Interesting— growing up in California, I feel differently. I’ve never seen a tornado before but I think I’d be way more spooked by that than an earthquake. But I’ve been through plenty of earthquakes, including in the middle of the night when they woke me up, so they don’t really phase me. The only scary thing is that, unlike weather, you don’t know they’re coming. But they’re also over pretty quick (usually).

This is mine too. I was six and lived in San Jose also. I don’t remember the earthquake itself but I have very vivid memories of the rest of the day, talking to neighbors, cooking dinner with the propane camp stove, candles, and hazy TV after midnight when the power finally came back on.

I’m confused as to why thinner knits would be more office appropriate than thicker knits. What’s the difference? I think what matters more is pattern (no explicit colorwork, no super-open lace that leaves little to the imagination, etc.). It sounds like your office is pretty casual so I’d imagine that no one will bat an eye at what you’re wearing as long as it isn’t flashing too much skin and doesn’t have swear words or whatnot on it. I have a bulky-weight sweater, the popular one with owls on it, and I’d wear it to the office in a heartbeat if I still worked in one.

Also, never underestimate the value of a good cardigan, perhaps with a shawl collar, in an office where men control the thermostat.

Honestly I knew the rest of the country was gonna disappoint me but the way the props went was a hit to my thoughts about my fellow Californians.

Thankfully I don’t use any of these except Shopify, which I can’t really avoid since so many non-Amazon businesses use them.

That’s funny; my thigh hair is so thin I don’t even bother, even in the summer. Meanwhile my calf hair is darker and more obvious so that’s what I shave.

Less than two weeks for me! I used to floss really regularly but for some reason I dropped the habit a few years ago. I just went to the dentist a week and a half ago, and since he mentioned it, I thought, yeah, let’s pick it back up and try to reset the habit. I already hate the feel of not flossing after brushing; it just feels so much cleaner! Can’t believe I ever dropped it. I must have been going through a spell of exhaustion.

You think some of the right-wingers who decry climate change will adopt EVs via Tesla since Elon sucks up to their guy now?

It’s an old ass instrument so it had the name long before tape recorders. As for other kind of recording, Wikipedia says:

The instrument name recorder derives from the Latin recordārī (to call to mind, remember, recollect), by way of Middle-French recorder(before 1349; to remember, to learn by heart, repeat, relate, recite, play music) and its derivative recordeur (c. 1395; one who retells, a minstrel). The association between the various, seemingly-disparate, meanings of recorder can be attributed to the role of the medieval jongleur in learning poems by heart and later reciting them, sometimes with musical accompaniment.

I was a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit against a huge company. It was so rigged. The judge had overseen the class action lawsuit that we opted out of and acted like we were ungrateful little shits. But never in front of the jury; in front of the jury, he was all perfect law and order. But when they weren’t there, he was so obviously biased. I lost basically all faith in our justice system (USA). And I only had money on the line; for someone in a criminal case, it would be sooo much worse.

They still buckle a bit unfortunately, unless they’re a full-on sports bra that is squashing them as hard as possible and giving me the monoboob look. I’ve also found that a properly fitted bra that has the wire for structure actually makes me look slimmer overall, probably because my band size is actually on the narrower side. So I’ll occasionally wear the one non-wire bra I have when I don’t care as much about it looking good under my clothes. But even then, when it buckles on the side, the bra still kind of sticks out under my arms so it’s still uncomfortable.

We just did. Only reason it took this long is because it auto-renewed this time last year for a year slightly ahead of when we thought it was gonna do that. Oops.

I think underwire is more important the larger your breast volume is. I was recently at an event with a bunch of women who’ve known each other for a long time and we did a game where an emcee asked a question and then we went to a side of the room that fit our personal answer. One of them was 1) underwire, 2) no wire, 3) no bra. As I shuffled over to the underwire side, one of my pals joked that this was just a way to separate us by breast size. And sure enough, those of us with the wires tended to be on the heavier-cupped side, and the small number of no-bra ladies were quite petite.

I tried bralettes once and they didn’t work for me at all. I’m too big for them to provide any support so they just buckled, essentially. It’s a bummer because some of them are so cute! But my girls are just too heavy. And the only thing that keeps them in line is the damn wire. I will say that being fitted correctly does help the wire feel more comfortable though.

What’s your budget? I’ve been looking into ropes course kinds of things for my kids, basically slack lines that you can add stuff to. I think if you search for ninja line you’ll get hits.

My daughter lost her first tooth at age 6. We made the swap while she was sleeping, no problem. When I woke her up for school the next morning, I asked her about the tooth fairy, and she excitedly found the money under her pillow. She spent about ten seconds being excited before she looked at me straight in the eye and said suspiciously, “Mom, are you the tooth fairy?” Busted, lol. We still reward her when she loses a tooth because it’s fun. It took her another year to come to terms with Santa, though.

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.

Just woke up hungover and realized she forgot to take her makeup off last night

I love Barn Owls too, but you gotta admit, they’re a bit scary looking and very scary sounding.

Speaking of which: I recently read a book that was a bit gothic in style, and the author described the character walking through the woods and hearing a screech owl. I immediately wondered if the author actually knew what a screech owl sounds like. My fellow owl enthusiasts, what do you think? Do you think she was imagining a Barn Owl sound but didn’t realize that screech owls don’t make that sound?

I did that once. I like to think I’m relatively smart, but I honestly did not know the difference. Our floor was very clean afterwards.