to take responsibility for all of the things other staff don’t want to deal with. This has included cleaning up the waiting room when a patient pooed herself.
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Candy update: I bought a Cadbury Creme Egg in the new stupid plastic dome thing they are packaging them in in Canada. It was even worse than expected. It took me several whole seconds to separate the stupid tabs to open the thing, and then my creme egg had a bunch of minor cracks in it, so it’s not like the plastic dome even protected it or anything.
Then later in the week I bought a Russel Stover Creme Egg with vanilla & chocolate filling, mostly because it was sensibly wrapped in foil. It turned out to have better chocolate and less obnoxiously sweet filling, and it was twenty cents cheaper. So I guess I won’t suffer from eschewing the Cadbury ones.
(Picture of the new package, not taken by me.)
It’s an egg-ufo!
Also beautiful use of eschewing!
Thank you!
I was actually trying to think of a plainer word, because eschewing seemed a bit much, but I drew a blank.
Last week I said I was going on a surprise date with my wife and it was dope.
We saw Jupiter Ascending and ate cheeseburgers at the same time.
Also something bonkers is I kind of really want to watch Jupiter Ascending again but in 3D this time.
Well we can be bonkers together because that is exactly what I’m doing with my afternoon off work today.
Edit: minus the cheeseburgers but plus the 3D.
Specifically I want to watch the scenes on the bureau planet frame by frame to see how I much I missed the first time around. Also to see that exact moment when C3P0 With A Face loses his ability to keep it together.
I would watch an entire movie of that guy. I loved him.
Yes! I liked Jupiter Ascending, but not as much as some Toasties did. I think I WOULD have loved it if it was all the bureau parts plus that guy plus Eddie Redmayne.
Jupiter Ascending and food is the Valentines Day plan for me and my fiancee! I’m pretty stoked. She seems less excited, but hasn’t seen all the gleeful commentary about the movie that I have around here, so that’s understandable.
It took a lot of restraint (despite the ridiculous price) not to buy 3D tickets. Without even seeing it yet, I have a hunch its ridiculousness would reach mind-blowing levels in 3D.
It was so much fun! I have described it as “classical sci-fi with everything good and bad that implies” and I think that’s a good way to manage expectations. Sure the dialogue is a little flat and the characters are kind of wooden buuuuuuuut that’s not exactly the point.
Anyway. I hope you enjoy. Expect an update in next week’s thread.
I’m excited for the DVD!
Also this film has profoundly influenced me: I feel that if the Wachowiskis can ask WB for $175 million to make this rollerblading werewolf film (AND GET IT), then I can ask anyone for anything. I will never be afraid to apply for a job again.
I approve of this logic.
I saw it with my husband in 3D and I loved it!
We had so much fun making fun of it. During our romantic Valentine’s dinner after the movie, we kept cracking each other up saying things like “bees don’t lie” and “I love dogs.”
I thought it was batshit but so much fun, plus I loved that Channing showed a lot more skin than Mila Kunis. Plus sky battles over downtown Chicago. Plus I need Bob to help me sort out my dispute with BCBS.
Mr Cleo was unmoved by the movie – he said he didn’t care about any of the characters. I was swept away and enthralled – and I’m ok with that, since he was enthralled by Interstellar while I was unmoved and bored out of my mind. We both enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy, though, so there’s hope for us.
You know I haven’t seen Interstellar though I want to. BUT from what I know about it, it sounds like GotG meets that and JA right in the middle. ‘The bees don’t lie’ line is great, and I’ve also taken to yelling at awkward moments. “Where is the BBQ SAUCE?”
My 14-year-old dog is dwindling fast and my heart is breaking.
Oh, no. I’m so sorry. You will be in my thoughts.
(((Hugs)))
Ah Jeez, my heart is breaking for you…here’s an Internet hug, if you want it.
Old dogs. Heartbreakers, every one of them. I’m so sorry. ::hugs::
Oh no, I’m so sorry. 🙁 Hugs to you and your elderdog.
I am so sorry. Much love to you.
This is the worst. I’m so sorry. Go spend time with pup.
I’m so sorry 🙁
Ohhhh, I am so sorry. I lost my 13 year old dog a year and a half ago. That dog came in between me and my abusive husband, even before I realized he was such a threat to me. She was the best kid-friendly, chicken-herding, hula-hoop jumping wolfhound ever and we still miss her. Treat her and yourself with kindness in her last days.
Hugs. Much love to you and your lovely dog.
I’m so sorry! The eldest of my family’s dogs is the same age, and he is okay right now but the dwindling from his cancer could start any time now, so I’m right behind you. Dogs, they are all so good 🙁
Does anyone else find the Toast very difficult to load on the phone? Mine jumps around a ton and makes it extremely hard to read until it settles down–is this an Android thing or a Chrome thing or an Only Me thing?
For me it’s difficult to load everywhere, on my phone and my ipad and my laptop.
My Android phone does this as well. I hardly ever access from there because of it. I always end up clicking *just* a moment too soon, and hitting the wrong link just as it jumps.
I can’t use it on my phone at all. I’ve totally given up. also an android user, but I think it’s more the general glitchiness (is that a word?) that bogs down the phone than it being an android problem.
It is a mobile thing – I have trouble with it on my Android phone (using both Chrome and Dolphin), on the iPad using Safari, and on my previous iPhone using Safari. It jumps around the moment I try and click on something, it loads full page ads when I click on headlines or comments, and it has pop-up ads that I can’t get rid of, that scroll around with me so that they are always on the screen.
“…one the iPad using Safari…pop-up ads that scroll around with me…”
OMG…YES, says the iPad user. Also, sometimes my typing can’t keep up with the page, gotta wait while the letters load, etc.
I never read the Toast on my iPhone– it’s just not worth the hassle.
I have a question — do we know who the Bartender is????? Bartender, please reveal yourself!
I think its Nick.
An interesting theory!!
Things we know about the Bartender:
– Mallory said, on May 16, 2014, “I’m not the bartender. I’m not her, I’ll never be her.” This means the Bartender is a her, and isn’t Mallory.
– The Bartender knows a lot about food and drinks, and is constantly learning more. In the past year she discovered a love of slow cookers and fizzy water.
– The Bartender celebrates Rosh Hashanah (by preparing duck and truffle pâté, vegetables with truffle salt, and cheese).
– The Bartender once remarked (Oct 17, 2014) that she made Nicole’s favorite mushroom soup and pretended that Nicole was coming over for dinner. This strongly suggests that the Bartender is not Nicole.
Things we don’t know about the Bartender:
– Who she is.
Maybe she made Nicole’s favorite mushroom soup because she IS Nicole, and could only “pretend” that Nicole was coming over for dinner because Nicole was already there, being The Bartender.
Nicole – ole + k = Nick
A few additions to this list:
– She knows Nicole well enough to know the recipe for Nicole’s favourite mushroom soup.
– She used the mushroom soup to encourage us to talk about “our friends who are far away,” possibly indicating that she and Nicole are friends (rather than family)
– She was in Venice in April
– Her birthday is sometime in or near November. On November 21, 2014, she wrote, “This is the best of all seasons! It is The Bartender’s birthday season.”
-She is probably reading this giggling and steepling her fingers like a Bong villain.
The Bartender is also Russian, no? This came up during the Sochi Olympics; I think the Bartender has been to Sochi and was bemused about how you could have a Winter Olympics there, and Nicole said the Bartender loved Yevgeny Plushenko with all her Russian heart. (Nicole also sometimes makes references to the charming habits of a Russian friend of hers.)
I’m now enjoying the idea that it is Nicole’s zen teacher, but I once speculated it was Jolie Kerr based solely on the cleanliness of her fridge so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .
I want the Bartender to be Rachel Maddow. I’m almost certain this is not the case, but the thought delights me.
Wasn’t there an open thread a while ago where the bartender talked about donuts, like a bunch of donuts got delivered to her work and nicole (callahan) wrote something about why SHE didn’t get donuts since they work at the same place? I am not going to search this out, but I have a REALLY good memory.
That was probably a reference to them both working for the Toast?
I read it in a very “someone brought donuts to the office” way, which means the bartender has a second job, because I’ve been assuming everyone at the Toast works remotely. But then Nicole would have been joking that she should get donuts too bc they both work at the toast.
but the more pomegranates you eat, the longer winter will be! One month of winter for every seed (okay, that probably only actually applies to Persephone)
Also I have a raging case of baby fever. I want a baby NOW. Tons of people I know have had babies in thr past year and I’ve gotten to do so much baby cuddling and I am dying to get a jump on the babies before my husband’s and my agreed-on start time of this summer.
GIVE ME ALL YOUR BABIES
Babies can be the total best thing ever! I don’t have one, never will (by choice) but DAMN, I love me some baybays.
Mine is about to turn 2. I’ll pick her back up when she’s 6, if that’s agreeable to you…
Signed – parent of a terrifyingly moody toddler (so scary)
Oh man. I am half ready for all the babies and half let’s not ever do this. Husband and I are thinking about maybe towards the end of the year Doin’ It For Reproductive Purposes but I’m scared.
THERE IS NO RUSH. Unless your eggs are literally about to expire, enjoy your childfree adulthood all you possibly can. I cannot stress this enough. Babies/kids are awesome but parenting is for the rest of your entire life and you will never ever sleep the same again.
Sorry, sorry. Carry on with your baby fever. I’m just going to keep living vicariously through adult people who can just go out and be adults whenever they want to.
ugh Mr. Floridagal has baby fever and I don’t.
oh man, me too. I’ve been hitting snooze on my biological clock for five years and I’m ready to just start trying already. But I promised my husband we could put together a baby bucket list and knock everything off it first. So one more year
Wile (While? Hmnnn.) away the time eating raw fish and deli meats??
I have a baby you can have, I will even pay the shipping and handling.
Bonuses: cute, comes with his own hat
Slightly stale dated (16 years old).
oh I’ll take that one! My second (and youngest) is also 16 and I am hanging out at the high school as a non-teaching adult and I love them all.
Favorite winter comfort activity: fireplace, netflix, cuddles
Less than 3 months until our wedding! We bought wedding bands! We have our honeymoon booked! Things are moving along in such an exciting way! I’m both excited and extremely anxious about the whole event (not the marriage itself, just the wedding/reception – what if someone gets too drunk and makes an ass of themself in a not-fun way? what if the DJ sucks? what if what if what if, etc.) Mostly I just want it to be time now because I’m pretty sure it’s going to be an awesome celebration with lots of people we love.
Also, I got back on the treadmill in a big way this week, finishing a 3-mile run yesterday with no leg pain. Hoping it keeps up, as I’m now committed to running part of a marathon relay later in the year. Woo! 6 miles on tap for this weekend. Here we go!
Hi Toasties, been a rough week here. I am not handling the balance of grad school and full time employment well, and have been scrambling to cover for two student staff assistants in my office. Both have had to miss work due to emotional and logistical repercussions of sexual assaults and I just, MISANDRY LEVEL IS HIGH. I am glad this space exists.
Oof, I did the grad school/full-time work thing, and it was a Dark Time. Especially around January/February. I can’t entirely say I regret it, because it kept my student loan load under $20k, but if I could do it again (which I never, ever will), I would probably try to cut my hours at least for the last couple of quarters. Good luck!
Does anyone have any happy book recommendations? I have realized that all the books I have remaining from my Christmas/birthday haul are going to be really emotional books. I went to a used bookstore this week to attempt to remedy this and ended up buying yet another book that I know will have me weeping by the end. So I need some quality humor and/or fluff to balance this out, or at least some book I know will have a happy ending.
Attachments by Rainbow Rowell! Super adorable, romance-ish but very funny as well.
I totally sympathize, the heavy books are so good! But then you read three in a row and everything is dark and sad.
Delicious! by Ruth Reichl is a good one. I had to suspend my disbelief that so many good things kept happening to the main character, but once I did that i got really into all the fun mysteries & twists of the story.
I also recently read 32 Candles by Ernessa Carter, which had some dark moments but mostly deserved its hot pink cover.
I recommend Terry Pratchett, maybe one of the books featuring the Witches? They are funny and smart.
I am going to second this and also add that of the books featuring the Witches, my favourites are the Tiffany Aching ones. I guess she’s not really one of the main witches, but I luff the Wee Free Men.
Discworld is amazing. <3 I’ve actually read all of the Discworld books, but I could always go back and reread them again.
Yes! Wise Children, by Angela Carter. It is a romp and a delight.
Bill Bryson. Anything by him. Nonfiction, breezy and often hilarious.
The Martian was pretty great. Harrowing at parts but also very funny.
I kind of want to be Bill Bryson when I grow up. He travels everywhere and gets to learn about so many random things! Paleontology! The history of wallpaper! The Appalachian trail!
When I needed light stuff this past summer, Courtney’s Milan’s The Brother Sinister series did me well (it’s historical romance, but feminist-y and hilarious). I also read the Anne of Green Gables series for the first time in its entirety, and if you’re into history/sports, The Boys in the Boat, about the 1936 Olympic rowing team, was really good.
All the Jeeves and Wooster books!
Also anything by Nick Hornby.
Any of Nancy Mitford’s novels, but especially Love in A Cold Climate. Also I’ve been reading “Funny Girl” by Nick Hornby and it’s very enjoyable so far.
I Capture the Castle is my favorite light-hearted (some ~emotions~ but overall very upbeat) book ever.
I love that book! I only found it last year, and I wish I’d had it as a teenager.
I LOVE that book but I did cry on the last page (I was reading aloud, which made it more emotional for me). It’s not what I’d call “fluffy” but it is very very funny and achingly lovely.
The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon. It’s from like 1200 AD Japan but does not feel like its old or from a different culture: a smart lady makes wry and ironic and sometimes silly observations about her life, interspersed with haikus and lists of who wore the best clothes at court yesterday and who just looked like a moron. It’s one of my favourite books ever.
You are my secret long lost twin, I love that book to pieces.
If Sei Shonagon were alive now she would be a killer blog-writer.
I’ve been reading Diana Wynne Jones books. So fun.
yes!! all of them! (except save one or two for later, because she isn’t making any more)
The happiest I’ve been recently was while reading Barbara Pym’s Some Tame Gazelle , which was also really poignant. Also you can never go wrong with Wodehouse.
Anything Carl Hiaasen. They’re so ridiculous and just fun.
Kim by Rudyard Kipling. I’m pretty sure it’s the happiest book in the world.
To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis. Weird, goofy time travel.
<3 that book. Also the lady whom you named yourself for!
Have you ever read Tom Holt? He writes very silly books. Also, Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next (first book: The Eyre Affair) series is a seriously silly and romp-type good time. Actually anything by Jasper Fforde.
I don’t know if I had a bad week when I read Tom Holt, but the one book of his I read left me baffled. It was very charmingly silly, but there was one major plot point that just…wasn’t ever mentioned again. And I wasn’t sure how the plot resolution actually worked. I did read this on a busy vacation, though, so I was a bit distracted and could have missed things.
I need to read more Jasper Fforde.
Christopher Moore 🙂
“Lamb: the Life of Christ Told by His Childhood Best Friend Biff” was awesome.
Thank you all!! I have so many more books on my to-read list now. This is delightful.
Thanks for asking–I always forget, and am planning to steal several of these ideas ASAP. Laughter good.
“Where’d You Go Bernadette?” by Maria Semple is a fun, fast read
I love anything from Jennifer Crusie, the one I read first (and apparently imprinted on) was Faking It.
Toni McGee Causey writes funny things that are also romancey but mostly running around and chashing things and dodging bullets all in Louisiana-that-is-not-New-Orleans
Martha Wells has a trio called The Fall of Ile Rein, starting with The Wizard Hunters. I loved the characters, the airships, the casual use of magic, the rogue gods… it all made me EXTREMELY happy. Plus and also she has three about Raksura which are some kind of shapeshifting lizardy dragon peoples with complex private lives. Those series are both adventurous and should not make you weep, I hope?
I am going to Providence for the weekend! I am making my friend drive me to the Chik-fil-a in Warwick, but what else should I do? Nothing outdoors, as it is colder than the proverbial witch’s tit.
The RISD museum is lovely and indoors.
Providence activities:
RISD art museum has a nice mix of stuff and it might even be free on Sunday, check. Not Just Snacks on Hope St has good cheap Indian food, The Grange at Broadway and Dean has fancier vegetarian/vegan food, the Athenaeum on Benefit St is a beautiful old subscription library with lots of poking around that you can do.
Aaaand I know you said nothing outdoors but I bet there’s some sledding you could do at India Point Park.
I just came back to recommend The Grange. So good. I want their fries right now.
Definitely check out the RISD museum. Normally I’d say take a drive down Benefit St. and the surrounding areas while you’re there to check out all the neat old houses but everything is covered with tons of snow so it might be terrifying. Most of the cool stuff is outside and covered in snow so maybe check out some cool restaurants? The Federal Hill area has some good ones (not just Italian cuisine these days). The Avery is a neat Art Deco bar near Broadway. Definitely also check out Julian’s if you get a chance – my favorite place to get breakfast/brunch. Their Bloody Marys are phenomenal.
How many times can I say check out in a single paragraph?
Whoa, check it out.
Suggestions so far are great (RISD! Restaurants!). I’m just a fan of walking around the Brown campus too, which is lovely, although it will be covered with snow. Um, speaking of which, good luck with the incoming snow! Will apparently not be as bad as Boston.
I’m not sure if this is a thing the general public can do, as I was accompanied by a Brown student the one and only time I went, but if you’re able to get in to see the ridiculous tin soldier collection (http://library.brown.edu/collections/askb/miniatures.php) at the Brown library, you should. It’s absurd and actually kind of amazing; also, the collection includes Tin Queen Victoria, so.
As of a few years ago there was an Indian place in the mall food court, of all places, that was amazing and had dosas on weekends. The actual Indian restaurants of Providence could not compare to it.
It was still there last summer when I was there for a conference (convention center connects to hotel connects to mall) and it and the grilled cheese place were all I ate for a week. It was oddly glorious.
Yes! Good to know. I can’t believe I graduated eight whole years ago. In between thesis-writing senior year I would make weekly treks from the Brown campus to the mall, which I hated, just for that Indian place.
Bolt Coffee Co. for any and all caffeine needs.
Valentine’s self-date thread!!
Any Toasties planning on spending tomorrow by themselves but still pseudo-celebrating? What are your consumption plans–food, media, or otherwise?
JUPITER ASCENDING. I maaaay decide to invite someone, but… nah.
I’m also offering self-love themed tarot readings on my tarot tumblr for the next couple weeks to celebrate. Got a couple reading requests already and I’m pumped!
oooh tarot! what’s your tumblr, if i may ask?
coffeeandtarot.tumblr.com
I enjoy it. 🙂
Work, but then seeing Jupiter Ascending!
I made red velvet cupcakes except without the red food coloring because I’m not that attached to the color and also I didn’t have any in the house, and I’m going to watch a marathon of one or more of the following: Arrow, Jeeves & Wooster, Orphan Black, or Parks & Recreation, and if we’re being brutally honest probably get a little high. Or more than a little.
I recently learned that John Barrowman is in Arrow and my interest shot up approx. 10000%
Jeeves & Wooster high OMG JOINING YOU YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
I found all four seasons at Half-Price Books for between $10 and $20 each on the day the ex-Mr. Fringehead moved out, which I thought was an appropriate gesture from the universe. It may just turn into a ridiculous cupcake-eating gigglefest and I can’t see any downside to that.
so much packing, helping friend clean house, drinking wine, sleeping. Maybe see this Jupiter Ascending all the kids are talking about. Nevermind, my lust for Mila Kunis.
I’m trying to find Wooster and Jeeves streaming online for free. Can’t seem to find them on Netflix.
Maybe I will buy a box of chocolates.
Enjoy my spinsterhood.
excellent! i plan on wearing my silk robe of spinsterhood for most of the day, except for when i leave the apartment to take care of a coworker’s cat, which is basically the same thing.
I…I….I need a silk robe of spinsterhood. I didn’t realize it until now. Or maybe silk pajamas of spinsterhood that allow the tummy to expand when consuming copious amounts of wine, chocolate, and junk food while binge watching BBC shows
doooo it. mine’s not even real silk, but it’s from the 80s or early 90s (i’m guessing) and it has fabulous/hideous pattern and SHOULDER PADS. highly recommended.
I also plan to see Jupiter Ascending! And sneak something special in, because my local theatre has really boring food options. I don’t know what though. Something with chocolate.
Yes! I may have myself a wine and cheese party. Or possibly a buffalo chicken dip party, depending on what, if any, food stores I make it to tomorrow.
I will be by myself but it hadn’t occurred to me to pseudo-celebrate. I might now though!
Yay! I really just enjoy any vaguely sanctioned excuse to buy and/or cook myself something decadent or unusual or otherwise delightful.
I’m making BROWNIES!
Today I bought Mariokart 8 and Majora’s Mask 3DS for myself, and plan to spend tomorrow making full use of these purchases. I had to open at least one immediately, so I decided to save Mariokart for tomorrow. I will probably also make myself a chocolate cake (doing double duty: I love eating AND baking cake).
yesss. i want to bake but also i want croissants and i am not at that level yet.
An absolute sewing frenzy, for as many hours as I can manage, because dammit I need to have this finished by Wednesday.
I was hoping to spend a bit of time with A Boy tomorrow night*, but that is still pretty up in the air.
*not because it’s Valentine’s Day, but because I might be sans roommate
being sans roommate is often a better holiday than valentine’s day!
also, damn, apparently i need to think about seeing jupiter ascending!
My friend is throwing a Galentines’ dinner party Saturday evening. I’m bringing a bottle of red AND a bottle of prosecco, plus juice and lemons and limes for making little drinks. I wanted to get her flowers, but a single rose was $8 so NAH, two bottles of wine it is.
I also stashed a couple of mini tarts (one raspberry/almond/pistacho, another chocolate) in the fridge for myself so I don’t have to fight people at the store on the weekend. I also got some pretty flowers that look like mini cherry blossoms so they can double as V-Day and Lunar New Year flowers!
Like many of you: Jupiter Ascending and cat-sitting. Probably binge-watching something… thank goodness for this long weekend, I can really use it!
I’m going to a drag show tomorrow evening with some friends! Should be a lot of fun.
I’m probably going to make myself a chocolate soufflé, maybe some chocolate raspberry truffles with Chambord, might make myself a nice breakfast with a soft boiled egg with herbed sourdough soldiers. Might attempt a lavender crème brulee because I’ve never made one before plus SETTING SUGAR ON FIRE and what have you.
I may also just eat chunks of this really good blue cheese I just got. Mmm. cheese.
i recently learned that you can make crème brulee with one of those long handled lighters (like for fireplaces) and it blew my mind.
Thanks to braak here, I am also seeing Jupiter Ascending! And going to my favorite pizza place tonight. Also tomorrow, a haircut, and in the evening, adventures with a Meetup group of single lesbians, so who knows what will happen!
why isn’t that a Meetup option in my city??
Aw, I’m sorry! I would never suggest this for dating MEN, but you COULD try craigslist?? Especially since there isn’t a Meetup group, women in our situation might be desperate enough to recourse there. I don’t think your chances would be significantly worse than Meetup.
I just got a new dog, so I’m planning a cuddlefest! Maybe watch a movie?
I think I shall eat pastries and drink tea out of a saucer while enjoying some quiet time with a happy cat.
After work, because I’m currently half of the sales team at the store, and Saturday’s our big sales day.
OH HEY GUYS I HAVE A QUESTION AND I BET SOMEONE HERE KNOWS
I am trying to find a nice handwriting for a tattoo. It would be perfect if it was actually Charlotte Bronte’s writing (since the tattoo is Jane Eyre related), but something similar would do as well. Any ideas where I can find this?
When one of the shareholders at my office died, I put together a memorial plaque in his handwriting by taking some of his notes, scanning them in really high resolution, and then tracing the letters I needed in Illustrator – if you have a friend who’s good at graphics stuff, maybe they could do that? Hell, I’ll do it, if it’s not time-sensitive.
From my letterpress days, I seem to recall that you can purchase a font based on her handwriting. Or go to a free font site, like dafont dot com, and find something similar. If you’re not using it for commercial purposes you should be able to find something with free usage rights.
It is pretty nice handwriting: http://theheroinesbookshelf.com/2015/01/23/charlo…
If you’re just looking for a nice handwriting font that you can download and then type out the words you want, http://www.fontsquirrel.com has really good ones!
This isn’t typical of her handwriting, as they are exquisite miniature books she made as a child, but they are scanned and printable fascimiles of Charlotte Bronte’s own work:
http://harvardmagazine.com/2012/01/tiny-brontes
The 3 islands press have created some amazing historical handwriting fonts, if you want to play around a little with customization. No actual match for CB but worth a gander.
http://www.oldfonts.com/
For Valentine’s Day my husband and I are getting a large New York-style floppy pizza and eating it while watching Quantum Leap. (He’s also planing to sing me a few songs, and I’m going to give him a Subversive Cross Stitch I did.) Then the next day we’re having friends over to watch Ponyo and eat ham.
What are your holiday plans? Also, any ideas for movies for our next friends movie night? We’ve done House (the 1977 Japanese movie) and Troll 2. We like off-beat stuff.
We’re going to drag Mini Siniichulok to a restaurant that serves Creole food from Mauritius that we’ve been meaning to try for four years. We’ll probably write each other sentimental cards (I used to suck at that but started paraphrasing his and now I think I got the hang of it, plus it’s fun) and buy some overpriced chocolate.
Have you seen Vampire’s Kiss? It’s Nic Cage at his Nic Cage-iest and it’s glorious.
I also loved Lucy. It’s bad, but in a fun wacky interesting way. Plus, Scarlett.
WORST VALENTINE’S STORIES. Seems appropriate for a Friday the 13th before Valentine’s Day right?
Mine is merely absurd. I was in college, visiting my long-distance holdover-from-high-school boyfriend. It was not the best relationship, and we argued a lot and generally weren’t well-suited for each other. I was trying to be the cool girl, saying we’d just hang out and cook something nice in his apartment. His roommates were all planning to be out, so we had the kitchen to ourselves.
Until. Some random friend-bro came over, plopped himself at the kitchen table, and began shotgunning beers through a funnel alone as I tried to prepare for this ‘romantic’ meal. Boyfriend saw no issue with this. If I recall correctly, solitary beer-funneling bro moved to the couch while we ate. I guess in retrospect he was having a worse Valentine’s than me?
There were a lot of reasons I broke up with my boyfriend shortly thereafter, but that night sticks out as the straw the broke the camel’s back.
This isn’t my story, but a friend of mine dated and then had a bad breakup with a male model. The Valentine’s day after they had just broken up, she walked out her door and the first thing she saw was a giant billboard of his face.
The worst for me was sophomore year of college. My boyfriend gave me the speech about thinking Valentine’s Day was fake, “because why can’t I show you I care any day?” The next day he dumped me. I was DEVASTATED. I thought he was THE ONE.
That probably would’ve been relatively tame, as far as bad Valentine’s go, except we got back together. Eventually we married, and we later divorced – I lost a ton of money in the process and it was a huge pain in the ass. So in retrospect, that bad Valentine’s was actually foreshadowing? Womp womp.
one time i spent valentine’s with a guy i was just kind of casually dating. nothing serious. so i thought we’d just grab some take-out and watch a movie at home. i genuinely didn’t want to do anything fancy.
he chose the place to get food, but forgot it was cash only, so instead of splitting the bill, i ended up paying for it all, even though there was an atm right there—and i had picked up the bill last time. when we had sex, he ripped the garter belt i was wearing and didn’t apologize. and then he fell asleep halfway through the movie and snored the whole time. he didn’t say anything nice to me the whole night, really, let alone wish me a happy valentine’s day!
it wasn’t awful, but it was just so lackluster. i broke things off two weeks later.
A few years back, I’d just gotten involved in what I called, at the time, a polyamorous relationship. It was actually just an asshole guy dating multiple women and calling it polyamory. I was his secondary partner, but he’d been spending a lot of time with me and his primary was very prone to jealousy. So the night before Valentine’s day, he took me out to dinner and bought us chocolate and red wine and watched Doctor Who with me. It was lovely, right up until his primary called him and went absolutely ballistic because she thought he was spending that night with her. Not actually that bad, but super disappointing.
(that situation was able to last maybe two more weeks before completely exploding, surprise surprise)
WAIT
NO
THAT’S NOT THE WORST VALENTINE’S DAY
HOW DID I FORGET THE WORST VALENTINE’S DAY
I had been casually dating a guy in my hometown during a semester off from college. I wasn’t super invested, but he was, and when I went back to school in February he wanted to keep things going.
A few weeks earlier we’d been talking about coconut marshmallows (literally, coconut flavored marshmallows) and I said “those sound delicious.”
So he mailed me 24 bags of them.
24 bags of coconut marshmallows, maybe 20 marshmallows to a bag?
The worst part is, HE DIDN’T KNOW. He’d gotten them off Amazon and thought he was buying ONE bag. He thought “24-count” referred to the number of marshmallows in the bag. Did the price tip him off? No, he just thought they were rare and thus expensive.
It turns out coconut marshmallows are super gross. Despite literally throwing bags of them of people and leaving them around campus, I think I still have a few bags somewhere.
IN WHAT WORLD ARE MARSHMALLOWS SOLD IN 24-COUNT LOTS THOUGH
This is a GREAT Valentine’s Day story.
My husband-at-the-time came home and announced to my children against our counselor’s recommendations (and after taking his girlfriend out to dinner, so he got the kids OUT of BED to do this), that we’d grown apart and I was forcing him to move out.
He had told me two weeks earlier that it was time to try for another baby. I spent the next two weeks waiting to see what the test would say. (and my 9 year old tried to kill himself).
Said kid had PTSD for 3 years. He’s much better now (but still in counseling). Bonus is that my divorce was finalized exactly a year later, yay irony.
Sorry, for that being such a downer–My life is hard but still much better now. I never get a chance to share that and sometimes I really need to say it. It’s far enough in the past that I can be angry with him over stupid petty parenting things and just grateful my time with him is over. And tonight or tomorrow I’m going to buy myself a single-serving gourmet chocolate cake and knit whatever I want in an empty house watching outlander. I may even make grilled chocolate sandwiches.
Grilled chocolate sandwiches! I love nutella on toast, but this just takes it to another level!
Sounds like you’ve been through a lot, hope you can be gentle with yourself and proud that you’re on the other side now. Glad to hear things are better than they used to be!
Warm 1 cup milk in the microwave or the stovetop. Melt 1 cup chocolate chips/or pieces into the milk (don’t do it the other way around, you have to add the chocolate to the milk). When fully mixed, let cool in the fridge until soft like cream cheese. Then spread on buttered bread and fry (you might want to gently squeeze the edges to seal the chocolate in).Make sure to use salted butter so you get the crispy buttery outside like a grilled cheese and a gooey chocolately center. Enjoy with red wine and don’t plan on doing much else because, YUM.
D: What a monster. You deserve all the chocolate and Outlander in the world.
Aww, thanks. I feel like a thread killer now, though!
Congratulations to you, that is very well done.
As for me:
Just did two things right away instead of putting them off!
Remembered at 7 am that I had a meeting at 8:30 am! Provided fruit for said meeting!
Said a reasonable no to a reasonable request, no pouting necessary (or proferred) on anyone’s part!
I’m buying my very first car today!! I already signed for it and everything, I just have to go do the whole “paying for it” thing now. My dad was very Dad Mode about the whole thing and was very helpful and great and I feel like such a terrified adult with no money but lots of responsibility
I still feel awesome about my first car that was in my name and I paid for. Dads are great for that. Congrats on the car! What’d you get?
A Suzuki SX4! It’s a big change from the tank that was the Dodge Durango I’d been driving
Toastronics, I miss my ex. (I mean, from before he started being an enormous jackass). I had a dream about him last night where we were just hanging out and having fun, and I’m sad now.
Plus, my friends are actively thwarting my plans to spend the long weekend wallowing in misery! Assholes. (not really, I love them).
You don’t miss him. You don’t miss who he really is. You miss who you thought he was, in the beginning. You miss who you wanted him to be. He didn’t start being a jackass. He was a jackass all along, but hiding it initially.
That sucks. It really does. But rehearsing the above helped me through a very bad breakup. Helped me a lot. If it’s not helpful to you, please ignore me and know that I’m on your side. You deserve much better than your ex. I’m sorry you’re sad. But I’m glad you have excellent friends.
I’m going to paint that first part on the ceiling so while I’m lounging on the couch tomorrow I can look at it every time I start feeling sorry for myself.
What RoseCamelia said, a million times. It’s one of the only things that helped me through my divorce.
Two breakup tips: 1) have you seen Obvious Child? It’s a great breakup movie, 2) There’s a line in it that roughly is something about “after this, I will be in my future” which is totally my mantra when I wake up in the middle of the night after a sad dream (three weeks post-breakup today).
Toasties! What are the best yoga pants one can purchase on the Internet? After having a baby I’ve decided to only wear yoga pants forever, and I should probably own more than one pair. Bonus points if they come in multiple colors, so that people can tell that I own more than one pair.
Zella brand live in leggings from Nordstrom. I’ve had a pair for THREE YEARS and wear them all the time and they look brand new. They are thick and not see through, but breathe, they are magic.
I really like American Apparel’s winter leggings – they’re thicker than the normal ones and come in some nice colors. I wear mine all the time and they seem to be holding up really well!
I really like my leggings from Old Navy. They don’t seem to carry the ones I have anymore but they’re very similar to these.
If you don’t mind dropping $70 bucks or so, BetaBrand’s dress pant yoga pants are the bomb. and look a little less like you’ve given up on life. (No judgement, I too have given up–on waistbands at least. I have a toddler and am 90% work from home.) they come in a few fits and colors. For variety.
I have owned two pairs of these and worn them to absolute literal shreds because I love them so dearly. They’re made by a good friend of my stepmom’s. They have apparently gotten RIDICULOUSLY expensive in the last year or so but if you check the “sale basket” link you can find some for cheaper, depending on your size. http://www.batikwalla.com/collections/batik-yoga-…
So, yesterday’s Link Roundup about anxiety medication as revolutionary act made me start thinking about maybe getting on medication, because my therapist brought them up a few months ago but I was fairly opposed. Then last night by coincidence, she happened to mention them again and I’m a bit more willing to consider it. I have a lot of resistance to it, some legit and some not (basically, I do really dislike the way companies advertise these meds in order to get as many people on them as possible, but also have a lot of irrational stigma against it and it’s hard to sort out in my head.). My therapist is recommending Zoloft or Prozac (I told her that makes me feel too much like Betty Draper) in a very small dose. I mostly see her for anxiety but have some pretty bad seasonal depression at the moment as well, and she’s basically suggesting it as a way to take the edge off and I wouldn’t have to plan to stay on them forever, just till I feel like I’m out of the rut I’m in, where I want to change jobs and move across the country and am feeling way too afraid to do any of it.
I guess what I am saying is, can people share their experiences about taking meds for anxiety and depression, especially if you’re in a similar boat to me, in terms of being functional without them but maybe would still be better off taking them?
I am also curious to hear if people have had success with St. John’s Wort and Turmeric, because I am a hippie and will always have a preference to go that route.
I’ve never had help from any natural remedies, including exercise, which just makes me more anxious about my body and about food. I prefer taking Ativan or Xanax as needed over taking something like Prozac or Zoloft, which you’d be taking every day. My main thing against taking things like Prozac is that I’ve tried a few, and none seemed to work very well, and it takes awhile to see if one works or doesn’t, adn then you have to adjust the dose, and then you may have to switch and try again… whereas, for me anyway, Ativan helps when I most need it, and I’m in control of when I take it. I probably should be on something more long-term, but I prefer trying something like CBT first.
Interesting, thanks for sharing! I asked my therapist why she recommended Zoloft etc. over an anti-anxiety medication, and she said that she sees those as more for use as needed for anxiety episodes, like you use them, and she thinks I could use something that’s more long term. I also know that those can be addictive and I have in the past used them recreationally a few times and know that I REALLY enjoy them, so I think I would get really stressed out figuring out when I “really” need it and possibly end up doing it too much. But Zoloft and Prozac make me nervous for all the reasons you mentioned, too.
I’m certainly not against drugs like Prozac, etc. I just feel like I haven’t found a good doctor or psychiatrist that I trust to prescribe me the correct one. I’ve been to regular doctors who just prescribe whichever one they use most without knowing much beyond “my patient has depression,” and I’ve been to psychiatrists who I really didn’t trust, because they didn’t talk to me enough and they made ridiculous assumptions that just weren’t true for me. (And that’s not just me being suspicious, both times that happened I went back to my therapist or normal doctor, and was told, yeah, don’t take what they prescribed you, you don’t have ___.”) So I think trusting in your doctor is super important.
I’m on both zoloft and xanax for anxiety. The zoloft kind of evens me out so I’m having fewer panic attacks than I once did, but it’s not really helping me with depression (see comment below). The xanax is really helpful on an occasional basis, when I’m just having one of those freakout days. I try not to take it too often, as there’s a risk of dependence.
I can sort of get by without these things, but it’s contingent on having a really strict regimen of sleep and diet and exercise, and even then I have occasional panic attacks. And besides, you know, life happens and you can’t always stay on course by willpower alone.
Suggested mantra: Medication is not a commitment. Medication is not a commitment.
Give it a try. Switch to a different med after a while. You can quit anytime. Just do the quitting according to the prescriber’s instructions, to be safe.
When I first started taking meds I was really worried about it and more than once my shrink had to settle me down by repeating “you don’t have to TAKE them but it’s good to HAVE them.”
I started on a very small dose of Zoloft (25mg) and now I’m up to (50mg), and it seems to be having a positive but not super-aggressive effect (in the sense that I don’t feel like a different person the way some of my friends have described when they took similar meds). I started taking it for generalized anxiety, which hasn’t gone away entirely but is much more manageable, and I think it has also helped with some depressive tendencies.
I am conflicted about it – I feel like these drugs are super-addictive and not always thoroughly understood, but then so are lots of other drugs that don’t have nearly the same kind of stigma.
I’m on a 25mg does of Zoloft as well and I’m experiencing the same results! A lot less panic attacks (though they still happen) and a lot more ability to deal with shit. Also, its not a high enough dose that I will lose the ability to feel anxiety altogether (look, if I didn’t have anxiety, I would just procrastinate all day and never get anything done so a bit is ok) or have any other weird emotional/psychological side effects).
The bad news is, I think I have OCD (from reading other people’s accounts of it and realizing I have the same symptoms) and I don’t think the meds help with that. I still get the weird thoughts/obsessive thinking/”bargaining” stuff that comes with OCD, it just doesn’t blow up into anything big anymore.
I was on Zoloft for general anxiety disorder for four and a half years, and during that time I also took Klonopin as needed for panic attacks. Combined with talk therapy and a smattering of cognative behavioral therapy, I was able to get everything under control, and step off the medcations. That was three years ago.
As for natural remedies, the only thing I’ve found that does any good is lots and lots of cardio. I now do triathalons, and that helps to keep things under control.
I would STRONGLY recommend against St. John’s wort, since it can actually make the problem worse, and has known interactions with a lot of common drugs. http://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/st-jo…
Yeah, the only verifiable outcome I personally have ever heard of with St. John’s wort are two very nice young teenagers. (St. John’s wort will fuck up hormonal birth control!)
I have a bit of depression, a pinch of anxiety, with a sprinkle of OCD and I use the lowest dose of Cymbalta. Every day I feel more capable of handling bumps in the road without spiraling, plus I’m back to a normal, healthy libido unlike when I was on Zoloft or Lexapro. I’ve been on and off them for a few years now and I know that for now, it’s better that I’m on them, but my goal is to go off them when we move away from DC metro. I think living in an overpopulated area contributes substantially to my minor mental health issues. When I was in college in Southern Vermont, I took a rhodiola supplement and that evened me nicely but doesn’t do the trick anymore.
I was very opposed to anxiety medication for a long time, despite the fact that I am a neuroscientist and study psychiatric disease (though not depression and anxiety specifically). I had (and still do, honestly) some nice cognitive dissonance about how everyone else had legitimate chemical imbalances and circuit problems, but I just needed to get my act together. I started an SSRI a couple months ago and it’s been so, so nice. I identified a lot with the article posted yesterday – starting meds didn’t make me a different person, it didn’t change my personality, it just made it easier to navigate through the world. My job is still stressful, life is still stressful, but normal amounts of stress no longer send me careening off the edge. My argument to myself for a long time was exactly that I was functional without meds, but I really have been so pleasantly surprised by the quality of life improvement since starting.
I use St. John’s Wort, partly because I don’t have access to a mental health professional with the ability to prescribe things. It works well for me, since my depression is mild and I’m not taking any meds that might interact with it. My sister took it for a while and it also worked for her, but led to some side effects so she’s currently going without medication.
I take a very small amount of citalopram for anxiety, and it has been seriously life-changing. Like, yeah, I am capable of functioning while constantly terrified and while having 3+ panic attacks per week, but it doesn’t take much of the drug to just turn all that off. It’s like flipping a light switch and it is AMAZING. I will take this stuff forever and ever amen.
i’ve never had much luck with natural remedies or antidepressants.
but i will say that lately my usually manageable anxiety erupted and i went to my primary care provider—not even a mental health provider—and asked for xanax (i used it in the past, 6 years ago, and i knew it helped me) and it definitely helps me when i feel a panic attack coming on. i just take it situationally, but that’s what works for my particular circumstances.
Thank you for this post — I too am interested in hearing other stories since I’m basically looking at a similar situation!
I have tried St John’s Wort, and wouldn’t really recommend it. I use a sunlamp to help at this time of year.
Medication has often bumped me from surviving/functioning to doing well and enjoying things. We are allowed to enjoy our life. And allowed to take meds to get there. I take my asthma meds. And I try and reframe taking my antidepressants as akin to my friend taking his insulin.
I refer to depression as “diabetes of the brain” when talking to a friend of mine who consistently blames himself for his depressive symptoms (because depression), and it seems to be helping him.
I have had minimal success with St. John’s wort, but a) my life is too intense for it to be enough to cope with life events AND northern winter skies, so stronger meds are better for me and b) I am already a pale person, but on St. John’s wort you sunburn instantly (like in 1/2 an hour in May). Also it interferes with birth control.
When I went to the women’s shelter for counseling I went on an SNRI, which was brutal, in that it seemed to really flatline my emotions. But given that I flat out could not cope otherwise, it was good to be numb in an emergency situation like that, I needed time to recover from external events. Also, it was AMAZING at stopping my self-negating monologues. I sat in a garden three weeks in and realized that the self-critical voice in my head was just GONE. Having that experience made me able to see and recognize when the intrusive/negative thought patterns came back, and be able to argue back with them, so to speak, and counter them. (Even if it took me a while to believe the positive things I was saying.)
Now I’m more stable, and I switched to buproprion, because the snri made me gain weight like crazy, and I need more of a mood boost as opposed to a mood/depression stopper—does that make sense? I’m not losing weight, but not gaining either.
I tried going low carb to lose weight, but felt hopeless within 2 days. I was able to recognize it, went back to eating carbs, and I’m not going to work on losing weight again until it’s sunny out and I have a few less stressors.
Editing to add that I could NOT have gotten through my PTSD without meds. For that alone meds were a godsend.
I take a tiny daily dose of prozac for migraine prophylactic, and it works fairly well (fewer migraines) with a couple side effects that have pleased me tremendously: decreased SAD, decreased hot flashes and decreased mental swings from hormone swings. Those last two are probably helped with the Mirena as well, which also also helps decrease migraines that are associated with hormones….
In short, brilliant plan for me.
I take sertraline, which I believe is Zoloft, and it works well for me. I am functional without them, and don’t feel noticeably different on them, so tried going off them for a year – that made me realise what a difference they make. I may not notice the effect, but it’s definitely there. I was functional, but a lot more miserable without them.
I had a tiny bump of help from “Happy Camper,” a supplement containing St. Johns Wort, hops and a few other things, but I only took it briefly. Valerian helps a lot when I’m wound up and it affects my sleep, and that plus chamomile tea will completely zonk me out. I consider coffee my ideal antidepressant but I’m trying to quit or cut back further, so green tea mixed with chamomile may become my new ideal. OR maybe I’ll finally see a qualified professional and stop MacGyvering this stuff together on my own.
I”m an adult with a roommate and it’s great. My top tip is, with housekeeping matters, try to accept that the things that drive you nuts and not her… are things you might just have to deal with, because you’re the one who cares, not her. This will flow both ways, so make sure she also recognizes this! There’s some figures out there that say, everyone in a relationship feels like they do 80% of the work around the house, and obviously everyone can’t be counting right – assuming a basic level of compatibility, don’t waste household energy seething over spills on the stovetop while she’s wondering why you don’t recycle the damned newspaper.
Try to bring stuff up quickly especially at the beginning. It’s better to establish some ground rules in the first month, as issues come up, so you don’t get to a point where things have clearly been annoying you for weeks and you haven’t mentioned it, and she might have some countercomplaints, and it gets bitter. Maybe agree to a couple of sitdowns though, so you’re not trying to sound casual as you suggest that it’s nicer to take out the trash more often while she’s just trying to make some tea.
Thanks! That’s a good point. Thankfully, we like cleanliness but are not neat freaks. It would be impossible (for us) to keep our sanity with four animals in the house anyway. Still, there are other habits that can grate on a person over time.
I like the idea of a regular sitdowns, too.
Assuming a basic realm of cleanliness, I even think it’s better if people have different obsessions with housekeeping – instead of each person taking out the trash daily, and nobody noticing an army of dust bunnies. But as you say, you’re both adults who already have Ways, so just think of it as an adult navigation of finding a workable situation. It drives me nuts when a roommate tries to nonchalantly just-happen-to-mention something about the dishwasher, and then I have to resist countering with a quid-pro-quo about her not leaving oatmeal on the stove overnight; I’d much rather say ‘let’s have a two-week check-in’ and approach it more like an org plan for the home. Figure out your deal breakers, find a lowest common denominator of tolerance, enjoy your civilized home in friendly comfort.
Ugh, the quid-pro-quo is exactly what used to happen with my ex. *Rage* i was the responsible adult with a temper, he was the easy-going, likeable man-child. Disastrous.
We’ve talked about dealbreakers but I’m sure more will surface as the novelty wears off. I intend to enjoy adult home time.
Lately I have been having a lot of trouble staying on task at work, and I think my superiors are starting to notice. I have been going through some major seasonal depression, not eating or sleeping well, running lat(er than I usually am) to most things. And during the days I keep catching myself just spacing out, forgetting things, clicking on one stupid wikipedia article and then looking up to see that two hours have passed. I feel like every time I talk to my boss I come off like a confused slacker. What would you do?
Not what I *would* do. What I *did*. I had similar struggles. I made an appointment with my doctor and asked him to screen me for depression. I hit 9 of his 10 markers. Then I made an appointment with the psych specialist he referred me to. After a few months of CBT and Prozac, I was a new woman.
You don’t have to live like this. Go see your doc. It could be as simple as a vitamin deficiency. You deserve good health. Now make an appointment. Do it today.
I’ve already got one for next month– I’m on an antidepressant but it is NOT helping, and my psychiatrist is so overbooked that I have to wait two months or more between each appointment. BLERG
Oh that is rough. I’m sorry. I am glad you do have appointments, though. There are sooooo many antidepressants. Please talk with your doc about trying another one.
I’m in the US, so ignore if you’re not and your healthcare system is not similar. But I found the best situation was a combo of primary care doc, psychiatrist, and psychologist. My primary kept on top of my vitamin deficiencies and the changing hormones that come with middle age. The psychiatrist I though of as a prescription writing machine. My primary and I did our research, then I asked for advice from the psychiatrist, but insisted on leaving the office with a Rx, since it would be months before I could see him again. Whether and when to fill that Rx was at my convenience. I could always wait a few weeks to do some research and consider my decision. The psychologist was who I saw weekly for CBT. It takes a village, … er, team.
I’m wishing for improvement for you. You will be in my thoughts.
Thanks. I don’t have a primary care doc right now and really need to get one, I will look into that asap.
Add some Vitamin D to your regimen. I take 2000 IUs a day but I’ve seen recommendations for up to 5000. It can’t hurt (I don’t think?) and might help.
I’m in a similar boat right now and I’m not sure what to do, myself. I guess I need to get back to therapy but I haven’t had time to focus on myself.
Do you have time to exercise? Wear yourself out a bit, see if you sleep better? Plus I keep hearing that there was a study showing that 30 minutes of exercise is as effective as Prozac.
Oh honey. I’m so sorry to hear about this. What a rough situation. Is there any way you can take some time off? Or do you think that would make the return even worse? Does your company have a good FMLA policy that could give you an extended leave? Is your boss understanding? Could you talk to them about this honestly without fear of negative consequences?
I am very lucky to belong to a union right now but I’m still not sure how I feel about discussing mental health issues at work. And I’m not sure if time off would help or just make me feel more useless.
Is there a way you could explain to your boss/es without alluding to exactly what’s going on? I think that in these cases, it’s TOTALLY OKAY to fudge the truth and or lie completely. Like saying your doctor just tested and found you have a vitamin deficiency that makes you sluggish but you’re working on it, or you’ve been taking medicine that makes you tired but you’re working on it. Also it always helps me to remember that when I’m in my less-mentally healthy states, I am a much harsher critic than anyone around me. Your boss may not notice as much as you’re feeling. Sending you lots of good vibes and I hope things get better soon.
Completely agree. I’ve called my depressive periods “digestion problems” and “migraines” depending on who was asking. I don’t think my boss would dare ask me what is wrong with me (I’m not sure I’ve ever been that bad), but if she did, I would say I’m having health troubles and I’m under a doctor’s care and things are improving.
If it gets to that point for you, maybe the reaction will be sympathetic, and in that case you can inquire about telecommuting. Even a few hours a day would help with difficult mornings. But I totally understand not wanting to have that conversation with your employer.
If you can, spend the last five minutes before you go home each day making sure your work area is tidy and any of your files other people might want to see are saved to their appropriate filesharing spots. This will make you look more fully on top of your shit to your boss, who is probably not paying attention to everything you do all day and will be happy as long as things are generally running along.
It sounds like you have good solutions in the pipeline and you just need to get through a few more weeks like this, which you can totally do.
AH CRAP. Now I remember what I actually wanted to talk to everyone about, which is:
Jeff Daniels’ Sleeping Tapes.
You guys, holy fuck, it is unbelievable. It is weird and unexpected and deeply, deeply soothing, and has led directly to two of the best nights of sleep I have ever had in adulthood.
Jeff Bridges, I think you meant.
Yes. Yes, that’s what I meant. Not enough tea today, evidently.
Though upon reflection, it occurs to me that I’ve been conflating Jeff Daniels and Jeff Bridges for years, which is only mildly embarrassing.
I was seeing those commercials, and I was like, I know this is just kind of an advertising stunt, but even the tiny examples in the commercial are so soothing that I think I’m going to have to check it out anyway. (also I’m mad at those commercials for suggesting that Brett Favre has a sense of self-awareness)
Do it. I was astonished at how lovely and soothing and effective they are.
You made me snort at your mention of Favre. He’s a stupid coonass. Only Cajuns are allowed to use that term. My Cajun grandmother qualifies me.
I am listening now. If I fall asleep before my dinner is ready i will blame you.
I think what I liked about it most is that it’s just intensely relaxing, not necessarily SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP, but soothing and deeply tranquil. So you may not fall asleep but you may be so blissed out that dinner gets forgotten. I’m sorry about this.
That would be lovely, I have raging PMT and am in dire need of soothing and tranquility! At least dinner is already in the oven so it won’t get forgotten entirely.
THEY’RE GREAT AND SO WEIRD
They’re creepy, but at the same time very soothing. It’s so strange.
So tomorrow is my birthday and while my husband is going to make me dinner, I generally make my own cake (there is a story there about how the husband didn’t realize the difference between T and t in a recipe…). However, I’m having trouble deciding what sort of cake to make. Suggestions?
David Lebovitz has a lot of cake recipes: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/category/recipes/cak…
I have personally had success with the French Apple cake (http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2010/11/dorie-greenspan-french-apple-cake-recipe/) and the Chocolate Idiot cake (http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2007/01/shf-27-chocolat-1/) though both of them require a springform pan.
Those both sound delicious and might be enough motivation to scrub out the ring of my springform pan that has been sitting sadly waiting for said cleaning.
It’s nothing too fancy, but this egg white cake ( http://nami-nami.blogspot.com/2009/01/egg-white-c… ) has been one of my favorites for a while. It gets a nice crust on it, but stays fluffy inside, and you can dress it up with whatever frosting or jam you want!
This seems like it would be extra delicious with a bit of lemon custard made from the egg yolks…
I’d never thought of such a thing, usually because I’m making the cake a day after I’ve used all the yolks to make creme brulee. Next time, however, I may have to give that a try. Sounds delicious!
Do you have a really good cast iron skillet? And is your pound cake excellent? Then make pineapple upside down cake. Actually easy, if yes to the first two questions.
I do have a good cast iron pan, although my pound cake game is fairly non-existent. However, I do have some cookbooks that I trust, so I may need to look into this option.
The pound cake in the very front of All Cakes Considered is GOLDEN – we substitute brown sugar for all the sugar, and it is a sour cream pound cake and completely brilliant.
It never occurred to me to put that on top of pineapples for upside down cake. Fannie Farmer has a dedicated upside down cake recipe which works really well.
I haven’t made this yet, but I really WANT to – cardamom vanilla cake, strawberry filling, and cream cheese frosting: http://mynameisyeh.com/mynameisyeh/2015/1/cardamo…
Nigella’s chocolate Guinness cake is the bomb (and not beery tasting at all if beer’s not your thing), and you can make it in a pot using a whisk or wooden spoon in about 5 minutes so it’s dead easy. I often add Bailey’s or other liqueurs to the cream cheese icing for bonus yum.
http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/chocolate-gui…
Chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting is my birthday cake of choice.
Do you want a hard cake or an easy cake? Because black forest cake is a pain in the ass but totally awesome, and carrot cake is pretty simple but also totally awesome. I get all my baking recipes from king arthur flour, so:
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/black-fore… (use the whipped cream stabilizer, it makes a huge difference in how long the cake lasts. Kraft makes one called “whip-it” or something similar)
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/kitchen-si…
But I’ve never had a recipe of theirs not turn out. Plus there’s a hotline if you have trouble.
My husband and I are starting to talk about having kids. We probably won’t start trying for a year or two, but in the meantime I find myself confused about genetic testing.
My husband’s uncle had cystic fibrosis and died young because of it. There’s something like a 1/3 chance that my husband is a carrier, and his mom is pushing us really hard to find out for sure before we decide to have kids. I’m waffling.
On the one hand, more information is always good right? The more you know the more prepared you can be. But we’ve talked and even if he were 100% a carrier, that wouldn’t stop us from having kids. Treatment has come a long way recently and continues to get better. So getting tested probably wouldn’t change anything, plus it’s expensive, and my husband is deathly afraid of needles. I don’t even know if needles are involved in this.
I suspect at least part of this is me being obstinate because my mother in law is being so pushy and bringing it up every time we see her. But the whole thing also feels weirdly close to Gattaca. Even though it isn’t. Like I said, I’m confused and waffling. I would appreciate insight from people who aren’t as emotionally wrapped up in it all.
Can you get a consult with a genetic counselor? I think that would be the best way to go now, because they can walk you through the tests and pros and cons. I also know from my own prenatal screens that there are tests for cystic fibrosis once you are pregnant, which may be an option in your circumstances.
Best of luck, it’s really hard. I have some genetic conditions in my family that necessitate extra screening during pregnancy, but I’m not at high enough risk that I’d not have kids over them, and it makes the first 20 weeks nerve-wracking.
Thanks. A consult may be the way to go. Now I just have to figure out how to find one and schedule that. Is it something you need a reference for (from, say, my OB/GYN)?
Your OB would probably be a good starting point, since he/she probably has someone they refer patients to. I also know the National Society of Genetic Counselors has a place you can search: http://nsgc.org/p/cm/ld/fid=164.
If you know you’d want to have kids anyway, I’d say there isn’t much reason for the testing. I’m also someone who is planning on starting to try for a kid in another year or so. I’m kind of the opposite though–I want to get genetic testing, and to get an amnio or CVS tests, because I want as much info as possible, because I don’t know if I could handle a big problem. I think the choice is entirely yours though, and you shouldn’t let your MIL make it for you. I know couples who chose not to do any testing on principle, and while some of those people ended up having kids with problems, they’re comfortable with that. They knew the risk, and they knew they’d be happy whatever happened. If you fall into that camp that’s great!
Read more at http://the-toast.net/2015/02/13/friday-open-threa…
It’s all so complicated and scary. I had no idea this stuff would start before we even started trying. Thanks for the perspective. My mom also declined a bunch of tests, and everything turned out alright for our family. Maybe I get it from her.
Good luck with all your tests. There’s definitely value in knowing.
It was interesting seeing your post about the issue, because it’s something that I worry about, but relatively few pregnancy/birth stories in books and blogs talk about it. I also haven’t heard many friends who have kids talk about it (though they might if I asked). I’m also curious to the answer to your question about how you get in touch with a genetic counselor. I was going to have my husband ask our normal doctor about it at his next doctor’s appointment. I have no idea about costs, or if insurance ever pays for it.
Yeah, a lot of people I went to high school with got pregnant accidentally within a year or two of graduating. I’m right at the beginning of people getting pregnant on purpose and there’s this whole world I’d never considered. And then you add in all the stigma of not telling people you’re trying because what if it takes forever or you miscarry and do you really want them to imagine you having sex, and I feel like this conversation just doesn’t happen because it comes so far before the “I’m pregnant!” announcment.
It’s true, when you start trying on purpose you learn so much! I started taking prenatal vitamins so that my body will have enough folate when we do try, and I started taking choline and omega 3 supplements, because apparently those are important too. And you’re supposed to be taking folate at least 3 months before you start trying. I was also reading a book of birth stories called Labor Day (it includes stories my lots of well-known female writers) and it made me think a lot about what sort of birth I want to try to have, which led to anxiety when my state (South Carolina) decided that they wanted to make it harder for birthing centers led by midwives to stay open. So. Yeah, I want a kid… but there is so much to be anxious about!
Consider advising your husband to give your mom a distant date for his Planned Testing. “They just don’t have any sooner openings, Mom.” If Mom gets nosy close to that date, tell her it’s rescheduled and give her a date 6 months in the future. It might buy him a few months of peace. And she might get the message.
If no outcome of testing would change your family planning, why spend that money? I think y’all have a good handle on the situation.
Maybe? He’s actually pretty good at telling her no and creating hard boundaries around things. It’s just that we’re waffling now, so we haven’t done that yet.
Thanks for the reassurance that I’m not being horribly irresponsible if we do forego testing.
One of my dearest friends in college has cystic fibrosis that is severe enough to be medically considered “severe,” but because he and his parents had the resources and patience to treat it, he is healthy as a horse and actually ran an IronMan marathon to benefit CF. He is the first and only known person with a severe form of CF to finish the Ironman without a lung transplant, and only the third person with any form of CF to complete the race. He’s also an MD/PhD candidate at a top school and his team is probably thisclose to actually curing breast cancer.
So, he’s super exceptional and definitely the exception that proves the rule, but he’ll be 30 this year and medicine has improved dramatically even since he was a kid, so, HIGH HOPES!
Funny anecdote, by the way: he and I almost dated a couple different times, and the first time around I was telling my mom about him (dumb enough to think that was a good idea) and she was super impressed by his goals and intelligence, but scoffed that I shouldn’t date him “because he’s a Democrat and will probably die by the age of 30.”
Such a sweet lady, that one. But boy did he show her!
There was also a guy on my husband’s college football team in college who had cystic fibrosis. He didn’t play every game, but he definitely played and practiced with the team. He’s right around 30, too, now. I know that it’s not the death sentence my MIL seems to think it is, which is a big part of why I’m less concerned about getting tested.
I mean, knowing it’s a risk we would certainly test any kids we have at birth and proceed from there. But paying to get a maybe before hand seems a little silly
I just got tested for a laundry list of genetic things, so I can tell you that it does involve a needle (blood draw), but that my doctor’s office had a deal with an outside company that made it fairly affordable. I totally get why you’re uncomfortable! But in purely logistical and non-existential terms, the genetic testing has not been a top ten stressful prenatal experience for me.
Another option is just to test you – if you’re not a carrier, your husband can be anything and the baby will not have symptoms. Because I came back negative for everything, the doctor didn’t even want to bother testing my husband.
Also, your MIL sounds really frustrating. Whatever you and your husband decide to do, she needs to chill.
Sigh, boyfriend and I are going through Tough Times. We’re reading this book together: http://www.amazon.com/Conscious-Loving-The-Journe… which is all about dealing with co-dependency in relationships and building healthier ones. And despite the some of the cheesiness, so much of the book is on target in terms of how we relate to one another. We both tends towards co-dependency– he tends towards withdrawal to deal with the resentment that breeds, and I tend towards clinginess. So…this book is a good wake up call and hopefully we’re going to figure out how to rebuild and be better partners for each other. But it’s hard right now, and sad, and puts a bit of a damper on all the Valentine’s Day ish.
Good luck! We’re rooting for you!
Next in the boring saga of Mme. Siniichulok’s AWOL periods: The gynecologist said my gigantic fibroid is not the cause of my woes. I’m going to see my Chinese medicine doctor, who wanted the results of the ultrasound so she can treat me or make recommendations (she’s been super-gung-ho about removing the fibroid, which I’d rather not have done myself) in a few hours. I worked myself up into further heights of impotent rage against the Canadian medical system by reading foreign medical journals that describe prolactin-increasing fibroids (which the doctors I’ve seen here said that they know nothing about but that it can’t happen), and then my husband offered to go along with me to my next GP appointment to encourage my doctor with his loud voice and bulldozer affect into being more proactive about solving the problem (since EVERYTHING else is normal–ovaries, other hormones, etc.). I hate that I’ve been unable to do that myself for the past six months that my period’s been AWOL, but I’m glad I have him.
He’s also willing to go because–yay!–he doesn’t care about his current miserable job because he got a new one that’s contract work but better-paying with an expectation of a permanent position, in a large international company with branches in the US, and doing what he likes to do, so he’s like a happy sitting duck in his old job. He applied to two positions in two different places on Monday, was called into two good interviews on Thursday, and was offered the job at his preferred place at the end of the interview on Thursday (they called this morning and wanted to interview him more at the other place but he’d made his decision). It should be easier to claw our collective way out of the Pit of Despair now. Maybe. (Tfuitfuitfui knock on wood.)
Re-opening the online dating thread for those brave souls! I am still seeing my bear man, and still taking respite from talking to other guys. I hustled pretty hard all through January, so it’s been nice to refocus my social life on my girlfriends and hobbies (although I’m missing the steady stream of free drinks and nachos). I’m not sure I’ll see the bear man this weekend — he works in a restaurant and was out of town for most of last week — but I am spending a good chunk of V-Day with my best girlfriend and the heterosexual love of my life, so it all shakes out.
Anyone going on dates this weekend? Oooh, any first dates tomorrow night?? Share share share!
OY. Recent string of listless messages. I had one guy repeatedly telling me how he loves sci-fi while I nodded, one guy that lost it when I confirmed I was in fact a fan of Battlestar Galactica, and others who “lol” all over the place.
ONE guy asked me if I had a role model, and I was like, “this question!” so I told him Alexander the Great: good hair, 20 cities named for me, and persistent rumours about my sexuality after death. And he was like, “Oh, hmm, interesting, why would you want somebody to wonder about your sexuality?” When I said, “Keep them wondering!”, he was like, “Oh, I understand how girls want to have an aura of mystery … to tease or catch?” Nope. Thanks.
Barrister guy stopped responding, which, too bad. Perhaps I finally weirded a man out with my humour without intending to.
Just, yeah. I sent a couple of opening messages, no response, and one guy stopped responding after I asked him out to lunch. My romantic friend has been busy lately with home life and work, so I’ve heard much less from him, and I’m trying to be patient and understanding. One guy I’m setting up a second date with tried to invite himself over last night (asking me at 10:30 PM), saying he felt “impulsive” and cited our focus on being open, and totally understood if I didn’t want to go for it. I kind of narrowed my eyes at him.
Then, as I was telling some of the worse stories at work, one co-worker quietly messaged me and told me you know, some guys just stink at dating, some are awkward, some are rude, but I should feel complimented that they showed interest!
It’s been a little urgh.
I mentioned seeing someone a couple weeks ago and being in that weird “maybe I don’t want to keep dating around but it’s kind of premature for that aghhhh” stage. Happily, last week he initiated an (awkward but mutual) “it’s a little unclear what this is yet but maybe let’s not see other people right now?” So that’s a thing that’s happening.
Also he willing went with me to see Stop Making Sense this week and appreciated all of David Byrne’s absurdity so things are looking pretty good over here.
I love that movie. which has nothing to do with dating!
I downloaded Tinder a couple days ago. No dates so far but I am just fascinated/entertained by people’s self-presentation on there. I tend to assume dudes aren’t attracted to me, and threw up supplementary pictures that make it clear that I have messed-up teeth and am Not Thin, so it’s been pretty surprising to end up matching with most of the dudes I picked, even if we don’t end up talking.
also saw one truly incredible mixtape cover.
Oh but I had a tiny victory at work! One of our employment attorneys is doing a presentation with some examples of harassing/hostile behavior, and one example used the f-word (but spelled out), and rather than just leave it and feel weird about it, I suggested he bleep it to f****t, and because there was already another (female) shareholder cc’d on the email, I was able to cc her without making it A Thing, and she agreed with me! (and then he replied “well I would think adults could have a mature conversation” this and “how do you suggest I pronounce it, then?” that, but I don’t care about how he feeeeeels!)
…Wow, he does not sound like the right choice to be doing that presentation, or to be an attorney!
Because using the f-word is the very pinnacle of maturity!
This week a man with a knife tried to sexually assault a woman in one of our university’s libraries. I’m freaked out. I used to enjoy studying in that library on quiet evenings and weekends, at a desk far back in the stacks on a nearly deserted floor. Not any more.
#BanAllMenOrAtLeastJustFromLibraries
yes women-only libraries we need this now.
Bring a bigger knife.
Toasties, OMG, I am PREGNANT. EEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!! And I can tell y’all before I can tell most other people. (I know at least one person knows this handle, but I’m going to pretend that it’s unlikely anyone will connect me with this comment.)
Do you have favorite online resources/book recs/general advice?
_Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn_ by Simkin et al; thorough, medically-based, not judgy.
Congratulations!
My general advice: read the sleep books now. I could not read pregnancy books–I have an actual, honest to goodness, professionally diagnosed phobia about pregnancy which made that too difficult to bother–but I could read the sleep books. Do it now, before you’re sleep deprived and desperate, but realize that you won’t know what you’re facing until the baby comes.
Congratulations!
I’ve always thought this sounded cool: Experimenting with Babies, although the first review suggests an important caveat:
Book emphasizes cognitive and behavioral tests that are performed non invasively. There is no information about surgical experiments intended to transform the baby into a post technological horrorbeast capable of dominating the globe.
So, depends what you want.
There is no information about surgical experiments intended to transform the baby into a post technological horrorbeast capable of dominating the globe.
What is even the point then
For a website that’s parent oriented, Mommyish.com. they are super friendly, tolerate no bullshit, welcoming to everyone in all situations, and run articles on everything from pregnancy to college aged kids.
Thanks everyone!! It’s still super early (5 weeks), so I know there’s a very real possibility it might not stick, but I’ve been wanting this for a long time and I can’t believe that it might actually be happening.
At the same time it’s terrifying, because my job ends in June and I need to find a new career path STAT. Applying for jobs while pregnant = ugh.
Congratulations!! That is lovely.
Favourite book for once the baby arrives: _Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child_ in which an actual real doctor who has done years of research on the biology of sleep gives his recommendations on how to help your kid get enough sleep. It is not a magic pill, but it is actual science, and while I am sure there are people for whom it does not work we have a 5 year old who sleeps from 6pm-6am and a 2 year old who does the same and, just, wow, it is the biggest quality-of-life improvement imaginable to have an evening EVERY EVENING and have kids who are not sleep deprived and thus are fairly frequently reasonable human beings.
Congrats!!!!! Definitely check out Pregnant Chicken (http://pregnantchicken.com), Scary Mommy (http://scarymommy.com), and the Alpha Mom pregnancy calendar (http://alphamom.com/pregnancy-calendar-overview/)
Avoid What to Expect when you’re expecting like the bloody plague!!!!
Ha, thanks – a friend of mine recently quoted a midwife who referred to it as What to Expect When You’re Expecting Disaster.
yep! Mostly i looked at the amazing photos that have been taken of the progress of the embryo and fetus. Once the child was born, i read Jane Goodall’s books to learn what kinds of basic behaviours I was dealing with, and Miss Manners’ books to decide how to cope.
That sounds like the perfect formula for turning unruly tiny primates into well-mannered members of civilization. Well done!
On a slightly related note, I’m going to have to be careful about who’s in earshot when I (lovingly!) refer to my embryo/fetus as “the little parasite.”
This is a reply to ineffectualmoustache!
What’s your price range? Steven Alan is pretty good for the dirtbag professor look but I personally refuse to spend $300 on any single article of clothing. Need Supply might also be good?
Depending on your size requirements I suggest checking out the wonderful world of Asian fashion at, for example, YesStyle. Some of their stuff is cute and some of it is really wild, but all of it is cut pretty small, but it’s still fun to look through regardless.
Tortoise Diet, Day 10!
My lifestyle change, which started officially on February 3. I started off at weight 302, am down to 290. Most of that loss is water weight, believe me!
I started lifting weights, and the first day, I remembered how much I loved it. Back in the early 90’s, I lifted from 3 to 5 hours every other day. I can’t go crazy like that again.
The only problem I’m having is dizziness during and after exercising. I can’t find anything on the Googleverse about it, really, so I’m going to have to contact my doctor. This isn’t a new problem, I’ve been doing this since my teens. When in happened in the 1990s, my doctor said I had chronic fatigue syndrome. Well, I have bipolar disorder, really.
So far I’m still happy, and have an affirmation board. Newest entry: “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” This is a lifestyle change, not just losing weight, and I need to remind myself of that.
I had exercise-dizziness and it turned out I was anemic.
Oh, I just looked up anemia on the Mayo Clinic site, and I sincerely hope you didn’t have the scary kinds of anemia. And I’d thought that anemia was treated with iron, but it’s more than that. Folic acid and vitamin C as well. But I should goto the doctor, probably, and she is okay with email correspondence … I’ll start there. Thank you so much for replying.
Congratulations!
We have exercise dizziness a lot if we aren’t taking vitamins. Good to ask your doctor about!
Thank you! Also, I’ve been to your web site … very briefly though. I’ll have to go back to it and spend some time.
That is awesome! My mom started a similar lifestyle change (she even called it that!) a couple of years ago. She’s been very successful, not just in changing her habits, but also her mindset about health and body image. I want to say something encouraging, but I won’t tell you that you can do it, because you ARE doing it!
As far as the dizziness goes, does it happen only with lifting weights, or with other exercise, too? I hope you’re able to figure out & fix what’s causing it!
Thanks for the encouraging words!
The dizziness also happens with cardio. I’m maybe going to start out with more stretching exercises? I haven’t exercised with this degree of intensity in a few years, so maybe I’m forgetting some crucial pre-exercise stuff I should be doing? Some people mentioned anemia, so I’ll contact my doctor about that as well.
12 lbs is a lot to lose in 10 days! When I lose weight quickly my blood pressure drops and I get dizzy easily. It all evens out eventually. (For me)
Good for you!
I take this anti-psychotic called Seroquel, and it has a tendency to cause me to retain water. I’m cutting back on my dose of it (with a doctor’s help), but … I’ve been visiting the restroom a lot more than normal, and Niagra Falls comes to mind. So I think the weight loss has been water weight? But the blood pressure drop makes a lot of sense, because weight loss is weight loss, whether it’s water or not. I’m sorry, this is a rambling reply, but I’m really thinking about what you said. I need to talk to my doctor about this as well.
I’m taking in about 1200-1500 calories a day, which is what I ate when I weighed about 125 pounds (20 years ago), so I didn’t think I was cutting back too much/drastically. If the weight loss continues precipitously, maybe I’ll up my calories a little?
This is a lifestyle change, so I’m experimenting with things and making sure they are workable and sustainable. I didn’t mean to go on a crash diet.
The thing that has worked best for me is using a calorie tracking site and aiming for no more than 1 pound a week. Also, you might find that at your weight, your recommended calories might be more like 1900ish? When I weighed 241, I think I started at 1920 calories per day or something like that and then, as I lost weight, the calories slowly went down so now I’m trying for closer to 1750.
This morning, I found myself trying SO HARD to hold back from ranting at someone (in a small, close knit online community I have been a part of for over 10 years) going off on how all this business about gender neutral pronouns is just teenage/young adult bullshit, and how “if you have male parts, then you’re a ‘he’, end of story”. Transgender stuff is kind of not where I live and fight battles (not dismissive of it, I just focus my social justice energies elsewhere), and I have no idea why I am so incensed about it.
You’re incensed about it because it’s fucking bullshit. I would link that person to pretty much every story The Toast has ever published by a trans* person but I’m not good at tolerating bullshit.
ugh of course you are incensed! It’s just…so obvious! that if someone says ‘please call me ___’ then the kind thing to do is call them ___, and even teen bullshit has a human behind it and therefore deserves respect….and I can’t really remember how I got to a point where that WAS obvious to me. So I don’t have an articulate response to stuff like that, just [ragesplutter].
I dunno. I kinda remember hearing “would you rather be right, or would you rather be kind?” once and that clicking for me, but I know there are plenty of folks out there who would jump up and down yelling “Right!”
Hello! Your post has finally inspired me to stop just lurking and actually join the conversation. So thank you! And hello everyone!
I just got my first sewing machine recently. It’s a Singer Simple, and I absolutely LOVE it. It’s easy to use, heavy enough to stand up to thick fabric, and doesn’t take up too much space. Plus, the manual is clearly written and goes step-by-step through all the basics of getting everything and ready to use (threading the machine, threading the bobbin, inserting the bobbin, etc). So I would highly recommend it! It’s also only about $100 new from Sears or K-Mart – and you can order online if you are worried about lugging a heavy and delicate machine around on public transit!
http://www.kmart.com/singer-basic-21-stitch-simpl…
Yay! I remember my first sewing machine. Learning to thread that thing was an achievement in itself. I need to get back to that. Want to make some more napkins with quilting squares.
What are you going to make?
Oops, that was supposed to be a reply to wallsdonotfall asking for sewing machine advice. (Incidentally – how do you tag someone in a comment?)
I’ve made several skirts with my sewing machine, and more recently a fleece pillow in the shape of a piece of heart from Ocarina of Time as a gift for my boyfriend for Valentine’s Day (except I was so proud of myself for managing it without a pattern that I couldn’t wait and ended up giving it to him a few days ago).
Napkins are a great idea though! I’ve been thinking about making something like that. I have too many knitting/stitching/sewing projects on my list already though…
Is anyone else besides me loving all the savage reviews of 50 Shades of Grey? I love mean reviews, and this movie is shaping up to be a goldmine of them.
The New Yorker one is great: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/pain…
The hairpin has a good one too, and I’m SO stealing that Pinot Grigio line: http://thehairpin.com/2015/02/a-review-of-a-sexy-…
Anyway put all the funny reviews here, for this and any other movie.
This space is also for discussion of this rather awkward cultural phenomenon.
Oh man, I love savage movie / tv reviews. Thanks for the links. My wife and I are going to take advantage of everyone seeing this movie to go see Jupiter Ascending, as it will hopefully be fairly empty.
YES. A good take-down of a bad movie is a beautiful thing.
that New Yorker review is a thing of beauty. (sometimes Anthony Lane’s reviews can be a little TOO mean, but this… is perfect.)
I giggled on my way to work this morning while reading this. SO GOOD.
the last line is so great!
This is my absolute favorite negative review. It’s not for a movie, but it is pure gold: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/dining/reviews/…
yes that is a classic mean review! There is also this one, of a steakhouse in London, that I have a particular affection for. http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/…
I love that one. It came out the week I was teaching my English class how to write a book review, so I read it out loud to them and it was a glorious gift to class discussion.
I liked Justin Chang’s review as well: http://variety.com/2015/film/reviews/film-review-…
“If the problem with too many literary adaptations is a failure to capture the author’s voice, then that shortcoming turns out to be the single greatest virtue of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” the hotly anticipated first film inspired by E.L. James’ bestselling assault on sexual mores, good taste and the English language.”
*dies laughing*
oh this one is great, too! I love how he’s just piling on the cinematic references.
The New Yorker one brought me so much joy this morning. I think Anthony Lane’s been waiting a long time to review a movie that laughable.
The New Yorker cites a BDSM Technical Consultant.
a) can this be my job please
b) this BDSM technical consultant must not have been consulted very much at all
c) what actual practitioner of BDSM would align themselves with this
help help so confused
a) I’m pretty sure this job is like the Highlander, so you’ll have to kill the current one. Good luck with that, and keep us posted
b) indeed. Would that Mme. Icedragon had consulted somebody (or um, lurked fetlife) before writing that twaddle
c) one who was hoping to mitigate some of the damage this nonsense is causing?
I’m sure you know this, but it bears repeating that these books aren’t really about BDSM in any sense. When they first burst onto the scene, I read a review of the books (and sadly I don’t remember where) that pointed out that the primary fantasies are actually wealth-related. Anastasia gets cars, and fancy clothes, and vacations, etc. etc. I’ve only read the first book (and sort of skimmed it because OHMIGOD BAD WRITING) and it does seem sort of like American Psycho run through harlequin by avon.
JFC, yes, ten minutes on fetlife would have been of such value. I have been groaning and deep-sighing CONSTANTLY, it seems like, since my ex-co-workers started reading it in their cubes during downtime and talking loudly about how KINKY it all was and I was just sitting there thinking, “G-d help you if you ever see my bedroom…” SO BAD. SO DANGEROUS. SO UNREALISTIC. UGH.
Indeed. The last few years have been an exercise in holding my tongue and letting people have their fantasies/letting me and my spouse keep our privacy.
Also I have just realized that the books seem to argue “sexual submission=unimaginable material wealth” and now I think I need a drink, or at the very least a closet to hide in and scream.
Yeah, as well as the discussed-not-quite-to-death-but-too-quietly sexual submission = abusive relationship, which I have precisely zero time for except to plead quietly with people to please, please separate these things! There are zillions of healthy ways to do sex! Some of them are BDSM-y! It doesn’t mean abuse! And now people think that this horrible awful abusive relationship is BDSM and uuuugggggghhhhhhhhh
Yup. Female sexual submission to men = abusive relationship = unimaginiable material wealth. (IIRC there’s a domme in one of the later books who is made out to be a crazy bitch of the highest order, because heaven forbid that the traditional gender roles are reversed!)
Fuck the Patriarchy, and god bless the above linked reviewers for making the whole phenomenon seem ridiculous. Ugh. I’m almost done with my week, and there’s a cocktail calling my name.
Have there been any blog posts or such with a knowledgeable BDSM practitioner ripping the books to shreds? Because I would read that.
This is a pretty good breakdown of the problems with 50 Shades kink. http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/…
Rolling Stone interviewed a pro domme about her impressions of the movie, and she’s much more moderate than I am: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/real-…
And here’s The Baffler on why this is really a money fantasy, rather than a sex fantasy http://www.thebaffler.com/salvos/fifty-shades-of-…
These are making me so, so so happy because tomorrow night I am going to see it with some amazing ladies and those little travel cups of wine. We’re double-headering it with Jupiter Ascending. IT IS GOING TO BE SO AMAZING.
Husband gets to date me on Sunday instead, that is how excited I am about this madness.
YOU GUYS. Someone has re-cut the trailer with STEVE BUSCEMI CLIPS. YOU GUYS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnGX4FuIK60
Lisa Wilkinson is not a fan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqvCXqEFEjA
Wise people of the Toast, what do you do when you see a parent hurt their kid in public? I was in a Trader Joe’s recently, and there was a very haggard-looking mom with her adorable toddler daughter, who kept asking to sit up in the kids’ seat of her mom’s shopping cart. Her mom kept hissing at her to be quiet, but the daughter persisted, and eventually the mom snapped and shoved her daughter into the seat very roughly, banging her shins against the metal of the shopping cart. (This made the daughter cry loudly, which annoyed the mom even more.) It was clear that the mom had hurt her kid on purpose.
My sister and I both saw this happen, and we didn’t do anything. But should we have? Can anything good come of confronting a stranger about their terrible parenting? What do you do in these situations?
Leave her be because I’ve been that haggard mom. Sometimes, I’m just a little too thin to care, and that absolutely comes out, but, for the most part, my kid lives a pretty cossetted life. (Those two things may or may not be connected.) What you see may or may not be a part of a pattern.
🙁 It’s almost impossible to get involved in a parenting situation (even with someone you know!) unless there is UNMISTAKABLE abuse happening in public (like if she had punched her child…sadly, I think even a slap might go overlooked by authority figures). I know how it is to witness that and have it haunt you afterward, unable to stop thinking about how much deeper it goes at home. I’m sorry.
This is so hard.
First off, as was said below, however awful it looks in the moment, it might just be that moment. We have never hit our kids but we have pushed once or twice, and nobody here is proud of that, but we are not perfect. So try to breathe and remember that, especially if it is echoing for you with your own past.
If you are going to step in, I would step in for the mom — ask her if she’s having a rough day, maybe, or otherwise be sympathetic to her. One of the times we were most irrationally upset with our daughter (right before her gymnastics class about a year ago) another mom just said to us, “Wow, looks like a really rough day, is there anything I can do to help?” and it just snapped the bad mood in half because someone *saw us* and how we were trying so hard.
Obviously if the kid is being punched or otherwise endangered it is a different story and — well, it is up to you, but I myself would just take the risk and physically intervene. But that kind of mean doing things a little too hard… we have been there. Sometimes the thing which makes us snap and yell or otherwise be crappy to our kids is not the thing they do right then, it’s the six hours before that.
For winter blues try either split pea soup or white bean stew with a lot of fresh lemon incorporated and basil if you’ve got it. Dense and warming but also spring-like. ETS the bad news part, because the food is what matters most.
I just booked a vacation to Paris! I can’t believe I’m adult enough to do that! I didn’t even have to ask my mom or borrow my dad’s credit card! Wow! PASTRIES IN MY FACE and MUSEUMS UNTIL I DIE!
Congrats! Enjoy it lots.
AGH that is so exciting! Booking a Big Vacation is such a rush 🙂
Woo! When are you going?
I’ll post in the FB group 🙂
Ugh Toasties. I made an appointment with my doc to talk antidepressants and GERD. My stomach/back/chest/shoulders have been a world of GERD-y ache for five days and my doc isn’t back in town until WEDNESDAY arghhhhhhh. Plus work is obviously terrible and I have nothing to talk about with this volunteer who is always around but she wants to talk endlessly.
Wish I could take you out for drinks tonight.
GERD sucks, I’m so sorry. I apparently have it in perpetuity. I take Prilosec every day, which more or less keeps it under control, but man, I really hate that I need to, esp. because I don’t think they understand the long-term side effects (other than decreased Vitamin D absorption) very well. :/
Also, internet friends, please tell me some of you are experiencing this phenomenon:
I’m always trying to Get My Life Together. You know, eat right, exercise, live in a clean, organized home, pay bills on time, you get the idea. Over the past 10 years I have incrementally made progress in all of these areas.
But. Why can’t I do more than one at a time? If I’m eating right, I’m not exercising. If the house is clean, I’m not meditating. If I’m paying the bills on time, my wardrobe has gone to shit and I look like a bag lady.
What gives? I don’t want to be perfect, but seriously, this is ridiculous. Almost everything is two steps forward, one step back.
You didn’t ask for advice but if you want some! What I do is set up as many bills as possible to auto-pay from my bank account. Then I forget about them on purpose! The only thing I need to remember to pay is rent. Mr. Floridagal pays the student loans. Everything else pays itself automatically, and my paycheques are deposited automatically. For exercise: when i ride the bus to work, the commute necessitates a minimum of 1 km walking per day. I pay less for a bus pass than I would for a parking pass + gas, so I’m saving $ and adding exercise.
Basically, I try to see if there’s a way I can add even a minimal amount of exercise to my daily routine by changing things slightly: like I park at the back of the parking lot (if its daylight/well lit/not a creepy looking rape parking lot) and walk farther to the store. One instance of that doesn’t add much, but if I always do that I feel like it helps? Also, my default is stairs not elevators: if you don’t have mobility issues and the stairs in the buildings you use aren’t creepy murder stairs, maybe try it. It won’t take much longer but added up over an entire month, all those stairs probably makes a difference.
My healthy eating rule is: i try to eat as much vegetables as I do desserts. I’m not a big meat eater but I loooooove desserts. I don’t follow this strictly, but I feel like maybe if you balance out the amount of desserts with an equal amount of vegetables then that is probably helping? idk
i am struggling with this kind of stuff myself, to be honest. how do you do with rituals? the most success i’ve had with anything is kind of shifting it, at least mentally, into a sort of ritual. for instance, i’m still terrible at waking up early, because 70% asleep brain doesn’t understand rituals, but i actually just hit a month of doing my tiny set of exercises every day, because i turned it into The Thing I Do When I Get Home. a lot of days, i still don’t want to do it when i walk in the door, but because i’ve given it that weight in my mind, i also don’t feel comfortable sitting down and waiting to do it later.
??? i mean, that is all very vague and potentially not helpful, but seeing it as a ritual (NOT a routine), a calming, deliberate action, a positive thing to do instead of a thing that will incur a negative punishment if it’s not done, might help? but yeah, it’s really hard.
Setting up rituals or routines is not an issue at all. I am excellent at starting. I am the queen of starting.
It is the inevitable backsliding that kills me. If I’m not constantly thinking about something (my diet, my exercise, my fill-in-the-blank), or if my routine changes (vacation, sickness, etc.), I can’t seem to get back on track. I never lose all of the momentum – which is good! I still eat better now than 10 years ago, for instance. But not better than last year, when I was Ms. Paleo. My home is pretty clean, but not as clean as it was when I was great about vacuuming every day. I’m still standing up at my desk every thirty minutes, but I don’t always do air squats and desk pushups the way I did 8 months ago. BRB, going to do squats now to make up for it.
Anyway, I guess I thought that once I had a new routine “down” it would stick. It doesn’t seem to work that way for me. I mean, two steps forward, one back is still forward progress, and I’m glad for it. But it’s annoying nonetheless.
i hear you! i’ve had plenty of routines fail in the past, and lowering my own expectations can be a bit of a buzzkill.
but oooh, air squats. interesting.
I am eagerly awaiting replies. Is it normal to be able to do all the things though? Maybe those people are the weirdos and we who can’t keep it all together are the normal ones?
You have no idea the rush of relief that swept over me at this idea.
yeah, maybe you are aiming too high. I mean how many cavemen would’ve kept to a paleo diet if they’d had our options? Would Ghandi have spent as much time meditating if he had an iPhone? Also cave homes were A MESS. And ghandi couldn’t accessorize for shit (heathers!). You’re probably doing better than like 90% of adults, cut yourself some slack.
I honestly can’t tell what tone you’re going for here.
Same.
I dated a man who had his life together in just this way. He was so fucking rigid. And boring. We didn’t date long. That was in the 90s. I’ve been married 19 years. He’s still single and not dating anyone more than twice.
Any answer that makes me feel superior to a boring man is good enough for me. 🙂
I can only focus on one at a time it seems. Right now I’m in an exercising phase, which means that all of my clean laundry is all over the floor. I don’t know how to get my shit together continuously.
I just started reading “The Wisdom of No Escape” by Pema Chodron, and right off the bat she says self improvement “is a sort of subtle aggression against who you really are.”
Then (and I’ll paraphrase) she goes on to say loving-kindness isn’t about throwing yourself away and becoming someone better, it’s about befriending the person you already are.
… ouch.
But also, what a more free way to live!
I’ll have to check that out! Her book “When Things Fall Apart” was a life saver for me two years ago.
I have been better at being kind with myself for not living up to my expectations. It’s not so much that I want to be “better” than I am; it’s that I want to get out of my own way. “Better” me is already in there – I only seem capable of exposing a small part of her at one time, though.
Yes, this makes a lot of sense. My spouse and I just realized that part of why we haven’t had success in using other people’s organizing tips is because they aren’t us. So we stepped back and took a look at our routines *as they are right now,* and started identifying ways to make things that already exist more organized. Now we just need to invest in the stuff to actually accomplish it but hey. We have a plan.
So as an example — we have chronic laundry disorganization. I cannot use hampers for some reason, but I realized that a clothes tree would be a great investment because I tend to not wash my work pants and blazers as often as everything else. Usually they get piled on a chair, but hanging them up would be tidier plus keep them from wrinkling.
We are running into this too; we can focus on one thing and do it, but we can’t keep everything in the air. For us it is a lot about where the energy is bound up… like, a lot of our energy is still bound up in mitigating past stuff and trying to manage our emotional responses and stuff, so we do not have a lot of energy for everything else. A work in progress. 🙂
My only-occasionally-successful strategy is to remind myself that I don’t have to do everything today. I get SO wound up thinking about how I need to do my laundry and sweep my floors and go grocery shopping and do the dishes and on and on. And somehow make dinner and get a little exercise in and take a shower at the same time. And instead I end up eating a powerbar and watching Netflix while thinking “My apartment is so fucking filthy, my life is a mess.”
It works a lot better if I can stop and prioritize. Like, I have enough food that I can wait until tomorrow to go to the store, but if I don’t do laundry NOW I won’t have anything to wear to work tomorrow. And it doesn’t hurt anyone to have dirty floors for a few days.
A while back somebody posted an article in one of these threads about “making the problem smaller.” As in, if you have a huge pile of dirty dishes in the sink and you’re psyching yourself out thinking about how long it will take to wash them, then just wash a few of them for now. That way when you come back to them next time the pile isn’t so big and you won’t freak out about it. I try to repeat that to myself a lot when I feel like I have a ton of stuff to do. Let’s just make the problem smaller.
Good points. I have had success with the “what can I do in __ minutes” approach. If I have literally three minutes, how much can I clean the kitchen? (A lot more than I think; it always surprises me.) How many push ups can I do? (This is a trick question, I can do no push ups. But I can do desk-push ups!) Can I meditate for 3 minutes? (Sort of!)
This has gotten me far; the problem is the longer, more involved stuff is still a struggle. For example, shopping, then cooking, then eating healthy food. Still – it helps to know I’m not alone.
I’ve always done best when I’ve allotted different days to different “getting life together” activities. Like, I did my laundry on Friday evenings for years (on-campus laundromats are deserted on Friday evenings- it was magical. Just me and the quiet hum of the machines).
What days are for what activities varies, but I usually shoot for 2-3 days with exercising (my preferred form of exercise is usually 1 1/2 to 2 hour classes, so that’s it for an evening or a solid half of a weekend day with recovery time), 1 evening of laundry, 1 weekend day of meal planning, grocery shopping, cooking, and intermittent cleaning, 1 additional evening of cooking & picking up after myself. Bills get paid when they show up. If I half-ass something one week, I catch it in the next week- but if I’m cleaning the bathroom every Sunday, it stays pretty clean even if I don’t get the mirror one week (or three weeks…I can still see myself, it’s fine :P)
You are so smart. I want to be more like you.
I have this issue too, actually about all of the same things. The thing that helps me is to lower my expectations a lot. I tend to have this idea that I need to be doing all these things to the utmost degree all the time which is just no way to live. But if I can do a little bit of each thing and make that the habit that I retain, I am so much happier.
So for example right now I have been going to the gym pretty regularly since December, but not every work out is all that intense or even great. My goal is to have three or so long, hard workouts a week and three or so medium to easy work outs. I try to have similar attitudes towards eating and cleaning: I mostly eat well and clean up as I go but if I’m exhausted one or two or three nights a week it’s no biggie.
I do often day dream about being the version of myself who doesn’t spend hours refreshing my tumblr and goes to bed before midnight every night but I’m slowly coming around to the idea that that is a version of myself who will make occasional appearances, not take up permanent residence. And as someone upthread pointed out, being that person actually turns you into a rigid and boring creature.
Daniel Levitin’s The Organized Mind addresses exactly this. Two of the systems in our brains are in opposition – one controls paying attention and one is a resting, mind-wandering state, and they’re both important. But paying attention has a cost, and the more choices you have to make, the faster you’re going to burn through your resources.
So we can’t pay attention to everything all the time, and I suspect many of the people who do seem to aren’t actually. Maybe think of it as paying *enough* attention to the most important things while giving the mind-wandering state its due because it’s restorative?
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I struggle with this a lot, too. If I don’t feel like I’m using my time 100% efficiently (which I never do, of course), I get really anxious and guilty. I’ve actually started seeing a therapist partly over it, because no matter how much I intellectually know that I’m not screwing everything up and living a huge mess, there’s always a ball of “But you didn’t [xy thing]!!” or “You need to [x] more!” in my thoughts. She said that besides the stuff I have to get done (like go to work, wash my clothes), I should figure out what I want to prioritize and accept that my time and interest might shift back and forth between hobbies/habits. I countered that when I neglect something too long, then when I go back to focusing on it, I have to spend twice as long getting back to my baseline. But as she pointed out, there are actually only 24 hours in a day and I will never get around that, so I need to work on not feeling guilty for not living up to an impossible standard that only I hold myself to. She also told me I need to banish “must” and “should be” from how I think about these things.
I’ve been working on prioritizing things by first doing what needs to get done today (like laundry if I have no clean clothes, cooking if I won’t have time later in the week). And after that, if I don’t have the time/energy to do things I know I will regret not doing but don’t feel like doing (exercising when I’m tired, cleaning), I make the choice and then let myself get all guilty later. Anything else I do is just for my leisure, so why feel guilty about not having “productive” enough fun if that’s what makes me happy? It’s made it easier to do those things and plan my time because I don’t spend so much time/energy fretting about it and I get to feel happy I did the tiresome things instead of beating myself up for not doing them. There’s definitely a large part of me that still thinks I’ll someday manage to be “perfect’ and beats myself up, but it’s less of a constant underlying drumbeat.
I can do three things in a day, basically? plus the minor looking-after-daily-stuff stuff. So advice to ritualize as much as you can is great. I’ve read it takes 3 weeks to establish a routine, and then you still need to kick it a couple times in a week until nearly six months have passed. Once you don’t think about it at all, it is there and you can start the to ritualize next thing.
My three things that I can accomplish are selected from things that take large amounts of time: ride a horse, work in the studio, go to the gym, work onstage, and I cannot actually fit too many of them into a day since each thing takes 3-6 hours to do. So I rotate things according to need, and desperation, and itch to accomplish any particular thing.
And I’m 54 now, so I eat what I want, and exercise when it doesn’t piss me off, and the bank pays the bills because it is set up already.
At my job lately I have been reading grad school applications and HOO BOY personal statements are such a drag. There’s not really any way around them but god, they are tedious. There are only so many ways to say “I want to be in this field because I like helping people, also here is a personal sob story.”
Mm, the joy.
And that’s why I don’t write sob stories for my personal statements. Thankfully the second one i had to do for grad school was all about how you would approach solving a need within a community (thank you, social work grad apps!).
Yeah, my personal statement for grad school was just “what are you going to do with a poli-sci degree?” in more of a figuring-out-if-your-interests-jive-with-the-department sort of way. So much easier.
I agree! That was my first personal statement, which was hella easy because I already had my BSW, so I had a decent sense for the field already. Thankfully the MSW solidified my direction, though.
I had to read a lot of sob stories when I reviewed AmeriCorps applications, though. lol!
A lot of programs I applied to required a “Diversity Statement” in addition to a personal statement. I’m not even sure what they want you to say in those.
Writing them is awful, too, I assure you. I would’ve done really well with a “what is your research interest and why this specific school” kind of question, but because of the nature of what I want to do, I had to answer the “why do you want to stop doing what you’re doing and do this instead” question which… yes, helping people.
I also found it hard not to apologize for not figuring out I wanted to do this thing earlier in my life? Like, I didn’t major in this thing and do it right out of college because… reasons. It was hard to decide how much of that I should share.
I have not heard back from any programs yet. So we’ll see.
Do you mind if I ask what your job is? I’m very interested in grad school not in an “I want to go to grad school” way but an “I find it an interesting thing to read about” way.
Yo, toasticles, long time no chat. I’m about to basically go ask one of the partners at the company I’ve been a contract worker at since September to hire me permanently, so, you know, quietly panicking.
GOOD LUCK!!!
Feelings are not wrong. It’s OK to feel a little panic, though not necessary. It’s they who should be panicking. “OMG, we could lose ejbaker13! We better hire them immediately. What else can we do to make them stay?” They’re damned lucky to have you. That’s the attitude to aim for.
How’d it go??
Yes, how??
LOS ANGELES TOASTIES!
I will be in your city again next Friday (Feb 20) to the following Tuesday (24). I am fairly booked with outings and people to visit, but if any of you are not far from Hollywood and have some time to hang out, we can give it a whirl? I am going to be completely transit-based, no car.
At this point my free time is Saturday until about 2, because then I have to go get dressed/get my hair done & go to my party. Sunday I think I’m booked for brunch, but probably have time in the early afternoon (1ish?) until I go wherever it is I’m going to watch the Oscar broadcast. Monday I am trying to get to the Academy costume display, and then having late lunch with a friend, but my evening is still clear.
This week I spent an embarrassing amount of time wandering around the produce section muttering “wtf are scallions” only to learn that we call them green onions here and I already have a bunch
You should make the Dish of My People, champ! As in, champ is the name of the dish, though I’m sure you may be a champ yourself. Just chop up a bunch of scallions and mix them into mashed potato with butter and (optional) grated cheese.
Makeup wearing Toasties – how the heck do you put on eyeliner? Please send help. (Specifically, pencil and/or felt tip liquid/marker type.)
I recently learned how to do winged eyeliner, which always seemed like the Everest of makeup. But I also have a problem with touching my face and smearing my makeup, and liquid eyeliner stays put a lot better than the pencils I have used. In my experience the secret is just practice. And having a bunch of q-tips on hand so you can wipe off the parts you mess up. Also there are way more kinds of liquid eyeliner than I imagined, not all of which work well for me. I’m using a purple Almay one that I like a lot.
I put it on with my eyes open, which might be a bit weird according to tutorials, but it’s the only way that works for me. I use a felt tip (bourjois do my favourite), start at the inner corner and exhale when I do a stroke (I’m a blinker, and it helps). Make the line thicker towards the end.
Pencils are a mystery to me.
I find it helps to have something to rest my elbows on like a desk with a makeup mirror rather than standing at, say, a full-length mirror. I would try first with pencils since you can smudge them. Make sure it’s not super sharp, and it can help if it’s not really cold. If you find it’s going on kind of chunky and sticky, you can pass it over a candle or lighter flame a couple of times.
As for actual technique: I close one eye and kind of pull it out with my non-dominant hand. Then, leaning WAYYYYY close to the mirror, I use my dominant hand to carefully trace a line as close to the lash line as I can get, starting from the inside out. Carefully place the tip of the pencil as close to your lash line as you can very close to your nose. Then, draw outwards in one movement. Then, you smudge it so it looks like you meant to do a smoky eye and not a wobbly mess 😀 Doing the same eye as my dominant hand is always tricky — that’s where having a place for elbows is nice. Hope this helps!
My suggestions are:
1. Practice
2. Don’t sneeze
3. Keep a thin angled brush and non-oily make-up remover nearby to fix any wobbles. (not just oil free, something that doesn’t feel oily to the touch)
4. watch this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA4u5T1SouU and practice LOADS
I really only use pencil liner on the bottom or on the waterline unless I’m doing an undone/smudgy look, but I use liquid liner pretty much every time I wear makeup (so 6 days a week, at least), usually a wing but sometimes a wedge.
I think everyone has their own way to put on eyeliner. I can only use the felt tip kind and I have to stand a few feet away from the mirror. So try a few different and try applying a few different ways. And like everyone else said, practice!
I started to try to describe it, realized that was useless and I’m not exactly a whiz anyway, so: Youtube? Do a search, check out the most popular/highly rated videos.
This is something that I have been seriously worrying about re: wedding makeup, as in it is a HUGE source of stress, but last weekend one of my girlfriends volunteered to just do my makeup for the day and let me tell you of the relief.
With much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I also hold my eyelid closed with my left hand and apply with my right, which no one in Youtube tutorials seems to do.
Most days I just use E.L.F mineral eyeliner pencil to do my waterline. If I have a little more time, I use gel eyeliner (doesn’t smudge as much as a pencil but isn’t as messy as liquid!) on my top lid.
Still haven’t figured out a technique for wings. I usually just do the best I can and then clean them up with E.L.F makeup remover pen (the best purchase I ever made). The tutorial I watched said to angle the “flick” so that it’s pointing to the outer edge of your eyebrow. Then fill in from the flick to the line on your lid, going from outside (the flick) to inside. But, as I say, I usually just mess around until it looks okay.
I do love gel liner, would recommend it over liquid or pencil.
MAC prunella pencil, an indefinable purply brown that I can put on in the dark, the car, or both, and still look reasonably put together for the next 12 hours. You’ve got about 60 seconds of squish your eyes tight and smudge with your pinky tip before it sets for the day. I like the color for my dark brown hair/fair freckly skin/mostly brown with green specs and it works well with pretty much any lip color, even strong plums or reds because it’s dark but not black.
Slowly at first! Lots of good tips here already. As someone who has only recently figured this out, I would add/emphasize: 1) pulling your lid out is important. maybe even pull it more than you think is necessary! 2) I personally find liquid/marker/gel a bit more forgiving in terms of the uniform-ness of line, and you don’t have to sharpen it, but the initial “this shit is going everywhere it shouldn’t” curve is definitely worse. 3) if you’re messing up as much as I was, you want a pretty gentle eye makeup remover for practice. I stan for coconut oil here.
So they’re doing an excavation at one of the retail gas sites I manage the environmental remediation of. Three underground storage tanks (USTs) were slated to be pulled from the site, along with appurtenant piping &c.
Yesterday it was discovered that there were THREE MORE previously unknown tanks. As of this afternoon, the number is up to five. My superiors have started taking bets as to how many there are. My money’s on 8 at this point.
I just wanna cry right now this is so ridiculous hahahahaha
Oh man I love those kinds of projects. Coworker of mine had one like that here, actually. Tanks, tanks, everywhere! Like the guy who was like “oh yeah we have this one tank but it’s empty and I’m not sure it has ever been used.” Turns out it was all gooey inside with No 6 fuel oil and it caught fire when we tried to cut it open. Ahahah. Then it turned out that part of the tank was underneath part of the building (a later addition) so getting it out required SO MUCH ENGINEERING. Ugh. This, of course, in the middle of nowhere with no decent hotels anywhere close by and zero good places to eat. You have my sympathies.
Also I keep wondering if I used to work at the same retail petroleum consulting place you do…..
If y’all were headquartered in central NJ, there is a distinct possibility! I feel like we’re everywhere.
Just UGHHHH for today.
Yeah I believe that is it. Let me ask you this: do you need to double-glove (Kevlar and nitrile) any time you are handling glass?
If so, there was a lot I liked about working there, but our local office was beyond dysfunctional and turnover was incredibly high, which soured the experience. I had a great time working for an office in MD doing divestment stuff but ugh our local office.
OMG. Yes. To be 100% sure, though – do the letters L, P, and S mean anything to you when combined?
Our turnover rate is ABSURD. I think that may be a company-wide problem. I’ve been there for two and a half years at this point and I am genuinely surprised I have stayed this long. We have a few people from the MD office that are here now – this is the smallest of small worlds! (But I’m so happy that you understand!)
I have actually been trying to think of a Gal Science I could write about the field, but I am drawing blanks. If collabing on a piece of that nature sounds like anything you would be interested in, do let me know!!!
Yep, that’s the one! I would love to team up on a remediation-themed Gal Science! Shoot me an email at shakerethyl@gmail sometime!
I would read the shit out of that. I used to do some remediation-adjacent work as a land use planner (going after brownfields revitalization grants and plans, that sort of thing) and learning about the science of the abominable things people have buried was fascinating/horrifying.
Yes! You got it!
Today’s special weather statement for the NYC area: “Wind chill values of 5 to 10 degrees below zero this morning will only moderate to between zero and 5 degrees below zero this afternoon. If venturing outside…make sure to cover any exposed areas to avoid frostbite.” Given all that plus it’s Make Single People Feel Inadequate About Themselves Day tomorrow, I’m declaring this a self-care weekend. My plans include getting tons of sleep, going out with friends tomorrow night, getting a haircut and maybe also a massage, and seeing a movie on Sunday night (haven’t decided what yet). Also possibly making cupcakes.
Unfortunately, winter is exactly when I don’t want to eat anything healthy. I don’t want fruit and vitamin C and iron and all that good stuff, I want to combine cheese and pasta in as many ways as I can think of and then curl up by a space heater. I know that this does not help anything, least of all my energy level and mood.
It’s the end of my second week working as an advocate in a mental health crisis center. I have only the vaguest idea what I’m meant to be doing and I am wildly underqualified to do this work. Don’t get me wrong, I love that they took a chance on me solely based on my people skills and my lived experience with mental illness, but wow, someone with more clinical experience should really be doing this.
I’m also not accountable to anyone (except the group therapy sessions I’ll be running starting next week). Most days, I could just not show up and no one would notice. Also, I find myself at odds with the hospital staff, who are much less compassionate to people in mental health crisis than they should be.
It is a weird job. The way we treat mental illness in the USA is appalling. I don’t want to complain too much about the work – it’s perfect counseling experience, talking to the patients is often really rewarding, and I get to work 40 hours a week with the freedom to duck into my office and post on the open thread while I eat lunch. But the fact that no one needs to know where I am at any given time and I’m completely unsupervised is WEIRD (especially bc I’m young and can barely be trusted to feed and clothe myself).
Are there other Toasties who work in the mental health field?
Sorry I can’t help with mental health commiseration, but if you put a bowl of chili under that cheese (or stir a can into your mac and cheese) it’s still pretty kickass comfort food, but also protein-rich and energy boosting. Spiciness helps, too, so don’t spare the peppers if you can stand ’em. Good luck.
Hello to everybody!
I had an unsuccessful attempt to buy myself a kick-ass dress to go dancing in and celebrate my divorce. It’s not too disappointing though because my ex may have to put his elaborate lurve plans with his new smoochikins on hold because it’s HIS weekend with the kids and they both have fevers, and one of those miserable sick kids is a teenage boy with his first girlfriend who will now be unable to go on a “date”, and I’m not stuck at home with sick kids, and there’s a big dance tonight, so, Yay me, and thank you, germs, for knowing when to strike.
The lacrosse adventure is going great–I have a knit for half an hour, watch a lacrosse video rule, which I am somewhat following. It looks like I will be solo coaching for the first week or so as the certifications of my two male athletic coaches are delayed, so I’ll have to really buckle down on setting up some practice plans and taking charge of middle school boys. Bonus, I’ll have to demonstrate the workouts, so hey, exercise and getting paid! (I was happy to see the yoga pants thread, above, I will probably need to own more than one pair now). I went to a coach meeting with the head coach at the high school–Lacrosse is what the football player hard core guys do when it’s not football season, so I was nervous. They are all really supportive of me and really insisted that I am the boss, especially of my other two coaches. I need to re-connect with my loud assertive self and start owning this thing.
The crazy son’s-girlfriend’s-mom struck again…this time she found out that the girlfriend and I were doing taxes/fafsa stuff tonight, and then going dancing, because her mom refused to do the taxes last week when she blew up my phone and that was my response. Of course, today the girlfriend texted me all apologetically that her mom has an “emergency need to do her taxes, tonight, I’m sorry”. I cannot get this girl free. I was at least able to get her to stop over after work so we’ll quick scan the fafsa for any red flags so that she can try to stop her mom from screwing her over when she does her taxes. Yes, this mom would do that. Ask me how I know. She has screwed this girl while insisting “I”m just trying to help you make good decisions and do what’s best for you” for years.
on the positive side, woohoo, the middle school has a FEMALE coach’s office in the women’s locker room, not only just one in the men’s locker room. I get an office! (But I refuse to wear a whistle!).
Requesting internet hugs please (I say, trying to translate moping pathetically into a text-based medium)?
Family members are very ill, jobhunting is going crap, my hormones are doing some kind of a thing though fuck knows what, and every day at 4pm I lose all energy and motivation and selfworth and sit around eating chips with a feeling of impending doom, which is not helping anything. Something’s gotta change.
Internet hugs!!!!
I’m sorry that everything sucks. Give yourself permission to take time for yourself though, if you can. Maybe that means eating chips, or maybe something else.
Thank youu!
whoo boy I hear you. That was me two weeks ago. I have tried to remember to use my SAD light (it only took me 8 years to break down and buy one), and I also try to eat a light snack and take vitamin B’s around 3 or so because they tend to give me an energy boost. Be kind to your chip-eating self, sometimes they are just the right thing for PMS (especially with chocolate). It’s a high of 17 F here today, and I have way more housework to do than I have time. Just keep chipping away at things and remember to make a list of the productive things you get done so that you can see that you are a capable person right there on the paper. Days are getting longer, really they are. I wish we could just skip to June, however!
Thank youu! Yeah so many people are in some way vitamin B deficient, it’s weird, so getting all I can. Tickable to-do lists are the best -good luck with your lists too! Urgh sign me up for the time machine, even a couple of months would be an improvement…
Internet huuuuugs. Your pursued by a bear icon just gave me the giggles.
Hoping the change you need comes sooner than later!
Thank youu! Great, isn’t it?
Internet hugs.
It is okay to be run down by stressful crap, and it sounds like you’ve got a whole lot of stressful crap going on.
Thank youu! It is the suck.
Thank youu! Welling up here :3
This is why 4:00 coffee is a thing. A historical thing. People have been pausing at 4:00 for light refreshment for hundreds of years. Tea time! Just be careful about caffeine and, for the love of Toast, make sure there’s some protein.
Wishing you improved family health, job interviews, and internal peace: ::hugs::
That’s a damn good idea! Thank youuu!
Oh! Oh! Barbara Pym!
I just started reading her recently (then had to put my need to read EVERYTHING EVER on hold because school is back in session, yaaaaay). I’ve only read A Few Green Leaves and Excellent Women but they were just perfect.
I recently got moved from a cave-cube on the second floor to a cube with a view on the third floor at my work and suddenly I am getting so much attention from people in my building? Where there was none before? Someone at work just walked past my cube and said that the way I put my bangs up made him smile (I am kind of looking like Red from Fraggle Rock). Like, this has been going on for a few weeks now from multiple people and I am not sure how I feel about it? I love everyone I work with, but never have I ever in my life had so many people stopping by to chat and comment on stuff? I don’t know!
I am super excited about eating my body weight in various combinations of chocolate, heavy cream, butter, and sugar this weekend. Souffle! Truffles! Crème Brulee! If there are any Asheville Toasties around, you’d be more than welcome to have some because I (probably) can’t eat it all.
Oh, toasties, another question. The 11 year old girl has decided she wants to read grown up books now, leaning toward mysteries but of course reading all the typical middle school dystopia stuff. She found a book and had her dad buy it for her. She left it at my house, I was bored at bedtime, I started reading it. The first chapter is a teenage boy who gets drunk, kidnapped, nearly raped, and then accidentally kills the rapist. Apparently after that he is let into a magical world of nasty war and has to save children with the help of ghosts. I had a hard time reading this. But I don’t know how much of this my daughter skipped over, and how much she read, or even how to start the conversation with her when she gets back next week. The book is call “The Marbury Lens” (I think). Advice? I don’t want to censor my kid but she’s a little girl and this book has disembodied rotting penises and bugs that eat you.
Woof. It’s probably worth it to hand her the book and say something like “I read a few pages of this and… It’s kind of scary, don’t you think?” And then maybe you can start to have a convo about it from there to see what she read/what she skipped/how she feels?
Hmmm. I’m saying this a) as a librarian (but not a children’s librarian) and b) as a child/adult who hates scary stuff: if she’s not bothered by things, I wouldn’t try to circle back around and try to make her see how freaky/strange something is by explicitly pointing it out. The fact that there’s rape involved makes it trickier, but if you want to do anything, I would just start a conversation with her by asking her what she liked about the book. That way, she knows you read it and that she can talk to you about anything confusing, but you’re not imposing your own misgivings onto her? Chances are she did skip/skim some of the stuff, or just not register it.
I read adult books at a pretty young age, and a lot of stuff went over my head. A huge amount. Any re-reading I did when I was older tended to involve a fair bit of “how the hell did I miss that?” I think I just didn’t really absorb anything I wasn’t ready to handle.
I think the suggestions of GreenGrasses and mensparetrepidans of discussing it with her in ways that let her lead the discussion are good, but it might be hard, especially if she gets the impression that you might shut down the conversation or try to censor her if you’re uncomfortable. Not to say that you would, just that if she thought you might then she might be less likely to talk to you about anything she found hard to read.
I’m not a parent, though, so I only have input on the bookworm kid side of things. And my bookworm kid stage was a long time ago.
Addendum: I think that may also have been about the age where my privacy started being more important to me, and I started wanting my mom not to enter my room without permission and things like that. So I might not have wanted to discuss my reading with my parents, which is part of why I think it might be hard to get her to talk to you about this stuff.
cosigned x1000. 13/14 is when i started getting heavy into fanfiction too, and any and all conversations my parents tried to have with me about it went very poorly and led no where. And honestly… that was okay? Did I need to read some of that stuff that young? Maybe not, but it’s over a decade later and there’s been no repercussions thus far.
Idk, I’m also not a parent (and probably never will be, partially because of precisely this issue), but I’m all for trying to give kids more privacy than you (the parent) are comfortable with. Especially w/r/t reading.
That’s my thinking, my mom has always said that that was *her* thinking, and I know I missed a lot of the stuff I read from my dad’s science fiction book club or the fantasy book of the month club. So I wasn’t really going to bring it up, except that she’s been really excited to be reading non-condescending books and has been excitedly telling me all the details–she made me watch divergent, after apologetically admitting she was reading it (I’m not sure why she felt like she had to apologize for it, except maybe that she didn’t like reading something so popular and feeling like a follower). She’s a spoilers kind of kid!! She knows I’m in a book-drought at the moment and has been handing me her books when she’s done with them, so I’m not worried too much about her feeling invaded.
She was looking forward to this book coming in (they had to order it), and then when I asked her how it was the other day, she dissembled a little. I was trying to figure out why she didn’t sound so into the book but now I suspect that she was uncomfortable and feels guilty for not liking it after waiting so long. I will keep reading and maybe just ask her which of her most recent books she’s liked most. (She’s got an average of 7 going at any one time, probably more between both houses and school).
I wound up reading all the stuff my kids read that looked interesting. It was assumed that we could talk about it if either of us felt so inclined. They had pretty good taste in books, and I bowed out of some of the stuff I didn’t want to read or couldn’t cope with the boredom. And they gifted me with a couple authors (Bruce Coville in particular) that I still love madly.
So keep reading everything, offer her stuff you like, or liked when you were that age, and ask for recommendations from her in return. Then you get a pretty natural discourse on current reading, whatever it is.
Hello! I’m replying late, so I’m not sure if you’ll end up seeing this,but it hits really close to home for me. I was a fairly unsocalized homeschooled kid, and at about your daughter’s age I read a lot of books full of all sorts of nasty things, including lots of gore, bad language, and sexual content. Many of them were dumb books, but I don’t regret reading any of them. They covered topics that most kids would be exposed to by hearing other kids talk about them, and I wasn’t, so they were a comfortable way for me to figure out what it all was. (My mom was always willing to talk about anything, and was good about sex ed, but I also needed some space to think about this stuff on my own.) That said, I’ve never felt compelled to finish a book I’m not comfortable with, and I know some people are.
EDIT: This is supposed to be in reply to celery re: happy books.
Oh! Just one more set of recs from me, I promise.
If you’ve never read it, Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm is delightful. It’s a satirical take on gothic-type novels.
An earlier predecessor of that that I found to be equally delightful is Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, which was HER send-up of gothic novels.
And finally, L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle is one of my favorites–Valency Stirling decides to stick it to her terrible relations and live life to the fullest at the ripe old age of…30? She’s not 22, anyway.
Ok, so when I get back to my apartment on Sunday after the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, I’ll post some pics here!
In the meantime though, here’s my cool Valentine’s Day gift to myself from last year’s TGMS!
I got the stone (a pink star sapphire) for about $13! The setting was done at an actual jewelry store in Phoenix, so it cost quite a bit more than the stone. I’m very happy with my purchase though! This is probably my favorite piece of jewelry!
Bonus – here’s a pic of the Galena I won at our university’s geology club’s weekly meeting! We always have a drawing for a couple people to win some mineral samples. This is the first time I’ve won something! Yay!
Gorgeous! Rock and mineral shows are fantastic. And congratulations on your win!
Galena is my favorite mineral!
I’m a big fan of galena too! Its a really pretty color! I think pyrite might be my favorite mineral though.
I’m lazy, so I’m just copying and pasting my post from tumblr to here. I only took a few pics because my phone was acting up.
These first four pics are some of the fancy minerals on display at TGMS. I attempted to find all of the minerals coresponding to all of the Shitennou from Sailor Moon, but I only found Zoisite (deep blue rock) and Kunzite (pink rock) in addition to Beryl (light blue rock).
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This bubbly orange rock is Mimetite, which was the inspiration for one of the Witches 5 from the Deathbusters arc.
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These pics are the stuff that I bought! I got a cool fossil rock (I think those are some sort of sponge fossil thing, I’ll have to check elsewhere).
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I also got jadeite with ruby inclusions (green with red spots), Tiger’s eye (orange-ish rock, and and another Sailor Moon villain), a non-gem-quality ruby (purple-y hexagon), and some lapis lazuli (dark blue)! Not pictured, but I bought my dad a little trilobite fossil and my mom a tiny garnet for Valentine’s Day!
It was a pretty good TGMS, and I saw lots of cool rocks and also talked with some people about job opportunities. Yay!
Question for y’all: I recently peeped into a neighbor’s apartment.
My young, able-bodied neighbor adopted a pitbull puppy last summer. Afterwards, I didn’t see him home as often hanging with his friends on the porch–just occasionally dressed very well to go to his fancy waiter job on the river. His dog is by now very “poorly behaved” (attention-starved) and jumps at people as they pass on the rare occasion he is outside. I’ve never seen him take a walk or even have a toy actually. I petted him yesterday and my gloves smelled terrible.
So, back to the peep: neighbor’s house is COVERED IN POOP. COVERED.
What do I do? If he goes to the pound via animal control, he’ll be put down because he’s a badly behaved stinky common breed. If I leave a note like “can I help you”, it’ll be obvious I peeped. If I casually mention it when I see him… well when will I see him next? Also, what if the landlord sees and bans animals from now on? Landlords do that all the time around here!
I’m leaving a note. I’m telling him I want to walk his dog. I decided while typing so please add your input and similar stories. He can be ashamed if he wants.
I used to train and show dogs, and also participated in a local, breed-specific rescue organization for a few years. Here is what I would do:
Google your location + pitbull rescue. Smaller, breed-specific rescue organizations often can and will intervene on behalf of dogs in the pound. I would contact them, inform them of the situation, let them know about your note. If the situation doesn’t change (to your knowledge), contact your local animal shelter and the rescue org on the same day, one after the other. No dog deserves to be in that kind of situation. ETA – these rescue orgs will foster and find a forever home for dogs, so they don’t stay in the pound. They sometimes also train the dogs they foster, but I’m not sure that’s the case with all of them.
Good luck!
This is great advice! Depending on the laws in your area, OP, the rescue may have to turn the dog over to the local pound for a mandatory amount of time, but often the rescue can let the pound know that they’ll be back to get the dog after the waiting period is over. Get that puppy some help!!!
Oh thank you so much! That is a really good idea and I will do it. He might just be depressed and overwhelmed, but if he doesn’t get it together, that dog is outtie.
You have the correct priorities. The dog’s well-being trumps any feelings you neighbor may have. Dogs are dependent creatures and this one is suffering. Neglect is abuse. pjwren has the very best advice: contact a pitbull rescue. Even if the nearest is too far away, they can still give you good advice.
On behalf of that dog, thank you.
I know! As I was typing, I was like wait… why do the feelings of a male come before a helpless dog? why did I think that for one second?
Because of the patriarchy.
Just a reminder of the CHICAGO TOAST MEETUP at Rogers Park Social, Sunday, February 15, from 7ish to Wheneverish.
Perhaps you might order one of their handcrafted pomegranate cocktails, like the Drew Barrymore: vodka, pomegranate, lemon juice, and a spritz. Dee-lish!
I actually have somebody’s grandmother’s machine from between the wars (or 1950s, at the latest) – it works terrifically, and I picked it up for $30 at a flea market. It only does one stitch, though, so I also use the inexpensive Bicor (same as Brother, I think?) machine my mom gave me for Christmas 20+ years ago, especially when I need to do zig-zag. If flea markets are your thing, you might be able to find an old timey Singer that’s still in good shape.
I just wanted to drop by and say that I’m tutoring an INSANELY clever 9-year-old girl at the moment (she uses the word “adamantine” in her poetry and guessed that Aristotle came up with the idea of the fatal flaw) and a couple of weeks ago I gave her Anne of Green Gables to read. Last week when I went back for our lesson, her mum had to call her THREE TIMES to get her to come down because she was in her room reading it and didn’t want to stop. It is her new favourite book ever and if I never achieve anything more than this in my life, that will be fine.
Also I taught her the word “patriarchy”.
Patriarchy. You are the best tutor ever!
I LOVE THIS SO MUCH.
Excellent! Wish someone had taught me the word for the unspoken ridiculous expectations thrust upon lady-people when I was that age. Hopefully, she will be spared some of the scars from unnecessary body/sex/general existence shame many of us endured before learning about the man behind the curtain.
I am so late to this! But, in case anyone’s still reading: the good news is, I went to the doctor to talk about my constant low mood, anxiety and exhaustion. The bad news is, the doctor took a bunch of my blood and tested it for everything and reported that there’s nothing physically wrong with me. Her advice was “just stick it out till the spring and see if you feel better then.” 🙁
THAT totally sucks. Not even “take more vitamin D and see if it helps”? I had to be actually ‘pinned down’ (well, she wheeled her chair over, put my knees between hers, and said, “depression is a PHYSICAL disease. Will you please go see this counselor?”) by my doc, but it did help. And you might be one of the people that meds help. Her advice was really non-helpful, is there someone else who might screen you for depression?
OMG I read what you wrote and actually lost my breath for a few seconds. Like coryyc said, find someone else. In 1992, my low mood, anxiety and exhaustion was first diagnosed as chronic fatigue syndrome, and then later diagnosed as bipolar disorder. In winter I have SAD, usually. I moved into an apartment that is mostly windows, facing west and south, and the SAD is a bit alleviated with all the sunlight that comes in. Did anyone say anything about getting one of those lights?
You don’t have to stick it out til spring. It’s good to know your blood tests normal. But blood doesn’t show mood disorders. You deserve better. Get another doc.
You can save time by getting the blood test results from the first doc in order to give them to the next doc.
Valentine’s weekend plans: 1. Receive surprise flowers from long-distance boyfriend (check!). 2. Friday night out on the town drinking with the gals. 3. Saturday morning brunch. 4. Saturday evening baking Valentine’s cupcakes, drinking wine, and gal-ing around with the gals.
My best Valentines memories never involve a significant other. This one is shaping up to be great and filled with friend-love. The runner-up was a few years ago when 3 girlfriends and I had one lovely man friend make the most amazing dinner for us (gnocci was involved), and then we all sat around singing while he played guitar, and then we watched the Princess Bride and ate ice cream out of a gallon sized tub.
Do you all have any similar friend-love Valentine’s stories?
Has anyone else been watching the Katering show?
Favourites:
We Quit Sugar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1cAfzUPpeE
“Day One of going sugar free was worse than weddings”
Thermomix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yr_etbfZtQ
“Hot wet rice!”
This is satisfying my love of Youtube series and my current obsession with media from Australia or New Zealand. Rhys Darby or Miss Fisher, for example. This does not include that rapper girl whose been popular lately.
Predictably enough – and this may be part of the reason for She Who Must Not Be Named’s style – there’s been snide media commentary over here in Australia about Dusk’s (aka Abbie Cornish) recent tour and upcoming EP, a lot of it about how she raps with her native accent.
We’ve seen this cultural cringe before in the 90s when Frente dared to sing pop in an Australian accent, but while that has mostly passed (see: Sarah Blasko, Lucie Thorne, et al) our hip hop scene is contstantly blasted with this judgement that rap shouldn’t sound Australian.
Dusk’s pretty darn good and I hope she does well – http://www.dusk1.com/
I’m learning a lot from people on this site … what you said sounds reasonable. I’ll experiment with the calories — I don’t really know how many calories I’m burning off with the weight-lifting, and how much muscle weight I’ll gain with (the weight lifting). I’m not expecting to lose any weight in the next month because of the exercise and going from fat to muscle-type thing.
You might! Modifying my calorie intake has by far had the most dramatic effect. However, as long as you’re happy and taking care of yourself and not overdoing it all at once, you’ll do great. Just remember it’s ok to eat pizza sometimes. 🙂
Super late to the thread! I have pomegranate gin, which is clearly the best. I’m drinking it with ginger ale.
Also: yesterday was a day in which many things went wrong. Most of them were the fault of the boss who got arrested, because he ordered the wrong things/didn’t write stuff down so we don’t know where to find it/was a dick somehow. But happily, he’s no longer around to yell at us for his mistakes/convince us that we were the ones at fault.
But man, I look forward to the day when we’ve finished all the projects he was working on, and will no longer need any information from his files or his email or his brain. Going forward, we’re all going to write things down and share information, so we’ll never be in this shitty, shitty situation again.
Pomegranate gin…. drool….
And hang in there. Everything is going to be so much better without arrested boss.
1: Put pomegranate seeds in a jar.
2: Fill jar with gin.
3: Allow jar to sit for 2-ish weeks, shaking occasionally to maximize gin-to-pomegranate contact.
This is the kind of recipe I can really get behind.
Two simple ingredients, both of which are already in my home.
Three simple steps, none of which demand cookware or utensils I do not own and do not wish to buy.
And the end result is something that is very useful for cocktails.
Thank you!
I’m a big fan of fruit-infused liquors. Bonus: they allow you to turn mediocre alcohol into quite nice alcohol.
Many things went wrong. But you have an excellent attitude, acknowledging that it’s the result of Arrested’s failures. And you’re recognizing the happiness resulting from working without scapegoating or yelling. And the cherry on top of your attitude: you’re looking forward to even better days when you can work without reference to this … person. A+ maturity. A+ attitude. Can I have some of that, please?
I’ve found that the key is for everything to be sufficiently out of one’s control that the only option is stoic acceptance and determined action. Having A+ coworkers doesn’t hurt, either.
I’m also taking care of the office dogs, which gives me an outlet for my worry.
Aw rats, I totally forgot about the open thread today! Bummer, because I had a really boring day at work! Ah well. My week has been significantly better since I last whined to y’all. I don’t feel like typing a big long story at the moment and getting into all the FEELS, but I will tell a couple of cute kid stories and share Valentine’s pictures. Because my little dude is SO CUTE.
Ok, so lately he’s really into getting me to kiss his owies better, which is fine – I think it’s pretty sweet, and it really cuts down on the crying and whining over minor injuries. He’s also been going on the potty pretty reliably, which is awesome! But the other day we had an awkward moment when he had a… shall we say, “spicy” poop. He finished up and told me, “Mama, I got an owie.” I asked him where his owie was, and he said, “on my buns! Kiss? Kiss?” and he bent over to show me. Oh. Dude. I’m sorry buddy, but I’m not going to kiss your butt better. I’m just not.
Also, his preschool gave me a class list a few days ago to address Valentine’s cards, which I hadn’t even realized were a thing for kids that young, and of course I put off buying cards until it was much too late – I remembered at midnight last night that the party was TODAY! So this morning I got up ridiculously early to make potato heart stamps so that we could make cards before daycare, and we finished just in time. Pinterest mom of the year, right here!
You are truly amazing and your little dude is adorable.
Squee! You’re both adorable. Him with all his little-kidness, you with your potato stamp.
Hallo! Newbie here~ Does anyone know any touchy-feely books that I can read this weekend? I’d like to cry like a baby in a book because my academic obligations are pressuring me BIG TIME. Thanks! 🙂
London toasties! Excuse the shameless plug, but we are running events at the V&A to celebrate LGBT History Month… a Friday Late party on 27th Feb, with drag DJs, a genderqueer hair salon and creative writing workshop; followed by a programme of talks and film screenings on 28th, and it’s all free!
If you aren’t worried about other genetic diseases, testing for whether you are a carrier could rule out your having a child with CF even if he is a carrier, and is much less invasive than prenatal testing.
If you absolutely know you would not abort for CF then there isn’t a huge point. There are other genetic conditions you’d want to be prepared for right at birth if you thought they were more than remotely possible. But it sounds like you have no reason to expect any.
(Signed, was paranoid and had amnio twice.)
Argh, the parentheses did it. Here's the correct link: https://vimeo.com/117122283
That sex scene was fascinating, wasn't it? It's quite kinky: she's basically daring him to spank her, lying across his lap and telling him about all the men she slept with. I don't remember the scene from the book, but I barely remember anything about the book, so it could be in there.
I think the description of the men being 3D caricatures and the women being 2D caricatures is spot on, and that's a little disappointing. It's probably the source material, though: PTA films have had well-rounded female characters before, and he managed to give even his female porn star characters in Boogie Nights emotional complexity, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Yes! You got it!