Coffee Break: Toni Pointed Toe Bootie

104 Comments

1. Iceland recs? We’re going in July and will be doing a day in Reykjavik (with a short puffin cruise), a day on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula, a day driving the Golden Circle, a day at Jokulsarlon (with guided kayaking), a day at Skaftafell National Park (hiking, including a guided glacier hike), a day driving the south coast waterfalls and a day at the Blue Lagoon before our late flight home. I have hotels for every night but would love suggestions for specific sights in these general areas, or anything we should detour for.

   1. There’s been heaps of recs here before, have a look in the archives.

      1. I used the archives to build our itinerary but am hoping to get some more tailored advice now that I’ve planned out our general route.

   2. If you are going to Skogafoss (right off the main ring road) I can’t recommend enough that you climb the stairs and hike up the trail a ways. I hiked this trail as part of a multi day backpacking trip and it was so beautiful for the last few miles. If you like hiking and are up for a day hike you can go up to the hut. This route is part of the Fimmvoduhals Trail – so if you love hiking I’d highly recommend this as a challenging day hike. But even going for a mile or two from the Skogafoss parking lot is amazing. And you can go late in the evening and the light will be beautiful. Also fwiw, I took my kids on a puffin cruise and it was fun but they puked constantly. Lots of bobbing in a small boat.

   3. I liked both Skógafoss and Seljalandsfoss falls. Personally I’d skip the plane wreck (Solheimasandur) next time. For me, Dyrhólaey was gorgeous and a must-do as well as well as Reynisdrangar’s columnar basalt. We had lunch at the black beach restaurant (near Vik?) which was great. If you go all the way out to Hofn, we had a great meal at Pakkhus restaurant (the icelandic lobster was amazing).

   4. There is a wonderful lagoon in Reykjavik called Sky Lagoon. It is much nicer than the Blue Lagoon, and more expensive. It is on the ocean, has a walk up bar, offers scrubs and showers and saunas–worth buying the multi step spa package. It is just great!

   5. Highly recommend including a trip to the Westman Islands on your south coast waterfall day. It is a ~35 min. ferry ride from the coast to Heimaey, the main island. The approach is stunning (think 1000-foot cliffs with lots of birdlife, including puffins). Heimaey is the site of a historic volcanic eruption 50 years ago this week and a dramatic evacuation, all of which is detailed in an excellent museum – the Eldheimar Museum. The island is walkable, so you can leave your car in the ferry terminal parking lot if you’d like.

   6. Reykjadalur hot spring hike is great.

      It’s a lovely nature hike through a dale with lovely views, with an outdoor hot spring river at the end. Don’t dip in before you get to the sign posted river bathing spot, or you’ll boil. Literally boil.

      1. +1 loved this hike and I did it in the cold and rain and fog.

2. Can anyone share a rec for a tax preparer in TN (I live in Nashville)? I moved from NY in 2022, and I usually use TurboTax, but with all the one-off details in my 2022 taxes, the appropriate TurboTax package is so expensive. It’s making me consider working with an actual person to make sure everything is done correctly. Thanks!

   1. I use TL;DR accounting based on a recommendation here, and I’m very pleased with them. It’s all online. I’m going into my third return with them and would never use turbo tax again.

      https://www.tldraccounting.com/

3. What does everyone eat for breakfast, and how/when? have never been much of a breakfast eater but I am suddenly starving at lunch time now that I am working out more. I am terrible at planning and have back to back meetings most mornings so it’s challenging to figure out what to do! My almond milk latte is not doing it anymore..

   1. Fat and fiber go a long way to helping me feel full. Avocado toast made with whole-wheat bread and an egg on top, oatmeal with berries and nut butter, a breakfast burrito with cheese, bell peppers and salsa are my go-tos. Sometimes I’ll do whole-wheat toast with a ton of butter, but I know that’s not the healthiest choice. I think someone in a recent thread recommended full-fat Greek yogurt.

   2. Do you have other nutritional goals, like protein? Start the day with those.

      I’m never terribly hungry first thing in the morning so I have a scoop of collagen with my coffee, and just started having a Fairlife shake, which is nice.

      When I first started working I’d have 2 hardboiled eggs and 4 Triscuits. Don’t know why…

   3. Omelette and a mid morning banana.

   4. I usually eat around 9:30 or 10 at my desk. I usually do chia pudding or quiche for a substantial breakfast and then eat lunch around 1.

      If I workout in the morning, I have something small before my workout. Usually coffee and an applesauce pouch or a banana.

   5. When I work out in the morning, I immediately make a smoothie. If I am still hungry after that, but before lunch, which is maybe 1/3 of the time and probably due to a low-calorie day the day before, I eat egg, Greek yogurt, oatmeal, or apple with peanut butter.

   6. I never really want to eat in the morning, so I basically naturally do intermittent fasting. I normally eat my first meal of the day between 12 and 2 pm. It can be anything from dinner leftovers to one of those Amy’s Kitchen frozen bowls to scrambled eggs to muffins. Lately I’ve been having lots of boring calls that I don’t really need to participate in and making pancakes during them.

   7. Oatmeal with fruit, whole wheat toast with peanut butter and apple slices, avocado toast, whole wheat toast with pesto and veggies, chia pudding with fruit, whole grain waffles or pancakes with fruit and yogurt, cereal, superhero muffins, homemade bars with dried fruit, nuts, and seeds. I like to mix it up, but aim for some fruits or veggies and a decent amount of fiber and fat.

   8. I’m not a big breakfast eater and usually just bring a greek yogurt to work, and eat it around 9:30.

   9. Overnight oats, made in bulk and saved in individual servings, might solve this problem for you.

      1. +1 overnight oats are my go to because they are so easy and quick. I take them to work and eat them at my desk.

   10. Two pieces of toast on TJ’s sourdough bread (which is 7g protein for each small slice!) and a protein powder/milk shake. Oranges on the side or later in the morning.

   11. Plain Greek yogurt with berries and banana

   12. Gluten-free whole-grain toast with grassfed butter and a little drizzle of local honey, and a string cheese on the side.

   13. Oatmeal with nuts, honey, and a little greek yogurt or a savory version (several varieties of this one)

   14. Eggs are my go-to, especially when working out. I usually WFH & have a quick scramble each morning during a window between meetings, either with salsa on top or whatever veggies I have in the fridge. But when I’m at the office I make hard-boiled eggs the night before (or a big batch if it’s a busy week) and bring an egg or two and a piece of fruit to work for a mid-morning snack.

4. Three years ago I met and married my husband after a whirlwind (six month) courtship. We are both attorneys in the same general practice area but at different law firms. When we started dating, he had just ended a long-term (10 year) relationship with another attorney in our community for reasons too complicated to explain here but had nothing to do with me (at that point we had met at events but had probably exchanged 10 words in our lives).

   I recently learned through two separate people that she is running around our relatively small legal community saying all kinds of nasty things that are objectively untrue (mostly that our relationship started before they broke up; that he married me because I lied about being pregnant), as well as just generally being insulting. (My favorite is referring to me as his “child bride” – I am a grand total of 9 years younger than he is.)

   I honestly do not know what triggered any of this except that she perhaps learned that I am expecting our first child. So far all I have said is that my husband and I hardly knew each other while he was dating her and I have no idea why she would say something like that. But I am not sure what else, if anything, I should be doing or saying. We are in a pretty conservative community and I am concerned about the hit to my reputation, not to mention just finding this incredibly upsetting. Any advice would be appreciated!

   1. In situations like this, I always see the advice to take the high road, and only respond in any way if people directly ask you questions. (Even then, take a totally calm tone and reply with facts only, such as “I didn’t really know Husband while they were together.”) Trying to put out a counter-narrative is just going to give it oxygen and could easily backfire. She’s making herself look bad here, and in any community, conservative or not, it will reflect on her rather than you. “Don’t get in the mud with the pig” or whatever that phrase is.

      1. Agree. There is no upside to engaging here. And although it seems the “child bride” thing is really getting under your skin, it’s actually objectively laughable so just let it go.

      2. +1

      3. “Never wrestle with a pig; you just get dirty, and the pig likes it.”

         My dad’s favorite phrase of all time. And sound advice, in this and many other cases.

   2. Oh man. I actually am in a quite similar situation, although in my case I worked at the same law firm as my husband prior to his divorce, so did know him. My husband’s ex-wife has absolutely told everyone under the sun that I broke up their marriage, notwithstanding that they litigated their extremely nasty divorce for literal years before we even started dating. And she’s thrown similarly weird age-related comments around, apparently, which is funny given that I’m not particularly young (I was 40 and he was 48 when we starting dating).

      I totally understand that it is upsetting, but what I can tell you is the effect of this has ended up being that she’s now known in our legal and social community as the woman who cannot stop complaining to everyone about her divorce. Like, people I barely know who have heard this story from her have approached me in social settings to be like, “wow it must be hard that to be married to someone whose ex-wife is absolutely obsessed with badmouthing her ex.” It doesn’t make you look bad, it makes her look bad. And the crazier the stories get, the worse she looks.

   3. Keep it factual. “We met in June of 2019. She is not privy to the details of our courtship and she should not be pretending to have some inside juicy info.”

      Obviously she’s attacking you because after ten years, no ring, no giant fancy wedding and her name on the society pages, no baby. (This is not a statement that all or most women want these things! Just obvious she does.) She wants you to be as unhappy as she is.

      1. Don’t even say this. It’s so weirdly formal and aggressive.

         1. It’s not “weirdly formal and aggressive,” being neither weirdly formal nor aggressive.

            1. Privy to the details our courtship? This sounds like the Duggars. I agree with the advice above, keep it breezy and move the convo along.

            2. Then change to “dating” or “marriage” or whatever. The point, which you all missed, is to convey that your husband isn’t confiding in this woman.

               Look, a lot of women in my family play at “brokers of secret knowledge.” The only way to shut it down (and I have seen other people do this) is a very plain statement that the broker of knowledge is not privy to the details they claim to be privy to. It not only shuts down the issue at hand (“Susan said that your children are cut out of your will,” “Susan is not and never will be part of our estate planning discussions”), it shuts it down for future nonsense. You figure out pretty quickly that Susan is making stuff up and is not a repository of confidences and secret info.

         2. I mean, Edith Wharton doesn’t think it’s weirdly formal or aggressive. The rest of us over here in 2023 kind of think so, shrug emoji

   4. She’s clearly being unprofessional. I don’t think anyone would directly ask you about it in a professional setting. I wouldn’t give her a second thought. She’s only making herself look bad.

   5. This happened to me, and when I confided in my 15-years-older-than-I-and-wiser friend, she told me to appreciate the fact that someone thought I looked young and hot. At the time, I was 40. I am now mid-50s, and my friend’s advice looks better every day.

5. Wow, that is one of the ugliest shoes I’ve ever seen!

   1. I like the look but cannot imagine wearing or walking in these

   2. That heel is awful.

      1. It looks like the shape if not the size of something I would buy if I wanted shoe shaped bookends? But as a shoe, I would break my ankles trying to stand up.

   3. I’m recovering from a sprained ankle and this heel is scary!

6. Shipping help please. Looking for a dress to wear to a non work fundraising event where most women will be in cocktail dresses and heels. But rather than go that route, I’d like to go edgy. I’m thinking something like this dress (https://www.zara.com/us/en/dress-with-faux-leather-pockets-p05070157.html?v1=223562531&v2=2184237) – but what shoes? I’d really prefer not to wear heels. Any dress or show suggestions? I’m 5’3”, size 8-10, tattoos.

   1. First, I love this dress.
      Second, the only non-heel shoes I can think of that would go with this are combat boots.

      1. Or maybe a metallic oxford? (But yeah, my first choice would be combat boots for sure!)

      2. Yeah, I would go with some combat-type boots with interesting details, like studs or bedazzled.

         1. Oh or a funky color, like red or pink.

   2. How about platforms?

      https://www.ssense.com/en-us/women/product/dries-van-noten/black-zip-up-platform-ankle-boots/10877051

   3. Or for contrast to the dress, what about a square toe Mary Jane? Cole Haan makes one and so does JCrew. I own a pair from Cole Haan and would say that they are slightly edgy in person. Very slightly. It’s the squared off toe, I think.

      1. or Doc Marten mary janes. Give yourself time to break them in! They’re timeless.

   4. Lug sole chelsea boot.

   5. Thanks all! I ordered the dress and a pair of platform combat boots. Thanks for giving me the nudge!

7. My friend’s boyfriend blacked out last weekend and wound up getting into a physical altercation with a bouncer, who beat him up pretty badly. He was still bleeding the next morning, with gashes all over his head and blood all over the apartment. My friend was there during the incident, and had to close her eyes because it was too hard to watch.

   She talked to me about it on Sunday, as I was the only person she felt comfortable opening up to. I tried to be as nonjudgmental as possible and err on the side of these-things-happen/everyone-makes-mistakes. I didn’t want to make her feel judged or add to the shame/trauma of it, since he was extremely apologetic to her and she doesn’t want to break up.

   If she brings it up again, does this seem like an okay attitude to take? I have never heard of an incident like this before, and don’t know if I should say instead that it seems scary and not normalize it. I just have no idea how serious that was or how to hear her from a nonjudgmental space without normalizing something that may not be okay.

   1. My main question is: How would you respond if someone came to you with this kind of a story, and how would you show support? What would you say to a friend in this situation?

      Thanks for any insight you can provide.

      1. I would say “OMG that sounds horrifying! What is he doing to make sure nothing like this ever happens again?” Sounds like he’s lucky not to be in the hospital or in jail, and if it were my boyfriend I would be heading for the door.

         1. Amen, amen and amen!

         2. This. I dated a guy who repeatedly get blackout drunk. We would go out, he’d promise to be the designated driver and within an hour or two, inevitably a bartender or bouncer would be ushering him out the door. There were altercations with police, neighbors, strangers and friends. I wish I left after it happened the 1st time. Don’t let your friend be me.

         3. I agree but I also think it depends on age and whether this is a one off out of character situation or is he the type to behave like this frequently. If you’re over 30 then I would seriously reevaluate the relationship. He’d have to make a serious commitment to not get blackout drunk again.

      2. I would say “wow that’s very disturbing. Do you feel safe? What is he planning to do to stop getting too drunk? How is he taking responsibility for his part in this? Is this truly out of character?”

         1. +1. I am concerned that your friend almost seems to be downplaying an extremely serious situation. This kind of thing doesn’t come out of nowhere.

      3. He may have been extremely apologetic to her but blacking out and getting into a physical fight with a bouncer so serious that she had to look away seems very scary and alarming to this internet stranger. I get that you don’t want to judge her or him but I’d be very concerned for her safety if he gets violent when he drinks and he drinks with her. Breaking up is hard and she may not want to do it but she deserves so much better than a boyfriend who gets blackout drunk and is violent in that state.

   2. I know people who got into irrational altercations when drunk before. I know these stories because they serve as explanations for “why I haven’t touched alcohol ever since.”

      I’m not from a social background where it’s the absolute end of the world if some people get in a fight for reasons. But fighting can be very dangerous and violent if it’s out of control or just on accident. And lashing out irrationally while drunk does scare me because it feels like anyone could be the target. So the alcohol part scares me more.

   3. I must be incredibly naive as I haven’t been out to a place with a bouncer present in ages…but why is a bouncer beating someone up this badly?!

      1. +1 – I know someone who had a similar thing happen and they did not do anything that would warrant such a response (as verified on surveillance video). They had broken bones and had to have surgery and now they have a civil suit against the bar. I wouldn’t make any assumptions here.

      2. I have the same question. Not that it changes OP’s situation much, and the boyfriend still probably was out of line (in addition to blackout drunk). But a bouncer’s job does not extend to putting “gashes all over” anyone’s head.

         1. Interesting – this interpretation did not occur to me – I interpreted OP’s description as a fight that the friend’s boyfriend started and lost, not the bouncer just whaling away. Although is Monday says, either way it probably doesn’t change the OP’s situation much.

         2. This.

         3. Did he attack the bouncer?

            1. Even if he did, the bouncer’s job is to unemotionally eliminate the threat to the other patrons, not to actually injure the BF. Maybe the force was necessary, but I am honestly skeptical.

   4. a) was he supposed to be driving her home after this?
      b) how did it get so violent – was he saying something to make it worse (racist/privileged)?
      c) who took the first punch – if it was the boyfriend get away
      d) what have been his actions since that night – has he been drinking again or otherwise self-medicating?

      he’d have to be pretty fabulous to stay with after something like that.

      1. It’s so odd to me as a city-dweller that your very first question is if he’s driving her home! That’s what ride share and public transit are for.

   5. Thanks everyone for the feedback. I think the situation was 1) the boyfriend tried to get into the bar after being told no 2) the bouncer escalated to physical aggression / trying to restrain him as a result 3) the boyfriend was fighting back as he was being repeatedly beat against a metal grate fence behind him.

      She called it the boyfriend’s fault, but I felt like trying to get into a bar doesn’t justify getting physically assaulted like that. But am now worried I normalized / minimized the situation in my response to her. He’s 30, but he’s never done anything like this before (either causing a physical fight or blacking out).

      1. Uh, there’s no way I would minimize a friends’ concerns about something like this. She was there and you weren’t, for Pete’s sake! Maybe the bouncer was out of line, but the boyfriend’s conduct still sounds terribly concerning.

         1. I didn’t minimize her concerns or say I knew better than her. I said that the event sounded deeply traumatic, wanted to make sure she was safe, if she wanted to stay with me or needed anything, if she needed support getting him to the hospital, and spent four hours consoling her. I just said that I wasn’t convinced the level of force was necessary for the bouncers to use, and it was possible the BF was a victim to some extent.

            1. OP, FWIW, I think your response sounds 100% appropriate. You’re a good friend.

            2. It’s hard for any of us to judge without being there, but this does very much sound like the boyfriend could have been mostly the victim here. A lot depends on how out of line this was with past behavior and how aggressive he was (imo, fighting back once you’re getting attacked doesn’t count). Blackout drunk is definitely concerning, but, again, depends whether this was a pattern or something that happened for the first time ever while also taking a new medication that made him react funny or not eating all day or something else. If it happens again, though, I’d be much more worried about it.

            3. Well this version of your story sounds reasonable so I guess you’re worrying for nothing.

      2. Yeah sounds like you did get this wrong and should tell her.

   6. 1. Ask how she’ll decide that she can trust him again. No verbal altercations for six months? No physical fights for a year? Two drink maximum when he’s out with friends?

      2. Ask what’s her line in the sand that would make her end things. If he gets into any physical altercation? If he gets into an altercation that requires medical attention? If the police are involved?

      My friend had an SO that was abusing alcohol. He would lie about his whereabouts, miss events, and at one point she rescued him from choking on his own vomit. People get numb to certain behavior and it’s easy to make excuses like “well the circumstances are different than last time.” Make your friend identify where the line is before she starts thinking this behavior is normal.

8. Paging Anonymous from yesterday re: hip replacements – I know this sounds obvious, but make sure her insurance covers a post-op hospital stay for a few days. My MIL just had an OUTPATIENT hip replacement bc of insurance limitations and it was truly horrible – she was in terrible pain and needed a lot of assistance – more than we could provide. I didn’t even know they did this type of surgery outpatient, and they really shouldn’t.

   1. Maybe it’s different for a case where you’ve broken your hip in a fall, but for scheduled hip replacements you’re up and walking within hours and it is definitely an outpatient procedure.

      1. I think it really depends. I’ve heard the same thing for knee replacements, but when my parents had their knees done they were each in the hospital for two nights (they had great insurance, so perhaps that was part of it). The only exception was during covid, when my mom had her second knee done – it was planned as an overnight but hospitals had cut off elective procedures that would require overnights at that time, so it was done as a day surgery. As far as pain management and general care, the in patient procedures were far preferable.

         1. My FIL just had scheduled knee replacement and spent four nights in the hospital. I’ve heard knees are more complex than hips though.

         2. Knees are harder post-op than hips are.

            1. Yup much harder.

      2. Everybody I’ve told is horrified that she has it outpatient. She needed round-the-clock help for multiple days – as Wheels mentioned below, her recovery would have been a lot less traumatic with a catheter, professional assistance, etc.

      3. This really really shouldn’t be an outpatient procedure- you can walk within hours but that sure doesn’t mean that its comfortable, or that you can bathe/toilet/get up and down stairs/function without extensive assistance.

   2. thanks, good to know! her femur is shattered so it sounds like that’s going to be the biggest hurdle to overcome. not sure if they’re just doing hips today (she went in at 2:30) or if they’re doing whatever to her leg also. But she’s there for a few days in any event…

   3. That’s horrifying, hip replacement is major surgery and I can’t believe they’d treat it as an outpatient procedure. I spent the night in hospital with my mum after her hip replacement and she needed so much medical care: catheter, IV pain medication and all the equipment in hospital like an electric bed etc.

      1. Yes, that would have made such a difference! It was awful. I’m glad your mother got good care.

      2. I feel like a lot of people here do not have experience with hip replacement surgery. Obviously patient-dependent, but in appropriate contexts outpatient is just fine. https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/hip-replacement/expert-answers/outpatient-joint-replacement/faq-20515416

         1. Absolutely this! According to the excellent surgeon who replaced both of my mom’s hips and knees (four surgeries…all outpatient), the people who have post-op problems are usually the patients who do not follow the after-care instructions to a tee. And, according to this surgeon, the most important part is not getting up and being fairly active right away because they think they need more care/assistance than they do.

            1. Oops–meant FAILING to get up right away causes the most problems/worst outcomes.

   4. Oh, hi, this was supposed to be a busy work day but I had to go to urgent care with someone after a fall last night. Last night was not fun. Today was not fun. Too much care is happening in our homes by people who have inadequate care. Can you get private-duty nurses at least and a hospital bed on the first floor? Because all they need is one fall (which they may do if they are on pain meds and not good on their feet).

   5. There is also such a thing as a surgical aftercare facility/service. I used one after a cosmetic procedure and it was amazing. They’re stupidly expensive but in my view well worth the money. Here’s an example in So Cal: https://www.auraaftercare.com/

      1. This is the way. My insanely independent elderly father used this kind of facility after both knee replacements and was well pleased. It was good too that in terms of physical therapy, they did it in house instead of him having to go to a physical therapy facility. There are physical therapy set ups where they come to you at home, but at least in my area it is substandard. Physical therapy arrangements are a big deal because they start almost immediately, are probably three times a week, and are absolutely necessary for a good outcome.

9. Where do you buy date-night clothes from? I’d like to buy some tops that are close fitting, a little low cut, etc etc but that also look polished overall. I’ve had some luck at Express in the past.

   1. Abercrombie and Aritzia. Their stuff is more sophisticated than it was back during my high school years.

   2. Sezane

      1. +1 Sezane and Lagence

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