ByElizabeth Hours Updated
Comments 287 Comments

Wednesday’s Workwear Report: Paisley Core Blazer

A woman with long blonde hair wearing a purple top, purple paisley blazer, and black pants

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

Hot take: I love a patterned blazer. Would I wear something like this to court? Probably not. Would I wear it to a networking lunch or an internal meeting? Heck yes. This paisley blazer for Marée Pour Toi is really striking not only for its eye-catching pattern, but for its beautiful cut. (Why do so many clothing manufacturers think plus-sized blazers should be rectangle-shaped?)

I would pair this blazer with a gray sheath for a chic business casual look.

The blazer is $119 at Nordstrom and comes in sizes 14W–26W.

If you're seeking straight sizes, take a look at this floral Boden blazer ($210) or this floral Loft blazer (on sale for $129.99 with an extra 50% off).

This post contains affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. For more details see here. Thank you so much for your support!

Sales of note for 12.3.24 (lots of Cyber Monday deals extended, usually until 12/3 at midnight)

287 Comments

  1. Gift ideas for a golf mom? My nephew is a great golfer and plays in tournaments on weekends and several practices throughout the week, so my SIL is a golf mom. Her birthday is coming up and I would like to get her something related to golf, but have no idea what to get. I have never been to a golf course and dont know much about the culture. Any ideas?

    1. Since she is on the go a lot, what about an insulated cup, portable phone charger, maybe a cooler bag?

    2. So much is climate-specific. If she has to be outside in humidity, nice wicking clothes. I switched to Lilly Pulitzer golf dresses b/c they are wash and wear, come with little shorts, and are wicking, so IMO 1000% better than cotton Lilly gear + chub rub. The golf dresses have pockets. [Note: I don’t wear this to golf in but just around town; it is not overly golf-y.]

    3. Does SHE like golf? If she doesn’t golf or enjoy it, I’d focus on getting her something that aligns with her own interests rather than her son’s.

      1. op here – sorry i wasnt very clear in my post. I was thinking that she now has to spend loads of time doing golf-related things. is there some key gear or accessory that could make that time easier or more fun, since i am not familiar with golf life. My kids play soccer and camping chairs or an umbrella would make the experience nicer. Also, she’s in southern california, so dry heat.

        1. What does she do while kid golfs? Does she stay and walk the course to watch him or do her own thing?

        2. I agree to give a gift aligned with her interests, but these seat umbrellas are helpful. I have only purchased them in-person, so I don’t know about this vendor but this is the idea: https://www.innovagolf.com/gususpumse.html If she is following her son, she is doing a lot of standing and walking. These umbrellas dig into the grass with a little seat that you can lean against. Could also do one of those portable neck fans. Maybe a massage would be appreciated?

          1. I was a field hockey mom and I couldn’t have done it without my seat umbrella. Good pick.

        3. As a sports parent whose kid plays an outdoor sport, a really nice, lightweight, comfortable folding camp chair would not go unappreciated, if I got it as a gift.

          You could also just get her a gift certificate to a sporting goods store and then she could either buy sports-parent stuff or buy stuff for herself – Big 5 has yoga gear along with the traditional sports-supply stuff.

          Another idea: Lululemon gift card, she could buy herself some comfy athleisure to wear to her son’s events or wherever.

          1. Yes, the chair plus the umbrella if in budget, they’re sometimes sold as a bundle.

            I also could not have done without my insulated cooler for snacks, lunch, and Coca Cola. Mine was a branded giveaway from some event, but I would really have appreciated a nicer one.

      2. Amen. And again, rule number one in gift giving, never try to give someone something hobby related, you will get it wrong every time. Not exactly applicable here, but the concept follows. People know how to take care of their needs. Gifts should be in the category of wants and things people wouldn’t buy themselves. They can still be very thoughtful without being hobby related.

    5. Would a non-golf gift not be a good thing? Something for her as an individual and not just as the parent of a golfer.

    6. How about a nice large insulated water bottle. Or a gift card to Coolibar or another source of good spf clothing and good sun hats? I golf, but cannot think of some magical piece of gear that would make it enjoyable to spend hours at a golf course waiting around but not playing.

      1. Maybe a kindle? I agree – I actually used to have a job where I ran golf tournaments and if you’re not playing and not working, that just seems very, very boring.

        1. Ha – I was also thinking a kindle. I can stand around doing nothing for hours if I have my kindle!

    7. I’d do something tied to her interests that she can do while sitting around at golf — a kindle, subscription to a new streaming service, NY Times games subscription, or gift certificate to a bookstore or art supply store for example

    8. what about good bluetooth headphones so that she can podcast while still watching the golf?

  2. Does anyone have experience with Vivaia shoes? I’ve been targeted by their ads pretty heavily, and they seemed appealing so I bought a pair. They seem a bit narrow, but wondering if they stretch over time / get broken in? Any positive or negative experiences more generally?

    1. I got sucked in by their ads. I like them, I got the two toned rounded toe in tan and black (the Chanel look) block heel. They’re basically like Rothys with a heel, which I’ve liked going back into the office. I feel better in a block heel and these are comfy out of the box.

    3. So, in my Rothy’s groups, which are admittedly full of Rothy’s fans, they have noted:

      – returns are very difficult. Like you have to be very persistent with customer service as they push hard for exchanges and then you have to escalate. it turns into a thing.
      – the vamp is much higher, so they look a lot more matronly.

  3. Thanks so much to all who commented on my post last week re whether to negotiate on an offer I thought was solid. I did end up asking for a few things and got an extra week of vacation plus a 5% bump in bonus target. Thanks for giving me the nudge I needed! As many of you said, it never hurts to ask.

    Follow up question. Would you give notice at your current job after offer is formalized but before background check etc are complete. I have no skeletons in my closet (I’ve never even gotten a speeding ticket!) and I’d like to wrap up my current role asap, but somehow feel a little anxious to give notice before I have the final few contingencies crossed off.

    1. I avoid it but it depends on your start date. I gave my boss an informal heads up and trusted him to keep it private until my background check went through. I ended up giving slightly less than the full two weeks notice.

    2. I wanted to very, very badly when I was in this situation back in November, but in the end I just couldn’t make myself do it until the background check finalized.

    3. Awesome!

      I wait until everything is tied in a bow. Like you I shouldn’t have anything to worry about… but I’m paranoid there would be some error that needed to be fixed!

    4. I have always been transparent with my new employer that I’m not giving notice until the background check comes back in case there’s a mistake and any issues need to be cleared up. There’s a woman in my city with the same first, middle, last name as me who has a conviction for fraud, so I’m always afraid our identities will somehow get mixed up.

      I’ve changed jobs twice after law school. Both times I’ve said that I can’t give notice until after everything is clear, so we can decide on start date as soon as the background check is clear. That way I don’t run into any issues with having to give notice then my start date gets pushed back or something.

      Everyone has always been understanding and I make an attempt to start wrapping up my new job on the downlow (writing transition memos, being sure to copy people in on email exchanges, etc).

    5. personally i would never give an offer until all the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed

    7. I would absolutely not give notice until everything is signed off on for the new role.

      A friend found out during an employment background check that they share a name with someone in the same area who had an extensive record. The situation was ultimately resolved and they were hired on, but it involved several weeks of tension and delays while the facts were straightened out. The role was high enough and the company wanted them badly enough to be patient, but the impression my friend got was that a lower level role or one with a stronger applicant pool may have resulted in the offer being pulled.

      1. Yeah, I have a pretty dim opinion of background search services. I’m a professor who was listed as a reference for a former student. After they verified her employment in my lab, I started getting multiple calls a day from the background check service asking about all kinds of people I’d never met but had worked somewhere in my university system (think the entire University of California system). I repeatedly tried to explain that I didn’t work for HR and didn’t have info on these people, but they didn’t seem to understand and kept calling until I just had to block their calls. I just realized that you can still get voicemail from blocked callers and it turns out I have dozens, going on for months. I really hope that all these poor people got their issues figured out!

    8. If there’s someone you trust who’s not the big boss but who will be ultimately affected by your leaving, I might give them a soft heads up. When I left a law firm as an associate, I told the counsel (five years or so above me) a few weeks before I gave official notice to the partners and the firm, because I knew he’d be sort of scr3wed and trusted him. Law hirings have both background and conflict checks, though, so they may be way longer than yours… not sure what your field is.

    9. Don’t do it. I’ve had situations where an employee’s criminal record had stuff on it from another person with the same name (aka bad recordkeeping at the police station/courthouse), or they had stuff show up on their credit report that they were unaware of (like a parent or ex-spouse using their identity to get credit without their knowledge, and then not paying the bill). That stuff doesn’t knock the person out of getting the job, but depending on the situation, they can’t start work until everything’s cleared up, which can take some time. It’s more beneficial to you and to both employers – present and future – for you to keep working as normal until all the ducks are in a row and then you can make a clean transition. Please trust me on this; I have seen things go really awry when someone jumps the gun on resigning before the background check comes back clean. You just never know.

    10. Wait until check complete. Even if you have no skeletons, you never know if they come back incorrect. I imagine it’s a rare occurrence, but a friend had some weird stuff show up on hers due to an error at the vendor. It was all relatively easily resolved but you never know.

    11. Wait until the background check is complete and everything is finalized. I’ve told this story here before. A friend of mine received a formal, written offer, pending background check. He gave notice at his old job and declined offers at 2 other law firms. While the background check was being run, a partner and senior associate in the group he was going to work for left the firm, taking a substantial part of the book of business. The firm pulled the offer. My friend was unemployed for 6 months.

    12. I’m a cautious person so I waited until all checks were complete before giving notice. I am also a goody-two-shoes and have never been in trouble, but I have also had identity theft (someone using my ssn to open credit and even file a tax return) so I had no idea what would turn up in a background check. Fortunately it was all clear, though I did disclose the identity theft before they started.

  4. Help! I need 2 therapists in the SF Bay Area. One for individual therapy and one for couples therapy. We also could see a remote person if that has worked well for people. Thank you in advance.

    1. I can’t do actual therapist recommendation (my only therapist in this area worked almost entirely with overperforming teens/young adults with anxiety issues, which is presumably not your issue if you also need couples therapy), but I can say that remote therapy works pretty well for me. Video chat really does work surprisingly well for this kind of thing. Also, especially in this area, your most likely alternatives involve wearing masks, so if you’re one of the folks like me who finds them unpleasant to wear, remote starts looking like a nice alternative.

    3. What issues are you trying to address? Infidelity is different from addiction is different from violence is different from “we kinda drifted apart lately.”

    4. Sara Olivera, MA
      Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist
      Wellspring Psychology
      Los Gatos, CA 95032
      (408) 471 – 9213
      wellspringpsychology.com

  5. Text I would not have expected from my sister:

    “Do you have [her ExH’s] number?”
    “Let me send you the last I have. Why, what’s up?”
    “Pretty sure we are not divorced. I just called the county and they have no record of it.”

    ……

    Can’t wait to hear this one. They (allegedly) divorced over 5 years ago and haven’t spoken since. The only reason I have any contact info for him at all is he and my husband stay in loose contact.

    2. That Kennedy guy who skiied into a tree was separated but not legally divorced from Frank Gifford’s daughter at the time he died (he was also the one with the babysitter). Very happy that she was able to do a lot legally as a surviving spouse (and I draft with that in mind now in separation agreements).

      Pls keep us updated. Will get snacks.

    3. A little confused why she’s calling her ex, and not her lawyer. Her counsel would/should have sent her a copy of the filed divorce decree.

      1. Yeah I’d start with the lawyer, as well, but also because I don’t trust my ex to not somehow lord it over me or have been responsible for the glitch in the first place. Maybe she already reached out and lawyer suggested this?

      2. Hahaha that’s funny. I’m not sure they even had lawyers. I will update when I have more but the story apparently starts with she finally got around to changing her name (5+ years later), needed a copy of her divorce degree, realized oh, I don’t have one of those, how do I get one? Called the county clerk and turns out there is no record.

        Stand by for more!

        1. I got divorced using a mediator service (we weren’t fighting about anything except continuing to be married) and after a very long wait – close to a year – after signing all the paperwork, I still hadn’t received the final notification that I was divorced.

          So I went to the county courthouse and stood in a long line. The lady at the desk said I was in the wrong place and sent me to a different floor, where I stood in another long line. That person said I had been mistakenly misdirected and sent me back to the original line, which I stood in again. I got the same lady and she asked clarifying questions, and finally went and rummaged around on a very messy desk with several tall piles of paper. She came back to the window with my divorce filing in her hand, hit each of two copies with a rubber stamp, and handed me one.

          I asked, “is that it? Am I divorced now?”

          She said, “yes, baby, go have a margarita.”

          I wonder if I’d never taken a day off work to go stand in those three long lines, would my divorce ever have been processed?

        2. I’m so confused. Why does she think they’re divorced if she never even got a divorce decree?

          1. Not the OP but if you aren’t a lawyer or don’t work with a lawyer or mediator, you may not understand how the process works or what you need to ensure finality.

          2. OP here. This exactly. She’s a healthcare worker. What does she know about divorce decrees?

            (I mean, IANAL either but I assumed you get a piece of paper when it’s over a la a marriage cert. remember that you are the 1% here.)

        3. I would have bet my entire fortune that there were no lawyers involved, just from reading the original post.

    4. Popcorn, please.

      Also please have her speak to an estate planning attorney like TODAY. If she kicks the bucket, he will be entitled to take from her state via state law. (Many states have provisions against disinheriting a spouse, unless already separated.)

      1. A surviving spouse has the right to elect against a will in my state. And beneficiary designations aren’t automatically revoked generally.

      2. Luckily this is not an issue for either of them. Neither of them have much in the way of assets, nobody is remarried, and they aren’t even in bad terms.

        If by some chance my sister died and her exH inherited her stuff, my extended family would (a) not care and (b) be sort of excited he’s part of the family still.

        They were best friends for a decade, dating in and off, got married, immediately regretted it, and divorced. Or so they thought.

    6. “ I talked to him multiple Times during court and the process and he said it was all good”

    7. My sister did the opposite—was trying to get a copy of her marriage certificate for an insurance thing, and the state tried to tell her they’d never been married. Thankfully, the officiant had kept a copy of the signed license and they were able to get it sorted out, but what a nightmare!

    8. Oh boy. I’m imagining a Michael Scott-like scenario (I declare bankruptcy!) where they both agreed to divorce and then I guess just didn’t take further steps?

  6. Anyone else’s team bleeding talent right now? I’m at a huge company that expects all employees to be hybrid after everyone has been fully remote for two years, and a lot of people are unhappy about it. Exceptions to the hybrid rule aren’t really granted, so we’ve lost people to fully remote roles and are struggling to compete with companies that allow fully remote work. It’s so frustrating to watch because the senior leaders don’t care about the problem and managers lower in the organization have no power to fix the problem. Paying more for the roles may staunch the flow a bit, but the company is too cost-conscious to put enough money on the table to make a difference. We’re going to end up losing even more talent, including people like me who would otherwise be happy to spend the rest of our careers at the company.

    1. We are gushing blood for a similar reason at my company. We have not been fully remote since August 2020 (yes, 2020). We are allowed Friday’s remote and not much flexibility otherwise. Our Executives have publicly said “no one is getting ahead by working from their kitchen table”. The mentality is outdated and it’s causing great people to leave. They just don’t care.

      1. My office has been fully in-person since July 2020 as well with zero remote. Agree with BeenThatGuy and Anonny that this is a problem with the mentality of leadership and makes morale in the dumps for those that stay. I think my small company of 25 people would see more attrition if our industry wasn’t so niche. Pretty sure I’m not the only one job hunting.

    3. Yep, we are making people go from remote to hybrid now, and I’m quite sure several colleagues are job hunting.

    4. Honestly? No. I feel like we are now eyeing up the dead weight for the next round of culling / periodic reviews. After 2.5 years, it’s clear who has made remote / hybrid work work for them and that some people have truly failed to launch (generally, 90% of this bucket are new hires who did not on-board well and after lengthy periods of interventions and come-to-Jesus attempts to get them on track, managers are just throwing in the towel). I feel bad for that crowd as we seem to be heading into 2006 (unsustainable housing prices, rising interest rates, people drowning in debt). But that is what it looks like from where I am.

    5. Yup. I’m not even sure it’s the hybrid versus remote thing, as we’re still very flexible without a formal policy that requires people in the office, but we cannot keep people. I truly do not know how these other places are paying so much more for the same roles.

      1. That’s another thing that is shocking – everyone I know who has left has left for similar or more money. It’s not as if people are taking a huge pay cut to become fully remote. I love my team and what I do, but how can I not job search when I’m not allowed to work in the way that works best for me AND I’m paid under market?

      2. +1. From anecdotal experience I don’t think remote work is the driving factor people seem to think it is.

        I probably know 20 people (myself included) who have changed jobs in the last year. Only 3 left for fully remote jobs, of those 3, 1 is already at a new hybrid job and another is already job searching for a hybrid job.

        I personally was only looking at hybrid jobs, as were several of my friends. I have 2 friends whose jobs closed their offices are forced everyone remote; those friends are also job searching because they want to be back in an office.

          1. Mid 20s-late 30s. Mostly live in our city, mostly child-free, mix of single/married (and single folks are a mix of live alone and live with roommates).

            I’m sure if we were mid career suburbanites with kids, long commutes and enough space for a home office itd look different.

          2. Interesting. I’m 34 and I find that a lot of my friends are insisting on remote or at least hybrid, in part because obviously you can sort of get big city salaries and live wherever you want.

            Personally I like spending two mornings in the office a week, and I would spend more if I were junior or had juniors I needed to train up, but if they made me come in M-F I would for sure leave. My only friends who are in office are those who deal directly with people (healthcare, immigration law, etc), none of my law/tech friends.

      3. We are a fully remote team (with fancy offices in major cities! You can go to the office if you like that!) and are bleeding talent. It’s crazy. I think I’m going to start looking myself, just because the market for job searchers (at least in tech) has never been this good.

    6. Ultimately, it will wreck the company and cost them more money. Managers will leave to oversee fully staffed teams.

      I left a former role when they demanded hybrid 2 days a week with the expectation of back in the office full time. It took them six months to fill my role and they ultimately had to advertise it as remote.

    7. My company’s workforce is, and will remain, fully remote. We are having zero problems finding qualified people because of folks refugeeing from workplaces where they’re being made to go back into the office. We had 350 applicants for an entry-level position just recently. We’re able to pick the cream of the crop and are getting some very experienced, highly-qualified people who normally would not have come to our company because we pay slightly below industry average. I am 100% pro-remote and even I am surprised at the pay cuts people are willing to accept to stay WFH.

      I feel for the folks in companies where leadership can’t get with it and acknowledge this is something people want. Remote work is a bell we can’t un-ring. Many people did their jobs very well from home for two-plus years, so I don’t think saying they need to come back into an office because reasons is going to resonate. I know WFH isn’t for everyone, but our experience is that far more people want to work from home permanently than even we thought. FAR more people.

      1. It makes me disappointed to hear that many of them are taking a pay cut. Any reason why you guys pay below industry standard? Because you can, I guess? Since your company will likely be saving a lot of $$ by being fully remote, it would be nice to have the salaries reflect this cost savings. But I know that isn’t the capitalist American way. Instead, I guess it is another way to get folks who really need flexibility (especially in the age of COVID) to loose out.

        Signed,
        A caregiver for an immunocompromised family member, whose life choices will never be the same

        1. People are also saving on commuting costs, parking, wear and tear on car, not needing to eat out. Maybe it’s a wash when you factor that in? Conversely, would it not surprise you that if you need people in-office, you may have to offer more?

        2. In addition to the costs of commuting (both money and time), many of us in LCOL areas are happy to take a lower salary, since it’s equivalent to or more than we can make around here. Trailing spouse of an academic, so remote work can be a game changer.

        3. “Since your company will likely be saving a lot of $$ by being fully remote, it would be nice to have the salaries reflect this cost savings.”

          Um, no. Since we never had offices in the first place, we aren’t “saving” anything by closing down offices or not paying for real estate.

          Also, thanks soooo much for your concern for the completely independent, experienced, intelligent people who have accepted job offers from our company! We do considerable research and benchmarking on salary and we’re paying about 1-2% under industry average right now – when the “industry average” salary increased by something like 8-11% over the last three years. We pay slightly under partly because we are completely distributed and also because we funnel quite a bit of money into benefits – someone here has talked about getting benefits with a remote job that were pretty crappy, worse than employees in the business’ home state? Yeah, so we pay our benefits broker extra money to make sure everyone in the company gets the same level of benefits regardless of where they’re located. FYI, The pay cuts people are accepting are for jobs that are not only fully remote, but offering a much better work-life balance than the jobs people are refugeeing from. We have quite a few new folks who were previously in jobs that required 80-90% travel and they’ve decided they don’t want that lifestyle any more (or are still nervous about traveling that much) and so they’re more than happy to take a small cut in pay (average has been around $10k off of salaries that exceed $200k a year) to work full-time remote and travel much less (like 30-50% travel). One of the people we just hired would be required to go on week-long business trips and then come into the office on weekends to “get work done” and have meetings, can you imagine? He’s very happy with his choice to leave that behind.

          Anyway – I know some folks here just loooove to make things “all about them” and I recently learned this is called “Main Character Syndrome” and it’s actually something people can change about themselves if they choose to. You might want to go read up on it and see if it’s something you could choose to change about yourself – putting yourself, and your problems, at the center of every discussion or situation, no matter how tenuous the connection is. Something to consider.

          1. Man, what a snarky response! Just because your company pays crap doesn’t mean the person who pointed it out as a specific syndrome that you saw on a tiktok video. (And no, I’m not the person you’re replying to.)

    8. I think this is inevitable as companies shake out whether they’ll be full in-person, hybrid or fully remote. It’s a factor no one was able to consider during the initial job search, and so you’ll see sorting of people in jobs based on that. I for one strongly PREFER to be in the office – I like the separation and am wildly more productive in office, so I actually switched from a company that was fully remove to one that’s hybrid as an option, but has a very in-office culture.

      It happens – companies are going to make these choices, and people will sort themselves accordingly.

      1. Also Team Office.

        I feel like with remote work, I had the need-to-have convos by e-mail, which got the job done, but didn’t easily include the free-flowing “nice to haves” that have been the backbone of my learning and networking since I started working. I don’t want to stagnate, so I will keep showing up and trying to do things via phone (which people seem to hate, but since we don’t skype or anything, I’m not sure what a good substitute is for that).

        1. I hear you. I can do a good job in my baseline duties with remote work, but the stretch goals need a bit more networking, asking people about deeper background on things etc. A hybrid schedule has made me more productive.

          1. I feel like I stagnated since Feb 2020. And it took a lot of energy just to get that level of work done. I feel like I took a big detour and am eager to claw back to my prior trajectory. And I know that raises for the same work is going to come back to bite some of us in the a$s, so I want to get in solid with my network, which I just don’t feel so close to.

      2. Another for team office. With that said, I purposefully bought a house (and made compromises $$$) so that my commute is 10 minutes so team office doesn’t materially affect my day. Anecdotally, there is a huge need to distinguish in the discussion that a lot of people are “I don’t want to commute anymore,” not necessarily I don’t want to work in an office environment. Those people have either embraced a hybird/remote environment or got jobs closer to home.

      3. What’s interesting is that in my company, the early career employees tend to prioritize in office interactions. They need the coaching, mentoring, shadowing, etc. They are also making friends and connections, as they are often relocating from their college/grad school locales. The 10-20 year individual contributors are the ones who want full remote, since they are trained, competent and can work well independently. It’s been interesting marrying the two. We are doing a hybrid for now that seems to bridge the divide.

        1. That crowd truly needs to be in the office and around peers (and anyone senior) to really fully launch. IDK that you can duplicate that remotely unless you are vigilant bordering on annoying.

          I am senior but live near work (moved to current city with an unreliable car, so walkable to office and now we have light rail). But b/c it is expensive to live close in, I can’t afford a place with more space for an office, so I’ve never had a home office (just an office office). For people with giant suburban houses, I get that they hate car commuting (I would, too). They also gripe about getting work with a spouse / kids about, so some people are just never happy. I suspect they are just taking calls from the golf course or their boat.

          1. Agreed, but also would say there’s a big divide between individual contributor type roles (which are often well done remotely and simple enough to do not around peers) and leadership/team type roles, which I find WILDLY more difficult without those casual interactions.

          2. Totally agree — in my role, I am doing an A+ job with being an individual contributor. When I try to loop in junior people and do any training / team things, it is like a black-diamond level of difficulty to pull off and I’ve tried outside lunches at patio restaurants, zooms, calls, etc. to try to train and do feedback and it is 1000 times harder and more exhausting and the results just don’t feel worth it. I think I’m giving up with anyone who won’t come in at least weekly to meet.

        2. Yes! I’m late 20s and many of my friends and I prefer hybrid over fully remote. Several friends are leaving jobs that have transitioned to fully remote to find hybrid jobs.

          I’m honestly so happy I was an essential worker and was never fully remote; I’m a much better employee and a much happier person when I’m in the office 3-4 days a week!

          We also tend to live downtown and thus close to our offices, don’t have kids to take care of, don’t have room in our apartments for a desk, and live alone or with roommates and miss the social aspect of the office.

    9. Yep. Same exact situation and on the in office days all I hear are complaints about why people need to be back given the successful full time remote the past two years. I see both sides for sure but it does feel like optics to force some roles in when it really isn’t necessary for the work they do on a regular basis.

    10. I’m starting to suspect that upper management really does not prioritize having the best staff, or even what I would call good staff. (Maybe everyone else already knew this, but to me it’s a new and unwelcome idea.) So many times, I see upper management favoring people who simply fall in line and don’t advocate for themselves, over the people who are most valuable to the actual work but have legitimate gripes that they’re willing to leave over. Middle management is gravely affected by these choices, but upper management is insulated from the effects.

      1. Yup! I am seriously considering leaving right now because they’re taking our work phones away. I share an office, work routinely with other time zones and evenings and weekends, and it blows up my life to either walk away from my laptop and let nine-figure deals die OR be tied to my computer and be a cr@ppy friend/wife/mom. It’s such a silly 30/month hill to die on.

        My CLO knows it and hates it, but the ED doesn’t care. When we leave, it’ll be on the CLO’s lap but the ED’s fault. Such a common and sad scenario.

        1. Isn’t the expectation that you wil just use your personal phone? Or are they trying to avoid having people work all hours without acknowledging that there should be exceptions?

        2. I have never not had a work phone and I would not take a job that didn’t provide one. I love the work/life separation of gives me but also the flexibility to quickly respond without breaking out my laptop. I’m 100% with you on fbis

      2. I think this is true in my world. Upper management in my world seem actually anxious about any degree of rocking the boat. That apparent anxiety seems to override other considerations (including whether the staff who rock the boat are worth it, or if change is actually needed!).

        1. Exactly. It really seems like they’re more comfortable keeping things as-is and only employing people who either a) can’t get hired elsewhere, or b) are just so much on autopilot that it doesn’t occur to them to look elsewhere. Neither of these talent types is very promising.

          1. We are BYO devices. I thought people liked that (vs now having to have two phones all the time).

          2. Ah but I don’t keep my work phone with me all the time! It’s my desk phone bc I am fully remote and also my phone so I can conduct business during regular ish business hours if I need to step out for appointments or errands or whatever. Due to the nature of my current work, they would never let us BOYD, but even when was given that option, no way no how. I have had my text messages put in front of me by an AUSA as part of an investigation from a prior job and while I of course knew that could happen when I mixed, never ever again. I hadn’t done anything wrong but it is unsettling AF. I also have zero interest in giving my employer even a perception of control over my personal phone. Nope.

      3. So true. I’m seeing this as a junior partner. The senior partners continue to act like there’s no problem, there will always be someone to do the work! Meanwhile we have almost no associates left and the junior partners are either billing 14 hours a day or have stopped responding to email/phone/meeting requests to avoid more work. We’ve already been hemorrhaging associates who were looking for fully remote opportunities with big signing bonuses, we’re going to start losing junior partners because the firm doesn’t have the support we need. And leadership doesn’t seem to mind because it’s only “troublemakers” who will be leaving, in other words, the people actually doing the work. Ok have fun when the only people you have left won’t answer their phones.

        1. As a more senior partner, I am honestly asking, what is your suggestion? I’m in this boat. I’m not at an AmLaw 100 firm. We can’t really pay that much more. How do I fix this?

          1. Not the Anon above. Here’s my suggestion: a huge number of very talented people went to and graduated law school >10 years ago. Full remote if need be, hire them on a contract basis or “of counsel.” They don’t have the energy of people in their 20s, but have far better skills. They usually have business experience and can work well with clients.

            I know someone who did contract management, got promoted to in house counsel, and then got hired on at a law firm at age 37 or so.

            Law schools haven’t been getting huge numbers of talented students for ten years. The nineties and aughts featured a glut of brilliance.

          2. Unfortunately it means not taking on new matters that we can’t staff. I know no one likes to turn down work, I’m building my practice and I feel that HARD. But if we can’t do it then we can’t do it.

            The senior folks also have to be prepared to roll up their sleeves. Sh*t may roll downhill, but when the plumbing is clogged it comes right back up. Lead by example among your colleagues; I know you can’t tell them how to run their matters but you can tell them/vent about having to take on more of your own work. Fwiw I see a lot more women leaders doing this than men.

          3. Re 12:08’s comment, there are just a lot fewer junior lawyers than there used to be. Law school enrollment peaked in 2010 and then basically fell off a cliff. It’s gone back up a little bit last few years, but there is definitely a lack of juniors/midlevels just by virtue of there are fewer lawyers. And I think 12:23 is right–it may mean not taking on new matters you would normally, which I realize runs counter to like every business development and partner compensation mantra, but if you don’t have the staff, you don’t have the staff.

          4. My whole comment erased, ugh.

            I agree with the other commenters. take the remaining counsel/non-equity partners very seriously, and tailor your response. But I think in general law firm leadership needs to be casting a way wider net and giving off-the-beaten path tracks. Look for parents or caretakers returning to the workforce and build an onramp program. Look for mid-career specialists and offer them 1000 billable hour tracks. Full remote and hybrid for non junior folks. Turn down work and give clients realistic deadlines that don’t throw your folks under the bus.

          5. Anonymous at 2:04, that’s not really the problem. If you have 35,000 graduating attorneys or 55,000, it’s still far in excess of the number need for judicial clerkships, BigLaw, and medium law.

            The problem is that in the ’90s and the aughts, well over half of the students who took the LSAT wouldn’t get in anywhere; the people who did get in were, by in large, very very smart. Firms had their pick of talent with talent left over.

            Since about 2011, the number of applicants has decreased dramatically – I think we are down to 35,000 or so for this upcoming cycle. That means a very different group is being admitted to law school.

      4. This is the story of the staff hemorrhage at my big state university. I will be joining the exodus in a couple of months.

          1. I am flat worn out from solving the same problems for the same people over, and over again who don’t get it, will never get it, have been making the same mistakes since the 90’s and are showing no signs of either doing their jobs or retiring.
            The money is ok. My boss is actually great (and my biggest worry about leaving is her burning out). The benefits are good. I just can’t imagine doing this for the next 15 years and not losing my mind, so it’s time to go while my sanity and reputation are both intact.

      5. “Middle management is gravely affected by these choices, but upper management is insulated from the effects.”

        This is so, so true and it’s not even just about going fully remote. Our upper management really loves a culture of facetime, bodies-in-seats interaction even though most of our work is legitimately done by phone to colleagues around the country. Upper management tends to be people who either did not have children, or have/had stay at home spouses, or whose children are now grown. I really think that they do not fully appreciate what a gift remote working has been for parents (and other people) to get precious time back in our days, and why it seems like a punishment to be told that something we’ve done for the past two years is no longer an option… just because. The fact that there’s more money being thrown around is great, but there have been several surveys that show that the driving force is just people leaving for better working conditions.

        1. In patient-facing health care, where remote work is off the table for everyone, working conditions are the primary issue that I see leading people to leave.

      6. This is exactly what happened at my old job that went so toxic so fast my head spun.

    11. I actually think it’s not related to hybrid vs in person. DH’s team is losing people to other in person jobs (we’re in an area where everything is in person now). Same at my job. And law firms. It’s just the market right now.

      I think adjusting comp is the only thing that may keep people (or promotions) and there’s only so much space for that.

    12. FWIW, my previous company was fully remote and still had this problem. I’m not convinced that remote vs in office is the main issue… costs for everything are skyrocketing. Employees are just following the money.

      Personally, I jumped over to my current company (also fully remote) about 6 months ago for a >30% raise and substantial signing bonus. Old company was losing staff left and right, but they were only willing to give retention bonuses of ~1 paycheck. I didn’t even want to leave initially, but it was no contest.

      1. Forgot to clarify: Current company doesn’t have a retention issue at all. They bumped up salaries twice in 2022 to keep up with peers. Based on my team’s experience, it’s working… I don’t know of anyone who has left since I joined.

    13. I work for local government and we’ve been in person hybrid the whole time and full time since fall 2020. People are definitely leaving over it (and for more money and to move to lower COL areas) and we’re having trouble recruiting, and who we are getting just isn’t as good as 5+ years ago.

      TBF our job cannot be done fully remotely (we go to court and meet with people), but a flexible remote policy would help a lot — even saying you can WFH 2 days a week if your workload and calendar allows would make a huge difference.

    14. Same. Our company doesn’t seem to realize that WFH is a benefit and in this market, you have to offer benefits to keep talent. It is creating such a strain on those who do stay. Role creep is a real problem right now.

    15. In house lawyer for NYC based Fortune 40. Just went to a meeting where all but 2 members of an 8 person legal team have quit in the past three months.

      In 2022,our Legal Department has lost paralegals, admin staff, and attorneys to better job offers, meaning higher comp, promotions, 100% remote.

      The Department had also promised us “summer hours” on Fridays during Memorial Day to Labor Day period. Summer hours ranged from no work on Fridays to work hours shortened to 6 hours on Fridays. Several people quit after the recent announcement that we no longer have this benefit.

  7. Help! I had COVID for two weeks, during which I never put on makeup and barely looked in the mirror. Today I put on makeup for the first time since April 30, and my under eye area is dry, flaky, and more wrinkled than it was before. I usually have oily skin, so I’ve never experienced this before. What’s a good product to combat this? I’ve never used under eye products before. Preferably something under $40…ugh. Having COVID wasn’t fun, and now I look like I’ve aged 7 years since April.

    1. RoC brand has a hyaluronic acid under eye cream that I like. Seems pretty moisturizing and I think HA is supposed to be good at locking in moisture. They also have an eye cream that has retinol and is pretty gentle – a combo of the two might help with getting rid of dead skin cells and moisturizing.

    2. I know this would not be popular here, I’d try Aveno. By mistake I used it in my face last winter and it was amazing.

      1. I use Aveeno gentle body wash on my face and use the basic moisturizer at night. It helps me with redness and flakiness.

        Someone recommended oil cleansing/double cleansing for flaky skin and it might work for this scenario.

    3. You can use regular moisturizer on your under eye area. I mention this because many times eye creams are the same things as face creams but in smaller jars with a higher price per ounce.

      Sometimes people use a richer eye cream because the rest of their face can’t handle such an emollient moisturizer.

      That said, I got the Bobbi Brown vitamin enriched eye cream as a gift with purchase and it’s very nice. Same story with Biossance – they have two, a gel type for day and a cream for night. I like the cream better. It’s the Marine Algae Eye Cream, and I didn’t have any issues wearing it under makeup.

    4. Two cheap options:

      Alpha Skin Care eye cream – Ulta has it, around $18.

      Yes to Avocado fragrance-free eye cream – Target and Ulta sometimes have it, around $13.

      Both are cruelty-free.

      1. I love Alpha but I thought Ulta stopped carrying it? I also like the CeraVe one. I have horrible allergies that irritate my eyes more than anything else and the thin, sensitive skin there gets so angry. The CeraVe soothes it better than anything else I’ve tried.

        1. You’re right – looks like the Alpha was discontinued (I would order three at a time from Ulta, and I’m on my last one, so it’s been a while since I ordered).

    6. Sounds like you’re dehydrated. Up your water intake and electrolytes and see if it’s resolved in a couple days.

    7. Get some kind of gentle exfoliating scrub, and then do a sheet mask to hydrate. This will refresh your skin–good drugstore products will be fine. You might want to do this several times in a week. Then, might be time to upgrade your skin care routine to include a retinol, serum hydration, and a good moisturizer. Look at Penn Smith on youtube for a firehouse of information.

    8. Eye creams can do a lot of different things but sounds like you need some extra moisture right now. For that, I often use Weleda’s Skin Food. Inexpensive, good for lots of things. It does have a fairly strong scent though, which may irritate, and just be very careful in patting it gently under your eyes.

      I also really like Kiehl’s Avocado Eye Cream. Very gentle, but very moisturizing. A little more pricey

  8. Doing the lord’s work: Sue Sartor 20% off sale. Use code “SUMMER20” (no, I don’t get a cut).

    1. You absolutely are! And anyone looking for formal wedding wear that’s easy to wear, check out her organza dresses.

      1. #Fairfield

        There was one I had my eye on. Now I’ve got about 5 tabs open just trying to make sure I have THE one.

    2. What’s the sizing like on these? There seem to be no waist sizes and the largest “HIP” size for an XL seems to be 26 inches?

      1. It’s 26″ laid flat, so 52″ around, designed with some room to move per the pictures.

      2. “Measurements are for the garment one way in inches laying flat.”

        So 26″ means 52″ circumference.

  9. Now I’m in the office more I’d love some ideas for packed lunches – I’ve completely forgotten how to pack a lunch. Today I had huel and then bought a cookie mid-afternoon, which is certainly *a* strategy but probably not an optimal one!
    TIA!

    1. Back when I worked in the office I would just bring dinner leftovers along with a fruit and a yogurt. That was the easiest thing and forced me to cook dinner.

      2. My issue is that by the time I get home from the gym/errands/meeting up with friends/part time grad school class I either don’t eat dinner or eat something very, very simple (usually cheese and crackers and a beer) so I have nothing I could pack.

    2. I don’t know if you like mayo -based salads like tuna salad, but I like the same with leftover chicken breast, or smashed chickpeas, or even leftover salmon. I always use diced celery, usually snipped chives or thyme, and then whatever else is handy. I prefer this on a hearty slice of bread, topped with a slice of tomato if in season (pack the tomato separately), but it’s also good on salad greens or crackers. I like egg salad too, but the mix-ins are different for that one.

      1. Oh that’s a great idea – I had a tuna Mayo sandwich for lunch while at home on Monday, and then the second half of the batch with leftover pasta and broccoli yesterday, but have completely forgotten how to pack these things in a lunchbox. (I know it sounds obvious!)

      2. I only go to the office on Tuesdays and Wednesdays so I make enough for 2 lunches on Monday.

        This week I made tuna pasta salad with giarderia, the spicy pickled vegetable stuff that comes in a jar. I added a little mayo and mustard to bind it together. The other week I added tuna to some potato salad from the grocery store – half-ass salade Nicoise! Sometimes I just bring a couple of hard boiled eggs, some cut up cucumber with salt, a bread object, and some fruit.

    3. Thanks to the poster yesterday who mentioned pasta salad, I have a giant bowl of it cooling out in the fridge as I type. I’m challenging myself to see how long I can go without turning the a/c on and it’s getting too hot to further heat the house up in the evening with cooking (I’m in Florida).

    4. My favorite is always a grazing lunch of nibbles in a tupperware and I am usually eating as I work. Choose a protein or two – I make sure I have a bunch of hard boiled eggs in the fridge (get a quick egg cooker online), edamame, cheese, nuts etc. Add some finger vegetables (usually baby carrots and cherry tomatoes for me) and some finger fruits (blueberries, grapes, clementines, dried mango).

      1. yep, this has been working for me and is easy to throw together in the morning, if I didn’t manage to pack a proper lunch the night before. Also mini avocados. Also, it’s cherry season!

        1. Cherry season? what kind of witchcraft is this? signed, jealous, in zone 6 where we have just about had sakura season with cherries blossoming, never mind actual fruit….

    5. Hummus with veggies and a soft pita or pita chips
      Charcuterie bento box (aka, homemade lunchable)

    6. I live by salads with chunks of frozen fully cooked chicken. It thaws by lunch and is filling, healthy-ish, and easy to put together the night before. Also doesn’t require waiting in line for the microwave. I usually also pack a banana, an apple, string cheese – plus I keep a box of granola bars at my desk. And, key – I give myself permission to buy one junk snack a day from the vending machine. Since we’re still mostly remote they only stock the vending machine on the ground floor (I’m on 4th) so I’ve justified to myself that the walk down there and back cancels out whatever the calories are.

    7. I loved to meal prep lunches M-Thurs and then buy lunch Fridays. I made a lot of salads with pasta, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, chickpeas, and mozzarella. I also made vegetarian taco salads or chili. I just prepared 4 Pyrex dishes every Sunday night.

      1. We did this when my husband and I worked in the office – we’d make 6-8 lunches for the week for both of us and then we both ate out lunch on Fridays, at least (my husband had a lot more business lunches than I did so sometimes would only use 2-3 lunches for the week). Leftover lunches would get eaten for dinner on Thursday or Friday night. We had to buy extra groceries and do extra planning and cooking on Sundays, but not having to stand in front of the refrigerator every morning wondering what to pack for lunch was such a gift.

    8. I read a cookbook called Salad In a Jar by Anna Helm Baxter and picked up lots of know-how about how to pack a salad for work, and now I do this regularly with the recipes from that book and many others. Some of my favorites are elaborate ones from Cooking Classy, links to follow. This is the only thing that’s gotten me to finish tubs of greens before they go slimy!

      General salad packing techniques: dressing goes in first. Next, anything that will benefit from marinating a bit – protein, tough crunchy veg like broccoli or fennel. Then grains/beans/that kind of thing if using. Then softer fruits/veg/whatever. Then greens. Then if you’re including something like cheese or croutons, put a square of wax paper or parchment on top of the greens and put the cheese on top of that. I love a salad at lunch but I hated paying for an expensive but lackluster one, or packing a million little containers all the time, and this approach has worked SO well.

      1. https://www.cookingclassy.com/caprese-chicken-and-avocado-chopped-salad/ (for this one I packed half an avocado per day separately)
        https://www.cookingclassy.com/farro-salad/
        https://www.cookingclassy.com/strawberry-spinach-salad-with-candied-pecans-feta-and-balsamic-vinaigrette/ (threw some chicken on this one)
        https://www.cookingclassy.com/mandarine-orange-spinach-salad-with-chicken-and-lemon-honey-ginger-dressing/ (I don’t usually bother with the wontons on this but I’ve been making this salad for years and love it)

    9. The corn salad from fitfoodiefinds is a great portable lunch. I pack it + a container of tortilla chips. Good for volume eaters like me.

  10. Estate planning Q. I got married later in life and is a second marriage, with common and non-common kids (which are working adults now). I *know* that I would not remarry if I were widowed. I know that the common kids have needs now (not driving, would need a nanny if I died first, need college funded). Our plan is to provide for all kids in the wills (less for grown kids, more for kids that still have substantial financial needs based on what the others got — rides, college, etc.). What I don’t want is to fund any subsequent spouse of my husband or his relatives (who are fine, but rich; my relatives, specially some nieces, are legit needy and one relative is in a trailer vs a million dollar house on the orange line). Do spouses get separate attorneys for wills or routinely use trusts for this sort of thing (I’m not rich, but crazy over-insured apparently; spouse may inherit a lot but my guess is that college for younger kids and any older kids weddings may run through that quickly; I would not object to spouse using a trust to provide for us, but he has a BIG problem with not giving him everything outright). In the meantime, we have no wills and we’ve been discussing this for over a decade now to no resolution (so I should just get a will and trust to have something, but it seems wrong to do unilaterally, but he knows full well where I stand).

    1. See an actual estate planning attorney NOW. I’m struggling to parse exactly what you’re saying and what you think you want versus the best way to get there.

      1. I get what she’s saying and I have the same concerns. I want the money I worked my a55 off for to go to my kids, not whatever scheming future spouse my husband would hook up with in the event of my death because he can’t stand to be alone.

        Scenario: I die. 100% of our combined assets in our trust go to my husband, who is my co-trustee, and not directly to our young adult kids.

        Husband remarries. Say wife has kids of her own, or god forbid they have some more kids. Husband, if he’s thinking about these things, sets up a new trust and new wife is his co-trustee. If he dies before the new wife, does that mean my kids are shut out entirely? She ends up with 100% of everything?

        It’s not that outlandish. One of my friends in her 40s is dealing with this now, with her not-quite-all-there widower dad and this lady who appeared out of nowhere and appears to be taking over his life. Friend asked around about her (smallish town) and she’s already taken half of an estate from her most recent late husband, when she contested his trust and will and won. I believe they were married for less than five years when he died. He has adult kids who now got only half of what their parents intended for them to inherit.

        1. Sweetie, I know all of this; I used to do estate planning. That is why I said to get herself to an attorney NOW.

          IMHO, more money in the will for the younger kids is a terrible idea. This lady hasn’t gotten around to making a will in a decade or more. IMHO, having younger kids inherit more (with who overseeing this – the same dad she’s worried might give the money to a future apps?!?!) is a terrible idea. She needs a trust with the remainder distributed to all kids when the youngest reaches 25 or so.

          1. No need for the snark. You said you couldn’t parse what she was talking w out. I described my own similar situation.

            Glad my estate attorney is a dude who most definitely doesn’t contribute here because I would absolutely hate for it to accidentally be you.

    2. Go see a lawyer on your own and ask all these questions. In this case it seems like separate lawyers might not be the worst idea because this is almost along the lines of a post-nuptial agreement.

    3. You’d want some sort of trust for the kids to keep your property out of your husbands estate if you pre-decease him. The issue of joint property. If you own a two million dollar home with your husband, he will likely own the entire home when you pass away and have no control over that asset when he passes away. These are all things to discuss with a lawyer and your husband.

      1. OP — I’m the only one on the house title. I get that if we divorced, we’d likely split it or I’d refinance and give him some $ for the equity in it, and I don’t mind him getting the house in his spousal share along with enough cash to pay off the mortgage (but don’t want it passing to my in-laws or any second spouse or later kids of his (later kids are not in his life plan, but my ex BIL is a new dad with wife #3 and he’s well into his sixth decade of life)). My issues are if spouse dies of a heart attack a month after I’m hit by a bus and weird stuff happens.

        1. GO TO A LAWYER.

          If you bequeath your house to your husband, he can 100% give it to anyone he wants the day after the title is on his name. That’s what it means for it to be his.

          You have all of these ideas and contingencies and then you think you know how to make it happen but your ideas make it worse. Hire. An. Attorney.

          1. Yes. And be ready to hear that you may not be able to do exactly what you want re restrictions with any communal marital property. A lot likely depends on your state’s laws. But a lawyer can advise you as to how to separate your personal assets going forward if necessary.

    4. Go see a lawyer ASAP to get this resolved. In the meantime if something terrible were to happen to you, your state’s laws and probate processes will kick in and probably not with an outcome you want, given your comments.

    5. Talk to a lawyer. I am pretty sure we have some trust structure that does kind of what you want. Like you, we don’t have a ton of assets but have a lot of life insurance. If we both die, our life insurance goes into a trust for the kids. Our house is also technically in a trust – not 100% sure why (I need to sit down and figure that all out – it made sense at the time our atty was explaining it). Trusts, I think, give you more control over what happens than wills (like allowing the trustee to spend $$ on college but not just giving your 18 year old cash payments) – but that’s why you need to talk to a lawyer ASAP. We have wills and trusts. And you should provide for guardianship for your kids, too. And do your end of life planning/health care proxies while you are at it!!!

    6. You can go in together, or just get yours done. Regardless, you absolutely need an attorney.

    7. My dad is The Other Guy here. He is divorced and 64. He’s been dating a woman who was suddenly widowed at 53 (they met when she was 56). They each have 3 kids, mostly grown (I’m the oldest at 39; youngest is 21).

      Dad is upper middle class. Girlfriend (whom he lives with) is loaded due to her first husband’s employment as well as massive life insurance payout. They are not married but soon will have lived together long enough that he will have rights to her assets. He doesn’t want them and had to push her to draw up the legal paperwork.

      It’s murky; see a T&E lawyer, now.

    8. This is a common scenario, and an estate planning lawyer will know how to handle it. Essentially you want your separate assets and your share of community assets to fund a “marital trust” so that your spouse can have access for his life. You can put in a restriction that he can only withdraw funds for himself and your descendants, and on his death, any remaining assets can only go to your descendants. You can name him as trustee, or name someone else/corporate trustee. He can be pissed that he doesn’t get everything outright, but you’ll be dead, so you won’t have to deal with his fit.

    9. I am an estate planning attorney. In your situation I would get separate counsel just for your own estate planning documents, so you have that set up for you at least! Be aware that if you leave everything to the kids, spouse will have an “elective share” (right to elect against the will) so I would provide for him using a trust and giving him at least the elective share amount *in the trust* and then have everything pass to your kids. Good luck!

    10. Yes, I understand your situation well.

      You need a trust.

      My mother died unexpectedly younger than most. She and my father had a difficult marriage, but had reached peace by the end. They had been in the process of creating their wills/trust (which I didn’t understand at the time), but that got interrupted by health crises for both of them, and her death. We figured… no big deal. In our state, everything goes to my Dad, as it should be. My mother had a very lucrative career and saved/invested everything in her IRA/401K. She wanted to enjoy her retirement and finally travel. But she never got to…..

      Anyway, 2 months after my mother’s death, my disabled father had a mental health crisis, and then mysteriously told us “A female friend is coming to stay”. A friend? My Dad has no friends. Especially female friends. My brother was worried it was a mail order Russian bride. Well, it turned out my father had had a secret affair for years with a much younger woman. Now she was moving in with my father, on the condition that he support her for the rest of her life.

      So guess where all of my mother’s life savings, her inheritance from her parents et. al now goes? That’s right… to the other woman.

      My mother is turning over in her grave. I can’t think about it, as it makes me want to vomit.

    11. Yes, I would see an attorney and find out how you can keep a second spouse or some other beneficiary to benefit at the expense of your/both sets of kids.

      But if you have life insurance, I would think that that would be the best way to designate your money, and your life insurance is not community property, to my knowledge IANAL. And once you die, the spouse can’t change the beneficiaries. So if you have $2million in life insurance, designate a percentage to each kid and/or set up a trust for those funds to be dispersed to the kids for college costs or home down-payment or age 25 or having graduated from a four year college, or whatever trigger you want. If you want some of the life insurance to go to your spouse, that would be easily done too. Ditto your nieces/nephews. The lawyer can help with the questions about the community property portion in the will and can help you set up trusts for children who are not of majority age at your death.

      Then you can rest easy that after your death, at least your insurance will go to the right people.

  11. I attended a conference call today where several international locations joined remotely from conference rooms with what looked like 100+ people, as workshops were held there. Not a single mask in sight. Attendees from US, Asia, Europe.
    The leader of the call said: “We’re very happy that Covid is less of a concern right now, and to see people back for work travel and workshops.”, then followed not even one minute later with”Unfortunately several key attendees are out sick”.

    I wonder WHY THAT COULD POSSIBLY BE?

    Meanwhile, all the virologists, doctors and epidemiologists I follow on Twitter (more than 50) are warning people relentlessly – but noone seems to listen.

    Folks, it is wild out there.

      1. Agreed. It’s running through my city in the crowd that got its shots and is 40ish with school-aged kids. It’s a nuisance item. People can easily home test and isolate and most everyone tests before seeing aged relatives. Honestly, the booster was worse for me than the disease was for my one kid who got it (no household spread).

      2. Some people can’t let it go. FYI, my vaccinated-for-the-flu-every-year aunt who works in a hospital just came down with something, was negative for Covid…it was the flu. She’d had Covid twice (both times post-vax) and said the flu she got was 2x worse than either of her Covid bouts. I had three colds in six weeks earlier in the spring. There are lots of things circulating in our post-mask world and it’s entirely possible the people at the conference were sick with something besides Covid.

        As for it being “wild out there,” infections are up (as best we can tell – hard to know with people doing mostly home testing) but hospitalizations aren’t rising at nearly the same rate as in previous waves. Everyone we know who has had it recently – which is probably 10+ people – just had a cold that was kind of a nuisance. No one is saying that they’re willing to go back to lockdown or mask mandates to prevent the illness they had.

        In any case, there is zero political will to do anything about Covid any more; we’ve got bigger fish to fry. I personally won’t vote for any politician that thinks Covid is more of a priority than preserving reproductive rights. Sorry, but I’m way more concerned about 50 million women losing their right to get an abortion (and the subsequent impacts on birth control access that we know are going to occur) than I am about a now-mostly-mild illness that seriously impacts only a tiny minority of people, the vast majority of whom are unvaccinated. P.S., we also still need to do something about mass shootings, in case people aren’t reading the news. I’m more worried that my son will be killed at school or that my husband will be shot in the grocery store than I am about either of them dying of Covid. And the crazy thing is? Given their age, health status and vaccination status, it’s more likely they’ll die in a shooting than it is that they will die of Covid. That concerns me. I want to work on that. Time to move on, folks.

        2. This is such a ridiculous strawman argument. You can fight for reproductive rights and gun reform while wearing a mask. Just because you and your friends are apparently getting mild cases doesn’t mean that a million Americans haven’t died from COVID in the last two years. So check your privilege and learn how to walk and chew gum.

          1. but a million Americans *haven’t* died since vaccinations have become available, since the hospitals are not overwhelmed, since more mild variants have taken precedence….. You have to look at COVID now, not just at what it looked like at the start.

      3. Well, I get that acute infection is less of a concern, but are long-term effects of possibly repeat infections, even if they are “mild” not of any concern?

        1. Mild stuff can include a host of other things I also have no bandwidth for (not all of which is contagious — hot flashes, bone spurs, fibroids). COVID at this point is just another thing. My shingles shots were worse than my teen’s COVID.

        2. No. I got two colds a year, every year, prior to the pandemic. A few turned into sinus infections or bronchitis. I would get meds, or I would do self-care, and I would get better and move on with my life. Some people got post-viral syndromes from cold or flu infections. Now that we have vaccinations for Covid, complications among the vaccinated population are going to be rare.

          I had a client, pre-pandemic, who got Guillain-Barre from a flu infection. It sucked for him; it was awful. He got partial paralysis on one side of his body and it took him six months to recover. My grandmother got Bell’s Palsy after a shingles infection (this was pre-vaccine). A friend of mine has post-herpetic neuralgia from a shingles bout where she didn’t get on valacyclovir in time. Saying this to say, there have always been situations where mild viral or bacterial infections have long-term effects for people. We didn’t stop the world for those situations and we aren’t going to stop the world because a tiny minority of people have complications after a mild Covid infection. Thinking otherwise is unreasonable.

          P.S. if you’re really this concerned, I hope you’re taking care of your baseline health by eating a healthy varied diet that includes 5 fruits and vegetables a day, getting the recommended amount of exercise per week for your age group, sleeping at least 7 hours a night, and getting regular doctor’s checkups where they do bloodwork and ensure your Vitamin D levels are appropriate. All of those activities are good ways to protect yourself from all kinds of adverse health effects.

          1. Tiny minority = up to 30% of people who get a covid infection. Yes, you can have an adverse reaction to all sorts of illnesses, but you are statistically much more likely to have one after covid. So go ahead and Vitamin D your way out of that logic, but maybe read some research on it before you start spouting off nonsense.

    2. Yeah, I am flying to Amsterdam on Saturday and they are not even requiring proof of vaccination to enter The Netherlands. Crazy.

      Signed,

      Quadruple vaxxed and packing all the masks

        1. Aw, thanks! I just booked a food tour with Paris By Mouth and am beside myself with excitement!

      2. American but live in Amsterdam – and be prepared for some shock. My husband and I are the only people wearing masks. Bonus: may get a stealth SA (hero!) sighting by seeing the only other mask wearers in the entire place.

        1. Would love to meet for coffee if you are so inclined! Hit me up at seniorattorney1 at gmail!

    3. Because people want to take the easy way out. They don’t want to be bothered with covid anymore. They want to stick their head in the sand in the 9th inning. Yes, we are not in 2020 but we are certainly not early 2019!! I’m wearing a mask on public transportation probably forever.

    5. Statistically I’m sure that pre-Covid, several attendees of a group that size. And it really is less of a concern now. We have vaccines that prevent severe illness. It’s just going to be a thing like the seasonal flu. Annoying, but not enough to massively disrupt life anymore.

    6. I am cautious and have one friend who is more cautious than I am, and of course he got it during work-required travel. He was so, so sick. He had all three shots on schedule, wasn’t yet eligible for the fourth at the time (3 weeks ago), and is otherwise healthy. I’m sorry to say this but he doesn’t look the same now, and I’m wondering whether he has long COVID.

      It’s not the same as a bad cold. His experience has made me more cautious. I’m KN-95’d up everywhere and I’m limiting my excursions for sure.

    7. Was in Glasgow yesterday and only 2 people on my train wore masks. Perhaps saw another 3 in the train station and almost none in the streets.

    8. Whatever. Some of us want to return to conferences and don’t feel like wearing a mask. I’m vaccinated and boosted. That’s all I’m willing to do at this point.

      1. yeah, I agree with this – while I personally am not ready for large unmasked crowds yet because of travel requirements (needing to test negative), I can definitely understand that the risk analysis is different for a LOT of people.

      2. And this is why we will never get this virus under control. Wearing a mask is no big deal, princess.

        1. Lol, then go ahead and wear one! I’m not the reason the virus is out of control. I masked and stayed at home for almost 2 years. I’m living my life now.

        2. You’ll never vet the virus under control because that’s not how viruses or people work. There are seven billion people in the world, most of whom have zero desire to let you or anyone else dictate their every move for years on end. “Everyone just do what I say” is not a plan.

        3. The virus is in an endemic stage. it is under control. Your beef is with those who won’t get vaccinated — that is what will really turn the tide — not with those who are up to date with their vaxxes and living a reasonably normal life.

          If you are waiting for Covid to completely disappear, it will be a long wait. If you are waiting for it to be under control, we are there. And if you feel extra protection is appropriate, you can wear masks, avoid crowds, avoid any risk factor you feel is appropriate.

    9. I understand that acute infection is less of a concern now, but with kids under 5 still not able to access a vaccine, and ill-understood long-term effects of possibly repeat infections, I don’t buy into “it’s over yet”. If people want to ignore what scientists are saying, that’s a choice, but I’m erring on the side of caution.

      FWIW, I have multiple families in my circle that are all fully vaxxed and boosted and now on their 2nd bout of Covid. And when you really ask how they are doing, you’ll hear from parents about that strange lingering shortness of breath, fatigue, headaches, sudden onset tinnitus, and a variety of other “small symtoms” that they can’t seem to shake.

      And before anyone comes at me with “Do YoU WaNt A LoCkdOwn LiKe iN ChINa???” . No. Just wear your masks and protect those that around you that have limited options to protect themselves.

      1. I agree. I think there’s a middle ground between China and removing all precautions. Wearing a mask in public really isn’t that hard.

        1. You’re right that it isn’t that hard. It also isn’t that necessary for the vaxxed and boosted, based on the science.

      2. My kid (10) got it in school. He kept wearing mask, as did maybe 50% of the school. But school is about 25% vaxxed, at best. He didn’t give it to us though. It was mild — 2 days of low-grade fever and coughing. The schedule disruption was bad (but we’ve done that before for mere exposure multiple times in 2020 before you could get tests as a non-NBA player).

      3. This. It’s sad that people put their personal preference for not wearing a mask over actual health risks to other people. You don’t want to wear a mask? Congrats, no one is making you anymore. But that doesn’t mean that covid is over or that you’re a particularly empathetic person.

        2. If you’re vaxxed and boosted, there is very limited evidence that a mask substantially changes your risk profile unless you are in extended close contact with folks. You either trust the science and the CDC, or you don’t.

          1. I don’t trust the CDC at all at this point, but I do trust the science that one-way masking is somewhat effective but not as effective as two-way masking, and a lot of us are forced into prolonged contact with people who won’t mask anymore (even if they wink wink have a *cold*). Am I living my life? Yes. Would it kill people to demonstrate a modicum of concern for others? Apparently.

          2. But if we are participating in life activities more so now than before – including imposed hybrid work arrangements, that is close contact. Being cautious in those circumstances – choosing to continue to mask – is, in fact, consistent with the science.

      4. This. And support the clean air movement. People have been trying to raise the standards of indoor air at least to what would be adequate for livestock for years; now is the time.

  12. Just a vent: I finally finally found someone I wanted to garden with, and things were looking somewhat bright, and then we got Covid and he has shut down all contact because he has a sick kid and a lot of concurrent ongoing projects and realized he had been being selfish and careless and needs to go back into lockdown. This “all or nothing” and “self-punishment” is a particular personality quirk for him and I totally understand where it is coming from (I pretty much expected it when I reached out to confirm the transmission), but I am so frustrated. I am too embarrassed to say how long I was without a partner, but trust me when I say it was a very long time. I am not without options, I just haven’t been interested in anyone before now. Honestly, I sort of regret ever pursuing it. It wasn’t that hard to abstain after a while, but now . . .

    1. “he has shut down all contact because he has a sick kid and a lot of concurrent ongoing projects and realized he had been being selfish and careless and needs to go back into lockdown.”

      Um…

      “This “all or nothing” and “self-punishment” is a particular personality quirk for him”

      Girl, what? I guess I’ll give it to him – this is a new twist on the “sorry, I just can’t see you right now because I’m too busy” excuse. Or the “it’s not you, it’s me” line. If the man wanted to be with you he would be with you. Anyone who thinks “self-punishment” that also punishes you is the right move is not someone you should be wasting your time on.

      I say this from a place of love: you can do better than this for yourself. Love yourself enough to move on from this situation, it is not serving you.

      1. This was just fun. We’re not a couple and low on the totem poles of each other’s rather full and (esp. for him) complicated and turbulent lives. He has all kinds of personality traits I would run from in a partner, and I am ripe for culling if he is trying to eliminate unnecessary risks. As I said, I wasn’t surprised at the reaction given his kid’s situation. I’m just sad and disappointed, like “why can’t I have this nice thing?” after not having it for so long. Maybe I will be more open to the next opportunity, though.

    2. That’s really hard. I was longterm single and without gardening for years, and when I look back, there were a lot of frogs I almost hitched myself to because I didn’t actively mind the idea of being with them. Now that I’m with my current boyfriend, I’m SO SO glad none of them worked out. It’s easy when it’s been a while to just want something to work out, but in the grand scheme of things, you will find someone who you actively want to garden with who everything is easy with.

      Not to judge, but someone who’s that black-and-white and all-or-nothing sounds like they’d be exhausting to date or even garden with. Also very emotionally immature. Being sad you got COVID and feeling regret is natural; shutting off all contact, freaking out, etc is not. Even if he has a kid, there are ways to balance having a life and being an adult and absorbing that life has ups and downs and that we make mistakes. You dodged a huge bullet IMO. Your person is out there!

      Also – there is an Ask Polly that was huge for me when I was single. Her framework is basically: know that you’re going to find someone and be in a relationship eventually. And once you are, you won’t be single anymore and there are a ton of things you’ll miss. So live it up and do what you want now, and enjoy the time, and don’t let worrying about finding someone affect you, since you can trust that it will happen.

      1. Oh, no, I’m not on the hunt for “the one.” I’m not emotionally distraught, I’m disappointed and frustrated. This was always temporary and limited in scope to basically a FWB situation. But it was fun with prospects of more fun. And I am choosy even about this. I need to feel a certain attraction to the person physically and as to personality, but I’m not looking for a good commitment match. I am sure he isn’t a unicorn, but even though I don’t want a BF, I prefer gardening in one pretty patch for a while.

        1. If you want a FWB situation – then just give him some time to recover, etc and then just be super direct about what kind of arrangement you want.

          1. We were definitely on the same page on that. And I probably will bump into him in the future and have a chance to revisit it, and maybe he’ll be in a different head space then and maybe we’ll be unavailable or uninterested then. He is definitely reacting to acute circumstances — his infection led to infecting his entire team on a major tech project, has consequences for his kid’s medical care which also created issues with his ex, and affects the release and marketing of a major artistic project he put his heart and soul into. And I, myself, am biting my nails for a call telling me there is a big-budget movie set (or two or three) being shut down because of my activities during my incubation period, even though I am not even in the industry.

  13. Help! I am in my 50s and look like my grandma now: short with a big belly and hips! My brain still wants clothes that looked good on my thinner pair shaped body from my 40s. I cannot do the tunics that you buy at Chicos because they hit at the widest part of my body. Where do you ladies who have transitioned into postmenopause shop now?

    1. I’m tall but have the belly and hip issue. I wear a lot of third pieces, so pants, shell, and open shirt that creates two vertical lines down my front. It’s probably not fooling anyone who’s looking for a belly, but it does have a mild optical illusion effect that is somewhat slimming.

      1. This. It worked well post-pregnancy and I sailed from that into perimenopause (and more), so third pieces FTW. I’m one of those people who is always cold, so it has worked out smashingly. It’s just getting the proportions right — often third pieces are just HUGE but even a blazer that is not super-long is a big help.

        1. Totally agree on proportions. I realized I stopped at shirt but I also mean jacket or cardigan or jardigan, depending on the weather.

          I’m not sure who Chicos or even Tory Burch type tunics are flattering on, but it’s not me. We did a theme park trip the summer before the pandemic, and it was hot. One day I wore a linen tunic. One day I wore a linen tank with a linen shirt worn over it. The pictures are night and day – the tunic made me look much heavier and larger overall.

  14. I know there was a thread on this before, but can folks who have tried various meal kit services remind me the pros and cons? I’m currently using Blue Apron to get back to cooking (which my brain can handle) without having to meal plan (which my brain can’t). They are very tasty and not super hard, but they don’t have a lot of meatless options, and the ones they do are heavy on the dairy. I’ve been impressed by their efforts to minimize packaging, though of course it’s more than if I would buy these things at the grocery store. How are the other services in terms of price per meal, taste/ quality of ingredients, vegan or veg options, and packaging?

    1. Oh, and complexity? Blue Apron’s 25-35 minute recipes have been working for me, and most don’t require a huge number of dishes/ clean up. Assume I am a capable cook and can normally do prep in the time that the recipe allows for or less.

    2. I really liked Sunbasket and they had a lot of veg options. I ended up cancelling and going to a private chef because they kept changing the delivery date and it became not useful to me to get all of the meals on Wednesday afternoon.

    3. The two services I liked the most were Martha & Marley Spoon and Sunbasket. I have not used either in a long time, and MMS seemed to have changed a bit since then, the last I looked, in particular providing a lot more options each week, but repetitive ones, and providing more options like just buying protein portions, which to me isn’t that handy. I found MMS to be tasty and fairly straightforward and I learned some cooking hacks from the recipes. Sunbasket is more health-driven, with more veg options and options for more meals like breakfast. I also liked that Sunbasket often did some of the prep for you, cutting down on the time. It was the more expensive option, but I thought worth the difference if you are already paying for this service.

    4. Agree that Sunbasket is best for special diets including veg and paleo. You also might want to check out Hello Fresh — we used them for a while and they were pretty good, if a bit basic. I always come back to Blue Apron, though. Seven years and counting.

      1. That’s really helpful! Seven years?! That’s when you met Mr. Handsome, right?

      2. Hello fellow seven-year Blue Apron subscriber! I feel like we should get a medal. Or a free meal box.

  15. Has anyone bought the Sheertex shorties? I wear Jockey skimmies under dresses and like them a lot just to smooth things out but I could stand just a bit more compression sometimes, yet I don’t want Spanx-level compression and prefer the breathability of Jockey. If you’ve tried Sheertex, where do they fall on the spectrum?

  16. Anecdotally, how many people do you know who have gotten long COVID? It’s so hard to gage what the percentage is based on the studies that have come out, since all report such wildly different things.

    I’m scared of it, but also haven’t known anyone who’s gotten it or even heard of anyone anyone knows.

        1. the question wasn’t who’s gotten Covid, it’s knowing anyone who still has symptoms months after the acute illness.

          I know tons of people who have gotten Covid, but all of them are feeling like their normal selves.

    2. Same.

      I have a chronic issue that most people have as an acute issue that resolves, but I’m an outlier. And I just manage. I think that long COVID is probably like that — the outliers learn to manage their symptoms and go on with their lives as best they can. I’d love to not have my condition, but I have managed to figure out how to live a pretty normal life even with some acute bouts.

      1. There’s no data out there either. I hear a lot of fearmongering about “people who can’t live normal lives due to long Covid” but finding actual information about the incidence of long Covid in the general population is difficult.

        FWIW the only people I know IRL who have talked about having “long Covid” are the same people who prior to the pandemic, couldn’t work or were consistently doing Go Fund Mes for medical expenses due to myriad other chronic “illnesses,” like chronic Lyme disease (which many doctors don’t think is actually a thing) or fibromyalgia (which is a thing, but needs to be diagnosed by a doctor and not self-diagnosed by someone who’s read a bunch of medical articles on the Internet). Remember the kerfuffle about Morgellon’s Syndrome a few years ago? One of the people I know who swore she had Morgellon’s (which is basically just delusional parasitosis) now says she has long Covid and is posting screeds on Facebook about how she can’t get disability benefits for it, so please contribute to her Go Fund Me.

    4. None personally but I run in a cautious, pro vax crowd and don’t really know anyone who had Covid pre-vax, and most people didn’t get it until Omicron when the vaccines became a lot less effective.

      I worry a lot more about unseen organ damage (especially brain – I had multiple grandparents with dementia and know firsthand how awful it is) than classic long Covid.

    5. I know one person who had Covid in April 2020 who has long Covid that improved only slightly after vaccination, and one person who had Covid in January 2022 with some signs of long Covid but who hasn’t officially been diagnosed yet. I’ve seen some reports about long Covid being considered more likely in people who has less serious cases initially. The early case was someone who was very sick and had Covid pneumonia, the more recent case had been double vaxed and was flu-level sick for about a week.

    6. I honestly haven’t paid attention to what is considered long covid, but I suspect I have it. Mild asthmatic here. I caught CV19 the December before vaccinations were available for me and my breathing hasn’t been the same since. It’s frustrating bc I am very active, but I am still active and do what I want to do. I’m tripled vaxxed but don’t wear a mask really anymore. If I have symptoms, I test and act accordingly of course but otherwise am living my life.

      1. FWIW my covid case was VERY mild. I barely felt sick but tested bc I was informed of a known exposure.

    7. I mentioned this previously but technically I have long Covid bc my sense of smell isn’t 100% still 6 months after I had Covid. It’s

    8. One, though I know two others who suffered symptoms for months rather than days or weeks before recovering.

    9. Off the top of my head, three. Two of them got COVID in March 2020, so they obviously weren’t vaccinated. One had tinnitus for over a year, and it finally went away after he was vaccinated; the other lost his sense of taste and smell for about six months. The third had an otherwise very mild case in November 2020 (vaxxed and boosted but immunocompromised), and ended up with a lot of joint pain and some other issues that were relieved after starting Evusheld. Each of these people’s long haul symptoms are now over, but they weren’t fun while they lasted, of course.

    10. One – pre vax, healthy person in late 30s, who lost taste and smell and has not regained it more than a year later.
      I know a ton of people who have had it post vax, usually mild or flu-like, and none of them had long COVID. My circle is upper middle class suburbanites in a blue state in their 40s (plus their families), and overall extremely vaxxed/boosted.

    11. 90% of my circle has had COVID at least once. Only my sister, who is a front line healthcare worker who got very sick (not hospitalized-barely- but out flat for 4 weeks) from COVID very early on (June 2020) has any lingering anything. She has other health conditions as well that may be the root cause, so it is unclear if it’s even Long COVID.

    12. I know three people who have what I would call full fledged long COVID. Two who haven’t been able to work as before and who aren’t sure where this is headed.

      A few more who have had autoimmune flare ups that they’re struggling with now (it is no fun to go from a well managed autoimmune disease to one that isn’t responding well to treatment anymore). I wonder if unrecognized autoimmune flare ups are sometimes being mixed up with long COVID though, since it takes our medical system quite a while to diagnose autoimmune disease?

      Then there’s stuff like “sense of smell is still off” and “liver numbers aren’t normal” that I don’t think of as long COVID but more like post-COVID sequelae.

      Then there are some people in my life who may have been part of the statistical increase in cardiovascular events following COVID recovery, but it’s hard to say individual cases.

      1. “liver numbers aren’t normal”

        Do these people drink? Do they eat high-fat diets? If so, they should quit both of those activities before blaming Covid for their elevated liver enzyme numbers. Drinking is bad enough, but adding a high-fat diet on top of that can be a one-two punch that sends relatively young, relatively healthy people into NAFLD pretty quickly.

      2. Viruses (not just Covid) trigger and reactivate autoimmune diseases. I wouldn’t call it “long Covid” per se but it’s a serious concern.

    13. I have at least two colleagues I can think of off-hand who have mentioned that they have serious enough lingering symptoms months after their infections, but I imagine that number is higher since I don’t expect most people to share that casually. Symptoms have mostly been slightly struggling to breath with any physical activity and brain cloud.

    14. Four off the top of my head, two from before vaccines were available. One includes an ex boyfriend in his 30s who’s relearning walking and almost has parkinson’s like symptoms, it’s terrifying. Two younger women whose taste hasn’t returned, and then a woman my age with some hyper extreme fatigue and fibroid issues that at least coincide with her infection. I think it hasn’t been well diagnosed historically but we’re getting better at it, and it seems like rates are something like 10% but some of that is more mild stuff.

    15. Me personally. I had COVID early 2020, before I really knew what it was. Could not get out of bed for a full week and could not seem to take in oxygen in fast enough. Took well over a month beyond that before I could do anything remotely strenuous, like go up and down a single flight of stairs, without pausing to catch my breath every few moments. For the next 6 or 7 months I would randomly get hit with gasping spells several times a week that forced me to sit down and breathe slowly or pass out. Those finally started to taper off about a year later and I have only had one in all of 2022 so far.

      1. Also, triple vaxxed since then and not really masking ATM, but in a low transmission area (at least as of last week, but who knows this week).

    16. None. The people I know who got COVID either died (lung cancer survivor) or fully recovered. But most folks I know have gotten COVID post-vax.

    18. Me, unfortunately. Early 30s, vaccinated, fit, slim and ate healthily. Compulsory in-person conference and my symptoms improved around 40% after 3 weeks but still tired, too dizzy to drive safely, had to have two months off work and am back part time. Hair fell out in clumps, dry skin and nasty tinnitus. Would not recommend.

  17. Win of the week: I’m scheduled for Evusheld next week! What’s going right for you?

    1. I passed my second CAIA exam (an alternative investments charter sort of like the CFA but for alts) and have my charter!

      And my husband is scheduling his vasectomy.

    2. Also i was like “I haven’t heard of that birth control….”

      Duh. congrats!

    4. I had to google but wow! Congratulations, that’s huge!!

      I grabbed the last available spots in any Paris By Mouth tour going on while we’ll be in Paris next week, so that was a big win!

Comments are closed.