The library lends e-books, I have had good luck with their selections. I try not to buy books and still end up with more of them than I want. Mostly because I like graphic novels on paper.

Where I am, strays are usually catch, sterilize, release. But if you caught a cat who was sick they’d treat it, and lots of cats end up at the shelter because people don’t fix their pet cat in time, and they get pregnant (even if you are responsible - we had a brother sister pair and I asked the vet what she would he fix them, he said “6 months”, I asked but when can they get pregnant? “4 months”. Thankfully it didn’t happen, they were fixed and lived long kitten free lives).

And pets, if someone gets sick and can’t care for them they get surrendered.

The long arm of the paw!

Yeah I had acupuncture to induce labor with one of my kids, the water had broken and I was “on the clock” so the midwife called an acupuncturist and they did some sort of electrified needles and it absolutely did work, and is apparently as effective as pitocin, or slightly more so. It was an unsettling feeling to get acupuncture done to induce pain.

They’re not spread out like churches though. Here, it might work, we have an insane # of churches per capita and a lot of homeless, but what about LA? No way there are as many churches as homeless there. Same with houses, as someone suggests upthread. There are few vacant spaces here and many who need homes but in any state beginning with the letter I maybe there are thousands of homes and few homeless because they would freeze to death in the winter.

This looks like you did ok, I would check the prices on dried beans, those are usually cheap and a nutritional powerhouse. I strongly dislike the junk food you bought (personally) but don’t think it’s blowing up your budget. I make bread instead of buying it but that’s because I like fancy bread.

Overall - if you are vegetarian not vegan, I think eggs, dry beans, brown rice, tomato paste would be good additions and I will add my voice to the chorus expressing dismay at your choice of canned green beans. If you are underweight, nuts too - expensive but so good and so many calories, healthy fat and protein.

If you are up north, it’s a good time to start some seeds indoors, grow something you like to eat, if you are like me in a warm place, can start them outdoors now.

And I do think you did OK.

Our dryer does this to us:

Put clothes in, start it - it estimates 35 units of time. Come back in 15 minutes to check, it says 15 units left. Come back in 15 minutes, it now says 21 units left.

I am, like all of us, unsure of the fundamental nature of time. But the dryer even more so. The units are not one standard length, and they don’t move always in the same direction.

There was an escaped monkey in St, Pete (FL) and for years it escaped capture because people would call to report it but never until it was safely gone. People would see it crossing 19 (think of the highway in the matrix but add stoplights and school buses, and yes, a monkey playing frogger).

Cornelius, I name you honorary cat.

We’ve never had Spectrum and they relentlessly woo us as well. When we ignored the mailings, they started sending them in Spanish, as though they thought we simply couldn’t understand them. Like nobody could possibly resist them if they could read the advertisements, right? Waiting to see what they try next.

The long arm of the paw!

My brothers were swimmers and skinny and small (and really fast, won national titles) and that combination of young, male, and active does create a black hole of metabolism. I also had a friend who was 6’6" and 140lb but healthy too, poet not athlete. He ate, it’s just hard to eat enough to fund that much height.

The model though, that’s an aesthetic choice not an aspirational body type. Androgynous and otherworldly is what I think they are going for. It’s not mainstream attractive, certainly.

No, it’s rolled up in a way that prevents it being opened neatly. I do use scissors on the Red Hot Blues tortilla chips, those have a similar problem but the shape of the bag allows it to be cut cleanly.

I do move it into glass jars, but those bags drive me crazy. Always spill flour opening them.

They need to talk to the people who make flour bags. Those paper bags glued shut with the strongest glue known to man, so that they are impossible to open without tearing a big hole in the bag, rendering it impossible to store the flour in.

Kimchi in a crescent loaf.

“Like you would make it for your grandma” usually works for me. But not if it’s the whole order, only if I am trying to get one item really spicy.

Once at an Indian buffet, the owner had okra out & I was so happy, love okra but he kept warning me off it - “no, no, it’s spicy” and I was like “Great!” and he would say “no, no, I mean it’s spicy” he really was worried.

Nope. It was not. Like, some perceptible heat, sure. But nothing anyone would consider too spicy. Like medium taco bell packet of hot sauce spicy. I was so disappointed after all the warnings!

I will miss my manual transmission car. What do you not understand? I have a Honda Accord and the manual is what made it actually fun to drive. Feels so much more like driving, more engaged with what I am doing. Even my kid who resisted learning to drive it now always wants to take my car everywhere. This is likely my last gas powered car, a 2014 I bought new, but yes I love driving a manual shift car, never have I bought an automatic. Also clutch & manual gearbox so much cheaper to fix. When the automatic transmission fails, the car is basically totalled, and it will fail eventually.

I will miss my beloved manual shift car, yes.

Yes and the glorious “playing near you” feature of Play Music. That made the best recommendations for local shows, and I mean local, within a few miles, not just bands I’d listened to but always relevant and often small shows! That feature, I found several new bands I liked that way and good live music. YouTube has nothing like that. Also interface not as intuitive, more cluttered. My kids like it better because they do like having the videos available, but as I do not give a fuck about that but do like live music this is still not as good as the Play Music.

Exactly. Not fruit punch. I try to make something complex, with some bitter, some sour, some sweet. Young pineapple tepache or ginger beer, before they get at all boozy are good if you aren’t serving actual recently recovering alcoholics as they are non-intoxicating and delicious and complex. Grapefruit juice non alcoholic cocktails are also good and complex.

Chinotto soda or Malta can also be good adult choices for a party.

Usually even the drinkers at a party like the non alcoholic fancy drinks. And Diet Coke is always popular too.

Alcohol abuse absolutely affects everyone around you. We had a friend who used to say “there is no problem in the world that can’t be made worse with alcohol!”

Even setting aside things like car crashes under the influence and violence under the influence - lost days at work affect your coworkers, hung over parent who can’t help out, alcohol abuse harms others, not just the abuser.