lorena

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Harriette's advice here isn't bad, per se, it's just aggressively useless

Tuesday, August 12th, 2025 04:46 am

DEAR HARRIETTE: Over the years, my mom and I have struggled to forge the ideal smooth-sailing mother-daughter bond that other people have. We used to bump heads a lot. Now that we no longer bump heads, we just have a hard time connecting and enjoying each other. I want things to get better, but she often compares my relationship with her to the one I have with my dad. My dad and I are pretty playful together, and he's easy to talk to. I think my mom constantly mocking the dynamic I have with my dad is her version of banter or "breaking the ice," but I wish she would stop comparing so that she and I could find our own groove. How do I get her on the same page as me? -- Mommy Issues

( Read more... )

Thoughts on rereading Nero Wolfe

princessofgeeks

Monday, August 11th, 2025 11:31 am

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Current Mood: awake

Wow, these people....

conuly

agonyaunt

Sunday, August 10th, 2025 06:39 pm

1. DEAR ABBY: My son is 20 and a senior in college. He's a baseball player and is about to ask the girl he's been dating for a year and a half to marry him. My wife and I don't get along with her at all. She has a myriad of health problems and takes eight prescriptions a day. Because of her conditions, she rarely has the energy to do anything but lie around when she comes to our house. She used to have a job packing groceries at a market, and she would frequently log 10 to 12 miles a day walking. She quit that job for a job at an ice cream shop where she does little walking.

We had a get-together at my other son's house, and she said she couldn't come because she was too tired. My wife sent my son a message saying, "Really? From scooping ice cream?" The girlfriend needed to use my son's phone and saw the message. Her feelings were hurt, and now she will have nothing to do with us. (They still expect us to pay for their wedding, and for gas and maintenance on his car to visit her parents almost daily.) We want to support our son, but we are over it with her. There is so much more I could tell you. Please help. -- DAD WHO'S OVER IT

( Read more... )

**************

2. Dear Eric: My wife of 50 years told me that she no longer wants to live with me. I am currently living in our summer home with no friends or social contacts/networks. She has no interest in reconciling.

We didn't fight or argue, and I am at a loss as to what triggered her declaration. This has taken me totally by surprise. I thought we had a good marriage, with occasional ups and downs. There are no abuse, addiction or infidelity issues. I worked my whole life and am now retired. As soon as we had children, she was able to stay at home and lived comfortably raising our children and taking care of the household. The children have sided with their mom and won't speak to me. I think she has poisoned them against me, but don't see the gain in her doing that.

I am miserable. I am 74 with neurological mobility issues. I fear that I will fall, and no one will be around. Senior housing for me is too expensive and will deplete our planned retirement resources. We were counting on eventually selling our summer home to supplement our finances later in life. This is no longer possible as I am living in that house. This is not how I wanted the last chapters of my life to end.

I have had five sessions of therapy with no results. My therapist says I'm not at risk to myself or others and I am perpetually slightly depressed but not debilitated. Without more concrete information, he cannot help me. I am not a bad person, yet here I am.

– Totally Betrayed

( Read more... )

************

3. DEAR ABBY: Our 23-year-old son, "Ed," was clean-cut, into working out and staying healthy, watched his diet -- he even joined a gym and was going every week. Ed has been dating a girl, "Emily," who is the complete opposite. She's probably a hundred pounds overweight. She's also dirty, (when she comes here, there have been days she doesn't take a shower).

Twice I have found Emily's lingerie on the floor. Last week, she left a pair of her panties on the bathroom floor. I showed Ed and told him that was the SECOND time I had found her underwear (the first time I didn't say anything). I said, "You have to talk to Emily and tell her not to leave her underwear laying around."

I see a change in Ed. My son hasn't cut his hair in 2 1/2 years and he no longer appears to be as into working out. This is not who we are as a family. My husband and I are fit for our ages (60s) and by all standards clean and orderly. Should I say anything to Ed? I feel like Emily is changing who he is. -- NOT THE SAME IN THE EAST

( Read more... )

**********

4. DEAR ABBY: Our 40-year-old son has become a full-fledged narcissist and blames us (his sister, her husband, my husband and me) for a family schism that has gone on for two years. He tells lies about us and keeps us from our granddaughter. Any attempt to contact him has been met with venomous, foul-mouthed texts in return.

Our son went through a nasty divorce and horrible custody proceeding, but we did our best to support him financially and emotionally during that time. He is now supposedly happily remarried, but he continues to deny us access to his daughter. We are heartbroken. This is not the way we raised him. Any suggestions? -- BAFFLED IN NORTH CAROLINA

( Read more... )

******

5. DEAR HARRIETTE: My husband and I recently planned a weekend trip out of town, and we arranged for our children to stay with their aunt, my husband's sister, while we were away. We thought everything was going well until, halfway through our trip, we received a call from her saying that one of our kids had started acting out. She told us that she doesn't tolerate that kind of behavior in her home and insisted that we come pick him up immediately. I was shocked and honestly upset. I understand that our son can be a handful at times. He's going through a bit of a rebellious phase, but I feel like she overreacted. We trusted her to help us out, and instead of trying to manage the situation or even calling us for advice on how to calm him down, she made us cut our trip short and made us feel like we were being irresponsible parents for going away in the first place. Now there's tension between us, and I don't know how to approach this. Am I wrong for feeling like she could have handled things differently? -- Not Helpful

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Surprisingly good advice from Annie, I want to save it for posterity

conuly

agonyaunt

Sunday, August 10th, 2025 12:47 pm

Dear Annie: My sister "Kendra" and I are not very close and only communicate two to three times per year, mainly in emails. Kendra sold her home and moved out of state. Through our sibling, I heard that she listed her house high to begin with and had to come down on her price in the end but made a decent amount on it. I never commented on how much she made or didn't make on her old house; I felt that was absolutely none of my business. When she moved and posted pictures of her new house, I commented that I was happy for her.

Fast-forward to me selling my home a year or so later. After my home sold, the information on it went out to the various housing sites, incorrectly showing that it took a loss. We actually did make a nice profit on it. The information that went out was a typo and was corrected about four weeks later.

Kendra was quick to reach out in an email stating she saw online how much we sold for and was surprised at the extreme money loss we took. She then asked if it was a short sale or foreclosure and commented that we must have been very upset about it.

I feel this was none of her business, even if it was the right information. Am I overreacting that I feel it was quite rude for her to comment on my personal business? How should I reply back to her? -- Perplexed

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(no subject)

conuly

agonyaunt

Sunday, August 10th, 2025 12:18 pm

DEAR HARRIETTE: Since I was young, I've found that I've always had strange anxiety-induced habits -- pulling at the edges of my hair, sucking my thumb, picking at scabs, etc. Over time, I'd find a solution, or I'd just sort of grow out of it. At present, I scratch the insides of my palms when I'm nervous, stressed or frustrated. I think I may do it at other times, but I haven't pinpointed all of the triggers. Lately, it's been out of control. I haven't been able to resolve this one, but I'm so ready to leave it behind. How do I find a lifetime solution for all these behavioral tics? -- Old Habits Die Hard

( Read more... )

Fun!

princessofgeeks

Sunday, August 10th, 2025 06:33 am

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Current Mood: awake

/run/media/silveradept: KPop Demon Hunters (2025)

silveradept

Saturday, August 9th, 2025 10:18 pm

So, on the recommendation of many (including seeing things related to it popping up in my channels regularly, and a fair number of people who are apparently all-in for the main trio being a trio romantically), I watched KPop Demon Hunters.

Have some non-spoilery thoughts, in no particular order:

I wonder how ONCE feels about having gotten TWICE to be the group doing the movie credits version of one of the songs played in snippets throughout the movie.

Daniel Dae Kim and Ken Jeong make perfect sense for the roles they're cast in.

Speaking of voices, the one they cast for the greater-scope villain was delightfully correct, although the casting direction seems to have suggested that he move in the direction of "clipping syllables in an English-as-Second-Language" way. I don't want someone to speak in something that isn't comfortable to them, or to not sound like themselves, but it felt more like a conscious direction rather than someone's natural cadence to do it that way, and it made the greater-scope villain come off slightly more like a Bond villain being played for a bit of camp than as the greater-scope villain. Maybe I'm reading too much into the delivery, or maybe the intention was for this character to sound just slightly off from the rest of the cast.

The Netflix subtitlers managed not to figure out something that fansubbers of various Asian series have known for decades, and even those who subtitle K-Pop releases: how to properly subtitle songs. Which is a major strike against them for a movie that has an awful lot of singing! We didn't necessarily have to go full-on for the kind of karaoke-style, rainbow, motion-filled subtitles that fansubbers of anime and toku series got (get?) made fun of for using in their releases, but these subtitlers went in the direction of just putting the syllables of the words in the subtitles, or otherwise doing Revised Romanization of the spoken or sung Korean and leaving it at that. So there's no context to those lines, nor what they look like in Hangul (which you can see in one of the shots that is the behind-the-scenes for TWICE recording the song playing over the first part of the credits), nor a translation of what the Korean says into English (or whichever language you want as the subtitles.) Admittedly, it would be more offensive to just put [Korean] or [Speaking/Singing in a Global Language] for those sections, but only just. The purpose of the subtitling there is so that someone can follow along with the audio track and make sure they're not missing anything, and if the audio track includes singing in Korean or rapping in Korean, as it does in this movie, the subtitlers have a responsibility to render it comprehensibly. (Bets on whether Tumblr has a transcript of all the songs that renders them correctly and translates them correctly at this point?)

I'm very unhappy with the job the subtitlers did on this movie, and I think Netflix needs to release a revision to accurately reflect what happens in the movie.

I suspect there are more than a few things about the movie that I missed, because my understanding of symbology of both Korean cosmology and mythology and the intricacies of K-pop fandom isn't as complete as it should be to fully appreciate what's going on here. (I did at least understand the light sticks, banners, appearances on various shows and the part where the performers are basically on their public game anywhere the public might see them, which includes never ever wanting to say or do anything that would say there was a relationship between idols and anyone at all, including other idols. Not that it stops the fans from shipping them, either in their own groups or possibly with other groups that they're seen with or rivals with.) Most of my understanding of K-Pop comes from people like brithistorian and andersenmom, so thank you for your help and answering the silly questions that I've had over time.

I did appreciate the music through the decades montage at the beginning, and I'm not sure the average watcher will realize just how much Korean music is influenced by American styles of music through those eras, before the phenomenon that we know of as K-pop comes into existence. (And which exchanges/inherits a fair amount of its cues and norms with Japanese pop idol culture, such that we think of them as J-pop and K-pop, at least over here in my neck of cultural existence.)

Related to this, however, it looks like Sony Animation went with the same general style and animation timing that they used on the Spider-Verse movies at times while I was watching it. While, for Spider-Verse, the animation timing is a deliberate decision and works for the comic-book nature of the multiverse being portrayed, here, the dance sequences that should be smooth as butter in the animation, probably even with some extra key frames to make sure it all goes well, several of them hitched and were otherwise more jerky than I would have expected out of a studio trying to match the intricate choreography that can accompany K-pop. It's possible that these hitches and jerkiness were my Internet connection having hiccups or my computer having a hitch, but I don't think so. Others can tell me how smooth their watch was of the movie, but for the moment, I'm chalking this up to Sony Animation's house style and timing clashing with what you would want animated K-Pop to look like. (There were noticeably fewer hiccups in the action sequences, which is why I think I think it was a style decision rather than a slowdown, because action animation would be more likely to have degradation than the dance sequences, in my opinion.)

Yes, but what did you think about the plot?

It was a perfectly serviceable plot. You'll recognize all the beats if you watched the first Frozen movie, although it is harsher to the lesser-scope villain than most Disney films would be. This particular version of the movie leans heavier into the "Demon Hunters" part of the title, and I don't know if that was the right decision for the plot, because the plot sets up both a movie where action and stylish fighting, accompanied by singing, will determine the outcome (the direction they took) and a movie where the principal heroines and their principal opposition are in a for-all-the-marbles stakes idol game to be determined by who has the bigger fanbase after the agreed-upon final duel at the Idol Awards competition. That would have made the K-pop part of it much more important, and given them all the tools they needed to wage an epic battle across various releases, appearances, and the rest that wouldn't have to involve all that many attempts at direct sabotage or fighting between the two groups, even if there was an awful lot of things that could be excused as "special effects." I'm pretty sure if the writers had enough experience with how idol systems work and the less than savory elements of the companies and managers of the various idols, they could write a very good movie full of underhanded tactics, diss tracks, "accidental" social media leaks, and all the rest of it. I think focusing on the K-pop aspect would also make the internal divisions and the character conflicts in the protagonist trio work better, as each of them starts giving in to more of their worser aspects in trying to beat their rival team, and that would make the parts of the plot that are about secrets and lies work better, since the character hiding the biggest secret will have had the opportunity to see the very worst aspects of the team and believe such things are their actual selves, instead of their more restrained forms. (Which will also make the ultimate climax portion of the movie work better, as well, to make it much clearer why the protagonist team ends up where they do and the way they do before the final battle.)

Final thought: The movie could cut the gag about certain members of the trio having heart eyes and popcorn eyes about the prettiness of the pretty boys in the rival group. It doesn't actually contribute to the plot, and it makes the characters shallower in a way that doesn't suit them. They could certainly make commentary on the boys being eye candy, even supernaturally so, because that's how they're drawn to be, but the majority of the movie shows this trio as a focused, work-first, idol trio who want to enjoy their downtime, except for that one member who keeps pushing them to not take their breaks. They're not shown as flighty or otherwise susceptible to that kind of distraction, and they primarily work through it when it happens, so thy could just cut the gag entirely and replace it with something else that would work better. Like an offhand comment about how those boys are trying to get by on their looks, while they're getting by on great songs. And then eventually admit to themselves that the boys have catchy songs, too, but stay primarily focused on making their own, better songs to beat them, since they never really try to change their look to be more attractive to the fans than the pretty boys.

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: TWICE - Takedown (TWICE Ver.)

Tags:

/run/media/silveradept

(no subject)

conuly

agonyaunt

Saturday, August 9th, 2025 08:47 pm

My mother desperately wants grandchildren. I’m nearing 30 and have never wanted children; my partner feels the same way. We would both rather focus on our careers, and there are also some hereditary health conditions in our family — nothing life-threatening, but enough that we would rather not pass them on.

Despite knowing all this, my mother pressures us constantly. Every time I explain my position, she becomes distraught and insists I just don’t understand the joy a child would bring. She’s in poor physical and mental health, and these conversations quickly spiral into intense emotional distress. Any attempts at therapy have been flatly dismissed.

Now she’s saying that she’ll cut me out of her will if I don’t have a child. There’s not much money involved, but I worry that, if it comes to that, she might also cut off contact altogether. My sibling has already severed ties with my mother over her mental-health struggles. I want to keep my mother in my life, but I can’t stand the thought of this one issue dominating whatever time we have left together.

I’ve started to consider telling her I can’t have children because of fertility issues. That would be a lie, and I feel uneasy using something so many people genuinely struggle with as an excuse. Still, her fixation on grandchildren is seriously damaging our relationship. Should I lie to my mother to try to save our relationship, or keep telling the truth and watch things fall apart? — Name Withheld

( Read more... )

['cause] it's boiled [and] fried so

ursamajor

Wednesday, August 6th, 2025 05:35 pm

I have found THE WAY to make crispy firm tofu that I will now do forever more (or until I get bored and wander off to my next food obsession): brining it. It takes no longer than pressing it, is less messy, and the results are unbelievably crispy, even still a little crunchy after overnight refrigeration of the leftovers and then microwaving it, neither process designed to encourage that. And far more successful than any baking or cornstarch-dredging that I've tried before; will never go back. Noting here for my memories:

- Bring 4 cups water with 1/4 cup of salt (or, ratiowise, 1T salt for every 1 cup water needed to cover your tofu) to a boil, then turn off the heat
- Plop your cut-up tofu into the brine - the video did sliced planks, I did cubes so I didn't have two separate cutting steps, it came out fine
- Let it sit for 10-15 minutes
- Pan-fry the tofu in a little oil, flipping around the 3-4 minute mark; repeat until tofu is crispy enough to satisfy you.

As for silken tofu, for quick breakfasts/solo dinners, I've been nuking it with butter and soy sauce and a little bit of chili crisp, then topping it with a scallion that I chopped while waiting for the microwave. Maybe grating a little ginger over if I'm feeling fancy, or now that the lemons are slowly starting to come back, squeezing a little lemon over. It's like a hot hiyayakko, and might be more so if I ever remembered to pick up katsuobushi at Yaoya-San, heh.

*

In the meantime, our neighbors had been texting us while we were away about the annual plumpocalypse, and we came home to a carpet of purple underneath said plum tree, despite the neighbors coming by and picking up the excess while we were gone. Right now, we have enough to fill our entire dutch oven, with ~~dozens~~ hundreds more dropping daily. I really need to set up some kind of net situation to catch them before they hit the ground, I have made refrigerator jam literally every day for the last week and a half, and we are not keeping up. (Right now, our total jam despite our attempts to chip away at it fills my second-largest glass storage pan - 11 cups!)

But because my method so far looks like:

* sweep plums into a pile
* scoop plums of various softness into our largest kitchen bowl
* fill plum bowl with water and let it sit (

hyounpark says in case there are worms?!)
* sort plums - only the intact ones make it through
* cook plums until just soft enough to pit
* pit
* weigh the puree, add 40% sugar
* cook, skimming off scum, until it passes the spoon test
* cool
* find a storage container to put the jam in in the fridge
* put on yogurt and toast ad nauseum because I have not committed to buying the whole kit for Proper Jam Making that would let the jam last longer than a few weeks in the fridge

At least our neighbors are equally meh about Proper Jamming so I feel less bad about not doing it, LOL. Still, I did take a cup and a half of yesterday's puree and turned it into a plum version of my favorite roasted applesauce cake for yesterday's block party, and it went smashingly; I was barely able to snag a piece for H and I to split!

Between the cake success and the tofu triumph and lovely August tomatoes marinating in a pool of olive oil and mint and salt and their own juices, I'm proud of these recent food feats. Now to figure out what I'm doing with the pork belly (for dinner tonight). Probably something that can get topped with some of the plum jam, heh.

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: have some more chicken, have some more pie

Ask a Manager: Two From The Same Column

minoanmiss

agonyaunt

Tuesday, August 5th, 2025 12:21 am

Compare and Contrast.

( Employee's Husband Sent Us Revenge Porn )

( 4. Delivery person uses our lunchroom )

Current Mood: shocked

rewatch

princessofgeeks

Monday, August 4th, 2025 07:43 pm

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

(no subject)

conuly

agonyaunt

Monday, August 4th, 2025 10:06 am

Dear Carolyn: A friend and colleague has been MIA at work and in our friend circle for weeks. She claims she hurt her back, is in pain and having procedures and and and… And this has her missing meetings and deadlines and happy hour and dropping all the balls. She has not told anyone exactly what happened with her back. She said she was doing some light housework when it just hurt all of a sudden, which sounds ridiculous to me and everyone else I know. We don’t know what “procedures” she has had. We don’t know when she will get back to normal. We’re not talking about an old person here; she is 43! I called her the other day and I could hear the TV on, during the workday, which she turned off or muted when she took my call.

I feel like she is lying or exaggerating to get out of work — while not taking formal leave or PTO, because we can work remotely — and she is blowing off her friends and colleagues while we pick up the slack for her at the office and make her excuses at social functions. How do I figure out what’s really going on with her, and get her to do her own work again so I don’t have to fill in for someone who is home watching TV while I’m busting my you-know-what?

— Busting My You-Know-What

( Read more... )

Carolyn Hax: Family disappointed in daughter for choosing science PhD over law

conuly

agonyaunt

Monday, August 4th, 2025 03:09 am

Dear Carolyn: My dad, uncle and grandfather are all lawyers, and I always thought I wanted to be one, too. Until I realized in college I was much more interested in science. I switched my major to microbiology and graduated with honors. Now I’m in my last year of my PhD program, but according to my dad, I’m a huge failure and a disappointment.

My younger cousin graduated from law school and joined the family law firm, and it’s all he can talk about. My mom said I shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up all those years I said I wanted to be a lawyer. They also are still complaining that my switching majors cost them extra tuition. It’s not like I pulled a deliberate bait-and-switch; I changed my mind.

When my dad asked what my plans were and I told him I’d be looking for a postdoc position, he said I was going to waste my life in academia and never make any real money.

I think most parents would be overjoyed their daughter is getting a doctorate, but mine act like I’m a dropout and a failure. There’s no way to make your parents supportive or proud of you, though, is there?

— Changed My Mind

( Read more... )

It's all still here - Late July 02025

silveradept

Sunday, August 3rd, 2025 08:50 pm

Let's begin with The COVID-Safe Scouts' research repository, for all your deep dive desires or need to have research to hand when someone around you is trying to tell you that things are either over or not dangerous when it comes to interacting with the variations of SARS-CoV-2.

Also, A claimed nearly-100% effective drug against HIV infection, lenacapavir, is going to market, with deals for generics and no-profit manufacture in several countries around the world, instead of only as an expensive brand name. Twice-yearly injections appears to be the schedule for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), and this could be a breakthrough that can finally put down the HIV/AIDS epidemic. What a day that will be, if we can get that virus to die off.

The 2025 version of the Gender Census is running, so if you are a person for whom the label of "man" or "woman" doesn't always apply at all times and in all cases, you are encouraged to take the survey.

The Archive of Our Own Ship Top 100 for 2025 is out, with secondary units involving top 100 F/F ships and the All Time Top 100 with this year's data added to it. Of note is an F/F ship breaking the top 5 for this year. (Also of note is a few comments complaining about how "Latino" is an ethnicity, not a race, and that it's overbroad, which are accurate things. It's also difficult to get any kind of ethnic or ethnic-allegorical data out of creators unless they want to volunteer it.)

Ozzy Osbourne, front singer for Black Sabbath and otherwise well-known heavy mtal man (and reality TV star), fully assumes the title of Prince of Darkness at 76 years of age.

No longer dancing the masochism tango or poisoning pigeons in the park, or letting us know about which of the various periodic elements have made it to Harvard University, Tom Lehrer, satirist, musician, and otherwise funny person, died at 97 years of age. And after music, mostly went on to teach mathematics, so faded a touch from the spotlight, just the way he wanted. If you're not familiar with his work, he released all of his songs, the sheet music, and the lyrics, to the public domain, so that we can all do whatever we'd like with them.

Chuck Mangione is now playing trumpet again with Dizzy Gillespie, having achieved 84 years of age.

Malcolm Jamal-Warner, most famously known for starring alongside Bill Cosby in a sitcom of Cosby's, has accidentally drowned at 54 years of age. Since then, he had gone on to be a Grammy-winning musician and an actor in several other shows, more than just the role he carried on the show, which, given what's happened with Bill Cosby, is probably the thing he will be better remembered for.

Terry Bollea, also known by his wrestling moniker "Hollywood Hogan," a heel who was instrumental to the storyline founding World Championship Wrestling's New World Order, has tapped out at 71 years of age. Hollywood Hogan would stay well associated with the professional wrestling circuit after his debut, as well as the McMahons that own most of the promotions at this point, and expressed himself routinely as a supporter of the current administration and their policies. Another character attributed to him, the face "Hulk Hogan," continues to live on in the memories of wrestling fans and those who enjoy movies where wrestlers take up acting careers, unsullied by any of the actions or attitudes taken on by similarly-named "Hollywood Hogan." The Hulkamaniacs are probably pretty happy that there's nothing more than can be done to corrupt their memories based on the actions of Hollywood Hogan.

( International decisions, domestic decisions, technology woes and wonders, and more, inside )

Last for tonight, five lego walker designs versus seven obstacles to navigate. It's interesting to see what designs do better against the various things put in their way.

The innate shallowness of decorating a space with books mostly by the look of the books, rather than because you are someone who has read many books and therefore your space is decorated with your own media selections.

And if you take a definition of humiliation as the forced recognition of domination and then apply it forward to both social and political situations and suddenly you have a really accurate blueprint for why certain things persist, even though it's clear that they are inefficient, they don't provide a lot of joy to the people who humiliate others, and they have lasting and terrible consequences for the people who are humiliated. And it also helps us think about how to build a society where humiliation is harder, less possible, and more strongly pushed back against by those who are more likely to be attacked.

(Materials via

adrian_turtle,

azurelunatic,

boxofdelights,

cmcmck,

conuly,

cosmolinguist,

elf,

finch,

firecat,

jadelennox,

jenett,

jjhunter,

kaberett,

lilysea,

oursin,

rydra_wong,

snowynight,

sonia,

the_future_modernes,

thewayne,

umadoshi,

vass, the

meta_warehouse community,

little_details, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: The Wurzels - Tubthumping

[vid]: Million Sides (Gurathin) - Murderbot

kuwdora

Friday, August 1st, 2025 07:15 pm

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Tags:

Ask a Manager: Pronouns in Email Signatures

minoanmiss

agonyaunt

Thursday, July 31st, 2025 10:37 am

( Read more... )

Current Mood: curious

Two letters with easy, easy answers

conuly

agonyaunt

Wednesday, July 30th, 2025 08:28 am

1. Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband “Chad” and I have a 4-year-old son, “Lane.” Recently for his birthday, my parents gifted him a set of Winnie-the-Pooh books. It’s been a tradition in my family for the last three generations for kids to read these books. But my husband won’t let my son have them.

He says doesn’t want Lane to read them because he insists that Winnie-the-Pooh is for girls. I’ve never heard anything so stupid! How can I make him understand that Pooh is a character that has been beloved by both boys and girls alike for nearly a century now?

—Much Ado About Pooh

( Read more... )

****

2. Dear Care and Feeding,

My wife “Carla” and I have a 3-year-old son, “Andy.” Andy became a big brother last month when we had our daughter, “Isabelle.” Andy had been reliably potty-trained for four months before Isabelle was born, but within days of bringing Isabelle home from the hospital, Andy began having accidents. Carla’s solution has been to put him back in pull-ups. I don’t think allowing him to regress like this is a wise idea. She says to let him do it for the time being if it makes him feel better. It seems to me that taking a firm approach (making him go back to using the toilet or face punishment) would be in his best interest. Who is right?

—We’re Not Going Backward

( Read more... )