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Holiday Weekend Open Thread

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During the days of social distancing I've found myself preferring to buy from companies that have long return policies, in part to avoid physically entering the post office or a store, but also because time moves differently (how on earth is it JULY?!). Zappos has always had a really easy and great return policy (free returns within 365 days), so I've been making more purchases there lately.

This week I've been working on a Hunt roundup for shorts (next week, I promise! Kate and I always laugh at how long the Hunts take), and something I've noticed is that there is a dearth of really colorful, interesting shorts out right now. So I'm completely swooning over these gorgeous and fun shorts from Lilly Pulitzer, which would be bright and happy even if you're wearing with a muted black or navy t-shirt.

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They're $59, and available in sizes XXS-XL at Zappos (as well as Lilly Pulitzer, Belk, and Amazon).

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210 Comments

  1. I’m stuck inside awaiting COVID results this weekend and would love some feel-good streaming recommendations. I saw Babysitters Club on the previous thread and I’ll definitely check that out, but any movie recs? I’d prefer movies to shows in general. Hope you all have a great, safe weekend.

    2. On Amazon , a documentary/comedy “Once is Enough.” Overweight comedian becomes an ultramarathon runner. Funny and inspiring.

    3. I LOVED RocketMan. I also really liked the Adam Lambert + Queen documentary on Netflix. I’ve also been enjoying the podcast ‘Fake Doctors, Real Friends’ about the show Scrubs and would really enjoy rewatching that along with the podcast (if time allowed).

      Also, on Disney + – Three Men and a Baby which I haven’t seen in at least 20 years was hysterical. The Mandalorian isn’t feel-good but it is Excellent.

      1. +1 Three Men and a Baby. I had forgotten about it too and watched it a couple months ago. Still hilarious.

        1. The original French version is better than the US: Trois Hommes et un Coffin (bassinette).

    4. Amazon used to have (I don’t subscribe anymore so not sure if it’s still there) an old-ish (2013?) Daniel Radcliffe romantic comedy called “What If.” It’s nothing legendary, but I have a little Daniel Radcliffe crush so it was fun to see him in that role. It’s an easy watch.

      2. This looks amazing. My husband is a rom-com lover so I think it is definitely going on our list for the weekend!

    5. One movie I really liked that never got much attention was 2018’s “Colette” with Keira Knightley. It’s a period drama about a woman who ghost writes novels for her husband and later fights for recognition (true story – look up the French novelist Colette). I don’t think it’s streaming anywhere but it’s worth a rent if you can find on a platform.

      1. May I ask … is this a teen/young adult drama? It’s fine if it is, but I’m wondering would it be of interest to me at my old age. Is it heavy on the comedy/have stuff relevant to adults?

        1. It’s a Mindy Kaling comedy, if that interests you. I thought it was really funny and not what I expected.

        2. I haven’t seen it but my therapist is in her 60’s and she told me she loves this show ha

    9. The new Eurovision film on Netflix! It’s a wild ride – although the Edinburgh geography is maddening.

      1. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, and I’ve listened to the soundtrack every day since!

        1. +1, the songs are catchy, highly entertaining, and the scenery transports you virtually.

    10. Hamilton tomorrow on Disney +
      For something under the radar, the Girls from Ipanema on Netflix

    13. For rom-coms, we recently saw It’s About Time (not new, from 2013 or 2105, I think; Rachel McAdams is as adorable as ever); it was sweet and meaningful, I thought.

    14. Murders In… on Amazon with MHz free trial. 90 min movie/shows set in France. It’s a vacation from your couch!

    18. Two wildly disparate recommendations – Heartbreakers (oldish rom com on Netflix) and The Mandalorian.
      on Disney+. I’m not a huge, huge Star Wars fan but I always wind up liking the movies, and it turns out I’ll happily watch something involving Pedro Pascal even if I never see his adorable face. Also, The Farewell sounds so sad but it’s really very sweet.

  2. I posted a few days ago about breaking it off with a guy I had been seeing for a few months who constantly got defensive instead of talking through things. I said I didn’t regret it, but felt a little bad/sorry about breaking it off and how he acted so shocked that I would do that over something seemingly so small. He has since tried to make me feel even worse about it and I just found out that he is taking the entire week off of work next week, which he decided this morning. I’m all for resetting and taking time, but his behavior since the break up has been very man-baby. I feel like I dodged a huge bullet and I really appreciate the replies the other day. I’m cutting off contact and moving on.

      1. She says she’s cutting off contact and moving on, so it sounds like she agrees!

        1. Agree – he sounds like a narcissist, so any attention from OP, whether negative or positive attention, is fuel for his narcissism.

          Cut off the fuel supply!

          (I know you said you’d do that, OP, but really, really do it.)

      2. I agree. Who need’s men who get so petty when everything is NOT done exactly there way, and coddle us only when they want us to have s-x with them? Not me, and not the OP’s either! YAY for standing up to some schmoe who is not worth the time and energy to have to wash the sheets after he soils them? PTOOEY and FOOEY I say to such men! We all deserve better. We do not have to bow down to guys who just want us to do stuff for them.

  3. Does anyone send their kids to Catholic, or other religious, school, where you are not of that religion? I had never considered it, but right now, our local Catholic school looks tempting for my rising-K aged child. We are not Catholic, do not subscribe to any religion and are very socially liberal (as are our extended families). Religion is taught at the school, but there are many other families that are not Catholic.

    The school is more likely to be open in the fall than our public school — classes are less than half the size and classrooms are twice as big, and the school is very small but has a large physical space so there is even more room to spread out. No guarantees of course, but a higher likelihood ratio than our academically good, but crowded public school. The plan would be to transfer back to public school in a year or two.

    Would love to hear if anyone has relevant experiences to share.

    1. I sent my son to Catholic high school for two years and being not-Catholic was definitely an issue. He is a free thinker and it was not a good fit, and it didn’t feel great to have to tell him to put up and shut up. The public school, despite its issues, was a better fit for sure.

      1. Oh, and definitely not a good plan to transfer back in a year or two. The worst part about the whole experience was that he lost his whole friend group when he transferred to public school.

        1. I don’t disagree with this in general but moving schools in lower elementary AI very different than moving in high school. First and second graders are still at the age where they are for the most part friendly and welcoming to everyone and curious about new people, cliques have not formed yet and kids don’t have “labels” like the nerds, the jocks etc. Same cannot be said for teenagers. ;)

        2. Ehh I don’t think it would be a problem for a child to do K-1 at one school and then transfer back to a different school at 2nd grade.

          OP, so to your original question. I think it depends on how religious the school actually is. There are plenty of Catholic schools that aren’t actually that religious, and I would have no issue sending my child there especially just for a couple years.

    2. I went to Catholic schools growing up in a VERY Catholic school oriented city, and I would call us loosely Catholic (baptized, not practicing), and I think it’s very much about the specific Catholic school. At one school I went to, less than 5% of the students were non-Catholic, and those that weren’t Catholic were overwhelmingly Lutheran or something similar enough. That would likely be a bad fit.

      However, another one I went to was almost 50% non-Catholic, overall very progressive, and while there were “Religion” classes, they were more like…here’s a Veggie Tales movie when young, or here, do this service project (not ideal, in hindsight, but probably different now). The focus was more on “values” (pretty benign – love your neighbor, stuff like that, nothing socially conservative), rather than “religion”. They knew their audience though. I would say this type of school would be a good fit for pretty much anyone, though I think if you’re a devoted atheist, probably not. If you’re agnostic, probably fine.

      1. This.

        I went to a Catholic school growing up and felt very ‘othered’ because we were not Catholic. I really really resisted it and tried very hard, but… we ended up sending our kid to a Catholic school for Pre-K because it was one of two options that offered full day Pre-K plus guaranteed aftercare without adding many extra driving miles.

        Turns out: my kid’s class is wonderfully diverse with lots of kids who are not just Christian but also Hindu and agnostic. Because of where it is located with regards to a few hospitals and colleges, it gets a diverse group of parents who are in the same boat we were in – I need a decent school for my kid which offers guaranteed after care and doesn’t make me drive through the random rush hour traffic gauntlet just to get home.

        Yes, they talk about Jesus, but they focus a lot more on how Jesus is an example of how to be kind and giving and loving. Again, focusing on values that are really consistent with ‘let’s be a good person’. They do teach them prayers and go to church, but there’s no concern if a kid opts out because literally half the class is opting out at some level.

    3. I attended a Lutheran elementary school from K-5. During those years my family didn’t go to any church, which did cause me one or two awkward social moments with the other kids. Most families went to a church, though usually not the Lutheran one that owned/ran the school. But I was able to move to public middle school without much trouble. I think a younger child would be more likely to roll with what teachers teach him in this context (as opposed to struggling in Catholic high school as a non Catholic like SA mentions), which may bring you to some tricky or weird conversations. But in the grand scheme of things it didn’t matter to me or the kind of adult I turned out to be, so hopefully that helps you.

      1. Along a similar vein, I went to a protestant elementary school which honestly I did not realized until I was older as it had less religion than my public high school in Texas. It all depends on the school and how “religious” the school is, and I’d steer to towards non-Catholic options, non-Evangelical options if your goal is religious in name only.

    4. I would caution against it unless you know what the teachers are like and how much of the school population is not Catholic. Being a non-Catholic in a Catholic school in a mid sized city was fine, but when my family moved to a farming community, I was the only Protestant in a small conservative school. I was an oddity in every way, not just by religion, but an only child in a world of large families, and from a non-farming family. The teachers were…not helpful, or actually prejudiced, and I never did find my place. I was so happy when I moved on to the public high school. Had we stayed in the city, Catholic school probably would have fine. But sometimes religious schools have less then quality teachers and hide it behind Small class size! Lots of Individual attention! And it becomes difficult to really tell whether the teaching Is cr@p but with smart students who would do well no matter what, or good teachers able to work with a wide range of student ability. I hear my former school still has bad teachers, but they hide it behind class sizes and rigorous amounts of homework and market themselves as the place to send gifted students.

    5. I think it depends on how much the religious aspect (and specifically the Catholic aspect) may or may not bother you. From a friend who teaches at a Catholic school, I learned that teachers can and do get fired for getting a divorce and/or having a baby out of wedlock.

      1. Or for being in a same-gender marriage – two very high-profiles cases lately here in Indy.

    6. My sister went to a Christian pre school even though we are not Christian and it was 10000% fine. Saw some funny nativity plays by 3 year olds.

    7. Did not attend catholic school despite being catholic but as they were free in my province many families sent their kids to catholic schools.

      A large number of Muslim students attended. I didn’t hear much negative but students did at times feel left out (as the Catholic students would get to be in the Christmas play at the local church for example). There were some issues with perceived racism (I wasn’t there I don’t know what happened) and cultural sensitivity issues. The schools were not seen as particularly welcoming to LGBTQ students and insensitive to trans students and not welcoming to parent volunteers who were not Catholic.

      You are welcome to ask the school if you can speak to parents of kids who are not Catholic about their experiences.

    8. I was a kid who went to Catholic school due to parental preference. My dad’s job had us in a small town in WV, and my parents sent me to a catholic school instead of the public schools for grades K-3, then a new state/another catholic school in a bigger city for grades 4th & 5th. Then public school from 6th on. it was …fine? From 3rd grade on, I was def conscious of the fact that we had several days a week studying the subject “religion” , which wasn’t covering MY religion, and it was weird to study/be tested on stuff like “memorize the saints days” and “what are the 7 sacraments”, and “what are the names of the garments worn by priests” We were Episcopalian, and I went to church/sunday school and the doctrinal differences were something I became aware of. I was also not a fan of mandatory attendance at Friday chapel, stations of the cross, Jr “confession” , and a few other things. There were other-non Catholic kids and i wasn’t upset by anything or felt bad about being non-Catholic or pressured to be catholic, it was just a bit weird. But as I think about it as an adult, the Catholic part was “baked in” and it was pretty pervasive and influenced many parts of the pedagogy.
      As an adult, I am Jewish. My husband and I send our 2.5 year old to a church-affiliated daycare because it was the best option available to us, after we explored secular and Jewish options. For actual school, I will not be considering Catholic options for her, but I don’t feel like it was a bad choice on my parents part to send me. I will just be making different choices, and there are extra cultural layers to sending a Jewish child to a Catholic school, compared to sending a Christian child. I will not be down for my child having to be in a spot where they identify/are identified with the “villains” of christ-centic narrative. As a nominal christian, I didn’t have that experience as a child.

      1. Wait — Jesus was Jewish. The Ceasars were most certainly not Jewish and the Ceasars called the shots of the locals (Jewish, too?).

        INRI, from Latin class, is Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.

        I don’t think a good Jesuit school would miss this. So, when in doubt, Jesuits are a good sign. I went to Catholic school run by actual Carmelite nuns for a year. I won the religion award. I am not Catholic (but from the NEUS where everyone is a little bit Catholic by osmosis). I didn’t like being the only non-Catholic kid in suburbia, but it was OK otherwise; pizza on Fridays was excellent (solves the whole no meat on Fridays during Lent thing). In the inner city, most kids in Catholic schools aren’t Catholic; they are there b/c it is the lowest cost alternative in areas where the schools not only don’t teach you, but are places where kids freely beat up other kids (or worse).

        1. You remind me of a day when my mom and I visited the Franciscan Monastery in DC (we are Hindu). It was such a beautiful and serene place, but was touched me was that there was a large group of 2nd graders from a local Catholic school. I would venture to say that about 95% of them were black and Latino, and they were all very sincere, asking questions, being polite on the tour, etc. It was clear that they all really adored their teacher.

        2. Jesus was Jewish, yes, but there are several verses in the New Testament that have been used as the basis for anti-Semitism, historically in particular by the Catholic Church. See, e.g., John 8:44 (Jews are children of the devil); Matthew 27:25 (“May [Jesus’s] blood be upon us and our children” for choosing Jesus over Barabbas); 1st Thessalonians 2:15 (“the Jews… killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets…”). There’s also the implicit assertion that if Jesus is King of the Jews, Jewish people should recognize that and worship him too — which completely undermines Jewish faith and practice.

          I wouldn’t send a Jewish kid to Catholic school either.

          1. Thanks Comparative Religious studies. Anonymous at 3.31, this is really a giant cluster because in my experience, in catholic/christian educational studies, Jews are treated as a “historical” people. They don’t exist as a current group- Jewish characters in the new testament either 1. followed Jesus! (yay) or 2. scorned Jesus (boo!) . I don’t need my kid being identified as living version of evil characters from the Passion who scorned the crucified Jesus
            Additionally, the fact that Jesus declared himself the messiah, and his followers morphed Judaism into a totally new thing and Jews then and now disagreed with the whole, he-is-the-messiah thing. So no, I won’t send a kid to any kind of Catholic affiliated school, i have had enough painful conversations as an adult of people who just don’t get that Jesus is not a feature of Jewish practice.

      2. I will just ask this b/c I don’t know the answer. I am Episcopalian. We have the Book of Common Prayer. Is there no Catholic equivalent? My MIL has to send my husband a missal every year, which seems awfully wasteful, as I think they do the same 3-year liturgical cycles that we do? Or does this harken back to eras where peasants were illiterate, so why bothering developing something for them to read.

        1. I’ve been Episcopalian since college, and the few Catholic masses I’ve attended have been virtually identical to the Episcopal service. Plainer language, but the bowing and kneeling and crossing all happened at the same times in the service. The saints are the same up until the break in the 1500s, and most of the holy days (holidays) are the same. The music is different, and that’s about it.

          1. I grew up non-Catholic in a very Catholic place, and I was kind of tickled/charmed when I went to an Episcopal service as an adult and it seemed so Catholic (apart from the priests being married, gay, or both).

    9. Ordinarily I wouldn’t dream of sending my kid, who is the product of fertility treatments, to Catholic school. Right now, however, there is no school decision that doesn’t involve tradeoffs. If in-person schooling is what’s most important to you, and Catholic school offers the best chance of that, the tradeoff might be worth it.

      Socially, I don’t think starting K at Catholic school and transferring in to public school later would be as difficult as transferring from public school to Catholic school and back again. My daughter attended private K and transferred in to public school in first grade. It was a non-issue. The elementary school only allowed kids to interact within their own class, not with kids in other classes, and class rosters changed as they moved up grades, so half the kids in the first-grade class didn’t know each other anyway. Also, the normal social considerations don’t apply when it’s likely that the public school kids will spend very little time togther during the year.

    10. I went to an Episcopalian school (typically very, very good schools). While I was raised Episcopalian, most people at the school were not. Several families were some sort of Christian, but we had plenty of non religious schools, some Jews, some Muslims, etc. My mom still teaches there and says that there’s now a lot of Hindu families. The Episcopal church is very progressive, which I have always appreciated (even though I no longer practice)

      It varies school to school obviously. My school did chapel weekly in lower school, then every other day in middle / upper school. Chapel had readings, hymns, and prayers but I’d say half of the sermons were secular/half were religious. We had religion class weekly in lower school, one trimester a year in middle school, and two semesters of religion in all of upper school. Most of it was religion based but not strict. For example, my high school religion class focused on all 3 Abrahamic faiths, another class was ethics (we looked at both Christian and non Christian views). There was a lot of focus on secular / mostly secular character development.

      Overall I LOVED my experience at the school.

    11. I think it’s very dependent on the school. One of my closest friends, who grew up Catholic but is non-practicing now, looked at Catholic schools for her kids but found that the school nearest to her house was very strict/old school and had requirements of families that went there – like you could not teach your kids anything about birth control, homosexuality or abortion (or any number of other topics) at home that ran counter to the church’s teachings and it was “strongly encouraged” for families to attend Mass at least weekly, and apparently teachers would ask kids if they went to church on Sunday and if the kid said they didn’t, a letter would be sent home. It was wild. She noped out of that and the kids are doing fine in their neighborhood elementary school.

    12. My parents send us to Christian preschool because it was conveniently located to their jobs. My brother and I are atheists now. I wouldn’t send my kid to a religious school once they’re older than that.

    13. How would religion class work? Would your child be excused? I feel like religion is not exactly objective – like different religions have different views on things, right? So I feel like it might be hard for a non-believer or even a non-Catholic to give teachers the “right” answers and I can’t imagine being comfortable with my child being penalized grade-wise for questioning the church doctrine, even if grades don’t matter at that age.

      1. IIRC we just learned prayers so we could recite them from memory. We weren’t required to undergo anything like the Inquisition and profess belief with sincerity. Most kids in my class were Catholic, but even their Catholocisms were different b/c the parents and grandparents were from all over. We had some Eastern and Russian Orthodox students because their church didn’t have its own school (but no Greek Orthodox students — they went to public school but I don’t know if there was a specific reason for that). Irish kids, Polish kids, German kids, Puerto Rican kids, Philippine kids, etc. There was no getting into are we going to hell for eating pork (per the Old Testament) or why can we eat pork but our Jewish/Muslim friends can’t. I think though if you’ve been in one Catholic school, you’ve been in one Catholic school. Sometimes, the only common thing is the uniforms (which I loved).

    14. All of the responses so far have dealt with the issue as if it was a normal time, but obviously that’s not what you’re asking. You’re asking ‘is it worth it to send my kid to a Catholic school if the other option is likely homeschooling?’. I’m agnostic and don’t attend church and would never under normal circumstances send my kid to a religious school. Even under these very abnormal circumstances I would hesitate if my kid was at the ‘learning about evolutionary biology’ stage. But Kindergarten? I’d be signing up tomorrow. At that age, your child will learn far more from in-person instruction, not to mention the socialization that happens at school. But also one more point – I’d be very careful to ask what policies are in place to protect children from abuse.

    15. We considered Catholic elementary schools for our daughter (but we go to the Episcopal Church). In our area there were two Catholic schools. At one she would have been one of just a few kids who weren’t Catholic. Our daughter would have spent a significant amount of class time during her second grade year receiving the instruction needed for Catholic first communion. The school told us that the ceremony would take place during the school day and the non-Catholic girls would attend (without receiving communion) and would wear pastel dresses instead of the white dresses that the Catholic girls would wear. At the other school our daughter would have been the only non-Catholic in her class…and the only person whose family did not attend the parish. Neither option seemed right to us so we enrolled her in an Episcopal school. Most students there were not Episcopalian and daily chapel was way less about theology and much more about how to be a good neighbor, good friend, etc.
      Fast forward to middle school and high school and our daughter is now at a Catholic Benedictine school. Although the majority of families identify as being Catholic (not all seem to attend church), the school has a number of non-Catholics and is very welcoming.
      The question of whether a particular school will educate students on campus in the fall is a difficult one. A lot will depend on whether state officials and local health departments decide to allow schools to offer on campus instruction in light of the prevalence of the virus. If they are allowed to open, schools will have to address the challenge of social distancing. For some that will mean having roughly half the usual number of students in a classroom at any given time. Even if schools open at the beginning of the school year, there’s no assurance that they will remain open if a student or teacher comes down with the virus–or if the virus becomes quite prevalent in the community.
      If I were looking at schools I’d focus on how the schools have educated students the last few months. In my area many of the private schools closed slightly earlier than many of the public schools. The private schools (including my daughter’s school) quickly made a transition to synchronous education via Zoom. Most of the public schools sent home assignments (that were voluntary at some schools) but did not provide education via Zoom. I understand that their rationale was that some students did not have access to technology including wifi so it seemed inequitable to offer instruction that would be available to some students but not others. Many parents were frustrated by this situation because they wanted their students to receive more than semi-voluntary written assignments.

    16. I think it’s ok for little kids but I’d pull them out once they’re old enough for (even very basic) sex ed. I went to Catholic school from elementary through high school and hated it.

      1. Sex ed. Hoo boy. Even learning-your-body stuff was taught as part of the religion class rather than science or however it’s normally taught. In first grade, I got an F on a religion/sex ed test because I said life begins at birth not conception. I had no concept of abortion at that time, I just reasoned that your birthday = the day you’re born = how old you are, so we must count your life as beginning then. I got in a lot of trouble for asking – if life begins at conception then why don’t we celebrate conception days instead of birthdays? They start indoctrinating kids VERY early about this stuff so you have to stay on top of it.

      2. I was penalized academically for standing up for my beliefs. Religion class was a graded class that’s part of your GPA. So if you refuse to write down the “right” answer a la #1, that negatively affects your grade. Maybe not such a big deal in first grade, but it was super problematic in high school – where the administration (yes I had to get the administration involved many times) attempted to find a “fair compromise” by giving me a C instead of an F (like the teacher wanted) for refusing to say, i.e., a married woman in a concentration camp who has sex with a guard in exchange for her freedom is an adulteress. I had straight A+s in every other class but I didn’t have a perfect GPA because I refused to buy into rape culture, among other things. Also – if you fail a class you can’t progress to the next grade/graduate high school, so the religion teachers had a lot of power to compel compliance.

      3. I was also disciplined for standing up for my beliefs. The only time I ever got detention, sent to the principal’s office, or threatened with suspension, it was because I was standing up against something anti-woman, anti-gay, etc. It felt like a persecution – I know that’s a strong word but that’s how it felt as a child being told over and over by the people in charge of you that you’re bad and wrong over something that you know you’re right about. I’m a damn stubborn person, so I think it “just” gave me a bit of a victim complex vs. silenced me, but I saw a lot of other kids ground down by that treatment.

      4. All of this impacted my relationship with my (single) mom. I felt betrayed that she didn’t stand up for me, that I had to do it all myself. I wanted desperately to be out of that school but she was terrified of public school for reasons I’ll never understand.

      5. A lot of time is wasted on religious studies. There’s only so many hours in a day, so something has to go to make room for daily religion class and weekly mass. In my school, there was no foreign language class until high school, and even then, you only needed 2 years (but 4 years of religion).

      1. “Maybe not such a big deal in first grade, but it was super problematic in high school – where the administration (yes I had to get the administration involved many times) attempted to find a “fair compromise” by giving me a C instead of an F (like the teacher wanted) for refusing to say, i.e., a married woman in a concentration camp who has sex with a guard in exchange for her freedom is an adulteress.”

        Whoa. Like WHOA MAN. Go you for standing up and having the courage to give a different answer than what they wanted. I imagine that was really difficult, as a teenager, to be forced into that position. No way no how would I want my child to have to go through something like that once, much less be faced with the prospect that every day they got up and went to school something like that might happen.

        1. I agree. I would tough it out in almost any pubic school b/f going to any other school that pushed a religon I am not. Rosa agrees, and even though there are some great private schools around her, she sends her kids to Chapaqua’s public schools, even tho there is a pandemic up there.

    17. This would be the hardest of hard no for me. Absolutely not – even if the only public school had the worst reputation and was in a shack. As someone who went to a religious school, I would never send my child to one willingly. No matter how much you try to counteract it at home, they will be indoctrinated with whatever flavor of religion that schools subscribes to. Free thinking and exploring one’s own beliefs will be shot down in my experience. I personally went to a religious school with a family that didn’t “buy into” the whole belief system on the school. We were clearly outsiders.

    18. Can you visit the school and discuss your concerns? Times have changed in some areas. My children went to Catholic elementary and high schools in a liberal Northeast suburb. Never once had a nun teach any class. Never saw a nun. Elementary principal was known lesbian and girlfriend came to all the school shows etc… Big social justice emphasis. Help the poor, show compassion to immigrants, etc…. Catholic high school was known as one of the best in sports in our state so attracted kids of all faiths who excelled at a sports.100% went to college vs local high school where about half went to trade schools or no college. My kids did great. Today they are in college and are pro-choice feminist free-thinkers.

  4. Looking for advice on applying to jobs when you have more years of experience than the hiring manager. This scenario is happening in at least half the job postings I research. I still apply anyway if the job is a good match but I don’t say anything in my cover letter because I don’t want to presume it’s an issue…but isn’t it? If the roles were reversed, I’d prefer not to hire someone with more experience than I have. Would love your tips and strategies for overcoming this because my current employer is not doing well and I don’t know how much longer I’ll have a job! :(

      1. +1 I am younger and technically have more years of work experience than both my boss and my senior colleague in another region. It bothers none of us oustide of friendly teasing.

    2. Just go for it. A good manager wants someone with talents that s/he does not have and appreciates experience.

    3. I currently do hiring. I have a position I’ve been trying to fill since March that is on my mind in particular.

      I can say that it is a huge struggle right now to hire anyone interested in working.

      We get a lot of applications from people who clearly just apply to a certain number of jobs a week with no intention to work. I referred a job to a friend for his wife and she called basically to say she doesn’t want to work and not to tell her husband. So that was awkward.

      A lot of places will be super grateful for a competent person interested in working. I can assure you that I would be.

      1. Can you tell us more about this? I kind of assumed the person who doesn’t want to work is a myth. Are you basing this off of getting job applicants w/ irrelevant experience or do those with relevant experience dodge your phone calls (or something) too? What level of jobs (entry, professional, blue or white collar)?

        That’s kind of amazing. Wouldn’t people want a job if they can find one … because their prospects probably aren’t going to be great once unemployment runs out and they’ve been off the market for some time?

        1. When you’re drawing unemployment benefits you have to apply for a certain number of jobs per week. If the job she’s advertising is one that many people could qualify for, yes, people will apply who are not particularly interested in that specific job. Especially if the application process is a one-click through Indeed or Linked In, so no time is invested in preparing resume, cover letter, clicking through an application site, etc. If she wants fewer applications, make it a little more challenging to apply.

          I have been drawing unemployment, and definitely applied for jobs that I was qualified for but where I was not that interested for whatever reason (company has bad rep, far from my house, etc.) so that I could fulfill the requirements to get my unemployment money. I didn’t apply for jobs totally unrelated to my career field or experience, but I can see where some people are just desperate to get the applications in and be done with it.

        2. Sorry this is so late.

          Basically there are people who do not want to work but are under pressure to work. Think of a mom at home with her first kid. After a year and a half her husband and family and friends expect her to go back to work. But that’s hard for a lot of reasons. So maybe she’ll pretend to try but not be serious.

          Other examples are people collecting benefits or completing job search programs requiring them to apply for jobs.

          Sometimes people apply for jobs to leverage pay at their current job or to investigate who is hiring (if it isn’t stated) and what the salary is etc.

          I work with a college, university and private college to find staff and basically tell them send me a recent grad in this or that or someone with experience with this or that. And the recruiters have no one to send me. Basically people do not want to work or have no childcare and can’t work.

          Not great for them (they need to get people jobs) and not great for me (I need to fill jobs).

          1. Maybe the jobs would be a sweeter deal for employees if recruiters weren’t taking a cut. Are you paying a reasonable wage with reasonable expectations (work load, environment)?

          2. Not sure if the person who asked if I would take these jobs is going to see this.

            Basically I look for people with a particular education that a local
            college trains for. We have a good relationship where they send me people and I generally hire them and things work out.

            The school needs to show employment and I need jobs filled and usually the student went to school to work at this job so everyone wins.

            I believe these are good jobs. They are also the kinds of entry level work the students went to school to do. We have never had issues before hiring. Like normally I’d have multiple great candidates for every position.

        3. My company is in a state with some of the highest unemployment in the nation; we are an essential business. However, we cannot get people to work on our manufacturing line because the $600/week ‘bonus’ for unemployed people, on top of normal unemployment, is a much better deal than working. Even if you can match unemployment plus $600/week, most people would rather sit and home, not commute, not need to put their kids in daycare or camp, etc., for $1000 a week than work for $1000 a week.

          2. Had an entry level job (above minimum wage and full time) I referred to a friend for his kid. Would have been a dream summer job for me when I was 18. She did not apply. I contacted her before the closing deadline politely to remind her about the deadline and she just said “I know”.

            We hired someone else who seems happy as far as I know. Friend is mad at me for not hiring his kid. Kid is collecting the government money at home and is super happy with life.

            After that and the guy whose wife didn’t want a job I basically just post the jobs online and contact all the post secondary places I know and ask them to circulate.

            I realize it is not the same in any industry but what I feel and what a lot of career services people at colleges feel is that a lot of people do not want to work or have no child care.

          3. Anonymous at 3:06, I am a lawyer. But if I had a high school diploma, absolutely I would do it.

    4. I don’t think it matters but to make it work you will have to decide for yourself that it does not matter and conduct yourself that way. From your post, I have some concern that you might make this an issue once on the job and that is going to be a problem.

        1. Different anon here. I am a manager and hire people, and would be thrilled to have an employee who is smarter than me and a better expert in the field.

          OP says she would not hire someone with more experience than herself if the positions were reversed. To me that raises a big red flag about her understanding of how manager-managed relationships work today, about what makes a good manager (hint – long expert experience is not it) and as a corollary, potential issues from her own mindset and expectations, if placed on a team where her manager has less experience than her. Also, perhaps some potential insecurity in herself.

          OP, trust the people above when they say it’s not an issue in itself, and ask yourself are you willing to sincerely and wholeheartedly take direction from someone with less experience, and are you open to the idea that they can be a good manager and “deserve” to manage you. If yes, then go for it! If they are a good manager and you have a good attitude, then they will be delighted to have you.

  5. Somebody on the morning thread asked about Ruggables. I own one and would absolutely buy more.

    Here’s what they’re great for: If you have a house with kids, pets, or somebody with dust mite allergies, being able to wash your ‘rug’ in the washing machine is a GAME CHANGER. It’s true that it’s basically a big velcro pad that you put something about beach towel thickness on. I do have one which has a corner right where a door hits it and it pretty regularly flips up. It does ‘soften’ and pull together the space, dampen sound, and keeps the cold off your feet. TBH, I don’t really need rugs but my husband feels strongly that a room looks ‘undone’ without an area rug.

    What it’s not: a thick, luxurious rug. It’s not going to feel plush, it’s not going to be comfy to lounge on, it’s not going to be something you pass down for generations.

    In my house, washable is king. I have a nice wool flat weave rug from West Elm in the living room and… it needs to be professionally deep cleaned because between kids and dogs and friends who spill red wine it’s filthy, even with spot cleaning and regular vacuuming. We also have an area rug made of Flor carpet tiles in another kid’s room and those are cleanable but I defintely prefer the ruggable.

    1. +1 no kids but two dogs and a cat and being washable means it earns it’s keep over and over again.

    2. Same as Clementine. We use ours in the entryway. I love being able to really wash it instead of just vacuuming. I wouldn’t use one in a bedroom because the best feature – being washable – would be wasted there for us.

    3. I have two and the edges curl terribly on both of them….have you guys experienced this? Any suggestions?

  6. Thoughts on what to do this weekend?? I’ve been doing well with this way of living for a long time (4+ months) but now it’s to the point that weekends are miserable because I’m so bored. Looking to visit grandparents in 2 weekends so I’m not starting to lay low — doesn’t mean I can’t go out but I’m not looking to hit up a mall or anything (not that I would). What do I do that isn’t reading news article or news article?? Not a TV person. Will try to watch Babysitters Club but I can’t get into show after show on Netflix — like if it’s 30 min I can see watching 1.5 or 2 max and that’s it.

    3. I’m in the exact same boat – visiting relatives in a week or so and trying to be cautious. Plus for some reason my friend circle is really relaxing its risks this weekend (a few people who were really cautious up until a week ago are now planning large fourth of July gatherings). It was one thing when I just missed hanging out with people. It’s harder when I know they’re hanging out without me, but that I’m not willing to meet up in a group.

      I’m planning a big weekend of at-home exercise and lots of reading.

    4. Visit The Sun Magazine online for some nonfiction essays, short stories, or interviews. I think it’s a good way to get away from news articles but still browse/do reading in short bursts.

  7. Apropos of our daily squabbles about COVID precautions:

    “Have you ever noticed when you’re driving, everyone going slower than you is an idiot, and everyone going faster than you is a maniac?”

    – George Carlin

    3. ha, indeed! (cue squabble over whether the government-established speed limit is or is not appropriate for conditions and driving ability)

    4. It’s almost as though a pandemic response shouldn’t be left up to individual risk tolerance!

      1. Very true. And yet, due to incoherent guidance, it basically has been.

        I don’t even understand how to reconcile an order to stay at home with the fact that nonessential businesses are open. Who is supposed to be patronizing these businesses?

        1. Or how to reconcile stay at home orders with the fact that the federal courts still expect us to comply with civil case scheduling orders. Even my state court fall trials are still on calendar – which means that I need to be taking depositions – and some of them are not really appropriate for Zoom.

          So I am headed to a city that just closed its restaurants to sit in a conference room with five other people. Oh well – at least we will all be wearing masks.

          1. Oh, yes. I just had a federal trial set for August in a very small city with rising case numbers. My client will have to send a contingent of at least five employees from The Original Hotspot in NE to the SE. Hoping to settle but very angry this is leverage on the other side.

        2. I don’t understand your second paragraph. The US isn’t under stay at home orders anymore. When we were, non-essential businesses were closed.

          1. I don’t know what you mean about “the US.” These orders and rules have always been at the state level, and sometimes even varied by municipality or county.

          2. There’s no such thing as “the US” in this scenario (the scenario being the pandemic). There’s only state or local government and the messaging/restrictions vary wildly & can be contradictory.

          3. What jurisdiction in the US has a stay at home order still in effect? I realize the rules are localized, but I thought the last locations lifted their stay at home orders in June. Encouraging people to stay home as much as possible is very different than ordering people not to go out except for essential business.

          4. Well, “stay home as much as possible” or a modified stay-at-home order still really isn’t consistent with bars, spas and movie theaters being open.

          5. San Francisco is technically still under stay at home orders. Most things are still closed and many large employers are still all WFH

          6. +1 to the Original Scarlett.
            But it’s all so confusing. Like, we are going on vacation next week to the mountains (in a safe, socially distanced way!) which I don’t think is illegal to do, but I would have felt like it was at the end of March/early April. But I’m not sure the exact difference in the orders that make me feel that way.

  8. My employer isn’t giving off tomorrow, but they’re giving a floating holiday. I’m not crazy about this but c’est la vie.

    To be fair, I have to work Saturday (and now maybe Sunday) so it’s not like I could have done anything for the long weekend but still was looking forward to Friday off (they told us about this change last Thursday)

    1. Honestly, this is just me, but I am planning on working a normal day tomorrow. I can’t travel or do any of the fun 4th stuff I normally do. So it’s just a regular friday.

      1. Eh, I get it. An actual holiday = people aren’t looking for you and filling your inbox. OP, hopefully you get a quiet day even if you decide to use the floating holiday another time.

    3. It’s lame that they just implemented the floating holiday – not that you asked, but I’d save it. My company is off tomorrow but I’m a contractor so I’m not paid for the holiday and therefore will be working. TBH I plan to keep an eye on emails, but that’s it. I’m also on call Sat/Sun, so commiseration there. I’m trying to think of something fun to do that is kid-friendly, and doesn’t involve leaving the house. Sigh. Maybe a baking project?

  9. How do you deal with a spouse who is much closer to his birth-family than you think is appropriate?

    Being quarantined, I have come to the realization that my husband was in the habit of calling his sister every morning during his drive to work. He has kept that up, but now is calling her when he heads to his home office to start his day. Turns out that he calls his sister basically every morning to “check in” (and then has a longer video call on Sunday afternoons.) He usually talks to her 6 times a week. During normal times, he also takes our kids and drives up to visit her once a month. (I am invited but honestly find it a chore.)

    For some reason this is really bothering me. I have always known they are very close, but the set up of our home working arrangements means I can sometimes hear him. I cannot put my finger on anything he has said that is not appropriate, but I get the definite feeling that he relies on her for emotional support as much as he does me, if not more. On the other hand, how can I complain without sounding ridiculous. He is definitely pulling his weight with childcare (we switch at lunch) and the fact that he talks to his sister a lot does not really impact me.

    Is this something I address? If so, how? If not, how do I let it go? I feel stupid being jealous of his sister but as I type this I realize I definitely am.

    1. If it were brother instead of sister, would you feel the same way?

      My husband is very close with his brother and – while not as frequent as daily, several times a week – they catch up. I kind of love that he can use Brother for emotional support on some things because I couldn’t do it all myself – similar to how I use my mom or best friend to talk about things that husband wouldn’t “get.”

      I would however feel annoyed if husband shared major things with Brother before sharing them with me… like a promotion, layoff, material “life news” – as opposed to, for example, having a gushfest over the latest Star Wars installment.

    2. I think it’s not really your place to get involved unless he’s either a) expecting you to participate in visits or calls, b) sharing info you’re uncomfortable with (like intimate details about your marriage) or c) it’s so time-consuming it’s interfering with his responsibilities as a partner or father. It doesn’t sound like any of the above apply, so I would try to just let it go. I think it’s really nice that they’re so close and it will be wonderful for your kids to have a close relationship with their aunt (and cousins if that’s applicable). My parents and husband all have very distant relationships with their siblings and I’m a only child, and I do feel a bit of a loss not having any deep relationships with extended family.

    3. I get how it might make you twitch, but I feel like the only thing you can reasonably do is give him his privacy and not make it an issue. Maybe try harder to not be in earshot? Tell yourself it’s a price of admission and you’re lucky you only had to start paying it now?

    4. I used to talk with my brother on our respective drives home from work. Our “window,” we’d call it. We’d compare notes and vent about life and when we arrived at our respective homes, we were much nicer to our spouses because we already got most of the angst out. Now, because of lockdowns/WFH, we talk much, much less and I really miss it. So, I’m biased, I suppose, but I don’t think his contact with his bio family is inappropriate. If my husband asked me to cut back on my calls with my brother, I would take it as a sign that he was trying to control me and I would not like it. If I were you, I would chalk it up to just being “not normal times” right now. It may be helping to save his sanity. My two cents.

    5. This is entirely a you problem. You need to get therapy and deal with it. Without involving him.

    6. I don’t think you can even post this without sounding ridiculous, because you sound completely ridiculous to me. It’s great that he has a close relationship with his sister. If doesn’t mean he loves you less. It means he’s a loving person with lots of love to go around.

      You need to move on from this. No matter how you bring it up, you’re going to be the person in the wrong, because you are wrong. Your petty jealousy will destroy your marriage if you let it.

    7. I talk to my parents and sibling every day, so this doesn’t seem unusual to me. I’d see it as a positive.

    8. I talk to my cousins (two sisters who are like my sisters) every single day. We’re best friends and we share everything. I would be furious if my husband tried to stop that because of jealousy. A close friendship is an amazing thing, all the more so when it’s family, and as long as I don’t share truly private information, my husband has no reason to be upset besides jealousy, which is a him problem. It’s also a you problem for you.

    9. My sister is my best friend. We’re extremely close and we talk every day and usually text throughout the day. It has literally nothing to do with my husband. I would let this go. It has nothing to do with you.

      FWIW, I think our cultural notion that we should be absolutely everything for our spouses is unhealthy and detrimental to plenty of good relationships. This is especially the case for men. I listened to this really great Hidden Brain podcast about male friendships and how they are trained by our culture to only rely on their girlfriends or wives for emotional support and how devastating it is for men to lose their spouses because they are generally completely at a loss of how to function, whereas women, who are culturally “allowed” to have emotional relationships with their friends, have a much better support network when facing grief or loss.

    10. “I get the definite feeling that he relies on her for emotional support as much as he does me”
      I’m getting a sense that you feel your infringed upon your exclusive position as his spouse and#1 confidant, but there is a definite upside in him having another place to vent and get emotional support. It can take a weight off you. And since you have kids, you know all about having a deep bond with more than just a spouse, and that that kind of love isn’t a limited resource.

    11. Is it possible that part of what’s bothering you is that you’re wistful and feeling like you’d like these same kinds of conversations with your husband, and would like him to seek you out so he could share about his day and his life with you? Sometimes it’s possible for life to get so mundane that spouses start to interact more like roommates or task partners, and miss out on the friendship part of sharing life together. If this might be part of it, maybe you and he could find some new ways to connect or talk.

      2. OMG – I love this board. This is it; this is it exactly. As soon as I read this comment I realized that you hit the nail precisely on the head.

        I feel like lately all we talk about is logistics. Who is taking the kids; where and what are we going to do with them. Who is going to the store and what do we need. Because we cannot really go out, we basically never talk without the kids except right before bed. And trying to work full time from home while taking care of 2 kids and a dog has been a lot.

        Thank you so much. I could not figure out why this was bothering me so much (I mean I already knew he was really close to his sister and in “ordinary” times, I actually like their monthly weekend trips without me and appreciate the fact that my kids and their cousins and aunt get to hang out. (Although I feel like an idiot for not figuring it out on my own.)

    12. I totally get where you’re coming from. It has to do with how you view the role of a spouse.

      A couple of things. 1) Make time for each other. It would be a very big issue for me if my spouse was carving out time every day for a friend or family member but not investing the same time and energy into me/our marriage. The marriage comes first, IMO. 2) Stop excluding yourself from his relationship with his sister. It’s a lot easier to balance important people in your life when they like hanging out together. Otherwise you have to choose and someone feels left out, which is what you’re experiencing. FWIW, I have a dear friend who needs relationship advice on a very regular basis. If I’m hanging out with BF when she wants to talk (assuming we’re just at home and not on a date night) then she’s going on speaker phone and we can all talk. She’s happy to get a male opinion, BF is happy to be included, and I’m happy to be available for both of them. If either of them weren’t cool with this arrangement then I’d have to choose – do I refuse to be a sounding board for a friend in need or do I abandon BF in the middle of our evening together? I’m glad they don’t put me in that position.

  10. Maybe there are some math people here. I was really, really good at math growing up. And I loved it. I took and did well in math classes up to the what is now AB Calculus. My SAT math was always higher than my verbal skills. But I never took it beyond that am a bit annoyed that these days I’d have been nurtured to go a STEM path (instead of, yo, Philosophy Major, where symbolic logic was the mathiest thing I did in college). And yet a part of me knows that I was really good at up-to-college math and not the real Mathematics part of math (like whatever Danica McKellar did; I am more like OMG BFF with her books, which are on a decidedly lower plane). [Maybe it does not matter — I could go to my local State U to find out, but I am almost 50 and have no time for that.]

    BUT, I find myself often the only person in the room who can give a rousing defense of why math matters. 7th grade math is what I do, more or less, for a living. It keeps a roof over my kids’ heads. It lets me converse with my quant clients and shows them that I understand what they do. It lets me be a good technical writer (when needed), a good CLE/CPE instructor, and talk with various regulators. It probably helped me (along with The Westing Game) start investing as a kid (time value of $, FTW).

    Like even if I just mastered math with a lower case M, that has been such a gift. I don’t know what higher-level math really does (like I cannot say how it is practically applied the way I basically do a lot of solving for X on a spreadsheet, so I know with certainty that algebra matters; if you build houses, geometry matters). I get poo-pooed sometimes for “why should anyone care what you have to say re math (usually in a pre-college school context) when you never even took it in college much less have a minor or major or masters degree in it?” Maybe there is some there there. But maybe it doesn’t matter to the great majority of people — if you can just master high school math, you should be able to walk through any door you want starting with college. But every day I to a lot of Lesser Math and love it and love teaching it and if kids could even do that much, the could probably do anything. [Also, OMG sorry for the novel!!! I think that kids won’t get there on their own — you can read all of the books in the world, but I don’t think that most people can lead themselves very far in math compared to becoming a good cook from reading a cookbook; I think it is more like gymnastics where the right teacher can manage your learning in a way that keeps you from getting frustrated; perfect practice makes perfect and adopting bad habits doesn’t get undone easily.]

    1. I was a math major and now I’m an economist.

      “Math” is so much more than “good at beyond high school level math.” It’s about being able to understand numbers and reason in a clear logical way from some set of assumptions to a conclusion. There are plenty of folks who do this sort of thing without thinking of it as “math” and it sounds like you do think of it as “math” and I think that’s a more or less correct view.

      There’s also a thing where socially, it’s okay to pooh-pooh math as not useful or to announce that one is “not good” at math, while singing the praises of math or reasoning or being publicly confident about doing it are nerdy or weird or arrogant or whatever. It sounds like you’re running into that. The thing is though if a “math person” ever got up and said “You know, I’m just not much for reading books. I mean, is reading novels really a useful thing?” lots of folks would be comfortable categorizing that person as an uncultured out-of-touch misfit.

      There’a an idea now that I don’t think was prevalent in the 80s and 90s (or if it was no teacher told me about it) of teaching “numeracy” (vs. literacy) which sounds like what you might be getting at. Numeracy is an underrated skill.

      1. DH and I both work in STEM, so if anything, there is an underappreciation of stuff like English literature class. Looking back, I can see that the endless analysis of Shakespeare texts and learning about the tools of writers are relevant (I do math, but I also write tons of emails and have to lay out my arguments to persuade people to let me do stuff). It’s also a matter of general broad education to notice when you are being manipulated by a political speech, an ad or opinion piece. I don’t think any of my teachers drew that connection from the lesson to real life.

        1. I meant, if anything, there is that underappreciation of humanities subjects _in our social circle_. In general, I agree that it’s ‘cool’ to hate on school and math in particular. I don’t really know how to turn that around and make people see that education is powerful.

      2. I was a math major as well, high five. Now in finance. Agree it’s not the exact equations one uses but just a mindset that is helpful.

    2. I love that you love math! No shame at all. I also think math is used more often than we think it is (meaning, people are making daily decisions based on basic math without realizing they’re doing math). I’ve made it my life’s passion to convince people, especially women, that they actually are good with math.

      High five from an actuary!

    3. Me too! I really regret not majoring in a math or math-related field in college. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I avoided taking math and similar classes in college partially because of gendered expectations from my parents, specifically my mother. I had a perfect score on the math section of my SAT test, and also excelled in entry level calculus classes. I was even recruited to join a math competition to represent my school when I was in middle school. The same goes for physics. But for some reason, my mother always said I was slow and bad at math. It’s like none of my test scores mattered to her. She would repeatedly tell me and all of our families about this story when I was a baby toddler, and how I would always skip over number 4 when she was trying to teach me to count the stairs from 1 to 10. This is also extra weird because my mother was an engineer and good at math herself. But she was very bad at physics, and seemed to constantly expect me to fail at physics, again, no matter how many test scores I bring home.

      I wish I was more conscious of these gendered stereotypes and their negative effects on women before I decided to major in the liberal arts.

  11. What are some home improvements/things you’ve bought that have made you happy lately during COVID-19 distancing?

    I’ve built two garden beds after delaying for years, made a tiny WFH space behind my bed with an IKEA Hemnes desk, bought an East-set pool for the kids and planning on an above ground pool for next summer and have generally purged my house of lots of belongings. Have also drastically reduced online shopping, which is helping reduce clutter and wasted time.

    1. (1) Shelving units for the garage that I’ve been meaning to get for years! Plus some new plastic storage bins to put on the shelves. Followed by organizing lots of the stuff in the garage. We now have a stack of boxes ready to donate once the Salvation Army reopens here. There’s more to do but the reorganized garage makes me happy and I wish I’d gotten the shelves years ago. (2) We also added some pieces of patio furniture since we’re spending more hours in our yard than ever before. The yard now feels much more like another usable room. I realize we’re very lucky to have outdoor space during all this.

  12. Somehow Netflix only carried the first 5 seasons of Schitt’s Creek (and there were 6). I have Questions:

    1. Johnny Rose said that he bought the town for David’s birthday. But what do they own? No car (at first). Not the hotel. Not Roland/Jocelyn’s house.
    2. How can I be more like Alexis (cheerfully clueless in the face of disaster; troubled by nothing)?
    3. How can I dress more like Moira (clothes, not the wigs) and less like Jocelyn (but on Jocelyn’s budget)? I feel that I am well past the Alexis stage of my life. Otherwise, I love her clothes, too. And David’s. And Johnny Rose’s perpetual suits.
    4. When will Netflix get Season 6? I need to see Season 6!
    5. With all of this corona still going around, and the earlier posts this week about getting a family compound somewhere, the Rose-Nef Motel is looking pretty good actually. Please tell me it is real and not just a set on someone’s back lot.

    2. You can get season 6 by paying for it on amazon prime. It was totally worth it for me, and I especially love the post-production mini documentary it includes.

      To dress like Moira Rose, limit your wardrobe to black and white and silver and occasionally gold, wear mostly skirts and dresses, never worry about being overdressed for any occasion!!! In the documentary they talk about her wardrobe – believe it or not, it is all designer, carefully curated from online consignment from only the years before Moira and Johnny lost their fortune. Dan Levy hunted down much of the wardrobe himself between seasons! They had a very small budget.

      I, too, love her look and style, even though it’s a bit much for every day!

      1. It’s free with commercials now on Prime’s IMDB channel! This is a big part of my weekend plans.

  13. Who has figured out not being a workaholic? I am spending the entire weekend working instead of being with my family because I overcommitted at work, I want to stop but it is just hard.

    1. I am not a workaholic, but my dad was. There were real impacts to our relationship growing up. He was a great man, but we didn’t get access to him as a father growing up. I know it is something he regretted, and it definitely negatively impacted my childhood. We got closer over the last 15 years but he died suddenly last September and it’s been hard not having the time I thought we would have to grow even closer and get to access the wisdom and sweetness he brought to life. I know he had wonderful relationships with his work colleagues and associates, and sometimes it is tough to think that they knew him more than I got to, and spent much more time with him than i did. I don’t dwell on it much, but it is a fact of life for me, and it can break my heart if i let it.

      Here are my suggestions. Say no to projects you can’t handle in 5 days work/week (or whatever is reasonable for your job). Delegate. Put the phone away during established family times. Establish family times, and keep that time sacred. Make plans with your family ahead of time, then don’t back out of them when something comes up. Make the time to call your family members and chat for 10 – 15 minutes at least a few days a week. Start small, carving out these times and building the connections.

      If you need inspiration in the moment, imagine in 5 or 10 years from now whether you would regret spending time on xyz project in lieu of having abc experience with family. Especially since there are no guarantees in life.

      Sorry to be maudlin.

      1. thanks from the other side for your perspective. great suggestions. The key is prioritizing. Put yourself first. What matters to you most? Your health? Your family? Your friends? What is the worst that will happen if the work doesn’t get done? The work can wait. There will always be more work to be done. Has anyone ever wished they could have worked just one more day on their deathbed? life is too short to spend it all working. besides, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

        1. +1. You could ask yourself what’s the most exciting thing you did in the last year. If the best you can come up with is a funny incident that happened at the office, imagine how that will feel 30 years from now when it’s more of the same.

          1. This is kind of what got to me. I was single and thinking about what would happen if 3 more years passed and I continued to barely date, but instead could pat myself on the back for billing a lot and being well liked at work. It struck a visceral sense of dread into my body. Like I could feel it in my stomach, chest, heart, throat.

            I started dating someone a few months before Covid. My managers basically dropped off the face of the earth, and we generally have a very friendly, social culture. You know who was here for me, emotionally during quarantine? Who showed up for me and cared about me? The guy I’d been dating for 2 (now 6) months. Not the people I’d been working for for 5 years who blew smoke up my *ss about how great I am, how much I bill, how valuable I am, blah blah. (Which is appropriate– work is not your boyfriend.)

    2. I have never figured out how to stop. My last new year’s resolution was to go in to the office later. By the end of the first week, I was back at my desk at 6am. If I ever figure out how to find balance, I’ll let you know!

    3. You need intense hobbies! If you’re kayaking all weekend or halfway up a mountain on Saturday evening, you’re not going to be checking your email and you’ll get your work done on Friday before you leave because you don’t want to be that person who misses a grand adventure to stay home, do six hours of work, and spend the rest of the time on Netflix. Don’t be like my boss who said “is it sad that the office is my happy place?” Yes, yes it is.

      1. Honestly, I think this is the only way. I just ruined my day off (I’m in Canada, so we had July off) because I was peacefully having brunch and then I got an email from a client and then I spent the next five hours working on his file. Realistically, it could have waited until Thursday, but such is life. I really wish I was a hiker just so I could say sorry, I’m on a mountaintop with no reception. Maybe I should take it up!

          1. If I didn’t know better I would completely believe Canadians had July off! Y’all have things that are apparently impossible down south, like paid parental leave.

    4. Shut off your laptop and lock it in another room.

      Are you working so much to avoid other aspects of life? Is there some psychological aspect that you’re the only one that can do this work? I guess some kind of savior complex.

      You’re giving your life to this company, but that doesn’t mean you’re indispensable. If they want to, they will let you go without a second thought.

    5. It’s harder in the U.S. because so much of our “safety net” (health insurance, living wage), along with an outside marker of success comes from work so it starts to feel like if you are personally invested and work the most hours, the company will protect you and love you. But it won’t. If it helps their bottom line, they will lay you off tomorrow. It’s not personal, it’s business. I don’t know your family, but I’m guessing they’re not going to just kick you out if they have a bad year. Yes, work hard when you’re there, but beyond that take time for yourself. Just like being laid off is not a judgment of you as a worthy human being, working a lot and getting promotions is also not the only marker of your worth. It is just one part of you.

    6. We recently moved back to my home region after years of my husband saying he never wanted to move here. When I asked why he’d changed his mind, he said “I’d do anything to get the you I married back”. It really made me think, and the more I thought the more I realized that I’d prioritized my work over my family. So now at the end of the day I close my computer and don’t go back. If I have to work on the weekend (I work in drug/vaccine manufacturing, right now I truly do have to occasionally work weekends), I plan how to make up for it during the week, and then follow through. I’ve only been in this job since January, but I’m getting a lot of responsibility thrown my way and a lot of accolades, and I’m working at what feels like 50 %. But! It is hard, and I have to ask myself every day if I’m living my life the way I want to. And I fight the tendency to take on more work at least weekly (it was worse earlier). So it is a work in progress. But I’m grateful that I got the chance. I’m feeling more like myself again now that I have time for more than just work. My kids are old enough to take hiking and camping and paddling, and I’m learning how to blend hobbies and family time – it works a lot better than blending work and life, at least for me. But the biggest thing was probably getting the chance to reset with a move. A new home, new community, and new job meant I could re-create my life. It would have been a lot harder if I had stayed in the same place or job.

    7. Me, the hard way. Worked my butt off at a job with a very large, very prestigious company. Turned around a department that was, historically, a disaster. Single-handedly turned a 100 person, 4 month annual project in a 3 person, one week task, with corresponding 7 figure improvement to the profit margin. Got sexually harassed off the job; HR did nothing; complaints corroborated by multiple people; ended up leaving and suing.

      Since then, I do B+ work at my jobs because corporate America only ever really gives you a B+ reward and certainly won’t have your back.

  14. What home improvements/purchases/projects have you done during quarantine? I’ve built two garden beds, assembled an IKEA Hemnes desk to create a small WFH space in my bedroom, bought a camper and am installing an above-ground pool. Next step is sorting through all belongings and hopefully donating a ton to clear out space!

    1. I painted my exterior doors and garage door an “accent color.” I feel like my house looks more personalized now. It was a time investment but not terribly difficult.

      I put much of my work wardrobe in storage–anything that isn’t easy to machine wash. I don’t know how much of it I’ll ever want to wear again, but I needed to put off those decisions and just make some space.

      I’m upgrading my sheets and donating the older ones in marked sets. Being comfortable in bed is very appealing lately.

      1. Ooh-fun. What color is your house/the accent color? I’d like to eventually re-side my house to be a bluish-gray color and wonder what accent color would go best.

        1. My house is light gray with black shutters. The siding has a blue undertone, so similar to the color you’re considering. The options were endless, really. Probably almost anything would have looked good because the house is so neutral. If I’d wanted to go with a warm color I would likely have done a coral or terra cotta. I decided on a cobalt blue because it was a theme in my childhood home, and also because I thought it wouldn’t show dirt much.

          I recommend looking at all the paint swatches and seeing what speaks to you! You can also bring a sample of your house color (or future house color) to hold up with accent candidates to see how they look together.

    2. My vegetable garden this year is amazing, and I’ve planted so many things, mostly from seed, that I am now also growing things in giant pots. My front garden (small patches of lawn surrounded by deep flowerbeds) is thoroughly weeded and halfway mulched. The store that sells the mulch I’m using ran out of it!

      All my drip watering has been redone.

      I have a flourishing sourdough starter and am making two loaves every other day.

      I’ve made a bunch of plum jam. Like, too much.

      I’ve made limoncello.

      I’m basically Martha. Who knew?

      1. That all sounds SO delicious-especially the plum jam. I want to figure out how to turn my front lawn (don’t use it and don’t allow my kids to play there because too close to the road) into a pollinator/butterfly attracting space rather than grass.

        1. Ooh that’s a great protect. Have you heard of cardboard mulching? You put down all those cardboard boxes, deconstructed, that you get from amazon or wherever, and then you pile compost and mulch on top of it. I think it’s also called the lasagna method. It will kill the grass and provide a fertile spot for you to plant alternative things. For large plants you cut a hole in the cardboard. For smaller things, especially those you start from seed, you can just sow them in the compost layer if it’s deep enough.

          I am planning to someday (someday!) do this with the remaining lawn in my garden. I have volunteer scabiosas that have made themselves at home in my garden amongst the rose bushes and they are positively covered with bees all day long. I will be sowing some milkweed seeds alongside this fall, for the monarch butterflies.

          Many people in my neighborhood have torn out the standard front lawns in favor of flower/pollinator gardens and it’s beautiful. Go for it!!

    3. My husband is doing a woodworking project he’s been talking about since I met him six years ago! He’s making sliding shoji screens for the bedroom that will cover the big TV when it’s not in use and frame a big landscape painting to make it look like a window. Big fun!

      We also got a new outdoor sofa so if we can ever have people over again we can entertain more comfortably outside.

      Oh, and a new mattress which is divine!

      1. That sounds lovely! My spouse insisted on a large tv which I refused to put in the living room so it takes up half of our bedroom!! I usually drape a cloth over it, but a screen sounds so gorgeous.

  15. I have just started using the new MS Edge browser that was downloaded on my computer, and in the past couple of days when I searched for things…Like yesterday, I searched for “causes of lower than normal temperature” because my mom had hers taken at work and it was apparently 95.something, and I got the number for an anxiety hotline and a whole bunch of large photos of books on anxiety…Then, today I just watched one of my guilty pleasure YT skincare gurus who said she had recently gotten a divorce and I searched her name and “husband”…I know, creepy (but some of you know you’ve done it)…and I got the same thing! It’s like the internet is now telling me not to be a hypochondriac and not to search for pics of YTers husbands and I really don’t like it telling me what to do.

    2. I don’t quite understand what’s going on with your browser (and I would never use a MS browser out of principle), but I just want to say don’t worry too much about the temperature if your mom feels otherwise normal. They probably used the contactless infrared thermometers at work, which aren’t precise at all. It’s also known that the ‘normal’ body temperature is only a rough guide and that typically, the body temperature changes with age, gender (+for women with their cycle), activity level and so on. But the way of taking the temperature has the biggest influence.

      2. Agree on the infrared thing. I have taken my temperature nearly every day since March, so I have a fairly good sense of my baseline (high 98-mid-99). I got my temp taken at the PToffice with an infrared forehead thermometer the other day and saw what they wrote down—it was like 95 or 96 something! And they had written it on the list of all the patients coming in that day and almost everyone had super low temps like that except one person who had in the 98 range—makes me nervous that if it’s really 2-3 degrees off, that that person might actually have been over 100 and could potentially have been sick… I know temperature checks are not a sure-fire way of catching all people with COVID, but it’s definitely one symptom to look out for so now I have lost the illusion that any of these stores or medical offices etc are actually doing anything productive to screen people…

        1. Back to this…Yes, quite alarming, and yet ANOTHER piece of the COVID reopening plan puzzle that is nonsensical/poorly thought out/potentially very dangerous…

    3. Why are you using that? I’m probably behind the times, but I use Firefox browser (with an Adblock add-on) plus DuckDuckGo search engine.

    4. I think it’s because you’re using Bing and it has nothing to do with your browser. If I search for ’causes of lower than normal temperature’ on bing I also get the anxiety number.

    5. That’s odd. I honestly never use Bing, and I know using an MS product for a browser is not something many seem to do these days. I really like this new “Collections” capability in MS Edge, though. I’ve wanted something like this for a long time.

  16. Does anyone have linen overalls? Someone on Twitter mentioned they got some and love them because they’re like house pajamas, and now I can’t stop thinking about them. Can’t find any that look right for a 46-year-old size 16 lady though.

    1. Try Eileen Fisher and similar. Also include “jumpsuit” as a search term, since I’m seeing some that definitely look like overalls but are called jumpsuits instead.

    2. I have a pair from Uniqlo in a linen blend, it’s sort of a culotte sleeveless overall jumpsuit?
      It’s super comfortable.

  17. The now-infamous Naples Couple checking in. Happy to report very compliant fellow travelers and very respectful people in Naples so far. 95% of Publix shoppers were masked and the 2 men that did not have one were keeping their distance from people.

    1. Glad it’s okay. Full flight? Is there a beach and is it crowded or are you staying in?

      1. Flew JetBlue, which still isn’t filling the middle seats. Plane at 50% capacity and strict announcements and monitoring of mask wearing.

        Beaches are closed 11-5 for the weekend, so we’ve been taking walks morning and late afternoon. No masks on the beaches but honestly I don’t see why they would be needed when everyone is spread a good 15+ feet apart outside – we don’t wear them at home in that situation either.

        Otherwise, doing takeout and hanging by our home’s private pool.

        Basically, while cases may be surging in Florida, it’s not the fault of anyone we’ve seen so far!

        1. To be fair, it’s highly contagious & not necessarily someone’s “fault” if they get sick. It would be a dream if we could just choose not to get sick or be good enough not to get sick. & you yourself chose to travel, so why be so unkind towards the ill?

          1. …because on the last thread and several others, people were basically writing off Floridians in general because of refusal to wear masks, crowded bars, poor government, ‘but muh freedoms’ attitude, and the like. In other words, blaming them for their own spread. Not trying to imply that everyone who catches it ‘deserves’ it by any means, just providing an update in that context.

            Thought it would be helpful to share that many people are behaving just as they are at home for me (Philly) if others are debating whether they too want to take an educated risk on traveling. Is it as safe as staying home and never opening the door? No, but we have been distancing ourselves so doubt we are a risk to others, and have been glad to see others (along with us) protecting everyone responsibly both in transit, at grocery stores, and at beach. And we feel a h3ll of a lot better for the chance to be alone in our own pool!

          2. What do you think accounts for the infection rate difference if you think people are behaving the same in these different areas?

  18. I’m being treated with Doxy for Lyme right now, and admittedly, I have been missing doses over this third week. Yesterday, I started feeling a little off, and today I woke up with a sore neck, muffled hearing in one ear, and a green/puss covered tonsil. Many urgent cares are already closed..esp the ones in better neighborhoods. Do you think I could wait until tomorrow morn to get this checked out? Esp since I am still on Doxy?

    1. Can you call a nurse hotline thing (good chance your health insurance has one) to ask if it’s something they think is serious?

  19. Is anyone else sort of relieved to have an excuse (Covid) to not be social this Fourth of July? I have social anxiety and never had a lot of friends so July 4th was always that social holiday to remind me of both of those things. This year, I’m staying in guilt free.

  20. This COVID season is taking a toll on my family and especially my marriage. We’re fighting A LOT these days about politics, socioeconomic issues. Before COVID and BLM, we rarely talked about these topics and almost never argued about anything, and if we did, it would blow over quickly. Now we fight regularly. It’s some combo of husband and teenager. Or husband and me. Husband has always had conservative views in a progressive area and that’s ok. But I find myself lately hearing the things coming from his mouth (to me and others) and feeling like he’s an alien. Husband is a loving person but out of sorts these days. I’m sure I (and teens) are not our ordinary selves these days given what is going on. I think husband feels lonely — on an ideological island. I’m at a loss.
    What can I do?

      1. For example, strong views on police defunding. I have concerns and hesitations about that too. But it’s the way he says it — as if his thinking is the right thinking and everyone else is stupid. So he complains about feeling like he can’t speak in his own home but I am feeling the same way!

        1. Perhaps declare some subjects off-limits after 10 pm or on weekends for example so you can all unwind/relax in your home.

          Also try to reduce venting and encourage conversation — if someone doesn’t want to actually discuss a topic, maybe it doesn’t need to be said/isn’t fair to burden others with angry rants/venting.

        2. Sounds like you could give that feedback. It’s a meta-conversation: talking about how you talk. But you’d want to do it at a low-pressure moment when you weren’t already disagreeing.

    2. I feel you. Am going through similar. It’s challenging.
      What I’ve been doing is starting what I do believe up front,i.e. people are equal, no one deserves to die or be mistreated based on skin color, this is an intense time. Then I go into the bits I disagree with or find problematic.
      I’ll ask my husband to do the same. This helps me because it gives context to what he says after that. I know what he does stand for, so I can better hear his thoughts.

    3. Yeah, it’s happening with me and my folks, too. Everyone is more and more political, more polarized…

      What sort of background does your husband have that he holds these views? Those who weren’t born into wealth and/or worked very hard, maybe those who were judged for having a family with a rusty car or for living in a certain lower middle class neighborhood…are less likely to be sympathetic to progressive causes. Progressive causes tend to be taken up more by people who either always had some sort of privilege and grow up to feel guilty/realize they are not really smarter than those with no privilege, or by people who grew up in more primitive/racially and culturally non-diverse areas and feel embarrassed. My views sort of lie in the middle…I don’t want to associate with either side. I don’t know why I said all of that, but I did.

    4. I think this is a really difficult time and that it’s really important to actually listen and discuss the issues and not adopt a knee-jerk response if his views don’t align with current progressive dogma. E.g., Biden does not support defunding the police, he supports civil rights enforcement actions to get bad departments under control. And use of force legislation so there are consistent standards across the country. There are different ways to tackle the same problem.

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