Hello fellow non-psychopath!
I might wear jeans if I have to leave the house to shop, but that’s usually just for an hour or two at most. When I get home the pants come off and put aside for use on another day. The same holds true for all of my “outside” clothes. It’s just wasteful to wash something that’s been worn for an hour a day.
That being said, there was a whole thing a decade ago with Levi’s. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140714180558-14928043-the-dirty-jeans-manifesto/
hotel and meal vouchers
In the US? Not in the past decade. I usually get a link to an app that’s like shitty Expedia for local hotels. You can race to compete for rooms with other stranded passengers while your partner tries to re-book the flight for the next day. “I’m sorry - all flights are full until next Tuesday. We can put you on standby, but there’s a list of people ahead of you.”
This probably goes hand in hand with the trend of providing sleepable bench seating in airports. For awhile they were doing the anti-homeless park bench design. You’ll have to fight your fellow passengers for space, but it’s better than the floor at DIA or ORD.
masks in the cabin aren’t designed to keep you awake. They’re just designed to keep you alive.
In that situation I’m perfectly fine with that. More than perfectly fine, in fact. Sounds like a feature I’d pay extra for (don’t tell United).
Ah. COVID.
When the vaccine came out it was allocated in stages. Healthcare providers and the elderly were prioritized. As they should be. When it was finally available to the general public, the state released a website that helped you find the nearest pharmacy with doses. And it was guaranteed to be free.
I found one local pharmacy in a nearby village and we got our dose. They didn’t ask for a copay, but did write down our insurance info. Two weeks later, we got a bill from United Health because we unknowingly used an out of network pharmacy for our ‘free’ shots.
Minor thing, but it’s just an example of our garbage. I’ve never had a good experience with healthcare in the US. OK - scratch that. The time I needed stitches for a bad cut, the receptionist who was billing me whispered that “If you’re any kind of ‘medical professional,’ you can remove them yourself and avoid another visit.” Shit - I own stuff for sewing. That was good, although slightly painful advice.
Canada was wild, though. I visited a walk-in clinic for an abscess on my leg. No bill. I also visited the ER with chest pain. In both cases I felt like a criminal for leaving without giving them my credit card info.
“2 Nazis in a car” is exactly my horrified emotion in the moment.
And it’s true that I didn’t word that correctly, but it happened 20 years ago so the words are not an exact quote. However, they do convey the gist of the conversation. And I really really wanted to make it clear that I’m not the original Nazi in the car.
I was getting a ride home from work with a colleague, which was nice of her because I usually took the bus. We had been friendly for some time, and I never understood why other people at work were creeped out by her. Sure, she could be cold and a bit intimidating in a stereotypical “immigrant from former eastern bloc country” sort of way.
I would compare her to a pretty, young, athletic and blonde Frau Verbissene. And she was not afraid to be comedically cutting. For example, one day I was mindlessly trying (and failing) to unscrew something and she walked up behind me and dryly said, “I am not native to North America, but in Europe we turn it to the left to loosen bolts.” It’s a little bit mean, but also funny.
But to the main point, it was that car ride when I found out she was a Nazi. OK - Maybe not an actual Nazi, but a big fan. She explained that in her country, <I’m paraphrasing this next bit, so her words> they had asked the Jews to leave, had tried to incentivize the Jews to leave, but the Jews would not leave. When the Germans came to her country, they fixed that problem.
“Oh. Shit. I’m carpooling with a Nazi.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammy_Faye_Messner
Some people just like to fuck their shit up.
I’ve always called it “map brain,” and am fascinated to watch people who don’t have that ability.
For example, my husband has been to the library and he has been to the grocery store. From home, he can get to either without any trouble. But if he’s at the grocery store and needs to go to the library? He’ll need to go home first. He just can’t visualize the steps if it’s a new path. He’s a brilliant guy, but he has a foggy brain map.
I’m pretty much the opposite, but what I love about GPS is that they’ll tell you which lane is optimal for the next exit. If it’s a new route, that’s super helpful.
I unintentionally pissed off a bully during a floor hockey match in high school PE class. Long story, but I did something to make her angry - still no idea what it was - and in that moment she was screaming at me to apologize. I just recall her screaming “SORRY!!! SORRY!!!” at me during a game.
I didn’t realize I had done anything wrong. I was definitely not trying to be competitive or aggressive at a PE game, so WTF? But apparently, “It’s OK. Apology accepted” was not the answer she wanted. She lost her shit and I gained an enemy for the rest of senior year.
Fortunately - and this is the good outcome - she was the most incompetent bully I’ve ever encountered. Sure, she was mad AF and willing to hold a grudge in the way that only 17 year-old girls can do. But I had emerged from a hot crucible of actual fucking competent bullies years before this.
I was captain of the fucking Math Team, bitch. You think calling me “Nerd” is going to hit? Hell no. I own that.
Years earlier, I fought two of my former besties on a snow covered hill in the local park and my only regret was that I was wearing mittens that mitigated the damage to their faces. I’d do that again if I had to.
Point being - she couldn’t do me any harm. Laughing at her made her madder. That was the best part.
tl/dr: I accepted an apology from someone who wanted me to apologize to her, and I gained the most incompetent bully ever. It added some needed comedic relief to me and my friends during a stressful final year of high school.
This advice always gets downvoted, but it works for me. I’ll offer it for what it is.
When I lose something I’ll take a moment and politely ask the thieving house elves to give it back. Then I stop thinking or stressing about it. I usually find it within a day.
Sure. Late '80s. It was pitch back, triangular, small, slow, and quiet. My mother was driving and we were on our way to an astronomy meeting. Which is to humble-brag that we had both spent a fair amount of time staring at the night sky and could identify most aircraft/stars/planets/meteors etc. It moved in a truly bizarre fashion.
I think I noticed it first because it was a super slow set of lights. Our car was going about 45 mph and we seemed to be outpacing it easily on a parallel path. I could see trees on the edge of a farmer’s field and it was lower than the tops of the trees. That was the point of reference. It was absolutely out of the ordinary. Although we were outpacing it, my mom made a wrong turn at the next intersection. It was actually fortuitous because this put is directly in the flight path and I was super curious to ID it.
When my mom saw it I just remember her saying over and over - “ArtieShaw? ArtieShaw, what is that? What is that???”
When I realized that she was equally weirded out, one of us clicked off the car radio and one of us lowered the windows. That’s when we realized that it wasn’t just quiet, but completely silent and flying maybe 25 feet above the ground. There were lights on it, but they didn’t illuminate the aircraft at all.
After passing under it, she needed to re-route the car. And the next bit is probably the part the freaked me out the most. It followed us.
I was able to keep eyes on it for the entire time because I wasn’t driving. In fact, I was partially out the window of the passenger seat. When we got back to the main road, she pulled over in the dirt lot of a farmer’s market stand on the corner.
It flew over us again and we agreed that we couldn’t see more detail beyond “small, unbelievably black triangle.” She got her shit together well enough to drive, and we went on to the astronomy meet.
The amateur astronomer friends were very skeptical about what we saw. And we were clearly rattled, so they were kind about trying to provide rational explanations. I remember drawing a diagram of the shape in the dirt with my generic Keds sneakers. But as the night wore on, many of them shared similar stories. The one I remember best is from a person who was camping in the inter-mountain desert who saw the exact same object, but that it was so large that it blotted out a good portion of the sky. They also claimed to have chased it for about an hour.
Right? I recently read a book by an author who appeared to be confused to the point of paranoia by how many of the 1960s rock musicians from California (Topanga Canyon scene) were from wealthy or politically connected families.
Although it started out pretty entertaining, I didn’t make it all the way to the end of the book. I mean - has he never met that type of kid? There’s no conspiracy beyond wealth and connections. Banal to the point of boredom.
Shout out to cottage, cream, and paneer.
I’d be lying if I could pick a favorite cheese, though. I guess a nostalgic favorite would be nokkelost, but it’s impossible to find.
It’s honestly not that bad, assuming the power doesn’t go out. Or that it’s not followed up by freezing rain.
No one goes to work or school for a couple of days. People usually stock up on essentials in the days before the storm. (Milk, bread, butter, eggs… the old joke is that everyone has a sudden urge to eat French Toast.)
Plows usually start early, while the snow is still falling. Plow and salt crews work night and day. They’re on call (and paid a stipend) during winter for this exact reason. The main streets are prioritized. Residential streets are going to wait a couple of days before they’re clear. With nothing else to do, the adults start digging themselves out and helping their neighbors dig out. It’s a hell of a workout and a good reason to check on elderly neighbors.
Basically, you wake up, say “fuck this shit,” call in (or not, because your boss isn’t at work), and go back to sleep for another few hours. Then you start digging.
A city that doesn’t get that much snow can get overwhelmed, though. Mayor Mel famously called in the military to clear snow from Toronto back in 1998-ish. That was only a meter, but the city didn’t have the resources to clear it - or more importantly - any free space to put it.
Buffalo though? Buffalo has their snow systems down.
Pretty much. Buffalo routinely gets hosed by blizzard conditions that don’t usually affect the cities on the northern side of the same lake (Toronto, Mississauga, etc). It’s feature of being on the south side of one of the Great Lakes.
I remember hearing about one year where Buffalo got 6 feet overnight, or some other complete bullshit.
Having moved to Canada as a 23 y-o with a valuable (NAFTA approved) skill set that got me a quick but temporary work visa. Hahahahaha. No.
At the time, the process for landed immigrant status took 2 years and $1,500 in 1996 money (neither of which I had to spare).
My best advice is to look at the official immigration website. If you feel like there’s some special loophole, consult an immigration lawyer from Canada. It will be worth the money, even if they can simply spell out the reasons why you shouldn’t waste your time.
Also - good luck finding housing in Canada. It was bad in 1996 and hasn’t gotten better.
Couple of things that I’ve observed. It’s a combo of shit design and poor human behavior.
-the ones in an office setting take an absolute fuck ton of abuse from people who can’t reload paper or replace an ink cartridge; I have seen punching and slamming on the regular -as a corollary to the above, no one fucking trains workers on copiers. The workers have to figure it out on their own. Violence is a natural response. -as a secondary corollary to the above, you can absolutely fuck with hated colleagues by removing their names from the user list simply by using the manual keypad (or changing the name from TooBeeSan to TooBeeNasty) -the ones in a home setting are persnicketty about color toner and are shit at Bluetooth connections (and thus also take a fuck ton of abuse)
I had a professor whose ice breaker question was some version of, “what book do you want to write/planning to write?” Everyone seems to have one.
Might not be as relevant today after blogs perhaps cleared that out of peoples’ systems.
As for me, I cycle through mostly craft-based hobbies. Embroidery, leather work, candle making, 3D printing. I can make candles much faster than I can burn them, so that’s self-limiting. 3D printing is great to have the materials and skills for, and I’m slowly learning to design in Blender. But at the moment I only use it when I suddenly need to have a thing-a-ma-widget and remember: “hey! I’ve got a 3D printer. Of course I can make a valve stem cover!”
I’ll probably be back to leather crafts as we head into the fall and winter.
My friends in Italy have told me that it’s not normal to change your surname after marriage. They could be messing with me, though. They’re mildly evil.
The first time we stayed with the in-laws she repacked my luggage for me. We barely knew each other. Wasn’t that nice of her? /s