What we do in the shadows

I looked into this for my son, who gets really bad hiccups. We have lots of regular straws, so before I bought a special one, I had him try a regular straw that was pointing straight down at the bottom of the cup so that it was letting in as little water as possible. Totally works (most of the time).

2011 Jetta TDI. Newly married, my husband has a weakness for shiny new things. He had a 2008 Jetta and wanted to sell it and “upgrade” to the more efficient and environmentally friendly (er, about that) TDI. A few years later we bought a second TDI.

If you’re not familiar with Dieselgate, well, yeah, we got defrauded basically. Long story short, we ended up selling both and replacing them with…

Teslas. Sigh. Fuck me.

Seems like you got your answer, but I’d also like to say sorry that your shower broke! I’m sure it was nasty to clean up and now it has to be replaced which is likely either an unexpected cost or your landlord’s problem, in which case I hope you have a responsive landlord.

Someone I know who loved her cat in a way that I don’t understand, and I love cats, insisted on showing me a picture of the expensive, elaborate silk-lined coffin she got for her cat with the dead cat lying in it. I… yeah.

I hear what you’re saying and I’m not saying you were wrong in your usage. The issue I think most women (including me) have is when men refer to us as “females” while not referring to themselves as “males” is that it makes us feel like they view us as not fully human, or like a lesser animal. Problematic people are often trying to feel superior to others, whether via race, class, religion, age, etc etc, and certainly speciesism (is that a word? Autocorrect thinks so) can play a role.

That’s still a bit different than saying “males” or “females.” Using those words as nouns makes it feel like a nature documentary narration.

Flossing: pretty good. I occasionally forget but most of the time I realize it pretty fast because my teeth feel…thick or something.

Cutting out Diet Coke: quite good. I was super disciplined for about four weeks before I had one, in part to see how bad the cravings would be afterward. It was okay, but at the same time I could tell how easily it would be to become addicted again. Have only had it one other time (yesterday) but I’m sick so I’m giving myself a pass.

The ones I’m talking about are just bumper stickers. What’s the difference between a learner and a new driver in your jurisdiction?

Student driver or new driver stickers on cars. I swear 20% of the cars on the road in my area have them lately. That said, I do actually think in this case that there has been an increase in adoption of these stickers (possibly to try and hand waive bad behavior of the driver?) but when I first mentioned it to my husband, he blamed it on Baader-Meinhof.

It’s great! I’ve picked up sewing now (knitting got too easy after nearly twenty years…) and the first major disappointment is how there is nothing like Ravelry for sewing. There are major pattern companies, indie pattern companies, review sites, blogs, etc. but they’re not all in one central location and it bums me out. Oh well.

This is super niche but Ravelry is a fantastic place for knitters and crocheters. I don’t personally participate in many forums there, but there are lots of other ways to be involved and it’s very informative.

Then or now?

5 year old me: She-Ra

10 year old me: maybe Bugs Bunny honestly

Adult me: Bluey hands down forever. And my kids like it too.

Haha exactly! I got frustrated as an early knitter when I bought pretty yarn and then realized when I got home that it wasn’t enough for a project. I stopped making that mistake pretty fast and have been fairly disciplined about it.

Same to all of this for me with one exception, which is I occasionally have to go on for work reasons to check the business page. When I’m there, I look at my notifications, which are usually weeks-old friend requests (usually from actual people I know IRL) so I’ll accept those. Not sure why I bother… something about not wanting them to feel bad about not getting friended, like we’re in college again. (I was in college when FB came out.) But in reality they’d probably never notice so…shrug.

As a crafter who is more on the Marie Kondo side of things, it’s way worse than that. I’d say a lot of time, knitters and sewists (my two main hobbies) buy yarn and fabric with no specific pattern or project in mind but rather just because it’s pretty. Some of them seem to be proud of their room-filling stashes. Personally I think most people just like the instant gratification of purchasing craft supplies but don’t have the patience to actually create the craft, especially since knitting in particular is very, very slow. I have tried really hard not to fall into this trap and have been actively not purchasing yarn for a few years now, though I’ll still put it on my Christmas list.

Thanks! Also wow, okay. Some people are too rich.

I’m OOTL. What’s the context on this one?

Thank you! Fingers crossed that they’re even better than the ones I’m currently using. Which are pretty good (Eargasms) but don’t have a super high decibel rating and I definitely have to toss each pair after about a week and a half of wearing them every night, just because they stop being as…sticky? They’re not really sticky but they do adhere when they’re fresh, and not so much after a few days.

Just bought some earplugs. They better be legit! I use silicone earplugs right now and they’re okay but on nights when my husband is really stuffy, he’s like a chainsaw.