Tuesday’s Workwear Report: Daisy Crazy Embroidered Long-Sleeve Cotton Sweater

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1. Any recommendation for a live online novel writing class? The goal is less to learn to write, but more to have some sort of accountability mechanism to make sure the student keeps writing.

   1. A homeschool board I used to be on had a lot of moms and students using NaNoWriMo. Not my thing, so I do not know much about it other than that it exists.

   2. If it’s for a female-identifying writer, I got a lot from the Write Like A Grrrl course I did through For Books’ Sake. Usually U.K. only but obviously running online courses now if the time zones work for you.

   3. A friend has recommended classes through Grubstreet, but I haven’t taken one personally.

   4. Check out Hugo House in Seattle. I believe they are doing their classes online now.

2. Questions to ask HR when receiving an offer for a senior level position? No recruiter is involved. Assume comp has already been discussed. Starting date, PTO, benefits? Is it appropriate to ask whether I should use my own laptop for working remotely or whether they provide one? Throw any thoughts out here. Thanks!

   1. They should definitely provide a laptop. Have you already talked to them about working remote? That might not be a given, so just wondering. I’d also ask about the performance review cycle – how/when will your performance be reviewed? Do they customarily give a merit increase every year? Are their options for stock (if it’s a public company). Good luck!

      1. I’d ask for a laptop, but also a cell phone because I strongly believe in keeping work and personal separate. Given our current circumstances, maybe ask about WFH tech stipend to cover monitors, a printer/scanner, and a shredder?

         1. I second the cell phone. Not senior, but have multiple teams reporting through me. I’d been asking my management for a work cell and it made a world of difference. I don’t keep it with me at all times like my personal cell (i know but let’s be real) and it allows me to actively disconnect when I’m off.

         2. Emphatic agreement. BYOD is a legal and logistical nightmare. Avoid it at all possible, and if you can’t, designate one “personal work” device and one “actually personal device”. Nobody is getting admin rights to the laptop I use for banking.

   2. If it’s a senior level role, I’d also ask things about other perks/benefits. These vary widely by industry, but everything from if you’re expected to travel frequently, will they cover first class travel to in some industries they include things like no interest home loans and use of a company plane (probably not a ton left that do that).

      1. Haha, not that senior

         1. Low/no interest home loans used to be very common in finance companies, not many are offered any more but worth asking.

            1. We just got a new benefit with a slight discount on a mortgage rate, and it’s offered to all employees as far as I know (I mean, assuming they otherwise qualify for the mortgage).

               FWIW I’m not sure stuff like this needs to be brought up in the negotiation process with HR. It’s either a benefit or it’s not, it’s not something they are going to add to the package b/c you request it, I’m assuming it’s not something that would make or break your decision whether to take the role or not, and I’m sure there is a myriad of other benefits they will go over with you when you onboard.

               There probably are some benefits that may make or break your decision to take a role though, so just concentrate on what those would be. (Parental leave? Corporate relationship with any childcare providers? 401K funding? PTO, working remote as previously cited? etc.?)

         2. One day, though :)

      2. I just got a promotion to the next second level of our executive management ladder and was surprised to learn of a monthly $1000 stipend for “recreational use”. Apparently, when it was all old, white dudes it was to cover your county club dues.

         1. Nice! Are there any local charities that you would consider supporting?

            1. Look, I agree with your sentiment here, but maybe also just let her have her raise?

   3. I would definitely ask about PTO, benefits, and perks. Find out what kind of PTO system they use (one bucket versus separate sick days and vacation days, etc.), what kind of health plans they offer, stock options, 401(k) match (if any), whether commuting costs are covered or subsidized, and ask to confirm that they’ll be sending you a laptop. If they haven’t covered the performance review schedule or how they do bonuses, if you’re eligible, that’s something to ask about now.

   4. Options (amount and strike price), and I would assume this is more a question for the cfo or your hiring manager- but what’s your budget? Bonus structure?

3. in Texas as of this Friday everything is open – from bars, to overnight camps to youth sports to massages. Normally I don’t care what other people do and what risks that other people decide to take with their own lives, but since the risks other people take actually do effect me and my family (e.g. if you decide to go spinning, to a bar and then get a massage and then go to the grocery store without a mask) it is kind of scary. i find it analogous to drunk driving – the harm they are risking is not only to themselves, but to others as well. i realize we cannot all stay home forever, but certain activities, like non life threatening medical procedures, or school, seem a bit more essential than spin class and bars. I would really like to try to understand where other people are coming from in terms of their ‘need’ to engage in some of these activities. for those of you who have already ventured out more, what is your risk/benefit calculus, how do you decide whether or not to wear a mask, etc.

   1. I’ve read a lot of the studies so far, and when things begin to re-open I think we’re going to send our son to camp (super small program, lots of regulations they’ve already communicated, and it’s at his school so a bit like a ‘test’ run of how school will go). Other than that, we’ll do one haircut each when allowed, maybe have a dinner or two out on a patio and meet up with small groups of friends for outdoor picnics/bbqs.
      But workout classes (breathing heavily in a confined space is like the definition of a super spreader event!!!), shopping in malls, and commuting via public transit are all no-go’s for us. I also just can’t see the risk/reward benefit of massages/nail services/going to bars/going to movies/etc.

      1. We are going to send out kids to outdoor nature camps this summer but all of our indoor museum-based or drama camps are cancelled as of right now.

   2. Hello from Houston! I agree, let’s be safe people. Lots of non-mask wearing folks here. Our numbers were the highest since early April yesterday.

      1. Hi from Houston! It’s funny to hear you say that – everywhere I have been, people have been wearing masks. I saw one woman not wearing one at HEB. I ran errands the other day, and everyone was.

         1. Also, to be clear, the bars and gyms and stuff aren’t fully reopened. Only 25%.

         2. i’m in Houston too and when I went to HEB over the weekend there were a number of people not wearing masks. Last night I went to pick up takeout and the restaurant wouldn’t let someone in without a mask, which I thought was great

            1. Yeah, I expect businesses to do a lot to protect their staff and customers.

            2. This is actually the law in MA.

   3. I live in Texas and I am empathetic to how you feel. I can’t answer your questions directly, but I can tell you that I’m not going to live my life in fear. I was worked from home for 2 months and now I’m back at my office. I am wearing a mask when I go out so that I don’t get other sick (I don’t think I have the virus and I had the antibody test last week). I’ve been out to eat a few times and this weekend I plan to get a pedicure. I’m not going to bars or to a spin class. If I can keep my distance from most people then I think the risk is low and I’ll probably do it. Some friends want to get together for brunch this weekend and I’m still trying to decide if it’s a good idea. I’m also planning to go to TJ Maxx this weekend just to wander the store – but I’ll be wearing a mask. I think you need what makes you most comfortable.

      1. I mean it’s very clear getting together with a group of people to eat is one of the riskiest activities.

         1. IDK — I think details matter a lot. I had a beer with friends outside in their yard and we each bought our own snacks and it was fine. Fondue inside — different story.

         2. That’s not at all “very clear.” You may feel that way, but it’s not the reality.

            1. Erm, hard disagree, Other Anon…
               https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/health/airflow-coronavirus-restaurants.html

      2. Also, our hospitalization and death rate have stayed low.

         1. Meh, I think too early too tell on this. The lag of exposure-incubation-actual symptoms-testing-positive test results show up in state data is LONG. By the time you start to see cases going up, it’s likely that those people had ample opportunity to infect others. Hopefully they stay low, but 5/19 is not a date when we can say that’s what happened.

            1. I disagree. Longer incubation periods are possible, but the mean incubation period is only 5 days. In many states it’s now possible to get tested as soon as you’re symptomatic and to have results back within hours if not minutes. I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet by any means, but the fact that states began opening in late April/early May and we’re now at May 19 (ie., 3-4 weeks into reopening) without a dramatic uptick in cases is very encouraging.

            2. But here’s my question. Yes, we’ve “reopened,” but what percent of normal activity has been resumed? That’s what I’m curious about. In my state, Georgia, we reopened in a dramatic fashion but my impression is that many people have not resumed normal activities and many business haven’t reopened even if allowed. For me personally, I haven’t changed my habits at all and most of my friends haven’t either. Of course I can’t quantity what everyone else is doing, but I do I wonder if this is a false sense of security. You can’t say that “reopening gyms” or whatever hasn’t caused harm when many gyms haven’t even reopened yet.

         2. Re: Florida and Georgia messing with COVID reporting:

            https://www.businessinsider.com/graph-shows-georgia-bungling-coronavirus-data-2020-5
            Georgia rearranged the order of dates on the graph to make it look like cases were declining.

            And in Florida, the governor told medical examiners to stop releasing COVID death data:

            https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/04/29/florida-medical-examiners-were-releasing-coronavirus-death-data-the-state-made-them-stop/

            Also in Florida, the woman in charge of making the data base to track COVID data was let go because she wouldn’t fudge the data:
            https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2020/05/18/censorship-covid-19-data-researcher-removed-florida-moves-re-open-state/5212398002/

            Hope that’s enough for you. The governor of Florida also decided that COVID deaths in Florida of non-Florida residents didn’t count, no matter whether they caught the disease in Florida or not.

            I expect it’s too late for you to read this and even if you do, you probably won’t admit that many governors of Trump’s party are trying to downplay the crisis, but that’s on you.

            1. @PolyD, the data mishandling has been a big story in GA – the degree of incompetence would be almost funny if it wasn’t such a serious issue. At the same time, even the reordered data doesn’t suggested that cases are going up here – it still looks like a drop. That said, I don’t think anyone can safely say that decline is real until we hit early June, because there’s a 14-day window before they treat data as final due to lags in reporting. Right now that 14-day window takes us back to very shortly after reopening, so we’re still in a place where case and death confirmations for early May getting adjust as data comes in. Currently we’re reported as having about 1600 total deaths and 1000 people currently hospitalized with confirmed covid, in a state with a population of about 10 million. We’ll know how solid these numbers are in a few weeks.

               We can say we don’t see evidence of a spike now, and we can say that anecdotally those of us who live here are not having experiences that suggest an overloaded medical system in Atlanta specifically (we’re reopening for elective procedures; our hospitals are reporting excess ICU capacity; my doctor friends who got pulled from their regular specialities and geared up to treat covid patients didn’t end up being needed). (Note, the medical system in Albany definitely *was* overwhelmed, but their medical infrastructure was also very limited.)

               Right now our current numbers show a super dramatic drop, but because of the 14-day window, those numbers aren’t reliable. It’s probably not the case that we’re seeing significant increases, but as the numbers get firm it looks more like a slow decline rather than the victory people want to see it as.

      3. this is meant in a non-judgmental way, just trying to understand how others think – you mention that you’ve eaten at restaurants a few times. was this enjoyable and relaxing? did you not think at all about the potential virus exposure while you were there? were you inside or outside?

         1. I ate outside at a restaurant where we were the only people on the patio. It was glorious. I wore a mask in and then took it off once we got our drinks. The waitress was wearing a mask and gloves, which I could tell she changed several times. It was no more dangerous than take out.

            1. You do you, but dining even on a patio is definitely more risky than takeout.

            2. How? We were literally the only customers there. The waitress was the only difference, and she took a ton of precautions.

            3. It is, and not the OP on this, but I’m OK with that risk. If that risk gets me sick, then we will likely not have schools or colleges in the fall and I’d rather know that now (as would schools and colleges) then have it sprung upon me again (with all of the poor planning that homeschooling has inflicted nothing but burdens on working parents with little upside educationally).

               FWIW, my kids will be eating outside or under shelters at their camps this summer.

            4. +1. I live in Georgia and have been to a few restaurants, and went to my favorite brewery for a beer on their patio this week. All of them were great. The first couple of days of restaurants opening were a bit awkward, but they have gotten down a process that feels like the new normal. We’re still staying 6+ feet from other tables, but I am totally okay with this level of interaction. I’m getting a pedicure this weekend, and my fiance got a haircut last week. We are healthy and don’t socialize with people who are elderly or known to be at risk. To me, this is a completely reasonable risk to take. Not to be brazen, but I am to the point that I am going to live my life and not let fear of this stop me. This is about reducing risk, not eliminating it.

               Our cases are still going down both statewide and in my county, and most of the current impact is in jails, nursing homes, and manufacturing plants where people are close together.

         2. Not the OP, and not in Texas (but in a low-hit area) – I ate at a restaurant last weekend, and sat in a coffee shop the weekend before. It was largely very enjoyable and relaxing. People were in good spirits and it was just so nice to see people socializing and being human. The staff were masked, and seemed unusually happy and friendly. Potential exposure was on my mind, and I was mindful to be careful, but it was not an overriding concern. The coffee shop was indoors; at the restaurant, we ate outdoors because they have a nice patio and the weather was nice, though I wouldn’t have balked at eating inside.

            I agree with In-House that you need to do what is comfortable for you, but we’re not going to stay inside forever.

         3. I am not the restuarant poster, but I will provide you some additional data for your question. I really never think about potential virus exposure when I am out and about. I take the precautions advised by the CDC and have accepted that I am doing the best I can and cannot control anyone else. I am sure I have touched my face or bitten my nails/cuticles (I know, I know) without washing my hands first out of habit, but I don’t think about it. I am going into the office and going to the store once a week. I have accepted this is reality and also have accepted that my behaviors are all I can control and that I am doing the best I can. That’s enough for me to not be anxious or think about it very often.

            1. +1 I wear a mask when I’m out (to protect others) and try to remember to wash my hands frequently and use hand sanitizer any time I see it. But I really don’t stress about it beyond this. I could probably do more but I don’t think the minuscule incremental protection beyond what I’m doing is worth the extra stress/time. I have accepted that there is a risk that I get this and will probably get it at some point regardless so I use common sense and follow the CDC guidelines and don’t think about it much beyond that.

            2. Same here. I’ve been WFH but if I do go out, I wear a mask and social distance, etc. But I don’t shower and change my clothes right away when I get home or wipe down my groceries. I am lucky/privileged to be low risk health wise.

         4. “was this enjoyable and relaxing? did you not think at all about the potential virus exposure while you were there?”

            Not all of us are living in deathly existential fear of getting the virus. Life involves risk. I am genuinely sorry for the folks who are just now confronting existential terror and fear of their own mortality for the first time in their lives. Many of us have lived with that for a long, long time. So taking some calculated risks to live life in these times doesn’t feel that different than, say, driving on the freeway during rush hour and passing a fatal accident that could have been me.

            1. THIS.

            2. 100%

   4. There’s nothing much to understand except a culture of willful ignorance. I’m in a state that has been much more locked down for much longer. We are reopening gradually prioritizing important things and low risk things, everyone is willingly wearing masks in stores, and this is just reaffirming you mr that the South is another country that I don’t want to visit.

      Absolutely we need to open up! But not everything over night.

      1. That’s hilarious. Nice work, insulting half of the country without the facts. The south has actually done much better than the north – I’d gladly have you compare Houston or Dallas to Detroit and New York.

         1. +1

         2. To each her own. I think you got lucky early and will suffer later.

            1. I think hot, humid weather slows transmission more than people think, which is good for the northern states as we head into the hot humid summer months.

            2. Is there any scientific backup for the hot/humid claim? Not challenging, actually just curious to see the research

            3. Maybe, maybe not. It’s far too early to tell how this will play out. We may all look back in a year and wish we took Sweden’s approach.

               I also think it’s really hard to compare New York to literally anywhere else in the country both in terms of international travel exposure and general density. Pre-COVID I probably had “close” interactions with hundreds of people every day living in the city and I don’t think I’m unique as a New Yorker. I just don’t the density, reliance on public transit, crowds here compare to anywhere else in the United States. I think other places that are opening up may get hit hard later but I have a hard time seeing how anywhere else could hit New York levels even opening up to their normal pre-COVID lives.

            4. I wasn’t claiming there’s solid scientific evidence behind it, although I think there have been some studies (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/sunlight-humidity-kill-coronavirus-fastest-scientists-200424065853466.html).
               I’m just saying that based on how well Florida/Georgia did this spring relative to Michigan/New York, while having less strict lockdown rules and easing restrictions earlier, it seems to me like at least one of heat/humidity/UV intensity must be a factor.

            5. Well, both Florida and Georgia seem to be having some…issues… with accurately reporting their COVID cases and deaths.

               Issues meaning governors pressuring their public health departments to mess with the data.

            6. Do you have a source for that PolyD? That seems like the sort of thing you shouldn’t throw around with substantiation. Also, even if they are suppressing their numbers, it would be difficult if not impossible to hide overwhelmed hospitals and patients being denied ICU beds, morgues overflowing, etc. CNN had nurses and doctors in NYC leaking footage of ER patients waiting in hallways and the refrigerated morgue trucks coming to hospitals, and I don’t know why you think the media wouldn’t get the same kind of leaks out of doctors in the south. So at the very minimum, Florida and Georgia never reached the level of hospital overwhelm that NYC (and to a lesser degree, Detroit) had.

         3. +1
            Texas is not the South, but the same holds for Atlanta and its counterparts.

            1. Texas is not the south?! What a weird comment

            2. Texas may be southern US, but it’s not The South. It’s Texas. It doesn’t need to be grouped in with other states. It is it’s own set of cultural norms.

               And…(from above) is the South really 1/2 of the US population-wise? B/c it’s only a quarter (if that) landwise.

            3. It’s not, according to most Texans and Southerners. It’s sort of it’s own region.qq

         4. Let’s be fair, though – we haven’t done better because of willful choices we made. The baseline lifestyle in a lot of the US is inherently more socially distanced than it is in the NE and large coastal cities. We life in single family homes, we don’t use transit, and our development is suburban and low-density. There’s a much higher use of private controlled access facilities rather than public ones (e.g. country club or neighborhood/subdivision pools vs. public ones) and people are more likely to socialize in small groups in the home rather than in public spaces. Probably the only respect in which we’re more likely to gather in groups than are people in the NE/coastal cities is church.

            So yeah, it makes sense that covid hasn’t spread in the same way here, but that’s not because we made better choices. I often sense a nasty undercurrent of people hoping that GA, TX, etc. will get hit hard now that we’re reopening to show us the error of our ways – and that’s a bad look. I hate Governor Kemp, but I’d much prefer that his decision turns out to have been correct, because I’d prefer that I be wrong and alive rather than right and dead. But we haven’t been spared the worst of this due to our greater virtue or better approach to fighting covid.

            1. I don’t want y’all to get hit hard! I just think it’s coming for you.

            2. I am in the NYC metro area, and I absolutely do not hope Georgia and Texas will get hit hard. Governor Kemp could be better, but it’s perfectly clear it is in all of our best interests for Georgia and Texas to do well! I hope everyone there is safe, I hope re-opening goes amazingly, and I hope that helps people overall be less fearful and start to move. I do admit that I am envious every morning when I am on Instagram and I see gyms in other states re-opening.

         5. Cities like Houston and Dallas are very different from east coast cities. Even my little suburb is more densely populated than those cities. Houston has 3,678 compared to 26,403 in NYC.

            1. people per square mile, of course.

      2. Texas is not the South.

         1. Who keeps saying that Texas is not the South? That’s absurd

            1. You are clearly not familiar with Texas or Texans. It’s not the south, which anyone from there will tell you.

            2. It’s not the south. It’s direction is south, but Texas is culturally distinct from the south – south is Georgia, Mississsippi, Alabama, etc. Same way people don’t refer to New Mexico as “the South”

            3. Texas is its own thing.

               Source: am southern.

            4. I always thought that Texas while in the south geographically is not considered part of “the South” but I do find it amusing that the suggestion that Texas is the South has angered both Texans and Southerners.

            5. I definitely think it’s the South but don’t think Florida is.

            6. I’m definitely familiar. I’ve lived there and 3 other southern states. Sorry, but it’s not a special flower.

               Can’t think of an aspect that makes it particularly unsouthern.

            7. The amusing thing about Texans is that they seem to think the rest of the country thinks of their state as important. Guess what, we have 50 states, you’re just one of them! Likewise, it’s amusing when they think Austin is “so liberal.” Uh – in the north, we call that “normal.” Austin is a nice place and all, but they’re surrounded by so much red that what we call normal they call liberal. It’s crazy.

         2. huh?

      3. Bless your heart.

         1. I’m from AL. Before you “bless your heart” — please take a good, long look in the mirror. The racism and sexism is overwhelming in the South. We have to own our sh!t.

            1. Nah. Let’s not keep ignoring the racism in Boston, St. Louis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Garden City, Chicago and, yes, NYC. It looks different but it is pervasive and damaging and dangerously underreported.

            2. I think I’m good with basic geography (Texas =/= the south). There is a place free of racism and sexism? Tell me more about that.

            3. When did I say other places are racism free? Bless your heart is a cheap phrase Southeners use to be passive aggressive. That’s why I wrote that. Not because of Texas

               I’m on the West Coast now. Nobody has spit in my face and told me to go back to where I came from. I’ll take it.

            4. Ah, yes, I forgot about LA and Portland, those bastions of racial harmony.

      4. I live in Virginia. Our governor is a doctor and was initially making decisions based on science. He has since caved to political pressure and is lifting restrictions even though the state is not meeting the benchmarks he himself set. Last weekend my neighbors had a potluck with 20 people serving themselves from the same dishes, even though gatherings of more than 10 are still prohibited. I can confirm that southerners are indeed willfully ignorant.

         1. You cannot confirm anything about an entire population, but I can confirm that you are willfully ignorant.

      5. Those redneck are just killing themselves.

         1. I would have to agree…many of the people down here that are the most lackadaisical about wearing masks and social distancing are obese and in poor health.

            However, they also lack education to know better so there’s that. It’s trump country.

            1. I’m actually in the south. Most of our deaths are older black people, disprortionately men, often with underlying health conditions. And our hispanic population has covic-19 rates twice what their population representation is. Are you sure that you want to double down on this? I am really sure that this population is NOT wearing MAGA hats.

            2. Yes. I’m in the rural south in a small town. The kind with only two ventilators. It’s very apparent from observation that there is a lot of correlation between socioeconomic status and mask wearing and social distancing. I really hate that.

            3. Calling someone a redneck is not racist.

               And I don’t disagree with the demographic analysis of who is being most affected by COVID.

               However, the people that I see breaking the rules of social distancing and mask wearing are definitely MAGA and following the president and also typically older and obese.

            4. Our President doesn’t wear a mask, it’s Trump country, masks aren’t widely available, and if people have to choose between groceries and using all their gas money to drive around searching for masks then I can see exactly why they don’t wear them. Why in the world would they?

         2. It’s so cute when others declare the South racist and sexist and then in the same breath make racist remarks!

         3. They are killing me too. I live among them.

      6. +1 re the willful ignorance. Come on – the South has always had the reputation of being slow, backwards, not science-driven, ranked poorly on all measures of social health, well-being and education. The South is where you find the greatest gun culture, and the highest incidence of people who believe falsehoods (e.g., “Obama wasn’t born in the US”). If you don’t want to be stereotyped as behind the rest of the country, time to up your game. I am very glad I’m in a blue state and that our opening process is thoughtfully phased, with concrete, specific measures that need to be met before proceeding to the next stage.

         1. I wasn’t the Anon that couldn’t stand you before, but wow.

   5. I go out to the grocery stores, to do curbside pickup at “non-essential stores”, to get takeout, and to walk outside. I wear a mask anytime I’m inside, interacting with someone, or if I’m outside and it’s crowded. I’m in NJ, and those are all allowed. We are reopening slowly and I’m pleased that beaches and some state park bathrooms will be open this weekend, because they can be used responsibly. I think next for us will likely be allowing people into non-essential stores with capacity limits and I would be comfortable doing that. You aren’t allowed in anywhere without a mask and people are complying. I’ve always felt vaguely bad for stereotyping southerners as ignorant fools but man y’all. This behavior is a bad look, and I don’t think you e even really gotten started on your outbreaks.

      1. I’ve always felt a little bad about stereotyping Northerners for their excessive anxieties, but man, yous, being afraid to go outside to plant a garden and sitting on your couch in PJs for a month is a bad.look.

         1. I’m not afraid to go outside and plant a garden- I go outside all the time! Most people here are. I go outside for walks and so many people are enjoying the outdoors. I just think opening up everything overnight is flat stupid.

            1. Where was anything said about opening up everything overnight? THat isn’t how it’s worked at all. It’s been scaled. Gyms, massages, etc. are opening up at 25% on Friday. Get your facts straight before insulting people and predicting their death.

         2. Where does she say anything about not going to her garden?

            1. It is a reference to another comment from another day in which someone mentioned having delayed planting because “outside.” We are generalizing and painting with broad brushes today.

         3. Hey now! Let’s not knock sitting on the couch in PJs. It’s freaking luxurious.

         4. Yeah, I mean…I don’t understand how some people on this board, in normal times, get up, get dressed, and leave their homes in the morning without being deathly terrified that a meteorite will hit them in the head and kill them. The anxiety is just.so.much. Is that what living in urban density does to people?

            1. People accusing northerners of ridiculous anxiety clearly have not lived in an area like Bergen county NJ where just about everyone knows several people who died, and several more who were very, very sick.

               Have some perspective and empathy. If you’re lucky enough to be in a low-incidence area, don’t be smug about it. Things could change a lot this fall.

            2. Bergen County is rich and suburban. You may know people, but maybe talk to someone in the Bronx, who drives a bus or works in sanitation or in a nursing home made to take COVID+ people.

            3. I’m not sure whether you’re arguing with me or agreeing with me, 12:44. I mentioned Bergen county because it had an amazingly high per capita rate of infections and death, though I haven’t checked in a couple of weeks.

               I’m on the west coast, being very careful because I’m in a couple of the higher risk categories.

      2. +1000 Glad I do not live in the south.

      3. +1 on this behavior is a bad look. It makes you look backwards and ignorant to be pushing the pedal so quickly on the re-opening. It feeds into every stereotype of the south that there is.

   6. Hi from DFW area!
      I expect a dramatic to catastrophic rise in cases due to our governor’s decisions.
      My gym is reopening with an abundance of precautions, but I don’t really feel comfortable going back there at this time. I’d like to see how this plays out for a few more weeks at least before joining the masses doing all the ‘normal’ outing things. I do want to go outdoors more (hiking, trails, etc). I will continue to wear a mask for errands. I haven’t yet worn a mask to exercise outdoors. But I don’t run into many people on my walks or runs if I do them early, over lunch or other ‘off peak’ times.
      I am only in control of me, so masks for errands, and outings where I will be around people, enjoy the outdoors as safely as possible, and stick close to home for a while longer. I am very lucky and privileged because my work and life affords me the opportunity to operate out of my house.

   7. If I’m somewhere that masks are required or it would be good form to do so, I put it on.
      If I’m out and about where it’s easy to keep distance, there’s no requirement, I’m outdoors, etc, then I don’t.
      If me wearing a mask helps in some small way to get some folks to calm TF down, then I’ll continue to do so. I personally think that masks help others’ anxiety more than they impact COVID-19, but I’m not an epidemiologist.

      1. Yes and am not a fan of the masks. I wear them all the time for indoor activities even though it is not required in my state, mostly to reassure others. However, I am endlessly annoyed at those who wear the masks below their noses or pull it down every 5 minutes to chat with their friend. I would vastly prefer a really strict enforcement of a six foot distance

         1. It’s impossible to enforce 6 foot distancing in stores, even in hotspots, which is why masks are required

         2. I had to get my glucose test for my pregnancy last week at my medical office in suburban Atlanta. I was required to sit in the lobby and wait an hour before the test. During that time, I saw loads of people wearing masks, but most incorrectly. One older lady had her nose fully exposed, but her mouth covered. One guy had his mouth fully exposed, but his nose covered. Men with long beards which likely defeats a lot of the purpose, though I’m not sure there’s research to support that theory yet. People are always fiddling with them or still touching their faces.
            It’s now a weird hobby of mine to watch people wearing masks incorrectly (I don’t say anything, just observe). I wear mine in crowded spaces as recommended, but I get tired of people pretending like masks are the only solution here.
            And I swear if my mother in law tells me to wear a mask one more time while I’m out for a walk, I’m going to scream. I never see someone closer than 6′ away for more than a couple seconds. A lot of people are reacting in fear now and think the mask or gloves is going to save you at all times.

            1. “I had to get my glucose test for my pregnancy last week at my medical office in suburban Atlanta. I was required to sit in the lobby and wait an hour before the test. During that time, I saw loads of people wearing masks, but most incorrectly. ”

               For the love of god, why aren’t they having you sit in a car and text you when your room / physician /nurse is ready?

      2. Nothing definitive yet, but studies indicate that you’re wrong about masks not being helpful. https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/19/politifact-face-masks-including-homemade-ones-are-effective-covid-19-protection-experts-say/

      3. Yeah I wear a mask when required but not when I’m outdoors. I run or walk outdoors most days in my suburban neighborhood and have come within six feet of maybe five people for less than a second each. To the OP: here’s my risk assessment: The death rate in my state for people of my age is less than 1%. I can’t find the data for it, but I’m willing to bet that a lot of them had underlying health problems. I have none. There is a less than 1% chance I will have a very serious outcome from this virus. In my opinion, that very small risk is not worth putting my life on hold indefinitely. I am more concerned for my parents and I will continue not to see them because they are older and at a greater risk for having a serious outcome.

   8. I think that it’s very hard to convince people of the importance of staying home if they don’t perceive significant risk to themselves or their families. Public health officials went with a very simple “flatten the curve” message when this started and heavily emphasized not overwhelming healthcare systems. (Yes, I know there was secondary messaging about buying time for testing and tracing and all that, but the headline – and remember, most people only read the headlines – was “stay home so we don’t run out of ventilators.”)

      If you’re the average American, you look at news coverage of NYC where they ran out of ICU beds and had to bury people in mass graves on Hart Island. Then you look at your own region and you don’t see hospitals overwhelmed, you don’t see mass burials, and maybe you don’t know anyone who’s ever tested positive for covid – or if you do, you don’t know anyone who’s died. It’s *very* normal in that situation for a person to decide that the risk of becoming significantly ill from covid in your area is low. If you live in one of those areas, the risk is abstract. If you live in a hot spot, the risk is concrete and real. Humans give a lot more weight to concrete and visible risks than to abstract ones.

      TL;DR – I don’t think it’s that people feel like they *need* to go to spin class. It’s that based on what they perceive in their immediate environment, they don’t *need* to stay home. Because of the way humans typically make decisions and assess risk, we’re going to be fighting an uphill battle to convince people outside hotspots that they need to stay home. If we want them to do that, we have to make that risk feel real to them, not theoretical. We haven’t successfully done that.

      1. Yup.

      2. Yes, this. Thank you, cbackson.

         1. But also, the risks actually *are* lower in those places. It’s not just perceived to be lower.

            1. Right, but acting on a perceived lower risk can definitely heighten the risk, right?

            2. No. Acting on an actually lower risk is actually lower risk. It is not without risk, and the risk can heighten based on a variety of factors, at which point behaviors should change, but you are incorrectly stuck on the “perceived.”

            3. That’s circular logic, though. Your risk is lower but you think it’s low so your risk is actually high. So whether the risk is actually low or high, the risk is high.

            4. That’s actually my point – it’s not irrational behavior given the risk levels and how humans weight risk. If we as a society think this risk should get greater weight, we have to change how people perceive it.

            5. Encouraging people to interpret a low risk as high is the very tool the right uses to impose unnecessary barriers to voting, encourage gun ownership, and impose travel bans and other extreme restrictions on immigration.
               I am not at all advocating selfish or unconsidered decisions about lowering coronavirus protections. Nor am.I encouraging the bogus and absurd theories that this is some conspiracy among the left or the right or China or the elite or those who want a global government. I have no time for that. I just think different restrictions are relevant to different places at different times. Also, a city’s population density by itself does not seem to be the driver. What I have read suggests it is sustained, close-quarters interactions that allow for transmittance of large viral loads, regardless of municipal density. Church, funerals, weddings, multi-family shared housing all seem to be big issues that exist in rural areas as much as cities. Thus the outbreaks among farm workers, meat and poultry processors, and the people of the small city of Albany, GA.

      3. From an area where you can count the number of cases on one hand, this. We went to the store for our regular grocery run this weekend and were practically the only people wearing masks. We actually felt silly. We’re 100+ miles from a hotspot, no interstate, no airport, not on the way to anywhere (so there’s no one coming through spreading it at gas stations, etc). Our local regional health center is prepared and has no COVID in-patients at present. Our restaurants are open for outdoor dining, some “fun” stores are open… Given these facts, there’s no reason to live indoors for an indefinite amount of time.

      4. Yes. As a New Yorker, it is so hard for me to understand what this is like elsewhere. For me, I was watching ambulances going by my window non-stop day and night a couple of weeks ago. I knew if I got sick I might get turned away from the hospital. It was and is very very real. I’m grateful masks are required here as it makes it more likely I might be able to resume something closer to a normal life sometime soon.

         I have to say, it is super frustrating to read comments implying NYC did this to itself – like the average New Yorker did anything wrong here. We were lucky enough to be a global tourist destination with population density and a reliance on public transport that does not exist elsewhere in the US. I’m glad it hasn’t gotten so bad elsewhere and hope that continues.

         1. +1 to everything, especially the sirens.

         2. I don’t think anyone was saying NYC did this to itself. I definitely think NYC was well-positioned to get hit really hard from this, due to your high population density, the fact that everyone uses public transit, and the fact that, even outside, it’s tough to keep your distance from people. I think and hope that even with no mitigation measures in place, most of the US wouldn’t end up in the situation that NYC was in back in March. But I certainly don’t think you’re in any way at fault or deserving of what happened to you!

            1. I do think that keeping schools open and having policies that made the nursing home situation worse are unique things that NY did that magnified a bad situation made worse by transit and density (and dense poverty — the UES is not having this play out the way lower-income neighborhoods have it). It’s not your fault, but your leaders had decisions to make and in retrospect some key ones were like lighting a match near a gas leak.

      5. I just feel like so much of this discussion misses the point. These activities are all FINE as long as someone who has COVID-19 isn’t doing them with you. The question of low risk vs. high risk is, if someone who unknowingly or knowingly is ill and participates in these activities, how likely are you to catch it from them. One sick person in spin class=most of the people in spin class are sick.

         I get wanting to go out. I also want to go out, and may go out more as my area opens up. But just don’t kid yourself that this isn’t risky or there’s not likely to be a resurgence. Even if cases in your area are say, currently limited to meat packing facilities, if someone from the meat packing facility has been exposed, and isn’t ill yet, but goes to a bar in their time off because now bars are open, then if you go and drink in a bar without a mask on, you’re highly likely to get exposed yourself.

         An entire state or county or area cannot be inherently low risk! We can all open whatever we want, but don’t convince yourself it’s not risky just because the numbers are low right now. The numbers in New York were low too before they are high. The difference between low and high is number of unbroken transmission trains that we do not catch with contact tracing and testing before they get to more people.

         Another thing I don’t understand from people here who say they aren’t concerned about opening too early and they have to live their lives/we need the economy back- do you have no one you love that is high risk? Who you want to see? I am super low risk (young, no co-morbidities), but my mother in law lives nearby and is very lonely. If we reopen and I start to interact with more people, I can’t safely see her. If I want to safely see her, I have to be a hermit and stay totally isolated. I really would have preferred that we fully get the virus under control before reopening so that I wouldn’t be forced to make that choice. My aging parents live a few states away and desperately will want a visit when things are “better”. I would like to be able to safely see them, which I cannot do if I know that the virus may be circulating in my community and I may be exposed at any time. If we get this wrong (which, lets be honest, we already have), instead of being locked down hardcore for two months like China, we are looking at a horizon of 18 months where it is dangerous to share a meal with your close family. That’s really sad and why I am so frustrated with the half a**ed shut downs and premature reopenings.

         1. 1. I don’t think that we can “safely” see older or sick people for quite a while. Only if you 100% quarantine yourself first and use your car. If you’re parents aren’t local, I think it won’t be safe for a long time.

            2. But if you aren’t high risk, you can definitely do what you can to avoid prolonged close-air sharing with others. Luckily, it is nice out and days are longer, so outside it is for the foreseeable future if we socialize with others. I think that this can let you have a nice life, but not our prior lives.

            3. It will be interesting to see what happens in the fall and as it gets colder.

         2. +1 MILLION. thank you.

         3. I think most people (here and in my real life) fully understand that ending their self-isolation means they will need to limit or avoid contact with higher risk groups. On the moms page, many people have said they want to send their kids back to daycare, but they understand this will mean not having contact with grandparents. And that’s certainly how I feel — I love my parents dearly and hope that we get a vaccine or very effective treatment sooner rather than later so it’s safe to visit — but ultimately my child needs socialization with other kids and an education (and I need childcare) much more than she needs in-person visits with her grandparents. Other people are allowed to make the opposite choice, and keep their kids home from daycare so close contact with grandparents is safer — there is no one right choice for everyone. But I think the “don’t you have a high risk loved one!?” is a little bit of a straw man. You can have high-risk loved ones, and recognize that you need to avoid personal contact with them so you can return to something resembling normalcy yourself.

            1. +1 as a mom of a toddler I agree with this. We aren’t there yet (daycare still closed) but fully plan to make the choice to put kiddo in daycare knowing that means no grandparent visits in person for a while. It sucks but we have to do what we think is best for our kid, which is the benefits of daycare outweigh the benefits of in person grandparent visits.

         4. Many of us are not able to sustain a self-quarantine to the point that it would be safe to see grandparents. DH has to pick up his Schedule II prescriptions in person. DS has in-person health care appointments twice a week–we tried them via telemedicine for a few weeks, and there was serious regression. I was WFH for about a month but am now required to be in the office. Things in my area are opening back up, and we’re considering our risk level under the assumption that we can’t see high-risk individuals anyways. That doesn’t mean we’re rushing out to restaurants and spin classes, but it might mean that I go grocery shopping in person again, run by the home improvement store, get a haircut, and make some routine doctors’ appointments. I’m also considering letting Kiddo socialize with one other friend this summer (no daycare or camp until at least August).

         5. In response to your second paragraph questions – no, I don’t have anyone who is high risk that I want to see. If I did, I would not see them until the guidance is that it’s safe for them to be exposed. That’s just the reality of the situation. Being okay with a slow reopening, doesn’t mean that I am personally okay with exposing high risk folks – I still plan to take the precautions that protect the high-risk groups to the extent I know about them and can, even when things are open.

      6. “If you’re the average American, you look at news coverage of NYC where they ran out of ICU beds and had to bury people in mass graves on Hart Island. Then you look at your own region and you don’t see hospitals overwhelmed, you don’t see mass burials, and maybe you don’t know anyone who’s ever tested positive for covid – or if you do, you don’t know anyone who’s died. It’s *very* normal in that situation for a person to decide that the risk of becoming significantly ill from covid in your area is low.”

         Right, but the average American doesn’t understand math, at all. Think of the morons who say “but this has only a 1% [or whatever] death rate, what’s the big deal.” Would you go to a football stadium with 50,000 people if only 500 people were to die? I hate having to consider “what the average American thinks,” because lots of those people elected Trump.

   9. My sister lives in a state that never shut down (except for schools, which in turn took a lot of people out of the workforce, including her). Outbreaks are largely in the close-quarters situations you expect: nursing home residents, nursing home workers, meatpackers, families of all of the above, so in some ways not that different than places on lockdown. I think that people are still people and exercising caution and mainly staying home and wearing masks when they go to stores. I think it has been helpful there as a pressure-relief valve. At some point, everything depends on voluntary actions of people: not driving drunk, getting shots, not speeding. And I think that people are generally being responsible on their own volition, which is probably the most important thing.

      Screengraps of partygoers are just going to make you stabby.

   10. I’m not in Texas but I’m in another red state that’s reopening, and I agree the order of reopening things is totally illogical! If I were a governor, I would weigh each activity’s risk and how essential it is, and balance those to come up with an order. Schools? High risk but essential. Parks and playgrounds? Not essential but low risk. Bars? High risk and not essential and should not be opening for a long time (look at South Korea which just closed bars and nightclubs after an outbreak while keeping many other sectors of the economy, including school, open). Of course bars were among the first things to open in my state. It’s very frustrating.

       1. State-monopoly liquor stores: essential business from day 1 (even though you can get beer/wine at gas stations and grocery stores and even drug stores)

          Lottery tickets: also essential

          1. In my state, the liquor stores were essential because of alcoholics. You don’t want a whole bunch of people going into unsupervised withdrawal at once and flooding the ERs. It is a life threatening condition. The major alcoholics drink a handle of hard alcohol a day. It is not possible to substitute beer or wine for that.

          2. Lottery tickets may be providing some desperately needed funds to municipalities, no? And if you can buy them at grocery stores and gas stations that were open regardless, why not? We can’t bail out every single entity.
             (Of course you could get into a debate if people buying the lottery tickets should be buying lottery tickets, but that would be a debate COVID or no).

             1. Lotteries are a tax on people who are bad at math, which is no decent way for a state to make its $. It is a regressive tax IRL and states should be ashamed. Who has borne the economic brunt of this? And then states want more $ via lottery ticket sales? Just stop.

             2. A fair debate for more normal times as well.
                But in the specifics of this debate – why would lottery tickets be considered essential? – just providing the likely answer.

          3. I’m not aware of any place that stopped selling non-essential items at stores where essential items were also sold. Lottery tickets are sold at gas stations (essential) and grocery stores (also essential), so maybe the argument is that they’re being sold alongside essential items. Not that stores only providing lottery tickets should be open.

             1. In my state, we have lottery vending machines and restocking them was legal. Traveling to restock them was legal. Etc. I think it may operate like the dry ice and propane tank setups also often at gas stations and maybe also grocery stores.

                Future thought: no matter what business I open, it will be a “grocery and janitorial service”, perhaps combined with other things (letterpress stationery store).

   11. People are bad at assessing risk and caring for others outside of their immediate circles. Early evidence from the first days of the pandemic showed that certain groups in the south only started to care and grasp the extent of the situation when a healthy friend was hospitalized and in the ICU.

       It’s frustrating to see. My great aunt (age 99) just died alone in a nursing home in Georgia because her family was not allowed to visit in her final days. Unfortunately, nobody cares when it’s older sick people. I walked by someone yesterday who said to her friend “no deaths isn’t a realistic goal. Some of those people are like, geriatric.” At least she was honest. We had conversations on this site early on about how all of us with high-risk conditions can hear you when you say that you don’t care about the virus because it doesn’t affect healthy people.

       1. Except no deaths is not a realistic goal. There are millions of things that can kill us, including some things that kill us in pretty significant numbers, and we don’t shelter in place to avoid them. You seem to be looking for insult, because saying the disease disproportionately kills older people is a fact. They’re not saying that AT you.

          1. Yeah, I’m very sorry about your aunt, but this mantra I’ve heard some friends adopt of “even one COVID death is too many” is just, too much. There are a lot of things that can kill us, and I think we need to think more thoroughly about the after effects of COVID lockdowns – increased suicide, overdose, and domestic violence deaths for one.

             1. +1 and lots of less immediate deaths too – delayed biopsies and cancer treatments these past two months will result in more cancer deaths down the road, delayed vaccination will lead to measles outbreaks and preventable deaths in children, etc. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/18/coronavirus-cdc-warns-of-possible-measles-outbreak-as-vaccinations-for-children-fall-during-pandemic.html

             2. “Even one (insert here) death is too many” is absurd. For anything.

             3. Yes, but we need to have an actual targeted rollout that addresses risks and benefits (as others have brought up here countless times). How is opening bars defensible right now when we have absolute sh*t testing, high rates of new cases, and growing death rates? The attitude of “well we’re going to die anyway and lots of stuff can kill you, you’re being so absurd to be frustrated about Peloton class and bars opening up” has so many issues.

             4. Literally nobody was saying we should open everything overnight with no concern for hospital capacity or testing capability. They were taking issue with you mocking people for saying “No deaths isn’t a realistic goal.” It’s not!

                Also you seem to have some very basic facts wrong – we don’t have growing death rates or new cases on the whole in the US. They vary slightly from day to day with weekends always being a bit lower, but if you look at 7-day averages they are steadily declining week by week. We also don’t have terrible testing and saying we do just makes you sound crazy. Anyone who wants a test can get a test in my state, they’re even available to people without any symptoms or special conditions like known exposure to a positive case.

             5. If you remove New York, the trends for the rest of the country are still climbing.

             6. “We also don’t have terrible testing and saying we do just makes you sound crazy. Anyone who wants a test can get a test in my state, they’re even available to people without any symptoms or special conditions like known exposure to a positive case.”

                Well, that’s your state. Here, we most certainly do have terrible testing. If you are suspected, you don’t get a test unless you are hospitalization-worthy – you’re told to go home and ride out the storm until / unless you are unable to breathe.

          2. New Zealand has zero new deaths from coronavirus. It can be done, but the US doesn’t care to try and doesn’t have the leadership to make it happen. It’s not a wild, fantastical goal though.

             Thank you, Vicky Austin.

             1. New Zealand is the size of Colorado with the population of Louisiana. Not a valid comparison.

             2. And it’s an island!

             3. Ok, so our leadership sucks, I don’t disagree with that, but I can’t waive a magic wand and change the president or my governor or any other leader. Nothing wrong with recognizing that our leadership is terrible and our population is not going to be compliant and saying that zero deaths isn’t attainable here even if it’s attainable in other places. New Zealand and Australia also banned automatic weapons after their first mass shooting, and look at how many mass shootings the US has had without any change in gun violence laws. I guess I don’t feel a lot of responsibility to get to zero COVID deaths when we have dozens of people, including kids, dying every day from gun violence. There are lots of areas where our leaders should be acting but aren’t and I don’t view COVID deaths as more unjust or more worthy of being prevented than gun violence deaths or other preventable deaths.
                (Also New Zealand is an island and can seal their borders a lot more effectively than we can, so not really the best analogy.)

             4. I think it’s a bit disingenuous to compare an island nation with limited ports of entry and a population smaller than metro Atlanta to the United States or Europe. What you can do in that situation is dramatically different than what you can do in a country that cannot practically be isolated from the world. Could the US have done better? Yes. But no, zero deaths was never going to be possible in the US and in any case, the ship has sailed on that.

                The position we’re in now is determining how we balance costs and benefits going forward. We place economic values on human life all the time, in virtually every public health or legislative decision we make, from air quality standards to product safety standards to vaccine approvals. It just happens to be more obvious now.

                But achieving zero new covid deaths through the means we currently have means trading off food insecurity, increased suicide risk, increased risk of death from other untreated health conditions, etc. You’re acting like zero new covid deaths would be cost-free and it’s just a lack of political will. It isn’t. To share my own anecdata, I’m sitting here with an email in my inbox right now from a friend who is a physician at one of Atlanta’s biggest hospitals. With the end of lockdown, hospital admissions at his facility have gone way up – he actually described them as overwhelmed. But it’s not covid – it’s other conditions that people left untreated due to fear of going out to seek medical care or doctor’s office closures. Many of those people wouldn’t have required hospitalization if they’d been seen earlier. Some of them will die. Those are real costs and real deaths.

             5. +1 million to cbackson’s last paragraph. And this is just the first wave of the most urgent illnesses. We’re going to be seeing the ripple effects for years if not decades in terms of slower-growing things like cancer and vaccine-preventable diseases. I saw some UN study that said polio is likely to make a comeback in the developing world because all the vaccination campaigns have been suspended. There is so much suffering and death that’s going to result from this pandemic that isn’t just deaths that say “Cause of death: COVID-19.”

             6. +1000 to cbackson’s last paragraph. Will add anecdotally that a friend who is a doctor in Philadelphia is seeing the same thing. She’s an ER resident and they’ve had people come in who have 90%+ blockages in their hearts that have been having chest pains for weeks but didn’t come in because COVID. They’re far more overwhelmed now than they were at any point in time during COVID and she speculates they might have more in-hospital deaths (or close).

          3. +1 no deaths is not a realistic goal nor is immediate death the only harm that should be considered. And I’m not talking about the economy, I’m talking about things like delays in treatment/diagnosis of other medical conditions, educating our children (this won’t be the last pandemic and I fear for how much worse we’ll do next time if our education system further deteriorates), protecting women and children from domestic violence, drug/alcohol abuse, mental health, losing the proven benefits of close social interactions for people’s long term health outcomes, our already sedentary population becoming more sedentary and all the related health risks, worse outcomes for patients who don’t get the social/emotional benefits of having visitors or the proven benefits of having someone advocate for them to their healthcare provider, suspension/delay of pediatric visits and early intervention programs for children to keep them from falling behind, etc.

             I’m very sorry to hear about your aunt PI. I also lost my grandmother during this and knowing she was alone and not being able to hold a memorial service/properly mourn has been very tough. Hugs.

             1. Yes, I get all that and agree (I work in public health, although not infectious disease) – I just don’t agree that it’s a defense for massive, unprepared, “economy first” rollouts. That, specifically, is what I find so frustrating. I prefer the targeted roll-outs that we have in my state and I feel privileged to live here.

                Thank you for the condolences. I’m sorry that you weren’t able to be with your grandmother as well – it’s so hard to know that these wonderful women who have lived long, amazing lives had to die this way.

             2. I hear all of the COVID-15 jokes but I wonder if people really are working out less than before. I see so many people running, walking and biking that I have never seen out before. I understand working parents are struggling hard but there are a lot of people with way more time on their hands finally getting into exercising. I’m one of them! Working in the office and going to networking events I rarely have time to work out. Working from home I’m taking a couple of hours to walk / run daily.

                I’m unfortunately eating more at home though so while I’m getting in better physical shape, my weight isn’t changing much.

             3. People may be working out more (I am) but I’m also sitting a LOT more. Normally, I walk to my office, walk to lunch, have to walk to get a drink of water or go to the restroom. Those small short breaks throughout the day are actually a lot more important than the 30-45 minutes of targeted exercise. When I’m working at home, it takes me 10 steps to get to the bathroom and 10 steps to get a drink of water versus having to walk down the long hallway. I also don’t pop by people’s offices. My step count for the day is about 1/4 of what it is when I’m at the office even if I’m exercising more.

             4. You are so right about those small movements. I had a broken foot earlier this year and very quickly gained 15 lbs from not doing all of those small movements.

          4. Let’s use the governmental standard of a death costs the us 10 million USD. So interventions that cost less than 10M per life saved are not only just but also economically right. Which is why we label hazardous chemicals, have seatbelts and shut down most places to save lives.

             1. This logical reasoning is flawed. Exactly what “governmental standard” is that? You’re going to have to cite an actual source and what goes into the cost. EVERYONE is going to die. You cannot just eliminate deaths since we are all 100% mortal, so assuming your stat is accurate those costs will all be incurred down the road. The only deaths that should count for that purpose are incremental early deaths over baseline, and even then should be discounted for those who would have later died of costly illnesses (cancer, stroke). No one can do that.

       2. I’m sorry to hear about your aunt, PI.

       3. Governor Cuomo was all pretty much like “my orders for nursing homes to take positive people may have killed others but they were old and sick and were going to die anyway.” I just cannot with him. Who are these people giving him high approval #s?!

          1. What should he have done though? My spouse has lived in several assisted living and nursing facilities due to neurological disease, so I’m well acquainted with how they work. The hospitals weren’t safe, and just converting facilities to COVID facilities isn’t easily done with hundreds of patients, their medical situations, their medical records, the use of facility doctors. . .what would you have done?

             1. +1 as horrified as I am by the decision I don’t really know what the better alternative was.

             2. javits center

             3. Just off the top of my head – could recuperating patients have gone to unused dorms?

             4. Javits center or dorms would have solved for the physical space question but not equipment, access to records, trained medial staff, compliance with required regulations and protocols, etc. maybe it would have been possible for those to be used but it’s not as simple as saying “ah I’ve found some space, we are all set” in setting up a nursing home equivalent which is what was needed.

          2. I can’t defend that decision, but I think he has made many many other good decisions. I was not a fan of his AT ALL going into this, and he has completely changed my perception. De Blasio, on the other hand, is just sinking further. And I still place the majority of the blame for their ongoing feud, which is destructive for everyone, on Cuomo.

             1. +1 million. I never liked De Blasio and this has just further tanked my view of him. I don’t know why he still seems to think he’s going to be president. I’d really appreciate if he’d stop playing to the national stage and actually started managing the city, which is, you know, his job.

             2. +1
                De Blasio going to the Y one last time on March 15th or whatever it was… ugh. Summarized everything I dislike about him.

             3. De Blasio is now in the process of campaigning for his wife to hold elected office.
                And yes, WTF is his obsession with the Prospect Park Y? I used to be a member. It’s fine, but I do not get why using the stairmaster there is such a touchstone in his life.

       4. Pure Imagination, I think you’re misunderstanding the point.

          If the virus disproportionately – wildly disproportionately – affects certain populations, we can isolate those populations. If 35-year-old left-handed redheads were 95% of the deaths, we could put them all under the strictest possible isolation and have other people practice social distancing to slow the spread.

          We cannot quarantine until there’s a vaccine. That’s not a plan. We cannot kill 60% of small businesses and put 40 million people out of work. That’s not a plan.

          But advantageously, people are not equally at risk, and we can isolate high-risk individuals.

          Incidentally, the problem with the Spanish flu is that it killed people between 20 and 40 at extremely high rates. You could not get people of prime working age to be in factories or out in a city.

          1. +1 to all of this. I think structures should remain in place (like companies continuing to allow WFH) for people who are immunocompromised. I think we should continue to do “vulnerable population” shopping hours at stores. I think we should do what we can to help vulnerable people shelter in place as long as they feel they need to.

             But. In my state, 2% of the people who get tested for Covid test positive. Of that 2%, 2% of people die. 80+% of those people are over 65. The risk is obviously not the same for everyone in the population and so saying that the entire population needs to stay locked down indefinitely is a non-starter of an argument. Seniors are being disproportionately impacted by the virus. I would say children are being disproportionately affected by the shutdown. If you want to get depressed, go read about the dramatic uptick childrens’ hospitals are seeing in children admitted with severe or fatal injuries from abuse. A children’s hospital in Texas has seen almost as many child-abuse deaths in the last three months than they saw all of last year. That is a direct consequence of schools being shut down and the economy going into the toilet. If we want to get into a calculus of “which lives are worth more” that is a losing proposition. All lives are worth something. At the same time, avoiding death or illness or injury entirely is never going to be possible. The conversation needs to evolve into, how do we balance things so that everyone can get their needs met, to the best extent possible, and how can we preserve and protect what we are reasonably able to, without saying some lives are more important than others.

          2. +1 I don’t think we say, to hell with it, it only affects x people. But we can say, hey this seems to really affect x people, let’s have them isolate to the fullest extent so they stay protected and make sure we have appropriate measures in place to make sure they can stay isolated/protected without saying no one is allowed to interact with anyone ever to protect x people.

             1. but then those people will be all alone because it will be riskier for their caregivers or loved ones to do essential activities and see them. Right now it’s a lot less risky for me to go to the grocery store because everyone is wearing a mask and I know everyone has to mostly be social distancing since most indoor opportunities for socialization are closed in my state. If that’s not the case anymore, then I’m much more at risk of getting the virus and while I will likely be fine, my loved ones wouldn’t.

                So the odds of a nursing home worker picking up the virus at the grocery store will increase and then the odds of cases at a nursing home will increase. I think the problem is everyone is only thinking about *themselves* and their close circles but the way this virus works is that it connects people who may not think they are connected…

             2. Struggle Bus, you’re missing the important thing: we have to open up, because the massive dislocations are going to create a horrible economic depression.

                Keeping lockdowns is (clap) not (clap) the (clap) answer!

             3. Ohhh sounds like you have the answer, then! Tell us. *Grabs pencil and paper*

             4. The answer to that isn’t to keep everyone on lockdown, it’s to make sure those who should be most protected can be. That would include things like prioritizing tests for nursing home workers. Yes, the worker may be more likely to get COVID at the grocery store if we ease lockdowns but if we make sure that he has access to regular testing, that would mitigate the risk a lot. We can’t get to zero risk and it’s unfair to ask the entire population (in particular our children who are suffering real harm from the shutdown) to live in complete lockdown until (….when exactly?) to make the risk zero. We need to reduce risk, not eliminate it.

       5. I think that the virus has maybe a .5% fatality rate. I can live that personally and am not personally afraid for me or my children. It does spread like the devil, so I don’t go out much (haven’t for months; mainly b/c I can work from home and have to work from home now that schools are closed) and don’t see myself as a likely spreader if I were to get it. I am sad that I cannot see my parents and likely now won’t see them for years (they would want us to wait 14 days if we travelled long-distance to see them; with work and hopefully schools reopening, that’s not feasible).

          It seems like we did a lot of things initially that were not the right things: protect the old and the sick. If we had gotten nursing homes right, the picture would look probably wildly different than it does now. But if you are a city bus driver married to a nurse’s aide in a nursing home — what have we done for them and their families and those they encounter on their jobs? It seems like not a damn thing.

       6. I agree, but I’m a bit confused how people are so able to imagine that this risk is outside their circle. I am objectively in a low-risk population category, but as I mentioned above, my close family who I do not live with is not. Some of the first things that people were doing once states reopened/breaking stay at home orders to do were family gatherings. People just want to have Easter dinner or Mother’s Day brunch, which I totally get! But if you’ve taken the attitude that you can go about and do things with an acceptable amount of risk, then when you turn around and have those family gatherings, you’re doing something very high risk (sharing of food, sitting in close proximity, possibly indoors) which puts you in danger of exposing high risk people. If these people who are going to the gym in Texas don’t plan to spend time with anyone they love who is high risk, that’s cool I guess. But there has seemed to be a lot of overlap with people who want to get haircuts and people who want to go to their family’s house for a meal. That’s where I think this whole equation of I’m going to do what I think is safe for me, you do you, really breaks down. See-CDC case study on how a small family birthday party seeded the outbreak in Chicago.

          1. Huh, I disagree. We are not seeing high risk family members now and won’t be for the foreseeable future. We definitely will not be seeing them if we start going out and about.

             On the other hand, I also think a lot of people are robbing at risk people (particularly the elderly) of their ability to decide their own risk tolerance. I have multiple friends whose parents have flat out said they don’t care if their grandkids give them the virus, they only have a few years left and they aren’t going to waste them not seeing their grandkids.

             1. My parents basically have this attitude. They’re high risk due to age (67) but without other morbidities. My mom is a doctor and is very, very comfortable with risk and with death. My parents self-quarantined for about 2 weeks, and repainted their whole house while they did it. As soon as they ran out of walls to paint, they drove 2 hours to visit friends for a long weekend, who were having multiple small dinner parties. They really want to come visit us, and I’ve just told them that (a) I’m more worried about them catching it from us than vice versa, and (b) they should wait 2 weeks until we see the numbers on our state’s limited reopening.

                My MIL and her husband are the opposite. They are both higher risk than my parents. They have not decreased social distancing at all. We have not visited them, even for an outside visit, since Mardi Gras.

                My FIL and his wife are in the middle. They were very strict for a while and are deciding what they’re comfortable with.

   12. I don’t think it’s about people feeling the “need” to do those things, but I definitely feel a “need” to support those businesses to the extent I’m comfortable with. The reality is that we’re going to be living with this virus for a long time before we have a vaccine, and while there are some things I could see not existing again until we have a vaccine (concerts inside for instance), we have to figure out how to maximize what’s open while minimizing risk (not reducing to zero). Otherwise we’ll be faced with entire industries of people who are unemployed for over a year – and these aren’t generally people with year+ emergency funds. You can argue over the semantics of it, but we can’t stay locked down forever – you can say it’s re-opening too soon, but we will have to re-open before the risk is anywhere near zero. Also, keep in mind, for MOST people, the virus isn’t that deadly, so it’s hard to convince people to stay home when there’s just an abstract risk of someone they know dying (even if they should be more aware of how their actions impact someone else’s immunocompromised cousin or friend).

   13. I am not a fan of the early and unprepared “reopenings” we’re seeing in many states, but part of the equation you’re missing is that while the services provided may not be “essential,” the jobs that they provide are essential. It’s not just that people are sad they can’t go get their hair done. It’s that we’ve got millions of people out of work. I think people are looking more at the big picture of wanting economic stability and normalcy.

       Also consider the intangible benefits of going out. Let’s take spin class. Lets say we’re talking about a single woman who lives in a 1 br apt. Spin class gives her the opportunity to see humans. This is actual crucial for psychological health! Maybe she gets to see a friend or an instructor she knows. Let’s say she has a tough time doing a sufficient replacement work out at home, and exercise is a crucial way for her to keep her mental health steady. We talk about the benefits of a regular exercise routine, and how classes are helpful for accountability all the time on this board.
       Maybe she also desperately needs a change of scenery and to feel “normal.” She also likes knowing she’s supporting a gym that’s been such a benefit to her life. She wears a mask and washes hands and she’s young, healthy, and not exposed to vulnerable people– so the risk benefit calculus weighs in favor of spin class.

       1. Nursing home workers and bus drivers and sanitation workers and morticians and grocery store workers and health care workers have been working this whole time, sometimes with little or no protective gear. I am disgusted that we live in a world that expects them to s*ck it up and take it on our behalf.

          If you want to stay home, stay home. Many of us cannot and I am not resigning my job, which would have me not be eligible for any unemployment, losing my housing and healthcare, while we wait for a vaccine for years.

          1. Right. As my husband put it the other day, we were never really shut down if you could drive by the Lowe’s Home Improvement store in our neighborhood and see a packed parking lot. You can’t tell me all those people were in there getting emergency plumbing repair supplies. The Target near our house has a pretty small food section – there’s no way they get the majority of the store’s income from food – but they got to stay open, while the small stores that ONLY sell clothing, or furniture, or garden supplies, etc. had to shut down. A big part of my issue with the shutdown was how half-a** it was. People were still circulating, maybe a little less than they are now that things are reopening, but people were still out there moving around. So what’s the point? I think we should have either done a full-scale China-style complete cannot-leave-your-house lockdown for a month or we should have done the “occupancy limit” type of shutdown we’re doing now. What we did, at least in my state, didn’t seem to do much to transmission of the virus but it definitely did a number on the economy. Something like 500 small businesses have shut down permanently and we’re still not fully operational for another however-many-weeks so that number will just go up.

             1. I’ve wondered a lot about this too. Like, we are more than 2 months in to the shut down in CA. So any new cases now means that person got infected WELL after the shut down happened, either by them being an essential worker or breaking rules or whatever. So… I just don’t see what we are doing as dramatically changing the numbers unless we literally went full lock down/not allowed to leave houses/rule breakers are arrested/National Guard brings you your food. Other than waiting for testing to ramp, I’m not sure what locking us all inside with the same rules that have been in place this whole time even solves anymore.

             2. Sigh. Most of what Target sells is essential; that’s literally their business model. Outside of food, they sell personal hygiene items (shampoo, conditions, soap), toilet paper, dish detergent, Saran wrap, Tupperware, laundry detergent; first aid, vitamins, OTC drugs, pharmaceutical drugs; eyeglasses; diapers; clothes (important for kids who grow and people who change sizes); automotive items (oil, windshield wipers); and semi-essential things like school and office supplies.

                Technically, kids may not “need” toys, but I imagine that a lot of parents are buying toys and such for their kids so they can play during the pandemic.

                I don’t agree that small clothing stores should be forced to close, but a lot of what Target sells is essential.

             3. I agree, anon@11:43. I’m outside of New Orleans, and the number of local cases drastically decreased due to the shutdown and had plateaued for several weeks. As expected, they are starting to go up as things open up. But we were never going to get our numbers to zero with the type of shutdown we had. Basically, there was nothing left for the shutdown, as implemented, to accomplish. The choices from there were full Wuhan-style shutdown and get cases to zero (which won’t work anyways if you’re just going to open back up to other states while the virus is still circulating, or gradually reopen with social distancing measures in place and hope the spread doesn’t cause a spike back to where were were. We have tests and contact tracers, supposedly.

       2. But when businesses reopen, that means workers can no longer collect unemployment and have to choose between protecting any kind of income and protecting their health.

          1. Right, and I think that’s completely awful (I’m looking at you, Kemp). To be clear, I do not support arbitrary reopenings that are based on political expediency rather than science. I am articulating a perspective in response to OP, not advocating for it.

             1. I’m a Dem and I 100% support Kemp on reopening. I think the point is the small businesses will not be able to wait. You will “reopen” to not a single small restaurant, gym, salon, etc because they are going to close permanently. This is economic weighing the risks against public health “experts.”

                There is no real science supporting that keeping things closed is going to help past a point either.

             2. Ya know, I’m not saying “reopen never.” There’s a pretty big gap in between reopening hair and nail salons before your own stay at home order expires and months more of lock down. I do understand that we can’t shut down “forever” and I don’t understand why people keep misreading these words into mine and others’ posts. But then, you just wrote “public health ‘experts'” so….

                For Ga, in particular, it’s pretty obvious that this move was done to get people off the unemployment rolls. The state has a very high unemployment rate right now and just think about the businesses that were allowed to open first– owned and staffed by minorities and women, utterly nonessential, and involving close personal contact. (Except maybe bowling, but that whole thing is just a big old question mark.) How are you really going to social distance while getting a massage? Do any of us honestly think there’s enough PPE out there for massage therapists to ensure an adequate supply? What sense does it make?

                Beyond that– it’s not like Kemp flipped a magical light switch and boom the economy is rolling in GA again. Many, many businesses are still closed, or are just now reopening even though they could have done so earlier. Many that are have reduced capacity. People aren’t going to go just because it’s “open.”

          2. This is why the Republicans want to reopen everything. They don’t want people to be able to collect unemployment.

             1. We can’t afford to have 36 million people on unemployment.

       3. Great way to put it.

       4. ok, but can’t states at least wait a few weeks between opening some things and then making decisions about what to open up next rather than doing so many things so quickly without waiting to see the impact? seems like it should be much more staggered between different phases of reopening so we can actually have data

          1. Yeah that’s all I’m arguing for. Opening everything all at once is clearly idiotic. I don’t think we all stay home forever just like maybe pace yourselves a bit?

          2. If I ran the world they would! Alas, I do not, and I live in a “reopened” state run by a greedy, ignorant fool.

          3. They are – all states (I believe) have multiphase plans. In TX there are now much lower occupancy limits than there are in normal times.

       5. I’m in favor of measured reopenings. Spin class is at the very bottom of my list because it’s a closed space where participants breath heavy for 45 minutes. Even at reduced capacity (spacing people out over a few bikes), there’s still a really high chance that Spin Class Woman will get it if someone else in her class is sick. If the only thing she does as part is the reopening is go to Spin Class, she’ll likely be fine and the risk of her infecting other people is low. But if she does other things (going to bars, riding public transport, accidentally infecting the checkout person at the grocery store etc.), the chances of there being a chain of infections goes way up.

          I’m in favor of staggered openings, both in %s and in risk level. Spin classes and indoor bars are way down on my list to reopen, but something like outdoor yoga, an outdoor fitness boot camp, a beer garden with well spaced tables etc. would be okay with me.

          1. “But people with cancer are delaying care and domestic violence is up so I should be able to go to spin now!”

             ^A lot of this thread

             1. Thanks for bringing in your snarky and reductionist perspective into the conversation, your comments are always so illustrative and enlightening and add so much to the discussion. /sarcasm

             2. I’m not seeing anything like that in this thread.

             3. Not what people are saying.
                And I’m not arguing my right to Spin is worth a life (I actually hate Spin, so…).

                But the thing is, the economy is a big large tricky thing that trickles down. Someone owns that Spin business. Maybe it’s an evil corporation, but also there are several workout studios in my neighborhood that are owned by super hardworking folks that have families to support. And employees that probably scrape by as it is. And I think it has been shown that government money is not going to save all of these folks forever, or even more than a few months, IF they even got anything.

                I’m not saying we should all rush back out to these if mass numbers of lives are at risk to do so just to save their jobs. But I am saying it’s not fair to demonize wanting to get things like this back up and running and patronize these businesses as being completely selfish. Spin is obviously an easy thing to throw out as a silly narcissist sounding thing to want to do, but multiply that times 1,000s of all of the owners and employees of Spin-like businesses and it’s more than just worrying that my b#tt is getting big.

             4. I have a relative who owns a boutique fitness studio. She was in the process of selling it before COVID, with a closing date of April 1. Her buyer backed out in March. She’s now selling it, with a closing date of June 1, for about 15% of the price she had in March. She’s lost about 6 figures.

          2. The analogy I mentally come back to is fasting before a surgery. If you are having a planned surgery, your doctor tells you to fast in advance for seemingly very important medical reasons. But if you need emergency surgery, you obviously weren’t fasting before but they go ahead with the surgery anyway because well it’s still better to do that vs you just dying from no surgery. So yeah we *can* reopen certain things that we need to but the advisable path is still to social distance as much as possible.

       6. Maybe she should get a grip and just stay home. It’s not that hard. It’s for a limited amount of time for the good of society. A spin class is not important.

   14. I comply with everything we’ve been asked to do. Stayed home, physical distance from people, wear a mask when I go out. As things open in my state, I will go to everything I need or want to go to. If it’s OK for something to be open, it’s OK for me to be there.

       1. This only works if the people who are making reopening decisions are making them based on evidence and public health guidance. Which, state by state and county by county YMMV.

4. Does anyone use Ellevest? If so, what do you think of their new banking services announced yesterday? Have you used their coaching or workshops? I opened an investment account there with a small balance a few months ago and while I wouldn’t transfer all of my “main” checking/savings accounts there, I’m intrigued by their new offering. Just not sure what I’d do with a second debit card.

5. Anyone growing anything this summer? I just got some herbs and veggies- jalapenos, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, and tomatillos. I’m very hopeful that they’ll grow well this year since I have all this time at home to pay attention!

   1. Yes! We just put our garden in this past weekend. Tomatoes, cabbages, cauliflower, peppers, onions and so many herbs. :)

      1. you sound experienced with that many veggies! When I need advice later this summer I’m coming to you!

         1. haha we’ll see how it goes – we got by on a wing and a prayer last year!

   2. I’ve got two tomatoes (cherry and roma) and a strawberry plant out on my balcony, and some herbs — basil, rosemary and mint. I also have window boxes on my railing full of a variety of flowers. This is my first year in this place, so I’m really excited to see how everyone does — if it goes well, I hope to add more plants next year — jalapenos are a great idea! My desk is right by the window onto my balcony so I’ve been staring at my mini “farm” constantly, and going out there to see how everyone is doing multiple times a day.

      1. !! I forgot I got a strawberry hanging basket! I’m so excited, and intrigued because the little sign says it’s a perennial… I got a jalapeno plant last year and we had them ALL SUMMER, it was the most successful one!

         1. I don’t live in an area hot enough to grow jalapeños unfortunately, but I wanted to tell you how I’ve been storing them. I ordered 1 jalapeño from instant cart and got a bag of about 15 jalapeños. So I cut them in half and seeded them and froze them. It’s been great having a little container of ready to go jalapeños in my freezer. I just grab a frozen half, dice it while frozen and throw it right in to whatever I’m making. Another benefit is that when I dice it frozen I don’t seem to get the dreaded “jalapeño fingers”.

            1. Are you sure? I live in MA and have grown them no problem. They take a while but are prolific when they come in!

            2. Bay Area, foggy summers. :(

      2. I have a strawberry plant that the squirrels are enjoying very much…
         I’ve got a 12×4 raised bed with tomatoes, bell peppers, poblano peppers, zucchini, eggplant, lettuces, carrots, and various herbs, as well as some containers of herbs on my deck (and the aforementioned doomed strawberry plant). This is the first year with the raised bed; I used to do tomatoes and bell peppers in pots on the deck. We’ll see how it goes. I’m not entirely sure the bed is getting enough sun, though the tomatoes at least seem happy.

   3. Yes, me! Tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, and herbs. We got a sunflower for my kid, too, but a rabbit nibbled the leaves off the shoot.

   4. I wish! If anyone knows something that will grow food in a north facing windowsill pls let me know.

      1. Anything that fits in an Aerogarden! Those things can grow anything, even in a room with no windows. I absolutely love mine.

         1. +1 to the aero garden. Mine has basil, dill, and curly parsley right now.

         2. I literally just picked mine up today! I am so excited to set one up (studio apartment with good indirect light but not enough for herbs/veggies)

   5. I have pak choi, spring onions, spring greens, rocket being harvested now and beetroot, broccoli, and perpetual spinach. Also have some potatoes that have somehow ended up in the garden.

      1. What is perpetual spinach?

         Also, what is pak Choy?

   6. I got inspired by some people I follow on Instagram who planted big gardens and got a couple of planter boxes – the yard at our new house is fully landscaped and I didn’t want to tear out landscaping to put a garden in the ground; the planter boxes are a good option. I have four tomato plants and a squash plant, and planted some carrot seeds that still haven’t sprouted, so we’ll see. I grow herbs every year – this year I got two kinds of mint, lavender, sage and thyme. We have a rosemary plant in a pot that is going gangbusters. I am looking for basil plants but haven’t found any in my area yet, which is weird – usually even the grocery stores have them by now. I may have to order seed.

      1. I learned from one of my garden books that you can plant radishes and carrots (from seed) in the same space at the same time, scattering their seeds together. The radishes mature just when it’s time to thin the carrots, so once the radishes are all pulled, you have a nice, spaced carrot bed.

   7. Yes, I have a plot at a community garden and typically find it very therapeutic to go play in the dirt. I’m generally an awful gardener and I’m sure it would be cheaper to simply buy my veggies at the store, but it keeps me out of trouble.

      I’m growing a few types of tomatoes, zucchini (the only thing I’ve grown reliably since I started), some peppers – I’m especially excited for some brown peppers I found at a nursery – eggplant, beans, and butternut squash, rhubarb (my favorite – starting from a bulb this year so I know it’ll take a few years to get really established), and an asiatic lily plant if all survives being transplanted over this past weekend.

      1. We have a brown pepper plant too! We just thought it looked fun haha.

   8. I am a perennial aspirational garden purchaser and this year is no exception. I am trying to find new places to crowd in some plants, but I don’t have a lot of room in my city yard. I do tomatoes in containers, and I am doing sun gold and a red cherry this year. I also bought peas (why?!?) so I am trying to stick those in between my irises to climb up the front porch. I’ve got a bunch of herbs. And for once in my life I overwintered my dahlias, but also that didn’t stop me from buying more, so I’ve currently got about a dozen dahlias scattered around. I’m also trying ground cherries for the first time. I have them in containers, though, because our front yard is a really steep slope and I worry the fruit will just roll down the hill. I’m also doing ferns for hanging baskets this year – I alternate between that “classic” look and flowering baskets every year, because we live in a Victorian and I like the look of classic ferns on the porch but also love flowers.

      1. can you share how you overwintered your dahlias? Just got a pot of them for my front porch, and am debating if I want to plant them in the ground. I also love classic ferns on porches, but always buy flower hanging baskets because I love the pops of color.

   9. In Texas, and I just harvested my potatoes this weekend! I also have onions that are doing well. We planted some herbs in the empty potato bed. I usually plant sweet potatoes in the summer, but those won’t come until late June.

   10. Just an FYI to those of you planting mint. Plant it in a pot and put some kind of mat underneath it. Mint is crazy invasive and will take over your garden. If you put it in a pot, the roots grow out of the drainage holes and will seek out whatever earth is closest to it, hence the need for the mat. It also comes back and the only way to kill it (besides napalm, and I’m not even sure that’ll do it :) ) is to dig out and destroy the taproot. Want to know how I learned this life lesson? I decided I wanted to grow mint years ago and put it in my garden. BIG mistake. Years later, I’m still finding that evil little plant, even after many search and destroy missions!

       This year’s garden will have beans, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, cherry tomatoes, and whatever else looks interesting at the nursery. I’m also re-doing my herb garden (thyme, basil, rosemary, parsley, oregano, and anything else that looks fun) and buying lots of flowers for my flower pots. My local nursery has been open since April 1st and they’ve been busy ever since — traffic jams in the parking lot busy. I hope they have plants left! A lot of people buy as soon as they open and then we get frosts that kill the plants (we had a couple of hard freezes and even snow here since then, too) so those folks are probably on round 2 or 3 of plant-buying. Rule of thumb here is to never plant before Mother’s Day, but people don’t pay attention to that and people like me (former farm girl) are usually stuck with what’s left.

       1. Yes, I got smart this year and planted my mint in a pot after it nearly took over my garden a few years ago! As an FYI for folks, the previous owners of our house planted oregano in a bed and not in a pot and keeping that under control has been a challenge. It spreads and takes over almost as bad as mint does, at least in our area.

       2. I have never had success with mint!! All I want is to have endless mint for cocktails all summer and mine never takes over like it should.

          1. We have mint that was unfortunately planted by a prior owner and has now taken over a corner. It’s beautiful right now but I have to be very stern with it about taking additional space.

             We absolutely cannot even use a small fraction of it in drinks and food, though I’ve learned to use it like parsley in middle eastern and some southern US dishes (for instance, I love it on jambalaya.)

             For some reason, lemon balm started coming up on the edges of the mint patch. I grabbed some thinking it was mint but no, it has that distinctive lemon scent.

             1. If it is a strong mint, consider swapping it in for basil, too! They can actually be very hard to tell apart in a dish.

          2. Here’s your problem — mint is not a warm weather plant. You will get more during the shoulder seasons than in summer. Grow it then and learn how to freeze it so you can pull it out for summer juleps and mojitos.

   11. I have tomatoes and a cucumber in a protected raised bed due to our bountiful squirrel population. Chamomile, cilantro, rosemary, oregano, thyme, lemon verbena, and mint are in a different raised bed. Volunteer beans of some kind are coming up and a friend is going to give me a chili pepper start. A couple of onion ends decided to start growing in the compost heap, so I planted them. The perennials are rhubarb, mulberry, and strawberry, all of which are doing fine. And I just remembered I have a little bit of carrot tape left, so I might put that out too and see if it’s still good.

       I always have loved growing things, but this year it seems to be especially beneficial for me mentally. Getting out there in the sun and fresh air to work and watch my food grow just helps my mood so much. There’s a reason I have a cross-stitch that says “Gardening: Cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes.” :)

   12. Yes! We dug out a few shrubs to expand our veggie garden- about 9 cherry tomato plants (they seem to be more productive than full size in our northern, temperate, PNW climate), carrots that overwintered, a few varieties of cucumbers (have not attempted before), lettuce, a million snow peas (our favorite last year and very very very productive and easy), pumpkins, herbs. Also have expanded our blueberry bushes, raspberry patch, and the strawberries and rhubarb are finally getting established. Basil in the ground because it’s happier than in a pot, trying out dill this year, cilantro, perennial oregano, and mint in a ballistic escape proof pot. My one sadness is not doing peppers this year- just not quite sunny and hot enough in our garden – have tried a few years running and they don’t ripen till mid to late September (and then often with slug damage).

   13. Yes! All I think about is my garden, it seems.

       I managed to get three tomato starts (early girl, I’m in the Bay Area) and cages from curbside pickup a month ago. My son planted an organic potato that had sprouted so now we have a bunch of little potato plants next to the tomatoes (we’ll see if we get any actual potatoes.) I had a single cherry tomato volunteer last year and this year I have hundreds of cherry tomato volunteers, so I’ve been giving some away on next door. I have drip watering and I’m not planning to water hundreds of cherry tomato volunteers, so once it stops raining most of them will die off.

       The rest is seeds. I have rainbow chard and radishes and pole beans coming up already. I planted lettuces and herbs and sugar snap peas (shady areas, cool summers here) in containers and in my raised garden bed. In the very sunniest spots I planted some pepper seeds but I don’t have high hopes they will fruit because we don’t get enough consistent heat.

       And of course the ubiquitous zucchini. I planted one plant last summer and got about 4 zukes total. We’ll see how many I get from 2 plants this year. I’m resentful of how much space they take up in my garden just for a couple of squash, but I really do like zucchini.

       Oh, and some cucumbers in another large container, that i plan to trellis.

       The hardest thing this year was finding plants or seeds. The big seed companies were sold out. I managed to get seeds from a couple of smaller local companies by mail, as well as a few from eBay!

       1. You can trellis the zucchini

   14. Yes! Tomatoes, jalapenos, serranos, zucchini, lemon cucucmbers, tons of lettuce, and we just bought a pomegranate tree to go with our dwarf meyer lemon and lime trees!

       1. omg i want a pomegranate and lemon and lime tree but I have no land for trees and I don’t think they’d thrive in a pot…also have never heard of lemon cucumbers!

          1. Not the person you’re responding to but I grew lemon cucumbers in a pot. They’re round and yellow so very lemony in appearance. I just didn’t find them very cucumbery in taste. They’re prickly, or at least mine were, so peeling was nonnegotiable.

6. Anybody have a Zipcar membership and can tell me a bit about it? I got rid of my car in March (live in the DMV) and am realizing, without the Metro, how difficult it is to get around, but don’t want to purchase another car because, for the most part, I can walk around where I am. Thinking this might be a good option in the interim.

   1. I loved zip car when I lived in Boston/Cambridge (this was going back almost 10 years ago, so not sure how much the service has changed). Like you, I could generally walk or take public transport to most of the places I needed to go, but sometimes you just need or really want the convenience of a car. But parking in my neighborhood was a nightmare, and I didn’t want to spend money on car insurance, inspections, upkeep, when I might only drive a couple of times a month. So zip car was perfect. It was especially great for short trips – 2 hours for a big grocery shop, or picking someone up at the airport. It was also more convenient than a traditional rental car (no waiting in line at the counter) for longer day trips.

   2. Hey!
      I’m a carfree Zipcar user in the DC. I find the customer service to be great and renting a zip-car “fuss-free” in comparison to renting at a typical car rental agency.
      Some pros: You don’t have to pay for gas, generally there will be a car available within a 10-20 min walk, and mileage within a certain distance is covered by the rental itself.
      Cons: There is a monthly membership fee (I think mine is about $7 per month), I also have some covid-related concerns about getting in a car someone else has been inside.

   3. I’m in your boat in the DMV! I really don’t know what to do. I can’t decide if the few times a year I’d want a car for something is worth the monthly fee on top of the hourly or daily rate of zip cars. I know it’s cheap but when you add it all up versus what a traditional rent-a-car might be overnight, I can’t figure it out. I also have started to take the Metro for work again, so I’m a little more open to riding it here and there (need be) once I saw how clean WMATA is keeping it, 98% of people wearing masks, and social distancing. That’s not to say I won’t reconsider the metro when people start riding it again but for the time being, it’s more socially distanced than my Whole Foods.

   4. You may also want to check out GetAround if it’s available in your area. It’s peer-to-peer car sharing (sort of like Air BnB) that you book via the app (you also open the car via the app, similar to ZipCar). We find it’s much cheaper than ZipCar in our area (NJ) and have had great experiences.

   5. Thanks everyone – this is helpful! I’m out in Alexandria and looking at needing to run some things to Arlington, so Metro would be difficult (but that’s good to hear that they’re keeping it clean for our essential employees!). I figure if I’m paying the $7 a month to Zipcar, versus the $100 to park in my building, that’s a big cost savings, no matter how much I use the Zipcar. Agree though about the concerns with using a shared car during Covid, but to some extent, I’d rather use a car that I can clean before I drive and will only have me in it versus trying to take a ride share during this time.

7. My office has “reopened” and it sucks.

   There’s none of the personal interaction that an office environment normally provides because the cases have not decreased in our area at all. I have to be hyper vigilant in the bathroom and common areas. I also somehow forgot that I am a nursing mother and need to pack a pump and pump parts. I’m wearing a mask. It’s depressing to look at the empty downtown streets out the window.

   If I had been completely alone during quarantine or had no childcare, maybe this would be an improvement. With my personal situation (multi-generational household with a separate office and a giant yard, 100% of work can be down remotely, high risk family member), this is a definite downgrade.

   1. My company campus has one woman’s restroom that has a doorknob instead of a push plate, and it’s the restroom in my building. I’ve repeatedly asked for it to be changed over for sanitary reasons, and they keep nodding and then doing nothing. Now it’s a serious concern. I’m preparing to be scolded for walking across the street to pee, but I’m not going in there.

      1. Or you could use a handkerchief, paper towel, disinfectant wipe to open it…

      2. I thought push plates were required by the ADA.

         1. Lever-style doorknobs meet ADA and other accessibility codes. Push plates are not required. The force required to open a door must be 5 lbs or less.

   2. Were you given no choice at all but to come back to the office full-time? If so, were you given any justification?

      1. No choice. No justification.

         The reality is that the powers that be just don’t think this is a threat, and the old dudes in charge distrust remote work. They are treating this like a bad flu season.

         Nothing will change until someone they care about dies or is severely ill.

         1. I could have written this! We are expected to be back in the office but are prohibited from having in-person meetings. Law firm, so everything could be remote.

      2. Can’t you invoke your ADA rights since you have a baby and elder adults at home?

   3. This is why there is no point in forcing people to come in to the office if they can WFH. The benefit of being in the office is interacting with people. If it’s not safe to interact, then people might as well stay home.

      1. +1. It’s been really hard for me to grasp why my boss wants to rush us back when we’ll have to cordon off the conference room, stop eating lunch as a team, install plastic partitions, wear masks all day, and invest in a cleaning service. How is that beneficial interaction?

   4. This is my fear. We are back to the office on June 1. I genuinely miss my office– but I miss talking with coworkers and being able to have those short conversations with partners about case status/decision that keep me in the loop on a case. With the restrictions we have (must be 6 ft away at all times, etc.), I don’t think I will get that. Our building will still probably be quiet and reek of rubbing alcohol. Meanwhile, me and DH have a great WFH set up and I get to take my dog for walks at lunch every day.

      1. I obviously do not know how your offices are set up, but we have some offices and lots of cubes (not a law firm). There are only 5 – 8 people working in my building currently and we are spaced out enough that we never have to go near each other. Like you, I like having conversations about issues with colleagues, etc. Even though there are only a few people here, it’s been easy to have those interactions when I want, stay 6′ away, and wear my mask. I stand in a colleagues doorway (shut immediately behind me if needed) and am still 6′ away. If I need to speak to someone in a cube, I either talk to them from another cube (with plexiglass between us) or we go into a conference room and stand on opposite ends (6′ apart). Is it perfect or ideal? Of course not, but I am finding that it can be done and is enough to get that interaction that I sorely missed and crave. Just some food for thought.

      2. “Reek of alcohol” this is another one of my concerns. My asthma is super triggered by Lysol. I don’t think I can work in an office with all of the extra cleaning they are doing.

         1. I have the same concern. They have said when we come back in the office they will be cleaning 3x daily. I am super-sensitive to most cleaning supplies and get allergies, asthma and rashes if I’m in contact with anything that is heavy on bleach or ammonia. I am going to ask to continue WFH for this reason.

8. A bit more of a serious topic if you all don’t mind, but the times we live in are crazy. My anxiety is worse than usual (isn’t all of ours?). I’d be interested to know some thoughts from anyone who has grown through self sabotaging behaviors. Work, friendships, family, romantic relationships…things you learned yourself or something passed on to you by a professional. And yes, I know therapy is key but couldn’t keep seeing mine (lost health insurance). Aside from the heavy topic, cheers!

   1. First, hugs. I’m in a similar boat (lost job, might need to find new healthy insurance) I’m a visual person so many pictures I’d seen during my CBT really stuck with me. Hopefully they help you.

      One that I really enjoyed is: you’re driving a bus. There’s monsters on board, and they can look however you imagine. They are yelling at you all the things you tell yourself, they might make you cry, yell, however you feel, but you’re the driver. They can only yell at you. You can keep on driving the bus without engaging with them.

      1. But why do I have to drive the bus? I want to stop the bus and run away from the monsters.

         1. OP here, I’m assuming the bus is “life” and this is a more technical way of saying “take it one day at a time.” Which I personally hate because, duh, I am living my life. I liked this though! I can hear the overwhelming stuff but I’m still going forward. I’ve always appreciated ways of thinking like this, the kind that almost force you to rationalize your own irrationality. It’s almost like saying screw it and just going forward with what you want to do anyway (healthy/safe things only, please). But then…once I finally think I have the f@#% it mentality down, I self sabotage myself thinking “am I too much?”,”will I scare X person away if I tell them how I feel?”,”don’t take this risk because what if it doesn’t pay off?” I think a big part of self sabotage is thinking that you will be helping/protecting yourself before some negative thing happens if you engage in what would be sabotage behavior. That’s where I get stuck, at least…and it prevents growth. But you know what, I am driving this damn bus and we are going forward! Remember to be kind to yourselves. You are worthy of all the success and love you have in your life, and you are worthy of any more coming to you so let it happen! And it will come! (had to throw this last part in for myself too, hehe)

   2. Sorry you are struggling. I dealt with a lot of anxiety too, and it is hard to navigate sometimes. Here are some of my resources, all things you can do on your own. In a nutshell, the best thing I did for myself is learn to self-soothe.

      I found the Anxiety & Phobia handbook to be really helpful. IT’s $20, and available online. It enabled me to manage my anxiety at a time I had been having panic attacks for a couple years. The last panic attack I had I pulled that book out, flipped through until I found a passage that grounded me, and got through the attack.

      I also found a lot of help with Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT. To me, the essence of DBT is “Life/this situation/this person/trigger is hard and sucks and I can’t change it, but I can control how I react/respond and learn to self-soothe and get through this with dignity and move forward in a positive direction”

      There are a lot of DBT resources out there, and if you have an android you can install DBT911 app, which is my favorite. It has centering and grounding exercises that are meant to get you through crisis moments. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=se.annadroid.Dbt112&hl=en It’s been 4 years and I still use these.

      Also, these illustrations are sweet and at least a few of them resonate and help me at any given time when I am feeling rough. https://www.dbtselfhelp.com/html/elf_help.html Click the link for emotional/distressed/mindful or interpersonal.

      Good luck. I hope so much this helps.

9. Is anyone changing their LinkedIn behavior these days? I seem to be getting many more requests from people I don’t know, some are salespeople, but a decent chunk seem to be just people looking to “connect” with some vague link (like we both work “in law”). I’ve been pretty hard line on not connecting with people I don’t actually know and wouldn’t ask for networking help. Is the pandemic making this dynamic?

   1. Yes, people are losing their jobs like crazy. They’re terrified and desperate.

   2. I accept invitations if the person is generally in a related field or we have common connections. I regard it as pretty harmless.

      1. +1

   3. I’ve gotten a lot more invitations lately and I’m accepting the ones who are A. legitimate, actual people and B. not salespeople or hustlers trying to sell me something in the invitation.

      Agree with Anonome, people are losing their jobs or are fearful of losing their jobs and are building their networks, which is the right thing for them to do. Unfortunately, if they connect with me, I can’t really help them – my company is not hiring anyone but very specialized tech people and I don’t know anyone who is hiring right now.

   4. Major eye roll at this line of thinking. It’s a networking site. I regularly connect with people who I don’t really know and it’s great. People share articles and perspectives. Some are looking for work or networking opportunities. I doubt you have so much social/political capital that you have to cautiously guard it. I’ve done tangential, low burden favors for people I don’t know, and it has brought nothing but good things for my career.

   5. There are bots on LI that people are using to get more connections in the hopes of looking more connected to a lot of people. Personally, I only accept if I actually know the person or have met them (not a high bar there) but I don’t accept those random solicitations

   6. Some of it is likely bots or people like Russian trolls trying to connect to people to build up a network for later use.

   7. I’ve been laid off and I check LinkedIn at least once a day, but most of the requests and messages are from financial advisors either looking to sell their services or recruit people, OR people in multi-level marketing schemes looking to build their downlines. Basically a lot of vultures looking to take advantage of anyone who seems vulnerable or desperate. I ignore a lot of the vague “opportunities” or offers to help me in my job search, and I only respond to people in my line of work, or people who specify they’re looking for someone with my actual skillset.

10. Any recs for a mini herb garden that I can grow in my apartment? We get a ton of natural light, but I don’t have any outdoor space. Would also need to be something with little/no actual soil as we have a cat who might love to dig. Does something like this even exist?

    1. Crate and barrel has a ‘hydropod’ for basil grown without soil. Of course some cats are plant nibblers. Maybe try growing some hydroponic cat nip!

       1. Ooo! This one even looks pretty! Thanks for pointing this out. I was browsing C&B but only seeing mini planters, and given my complete lack of growing experience, I was kind of flummoxed as to how I even buy soil to fill it? Like, I know I can go to a Home Depot, but would rather not go in-person right now and also my memory was that they only had giant bags.

    2. The IKEA ones are well.

    3. One of my early panic buys was an Aerogarden. No idea why, but I did think it could be fun for my kids to watch it grow. My herbs are growing like crazy after four weeks. It’s great BUT the light is insanely bright. I wouldn’t have it somewhere you wouldn’t want it bright all the time.

       1. We keep ours in the garage for that reason.

    4. I recommended this above as well, but get an Aero garden! No actual soil. Super easy. Even if you have “tons” of natural lights, the Aerogarden people seem to think the optimal amount of direct sunlight is longer than the sun is normally up, so I don’t think its even possible to have that much natural light. I just love mine and can’t recommend it highly enough.

    5. Aero garden. My third year and going strong. You can get them on amazon.

11. Three sort of related questions:

    1) What nail polish have you found that stays on the longest? I have been getting manicures for years and years so doing them at home is new to me. So far, the Essie pain-on gel (color plus separate topcoat) seems to work the best. What about nail/cuticle creams?

    2) What have you discovered you can, and are willing, to live without? It’s a related questions because I have realized doing my own nails isn’t so bad, now that the part damaged from dip manicures is almost grown out. I regarded getting my nails done as a chore, not a luxury, and I have realized it is a chore I don’t have to do. Some of you are thinking, obviously, but it was such a habit.

    3) What other permanent changes are you going to make? I never used to plan meals. I thought I liked waking up in the morning and deciding what I wanted to make for dinner on the spot, or wandering around the grocery store picking out whatever looked good. Now, I meal plan in advance and add what I need to my Instacart order. I have discovered it is pretty awesome to have all the ingredients for several dinners on hand and not have to wonder if I have fresh ginger or whatever.

    1. I really only have answers to your first question. I have been doing my own manicures for probably 10 years now. The combination that lasts the longest on me (I am hard on my hands) is a good base coat, Essie polish, and Seche Vite top coat. I stopped buying Essie but haven’t found anything I liked as much, both from a brush/application perspective and a wear perspective. I have tried several of the CF social media shills, but not been a huge fan of any of them. Also, another tip for long wear is to swipe your nail with nail polish remover before you apply base coat. It removes the oil and the base coat sticks better.

       I don’t use cuticle cream, just a hand cream regularly. If I need to push back cuticles, I soak them in warm water with a touch of oil (Essie also makes a cuticle oil) first.

       Oh, one last tip for when you are taking off a color that bleeds a lot – reds, darker colors – use the cuticle oil or other oil around the edge of your nail. This helps prevent the color bleeding onto your skin and staining it.

       re: 2 and 3, not sure what this says about me, but I can’t think of things I won’t resume or permanent changes I am going to make once things are back to normal-ish. I will rehire my cleaning team, go back to OTF, etc.

       1. House cleaning will most definitely be hired out again. I discovered that I can keep my house clean, but the time commitment is more than I am willing to give.

          1. Same!

          2. I just emailed my cleaners and asked when they can come again (I’m not sure if they’re allowed to operate under our state’s rules since we’re only partially reopened). I never want to clean my own house again.

          3. Same. I have discovered how well natural cleaning products work (microfiber cloths, vinegar, etc.) but cleaning just takes me so darn long. We agree though that we’re just not comfortable hiring it out for a while longer since cleaners are in SO many other houses.

    2. I realized that I can live without wearing makeup. I used to wear it daily when going into the office, but since WFH I’ve only worn makeup a few times. I’ve gotten used to seeing my face without makeup. And when I go out now, I’m wearing a mask so it sort of feels pointless to wear anything. I’ll still keep my eyebrows groomed, though.

       I can’t think of any permanent changes I’ll be making. I may be forced into WFH full time. I work in a satellite office and there have been rumors of shutting down the building since company HQ is in another state. I’m not sure if the company will use this situation to make that change happen.

       1. I’m still wearing makeup, but it’s limited to eyes and lips with a little concealer here and there. I think I’m going to spend more on skincare and less on makeup going forward.

       2. Same! I hope that my comfort level in being makeup free remains. I ordered some tinted moisturizer and light makeup to see if I can make a permanent transition from my heavier makeup look.

    3. 1 – Dior Nail Glow. My favorite. Protects nails and just makes them look clean and healthy. Takes 2 minutes to put on and 5 min to dry. I gave up on regular polish years ago.

       1. THANK YOU for reminding me about this! I loved it and then totally forgot it existed!

       2. Ordering right this minute.

    4. I love restaurants, but we will probably go out to eat much less even when we do feel comfortable. DH and I have found some great new recipes. We learned how to make our own pizza. And we’re meal planning by necessity, so we don’t have to think about what’s on hand.

       I will probably continue trying to consolidate my errands. I was spending a lot of extra money going to Target for something we needed, but then picking up an extra 2-3 things. Then a few days later, I’d go to CVS for something else I needed, and pick up an extra 2-3 things. If I can consolidate all my purchases into fewer trips, I’ll probably save at least $100 per month.

       I’ve learned that my kid is happy at home. Super happy. I don’t think it’s good for him to be home all the time, but I recognize that we should keep our weekends less busy.

       1. True! If I’m just picking up some things for dinner, I might grab some stuff I don’t really need but seem good to have around. Now, when I’m grabbing food for the next two weeks, I don’t feel like my cart or budget has as much wiggle room.

       2. How do you make pizza at home that rivals takeout? I’ve tried various times and have used the Trader Joe’s dough and pita breads and pillsbury cans, but my kids and I still prefer takeout pizza. Please share any tips!

          1. Not OP, but also make my own pizza. The secret is to make your own dough and get the oven as hot as you can- store bought dough or pita pizzas are not going to be that great. I loosely follow a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated, but there are tons of recipes online and most are good and pretty forgiving. I often use the Trader Joe’s pizza sauce, but also make a sauce from canned crushed tomatoes that’s good (just add garlic, some spices, and a little red wine vinegar), and have been really into pesto pizzas or white pizzas with ricotta, olive oil, and garlic. It’s not the same as takeout pizza, but it’s fun to make, generally healthier (I use less cheese, more veggies, and a half whole wheat crust), and appreciate it as its own thing, just like the difference between deep dish and thin crust pizza.

          2. If you have yeast, the dough is pretty simple to make yourself. Although I also live in NY and it’s always been said that our water makes our bagels and pizza taste so good, so perhaps there are regional variations. I don’t have a pizza stone or other fancy equipment
             I’ve grown to like this recipe because of the limited amount of yeast needed, in light of current yeast shortages. The dough itself is annoyingly wet to shape, but it tastes good: https://smittenkitchen.com/2013/10/lazy-pizza-dough-favorite-margarita-pizza/
             Here’s a more traditional recipe: https://sugarspunrun.com/the-best-pizza-dough-recipe/

          3. Make my own dough, but I’ve also used Trader Joe’s. Oven as hot as you can get it.

          4. The key is a pizza stone. Preheat the oven for around half an hour with the stone in it before you bake the pizza.

          5. Not the OP but I make my own dough and sauce and have one of those outdoor portable 900 degree ovens.

             Serious eats has some good pizza dough recipes – their basic neapolitan dough works with the high heat oven and their ny pizza dough is really good in a conventional oven / pizza stone.

          6. OP here! This may post too late, but in March, we switched from takeout to frozen pizza because we weren’t sure yet about how safe takeout was. We’ve now decided that takeout is a perfectly acceptable risk, we just had a “wait and see” perspective when so much was unknown in March. But in making that switch, we realized how much we were spending on our weekly tradition of pizza and movie Fridays.

             At first, we couldn’t get flour and yeast, so we used Whole Foods pre-made dough. Pretty good. Once we had AP flour and yeast, we started with Serious Eats’ “Foolproof Pan Pizza,” and made that for a couple of weeks. Then we got bread (“OO”) flour, and we started with Serious Eats’ NY style pizza. This week, we have a pizza steel–like a baking stone, but with more heat transfer–for the first time.

             So, it’s been a process. I think taking small steps has helped. We still have not perfected it. In some ways, takeout pizza is still better than what we make. In other ways, ours is better–it’s definitely fresher, and it doesn’t sit for long before we eat it. It’s also just fun to have a project.

             (We make the dough several days ahead of time and let it rest. We make the sauce in a larger batch and freeze it for batches. So on Friday night, all we have to do is shape, top, and bake, which leaves plenty of time for watching Frozen II for the fifth time.)

    5. I have learned I can, for the most part, live without heat styling my hair. I had no idea what my hair looked like after solely air drying before this. I actually love it. Shampoo, conditioner, comb, serum/oil, walk out the door = good hair. I did happen to get a better cut for this just before salons closed.

    6. I have always done my own nails. I have a whole system that lasts longer than a salon manicure and they look good enough that I have had people comment (somewhat skeptically) that I must be going to a salon. BUT, I have strong nails that grow. I make sure that I clean up my nails with a file and buffer (so less likely to have chips from little rough edges), run over them with acetone to make sure there is no water or oil on my nails, then use OPI Start to Finish, two coats of either Zoya or Essie regular polish, then Sally Hansen Insta-Dry. The easiest polish to do on your own that lasts the longest is Color Stree, which is real polish, but sticks on. It will last until it grows out. You have to practice a bit to be good at it and you use a top coat, but it really does work. I don’t use it regularly because I don’t love the color palette, but it’s fun for holidays, etc. I have painted my own toenails in the past week or so, which I normally wouldn’t bother with. I like getting pedicures and they last a long time. I think I’ll still get them done once I can, but they actually don’t look bad right now.

       A couple of things that I will change – I NEVER worked from home before and I love it. I think my workplace will be much less facetime-oriented and I think it will be a good thing for all of us. I love the flexibility and feel like I can be very productive from home. The other is that I always spent my Saturdays running errands and it felt like another day of obligations. Now, I’m doing my grocery shopping early on Friday mornings and only going to Target as-needed (not all that often) and trying to not go to this grocery store and that one for various things that I can only get there. My Whole Foods is just weird right now, so I’ve stopped going. I ran into the suburban one not long ago to grab a supplement that I couldn’t get elsewhere and it was fine, but I don’t need to go weekly. I have been stocking up on cat food (large bags of dry for the outdoor kitties) and haven’t been to Petsmart since the start of quarantine. So, in general, I guess I will figure out how to stock up and plan ahead, hopefully without taking over my house with storing stuff, and leave my Saturdays to chill. It’s been really nice. We sleep in, have coffee, chill, either cook breakfast/brunch or now go out and get something. I don’t feel an obligation to do anything other than feed my cats and get some exercise.

       1. Oops, that’s Color Street!

    7. In nail polish, I sprung for a Chanel red, it doesn’t last that long because I’m terrible at home manis (and frankly can’t wait to get back, that’s my happy place) but the color makes me happy and it’s the easiest to apply because it goes on nicely in one coat (essie and OPi take me a couple to get even coverage).
       There’s not much about this I plan to hang onto – my lifestyle was pretty quarantine already in some ways, I shop pretty exclusively online and did a lot of takeout/grocery delivery before. I’ve also always had a lot of flexibility at work as to where I work (and I’ve been a huge advocate of flexibility) but I miss the energy of the office. But overall, I’m just fortunate this hasn’t been too bad for me overall. I’m just dying for some personal maintenance.

    8. 2- I can live without being in the office everyday! I’ve never had any interest in WFH but it’s fine actually and when I’m able to be more social again and return to the office sometimes, I will be fine at home most of the time.

       3- I plan to continue walking with friends and making pizza weekly. I also plan to continue to shop less overall and shop local more. I don’t miss buying things and I do miss the option of visiting a local shop.

       1. Posted above, but please share any tips on how to make pizza at home taste good! My kids love pizza but our homemade tries have not been all that tasty.

          1. I use Mark Bittman’s dough recipe. Baked in a hot oven- mine gets up to 525, I’d do hotter if I could. Not too much sauce (I usually use half a cup crushed tomatoes with oregano sprinkled on) and low water mozzarella or pre shredded The internet is a vast cavern of pizza knowledge but a Trader Joe’s crust baked in a hot oven with TJ’s pizza sauce and shredded mozzarella works well for me.

    9. We will go to restaurants occasionally because I think it’s important for kids to learn how to behave during a meal out, but I foresee a lot more takeout in our future because we realized it’s seriously so much more pleasant to eat the food at home where we don’t have to worry about our toddler making noise or throwing a tantrum. And it’s not a lot of fun to rush through a restaurant meal knowing that a toddler meltdown might force us to bail at any moment – with takeout at home we can eat at a more relaxed pace.

    10. To your #3, not COVID but when I had my first baby we started meal planning for shopping trips and it made such a huge, positive difference in food waste & quality of our meals; I wish I had started a lot sooner.

    11. I really like ORLY, their new breathable one-step color stays on much longer than anything I’ve used from OPI, which is surprising because you typically don’t expect a three-in-one product to be good.

        As for permanent changes, it turns out I don’t hate running or working out at home as much as I thought I would, so I’ll probably keep running in addition to spin, barre, etc. once I can resume those classes.

    12. 1 – I have been doing my own nails for years, and I will never go back to drug store nail polish after using Dior and Chanel. There is just no comparison. Actually, I did try OPI and Essie again recently, just for fun, and they both went straight in the trash after one use. All of the Dior and Chanel base & top coats work well too, but the Dior Abricot top coat is my favorite.

    13. 1. I’ve done at-home manis and pedis for years, and I have found that using a good base and top coat makes all the difference. The actual nail polishes are more a matter of personal preference. For example, Essie has tiny brushes which work well for me because I have small nail beds, but some might prefer OPI for the larger brush. OPI used to have more bold colors, but I’d say Essie has caught up there. Essie was known maybe 5-10 years ago for all the neutrals, but again, OPI has probably caught up there. Now for me it’s a matter of the brush! I actually LOVE Revlon nail polishes and have found the quality to be great, but they are not always available at the drugstore and they have a much more limited shade range than Essie and OPI. Zoya is also nice, but again, more limited shade range.

        All that said, I love good old-fashioned Sally Hansen’s Hard As Nails for my base coat or for days when I don’t feel like doing a full mani. And for top coat, I really like the Zoya Glossy Seal top coat.

        Sorry, I wrote a novel. Apparently I have OPINIONS about at-home manicures!

        2. I was surprised to learn I can manage my own brows. I always got them threaded every three weeks. But with more time on my hands, I can scrutinize them daily and catch every last hair, and they look pretty decent! I might change my tune if/when I return to busy commuting/office life, though. Part of what I loved about threading was that I didn’t have to think about my brows in between appointments. Now I have a lot more free time so I do a little every day.

        3. I agree about meal planning! I have a much better sense of what I can actually consume in a week with a grocery shop. While I always prided myself on just popping into the store 2-3 times a week for a few things, now I’m learning how to live on 2 grocery orders a month and doing a lot more with pantry and freezer foods. Turns out I don’t NEED fresh fruits and veggies every week (though it is nice).

        Great questions!

12. anyone have an auto hand soap dispenser that works?

    1. Following. We ordered a couple from you-know-where a couple years ago and they stopped working in a couple of months. I have a motion-sensor-activated faucet in the kitchen and it is amazing; I would like a soap dispenser that was touchless as well.

    2. Simple Human

    3. We have the simple human one- it’s great but batteries need replacing after about 6 weeks. I like that we could dial up/down the amount of soap that is dispensed each time- I prefer to use a dime size amount, not a silver dollar.

       1. Agreed on the soap amount. I also have a Simple Human one, but it is rechargeable. I don’t like though how sooo much soap comes out at once. It’s making me go through soap like crazy because there’s no stopping it.

    4. I’ve had 3 of the automatic Simple Human ones, and they’re great for a while but inevitably end up breaking within a year or so. The automatic sensor stops working, and changing the batteries or cleaning the unit doesn’t help. YMMV

13. Anyone have good recs for a side hustle that pays decently (at least $20-25/hr) and can be done around your schedule? Obviously now is not a great time with COVID, but I’m thinking ahead. I’m a lawyer but anything legal is out so I was thinking online tutoring? Would love to hear from anyone who has done this.

    1. Tutoring pays pretty well, especially if you have high test scores yourself and are eligible to work for the test prep companies. I tutored LSAT to make money in law school and then after law school when I was unemployed and looking for a legal job (graduated in ’09) I tutored high school math and English. IIRC this was around $30 per hour, although that sounds better than it was because I was an independent contractor so a lot went to taxes, I didn’t get paid for prep time (I didn’t actually prep that much but I was supposed to) and I didn’t get paid for commuting to my students (we all commute to work but most of us work more than 1-2 hours in one sitting, so when you have to commute separately for every hour of work it adds up).

    2. Tutoring, especially test prep tutoring, could be lucrative. I know math tutors who charge $100 an hour. I how about joining a bunch of focus groups and giving your opinion on things? I’ve been to a couple that pay really well. Writing or editing book reviews or journals.

       1. I feel like it would be really hard to earn any significant quantity of money at focus groups/research studies? I live in a college town so there are a lot of studies at the local university but most studies have a pretty narrow demographic that’s eligible (like kids ages 3-5 or diabetic men over 60 or whatever). I’d say if I searched for every available study I might find one I could do once/month or so — and it would take a ton of time to find those studies. And they typically pay in free food or gift certificates, which are nice but not the same as cash.

    3. How about dog daycare or boarding from your home through Rover? We pay $35 a night (up to $45 a night for holidays weeks) and you can take multiple dogs at one time? My boarder homeschools 4 kids and takes up to 15 dogs at a time and she makes a ton of money during holidays.

14. Wanted to share a couple finds that have really helped me lately, I am not being compensated in any way for any of these recommendations, just found these products really great and wanted to share.

    – I bought one of the “starter kits” from Blueland after seeing an ad on Instagram – if you haven’t seen it, they’re tablets for cleaning solution and hand soap. The kits come with a soap dispenser and spray bottles where you just drop the tablet in and add water. I love the bottles and soap dispensers – the spray bottles are heavy, thick plastic that will last a long time and the soap dispensers are glass. We are going through a lot of cleaner and hand soap these days and being able to drop a tablet in a bottle and have what you need, without running to the store, is pretty great.

    – I am a great target for Instagram ads apparently because I bought some face masks from Linen Salvage et Cie after I saw an ad for their masks. They are made of cotton percale sheeting fabric and elastic and they are really, really comfortable and breathable. I ordered Friday and the masks came yesterday (I did pay a little extra for quicker shipping as I needed a new mask like right then, I think I posted last week that the mask I had made my face break out in a rash); I wore a mask to go to the drugstore yesterday evening. It’s getting warm where I am and having a comfortable mask I can actually breathe in is really great.

    1. oooh thank you for the blueland review. im very interested in getting cleaning concentrates of all sorts without the water pre mixed in (why ship/truck all that water around when you can ship less stuff.. ) and had been using grove cleaner concentrates but looking for a soap option.

    2. I got to say, the Instagram ad targeting algorithm is fantastic (from a seller perspective), because I have bought multiple items during quarantine after seeing Instagram ads. Why yes, I do need that dragon-themed equestrian sun shirt and that fun colorful sea turtle beach towel and those face masks. How did you know, Instagram?

       1. Yeah I have bought MULTIPLE things from Instagram ads, but I have never bought a single thing off a FB ad, and usually think “why the heck are you showing me THAT?” which is weird since they are owned by the same company?

    3. Can you tell me more about the masks and how they fit? Did you get the regular size or smaller or larger?

       1. OP here – I got the regular size, I have a round regular-size face so figured that would be fine and it was. They fit really well with no gapping. I have not tried many different types of masks so don’t know what the difference is between one brand and another, sorry. I do know I prefer the elastic to the tie-on kind (which was what I had before I bought the Linen Salvage et Cie masks).

    4. I’m really interested in Blueland because I would like to be more environmentally friendly.

    5. we got the Blueland and I might be in the minority but I hate it, I think the product itself is inferior, and the bottles all leak and one of them broke (cracked) already, unclear how.

15. I need to vent. My mother seems to use her Facebook account solely to post conspiracy theories and falsehoods. Today, she has posted that Joe Biden leaked the identities of Seal Team 6. I posted as a comment the Associated Press article debunked this “theory,” which she promptly deleted. Sigh. Is it wrong that I’m constantly astonished that I came from her womb?

    1. Can you unfollow her? It might feel a bit unloyal at first, but I have yet to regret unfollowing anyone on social media. It’s freeing really.

       1. +1 for unfollowing. It’s the best.

       2. Definitely unfollow, that feature is there for a reason and really does help preserve relationships.

    2. My mom posts that stuff, but thankfully, through calm discussions with her, she’s actually kind of learned to question some things she sees online! I’m so proud! I mean, this has only taken like 5 years, but steady respectful dialogue worked with her.

    3. You can report her posts as fake news. I report my aunt all the time and it works sometimes.

       1. Ha. That’s awesome.

    4. My mother does the same thing and I unfollowed her. I know she is a smart person and I cannot for the life of me understand how she gets sucked into these conspiracy theories but I suppose they are designed to do just that.

    5. I report all fake news posts, IDGAF if you’re my mom, sister or child. I have no time for that $hit. FB doesn’t say who reported it so it’s not like she’ll know.

       1. +1 on reporting and on the urgency. No one has 5 years to teach an individual critical thinking skills.

16. Regular going shin for this, because I just need to gripe. I hate my job. My boss is an incompetent and hyperactive moron who lacks common sense and had no concept of planning or prioritizing. Personality-wise, she would grate on me even if she were a stranger I only had to interact with in passing. I have one of our many weekly check in calls with her in 5 minutes, where she will tell me TMI about her personal life, yell at her barky dogs, drop the phone, walk out of range of her mic, firget to mute her incoming email sounds, rattle off half a dozen very time intensive but valueless new projects that she wants done NOW because everything is always a top priority, then she will ask me how I’m feeling – (“no REALLY, how are you feeling? Because she REALLY caaaarrrressss!!!)

    Just gag me and get it over with.

    1. Commiseration. I could have written your entire post. The only thing that helps is daydreaming about the day I can quit.

       1. Ugh, my sympathies.

          I did get a full bingo card on my call with her. Feels like that merits a reward of some kind.

          1. Shots shots shots.

17. I’m running out of vegetarian recipes to make, since I normally don’t cook nearly this much. Does anybody have recommendations for either recipes or places to look? Ideally looking for something without peppers and onions, because I realized that 99% of my recipes call for those two ingredients. Thanks!

    1. I’ve been doing lots of soy ginger stirfrys – I often use onions and peppers but could do without. Sweet potato, broccoli or cauliflower, green beans, spinach, whatever you have in. I used seitan in my last one which was delicious, but also often use egg and tofu.
       I also like a peanut stew – sweet potato, spinach.

    2. Isa Chandra and Miyoko Schinner are godesses so I’d recommend any recipe from either of those authors. More generally my standard dinners are usually: sloppy lennys, stir fry, fried rice, udon, bean burgers, Thai curry, Indian curry, lasagna, pasta, soup, stew, falafel, tacos/burritos, Shepard’s pie, chili etc

       1. + to these to cookbook authors!

    3. Do you already make any Cookie and Kate recipes? I love her stuff – the sweet potato and black bean enchiladas (https://cookieandkate.com/black-bean-sweet-potato-enchiladas/) and best vegetable lasagna are both good and not pepper/onion heavy (https://cookieandkate.com/best-vegetable-lasagna-recipe/). Also, the nytimes vegan thai curry recipe is easy/tasty and you can put whatever veggies in it you want. Mollie Katzen’s the heart of the plate is my most used cookbook – I tend to just compile recipes from all over rather than cooking from a cookbook start to finish, but I love pretty much everything in there.

    4. Two favorites in my house-no links to avoid mod, but this should be enough info to find them: Easy Chickpea Curry from the Washington Post and Mango Coconut Tofu Bowls from Budget Bites. The curry calls for onion, but there’s no reason you can’t skip them.

    5. Check out Budget Bytes. A lot of her recipes are vegetarian and everything I’ve made of hers has been yummy.

    6. I’ve been doing rice bowls with whatever veggies I have on hand, often cucumbers, kale, pickled jalapenos, cabbage, shredded carrots, and avocado. Add a sauce made from chili-garlic sauce and soy sauce and you’re good to go. I also add salmon to mine sometimes.

    7. I’ve been working through the Thug Kitchen book. But they also have quite a few recipes on their website.

    8. I’ve been getting a lot of good vegetarian recipes from the following places:

       Washington Post
       NY Times
       foodandwine.com
       bonappetit.com
       Also if you can stand a little cussing, Thug Kitchen is a great vegetarian site!

       1. The WaPo food editor wrote “Cool Beans,” which might fit your needs.

    9. Love & Lemons!

    10. Check out cookie & kate – she has a great blog and also great cookbooks. Terrific mix of vegan/vegetarian recipes that I return to over and over (my DH is not veggie but he loves her spinach and artichoke enchiladas).

    11. I still love the old Moosewood cookbooks. They have great variety and most of them were published long before Whole Foods and the like, so ingredients are readily accessible at an ordinary grocery store. If I were told that I had to eat food for the rest of my life only from three cookbooks, it would be The Moosewood Cookbook, Moosewood Classics, and Moosewood Restaurant Low Fat Favorites. Ordinarily I would suggest frequenting moderate to lower end antique stores to pick up cookbooks for pennies on the dollar, but given the current pandemic situation I would suggest purchasing cheap used ones from the river source.

    12. I made the Smitten Kitchen cannelini aglio e olio, minus the parsley, and we’ve eaten it three times this week. I found a half package of spinach in the freezer and added that on day two.

    13. This chickpea salad is in our regular rotation: https://food52.com/recipes/26165-moro-s-warm-squash-chickpea-salad-with-tahini

        Also really love Melissa Clark’s ‘sweet and sour tofu with corn’ (which is from her book “Dinner” – lots of great vegetarian recipes in that, but it’s not a vegetarian cookbook)

18. I have been a regular blood donor. I gave back in April and found out last night that when I give again next month they are throwing in coronavirus antibody testing (they are trying to get people for convalescent plasma donations; I am usually a whole blood donor but would switch for this). I am crossing my fingers that I am + (hopefully, due to work/conferences earlier in the year).

    A- is in the house!!!

    1. Oh that’s awesome! I gave last week and was happy with their precautions – everyone wore masks, temp checks at the door and again during the screening, etc. I’m due again in early July so maybe our facility will be doing the same by then – though I don’t think I’ve had it unless I was asymptomatic.
       A+ here!

    2. Thank you both for donating!!

    3. I’ve been wondering whether the red cross website is glitching on my end, because any blood drive I click on always says all appointments are booked. But today I scrolled ahead to mid-June and there were slots, so I guess people in Oakland have been very good about booking up slots!

    4. I gave for the first time ever (normally scared to death) back in April and they never posted my blood type. Makes me wonder if I’m due to go back. They did such a great job that I don’t mind at all.

19. Personal finance question: if you’re making a large purchase that you could cover 100% (say a cell phone or a Peloton) even if you suddenly lost your job, but are offered 0% financing, is there a reason to not finance? Is it better to just get the obligation off your personal books or to stretch it out and use the extra space in the budget to save to taxable retirement/down payment etc?

    1. What about the impact of the inquiry and the debt on your credit score?

       1. Good point! I don’t know.

       2. The impact of the inquiry would be very minimal.

    2. I keep all of my credit reports locked, and I’m not going to bother unlocking them for 0% financing on a Peloton.

       1. Good point, I’d have to contact everyone and that would be a pain.

    3. I recently financed a Peloton. I typically hate debt; I paid off my student loans as fast as I could, don’t carry CC debt, and have bought two cars with cash from savings. Currently have plenty of savings to cover 6 months expenses and then some. I bought the Peloton in the early days of the pandemic when we weren’t sure about jobs (tbh we still aren’t) and I just didn’t want to lay out $2k immediately. Now two payments in, I’m getting annoyed with the monthly charge and am thinking I’ll just pay it off in one fell swoop in the next few months. I don’t want to fall into the payment mentality with cars, furniture, etc as I’ve always found it better to save for most things in advance.

       1. This is how I feel as well. I’ve done 0% financing in the past to keep a cash buffer, and I’ve always regretted it. I generally prefer to just pay for things upfront and not have to deal with monthly payments as a rule (I’ve even paid for gym memberships for a full year to avoid the monthly payment). For me, the interest I’d earn on the $2000 during the payment period is small enough that it’s not worth the annoyance of a monthly payment.

       2. We did the 0% financing on our Peloton because it came with an extra six months of the subscription. So it made sense to sign up for the financing. Then we paid it off on the second month.

    4. I am no financial guru so keep that in mind, but I did this with a treadmill because it was more comforting to me to have the larger buffer in my savings account than 0% interest debt. I have no idea if this is actually the smart move or not but it works for me and my risk tolerance.

    5. I see no reason to take on debt for a luxury purchase. Either I can afford it or not.

       1. 100% agree. I could pay for outright, but I also roll anything extra into my down payment fund or add it to Vanguard every month (in addition to preset savings), so I was trying to think through if it’s better to essentially take the free money if I could pay it off at any point.

    6. This is a total personal preference. Running the math, it’s definitely better to always take advantage of 0% financing if you know you will definitely make payments on time and not forget, etc. However, for me, I hate having debts outstanding so I usually favor just paying things off and not having the worry about another line in my budget.

    7. Personally, I just feel more comfortable paying upfront. I’m not comfortable taking a loan I don’t need, even when there’s 0% financing. I feel that if I can’t afford something upfront I shouldn’t be buying it anyway. And it just feels cleaner to not have extra debts I have to keep up. If I have to earmark the money, why not just pay it and forget about it? Curious to hear other’s points of view on this though.

    8. I did this for phone purchases, even though I don’t like the idea of monthly payments even though they cost no more than one up front chunk. I justified it to myself because the large chunk was already in my savings account and was earning interest there, so letting it slowly dwindle over the term meant I was making a small amount in interest. The amount of interest it earned was minimal, but better than zero had I paid it out at once.

    9. We financed new laminate floors last year at 0% interest, we had the money to cover the expense but preferred to pay it out of cash flow rather than take money out of savings. Our rationale was, every time we’ve taken money out of savings for a non-emergency expense saying “see, we can cover the expense!” we end up with a gigantic car, home, or health bill that we ALSO have to take out of savings. It’s our karma, or something. So we financed the floors, we paid them off within 4 months, and this time we didn’t end up with another big expense. Our credit is fantastic so we weren’t worried at all about the credit hit. I wouldn’t do it for a phone and I wouldn’t do it for a Peloton; I just think about those differently. The floors increased the value of our house (because anything that replaces animal-pee-stained carpet has to increase the value of your house) and also solved a lot of our allergy problems, so it was worth it.

    10. I never do 0% financing because I simply prefer to pay upfront. My credit is excellent already and it’s not worth unfreezing it for those kinds of deals.

    11. Obviously I’m in the minority, but I would do the financing. It’s (a very minuscule amount right now of) free money.

    12. I never do this because it’s not worth the headache of keeping up with all the hoops you have to jump through. There are so many loopholes to try to get you to make a mistake that will negate the whole thing and require a lump sum of interest at the end. Some don’t allow prepayment to finish it off, some change the final due date to mess you up, some lie and say a payment was missed because the due date changes due to a banking holiday.

        Plus, the amount I would save by banking the money to earn interest is less than I make in cashback from putting the item on my Discover card anyway.

        1. I mean, you just have to pay every month and if they allow autopay that’s not very hard to accomplish.

           1. Do you read? An automatic payment won’t help you when the company changes the due date without informing you. Your automated payment is then deemed late.

              1. Wow, harsh. Both the institution that wronged you and your comment here.

              2. I have done zero percent financing and never encountered a changed due date. I set the auto payment up to occur through the credit card (not my bank) so the payment always processed on the due date (or a set number of days prior to the due date). Very easy!

    13. it’s a personal preference. we bought our peloton on financing (0%) last year even though we could pay it off outright bc i like having a consistently higher emergency fund sitting there and technically we’re paying less due to inflation… as long as you are sure you wont spend the extra and will actually keep it sitting there in savings i see no reason not to. we don’t do the same with car purchases etc since we typically buy used cars and the interest rates have never been low enough to interest me. i would really only consider it with 0% financing on things i could otherwise afford.

        plus an interesting side effect of this for the peloton specifically is i feel like we’re paying a gym membership almost each month, and it motivates me to “make use of” the peloton each month and ive probably worked out more this way

    14. We did this recently when we had to replace our HVAC to the tune of $15K. We had the money in a HYSA but literally the same day we got a promotional offer for a 0% credit card with a 24-month payback period. We opened the card and set up an autopay from savings so that the card would be paid off in 20 months. (giving ourselves a little buffer to ensure that it was paid off before the promo period expired.) We earned about $400 in interest over that period for something that took less than 15 minutes to set up.

    15. When we had our kitchen redone, we bought the appliances from Home Depot. They offered a 0% introductory rate and some kind of cash back thing that made them cheaper. So we did it. We could have paid up front but it was zero percent as long as we paid within the period so we just did that. And I’m glad we did because several cost overruns later on other items, we were glad to have the “float” for a while until we made more income to pay the appliances off. Which we did, within the 0%.

        When you take on a 0% introductory rate loan/credit card, you are betting that you will pay it off before the higher interest rate hits, whenever that is. The creditor is betting you won’t. It just depends on whether you 100% know you absolutely will do it.

        You’re also assuming you have better, higher earning opportunities with the money you’d otherwise be paying today. Like if you could passively earn something like 2% on a sum of money while waiting to pay off a 0% loan, you should do that all day long.

    16. I’m 100% commission and 80% of HHI comes from me, so our logic follows from that fact pattern, but my financial advisor advised us to take on the 0% offers if the purchase price is greater than a certain amount, so long as we can easily “afford” it all cash and if there’s no prepay penalty. So, we did the Peloton all cash but the $15k of new furniture was 0%. In normal times, we accelerate payments so things are paid off in about a year’s time. In times like this (and this is happening real time with the furniture purchase) where commission has dried, I’m cash rich because I financed, have a small monthly payment, and when commission picks back but we’ll finish paying to 0 in a few more months time.

20. How are grocery stores looking in your area? It would help if you could say where you are and whether it’s a hotspot and what type of store you go to.

    Reason I’m asking — since I switched to WFH (1st week of March), I’ve been big on going to the store at really off times — usually like 10 or 11 am on Tues-Thursday. Goal has always been to find the store as empty as possible of people while being relatively stocked. Is this still “necessary” or is grocery store behavior normalizing? At first it was people who you could tell were stocking up/buying for weeks. Are people going at more regular intervals now?

    I’m in Arlington Va and haven’t gone in nearly 3 weeks. I’m higher risk so I still wouldn’t go on a weekend or during an obvious busy time like say 5 pm when those who are going to an office may stop by on the way home. But I’m debating whether it’s still necessary to interrupt my work to go at 9 or 10 am on a Thursday or whether it’d feel ok to leisurely stroll in when I have time even if that’s 2 pm on a Friday. FYI — Arlington stores tend to be small; not NYC small but even at a Giant etc aisles will be narrower than they would be at a regular Giant. But since I’m going on random weekday mid mornings, I don’t have time to drive out to the true suburbs.

    1. My husband has been doing the shopping and he said that Trader Joe’s has consistently been a much better experience than Whole Foods (our two closest stores). Whole Foods hasn’t been staggering entrances or enforcing social distancing at all, but Trader Joe’s has managed it really well. Stock still isn’t 100% at either store, though.

       1. I echo the TJs over Whole Foods rec based on DC. I also appreciated that DC TJs closed for cleaning while my Whole Foods got written up in the Times as a problem.

       2. I LOVE Trader Joes’ but since the Pandemic, I do NOT want to have to ride the M86 bus over there and carry stuff on the buses, even if they do desanitize the busses every night. There are 2 Trader Joes over there now and NONE here. FOOEY! So I am left to be going to Whole Foods and Fairways, as they have good stuff that is relatively fresh. The key to clenliness, Dad says, is dependent on who works there. You can have a clean place or a dirty place. If the employees are clean, the place will be clean and visa versa. When this Pandemic is over, if I do wind up moving to the West Side, it will be to a place near a Trader Joes’ over there. YAY!!!

    2. Try the Harris Teeter on Duke Street in Alexandria. I was there this past Saturday mid morning and didn’t feel uncomfortable. I did skip beer/wine cause those aisles felt too narrow.

       1. I’ve been doing online ordering for pickup at this store and last week they had everything on my large list but 409. I do try to request a slot midmorning as I think they store shoppers will make their rounds by 8 or 9.

    3. Chicago suburbs. Still avoiding “peak” times (weekend and after work) but have found things are relatively quiet at 8 a.m., at 11 a.m., and late evening (after 8 p.m.) Our local stores all have senior/high risk/etc. hours, typically first thing in the morning on some or all days. Not sure if that would be better for your schedule, but I think the cleanest time to visit the store would be soon after it first opened (everything freshly cleaned), so you could go potentially before work.

    4. We shop weekly (downtown in a city). Stores are well stocked, generally. But our usual strategy of lopsided shopping weeks (soup’s on sale? Great, buy 10! then the next week it’s pasta and sauce, etc.) is a bust – limited discounts available. Our grocery bills are higher than normal even accounting for the extra meals eaten at home.

    5. Also in Arlington and I’ve consistently been going to a Safeway around 8-10 on Saturday mornings. This week was the first time there were more than 10 people in the store (maybe 15 total) and there was no lines at the check out. One guy got in line behind me when I was about half way done being checked out but we were more than 10 ft apart the whole time. There was 1-2 people that were shopping at about the same pace I was and so we’d pass each other quickly in the aisles but other than that I was never less than 10 ft from someone.

    6. In Arlington too, I went to Whole Foods on Friday night and found it only very slightly more crowded than on a weekday mid morning (my preferred time too!) and just as well stocked.

    7. I’m in DC. When I’ve gone to DC stores in the evening, they have been pretty packed. When I’ve gone to Arlington stores late morning on a workday, they have been fine. Not sure if that is a DC vs Arlington thing or a result of the time I go.

       1. I haven’t gone but I’ve heard stores in Arlington are busier right after the traditional work hour (5-6 pm) but then they get better later at night — 8 pm and later; and there’s also busy first thing in the morning as people will almost line up to get in right after senior hour (prob also because it’s before they start their work from home day). Mid day in this area is easier because some people’s work from home jobs don’t allow them the flexibility to just go shop at 11 am, though lunch hour is a bit busier. I know initially people weren’t wanting to go at 8 pm or later despite the empty store because it was guaranteed everything you needed would be sold out. Things are looking a lot better now though. While it’s possible there’s a few things you don’t find on each trip, it’s getting more rare and you can usually substitute if you’re ok with different brands; cleaners etc. are a hassle but most food items, paper products etc. are there.

    8. I’m in NYC and have gone to Whole Foods at 9:30am on a Saturday. Barely any line to get in and inside, there were few people. I’ve also gone at 2:30pm on a Saturday–very long line to get in and felt so crowded. I’ve learned my lesson.

       Trader Joe’s always seems to have a lone line to get in no matter what day and time for me, but once you’re inside, it’s well spaced out and they consistently remind customers to social distance (i.e., an employee will yell out every so often a thank you for social distancing).

    9. BTW — I would hesitate to go this Friday afternoon as it’s the Friday before Memorial Day. While things are not back to normal yet, I do think people will BBQ and have some people over whether allowed or not as they’ll think — oh it’s not like I’m going to a party, it’s just me and my BILs family and we’ll be outside. So people will need to shop for that and if they haven’t already — many will be doing it on Friday and Sat.

    10. If you’re immune-compromised (like I am), can’t you go at the senior/pregnant/immune-compromised special times? My Trader Joe’s has it for the first hour every morning pre-opening and some of the Safeways and independent markets have that too.

21. I’m wondering what others wear over sleeveless dresses or tops? I’ve been trying to purchase summer tops and dresses with sleeves, but for sleeveless items, I usually wear a jersey (t shirt material type) open face cardi. I’m wondering if anyone has seen one from linen or perhaps even a lightweight kimono style cardi. I’ve checked Anthropologie and banana and there doesn’t seem to be anything like this right now. Thanks in advance!

    1. Believe it or not, Lululemon has some great cardigans. I wouldn’t wear them with dresses, but I would with pants and sleeveless tops. Also, Nordstrom has cardigans with linen from Halogen, Eileen Fisher and Nic + Zoe.

       1. Thank you for the suggestion. I live in Vancouver BC the home of lululemon and I didn’t even think of them!

          1. Look at the Sit in Lotus Wrap II. I am currently wearing one and I love it.

             1. I just checked and it looks great. It’s sold out online but stores are reopening in a week or so. If I feel safe I will venture in, or wait until they restock online:)

             2. Check eBay. I buy a lot of stuff that is sold out in stores there.

22. Going to Deep Creek Lake for a week in late June with the family…looking forward to golfing, boating, fishing, swimming, biking, fire pit activities, etc. This is our first time….looking for recommendations

    1. No recommendations because it has been . . . 30+ years . . . but some of my favorite childhood memories are from my family’s trips to Deep Creek. Enjoy!

    2. I worked as a camp counselor near there and loved Swallow Falls State Park.
       https://dnr.maryland.gov/publiclands/Pages/western/swallowfalls.aspx

23. I know we’ve discussed this before, but it’s my turn to be interested:

    Recommendations for mattresses that don’t transfer movement? I’ve had it with my lovely husband somehow levitating three feet in the air, spinning around 360 degrees, and crashing back to earth! Don’t want to totally break the bank but it doesn’t need to be super cheap, either.

    1. All of the foam and latex type mattresses are good for this. They’re available at all price points; the more expensive ones have better edge retention than the cheaper ones.

    2. We’ve been happy with Caspars that we’ve had for about three years.

    3. Generally, latex rather than innerspring.

       I am the levitator in my house. Sorry hubby!

    4. We just got a Helix (sunset luxe model) about a month ago, and really like it so far. My husband is a toss-and-turner, and since we got it, I have maybe only been awakened in the middle of the night once or twice (in the entire month), when before I was waking up every night with all the movement.

    5. Our sleep number has been pretty good for absorbing one person’s movements. They are a little overpriced imo, but I have really liked it the past few years we have had it. If the statement that it last 20 years (they claim) is true, the cost will be worth it over its life. It does have a foam topper that came with this model.
       I also really like that I can adjust the firmness, especially while pregnant. Some days more firm feels better and squishy feels better on others.

    6. Individual pocket coils.

    7. Thanks, everybody! I ended up going to wirecutter and buying the one it says has “virtually no motion transfer.” Fingers crossed!

24. Here’s my comparative mask assessment and a two hacks I found really useful:

    Circuitbreakerlabs masks — ships the next day, great science themed masks, slightly smaller (which is good for me), can get with ties but I got elastics. I also got some of the “ear savers” which are just sliiiiightly too tight on these masks (read what she says about them, they are really designed for medical masks so I knew I was taking a risk) unless I slide them around to reduce the gap on the sides, but I can get them to be comfortable, secure, and gap free. Washed and dried them, came out fine. I give them 4.5 stars.

    Johnny Was masks — shipped in about a week, beautiful, but bigger and gap on the sides more. However, the elastic loops aren’t fixed In their little fabric tunnel; so you can pull them to gather the sides more tightly. The circuitbreakerlabs earsavers make these fit perfectly on my apparently small head. Washed/dried/ironed fine. Without earsavers: 4.0 (for my head). With earsavers, 4.5.

    Best hack I found for fabric masks: using all that fashion tape that I no longer need to glue my cleavage/shirt plackets down. A piece of fashion tape across my nose glues down the mask making it secure, elimates the air gap so my glasses don’t fog, and is non-irritating at least for grocery store trips (not sure what it would be like for all day). No reason you couldn’t also tape the sides down to reduce slipping/air gaps.

    Medical masks: holy cow, health workers, I don’t know how you do it — I had a rescheduled drs. appt and they gave me one to wear. Not breathable (which is good) but hotter than blazes.

    1. I love the hack for using fashion tape! I have so much tape thanks to a zillion wrap dresses in my closet that I tape into place. I’m trying that.

       1. I actually use toupee tape (TopStick) available on Amazon and I figure with lockdowns, WFH, and no live theater (mine came from a costume supply) there’s no risk of running out!

25. Curiosity question:

    Do you think people would be more likely to wear mask if the mask protected them instead of everyone else? It’s an interesting thought experiment.

    1. yes

    2. Nope.

    3. I 100% believe that usage of mask would double or triple if they protected the wearer instead of others. Right now, I’m hearing many people say that masks are really uncomfortable and don’t protect me, so I’m not going to wear a mask

    4. 100% yes. In fact, I believe that’s why Trump is taking hydroxychloroquine while refusing to wear a mask. Protecting self >> protecting others.

       1. LOL I don’t think he’s protecting himself at all by taking hydroxychloroquine. What a tool.

          1. Oh I also think it’s a dumb move – I was just pointing out (what I assume to be) the logic behind it.

       2. I think he’s a moron but I disagree. I think Trump thinks masks protect the wearer (because he’s stupid) and doesn’t wear one because he’s “tough” and “not scared”

    5. Yep. And, even though I would – and do – wear my mask anyway to protect others, it does make me resentful toward those who don’t wear masks – because they are happy to benefit from others’ use of masks, but don’t want to inconvenience themselves by returning the favor.

    6. Of course.

       1. This makes me sad. I guess I’m one of those optimistic people other posters find “cute” that thinks people should just do as they are told but even if you don’t give a lick about yourself, why wouldn’t you do something that could make a big difference for other people. Losing faith in humanity over here.

          1. I’ve literally heard people say “the mask doesn’t keep me safe so why would I wear it?” So yea.

    7. Absolutely.

    8. Yes. But not everybody. I just overheard my 67-year-old coworker ranting that she’s not going to wear a mask because they’re uncomfortable, and if she dies of Covid, that’s fine, because Jesus is in control of when we die.

       She was in a car accident last week, and I assume she was wearing a seat belt.

    9. Yes, or at a minimum, people would start wearing them correctly (covering the nose!), if they thought there was a level of protection in it for them. As it is now, many employees are mandated to wear them, and don’t care, and are wearing them under the nose or taking them off frequently

    10. I also think people would stop asking about breathable masks and all start wearing medical grade masks if they understood it to be a self protection task.

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