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Holiday Weekend Open Thread

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white gray and orange sneaker

Something on your mind? Chat about it here.

Do I need another sneaker? No, probably not — but this one from Sam Edelman is cute, and part of the big Nordstrom Half-Yearly Sale that we rounded up yesterday.

Sam Edelman shoes are a reader favorite in general because of their comfort, and a friend was just raving about how they're such a consistent shoe — if you like the fit of one of their shoes, odds are good you'll like many of their shoes.

These sneakers were $100, but are now marked down to $59 and come in sizes 5-11. They're available in the pictured white/gray/orange combo, as well as green agave, blue breeze, and summer rose.

As of 2025, some of our latest favorite sneakers for work outfits include Cole Haan, J.Crew, and Vince. For comfort we like Dr. Scholl's, Vionic, and Paul Green, and for fancier sneakers we like Loewe and Golden Goose.

gold and beige sneakers
J.Crew
white sneaker with beige lining around the sole
Cole Haan
gray, white and black sneakers to wear with work outfits
Vince
gray and white sneakers with prominent sole
Dr. Scholl's

Sales of note for 6/12/25:

  • Nordstrom – Beauty deals up to 25% off + designer clearance up to 60% off
  • Nordstrom Rack – Refurbished Dyson hairdryers down to $199-$240 (instead of $400+)
  • Ann Taylor – 30% off pants + skirts + extra 40% off sale
  • Banana Republic Factory – 40-60% off everything + extra 20% off
  • Boden – 15% off new womenswear styles
  • Eloquii – 50-60% select styles + extra 45% off all sale
  • J.Crew – Easy summer styles $39.50+ + extra 50% sale styles
  • J.Crew Factory – Extra 20% off 3+ styles + up to 60% off everything + extra 50% off clearance
  • M.M.LaFleur – 30% summer essentials with code + try code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off
  • Rothy's – Up to 50% off last-chance styles
  • Spanx – Free shipping on everything
  • Talbots – Semi-Annual Red Door Sale: Extra 60% off 3+ markdowns, 50% off 2, 40% off 1 + 30% off select travel must-haves

154 Comments

  1. Chapter 13 here. The interview yesterday was tough, but I think I did well overall. I’ve been running it over in my head and thinking of ways I could have phrased something differently or examples I should have used instead. Nothing I can do about it now. I’m praying praying praying (not sure I believe in that but doing it anyway) that I get this job. It would be a great fit for me, an opportunity for professional growth, and a huge step up (professionally and financially). Hoping to hear back sooner rather than later (but I understand next week is a short week with the holiday). I’ll keep you updated.

    1. As a kid we had swim lessons at the municipal pool the first week of June – and that week always seemed usually cold! Now in my family a late May-early June cold spell is called “swim lesson weather.”

    2. I love it! With climate change it’s been miserably hot in my part of the Midwest the last 10 or so years and I love the weather we’re having right now, which reminds me of my childhood before 85 and humid was normal for May. But I’m a summer hater, it’s my least favorite season by far.

      1. I love it too!

        For several years in Chicago global warming has meant that we often jump from a long winter through April to a hot summer already in May. We were in the 90s just last week. But today is cool and beautiful.

        I am still hoping to find my perfect place to live that is most of the year temperate between the temps of 50-70 and dry! I know it doesn’t exist.

        1. Exactly! I’m in Indiana so similar climate but a bit warmer without the lake effect wind. I feel like we normally get cheated out of spring and this year we had a real spring with a lot of breezy 60s and low 70s weather.

        2. San Francisco fits the bill for 50s to 70s and rare rain.

          If you’re OK with a bit more heat, anywhere on the coast of California fits that bill up to about eighties or mid-eighties for parts of late summer.

          Just saying–head West.

    3. We had to turn our heat back on, as it was in the 50s inside this week (40 outside).

      1. Seriously. We had an AC repairman scheduled to come out Wednesday…when it was like 50 degrees out, and as soon as he left I turned on the heat

    4. Where I grew up we had what we called “June Gloom.” It was always cooler then than at Christmas.

      1. San Diego?

        I’m from the Bay Area, but SD is the first place I heard the term “June Gloom”

  3. I was raised religious, but am at best mildly religious now but I’ve recently been finding myself almost jealous of nuns. I don’t want to be one, but I both admire and am jealous of their full devotion to their calling.

    I work in a field I consider a calling (humanitarian aid) and sometimes I think wow I could be so much more dedicated to the job if I didn’t have the entrapments of modern life. Sure, I could make changes in my life to live more simply but even so that doesn’t have the life-long security that comes along with being a nun (like not having to worry about retirement).

    Likewise, I still want and feel pressured to date, get married and have a family. Which then means I’ll have to juggle career and family which will really diminish the help I can give to those in need. Of course, I could opt out of this and choose to not have a family but for me that’s be a very hard choice to make.

    No one pities a nun for being single, or chides her for prioritizing and focusing on her calling/career instead of a personal life.

    The communal living of a convent means that while some spend their time working others spend their time doing household chores. If it’s not your night to help cook, then you have more time for charity work. Without communal living, thats hard to attain.

    I wish there was some sort of non religious calling -based communal living so I could further commit to the cause.

    1. I agree that this option seems to have largely fallen out of modern life as religions that expect women to marry and organize around the nuclear family have risen in prominence.

      I guess this is the attraction of tenure for some people (especially at old school universities where faculty still eat in the dining halls!).

      Have you looked into co-ops at all? I once knew someone who lived in Arcadia in Carrboro NC, and it always felt a good balance of communal living and boundaries to me.

    2. This speaks to the oft fought over difference between those here in helping professions and other professions.

      For many in helping professions it’s a true calling and is more important than almost anything else in life.

      If you don’t have this calling and don’t work in one of these fields, you don’t get it.

      THIS is why Feds are staying. And this is why the Feds who have had to leave are so torn up over it.

      1. I hear you and am glad you’re committed to the mission. But it seems like every time fed jobs are mentioned here, it’s about a trade off between the high pay and instability of law firm/corporate life vs the lower pay and stability + set hours of fed work. I rarely see anyone talking about the mission. Except for one regular poster who works in disaster relief (thank you to that poster!)

        1. As life long state employee whose job parallels similar employment with the feds, I scoff at this. A few years ago, the feds were on furlough and crying about their lack of stability. I told one federal investigator that our state officer needed an investigator in the same area (capital postconviction). She laughed at the salary. Federal employees make more than most state and non-profit professionals across the board.

        2. For the past 20 or so years I have regarded federal jobs as unstable, ever since the budget showdowns and shutdowns started to happen with regularity.

    3. I think this may be a grass is greener situation! If you look at the Missionaries of Charity daily schedule (Mother Teresa’s order, known for caring for the poorest of the poor) they “only” spend a few hours a day actively caring for the needy. After lunch they have rest and recreation and prayer time and then their chores back home, etc. Mother Teresa knew her nuns would burn out if they didn’t have balance, and nuns very much live a “there’s a time for everything” approach.

      I suppose if you look at their real calling as devotion to God then they are living it every second — but that’s also a lesson to us. How can we approach our whole life as mission, not just the work we do in a single area?

    4. Amen! As a single mom working full time, communal living so I can share childcare with other single moms (I have several kids so how would that be fair, but I digress) sounds like a great situation, for being able to do either early morning or stay late after work (trading with another mom). I can handle 6 kids at once if it means I can get extra working hours to keep my corporate career and financial stability!

      Does this actually exist anywhere??

      2. Kinda seriously though, is there anyone in Greater London who is also interested in this?

    5. This is giving savior complex to me a bit. And I do mission driven work and absolutely love it (and am childfree by choice, and currently single) but like… total devotion to work at the expense of other components of life is not generally considered healthy.

    6. I have some relatives who are/were nuns, and women weren’t always nuns because they were especially devoted. Many wanted security, to not struggle to put food on the table or to not have to put up with a potentially abusive husband. They also complain plenty about their “roommates.”

      1. Agree. In my deeply Catholic family of origin, being a nun was the path for a woman who didn’t manage to land a mate. You could be the “spinster aunt” and find a profession like nursing or teaching or become a nun. Maybe it was a calling for some, but not how it was discussed in my family.

    7. I will say (in response to your fourth paragraph) that nuns are definitely often pitied for being single and chided for prioritizing their calling over having a family. People’s families, even very religious families, are often quite upset at the massive shift in how much a “part” of a family of origin a nun is, and nuns in public, especially ones with obvious intelligence / skills, often hear comments that they are “wasted” in religious life.

      1. Plenty of priests, monks, and nuns in spouses large Catholic family. If you were a smart woman, and were inclined to teaching or nursing, the church would educate you. Many poor families couldn’t afford this and in the older generations, might not have educated a girl who might just stay home with babies. I see it as a reasonable option that many people rationally chose, especially if they were very poor or from a very large family. Liking the work is a bonus.

    8. I sometimes also wish there was a secular version of being a nun. I guess before this administration that was the Peace Corps?

      1. I don’t know that much about nuns, but I doubt the secular version is the peace corps. Based on the former peace corps volunteers, I know it’s more like a rumspringa

    9. As a married person I find the idea of having a “family” where I am not solely responsible for another person’s happiness quite appealing. I suspect that the reality is different, though.

    10. You can martyr yourself to the cause all you want. I might consider therapy instead to contemplate why you don’t value your own life but do you nun girl.

  4. I have recently gained 5 lbs in the last couple of months and I think the only change I can think of that I made is switching my large morning latte from using unsweetened almond milk (30 calories per cup) to sweetened almond milk (80 calories per cup). I otherwise skip breakfast as I have never been a breakfast person. Could it be that just the 50-75 calorie change caused the weight gain? Or could it be something to do with intermittent fasting (I don’t purposely do IF, but because I am not a breakfast eater it so happens that most of my eating is between 12-8 other than this daily latte). I guess I am trying to figure out if I should go back on the unsweetened almond milk, which I like a lot less than the sweetened kind.

    1. How old are you? Because this happened to me (and did not stop at 5 pounds) but it was because of the fun and excitement that was menopause.

    2. The calorie math would suggest that if you add an extra 50 calories per day with no other changes, this would result in a 5 pound weight gain in 350 days (5 lbs x 3,500 calories divided by 50 calories). It might not be exact but it should be close.

    3. You could consider changing from sweetened almond milk to unsweetened + 1 Splenda packet.

      That seems to be too much weight to be explained by this small change, if you truly think this is the only change in your diet/sleep/stress/lifestyle. I would keep an eye on things, and think about if anything else is changing in your body – any new swelling around your ankles, less exercise tolerance, fatigue, dry skin/hair etc… And make sure you have a primary care visit scheduled for this year.

    4. Was this a single time you weighed yourself or more consistent measuring? Because 5 pounds can be mostly water retained on a really bloated day.

      1. Ehh, I’m not even short and I can see and feel a 5 lb difference in my average weight.

      2. Agree. I change 5 pounds over the course of my morning coffee and lunch and am up and down 10 pounds depending on the time of the month.

      3. When I say I gained or lost five pounds over a period of time, I mean on average, between day and night weigh ins. I would not assume that OP didn’t just poop. When the scale goes up five pounds overall (and not just after eating heavy meals all day) my hard pants are miserable. When my hard pants start getting miserable, I cut back for a few months.

  5. Anyone sold a house since the NAR settlement? I’m getting ready to pick a listing realtor and I am looking for an unbiased resource to educate myself on what’s changed w/r/t the commission structure. This topic is so fraught and I’d appreciate any recommendations from this group!

    1. What I’ve been seeing is you get a listing realtor and then your buyer asks you to pay their realtor, so financially it works out the same, but the contract is written different.

        1. Double confirm from multiple real estate agents in my family. The problem is that the buyer cannot directly finance the commission – that has to come out of pocket, which decreases what they have for the down payment, which decreases when they can pay.

          Directly or indirectly, the seller pays both sides either because they pay the buyer’s agent or because they take less on the sale.

    2. There’s a great Daily episode from a few weeks ago about the scam artist real estate industry has essentially made the ruling useless. The whole thing is a racket.

  6. What is the healthiest thing you eat every single day? What is the thing that you know isn’t so healthy but brings you joy?

    For me, healthy: overnight oats! Not healthy: I eat a Barebells or Built protein bar almost every day.

    1. Healthy: an orange. Unhealthy: the pretzels I eat with the orange, for the perfect sweet, crunchy, juicy, salty melange.

    2. The healthiest thing I eat everyday is probably plain Greek yogurt with berries.
      The non-healthy thing I have every day is a diet coke lol.

      1. same for both. I usually eat a really healthy breakfast. either Greek yogurt with berries and nuts, or oatmeal, or avocado spinach scrambled eggs… but always mid-afternoon diet coke.

    3. The healthiest? I get the recommended vegetable servings every day, with minimal exceptions. I love nearly all vegetables and build many/most meals around them.

      Least healthy? I also love salty crunchy snacks and unfortunately have one nearly every day too…popcorn or chips or roasted chickpeas etc. salt is my Vice.

      1. Fortunately, salt isn’t terrible. As long as your blood pressure is fine, and you don’t have something like bad liver or kidney disease then salt is great! In fact, with the huge amount of water that somehow our culture has gotten addicted to drinking everyday, sometimes too little salt in our diet to balance the plain water is an issue – especially if we exercise hard.

        Ah, but the chips….. Love it too.

    4. Healthy: my morning oatmeal bowl with flaxseed meal, ripple milk (the best plant-based milk in the world!!!!), and blueberries
      Unhealthy: a big spoonful of Soom dark chocolate tahini spread with sea salt

    5. Healthy: I get a lot of sleep, 9 hours most days.
      Least healthy: way too much sugar although mostly it’s at least homemade desserts not ultra processed stuff.

      1. Oh never mind you said healthiest food not healthiest habit. Oops. I eat a lot of eggs I guess?

    6. Healthiest – Lots of fresh berries in my Greek yogurt every morning – blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries – and as a snack.

      Less healthy – TruFru chocolate covered berries (they come frozen)
      Thanks to this site, I tried these and they are surprisingly good. They satisfy my after dinner need for a desert. As recommended, I take a few out and let them thaw for about 10 minutes. It keeps me from eating them all in one sitting.

      Unhealthy – An Ghardelli chocolate caramel bar.

    7. I don’t think it’s particularly healthy to eat anything every day. I eat some form of fruit and a grain most days for breakfast, but I change it up seasonally, if not on a daily or weekly basis. So I do frozen blueberries in oatmeal for a good chunk of the year, but sometimes I do an apple on peanut butter toast instead, and peaches or strawberries on cereal in the summer, and other things as they come into season or appeal to me otherwise. I don’t think there’s anything else I come close to eating every day, healthy or unhealthy. Potato chips are probably the least healthy thing I regularly eat just because I like them, but that’s more like a few times a month than every day. But my favorite chips are the patio chips at Trader Joe’s, which are only available for a few weeks a year, and I bought two bags this morning, so I’ll probably be eating more that my usual amount in the near future, and then none for a long time.

      1. Tell me more about these chips. Was it the garlic butter chips? My TJ is sold out of them already.

        1. I don’t know about the chips (and will look for them) but TJs garlic naan crackers are my absolute favorite salty snack.

          1. I think you’re describing All Dressed chips, commonly available in Canada, sometimes sold in US by Ruffles and others.

          2. Not quite the same. It’s not all the flavors on one chip, but a mix of different chip flavors in one bag, though the flavors meld a bit. And there’s a lot of dill in the patio chips, which I’m a big fan of (but somehow not enough of a fan that I want to seek out an entire bag of dill pickle chips- I think this hits the right mix of being able to sample different flavors of chips without having four bags of them in my pantry!)

          3. I got some today! They were indeed called “patio” chips. I had thought it was a typo for “potato” chips lol.

    8. I have a big protein shake with spinach and Greek yogurt almost every morning.

      I eat homemade cupcakes and frosting more often that I should, especially if I’m doing a group activity that means I can take cake to my friends!

      On one hand, I don’t do this all the time. OTOH, it’s not healthy to be eating straight butter and powdered sugar by the spoonful several times in a month.

    9. Healthiest: whatever gives me energy and happiness for what that day brings. Sometimes it’s a huge salad with protein, sometimes it’s a huge ice cream cone at the beach.

      Unhealthiest: whatever leaves me feeling sluggish or underfed.

    10. The healthiest thing is probably plain Greek yogurt because it helps me hit my protein goals.
      The thing that brings me joy is coffee, and I have two cups every morning. I don’t know that it’s unhealthy, but I do love it.

      1. Coffee is 100% not unhealthy. It’s such an old wives’ tale that it is, but it’s full of antioxidants and strongly associated with reduced risk of numerous cancers, Parkinson’s, and dementia. Keep drinking!

      1. I have questions – like, beets with alcohol? A sweet, earthy Bloody Mary?

        Or topping this out, maybe that was supposed to be beer? lol

        1. I think she means leafy greens and beets are the healthy foods, and alcohol is the unhealthy food. I read it this way too at first though.

    12. Healthy – vegetables. I eat vegetables with every meal, including breakfast, and I often snack on them too.
      Unhealthy- I don’t have it every day, but I do drink a lot of Coke.

    13. Healthiest: I eat berries almost every day

      Least healthy: I have either alcohol or ice cream almost every day. I usually drink if I’m socializing. I rarely drink at home, but if I’m on my couch at night I’m 100% eating ice cream.

      Usually my breakfast (chia pudding, yogurt, or oatmeal ) and lunch (salad or grain bowl with chicken and veg) are quite healthy. My dinner is usually girl dinner. My snacks run the gamut: very healthy always fruit, usually veg + hummus, neither heakthy nor unhealthy (pretzels, protein shake, goldfish) but also unhealthy like candy or chips (real chips, like Doritos) or something along those lines

      Everything in moderation!

      3. Yeah. Also? The barebells protein bars have excellent macros and help me hit my protein goals and satisfy my sweet tooth for a reasonable amount of calories.

        By what measure is that unhealthy? Are they more or less healthy than the (carb bomb!) artisanal sourdough bread I eat? Or the (horror!) grass fed butter I put in it. Or the (gasp!!) processed chicken sausage I eat? I think obsessing over healthy and unhealthy foods is the most unhealthy thing going on here. Fiber, protein, veggies, eating food you like with people you love and not demonizing food; that’s what’s healthy.

        Can we stop doing this to ourselves and each other? I swear it’s still the 90s with the food shaming. We’ve just replaced “fattening” with “unhealthy.”

          2. Oatmeal would definitely fall into the tiny amount as an indulgence category for me. Meanwhile I’m encouraged to eat as much salt as I want, which may be something someone else has been asked to limit, and I’m fine with phosphates as long as they’re not additives. We are not all on the same diets. Public health has made this confusing for a lot of people.

          3. Oatmeal is fine, but it’s not a magical food. Eggs are magical foods. Yogurt is magical food. Butter is magical food. Coffee and red wine are magical beverages.

        2. No matter what we call it, there are foods we can eat pretty much however much we want of without any worries, and foods that we will run into trouble with if we don’t eat less of them than we might otherwise feel inclined to do.

          We can change how we talk about this, but unless we’re on a truly restricted diet, few of us will able to eat any amount of any food we like, and it’s normal to talk about navigating those decisions when it’s something we do every single day.

          1. True–I love talking about food. But I’m with the cringe commenter. These comments exhibit such a groupthink attitude about what’s healthy or unhealthy. At the end of the day we have our culinary lines in the sand and it’s pretty useless to talk about it in a forum like this one.

            I won’t touch oatmeal, lots of people feel the same, but other people get a benefit out of it. I roll my eyes at the notion that it’s universally “healthy”. Same with fruits or vegetables. Like every other food, they have their benefits and pitfalls, depending on the individual person.

            I avoided seed oils before it was MAHA, but understand that some people will never ever be separated from their “healthy” low fat oils. I only use coconut oil, beef tallow, olive oil and butter, eat full fat dairy, and other people have a coronary over these types of fats and would rather eat the low fat frankenfood in their place. I don’t care, but I know they won’t change my mind and I won’t change theirs in this type of forum.

            Food is very much an individual journey.

          2. I think I took the OP’s question as a question about those individual journeys to begin with!

          3. Right. It’s just so damaging to put normal food on a continuum of healthy to unhealthy; much less to humble brag that a protein bar is the least healthy thing you eat in a day then invite other women to do the same in order to…I guess, inspire a conversation about the “best” and “worst” foods that others are eating?

            Fwiw my trainer and my doctor both suggested I stop eating oatmeal and get more protein in the mornings so im not sure this humble brag even makes sense. I can and should just keep scrolling, I know. But man if you all do this to friends in real life, I bet they hate it. I love talking about food but I’m not about to continue a conversation demonizing perfectly acceptable food as unhealthy to make you feel some kind of way about your personal choices.

          4. But again, normal food inescapably is on a continuum of “eat pretty much as much as you want” and “eat less than you might feel like eating” for most people.

            We can argue about whether stigmatization is an unhealthy way of achieving moderation with foods that fall into the latter group for us, but it takes effort of some kind for most people.

    15. Unhealthy, Diet Coke

      Healthy? Probably dinner, which is always a lean protein (chicken, salmon, other fish), a healthy carb (sweet potato, brown rice, if pasta a reasonable portion, etc.) and 2-3 veggies.

    16. I don’t know whether it’s healthy but it brings me joy. Local bakery sourdough, toasted, with Bonne Maman marmalade, and a cup of PG Tips tea with one sugar in the raw and a bit of milk. That’s how I start my day, and my husband usually brings it to me because he gets up earlier than I do. It’s the perfect start to the day for me!!

  7. Low stakes q. I’ve always just done foundation, concealer, light powder and gentle brow makeup. As I get older though, I feel like I need to add more colour. I want to move slowly bc of allergies meaning I need to trial each product separately. I have a round face (carrying extra weight) but like my eyes. Where would you suggest I add color first for maximum impact?

    3. Makeup lover here. I would definitely be adding blush if you’re using foundation. Foundation covers your natural blush color and creates a blank canvass. If you’re using foundation, you need to go back in and add the color that you’re “covering.” There are many great blushes on the market these days, from liquid to cream to powder. The formula you choose will depend on how you’re finishing your foundation. Are you setting it with a setting powder? If so, go for a powder blush. If you’re not setting your foundation, I’d go for a stick/cream blush. NARS sells great powder foundation as well as stick forms (I also like stick blushes from REM Beauty). Second, I would add color to lips as well (again, especially since you’re using foundation and may get it around your mouth). Start with a lip liner (my favorite is Pillow Talk by Charlotte Tilbury because it matches my natural lips so well) and then add a nude pink that is similar to/one step above your natural shade.

      1. +1 for all this

        Would also recommend the NARS afterglow tinted lip balm as great way to get color on your lips with low effort and low maintenance.

        I’m naturally high color contrast, and the Turbo red looks natural and fresh on me since it’s sheer.

        1. Thank you both, appreciate the suggestions on types of products too. I do set with powder so the blush ideas were particularly helpful.

  8. Has anyone offered to pay for a maid service for a family member and had that conversation go well?

    I’ve got two aunts with mobility issues, no money, and terrible mental health. The house is revolting. I’m going to offer to deep-clean this spring but know it won’t stay that way, and I can’t go over every week. If they say no on the maid service, fine. But I’d love to offer with maximum tact.

    1. Can you just offer without any acknowledgment of their current living state?

      Like “Hey–I want to get a weekly maid service for you to make your lives easier–any objection? Can I start calling people? This is on me because I love you. You won’t have to deal with anyone directly.”

      Re the mental health, will the maids be safe or will they deal with accusations of theft or breaking things?

      1. I like this. Thanks!

        The mental stuff is severe depression/grief. I haven’t seen anything that would give me safety concerns.

    3. This would stand out as a bit bright and casual at the pre-pandemic east coast higher ed conferences I remember, between the color, print, and fabric. I would have guessed attorneys were more formal/sedate, though I wouldn’t know. It would be fine to just wear to work. If you want to stand out, it also doesn’t look that on trend to me though maybe I also wouldn’t know.

      2. I had a maternity dress with a similar print and it was the only thing cool enough to wear to the jail in the hot Florida sun when I was a public defender. Let’s just say, I wasn’t instilling any confidence in my clients.

    7. Same dress in navy fine, but that print just looks too…
      something. Not exactly too casual or bright but not “I’m a seasoned attorney”. Like I can see my mom’s friends wearing it to church to be on theme for a patriotic weekend.

    9. I’d switch to tailored black/navy trousers, plain neutral tee, and a blazer in a color that suits you. Low chunky heels you can walk in for long distances.

      I know this isn’t your question, but the dress is way off base, so I think it’s the most helpful thing I can add.

  10. Any recs on 5 year old-friendly food and activities in Lisbon? We have a decent idea of what we want to do, but I’m always open to more tips! Also, any thoughts on good souvenirs for us and for coworkers? Thanks!

    1. We were in the Algarve, not Lisbon but my then 5 year old loved the custard tarts.

    2. There’s an excellent circus training school on the hill, in the old part. I can’t remember the name, but it’s excellent.

      For gifts, local sweets always go down well in offices I’ve worked in.

      1. PS I looked it up and it’s still there! Very fond memories of this place. It’s called Chapitô à Mesa. Highly recommend.

    3. Please reconsider souvenirs for coworkers. I had one colleague who did this and it was really weird to get random gifts from a peer. It was fine when she brought back a small gift for her admin (think a scarf printed with the subway map for a trip the admin coordinated to that city), but awkward for the rest of us.

      1. And no one wants a souvenir from a trip they didn’t go on. I hate when people bring me back something, because it’s just a waste of money. The one exception is food. No specific recommendations for London, but bring a food treat back and leave it in the communal work kitchen.

      2. Counterpoint – a couple of coworkers have brought me small souvenirs from trips, and I appreciated it and didn’t find it awkward! I like to travel and have traveled a lot, so maybe some of it is just my personality, but the things they brought back were small trinkets that could be displayed on a desk (back when we all worked in person) and were fun decor and conversation starters. I’m generally anti-gifting at work but I think with something like this where the dollar amount involved is very small (or appears small) and there’s zero obligation to reciprocate, most people aren’t going to find it too awkward. I agree on something edible (food/cofffee/tea/etc) probably being the most popular gift though.

  11. I see new packages of Jo Malone fragrances selling on ebay for a fraction of the retail price. Are these counterfeit? Grey market? Stale? How are the prices so low?

    1. Counterfeit and/or diluted. Fragrances are not something you should buy through a third-party marketplace unless you don’t actually care what you smell like.

  12. I got dumped yesterday. 8 year relationship, serious, reason is he cheated on a vegas trip with his brothers two months ago and feels guilty but also bored with me. He moved all his stuff out before telling me, while I was eating brunch with my mom. I cried all night. today I just feel numb. I am 37. Any coping and moving on tips appreciated. I can afford the rent payment alone, my lease goes through March. But the summer now feels bleak.

    1. What a turdnozzle. I’m sorry.

      When you are ready, get a girlfriend to come over and help you reset the space to feel like yours — chuck the crappy plates he liked and buy some cute ones, rearrange the furniture, whatever. Put on whatever playlist you got ready to go out with when you were in college. It is very hard to be sad when Fergalicious is on.

    2. I’m sorry. He has shown you that you deserve better. What brings you joy? For me, in the summer, that means lots of time outdoors, hiking and in the water, farmer’s markets with delicious, fresh fruits and vegetables, hanging out with my dogs, friends and family, good books, listening to the owls at night. How about you?

    3. Sometimes the trash takes itself out. I’m so sorry, but with time it will get better. Go get a health check if you’ve been intimate since Vegas. You deserve way better than a cheater, thank goodness he owned up.

    4. No advice other than time helps, but the dude is a jerk and you deserve much, much better!

    5. I’m so sorry! It’s early and raw, but this will likely hurt for a while. Like others have said, reach out to some friends and try to plan a few activities to keep yourself occupied and entertained. If you don’t have a lot of friends nearby, maybe volunteer at your local food bank? For me, this is always a good time to journal about how I’m feeling and what I want for my future self. Thinking of you!

    6. It doesn’t feel like it now but two things:

      1. the trash took itself out.
      2. It’s great that your whole life isn’t upended.

      You don’t have to move and you don’t have to go through a divorce. You didn’t have children with him. Block the donkey and try a new hobby.

      Going through the breakup and aftermath of my marriage what really helped was exercise. I started with walking and then one day I was particularly upset and someone suggested I run. It cleared my head and calmed my anxiety immediately. I have run every other day since. On alternate days I do the strength circuit. If I didn’t have 3 children and no payments from their father to cover costs I would do yoga and Pilates.

      1. +1 to #1 and yes, please block all of his communication avenues. It won’t be next week or even next month, but he’ll reach out again and it will be nonsense.

    7. I’m so sorry. It helps me to remind myself that every day (or every hour, every minute) is one day (hour, minute) closer to a feeling better. You will feel happy again. Better, amazing things are ahead. Hang in there

    8. Complete sympathy and also a reminder that if he cheated months ago you should get an STD test.

    9. I’m sorry OP, what a huge douchebag! You deserve better. Sending you love and support!

    10. The summer isn’t bleak. The summer is freedom. I really encourage you to intentionally embrace it. Reach out to everyone you know and book drinks. Wake up early on Saturday and head to a beach or a lake or a mountain. Walk to get ice cream every Monday night. If there is an outdoor pool you can join nearby, do it. Go to a concert buy tickets to shows hit up a museum, figure out every possible adventure you can take and do it. And do at least one solo vacation they are incredible.

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