Splurge Monday’s Workwear Report: Porla Collared Sweater

554 Comments

1. I wanted to take a moment to honor the incredible bravery of Gisele Pelicot. From using her real name to fighting for the video footage to be shown in open court so none of her attackers could get away with their ludicrous lies and excuses, she is a true hero of feminism.

   1. Never heard of her.

      1. You’ve been living under a rock then.

      2. Read the news!

      3. Not a helpful comment. Her bravery is jaw dropping and I could not imagine the horror she has been through.

         1. So odd to me to come here to comment that. You devalued Pelicot and revealed your own ignorance in four words, good for you!

            1. Excuse me?

      4. You probably have, you just may not recognize the name. She’s a victim in a horrifying French case.

         1. Yes now that you mention it I have heard of the situation. Very brave. You people are harsh on here.

   2. She’s a hero, such strength in the face of pure evil.

   3. She is the image of dignity

   4. Yes, she is the pure definition of strength.

   5. I’ll look her up, because I’m curious, but I’ll second the other commenter who hasn’t (yet) heard of her. And I read multiple news sources a day, so wouldn’t say I live under a rock.

      1. It’s been all over the news (all sorts of mediums, all types of sources) for at least weeks, if not months, now.

      2. It’s on the home page of the NYT regularly…

         1. Not everyone memorizes every name on the NYT home page.

            1. It was a top story multiple times, at times the top story.

      3. As I said above, you probably have, you just may not recognize the name.

      4. Yeah, like a commenter above suggested, I just didn’t recognize the name. I’ve been reading about the case. It’s horrible.

         1. Right. The headlines mostly don’t use her name.

   6. Yes, I have been so impressed by her courage. Her daughters also came out in full support of her. I can’t even imagine what they are going through, but their reaction does them all credit.

   7. Honestly, it’s embarrassing for anyone to admit that a) they haven’t heard of this case or b) they have but they don’t know her name. Ignorance is not something to be proud of. Everyone needs to share the burden of being informed.

      1. Most people don’t commit every name to memory. I find this comment bordering on the ridiculous. There’s a lot going on in the world. That’s just how it is. A random person not knowing her name doesn’t devalue her or her experience.

         1. It’s the coming here to brag about ignorance, or to try to take Pelicot down a peg, that is nothing to be proud of.

            1. I didn’t see anyone bragging about ignorance. I did see an indication that OP should have given more context in her original post. That would have minimized some of the comments here.

               I read the news and have been reading about the case before her name was known. But I didn’t commit her name to my memory. That has absolutely zero impact on the victim or her bravery or suffering. It’s just an indication that my brain doesn’t hold onto everything I read.

            2. No. The OP doesn’t need to explain the context of a huge global story. If you don’t get it, google it.

            3. Also, there were enough context clues in her post (its clearly a French name, the video footage in court has been a hot button issue for the last few days, and mention of multiple attackers). If you’re up on the news, you should be able to figure out what the discussion is about. If you’re not sure, quickly Google her name.

               Google is free y’all.

            4. +1 to Google is free. It’s also faster to type “Gisele Pelicot” into Google than to come here with a smirk and type “never heard of her” or “never heard of her and I’m well-informed, trust me!”

            5. What are you going on about? No one was saying they were proud. Stop virtue signaling.

            6. You can also highlight the text, right click, and “search web.”

         2. it’s cool if you don’t know the name
            but to blithely be like “never heard of her” — just scroll on by.
            not every comment thread needs your opinion.
            you’ve revealed yourself as both ignorant and a narcissist.

      2. It’s more embarrassing to be morally superior and smug in the comment section of a fashion blog. Hope that helps!

         1. I know it’s a different story, but people’s ignorance to the Hurricane Helene response, how disaster response and recovery works, and the awful disinformation being shared online is literally going to get people killed. Ignorance kills. We all have a responsibility to be reasonably informed.

            1. Ignorance of this story absolutely does not kill.

               Shaming women for …not being as online as you? I guess? is corrosive, contributive to a weakening social fabric, and mean. It’s just mean. It’s also self-absorbed—you have pulled focus off this woman you are claiming to think is So Important by being a jerk.

               So you have managed to undermine the significance of this woman by prioritizing your own moral superiority, have shamed other women over not Googling things (on a fashion site!!!), and have contributed to the ever-worsening tone here. You aren’t doing anything to help the cause you’re trying to defend or the women you’re responding to. You just are making yourself feel better by putting other people down—classic bullying that you’ve dressed up in virtuous clothing.

         2. As much as I agree with the OP here, I truly wish there was a was for the admin to close replies on this post. I find the first dismissive reply and this reply to legitimate criticism of it to be extremely distressing.

            1. Yes, but I think the drama drives page views. I’ve been reading since Kat was anonymous, but I’ve rarely seen her (or other admin) shut down fights. There’s likely a business reason for that.

            2. I’m so curious about your life if the discovery that not everyone instantly googles things they don’t know is “extremely distressing” for you.

            3. There should be a little pink arrow to collapse a thread that you don’t want to see.

               I do not want admin to close replies. It makes sense to me that women would be discussing this story and its importance, even if it doesn’t bring out the best in everyone.

      3. I think having her name committed to memory is a high bar and the original post could have included a little more detail, though I didn’t find it that hard to figure out what OP was talking about. However, I do find it rude to immediately reply that you’ve never heard of someone. Nobody expects everyone to know everything all the time, but google is one click away, so posting about your ignorance does imply that you don’t care and are proud of it.

         1. Yes, it’s the implication that people don’t care/think it’s worth spending one second to google that is so needless. Google is free. So is STFU.

            1. Maybe people really don’t care. Who made you the boss of what’s important?

            2. People be wildin here today.

      4. I read French and American news daily and didn’t recall her name, but have read quite a bit about the case. Names don’t always stick for some of us.

         1. So how do you think of her? “The victim?” “that poor French woman?”

            1. Yes

         2. Yes. Reasonable people can disagree over whether this is adequate.

      5. Knowing and using someone’s name is huge for understanding and upholding their dignity. I think it’s even more important in this case, since Mme. Pelicot’s awful abusers tried so hard to dehumanize her and strip her of that dignity.

   8. She is amazing. And the insistent on the video being shown in open court so no one could minimize what happened was so brave.

      1. This. Astounding courage.

   9. I’m uncomfortable with the framing of this post. Feminism does not require victims to do any of the (very brave and admirable) things this woman is doing. There are plenty of victims of similar crimes who are not in a position to make those choices, and they are not any less (or more) of heroes of feminism as a result. Feminism just does not rank victims by how they respond to these things.

      1. I normally think of doing brave and admirable things that not everyone is able to do as heroic, specifically in contrast to what’s required. I’m generally okay with not being considered heroic if I didn’t do a heroic thing I wasn’t able to do.

         1. My complaint was about the word feminism, not the word heroic. Her heroism has nothing to do with feminism, and victims who make other choices are not bad (or good) feminists.

            Also uncomfortable with the hardline insistence some in this thread are making that everyone must consume content about this story, when there is a very obvious reason why, oh, 25% of women might be affirmatively choosing not to.

            1. Thanks, this makes sense to me. Completely agree about reasons not to pressure or obliged people to follow the story.

            2. Yes, it makes sense to me that some percentage of women might be affirmatively choosing not to consume content about this story, for reasons that make perfect sense to them and are not for us to judge. However, “Never heard of her” in response to an admiring post about a person implies many things, none of which are “I’ve been choosing not to consume this content.” As has already been pointed out, it also doesn’t imply curiosity, because Googling would take less time than asking for detail here.

               I’m glad we’re having the conversation. I’m one of those who haven’t consumed every detail or discussed them with others. It’s enough for me to know the outline of what happened to be clear about the power story playing in the background. It helps me to hear all the voices here, to have a better sense of how other women are responding.

   10. Agreed — showing what happened, on film, refutes the lame excuses offered by the defendants (“I thought she was agreeable,” when she is obviously limp and out cold, for example). This trial is exposing an ugly, misogynistic streak to French culture.

2. What is the your favorite thing you bought this year?

   1. I got a chest freezer. I live in a small apartment but it was still so worth it.

      I travel a lot for work so being able to freeze leftovers or meal prepped foods is great. And I save a lot of money on bulk items from Costco

      1. I love my chest freezer. I bought it for less than $200 11 years ago and it’s still going strong. It’s great for meal prepping, avoiding food waste, and not having to shop as frequently. We never have to order food because there always something decent in the freezer that can be ready to eat in minutes.

   2. A heat pump

   3. A sweetgreen+ membership. I work a few blocks from SG, and so now if I don’t pack a lunch (which is about half of the time), I just get a salad from sweet green.

      This eliminates the decision fatigue of what to do for lunch, ensures I’m getting something healthy, and saves me money.

      1. The UK doesn’t have a fast casual salad place, and it makes me so sad.
         On similar lines, my campus dining options are terrible, and I got a metal lunchbox and have been making myself sushi bowls for lunch on my campus days. Sushi rice, edamame, whatever veg we have around, smoked salmon or tofu. And I’m so much happier when I’ve got a nice lunch to look forward.

         1. +1 I would maybe kill for one of these sweet green places.
            RIP Chop’t which survived for like 6 months near my old workplace

            1. I was in Dublin and went to the really nice salad place. Why can’t we have nice things? It’s Brexit, isn’t it?

         2. Hi Cb, my daughter and her fiancé want to go to Scotland for their honeymoon next summer. I’d love to pick your brain if you’d like to drop a burner.

            Your fellow East Bay-er.

   4. A Mae New York bow jacket which makes me feel amazing whenever I wear it, and my spillproof Zojirushi coffee mug (a rec I learned from this s*te)

      1. Wow, that jacket is fantastic.

         1. +1

   5. A mattress heating pad. I live in a basement apartment and in the winter, it is a game changer. I run it for an hour or so before bed and once everything’s warmed up, blankets are enough to /stay/ warm through the night

   6. I tried fiori di sicilia from King Arthur Baking and it’s not that it was the most mind-blowing flavor, it was just buying something for the whim of trying a new recipe with it. I put it into their sunken berry cake, which is made with almond flour and is gluten free, as well as in the accompanying whipped cream. I also used it in another recipe instead of vanilla for just something extra. I’ve spent a lot of time baking for family this year as we moved close to them this time last year and that’s probably where the hyper positive feelings are coming from.

   7. I have shared laundry in my building, so I bought a “portable” washing machine (that hooks up to the faucet). I save so much time, at least $7 a week, and it’s so, so convenient to have “in unit” laundry again. I wish I had done this a year ago when I moved into my apartment!

      Also, I am saved the headache of dealing with my one neighbor who takes forever to move their laundry.

   8. A washer and dryer. I’m done with renting the appliances (I live in a rental with in-unit hookups). My new washer/dryer is such an improvement over the bottom-tier Appliance Warehouse versions.

   9. An organic wool bed topper for our guest room. I had surgery this winter and was convalescing in that room for nearly two months and I am SO glad my husband convinced me to upgrade the bed/bedding and not tough it out.

      1. This was my best purchase a previous year. Still very happy with it. I hope you’re feeling much better now!

   10. A Tahitian pearl bracelet from Kojima.

   11. Small: the Bug Bite Thing. I love to be outside in the summer but am a mosquito magnet. They still bite me but now they stop itching pretty quickly.

       Big: Frame TV. I don’t watch a ton of tv but this thing makes me so happy, and it looks great on the wall.

3. Does anyone have any experience with the brand Quince? I found a work tote that I’m interested in, but never heard of the brand and it doesn’t appear to be sold in department stores. I’ve been looking for a new work tote (switching from a backpack) that has a flat bottom and will stand on its own, has a compartment for my laptop, and generally other pockets/compartments. No nylon or canvas, but vegan leather is okay. I also found one on Amazon that fits the bill, but it’s so cheap that I worry it may fall apart quickly. Thoughts? I’m in government so don’t have a lot of money to spend.

   Quince tote: https://www.quince.com/women/leather-work-tote

   Amazon tote: https://www.amazon.com/Waterproof-Leather-Computer-Business-Briefcase/dp/B0C65NJHGW?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=A2DLEY6CNVVB0O&th=1

   1. It’s a direct-to-consumer brand — they’ve been around a while, not a scam or anything, but I would say the quality is “ok but not great”. I loved the idea of their washable silk, but the shirts I got always just look … kinda like I pulled something out of my pajama drawer. I did get a purse I like, and has held up!

   2. I have been really happy with everything I”ve bought from Quince. I’ve had a few things for 3ish years, and they’ve held up well. I have several friends who also buy from Quince and have been happy. In fact I was out at dinner with 3 friends on Saturday and we realized we all had Quince purses!

      I think if you’re used to higher quality items, you may be disappointed but as someone who has champagne tastes on a beer (government employee) budget, I have been happy.

      I bought a crossbody purse from Quince on my first haul from them (which I believe was around Thanksgiving 2021) and it’s held up well. It’s been my only purse for the last 3 years and it still looks great.

   3. I think everything from the brand that I’ve tried is a little off. Like I buy it, keep it because it seems good, and then tend not to wear it because something is not quite right.

      1. This is exactly my experience. It’s not so much quality as fit. Although their cashmere hoody pilled pretty fast, Naadam was higher quality for the same price point.

      2. This

   4. It’s talked about here all the time. My experience is everything is just off. Clothes aren’t cut right. I have returned 99% of what I’ve purchased there. A bag might be fine because the fit doesn’t matter so much but their stuff is cheap and I like nicer accessories in general and would stalk better brands on ebay or poshmark if your budget is limited. The tl/dr, save your money.

      1. I’d guess that the people who don’t like what they’ve gotten from Quince have higher standards / higher budgets and are used to a different level of clothing. I also work in government so I’m on an Old Navy budget, so I’ve been really happy with the things I’ve gotten from Quince. It’s pretty much the only way I can afford natural fibers.

         1. I would rather wear Rayon and have the blouse fit. The silk blouse I bought puffs up weirding when I put a jacket on.

   5. I bought a leather cross body/over the shoulder leather purse and a matching wallet from Quince about 2 months ago. I’m pretty happy with the quality of it. I’ve gotten lots of compliments on it.
      The only thing that was a tad annoying, the purse did come from India and was shipped via DHL. So it did have to clear customs, go though several hand-offs, etc. So as long as you do not have your heart set on the tote coming super quickly, I would recommend buying from them.

   6. Don’t buy on Amazon or get “vegan leather” (plastic) if you want something that lasts.

   7. I really like the bedsheets and the linen shorts I got from there! It does seem weird that they sell such a variety of things, but I’ve had good experiences.

   8. I have a similar one and I really like it! It gets lots of use and has held up really well. It definitely exceeded my expectations, because I have not had great luck with Quince clothing.
      https://www.quince.com/women/triple-compartment-leather-shopper-tote?color=black

   9. I bought a sweater there. Fell apart after washing and I was super careful. Target is better.

   10. I haven’t tried their bags, but I have two 100% cotton sweaters from Quince that I love. They’ve held up great for 2 years.

   11. Agree that everything is slightly off. I’ve ordered a lot from them that I’ve returned. I like some of the more casual sweaters I’ve gotten– especially the cashmere. I really wanted the Fisherman cashmere sweater but couldn’t justify buying a more expensive version because I have a toddler. The Quince version is totally fine, and I’ve been happy with it.

       I ordered a lot of maternity stuff from them, and even for maternity, it’s been off, especially since I have the name brand version of some stuff to compare to. The linen shorts I got pilled quickly. (Bought linen shorts from a name brand at the same time that are in much better shape.) The maternity shirts I got from Quince are all pilled, stretched out, and stains don’t come out well. The sleeves were also weirdly small on the Quince version of the shirt. The name brand version of the shirt I have are all still in good shape and have normal sized arms.

   12. I’ve been happy with the linen button up shirt and silk shorts I bought from Quince.

   13. I have 2 Quince bags and think they’re great.

   14. I’ve never tried their bags, and I like quite a few. I suspect they might be better at some products than others. I’ve gotten some basic jewelry there (e.g., plain gold hoops for work) that I really like and have held up there. But I once bought a sweater there that was pretty awful; it left white fuzz on everything.

4. It’s October 7, and I feel numb. No words for the losses suffered by Israelis one year ago. It seems too soon to be a year.

   1. Shrug. I’m a Muslim who was very sympathetic. Was fine with Israel taking retribution. Now w the spree that Israel has been on for the last year, whatever so you all suffered some losses.

      1. I don’t really thing anyone’s religion should matter in having some sympathy for those who were murdered, r*ped and kidnapped (100+ are still being held). Most Israelis don’t even agree with the ongoing war. The two are not mutually exclusive.

      2. I was Unaware that Islam teaches the appropriate reaction to violence is shrug

         1. Wasn’t aware Judaism teaches that you can just bomb people for a year at a time to avenge for your losses and it’s fine because you can call them all Hamas. I’m sure the 6 month olds are totally down with Hamas ideology.

            1. Not all Israelis are Jewish. Most Israelis don’t agree with the war.

            2. You know who needs this primer on distinguishing between Jews and Israelis? Israeli leaders. They do. They are the ones who use the word “Jews” to mean Israelis. And that diaspora Jews then take down anyone who tries to take back their Jewish identity from being smeared as Israeli or smeared as supporting what the Israeli government has been doing is totally baffling and disappointing.

      3. Am I the only one who sees this comment as a reply to a comment about sweaters?

         1. Nope, not the only one.

            1. Earlier, it was a comment about Oct 7th. Then it switched somehow! It is slightly jarring to read this as a response to sweaters.

      4. +1 except I’m a non-Muslim who was very sympathetic (horrified might be a better description) but no longer given the atrocities they have committed in response

   2. It’s hard to believe it’s been a year. I think of what Hamas launched and the havoc it’s brought to the people it professes to serve and feel disgusted and exhausted in equal measure. The rising antisemitism among my peers an ocean away has been another side effect I guess I should have seen coming.

   3. My heart goes out to you.

   4. What about the thousands of innocent Palestinians being murdered by Israel right now?

      1. October 7 isn’t their day.

         1. No day is ever their day. Every day is Israeli victim card day and by extension American Jewish victim card day. Sorry some of us who had sympathy initially are now over it. Shrug so Oct 7 happened, whatever.

            1. This comment is really gross.

            2. um, “whatever” is a disgusting comment regarding the r*pe, kidnapping and murder of people, some of whom are still being held hostage! It would be equally disgusting to say “whatever” regarding all of the Palestinian lives lost since. there does not need to be a suffering olympics!

            3. This attitude is so off putting.

            4. This discourse is fine but saying “women are women” gets censored.

            5. Anon @ 11:53 – exactly. Sigh.

         2. Yes, this. We can have compassion for everyone who has suffered horrifically in this conflict, and today is the day we remember the atrocities inflicted on innocent civilians in Israel on Oct 7, including the people who have been held hostage for a year now. That doesn’t mean we don’t also feel for all the other victims that followed. The whataboutism every time someone brings up one side or the other is annoying.

   5. Yes, thinking of you particularly and Israel today. You don’t have to embrace everything that has happened since then to acknowledge what started this- horrific violence.

   6. The issue with comments being mysteriously replaced with another poster’s comment is getting really weird. The original post was about October 7 and then was swapped with a comment from the Quince thread?!

      1. That was me! What on earth? How did my reply about Quince end up as the original comment here????????????

         1. So weird. The nesting is switching itself around. Peace out people. Everyone is super harsh today.

5. How do you respond to someone who is the victim in every story. For example: My doctor is terrible. He never orders the tests I should have. So implying – poor me I have to suffer this terrible doctor. I say, get a new doctor. We live in a major city with thousands of doctors. He says, but this doctor is close and has all my prescriptions.
   Or, his friend’s wife got very sick recently. He says that it’s SO hard on him having to support the friend through his wife’s illness. Everything is about him and how “hard” it is for him. No thought to the wife who is sick. Mindless sympathetic agreement just fuels the fire. Person is a family member so no option to go no contact. Thanks.

   1. Why are you friends?

   2. I don’t know the right way to respond. I mix validation (“It sounds like you’re not getting the support you need right now”) with open ended questions (“What are you thinking of doing about this?”) and while this does sometimes improves the trajectory of the immediate conversation, I’m not sure it prevents the next one!

   3. Sounds like they just want to vent as opposed to problem-solve. I find this frustrating too but for people like this have learned to just say “oh that s-cks” and then move on.

   4. No advice, unfortunately. I also really struggle with dealing with people who thinks the world happens to them (a phrase my friend uses that I like). The world doesn’t happen to you. You make choices and there are outcomes that flow from those choices. Clearly, there are things in our lives over which we have no control and are not a result of our choices. But most things don’t fall into that bucket. And I also want to just shake people and tell them to do something.
      Another friend talks about learning that she has agency over her own life and how that changed her perspective. Agency is her word. She has agency to choose a different doctor. She has agency to decide how she is going to support, or not support, her friend whose wife is sick. Of course I think she wanted to change her perspective, and I’m not so sure the person in your life does. Some people seem to enjoy being be victims, and I don’t get it.

   5. I do struggle with people who are like the first example you described, people who want to spend a lot of time moaning about easily fixable problems. Sometimes blandly saying “maybe a different doctor would be better. There are a lot of doctors around.” And then moving on can be good.

   6. If this is your family member, maybe he is lonely and trying to get someone to listen to him, even if the things he complains about are kind of annoying? Sometimes it’s not really about what people are saying.

   7. These cases are different:

      First case: Sounds like an otherwise capable adult who won’t take steps to improve their situation. Irritating, but common. Nod and ignore.
      Second case: sounds like a classic narcissist. I’m sorry you can’t go no contact. Others may have strategies for dealing with a narcissist.

      1. None of this sounds like NPD to me.

   8. You don’t have to engage with family on every issue.

   9. I just give them the ear/sympathy they are asking for… agree with the “that sucks”, and then ask about wife. And if they are family, I may poke them a bit for their self-centeredness.

      Some people are just like that.

      And, it is not always easy to find another doctor. You know what the wait lists are like now? And if you have any specialized needs, or have limited networks (even with a PPO plan). So I do shake my head in agreement with that one!

   10. Commiseration. My ex was like this and I didn’t realize how annoying it was until he was gone. His job wasn’t going well, his boss was terrible. His friends weren’t reaching out, they weren’t being nice to him. His family was all to blame for everything. His doctor didn’t understand his unique struggles. Society was out to get him. When I left him, he posted a lot of crappy comments about women being terrible. He never stopped for a second to reflect on his role in anything. Ugh. Now I am married to a positive go-getter and it’s such a breath of fresh air. Anyway, I have no advice, but I’m sorry.

   11. My mom is like this. In the first scenario, I often will ask what she will do. Or I try to change the subject. Depending on the situation, I might make a few suggestions for fixes but usually they’re just trying to complain not solve.

       If it’s like the second situation, I often give a “that’s sounds hard” and change the subject. Or I try to remember that bad things are experienced in different ways. For example, she has literally complained to me about how her friend’s husband dying is a burden on her. At first, I was really disgusted hearing that. But then I also realized that she has spent hours being this woman’s source of comfort through the husband’s illness and then death. And that, yes, it is probably hard on her at some level to carry this other individual’s emotional burden. If I’m not pitching in myself to aid the situation, then who am I to judge how “hard” or not it feels to be this for someone else.

   12. Grey rock

       1. Hard disagree. That’s good as an avoidant tactic for those not respecting boundaries. This individual doesn’t sound like they are trying to test OP’s boundaries–it’s more to do with their way of interacting with the world. If it is someone lonely and needing this commiseration as a sign of acceptance, then you’re setting up to create a lot more distance in the relationship by grey rocking. And OP said it is a family member where presumably you want a positive relationship. Acknowledging the individual’s pain and shifting topic is going to be a lot better at keeping things moving.

          1. Why assume the OP desires a “positive” relationship with this relative? Somehow that doesn’t seem possible right now. And, per the OP, “[m]indless sympathetic agreement just fuels the fire.” So, no, acknowledging the pain and trying to shift the topic doesn’t seem to work, challenging the premise doesn’t seem to work — the complainer just seems to want to vent and complain, and to impose a foul mood on everyone else, and it is not the OP’s responsibility to allow the family member to emotionally/metaphorically vomit all over the OP and then walk away, refreshed (while leaving the OP covered (metaphorically) in muck). I was thinking “grey rock” while reading the OP’s post — don’t engage, don’t discuss, if the opportunity arises call the complainer out and when they say they are just expressing how they feel, respond by telling them (because this has probably never occurred to them) that it is very unpleasant to have their foul mood imposed on the OP.

             1. “Person is a family member so no option to go no contact.”

                See how not engaging goes in having an amicable relationship for the long term.

             2. Not engaging is not the same as “no contact.” OP can only control what she does — she can decline to engage without going entirely “no contact.” Good luck to her!

6. Looking for Shenandoah Valley recommendations! DH and I have a somewhat last minute opportunity for a weekend getaway thanks to my lovely in laws. We are interested in making this trip about hiking and wine tasting, and I’ve been reading good things about options for both in the Shenandoah Valley. Any specific recommendation for hikes, wineries, or lodging? We typically like airbnbs because DH likes to cook and is great at it, and to have a comfortable private hangout space. But also interested in B&Bs or boutique hotels for this trip.

   1. I prefer the area around Harrisonburg over the area around Luray. The only winery where I can recommend wine is Glen Manor which is near Front Royal. The others I’ve been to ranged from fine to not so good but all friendly and fun to visit.

      1. I second Glen Manor–it’s one of the better wineries in northern Virginia and close to where you are looking. If you want to drive a bit farther out, Linden is well known (Jim Law is known as the godfather of VA wines) and you need a reservation, and Arterra (as organic as Virginia wine is going to get because of the humidity and bugs) is a bit off the beaten path, but is near Sky Meadows State Park, so can combine a morning of hiking with a tasting.

   2. I love the Old Rag hike!

   3. Sperryville would be a great home base. Great hikes, including Old Rag and Little Devil’s Staircase for challenging days, and the AT for out-and-backs. Lovely local restaurants (the pizza restaurant is great, Walker Bakeshop is delicious, the Corner Store an unexpected gem), and not too far from DC. I am not super familiar with the wineries in the area, although Early Mountain (about 30m from Sperryville) is fantastic.

      1. Ohhh, I second this as well. The corner store is great, as is RPK pizza. I’m not sure if The Francis Bar is still there for cocktails, but they were wonderful the last time I was there. There are also some breweries if that’s your thing.

   4. My biggest tip is go in one of the southern entrances (Swift Run or Rockfish Gap) instead of the northern entrances as they are much more crowded and you will wait in line for a while to get in if you go in those on a Fall weekend. Old Rag requires day use tickets in the Fall. Bearfence Rock Scramble is short but fun–it is a true scramble and you will need to climb up and over rocks in places.

   5. Take a look at the cideries, not just the wineries. I liked the cider more than the wine from that area!

   6. I’d skip Old Rag if you don’t have an entire day dedicated just for hiking and do Hawksbill Summit or White Oak Canyon in Shenandoah National Park. I also like Sky Meadows State Park for gentler hikes.

7. I’m voting for Harris but honestly I’m over the fact that Dems think abortion is the only issue there is. Get an abortion, don’t get an abortion, whatever. How many times in an average female life does this even come up?? And even if it comes up a lot, it’s kind of your own personal problem that no one else is losing sleep over. I guess when you’re so weak on economics that all you can talk about is price gouging and freebies like 25k for houses, you go running back to women’s issues. Yes I’m fully aware the other guy is a senile fascist so I’m not saying he’s better but my god can she not be stronger on any issue that matters.

   1. If abortion is just not a big deal, then why won’t the GOP drop it from its platform? There are other issues, after all. Why do they care so much? How many times in an average male life does this even come up?

      1. Yup this.

   2. I mean it’s literally a life or death issue for any woman of childbearing age.

      1. It’s so exhausting to have to constantly explain this. But it’s also proof, as women have been saying for decades, that men don’t view us as human.

      2. Literally, every state has exceptions for life of the mother and no state views it as an abortion to remove a deceased foetus from the mother’s body.

         1. Okay, please explain the Amber Thurman situation then.

            1. 1. Maybe the abortion pill isn’t as safe as thought.

               2. Thurman’s own family said that the hospital gave substandard care (and not because of the law).

         2. Your spelling of fetus indicates you don’t live in the US. Why are you t r o l l i n g about an election you have no vote in. Find a new hobby.

            1. How anti-immigrant of you.

            2. Pretty sure the bog has attracted one or a few foreign sponsored election interference/propaganda troll. Some of the recent posts are really similar to the Sergei-bunchanumbers twitter reply-guy accounts that are so common.

         3. You can die from sepsis before the fetal heart stops in a non- viable pregnancy. A woman died from this in Dublin and it’s literally the reason Ireland changed their laws.

            1. That would be a life threatening situation that would fall under the state law exceptions then.

            2. Again – not how that works. Women die because it’s not clear how imminent the woman’s death is and doctors don’t always guess right.

               ‘Life threatening’ is not a medical description. It’s GOP spin. Is a woman’s life threatened when she’s 80% likely to die? Or 60% or 40% ? What if she has kids already? What if doctors disagree?

            3. Then how do you explain all the women dying and all the OBGYNs saying they can’t perform the proper treatments until it’s too late?

         4. You are clearly not American (based on spelling of fetus). Do not troll our elections. GTFO.

            1. Eyeroll. Yes. Only people born and educated exclusively in America are allowed to vote.

         5. That is absolutely, 100% not true. What the bell? Look at Texas laws, and the supreme court’s ruling today.

      3. It is not the only issue but you would think that it was.

   3. Every time I hear “no tax on tips” I interpret it as “that person doesn’t have a clue or a plan for ANYTHING”.

   4. You don’t think the right to bodily autonomy is a problem worth losing sleep over?

      1. I mean I’m not losing sleep over it, so no. If I were pregnant maybe I’d worry for 9 months and then would be done with it.

         1. It is certainly a hot take to not care about people dying just because it’s not you.

            1. Some really nasty people, or maybe it’s just one, have come out in full force on this post. It’s too early for this level of hatred.

            2. I think this is probably a socioeconomic class issue like many things on this board. I know people who live in solidly red states who don’t perceive this as a REAL issue because they have the money to get the care they need. Whether that’s flying someplace for care and recuperating at the Ritz after. Or frankly in case of a complicated pregnancy, it’d be NBD for them to go rent a home in Boston right next to Harvard Brigham for nine months. If others can’t, they aren’t losing sleep over that.

            3. Seriously. It’s so insanely out of touch. You sound like a teenage edgleord.

            4. I live in a red state and trust me everyone here is scared. It doesn’t matter how wealthy you are. They’re trying to criminalize travel to get an abortion, and also being able to leave the state/country doesn’t help when you miscarry a wanted pregnancy and need emergency care.

               I actually think this is much more of a blue bubble view. There’s definitely an element of “well those dumb people shouldn’t live in red states so eff ‘em” among some socially liberal blue state women I know. Those women aren’t in danger of losing healthcare and can’t be bothered to care about those who are.

            5. T R O L L don’t feed ‘em

            6. “Everyone who disagrees with the progressive party line lives under a bridge” is a hot take.

            7. Calling this a progressive issue is weird. Reproductive rights are overwhelmingly popular and when it gets on the ballot and goes directly to voters it can pass in even very red areas, e.g., Kansas.

         2. Well, I hope you don’t get pregnant and then miscarry in a state where it would be illegal to get a D&C to save your life.

            1. Which state is that? Please cite the relevant law.

            2. Any state that relies solely on the medically vague ‘to save the life of the mother’.

               Signed, my brother had to hear ‘we lost the baby and we are trying to save your wife’. Luckily they saved her but if it was not clear that they could chose to try and save the mother when they thought it was unlikely they could save the baby then my nephews would be motherless.

            3. How is that medically vague?

            4. For an explanation on how this is medically vague: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/opinion/abortion-laws.html

         3. Great! Maybe use your free time for hobbies then

      2. Is the lack of an abortion the only way people die in the US? Maybe some die due to the failure to keep up the infrastructure so roads break and flood during hurricanes. Others die because they were executed in an atiquated and barbaric form of punishment, including the innocent. Some die due to lack of access to health care. Abortion is not the only issue.

         1. I don’t think Democrats support any of those other things that cause death. And a lot of those things you listed are complex problems that don’t have easy fixes and aren’t caused by the government, so it’s not a good analogy. While there may be an argument that the government should do a better job responding to hurricanes, the government didn’t cause the hurricane and figuring out what constitutes a “better” response is complex and subjective, not to mention potentially very expensive. Women dying due to anti-abortion laws is a problem created exclusively by the government and the fix is free and immediate.

            Also these laws target women exclusively so makes sense that women would feel strongly about it. It’s not just about the death, but also about the discrimination. As Kamala pointed out, the US government has never made a law about the right to autonomy for any part of the male body.

         2. Just shut up, you’re not helping. Women are dying because medical care is being criminalized. It is outrageous.

   5. Why do you hate women so much?

      1. It’s a dude.

         1. Clearly a troll.

      2. It’s a foreign-state Sergei-bunchanumbers propaganda tr011 or b0t. The content and sentence structure of the prompt and replies are dead-on. Don’t fall for the content or engage.

         1. I’m very pro-choice but it’s weird to say this person is a foreign bot because they spelled it foetus. Lots of immigrants are naturalized citizens and can vote. My mom was born here but spells it that way because her father was British. And there’s nothing that seems way off to me about the sentence structure either. I actually think it sounds like a regular poster who uses similar syntax in non-political discussions.

            1. Whether OP is real or not, there are certainly women currently trying to rationalize their politics or (often) their SO’s politics.

            2. It’s not because of the spelling of foetus, rather because of the overall tone, content and sentence structure.

   6. I’m very lucky to have been able to access a tubal ligation but yes abortion is a huge issue women are literally dying.

   7. “Get an abortion, don’t get an abortion, whatever” is basically the Democratic platform, so if that’s your view I don’t know why you’d object….

      And to answer the question of “how often does this come up?” uhhh a lot? The medical term for D&C is abortion, so many miscarriages for wanted pregnancies end in abortion and 1 in 4 women have had miscarriages. I personally know two women who had severe complications from miscarriages and might have died if they’d been in a state like Texas with a severe abortion ban. That’s not just anecdata either, statistics show the number of pregnant women dying is going up dramatically in states with these bans: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/texas-abortion-ban-deaths-pregnant-women-sb8-analysis-rcna171631

      Also she talks about other stuff. Abortion is important so she talks about it a lot, but it’s not like it’s the only thing she’s talking about.

      1. It’s what she talks about like three quarters of the time. Sorry it isn’t THAT important.

         1. We should all stop feeding you, that much is certain, but no, nothing is more important than women’s right to life. Please go outside and spend some time in nature doing something that you love. I think you desperately need it.

         2. It isn’t what she talks about 3/4ths of the time. That’s absurd. Sorry you hate women so much.

         3. It is that important. And saying that it isn’t is a really weird take.

         4. Abortion is the shorthand for all sorts of care. It’s about the differences in whom we treat, in dignity, in healthcare rights.

            But fine, you’re sick of thinking about abortion. Think about gun control, the ways Putin-Iran are salivating at using Trump as their puppet, banning books and shaping curricula at all levels toward white American exceptionalism; environmental regulations on corporations; global respect.

         5. Go away, Sergei.

   8. Okay, so I don’t get one. Instead I miscarry. But was it really spontaneous, or did I contribute somehow? Remember it’s illegal if it’s not spontaneous now, and remember that everyday lifestyle choices statistically lower or raise the likelihood of carrying to term. Should women of childbearing age really ever be doing anything that could imperil a potential pregnancy? It’s evidence based that women don’t always know when they’re expecting, and their history is really a personal issue. So how much caffeine and alcohol should adult woman be consuming? Should they really be taking the same risks as men do when it comes to potential injuries or stress on their body when it’s possible they’re not just taking on those risks themselves?

   9. Maybe it’s copying a playbook that’s worked for Republicans?
      For me, it’s the end of a wedge that the Christian Right is planning to drive into my way of life. No access to abortions, then no access to contraception, no access to childcare, ultimately restricting women’s access to the labor market and to public life, because they are busy raising a larger number of children than they would have chosen. Restoration of the man as the head of the house and of the state.
      Which, ironically would devastate the economy which is already short on workers.

      1. It’s also absurd how hard they’re working to restore the man in all his glory when by all accounts, women are leaving men in the dust in education, gainful employment, and general success. Clearly that’s been extraordinarily threatening to the incels living in their mothers’ basements and the mainstream GOP alike.

         1. Yup. The happiest people are childless women!

   10. I’m glad for you that you have never needed a D&C to deal with a missed miscarriage. That you have never had an ectopic pregnancy. That everything in your reproductive organs has always worked perfectly.

       For most of us, we aren’t that fortunate. My mother lost a Fallopian tube to an ectopic pregnancy three years before my older brother was born. If she hadn’t been living in a place where she could receive the appropriate care, she would have died.

       My SIL had a miscarriage between her second and third children. She had to have a D&C, because she retained some of the tissue and continued bleeding for a significant period of time. It completely changed my brother’s perspective on reproductive health care.

       “Abortion” is shorthand for “appropriate medical care and reproductive health services.” I hope you never find yourself in a situation where you need those services. I am still going to be fighting and donating to make sure those services are available to you in case you need them.

       1. Your first paragraph is looney. All the state laws provide exceptions for those exact situations.

          1. Oncologists are having concerns. Many cancer drugs are toxic to the fetus – are they allowed to treat a pregnant woman who is at an early stage of cancer or do they need to wait until she delivers? Could the oncologist be charged if a pregnant woman undergoing cancer treatment miscarries? After all, a pregnant woman with early stage cancer doesn’t really meet the standard of her life being in imminent danger. In some states, she would probably not be able to choose to have an abortion so she could undergo more intense treatment.

          2. Doctors have said those laws are insufficient.

             The experience of women dying in other countries with similar laws proves they are insufficient.

          3. tell me small government conservative friend why we need such state laws? Sounds like unnecessary regulation, red tape and government spending. Why do we allow doctors to make medical decisions all day, but this specific area we need to legislate and regulate ad nauseum? It feels like we just want all the smart doctors to give up and choose a new field, let poor women just bleed out.

             1. This!

                Republicans want low state interference….. until it comes to controlling women. Lets have low state interference and leave medical decisions to doctors and their patients. Lawyers should not be making medical decisions.

                There has also been a healthy debate on childcare which is very much needed. I don’t expect much of anything to change but when making legislative changes, the tax code needs to be updated accordingly. I have disabled children and spend $45-60k per year on childcare. Only $6,000 of this is tax deductible on years I am able to claim two children, otherwise its $3,000. The whole amount should be deducted from taxable income, like it would be if I was hiring an assistant to help me with my business.

          4. Not f*cking true. Not at all.

          5. In theory yes but in practice it’s hard to implement. Lots of OBGYNs are saying they can’t give the proper care, and they risk endangering women’s lives or doing something illegal. I trust the doctors on when a woman’s life is in danger, not the politicians.

          6. I wish it were. In Missouri, the six-week ban has resulted in numerous women traveling to Kansas to receive medical care because healthcare providers in their state believe they will be prosecuted as the law requires if they provide the services that are needed.

             Texas has been sued by women and by providers over vague language and the threat to life and health. A woman in Georgia died because the facility where she sought care was concerned about being shut down if they provided the services she needed.

             I wish that I was being hyperbolic about what is going on. I’m not. We’re fighting deliberately poorly written statutes that if they don’t cross the line into actually banning care, they come close enough that in the interests of staying open and being able to provide care to others, health care providers can’t actually provide care.

             This election is going to come down to the rights of women and to our existential democracy. Trying to explain the latter is hard. Focusing on the former, when we can point to what is happening right now and not in a theoretical future, is easier.

          7. No, they don’t, and anyway, why should half the population have to rely on legislated exceptions to banning of common medical procedures? Just let doctors doctor and women have autonomy over their own bodies already!

          8. This statement is looney.

             1. @ 11:01 am — This statement is looney.

   11. You do realize that hundreds of thousands of evangelical voters make abortion their single issue as well. My conservative family “hates” Trump, but they are voting for him because they are single issue voters when it comes to abortion. It’s a big topic on both sides. Not to mention it’s timely with the overturning of Roe.

   12. Agree. Yes, have a position on it and bring it up as one of a number of issues. But it does seem like abortion is 80% of the Dem talking points and it is super alienating for all those undecided or moderate voters they hope to win over. The Dems repeatedly focus on social issues (often fringe ones) to their detriment.

       1. Healthcare is not a “fringe social issue.”

          1. I’m aware abortion is not fringe, but they get very myopic about a lot of other social issues. This doesn’t mean they aren’t important rights issues (though sometimes they are just pandering), but it means you include them as part of a balanced platform. Winning elections is about politics and appealing to a wide swath of voters; then once you are elected you can make inroads on the issues that are important to you.

             My guess is there are a lot of moderates/conservatives who disagree with her on abortion but hate Trump, and the continued focus on abortion is making it hard for them to actively vote for her (vs abstaining or voting third party). You may disagree with their logic, but the point is the current Dem strategy is bad politics

             1. I’m not sure that’s true. I think there are a lot of people who are against abortion but not happy with the way things have played out since the Roe repeal. Highlighting the effects on women who are trying to have children but miscarry and die or can’t have any more children potentially picks up some of these voters, especially if they already don’t like Trump.

             2. Kansan here with lost of evangelical friends/family. A lot of them, especially women, will privately say that they hate abortion, but are uncomfortable with total bans after seeing all the repercussions. Remember that “shocking” no vote we had on this issue? I pray that is coming in November nationwide. get out of our health care.

             3. Yeah if right-to-abortion ballot initiatives can win in Kansas and other red states, this is clearly not an issue that’s costing Democrats the moderate vote. I don’t understand that argument at all.

       2. Abortion is not a fringe issue, and moderates align far more with the Democrats on this issue so it’s not a dumb move for them to talk about it a lot. You do know every party has highly paid political consultants measuring how viewers react to the debates, right? And viewers respond really well to her answers on abortion.

          You can not like it but factually it is not a bad strategy and if she loses this isn’t why.

       3. Abortion isn’t a fringe issue the vast majority of American support it. And the democratic strategy isn’t winning over people who are so dumb they haven’t been able to make a choice yet. It’s getting democratic voters to show up to the polls.

       4. Not a fringe issue and not 80% of Dem talking points.

          Sorry you hate both women and reading so much. Must be hard for you to tire your tiny GOP brain reading actual policy ideas and not just listening to a crazy ranting incoherent orange felon. Thoughts and prayers.

       5. Abortion is healthcare. It is common. A woman’s bodily autonomy is not fringe.

          1. I was once offered medical insurance with a choice to cover or not cover abortion (state provided plan). I looked up the difference, and so much healthcare would have been excluded had I opted out!

   13. Still absolutely wild to me that people think republicans would be good for the economy. I think we’ve established that trickle down economics does not work. Programs to assist those at the base of our economic pyramid do actually make our economy more stable and while it may not put ten extra dollars in your pocket, it does create a more stable and functional society. But you can’t put a price on it, so it’s worthless, right?

       1. Yes the stat Bill Clinton shared at the DBC about job creation was wild. Since the end of the Cold War, 51 million new jobs in the US. 50 million of them under Democratic presidents.

          Democrats are better for the economy.

       2. The economy was far better for the middle and working classes under Trump.

          1. Yes because he inherited Obama’s economy. Biden inherited the economy Trump created. That’s how it works.

             1. No.

          2. His current plans as he describes them wouldn’t work out this way in a second term.

          3. Gas was cheaper during covid because no one was driving. Maybe most people on this site didn’t get stimulus checks, but vast majority of Americans did.

             Pandemic unemployment bumped up payments with an additional $600/week (more than many people made at work in a typical week) + additional pandemic EBT, which was universal for anyone with kids. At the high point, 1 in 5 Americans was receiving unemployment.

             Of course the billions of aid being pumped into the economy helped the economy.

             Meanwhile, a million people died…worst in the entire world…due to Trump’s negligence.

             1. I think a lot of people are just missing the stimulus checks, honestly. And I mean, I get it, I’m better off than most and they still made a nice impact on my bank account. But it’s unsustainable to just print money continuously. That’s what drove the crazy inflation that Biden is now getting blamed for.

       3. It is wild, but there is a disconnect between what people are feeling wrt their spending power vs how the economy is actually doing. The Dems have not managed to thread that needle. So people are looking for change because they don’t understand the economy has actually been booming and the worldwide inflation had little to nothing to do with Biden.

          1. ugh, yes I am personally really frustrated with my limited spending power despite hitting the 100k milestone earlier this year. But, whenever I try to explain that inflation is a global issue and it’s been way worse overseas, it falls on deaf ears to my never-Trump Republican family.

          2. Yeah I’m sure years of – you don’t have to pay student loans and here’s thousands in child tax credits monthly for years at a time – with all of these benefits accruing to people who were not economically impacted by the pandemic because they were white collar and immediately switched to remote work – had NOTHING to do with inflation. Didn’t increase the money supply one bit. And because the recipients were like the very cautious japanese, they just tucked that money into savings rather than taking six vacations a year and overbidding on houses by 50k. Nope Biden had nothing to do with it at all. Tell me where did you get your economics degree?

          3. Dems have also not managed (or tried?) to prevent private equity take overs of people’s employers, their parents’ care homes, their dog’s veterinary hospital, their plumber, etc. It’s not just inflation that people are frustrated by! I realize the other side would be no better.

             1. In fact, would be worse

          4. The economy is only booming if you’re rich.

             This comment is so elitist and out of touch. I am shocked at how many women on the local mom’s group went from asking about the best Mexican restaurants to asking how to feed their families. The last 3 years have been a nightmare for the middle class and working class.

             1. That’s not Biden’s fault though.

                And also Republicans want it both ways. They were gleefully crowing about the stock market crashing when it briefly dipped. Now that it’s doing super well they say “but REAL PEOPLE don’t care about the stock market!!!!” It’s true that a lot of Americans don’t have money in the market, but you can’t have it both ways.

   14. It’s not the only issue, but it comes up more often in life than I thought it would. A certain party’s hatred of abortions has started to affect people who aren’t getting abortions, like people getting IVF and all women giving birth. Louisiana recently classified mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances. So if you give birth and need these drugs for postpartum hemorrhage, now there’s a delay getting life-saving care. I’m thankfully done having kids but maybe that would have killed me, you know? It’s hard to get past being seen as subhuman.

       1. None of this is about “life” or about women. Pregnant women have reason to access this med. I’m getting induced next week due to high risk health issues, with mifepristone being the standard medication to start the process. Good thing I’m not in LA.

   15. Huh so actually my own human rights turns out matter deeply to me.

       1. Weird right? Almost like we think women are humans!

   16. I think this is a b0t, but I’ll add my perspective as a pregnant woman due any day now.

       I’ve suffered with HG. I lost over 30 lbs and been hospitalized. I passed out. I’ve spent hours throwing up bile. I’ve missed work and been privileged to afford to go on medical leave. I see women in my HG group who aren’t so lucky. Some have other kids, are single moms, don’t have PTO or leave available, don’t have childcare to help while hospitalized – and they make the difficult decision to terminate. There’s women in abortion ban states who want to terminate in the first trimester and can’t because “oops too late”. They’re being forced to be bed bound, lose their job and income, and suffer because it’s not a “life threatening issue” although it certainly is a major medical issue.

   17. It comes part and parcel with the desire to force women out of the workforce. And the decision not to extend child tax credits or make any provision for day care.

   18. Dozens of economists are warning Trump’s radical plans on tariffs would be a disaster for the economy. But, sure, keep presenting that straw man argument.

   19. Because it’s the single issue that single-issue voters vote on very, very frequently.

   20. Hilarious that you think any campaign would focus on this if they didn’t have the detailed polling showing it benefits them to do so

       They are doing this because it’s working for them. Do you live under a rock? Have you not seen abortion win in every ballot since dobbs and lead nearly every special election? It’s the number two cited most important issue for voters. They’d be idiots to not focus on it.

   21. She IS actually stronger on pretty much any issue that matters. At least she has taken principled positions that are unlikely to be swayed by an offer of a bribe or an emotional payoff, like screwing someone over for pleasure. She’s more emotionally mature than that.

8. Talk to me please, about roadside assistance plans. Has anyone used Good Sam? I had an awful AAA experience a couple weeks ago where I broke down when driving out of my city with my dog. After a long wait and though we’d discussed it when I ordered the tow and when he came, after loading my car on the tow, driver refused to take my dog and wanted to leave us stranded.

   1. Have you used the services thru your insurer? Like GEICO contracts it out, I’m sure others do as well. Not sure I’d blame AAA for the dog issue unless you got an actual AAA truck to respond which is rare. They contract out, they may have passed along the message that you had a dog that needed a ride but the driver that came out of you didn’t want a dog in his truck. I mean next time turn down the help bc of your precious dog.

      1. I am really not sure why the ‘tude. “Precious dog”? I had to find a way to get myself and a living animal home from the side of a road 30+ miles from our home. It was over 80 degrees so his suggestion to put the dog in the car on the flatbed, which is all kinds of wrong but especially since it would be fatal on too hot a day, and then he yelled and swore which is pretty uncool dog or no dog.

      2. Ugh is this the same arrogant person with nastiness to spread around who keeps turning up today? If so, do us all a favor and get back to work.

   2. This is a towing company problem, not a AAA problem. AAA just connects you to local towing companies. Good Sam is the same.

      1. +1

         Why would you blame AAA for this?

      2. Yeah, this is just a one off issue. Changing roadside companies won’t avoid this problem. Most tow companies are sketchy.

         1. Thanks. I was thinking this is the case, so wanted to ask. I thought maybe they require X service standard from their branded tow trucks (it was a AAA tow truck) but sounds like not and no other companies would have any more quality control. I do not expect a tow driver to scream at me, and take my car and load it, then refuse to take me where I need to go as a solo woman, and not return the car off the truck and just leave me stuck for half hour while yelling at me.

            I think it makes more sense to not pay for the roadside help that contracts out, but save the money and just call a tow and pay and work directly then.

            1. Then how do you find a towing service? Will you be standing at the side of the road scrolling through Yelp reviews? Able to pay out of pocket right there and then for the tow? I’ve never had a problem with a contracted towing employee. I guess I’ve been lucky.

            2. My experience is that AAA gets the towing company there a lot faster than they would if you just called them independently. I’m guessing they prioritize AAA service calls in order to stay on AAA’s list of preferred priorities? I don’t know. I’ve also never had a bad experience with AAA. I think you just got unlucky. I do think it would be worth letting AAA know about the bad experience – maybe they’ll stop using this towing company.

   3. Complain to AAA.

      1. About what though?

         It’s probably against protcol for the driver to have a dog in his truck, or if it isn’t, he’s still well within his right to not want to transport a dog.

         As for speed – AAA can’t do much for that either. Tow trucks notoriously take a long time.

         1. I’m assuming OP mentioned the dog on the initial call with AAA, and they said the dog could go in the tow truck. If so, I think it’s reasonable to complain because either AAA failed to communicate properly with the towing company or the towing company failed to live up to their agreement. Either way AAA should know about it. It’s definitely not against protocol for towing companies to take pets; most do, in my experience. And while any individual driver may be able to decline to take a pet, they shouldn’t send that person to provide towing to someone with a dog.
            If OP didn’t mention the pet, agree it’s on her.

         2. Because a service that can’t transport a dog is useless to everyone with a dog in the car, and they should know when their customers are unhappy? Why pay for AAA if they “can’t do much” when called upon for help?

   4. This is all really interesting. I got married at 25 and had no qualm about changing my name then, primarily because I wanted the same last name as my future kids. Divorced at 30, and was so overwhelmed at the time that I didn’t consider changing my name back. Fast forward 5 years, I’m now 35 and about to get married again.

      I’ve been debating whether to change my name again, but think I’m going to. Even though I’ve built up a reputation for myself professionally with ex-husband’s last name, and do feel personally associated with it as my identity (not his), ex-husband is not a good person and I don’t have any need to be associated with him anymore. Plus, I do want the same last name as my kids. But my goodness, it’s going to be a huge hassle to change it again, especially now that I’m more established in my career. And own a house, car, etc. I’ve been struggling with this for a while…

9. Does anyone have a recommendation for a cabin rental in Truckee/north Lake Tahoe for two nights mid-week with two adults and a baby? We were originally thinking a hotel, but a stand-alone cabin might be more convenient with a baby. Any recommendations welcome. We typically avoid Airbnb but would consider for the right place.

   1. Stayed here two years ago. 10/10, would stay again. West shore, pretty convenient to Truckee.

      https://www.airbnb.com/slink/PSDPptrK

      1. This looks great. Did you have any issues with the driveway in the winter?

         1. Shoot, we were there in September. Scroll through the comments to see if there’s any insight. The driveway is fine (not sloped, right off the street) but it’s in a neighborhood that is hilly so a lot probably depends on conditions on those roads. The driveway itself would not be a problem. You could also message the owner.

   2. Check out http://www.tahoegetaways.com.

10. If you are engaged and pretty much any combo of your names is a bit ridiculous, what would you do?

    For arguments sake (not our real names), my last name is Lyon and my fiancé’s last name is King. On their own, totally normal last names. Prior to dating my fiancé, I always thought I’d hyphenate my name because to me that was the best of both worlds: I get to keep my name but I also get to share the family last name with my husband and kids (never planned on having future kids hyphenate). Well, obviously, the last name Lyon-King is absurd. But, the other options are not much better.

    I could just keep my name and he could just keep his name, but together we’re still the Lyon and King family.
    I could take his last name, moving Lyon to my middle name in which case I become Jane Lyon King. I do not want to drop Lyon completely to be Jane Elizabeth King.

    Even if I switched the order to King-Lyon (which I’d rather keep Lyon first), I feel like the comments about Lyon-King would still be made.

    My fiancé doesn’t want to change his name, which I am fine with.

    1. You keep your name, he keeps his name, the kids get one of the last names.

       1. +1. And then you only deal with the absurdity of the joined names if you choose to send holiday cards. And then you laugh about it. Because it becomes something special about your new family. Own it!

          While clearly you do you, moving your own last name to a middle name doesn’t appeal to me because it’s kinda invisible unless you work hard to keep it visible. (I chose to keep my last name and my kids have DH’s last name).

       2. I agree with keeping your name, but picking and choosing the last name the kids get is just silly to me. Just pick one and use it for all kids. It’s like you’re playing favorites or something otherwise.

          1. Regardless of what I choose, kids would have the last name King.

             1. Why?

             2. Because while I”m personally attached to my last name, I don’t feel the need to pass it on to my future kids. I fight enough battles, I don’t need to buck the system and give the kids my last name – I’m fine with doing the traditional thing here.

                My real last name is rare and that at times has been difficult (often gets misspelled, sometimes gets mispronounced; it’s similar to a more common last name and people default to that – think a Johnston vs a Johnson). I’m happy to give my kids the easy last name.

                I have a few friends who grew up with hyphenated last names and hated it. I’m choosing the “burden” of the hyphen for myself, I don’t want to put that on my kids.

             3. So there’s your answer: you keep your name, your husband keeps his name, the kids get his name, nobody hyphenates, the end.

             4. Maybe unpopular here, but I think you’re right to not put the hyphenating burden on your kids. I agree the obvious solution is you keep your name, husband keeps his name and kids have his name. It’s really not that big a deal having a different last name than your kids, and you can still call yourselves the King family even though your last name isn’t King.

             5. @10:19 that’s what I did. In hindsight we should have thought more about giving the kids my last name because my husband truly doesn’t care. But I kept my last name, my husband and kids have his last name, and it has never been an issue. I just didn’t change my name.

       3. Yes. Regarding the kids having the same last name: I promise you, it’s NBD these days to have a different name from your kid.

          1. I know logistically it’d be fine, but I do think I’d want to share a last name with my kids.

             1. I guess then you have to decide what you feel stronger about, keeping your last name or having the same last name as your kids.

             2. OP, I had a lot of the same concerns. Both my husband and I kept our original name (I also offered him a coin flip but he wasn’t willing to take 50-50 odds, which I think is a pretty ick fact but he has other advantages). Kids have my last name as their middle and his last name as their last. Do I wish we all shared a last name? Yes, but only if it was mine. And I love that they have mine as middle linking them to each other too, we joke that their middle/my last is like a hidden superpower. Also it’s really nice when one of my in laws is doing something dumb to just remind myself that at least I don’t share a last name with them – and I have objectively great in laws, so others may feel this more strongly.

             3. Just as a quick counterpoint to the comment above mine – I held onto my last name for a few years after marriage, and changed it when I got pregnant so I would have the same last name as my kids. I took my husband’s last name and moved mine to my middle name. At the time the whole thing meant a lot to me and it was huge to give up my last name. Now, ten years out with two kids, we are the [NAME] family, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, nor do I give it any thought on the day to day. It’s weird to change your name and represents a big change in your life, but it has come to have a different meaning for me – a true combination and creation of our own family. I know “but the patriarchy!” and feel that way a lot of the time, but this ended up not being one of them.

    2. You keep your name, he keeps his, and kids get his. And don’t refer to yourself as the Lyon King family. How often does that even come up? Day to day just go by King family even though you’re technically not a king.

       1. You’ll probably get some holiday cards addressed to the Lyon/King family (this is how we address all our cards to families where the adults have different last names) but I don’t think that’s a big deal.

          1. Yeah, literally the only time I think it would come up is Christmas cards or wedding invitations. So who cares.

       2. It probably doesn’t come up a ton, but you’d likely be introduced as Jane Lyon and John King and people would then think heh Lyon King

       3. I did think about keeping Lyon legally and at work and then going by King socially, but I have a fair amount of crossover – several work friends have become real friends so I’d like to be consistent. It also creates problems for my background investigation at work, which gets reinvestigated every 5 years. It’s seen as a red flag to go by a name that isn’t your legal name (absent of nicknames – like Liz for Elizabeth).

          1. Honestly, socially, no one cares what your last name is. Don’t try to juggle two. You’ll be fine keeping your name at both work and socially.

             1. +1 my daughter kept her last name, and even living in an Orthodox Jewish community with fairly conservative social mores, it has not been one iota of a problem.

       4. We refer to ourselves as the Lyon & King family on the rare occasion it comes up. Since neither of us have a hyphenated name, the & seems more appropriate.

    3. I’d just keep your name. In educated circles many women do. Assuming the name combination isn’t offensive or violent, I think being known jointly as the Lyon/King family is fine but I can see why you don’t want to be Jane Lyon-King. I changed my name when I got married and regret it. I kept my maiden name as my middle and intended to use all three names for work but the middle name got dropped pretty quickly and I became known to everyone as just First Married. 16 years on there’s no trace of my maiden name anywhere except my passport. And anyway that won’t work for you because of how they sound together.

       1. I agree with this comment, including that I regret changing my name, I made my given name my middle name, my given name has disappeared, and I wish I’d just kept my name and he kept his. Your kids’ young friends will probably call you Ms. King, but that’s going to happen regardless of what you do with your name legally. And if you do become known as the Lyon-King family and you’re okay with making light of it, then I’d embrace it and do that.

       2. Okay, I thought most liberal, educated millennial women kept their names but I’ve been surprised at how many I know have taken their husbands names. Like really surprised.

          1. No millennials actually swung back to taking husbands’ names in a big way. I’m an older millennial and while maybe my few oldest friends didn’t – the ones truly on the cusp on Gen X, everyone younger than that changed names immediately. It was Gen X women that were big on keeping their names.

             1. Okay, that makes sense. I’m 30, have a lot of friends getting married now, and I’d say 75% of them changed their names, which feels so old fashioned to me.

             2. Interesting, I’m an older millennial too and I don’t know anyone who’s changed their name.

             3. Never thought about it as Gen X keeping their maiden names. As one of the cusp, I kept my name and many of my friends did – especially those that had worked and earned degrees with their name. Both our younger sisters (firmly millennials) immediately changed their names.

             4. Gen X here who kept my name and I regret it. My husband and I are a team and I wish I’d taken his name to reflect that. I realize I still could technically, but I’m not up for the hassle or constant explanations. OP, I’d do Jenna Lyons King. You can always be Jenna L. King if necessary.

          2. I’m 39 and I think my friends were about 50-50.

          3. Yeah a lot of my peers today k their husbands names, it’s pretty disappointing

             1. Yes! I’m 40 and have friends my age getting married from time to time. Several have changed their last names, which I was very surprised about and a little sad.

             2. I’ve been married 20+ years. Sometimes I regret not keeping my maiden name, but I cared more about all of us having the same name than fighting the uphill battle that I know it would’ve turned into if I’d kept my own. It’s a personal choice; you don’t need to be disappointed in your peers. You’re not privy to their decision-making process.

             3. I posted above that I regret not changing my name. What younger me didn’t realize is that “my name” reflects my dad’s family. Yes, I’ve used it my whole life and have a strong association with it, but it reflects an allegiance to what’s no longer my nuclear family. I regret not making my last name my middle name and taking my husband’s. I could have easily used both professionally.

             4. Wow the judgment here is wild. Not everything has to be a fight against the system and the man, although I felt that way when I was younger too. Life is long, and there are bigger things to focus on than the convenient naming system we have developed that favors one group over another.

             5. Get over yourself, anonymous at 9:54. My DH changed diapers, watched our son, supervised homework, and made dinners as an equal partner. We both have professional jobs and I happily took his name, just like I wear a big ole diamond and wore white (second marriage and was pregnant). How does that matter more than someone else’s pronouns?

             6. Meh, nobody’s overthrowing the patriarchy by keeping their father’s name instead of their husband’s. Personally, I like my husband a lot more than I like my father – I’d rather share a name with him.

          4. I’m a Xennial and most of us kept our names. I’ve seen the younger Millennial women change their names.

          5. 48. Married at 35. Oldest child is 12. Kept my name and I have no regrets.

             Most (but not all) of the cousins (male and female) on my mom’s side also are in marriages where wife kept her own name. So I guess that says something about how my ex-hippie mom and her ex-hippie sisters raised us!

          6. I’m in my mid-30s, lawyer married to a doctor, 2 ivy league degrees among the four degrees between us. Among all our peer coworker, friends, classmates, residency/fellowship colleagues, etc (so a sample of several hundred highly educated women about our age), the single biggest determinant of keeping maiden name is the undergrad institution the woman attended: ivy undergrad is more like 70-80% keep their name, everyone else is more like 30-40%. This is true even for the doctors, including the ones who got married after finishing med school, which really surprised me.

             1. I went to MIT and I think more than half of my female friends from undergrad changed their names. It was actually surprising to me how many did. I’m a little older than you, late 30s.

             2. And yet all of my Ivy League friends (we are early 30s) and relatives (my age – mid 40s) changed their names. Every single one!

                And they all have graduate degrees (MDs, JDs, NPs, MBAs, Masters of various sorts). All of these women have both their undergrad and their graduate degrees from Ivy League schools.

             3. IME this wasn’t ivy vs. non ivy, this was purely based on age. Went to an ivy twice so many of my friends are from there. The Gen X crew and the Gen X millenial cusp – the women who are now 41-44 years old, almost all kept their names. Yet just a few years after that – the women who are say age 38 and younger, ALL changed their names ASAP and did not care that their ivy degree or med school or whatever had a different name on it. They were all very big on their own family having one last name. Now I hear the pendulum is swinging back the other way with gen Z and they’re keeping their names.

          7. I am a liberal, educated Gen X who took my husband’s name so we are the Smith family and our son has our last name. I only have teensy weensy regret at not keeping my maiden name because it is a unique ethnic sounding name but that is also part of why I took Smith. As a lawyer, I knew my husband’s name is easier to spell and remember. But the other reason is I do have a bit of a traditional streak in that I wanted our family to be a unit under one name and don’t want to deal with hyphens. It really should not bother or suprise anyone.

    4. Ah, my 10-year anniversary is this week, so thanks for the nostalgia. I’ve been in your shoes. My maiden name is a color, my husband’s name is an animal. We both changed our names (think White Fox, no hyphen), and embraced the fact that we sound like a family in a Beatrix Potter book. Fox White just looked like we were trying to hide it.

       But if he hadn’t been willing to change, I’d have kept my name and we’d just be the White Fox family on Christmas cards.

       It’s obviously unusual and we live/work in a small place. Occasionally one of us gets met in a professional context with “Oh you’re so and so’s partner!” but it honestly doesn’t come up that often.

    5. I moved my maiden name to my middle name, husband took my maiden as his middle and our kids have it as well. It’s not technically a hyphenated name but we’re all the Jones Smith’s. Plus I appreciated that my husband was willing to do the paperwork as well.

       1. I felt like this was a positive sign as well. My husband’s family gave him tons of grief over it, and his desire to have a family name, and willingness to change his, felt like a good omen for the future relationship dynamic.

    6. You keep your name, he keeps his name, kids get one name or another. Once in a while you get mail addressed to the Lyon-King Family or called by the wrong name and you laugh but it’s not a big deal.

    7. Our names don’t sound silly together, but they are both really long. So we just each kept our own names, kiddo has his name (for various reasons – he offered to hyphenate but I kept thinking about her spelling it out in school and it not fitting into standard forms). We occasionally are referred as the “Jones-Smith family” and it’s fine – happens maybe 2-3 a year? when I’m signing cards, I usually say “from John, Jane and Sarah” so it’s never been an issue.

    8. Keep your name. I did and no one ever refers to us as the Myname Hisname family. I think Lion King combo is cute, fwiw. If it was a combo like Seymour & Butts my answer might be different.

       1. Our real last names (not sharing them because mine is quite rare and would out me) are not inappropriate, but sound way more ridiculous than Lyon-King. I was just trying to come up with a similar example with a few real last names.

          1. As long as it’s a fun kind of ridiculous, I think you should go for it.

             1. Married a man with the last name Darling. Opted to hyphenate my name, in part because it sounds like Katherine Hepburn is saying this. Yeah, I went with humor.

                Been married for a while, now have kids. Felt very tied to who ‘I’ was when I got married but now more than a decade in… I’m not the person I was before I got married. I was insecure in a way I didn’t realize. I like myself more and more as I approach 40. I also really want to share a name with my kiddos because – for me, this is my family. Looking to legally change my name more than 10 years after I got married and drop my maiden. Go with whatever makes you happy, you can change it later if you want.

    9. Is one of the names the type of name where pretty much everyone who has it is a relative? (In comparison to a name like “Smith” where everyone who has it maybe had an ancestor with a certain profession.) I kind of regret the loss of one of those names in my family.

       1. Yeah, my last name is rare – there are 3 branches of it in the US with I think a grand total of 50 or so people with the last name.

          Even if it wasn’t so rare and so tied to my actual relatives, I also just hate the concept of changing your name because you got married.

          1. Then don’t.

             1. THIS!

          2. In this scenario I’d keep the rare name, the kids would get the rare name, and dad can keep his name the same way some other commenters kept theirs (assuming dad’s name is less unique).

             1. Sorry, I didn’t see that the kids getting dad’s name is already decided. Maybe a more common name is a good thing in terms of not being too Googlable these days.

             2. Yeah, kids having the more common last name and thus being more “anonymous” was definitely one of the factors in deciding they’d have King as their last name.

    10. I kept my name with zero regrets. I thought that if we had kids I’d change it but in the end I’d just rather keep it than have it match the kids. It’s really not a huge deal. Younger kids who are friends with mine will call me “Joey’s mom” and it makes me smile so big that I couldn’t care less about our names matching. It’s a special thing to get to stay me and still be in this wonderful family.

    11. I would just keep my name and not buy cutesy stuff with The Ourname Family on it.

        1. Oh, do not worry – there will never be anything like that in my house, regardless of what my name is :)

    12. So it looks like consensus here is folks suggesting that I keep my name – logically, I like this. But emotionally, I think I do want a “family last name” that I share with my husband and future kids. Moms – can you please weigh in on this?

        1. I’m a mom who kept her last name. My son’s first name is very special to me (the name of the grandfather who, along with my grandmother, raised me). So to me, he has a name that he shares with my family.

           If you think about it, you (as a daughter) don’t always share a last name with your own family: your mom might have kept her name or changed it back after a divorce; her parents don’t have your last name; various aunts and uncles and cousins can have different last names.

           And… if I had changed my name to my husband’s last name, I just don’t think I should share a name with my son. I would have this Not-Mine name that I was saddled with halfway through life that “matches” my son’s name. If I wanted my son’s name to match mine, he would have my last name, not vice versa.

        2. It seems like you want to hyphenate. If that’s the case and your husband won’t change his name, what options are there other than Lyon-King? People have told you their thoughts (including some mothers) and it seems like you don’t want to do that. Which is fine! I’m just curious what the other options are besides simply hyphenating if that’s what you want to do?

        3. Mom of three – the family name we and everyone else uses for us – is a portmanteau of our last names. It’s catchy but honestly not as catchy as the Lyon-Kings, which is really pretty great? Even our address return stamp is “The LyonKings.” All of the people at school/neighborhood refer to our kids as the “LyonKing” boys. Zero issues.

           My husband and I kept our last names. The kids had my last name as their only middle name and his last name as their last name. This was important to us so that both last names were in regular use and both last names are very “ethnic,” reminding our kids of their shared lineage.

           Husband converted to my minority religion and we raise our kids in it.

           It feels like a completely blended and united family that reflects us as individuals and creates a cohesive unit.

        4. I kept my last name (I’m the long names commenter above). I thought I would feel a certain way about not sharing a last name with my child, but I really don’t. I gave her a significant family name as a middle name and I feel plenty connected to her. I have traveled with her alone and carry her birth certificate just in case but it has never been an issue. In my circles it’s very common for women to keep their last name so I don’t feel any social stigma or anything like that.

        5. You can’t ride two horses with one tush sugar beet

           1. I literally LOLed. Blunt but totally perfect.

        6. I’m the 9:34 poster above who regrets changing my name and I’m a mom. I overestimated how big a deal it was to share a name with your kids. It really doesn’t matter.

        7. We both kept our last name and our kid has my last name. Our “family name” (only really used super informally to refer to ourselves in like, text messages and a few cards we get) is a mashup of our two names, eg, the Smithsons in lieu of Smith-Johnson family. Our names work well with that.

        8. I gave my kids my last name as a middle name. As far as middle names go it’s horrendous, unpronounceable, and nowhere near a “real” name, but middle names are completely pointless to begin with. I do not know most people’s middle names. So who cares, you know? If they’re Babyname Lyon Kings, they can use it as a fun fact during one of those dumb corporate icebreaker activities.

           1. Mostly as an aside, I know a lot of southern men who go by their middle names; they share a first name with their father, or simply prefer the middle name and making that choice is socially acceptable.

              That said, no shame in using the middle name for impractical but sentimental names.

              1. Yeah, but their parents do that to them on purpose. Nobody would know their middle name if it wasn’t pointed out.

              2. “Their parents do that to them on purpose” is harsh.

                 A good middle name is another option for a child. We can’t predict what they would have wanted to be named, but we can give them two options for first names.

        9. I totally agree that this is an emotional decision, and it’s not as easy as some of the blunt comments here make it out to be

        10. We both kept our last names, our kids have his last name. I’ve found, though, that most people call our family the My Last His Last Family. Sometimes I go by His Last name- usually to contractors or for school activities, when it would just be easier. It’s not a big deal for me to switch back and forth, and I don’t get offended when people call me His Last. If it’s something where it’s important to use my legal name, I just point it out when needed. The name to me is the least important identifier of our family unit, to be honest. I also go by a different name than what is in my birth certificate so I’ve always felt names were a little fluid and you can use whatever suits the situation. (my original name is the phonetic spelling of my Mandarin name, and I go by an Anglo European name that sounds close to the original Mandarin name.) So depending on context, I go by My Last, His Last, or My Last His Last. Aside from professional and legal issues, I’m not picky about what is used.

        11. I kept my name. Kids have his last name. Both have names from my family as their first names, and one’s middle name is my last name. Also, my husband’s family is from an insular, (non-white) immigrant community, and their name reflects that. That was relevant to our decision, but not determinative.
            No regrets whatsoever about not having the same last name as my kids. It is a non-issue. There are a lot of social settings in which I am referred to as Mrs. HisName, and that’s also fine with me. There are similarly a lot of social setting in which he is referred to as Mr. MyLast, which is fine with him. Holiday cards and wedding invitations are all over the map, but we are unbothered by it.
            All to say: It sounds like you are a person for whom all of this would be an issue. That’s ok. Run your own race.

            1. This is very helpful, thank you.

               I’m actually totally fine with using King socially or getting cards addressed to the Kings – that was one of the reasons I wanted to hyphenate. But, if it’s not too uncommon to be a Lyon who uses King socially, that’d work for me I think.

               I do care more about passing on first / middle names from my family than Lyon – would be happy to compromise that we get to use my family’s names for first / middle with King as a family name. Still not sure what I’d do, but that’s helpful for the rest.

               1. I/we did this. Kids have husband’s last name and I got heavy say over middle names, choosing ones that honor my mother and grandfather. I thought I’d be totally fine going by “King” socially, but my blood boils every time I get a letter to MyFirstName King so apparently I made the right decision! The idea of a team name was super important to me when I was engaged and then pregnant and since then I’ve only thought about it with Christmas cards (after several years I’ve finally settled on the King Lyon Family for those).

        12. My mom kept her name, back when it was unusual, and I’ve always been proud of her for that. I have her name as a middle name, and that works well for me.

            1. I love hearing that you’re proud of your mom!

        13. I have never felt like we weren’t a family or were even less of a family with our different last names. It has literally never mattered, never caused a moment’s hassle, and the only people who have ever made any issue of it are people with a weird agenda that I don’t care about. My husband doesn’t care. My kids don’t care. I care very much about my last name so I kept it. Period.

        14. Keep your name. Design a family shield featuring a crowned lion. Seal all correspondence with it. Keep an utterly straight face if anyone ever giggles or asks about it.

            1. I love you.

        15. I took my husband’s last name and don’t regret it. But: My maiden name was kind of hard to pronounce and always put me in the corner when we sat alphabetically, though, so I never liked it.

        16. I kept my name but I have zero problems with being called Mrs. [His name] by people who don’t know and certainly any kid. Also fine if our family is referred to as “The His Family”. I do find that the people I like most call me by my actual last name or refer to our family, including the kids, as “The Hers His Family”, but that’s probably more indicative of them being kind, thoughtful people, who spend time thinking carefully about others than anything to do with what specifically they call me.

        17. I kept my name – never even considered changing it – and when we had a child, who will be 30 next month (how did that happen?) we gave them my last name. This was for a variety of reasons – my ex’s last name is constantly misspelled or mispronounced, mine is one syllable and easy; there are children on his side of the family with his last name but none with my family name because I have only sisters whose kids got their dads’ names; ex-H had a difficult family relationship.

            There were no real hassles due to any of this (other than a very judgy hospital clerk assuming we were not married because the new baby had my last name). We might have bucked the trend, I suppose, but it never felt like it. I did not feel like we were less of a family because we had different last names (and as far as I know my ex did not, either).

            1. Also, our child’s first name is a unisex name that was my ex’s mother’s birth name (think Taylor), so they did get a name from their dad’s family.

        18. I kept my (common) name, husband kept his (uncommon) name, and our three kiddos hyphenate. It has literally never been a burden for them. We’ve talked about it, and it just isn’t a big deal to them. Many, many children in their public schools have double last names or hyphenated last names.
            Good luck figuring it out! People feel strongly about last names, but there is no wrong way to do it.

    13. Conversely – I’d totally lean into the Lyon-King family name which is awesome.

        What my husband and I did – I am corporette Lyon and he is corporate king. Our kids are all Simba Lyon King (with Lyon as their only middle name for all of our kids.) We actually go by a family portmanteau of the two last names which is catchy but not as catchy as Lyon-King.

        My husband converted to my minority religion and we raise our kids in that religion.

        So we each kept something important to us – the kids have his last name and we as a family practice my religion.

        1. It’s not actually Lyon-King. Agree that’s super cute, but OP said the real one is worse.

    14. I kept my name and my one child got my last name. We decided that if it was a girl, my last name, if boy, his last name. Kid is in late elementary school and has traveled with both parents separately and this has never once been an issue. No one has even commented on it except to say it was cool. A friend did similar — her last name for first kid and dad’s last name for second. No confusion has resulted.

    15. Everyone who assumes that their immediate circle is typical of their age/education level might find this interesting: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/09/07/about-eight-in-ten-women-in-opposite-sex-marriages-say-they-took-their-husbands-last-name/#:~:text=Most%20women%20in%20opposite%2Dsex,they%20kept%20their%20last%20name

        Also for posters who are disappointed or dismayed when women change their names, please consider the possibility that those women may have fraught (at best) relationships with their family of origin and are happy to make a psychological break. Change your name or don’t. That is an entirely personal decision. But the judgment on other women’s decisions is unkind.

        1. Nonsense. 8/10 women are changing their names because of the patriarchy.

           1. Until I see men change their names when they get married, I’m gonna go ahead and say 10/10 women who change their names are doing so because of the patriarchy.

              1. Hear, hear!

           2. Good grief. I have a doctorate and happily changed my last name legally because my maiden name is extremely common. There were 2 other girls in my high school with my same First Last. Now I still use my maiden name professionally since it’s easy to pronounce. Just… do whatever you want and don’t judge others’ choices.

        2. agree, but I also think we give guys too much credit when they choose to give the wife’s name to the kids. I know 3 guys who did it and it in every sungle case it was because they hated their fathers.

        3. Yes, of course some women opt to change their last names because of bad associations with their family of origin… but presumably just as many men have that issue and the vast majority of them don’t change their last name when they marry.

        4. My theory is that there’s a certain prestige to an in-tact traditional family that the matching last name conveys. Divorced and single parent households and blended families are less common in my well to do area than in the country generally. I kept my name though. I personally feel more like myself this way. I think it demonstrates that I married a dude who supported me in this decision and didn’t see it as an ego blow, which is true.

           1. I think there’s probably an element of this. My mom kept her name which was unusual in the Midwest in the 90s and people constantly asked me if my parents were divorced. I hated it and I changed my name in part because i didn’t want my kids to have that experience, even though I know it’s much more common now. My husband would have supported whatever I wanted and even encouraged me to keep my name, but I felt pretty strongly about taking his.

        5. It’s perfectly fine to be disappointed in someone as long as you don’t tell them. Also let’s not pretend that the majority of name changes are anything other than peer pressure.

           1. This!

        6. Of my college educated late 20s to early 30s friends who kept their last name, it wasn’t a big feminist statement for most of them. Their husband’s last name was harder to pronounce, it didn’t “feel like them” due to whatever ethnic or religious background, or it was pure laziness. I have one friend who told her husband she’d gladly change her last name if he did all the paperwork. I don’t infer anything from the last name a woman uses because the reasoning varies widely.

        7. totally agree. If I lived somewhere where there was social pressure to, maybe I would’ve kept mine to make a point. But in my circle it’s a huge mix, and frankly my parents are divorced & my dad’s side of the family generally sucks. Loved the sound of my now-husband’s last name too. Feminism isn’t just bucking tradition, it’s having the choice to do what you want to!

        8. I’m the commenter from the other day with the Easter horror story.

           I kept MY name when I got married, because it’s the name I have done my entire life with. Yes, a bunch if not-awesome (understatement) humans share it, but it doesn’t undo the almost 40 years that I used it when unmarried.

    16. I had the same scenario, except our last names were also so similar that keeping both would be confusing (think River/Rivard, or Long/Wrong). I ended up just switching my last name for simplicity. One option we considered was creating a new last name but that was more of a headache than I wanted to deal with and my feelings on my maiden name were just not that strong.

        1. Funny how your husband couldn’t just switch his name for simplicity…!

           1. Just circling back to say he could have, and did offer! I just didn’t care and my first name sounds better with his last vs my maiden.

    17. I kept my name and use my husband’s name socially. My workplace name/email, etc. is my given name. Just about everywhere else, I use First Mylast Hislast. I created an email address FirstMylastHislast at email to use once the kids went to school, and it sort of morphed into my “real” personal email. (Mostly because my old FirstMylast had become a junk drawer of Ann Taylor emails).

        Growing up, I had a friend Kate Smith and her mom was Mrs. Smith. Later my dad worked with Ann Jones – Kate’s mom. He used to joke that her last name changed when she walked to the parking garage.

        My big thing was that I wouldn’t correct children for calling me Mrs. Hislast, because I find it so overblown to be feminist at a small child trying to be polite. Turns out that all the children in my life call me Aunt firstname (my friend’s kids) or firstname.

    18. It surprises me how many women friends I have now on their 2nd or 3rd marriages, who still have the last name or their ex-husband #1.

        They married. They changed their last name for traditional reasons (even the one who is a scientist with publications….), and that was hard enough that they never bothered to change their name back once they got divorced. And now they are like…. never again….?

        So I’d say, don’t change your name. Most marriages end in divorce anyway. Sad but true. And your name…. is part of you.

        1. Most marriages do not end in divorce. And the number is especially low the more educated you are.

11. I’m dealing with some heavy stuff in my personal life that isn’t going to get easier anytime soon. My focus at work is not great, and it’s not feasible to dial it in indefinitely. Any thoughts and tips on staying somewhat focused and on top of things when I am mentally and emotionally not doing particularly well?

    1. Honestly? Don’t come here. The tr*lls on today’s threads are the nastiest I’ve seen in weeks (and that’s saying something). More often than not, this place makes my day worse and it certainly hurts focus even on a good day. What I would suggest is limiting all non-work screen time (this place included) and making sure to prioritize even a short walk each day. I’ve found that really helpful for personal issues that haven’t resolved quickly.

       1. Fair point about reducing my input.

    2. To-do lists with tasks broken down into small bites. For all of the administrative parts of the personal crisis, schedule dedicated blocks of time. Simplify your home life so you don’t use up your limited focus cleaning and cooking and can save it for work.

    3. You’re now in triage mode. I’d spend some time this evening/week thinking about what absolutely MUST be done, what would be nice to do, and what can be put off. Categorize appropriately and give yourself permission for everything not urgent to slip – you can eat off of paper plates if dishwashing is too hard, send out your laundry if you can, clean less often, workouts can become gentle walks, and focus as much energy on your personal life, sleep, and urgent work stuff. I’d also look into what options your work offers you for support – therapy? care.com? etc. This is also the time to call in your village – people are willing to help if they know what you need.
       Good luck – I hope things calm down soon.

    4. One thing that helped me was setting a timer, and telling myself “For the next 30 minutes, all I have to think about is doing (a task)!” The mindset being – life is really hard right now, having 30 minutes to do just this work thing is almost like a little vacation! Usually, once I got started, I’d get absorbed in the work task and continue for more than 30 minutes. I’m sorry about the hard life stuff.

       1. I like this. It may be the only way to stay on top of my responsibilities, which aren’t going anywhere.

       2. I use timers as well and find it very helpful when I’m feeling scattered.

    5. My only similar experience was when my mom was dying as she and I were very close. She was very sick and dying for about a year, and I was one of her primary caretakers during that time.
       I told everyone at work and all of my friends what I had going on. Once they knew, people were happy to cut me some slack, help out, be flexible when I needed to change plans last minute, etc. Ordinarily, I’m a high performer in my field and a very reliable friend. Both of those things were not true for the year she was dying and the six months after. People know who I really am and understood that I had to and wanted to change my priorities during that time.
       Depending on what’s going on in your life, I suggest you tell people what’s happening if you can. Rather than wonder “why is anon suddenly not focused and underperforming” or something similar, they’ll know there is a good reason and you’ll be back at some point. Good people want to help and are very understanding if they know they need to be.

       As to not coming here, I found here to be a helpful distraction sometimes. I didn’t read the fights or the heavy comments, but I read the easy ones.

       Massive internet hugs from a stranger. I’m sorry you’re at a very difficult time in life. I hope you have good people in your life who will support and love on you as you need it.

       1. This. And if your workplace is at all flexible, take time off, even if that looks like working only 6 hours a day — with official time off, you can ignore emails and calls and so forth, as if you yourself were in the hospital recovering from being hit by a truck — because that, metaphorically, is what is happening with you.

    6. Ask yourself “where are my feet?” When you are at work you do work, when you are home, you do home. If you WFH, you do work at certain times. The feet help put me back in focus when I get anxious.

    7. Make time for the mental health habits that keep you sane. If it’s working out, meditation, whatever it is, it’s worth it. Even if you have to get up at 4am. Also, simplify— cut out the stuff you don’t absolutely have to do. And if you have the money, consider meal delivery, housecleaners, whatever it might be to take a load off. Schedule time at the beginning and end of the day to prep—when life throws a lot at me, I find my attention span isn’t always there, so it pays to invest a little more time preparing for the day. If you have important, heavy personal appointments, try to schedule buffer the time immediately before and after to be able to adjust to get your head back into work.

       Is there any way to let work know? Or go to HR and find out different leave options/benefits available to you? Only you can be the judge. Good luck OP.

12. Does anyone know what the current trendy skincare brands are for middle schoolers?

    1. Middle schoolers should not be using trendy skincare, good grief.

       1. Pretty sure they’re supposed to be using sunblock, and they can be as picky as anyone else about consistency, odor, etc.

       2. Well they are. My nieces are into Tatcha, Sunday Riley and Drunk Elephant.

          1. +! to the above, plus Glow Recipe.

          2. Where TF are kids getting the money for this stuff?

             To me this is a great example of the “spoiled kids” threads from last week. I, a full grown adult who makes good money, don’t budget for things like Sunday Riley and Drunk Elephant, who in their right mind is buying it for kids?

             1. When I was growing up, the hot thing was Esprit and I got it for my birthday. This is the same thing.

             2. This is why I suggested Neutrogena. If I had a kid who wanted more expensive skin care, they would have to get a job to pay for it.

             3. Kids spend money of different things these days. When I was that age I was spending my money at the mall on CDs, which don’t really exist anymore. The emphasis on designer clothing is also different – it obviously still exists but kids are also down with cheap Walmart clothes.

             4. My 4th grader spends all of her allowance money ($10 a week) at Sephora. I only let her get lip glosses and body sprays and those ridiculously overpriced spray hand sanitizers. Is it stupid? Absolutely. But at least it’s not another squishmellow. And it’s her allowance so she can practice making stupid spending decisions.

             5. Based on my nieces, they are getting it for Christmas and birthday gifts or using their birthday/Christmas money.

                I give my nieces money for holidays. I do not police how they spend it. If the younger choses to use it for spendy skin care she does not really need, that is a good lesson for her. (Although my sister did take her to Sephora where they managed to steer her toward Tatcha rather than Drunk Elephant – which is what she originally planned to buy.) Her sister used her gifts to buy a nice jacket that was pricer than what her parents would buy for her. Guess which one is happier with their choices? Lessons were learned and they are important lessons that have nothing to do with being spoiled (indeed in my view quite the opposite).

             6. Serious. Drunk Elephant? For tweens?!?!

                Moms…. please….. save us.

          3. Drunk Elephant is trendy, but a lot of skin care experts (including the brand) have a lot of hesitancy with it being appropriate for teenage skin. Tatcha is a lot milder and doesn’t tend to have “strong” ingredients so I would lean towards that for teenagers since it will not make things worse.

       3. Good habits should start young. Sorry you can’t budget for nice skincare but that doesn’t mean that a random 13 year old shouldn’t be using it.

          1. Dear poors, pipe down. You’re making the indulgent parents nervous. Of whom there are many judging from the ridiculous crowds in my local Sephoras and Ultas on weekends.

             OP, I’d follow derms’ lead on good skincare. Things like cerave, cetaphil, etc. aren’t all that expensive. Sunscreen is more a matter of personal preference. I would try to minimize things like highly scented lotion or face masks as they can be irritating and tend to have more chemicals. Better to experiment with things like lip gloss or eye shadow then something likely to cause widespread irritation or clog pores.

    2. I’d just pick up something like Neutrogena from the drugstore or even the store brand version. They just need a cleanser, moisturizer, and SPF.

       1. I think nobody likes harsh products that don’t smell great in ugly packaging and with a history of environmental issues. Maybe try Target for better packaging at a minimum.

       2. That’s not the point with the kids, it’s like having designer jeans when I was growing up. They’re not using it for skincare, they’re using it for status.

          1. And at least designer jeans can be seen! No one can tell what skincare you’re wearing when you’re out and about.

             1. The same is true for adults. Sephora sells lots of snake oil, yet we buy it.

       3. It’s for fun over utility in this case.

    3. I see Bubble recommended a lot on reddit.

       1. If there’s a H-Mart around, it can be really fun to shop the beauty section. The skin care formulations seem a lot more gentle too.

    4. The Bubble line, usually reasonably priced. Byoma & Drunk Elephant.

       1. +1 to Bubble. It’s specifically made with tweens/early teens in mind. They seem to love Drunk Elephant and Glow Recipe, but derms are pretty universal that most formulations are too harsh.

    5. they love sol de janero

    6. I have a middle school girl in the thick of this. She is only allowed to use boring, basic facial cleanser (she uses CereVe). I had horrible skin as a kid and I’m doing my best to help her avoid it (we’ve already seen a derm).

       However, she triples down on all the other fun stuff at Ulta/Sephora- body scrubs, lipglosses, bodysprays, non-face lotions, etc- anything that isn’t face serum is fine with me. She likes Laniege, Summer Friday, sol de janiero (including the bum cream which I lovingly tease her about since her bum is perfectly tight at 12!).

    7. Trade Joe’s cleanser $8.99, their moisturizer $7.99 and their sun cream which is $8.99 I think. It lasts forever.

       This is what they need along with a washcloth to exfoliate their skin and nothing more.

       1. I could spend $$$ on skin and hair care, but I don’t. I love TJs products, I mostly use their hair stuff (dry shampoo, anti-frizz serum, conditioning mask) and they’re all absolutely incredible, way better than anything I can get at Sephora.

          Unfortunately, my TJs doesn’t stock as much skincare so I haven’t tried as much of it but I’ve loved what I’ve tried.

       2. Sure, but it’s like buying a teen some Dockers because all they really need is pants, when their heart wants a pair of JNCO jeans.

    8. bubble & byoma generally hit the sweet spot of cute packaging but also not harsh ingredients (a al Drunk Elephant). Some glow recipe stuff is cute and mild like their cleansers.
       I’d go the route of fun trendy body care like summer fridays lip balm, sol de janeiro sprays & body creams. Cool to their friends without fing up their skin.

       (on one hand, ridiculous vs the drugstore stuff we used when I was in middle school. but we were also begging our parents to spend $$$ on ratty henleys at hollister & A&F. trends change)

13. I’m launching a new pet app at the end of November! I’m going to a huge pet industry conference a few days later. I’m a solopreneur (with freelancers) so will be by myself. I was planning to wear a company tshirt with black pants but now I want more executive presence. I really want to land a strategic partnership next year and that means networking with potential partners and their investors.

    It’s been a long time since I went to a conference like this and I’m trying to figure out what will make me feel badass. I’m short and want to seem like a powerful CEO but still like myself.

    My style is a little more fun and edgy. My hair will be red/purple/blue ombre. I don’t wear heels. I am about a size XL/16 and am self conscious about my stomach so a lot of dresses are out. Are skinny pants still out? I want to feel like myself so a full suit is probably out. Help!

    1. I’d do pants in the same color as the T-shirt and a contrast blazer. So think white t, white ideally straight or wide leg trousers or even jeans, and then a navy blazer. Good minimal accessories.

    2. What about a pantsuit with a company T-shirt underneath? You could wear lug-soled loafers for some height. Your hair color will automatically make this look slightly edgy but still professional.

    3. Universal Standard has a lot of ponte suiting right now, with pretty much every option of pant style. I feel like the black cherry color would look great with your hair, but you have a few options for color. Wear that with your company tee and funky shoes. You’ll look great!

    4. I’d wear flared/wide leg dress pants with company T-shirt and a blazer with sleeves at bracelet length. I’m around your size and I find that flared leg pants create a nice visual. Accessorize with bracelets. Proud of you for launching this thing! Good luck!

    5. The cuts and details from Donna Karen always make me feel badass, and some of her items are fun and bold, gold, or an animal print detail. Good luck with the launch! You’ll do great!

14. Has anyone here tried having a child through surrogacy? How does one even start, going about it? Any resources very welcome! I live in a small town in a southern state and don’t know anyone in person who has done it and think even my doctor won’t have much to offer. Other options have not worked so please be kind.

    1. I have not personally, but I have cousins who live in DC who did because the mother has lupus and couldn’t go off her meds to be pregnant. In law school I wrote a note on it for my journal. This might be a good place to start: https://connect.asrm.org/lpg/home.

    2. I have not, but I have worked on state legislation related to surrogacy in a northern state. If the options that have not worked for you have included a reproductive endocrinologist, ask them if they have a list of attorneys their other patients have worked with while considering surrogacy. On the medical side, surrogacy is essentially an egg donation procedure — so if you’ve been through IVF or considered going through IVF, you have a basic grasp on what’s involved physically; it’s just the legalities that are going to be new and you want a local expert to walk you through what it’s like in your area.

    3. Are you a patient at a fertility clinic? That is where I would start. If your doctor who you think won’t have much to offer is a fertility doctor you need a new one.

    4. Men Having Babies has great resources that apply regardless of your sex/orientation

    5. There are two kinds of surrogacy – gestational (your egg, her womb) and traditional (her egg, her womb). If you want to use your egg, start with your RE and have a conversation about what that would look like with your ferility situation; your RE should have surrogacy agencies in mind. If going traditional, you can start directly with the surrogacy agencies and/or egg donors.

15. I work on an issue that is in the news, dealing with a lot of disinformation, and is something that the general public doesn’t know a ton about (but apparently has opinions on). In addition to being confronted by the issue every time I turn on the TV or pick up my phone, my family and friends are asking me so many (dumb) questions.

    Obviously no one has the capacity to know enough about every hot topic, but I’m exhausted being everyone’s personal FAQ when a little research could go a long way.

    It’s great that people want to learn, and I admit it is a complex concept, but I’m still exhausted a) doing my work b) seeing the nonsense online and then c) fielding questions from people I know.

    1. I work in insurance, feel your pain.

       1. If it’s health insurance, I guess I can comfort myself that someone on the insurance side of things is feeling some pain of their own.

          1. This comment is unkind. What is up with people today?
             OP, I work in a field that’s in the news a lot in a controversial way and it can get exhausting. Sometimes I’m in the mood to engage and explain. Sometimes I’m either too tired or sensing that the conversation will not go well, and I just kind of laugh it off and say “oh, I really don’t want to talk about work right now! Have you have heard about this new restaurant in town?”

    2. Yeah, I work in disaster relief and while not currently deployed to Helene I am getting lots of dumb questions about it. A few friends of friends are survivors, and I’m always willing to help them out and provide whatever information or insight I can. But, I’m not willing to discuss that your uncle saw some video on Truth Social that FEMA is arresting people or some sh!t.

       And, when I’ve deployed to previous disasters, I cannot deal with some of the questions from back home. Like, yes I have to go, no I cannot say no. I work 12-14 hour days 7 days a week for the duration (maybe 1 day off every few weeks, but not always) so no I cannot do XYZ on my day off because I do not have a day off. Yes, they can make me work that much. Yes, I can find out that I’m deploying on a Tuesday morning and be in the air 4 hours later. No, I cannot come to your birthday because I will be deployed and that’s not a valid reason to leave deployment. No, I cannot answer your call in the middle of my work day. Yes, it is called deployment and no I’m not in the military.

       And, this is a really well oiled, very structured system in which every agency or VOAD has a role, EVERYTHING is coordinated, every person has a specific job that they’ve been specifically trained for. Spontaneous volunteers and donations hurt the system because there’s no way to account for them, if you want to volunteer do so through a reputable org that’s plugged in to the system as a VOAD. Cash is best, material donations just slow down the system and the organizations involved have a process for sourcing their supplies (for internal use and to be given to survivors). FEMA is not designed to be a panacea – the system is designed around using local, state, federal, and VOAD resources and personnel. Most complaints about FEMA or the American Red Cross not doing XYZ is because that XYZ is not their mandate – but they’re coordinating with the agency or VOAD who is mandated to do that. There is so much work, planning, and coordination going on behind the scenes that the general public doesn’t see – trust me NO ONE involved in this is phoning it in or is inexperienced or not very well prepared to do their job.

       Nothing is perfect, it will never be. As much planning and prep that goes into things, “no plan survives first contact”. There is always some unforeseen circumstance that pops up or some logistical challenge that is a true struggle to overcome. But, I have faith that everyone involved is doing their best and putting in hours and hours of really hard work to save lives. The well-meaning armchair quarterbacking is not helpful, especially if you do not understand the field.

       And, that’s not even to mention the BS disinformation that’s out there.

       1. Thank you so much for the work that you do. I will try to use parts of your response when talking to people who are fearful and distrustful right now.

    3. I totally feel you. I’m a homicide prosecutor and try not to mention it ever because random people always want to discuss their opinions on whatever true crime TV show or podcast they are binging or asking me for gruesome details of my work. These are real people who are gone and real families/friends/witnesses that are traumatized and devastated. It’s not entertainment.

       1. This is how I feel about the obsession with true crime. I can’t watch/listen to it.

          1. Same here. I get an icky feeling about all the tv shows and podcasts. They really seem exploitative to me.

       2. Thank you. Totally agree. My FIL has served on 3 juries now and fancies himself an expert in all types of trial law. Gaaaah

    4. I think it’s a plus that people are engaged enough about the topic to ask and want to learn more, and that they recognize you as an expert. I am in a complex field that got press during covid and is still getting media attention now for various reasons. I find it disheartening when I hear totally uniformed commentary from friends and family. I wish I could inform them but they don’t even recognize that I’m an expert in the topic because they “have no idea” what I do.

    5. Yes, it’s like being a doctor or a lawyer at parties. We feel your pain. Just try to be kind to those who are ignorant.

16. what is the weather like in San Diego/ La Jolla in mid January? I’m totally fine with not being able to swim, but can I sit outside to dine or sit on the beach in sweatshirt and leggings? Does anyone have any hotel recs? DH and I are going on a trip for our 40th birthdays and the only time we can get the grandparents to watch the kids is in January and we don’t want to go to a ski town/cold place bc we are doing that with the kids for spring break.

    1. It can be quite cold. It’s not where I’d go if you want to be outside in January. I’d head to Mexico, go to Cabo, it’s not much further but more reliably warm.

       1. is there anything to do in Cabo other than sit on the beach?

          1. More than in San Diego IMHO.

    2. Hotel Coronado!

    3. It’s spring-warm if you’re from somewhere that gets snow. I always find the weather lovely when I visit my relatives but they think it’s cold and wear winter coats.

    4. It can rain a lot. I had a conference therein late January once and it rained – heavily – the whole week. With the rain, it felt a lot colder than it actually was. I think that much rain is somewhat unusual, but it was pretty miserable honestly, and I’m a Midwesterner with a decent tolerance for cold and gross weather.

       San Diego is also an amazing destination for kids, so if you have kids, it’s not a place I’d prioritize for a kid free trip. Agree on the rec for Mexico. DH & I are going to an all-inclusive resort in Cancun for our 40th birthdays. If relaxing at the beach isn’t your thing, I’ve heard great things about Mexico City.

       1. where are you going in Mexico?

          1. LeBlanc in Cancun

    5. I personally would not pick San Diego for a January vacation. That being said, depending on where you are coming from, it could feel “winter warm” to you. It will likely be in the upper 40s or low 50s in the mornings and evenings, and low to maybe mid 60s during the day. You might get lucky with a heat wave, but there is probably a better chance of getting a weekend that is gray and rainy.

       L’Auberge Del Mar and the Lodge at Torrey Pines are both very nice hotels. Hotel Del Coronado is also a good option.

    6. San Diego in January is a complete crap-shoot. It might be beautiful, sunny and 75. It might be cold (for San Diego – which means highs in the high 50s/low 60s) and rainy. The ocean will be cold either way. If it rains there is not much to do because we are very much a city built for outdoor activities.

       It can be a great time to come because there are no crowds; but you are taking a risk.

    7. Most of the time it will be warm enough to sit on the beach in leggings and a sweatshirt, though it’s always chilly at night… but you could get unlucky and get a week where it pours the entire time.

       1. It usually rains for a couple of weeks straight in January or February.

    8. It’s cold for us locals :) but might not be for you. My husband and I used to take hot cocoa to the beach for New Years (pre kids). We have to wear light to mid weight jackets and hats. You can get rain then, but later on in the year is more likely. My family does take beach walks in January and hikes are actually perfect, such as Torrey Pines along the coast (>$20 for parking) or Cabrillo Monument/tide pooling. You can dine under heat lamps but as a local it wouldn’t be my first choice. You’d probably want to be in a coat. I would look up sailing tours or whale watching tours, although it will be cold on the water.

       The San Diego Zoo is nice all year and the Balboa Park museums. Hotel Del Coronado as already mentioned is classic and you can bike along the ocean/down silver strand. There are some nice places around Torrey Pines and La Jolla like Estancia (a little remote, up on cliffs), La Valencia (in La Jolla proper, but not near La Jolla Shores), L’Auberge up in Del Mar (which has nice patio restaurants in the shopping center up the hill, it’s fun walking to the Del Mar dog beach and seeing all the fancy breeds). I think those all have hot tubs and spas, but not indoor pools. You might be able to get a VRBO on/near the water for a better price in January. Solana Beach is cute and walkable if you want a condo. As you go into North County, you’ll be 30 min drive to downtown/Balboa.

       I would imagine this as more of a city visit that happens to have cold beach walks and hiking. Chilling all day on the beach wouldn’t be that fun.

    9. It’ll be chilly (40-60 +/- rain) but Balboa park is always the answer- look for a hotel in the gaslamp, go to all the museums + the zoo.

       1. I think I probably felt differently before having kids, but now that I have them I cannot *imagine* going to a zoo on a rare kid-free vacation. I get more than enough of that kind of thing at home.

          1. The San Diego Zoo is not your ordinary zoo.

17. Anyone have any advice on where to start if we are interested in living abroad for a few years? Asia or Europe? We do not speak any languages other than English though. Husband is a biglaw litigator, I work a remote job that I could do from anywhere. Kids are in elementary. Any chance my husband could get a job with US based company or firm with overseas locations rather than applying for local jobs in these countries?

    1. In-house lawyer here and that’s probably the easiest path for your husband, I have some friends who moved to foreign offices of their companies. That said, as a litigator, it’s harder to go in-house and you won’t likely be able to execute on this plan immediately absent some sheer luck. It’s also very hard to get visas so I would not count on both of you being able to work abroad. It’s a lot harder than it sounds.

       1. All this. He should start looking now if that’s what yall are interested in!

       2. Agree this is a route to look into. I know people that got secondment at firm clients overseas offices. One friend went to the Middle East, an acquaintance went to Japan. They didn’t have kids so I’m not sure how that would have factored in. I want to say they were gone for about 2 years.

    2. It’s possible, but can be hard without some knowledge of local law and/or the language. But yes, I work at a large international company and people request office transfers regularly and are frequently accommodated, as long as the person is well-liked and the transfer works out with their workload (I’m in-house, corporate law which I think is more portable than litigation). In that case, my company handles visas for the whole family.

    3. Some European universities have MBA that are taught in English. He could look into guest lecturing there. But that’s not likely to be full time work. If he does international commercial arbitration that’s more portal or if he does criminal prosecution and is open to working with the various war crimes tribunals. Bilingual would be helpful for any of those.

    4. I don’t think you can move to a foreign country if neither of you has a local job. You would need an employer to sponsor your visa.
       Also don’t assume you can do your remote job from a foreign country. I’m fully remote (don’t even have a physical office) and can work from any US state, but there are a lot of restrictions about working from abroad because it causes all kinds of legal and tax issues.

       1. 100% My company is totally remote but we do not allow anyone to move outside the US. It would open us up to a tax Nexis in that country and cost the company 10’s of millions of dollars.

       2. +1, not to mention you’ll have the laws (and taxes!) of whatever country you’re living in to follow as well.

    5. Do either of you have grandparents from Europe? Several countries do citizenship via descent. I think it would be challenging otherwise to secure a visa without a job offer in another country.

    6. How are you planning to get visas? Do you have dual citizenship? You can’t just pick up and move with no plan, and the requirements are going to vary by country.

    7. While I am not a lawyer, I have been working abroad (in three countries so far, over more than a decade). It is possible generally speaking to get a job with a US organization and be then relocated or based abroad, but I think this is more typical for international organizations and in finance. I do not think it is typical for law, given the specialized home-country geographic knowledge involved in the work. Asia might have more opportunities than Europe, I would guess. It is usually very difficult to get a job locally in a foreign country without speaking that country’s language. I would begin to think creatively about the kind of work you might be interested in doing, and begin expanding your network to include people working at those organizations already. In my case I have had the following experiences: a visiting fellow role, working with a US-based organization at another foreign office, and working with an international organization. As a left-field idea, the US foreign service accepts applications from all types of professional backgrounds.

    8. Depending on the type of litigation, your husband might be able to transfer to a branch of his biglaw firm, or to another US-based law firm in a foreign country. You might need to forgo your job and become a trailing spouse and full-time single parent, particularly if your husband ends up traveling or entertaining clients a lot. Living as an expat is a bit of a throwback life, but can be very rewarding.

18. Going to Miami in December. I’ve been once a few years ago and my bf has never been. Any suggestions on restaurants or, things to do, etc? We are more outdoorsy than club type people and wouldn’t mind an afternoon kayaking. We also like nice restaurants but not the trendy kind that are a see and be seen type places.

    1. DH and I have enjoyed visits to the Everglades National Park when we’ve been in S. Florida. A quick internet search shows there are guided Kayaking “expeditions” you can do there.

       1. Everglades National Park is about a 1.5-2 hour drive from Miami though. You can also do kayaking much closer to Miami. I’ve done it around Key Biscayne.

    2. There is an amazing restaurant called Stubborn Seed that is in the top 5 meals we’ve ever had, highest recommend. Also recommend: Traymore by Michael Schwartz (inside a hotel I believe) and 27 Restaurant and Bar (and there’s a little club attached if you’re a drinker)
       Also really fun was the Design District, Le Jardinier Miami was also an once in a lifetime meal, absolutely exceptional.
       I also recommend doing brunch at a fancy hotel like the Ritz, I did that for a breakfast and it was really peaceful and pleasant.

    3. It’s not fancy and not super unique to Miami but I love Yardbird.

19. Is it just me or has in-house pay really flattened or not kept pace? I’m seeing job postings now that pay the same as 2013 which is the last time I was really looking in the job market. I am not in-house right now, and was thinking about going back in-house but the pay looks appalling.

    1. Would be interested in in house people weighing in on this because from the outside feels the same to me. I’m in government and granted I’m on the higher end of salary for government being in the financial space, but still in the 200s. I routinely see in house jobs looking for significant years of experience paying considerably less than my salary. I have always assumed it’s because in house feels they can get people who desperately need jobs – i.e. people being pushed out of biglaw who are too senior to lateral in biglaw without a book and thus need a job. At least that’s how it was the last time I was looking at in house which like you was about a decade ago.

    2. I’m in house and changed jobs recently. They came in really low – like, below my previous position’s pay, even though this was a step up. I had the privilege of being employed at a perfectly fine job, so I politely said I was interested but would not move under $X. They came back two weeks later offering $X. But I was a bit surprised by how low the initial offer was and maybe the market is cooler than it was. Although I also take the fact that they came back with a better offer to suggest that they couldn’t find a good candidate for their original amount.

    3. I’m in house now and looking for a new job and seeing this same thing. The pay range listed in the postings is abysmal.

    4. I’m actually glad you posted this because I was feeling the same way. I see a lot of job postings that are like 2/3 of my current salary pay or less, and I am seeing a lot of postings for GC/Head of Legal jobs at companies similar to mine that pay meaningfully less than I make in my non-GC role. I got my first in house job in early 2020, pre-COVID and the ranges were significantly higher at that time.

    5. The best in house jobs are “pocket listed” to borrow a phrase from real estate. Either through recruiting firms or professional networks. You’re not seeing the higher compensation jobs (which are few and far between) unless you are in the know.

    6. Yes; it is below inflation-adjusted levels.

    7. Currently in-house at an F500 company. Our salaries don’t seem to have kept up with inflation. However, total compensation tends to be significantly higher than the base compensation listed. I get a large percentage of my compensation from benefits/stocks/bonus, which wouldn’t be included as part of the salary range on a listing. At my firm, most of my compensation was from the base compensation, and I had to pay for my benefits out of my salary. The hours I work are also significantly less than what I worked at my firm.

       However, a trend we’ve noticed at our company has been to hire attorneys that live in mid to low cost of living areas rather than the traditional higher cost of living areas where the company is headquartered. We have several business offices, and attorneys can work out of any of the offices. I hear complaints frequently about how hard it is to hire people to work out of our business offices in areas with HCOL. However, we’ve had a growing number of attorneys hired to work out of my office in a MCOL city with the same salary. (The salary in my city still hasn’t really kept up with inflation, but neither have any of the other salaries in our city, so it’s at least market.)

20. I’m selling a house for the first time (in DC) and really surprised and frustrated by how difficult it has been and how long it is taking- we listed back in July at a price that seemed well supported by comps and was priced to move, and we have dropped the price significantly and still aren’t able to get it sold. the agent is now suggesting we list with another brokerage at the end of the month. Is this normal? We don’t live in the house currently as we have had to move away, so we are paying two mortgages and it’s pretty painful.

    1. Commiseration. I moved, and remodeled my house to rent out. It’s in an ideal location in mid-size city/state capital. Been listed for 2 months with few leads. There’s nothing wrong with the house and it’s in line to slightly under other rentals in the neighborhood. It sucks and I don’t know the answer. I didn’t sell because it would most likely sell to someone who would rent it out, so why not me, where I can be sure it’s being cared for and I know I’m not a slumlord (major issue in the area). But…. the market seems to have softened ridiculously so. I don’t know what the answer is.

       1. Please sell it. Let people buy your house to live in it.

    2. Have you had any offers? A lot of interest? The market is definitely slower than it was, and unfortunately listings can get stale after a while.

    3. Hi there, we are in a similar boat, though we are in the south. We have been listed since June. Our next door neighbor has been listed for a year. Ugh! I would call the market in our area stubborn and slow, which is so depressing. 1 year ago (right before our neighbor listed) it was cooling off and now really cooled off. It is also hyperlocal where we are. 5 minutes away there are a lot more new builds moving at a healthy clip. We have an older nicely renovated home. 2 mortgage payments feel like such a money hole. I am hoping the declining mortgage rates will help us all out soon.

    4. Thanks all. We are considering renting it out (we have been landlords before and really don’t enjoy it, but it is what it is). We have good web views, some visits, but no offers, and we had no visits in the last week so I am starting to feel pretty demoralized. Do y’all think we should just rent it out?

       1. I am the poster above who is in a similar boat. We are also trying to rent with no luck (about a viewing a week but no renter, our market has a large competitive rental inventory). I don’t think I would recommend trying. I sort of feel like it’s sending the wrong signal to buyers. We have had no luck on the rental side either.

       2. Is it possible people are waiting to post election to see what happens to interest rates?

          1. Yes I do believe that the election has something to do with it, and people just being on edge so waiting before making a big decision.

       3. Bluntly, what’s the issue with it? Bad neighborhood? Out of date kitchen and bathrooms? Weird layout? Some of that can be addressed, some can’t. I’d take a hard look at what’s going on before deciding to sell or rent.

          1. It is very possible nothing. The market is very tricky in some areas right now.

             1. Eh, that poster but I think there is probably SOME issue. The market is weird but good deals/houses sell, even in poor markets.

    5. We got kicked out of the house we were renting this spring because the owner wanted to sell. It’s been on the market since May and still hasn’t sold, but I think you’d have to be completely insane to pay the price they’re asking for a place in the condition it’s in, even after dropping the price substantially. It’s almost double what it would have sold for 5 years ago, and while some people were desperate enough to pay that in 2021 and 2022 (for nicer places, though they might technically be comps), people seemed to have wisened up or just gotten priced out. Several houses in the neighborhood also took 6+ months to sell or were taken off the market without selling. We moved somewhere cheaper, and found competition for decent houses to still be pretty stiff (paid slightly over asking on a house that had been on the market for just a few days).

    6. If you’re not getting offers, it’s not priced to move. Are the comps selling?

       1. OP, comps should be sale comps, as in closed transactions. If your broker is using anything other than recent (last 90 days if possible), you’re using bad comps and have a bad broker.

          1. This.

       2. Agreed. Also, this post drive home for me how local real estate is. In my area, houses do not sit— still all going over ask and within 48 hours.

    7. In my DC neighborhood, there are a lot of move-in ready houses priced in the $1-1.2MM range (which seems reasonable to me for the area) that seem to be selling within 2ish months of being on the market and a lot of similar sized/quality houses priced in the $1.5-1.6MM range that are sitting on the market for a loooong time. I imagine that most of the higher priced sellers think they’re priced reasonably because there are other similarly priced houses, but there’s clearly a disconnect where people think they should be getting more for their houses than what the market actually supports. I would be curious to know how long your comps were on the market before they sold, and if they sold in 23/24 or 2021ish.

    8. Wait, your agent wants you to change brokerages? Something is really off because DC area volume, especially close in, is still moving pretty briskly and inventory is down so generally agents are hungry for listings.

       You did list at the worst time, historically speaking – the market always dies in July and August. What’s your agent’s take on why it’s not selling? Are you getting tours?

       1. We are getting tours and a number of folks said they would have otherwise made an offer except for the noise from the street. When does the market come back? Like should I expect that things will be quiet through the winter until spring or does it historically pick back up sooner?

    9. Thanks all for the comments. The only issue is that it’s on a major thoroughfare, but the neighborhood is otherwise fine, the unit is beautiful and it’s priced lower given the location. It’s really a great property with no issues other than the street it’s on, and I expected that it would take longer and sell at a lower price, but I just don’t understand what is going on here, especially with the suggestion that we change brokers.

       1. What’s the transit situation? Is there private parking? Street parking? A major thoroughfare could be a barrier if not near public transit.

          1. 1 private parking spot that is secure behind a garage door and 2 blocks from a metro stop. you can also take longer walks to stations on other lines. The location is really good.

       2. It’s the price. Lower it. The fact that your broker wants out suggests that you are resisting lowering the price. It isn’t worth what you think it should be worth — it is worth whatever the market will bear. Clearly, the market will not bear whatever the current price is. Seems like you need to dump this property already to get out of paying two mortgages. Cut your losses and move on. Good luck!

21. I’m almost scared to post this after all the weird comments today, but here goes. Has anyone ever adopted a child as a single woman? Or do you know anyone who has? What was your experience like? I’m interested in adopting a baby, and from what I’ve gathered I’ll need to go through a private agency as my state will only adopt if you foster first, but the ultimate goal of fostering is to reunite the child with their original family. So it seems that private adoption agencies are best for those who 100% know they want to adopt. I have a steady, but flexible job with the federal government, I have a stable home, and I have a great support system in my parents and siblings (who all live in my city).

    1. No but wishing you luck! I’m single and have considered it but just doesn’t seem possible.

       1. Can you elaborate on why it doesn’t seem possible? You may have considered things I haven’t thought of

          1. It just seems like the preference is for married couples and even for them it can be years and years of waiting. I have not looked into it in any level of detail it just seems insurmountable. But I’m also just tired after 4 rounds of IVF and haven’t had the energy to really research it.

             1. Waitlist are often tied to what kind of child you will accept. Waitlists for healthy white infants are the longest.

             2. Waitlists for brown/black infants are incredibly long too. In my area, you can only adopt easily if you take an older child, usually a school age child.

       2. My BIL and all his siblings are adopted from the foster system. They were drug afflicted babies, but none had any long term medical complications and all are corporate executives as adults. My BIL and all his siblings are of the same non-white ethnicity, which I think is partly why their parents had limited difficulties adopting them as babies.

    2. I do, but I don’t know the details. I wish I could share. A woman who is like a friend of a a friend of a friend is a NICU nurse who adopted an infant 16 years ago in Salt Lake City. While I assume you’re looking for info about how she did it, I don’t have any of that info. I’ll just say I know she did and has raised a very successful teen.

       1. Thank you for sharing! This is still inspiring, even without details.

    3. You may want to start look into being a foster parent, I believe that opens some doors.

       1. Sorry, didn’t see you mentioning this already

    4. As my username indicates, I am a single mother by choice. I conceived via donor insemination so have no personal experience with adoption but a fair number of members of the local chapter of the Single Mothers by Choice organization adopted (both private and foster to adopt). You might want to consider joining the SMC organization. They have very active bulletin boards, and it might be a good resource for you.

       1. This. Check out SMBC local groups and also facebook groups. There will be a lot of information there.

          Good luck!

    5. One of my family members is a single foster mom. She signed up to do it through the state. It didn’t seem like a very onerous process: mandatory training, background checks, and someone physically inspects your home to ensure you have the right space. The state also background checked me and my spouse as people who might interact with the children.

       She hosts 1 at a time, and it has been very rewarding. It isn’t the moneymaker people think. She gets a small stipend ($300/mo) and food stamps for the child, who often arrives with nothing. She has to spend her own money to buy clothing, school supplies, etc. She is also an educator, so I’m not surprised this is how she’s chosen to make a family. The children she fosters could potentially be adopted, but most aren’t. She hosts mostly teens who then age out, although a few reunify with their birth families. She told me everyone wants a baby or toddler. Hope this is a helpful perspective.

    6. Hi there. My husband and I have been bouncing around the adoption world for 5 years or so. Gently, some of the comments above are well-meaning but not quite accurate.

       To level the field, and I’m sure as you know, foster care – where the government takes custody of children because of neglect or abuse – is not for people looking for healthy infants. While there are infants in foster care, they are typically drug-addicted newborns or part of a larger sibling set.

       In generations past, the goal of foster care was to take children away from unfit parents and place them with new families. To atone for the mistakes of the past, foster care is now very much in a moment of “foster care is temporary care and our goal is 100% reunification with the birth parents.” So there’s been a pendulum swing, and plenty of people will tell you it’s gone too far in favor of bio parents, and nice happy middle zone would benefit the children, bio families, and foster families without unduly separating families or unduly exposing children to unfit parents. For many, many reasons, there’s been a dramatic increase in the number of troubled children – you’ll see literature talk about “therapeutic placements.”

       Private adoption will cost tens of thousands of dollars – I still don’t understand why that paperwork is so expensive when the service at the agency is so poor ha. There’s nothing available to help with costs other than private fundraising (aka, you asking your friends). I know of several women who’ve adopted singly.

       Like others have said, healthy white babies are vanishingly rare and healthy brown and black babies are very rare. You’ll need to talk to an agency to get an idea of their processes for matching.

       If you’re wondering about adopting an infant from abroad, don’t ha. The US only has adoption treaties with 10-ish countries because those are the countries trusted to ethically do all the paperwork, etc. By the time these countries have done their paperwork to make a child eligible for international adoption, a year or more has passed.

       It’s a long process. Search out reputable FB groups. Read some literature from the federal agency on adoption (I think it’s housed at HHS – but they have good reading on the fundamentals and interesting statistics). Good luck out there.

    7. Really encourage you to read more about the adoption industry as you consider your option. Gretchen Sisson’s new book might be a good start.

       I really feel for women like yourself who want to start a family but the adoption industry is wildly immoral so it is obviously complicated.

       1. Donor sperm is much less of an ethical issue, at least in my opinion.

    8. A close friend of mine adopted a young girl from India ~10yrs ago. My friend is Indian American. She chose her baby to adopt from a small orphanage in India, and it took years of traveling back and forth and multiple bribes in India just to get the paperwork done and be able to bring her daughter home. It was facilitated initially via a US organization, and I feel like it only happened because my friend is a FORCE of nature, who was truly disgusted by the process and of course, knew the language and games of India she had to play. But once you have chosen your child, seen them, met them…. you will do/pay/wait…. as is necessary.

       It is such a horrific scam.

       That being said, her daughter is pure joy. Beautiful, talented, smart, happy….

22. Can a jeweler make earring posts thinner? I received a gift of 18K gold huggy hoop earrings, and the posts are too thick to fit through my holes. They were purchased on an international trip, so I can’t return them. Google suggests I have a piercer enlarge my holes, but I’d rather avoid that. I’ve never had this issue in nearly 40 years of earring wearing.

    1. EDIT to add: I wear various earrings daily, so that’s why I’m not concerned it’s my hole size. My mom has long, droopy holes preventing her from wearing heavy or dangly earrings anymore, and I want to avoid oversize holes in the future.

    2. Yes they can

    3. Yes. Not that they necessarily thin out those posts – though maybe they can do that – but usually they can swap them out for posts of a thinner diameter. If the posts are also 18K gold, you either get them back or most likely the value of them offsets the usually fake or silver posts they’ll put in and you get the cash difference back.

23. With colder weather approaching, I am really struggling to be interested in eating veg/fruit/healthier choices. I’m (perhaps overly!) picky about textures and am autistic so I often eat the same meals over and over but I’ve seen a few extra pounds lately and want to get back to eating a wider variety and more healthy choices. I like crispy, crunchy textures and prefer watery veg/fruit over starchy as a general rule but I’m open to trying new things. Veggie wraps and things like that have worked to get a few extra servings, but they can be time consuming to make and I’m finding veggies going bad (or getting soggy/gross) too quickly to count on making wraps 3-4 days a week.

    In summer I seem to naturally crave fresh fruit and lighter fare, but **aside from roast veggies** or sheet-pan meals are there some very appealing fall and winter veg/fruits/healthy options that are relatively easy to prepare, I keep coming up blank when I try to think of options!

    1. Do you like chestnuts? (Whether the starchier chestnut chestnuts or the crispier water chestnuts?) Do you like kale chips? Do you like salads? (Maybe lettuce is more of a spring/summer food, but I switch up the toppings for fall. I like pomegranate seeds, mandarin oranges, toasted nuts, and soft cheeses for fall on relatively more robust greens.) Do you eat vegetable stir fries or soups?

    2. Apples fill this void for me. Crispy fall fruit. I also like all the cirtrus, which is in season in the winter.

       1. Apples! I can’t believe I forgot about these–couldn’t feel more foolish! Thank you :)

    3. Can you do soup?

    4. I just saw this on Insta and plan to try it next week: https://whatgreatgrandmaate.com/fall-harvest-salad-with-apple-cider-vinegar-dressing/

    5. Sliced cucumber dressed up with cream cheese and smoked salmon?

    6. Some side salads with crunch:

       Cucumber, chickpea and avocado.
       Cube the cucumber and avocado, add drained, tinned chickpeas. Olive oil and lemon dressing if you want one, but add it before eating. Crunch from both cucumber and chickpeas. Can be put in a wrap, would work well with some chicken.

       Bell pepper, corn and black beans. Cube bell pepper, add drained tinned corn and tinned black beans. Olive oil and lime dressing if you want one. Works well in a wrap with some cheese or pulled pork, maybe a fried egg. Crunch from pepper and corn.

       Red cabbage, carrot and apple slaw. Finely slice. Dressing could be olive oil and lime, or a little bit of yogurt and mayo. Lots of crunch. Works as a side to any sort of meat

       Waldorf style – cube celery and apple, add grapes and walnuts, little bit of yogurt and mayo.

       Water chestnut, red pepper and sugar snap peas. Add a little spring onion, ginger, soy sauce, sugar and rice vinegar dressing. Water chestnuts are super crunchy.

       Carrot, celery and Swede batons with any sort of dip. Hummus, guacamole, ranch, yogurt…

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