Splurge Monday’s Workwear Report: Classic Flap-Pocket Blazer

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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.

The blue color of this blazer is really lovely, and the cut looks super flattering. The pink pants it’s pictured with are maybe a bit much for a conservative office, but I don’t hate it! I would probably wear this with navy or gray pants or over a black sheath.

The blazer is $213, marked down from $795, and available in sizes 2–12. Classic Flap-Pocket Blazer

A plus-size blazer in a very similar shade of blue is from Gibson; it's $98 at Nordstrom.

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Sales of note for 1/31/25:

  • Ann Taylor – Suiting Event – 30% off suiting + 30% off tops
  • Nordstrom – Cashmere on sale; AllSaints, Free People, Nike, Tory Burch, and Vince up to 60%; beauty deals up to 25% off
  • Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + extra 20 off your $100+ purchase
  • Boden – 15% off new season styles
  • Eloquii – 60% off 100s of styles
  • J.Crew – Up to 40% off winter layers
  • J.Crew Factory – 50% off sweaters and pants
  • Rothy's – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
  • Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
  • Talbots – End of season clearance, extra 70% off markdown tops + extra 60% off all other markdowns

And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!

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429 Comments

  1. Hi ladies, for those of you in the legal field, any chance might have an interest in anonymously sharing your career path with law students?

    During quarantine, I’ve been working on a website geared for law students to interview senior lawyers and partners about their money insights, career path, and their current job/what’s next. I’d also be happy to share the list of questions. Email is winteriscoming1935 at the google mail service.

    1. Can you tell us more about your website/qualifications? Who are these students and how will they be matched?

    2. Are you looking for interesting stories? I think many have a very standard story. I know I dont have much to share.

      Law school –> clerkship –> big firm –> gain expertise –> practice in firm or in house

      I dont have any money insights except that lawyers are generally paid well.

      1. For you, are you doing litigation or transactional work? I thought I’d be a litigator from doing prior clerkships but do transactional work (and some regulatory work that can be administrative litigation, but not going-to-court litigation). I thought it was overall very helpful nevertheless and have found some people who have gone the transactional route.

      2. I disagree with your last paragraph, lawyers are generally not paid well. Lawyers who follow a similar path that you did are paid well but that’s not the majority of lawyers. At all.

        1. +1, I was only at biglaw for a year and have yet to match the salary I made that year since I left for public service 12 years ago, or honestly even come close. I definitely do not consider myself “paid well.”

          1. I graduated at the depth of the recession and never made big firm money because big firms were not hiring. I’m in public service and do OK for my area, but nowhere near big firm salary.

  2. Airbnb – fall Europe reservation update, with a twist….

    I asked a few days ago about Airbnb’s Covid cancellation policy (currently covering reservations only through mid July) in light of a September trip where our flight home had already been cancelled by the airline. The host had referred us to Airbnb management. I was able to get a full refund by messaging Airbnb and showing screenshots of the cancelled flight – yay right?

    In a very Gift of the Magi turn of events, a day later, United reinstated the cancelled flight home from Spain.

    So now we’re torn. Do we keep the trip – if it sticks, Europe should be remarkably light on tourist crowds this fall due to people not planning trips right now? – or abandon it on the grounds that it’s too unpredictable what will be open and accessible to tourist visitors in France and Spain come fall? We’re trying to follow the news on how both countries are lifting restrictions, and see for example we see things like “French nationals will be allowed to travel more than 60 miles from home starting in June.” So… not promising, but things are changing so quickly!

    We prefer trips that have a moderate amount of “classic tourist sightseeing” like museums or attractions, with a ton of time outdoors – biking around the countryside, winery tours, lingering at restaurants, etc. I say that so that if indoor museums etc are closed to visitors it wouldn’t be a dealbreaker… but if cafes are shut we’d be miserable.

    We are both low risk from a Covid perspective, are willing to wear masks where needed, and would be able to self-isolate and WFH when returning to the US.

    We were planning 6 nights in Provence and 4 nights in Barcelona, so travel within France and then crossing the border is relevant. WWYD?

    1. I think it’s just stupid to be planning international travel at the moment. It might be fine. It likely won’t. Go next year.

    2. I’d hold off due to all the uncertainties you mention such as the possibility of closed cafes. I’d also consider the slim chance that one or both of you could get sick and need treatment while overseas (perhaps do some research into what to do if you do get sick there/require medical assistance just in case). Could the hospitals reach capacity etc. Also I’m confused, do you think it’s necessary to self isolate when you get back but not when you arrive?

      1. OP here – We hadn’t considered doing so on arrival because we’ve been WFH and not seeing other people since mid-March, and both of our offices have gone WFH through fall at this point, so we consider the odds that we are secret asymptomatic carriers to be extremely low. Good point, though – some countries might require it.

        1. Honestly with the way case loads are rising in the U.S. and lowering in Europe you may be forced to quarantine when you arrive or Spain may have travel restrictions on certain countries.

    3. I wouldn’t travel to big cities like Barcelona, honestly. Not only may sights be closed, but daily logistics might be tricky. Hotel stays will likely look very different – I am hearing about no breakfast buffets, assigned time slots for breakfast etc. If you do AirBnB, then you need to get food in crowded city supermarkets etc. Restaurants and cafes may have capacity restrictions, so might be hard getting into?

      Personally, it would be not the relaxing/care-free holiday I’m looking for. You may be right about fewer tourists, but I don’t know that this would alleviate some of the logistical downsides for me.

      1. OP here – sigh, you’re probably right. We’d mentally written this trip off only to have a glimmer of hope given back unexpectedly… so it feels like we’re going through the (obviously frivolous but still disappointing) grieving process all over again at “re”-cancelling!

    4. I’d consider that if there is a second wave, both Spain and France could go back to their strict lockdown procedures. I had friends confined to their Airbnb in Spain for a week in March, only going out for groceries, before they got a flight home.

      1. I was thinking that any second wave would be in the fall (schools opening, maybe Thanksgiving travel), but I am now concerned that we won’t have that breather at all and will just be accellerating into the pandemic.

      2. oh that would indeed s-ck… ok y’all are convincing me this is and should remain something to reschedule for 2021!

    5. IDK — I think that the US may be reversing its progress (crossing fingers that the next week’s stats aren’t as sobering as I fear), so while I might have booked something prior to Memorial Day I’m planning to hunker down and maybe to a spur-of-the-moment car trip in July if we’re not going back to shelter-in-place by then.

    6. Barcelona is from today in phase 2 and in two weeks in phase 3 as the rest of the country. That means since this weekend all the museums are openend again controlling the numbers of people (and free), beaches opened to swim and restaurants giving service inside and outside now at 50% rate capacity and then 75%. Sagrada Familia will open 4th July.
      Spain is forbiding movement between different regions until 21st June, France is finishing the prohibition before.
      From 1st July EU inside borders will be opened (Schengen territory) that will mean no problem to go from France to Spain. Then, your only problem is when are going to be opened the international borders for tourism without quarantine. Right now EU is trying to agree a common policiy to open borders.
      Regarding an autum second wave, fortunatelly, now all the health resources are in place.
      Let me know if you need any update.

    7. I would definitely not go. We go every single year to visit DH’s family. My SIL is a doctor so we are well positioned to be familiar with all restrictions/changes and we are not going. There will be a second wave at some point and it may be somewhat of a rolling wave with some areas much worse affected than others depending on how different countries tact to the second wave. It is hard to know which areas will be hardest hit in the second wave but high tourism locations are obviously likely candidates.

      If travel starts to be allowed, I don’t think places will be much less busy as there will be many many more Europeans staying home and travelling in Europe this year. The same way a lot of Americans are doing staycations.

      We’ve gone every year for the last 17 years but we are not going this year.

    8. maybe i just have a different risk tolerance, or find different things enjoyable – but i personally have zero interest in going on what is likely an expensive vacation without being able to have the full experience and being able to relax. i wouldn’t want to worry the whole time about getting covid, plus what if you get sick while you are there. just doesn’t sound worth it to me, even though i am sure it is disappointing not to go

      1. OP here – the worst part is that because we planned so far in advance, we got great deals – our total for airfare was $800 and our total for 10 nights at whole-apt airbnbs was $1700. So it was shaping up to be a very cost-effective trip! That said, if there’s nothing to do while we’re there, would rather allocate that $2500 to the future.

        1. Such a bummer. Just chiming into say that my American girlfriend that lives in Spain says that they are refusing to expand testing and misreporting numbers to drive decisions about opening the economy. I have no way to verify whether or not that’s true, but the beaches will be full of Germans (she also works for a travel company) and you shouldn’t necessarily trust the Spanish numbers…

          1. I live in Spain too and what your friend is saying simply it is not true. Travel companies BTW are complayinig because Spain is being far more conservative regarding opening borders than the other european countries. Right now the only germans that are going to be allowed to come are from some specific landers to Balearic islands.

        2. I guess I’m the outlier here but I would go.

          I am about to work on planning one myself for the fall.

    9. My concern about going through the motions of rebooking everything for an international trip would be whether, if France and Spain are able to open up due to cases being way down by that time, those countries will still restrict travel from the US in the event the US still has widespread pockets of the virus due to not distancing the way these countries have. In short, my concern is less about whether you feel safe traveling to those destinations and more about whether those destinations feel safe having Americans travel to them, resulting in your vacation being cancelled for that reason.

    10. RE: fall travel: In today’s NYT, 511 epidemiologists report on what they are willing to do re: travel, staying at home, eating out, etc. 44% say they would be willing to travel by plane in the next 3-12 months. I think the problem is (in part) will you still enjoy the trip while being wary, will there be lockdowns in the fall, and will you be safe. I would save my money and go later, but that is me, and YMMV. link: https://www.amazon.com/Decorators-Lighting-150786ORB-Sconce-Rubbed/dp/B07NDD9PYM/ref=sr_1_14?dchild=1&keywords=wall+sconce+with+outlet+usb&qid=1591554357&sr=8-14

    11. We are low risk and don’t have any childcare until the fall, so we’re planning to go to Iceland for a month in July/August (they test everyone arriving at the airport for Covid). However I think Iceland is considerably more “open” than Spain or France. My concern with Spain and France would not be the Covid risk, but that you’ll get there and everything you want to do will be shut.

    12. My calculus would be: am I ok losing the money if I can’t go. Airbnb is being difficult (only giving credit unless specific circumstances), so If you can go, but things change such that you don’t want to, you might be out the money completely. If you’re ok with that, ride it out and see how things are. I’m too risk averse to travel internationally in the near future (mostly because things change so fast and quarantining would ruin any trip), but If you’re more risk tolerant, go for it!

  3. This is a heavy topic for Monday morning, but I am really trying to understand how “defund the police” policies work in practice, particularly with what Minneapolis has said this weekend. It sounds like many activists are in favor of reduced police funding with more money going toward upstream preventative programs, but in Minneapolis they want to totally get rid of the police and rebuild it.
    I understand and accept the problems getting us to this point, but what happens to all the crime when you don’t have a police department? Does that mean no one is writing speeding tickets or investigating crimes? Doesn’t that impact the entire justice system, and maybe that’s the point?
    I’m interested in learning more about this and what policy might look like in these communities. Appreciate any articles or sources that you’ve found helpful on this topic.

    1. I’ve been trying to learn more as well. From something I read, county police are often used instead in areas where defunding has happened, which isn’t ideal. Pod Save the People had a good episode on police reform, and Call Your Girlfriend had a really fascinating discussion with Mariame Kaba about abolitionism. I was really sceptical but the speaker made some really interesting points.

    2. For Minneapolis, google the Camden NJ police department. They essentially did the same thing- abolished the force and started over. Not perfect but has gone quite well.

    3. Honestly these plans don’t work in practice, people keep calling for social workers yet conveniently forget that the average career is a social worker is less than 10 years because they get burnt out from being assaulted by their clients so they quit and start another career. Defunding police really just means putting the burden of troubled communities onto other services. It also neglects huge portions of police work, the violent stuff is less than a fraction of a percent of what the average police officer does, these plans often don’t account for the other 99% of police duties like basic traffic control or accident management.

      1. “Defunding police really just means putting the burden of troubled communities onto other services.”

        Yes, and defunding the other services is how we got to putting all of the burden for community mental health, crisis response, etc., onto the police. I hope we can actually look at the whole system to figure out a solution.

        1. Yeah, that sentence you’ve quoted there is the entire point of defunding the police.

          1. Right, but unless that money goes back to the community orgs, it doesn’t solve anything. My state has cut taxes over and over and over again over the last 10 or so years. Now the police and any agencies that could handle crisis situations are woefully underfunded. That’s why I said we need to look at the whole system.

      2. That is a gross oversimplification of why social workers have such a high burn-out rate.

        1. I don’t think she has to write a book to make a point. We get it- factor in burnout.

          1. Social workers would have lower burnout rates, though, if community services were as well-resourced as police departments. They would be better paid, they would have appropriate levels of staffing leading to lower caseloads, and they would have more community resources with which they could connect their clients for aid. They would also have an easier time of it if police and prisons were not systemically targeting and harming the communities they are often working to support. Like anonymous at 10:18 notes, it requires looking at the whole system.

            So, I wasn’t asking for a book. I intended to note that bringing up that single, very charged factor in this conversation does not sit well with me. I’m not saying it’s not a problem–a social worker friend had a client throw a chair at her last year–but it is so far away from the biggest or most important reason for burnout in the field, that I feel like Anon at 9:42 cherry-picked it in an attempt to shut down conversation on a very common proposal.

          2. I lasted a whole summer in public interest law and realized that most of the problems I dealt with would never be solved and weren’t even mainly legal problems. I could not imagine beating my head against the wall for years.

            The one thing that I learned that I think is actually helpful is that expungements change lives and create untapped economic mobility which can help an individual and that individual’s family dramatically. They aren’t hard (legally) and many community legal orgs have clinics that will train you and match you with a person to help (expungement = clearing someone’s record of often low-level offenses that are old and cold; person can qualify for better employment and often schooling opportunities and licenses that may be restricted from those with prior unexpunged convictions). Could not recommend to this board highly enough — an actual legal fix for an actual legal problem.

    4. The cynic in me wonders if this is a way to get rid of the police officer’s union. Unions, by their nature, protect worker’s jobs. The officer in the George Floyd case had 17 complaints against him in a ~20 year career. This seems high to me (although I don’t know the average number of complaints in a 20 year police career). I don’t understand how he kept his job!

      1. I can tell you that basically all the other labor unions are constantly uneasy collaborating with police unions. They are the labor movement’s bad apples in more than one way.

        1. Yes, that’s what I’ve read as well. They are basically there to ensure police don’t face repercussions for bad behaviour rather than ensure safe working conditions.

        2. I have seen that many people who support unions in general oppose unions for public employees specifically.

          1. I think that the IRS is unionized — I’ve never really understood why that (vs something like coalminers or the skilled trades (pipefitters)).

          2. Yeah, I’m generally very supportive of unions, but I’m very opposed to public sector unions – there’s a big difference between public and private sector unions and that needs to be acknowledged.

          3. That’s a pretty broad sector though. Should teachers and letter carriers not have the basic right to unionize? Public hospital employees? Social workers?

          4. One way to make the distinction would be public workers with a legal monopoly. The state, and the police as part of the state, have a legal monopoly on force (no one else can arrest you). The IRS has a legal monopoly on income tax work. Teachers don’t have a legal monopoly on education (cf, private schools). I’m putting this out there as an idea and am curious on others’ critique.

          5. I support public sector unions, but there are grave issues with police unions that need urgent attention. My initial thought is that unions should be severely limited in their role to intervene or provide support in disciplinary action.

          6. I get that people like coalminers have legit safety concerns re their jobs (and maybe concerns like fairness with bosses and retaliation), and also health concerns re their jobs being deadly and needing good health and life insurance benefits in case they get sick or die.

            I can see unions representing that their members have been trained to a certain level of skills (electrians, etc.). Sort of like European trade unions.

            But I still don’t get the type of unions like CWA for public employees. Civil service protections are a thing, no? Like your boss can’t randomly fire you if you work for the road department, etc. And for a lot of jobs, you also can’t strike without really harming the public that pays you. I’m open to someone making a persuasive case to me b/c I can’t make it. I get how unions help as a negotiator of benefits and general rules, but my sense is also that they can make things less fair (it helps to know someone in the union if you want to get many types of jobs) and keep bad apples employed to all of the due-process rights b/w union contracts and general civil service protections.

          7. Teacher unions are really problematic too. My current view is that when it comes to police and teachers, the employees are just not the most vulnerable stakeholders. I don’t want teachers protected at the expense of school kids (and no one wants solutions like reassignment centers).

          8. Labor unions bargain for adequate compensation, including benefits. That’s their fundamental role. I want IRS caseworkers and teachers fairly compensated, just like coalminers. I had not heard about the reassignment center scandal, so I read a little about it now, and agree that some union contracts probably overshoot from ‘protecting employees against discriminatory disciplining’ into ‘preventing any accountability’.

          9. I think the argument is that public employees like teachers have other avenues to pursue adequate compensation and safe working conditions.

          10. I am a union lawyer, and deeply conflicted about police unions. I don’t have time or energy to go into those issues, but the ideas that there should be no public employee unions or that those employees have other adequate protections are simply wrong, IMO. Many public employees in fact are not protected by civil service laws, and in any event those regulations only deal with the most basic aspects of preventing certain unjust disciplinary actions. There are no other avenues for public employees to obtain workplace protection other than legislation, which is often inadequate and which obviously cannot be targeted to the specific needs of individual locations.

            These are just a few things I have seen or negotiated in public employee collective bargaining agreements:

            – Safety provisions for school and city bus drivers to protect against assault by riders/students/parents and for leave benefits when assaults occur.

            – Minimum staffing levels for firefighters and EMTs for their safety and the public’s and appropriate scheduling rules for firefighers whose shifts are days long.

            – Professional development and safety training for teachers and school public employees

            – Provisions for teachers on class size, aides, planning time and the like, to improve the quality of education and avoid burnout

            – Seniority rules for all types of workers, so they can choose their shifts, bus routes, work assignments, vacation time, etc. by seniority instead of some other system (or no system – including favoritism).

            – Wages and benefits, for just about everyone – those typically are NOT set by law.

    5. I am very skeptical too but I’m going to try to learn more. My main concern is whether there will be adequate ways to arrest and detain domestic abusers and violent criminals (assault, rape) without “police.” I already agree that many of the things that police do can be better accomplished through different roles, like social work.

      1. Yes, that was my immediate thought. But then I wonder how well the police are actually serving victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. It’s of course better than nothing but I think as a whole, a radical rethink might be necessary.

        1. Oh, I agree that the police are not serving the victims very well, but I still want to know how we are going to deal with the perpetrators. I also don’t agree that if we fix all problems in society, there will be no need for police at all because people will not commit crimes. I saw that claim on one more radical site and I don’t think I can agree with it

          1. Yeah I work in DV and I can tell you that we are a very, very very long way away from solving enough social problems to get rid of DV. Maybe generations away.

          2. Your label is correct, that is radical. I haven’t seen any legitimate official, nonprofit or public organizer suggest this. They want sweeping reform. I think the word dismantle is a poor choice. It’s more like a reorganization where new policies and leadership are put in place, new position descriptions with higher standards are established and existing police and new applicants have to apply.

        2. Yeah – this scares me a lot. Some of the posts I’ve seen from activists have portrayed scenarios like you see someone peering in the windows of cars on your block, you’re training in deescalation, and you confront him, and reach a non-violent resolution. That seems naive at best. And as a small, 5’2″ woman, terrifying – I would never feel comfortable confronting a man like that.

          1. I agree, and also, that sounds very much like neighborhood watches, which can be problematic, to say the least.

      2. I am also still learning about these proposals, but want to clarify here that the idea of defunding the police is generally about relieving them of their responsibility to respond to things OTHER than crimes. So instead of the police coming for a drug overdose, a homeless person with mental health issues, or a speeding ticket, you’d siphon off those responsibilities and use that funding for other groups to do the work. Therefore the police would ideally do a better job at responding quickly and properly to violent crime.

        Obviously there isn’t unanimity in the wide range of voices pushing for defunding, but I think it’s important to explain that many people aren’t looking at bringing funding and responsibility down to zero.

      3. I really encourage you to look into the job police are currently doing with these issues. It is not a good one.

      4. I’ve only seen articles try to address how it won’t cause a spike in violent crime— I haven’t seen any assertions it won’t cause a spike in non-violent crime (thefts, car break in and car theft, unarmed burglaries). That’s a big concern.

    6. I’ve just learned a lot about this from some friends who are much more active and have been for longer. It’s a discussion about the many different function of the police and potentially separating them out over different city departments. Here in Berkeley, 35% of the time, police respond to a mental health situation, while not being especially trained for it. If a 911 call could deploy a social worker instead, that might be a more effective response. It would also save money in the city budget. A lot of cities spend over a third of their entire budget on the police, and here, the police department is not forthcoming about how exactly they use this money.
      Another portion of police work is traffic enforcement. That could be done by unarmed experts in a separate department. In any scenario, there will be a police in the end dealing with crime, but they would have a well defined area of responsibility. Public pressure threatening the police budget is also leverage to reform police work, of course, such as banning choke holds, and getting more accountability into police union contracts.

      1. Some traffic work is already outsourced in Chicago. I don’t know if there are any metrics to measure how successful it has been. (These are the folks who, say, direct traffic through an intersection.) They definitely need more training – they get a 1/2 day course and are then plopped down in the middle of the street.

      2. I’m having trouble finding the link, but I believe there is a city in Oregon (Eugene? I don’t think it’s Portland) that is piloting having a team of designated mental health first responders for those calls, instead of police. If I’m remembering the article correctly, I believe that early signs have been promising.

        1. I think that this would be a great place to start. It would prevent situations like that horrifying video of cops yelling and pointing guns at a black man crawling face down with his hands up toward his autistic patient who was crying in a ball in the street screaming don’t shoot I’m his carer.

      3. Perhaps a naive question, but wouldn’t this decrease overall community trust in the police if they only ever showed up to handle the “bad” things? I certainly have a rosier glow of the police when I think about the officers I know by name who worked in my school growing up or who control traffic in my neighborhood now. This positive association makes me far more inclined to trust unknown officers when I need to engage with them in other situations. It seems like this would create a death spiral by which people only ever hate the police, then further restrict their funding / scope of control, then hate them more… etc.

        1. I know what you mean, but for a lot of people, that train has left the station a long time ago.

      4. How is a 911 operator supposed to make a judgment about who to send out in the middle of a crisis?

        That just seems like a recipe for disaster. First responders such as law enforcement should stay first responders. Not saying that we shouldn’t have other responders too, but getting rid of the first responders doesn’t seem ideal.

        1. I’m a prosecutor so I’ve listened to a few hundred 911 calls in my life. It’s very very hard to tell what’s going on and who needs to be sent out — often the person on the line is in distress and not responding to detailed questions. I would absolutely love for there to be mental health crises intervention teams and social workers to be available, but I don’t think 911 operators can make that call.

          1. But police are sent out for 311 calls as well. And for wellness checks (Rip Atatiana Jefferson). And for noise complaints (Rip Armando Garcia-Muro). And traffic accidents that need reports. And abandoned children. There already are and should be different numbers for different issues with 911 only reserved for real emergencies. I honestly don’t think 911 would have issues as much as you think they would and is not an excuse anyway for not offering appropriate services.

        2. We have this in our state and there is a separate 800 number people are supposed to call for the mental health crisis team. In reality, only people in the field (social workers, doctors) use it and everyone else still calls 911. The dispatchers do not do a great job of routing these calls to the mental health team. There are officers specifically trained to accompany this team though and once an officer is sent, they are supposed to call them in (and the social workers) if dispatch sent the wrong team. Not sure how well it is working but they’ve had this in place for several years now.

        3. Many times in cases like schizophrenia there have been repeat issues so the address is familiar to the police and they would know to alert the mental health first responder team. There is no perfect solution but there are a lot of options that are much better than the current situation.

    7. I happened upon a car accident this weekend. 3 cars. In at least 2 of the cars, airbags had deployed. It must have just happened, as no one else was there but the wrecked cars. People from them were outside in the road, yelling at each other and it seemed very fraught and contentious. I didn’t want to get out of my car but I called 911 in case no one else had yet. I think that if the ambulance had arrived first, they couldn’t easily render assistance as it looked like some of the people were about to fight each other. IDK what you do in that situation. The fire department actually arrived first (2 blocks from the station) and many of them are medic-trained, but they are not police either.

      1. See right there is a place for a traffic police responder where that’s his only job. A situation like this a POC could still fear for their lives. You see an argument with car crash participants. As soon as a cop shows up, that POC immediately has to become docile, keep their distance and not move their hands because of racist cop reflex to shoot. That is why we need reforms.

        1. IDK — when you may have injured people and fighting people, how to you separate and triage? Street justice is not justice, and I can see things spiraling. In my city, medic will not help if shots are being fired or there is active violence. And it’s a majority POC city so everyone has something to lose if your car accident becomes a melee or your head injury can’t be addressed promptly. People are angry when you hit their car and often make bad decisions under emotional stress especially if they are with a loved one who has been injured.

    8. Preface by saying I think disbandment and starting from scratch is probably the only real way to solve the massive systemic problems. Also, I’m not a lawyer, just a legal show fan.
      My assumption would be that they would either gradually disband as another new department is built, or ask another police department to take over temporarily (the state, Saint Paul police, etc). My questions are about ongoing cases and past cases. Does a disbandment call into question previous convictions? There is definitely an argument to be made that some of those convictions should be overturned, but is the justice system ready to handle that? How would you even evaluate what cases should be looked at? How far would you go back? The currently serving population sure, but what about people who are now out? What about current cases? You can’t just stop investigating rapes, sexual assaults, and other serious crimes, but if the police department disbands, are the current investigations going to have to be redone because evidence collected by the previous officers is now considered tainted?
      I think disbandment may be the right thing to do, and I will be very interested in watching what happens. Any plan for this should be made clear to the public (and hopefully with their input) as I think transparency is going to be key in gaining public support.

        1. My family lives in the Minneapolis area. My understanding (and I could be way off the mark so please correct me) is that the majority of the city council wants to defund with a goal disbanding the Minneapolis police department. I can see how putting more money into social systems and splitting duties of the police currently into different teams would help, but I’m curios to know if there are any legal precedents in disbanding the police, and what legal implications that might have.

          1. This was what stemmed my original question. I understand reducing department funding so that you can fund other programs that might be better equipped to handle the vast majority of “policing” issues. However, it sounds like those Minneapolis city council members mean totally trashing the department and starting over. I could be wrong as well, but that is how their statement read to me. That just seems totally unfeasible with a ton of implications that we can’t even imagine yet.

          2. Thanks for answering. I was curious as to whether you would be as willing to experiment in an area where you or family live.

            I am not near an area where it is being considered, and I’m glad. Happy to let others experiment and see what happens. I grew up in a high crime area and value public safety.

    9. I live in Minneapolis, in one of the neighborhoods that was affected by the arsons at the end of May. I’m a white woman – the neighborhood is about 60% white.

      When my husband heard someone breaking into our house and startled him away, the police didn’t come. They didn’t come when he heard someone an hour later trying to break into a neighbor’s house, either. Not like “they took a long time to come” but – just never showed up. Because there wasn’t a need to file an insurance claim, we didn’t persist in getting them to come out so we could file a report (they’d slit some screens to get onto our screened deck, but he disturbed them before they’d, say, broken our sliding french doors, which they were trying to get to just open). This happened a while ago, maybe five years?

      A few years before that, our next-door neighbor’s house was broken into during the day – she came home from grocery shopping and startled the thief inside their house. Obviously she called the police, who came quickly but of course the guy was long gone. They never caught him, and six months later, their house was broken into again, and of course they never caught whoever did that, either.

      A few weeks ago, there was someone going into withdrawal in a car outside our house. I could hear him on the phone with his mother, saying that he didn’t think he was safe to drive. He got out of the car, and I could see him shaking. My husband and I briefly talked about what to do, and we both immediately were like ‘well, not call 911, because they’ll just send the police, and they don’t deal well with this kind of thing.’

      Although I’ll admit this didn’t cross my mind, it’s also true that a white woman was killed by police responding to her 911 call a few years ago in a nearby neighborhood as well. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Justine_Damond)

      So: I already felt like the police weren’t really serving me or my community. And the cost/benefit of having them, when some unknowable percentage are doing things like unfairly targeting my black neighbors and sometimes KILLING them… I don’t see the value in continuing with our current system.

      1. I read that one of the obstacles to police reform in Minneapolis specifically has been retaliation in the form of deliberately slowed response times targeting districts that supported reform.

        1. When the mayor stopped the popular ‘Bulletproof warrior’ trainings through the police department (held in many police departments, originally developed to help soldiers kill more efficiently), the union decided to host them on their dime.

        2. That makes sense as you can only effectively police areas that respect it. Otherwise you are just putting officers in high risk, potentially violent situations to help people that don’t want to be helped. Could do more harm than good to try to police people that don’t want your presence or help.

          1. I just don’t think they get to pick and choose when they get help.

            When budgets are slashed, and there’s a limited amount of officers- they pick the order of response.

            Let’s suppose two equal calls with one unit available to respond- Are they going to help the people who from an area where the situation is more likely to escalate due to the lack of respect for law enforcement or they going to go to the area where they are supported?

            Limited resources equal limited responses and the victim doesn’t get to decide.

            I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s a factor.

          2. Anon@11.18, IF budgets are slashed, you do indeed need to prioritize. Across the country though, “State expenditures on corrections increased each year between 1982 and 2001, outpacing overall budget growth. On average, state spending for corrections increased by 141 percent between 1986 and 2013, while the average spending on higher education rose less than six percent.”
            copied from this analysis
            https://m.box.com/shared_item/https%3A%2F%2Fpopulardemocracy.box.com%2Fv%2FFreedomtoThrive

          3. Identical calls to identical problems come in at the same time all the time. That ‘s clearly not a ridiculous argument at all.

            /s

            If I wasn’t a supporter of defund the police before, this thread certainly made me one. Military style training and slowed response times on purpose? Unbelievable. good riddance to them.

          4. Two equally weighted calls in different areas is not uncommon or ridiculous. I didn’t say identical, but would two traffic accidents at the same time be unheard of?

          5. Corrections is not law enforcement. I would think you would want to spend money on corrections- rehabilitative programs and resources to reduce recidivism upon leaving prisons.

            Or do you think you should just lock them up and throw away the key with? Not enough officers to insure a safe prison environment, no resources, dismal conditions?

            Please research the conditions in Alabama prisons, and tell me that we don’t need to spend more on corrections. Inmates are humans too.

      2. I live in Minneapolis close to where everything happened as well. On the news last night, one of the city council members, admitted that the process would take a year. It’s not like you flip a switch and the police department is gone. Also, the mayor is not in favor. I am not sure how this will work. Something needs to be done though. Maybe the year long process will be good. We shall see…

      3. Not in Minneapolis but we live in a community with similar issues. The police simply do not come unless someone is seriously injured or dead. Home break-ins (unless you’re home), noninjury vehicle accidents, auto break-ins, outright auto theft (unless you’re carjacked), commercial break-ins or vandalism, street racing, shots fired, “down and out” homeless (even if they’re on someone’s private property or in a roadway) – they do not dispatch the police, you’re supposed to file a police report through the police website. Last year, in the neighborhood we had just moved out of (where we still have friends), some teenagers threw a massive party where crowds of partygoers shut the streets down. Police were called something like 150 times in an hour but did not show up until someone pulled out a gun and started shooting and a kid got killed. Our homicide clearance rate is abysmal and there have been multiple stories where people have reported persistent neighborhood crime, party/drug houses, harassment or stalking, or other ongoing problems over months and the police do absolutely nothing until someone gets seriously hurt or killed. I am sorry to say this but we are honestly not sure what the police do for our city, exactly. We had serious problems with police violence a few years ago, and as the police got subjected to criticism they basically disappeared from the streets. It’s rare to see them patrolling or pulling people over, even when drivers are endangering other people. We have a homeless problem, not as bad as some places but not great either, and police officers have gotten in trouble lately for pushing homeless people around without attempting to connect them to services or calling for transport if they have medical needs. What has happened in our city is people arming themselves because the police can’t be counted on. Crime is going down because so many attempted muggings, home invasions, carjackings etc. have been thwarted by armed citizens. That’s not the answer either and will result in tragedy eventually. I agree with the idea that the police are not serving our community and I don’t know what the alternative to a police department is but I think we should take a look at it.

        1. Sounds like a preview of what to come- police were criticized for over policing, backed down and stopped responding, and now are criticized for doing what the will of the people desires.

          1. Police are being asked to stop breaking the law. They’re not being asked to stop doing their job.

          2. I want to add that all the people urging defunding the police or for them to have limited responses may not realize that they don’t get to decide what police respond to.
            It turns into the police deciding what is safe for themselves to respond to and what is worth it.

            Is it worth it to put yourself at risk to respond to a large party of people with no respect for you when at the time there was no violence?

          3. That is why the system needs to be dismantled and rebuilt. Do you get the choice to stop doing your job because someone criticized you for doing it terribly? No!

            The fact that police can do that without repercussion is not a result of complaining it’s an issue in and of itself.

          4. I think “respect” is a really dangerous word to use surrounding issues of policing. I have heard officers use this word to defend violence, as if we would be safe from the police if we would just show the proper “respect” for the badge or for authorities in general. I think it feeds into the rage that some police feel when someone doesn’t respond to their commands (which has led to violence against people who never heard the commands because they are deaf, for example, or because they were experiencing diabetic crisis; this is common enough that there are statistics on it). I’ve heard countercultural fashion described as “disrespectful” and therefore worthy of suspicion (even in places where, demographically, countercultural fashion is most likely to indicate a coffee shop barista).

          5. “Sounds like a preview of what to come- police were criticized for over policing, backed down and stopped responding, and now are criticized for doing what the will of the people desires.”

            What we asked for was for the police to stop shooting people first and asking questions later. After the tenth person got killed for basically doing nothing other than being mentally ill in public, yes, there were strong criticisms of how the police were handling things. Criticisms I stand by. It is not okay to shoot unarmed people in the back. It’s not okay to shoot someone or stranglehold them to death because they asked questions instead of just submitting to arrest. It is not okay to show up to a house where a mentally ill person is having a crisis and shoot them before anyone gets to explain the situation or before the person is asked any questions. It’s not okay to raid a home, draw guns on the occupants that include small children, threaten people’s lives, and then realize belatedly that you were in the wrong house because someone gave the wrong address to the strike force. Those are all things that have happened in my city.

            If the choice is, we either let the police do whatever they want to do however they want to do it and stay silent, or we do away with the police, then let’s do away with the police. I do not want a bunch of people who are so damaged by criticism or inquiry that they just give up on doing their jobs out on the streets with guns. Being a police officer is a position of public trust and if someone can’t stand to have their actions questioned, or they can’t understand that yes, they will be under scrutiny by the public they serve, they shouldn’t be officers. And if we then can’t find enough officers to fill a force, it is time to look at other options.

          6. No. It’s not ok. That is clearly outside the scope of their jobs.

            Punish the bad actor, not the profession as a whole.

            And I hear you about the word respect. I don’t know what word to use.

          7. Condemning the profession as a whole is not going to attract qualified candidates to reform the system.

      4. Re: your final paragraph, check out the MPD’s dashboard of calls for service, use of force situations, etc. It’s very transparent and useful to better understand what MPD does and maybe why your calls haven’t risen to the top in terms of priority. Might have something to do with the fact they deal with close to 1K calls for service per day.

        I also have more general concerns about defunding police departments and traffic enforcement. I’ve worked in this realm for decades and while anyone can get a speeding ticket, risky individuals tend to be risky drivers. Approximately 10K people a year a killed by drunk or drug-impaired drivers. Heard of road rage? I read this last week that they estimate there are 312 M guns in circulation in this country. You never know when a traffic stop is going to be accompanied by a weapon. Don’t think there will be a lot of proactive traffic enforcement going on if social workers are out there keeping the peace – almost 35K people die in all manner of traffic crashes now, most preventable. Watch that number explode.

        1. We need alternative modes of transportation if we want to keep dangerous drivers off the road.

      5. Also in a city where the police were absent when called to the looting last weekend. I’m looking to move to a city that responded with a stronger police response, but it’s disheartening that even in more conservative cities the governments largely let it happen. If anyone feels like their city fairly successfully prevented looting and arson/arrested looters, I’m interested to hear what it is.

        1. I’m very late responding and not sure if you’ll see this, but I’m in the heart of downtown SLC and feel like I our law enforcement did a decent job responding. Last Saturday was out of control and scary but things have been much better since then. People are still protesting but it hasn’t really gotten out of hand since then.

    10. From what I’ve read it is not “get rid of the police” but rather break up the police into appropriate response units that are more highly tailored to the type of service needed and less likely to be violent or carry guns. This would expose fewer people to the steroidal rage cops that cause these killings. For example there have been at least a couple unarmed black men killed by a racist trigger happy cop when they called roadside assistance or were changing a tire. You don’t need a regular cop for that. Or having a social worker come out, possibly with a police escort that has special training in deescalation during a domestic violence call. Or having EMT psych unit come out when someone has been off their meds and is physical but has no weapon.

      There has also been strong talk about partial defunding and running weapons and other supplier contracts through the city procurement office to promote demilitarization of the police (the police do not need an Uzi for each office, a tank, or a vibrational weapon that can deafen and hemorrhage internal organs).

      There are also a lot of proposals of increasing training time and qualifications for all officers with special emphasis on deescalation, restraining, and human rights violations. With this have been recommendations on not hiring officers with previous misconduct records and improving protection for the good cops who don’t speak up for fear of retaliation.

      The reforms will solidify over time and largely make sense.
      I presume a lot will include officers reapplying for their old positions that have a much higher bar and the steroidal racist ragers will move on to lily white small towns with the low standards they can meet.

      1. This isn’t quite true – defund and reform are two different asks. Reform has been proven to not work (cops don’t follow rules already in place, body cam footage doesn’t help with convictions, and more) – so the ask is for the money to be completely divested from the police and invested in separate services (like social work, crisis response, and preventative resources like you mentioned). But those would exist outside of the police.

    11. I’d love a solution where the job requirements for police officers include a social work degree or psychology degree or similar and they receive use of force training vs the cure t tendency to favor military backgrounds and then provide inadequate training on mental health and de-escalation .

      1. I’ve also seen psychologists discussing the different kinds of support and training that other first responders receive to avoid “counter transference” and caretaker burnout that aren’t typically provided to police. I would not want to assume that suicide is always about mental health (sometimes it’s about avoiding consequences), but I feel persuaded that police aren’t adequately supported.

        1. I wasn’t thinking of suicide – when I said mental health I was more thinking of issues like autism and schizophrenia. there have been a few instances of non-verbal autistic people ending up in jail overnight as a result of being seen as belligerent or evasive by the police.

          I also think policies that required police forces to hire in a gender balanced way would help. Killer cops are not exclusively male but they are certainly predominately male.

      2. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but training is the first thing to go when funding is tight. So defunding does not help that.

    12. This instagram graphic is a great summary – all the sources are on the last slide.
      https://www.instagram.com/p/CBHGM5bDSUH/

      But short answer:
      – police aren’t actually solving a lot of crimes as-is (look into clearance rates for your area)
      – yes the whole system is inherently problematic (over-policing Black neighborhoods, heavier sentencing for Black people than white for the same crimes, the whole prison industrial complex)
      – the load on police (or whatever that group will be called moving forward) who will still need to respond to violent crimes is actually lessened – they aren’t responding to problems they can’t and shouldn’t be solving

    13. The concept is that social services will deal with drugs and homelessness rather than the police citing the low level offenses committed by individuals with those problems. The implementation problem is that social service cannot force anyone to do anything except in rare circumstances. The city ahead on this curve is San Francisco, where thus far the unhoused are living on the street wherever they can find a safe spot and the addicted are using the public library as a shooting gallery. The next step for San Francisco is to find enough housing and then ask the homeless to move. They have also asked permission to build safe galleries for addicts. It’s a long process and none of us know if it will work.

  4. Has anyone here done a second round of Accutane in their late 30’s/early 40’s? I did a course in my early 20’s for persistent but moderate hormonal acne (yay PCOS) which worked like a charm. My skin has been getting steadily worse over the last 2 years despite spironolactone/oodles of topicals/being babied like crazy. I am REALLY tired of the war chest of topicals/masks/pimple patches/drugs and the uncertainty of not knowing if I’m going to have a monster break out (especially fun when traveling for work!).
    My case isn’t ‘awful’ but hormonal acne is notoriously difficult to treat with topicals and birth control is off the table due to my age and serious migraines. I’m raising it with my derm in a week or so but would appreciate any first-hand accounts.

    1. This isn’t what you asked, but I personally would focus more on the PCOS and take the breakouts as a sign that it’s not under control. I found Lara Briden’s writings helpful at a time when my endocrinologist said that I was already doing better than her other PCOS patients and when my gynecologist said that birth control is the only treatment she can offer.

      1. Can you ever get PCOS fully under control? I was diagnosed late (after a lifetime of flagrant signs, but I digress)… in the midst of fertility treatments. I’ve put all of my energy into the fertility side of things and now want to figure out how to manage PCOS (acne, hair, weight) going forward. Just not sure what my expectations for success should be.

        1. I should add : went to a derm on Friday actually – working on acne treatment and talking about laser hair removal. I think it’s the weight that I’m just so in the dumps about any prospects of long-term success.

        2. I think there can be different underlying issues that contribute to PCOS, but I feel mostly asymptomatic now. Insulin resistance was a factor for me, so I had to take make significant diet and lifestyle changes to work on lowering insulin levels. I also had to supplement some minerals (zinc, magnesium). I found it helpful to do some diet tracking. It wasn’t a subtle thing; I wasn’t even close to getting my RDA of zinc from food, for example.

          1. What kind of doctor helped you with this, or was it all on your own? Your PCP? An endocrinologist?

      2. +1. If you’re still having breakouts at this stage, your PCOS is not under control and it may be time to look at other medication options. Spironolactone worked great for me but I took it in conjunction with Metformin (which I’ve been on for almost 20 years). I don’t know if you’ve ever tried Metformin, but if you have other secondary symptoms (acanthosis nigricans, hair growth on body/face, hair loss on head, clinical insulin resistance, etc.) Metformin can be a wonder drug for some people IF you make lifestyle adjustments as well. The adjustment period for Metformin can be rough for some people – lots of gastrointestinal issues – but if people follow the advice that’s out there on how to adjust their diet to accommodate the medication, the adjustment period is usually shorter.

        If you don’t want to use Metformin, which I do understand, then I’ll ask – are you following a low-carb diet where you are limiting sugar and simple carbs, and focusing on low-fat protein, and exercising at least 30 minutes 3 times a week? I had no success in getting control of my PCOS, even with Metformin, until I committed to that. It has nothing to do with looks or vanity or what’s popular in the fad diet community. Our insulin metabolism is just not normal and we can’t eat a Standard American Diet and not exercise without it affecting our health. I’ve been lower carb for years and in addition to working with the Metformin to keep my secondary symptoms at bay, it also helped my migraines. I’m happy to share more if you like.

        It’s worth talking to your OB/GYN or whoever you see about your PCOS about perimenopause. Mine started at 37. I was in denial because my mom did not stop having periods until 55 and both of my grandmothers had had babies when they were over 40, but my doctor did some blood testing and had me track my cycle and yep – perimenopause. I have several friends that have done progesterone-only minipill therapy for perimenopause but my migraines are triggered by changes in my progesterone so I didn’t try it; I am trying to get through it with diet and exercise, and prioritizing sleep. There are LOTS of options out there, so if your current doc is not offering many ideas, it’s worth trying to find a doctor that has more ideas to offer.

        1. Thanks, I’m non-insulin resistant PCOS (it runs in my family apparently, and was diagnosed VERY late because slim people can’t possibly have PCOS!). I definitely exercise and have a healthy diet and take all the recommended supplements but acne is just the one symptom that will not go away, so really just looking at dealing with that symptom.

    2. I did my firsst round in my 20’s and had to do a second one in my early 30’s. The second one was shorter and after that nothing. I only have some small breakout ocasionally when I am going to have my period.

      1. This was my experience too. I found I felt less tolerant of the side effects the second time around but it was a shorter round.

  5. How are people tracking calories/managing weight nowadays? I ordered my wedding dress when I was able to work out (HIIT) 3x a week. My gym is closed for the foreseeable future, so I need to think outside the box. Any suggestions? Thx!

    1. I’ve been doing 30-40 min of HIIT workouts in the morning that are basically the same kinds of things we did at OTF (squat jacks, burpees, push ups, etc). it’s great. I do that every other day and go for a long run on the off days. Also bought some resistance bands which has been helpful and i’m considering buying a jump rope. I am literally in the best shape of my life with abs to prove it :)

      I also find that it takes a bit more discipline around eating since I’m not moving as much (e.g., walking to work)

    2. I’m doing weightwatchers, which is very inside the box. I’m almost back to my pre-pregnancy weight (in time for baby’s 2nd birthday). :)

    3. Just want to plug the nike app – premium is free. I’ve been doing their workouts (class format or whiteboard format) and it’s awesome. I like strength training and yoga (not as into the high impact part of HIIT workouts) but there are many HIIT workouts on there. I do not track calories but I do agree that calorie deficit is the most important part of weight loss and maintenance.

    4. My Peloton has been my favorite thing during quarantine. I got it a few years ago but I think they are still delivering bikes and just drop them at your front stoop. If that doesn’t appeal to you, they have an app with all kinds of workouts including yoga, running, and boot camps with HIIT options.

      1. The Peloton app (putting aside the bike or tread) is truly amazing. I know plenty of people with the app and without the bike. The variety is great and instructors are incredible. The strength, yoga, and bootcamp classes are great.

    5. I have a Fitbit and track my calories in the app. I even recently bought a food scale so I know how much I’m actually eating.

    6. My Fitness Pal and its companion, MapMyWalk. Weighing daily, logging food and drinks, trying to do a long walk every day. I have done a few workout videos but way fewer than I’d planned. I’d been losing before my gym closed but at least I’m maintaining the loss.

    7. Get a food scale if you don’t have one already so you can accurately track calories. It is pretty much impossible to do so without one.

  6. My state has not been hard hit (yet) by the the coronavirus. My city is the worst in my state (and it is a legit city — ~1M people, urban living, transit, etc.). I have been WFH for months and kids have been home from school. I was hopeful that my kids could go to outdoor camps this summer, but I am starting to see case #s going way up since we went from “stay at home” to “safe at home”, especially over the last week. I know that some of that is increased testing. But I think that the gentle partial reopening combined with a week (maybe more) of large chanting crowds at daytime and nighttime protests means that we are possibly in for a very rough landing this summer, to the point of maybe rethinking everything this morning to know what to cancel and to beg for teen/college sitters. At any rate, no one has been wearing masks; distancing isn’t really a thing. When I drive to the store, I see crowds of people at stoplights waiting to cross the street, en route to brunch or where ever — you didn’t use to see that. It feels like we’ve rewound the clock to early March, except that we all no better but no one is acting fearful. I just want to keep us safe and not get sacked. I am at times much more worried about getting sacked, but if we all get sick I may get sacked for just being so 50% since mid-March.

    1. No one can really predict this. If you’re at risk of getting fired now, you need to get childcare now.

    2. In Virginia, UVA researchers predict a massive resurgence of cases this summer as people abandon social distancing. The “strong rebound” scenario assumes that people return to just 1/3 of their previous level of social interaction, but where I live people have already resumed much higher levels of interaction.

      https://www.dailyprogress.com/news/uva/virginia-could-peak-at-more-than-5-000-new-covid-19-cases-a-day-this/article_4e2d2b61-8d9b-522b-9be5-29cca641834f.html

      Right now, I am rushing to get all of our family’s doctor and dentist appointments in before the second wave hits.

      1. I’m in Va too and I too found myself thinking of a doctors appointment. Scheduled for June 15 on a hospital campus but in an out patient building and I really find myself wanting to cancel, but I am also thinking if I put it off now — will I really want to go in Sept or November?

      2. A good friend is an ICU nurse at UVA hospital. They currently have their highest number of COVID patients so far and are assuming it’s because people are resuming normal life. They are expecting and planning for continued increase over the next few weeks.

    3. We’re going the college sitter route. DH and I are WFH but we have separate office space not near the kids and will just eat lunch together to give the sitter a break midday. We signed them up for tennis lessons that are walking distance and an outdoor kids yoga class.

      I’m actually excited about not having to get everyone out the door to be on time for day camp.

    4. We’re in a big suburban town that has been fairly moderately hit, and we’re planning on doing camp. I’m operating under the assumption that we’ll get it at some point (work travel, public transit, kids being gross) and I’d rather have it in the summer before the winter spike (flu AND covid) hits.

        1. I thought the research was still not conclusive on that and also whether or not people who get reinfected get as sick as people with their first infection. Can you provide some links or research to back up this statement?

        2. There’s no good evidence for this. The tests have a high false negative rate so the thinking is some people were thought to be better then they actually still had it. So they didn’t get it again, they had just never fully recovered.

        3. There’s no evidence they can be reinfected in a short timeframe. It’s not yet proven that they CANT but that’s not the same thing as saying they can’t. A second infection would also likely be more mild. If immunity is short (a year or so) and this becomes something we all get every year, it will not be the serious illness it is now, as we all build up some underlying level of immunity.

    5. We are in one of the hardest hit counties in MA. Our town has been high in numbers but we have a really high number of SNF/ALFs and the vast majority of cases and all the deaths have been from those. The handful of other cases have been mild/moderate (no hospitalization) and have been one student that came home from study abroad in Italy and an essential non medical worker, and two nurses.

      In MA we surpassed the 100k mark for cases and are nearing 7500 deaths. We are a state of under 7M!

      I feel good about our testing and the hospital capacity numbers are steadily declining. We will probably get a second wave, but I don’t think it will be a spike we can’t handle, assuming once you’ve had COVID you are immune. Not sure about other areas of Middlesex County but in my town we are taking very very baby step and I feel good about it. My young kids are extremely compliant about masks, likely because it is Mask or Stay Home. They’ve chosen Mask.

    6. Not really a reply to your specific comment but it is just so depressing to me that we’ve basically given up on suppressing the virus when lots of other countries have managed to do it. We will have so many more deaths, so much more economic destruction, and so more general disruption to our lives because we couldn’t wait just a *bit* longer for cases to go down before lifting restrictions.

      1. Well hashtag civil rights. Let’s be real that will make a much bigger difference than whoever had a family BBQ on Memorial Day — not that they should have done that either.

      2. “We will have so many more deaths, so much more economic destruction, and so more general disruption to our lives because we couldn’t wait just a *bit* longer for cases to go down before lifting restrictions.”

        Two things:
        – I would love to hear more about which other countries are going to escape devastation because they stayed in lockdown longer, please do not say New Zealand as we have had discussions here about why their situation is not analogous to the United States.
        – The problem with your statement above is the “bit longer” portion. How long is a “bit”? How do you know that the “bit” you think is sufficient would really help?

        It’s really easy to make catastrophizing statements and a LOT harder to back them up with evidence or research. I think you’re doing some fortune-telling here, and I don’t believe in psychic powers so I’m having trouble with what you said. If you can provide some links to back up what you’re saying, that would help. Thanks.

          1. I mean, seriously. My predication is the product of pretty basic deductive reasoning.

          2. No, I think if people are going to make sweeping statements, THEY need to back up their statements with research when they post. See the thread about defunding the police above. People posted very interesting, valuable information to help the context of the conversation. Sorry you and American Girl have such a problem being challenged to back up what you’re saying with evidence. How, exactly, does that work out for you in real life?

        1. I’ve always been of the view that we should not re-open until each state has the ability to do contact tracing for each new case. Right now, I’m watching France, Italy, and Germany, which have (1) gotten their new daily cases down to the low one hundreds (2) resulting in the ability to do comprehensive contact tracing. I predict that in 4-6 months, we’ll see a huge difference in both economic and disease spread between countries that re-opened with X cases per capita and countries that reopened with 5x cases per capita.

          It’s hard to predict something that hasn’t happened, so I’m not sure what data you’re hoping for, but there is this: http://news.mit.edu/2020/pandemic-health-response-economic-recovery-0401

        1. I honestly think that the protests were where it ended. People are just fatigued. No one is masked or distancing at them. So no one else is, either. Everyone is gathering in large groups now to socialize. It’s like someone flipped a switch with the first night of protests and when no one yelled “public health / need to stop before more people die” on the news the next day people were all “eh, I guess it is not really necessary to follow all that.”

          1. LOL it’s not the protests. Did you see videos from Vegas last week? Lake of the Ozarks? Nice try to blame this on a particular group of people, but you’re wrong.

          2. I’ve said it before, but I saw way more PPE at BLM rallies in the last week than I typically do on a grocery run.

          3. pugsnbourbon – same. Very few protesters didn’t have masks on (FWIW, they actually *cleaned as they went* on Saturday in my city, leaving very little trash in their wake – utterly amazing)… more likely you saw a police officer without one, honestly. And then there’s the cop that was caught pulling a kneeling protester’s mask down to pepper spray them so … that’s something.

          4. When you say “No one is masked or distancing at them…. Everyone is gathering in large groups now to socialize.” that’s just the opposite of what I’m seeing, both in my community, and in my bubble of social media. The truth is probably somewhere in between, and something that is very true in your area, doesn’t have to be true everywhere. It’s just so easy to take one’s own echo chamber for a representation of the rest of the world.

          5. I’m in Chicago and basically every protestor I saw this weekend was wearing a mask.

          6. I was in a 1,000-person march over the weekend and did not see one single person without a mask.

  7. Hi. I had a job offer understandably put on hold at the beginning of the pandemic. Things in my state are basically back to normal so a few weeks ago I checked in with the HR person who said they would find out the status and let me know. I have not heard back. Do I follow up with that person again? Or the hiring manager who I was in contact with during several stages of interviews? Or not at all? It’s a huge company and they have started hiring again for other roles.

    1. The hiring manager for that job is probably thinking it about it a lot and will be advocating quite a bit internally. I think a quick note could be appropriate to the Hiring Manager that’s something like hope you all are doing well, understand the delays with COVID, I’m still interested (and maybe any cool things you’ve been working on the past couple months) and maybe here’s an article that might interest you. Keeps you on the radar but shows that you ‘get it’ – it’s might not be the actual pandemic but more of a budget freeze due to economic uncertainty.

  8. any advice on making friends after college? does anyone else struggle with this? i have found it so hard to make friends while having a family, moving constantly, etc.i am in my early 30s married with two kids and an intense career, and this pandemic has made me realize how few friends i have made since college and how i would like to change this!

    1. No advice, but I struggle with it as well. It’s hard to make friends as an adult. People talk about having Zoom happy hours with their friends, but it’s embarrassing to admit that I don’t anyone to do this with.

      I think making friends during current times is more difficult. Under normal circumstances, I would suggest volunteering, attending church if you do that. Maybe introduce yourself to neighbors. You may have to do a lot of the legwork to make things happen and people may not respond back.

    2. Honestly, social media has actually been a blessing for me in this regard. I post a bunch of food pics (I’m a foodie) and travel pics, and friends or friends of friends I haven’t met reach out and we get to chatting about food and trying out new restaurants or day trips together. That being said, I went to high school and college in the same city so the links are mire numerous than if I had moved around.

    3. Me too. I paused in the park while a walk yesterday and all the groups having picnics made me sad that I don’t really have a group like that. That’s partially just gremlins speaking – I had a big group in a bar eating pizza for my birthday at the start of the year – but there’s also a grain of truth. I had a really good friend who just stopped replying to my messages a year or so back and I find myself missing him more than ever (as a friend, nothing more).

    4. Yeah it’s weird. I’m quarantining with my friends and when they ask who I’m talking to it’s either “college friends” or “grad school friends” or “intense job friends”. It’s weird how cleanly my friends fit into these categories. I know we talk about boundaries with people at work, but I do think same level and age colleagues are definitely potential friends.

    5. Me too. I have always had a hard time making friends. I had a really good friend who I was close to and got along great with and she died almost 2 years ago now. I haven’t found anyone I get along as well with even though I have another friend who I’m close to. I only really have one and a half friends.

      I’ve been thinking about doing one of the Shasta Nelson women-only group trips once it’s safe again. I also joined the Modern Mrs Darcy book club for at least some social interaction during COVID. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to fully socialize again so I’m trying to find ways to connect virtually.

    6. Yep, it’s a struggle. l have 0 friends in the town I moved to 2 years ago. I’m fortunate to have my two lifelong best friends two states over and several other good friends in other states, but I couldn’t get someone to feed my cat for a weekend without paying them. It sucks at times.

    7. Same problem and no solutions. I have a small group of fantastic friends, but none lives in the same state that I do. Oddly, one of those women, I met through this s1te many years ago. I wish we still lived in the same city.

    8. No advice, but commiseration. I had a childhood best friend who was like a sister to me since first grade, who one day in college, without warning or explanation completely ghosted me. I haven’t heard from her in 10 years and I legitimately have no idea why. It deeply affected my ability to form new friendships, and here I am in my 30’s without a group of friends at all. I pretend it’s by choice and that I’m fine with it but I am really lonely.

    9. I think it takes a year or two to turn somebody from an acquaintance into a good friend. When I moved back to my home state after college and grad school, it took two years before I really felt like I had friends. It also takes a considerable investment of time, which I’m guessing is the real barrier for most people. I’m sorry I don’t have much advice, I don’t think there are life hacks for this one.

    10. I’ve made gym friends, tap dance friends, Rotary friends, cycling friends, and so on. I feel like anything you do regularly can be a source of friends. It’s hard now in when everybody is stuck at home, but if, for example, you take the same class at the gym consistently you will see the same people, and then it’s a short step to going for coffee and seeing what develops. And certainly volunteering for a cause you care about is a GREAT way to meet like-minded people.

      1. Also: Not every friend has to be like a sister. Somebody you can get coffee with and have a Zoom happy hour with once in a while is great and a much less daunting goal then finding a new BFF who will lay down her life for you, you know?

        1. Yes, 100% this. I have my childhood ride-or-die friends and a lot of other friends who are fun to grab coffee or lunch with and talk about TV and our kids and it’s great. In the last three years I’ve actually made a friend at work who has turned into one of my best friends, but it happened organically. When I stopped thinking I was going to turn every new friendship into a longtime ride-or-die relationship, I was able to enjoy the friends I have a lot more. I just enjoy the relationships for what they are, and for however long they last. I think just like with romantic relationships, the media gives people a very twisted view of what adult friendships are supposed to be like. Very few people live in the same apartment building with all their besties and they hang out all the time; that’s what they have to do on TV shows to move the stories along. It’s now how real life works.

      2. I agree with this. I knew no one when I moved to where I live now. Granted, I moved here for school and met a lot of people that way; however, not a single one of my good friends or people I consider friends currently is someone I went to law school with. I met my bff at work, I met other friends through social sports, other friends through young professionals groups, etc. I also still have a core group of friends I met in my 20s from when I lived in Maryland, who all also were strangers, two of whom I lived with in a random group house (not what I would do in my 40s obviously), and some who I met in bars. The other core group of girlfriends I have that I am close with are an extension of one woman I met while working at a job in DC almost 20 years ago. Apparently, I like to meet friends at work!! I’ve also met friends at the gym although I’ve stayed closest with a couple of men, not women who I met that way.

    11. Yes, I don’t know the answer to this, except that for me, I’ve always had the good fortune of making a handful of really good friends at my jobs (post law school). Unfortunately, I’m not at any of those jobs anymore, or in those cities, and my current workplace is useless in that respect. I’ve sadly noticed that when I left those jobs, while I did stay in touch with some of those friends for a while, the friendships died off eventually, maybe because we didn’t have much in common? idk. All I can say is at 40, I didn’t expect to have less than five good friends whom I speak with regularly, and zero in the town I live in. I know i have to change things, but not sure where or how to begin. :/

  9. over the weekend some friends and i watched 13th (in our own homes) and then discussed it together. i’d already known some of the information about how the mandatory sentences and war on drugs (ie crack cocaine) targeted POC, but I was shocked to learn that the prison population overall went from ~300k to 2million+ between 1970 and now and how 1/3 of black males spend some time in prison. and some of the recordings they had from politicians about how their explicit goal with certain policies was to target BPOC was unfortunately not surprising, but disturbing. can anyone recommend something to watch that focuses a bit more on how black men going in and out of prison impacts the communities in which they live? does anyone know if crack and powder cocaine had been treated equally under the law, would the same number of whites have been impacted? are prison systems in other countries not privatized so they don’t have the same corporate influence? similarly, are there good examples of other countries that have treated drugs as a public health issue rather than putting such a criminal focus on them?

    1. I watched the documentary as well and enjoyed it. You can look at Switzerland for an example of treating drug users as humans. I’m not sure about your other questions.

      1. You can also look up Poland for some examples of treating drug use as a public health issue.

    2. Prisons in other western democratic countries are not privatized by in large – there may be some but none come to mind.

      Other countries also don’t have people lose their right to vote just because they have committed a crime. So undemocratic.

      Preventing black men from voting is not an accidental side effect of the war on drugs. It’s an extension of voter suppression efforts.

      Canada has legalized marijuana and has safe injection sites in bigger cities so people can safely inject harder drugs and get treatment if they OD and make community connections to begin to get off drugs.

    3. Not a movie, but the recently out book Charged by Emily Bazelon looks at the way that prosecutorial discretion impacts this greatly, because there is so much leeway to decide which cases to bring. And those decisions disproportionately affect minorities and the poor.

    4. Was anyone else baffled by the extremely high prevalence of plea bargains? I had no idea that it worked like that and that so many innocent people in prison were pressured to accept the bargains.

      1. I wasn’t, but I also am in the legal field and have long been aware that plea bargains are real and, in many many situations, the cause of the imprisonment of innocent people.

        I am not sure if it’s still available, but I highly recomment everyone watch Gideon’s Army – a documentary about public defenders. People need to understand the imbalance between the PD and the DA’s offices.

      2. Our current system is relies entirely on plea bargains. It is not equipped to give every defendant a trial. In a perfect world, a plea bargain would result in a fair outcome for everyone. But in reality, defendants are overcharged, or wrongfully charged, with an overworked and under resourced public defender and see a plea as their only option. (I am a public defender)

    5. My black girlfriends are largely single and they blame this — it’s like the natural dating pool that their mothers and grandmothers had been decimated as if by a war. It’s like when everyone hit 30, they saw the math of this and what it meant for them personally. If they were to marry and have a family, it could mean navigating a lot of changes that other generations never dealt with and letting go of what they had thought their lives would be like. Doubly so if they had gone to college or had gotten advanced degrees.

      1. When I got to law school, I was really shocked at how few black men were in my class year vs. black women. It was a pretty diverse law school, as law school goes, but there were three times as many black women as men. As a white girl who’d gone to a women’s college, I’d never thought about this at all.

    6. I think the third season of the Serial podcast touched on some of these issues, although US-focused.

    7. This doesn’t address your exact request, sorry! But I do want to signal-boost reading Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, who is interviewed throughout 13th. That book was a real eye-opener for me.

      1. Seconding the recommendation for Just Mercy and also The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.

        1. There is also a documentary on Bryan Stevenson’s work on HBO that is really good. It is called True Justice

    8. This is a great documentary and Ava DuVernay is such a terrific director! If she was a white dude in a ball cap she’d have like three Oscars already.

  10. I have a hopefully light question. Let’s play the pretend game that things with the coronavirus really do stay stable from here & the gradual reopening works, & there is no huge second wave in the Fall etc. (One can dream, right?)
    Has anyone booked any amazing travel (flights or hotels) to take advantage of (I’m assuming) steep discounts probably available (I’m thinking for post-Christmas)? If so, do you mind sharing specifically where? Like, I-never-thought-I’d-b- able-to-afford-staying-in-this-amazing-hotel-but-here-we-are?? All the better if totally cancellable/movable. I’m looking mostly North America, but if someone has booked something amazing elsewhere would be fun to hear about it.

    1. Greenbrier — WVA
      Cavalier on the Hill — Va Beach
      Hotel Coronado — Coronado Island

      OTOH, I’d go in August now — I am a bit worried that the second wave won’t be schools reopen but will be in about 2 weeks due to the combination of many states reopening and protests and other mass gatherings.

      Honestly, if the place in The Shining is a real hotel still, it feels like where I should be at this moment.

      1. The hotel in The Shining still exists! How do I know, you ask? My friend got married there last year!!

    2. I’m the OP of the France Spain question above. We had an amazing deal on the airfare – it was $400pp round trip. But… what happens when we get there??

      Book only with great caution about cancellation policies, and we are looking into doing an August Caribbean trip but purchasing cancel-for-any-reason trip insurance.

      1. How do you book airfare with cancellation policies? My hunch is it can’t be basic economy and that I need to call in person.

        1. We’ve been booking only with airlines that offer “no change fees for flights booked by X date.” Then if for whatever reason the flights are still going but *we* don’t want to travel, we at least have essentially a gift card for future travel. We haven’t traveled basic economy so not sure about that – imagine it varies by airline. So far, in our game of Airline Chicken, the airlines have cancelled or significantly modified the flights themselves, entitling us to actual cash back.

          For hotels or rentals, we read the fine print on the cancellation policy.

          For the insurance, it depends on the company you go with, but typically you have to buy “cancel for any reason” policy within a short time after booking the travel.

  11. I know everyone is going at their own speed but has anyone traveled yet — say since mid May to now? How was it? Where did you go? Flight vs drive, hotel vs rental? Was it enjoyable or did you feel the whole time was worrying about sanitizing and not wanting to use rest stops.

    I ask because 2 couples that I know — all 4 people age 65+ — have been posting pics all weekend making their way from 2 NE cities to Tampa and Atlanta. One is a second home situation, the other has kids in that city. Both are road tripping but eating at dine in restaurants, presumably stopping at rest stops and maybe even for a night unless they are driving 12-15 straight. Is this a thing, have you traveled yet?

    1. i have not and could not imagine doing what these people are doing. i would drive to another home i owned, if it was that distance, but it would be minimal rest stops, bringing food, definitely not eating at dine in restaurants. personally i think that is irresponsible, but i guess everyone has a different risk tolerance? where i live some reopened restaurants have already temporarily shut down because of employees testing positive for covid

    2. What? I live in MA. MA has closed short term rentals and hotels except for essential workers. ME, NH, and RI have (or had-some lifted today) strict rules about out of state quarantine. Maine wasn’t allowing anyone in unless they owned property!

      1. Many areas of Florida do not have restrictions on rentals any more – so they could be perfectly within their rights to do this. Honestly, if I’d known how long this would go on, we would have rented a place for 3 months down in Florida… staying home would be a lot more fun if we had our own pool!

        1. Ah, I misread as these friends were road tripping to New England and FL- not from NE.

          My surprise was that people were ac hugely vacationing to, say, Boston.

    3. I am spending next week at the beach – vacation house where we have the entire house. It is within driving distance (no stops needed). I cannot wait. I had 2 trips cancelled in April and an international trip planned for June that is now postponed and might be domestic. I know myself and I will not spend the whole time worrying. I will sanitize upon arrival and wear a mask to stores (if we go at all to stores). We are bringing groceries. Just spending time on the beach, away from others, or on the deck on the bay. A week not in my house sounds heavenly.

    4. No, but I had to stop to use a bathroom in a rest stop on I-95 in NJ during a shorter trip this weekend to visit family members. It was very clean, mostly empty, everyone was wearing masks (sign said mandatory to enter). Overall, I was pleased.

    5. I am taking a trip to a very isloated island for a long weekend. Driving, but also utilizing a type of public transportation (not air). I am not worried at all. I will continue to take the precautions I have, wear my mask while near others, etc. I CANNOT WAIT.

    6. We traveled from Chicago to Florida a few weeks ago to see an aging / not doing well relative. I should mention that this was really my husband’s doing and not my own. We wore N95 masks and goggles on the plane ride, and H sanitized our seating area as though he was about to perform surgery. We made it a point not to eat / drink / use the restrooms during our flights, and every time we touched something, we hand-sanitized. I’d say the flights were 75% full, but everyone was masked. Florida was *so* different from Chicago, much less mask-wearing and social distancing, but we stuck to our guns and did not do anything that made us uncomfortable (we did not hug or come close to our relatives, stayed at a guest house on a relative’s property that had been sanitized, spent most of our time outdoors). We ate at one restaurant – it was a huge restaurant and there were only 2 parties there, ours and one another, and we were a good 30 feet away from the other party. After doing it, I was a lot less fearful than I had been. After coming home, I did the math – my suburban county has 3x the population of the county I was visiting, but has had 6x the cases due to our proximity to Chicago. I’m still not sorry about the social distancing and masks we continue to do, however. Back home, I am now visiting with my mother and young adult children (though I self-quarantined after this trip out of an abundance of caution), but we do so outdoors and distant and we’re not opening our social circles any time soon.

    7. We rent a cabin on a river every year and had already booked it for our vacation week in late July when the pandemic hit. We’ve been checking weekly but they haven’t canceled yet. However, the rest of their booking calendar, other than our week, was recently grayed out. I wrote and asked if our week was still good and they said yes, they’re just not renting to anyone else during this time.

      So it sounds like we should have done two weeks!

      1. Ask the owner. There’s no more risk to leasing to you for two consecutive weeks than for the one week. They may be hesitant to open up generally, but open to a longer term rental for you.

    8. My parents traveled by plane to visit me and my family. They wore N95 masks, sanitized their seat areas, and brought their own food. They said their planes were about 2/3 full, so middle seats were empty but most others were filled.

    9. I had to travel to Ohio to visit my dad last weekend, as he was at the end of his life. I flew both ways on Southwest. Flight was less than half full. Airport was less than half of normal traffic. Stayed at a Courtyard in a Cleveland suburb. The cleaning staff does not come in to tidy up or do turndown service. I suppose they would bring you new towels if you asked. I had to go to the front desk for morning coffee as I had used the one caffeinated coffee packet in my room the day before. There are no self-service coffee stations; you have to ask the front desk person to pour it for you. the kitchen was completely closed, no breakfast. You could buy junk food snacks in the little lobby store, but I opted to go to the grocery store and buy some stuff for the mini fridge. Most restaurants were open only for carry-out, with the exception of good ol’ Bob Evans, where I had breakfast twice. God bless the wait staff working there, they were the kindest people to me. I made sure to tip generously as I am sure they have suffered due to previous COVID closures, but when I was there the restaurant was pretty full.

    10. We have visited family in two different cities– driving both times. The first time in mid-May was for a funeral (due to COVID-19). Things had just started to reopen then, and it was harder than normal to find bathroom stops, but rest stops were open and clean with social distancing generally followed. Same with travel to another city for a small family wedding this weekend. We went out to eat on a patio and felt totally comfortable.

      We are in the SEUS and have found that generally other cities are following the rules– rural areas are not. Like, we went on a hike an hour from our SEUS city, and there were no masks anywhere, even though the trail was very, very crowded. (In our city, people normally do not wear masks on trails but they are generally less crowded and people try to stay spaced out.)

  12. Suggestions for making the best of our current COVID-infested environment? Less from an experiential perspective or getting by day to day and more how can I make an investment in my life after this? Besides actually investing….. So far, I’m working a ton toward a promotion under the assumption that my opportunity cost right now is low and I want to be free to do other things and enjoy life when stuff opens up again. What else should I be thinking of?

    1. We’ve spent a decent amount of time getting our physical space in order. When you’re in the kitchen 3x a day, you notice the annoying things and we’ve had time to fix them. My husband installed a mixer tap (weird British separate hot and cold spouts) in our bathroom this weekend – one of those things we wouldn’t have bothered to fix.
      We’ve also worked on getting the bikes repaired and a roof rack installed so when we’re able to go more than 5 miles from our home, we’ll be able to do so.

    2. I have been doing a lot of things at home that hopefully make things easier or better later, mostly cleaning related (deep cleaning kitchen and bathrooms, desclaling shower glass, decluttering and organizing). I have also been scheduling home maintenance work that has been put off.

    3. I’m using the time to consume anti-racist resources. When else am I going to be stuck inside with Internet and podcasts and media at my fingertips? As a white woman, I’ve never REALLY prioritized racism, even though I consider myself progressive and educated on the major issues. There is never going to be a better name to really catch up on what I should have paid more attention to before.

    4. My lease ends in July and I’ll have to move then so hoping work will calm down and I’ll gave time to Kondo everything!

    5. Embedding one quiet day a week. When I lived in Germany and for the year after that I really embraced work-free and errand-free Sunday’s (Or Sunday afternoons in busier periods) but when I started full time work I found them sucked up by errands.

      Also trying to make serious progress in my novel.

    6. Like others, we are literally getting our house in order. Improvements that prioritze either 1, avoiding catastrophic things where outsiders have to come to our house and 2, things that make our use of the space much better. DH and I are both handy so we’ve been able to do a lot with just a couple trips to HD. Also, it is a stress reliever to us and when we start to snipe at each Other our therapy seems to be fixing something, lol.
      I have started trail running in this period of no-gym. I am a not-really-a-runner-at-all, previously would only run outdoors if the conditions were just perfect. Now I am doing several miles on local (as in, I don’t need a car to get to them) trails probably 2 days/3 which is a major increase despite only being a few miles each time. It’s become a real stress reliever and is helping me combat the covid 15.

      And i am SERIOUS this summer, the kids are going to learn how to clean things. Bc if DH won’t, I need somebody else who will :-(

  13. Has anyone combined households (like actually moved in) with older people? When did you do it and with what precautions?

    All I can think to do is grocery shop/run errands/online shop (which for me involves interacting with a desk person for packages) and then stay in for 14 straight days. I’d still have to take out the trash in the trash room on my floor a few times in that 2 weeks + get in an elevator and open a common door to a garage on the day I left — no way to get around that as I live in an apartment. What measures did you take? I’d be going from Va to NJ if it matters and am thinking of doing this around July 4.

    1. We plan to do this later this summer with family in another state. Everyone will strictly isolate for 2 weeks. We have a one-day drive there so it’s not zero risk (stopping for gas and bathrooms) but we will be as safe as possible.

    2. Not exactly the same, but I live with a very high risk spouse and I still go out for daily walks / hikes, twice-monthly grocery store visits and gas fill-ups, see friends for social-distance happy hours, and his nurse comes in the house weekly – I just do all of these things wearing a mask, staying 6 feet away, wiping down surfaces / mail / groceries, and staying outside for any socializing. My spouse has even had a multi-day hospital stay and ambulance rides during our city’s peak and didn’t get it. Take reasonable precautions, but don’t lock yourself in.

    3. I did with my parents. I’d been essentially quarantining for a month (this was back in April), no grocery trips, just walks with the dog in a N95 mask and trips to pick up takeout food with masks and gloves on. I was getting really depressed so it was the right decision even though it’s been somewhat challenging to live with my parents again after 7 years of not doing so for more than a few weeks during law school breaks.

    4. We did this with my in-laws. We live in a dense urban area (medium rise condo) and they live in a rural town and are in declining health but wanted us to come to help with things. My MIL is undergoing chemo which requires hospital visits every other month so there was a concern about infection from both directions. We made the decision to do so once we learned that transmission on surfaces was considerably lower (and when they started really needing us down there). We had been practicing pretty strict social distancing but did so extensively 3 weeks before. We had to walk our dog in a shared elevator 3-4x/day but always did so masked/gloved and had a “decontamination” routine when we got back that involved hand washing and disinfecting. Our most extreme preparations were for the drive (11 hours). We packed all snacks and drinks, and used masks and disposable gloves for gas and restroom stops. It went better than expected but I am glad we prepared as much as we did. We have been here for just under a month and no one has gotten sick, but obviously that does not necessarily indicate success.

  14. How do you make iced coffee at home? I know that there are at home cold brew makers, but unpopular opinion that I don’t really like cold brew, I much prefer iced coffee.

    I have a moka pot so would be interested in either iced coffee or iced lattes.

    I’m afraid of shattering glass if I hot coffee in a glass with ice, cold milk, etc and I don’t own any plastic cups!

    1. Brew coffee, let cool enough that it’s not super hot, then put it in fridge til it’s cold. You can make coffee ice cubes too so that your ice coffee doesn’t get watery.

      1. This is what we do too. Brew a full pot, let it cool to basically room temp, put in a glass bottle with a stopper in the refrigerator, and drink it over a couple days. It does start to taste a little more watery as the days go on, but you can adjust the volume you make and store.
        We don’t do the fancy coffee ice cubes. Just add milk/cream when it’s time to drink since it’s already chilled.

    2. I have a nespresso for the coffee. For glasses, i either use a mason jar (It hasn’t cracked yet, but I’m sure there is a possibility it will) or my yeti tumbler. Have the coffee (i do both regular coffee or the double espresso pods) go straight into jar/tumbler, and add ice/milk/etc. . Sometimes if i am organized I will brew a cup at night before bed, put in the fridge, and then it’s cold in the morning. I agree with Lily, the coffee ice cubes are awesome. I use my large silicone ice mold to make those sometimes.

    3. Set the coffee aside, and meanwhile put the ice, cold milk in first. I have never shattered a glass yet.

    4. Cold brew! Easy as possible, dump about a cup of ground coffee into a bowl, add about 6-8 cups of water depending how strong you like your coffee and leave overnight on the counter. In the morning strain and voila! My husband and I live on coffee like this year round.

      1. Yes, my husband drinks cold brew every day, this is his method:
        – Get a couple of half-gallon mason jars (you can buy them individually or in a case of 6) and a couple of jelly bags that people use for making jelly or preserves (A mazon or a lot of hardware stores still carry them). The jelly bags are really inexpensive and will last for years. If you use jelly bags, you don’t have to strain the coffee before you drink it.
        We also use the white plastic caps they sell alongside the mason jars at Target (just about any store that sells jars sells the caps also), but you can continue to use the metal cap that came with the jar.
        – Fill the jelly bag about 1/3 full with ground coffee, any kind you like. Coarse grind is better as fine ground coffee tends to pass through the bag and end up as sludge in the bottom of the jar. It may take some experimentation to figure out how full to fill the bag; if you like very strong coffee you may need to fill the bag halfway vs. 1/3. You can also adjust the strength by having the coffee sit more or less time.
        – Fill the jar with water
        – Put the jelly bag with the grounds in it in the water, and put the cap on – we make 2 jars at a time
        – Let sit for 12-24 hours – the longer it sits, the stronger it will be
        – When you want to drink the coffee, pull the jelly bag out of the jar; discard the grinds and rinse out the bag and put it somewhere to dry out
        – Enjoy your coffee!

        1. This, but I use one of those mesh mason jar inserts designed specifically for cold brew coffee.

          Ironically, I find cheap mass market grounds makebetter tasting cold brew than do my fancy AF locally roasted pricy beans.

      2. I also love cold brew. I have a pitcher with a removable filter inside for the coffee grounds. Super easy.

    5. I am a lazy girl. I use instant granules, Nescafé or the Starbucks Vio.
      I like the other ideas esp ice cubes.

    6. My Takeya cold-brew maker is probably the most cost-effective purchase I’ve ever made. You can find it on Am@zon and probably on alternative sites as well.It’s $20.
      It’s a mesh filter compartment that fits into a pitcher. Fill the mesh filter with coffee, put cold water in the pitcher, plunk one inside the other and stick in your fridge. 24 to 36 hours later you have amazing cold brew. I have a plain glass pitcher that holds the most recent batch while the next batch is brewing.
      It’s also proven to be very durable. I’m going on 2 years of daily use and the filter is only now starting to give out in spots.
      No one is paying me to say this. I just really, really love that thing.

      1. I had one of those cold brew makers but I honestly don’t like cold brew! MUCH prefer iced coffee

    7. Brew coffee hot, then pour it over a cup full of ice. If you sweeten your iced coffee, dissolve the sugar in the hot coffee before pouring it over the ice.

    8. Starbucks unsweetened ice coffee from the grocery store is life changing.

      Also like making iced nespresso almond milk lattes. Highly recommend. Nespresso pod brewed over ice with cold foamed almond milk.

    9. I use an Aeropress (which makes espresso-strength coffee) and pour it over ice. Voila – single serving of iced americano! You can google for tutorials.

    10. My husband makes hot coffee in a Melitta filter, double strength, then pours it over a big glass of ice, stirs, then adds more ice.

      But the real secret to my husband’s iced coffee is sweetened condensed milk, like in Vietnamese iced coffee. It’s astoundingly delicious.

      (And it’s my husbands iced coffee and not mine because coffee makes me jittery)

  15. Reminder to check on your public safety friends and family. They’ve had a hell of a year.

    They’ve been on the front lines of covid, they’ve been working around the clock keeping everyone safe during the last few weeks of unrest, they’re dealing with severe weather across the country, they’re preparing for the second wave of covid. They might be super conflicted about current events and stop have to show up and do their job. Their families have had to hold down the fort for months. There are people who have been working 80-90 hour weeks for months, without weekends, in unusual / dangerous work environments.

    Regardless of your thoughts on law enforcement, there are a lot of non-law enforcement public safety jobs.

    1. I will say in my city that has handled this mostly very well (police and protesters), most of the officers I know are working on their MSWs and also pretty involved as leaders in some youth community orgs. They are good people and IDK how they aren’t consumed by their jobs and yet go above and beyond.

      The second coronavirus wave has me scared for everyone — protesters, police, anyone arrested, jail staff, medics, firefighters, all of everyone’s family members, etc. It is great that the spirit of the protests have caught on with the old and the young and families and they have rallied and shown up to protest peacefully, and yet I pray that we are all very overly cautious about how deadly and easily spread the virus is. Even if everyone went home to a stand-alone house where they lived alone could WFH and isolate for the next two weeks, I would still fear for everyone.

    2. Agreed. I live near a few fire stations and whenever I’m passing I them how much I appreciate this year they’ve had. They have such good attitudes. As the city is reopening and people are outside more, it also really heartwarming to see everyone on patios stop and cheer every time a firetruck or police car goes by.

  16. Last Friday, we talked about starting a ‘rette bookclub, and voted on what we should read. Thanks very much to everyone who made suggestions, and also everyone who filled out the survey.

    Our first book will be Evicted by Mathew Desmond. It was actually the runner-up, but I found that the winner, Such a Fun Age, would be very difficult to get from libraries or independent bookstores. Evicted is more widely available. https://www.powells.com/book/evicted-9780553447453/1-0

    Most people voted that we “meet” monthly, while a large minority preferred biweekly. As a compromise, I propose we read one book a month, with a mid-term discussion of early thoughts on the beginning of the book and then a broader discussion of the whole book.

    TLDR: Book club is reading Evicted by Mathew Desmond. Preliminary discussion June 23, discussion main discussion July 7.

    1. Thanks for organizing! I’m thrilled that this is the pick because I’ve coincidentally picked this up recently and it’s been sitting in my to-read pile, and this is the push I’ve needed to move it to the top.

    2. Great! Thanks! I’ve been tangentially involved in some unlawful detainer cases and am anxious to read this book.

  17. In my Midwest community, everyone is acting like COVID is just … over? I went to the grocery store yesterday and I’d say maybe 30% of us were wearing masks. A few weeks ago, people were much more compliant and actually taking precautions like wearing face coverings. As soon as the soft openings started happening, it was like COVID never happened. Are you guys seeing the same thing? I’m still being fairly cautious, but at this rate, there will definitely be a second wave in my community. Kids’ sports teams are starting back up and yet school is still in question for the fall. The cognitive dissonance is mindblowing.

    1. People are still wearing masks here because they’re required to, but my relatives in a red state report that almost no one is wearing masks even while their cases are skyrocketing (after burning slowly for a long time). I’m being extra cautious now.

      1. Yep. I live in a red state in the south, and this is absolutely what is happening.

    2. In MA masks are required. Still and for the foreseeable future. We have also had 100k+ cases.

    3. Same story in central NC. I’ve also seen a lot of couples with only one person wearing a mask and I really don’t understand that.

        1. I think part of this is women have bought fashionable masks and coordinate them with their outfits and are making the most of it thinking of them as an accessory. Men tend to have the plain carpenter ones and don’t have any personal incentive to wear them. It’s basic selfish human behavior that there has to be something in it for them. Not that women should have to “mommy” the men in their life but if it is what they have to do to keep their family safe, maybe search for sports team masks or some mask that represents a hobby of your husband that he would be excited and proud to wear.

          1. I don’t think so. I think it’s just that men are socialized to be less careful about safety and hygiene in general. Half of them don’t even wash their hands after they use the restroom.

          2. Men thinking they don’t have to wash their hands is SO ANGERING. I don’t care what you did or didn’t touch.

          3. Off topic but for the hand washing thing — I don’t understand why men always say well I didn’t touch anything going to the bathroom. Um in order to aim don’t they touch their thing and point it? Do they view that as touching their eye where you don’t need to hand wash after? Clearly I’ve not lived with a man before but I’ve never understood this rationale (besides my dad who is a germophobe so he believes you don’t just lather up and wash hands one time, you wash 2-3 times to get fully clean hands so he is of no help re this attitude).

          4. This is honestly a stretch. My husband immediately and of his own volition bought NBA-branded masks. (Did they fit him? No, but that’s another story.) I think it has much more to do with women overall being socially-condition to be compliant and put the needs of others before our own comfort. (Please note: Our entire family wears a mask.)

      1. Just walked around a farmers market here in Chicago suburbs. About 90% are wearing masks. Plenty of social distancing, people alert one another if they are about to step closer to examine something, the vendors are keeping their distance and payment is contactless. I bought something and the vendor asked me to step back while he came up to the table to give me my package. People do take off masks once they’ve stepped away and are walking to cars where it’s clear they won’t come into contact. I fear for the areas where no one takes it seriously.

      2. We are in the Bay Area. We ventured to a hardware store this weekend. I was nervous about this but my husband said “see, hon, people are wearing masks”

        The man he was pointing to was walking toward us wearing a mask, but as he got closer we saw he was wearing it over his mouth but below his nose.

        I feel like there’s a lot of halfway compliance wit this thing, where O.K. if you won’t let me in the store without a mask then I will wear a mask, but I’ll wear it wrong because you can’t tell me what to do.

        And that tends to be a very male response to authority, in my experience.

        Notice how “I don’t want to get COVID or infect others” never factors into it.

      3. This accidentally happened to my husband and I this weekend. We ran to the store for like 1 thing together that we both needed to look at, and I had forgotten my mask at home. I’m pregnant, so I wore his that was in his car and he went maskless but was more careful. I’m sure we looked ridiculous.
        I’m also sure our experience was the exception, and the vast majority of the time it’s just macho dude who doesn’t think he can catch germs.

    4. Yes! My area moved to yellow on Friday and I think that plus the nice weather plus just mental fatigue are leading to people acting like covid is over.

      We also had a (wonderful yet concerning) MASSIVE protest on Saturday. While I’m so glad that people are finally coming together to speak out about racism, I’m afraid that people only have the mental space for one crisis at a time. Now that we’re focusing on ending racism, we’ve forgotten about covid. Unfortunately, they are not mutually exclusive and both will need to be at the forefront of our minds for a long long time.

      1. I was protesting this weekend, both DH and I are white, healthy and well off. We have not forgotten about the virus, and amongst the thousand people that day I saw only two without a mask (weird how fast we’ve gotten used to seeing masks, the naked faces look so strange now). Everybody there tried their best to be safe, the organizers were giving out masks, nobody has forgotten the virus. We have worked from home for months, and only leave for groceries and takeout, but we consciously decided that this is important enough to take the risk.

        1. Anon at 11:04 here – I totally agree that the risk was well worth it. I’m not saying people are consciously ignoring COVID to protest or that protestors shouldnt be out there bc of COVID. I’m working on the COVID response and if I hadn’t been working on Saturday i 100% would have been out protesting. From reports I heard from friends who did attend, most people were in masks and people were giving them out. Not disputing any of that!

          I think the combo of reopening, nice weather, COVID fatigue AND the newfound focus on anti racism is leading towards a less intense focus on beating COVID. People had been pouring their time and effort into beating COVID are focused on COVID and anti racism. Three weeks ago, even wearing masks sitting outside 10 feet apart, no one I knew would meet up with anyone outside of their bubble. Now 5,000 people are marching together in Saturdays. It’s an extremely worthwhile reason to pivot, but I do think it’ll slow our progress with COVID

        2. Now tell us how many people wore masks below the nose? Come on. People act like everyone wears masks perfectly and no more than 50% in any population ever does. Face it this is a huge risk and will contribute to the spread and there’s no difference between this event and a concert or spring break on a packed beach; we can’t do those but this is fine because you have a cause?

          1. umm, yes exactly to your last sentence. The cause makes all the difference, which is also why demonstrations are constitutionally protected, while spring break is not. Here is something that I didn’t expect from joining the protests this weekend, which is entirely due to my white ass being able to ignore what is a bleak reality for so many: While we were marching, and yelling that black lives matter at the top of our voice (and yes, wearing masks over mouth and nose as far as I could see, this isn’t rocket science), I really internalized for the first time how ridiculous it is that we are having to take to the streets, in a country that thinks it is the best democracy in history, to demand basic rights for a specific group that has been denied them for so long, despite the wealth of the country literally being built by their ancestors. It might sound silly, maybe you had to be there. It moved me to tears that this is even necessary. But it is.

          2. Yeah but pandemic is pandemic. It does not matter if it spreads because people go to the beach or people protest. Frankly they shouldn’t be doing either — don’t care what the cause is or how important it is. And yes masks aren’t rocket science but look closely, a huge % of people do NOT wear them properly and leave their nose open. Glad you had a teary awakening though – thanks for putting the rest of the population at risk for it.

          3. Honestly how are you even comparing a beach vacation to a protest for racial justice? If you’re scared, just stay inside. Doesn’t sound like anyone will miss your self-centered racist ass anyway.

          4. As I said, I have been largely at home, so the chance that I would give anyone the virus at a protest is negligible. I still wore a mask the whole time. If you don’t get the rationale for some things being essential and others more optional, I don’t think we will get anywhere talking about this. Maybe we should all be locked at home and subsist on government rations, so we can eliminate grocery shopping and never leave home.

    5. Yep, because humans are idiots with the attention span of gnats. This is how the second wave takes over. I went to pick up restaurant order and there were bars and restaurants full of people with no masks, including the workers, on at full capacity (both against city and state regulation).

      1. Yikes, that’s concerning. This is why I will not be doing anything other than takeout for the foreseeable future.

    6. Masks are required here. I’ve seen exactly one person in a grocery store without one, and he was driving a car emblazoned with a bunch of Confederate flags and “stop medical marshal (sic) law.” Yee-haw.

    7. I’ve been to a couple marches and honestly saw more folks in masks there than I do on a grocery run.

      1. Agree with this. I’ve been a big proponent of people being considerate of others, staying home as much as possible, etc. and the protests initially worried me, but it’s become obvious that not only is this an unstoppable and essential moment in our history, but the protesters are among the most diligent about mask-wearing in most places.

        1. Pls introduce them to my city’s protesters asap. No one is masking and unmasked chanting seems to bode well for a disaster in next week’s health stats.

      2. Same. Sadly it’s partially to protect against identification and tear gas, but has the secondary benefit of deterring pandemic.

    8. Yes, the quarantine is over, even in my area where we still technically have restrictions in place. We went to pick up package beer from a local brewpub and the place was packed. They are allowed to operate at “50% capacity” but their 50% looked an awful lot like 100% to us. No one was socially distancing. We were the only people with masks on. We got our beer and left.

      Sorry to say this but the illness was just not serious enough for people to take it seriously. I think in my city, perversely, the early lockdown we went into may have hampered long-term quarantine efforts because I do not know anyone who has gotten it and none of my friends know anyone either. When you can’t see something it’s hard to live your life around the idea that it’s dangerous, or that it may happen to you. I think there is less than no chance our officials will be able to force another lockdown. People will just ignore directions, just like they’re ignoring directions to wear masks in public. We can sit here and say the people who were calling it “just a bad flu” and that we’re all going to get it eventually so why not get it now are idiots, but that seems to be the prevailing attitude and it didn’t go away during lockdown. The attitude was always there and now it’s the predominant governing principle of people’s behavior. Covid wasn’t deadly enough and it didn’t kill enough younger people for it to become a generalized concern. People will get it, they’ll get sick and statistically most of them will recover and their lives will move on. To them it’s not worth giving up indefinitely what they had to give up during lockdown. I hope public health officials learn some lessons from this, because even if the next pandemic is more like SARS or Ebola than it is like Covid, people won’t take it seriously because they were forced to take this seriously and for the vast majority of people, it wasn’t serious. I am afraid for the future.

      1. OP here, and I think there’s a lot of truth in what you’ve said. That said, if the worst with COVID is still to come, we may be screwed because the general public is over.it.

      2. I agree with everything you said here. I’m less concerned about the second wave of coronavirus and much more concerned about the next pandemic that will be more deadly and we will be very vulnerable because of the public’s view on how this pandemic was handled.

    9. Yes, in the Southeast and it’s driving me nuts and I kind of want to scream at people to just wear a mask. Mask use is pretty good in grocery stores, not so much anywhere else. I made a quick trip to a retail store to return an online order and went in a restaurant to pick up takeout last night and the employees at both places weren’t wearing masks, which was surprising as I thought they were required for retail and restaurant employees in our state’s reopening plan (but maybe it was just recommended?). And I saw multiple neighbors with large groups of people over this weekend. Outside, yes, but still. Meanwhile, our new case numbers this week are as high as they’ve been since this started.

    10. Yep. I’m in a conservative part of the state in phase 2 (some things open, including stores) and we went out yesterday to Macy’s and Barnes and Noble. Both of us were in masks but we were definitely in the minority. Somewhat more people were wearing them in Barnes and Noble, oddly.

    11. Walking around in the NY suburbs this weekend, there was a shocking number of people not wearing masks. Phase 1 only started last week, and there aren’t actually any changes to the average person (unless they work in construction or manufacturing), but it’s like so many people have just forgotten that tens of thousands of thousands of people in our state just died of a contagious illness. Even the cops were not wearing their masks, while standing 2 feet from a woman who had her mask pulled down. I’m planning to call the town government today to express my concern that even the police aren’t following the state’s guidance and setting an example for the community.

    12. I’m in central VA. The governor has ordered everyone over age 10 to wear masks in indoor public spaces, but mask-wearing in public is also still technically illegal. I haven’t been inside a store since March. Customers and workers are mostly masked for curbside pickup, but in a totally ineffective way. I even saw one grocery store worker wearing an N95 sideways. Everyone in our neighborhood is hanging out as if it were 2019. Kids whose parents work in health care come right up to me and get in my face asking to pet my dog. Gyms and restaurants are reopening at partial capacity, but if “capacity” is the fire marshall’s maximum occupancy then “partial capacity” is a joke because 30% of the posted capacity was more than the fitness studios at our gym could reasonably accommodate even in the Before Times. Our school district is signaling that it can’t implement any plan other than a full return to in-person instruction this fall, which means we will have two weeks of school and then nothing after one person tests positive and they shut down the entire district.

      We are in serious trouble.

      1. Capacity is almost universally the fire marshal capacity in the regs I’ve seen. You are absolutely right that because of this the capacity limit basically means many businesses (with the exception of very crowded places like bars or nightclubs) can operate essentially as normal.

    13. I still wear a mask and all the other things my state asks me to do — metro NYC area.

      However, when you see thousands of people thronging endlessly in the street screaming, and politicians and other officials supporting this, you can start to take the whole thing less seriously. The same politician — Yes, wear a mask! clean things! no groups larger than 10! and Yes, march in the streets, yelling, leaving trash everywhere, and urinate in public! Their credibility is shot, and people then just do what they want.

      1. This. If I die, my funeral will likely be attended by 10 people (likely less, because no older relatives will feel safe coming). No one will visit me in the hospital. Bars aren’t safe to reopen, even with outside seating.

        It can’t be all of the above but then have large protests, no masks, lots of yelling for hours (but no choir and no funeral services except for graveside ones if you die in nursing home from bad government policies (as long as they aren’t police policies)).

        1. I don’t think anyone is claiming protests are without risk. There’s been a lot of discussion around this. Just that the risk is outweighed by the cause.

          Also, there’s a world of difference between outdoor and indoor gatherings. They do not carry the same risk profile. Not even close.

          1. If the risk was confined to the person taking the action, I wouldn’t care. But, they are putting other people at risk, and that is unforgivable. And if it is so safe outside, why do states still limit the number of people that can gather outside together? Why are tables outside six feet apart? Because, as far as we know, it is safer outside than inside, but being outside is not safe.

    14. Rural, very red SEUS here. People have been acting like nothing ever happened for several weeks now. Almost no one practices social distancing. Almost no one wears a mask. Multiple businesses have signs that say you’re not welcome if you are wearing a mask and that social distancing is not allowed. Even more do not have a sign but function that way. The message is that you are a scared idiot if you you take precautions. I despair for humanity. I have an ever increasing sense of “us” and “them”, and am developing a strong sense of disgust and disdain for “them”.

        1. It’s mind boggling, at least to a thinking person. Sometimes I think there is nothing so belligerent as ignorance.

        2. In my SEUS state, there is an anti-Klan law on the books for a long time that wearing masks or face coverings in public is illegal and can be criminally prosecuted. Also illegal in private unless the property owner (not lessee, not tenant, the owner) consents.

          I hate that this law is expressly not excused under all of our governor’s orders or there is no directive not to enforce it b/c it makes the chance of artibrary enforcement (what we’re all protesting about — rule of law fairly for all) that much greater (or a citizen’s arrest by some wingnut vigilante). Those laws exist in many states and traps for the unwary are a bad thing that we should get rid of vs ignore at the peril of others.

      1. What does “social distancing is not allowed” even mean?? They’re going to police where I stand? This is crazy to me.

      2. Get out. Really. There’s no point to the rural / red SEUS anymore. All they do is drag down the rest of the country.

      3. Where do you live? I’ve seen that sort of thing on TV but figured NBC found the one bar that had that sign. Is this something that’s common in rural SEUS?

      4. This is very much the vibe I get in my SEUS state. In my city, the majority of people are wearings masks on the street, in grocery stores, etc. Then we went hiking in a rural area and stopped at a gas station for snacks– the clerk looked at us like we were insane in our masks and actually grabbed something out of my hand to run across the scanner when I was fiddling with it and trying to scan it without touching, etc. Also, not shockingly, cases are mostly stable in my city and increasingly rapidly in rural areas.

    15. I’m in DC, and basically never see people in stores without masks. Similarly, all the protesters I saw this weekend at the protests were wearing masks (interestingly, none of the federal law-enforcement was wearing masks). Well I’m just out walking the neighborhood, I would say about 50% of the people on walks are wearing mask but it’s relatively easy to stay 6 feet apart in my neighborhood.

      1. I’m right outside DC in Va and same here. I even see people outside walking around in masks which at first confused me as it’s easy to be 10-20 ft apart here if not more, but then I realized it’s because everyone right here lives in apartment towers, so I think they wear a mask to go down the shared elevators etc. and then I assume don’t want to touch their faces to take them off while outdoors.

  18. Can anyone recommend a very small printer? I am stuck at home, like many, and find that once in a while printing something would be very handy. But I live in 500 sqf, so have no real “office” space, hence this printer would need to be small, the kind of thing I could tuck away in the closet until I needed it. Anyone have recommendations?

    1. I have the same issue and just got a basic HP deskjet, which currently lives on the floor under my desk area. It’s not ideal but it’s pretty small and I could easily put it away while not in use.

    2. If you don’t print often, don’t buy an inkjet model. The heads need to be used frequently, or they clog and dry out, wasting pricey ink cartridges.

      A home B&W laser printer is the way to go. Brother and HP are both well-thought of in that category. Many offer wireless connection, which means you could leave the printer stored away and still use it.

      1. +1 to Brother – I doubt ours is the smallest version, but it’s not large and it has wireless capability. I think we got a refurbished item that was about $100.

      2. +2 – we got a small Brother with wireless printing and it’s been a workhorse for all the printing of documents and worksheets (yay home-schooling…).

  19. Inquiry for the readers: have Android smartphone, wondering what GPS app(s) have worked well, are accurate, and what are cost for such apps? Are any GPS apps that work well, free?(guessing not). Also,I just got my first smartphone (I know, dinosaur) so the more intuitive the app, the better. Thanks so much for the great information I continue to receive from writers and reader postings!!

    1. There is already an excellent and free GPS app on your phone; it’s called Google Maps. You are good to go.

    2. If you just need something to give you directions, plain old Google Maps is fine, as is Waze. Both of these are free. I generally prefer Waze for traffic/commuting and Google Maps for distance, but YMMV.

    3. What do you want it to do? For just reading location, I like “GPS Status”, but I have never tried others becuase this one works fine. For marking your gps location on a map, “Avenza” is popular. There are also several options from ESRI, the simplest called “Explorer”, but those are probably most useful if you are tied into an enterprise system for work etc.

      The limits of the gps will be based on your phone’s hardware, and how many sattelites are reachable at any time. Android phone often advertise their accuracy will be within a few meters. Its possible to upgrade the hardware with a dongle (yes, that’s a real word) but then you have to make suee the app is talking to the right hardware.

    4. Are you saying “GPS” because you want to do something ultra-specific, like geo-caching? Or are you saying “GPS” in the way we used to use the term when it meant that a car had a GPS system and could tell us where we were on a map? If it’s the latter, the map app that’s already on your phone will be exactly what you need and will do more than one of those car systems ever was able to. If it’s the former, you may need something else.

  20. Strange team alignment situation at work – would like some input if you’ve dealt with similar. I am on an ‘elite’ executive sponsored team that overlays other lower level teams to perform certain strategic very high revenue engagements. The teams that we overlay are eager to get involved, be part of the success and demonstrate their value. The reason my team exists is because these teams don’t have the expertise to lead these engagements and they don’t understand the strategic nature of some our planning with executive leadership. I lead the team and my team members (and me) get a lot of noise from the lower level roles to include them in every discussion, copy them on every email, find a role for them on the team, etc. I am as courteous as possible but I also have to set boundaries so that my team can perform at their highest level with out interference and avoid what they have started to refer to as “hounding”. Any advice on setting boundaries in an exclusive scenario like this is much appreciated.

    1. The language you used here to describe your “elite” team vs other “lower” teams made me bristle and I think you should work on being more collaborative with these other teams from the very beginning. Presumably you need them to accomplish your work just as much as they might need you.

      1. +1 the whole time I was reading I was thinking OP is very self important and doesn’t play well with others

    2. To be honest, that sounds like a setup that’s bound to be contentious. Your management isn’t doing you any favors by having this arrangement, especially the way your portray it where your team’s role isn’t to support these other groups, it’s to take work from them that they’re not good enough to handle, or at least that’s how they’re perceiving it.

      1. +1 Trying to parse out the corporate language, it sounds like, at times when there’s a lot of money at stake, your team comes in and takes over projects or clients these lower teams had been handling? (Sounds like a set-up for another Working Girl movie.) If so, of course they want in on it. Can you recruit another person or two for your team, whose specific job it is to communicate with the “lesser” teams and keep them up to date/involved, as well as provide training for how they can up their skills so they can be “elite,” too?

      2. Yeah, the fact that this “exclusive scenario” exists is a problem management probably should have never created in the first place.

    3. Just don’t involve the “lower” teams if your “elite” group doesn’t need or value their input.

      1. Yea, I can’t figure out why your elite team is involving the lower team at all based on how you talk about them. Are they data pushers or doing administrative work? How are they supposed to learn if they aren’t involved? I don’t understand this situation at all from your description. Either involve them or don’t, but maybe treat them like valued team members even if you all think you are so much better than they are?

    4. If these teams are eager to get involved and be part of the success, have you ever considered … wait for it … coaching them on getting them to understand the strategic nature of your planning and how to add even more value? Ever consider that when they ask to be included in discussions, copied in emails, etc. that they are demonstrating a willingness to learn and absorb? Why are you more concerned with “not being hounded” than you are with coaching / teaching and guiding them to add strategic value?

    5. From a leadership standpoint, you’re setting everyone up to fail. And be miserable as it happens. It appears your team needs the work or inputs from the other teams. (I refuse to use “elite” and “lower;” those issues addressed already.) If you don’t need them, then don’t ask them for help and do the work yourselves. If you do need them, then they are telling you to set up better lines of communication. I have subject matter experts on my teams that the strategic thinking layers of my organization need. The strategy folks may think big thoughts and generate new ideas, but if they don’t have the weedy info my guys have, the strategic layers end up wasting tons of time and highly paid hours spinning their wheels because they didn’t know that the capacity of X cannot be expanded without buying Y, or that the Idea is a good one except the regulations don’t permit Idea, etc etc. My team keeps the strategy guys from 1) doing illegal things and 2) doing silly things. We usually do this once or twice a week in regular meetings where we can help steer and bring some practicality to the discussions. Both teams work well together and we totally appreciate the value of the other.

      Solution: Find a way to set up regular sessions for your team to explain to the other teams what is going on and what is needed next. And LISTEN to the input. You seem to almost assume they just want a bit of the glory. Could they also be trying to save you?

      1. Agree with all of this. I am a management consultant, the situation OP described is what I typically experience with clients. They’ll have a strategy or project management team, or designated people in the know, that we mainly work with, though the strategy team (and the consultants) need to work with and build relationships with teams throughout the organization to get data and get the work done.

        If your team is resistant to building relationships with others with different capabilities, you will have a hard time being successful in this role. At most F500s I’ve seen, the strategy team tends to have a different MBA/JD pedigree, is more driven, and works longer hours than the rest of the organization – but I have never heard anyone refer to others as being “lower” or “not skilled”. They are skilled, just in different capacities. You and your team need to drop the condescension here.

    6. I am in a regional leadership role, so tend to be in the group that is overlaid if you will. I can concur that the hounding you feel is real… my team chirps to me about it, which probably means it is full on hounding for the elite team. I do think it’s important to include the overlaid group, or a representative of the group when possible in order to provide you historical information, and possible impact on execution. Generally, in my company, the elite team is providing strategic support that the overlaid team will need to implement. If the overlaid team doesn’t think the concepts will work on execution, the elite team needs to know that.

    7. Is your team basically a program management function? I’m involved in projects where I’m “in the weeds”, but the strategic discussion is at a leadership level. The program management function drafts status documents for the leadership group and those of us who are in the weeds contribute the details to those documents. The program management team arranges for those of us who are in the weeds to have pre/post meeting touch points with the people representing us, so between that and contributing to the written documentation, we have built a high trust environment without having 50 people in on the leadership meetings.

    8. How about using Project Management tools like lists, tracking, flow-charts? That way they can “see” the plan and the progress. Some people are visual and would like that, others might like seeing excel spreadsheets/word docs with action plans. Set up as “read only” or password protected so that only key people can change data. Even propose that some of the lower level employees take project management classes and eventually they could help with those tasks that require PM expertise. Several companies where I’ve worked have made free courses in PM available to anyone. As far as the hounding and boundaries, I think you will either need to be direct with people one-to-one or send out a blast email to the effect of “We appreciate your help and will let you know when you’re needed for specific tasks. Due to the nature of the work, we can’t involve all team members on each project.”

      1. OP here…..wow this is great feedback. We are doing what you suggest in last 2 sentences so thank you for validation….there are a few that still resist the hierarchical structure and boundaries of this scenario.

        1. Yikes, I’m very concerned you’re ignoring the great advice people have given you above. You’re still going to have problems if you don’t address those issues.

  21. I’ve been getting highlights/balayage for about a year, had “virgin” hair previously. After my touch up in Feb I noticed my hair was coming out in the shower a lot more and in my brush. I started doing Olaplex during quarantine. I was doing research and it seems the consensus is that salons worth their salt should be doing professional Olaplex treatments to prevent damage… well mine does not. Would this be a deal breaker for you? I had otherwise been really happy with my salon and hair stylist.

    1. That’s not the consensus at all. If you prefer it fine but don’t paint your salon as negligent.

    2. No, it wouldn’t. I have been getting my hair colored (highlighted, all over dye, bayalage, essentially any coloring available) over the last 11 years by the same stylist at the same salon and there is no Olaplex being used. My hair has slowly thinned out over time during that period and I have had periods where I have lost a bit more hair due to stress, but nothing out of the ordinary.

    3. No, why don’t you ask them to provide you with professional Olaplex treatment? Just do the home ones, that’s fine too. This is not a deal breaker.

    4. Is this a weird attempt at an ad? No, Olaplex is not a gold standard of anything. Their stuff is mediocre at best.

      1. Nope, definitely not. My impression was that it was but this is all pretty new to me so I guess I am wrong. Tbh it is a relief because I did not want to switch salons.

  22. I’m about to have my second baby and have done almost no preparation between covid and protests, the timing completely flew by and I can’t believe I only have a week to go.

    Advice for helping my 3.5 year adjust to a baby? I read Siblings Without Rivalry over the weekend and liked it even though it was obviously geared toward older kids. My oldest understands there’s a baby coming, has watched most of her friends get siblings, and seems excited. She’s been drawing pictures for “baby sister” and will say very sweet things totally unprompted, like goodnight and I love you to my stomach. I’m expecting the emotions to get a little more complicated once the baby is actually here.

    I’m definitely planning to carve out some time just with my older daughter each day, whether it’s a meal, walk, or outdoor playtime where our nanny is with the baby and I can give her 100% of my attention. I’ve also heard it can help to explicitly tell the baby she has to wait sometimes so older daughter isn’t the only one hearing wait I have to help the baby.

    Any other helpful advice, resources or anecdotes would be appreciated!

    As an aside, my MIL compares everyone and constantly tries to pit people against each other. Luckily she doesn’t live near us so it won’t be a big presence, but I’d also love advice on how to immediately neutralize her for the week that she visits when the baby is born.

    1. I did a lot of dividing time so as to avoid MIL. Like she would take older kid to the playground or for a walk while I nursed/napped baby. Or she would hold baby for a nap while I took a walk with oldest kid. DH WFH that week so he was around at lunches etc. I also nursed alone in my room a lot. Nursing sessions but you like 30 mins of alone time every 2-3 hours and throw in a few times if napping when baby naps and you don’t have to spend a lot of time with her.

      1. +1 this is basically what I did. Oop, time to nurse the baby again! *disappears for 45 minutes*

    2. Congratulations! You will do great! Don’t worry too much about it – there will be days where the 3.5 year old has zero interest, some when she hates the baby and some where she is thrilled to have a new toy “doll.” That’s on her – you stay consistent in those things that you indicated above. I think with the second there’s a lot more man-to-man defense with parenting so think about how you can make it so it’s not always you + baby but that you mix it up. With your MIL, I’m in the same boat and I suggest lots of meditation and some wine.

    3. My kids are closer in age, but the thing that I noticed was that my older child, my daughter, was fine with the baby, not upset about the attention, was mildly interested in looking at him but not so much after the newness wore off.

      The things that she didn’t like were once he got a little bit mobile. He was completely fascinated with her (still is as a late teen, though he’d never admit it) and wanted to be wherever she was, play with her toys etc. and she was Not Having It. We had a hard time figuring out where to enforce sharing is good, be gentle with the baby vs her right to autonomy and independence. We just muddled through it. I mean we still get, “MOM, will you make brother get out of my ROOM” all the time so … it’s a thing they deal with all their lives.

      That said, my kids would lay down their lives for each other. They bicker but at the end of the day they’re thick as thieves.

      Parents have been dealing with this forever and eventually we figure it out. You will too. Congratulations on your expanding little family!

    4. No advice, but some older/oldest siblings think that they are owed all of the parents’ attention, and don’t quite grasp that the new baby is getting what they were given.

    5. I’m not a parent but have been a frequent caregiver for the 2.5 year old son of my good friends/neighbors, who just two weeks ago welcomed baby boy number 2. The 2.5 year old is definitely a little jealous of all the new baby attention – he is constantly wanting mom’s affection and love. One thing that helps is that dad is taking the lead on spending lots of playtime with him, and when they are both swamped, I also welcome him over to my house for outdoor play time. I know everyone’s situation is totally different given COVID, but for them (really needing the extra support) and me (cool with the situation as long as we being reasonable), being an additional adult helper who can give the older boy some undivided attention has been useful. Another good friend and mom of two found that giving her older daughter a new baby doll to ‘take care of’ helped redirect some of the desire to constantly ‘help’ mom take care of the baby (as in, clumsily manhandling the poor baby as only an eager toddler can.) As for your MIL, can you busy her with tasks? Laundry, cleaning, cooking and so forth, maybe.

  23. I’m having surgery soon that will make me straw-dependent for several days. There is a Ben & Jerry’s that is walkable to me and I will have their smoothies for at least several “meals”. They have paper straws that disintegrate. I don’t think they have plastic straws handy for my situation. Skinny straws don’t work well on smoothies b/c of the thickness. Any recommendations for fat plastic straws? I’m not looking for something re-usable as I don’t do dishes enough for a dishwasher. I just want to handle a post-surgical straw need. :(

    1. Just buy any fat plastic straws from Amazon – this isn’t something where you need a really vetted rec if you’re going the disposable route. Good luck in your recovery!

    2. But you can hand wash a silicone or metal reusable straw? Otherwise, yeah, buy any plastic one.

      1. Not the OP, but I wouldn’t trust hand washing for a small enclosed space like the inside of a straw. I’d want it sterilized.

    3. If you get the wider barrel metal straws you can run them through the dishwasher. You can put the skinnier ones through as well but they fall through the silverware basket. The wide barrel don’t fall through and they get perfectly clean.

      I don’t even think about it much any more, to be honest. That’s just how straws are for me now – metal, and dishwasher cleaned.

    4. I’ve seen “smoothie” straws at my grocery store. Sometimes they are hanging in the aisle where the paper goods are kept.

    5. I have not seen a lot of plastic smoothie straws lately.

      I have been getting glass smoothie straws. They are great. They come with a little brush to handwash (and since they are clear, they are easy to clean), but can also be put in the dishwasher. The ones I got was German, via Amazon.

      1. I don’t think I would go a week before biting into, breaking, and cutting myself on a glass straw! I guess this shows how people are different. My jaw muscle can be spastic at times.

  24. What’s a nice bottle of Prosecco that you’d give as a gift? I usually drink La Marca but I’m not sure it feels gift worthy.

    1. Veuve clicquot is a gift standby. Bele Casel Asolo Prosecco is my favorite prosecco close to La Marca price point but so creamy and delicious. Such a nice flavor profile and dry.

      1. To be clear, same! I would totally be happy to receive La Marca. Just wanted to provide other options if you’re looking for an alternative.

    2. I know this sounds mean but La Marca is $8-$11. Depends on the occasion I guess, but that does feel on the inexpensive side for a gift.

      If I’m doing a bottle for a gift I don’t want to buy the thing they keep in their fridge for every day drinking. I go to the store (well, not now, but this is what I used to do) and look for a real champagne, from the champagne region of France, that is on sale. I go with that. I try to spend $40 or less.

      I’m thinking of the kind of bottle you bring to a birthday party or a dinner at someone’s home.
      (And if for a dinner, please make sure you tell the host “this is for you to put away and enjoy later.”)

      1. I think the OP is saying the same thing – La Marca is indeed one of our favorites but we wouldn’t bring it as a hostess gift. I co-sign Bele Casel Asolo Prosecco — it’s not *that* much more expensive but feels special

        This is sadly reminding me that last year we were drinking Prosecco IN the Prosecco hills and now… not so much.

    3. Segura Viudas is a Spanish sparkling wine that comes in a fancy bottle. It’s not terribly expensive – probably $20-$25 – but the bottle makes it feel more luxe. And it tastes good.

    4. If you want something more than LaMarca, but less than Veuve, I would suggest the Graham Beck sparkling – usually in the $25 range and very good. Also, GH Mumm and Domaine Chandon are nice sparkling in that price range as well.

    1. This is really cool. I might start another post about it tomorrow, but my ancestors were enslavers and I want to do something with the few historical records I have about that. I’m not sure where to start but I hope other women here have some ideas too. I know that at least a few other posts also have enslavers in their family trees.

      1. Do any of the HBCU have libraries or history departments that maintain these types of records? I’d be inclined to find out if they are of use to black university researchers vs state archives.

    2. Dang- it’s paywalled. I’ll have to save it to pocket and see if I can read it next month…

  25. Help! I need a recipe for an easy, festive dessert to serve at a picnic this afternoon. I don’t have an electric mixer. I was thinking of something single serve like a cookie but that doesn’t seem celebratory enough. This is for a birthday.

    1. Search Betty Crocker Butterscotch Cake Mix blondies. Super easy. Really tasty. Was a good recipe that my entire family enjoyed.

    2. Smitten kitchen’s strawberry summer cake– make the sheet cake version. Also, cakes are easier and faster than cupcakes or cookies imo (and more festive). But if you’re worried about social distancing the dessert itself, sprinkles on cupcakes is probably the way to go… In that case I’d make a quick fudge or vanilla cake.

  26. Hi ladies, does anyone have the Caroline bag from Mark and Graham? Do you like it? Does it stand when you put it down on the floor?

  27. I live in a densely populated neighborhood in Chicago. This weekend was wild — restaurants with outdoor patios were completely packed. It is like the last three months never happened.

    1. Me too! Division street area in Wicker Park specifically was pretty packed. Tbh I don’t think it is a big risk, since everyone is outdoors. But it is wild to see, especially after events of earlier this week. Summerhouse in Lincoln Park specifically looked very pleasant. I was very jealous of all the people just sitting out at cafes enjoying a drink.

    2. Which neighborhood? I live in Chicago, too, and the patios I saw in Roscoe Village and Andersonville were very sparsely populated.

    3. It’s totally restaurant dependent. We went out Friday night and they were aggressive about 6 ft distancing and only were at half capacity, and we saw the servers cleaning every table and changing gloves between guests. Saturday night, a different restaurant packed the patio to where I was sitting maybe 2ft from the next table.

      The 9pm curfew added a weird dynamic since most restaurants cleared out by 8 and wouldn’t take reservations after 7. I’m glad that’s been lifted but I’m mentally prepared for an even more crowded weekend.

  28. I have a different question about hair coloring prompted by the one above. My already fine and thin hair started falling out very quickly in March/April, I’m assuming due to stress. It’s slowed down, thankfully, but I want to make sure I’m treating my hair as well as I can. Should I stop coloring my hair (I started only about a year ago and I love it, but I’d rather have hair long term than color it now)? Are there certain shampoos I should use or not use? A friend of mine has recently started using Rogaine, does anybody here have experience with that? I know there’s somebody here who always recommends Viviscal, but it’s got shark cartilage in it that I can’t imagine is sourced sustainably, so that’s not something I’m interested in.

    1. Rogaine works. So does Viviscal. I don’t think coloring my hair makes any difference to its thinning; it actually seems to thicken it a bit (although of course it doesn’t make more hair).

    2. Shampoo to avoid: I noticed more fall when I was frequently using dry shampoo. Everyone says to shampoo less for healthier hair, but nobody bothers to mention that the powder clogs up your scalp and causes hair loss anyway. I ditched dry shampoo, went back to frequent shampooing with a scalp build-up formula (Neutrogena T-Sal), and my hair density improved after several months.

    3. It’s worth getting a telehealth appointment with a derm specializing in hair loss. They can help determine what kind of hair loss you are having, which affects treatment. It can take months or even most of a year to determine if a hair loss treatment is working, so best to get a diagnosis up front so you can focus on treatments that are more likely to be effective.

      Also, I hated Rogaine. It left my hair weirdly stiff and crackly and you have to use it every day for the rest of your life. My derm prescribed oral meds. I could tell within a month that I was shedding a lot less hair.

    4. Rogaine really does work. I use the foam. Yes, you have to use it forever, but you get used to it. I apply at night before bed.It has made a huge difference in terms of the look and feel of my hair, which in turn has helped me feel more confident and more like my old self.

  29. Just talked to my doctor and they’re recommending that their patients (very high risk population) work from home through a vaccine if possible. If development of a vaccine doesn’t look like it’s going well, they’d recommend at least through end of flu season in 2021.

    Everything sucks.

    1. Wow, thanks for the update. I’m slightly encouraged by the fact that vaccine development is moving at an unprecedented pace and that it actually looks optimistic, but still. I like working from home and hope to continue to do so anyway, but it sucks to miss out on so much else.

      1. Yeah, I’m also optimistic about the vaccine and I don’t mind WFH, exactly. I just miss normal life, social connection, being able to meet up with friends for coffee without it all being a big planned out thing that still doesn’t have an undercurrent of anxiety.

        I am definitely going to get a better office chair, though.

    2. Thanks. I may have this discussion with a dr. Does end of flu season 2021 mean like March-April of 2021 or more like Jan 2021? I feel like the flu always peaks in the winter but that drags on for a while.

      I know this has meant different things for different people but for me it means — wow a LOT longer staying at a job that I don’t like that is hurting my resume because at least I know they are handling this well. But I am foregoing opportunities in a field I want to be in because of the fear of being a new employee and landing with an employer who says — ok state is open, you’re coming in. IDK how to weigh this out unless I just seek out a new job and get a 100% agreement with them re WFH, rather than just go in hoping that they’ll be “reasonable.”

      I’m not going to link it here because it’ll take hours to post but CNBC has an article today that a WHO study is reporting that asymptomatic spread is more rare than previously believed; it CAN still happen but it is not common. Just in case people are in need of good news. BTW this study is NOT based on the US but on data they’ve aggregated from countries that have been doing very detailed contact tracing — so I assume SK, Singapore, NZ etc.

      1. At least through March he said, but this is only if the vaccine isn’t working out. If that’s still going along, it will be until it’s released (longer/shorter).

      2. Didn’t post. Through March but longer if the vaccine is still in development.

    3. Yep, high risk here (in Seattle too) and plan on asking to work from home until at least 12/31/2020 and then reassess.

      1. My employer is being really reasonable about it and actually said last week they expect high risk to WFH until a vaccine but to have it confirmed by my doctor was difficult, even if expected.

      2. Also, my doctor said that our county may or may not ever reach phase 4 based on current public health guidance and expects us to move back and forth between phases because of outbreaks for quite awhile. :|

    4. End of flu season 2021 seems pretty reasonable to me, actually. My employer (state university) is keeping all employees who can work from home off campus through summer 2021. And most of us are not high risk.

    5. I’m high risk. I have a telemedicine appointment with my specialist on Thursday. Waiting to see what they are saying. (Chronic, frequently deadly, rare lung disease).

      I’m struggling to find my way through this. Telework/work from home is fine. It’s everything else … can the people I live with resume their normal lives? Can I ever go to a store again? Much less travel.

      1. Same. Same type of disease (lung, rare), same type of considerations. It’s tough. Right there with you.

    6. The only cheery thing I can suggest is that antibodies are in testing that, if they work, could be given as a short term bridge to a vaccine. I am otherwise planning on WFH for the duration and did just order a better desk chair and a WiFi extender so I have a better set up at home.

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