Wednesday’s Workwear Report: Tie-Waist Long-Sleeve Midi Dress

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1. Any romance writers in the Hive?

   I just went down the rabbit of wanting to become a romance writer and it’s all super interesting. What romance niche do you write in? Do you have any suggestions/resources for an aspiring romance writer?

   1. I have always wanted to be a romance writer, but have never had the real life inspiration because almost all of the men I have been involved with (romantically and otherwise) have proven to be schlubs that I could never fathom spending quality time with. When I was younger, I was more concerned about my reputation so I did not do stuff with men, primarily b/c I was listening to my Dad, who warned me about protecting my private parts from unwarranted intrusion by them. Later on, as I got older, I figured out that I could could be protected and still have fun with men, even if I did not want to marry them. Soon after, I discovered that I was not getting any fresher, and that I wanted to be married to have kids, but by then, men like Gonzalo were only interested in immediate gratification at my expense, even tho they talked a great line to get into my good graces. My ex was particularly useless, preferring the bottle to me and unwilling to better himself while I was on the upswing at my law firm. Now that I am a partner, I see men as just trying to have me take care of them, and they offer very little in the form of intellectual or physical stimulation. So with all this as a backdrop, I can only say that I will never become a good romance writer. Too bad my story does not make for a good novel. I could have retired to write this non-fictional account of my life if this was a best seller. FOOEY!

   2. Me, and I know we’ve got at least a couple of others too. I write queer contemporary romance. My top recommendations would be:
      -Read books that have been published in the last 2-5 years. That will give you a sense of what’s working in the market right now and what expectations readers have. Things are very, very different than they were in the 80s, 90s, and 00s.
      -Write! There’s no substitute for doing the work.
      -A lot of people like Gwen Hayes’ book Romancing the Beat. Her structure doesn’t work for me, but might for you.
      -If you want to plug into the romance writing community, Twitter is, for better or for worse, Romancelandia’s water cooler. Check out the #AmWriting, #AmWritingRomance, and #FridayKiss hashtags. Friday Kiss also has a very chill, very no-drama Facebook community if the Twitter discourse is too much for you.
      -If you do dip your toes into the community, know that everyone, their mom, their sister, their aunt and their uncle is going to have an opinion about what a romance novel should be. How many words, how the plot should be structured, whether you should use beat sheets, yada yada. If you hope to publish, it’s important to understand the rules, but know that you can and should also break them.

      I’m happy to chat more here, or if you drop me a line at anonarette at gmail. Good luck!

   3. Me! I write romantic comedy and I read a TON both in that specific genre and further around it (currently mildly obsessed with ice hockey romance???). I plug into Romancelandia both via Twitter and via podcasts – When In Romance and Smart B itches Trashy podcast.

      1. Who/what are you reading in ice hockey romance? Currently binging sports romance in general. Just finished Amy Daws soccer/Harris brothers series. Probably “football” where you are, Ribena!

         1. I’m all about the hockey romance…both reading and writing! Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy both have some really good stuff. Rachel Reid is another fav. And if you’re interested, I write hockey romance as Cait Nary.

            Fated Mates is another great podcast. I love Smart B*****s too.

            1. I love this thread. That is all.

2. Is this cherry-red? It looks Halloween-orange to me.

   Anyway, beaches. I want a beach with really fun, swimmable, crashing waves, the kind you can jump over and dive under and swim through. My husband wants a fancy resort, preferably all-inclusive. We both want activities for elementary-aged kids, nice rooms, good food nearby, and a reasonable (say, <4 hours) flight from Atlanta.

   We’ve been to several Caribbean/Mexican resorts that are really nice, but the beaches are not really swimmable or just have little lap-lap waves. We’ve been to a few places (eg, Daytona) which have the type of beach I want, but aren’t really resort-centered like the others. My web searches aren’t giving me any results that address the actual water, and it never seems to come up on marketing materials. Anyone have suggestions for a resort with the kind of beach I want?

   1. I was just coming here to say that this is orange, not red.

   2. I would say it is more of a tomato orange-red shade. But not straight-up orange.

      1. yeah, not cherry red – this reminds me of Essie Geranium, one of my fave summer polishes :)

         1. Oooh, Geranium is SO GOOD. I can’t wear this color close to my face without looking like death, but I love it on my nails.

      2. I agree. It looks like the Model is Kelly Clarkson, doesn’t it?

   3. I don’t know about resorts, but the waves you want are on the Florida Space Coast.

   4. not all inclusive but you want Atlantic coast, not protected Caribbean. Kiawah? (Not AI but very family focused.)

      1. the north coast of Puerto Rico can also be rougher.

   5. With the disclaimer that I haven’t actually been to this resort, what about the Sanderling? OBX has great beaches like you describe and that resort is supposed to be one of the nicer ones.

   6. Something on Amelia Island/Fernandina Beach area of Florida? I kind of doubt there are any all inclusive resorts, but the water will be what you want and you can fly into Jacksonville. I know there’s a Ritz there-maybe that counts as fancy enough?

      1. Oh, and there’s an Omni as well.

         1. +1 to The Omni.

      2. Stayed at the Ritz on Amelia Island a few months ago. Delightful property, though I wouldn’t say it seemed particularly kid friendly? Guess it depends on the age of the kids though.

   7. Hotel del Coronado, San Diego. About five hours going out, four hours on the nose going back.

      1. If you are looking for good waves, look for places with good surfing. It is a reasonable enough proxy for “fun waves” to exclude beaches with lap-lap waves, as you put it.

      2. Fair warning that the Pacific Ocean is much, much colder than the Atlantic or Caribbean.

         If you are willing to consider the colder Pacific Ocean and a longer flight, the Montage Laguna Beach and Surf and Sand in Laguna Beach are both quite nice too. (In addition to the Hotel del Coronado.)

         Some of the beaches in Nantucket and the Hamptons have waves, though there aren’t a ton of big resorts like you are describing.

         1. Yeah, I live in CA and never see anyone in the water without a wetsuit. I don’t surf, so despite living within walking distance of the beach and going there frequently, I never ever swim. It’s a look, don’t touch, kind of thing for me.

            1. You absolutely can swim in San Diego/SoCal sans wetsuit by midsummer and well into September, even if you’re not crazy. NorCal waters are cold year-round.

               Source: Grew up on the beach in LA.

            2. We live in socal and do occasionally go swimming in the water – used to go almost every weekend before we had kids. But aside from a few truly hot days a year, it is for sure the case of you have to get over that initial chill when jumping in. I love living here but go to Hawaii when I want a beach-focused vacation, socal is not tropical.

            3. You CAN swim in the So Cal beaches without a wetsuit in summer (I also grew up going to the beach every day in summer), but it’s gonna be cold.

            4. In SoCal there are tons of people in the water without wetsuits, but only in the summer/early fall. As a kid I went every weekend. The only people I see wearing wetsuits are surfers. It is definitely cold though.

            5. I grew up in LA and San Diego and would not go to SoCal for a beach vacation. The water is cold year-round, it’s murky, there are lots of local surfers to contend with, and there are much prettier beaches lots of other places.

         2. Gurneys in montauk is fancy with knock-you-down- and-take-ten-years-off-of you waves. But the drive +flight will probably be too much for the op plus it’s very pricy.

            1. I was thinking of Gurney’s too, but wasn’t sure about the kid friendliness of it. And yes, it is expensive in the summer.

      3. Or La Jolla/Del Mar. L’Auberge is where I would stay if I had all the $$$.

   8. I’m a little confused about whether you want beaches with big or small waves. We’ve gone to a bunch of resorts in Cancun and the beaches there have good waves for body-surfing. But it might be challenging for kids.

      1. ExH and I used to vacation at the beach in Mexico once or twice a year, and at the same resorts we found the waves to differ by season. Lap lap waves in the summer and big waves in December. Less chance of huge amounts of sargassum in the winter too. OP, you might want to join Facebook groups for potential resorts and ask this question there.

      2. Big! (Not dangerous, but might make you tumble around type). Where have you gone in Cancun that has good waves for body surfing? We went last year and the resort was great, but the beach was a disappointment.

   9. What about Miami or Costa Rica? There are a LOT of fancy resorts on Costa Rica and I know it’s supposed to be fantastic for surfing/great food. Miami definitely has fancy hotels with lots of great amenities but you’ll want to carefully look at location as many are not on the ocean and just have pools. I personally love Miami even as someone who doesn’t do nightlife – the food is great, and it has all the fun ‘big city’ options (shows, sports, museums, etc.) plus flights can be super cheap.

      1. Costa Rica is a great suggestion!

   10. I think the crane resort in barbados would be perfect but might be too long a flight.

   11. I don’t have a resort recommendation because I was there on a cruise, but Bermuda had my absolute favorite beach waves of any place I’ve been. The waves were big, but gentle. I have no idea if they are always that way, but we had a ball swimming in them.

   12. Check the website Surfline. You’re looking for 1-4 foot waves (and 4 might be too big for the kiddos…) I remember a beach in Cuba about a 40-minute drive out of Havana with waves like that. I understand there’s also surfing in places like St. Bart’s and Eleuthra, so you’re likely to see good waves there. Basically, look for Atlantic exposures among the Caribbean islands. Having lived everywhere and loving the water, I share the the passion for proper waves. Truro, MA has them, but there are also sharks, no fancy all-inclusives, and some beach erosion. Miami Beach has these types of waves, but, well, it’s Miami Beach. I haven’t been, but I suspect St. Augustine could check all the boxes.

3. Anyone have a good resource for an attorney with no immigration background to get up to speed on foreign employment issues? I can basically muddle my way through the US Citizenship and Immigration Services website (which is good!), but I’m getting more and more questions about documentation and could really use a better background understanding. A book of some sort would be good, but I’m open to other suggestions. Hoping for something that is focused on employer issues.

   1. Check the AILA (American Immigration Lawyers’ Association) website — aila dot org.

   2. Check the AILA (American Immigration Lawyers’ Association) website at aila dot org

   3. Can you check out one of the handbooks from AILA?

   4. Not clear if you’re asking about foreigners immigrating to the US or just employment in other countries. If the latter, Baker McKenzie and DLAPiper have great guides. As do Vistra (but I would not engage Vistra). If you need advice on foreign employment in Europe, Ute Krudewagen at DLA is the best.

      1. +1 Ute is the best if you need advice on legal issues regarding a global workforce.

      2. IANAL but I did a double take at seeing this name crop up here as she is a friend!

4. Early threadjack for my law firm compadres: My firm is going through an attempted compensation formula overhaul. I am philosophically opposed to moving to an eat-what-you-kill model from what has historically been a black box committee system, but I’m about resigned to the idea that we are small enough that it might be what we need to do right now. So that leads to what the formula should be. You who have compensation formulas, how do you divide overhead? We have one shareholder who wants to divide all general overhead (e.g. everything not direct support staff) equally between shareholders. Others want to allocate that overhead pro rata according to gross revenue. I have looked at a model splitting fixed and variable costs into per capita and pro rata buckets, which seems the most fair to me. What do you use? What’s the most common model?

   1. I think we have the black box model, b/c the manageing partner does all the math, and we just wind up with our net K-1 share after all firm expenses and deductions are made for our retirement fund accounts. We also don’t know what each other gets after taxes, because Lynn keeps the original books and records locked up at the firm’s saftey deposit box at Citibank, and only the manageing partner has access to the box.

5. I have had a lot of work-related anxiety lately. My workload ebbs and flows depending on the time of year. I’m in a slow season right now, which is great. But it will slowly creep up over the next month or so, and assignments during the second half of the year are pretty nonstop. It’s not the hours that I find draining; it’s the constant task shifting and the number of projects to oversee. (I am managing a small team, in case that’s relevant.) I find myself thinking, I don’t know if I can do this again. And it’s only February. I’ve been in this position long enough that I’ve mitigated what I can, delegated what I can, and try to work ahead to the extent I can, but it’s not failproof. And I’m often waiting on decisions from higher-ups before I can even get started. For better or worse, this is the job. For those of you in very cyclical jobs, how do you cope? Do you feel the anxiety of just anticipating the busy season? Assume that these deadlines are not changeable. (I’m dealing with an academic calendar, for reference). I get really salty that it’s downright difficult to even take a summer vacation, the time I most want to relax and enjoy myself.

   1. I thought that the point of an academic calendar was that summer was the light season.

      1. IME, summer is actually heavier (psychologically especially) on the academic calendar because there is so much pressure to make good research progress. My solution to taking a vacation is to just announce I am taking one; there is no other way.

         I am sorry. I have no suggestions about the anxiety. I too am on an academic calendar; I am fatigued, weary, and anxious; and I have resigned myself to this state of affairs for the next few years. The things that used to act as landmarks and times of high energy have ceased being so this far into the pandemic.

         1. Fatigued, weary, anxious describes it perfectly. You can only pivot so many times before you start to break down. My mental health was a wreck by Christmas time. I used my whole holiday shutdown plus another week of vacation just trying to recover. I am VERY thankful to have had the chance to do that, but never in my career has the fatigue been this bad.

      2. It is if you’re a faculty member. If you’re staff, it varies wildly depending on the role. My role happens to be heavy in the summer/fall.

      3. Summers are no longer light in academia. It’s my busiest season, too. I gave up on summer vacations and book 2 solid weeks between the end of fall registration and the start of winter registration at the beginning of the year. If I don’t someone will come with an idea for a “great” project or try to push back a deadline.

      4. No idea why my comment went to mod, but my particular role happens to be heavy in the summer/fall. Which is even more infuriating, because summer IS the lighter season for most on campus!

      5. Ugh, sadly not, it’s when I try to catch up on all the research I didn’t do during the teaching term.

   2. Hugs to you. We all go through something like this, and I think your (and my) best alternative is to find a rich guy and get him to marry you so that you can live that easy life that he has and you can share with him, doing traveling and dining in fine restarunts and driving a nice new Tesla. Just keep your eyes open for him, as I do, because sooner or later, he will appear and you must be ready to real him in when he gets attracted to you. That is my plan, and I am ready! YAY!!!!

   3. My job is a lot like this. There are recurring periods (for me, usually summer and fall) when I have virtually nothing to do, and recurring weeks in the winter and spring when I’m working every weekend to keep up. It is incredibly frustrating, but as you say in your case, it simply is the job, and I’ve accepted it as a condition of staying in this role… which I’m not sure how much longer I plan to do. One thing that has helped is trying to mentally reframe the frustration. I used to feel anxious and a guilty when I had slow days and was filling my time doing more personal stuff during the day, but I’ve tried to stop that. I certainly don’t get paid any extra when I’m working 12 hour days, so I think of the slow days as comp time for the extra work I put in during the busy seasons.

   4. I used to have a job that had blackout periods when no one could take PTO. The periods became more frequent and longer and I ended up leaving. My new job has its on weird work cycles but they’re more over the course of a day or a week than the year.

   5. I actually really like the cyclical nature of it, including the busy times. I get the “new school supplies, blank slate, here we go again” excited feeling right before every tax season. Am I going to be a grumpy, exhausted b. by the end of tax season? Possibly. But I still love it. The work always gets done, somehow, so I try not to get into too much of a lather about how much needs to get done and who is going to do it, and how is it going to get done.

      There are two layers to stress, IMO– the actual issue/problem and how you feel about the issue. For me, how I feel about the issue tends to be a much bigger source of stress than the actual issue. If you generally like your job but think you’ve just gotten too in your head about it, maybe try to change your attitude. Higher ups will make decisions when it is time for them to make decisions. Busy season will start when it starts. Like you said, you have done what you could. Just focus on today. Remember that you are choosing to stay. Sometimes it helps me to just repeat to myself “I am choosing this.”

      On the other hand, if you think that you are actually miserable and hate your job, then it’s time to start looking for something else.

      1. You’re right that how I’m thinking about it is not helping matters. I do like the substance of the work I do, and I enjoy my coworkers. So, in all, it’s not a bad gig. I have chosen this. But I also recognize that this job triggers my stress in very specific ways, which leads to the thoughts of … how much longer can I keep doing this?

         1. What are your stress-release activities and strategies now, and how do you treat your anxiety?

            Maybe you could focus on optimizing those, since the job seems overall pretty good. By decreasing your overall anxiety set point, and having protected/planned/easy stress release activities (from exercise to a walk to 1 minute of mindfulness breathing to a french fry treat), you may not get triggered as easily.

6. I’m late 20’s, fairly fit (but am now overweight thanks to my COVID 20, which I’m actively trying to lose), and need to work on lowering my cholesterol. I know that it’s mostly impacted my genetics (according to my cardiologist friend, it’s 80% genetic, 20% lifestyle), and my genetics are terrible: my family is generally very active and eats averagely healthy but we keep the cardiology department in business. There have been multiple relatives with heart attacks, triple bypass surgeries, open heart surgeries, etc. and all of my grandparents died from heart problems. When my (super fit/healthy) sister was my age (late 20s), she was given the choice by her doctor to go on statins (likely for the rest of her life) or become vegan. She chose veganism, and was able to bring her numbers down to the upper end of normal. Seeing the impact of cholesterol and other heart issues on my relatives has scared me into trying to take better control of my health.

   I’m fit (former college athlete, workout 5 times a week, run half marathons, play sports), eat well probably 75% of the time, but am struggling to lose my COVID weight. I am looking for reasonable changes (not becoming vegan…yet) that I could make that will bring my numbers down. Obviously, I have plans to discuss this with my doctor and I am meeting with a nutritionist next week, but am also looking for any anecdotal successes!

   1. I also have genetically challenging cholesterol. A dietician recommended at least one serving of beans or oatmeal a day for soluble fiber (I suppose you could use prepackaged soluble fiber as well). It helped lower my numbers significantly.

      1. oh that sounds very doable! I have oatmeal probably 2-3x a week for breakfast, but it’d be very easy to throw in a serving of beans in with a salad or other veggies on days I don’t have the oats!

         1. You can even buy oatmeal fiber specifically (it’s pretty good too).

            Carbs aren’t great for my cholesterol either, so this was a revelation for me.

      2. Cheerios used to advertise itself as a cholesterol-lowering solution.

   2. When you’re up against this many genetic challenges, you may need to have the conversation about your doctor about when to start medication. My DH also is genetically challenged in this area. He’s 42 and no medications yet, but it’s probably coming at some point.

      You’re doing so much right already. My only suggestion is to increase your fiber and reduce your red meat consumption.

      1. Yeah, my husband is 41, thin, lifelong vegetarian, but his BP and cholesterol are high enough that the doctor is doing regular check-ins.

         1. My husband is fit, great diet, works out 5x a week. He’s 50. Blood pressure is so high he is on two BP medications. His dad and his grandpa both had heart disease and his dad had to have a bypass at 55. My husband’s doctor told him, sometimes the genetic dice comes up snake eyes, there’s not much you can do about it other than get on medication and monitor it. My husband has cut almost all salt out of his diet and his BP is in a good range now but won’t be without medication, for the rest of his life. It happens.

      2. I accept that I will eventually have to go on medication, I just don’t want to be on a medication for 60+ years. (My relatives either die in their 60s or their 90s, obviously I hope I’m in the latter, but being on medication for 60/65 years wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility.) I just don’t know what potential side effects exist from being on a medication for that long.

         1. Some medicines are life-long though and truly NBD. At our pediatric endocrinologist, all of the kids are on something (insulin injected, insulin pump, thyroid meds) daily forever and it’s the key to them having a “forever.”

            Spouse has been on statins since his early 30s (genetic component) and has zero adult male blood relatives b/c of it.

            1. THIS. You’re also at a disadvantage because you’re a woman. If you start having symptoms, they often don’t present the same as in men and, like many medical issues in women, are blown off or attributed to stress.
               It’s always a good idea to live a healthy lifestyle, but in your case, you can’t out-eat or out-run this and meds may well be what you need in order to live a long, healthy life.

         2. I think the potential side effects are living to that age.

            1. So you go off them when you hit 75 or whatever and double-down on the bacon. What am I missing? What I really wouldn’t want is to stroke over and over and lose a lot of functionality vs going out in a bang. Statins to me let you wear out of old age, not lose motion in half your body on the way to that.

         3. This is a widely used, well studied class of medications. I mean it’s up to you if you want to die early of something preventable, but please don’t clog up the hospitals on your way out just because you don’t want to be on a medication for 60 years.

            I will be on thyroid replacement for my entire life and I’m incredibly grateful that’s an option. I can’t imagine being stupid enough to say “I don’t like the idea of taking a pill every day, screw it.”

            1. +1

               A mentor who is a cardiologist said that basically everyone could probably benefit from being on a baby aspirin, statin, and an ACE inhibitor everyday (a blood pressure medicine). He’s joking slightly, but not really.

               OP, if you aren’t willing to make the drastic dietary changes and exercise that your sister does (and I applaud her for doing it!), please be easier on yourself. Genetics is genetics. But even though I am perfectly healthy my 80 year old father on a tiny dose of a statin and an ACE inhibitor has cholesterol that blows mine out of the water. All of his family died younger of cardiovascular disease/strokes, and none were good about managing things with their docs.

               I will absolutely take a statin and blood pressure meds when my time comes.

            2. Yeah, this sounds harsh, but it’s true. These medications are designed for you to be on them for a LONG LONG time, and they’re studied as such. My dad also rolled the genetic dice and it came up bad – he’s been on a cholesterol lowering medication for 35+ years. He’s fine, and wouldn’t likely have lived that long had he not been on it.

            3. This is harsh. OP isn’t in the position where she needs a daily drug and is avoiding it out of an aversion to taking pills or worry about vague effects. She is actively seeking suggestions to improve her body’s functioning to put off the need for medication.

            4. This is the OP again –

               I am not at the point of needing medical intervention, my numbers are just higher than they should be for someone of my age/activity level. Obviously, when my doctor wants me to go on a statin I will (that’s not even part of the conversation yet); I”m just looking for ways I can improve my health now to push that down the road as long as I can (so like to my 30s). I’m very pro-medicine, etc. but if I can prolong my time not on a daily medication, I’d like to do so. Also, just making healthier changes in my life is never a bad thing.

            5. Good for you OP. You are totally reasonable. Good luck with the suggestions.

               If I were rich, I would have a personal chef and eat vegan, no question. But for me, the time invested to have a healthy balanced vegan diet that would not cause weight gain is impossible now. Maybe when I retire… Also the evidence is now showing that higher protein diets, especially with aging, may lead to healthier long term outcomes. That is harder and harder to achieve for me with a vegan diet

      3. Adding to the chorus – high BP/high cholesterol to an almost identical degree happens in my dad’s side even with jobs running the gamut hard labor active jobs to completely sedentary C-suite jobs. Dad realized that he needed to go on meds when his super healthy, super active brother could not beat the genetic predisposition.

   3. Look into eating more fiber – whole grains, vegetables, etc. Try for at least 30g a day. The other big thing is cardio, but it sounds like you’re already doing enough.

   4. I’ve found it difficult to get fiber just from eating food, so I use a supplement. Metamucil, Citrucel and Yerba Prima all work well for me.

   5. Try to get the recommended number of servings of fruits and vegetables into your diet; that will also increase your fiber.

   6. DH and I are longtime vegans with great cholesterol. DH is literally the only adult male in his family not on statins. His family will shriek til their graves that their cholesterol is all just bad luck and genetics, but DH puts in the lifestyle work and they don’t, it’s really that simple.

      1. It’s genetics. You shouldn’t have to go vegan to control your cholesterol.

         1. How do you know it’s genetic, if you don’t know what their lifestyle is like?

            1. She just said the only lifestyle that doesn’t give this family high cholesterol is being vegan.

            2. Eh, she said her husband has a healthy lifestyle that include being vegan and that he has good numbers. I don’t think that implies that this lifestyle fixed prior poor numbers and is the only thing making him healthy. It’s possible it’s genetic but it’s also possible that they all eat poorly and don’t exercise. I don’t think it’s a fair conclusion to draw.

            3. Reading comprehension.

         2. You sound so much like my FIL who washes down every meal with a glass of animal milk.

            1. All milk is animal milk. Soybeans and almonds aren’t even animals, let alone mammals.

         3. This.

      2. That’s not inconsistent. Most people can have normal cholesterol without being vegans.

         1. I hit the lottery on this. I have not good but excellent #s and eat what I like. Spouse, eating the same food and perhaps more active has triglycerides through the roof. On a statin now and they are high but not shockingly so. Genetics matter perhaps more than lifestyle to people with bad genes.

   7. How high is your family cholesterol? There’s a disease called FH (Familial Hypercholesterolemia) and it’s 100% genetic. Essentially your body can’t get rid of LDL, so diets and exercise may help some but you really do need to be on statins (and probably something else in conjuntion) for your lifetime.

      I was diagnosed in my twenties because everyone in my family died either in their 60s or 90s and my family doctor was able to see the pattern with my mom, then test her childrens’ cholesterol. Both my brother and I have it, and so do most of our cousins on that side. I think the official definition is LDL over 190, but I may be off on that slightly. (Mine was much higher). Now that I’ve been treated for almost 20 years, I’m expected to live well past my 60s. I have young kids, both of whom I got tested early and did have FH, and they started low dose statins at age 8. They’re expected to have a full life expectancy now.

      Not all cardiologists are familiar with FH, so you’ll want to do some reading and ask your doctor to read up on it as well. But if your family has a long history of heart issues and you and your sister are both struggling with high numbers even as relatively fit 20 year olds, you sound like a prime candidate for FH.

   8. You might have a look at the lifestyle variable that has to do with insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. It might not be for you, but you might benefit from a low or no sugar approach, simply because of the potential to slowing or breaking a cycle of effects that impact each other (with bad effects) with insulin and cholesterol and blood pressure.

      If your covid20 is on your stomach, that could definitely be a thing to look into, and starting to pay attention to. Even though your fitness level will mean that you probably handle and will need lots of complex carbs, it can be smart to pay extra attention to what kind, and how they spike your insulin. No simple sugars could be helpful.

   9. Do you take birth control pills? A friend of mine found that the pill significantly increased her cholesterol. Apparently this is somewhat rare but a real thing.

   10. Two suggestions – Vegan before 6 by Mark Bittman of the NYT. It’s just as it sounds…eat like a vegan before 6pm then have whatever you want for dinner. That makes life easier – dinners out, family celebrations, Thanksgiving Dinner, Easter/Passover celebrations. I like it – it’s an easy rule of thumb to follow but is flexible. He writes it as Vb46 and it’s fun. He has a book of the same name.

       The other is a vegan Mediterranean diet plus minimal fish, which is what I do/try to do. Based on the Longevity Diet, written by Valter Longo, PhD at USC – University Southern California. He does a lot of diet-related cancer prevention/cancer treatment research, heart disease research. He has a book and website under his name. Pretty easy – eat beans, whole grains, veggies, nuts, olive oil, avocados. Fish a couple times a week. No or little meat, poultry, eggs, milk/cheese/dairy. Low sugar, low processed foods, no junk. I use this plus the Vb46 and then I can make sure I limit meat/dairy otherwise it’s easy to slip.

   11. I think it would be a good idea to test out going vegetarian for a few months and see how that impacts your blood work. I won’t go fully on vegan but I’m willing to at least cut out beef and have vegetarian meals when I can. I get a hello fresh box and will often pick the vegetarian options. It might be worth a try to see if the results are significant.

7. I’m making buffalo wings for the first time ever (for super bowl Sunday). I’ve never made wings before. Any tips or suggestions or recipes? I think I’m getting 4 lbs frozen (not sure if I can buy them fresh in the grocery store) – should I get them now and thaw them in the fridge?

   1. Ooooh this is something I can speak to. I used to work part time at a kitchen that made THE BEST wings. I would absolutely thaw them if you buy frozen, and cure them if you have the time. Get them to room temp and batter/bread them. Then, this is the key: double fry them. Fry first, and then let them rest rest. Then fry again. Sauce at the end.

      1. Buffalo wings don’t have batter or breading on them.

         1. Disagree! Love me some breaded wings!

            1. I like breaded wings/tenders, but Buffalo wings shouldn’t have breading. That’s more a Southern fried chicken prep, so Nashville hot or Memphis sweet. Delicious in their own right!

            2. Breaded wings are great! I love them. But they should not be confused with Buffalo wings (which I also love)!!

   2. Yum! I bake (or air dry) frozen, too. For sauce: Frank’s red hot (3/4 of large bottle, but depends on quantity of wings) + oil (1/2 c? I eyeball it!) + 1 packet of seven seas dry Italian Dressing. Sauce warmed on stove, wings dumped in, toss to coat, enjoy!

   3. I would get them thawed soon,because that’s a lot of wings. When you are close to cooking, mix baking soda, baking powder or corn starch with your spice rub. Any of those will absorb moisture and dry out the skin to add crispiness. Let them sit out after putting them through the rub for about 30 minutes to let them come up to room temperature.

      Most people don’t have a home fryer large enough to handle that many wings. I would look at either planning for fryer batches or skip the fryer and bake them. Either way, you will need to plan to use the oven to keep everything hot. Wings are kind of meh if they aren’t piping hot, because the skin starts to get rubbery.

   4. I really like Chrissy Teigen’s recipe for spicy honey butter wings (not Buffalo specifically). However the basic steps are great – let the wings thaw and definitely brine them. You can sub the cholula butter with buffalo wing sauce if you’re set on that specific flavor.

   5. I prepare wings in the air fryer. Coat I’m olive oil and season, pop them in, and the result is flavorful juicy wings.

   6. I roast them. The key is to bribe them as someone said above, but I dry brine to keep the skin from getting soggy, so basically pre-salt them the night before. Roast them over a baking tray on a rack, 425 or so, turning twice for crispy skin. The meat is done before the skin is crisp so keep monitoring for where you like the skin to be.

      Meanwhile make a mixture of half red Tabasco and half softened butter in a big bowl. When the wings come out od the oven, throw them in the bowl with the Tabasco mixture and toss until all the butter is melted and the wings are evenly coated.

      Serve with celery sticks and bleu cheese dressing – I make my own. (Ranch is delicious but bleu cheese is the tradition here)

8. I need to be better about preemptively looking for balance in my life. I’m high energy, active, and extroverted and there are always more things I want to do in a day than time to do them; as a result I over schedule myself and then I’m exhausted and have a week where I just want to do nothing. I’ve somewhat recently switched to a less intense/40 hour a week job (woo!) so as a result, I started diving back into hobbies that had been on the backburner for a bit. Now that COVID is better, I’m back to socializing a ton. These are all things I WANT to do, but I”m realizing that doing it all all of the time is not sustainable. The problem is, I hate just sitting around and doing nothing; to me it feels like I’m wasting my life. So, I’ll plan a night or two off and then I get sad that I’m not living my life. But, its Wednesday and I’m looking at my activity filled week and weekend ahead and dreading it.

   1. I think a mindset shift is in order. On your planned nights off, can you tell yourself that this recovery time will allow you to have EVEN MORE FUN later on? Alternatively, if you like to go, go, go, maybe building in those one-week breaks where you do nothing IS the solution. But do it proactively, so it doesn’t feel like giving up.

      1. +1 to mindset shift. For me, rest is living my life because it’s important to my health (and if I am not healthy, I can’t enjoy my life) and, as mentioned, it helps me enjoy the things I actually do want to do on a regular basis. I have nothing to prove!

         I also read a lot when resting and that is important to enriching my life so definitely not a waste.

   2. Instead of doing nothing on your nights off, can you plan a refreshing solo activity? Like, Wednesday nights are for cooking a new recipe, reading a novel, watching an Oscar nominated movie, etc before you go to sleep so you are recharged for your other activities.

      1. I was going to suggest this too. Can, for example, Wednesday night be the night you do one of your hobbies or low-key exercise like walking a local trail by yourself and, if it turns out you’re exhausted on Wednesday, then you can decide to do nothing? So you’d have lower key plans rather than doing nothing, which might provide some balance.

         1. yes – I try to do this, but I’m not great at it. Usually something fun comes up and I have trouble saying no just to have downtime (even though I need it). Im not a TV/movies person, so my downtime is usually active – a walk, reading, painting, etc.

   3. I think what you’re not seeing is that you actually DON’T want the life that you’re telling yourself you want, or that you wanted in the past. The dread is telling you that this go go go go life that you say/think you want isn’t what you ACTUALLY do want. What you want is a life with some breathing space/rest built in. Trouble is, you’ve fallen into the pattern of telling yourself that breathing space/rest is “sitting around doing nothing” and it’s “wasting my life.” I’d argue that a life of perpetual motion that fills you with dread is also a form of wasting your life—it’s like you’re grabbing fistfuls of your energy and spewing it around and calling that “having a life.”

      Why not invest your energy thoughtfully, just like you would your money?

      1. Oooh, this is good. I wish I could pass this along to my sister. She burns the candle at both ends, at all times, and wonders why she’s exhausted and depressed. Because you need to rest once in awhile, girl!

   4. Make one night your spa night and do all the masks, etc.?

   5. Something that’s not clear to me, is the issue both that you overschedule with other people AND overschedule doing things?

      Have you really thought through the time each of your things takes including getting ready and transit? I find I get exhausted easily when I think I have more ‘downtime’ among/between my activities than I actually do.
      In a random example: I needed to return my library books today and thought it might be nice to make a chicken pot pie for dinner because I had most of the ingredients. So, a late afternoon errand and early dinner, 2 things, maybe an hour and a half? But in reality its 30 minutes to get ready to leave my house (makeup, packing up my library books, hair, getting dressed), 30 minutes to the library, 20 minutes at the library, 10 min walk to the grocery store, 15 min getting extra items, 30 min going home, 30 min preparing the dish, 30 min for the dish to cook, 20 min eating the dish…. that’s 3.5 hours!!

      If the issue is that you overschedule with people, we’re all eager to socialize again so maybe give yourself some grace on not having the calibration totally right again. I absolutely want to hang with people too but do find it a little bit more draining than it was in the past, simply because socializing feels somehow uncharted in a way.
      But, if this is how you felt pre-pandemic too, then I think this could be worth unpacking with a therapist. If that’s the case, then it sounds like you actually have anxiety around being alone, even for short periods of time, and are thus avoiding being alone by doing All the Things. There might be a reason for that, and if you can work through the reason, then you will probably find it easier to enjoy a solo night.

9. Words of wisdom? I’m on the verge of getting an job offer I’m 90% sure I will take, but I don’t have it yet. Im swamped and overwhelmed at work in part because I’ve been staffed on a huge non-billable project. I have to see my boss today and tomorrow in person, he keeps giving me random crap I do not have time to do and he’s clearly going to want to have a discussion about my attitude and effort as though I am a child today. Help me not rage quit before I get this job offer?

   1. Tell yourself- at least I’m not digging ditches. It has worked for me!

10. Has anyone been to an all inclusive in Mexico recently that could speak to how COVID testing goes? We’re going for Spring Break and I’m trying to understand if I can rely on the hotel’s onsite testing or if I should plan for telehealth self tests or something else. Thanks!

    1. TripAdvisor reviews are helpful for this. We ended up going to HI instead though!

    2. I was at a resort in Cabo in August. It was super easy. We scheduled a test at check-in for the day before departure. The testing process was super quick and we had our results in about ten minutes.

    3. I preferred the tele-health self tests when we were coming back from Europe. Can take a while to ship, but made it a lot easier. We ordered a few too, in case we had flight delays or whatnot.

       1. Can you share where you ordered these? Looking for something similar!

          1. Sorry to reply so late but we ordered outs from City Health. Scott’s Cheap Flights sent out a discount code a while back – unfortunately I can’t find it though :(

    4. i’ve heard that tipping well can help with your test results (which is ridiculous in my opinion, but the reality of the situation)

       1. This is the way Mexico has always worked, doesn’t surprise me it’s persisted into the Covid era. Source: I have family in Mexico.

    5. We were at the Finest in Playa Mujeres/Cancun last year, and I did not realize I was supposed to schedule our tests the day we arrived. Thankfully, the resort did squeeze us in on the schedule and we got the results back in time, but the staff were not very nice about it. The actual testing though was very easy and the results were emailed to us the day before we left.

    6. We went to Moon Palace in Cancun over Xmas break. We had covid tests done at the resort, but they were a complete joke (clearly designed to catch as few cases as possible!)– the testers tapped the swab in one nostril and called it good enough. How do I know it was a joke? DH came down with COVID on the trip and was clearly contagious at the time of the test– he was masking around us/everyone/at the resort/on the plane, confirmed with a rapid test when we got home. Testing at the resort was easy and quick, and checked the box– but was not a good test!

11. In case it helps anybody later, there was a comment about the site search function being less than helpful.

    I use the google search instead if I want to find a previous discussion or post. I set “site : corporette . com” (without the spaces) as a parameter in google and then I get hits from google searching this site, not from the search function within the site.

    I can usually find old comments and recommendations doing this, but I ‘m sure there are limitations based on indexing etc. But with using google I can filter the hits to be specific to a time period, if I’m looking for new comments or something I remember from last week. Highly recommended if you want to find that great recommendation you didn’t note down, or check if there’s been 10 discussions about a subject during the last month before a question.

    1. You know, this technique has been mentioned a few times over the years. But I forget how to do it, and then I can’t search the site to find it mentioned again!

12. has anyone every been to an adult tennis camp? i know that they have some where you go and stay some place for a long weekend/week and play tennis. if so – any recs?

    1. Following.

    2. My parents went to Club La Santa in Lanzarote and absolutely loved it – I know they offer this

13. I started a remote WFH job about six months ago after spending the first 1.5 years of the pandemic working in-person in healthcare (though not patient-facing or involved in response). And while I really enjoy my new job – the coworkers are great, the work is interesting and challenging – I’m struggling, and I don’t remember struggling six months into a new job before. I’m having so much trouble focusing. I feel as though simple tasks take me ages. I don’t feel like I can take initiative the way I did at my small, informal old job because at big new job there are Rules. I’m trying to internalize all the ins and outs of the work, but there are SO many and I’m overwhelmed.

    I could use some encouragement, or tips, or whatever perspective you have, really.

    1. Hi Vicky :). I remember how bad old job was… can’t believe it’s been so long in new one. If it helps, six months in is always my ugh point in a new job. I don’t know enough to have mastery of anything/ be able to move the system, but I am past the honeymoon stage and have a good handle on the flaws of the new environment. Normally just pushing through for a month or two helps. Also, old job was sooooo hard. This internet acquaintance is not surprised that now that you’re out of it your system feels less go go go and wants to just hibernate for a hot minute. Maybe give yourself a day or two of minimum effort at work and a cuddly weekend?

       1. Hey Curious! Thank you for this – it really helps! I only have old job to compare to, and it may have been a fluke in many ways, including how I was able to get the system down earlier on. I think I will do exactly what you suggest after I hopefully meet today’s deadline. The day is still young. Appreciate you & hope you’re hanging in there.

          1. Thanks :). I am doing okay, glad to be nearly halfway through treatment. Good luck with today’s deadline and keep us posted how you’re doing.

       2. “If it helps, six months in is always my ugh point in a new job.”
          So much this! My next ugh point is about 2.5 years in.

          1. From someone suffering at the 2.5 year mark, thank you for pointing this out! I hope there’s a lull in the ugh points after this.

    2. I don’t have any words of advice, just commiseration. I just went through some major changes in my role – a small step up but now I suddenly have a team of 3, plus my predecessor’s projects and responsibilities, plus covering for an open position. I am always busy but accomplish nothing. “Drowning” sounds melodramatic but it matches how I feel.

       1. Am I working for you??

          Just kidding. But part of my feeling overwhelmed is that my manager and mentor/person training me both are EXTREMELY busy, covering for open positions, etc. Anyway. Solidarity and thank you!

    3. Hi Vicky. I don’t know all the details about either position, but I know we have both commented on healthcare enough that I have a sense of what you used to do. It’s hard to go from a place where you know EVERYTHING to a new place where you don’t. Give yourself time to learn the ropes. You’ve got this!

       1. Thank you so much! That’s what I needed to hear. :)

14. Is my employer out of whack? I’m part of a leadership team that determines what employee benefits to offer. We’ve had one very upset employee come to us recently regarding a gap in our benefits, and I’m curious if we’re out of line or the norm. (Gov’t employer).

    We offer 6 weeks of paid parenting leave to all employees, but you need to have been employed at least a year to receive the benefit. We also have 12 pd holidays, 2.5 – 5 weeks vacation (depending upon seniority), 2.5 weeks paid sick leave, short and long term disability, and an income protection plan for managers. We also honor whatever your prior accrual rate for sick / vacation hours was if you come to us mid-career so you don’t have start at the bottom of accrual rates again.

    Upset employee is about to have a baby and is upset that most of her leave will be unpaid. She’s been with us for 3 months (so doesn’t qualify for paid parenting leave), and her sick and vacation accruals aren’t very high yet – she’s also needed to take off a bunch of time due to COVID issues with her other kids. She’s described our benefits package as unfair to working moms.

    What benefits (if any) would this employee be eligible for in your workplace? Would you offer a fully paid parenting leave to a new employee?

    1. So she was like six months pregnant when she got hired, but didn’t discuss it during the hiring process?? Weird. It might be one thing if she’d gotten pregnant right around when she was hired and therefore wouldn’t have been at the company quite a year but…if she’s about to give birth and is only three months in, this should’ve been discussed before!

    2. I don’t think it’s reasonable to change jobs when you’re six months pregnant without evaluating the benefit package. However, in many states, the paid leave for pregnancy is STD and LTD (paid by the state), so her leave would not be majority unpaid in my state (CA). I also am sympathetic to being a parent, but if she has _used her accrued leave already_ then there is no more. By her logic, parents should get more leave than non-parents and I don’t follow that. I get that Covid has been hard, but if you work, then you are expected to actually _work_ in exchange for benefits. You don’t get to show up, not work much, and then expect to get paid leave for almost as long as you’ve worked. Even most private employers are not like that!

       1. I don’t believe it’s true that “most” states offer coverage for maternity leave. I only know of California and DC doing that, and the amount for DC is so low that it really is effectively unpaid for many people (I don’t consider replacing 10 or 15% of my income true coverage)

          1. California, Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Washington, Connecticut, Oregon, amd DC have paid family or medical leave. I don’t think paid leave is intended to fully replace a professional salary, but to act as a safety net for those who need it.

          2. NY does it too

    3. What did she think would happen when she moved jobs 6 months pregnant? You negotiate for paid leave as part of the offer or you stay in your old job to take advantage of their benefits.

       Before anyone starts flaming me, what our leave protections *should* be and what they *are* are not the same issue. Reasonable expectations of a specific employer relate to the second.

    4. Do you not have short-term disability?

       I feel like it is known that you don’t benefits like maternity leave at many places if you haven’t been there a year BUT also that it’s a convo to have before you start (vs screaming at people when you’re close to crowning). IDK that I’d start making exceptions for this employee given how she’s played things, but STD may be the answer.

       1. yeah you say that you offer STD, does that mean that it’s available but you have to enroll at open season, or is it a free benefit to all employees? Is she excluded from this because she hasn’t been with the company very long?

          I agree with others that 6 weeks is really short and out of sync, but I also wouldn’t expect a long paid leave for a brand new employee.

    5. I think 6 weeks of paid maternity leave is a pretty lackluster benefit, to be honest. Is she planning to return to work after only 6 weeks? It is no wonder she’s feel very disappointed about that. I realize she’s pretty new which kind of throws a wrench in things, 3 months is not long at all, but if I were job shopping, I wouldn’t entertain a job offer which wouldn’t offer me paid leave if I didn’t meet the qualifications. If you care about retaining quality employees it may be something to think about.

       Additionally, if you also accrue vacation and sick time at your org, it would be a pretty frustrating experience to be a new employee with kids. You’d always be playing tetris with whatever remaining hours you had and constantly losing that game. Maybe it would be better to allow people to borrow against future earned leave in the same calendar year.

    6. this does not seem like a terrible or unreasonable non-union benefits package to me. – l&e lawyer. she should have thought about maternity leave before changing jobs or negotiated for paid leave.

    7. Canadian government here, so we have excellent benefits in all regards. Employees aren’t eligible for employer paid mat/pat leave until they’ve been employed for 6 months. Employees with less than 6 months on the job would likely still receive the publicly funded paid leave available to all Canadians depending on their previous employment history though.

    8. New employee, no. Employee after a year in my industry is expected to get 12-16 weeks paid parental leave (dads take it too), and option for a full 6 months with the balance unpaid. This is banking. 6 weeks is too short in my industry, and there’s no banking of time from other pots for parental leave.

    9. I went on a 12 week fully paid maternity leave after a few WEEKS on the job. I had received and accepted the job offer before becoming pregnant, so my case may be slightly different. I work for a nonprofit. I am grateful for their commitment to me and in return I am committed to them. The prior nonprofit I worked for provided 12 weeks full pay 12 weeks half pay regardless of how long you had worked (available for non birthing parent and adoptions as well), but required you to work the length of your leave afterwards. MANY young parents decided it was worth staying at the org despite its problems bc of this generous leave policy.

       It depends on your org’s finances but if you can swing it I would offer a new employee full paid leave. If you must, you can condition it with her staying on post leave for a full year etc. Corporettemoms may give you a diff perspective.

    10. I’m trying to balance my “of course she should have known better” reaction to a new employee not getting the full leave benefit with what would actually be better for society. She should have known better in this instance, but I wonder if cutting down the amount of time before somebody is eligible for parental leave would ultimately end up helping recruit and retain better employees? It’s something to ponder. And six weeks is fine. Definitely better than A LOT of workplaces, but there’s room for improvement there too.

        1. This is what I am thinking too. Your benefits package seems totally in line with comparable places, so it’s hard to see how she would feel blindsided by that. On the other hand, the average benefits in the US are not great, period.

        2. Same. No, you’re not out of market. Yes, benefits suck for working moms, yours included (mine too).

        3. Do you have kids? I was not even physically fully healed after 6 weeks. My baby was still fully a newborn. I worked at a law firm and had 20 weeks of parental leave at the time, and I’m so grateful for that. I can’t even begin to imagine going back after 6 weeks.

           Personally, I think 12 weeks paid leave should be the minimum. The federal government offers that now, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable for state and local government employers to fall in line. I also think it’s harsh to require a full year’s service before offering the benefit. Especially if you are interested in hiring women in their 30’s. But that is unfortunately pretty standard.

           I am admittedly biased. I started a new (federal) job 20 weeks pregnant. I had enough prior service that I will qualify for the 12 weeks paid leave and I plan to take a mixture of accrued and advance leave to get me up to 16 weeks of leave. I plan to have a long career at my agency, so ultimately this will be a small blip on the radar. Employers are short-sited to essentially turn down good, pregnant employees who need to use parental benefits earlier rather than later.

           1. Are there even day cares that take infants at 6 weeks?

              1. Yes

    11. I think this is a time period when benefits around parental leave have a lot more disparities across different types of employers, with some companies going to more generous paid leave for longer periods of time, and some remaining with what was more standard, say, 5 – 7 years ago which looks more like STD + FMLA job protection. Employees SHOULD ask more questions about this but many aren’t savvy and don’t realize how different this can look across organizations. As to your company, it probably depends on your talent strategy. If talent is scarce, I would go more generous. If this isn’t really going to harm your ability to attract and retain talent, it’s…fine. Is it “fair” – probably the wrong question to be asking.

    12. Your benefits are much better than average but minimal paid parental leave is objectively crummy.

    13. Are you state government? I’m in federal govt and we get 12 weeks (if you worked in federal govt – any agency – in the preceding 12 months).

    14. For background I totally understand the American context here because I am American and worked in the US for 10 years. Now I work in a European country and just reading this makes me really hope things will change in the US, and I think this can be a helpful perspective to remind that maybe what we think is normal actually isn’t very desirable. Of course, in the US context, she ‘should’ have negotiated maternity leave before accepting.

        Now having experienced something different it seems really terrible that maternity leave benefits are tied to your job and to your longevity at your job. This should be a univeral govt benefit. BTW in the country where I work, you’re entitled to a month leave, and you don’t lose it if you switch jobs. There’s no such thing as ‘accruing time’. Sigh.

        1. That’s a month regular holiday leave that you’re entitled to, not maternity. Maternity is at 100% pay for 3 months, dropping in % but still available for full first year.

    15. A lot of people have already covered the “she should have asked earlier” element. But fwiw, my company gives 16 weeks fully paid parental leave. No requirement that you have to have been employed for a certain length of time – we have people come in and have their kid within 1 year or even 6 months. I work in tech.

    16. whew the way women on this board are blaming an individual woman’s choices for a systemic problem!

        Your parental leave plan sucks and you know it.

        1. It’s the timing of a move. Sort of how everyone quits after their bonuses are in their bank account and not a minute before. Or waiting to quit until after your pension or options vest. If she can’t care that much about making some life choices with a great impact one way or other other, she shouldn’t expect us to care much either.

        2. People have agency over their own lives. It’s not an employer’s job to be Big Daddy and reason out every possible scenario an employee might experience, and offer fixes through their benefits program.

        3. And you are blaming a manager for evenhandedly administer her governmental employer’s benefits. The question wasn’t “are these good benefits?” But “is my employer out of whack?” Regardless of what you think parental leave benefits should be, this employer is not “out of whack” for a US employer, even for a governmental employer.

    17. I am involved in creating benefits packages for my organization. The OP’s offerings are very reasonable, bordering on generous, based on research I have seen. The issue is with the employee’s newness, not the benefits package. It’s not typical to allow new employees full access to the benefits package – we can argue all day long about whether that’s fair or unfair. If the employee was informed about the benefits package before or just after being hired, I am not seeing where she has reason to be “upset.” Again, we can argue all day about fair or unfair, but employment is kind of a “caveat emptor” situation. We had this discussion a few weeks ago, but I have turned down job offers after examining a company’s benefits package and realizing it wouldn’t meet my family’s needs. It’s a free and open labor market and people have to look out for their own interests, and it appears to me this employee did not do that. I also wonder why she elected to get upset and complain rather than negotiate for more paid leave – pre-offer, post-offer or now.

        In a perfect world, we would have federally-guaranteed paid parental leave of three to six months (hopefully closer to six). We’re not there yet. So people planning families (which is a choice, and the choice I personally made) need to choose employers whose benefits packages match their families needs. It’s not the OP’s fault that the employee in this case expected the company to have her best interests in mind more than their own business interests (businesses are not our parents; we are responsible for looking out for ourselves). Where regulations and employment laws are lacking, we have to be our own best advocates and protect our own interests.

    18. so 6 weeks paid is woefully low, but this specific employee approached the issue very strangely.

        1. This. If you won’t have a convo on the way in, don’t complain about it once you are there.

        2. Whether it is woefully low really depends on the field. Since the federal government only started offering any maternity leave like 2 years ago (and you have to have worked for the fed government for a year prior, so she wouldn’t qualify) I’m not convinced it’s out of line with the industry.

           It should be woefully low, but that’s not the country we live in.

    19. Full time, state government employees in my state are entitled to 60 days of paid parental leave without a minimum employment as a precondition. The 60 days includes exhausting available annual and personal leave and is integrated into FML, if the employee is FML eligible. Having said that, the employee is the party who is not in touch with reality. My state is unusually generous (by US standards) in its benefit, and it is completely the responsibility of someone who is 6 months pregnant and contemplating a new job to seek parental leave information prior to accepting employment.

    20. We also have a 1 year eligibility for the paid parental leave, but employees get almost exactly what you mention in the first year, and we do not consider this unfair to working moms.

15. I purchased the Leopard Print Sweater Blazer from Ann Taylor. (I know links go to mod) Unfortunately – it is a weird, purplish color instead of brown or black. It looks strange paired with black and with brown, and I don’t have much ivory. How would you experts pair it with an outfit in real life?

    1. Is the purplish color warm or cool? Does it go with olive?

    2. Send it back.

       1. Naturally – I got it on final sale!! :) It is comfy, I haven’t taken the tag off, and I’m thinking about just donating it to my local junior league sale. I kept thinking there has to be a way to pair it with jeans, but all my shoes are black and it looks – strange.

    3. i would chat AT, tell them the item wasn’t as pictured, and get them to waive the final sale.

    4. Gray.

16. Does anyone have experience with the Oura Ring? I haven’t had luck searching the archives but surely we must have discussed this product at some point.

    1. I have a coworker who adores hers. I’m jealous of it, but I’m not on iOS and will not switch for this reason.

    2. We just had a discussion about it a few days ago. More than one person linked the NYT article about how it’s crap.

       1. +1.

    3. I haven’t had an Oura Ring but I do have the Motiv Ring and I love it. I believe they are similar products.

    4. No but the name really sounds like a gardening toy to me.

       1. I honestly thought from the name it was bc or menstrual cup

          1. OMG now I’m imagining a wearable tech menstrual cup.

    5. I guess it depends what you want it for. Tracking my sleep taught me that taking edibles before bed elevates my heart rate all night almost as bad as alcohol. So now I use melatonin instead unless I really need to get knocked out. But I probably could have just googled that instead of wearing a ring. I already take +10k steps/day naturally and don’t really care about knowing exactly how many.

17. Is medical-grade skincare worth the cost? I’m mid-30s with decent skin, but I’m starting to notice pretty deep lines across my forehead and smile lines. I’ve always had dry skin, so my hands looked like old-lady hands when I was in high school, and I had the beginnings of a line across my forehead in college. I’ve seen some insane before/after photos on Instagram, and while I’m VERY skeptical about those because they’re posted by influencers/brands, it makes me wonder.

    I don’t want to do injectables, and I’m ok with looking my age. But if there’s some middle ground between doing nothing and Botox, I can afford to upgrade my current routine.

    FWIW, I currently use low-end Asian beauty brands for cleansing and hydration, Stridex + Klair’s Vitamin C serum as my actives.

    1. If Retin-A type treatments fall into what you’d consider medical-grade skincare, then yes, so totally worth it. But if you are just talking the fancy cleansers and lotions sold in a derm’s office, no.

    2. “Medical-grade skincare” is a marketing BS.
       – signed, worked in cosmetic & pharma for ages.

       With full seriousness, it is BS, just a way to force premium-price to consumers. There is cosmetics, there are food supplements, there is over-the-counter and prescription, there are medical devices. No medical-grade skincare. If you are looking for anti-aging solutions, I recommend to watch Dr Dray videos on YT. In general, you sound like a candidate for tretinoin, good SPF, decent moisturizer regime. Even tretinoin will not fix deep wrinkles, although will help overall with (future) wrinkles and pigmentation. You might still need botox or other solutions for deeper wrinkles. Invest in tretinoin, daily SPF, some Cerave moisturizer and a visit to a derm.

       1. +1 to all this. I have different issues but tretinoin has made a big difference in my overall skin quality.

    3. Yeah, I’ll be totally honest, I use a lot of those products, but the changes they help with (skin texture, lines, etc) are minimal compared to the results from botox, filler, microneedling (in office), peels, and lasers.

       I’d re-examing your resistance to injectables if you really want to minimize lines – there’s a reason we do botox, and it’s because nothing topical holds a candle to it. You can go with a lower dose so you still have lines and movement – it’s really worth it to me.

    4. Retin-A is the only thing worth your time/money. But it will improve the quality of your skin – for me it minimizes pores and acne scars and coloring. It will not improve the forehead lines or smile lines you mention. The only things that really change those are botox/injectables.

       Of course, sunscreen.

    5. I had old-lady hands and dry-lake-bed legs in grade school. I lived in a desert environment. I drank virtually nothing all day. Are you getting enough liquid refreshment? Dry skin is wrinkly skin.

    6. Thanks for all the replies, I need to check out Retin-A and Tretinoin, as well as the get-check on topical/medical-grade in general.

       I already use a daily SPF and multiple thin moisturizing/hydrating layers, and I drink almost bodyweight-in-ounces amount of water each day, so I’m covered on the basics. I feel like it’s almost so much more noticeable now because I’m so used to seeing myself with a Zoom filter that smoothes everything out. But then I look in the mirror and I don’t understand why the lines are so deep! The answer is: no filter. And everyone else also has a filter when I see them, so there’s this warped sense of what normal skin looks like that’s been magnified over the last two years :(

18. This crowd is super COVID-conservative, so how are you all feeling as mask mandates are beginning to fall?

    1. I feel thankful that I’m able to keep my children home and provide individualized childcare and instruction until they’re vaccinated.

       1. I’ve not had a choice b/c schools closed for 18 months and I wasn’t able to provide individualized anything b/c I had to work despite it all.

    2. IMO, the fact that NJ and possibly California are backing off says that if you are vaxxed, you have done your part in making the surge fall and you’re also done protecting the unvaxxed from themselves. I’m OK with that. I would wear a KN-95 in an ER, but probably not otherwise but it’s always an option for the very cautious. I’m sure my kids will love it — they are masked 8 hours a day other than lunch, whereas I may just be masked for an hour total each day when I walk out of my office into a common area at work.

    3. Kids are 11 and 13; I’m OK with this. They got vaxxed on time and since COVID isn’t going away, can mask up during the next surge and continue to get booseters.

       Speaking of 11 — when an 11YO turns 12, do they get a booster based on their last shot (even though at 11 there is no booster for the 5-11s yet (so “fully vaxxed” for a newly-turned-12YO is what, exactly?)? I’m just thinking of getting all shots needed this spring in anticipation of summer camps actually happening this summer.

       1. A child who has turned 12 would get the adult booster dose.

    4. I am not particularly COVID conservative. My philosophy is I do everything reasonable: get any shot that’s recommended, wear masks when appropriate to do so, and stay away from others when I’m sick. Beyond that, let the chips fall where they may (I had a breakthrough Delta infection while traveling in a high-incidence state where no one wore a mask and the whole experience was awful, so I don’t come to that conclusion lightly). I’m torn on mandates–I don’t love the government dictating personal behavior unless necessary, but it’s also such a small ask with potential outsized impact that some people will not do unless required to. It also gives businesses a way to decrease exposure for their staff without having to engage in a fight over their own policies. We have long accepted we have to, say, wear clothes to enter a business. Masks just aren’t that hard.

       In my purplish-blue state, mandates are at the county level and it’s a reasonable compromise. My blue county has a mandate, and I don’t spend much time in the red counties by design. Omicron incidence is decreasing, but we still have hundreds of thousands of new cases a day. I’d rather see mandates evaporate in the spring.

       1. When I wear a mask in a business, it’s no big deal to me b/c I am in and out, definitely not there 8+ hours. For the sake of staff working there 8+ hours/day every day, I’d rather we wear masks a little to help give them a break on having to wear one (but dealing with sketchy members of the public . . . just ew, David, ew). If I look at things from the perspective of a grocery store clerk, I could mask a bit longer (but I bet they are tired and also scared still).

          1. Having spent a bunch of my life working in retail, I wear a mask in solidarity with those who work in the businesses I frequent.

             1. I haven’t worked in retail since high school but I do too feel like I wear masks in part in solidarity to the store lerks.

    5. I am COVID conservative, and would prefer to wait a touch longer, but I agree that we need to figure out how to phase them out and/or use them only during surges. It’s been two years. My first grader has yet to go to school unmasked, which actually makes me kind of sad. I was fully on board with masking until vaccines came out, but now I want a return to normalcy. I do feel bad for the kids whose parents won’t get them vaccinated. That is foolish, IMO, but the opportunity is there.

       1. I’d also prefer to wait a touch longer, but want to find a way to phase them out or use them only during surges. My first and third grader are vaccinated and go to school masked, but my biggest concern is making sure they can stay in school. Virtual kindergarten and second grade were impossible so they’ll be playing catch up for a while, and constant close contact quarantines are just prolonging the process.

          I’m not an epidemiologist but if I got to choose what kept them in school, I’d rather them wear masks than have to stay 6 feet apart. I understand that both are preventative measures, but school is closer to “normal” school when the kids can actually interact and eat lunch with friends and play real sports in gym again.

          1. Oh, I agree that masks have been essential to avoiding quarantine situations, at least in our district. I don’t expect things to change for this school year. But I do hope we can loosen the reins eventually. Basically, I feel very conflicted about all of it, after two years of being very strict. :(

    6. Since you asked, I thought this guy’s rant expressed my feelings well: https://eand.co/good-luck-learning-to-live-with-the-pandemic-youre-going-to-need-it-c733b56f1393 (don’t know who this guy is, but he’s not saying anything unique from what more authoritative people are saying: just saying it all in one place). If Omicron is the last wave, it’s because we’ll have gotten lucky, not because we took the recommended precautions to prevent new variants from arising.

       I have “four or more comorbidities” including an unusually high risk condition, and my doctors have me locked down despite being fully vaccinated and boosted given local percent positivity. I also have multiple relatives with long-term COVID complications… one who was perfectly fine the first time they got COVID but not the second time… and despite being fully vaccinated, young, and healthy. So I figure my genetics must suck. Even the young children in my family were quite sick (nothing like a head cold, worse than the flu).

       My impression is that we’re largely flying blind when it comes to the risks of breakthrough infection of poor outcomes other than hospitalization and death. Where can I review the risk of an embolism, thrombosis, or stroke following a mild breakthrough infection? How well does vaccination protect against these kinds of complications? I think we won’t really know how to assess risk until more data is in. And honestly local dashboards have shown plenty of breakthrough hospitalization and mortality where I am during the Omicron wave anyway (I haven’t seen CDC data that covers the same time span, so local dashboards it is).

       1. TL;DR: some people will stay masked forever b/c I don’t think COVID is going away any time soon. Which is fine.

          1. Not under the current leadership, that is for sure (https://jmfeldman.medium.com/a-year-in-how-has-biden-done-on-pandemic-response-88452c696f2).

             1. I love how Biden is handling the pandemic. I think he’s doing what’s reasonable. I also don’t think epidemiologists are who I’m going to choose to listen to when it comes to critiques of economic policy or national politics. Sometimes it’s good for people to understand their lane, and know when to stay in it.

          2. I’m fine with people who have four or more comorbidities and are high risk doing whatever they need to do to be safe. I’m not okay with the rest of us having to do what those folks are doing, when our risk profiles are completely different. When my mom was on chemo a few years ago, it was on her to wear a mask, avoid crowds, and do what it took to not get sick until her treatment was completed. There are always folks in society who are immunocompromised, who are high-risk for whatever, who have many many health problems, etc. The pandemic is the first time in my life I have ever heard anyone say we must sacrifice our entire way of life and the way society works for millennia to protect a tiny minority of people with extraordinary health needs. While I don’t believe in ignoring people with those needs, I have not and will never understand the argument that we need to engage in a perpetual and never-ending re-engineering of society to accommodate those people. It actually makes me worried that we are cultivating some kind of mentality of fragility and lack of resilience, that people feel they really should have to take no responsibility for their own well-being and instead are relying on others to provide it. Similar to the employee above who is blaming her employer for getting insufficient paid parental leave because she apparently didn’t read her benefits package. This attitude of “well, who’s taking care of me?” is worrisome. When did we lose the perspective that we need to take care of ourselves?

             1. Was there a time in your life before the pandemic that thousands of people were dying of a highly contagious disease daily? Way more people are at high risk from the pandemic than were at high risk from the kinds of disease that went around before. What changed is that there’s a new contagious disease that is wiping out thousands of vulnerable people, and turning previously healthy people into new vulnerable people. We have lost people who did everything within their power to stay safe.

                And it’s really not “the way society has worked for millennia” to ignore raging pandemics; it’s normal to take precautions during a pandemic.

             2. It also feels like we’re two years in and still having to constantly explain how this is not basically just the flu. The kinds of treatments that work for the other conditions immune compromised people have to worry about haven’t worked well for this. The treatment options that do work are still really limited and inaccessible and have a lot of contraindications. The mortality and morbidity are higher. The risks for vaccinated people are higher too.

                I feel like you may also just not have paid attention to this topic previously in your life. Science has been working on how to prevent the next influenza pandemic the entire time I’ve been alive. It’s a major goal of the flu vaccine program. Clean air advocacy is also not new, though hopefully it’s picking up steam; engineers and architects I know have always been talking about ventilation and the needless contribution of poor ventilation to respiratory illness. And conservationists were warning people about habitat encroachment and the risk of zoonotic disease.

                Re-engineering the way we do things to eliminate disease and improve our baseline human quality life has always been on the table. Extraordinary measures are appropriate for extraordinary times; long term solutions like better vaccines, effective treatments, better ventilation, safer travel protocols, etc., are under development to help things get back to normal.

                You probably saw some recent research came out establishing the connection between mono and MS. There is also research on Alzheimers and viruses. Imagine how much suffering we might be able to alleviate (not just the suffering of a tiny minority of people) if we decided that it was worth it to eliminate even more viruses from circulation.

             3. “We have lost people who did everything within their power to stay safe.”

                You’re still mentally stuck in March of 2020 and I am sorry about that, but current data says that vaccinated people have vanishingly little to fear when it comes to getting seriously ill or dying of Covid. Especially people under 75. Anyone can go look at the numbers at the CDC or on the NYT dashboard and see for themselves what I’m talking about.

                I’m not going to debate this with you because you remain super-invested in your own very particular perspective and have not, over the two years since the pandemic started, shown any interest in engaging in a real genuine exchange of ideas or having your mind changed even a little bit about anything. Trying to engage you in dialogue is a waste of time because you don’t listen. You don’t want to listen. You only want to have people reinforce for you that you are right and your positions (however unsupported by data or fringe) are valid. Which I’m not interested in doing for you, sorry. I am still, as always, genuinely sorry about whatever you’ve gone through in your life and whatever you’re going through now. Have a great day.

             4. My sister is an ER nurse, and Covid positivity in her state is way down. Nevertheless, every shift that she works, she has at least a half dozen patients sitting in the ER waiting for an ICU bed—maybe because of a car accident or a heart attack. There are no ICU beds available because the ICU is filled with Covid patients. So, in a way, we are all at risk, not just those who are “high risk.”

             5. It really feels like we’ve just totally abandoned hospitals and healthcare workers. No more flattening the curve. Nobody wants to hear it anymore.

    7. We are boosted, and if case counts in our area stay low, and there are no new variants, are planning on masking just for things like doctors appointments and visiting friends with unvaxxed children. We won’t be vacationing anywhere where the local population is not as vaxxed and likely breeding new variants.

    8. Like I’m tired of having this discussion here for the 10,000th time.

       1. Scroll scroll scroll!

    9. I’d prefer that vaccination rates were higher obviously, but that’s not happening.
       I appreciate that mitigation measures get old and compliance goes down, the longer restrictions persist. Therefore, I hope that loosening restrictions now will give folks a mental reprieve and make us more willing to hunker down when the next wave comes. At least, that’s the effect I think it will have on me, personally.

       1. Your Local Epidemiologist put out a new chart for “riding the waves” that is basically a guide to how much mitigation is necessary in different circumstances. It’s clear a lot of thought went into it.

          It really doesn’t seem like these are the vaccines that will end the pandemic if there’s already this much immune evasion, but maybe the “pan-variant” vaccine or one of the “neutralizing nasal” vaccines will pan out?

          I’m hoping that CORBEVAX is as good as it sounds, and that it reaches the many, many people who want to be vaccinated but haven’t had the opportunity yet.

    10. I’m mildly horrified that yet again, everyone seems to have forgotten about the under-5 crowd. My two children can’t be vaccinated yet and only have their own masks and those of others to protect them (unless we want to keep them on lockdown). And don’t even get me started on this whole “Pfizer approving vaccines when they don’t even know the correct dose for 3-4 years olds” thing.

        1. Also horrified that we’ve forgotten the under-5s and their parents and educators. To say nothing of the health risks, these kids getting infected is a big deal because in many places, that means their class is exposed and must quarantine. A couple kids a month testing positive is weeks at home for the class, and most people don’t have any backup childcare options for a quarantined child.

           A popular argument in favor of lifting requirements is that a concerned person can get decent protection from a N95. While there are some decent high filtration masks available for 2 to 5 year olds, the US doesn’t provide for regulation for N95s for children, so it’s literally impossible for this group to to use the best masks available to adults.

           Also, there’s still a shortage of the effective therapeutics for high risk people who test positive. Like many millions of people, I meet criteria for these therapeutics, but there’s such a shortage that they’re being reserved for even higher risk people (like the unvaxxed) in my area.

        2. i’m with you. i know life isn’t fair, but it seems really unfair to completely forget about the little ones who have also sacrificed plenty during the pandemic

        3. The under 5 crowd is not forgotten, they’re not vulnerable. COVID is less dangerous to those under 5 than RSV and the flu, and we did not lockdown for that.

           If parents want to be irrational and not understand the data, that’s fine, but my kids have been socializing ever since it became obvious (based on the data!) that is was not dangerous to them, regardless of vaccination status.

           Prioritizing mental health is not ignoring children. In fact, it’s being aware of children and embracing the (long standing) science.

           1. +1 to this. Folks, read the data. Under-5s are at incredibly low risk of severe illness and death from Covid. People who are still fearful about outcomes in under-5s are absolutely choosing to follow fear rather than look at the data. It would be a better argument to say we should take extraordinary measures to protect those over 75 from Covid because that’s the demographic at highest risk for death – even if they’re vaccinated.

           2. Are you also looking at the data on the kinds of complications that don’t lead to hospitalization, or are you defining “danger” just in terms of acute severe illness?

           3. To me, taking public health measures like masking to make it more likely the under 5s can remain in school/child care is prioritizing their mental health (and the mental health of parents of young children!).

    11. I think there should be more variation in them to account for differences in risk and to make sure we protect more vulnerable people, at least until we can more reliably offer treatment or infection rates are somewhat lower. Mask mandates should be maintained for places that people are forced to visit, like medical facilities, public transit, and maybe drugstores and grocery stores. It never made sense to have them in restaurants and bars and it’s fine to get rid of them in entertainment venues, since those are optional (though not for employees). Schools and offices are trickier. I definitely see the benefit in getting rid of them for kids, who have always been fairly low risk. In general, it should be okay to say that people at higher risk can protect themselves by continuing to wear masks regardless of whether there’s a mandate, but the problem is that often becomes socially difficult- kids will get mocked, some employers will threaten employees, other people will think that they’re being told that they shouldn’t wear a mask, while that’s not necessarily true if they’re still at high risk for whatever reason. So I think that getting rid of mandates can be okay, but it should be done with nuance.

        1. This makes a lot of sense to me. Doctor’s offices, labs, and pharmacies seem like obvious places to keep masking up since super high risk people may be present (and ventilation status may be unknown). I wish cops would also wear masks, but that’s probably unrealistic.

           A lot of high risk people work public facing jobs (checking out groceries is exactly the kind of job a lot of people can still handle when they’re unwell, since it’s not tremendously physically or mentally taxing, for example). So some extra precautions in places like drugstores and grocery stores might help protect employees too.

           1. Disagree on groceries — standing on your feet 8 hours a day is actually really hard on your feet / back. And that’s before you bag groceries. People are not meant to stand in one location that long. My body could not handle it and I’m pretty healthy.

              And I’m not sure what mentally taxing has to do with anything COVID-related.

              Finally, have you ever been a grocery worker? Every person on the planet eats food and that means you encounter a lot of nasty and angry people and everyone feels tha tthey can yell at you b/c you’re only a cashier.

              1. Oh I didn’t mean that it’s just an easy job! And yes I’ve had this job before (though unlike many people, I was given a chair, so I didn’t have to endure the 8 hours on my feet personally). I just mean that people can sometimes work the checkout lines who cannot work in the back or in the aisles hefting product around. Yes people were nasty and angry and yelled (I didn’t say it was a pleasant job, just that a lot of high risk people have this job; there are even grocery store chains that specifically have programs that hire disabled people for bagging for example).

                 I mentioned that it’s not (relatively!!) mentally taxing, because a lot of the high risk conditions for COVID involve brain fog or learning disability, with the result that there are people who are high risk who cannot just WFH at a laptop doing data entry or answering phones.

              2. What does having a learning disability have to do with COVID? Like you have ADHD or ASD — I don’t think it matters a bit to the coronavirus. Maybe if you have Down syndrome, which has physical health conditions associated with it? But otherwise? I don’t think I’ve read this before and I read a lot.

              3. There are stats out there on how high mortality and morbidity has been in patients with LD and ID. My guess is that it’s comorbidities; the kinds of developmental and neurological medical conditions that can cause learning disabilities, ASD, etc. can also make people high risk? But I may just not understand the risk of neurological conditions; CDC ended up adding mental health diagnoses like schizophrenia and mood disorders to the high risk list after the data came in, which was counterintuitive to me.

              4. (Also, ADHD or ASD aren’t normally classified as learning disabilities, though definitely there is overlap with learning disability.)

              5. I am not seeing how someone who has dyslexia would be at a greater risk of COVID. Or complications. Like not at all. Help!

              6. I’ll try saying it this way: conditions that significantly elevate COVID-19 risk can also cause disabilities including learning disabilities.

                 But that doesn’t mean that having a learning disability causes conditions that elevate COVID-19 risk.

                 I’m not aware that dyslexia in particular is associated with medical conditions. I think of it as one of those disabilities that’s more on the “social model of disability” than the medical model.

    12. i wish we were taking this approach: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/riding-the-waves-a-framework-for.

        i think we need a data driven public health based approach to metrics for making these decisions so that we know when we should ramp up/down different measures.

        i also think that there needs to be a vaccine available for all, including the under 5 population (but that is my bias as a mom of two kids under 5). my heart also breaks for families with immunocompromised kids

    13. I’m more in favor of vaccine mandates than mask mandates. I honestly find wearing a mask for a few hours annoying and uncomfortable. I also find the heavy duty kind – the kind that they are now saying ACTUALLY works to be especially uncomfortable and would rather not wear them at the office, where I had been required to wear it because I don’t have my own office. I liked the old NY rule which was that masks were optional IF you were vaccinated. I think it’s fine to make anti-vaccine people uncomfortable and to publicly indicate their refusal. I get that this put people in low level public facing jobs in a tough spot as far as enforcement though. Still, producing a copy of my vaccine card is super easy.

        As far as kids, I’m annoyed that my five year old has to wear a mask even after he did the socially responsible thing and got his vaccine. I think letting him go maskless while making non-vaxxed kids mask up sends the right message (we need to look out for each other one way or another) and allows him to make friends with kids of like-minded parents and stay away from the anti-vaccine kids, which is safer for everyone. I’m annoyed that getting a darn vaccine is not required for public school like it is for so many other diseases.

        1. I agree with you. Last summer, when it was “mask or vax” in my city, no one wore a mask and yet our county reported that only about 50% of adults were vaxxed, so there’s that. But I don’t know why I should protect the over-5 unvaxxed crowd any more. What have they done for me all this time?

           1. Yes, I cannot bring myself to care about the willfully unvaccinated. I’m saving my pity for people who display the tiniest bit of common sense and care for others.

              1. I’m unwillfully effectively unvaccinated. I have rheumatoid arthritis and take a biologic to manage it. The most recent research indicates that we produce fewer antibodies in reaction to the vaccinations and those antibodies vanish pretty quickly. I just had my fourth shot and had a huge reaction to it (likely because my body thinks it has never seen it before) but have little hope that I will maintain protection.

                 We exist. We rely on everyone doing the right thing, which from my perspective is fairly simple, but people selfish. My eyes are now opened to exactly how selfish, which is far beyond what I would have thought pre-pandemic, and I wasn’t optimistic even then.

              2. “We exist. We rely on everyone doing the right thing, which from my perspective is fairly simple, but people selfish. My eyes are now opened to exactly how selfish, which is far beyond what I would have thought pre-pandemic, and I wasn’t optimistic even then.”

                 Wow, I would never know that given that you’ve only said that here about 10,000 times.

              3. Hey anon with rheumatoid arthritis, I value your perspective. I wish more people in real life took steps to try to protect vulnerable people like you (and so many others!).

                 I also wish the poster responding to you wasn’t so unkind.

              4. doesn’t a big immune response suggest that your immune system is better prepared to fight the virus? Vaccine side effects mean they work?

              5. @anonshmanon That was always my hope! But it doesn’t seem to be borne out by the research.

                 @blueberries, thank you

                 @Anon at 2:15, karma’s a b1tch, and so are you. This is the first time I’ve posted about this, by the way. Shockingly, there are many of us who are vulnerable

              6. Anon at 2:11, I’m sorry that people are being a-holes about getting vaccinated because (part) of the point of vaccination is to protect people that can’t be vaccinated for genuine medical reasons and those who don’t get the full effectiveness of the vaccine due to underlying conditions. A dear friend of mine had a daughter who was diagnosed with cancer as a very small child and had to delay her vaccinations until she got the all-clear from oncology. I am routinely around a number of elderly people and I don’t want to be the vector of disease because my germy children gave something to me.

        2. Agree.

    14. I’m not particularly worried about my immediate family, but I also have older kids (10 & 13) and we are all vaccinated and reasonably careful. Wearing a mask is mostly a drag, though I don’t really mind wearing one indoors (especially in a place like a grocery store or a doctor’s office).

        That said, I don’t feel like they “need” to end mask mandates at school (sorry, Fox News-loving mom and dad). If my kids had to wear bunny suits, masks, and combat boots to go to school, I’d make sure they had all three every morning.

19. I have tried to become A Person Who Wears Neutrals. In photos, neutrals look so classy and sophisticated, and I’m totally drawn to the simplicity. In practicality? A lot of neutrals wash me out and I really love color. Especially pinks, blues, teals, and purples, because I’m still a 7-year-old at heart. 2022 is MY YEAR because periwinkle is everywhere and it looks really good on me. I’m having a hard time reconciling my wish for closet simplicity with loving being able to choose from hues that lift my mood and make it more fun to get dressed for work. I have narrowed down my color palette and am fairly picky about which shades I buy (like I would look horrible in today’s dress even though I love that color, so I’m not gonna buy it), but I don’t think I’m a very good minimalist overall, haha. How have the rest of you color-lovers reconciled this? Or have any of you successfully built capsule wardrobes that actually incorporate a lot of color?

    1. I see hot pink as a neutral (or NBD when you wear it with a lot of white, medium or light gray, camel, or all of the above (plus a smidge of black).

    2. I wear lots of bright colors – the only minimalism that I have is that my neutrals are either black or navy – generally navy for spring, summer, and fall, and black in the winter. I also wear lots of dresses (or I did…) and I LOVE(d) the simplicity of one-piece dressing.

    3. Why is this a problem you need to reconcile? Wear the colors you like.

       1. +1,000

       2. Exactly! Neutrals are over-rated, especially if they don’t look good on you. Plus I think a closet full of neutrals could lead to wardrobe issues, too, if you don’t feel like looking like a pile of sand or black-wearing Goth all the time.

          I like colors, too, but noticed that most of my wardrobe tended toward olives, purples, blues, but sort of the same tone – like, not a lot of pastels. I can’t really explain this right, but even with a more colorful wardrobe, it’s possible to have most of your clothing coordinate.

       3. +1. I wear mostly neutrals but that’s because certain neutrals are my best colors. I look vibrant and alive in black and just meh in hot pink. I avoid warm neutrals like camel and cream because they make me look like death. Wear what you like and what looks good on you.

       4. +1 million. As much as I aspire to be the elegant woman in shades of camel, I look like death warmed over in camel. Wearing black or navy or emerald green near my face is much, much better.

    4. I have a large base of neutrals in black, grey and cream, and wear them with a single pop of color at a time, like a top, or a scarf, or a jacket. That way I look professional without giving up my favorite colors.

       1. You don’t need to wear all black to look professional. I think the pop of color look can be pretty meh if you’re not very good at playing with texture and proportion. It can look like an afterthought.

    5. I really liked the book Curated Closet since it focused on having a small but excellent wardrobe made up entirely of items you love. Her method had lots of room for color, so might work for you. The book does have a capsule section, if that’s really your jam.

    6. “I’m having a hard time reconciling my wish for closet simplicity with loving being able to choose from hues that lift my mood and make it more fun to get dressed for work. I have narrowed down my color palette and am fairly picky about which shades I buy.”

       I think you already have the answer here. You can be minimalist and have closet simplicity with colors, you just need to choose some colors and curate instead of having all the colors. Choose one of your favorite popping colors as your base neutral – no reason why you shouldn’t be the person who uses a blue shade as your workhorse color.

       You probably do look good in some sort of neutral, though, just not a dusty or grey neutral. Olive green is a neutral, deep denim blue is a neutral, deep chocolate brown is a neutral, charcoal grey is a neutral, Khakis of all kinds are neutral – you don’t have to go beige or greige for it to be neutral or minimalist. Deep blackish plum purple, military blues of all kind, indigo, lots of colors can be neutrals.

       (I would also argue that breton stripes are neutral, and tortoiseshell browns.)

    7. I love prints, and try to use them as a bridge to other colors. I admit I don’t have the most minimalist of capsule wardrobes, but if a print (usually dress or top) has multiple colors that I match to from other pieces, it has more utility to me than a stand-alone bright solid.

    8. You can do this! My fairly minimalist wardrobe is 90% middle-to-mid-dark shades of red, green, and blue. I use maroon, denim, and olive as neutrals. It’s great and suits me way better than when I tried to make black work.

    9. I have slowly shifted my base color from black to navy over the last few years because it looks better with the colors I do wear. Sometimes I’m basically navy blue head to toe, but most of the time it’s different shades of blue (and I feel you on the periwinkle!), or sometime plum, muted red, forest green, or muted pink on top of worn with navy blue pants or skirt.

       Why give up color if it makes you happy? My closet is small so my collection isn’t giant. I group tops by color family so that helps me choose an outfit quickly.

       And I do stick to the colors listed. I very time I’ve ventured into other colors I ended up not wearing them as much, because they just don’t look as good on me so I don’t feel good in them.

       There are a lot of “every closet must have” rules that I’ve never followed (white shirts can bite me, or more accurately live with that coffee stain forever) and no shade of beige trench coat is ever going to be something I feel smart in.

    10. I think many times neutrals look simple and elegant because the entire outfit is monochromatic. I think you could achieve the same effect by dressing in monochrome, but with colors you love!

        1. I like this plan a lot. I love doing muted purple pants with a muted purple red shirt and then a redder topper — sort of a maroon ombre look. Or blue through purple to red.

    11. I love color and still have a relatively minimalist wardrobe. I have 4-5 blouses, all in bright colors or prints, all in a similar cut. I have about 10 sweaters, all brightly colored solids in a similar styles either turtleneck or crewneck. I have a few pairs of mostly neutral pants (black, grey, olive, gray & black plaid, brown & black plaid, navy with polka dots), all in a similar cut. That’s my whole winter wardrobe. I pair the brightly colored top with the more neutral bottoms. Silhouette is pretty similar day to day. Shoes are largely interchangeable. It’s simple because the colored tops match most any of the bottoms. I have a similar arrangement for summer, with sleeveless blouses and skirts.

20. Any suggestions for things I can pick up for my dear friend who is coming home from the hospital tomorrow with her new baby? They also have a 2-year-old at home. Also is this the type of thing that is ok to do without asking first? I was thinking some prepared meals from Costco, veggie tray, fruit tray, but this is new for me!

    1. I loved a deli sandwich tray when I got home from the hospital. Lots of casseroles were great to have in the freezer but it was nice to have some fresh items that I didn’t have to wait 45 minutes to cook and wasn’t quite as heavy. Costco has turkey pinwheels in their fresh deli section that are nice to have on hand along with a fruit bowl and veggie tray.

    2. What about a gift card to her favorite restaurant that does takeout?

    3. I’d text to ask. The person may need some emergency laundry detergent or wipes more than a veggie tray. And I was so happy not to have reflux after suffering from it while pregnant that I wanted very specific spicy Thai food vs anything that a friend might make for me (I appreciate the thought, but the food would have gone to waste).

    4. I would do a gift card to a food/restaurant delivery service. When I was at home with a baby, I wanted to be able to splurge for lunch delivery and not feel guilty about it!

    5. My friend had weird post pregnancy cravings (basically everything she gave up for pregnancy), so wanted the freedom to order whatever she wanted so a delivery gift card would have been perfect

    6. I would do a gift card for a meal service, if that is a thing you have. Meals are great but you would probably want to check if she has the freezer space. A lot of people do a lot of food prep and freeze meals before having a baby. Mine was completely full.

    7. Bless you for thinking of fresh veggies and fruit. I think it’s a great idea but timing depends on fridge space. I’d just text “hey, I’m thinking of getting you a fruit tray, veggie tray, and prepared meals. I can do it now or in a few weeks. How is your fridge space looking?”

       1. +1 on fruit. I got so many casseroles, which was great, but fruit was in ultimate eat-with-one-hand healthy snack.

    8. These are all super convenient foods for new parents, but without knowing if they have other friends or family who are providing them with food, you might be inundating them with food at a time when they’re getting a lot of it at the same time from others. Our fridge was absolutely packed the first two weeks after we came home (very grateful, but we had a hard time finishing everything that couldn’t be frozen).

       I would send a gift card for now, then send the trays and prepared meals in a month or so when all the help and food drops off :-)

       1. I delivered meals regularly as part of a meal train to some friends who had a baby in the NICU recently. They had a smart set-up because they were at the NICU most of the time and could not be home to accept deliveries, and they also needed to reduce risk of COVID exposure. They have a Ring doorbell and ability to open their garage door remotely, so all I had to do was ring the doorbell and they would open the garage door. I would put the food in the garage in their Yeti cooler filled with ice, and the food would stay safe until they got home at 10 pm or later that night. The Meal Train app was very helpful for scheduling and they could specify food preferences. It also allows you to send a Grub Hub gift card or Uber Eats delivery through the app if you don’t have time to cook something.

    9. I would do something that appears at her door without you holding it. You coming over with a gift is basically like an uninvited guest showing up, which is particularly fraught when there’s an unvaccinated baby in the mix. Only come when invited.

       1. It’s not even this, it’s that the baby might have finally gotten to sleep and then someone rings the bell. First thing I did was put a “baby sleeping; DO NOT RING BELL” sign on the doorbell. One of my better life decisions.

       2. Certainly ask first and know your friend…a visit might be welcome. my first weeks postpartum (okay, actually the past ten years) have sometimes been incredibly lonely and I craved adult interaction more than anything except maybe a shower.

          1. Which is why I said only come when you’re invited.

21. What’s a great birthday gift I can send to a friend in LA? She’s turning 30 – she’s a foodie, and she loves dogs, working out, and booze. Something local would be nice.

    1. The NYTimes just had an article the other day where they reviewed food gift boxes. I have my eye on a couple of them for gifts.

    2. Check out Fox Box (or maybe its Box Fox?). I just received a gift box through them and the packaging and gift options are super nice.

    3. I got a sampler from Nancy’s Fancy gelato (local to LA) from Goldbelly and it was DIVINE: https://www.nancysfancy.com/

    4. A big delivery of fancy donuts: https://www.donutsnob.com/!

22. I’m about to be shifting companies and getting a managerial promotion (knock on wood, just ironing out comp details). I will be fully remote still, but I want to step up my tshirt and jeans look to something a bit more elevated and boss lady. The new company does do a lot more video meetings than my current one. Clothes make me feel much more confident, and I’m kinda freaking out about this promotion.
    Any blogs, etc for elevated classic looks? I’m 30, but I don’t chase trends. Other relevant info: I have a toddler so I’m not into high maintenance.

    1. I wore a sweater blazer as a speaker on a panel last week. Mine’s from JCrew Factory, but regular JCrew and Talbots also sell them.

    2. I have found that the women managers whose style game I respect do two things: (1) they have a consistent way of doing their hair that looks intentional, and (2) their other clothes are predictable and, again, show intention. Execution really varied: the tech director wore a beanie every day and lots of black gray and white chunky knots with cool textures; the product director wore a ton of moto jackets with a ponytail and bangs; the VP’s right hand woman wore lots of style-forward jumpsuits, often sleeveless, in neutral colors; the sales director wore cool t-shirts with funky blazers and bright colored high heels (I can’t remember her hair). My version when I go back will be elbow-length or longer sleeves in medium dark tones with colored soft pants and moto or jean jackets, with the occasional soft blazer. Anything more formal makes me look stuffy. Its been a lot of trial and error to get here and recognize that imitating others’ palettes and styles just doesn’t work for me. We are in tech so ymmv.

       1. This is a really useful insight! Thanks

23. Has anyone purchased a high-end(ish) safe for their home? How did you go about doing it – like what do I even search for to start this off? I want to put in a proper safe for jewelry and other valuables, and want something very secure.

    Also, I was thinking about getting a safety deposit box but it sounds like these are not like in the movies? Like they can be quite risky and if things get lost, you basically have no legal recourse. Sounds like the better option is to have a home safe + insurance?

    1. I wouldn’t get a safe deposit box for anything you want to access on a regular basis (which I would include jewelry in). I have a safe deposit box and it’s kind of a pain because bank is no longer open on the weekends (covid) so I have to go during the work day and it requires planning to get anything out (The main thing we store in there are backup external harddrives that we swap out about every 6 months). No advice for a safe, though. I just store my good jewelry in what I think is a not obvious place and the less-good jewelry in a more obvious “steal me” place and have insurance.

       1. I’m not super worried about the convenience factor with the boxes. There’s a bank with them a few blocks away from me and I was originally thinking of it more as somewhere to leave things when I go on vacation. Or possibly things that are only special occasion items. I’m more concerned about the lack of safety net with the boxes though.

          1. You mean safety net in case something gets stolen? If something got stolen from the bank, would your insurance cover it in the same way as if it got stolen from your house?

    2. My parents each have safes in their house. You want a really really heavy one that you can bolt to the floor/wall/whatever. It’s good for passports, extra checkbooks, moderate amounts of spare cash you keep on hand, and good (but not ULTRA expensive) jewelry. The only things kept in our safe deposit boxes are the ultra high end stuff (I’d say anything in the range of > $5K per piece?). It’s mostly because it makes insurance on those items cheaper if you store them at the bank. It is definitely a hassle if you want to wear anything. Make sure you find a bank that is open on Saturdays (and specifically check they will do safe deposit box assess on Saturdays), because otherwise going during banking hours means taking off in the middle of the work day. I don’t recommend keeping your passport in the safe deposit box in case you need it on short notice for something.

    3. What are you trying to protect your things from – theft? Fire/tornado/flood? Different safes will provide varying levels of protection for different risks, but you need to be clear on what risks you are hoping to mitigate so you can narrow down what type of safe you need.

       Theft is not one of our main concerns, so we just have a small briefcase-sized firesafe for important documents and small irreplaceable items. We keep it in a closet where it would be easy to grab on the way out if needed, but acknowledge that it would really suck if someone ever did steal it.

    4. We use a massively heavy safe for jewelry, watches, our passports and documents we need frequently. We use a safe deposit box for documents we don’t need very often, like deeds and our wills, with copies stored remotely with family. We are in a natural disaster prone and high burglary area, and have had my parents home burglarized and vandalized during an emergency evacuation, and our home burglarized during home renovations.

    5. There are safety deposit boxes that do have assurances but you won’t find them at chain banks, those are at white glove type banks that service big money clientele. If you have really valuable stuff it’s worth it IMO.

    6. No advice, but I’m dying to know what it is that’s so valuable! Wouldn’t you have insurance on the valuable thing anyway?

       1. Insurance can’t replace the irreplaceable, though. Our firebox safe includes my grandfather’s letters to my grandmother while he was fighting in Europe, for example.

24. For anyone who uses and travel agent, any tips on finding one? I simply get too frustrated planning a vacation (overwhelmed with decisions and a slight fear that picking one thing (eg, a direct flight to save time, but costs more money) means I’m missing out on something else that is not to be missed). This results in just not ever going on vacations that involve any more planning that booking a nice hotel within driving distance and going for a weekend. I feel like the same travel agent wouldn’t necessarily be able to help me with booking a weeklong trip in French wine country for me and DH while also booking a family trip over spring break to a Caribbean resort and also be there to maybe book an entire Disney excursion in a few years when kiddos are older. I just need someone who is going to basically tell me “April 12-18th you are heading to X. Be at the airport at 7:30 am.” And I don’t have to do anything else, because I know they have booked a perfect for me/my family vacation.

    One question I am curious about in selecting a travel agent – have you found that it’s better to have a travel agent that’s local(ish) to you so they’re familiar with your travel experience since they’d fly out of the same airport/know better what direct flights you have/understand the overall travel time better?

    1. unless you are the least picky person ever, and/or have worked with a travel agent for a while, no one is going to be able to just book at trip that tells you on APril 12-18 you are heading to X destination, without any input from you on what you do/don’t like to do. also, just like doctors, lawyers and a myriad of other professions, you are correct that the same travel agent who is skilled at booking a trip through the french countryside is probably not the one you want to book your trip to disney. i’ve used a travel agent a few times and all times i found someone who was experienced at the destination i was going to, rather than the one i was coming from.

       1. yes, this. Also, just because you go to a particular destination doesn’t mean you should feel obligated to go to all the “must see” items. Like I’ve been to Paris 3 times and have yet to make it to the Mona Lisa because… I just don’t actually care about seeing it IRL that much. A trip made up of only generic “you should do this” activities for generic people in your age bracket seems like a recipe for disappointment to me.

          1. I spent a day in the Louvre on one of my two short trips to Paris and I didn’t see the Mona Lisa. The tiny room + giant crowd in the tiny room made that a big no for me.

    2. No advice on finding a new one, but if you want a company to plan a bespoke trip for you in Ecuador or Peru with local guides with excellent English and suuuper reasonable prices, I have recommendations. Julio Verne travel (Ecuador) and Vamos! Expeditions (Peru) are the bomb.

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