I have a bleg. Our kids do not like having friends over, in general. They'd rather go to friends' houses. Ace is having a sleepover and it's going mediocre, per usual.
Do other parents actually do something fun that I'm not doing, to set the stage at other kids' houses? Like provide a bacchanalian atmosphere in some way, or play with the kids, or have activities on hand? My kids are generally able to entertain themselves without my help, and I don't remember my parents lifting much of a finger when I had a friend over.
(Obviously if it's a birthday party, parents do extra things. This is just a boring ordinary "hey can so-n-so come over tonight?")
I don't want to have to plan anything, so I'd probably just agree with them that we're not the having-friends-over sorts of people.
Mine aren't that old yet but I am also the mom that does NOT plan activities for playdates and yet the kids still have fun. Put on a movie if they're bored at the sleepover.
Nobody but me in this house likes to have people who aren't us in the house, so I don't know. When I was a kid and had friends over, we had Lego fights.
You need to have a rule about not a big brick and throwing it.
Still in Estonia. Could offer extra vowels for the impending sleepover, but that probably wouldn't help.
Isn't the key ingredient for an exciting memorable sleepover that the the parents are away?
I would guess that for your family, it's not that you're not fun, it's the siblings. That is, adding one more kid to a group of four doesn't change the dynamic that much, so even with a friend over, it's mostly just a regular night at home. Going to a friend's house, if they're a family of one or two kids, having a friend over is innately a bigger deal just because of the numbers.
I can make 8 happen.
9 could be it, plus the host-kid can't slip off and be by themselves. A few of our most common guests do come from families with 4+ kids (Ace's friend comes from a family of 5 kids) but those families are super zero rules families. I don't know how that plays out during a sleepover exactly though.
One more gripe!! Hawaii is 13. This is when you're supposed to have terrible habits that you'll later outgrow. I get that objectively, but the practice is making my skin crawl.
She has a habit of perfectionist-procrastinating. Like "I care about these auditions so much that I cannot bring myself to practice on my own and I'm more in control of my failure if I don't try." She used to practice dance at home by herself all the time! but when the stakes are high, she stops.
She asked if she could try out for a private dance troupe. We said ok. They held a class last night to learn the dance and then sent out the video so you could practice at home. The audition is at 2, and as of 10 am, she's still in bed, and brushing off our light inquiries about helping or getting the rest of the kids out of the house for her. Aaaaaaaugh! I am internalizing all of her stress. This is killing me to let the minutes pass when she still has time to practice, if she would get with it.
(Breathe, 13 year olds need to experience consequences, this is how 13 year olds learn, etc.)
And another thing!
Sometimes when I use the blender, it gets a nice self-churn going. Other times I have to stop and stir it constantly and I can't ever get the self-churn to kick in. All I can think to vary is the amount of liquid. What are the other variables available to tinker with? what am I missing?
I am internalizing all of her stress. This is killing me to let the minutes pass when she still has time to practice, if she would get with it.
This, regarding Elke, is my most likely cause of death in the next 5 years. I honestly don't know how my parents lived with me and all my procrastination-driven failures.
For what it's worth, Hawaii did get in motion and I'm so relieved.
You have a weird name for your blender.
add more liquid to achieve vortex in the whizzer, unless the smallness of volume is the issue. worth getting an insert if your model has one for achieving vortex with smaller amounts when a stick whizzer won't do.
re: perfectionist procrastination, only idea i can offer, likely not helpful but it worked for us, is discuss the whole dynamic with her calmly and generously ***when it is not happening, not on the horizon, not even a thing in anyone's mind*** treating it as this dynamic that you, you you you, see happening - does she feel like you are seeing anything that rings a bell? self-deprecating humour very helpful! a history of having turned this same gently analytical gaze on yourself within your child's awareness helps! you've got to hold yourself to the discipline of dropping it in a hot second if it goes south. and you can say you are dropping it because the last thing you want to do is be unhelpful - only if you mean it. as for substance, the kid was open in this context to the idea that it's the back of your brain that does so much of the useful work, you just need to feed it the material and *walk away* to rest, do something else, then come back, etc. short and with breaks to begin with, and not getting to long and frenzied.
on sleepovers, not much of a clue other than that we were the family with odd ball fun music and movies and the best food so that tended to attract kids and regularly parents too.
i have a longing to learn how to ice skate because it is the kind of thing i like - hard, technique heavy and you can do it alone - but i am discouraged by the indoor nature of it here in sf because the prevalence of the virus just seems fucking unending. i am reserving all my risky exposures (indoors unmasked yuck) for client work that i cannot avoid. we did manage an honest to goodness vacation! can highly recommend the non-glamorous parts of sardinia and of course paris was lovely although involved quite a bit of client stuff tbh. interesting client stuff but faaaar more time in the 1st and 8th than i would otherwise spend.
any thoughts out there on u.s. people getting a doctorate in germany? the kid is starting to think about post-ucb.
So, the thing about ice is it hurts more when you fall on it if you are old.
18: is it socially unacceptable for you to wear masks at work? I am applying for a job with the state that is hybrid. I think it's mostly remote (the interview is for sure) but the onboarding is in person. Working for a hospital, I wear a mask at work, but I. Worry I would be ostracized for wearing one at a regular office job.
I'm all about the social grace. But still, the last time I went skating, when I was still early-40s, it really was painful.
When I had an office job with the state, none of us wore masks. But that was last millennium.
Damnit. Hawaii did end up busting her ass to practice for a few hours, and I was so proud of her. But the results just came out and she didn't make the team, and now I'm all self-churned about that. You want your kids to get the pay-off when they put in the effort! I still think she's a good dancer, at least.
i am remote with cases this high although also bc i am still traveling for clients, so don't go to the office when not traveling but work from home. mostly bc better half has dodgy kidneys so try to keep exposure low - have to travel, don't have to go to office. but in my office there would be no push back against wearing a mask.
i am sorry about the result heebie but also remembering that was about the age the kid got off the insane russian ballet whirly gig & took up more congenial, lifelong type dance pursuits involving a noticeably less ambient mental ill health so maybe sanity beckons for hawaii?
Turning and turning in the wretched blender
The liquid does not heed the liquefier;
Things fall apart; the self-churn does not hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the kitchen,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
And heebie has to stop and stir.
22: I am one of very few wearing a mask at my office. No one has said anything to me about it, but then hardly anyone says anything more than hi or good morning to me anyway.
I'm the only one who goes into our office, so no one talks to me. Since June 2021, I have drank five of those water cooler bottles of water.
And I now have COVID - rapid test plus symptoms. First time ever.
On Thursday I went to a movie, and on Friday with friends to a museum evening event followed by a couple of bars. And then Saturday I went to an event to pre-campaign for office. All of these events were outdoor, except the movie (about six people in the audience), but I shudder to think how many people I might have exposed.
On the plus side, my symptoms are mild; a fever got worse up to midnight, better thereafter. And further, my returned obesity qualifies me for Paxlovid, which might make me right as rain in a few days; it'll be hand-delivered tonight.
Hope you feel better soon. I did canvassing Saturday and the starting meeting had that fifty people, only two with masks.
30: Ugh, what a bummer. Were you masked during the movie? Do you think that's where you got it or at one of the outdoor events when you were close to somebody?
32: Impossible to say. I had a soda and was mostly unmasked, unfortunately. It could also have been the plane ride less than 2 weeks before. Also one of the outdoor bars was jammed between tall buildings so maybe not the ventilation one expects in the outdoors.
The local news says we're back to being a high case area, but the poop-o-meter doesn't look alarming. I'm thinking that as the college students come back from all over the world, it's going to be a bad fall. But right now doesn't seem bad.
Sorry you're sick, Minivet!
We've rather unexpectedly become dog fosters. Unexpected because I've never been a dog person, but this was my idea. I like dogs but didn't ever want to have to build my schedule around their needs and just found cats so much easier. But our local shelters are jammed (no kill city + hard economic times) and I've been sitting in my house for 2.5 years, so why not help out? Plus I've watched way too much rescue porn on The Dodo.
So we've got this sweet 9-year-old, 70 lb. pit bull with separation anxiety. We're keeping him apart from the cats for the first few days, but he's lived with cats before and we're hoping for the best when they're introduced.
I have a question about no-kill shelters. It seems pretty obvious to me that they can only work because other shelters do kill. But I haven't run the numbers on extra dogs, so maybe what I think is obvious is just wrong.
I think they work because they work really hard at getting community members to foster animals.
I think it varies a lot from place to place based on people's attitudes toward animals and their population dynamics. For reasons that I don't quite understand, dogs are scarce and valuable in (urban) Alaska and they tend to get adopted very quickly out of the shelters. Cats, on the other hand, are numerous and the shelters are constantly trying to get people to adopt them.
For reasons that I don't quite understand, dogs are scarce and valuable in (urban) Alaska and they tend to get adopted very quickly out of the shelters.
Sledding? Dog fighting?
Mushing is definitely a thing and probably has some effect on the dynamics. What I don't get is why there aren't lots of stray dogs around like there are lots of other places.
Including rural Alaska, so it's not just about ecological conditions.
There are even groups that do occasional roundups of dogs in the villages to be adopted in Anchorage. Alaskans just really like dogs I guess.
40: More predators than in the lower 48?
43: That's what I thought at first (that and the cold). But since it doesn't affect cats or rural communities I think it actually is about human attitudes and values.
Maybe cats are too fast for the calories?
She died on the same day as David McCullough, who had a much smaller role in "Grease".
You aren't supposed to eat cat livers, but wolves can't read so that's probably not it.
I have a question about no-kill shelters. It seems pretty obvious to me that they can only work because other shelters do kill. But I haven't run the numbers on extra dogs, so maybe what I think is obvious is just wrong.
Yeah, heebie's right that they (and the other shelters in town) have a huge foster network. This particular shelter also takes in a lot of dogs from kill shelters in other parts of Texas. And animals, especially dogs, get shipped to more northern states for adoption because Texas is stupid and doesn't have spay or neuter laws. Forced birth for all species!
I guess I'll have to stop blaming Michael Vick for the fact that all the shelter dogs are pit bulls.
I want to rescue a Treeing Walker, but all they have are pit bulls.
38: It's because dogs in Alaska get in touch with their Inner Wolf and run away to live the free life of the UberDog.
Haven't any of you read Call of the Wild?
Is that the one where he dies because he builds a fire under a tree?
No, but 53 presents another, much more horrific explanation for 38: the dogs are being used as emergency disposable handwarmers.
Maybe not even in emergencies only.
54: Isn't Alaska where the expression "Three Dog Night" came from? This may be an even better explanation.
52: I suppose that's a possibility. It did happen with a lot of the reindeer.
56: I don't think it is. Huskies are actually selected for mushing based on how well they retain heat.
You can calculate that very easily if you assume a spherical dog.
Inside a spherical dog it's too warm to freeze.
Just to make everything super fucking explicit.
Well this has certainly improved my mood today. Quote:
A source who was at Mar-a-Lago at the time of the FBI raid told The Post that it was "like the scene of a Die Hard movie" as armored cars came screeching up to the Florida resort Monday morning and "at least 100" FBI agents charged into Trump's home.
In order to stay on topic, I talked about the news in 61 in terms of how it made me feel.
Josh Marshall makes an interesting point.
But what jumped out to me was the total absence of an[y] reports in the big national news orgs. They seem to have been totally in dark until Trump's announcement.
Nobody is leaking. That suggests a level of investigative gravity that was entirely absent from, say, Whitewater.
61: I'm a little surprised at how uniformly Republicans have gone to Defcon V over this--not just the total frothers. I guess I should not be. Less surprised out how much "straight" coverage of that outrage there is in the media. Just stringing together the quotes of outrage. For instance this NYT article headlined: "Republican governors criticize the Mar-a-Lago search as 'unprecedented' and 'un-American'" I know it does not matter, but maybe at least point out the very different stances all of these folks took on other notorious matters of former government officials and classified info*. Nor did the press choose to highlight that perspective at those times either (I can flog this dead horse forever, just watch). Of course that FBI director was appointed by a member of the same party... oh, wait...
65.* Meant to add that although we don't know in either case exactly what type of info is involved but the known HRC ones were generally *media* articles that became classified when a government official relayed them (because it in some sense might confirm the info in the article**) while there have been reports of there being very highly classified info at Mar-A-Lago (to be fair I know of no evidence that DJT circulated his stuff).
**My guess is that when this is finally known most will be of this type--also a lot of stuff classified later.
Previously when Andrew Yang showed his ass it was in relatively novel ways. Now that he's on Third Way 2.0 or whatever this new party is supposed to be, he's joining the same old bothsiders' chorus.
It's amazing that certain things are a clarion call for both-sider asses to show their asses. IN addition to Yang. this one has Meagan Mc (I guess no surprise there), Yascha Mounk, Andrew Cuomo and many ore whose names are escaping me. (In addition to almost all Rs).