Splurge Monday’s Workwear Report: Fanettie Sweater Dress

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

How pretty is the oversized floral print on this Boss sweater dress? A large, high-contrast print like this one is certainly dramatic, but I think it works here.

For a more conservative office, I might add a black blazer, but if you can get away without one, I might just add one piece of chunky jewelry and call it a day.

The dress is $495 at Nordstrom and comes in sizes XS–XL.

For more affordable options with a bold print, try one of these striped sweater dresses from Stitchdrop: white/gray, green/yellow/blue, or black/white/gray/red, all $37–$39 on sale at Nordstrom Rack. Another option is this floral sweater dress that's on sale at Kohl's for $21.

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Sales of note for 2/14/25 (Happy Valentine's Day!):

  • Nordstrom – Winter Sale, up to 60% off! 7850 new markdowns for women
  • M.M.LaFleur – Save up to 25% on select suiting, this weekend only
  • Ann Taylor – Up to 40% off your full-price purchase — and extra 60% off sale
  • Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + 15% off (readers love their suiting as well as their silky shirts like this one)
  • Boden – 15% off new season styles
  • Eloquii – 300+ styles $25 and up
  • J.Crew – 40% of your purchase – prices as marked
  • J.Crew Factory – 50% off entire site and storewide + extra 50% off clearance
  • Rothy's – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
  • Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
  • Talbots – Flash sale ending soon – markdowns starting from $15, extra 70% off all other markdowns (final sale)

Sales of note for 2/14/25 (Happy Valentine's Day!):

  • Nordstrom – Winter Sale, up to 60% off! 7850 new markdowns for women
  • M.M.LaFleur – Save up to 25% on select suiting, this weekend only
  • Ann Taylor – Up to 40% off your full-price purchase — and extra 60% off sale
  • Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + 15% off (readers love their suiting as well as their silky shirts like this one)
  • Boden – 15% off new season styles
  • Eloquii – 300+ styles $25 and up
  • J.Crew – 40% of your purchase – prices as marked
  • J.Crew Factory – 50% off entire site and storewide + extra 50% off clearance
  • Rothy's – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
  • Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
  • Talbots – Flash sale ending soon – markdowns starting from $15, extra 70% off all other markdowns (final sale)

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

Some of our latest threadjacks include:

297 Comments

  1. Wow, Elizabeth, Great Pick! I saw this sweater dress yesterday at Nordstrom’s and was really thinking I should get it. I think the plusses of this dress is that it is polyester, and stretchy, so that as we put on pounds in the winter, it will accommodate those areas (for me, my tuchus) expanding, especially for pear shaped girls like me. Rosa said she was considering it too, and she will look great in it, b/c she is still svelte!

  2. I like a pattern placement to be a bit of an optical illusion re my waist (or lack thereof) or to be at least neutral (like how battleships hide themselves amid a field of icebergs). The pattern here seems to be . . . enlarging? Maybe I need more caffeine.

    1. I think you are correct that the pattern on this dress would not do anyone any favors.

    2. It looks like a knock-off of Marimekko, that manages to be as much or more expensive than the original. I don’t know that there’s a lot of overlap between those who wear Boss and those who wear Marimekko, but props to them for trying, I guess.

      1. Marimekko is what I assumed as well. I believe Uniqlo is or was doing a collaboration right now. Definitely a cheaper option.

    3. It makes her hips look like a normal person’s. And hits her calves at a wide point. Makes a very slim model look like your average office worker.

      I do like pattern. Would look great on more standard sweater dress. Or lighter weight fabric.

    4. I think the model is too delicate to pull it off. The pattern overwhelms her but might work on someone who has more curves.

    5. To quote the kids from the Sound of Music…

      “I think this dress is the ugliest one I ever saw”.

  3. My best friend from undergrad talked me into working at the same company a few years ago. She’s been unhappy all pandemic. About six months ago, she started looking – she just announced her resignation effective year end. Shortly after, two people on her team also announced their last days and I and others just found out they’re all going the same place. People assume I know all the details and that I hid it, I’m next to leave, or that I lied to leadership. Will all this drama blow over once they all leave? Or is it likely to stain me and I should also start looking?

    1. I’ve had a similar thing happen and as long as you do good work and show that you’re engaged with and invested with the company, it does blow over.

    2. Just keep your head down until this is no longer the news of the week. You will be fine.

    3. It will blow over. Stay neutral, professional and friendly; keep your head down and make sure you’re hitting your targets or deadlines. After the holidays there will be some new gossip and everyone will move on.

    4. When I left my last law firm abruptly with two other lawyers, the best thing we did was keep it all to ourselves. As soon as we walked out the door, our friends were harassed for information. Eventually management realized they really didn’t have any and left them alone. Your friend did you a kindness in not telling you and you will be fine when they are gone.

  4. My sister is re-entering the job market after a divorce and staying home with the kids. She had been a primary-grades teacher, which I feel assumes that you have a gainfully-employed husband primarily supporting the household and you are doing this as sort of a personal-mission-driven endeavor and not as a professional career or anything when it comes to pay, working conditions, and promotion potential (source: our mom taught school and that was pretty eye-opening). I am hoping that with ultra-low unemployment, she stands a good chance of switching fields entirely (and keeping her house and her kids fed/housed/etc.; she doesn’t have a lot of child support and as her kids age out, that $ is very time-limited). Yes? No? She has about a 20-year work life left and I feel like a person who will be a reliable worker for that time is of value to someone.

    1. What?! Most teachers do not have a wealthy husband supporting them. I know lots of teacher-teacher couples. If she wants to switch careers, go for it, but to act like a being a teacher is just a hobby for kept women is so unbelievably insulting.

      1. Teachers make well over a living wage, and they only work 9 months a year. Most of the teachers I know also have access to fee childcare through the district they work in (if the district provides daycare / preschool – most in my state do). There have excellent insurance benefits and lots of protected paid days off. It’s a completely reasonable choice for a career – you don’t make lawyer money, but you have more of a life. This sister will have tons of job options if she renews her license, especially if she has or obtains any specializations for teaching special education.

        1. I am a public school teacher in a state where teacher unions have no collective bargaining power and no right to strike. Teacher pay varies wildly between states and benefits even more so. Yes, some states have great health insurance benefits and have really decent pay and awesome pensions. Some…definitely do not. One of the big problems in national discourse in this is assuming that all teachers are equally paid and have similar benefits. I have met with retirement planners who have told me that teachers as a whole profession are most likely of all fields to be married to high-wage earners. That is not my situation…no one told me to plan for that! I also moved, due to marriage, from a state with strong teacher unions to the state I currently live in. When I got my education and degree, I had no idea how much teacher pay could differ across the country.

          I have had co-workers in Indiana with ten years of experience and still qualify for food stamps on their public school teacher salary.

          If your sister wants to continue teaching, it is very much worth looking at what her state and local districts actually pay and what the benefits are. It might actually be a good idea to continue teaching, but it might not. It depends on a lot of factors.

      2. I understood it to mean the pay assumes you have a spouse (or I’ll add: you are 25 and have a roommate or two), which my teacher friends have found to be true. My mother was also a teacher and that is the reason I’m not one. It used to be treated as a profession. It hasn’t been for quite a while. I’m grateful that people are still entering this field, but it seems like the expectation is that job satisfaction is supposed to be part of why it’s rewarding but my friends generally worked 2 jobs during the year and a summer job (and were exhausted; a lot of them did masters programs PT to get a pay bump, so they had no free time).

        1. What you said is very different than saying that being a teacher “assumes that you have a gainfully-employed husband primarily supporting the household and you are doing this as sort of a personal-mission-driven endeavor and not as a professional career or anything.”

          1. Right?! The snobbery! The classism! The sexism! I guess there are no straight male teachers bc they all need “husbands” to support them.

      3. I shook my head when I read that as my MIL taught for 35 years raising my husband by herself after his dad left. She never remarried. While teaching was not a high-paying job for my MIL, they always had health benefits and she had school vacations and holidays off so didn’t need child care, and she now also has educational retirement that is a very welcome supplement to Social Security in her elderly years. It’s definitely not the worst job someone can have. Lots and lots of single moms and other single people in the teaching profession. Honestly – where do people get this stuff?

      4. Seriously, my jaw dropped. No wonder teachers are fed up. The lack of respect is mind-boggling.

        1. It’s a dumpster fire. And in this area, that pay bump for a master’s is a laughable $1500-2000.

    2. How could any of us begin to answer this? If the goal is getting employed, now is as good a time as any for a certified teacher. There’s a shortage, it’s reliable work, often comes with a pension, and depending on what kind of lifestyle she’s gotten used to and where she lives the wages aren’t terrible. Idk what else kind of job is going to pay better for someone with no experience who hasn’t worked in years.

    3. I’m sure your sister will be fine and pay varies quite a lot based on location. Don’t catastrophize on her behalf.

    4. What? You have to be a troll. Teaching is a job like every other job that pays $$. There are no household assumptions based on being in the field.

      Do you make the same assumptions for nurses, postal workers, auto workers, transportation workers, and other professionals that make an honest living but don’t happen to be rich?

      1. I think it’s like being the office mom. The minute a profession starts to be done by mainly women, it stops being a well-paying field you could support a household on and starts to be more like how in a nonprofit you are often poorly paid and overworked and the mission is supposed to be sufficient to sustain you. But it often isn’t. And people burn out and are economically precarious. I can think of one person about my age who is single and still teaching and she can afford to teach (which she loves and is good at) b/c she lives with her mom in a HCOL city. Otherwise, she has aged out of easily finding roommates b/c so many other people are coupled up. All of my other friends stay in teaching b/c it can be mom-friendly (at least for the years your kids are at your school) and is rewarding personally but they rely on a spouse to be able to live independently. And the teacher’s benefits are good, but putting a family on your policy is often not inexpensive.

    5. I don’t know what your question actually is, but
      a) teachers are in high demand
      b) teacher pay is still way too low
      c) not sure what her career switch intentions are. Has she considered freelancing as a remote teacher (Outschool etc?) – not sure about pay, though.

    6. Don’t discount the pension that may come with being a public school teacher. She should definitely run some numbers on the value of being able to accrue a solid pension with only 20 years of work life remaining. She may be able to buy additional service that she didn’t work (“air time” in pension parlance), or receive credit for her pre-kids service, even if it was in a different jurisdiction. Public pensions often have all sorts of ways to increase the benefit. Also, you mentioned keeping the house, but she may be better off downsizing, especially when the kids are out.

      1. Right people are obsessed with “keeping the house.” If the house represents a major portion of the marital assets, and typically it does, it’s pretty normal to need to liquidate that asset and downsize.

        1. I will say that for us, if we sold our house, our kids would all have to leave schools where they are happy and restart somewhere else. In our city, schools are wildly underfunded and struggle with kids who don’t eat outside of school and are ill-prepared and are acting out a ton after being home for 1.5 years. Our schools now are marginal and I’d hate to move them to schools I could afford on half of our HHI. If I were no-kids or an empty nester, by all means, sell the house. But with school-aged kids, I can see how it is a choice of last resort. Our city was built so that there aren’t 2- or 3-BR apartments nearby that are affordable, just 1-BR apartments for recent grads and luxury townhouses for retirees looking to stay in the neighborhood but not need to do outside house chores. Not anything for a single mom. Sadly.

          1. Yeah. This is why some of us beat the drum that being a stay at home mom risks your and your childrens stability and future every time someone is like “oh staying at home will be fineeeeeee”.

    7. You are hoping that she stands a good chance of switching fields … to what? Has she expressed an interest in switching fields? Has she asked for your advice? Maybe she wants to be a teacher, imagine that.

    8. I have plenty of teacher friends who are very happy with their lives, own their homes, and are longtime singletons. Your post is really condescending. Please don’t push your sister to reinvent her career aspirations to suit your biases.

    9. The ultralow employment makes it easy to get lower wage jobs. I don’t know how teacher/SAHM resume would help her get jobs that pay higher than teacher.

      She should go back to teaching – there is a nationwide shortage right now. She can explore public and private schools. Private schools usually pay less than public, but with the shortages there could be schools in her area that pay more than they used to. She can also aim for higher grade levels or tutor to get more money.

    10. This is wildly inaccurate (and offensive) as a blanket statement. My SIL is retiring from a very good union job as a teacher in a wealthy Chicago school district. For some years she made more than my husband, a college professor, until he went into administration. Her salary and benefits allowed my BIL to take some risks being self-employed, especially since the family had great health care through my SIL. Same with her pension; it will be a significant factor in their joint retirement. She started out in a less-well resourced school district and moved around until she ended up in her current job. She never had to work a second job, although in her early days before marriage she did have have to have a roommate— like many, many other early career people.

    11. This is such a weird post. Of course she can get a job.

      if she is interested than higher-than-teacher salary, she should consider education technology. she could also go into college counseling type work if she is interested in going back and building up new experience/credentials. or she can work at an elem school in a role with decent benefits and summers off, and tutor for $150/hr on the side, which is what many of my teacher friends do.

      The women in my circle that used to be teachers then stayed at home but eventually went back to work:
      some are back to their teaching careers
      one started a company with her husband and now runs the social media aspect
      one is now a part time interior designer
      one is in real estate and pulled in over $500k last year (her husband has now gone part time)
      one started an e learning youtube channel (think: kahn academy) and is a math tutor. She makes almost mid 6 figures and her husband quit his big 4 accounting job as her youtube thing took off
      two went back but moved into administration. one is a middle school principal now earning about $140k and the other is an elem assistant principal.

      1. Tell me more about tutoring for $150/hour. Seriously. I am really good at math up to AB calculus and could probably make bank with one or two tutees (is that the right word). I used to do this for free before schools kicked out volunteer math tutors and after a year of remote learning, no doubt many kids are behind.

        1. I posted above. I don’t do it myself so I’m not sure what to tell you :). In my wealthy suburb, tutoring runs $100-$200/hr for higher math. You might want to reach out in your local facebook groups and gauge interest. If I were you I’d start slightly lower to build references.

        2. If you are good with kids, you can tutor almost any subject (provided you have some time and background). I have a family member who tutors, and it’s her skill at motivating kids (in her case, all ages) that makes her successful. I doubt you start at $150/hr but once you get some good references, you can move up.

        3. $150 seems very high to me. I put myself through law school tutoring LSAT and high school math and physics in two expensive cities (Boston and Palo Alto) and never made more than $50 an hour. I worked for tutoring services, so the parents were probably paying more like $75-100 and you can make more per hour if you work independently, but then you have to invest a lot of time in finding and developing client relationships. I’m not sure the math works out in your favor unless you’re very good at business development and can build your client list quickly.

          FYI there’s a lot of snobbery in tutoring. The tutoring companies I worked for generally only hired from the Ivys/MIT/Stanford or for the LSAT from T14 law schools. Especially with high school math, it’s parents hiring the tutors and the parents REALLY care about the tutor having a prestige name on the resume. Obviously a state U math grad is completely qualified to teach high school algebra or calculus, but the parents who are paying these for these services have aspirations of their kids going to Harvard or MIT and want the tutors to come from a place like that.

          Also keep in mind that you generally need to know the subject far far beyond the level you want to tutor at. If you want to tutor calculus, you probably need graduate courses work in math, if not a grad degree. I have a bachelor’s in physics and was generally only hired for algebra, even though I’m obviously perfectly capable of helping someone with calculus. If your own math coursework ended with calculus, I highly doubt you would be hired at any decent hourly rate to tutor high school math.

          Second the comment that there’s much more to tutoring than knowing the subject. Your ability to motivate/work with kids is the biggest factor. I wasn’t a great tutor and it had nothing to do with my understanding of math.

          1. Also keep in mind that it’s not like a normal job where you commute and then work 8 hours. You commute to each job separately and tutoring sessions are rarely more than an hour, so if you live in a city with lots of traffic it may be a 1+ hour round-trip commute for a 1 hour job. So when you factor in commute time your hourly salary is effectively halved.

    12. My husband is a high school teacher in NYC. He makes just under 100K and has benefits that are worth probably at least 20K a year (FREE family health insurance that is good coverage, a pension with guaranteed minimum 7% earnings, etc.). I know many teachers are very poorly compensated, and I think all rarely get treated like professionals (including by OP), but it can be a very decent job. My husband made about the same teaching at a public college. He also has great job security.

      1. That’s true, but he probably hasn’t taken a lot time off of working, which is where re-entry is problematic (for any job). We moved around a lot and while my teacher mom could generally find a job, she was restarting constantly or getting told “we’ve only budgeted for X amount for this” even though you were qualified for a higher salary. There often isn’t a lot of incentive to bring on a new experienced hire vs a recent grad who will work for little and doesn’t have the expectation that she will take time off when her kids get sick. It’s not fair, but it happens. Longevity in position is where it is rewarding.

        1. That is definitely true, and having a strong union makes a big difference. But I think demand is very high right now. My husband actually became a HS teacher after his college teaching career flamed out and several years of unemployment circa 2008. He was in his 40s at that point. So he’s only been doing HS for about 9 years. I think they may have counted his years of teaching college towards the longevity piece of the salary scale (or maybe just towards the pension vesting? I can’t remember); he also benefits from having a PhD. Either way, the benefits are still worth a lot.

          1. Yes, demand is very strong right now. If she wants to teach she isn’t likely to have an issue finding a job. A family member who is graduating this month has a job lined up in a district that previously would not have hired new grads and was much harder to get a job in.

    13. Wow that is so offensive to teachers. You really need to get off your high horse. Leave your poor sister alone and let her make her own choices, because your advice sounds terrible at best.

    14. Does she have any interest in administration? I feel like this is a big hole in the education system, at least in my area. The teachers my kids have had have been largely OK to quite great, but some of the principals and superintendents have been terrible leaders. Somebody who is smart and capable would be a refreshing change.

      1. OMG yes this. Around here those who can, teach. Those who can’t, become administrators.

        1. The elementary principals my kids had have been GREAT. They really seemed able to strike a balance between appeasing the “nice white parents” (me included) who want all kinds of over-the-top enrichment and the working-class parents (mostly nonwhite) who are just trying to keep everything together for their kids. Talking to my friends in richer public school districts and at charters, some of the rich white parents really rule the roost and it sucks for anyone that isn’t in the in-crowd.

          The middle school principal just seems overwhelmed and kind of dull. She also seems out-of-touch with the parents, most of whom are pretty academically focused, even the ones that aren’t wealthy white homeowners. Unfortunately, I suspect she’s impossible to replace given her age and number of years in the district.

          1. Our rich white suburb has the most awful principals at all levels, and not because they are trying to appease the pushy parents. They just don’t want to do ANYTHING.

          2. That sounds like some of our principals! Also when other professions opened up to women, plenty of bright, capable women went into careers with better pay and better treatment. My grandmother and her sisters were teachers because that was the best job that was open to them at the time. At least one of them would have gone to medical school if they’d been born 70 years later.

  5. Note: includes SATC spoilers
    can someone please explain why Peloton as a company freaked out about the SATC episode? like are consumers really that dumb and think that riding their bike causes death? they did turn around very quickly (i feel badly for those who had to work on that) to make that ad, but i dont really get why that was even necessary. it was a fictitious tv show and it’s not like the bike malfunctioned and fell on him or something.

    1. As a former marketing person, I’d be pretty upset if I were Peloton too. Apparently they were completely blindsided by this. They knew the product would be in the show, but not with a negative storyline. At most they might have expected a neutral storyline.

    2. Related: can we discuss And Just Like That…? And by discuss, I mean rant about how it never should have been made and is painful to watch? I know it will make tons of money and it certainly is generating a lot of attention, but I wish they had just moved on. Some shows are of such a particular moment in time and SATC was one of them—turn-of-the-century Manhattan.

      I choose to pretend everything ended at the end of the TV show and the movies and AJLT don’t exist.

      I want to support stories of women in their 50s and beyond, but I wish they had just created a new show. These revivals are usually a disappointment.

      1. The scene in Big’s funeral where Carrie is compared to Jackie Kennedy because she served a “look’ was so so distasteful and offputting. The whole series is cringe.

        1. I love that it is cringe, because I enjoyed the original series and thought it was cringe. I never thought, “wow, these are wonderful admiral women who are just like me.” I always, “these women have some good qualities but are enjoyable awful!” Like a scripted Real Housewives.

          1. You get it, No Face. The original series was so cringe! Go back and try to rewatch some of the episodes, especially in the early seasons. And there were always a ton of completely tone-deaf themes or discussions in the episodes. That’s part of the joke! The women were never really meant to be relatable (a weekly sex columnist living in a Manhattan brownstone apartment and spending $40k on shoes? Hello? IRL Carrie would have had two additional barista/waitstaff jobs and lived with four roommates in Brooklyn) and half the show was putting them in ridiculous situations that that they had ridiculous reactions to. The first two eps were DARK but glimmers of the original show are there and I am here for it. I also think that maybe you have to be 45+ to relate to some of it. Is this going to go down as one of the greatest-written, greatest-acted TV shows of all time, no. Is it entertaining AF, hell yes! I can’t wait for the rest of the season.

        2. I have mixed feelings about the first two episodes, but the one line I found super cringey was Anthony calling one of the new characters “Black Charlotte.” Just sounded awful.

        3. I think I missed this. I thought they were comparing her to Jackie O in how particular and adamant Jackie was about JFK’s funeral details.

      2. Yeah, the first two episodes were awful. Could Carrie not pick up the phone or do CPR (or do anything other than freak out and cry)? Would Samantha really flounce to London and never speak to anyone ever again, including not showing up for the funeral? Would Miranda, after a long career as a big-shot corporate lawyer, really be that much of an idiot in a class? Eeesh.

        1. I actually totally can believe Miranda could end up acting that way, even as painful as it was to watch.

      3. I feel like I’m alone here but I really liked it. I loved seeing so many characters I’d seen years ago. It was corny and goofy and silly at points…ust like the original show. Also, I love seeing shows with older women as the main characters. In most cases older women are just moms or authorities figure.

        Also, BIG being on the floor like that really put me in my feels. It was SO SAD to me. I just felt awful for her.

        1. Not alone! I loved the original show, I liked the first movie, I HATED the second movie. I think the series is going to go in some interesting directions and I’m looking forward to it.

          1. Same on all counts, down to my feelings about the movies. WTAF were they thinking with that second movie!?! It was so terrible on so may levels.

      4. I’m the age of Charlotte. We watched the first episode last night, and my husband (who is older than me) turned to me and said “why would you want to watch this? Isn’t it just going to be about how old and out of touch with the younger generation you are?” And he seems to be right. I can’t think what enjoyment I’d get out of it, if feels badly and hastily put together anyway, so I’m out.

    3. i don’t work in marketing, but a friend does and has said most companies have to approve their product placement. peloton knew the bike was in the show (they filmed a special “class” with the teacher for it) but they were not told how the story around the bike would go. I imagine they were patting themselves on the back for the product placement and then surprised how it played out. normally they would be better informed by the show.

      1. Isn’t that only true if they are paying for the placement (and negotiated that in)? Like how could you make a movie if every shoe, clothing, and purse company had approval rights (never mind furniture, cars, random background signage)? I know that you have to get copyright clearance for things like music but can’t imagine that you need to get Converse to agree to a film where a character is wearing Chuck Taylors.

        1. Correct. Peloton did not pay for this product placement so I don’t see how they have approval rights or a legal claim for the bad events that transpired.

    4. Didn’t they have a recall on the treadmill a few years ago? It plays to the general sense that maybe these things aren’t safe.

    5. I was actually reading an article that suggested the whole thing was very keen product placement – Chris Noth and Ryan Reynolds just did a commercial playing on the episode.

      1. The turnaround on the commercial was VERY quick if Peloton didn’t know what happened in the episode.

        1. +1. I think it was a calculated risk. Remember a couple years ago when there was that super weird commercial with the terrified-looking woman? Peloton got dragged but sales were still increasing even before the pandemic.

        2. They filmed the commercial in 48 hours over the weekend apparently. Honestly, as someone who works in marketing it does look quite hastily thrown together to me, although it definitely wasn’t a bad idea.

          Peloton absolutely did not know what was going to happen. Michael Patrick King was so obsessed with keeping this plot point under wraps that the actor in question filmed scenes at his own funeral to throw the paparazzi off.

      1. that’s the part i dont understand – i watched the episode and we just got a peloton last week. the episode has no bearing on my trust of the machine. makes no sense to me

        1. The stock market is betting on people being stupid, not that people actually are that dumb.

        2. People having no trust in the vaccine make no sense, too. You can’t always anticipate stupid.

    6. This whole thing is not making me very excited about the reboot. I was a big SATC back in the day, but I think we all need to move on. Death by Peloton seems like a really dumb plot point.

        1. Eh, I disagree – I think they’re trying too hard to be woke, but hopefully that fades and I like seeing them all again. I’m not judging until the whole thing is out and it’s really nice seeing a show about a whole bunch of people in mid-life.

        2. I agree. I’m Carrie’s age and was looking forwards to a middle age reboot but it was too bad to watch IMO.

      1. Aw – same here! I was a huge fan back in the day! I also agree that the plot point about Samantha having a rift in her friendship with Carrie doesn’t seem believable. I know they had to come up with something but why not just send her to London without a rift?!

      2. Didn’t Sheryl Sandberg’s husband die in a similar incident? That might have been the real-life inspiration.

        1. Her husband fell off a treadmill and hit his head. Big just had a heart attack. He happened to be on the Peloton at the time, but it likely would have happened sooner or later, Peloton or no Peloton.

          1. Sandberg’s husband’s cause of death was revealed to be an arrhythmia from undiagnosed heart disease. He did hit his head when he fell, but that’s not why he fell in the first place.

    7. About that scene though, it made me really sad! Watching him die in Carrie’s arms was pretty heartbreaking.I was watching with my husband, who thought it was hilarious, but I was thinking how terrible it would be to come home to him dying on the bathroom floor.

      Also, I don’t know why they had to make Stanford such a terrible person. I don’t think he was that awful in the original, but maybe I just don’t remember it.

      The rest of the show is truly awful and cringe-inducing. I had to fast-forward multiple times.

        1. Yeah Willie Garson seems like he was a lovely human, but Stanford was always an awful person.

  6. do we think the CDC will update the definition of fully vaccinated to include having received a vaccine/booster within the last 6 months? i work in higher ed and our institution has a covid vaccine requirement for students and one of my colleagues mentioned that she read an article about health in higher ed, which was basically saying that institutions probably won’t require boosters in students until the CDC updates the definition of fully vaccinated. by the time the spring semester starts it will likely be greater than 6 months since most students got their boosters.

    1. My institution is not requiring a booster (yet) because it is waiting for additional science, and yes, this was the recommendation of the group of epidemiologists who provide guidance. The understanding is that the decision makers will keep revisiting this on a regular basis.

    2. I hope not. It’s going to cause vax hesitant people to dig in their heels: oh look we were right to not get a vax the first time around, the vaccines don’t work! Let’s just wait for the “real” vax that we’ll only have to take once (in a blue moon) or at most once a year.

      1. I’m pro-vaccine and took my shot the first day I was eligible. But don’t the anti-vaxxers have a point? Our side clearly over-hyped the benefits and efficacy of the vaccine (obviously not intentionally), but this seems like a clear case of over-promise, under-deliver.

        1. nope, the extremely high efficacy that was initially measured was against the virus variants which circulated at the time. The connection between high circulation of the virus and increasing chances of mutation (which can change the virus characteristics in unpredictable ways) was pointed out throughout this whole pandemic. The vaccines in play now were developed before Delta and Omicron.

        2. The vaccines were amazing against OG Covid. The problem is people didn’t get vaccinated and now we have new variants that have evaded vaccine-induced immunity (and natural immunity even moreso). The anti-vax do not have a point. The rise of Omicron proves what the pro-vax crowd has been saying for a year, that the only way to stop this is getting everyone vaccinated.

          1. My idiot in-laws are dealing with this: old people got vaccinated promptly. Younger people refused and refused for their kids. They live a high-risk lifestyle (except for the olds, but the olds have been letting their kids and grandkids visit all along) and all got together for Thanksgiving in a high-risk city with lots of restaurants. They all have COVID now. The old people are very frail and are doing well AT HOME, which to me was the whole point of the vaccine. Get sick but don’t get so sick you have to be in the hospital or die.

          2. Delta arose in India and Omicron in South Africa. Are you referring to Indians and South Africans as the “people who didn’t get vaccinated”?

          3. Actually, yes, in South Africa there’s a lot of vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine supply for developing countries is obviously a problem also.

          4. Anon @ 11:06 has it. Despite the oversized role that willingly un-vaxed americans play in polite society’s heads, their importance to the course of the global pandemic is pretty minimal. There’s about 75 million of them – roughly 2% of the world’s unvaccinated.

        3. I agree, sort of. In general the messaging around covid precautions has been terrible and this is part of it. One factor that may be at play is that vaccine boosters are generally given further apart than a few weeks to give longer protection. Covid boosters were administered only a month after the first shot to quickly ramp up the immunity of the population. Unfortunately, this was never discussed at the time (at least in the popular press I follow).

      2. You have to compare the effect of the possible change in rules with the effect of not making the change. How many additional people will dig in their heels against a definition including boosters, who would have otherwise gotten the two mRNA shots (eventually, at some unknown point in time)? That last part is the crucial part. Aren’t many of those heels already dug in now? How many of these do we convince with gentle patience vs. how many will just comply with mandates because their daily lives are otherwise inconvenienced?
        When you believe that the vaccines are safe for the vast majority of people, then the calculus really just is that simple. Does a mandate make more people get the shot or does it make more people dig in their heels? Predicting this tradeoff correctly is not an epidemiology question, but one for psychology and sociology.

        1. I agree with this take. The COVID-deniers and vaccine-adverse people I know are not vaccinated and will never get vaccinated. Many of them have already had COVID, so they are not concerned about the risk at all. Requiring boosters may give them another line in the conversation, but it will not adjust their behavior. They have already decided.

    3. Yes, Fauci said last week it was a matter of when not if the definition of “fully vaccinated” changes.

    4. Agree. Not a fortune teller. In my city though, the people getting shots now are the people who already got shots: it’s just the booster crowd showing up now. Maybe have some on-site clinics in the spring b/c often the people who already got shots will willingly get them again. I did. No one forced me (and no one forced me the first two times, either). Maybe combine with a day off the next day for staff and a homework pass for students and lots of pizza and you might be pleasantly surprised.

    5. I wonder whether “fully vaccinated” will mean 3 doses and will not necessarily require a booster every 6 months. It is beginning to look as if the primary series should have been 3 doses in the first place, as it is with many other vaccines.

      1. Yeah, the resistance to getting three shots makes no sense. Lots of vaccines require three or more to get full protection and many need regular boosters. Tetanus is every 10 years, my cats have to get a rabies shot every year. The only issue I see is that lots of people don’t get sick time to deal with the side effects. Force employers to pay for a sick day post booster and I bet you’d get some of the reluctant to take them.

      2. Unfortunately data from Israel suggests the protection from the booster wanes just as quickly as protection from the second dose. People weren’t using mRNA vaccines before this pandemic and unfortunately they’re proving a lot less durable than hoped for.

        1. In that case, some of us will just get the shots and happily take a PTO day as needed. Like I get a flu shot and anything else. You might as well plan on a world where you’re not making it hard for those of us who play nicely in the sandbox. Start thinking of carrots now and this will go down a lot better.

          1. Yeah I agree! I will get a booster every couple months if that’s what it takes. I just don’t agree that this is “three and done” anymore than it was “two and done.”

          2. What about those of us who only get five sick days a year? What about the majority of workers who have no sick pay? Are you for a system where only the limited class of professionals with unlimited PTO can participate in life?

            Signed, a person who hasn’t gotten her booster yet because she’s out of sick days this year.

          3. anon at 11:59, there should be federal paid sick leave for getting vaccines. But also it’s extraordinarily rare for vaccine side effects to last more than 48 hours, so if you have a standard five day a week job there’s really no reason you can’t get it on Friday night and be good to go Monday morning without using any PTO.

          4. You can get the booster on the weekends easily in my state–via the department of health or CVS/Walgreens, etc. It shouldn’t require a PTO day, but yes, the lack of PTO time is an ongoing problem in our country. I’d hope to see employers get on board with additional time off for vaccines.

        2. Don’t beat up on mRNA vaccines yet. Not clear yet whether it’s the mRNA technology or the coronavirus biology that’s the culprit for lack of long lasting protection. mRNA technology is just another means of getting the antigen (ie, the foreign protein) into the body. Don’t forget that J&J’s vaccine doesn’t use mRNA technology.

          (Signed, JD-PhD)

    6. No one under 16 can officially get a booster so if the CDC updated their guidance it would immediately render all children under 16 not fully vaccinated, which would mess up schools trying to have in-person instruction (a lot of schools let fully vaxxed individuals avoid quarantine, which keeps kids in school). As far as I know Pfizer isn’t even studying boosters in kids under 16, so authorization of a booster for these age group is likely a year away, if it ever happens. For that reason, I believe the CDC won’t change the guidance any time soon.

      1. I have a kid in this group. I just got a younger kid her second shot and would hate for our family to be able to 3/4 do things like seeing a play (need to show vax cards where we live for that) now.

    7. Can we just ban any comment that starts with “Do we think the CDC will . . .”? None of us have crystal balls.

      1. Agreed. If I could predict the future, I’d be buying lottery tickets and/or day trading.

    8. My daughter’s college (a large State University) now requires a booster shot as part of its vaccine mandate for all students and staff.

  7. My husband just surprised me with a long weekend away at an Airbnb in Ft Lauderdale. I’ve never been to Florida. It looks like it’ll be hot the whole time – I hope to read outside most days and go to bed early most nights. I would love suggestions for good restaurants that do carryout and bookstores. Open to regional chains if there’s something the Midwest doesn’t have that we need to try. We might eat out one night, if there is an absolute must go to place. We’re 40s and prefer calm over clubs.

    1. Why not go out to eat? If you’re still worried about Covid, seems halfway there to travel anyway, and if it’s nice you can dine outside.

      1. FWIW we’ve been traveling a lot but on the plane, you’ve got highly filtered and refreshed air and a mask mandate, which is not necessarily the case in a restaurant. So we also stick with outdoor dining only to minimize risk from that perspective.

        We got delivery from Luigi’s Coal Oven Pizza and Heart Rock Sushi last time we were in FLL and enjoyed both. We got lots of recs for Takato for sushi but they were too busy to do takeout and we were too late in planning to get a res for outside.

  8. I’m looking for a dermatologist in NYC. Have never done anything cosmetic so my personal experience of dermatology is limited to skin cancer screenings, but hoping to do some minor stuff in a way that is very natural and not obvious (specifically, deal with broken blood vessels on nose and do Botox or similar for newly-forming 11s).

    Any specific NYC recommendations or suggestions on how to do research to find a good one? Can I assume a highly-rated derm on ZocDoc will be good at the cosmetic side? I have read here that it’s best to go to a nurse who does this all the time rather than a doctor, but don’t know how to locate that.

    And how do I know what a reasonable price is? I do care about cost, but care more about getting results that are safe and natural-looking. Thank you!

    1. Honestly, look to a woman that you know does this stuff and ask her who she sees. Different providers have different aesthetics – natural, less natural, etc, and you want to find one you like.

    2. Dr. Nussbaum. I think her work looks really natural- my mom, an immigrant with an eagle eye and big mouth, hasn’t said anything (and trust me, she would if she thought I got Botox or anything else!). I found her by following this influencer on Instagram who looks great, whose ex husband is a cosmetic dermatologist. My thinking was that she knows what to look for.

    3. I like Dr. Shereene Idriss on You Tube. She just opened her own office near Bryant Park. If you like her on YouTube, you might like her in person.

    4. No help geographically or on the blood vessel point, but Botox is charged by the unit. In my LCOL, I am paying $13/unit. That’s up from $12 in 2019. I would expect to pay at least $15/unit in NYC. If you have baby 11s, you won’t need much. I do my significant 11s with 20 units every 4 – 5 months, but everyone is different. A good practitioner will start you out low and increase only if it doesn’t give you the desired results. I didn’t want a frozen forehead and this amount freezes my 11s, but nothing else.

    5. My dermatologist is Cybele Fishman; she recently joined Advanced Dermatology. She’s located in the Financial District.

      I have been very happy with her both for skin cancer screenings and for treatment of acne and cysts. I haven’t done Botox with her, but I know she does that and other cosmetic procedures and seems to have a busy cosmetic practice.

    6. I like Sapna Westley. I haven’t done Botox, but got broken capillaries on my cheeks and around my nose zapped, and she is great. I’ve been going to her for almost 15 years now. She’s in Soho.

  9. any recs for a house cleaner in Chicago, South loop specifically. Hoping to find someone to come 1-2 times per month for our 2bed2bath apartment. Thanks!

    1. I’m in Oak Park (about 20 minute drive away) and use Alpha Euro Cleaners. They have used to have a groupon so you can try them out.

  10. Yesterday was Thanksgiving and today December is half over and I have no time to order presents online. What the h3ll, space-time.

    1. Right?! I woke up to a message from my assistant reminding me she is taking next week off and I sat straight up in bed thinking “Christmas is next week?!!”

      1. Someone in the office said “christmas is next week” LAST week, and the rest of us about lost it. She was wrong, of course, but yeah now there’s only one retail weekend before the big day.

      2. Wait… what???

        Wow.

        I mean, that’s technically true, but.

        Wow.

        Way to lay a trip on everybody, Anonymous at 10:10 a.m.

        ;)

    2. I ordered my last gift on Friday. If I need anything else, it will need to happen locally! Now, if only a magical elf would wrap all this stuff.

      1. I spent a HALF DAY yesterday wrapping gifts. I couldn’t believe it.

        I saw a meme on Twitter that said “wrapping presents is folding laundry’s a$$hole cousin,” and I think that’s about right.

        1. I actually enjoy wrapping the presents that I’m giving. But I get a little teenage rebellious when I’ve just arrived at my mom’s and she expects me to wrap a big pile of presents that she’s giving.

    1. Thank you for posting these links! I came specifically to ask if anyone could recommend some local orgs in Kentucky to make a donation.
      I work for a small county in California, and after we suffered a huge wild fire, the Red Cross was super difficult to work with in the immediate aftermath, and I vowed to never make a donation to them again. Our most helpful and fastest orgs to dispatch aid were our local ones.

  11. Thank you to everyone who recommended the Technivorm Moccamaster a little while ago. I was hesitant at first, but I got one about a week ago, and it’s a great coffeemaker!

    1. So glad you like it! We’ve had one for three years and I love it so much. Best coffee ever, and it’s super-easy to maintain. If ours dies, for whatever reason, we’ll get another one.

      1. And if it dies, it doesn’t necessarily have to be replaced! The webs!te sells some easily replaceable parts. For more complex fixes, moccamaster does repairs. There’s a five year warranty and outside of the warranty, the cost to repair is small compared with the cost of replacement. While I understand some people may not have the bandwidth to pack up a broken one, ship it, and make French press coffee while awaiting its return, a friend did that and was very happy with the results.

  12. Any gift recommendations for someone who really likes sports and journalism and Pittsburgh? There is an obvious answer here that is eluding me.

    1. If he lives in Pittsburgh, or visits from time to time, a giftcard to Oakmont Bakery, along with a newspaper subscription (digital or paper! support local journalism!) and everyone can use one more Terrible Towel. A membership to the Carnegie Museum is great – there’s never enough time to see everything in one visit.

    2. I’ve said it before, but trying to buy a gift that focuses on someone’s hobbies is always going to be a bust unless you share that exact hobby and know what to get. You’re better off getting something totally unrelated. I say this as someone with specific hobbies who is so much happier with unrelated presents.

      1. I think this is very true for active hobbies. A skier will know what skiing equipment she needs or wants way more than I ever could. If someone’s hobby is watching a particular sports team though, buying stuff branded with that team is very easy.

    3. I’m not from Pittsburgh, but I have a relative who is a huge Steelers fan. I just buy Steelers-branded stuff and it is always a hit. Blankets, mugs, coasters, beanie, socks.

    4. I feel like people from Pittsburgh really love anything to do with Pittsburgh. If you don’t get something related to the Steelers, there are other Pittsburghy things like Primanti Brothers and Iron City that sell merch.

      1. I used to travel to Pittsburgh regularly and would smile every time I got to the gate for the PIT flight because everyone was wearing Steelers gear. I’ve never been anywhere else with such visible support for their city/team.

        1. It is a great sports city…don’t forget the Penguins. But Pittsburghers are normal people who also like other things too:).

    5. A subscription to The Athletic. Great sports writing with a strong paywall. They can follow all their teams.

    6. If you know which specific team they support, you could always look at the team site and see if they do vouchers for game tickets if they live in Pittsburgh OR if they live out of Pittsburgh, getting tickets for the next time Pittsburgh is in town. I live in DC now, but I’d love if someone got me tickets to the next time the Pens are in town.

    7. Pittsburgher here to say +1 to The Athletic OR DKPittsburghsports.com — Both paid sports journalism. If they already have subscriptions, this will give them another year free! Also, Pittsburgh Quarterly is an interesting subscription based read.

  13. Update on my chest pains from last week. I did end up going to the ER after consulting with my doctor. Two normal EKGs, normal labs, etc. and 6 hours later I was sent home and told to take some Advil :)

    1. I’m glad you went and that it turned out to be nothing. Do keep an eye on it and go back to your regular doc if you keep having symptoms.

    2. That’s great! You did the right thing! And you now know just what to do again if it happens again!

  14. I’m relocating to the Philly metro area. Does anyone have any good recommendations for things to do? I’m into the outdoors, and I’m a bit more Covid cautious than some people (no indoor dining). The pandemic has been exhausting for me. Does anyone have any ideas for how to make adult friends in your thirties.

    1. Outdoor dining abounds – lots of restaurants invested in “streeteries” and heat lamps and haven’t dismantled them!

      Where are you moving to, specifically? There’s a cycling trail that stretches all the way out to Valley Forge from Center City…

    2. i’m jealous. i loved living in Philly. there is tons to do and tons within driving distance. lots of parks, hikes, etc. Wissahickon Park is nice. in the burbs, chestnut hill is cute to walk around or peddler’s village. lots of college campuses in the area to walk around which should be empty over winter breaks. in the city, walking along the schuykill river is nice.

    3. Welcome!! A bit biased because I’m from here, but of everywhere I’ve lived, Philly is my favorite. What part of the area will you be moving to?

      I think Philly is a great city for access to the outdoors – we have great parks in the city (the Wissahickon, Valley Green, Fairmount Park, SRT) and we have easy access to both the beach (we call it the shore) and the mountains. I live in Center City and use the Schuylkill River Trail or the Delaware River Trail several times a week. On weekends I like to take long rides/runs out on MLK (stick to the MLK side, the Kelly Drive side is too crowded) or in the Wissahickon. Between the Wissahickon and Fairmount Park there’s something for almost any type of outdoor activity: trails for running/biking, mountain biking/trail running, rock climbing, disc golf, a driving range, the canoe club, etc.

      For meeting new people, I’ve never done a meet up, but I see lots of posts about get togethers in the Ladies of Philly facebook group. Likewise, the 2 neighborhood facebook groups and the Buy Nothing groups I’m in are very active and people are very friendly. Heyday Athletic is the main adult intramural league – they have tons of sports in several locations so that’s a good way to meet people too. I would also recommend looking groups for your interests – I have friends that have made friends through the gym, a triathlon group, the rock gym, volunteering, art classes, etc. A lot of people in the area are from the area – but I actually think it helps new people break in. While you’d think it would be hard to break into a group like that, most people are friendly and welcome to accepting new comers into their group. Because we all grew up here, went to high school here, etc. once you meet one person, it’s easy to meet the rest of their friends and be Brought into the fold of a larger group. While it’s a huge city, it feels very small – it feels like there are way less than 6 degrees of separation and I swear everyone is connected either via high school or a cousin (and when you meet people they will ask where you went to high school). Quizzo (bar trivia) is pretty big here and that’s a great way to socialize with someone you don’t know super well yet since it gives you an activity to focus on (though all quizzo is indoors).

      I would say even my aggressively COVID cautious friends have started eating indoors again (very recently), but I”m sure there are plenty of people here who still don’t. The restaurants that build streeteries (who are allowed to keep them…. they recently announced geographic boundaries of where streeteries can continue and it’s a huge debate) seems to have kept them, but the restaurants that just did sidewalk dining last year don’t seem to have kept that up this year. The Mayor announced this morning that starting in January, indoor dining will be for vaccinated people only. Indoor masking is required for all shops (or really, any public indoor activity), but outdoor masking is not as common. Our vaccination rates are very high (for 18+ 75% fully vaccinated and 95% with at least one dose), so most people feel comfortable resuming indoor activities – I do think that most of the activities I suggested above would be mostly, if not fully indoors.

    4. No recommends but the historic homes in Philly are to die for and I’m so jealous.

    5. The blog “Cup of Jo” has an article about making new friends! It is from a few years ago but it appears in the news feed if you scroll down a bit. Good luck! I have a hard time making new friends too.

    6. Do you know where you’ll be living? I think people here are pretty friendly but things to do may depend on where exactly you’ll be.

      1. I’m not sure 100%. I could be in the northeast or northwest burbs, but not too far from center city.

        1. If you’re looking to meet people I’d recommend a town with a good downtown and a train station: Ardmore (or really anything along Lancaster Ave, Conshohocken, Ambler, Jenkintown, etc.

          Or, I’d look into a neighborhood in Northwest Philly: Manayunk, Roxborough, Mount Airy , East Falls, Chestnut Hill. All except for Manayunk/parts of East Falls feel suburban but are all in the actual city. They all have train stations and walkable areas, but much more green, have easier parking, and less dense than center city.

          Since you’re sporty and going to be in the suburbs, I’d recommend looking into a country club. There are so many, ranging from the incredibly stuffy and snobby to the blue collar club where my parents belong. I would never have thought it’d be my (or my family’s) scene, but my parents have met a ton of friends through their club and enjoy the activities (both the golf/tennis but also the events held by the club – poker night or movie night or whatever)

  15. Audiobook recommendations for 40 hour road trip? I like contemporary women’s fiction/ the types of books Reese Witherspoon picks for her book club. I know some books lend themselves more to narration than others so thought I’d consult the Hive.

    1. Most of the books I read or listen to are in that vein as well. It’s not women’s fiction, but one of my favorite books I listened to this year was The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.

      I also enjoyed The Henna Artist (which now has a sequel, but I haven’t listened to it yet!) and Transcendent Kingdom.

      It’s older, but this year I listened to The Wife by Meg Wollitzer and was utterly captivated the whole time.

    2. Daisy Jones and the Six. Opal & Nev if you liked Daisy Jones.
      Circe or The Song of Achilles.
      Maybe not your typical genre, but trust me, Project Hail Mary.
      If you’re up for nonfiction, Bad Blood and Empire of Pain are both great works of investigative journalism/ narrative nonfiction.

    3. I will put in a plug for The Dutch House, by Ann Pachett, narrated by Tom Hanks. I really loved the audio book, although I may not have enjoyed the book as much if I read it, due to the main character’s… flaws. But Tom Hanks has the right amount of emotion. (10 hours) I liked it so much, I started Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth. Different narrator, but still engaging. (10.5 hours, I’m half way through) Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell, gets good reviews and I really liked most of it, although it dragged a bit for me. (Historical fiction, 12.5 hours)

      1. I don’t know about the audio book, but Ann Patchett has a new book of essays out and it’s one of my favorite things I read this year. She talks about her relationship with Tom Hanks and his assistant, who comes to live with her during the pandemic to get cancer treatment.

    4. Short but engaging: Love in Colour by Bolu Babalola
      They were really beautifully narrated.

    5. Not contemporary women’s fiction, but The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy is so good and will cover you for the entire trip and then some.

      1. Not OP, but my late father loved that and was always trying to get me to read it! I never have. He also liked Daniel Deronda, not sure if it’s the same genre but giving it a plug.

    6. Loved Gone Girl, Catch and Kill, Born a Crime, Rodham. Did not like (on audiobook format) Where the Crawdads Sing, Eligible, Where’d You Go Bernadette.

    7. I actually really enjoyed Where the Crawdads Sing on audiobook. It’s old, but I just listened to Sue Monk Kidd’s the Secret Life of Bees, which was great. The Paper Palace took me a while to get into, but I was glad I listened to it. I tend to read/listen to a lot of historical fiction and can give more recommendations if you are open to that category.

    8. I just finished (and really enjoyed) the audible version of Count the Ways by Joyce Maynard.

      Other Audible favorites that I listened to this year:

      This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
      The Most Fun we ever had by Clair Lombardo
      Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore
      Leave the World Behind by Rumania Alam
      Send for me by Lauren Fox
      Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
      American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

    9. I loved City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert (the narration by Blair Brown is great) and The Midnight Library; the latter has a bit of a fantasy element (a woman can try out the lives she would have lived if she had made different decisions in the past).

      I also enjoyed People you Meet on Vacation, which is more rom-com in tone but funny and fun.

      The Love Songs of W.E.B. Dubois is excellent; although I found the main/modern character to be kind of a pill, but the sweep of history and the varied characters over about three centuries are wonderful. It’s also very long, maybe 17 hours.

  16. Does anyone have a cup blender (or maybe it’s called a personal blender) that they like? Shopping for one and years ago I had one that could barely blend ice . Hoping that they’ve gotten better.

      1. +1

        I don’t do a lot of ice blending though. Mostly frozen fruit and other soft/liquid things.

    1. If you have the space and $, get a Vitamix. They have smoothie cups that go onto the blender (so kind of like magic bullet but the base is bigger), so you can make a single smoothie. No problem at all with ice of course, but you do need a minimum of liquid in there to make sure things don’t stick.

    2. Nutribullet Pro can definitely blend ice (I make a lot of frozen margaritas and my typical smoothie has at least half an ice tray in it).

      1. OP here — it seems to be controversial and possibly a flop but I love it as the Riff and Anita show forever and always and love the songs. This is a bit darker (definitely PG-13) but I was in the orchestra for it way back when and never stopped knowing the songs.

        1. I have performed the symphonic dances multiple times and love them, but I have detested the actual musical ever since I first saw it. Tony and Maria are annoying, and the racial stuff made me cringe even as a teen in the 1990s.

        2. WSS is hands down my favorite show to play because it’s musically challenging enough that it never gets old. Makes me miss pit gigs.

    1. I am so looking forward to seeing it. It’s a long time favorite of mine and I was so hoping they didn’t Disney Channel it up. I’ve listened to the soundtrack and was pleased.

  17. Question for the group, re: admin gifts in BigLaw. At work, I’m collecting cash for our admin’s (M) Christmas gift. About 6 weeks ago, one of the admins in a different group (R) moved from being an admin supporting 6 attorneys to being a paralegal for a third group (also in the same office, so R is still here). So, in the last six weeks, my admin M has taken on being the admin for two of the people R used to support. A new admin is coming and starting on 12/20 for all of R’s old people, including the two that M is now supporting. The two people M has been supporting during this time include a very demanding senior associate and one of the biggest rain making partners at the whole firm. I am debating whether to forward them my email where my group talks about M’s gift and letting them know that we are doing this, there is zero pressure to participate, but I wanted to provide them with the option if they felt inclined.

    What do you think is the right move here? I personally would want to know if I was in their shoes, but I really don’t want anyone to feel obligated.

    1. So M is supporting these two people for only a couple of weeks? I wouldn’t send them the email, that’s like telling them they should contribute. I wouldn’t expect them to give her anything, if it were any other time of year they wouldn’t give to her.

      1. It will end up being just shy if two months, all during the 4th quarter, which is the busiest time of year for all of us. If this had been a different 2 months (say, march- April) I’m not sure that I’d bring it up.

        1. This doesn’t really change my mind. In my view, as the person who is shelling out my own personal money to give a “bonus” to the firm’s employee who I do not have hiring/firing power over, especially considering I cannot write off the “bonus” as a business expense, I’m more interested in buying their goodwill for next year than thanking someone who I’m never going to work with again. Here’s what I would do if I were these two attorneys:
          – when R was promoted I would give her a small gift and a nice note thanking her for her work
          – small gift to M
          – full gift to new assistant

    2. Ugh the timing of this is awkward. Basically you want each of M and R to get the holiday gifts they would have gotten had they not switched positions a month before Xmas.

      My view – R’s former people should each give R what they would have given R had nothing changed, and contribute perhaps a small amount (like 2 months’ worth, prorated) to M’s fund. So M gets a fair bonus for the extra work, and R doesn’t lose out.

      New admin, I’m curious what people would do. My first instinct is to do a smaller welcome-slash-holiday gift rather than the full amount, but doing nothing feels ungenerous.

    3. I don’t think they need to give to M. If it were me, I’d give M a token as a thank you but not join in the group gift because it is just different.
      But the new admin also needs a taste. The BigLaw bonus is part of the perks of the job that keep.people working for horrible people under bad management.

  18. Does anyone use Kroger delivery? I just enrolled in Boost, their program where you get free delivery for $59 annually, but the delivery service seems awful. When I go to check out it tells me half my items are out of stock and will be removed from the order, and then when I check out it deletes all the “unavailable” items from my order and just lists the other items. With pickup orders (which we’ve done since March 2020), your order includes all the items you asked for until they actually do the shopping and then if something is unavailable and they can’t find a substitution, it’s removed and you don’t get billed for it. I’m just really confused why delivery is so different! Fwiw this is happening with super basic items – bananas, grapes, bagels etc. There’s no way my store is actually sold out of all these items and all their reasonable substitutions.

    Anyone know what gives? I called their customer service and they were like “yeah, this happens, shrug” but I don’t understand how they have any delivery customers left if really basic items aren’t available to purchase via delivery.

      1. Only if you are willing to spend an hour texting back and forth with the Instacart shopper. And the Instacart prices are much higher than the Kroger prices. After trying Instacart and Shipt multiple times, I decided it was more reliable and more efficient just to drive to the store and pick up the groceries myself.

        1. Yes, if I use Instacart I’m easily spending $50 or likely more than if I just went to the store myself. It’s so pricey!

      2. The Instacart shoppers at my Kroger are quick to disassociate themselves from the Kroger order fulfillers. They take a lot of pride in their work.

      3. Yeah Instacart isn’t really in the budget for us. It was the free delivery for a year for $60 that made this affordable for us. Pickup works fine. It’s really not a big deal to go to the store and pickup an order. I was mostly just asking because I don’t understand how their business model is sustainable if you can’t get bananas through delivery. It’s not like I’m asking for unique or hard-to-obtain items.

    1. Grocery curbside or delivery is terrible. We’ve gone back to just shopping ourselves since the experience is so poor. We ask to be contacted about substitutions, and aren’t. and the substitutions are so illogical! Stuff is listed as missing that isn’t missing (as verified when we went in the store ourselves, dumbfounded that they might actually run out of bananas). Just a headache!

    2. Yup, this is how it works. You could try Instacart, where you can communicate with the shopper about substitutions if needed and more reliably get most of what you need, but as the other poster says it is much more expensive.

      I have been pretty happy with my Costco food delivery experience – almost always get everything – but of course Costco doesn’t sell everything you need. Their prices were also quite good, but they just remodeled their ordering site and all their prices went up. The Costco service is run via Instacart, but you order on the Costco website, but it is cheaper than paying Instacart directly (upcharges are less).

    3. I don’t know what other supermarkets you have around you but we find Giant delivery to be excellent as long as you get delivery in the AM not the PM (I think things start to run out by the late afternoon).

    4. I don’t have Kroger’s in my area. But IME all the grocery home delivery companies use a warehouse for the home deliveries, even if they have grocery stores in the area. So, I would expect that your order is coming from a warehouse, not your local store, and the computer knows what the warehouse has in stock and they don’t want their staff wasting time looking for things that are out of stock

      1. That would be a logical explanation, but I don’t think that’s it – for delivery they outsource the shopping to Instacart, apparently, so someone is actually shopping the store for you. It’s just weird that pickup and delivery are so different. Not that I’ve never had the occasional missing item with pickup, but it’s not like delivery where half the staples I order are out of stock. In fact I did a pickup order today and got everything that was “unavailable” in my delivery order.

  19. Looking for planner recommendations! I haven’t used one in years, but I’m determined to try to be a little more organized this year. Would use it to track mostly work things along with some personal life things. Would like to have space for both a schedule as well as a to do list/notes area.

    1. I have used the Ink & Volt planners for years, and really like their organization/layout. You can see the pages well on their site to decide if it’s something that would work for you.

      1. That’s my favorite too. (There was another thread on this topic last week with more recommendations.)

    2. Day Designer! You can get a less-pricey version at Target and other office supply stores if you don’t want to spend for a “real” one. I’ve used some form of this planner for years and am a huge shill for them :)

  20. Does anyone have good experiences to share using Bumble BFF? I really want some more friends, but have heard stories about MLM people on there…

    1. A friend who is new to my city has used it pretty successfully. I have often been one of three or four people on an outing and one or two of the others is someone she met on Bumble BFF. They’ve all been pretty normal and ultimately one stuck as BFF and there are a couple who float in and out and now, after 2.5 years here, she’s met a few people on her own. So it did get her a BFF and floated her through the awkward first years until she could settle in. Success. I will say she is probably better at and more comfortable with it than I would be because she has been app dating forever and I have never once. She’s really good about finding fun events or places to go and then using that as a reason to meet, which helps identify people who have similar interests and gives them the motivation to meet since the event or place is appealing on its own.

    2. My daughter had a good experience using it when she was around 23 and new to a city. She was also looking for friends outside her filed of tech. She has kept friendships with two people (I think) and traveled with one of them.

    3. Join the Junior League! You’ll be helping your community while meeting like-minded women.

    4. Join the Junior League! You’ll be helping your community while meeting like-minded women.

  21. Does anyone have a reco for a casual rain or winter jacket that’s wind and water resistant on the outside, but cozy-feeling on the inside? It’s for my college age daughter with sensory issues (she only likes cotton hoodies), lives in the Pacific Northwest. Thanks.

    1. I don’t have this jacket, but look at “Women’s Trail Model Rain Jacket, Fleece-Lined”. The reviews say the sleeves are unlined, so may not work for her.

      I also have a North Face rain jacket with a removable fleece lining, including sleeves, but it’s pretty warm with the lining, and if she removes it she doesn’t have the cushy feeling. I think it’s called a 3-in-1.

    2. I don’t have any specific recommendations, but could she handle something that goes over a hoodie, so the jacket itself doesn’t have to be cozy on the inside? It might be easier to find something wind and water resistant that’s super thin and unlined. I have a thin LL Bean rain jacket (not sure the model) that is really like a water and wind resistant shell to go over whatever clothes I have on – it doesn’t have lined sleeves so she’d need to wear comfy long sleeves under it. Or even something not so thin, but sized up to accommodate the hoodie, could that work?

    3. I think layers are the way to go here, rather than looking for one coat to be both rain protection and cozy on the inside.

    4. I haven’t seen them in person, but I received a Ripcurl catalog in the mail the other day and was eyeing their “Anti Series” jackets that meet all these criteria. The Anoeta one has a fleecy lining!

      Watch out for sizes, they tend to fit small.

    1. My husband watches that show and I’ve hate-watched a fair bit of it with him. That ending was pretty excellent, could not have happened to a more deserving group of people.

    2. Please no spoilers here! I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet and the format of this site means it’s really easy to accidentally see posts you don’t want to see. There are lots of of sites that discuss TV shows and I deliberately avoid them when I want to avoid spoilers, so it sucks to see discussion of things in places you weren’t expecting.

      OP, I know you didn’t actually post any spoilers, but your post is clearly asking for comment, so I’m hoping other people will be respectful. At some point, things are fair game, but that point definitely isn’t less than 24 hours after something airs.

      1. No spoilers yet, but you can collapse all the threads and then intentionally open the ones you want to read. Just in case.

    3. It was phenomenal in a very devastating way.

      I plan to rewatch the entire season in light of what happened.

      1. I saw a couple of things coming and was completely blindsided by others. What an excellent job the writers did.

      2. I don’t get Succession….

        I watched a couple episodes, but it didn’t grab me at all. Does it just take more time? Is it funny? Is it a drama? Do I need to give it another try?

        1. It is mainly a drama about dysfunctional family dynamics, topped with a strange sense of humor, business issues, and wealth p0rn (amazing apartments, houses and clothes). I like all those things, so Succession is right up my alley.

        2. I didn’t love the beginning of season 1, but got hooked very quickly toward the end. Seasons 2 and 3 were so amazing. Highly recommend sticking with it.

  22. Need guidance on how to handle a sad and awkward situation. We are friendly with the neighbor couple across the street, H and W. At this point, we’ve hung out at each other’s houses maybe 6-7 times over the past year, and gone out to dinner twice. The contact always go through my husband and H, the male neighbor, as my husband is an extrovert and I’m an introvert, so this tends to happen often. W and I get along great and I really like her, but W is probably 12 years younger than me (I’m 46) and she is also an introvert. So I would not say we are good friends but probably very friendly acquaintances? Anyway, my husband was chatting with H yesterday and was ribbing him about the fact we have not seen them in a while. H then told my husband that W had been almost 4 months pregnant (we did not know) and had just lost the baby over Thanksgiving. I felt so horrible about this and immediately wanted to bring over chicken soup, bubble bath, a book on grieving, etc. I asked my husband to text H and ask if that was okay. After an hours-long delay, H responded that it would be better to leave it alone, in his opinion, although he seemed a bit confused himself and not totally sure how to handle it. (He mentioned that she was devastated at first, but since then, the two of them have just been avoiding the subject altogether). I really want to comfort and console her, but I should just leave it alone, right? I want to make sure I’m doing the right thing. Maybe the right thing is just to shut up and do and say nothing . If so please tell me that in a kind way :)

    1. I think a note that you are thinking of her and one item (like the soup) would be a very kind gesture.

    2. If you’re just “friendly acquaintances”, I would send a card expressing your sympathy and let her know if she ever wants to talk …you’re a good listener. I think anything will come across as awkward or disingenuous since you admitted you’re not that close.

      1. No, a sincere expression of sympathy is not going to come across as disingenuous. Geeze, what terrible advice.

    3. If you are really in contact via H, it seems like you need to follow his lead on this – which means leaving it alone.

    4. I would send a card and write a heart-felt message in it. She is going to know that you guys now know, and to not acknowledge it in any way…. is not good. And I would ask at least once a month if you could bring dinner over. Either to leave it for them, or hopefully, for them to let you in one of the times to give them a social break.

      And if 8 dinners in one year does not make a friend, I think I don’t have any friends….. !

      1. Thanks. To clarify, we’ve probably hung out 8 times in the past 18 months, not year.

        1. Totally. I have people whom I define as good friends that I see maybe 4 times a year in non-Covid times – we text and such in between meetups, but don’t see each other that frequently.

          1. We *do* live right across the street, and most of the get-togethers weren’t dinners, they were getting together for drinks on the back porch. Also I’m just a hard person to get to know, I guess, and I think the same is true of her.

    5. If she wanted comfort, she would have made some sign of wanting comfort. I get your empathy and your desire to do something to help, but pretending like you don’t know is probably the kindest thing you can do at the moment.

    6. Oh, that’s so sad and terrible. When I miscarried, I did not want to talk to anyone about it. If you want to give them something, leave it at their door and text them that it is there so they can receive it and process on their own. I would not give a book, but food and a card seems nice.

    7. If the husband says to leave it alone, then you need to (mostly) leave it alone. I think in that situation I’d send a handwritten condolence note.

      1. “Avoiding the subject altogether” doesn’t sound like super healthy or self-aware grief processing. I’d drop flowers or food on their doorstep.

    8. Do you have a line of communication with her? Maybe send an email saying you just learned of her loss and express your condolences? I’d lean toward an email over a text so that she doesn’t have to respond. I’m kinda introverted myself (and 45 mom of two). I’d lean toward low key acknowledging her loss. FWIW, in some cultural traditions miscarriages are treated as a very private loss.

    9. It sounds like husband wasn’t supposed to tell you. If he says do nothing, then do nothing. It’s really not your business, no matter how sympathetic you feel.

      1. Yeah, that’s kind of what I’m thinking, but not totally sure. I was thinking maybe I should text the husband directly and ask him that, but that might be too pushy? I’m probably overthinking this but I truly don’t know what to do.

        1. Don’t make your need to do something nice his problem. Yes, too pushy. :)

          Just like the wording in “I really want to comfort and console her” is your need you’re expressing, there’s a balance between your need to comfort and her need to (possibly) be left alone, and currently you sound like you want to do too much at once, and overstep.

          Book on grieving is way over the top, chicken soup would also be for me, but card with heartfelt sympathies, zero advice and offer to listen if she ever wants to talk should be fine. But then the ball’s in her court. Don’t follow up and insist to talk. Let her decide.

          Maybe she’ll thank you for the card, and then you can maybe offer a casserole or holiday cookies, but don’t push. It’s more important, I think, to be consistently available to do something normal and nice whenever they do want to socialize. Be a safe haven where they don’t have to perform either grief or happy.

          1. IMHO I have no expectation of secrets between married couple friends. There’s no way W doesn’t already know you know. But doing “too much” in an effort to be kind could come off as proactively intrusive rather than thoughtful.

            So. 4:01 has my thoughts exactly. A kind card is perfect here and leaves room for W to decide how much she wants to talk. Definite no to the book on grieving.

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