ByKat Hours Updated
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Weekend Open Thread

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Something on your mind? Chat about it here.

If you're looking for some light, joyful reading in these crazy times, I wanted to give a hearty recommendation to the Reluctant Royals series from Alyssa Cole — the heroines are always smart, funny, modern women.

The first book in the series (pictured) is particularly funny — the heroine is in grad school (for chemistry, if memory serves) and she keeps getting emails that she's betrothed to an African prince, which she chalks up to spam.

Except… it's the truth. When the prince comes to America to retrieve her, she mistakenly thinks he's a poor grad student like her… and hilarity ensues.

(And OOH, I didn't realize the third book in the series is just about to come out — I know what I'll be doing this weekend… The second book was really good, too!)

You can check the series out at Amazon, Target, Bookshop, or your local library.

Sales of note for 12.5

Sales of note for 12.5

And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!

Some of our latest threadjacks include:

183 Comments

  1. Light question for the weekend, what are your favorite blogs/magazines/Instagram accounts for renovating old houses? I’m particularly interested in Victorians, but also colonials. I wish Netflix would do a big-budget historic renovation series!

    As an aside, I’m even more interested in Victorians now that we’re in the middle of a pandemic. The thought of separate rooms and defined space (rather than an open floor plan) is SO appealing right now. I can’t afford to buy a Victorian where I live, but one day…

    1. What about the classic “This Old House”? I wonder if it is still on.

      I also love the defined and cozy rooms in my Victorian home. Every room has two doors! However, I do wish we could open up a wall between one set of rooms (maybe the kitchen into the dining room), because when we have parties of more than four people, there is no one room big enough for the whole group to gather. Granted who knows when we’ll have big parties again. But I do like the coziness versus one open floor floor plan.

      1. It is most definitely still on! You can watch episodes online as well. Norm Abram was my first celebrity crush, I used to beg to watch New Yankee Workshop and This Old House on Saturday mornings when I was a very small child.

        I also really like Daniel Kanter’s instagram stories. I think some people may find them to be too much, but I think of them as my daily episode of a renovation show.

    2. You might like victorianadventure on Insta – Annika and her wife (whose name escapes me) are renovating their Victorian terraced house room by room and their work is gorgeous. I also follow this1870house and the_thomson_tenement

    3. I love Cheap Old Houses on Instagram! She posts links to other renovation project feeds.

    5. Daniel Kanter (aka Manhattan Nest) his house is lovely and watching him renovate it is a joy.

      1. Second this one. Love Manhattan Nest. His blog is no longer about Manhattan – the last few years he has been renovating an old house in a small village (in upstate New York, I think?).

    7. Rachel Cannon is an interior designer who has been discussing/predicting the return of walls as a result of the pandemic. Her design focus has an “home appreciation for introverts” theme, but I follow it for the walls.

    9. I stumbled across this blog by a guy who bought a HUGE 1894 house and has been slowly renovating it and uncovering all its mysteries / details along the way. I started at the beginning and read straight through, until I caught up to the present, watching delightedly as an unexpected community formed around him through the blog comments, as he started to make friends with people he never would have met otherwise, and at how they all started cheering him on, helping him solve mysteries, and track down obscure items.

      https://restoringross.com/category/cross-house/?order=ASC

    10. oldhousedreams dot com is my favorite – these are actually old houses that are for sale. You can filter by style and state, but my favorite part are the commenters – very knowledgeable people with a passion for old homes.

    11. Kind of unrelated, but I live in an older neighborhood, houses are all around 100 years old. Someone recently bought a prohibition era Tudor mansion and has painted it stark white, ala Joanna Gaines/Rachel Parcell. The original virgin brick, the trim, the stucco –all white, with black trim. Am I overreacting to be so mad about this?

      1. Ugh, that would make me mad too! It’s probably a safe bet that the inside is being stripped of its character in favor of bright white walls as well…

      2. If my dad ruled the world, painting brick would definitely be a felony. Be lucky you got black and white. In my city, it would be ALL white, like someone scared the house and all of the color drained out of it. I keep thinking that folks will at least paint the trim or windows but if a couple of weeks go by, I just give up and mourn the loss of color.

  2. Ok, for those of you interested in the ‘rette book club, I’m opening up the poll to choose books! Options were all suggested in the morning thread. I will post the results on Monday.

    https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TH2V593

    It’s set up to allow you to vote for multiple books, but please don’t check all the boxes–that won’t help us choose what to read 1st!

    1. I was noticing some of that chatter yesterday — let me know if you’d like me to open up a thread for you guys however often you meet so you can have the discussion in one place.

      1. Awesome, thanks! Obviously it will be at least a little while befre we’re ready for a discussion.

    2. I’m getting a ‘this question requires an answer’ error on the first question even when I’ve ticked one or a few boxes.

        2. Thanks for setting this up! I just filled it out and am excited for our book club!

    3. Okay, thanks to everyone for their input. Our first book will be Evicted by Mathew Desmond. It was actually the runner-up, but I found that the winner, Such a Fun Age, would be very difficult to get from libraries or independent bookstores. Evicted is more widely available. https://www.powells.com/book/evicted-9780553447453/1-0

      Most people voted that we “meet” monthly, while a large minority preferred biweekly. As a compromise, I propose we read one book a month, with a mid-term discussion of early thoughts on the beginning of the book and then a broader discussion of the whole book.

      TLDR: Book club is reading Evicted by Mathew Desmond. Preliminary discussion July 23, discussion main discussion August 7.

  3. I feel like we e had a mixed bag of conversations about race. In an attempt to keep it productive:

    What’s a time when you’ve had a conversation about race or the response to a racist incident at work orb with your family, and it went well? What things did people do, especially people in power, that led to it going well?

    1. I think it’s being willing to listen, and admitting when you don’t know something or say the wrong thing. I remember in some random meeting at my old job, we wanted to add an option for “multiracial” to a demographics intake form, and one white coworker said something like “aren’t they just Black or whatever?” while looking directly at our other Black coworker for a response. I could see her visibly bracing herself and jumped in to explain that no, actually, they are different identities. The original coworker listened, said she’d never thought about it that way, apologized, and we moved on. I mean that’s a pretty non-dramatic example? But she didn’t blow up or get defensive or double down on her ignorance, and I think small instances of racism and in examined bias are so, so common.

    2. Stolen from my mom when we were kids but I’ve employed the same tactic successfully. My great grandfather who would be 113 if he were still alive would say all sorts of racist cr*p when I was a kid. I never knew this until after he died. Apparently my mom said something to him once and he went off saying she had no right to tell him what to say. And she said ok but I refuse to let my children hear that language so if you use it in front of them, we will leave. And then she did. And then the next time we visited and we having a nice time until he used a racial slur and my mom scooped us up and said “time to go kids, bye bye” and we left. This happened a few more times but apparently he got the message because I have no memory of the man every saying anything racist. Who knows if this filtered into other aspects of his life but at least he learned to stop in front of us. My mom told me this story when I was in college when I was talking to her about my frustration with another family member. She said she’d been using the tactic for years.

      I’ve done the same with family. I essentially state my case once with someone. And if they do it again, I say something like “you know how I feel about that language, I’ll be leaving now”.

    3. Did you actually ask her to leave or just say “haha, get out of here lol”?

      You walked away and no one knew why — ah, yes … congratulations.

    5. I confronted my grandfather about some racist language and sentiment he used in my presence a few years before his death. He was in his 80s and grew up in the South–very much a person whom others had decided it wasn’t “worth” correcting. When he attempted to defend himself by saying that this kind of talk was acceptable in his day, I said, “But now we know better, and when we know better, we do better.”
      I’m not so optimistic as to think it never crossed his lips again, but he never breathed a word like that in front of me again.

      1. Also–I don’t say this to be self-congratulatory. My point is only that it’s worth speaking up even to people who we think are “past” any kind of progress.

  5. This book is SO GOOD, y’all. The second in the series is actually my fave, but this one is great too. They’re funny and charming and make the whole “secret princess” trope feel fresh – and there are awesome female friendships throughout the series that I actually enjoyed more than the primary romance.

    Her Civil War series is also excellent – An Extraordinary Union is the first book. It centers on a formerly enslaved woman with a photographic memory who goes undercover in Richmond to try to steal the plans for a Confederate ironclad and falls in love with her Pinkerton detective turned Union spy handler. The protagonists aren’t based on real people, but many of the secondary characters are and the series was inspired by the true stories of Black Union spies during the Civil War. It will send you down wikipedia rabbit holes for hours.

    And she has a really good post-apocalyptic YA series, too…I am a huge Alyssa Cole fan, if it’s not apparent.

    1. I think I read An Extraordinary Union after first seeing it recommended here, and really enjoyed it! I will plan to pick this one up as well :)

      1. I really liked an Extraordinary Union — I was skeptical about the premise, but it worked! For another POC romance author, I also really enjoy Jasmine Guillory.

        1. I love Jasmine Guillory! Another book by her comes out in a few weeks, Party of Two.

        3. I love Jasmine Guillory! One of my writing group pointed out that her characters have a habit of eating big meals and then athletically gardening and said that the idea of it gave her indigestion – that hadn’t bothered me but I can’t un-notice it now! (It doesn’t ruin the books!)

  7. My college aged daughter is being ostracized by her friend group because they went on a witch hunt of her social media and found out she is connected through me to people who support things like Blue Lives Matter. They are demanding (they used that word) she confront these people and report back to them.

    I’m sure my 80 year old gun loving uncle in the remote Midwest is anxiously looking forward to hearing from a 19 year old he has never met on how to be better. I silenced his feed a long time ago.

    But this is for real. When she pushed back and said that was ridiculous they told her that she was then part of the problem, and now they’re not speaking to her. I don’t see them confronting anyone but apparently their contribution to BLM is to bully their friend into doing it so they can take some sort of credit for it.

    I wish I were making this up. Tips on how to help my daughter navigate this? We are lefties and she more so than me.

      1. Ice cream is a good suggestion! I’m open to any recs about which vegan ice creams are best!

        1. IMO the So Delicious Cashew Ice Cream in the flavour “Salted Caramel Cluster” is the best in the world.

        2. Honestly Ben and Jerry’s makes awesome vegan ice cream, plus they put out a supportive BLM statement.

        3. Jeni’s vegan ice creams are The Best (OMG, the Texas sheet cake variety), if you have access to the brand, and the So Delicious coconut milk ones are good. Most of the soy-based ice creams are not as good, IMO, but I like the Trader Joe’s cherry chocolate variety. My kid likes Ben & Jerry’s vegan varieties, but I don’t love them as much as the dairy versions, sadly. (Or maybe that’s good?)

    2. She’s college aged? Get new friends. Seriously I’d just distance from these people because they are showing themselves to be bullies. I didn’t realize she was college aged until I read your post a second time because this sounds like midde/HS behavior. If she were in middle/HS my answer would differ because she’d have to consider that she has to be in class with these people for 6 more years, friend groups are locked down a bit more so it’s hard to move into new ones. But for a college kid, when she goes back she can affirmatively join a few new clubs or whatever and start hanging out with new people. If this is about her liking them and not wanting to move on, if I were her I’d make one more statement and then whoever in that group is REALLY your friend will reach out (maybe not not but in a few weeks) and the rest of the group will fall away; kind of like how it works in adult life — people don’t usually have groups of friends so much as individually. Personally I’d say something like — “you’ve known me for x years, you know who I am and I don’t intend to confront my 90 year old ex cop great uncle in Iowa who I’ve met exactly once to prove my views to you, if that makes you not want to talk to me, I’m sorry to hear that and it’s been nice knowing you for the past 3 years.”

    3. They’re not her friends and they’re insane, so I would encourage her to drop them and not worry about it. They’re mean, virtue-signaling woke-police. And they are misdirecting their anger at someone who already agrees with their cause. No one needs “friends” like that.

    4. This isn’t complete advice, but one suggestion: She should quietly block them from seeing her friends list on Facebook so they won’t have any future ammunition. (She probably knows the fb features better than I do but this can be done.) It will keep them from stalking her connections further/in the future.

      1. It’s actually my friends list on fb, she has a profile on fb but doesn’t use it. She’s not directly connected to my uncle in any way. It’s insane to me but thanks for the advice on hiding friends. I will do that on my account!

        1. And by the way it’s not just my uncle. Her friends had screen shots of my connections who had posted or merely liked (liked! seriously) “problematic” things.

          1. That really makes me think it’s the people who are the problem here and not the content. They surely have their own friends-of-friends connections who are problematic but they’re bullies who are picking on your daughter. I’m sorry she is going through this.

        2. If your daughter is friends with you, then they can see your list through her account if has her settings set to show “friends of friends,” so she may need to adjust her settings too.

    5. Wow, that’s ridiculous. Teenage girls can be so awful, and I doubt this is really about BLM. If she’s not asking for your advice, I would just be supportive and sympathetic. If she is asking for advice, I think you can remind her that college is a big place and even though it’s hurtful to have close friends treat you poorly, there are lots of other people at her school for her to hang out with. This is a good time for her to reach out to people she knows casually through class or an activity or whatever and try to develop deeper friendships. Hugs to her (and you!)

    6. It sounds like she already handled it by declining to contact the people, and expressing her opinion of the idea. It’s on the friends that they’re not speaking to her. She shouldn’t cave on her boundaries, and I don’t think you have a role as her mom other than to listen to and support her. Friendships can change or end over differences in principle.

      2. Agreed. She can also say “these aren’t people I’m connected with. They are people my mom knows and has muted.” They don’t need to know if it is an uncle or a colleague. She could also say “it would be inappropriate for me to meddle in my mom’s relationships. It could be a colleague for all I know.”

          1. It hasn’t. If she doesn’t confront AND report back to the friends, then she’s “part of the problem.”

            These are all white girls, by the way, though one of them keeps talking about how she has black friends.

            P.S. these girls also know my best friend is a black woman who has been an auntie figure to my daughter for her entire life. But yes, please tell us how you met some black people in college and once hooked up with a black guy.

          2. Oh, man.

            They need to just stop. And since they won’t, she most definitely needs new friends.

            I’m so sorry.

    7. Wow, is really all I can say. This is awful and I feel for her. I hope my friends do not go through my social media, find out I am still connected to some third cousins who are Trump supporters and pro-gun, and decide to disown me. Because those people are my family and disowning them both isn’t an option and it’s not an answer. I have already had the “be better” conversation with them (and they are outliers in our family, so I am definitely not the only person who’s tried) and it doesn’t work. If I and our other family members disconnect from them, they will never hear or see anything from anyone who doesn’t believe what they believe and I think forcing people into an echo chamber is a bad idea and will result in some bad things over the long term. I do challenge BS when they post it, as do other people in my family.

      I know what I am going to say is way, way hard to put into practice. But your daughter may be going through a difficult but necessary life lesson, which is that there are some people you genuinely do not need in your life and you are actually better off without them. I understand teenagers are bad at nuances and tend to see things as either A or B, no in between. But I would think that intelligent, semi-reasonable people would be able to understand that the explanation from your daughter is, this is a distant relative I have never even met, we stay connected because we are family but the connection is not an endorsement of his beliefs. I work with people who believe things I don’t. I am on the PTA with people who believe things I don’t. My hairdresser believes some things I don’t believe. We can either turn absolutely everything and every relationship into a “you are either for us or you are against us” situation or we can stay connected, demonstrate empathy and continue to try to educate. Your daughter’s friends’ behavior really worries me, because that is absolutely how we will end up in civil war – if we all decide there is absolutely no common ground to be found any more and everything is an A or B situation. Taken to extremes this kind of thing will tear the country apart, more than it already is being torn apart.

      I agree with the other poster that this is likely a power dynamic problem and not an actual beliefs problem. Unfortunately, despite my hope things would change in the interim between when I was a teenager and when my child became a teenager, what I have observed with my son and his friends is that things are not different. There’s still the whole “we’re friends with everyone except HER today” ridiculous nonsense going on. Defining who you are vs. who everyone else is seems to be some kind of existential journey we all have to experience, generation after generation. I went through a period when I went to college where I fell in with a group of friends who later turned out to be not very nice people, and then I had to go through the painful process of detaching myself from them, which I attempted to do as a “slow fade” (although that was not a phrase at the time). They caught on, it got ugly and it was really hard to live through, and painful. But compared to staying connected to these awful people? Getting free was worth it.

      I am sorry this is happening, mama and I know how hard it is to watch this kind of thing and not be able to alleviate your child’s suffering. But this too shall pass, and in the meantime, if your daughter has other friends she can reach out to or connect with, this would be a good time to do that. If she has or can get a job (I know getting jobs is a tall order for young people right now) that can help distract her. Anything she can do to meet other people than these friends can help. This is not about her, this is about them, and while it’s probably really hard for her to see that right now, she will come out of this with some valuable knowledge about herself and about friendships that will serve her over the long run.

      1. Being “connected” on Facebook and thus being “responsible” for confronting every single person is pretty silly logic. What do they want her to do? Comment on a post that they deem unacceptable and say that because her mom knows this person somehow, she’s got standing as the daughter? I have connections on Facebook from my hometown and honestly, I keep a lot of them on my friends list or in my feed so that I can remember that people that I know in real life actually think this way. That people I’m related to by blood actually believe the conspiracies. I have zero ability to change their mind, they probably barely remember me and only added me as a friend on a recommendation from the algorithm years ago after seeing my parents post something, etc. And like, how far is enough to satisfy these “friends” who insist she should… say? do? post? something. Arguing in the Facebook comments to try to get your crazy uncle to quit saying racist/violent/unreasonable nonsense is not going to do anybody any good (and for the people I think I CAN influence, I’ve had many, many in-person conversations, not sound-bite arguments on social media). She should just drop these friends. I’m sorry she’s going through such nonsense, but truly, these people don’t mean well, they aren’t actually looking to make change happen, and they’ll never be satisfied with whatever actions your daughter takes.

      2. Thanks so much. I appreciate your thoughts and will try to convey them to her today.

      3. Unless you’re tagging them in stuff, you are not ensuring they see different perspectives. They can have you as friends but unfollow you and never see anything you post.

    8. There’s an argument to be made for her friends advocating for your daughter to take action when she witnesses racism, no matter how many times removed. However, demanding and bullying isn’t a sign of friendship, but of control. She needs new friends.

      1. Do you really have the energy to take up the fight every time you see a blue lives matter (or similar) post on social media from someone you have never even met in person & frankly don’t know at all? How do those conversations go for you? What is it that you’re doing that makes addressing such posts effective in the fight against racism & a valuable use of your time?

        1. It’s a valuable use of time because pushing back shows racists that they are not truly in an echo chamber. I have second-degree connections to rightwing gun and Trump nuts in northern Idaho. Their communities are extremely homogeneous and if people like me didn’t push back on their racist, sexist, and misogynistic posts on social media, which get viewed or reposted by thousands, it’s likely that no one would. Maybe it doesn’t change minds every time or even most of the time, but the effort is important and on at least a few occasions, it has led to good discussions and reflection. I have also pushed back on racist chain letters that have been forwarded to me by relatives and been shocked at the open, critical discussions we’ve ended up having. A lot of the time, people are a bit lazy about their own racism; they forward something without really reading or thinking about it, but when a loved one or a friend of a friend brings up the issue, they are actually willing to engage more often than I expected.

          1. I think pushing back on people you know is a good thing. But I think demanding people you know confront other people is a step too far. It’s like passive activism – wanting brownie points without getting your own hands dirty.

      2. Yes, everyone should take action when they witness racism. But that’s not what’s happening here – the friends went trawling through the daughter’s contacts’ contacts and found “problematic” things in the posts of people tied to her mother, that the daughter apparently never even saw.

    9. I’m so sorry. I’m a bit older than your daughter but unfortunately some of my acquaintances have being doing similarly ridiculous things like demanding people unfriend anyone who “likes” Trump on FB. I hate Trump possibly more than anyone, but no I will not unfriend my Nana or otherwise elderly relatives (who are all POC because my family are immigrants, but I digress).

      1. I hate Trump more than anyone too but I followed him on Twitter so I could keep track of the crazy ish he says and what is going on in the world. FB now has a follow versus like option but in the past, liking was the only way to get someone’s publications. My brother who is a journalist “likes” many people he does not agree with so he can cover what they say.

        1. Same here. I follow Trump and some other disgusting Twitter accounts so I can keep track of the crazy. Similarly I am Facebook friends with, but don’t engage, some people from high school who are full MAGA, but again I feel like it’s good to have an insight into the crazy. Otherwise we’re all REALLY in our own echo chambers.

          1. I look at Trump’s twitter, but I don’t follow. You can see what people say without contributing to his delusions about his popularity as measured by the size of his follower list.

          3. Same, I think it’s important to have a full picture of what’s going on

      2. I totally unfriendly anyone who likes Trump on twitter or Facebook. I have zero time for people who support him. I don’t want family or friends in my life who are not utterly disgusted by him.

      1. Blue Lives Matter is a racist reaction to Black Lives Matter and there are no ifs, ands, or buts about that.

        2. Right. Nobody is born “blue.” Equating a chosen profession with an immutable quality like race is ridiculous.

        3. Next time you need police assistance I hope you remember this.
          Don’t call 911 when somebody is breaking in.
          If you have an accident phone a friend…not a LEO.
          If you have a medical emergency then call your doctor friends not my family members in Blue.
          If you get mugged…call BLM for help.
          If your bank accounts get hacked solve it on your own. Don’t you dare ask for an investigation or charges to be filed.

          Seriously. The folks on this site live privileged charmed lives and don’t realize what our cities would be like without law enforcement officers. You don’t appreciate them until you need them. When you need them they will respond if you call.

          2. Well, honestly, after the last few days I wouldn’t blame any black person for phoning a friend for help rather than turning to the police.

          4. Call a protester. I’m sure then run up 40 flights of stairs in a burning skyscraper to save you.

          5. The “blue lives matter” people I know are so blinded by fear for their loved ones who are LEOs that they are totally missing the nuance here. I get it, you get it, anon at 5:34 and most of the people I see posting Blue Lives Matter stuff do not get it. Not because they are bad people, they just aren’t seeing that this isn’t a Black People vs LEO fight. It’s a fight against bad cops and bad/over policing. Which LEOs should fully support, if people trusted LEOs their jobs would be a lot easier.
            Also anon at 5:34, many of your statements are already truths for POC, this is why gun shot victims are left at the ER doors and DV victims refuse to testify.

          6. You can support police without supporting racism in the police department. Many people do. Do police officers have difficult experiences in the line of duty? Of course. Is it a horrible tragedy if they kill civilians in the line of duty (or off duty) … ALSO YES. Especially if it’s unfounded and legally murder. Ask yourself if officers should be exempt from the law. What are they serving if the law doesn’t apply to everyone?

          7. You’re apparently unaware that POC are living in a world where they don’t have the option of calling the police. This world already exists. You have closed your eyes to it because you want the luxury of being able to call the police. The price for your luxury is the abuse of POC. Are you really fine with that?

          8. You do know that many black people actually would hesitate to call the police in all these situations, right? Because if you’re black and the police get involved, you may end up dead, even if you’re the victim. That’s…kind of the point of black lives matter.

          9. I am anon at 5:34. I get the nuance but all the graffiti and signs that call for killing cops aren’t the answer. Not all LEOs are bad. Most are hard working folks who wear Kevlar to work. My frustration is the broad painting of all cops as evil. The comment I replied to was that being supportive of law enforcement makes one racist and there appears to be agreement with that ideology. One can be supportive of law enforcement and equally horrified of useless killing of POC. They are not mutually exclusive.

            And I am saying this as a POC married to a POC with POC children. Many would like to pretend people like us exist.

          10. You make a lot of assumptions about the people on this site. I’m an ex LEO who left and went to law school because I was tired of dealing with my sexist and racist colleagues. Mostly racist towards nearby Native American population.

            We are where we are because black people basically can’t call police without worrying about their lives. And white people like Amy Cooper know that and use it to threaten black people.

            The fact that you are not afraid to call the police is your white privilege talking.

          11. “When you need them they will respond if you call.“Not necessarily. Unfortunately even so-called privileged POC can’t necessarily count on LEO to help them when they call.

          12. Actually the comment you replied to said “blue lives matter is a racist reaction to black lives matter.” You can support law enforcement but also recognize that it’s extremely racist to equate a person’s chosen profession with their skin color.

          13. “When you need them they will respond if you call“ LOL I’m white and even I know that’s not true. Have you ever tried to report a rape or sexual assault? You would know how obviously false that statement is.

    11. “But this is for real. When she pushed back and said that was ridiculous they told her that she was then part of the problem, and now they’re not speaking to her.”

      Years from now, she’ll understand that she’s better off without them.

  8. Just want to say that I have worn t-shirt dresses from Old Navy for the last two days and I am sold on these, for the rest of the summer. I had gotten a couple on super-sale last year, but my office is more dressy-uppy and they felt a little too casual for work. Well, they are GREAT for WFH, especially now that temps are in the 90s and I ran a couple of errands in one as well. I love that I can put on the t-shirt dress, sandals, and earrings and feel presentable, even if my hair is a disaster and I haven’t put on makeup in months, etc. etc. And I’m not overheated. Loving it.

    2. What size did you order? I’m interested, but between COVID weight gain and having never shopped at Old Navy, I have no idea what size I am. I’m 5’2, 34DD, about ~135 – 140 lbs.

      1. The t-shirt dresses tend to run big and seem to be inconsistent between prints vs. solids, so I would order your normal size or size down. I normally wear a 2/4 in dresses from places like Ann Taylor, LOFT, White House Black Market, etc. I purchased the leopard t-shirt in S Tall, but I also own the version from last year or two years ago in a Medium. I’ve started buying Tall from ON because I’m long-waisted, so the hips hit at a better spot for me on the Tall versions of the dress. The Medium hits just above the knee for me, the Tall hits just below the knee. I’m 5′ 6″, 34DD, athletic build and all the accompanying shoulder/back/booty/quads that entails.

      2. I’m a “cusp” size so 14-16 womens, 16-18 straight size, just depending on the brand. I bought an XXL in the straight size line because my experience with Old Navy with the women’s size line has been inconsistent (two of the same garments in the same size are not actually the same). My opinion, Old Navy runs large so you should try an XS or an S and even those might be too big.

    3. I just got two of LLBean’s “summer knit dress” with short sleeves. They are so comfortable! I can tell those are going to be key summer WFH pieces. In office, the light jersey material is probably ok for casual Friday’s but not otherwise.

      1. Aren’t those amazing? I have two, they’re my favorite thing to wear around the apartment when it’s hot out, and I wish I could justify buying a 3rd. Maybe when they go on sale.

      2. I love those LL Bean dresses – but a caution to the more buxom amongst us, they are a bit low cut. I always have to wear a camisole to make it work appropriate and those are now (apparently) hopelessly out of fashion.

  9. Have you seen any good resources on what nonprofit boards of small/medium organizations should be doing to support employees in light of the murder that sparked the protests and all that followed?

    The organization is already good on fundamentals like competitive and fair pay, providing professional development opportunities to all, diverse management and board, implicit bias training, etc.

    Time off is the main thing I can think of. Unfortunately, to complicate matters, the organization is newly allowed to reopen and the population served is really in need of the services.

    1. Do you offer good benefits for health care that covers counseling services or have an employee assistance program? Make sure people are aware of it, comfortable using it, and able to use it. Even though the company’s busy, people should be able to take time to attend regular medical appointments, for example.

    2. I’m a member of several Facebook groups for nonprofits and many of them have had robust conversations on this topic recently. Try searching for “your thriving nonprofit” or “nonprofit happy hour” on Facebook.

      As a white employee of a nonprofit, I appreciated our board endorsing our public statement condemning the recent murders, police brutality, anti-blackness, and systemic racism. I also appreciated the mandatory mental health day they gave org-wide on Monday for all employees. The board also approved our budget that increased the funding for internal diversity, equity, and inclusion work across all of our divisions. Our HR Dept has been reminding us of our EAP resources.

    3. Maybe this would be a good question to ask over at askamanager (the work advice place) either by sending it in to the columnist or by posting it in the Friday open thread to get comments from other readers.

  10. small law firm – 5 associates. 1-4yrs of practice, men & women. we’re all super collegial and supportive, I *think* we all enjoy working at our firm.

    Are there drawbacks to discussing our respective salaries/annual raises/etc.?
    We all know the raises generally track to our hours, but some of us have been discussing what we make and what raises to expect, how we can lobby Partners for more – is this bad? I generally understood that discussing salaries and money was like, union-esque good discussions to expose any discrimination, etc. As a woman I’m feeling emboldened to do so even more, not that I want to harangue our Partners, just in the spirit of transparency and our colleague-connections.

    Any thoughts on it? Cautionary tales? drawbacks I’m missing? (finding out that a dude makes more than me! Hah!)

    1. I know in theory it’s good to have it out in the open, especially for women, but in the past for me it’s just caused drama and fighting with coworkers without leading to anything productive, like a raise or more standardized pay. Of course, now I work for state government where all salaries are printed in the newspaper annually, so no one has to discus it – we just look up how much our coworkers make and are secretly bitter about it.

    2. I would suggest instead that you spend your time talking to the partners one on one about what it will take to advance through the ranks as a senior associate. You don’t seem to have many role models in the associate ranks.

  11. The post about the college daughter made me think of something else I’ve wanted to delicately suggest. While still fully supporting Black Lives Matter, consider checking in w/ people in your life that are affiliated with law enforcement if you think they are otherwise good people. Some of them are debating quitting. Some are talking about how to impact change in their departments. This is not meant to be a #notallcops type of post. It’s that when we talk about how some of our friends and colleagues are struggling right now and not getting work done as well as usual, it includes them. Even if you hate all cops, you can recognize that a child of a cop is scared and struggling right now. A wife of a cop may be doing all of the childcare. There are members of law enforcement that don’t want to be affiliated with it anymore and are trying to figure out how to translate their skills into another career. The careers that normally hire ex-LEO are also very problematic, like military defense. So, if you know a “good” cop, or family members of any cop, they are probably having a really hard time right now and could probably use a word from you if you think it is appropriate.

    I’m personally so worried about the children of police officers that are on social media and seeing posts lauding the killing of cops. There is some really extreme stuff out there. I know this is what black people have also had to deal with forever but these kids are brand new to it and have no coping skills.

    1. I haven’t seen anything on social media about killing cops. I have seen lots from far right white dudes who are eager to shoot any black person who looks at their property.

      That said, I’m sure being a black police officer right now is not easy. But they make a huge difference like that black female police officer in Florida who intervened in an incident that could have gone badly

    2. Not Kat, but I don’t know that you’ll get much push back (but it seems to be allowed here if you do). Fighting racism in the police department is something officers themselves can support (and I hope they do or that opening the conversation helps).

    3. Won’t someone think of the precious white babies?! They shouldn’t have to read such hateful things while their Black friends are being murdered for buying skittles or playing on the playground.

      1. Our police and sheriff heads and most in leadership are black. They are walking with and supporting protesters. Protesters are actively kicking out the unruly and even picking up their trash. Of course, they are getting death threats. I respect my city so much right now and a few bad apples not out there to build a better world are trying to ruin it.

    4. I’ll raise my hand and say, as the wife of an LEO, we have discussed my husband quitting this week. His regular LEO job is pretty specialized and I think noncontroversial—commercial vehicle regulation enforcement—but the last week he’s been asked to essentially sit and be ready to respond if a protest gets out of hand (which hasn’t happened). He’s grown really frustrated with his job, and unsure of how to make a difference. The messaging from his superiors isn’t great—they seem to be mostly fear mongering about antifa rumors—and I don’t get the sense that his department thinks anything needs to change. They completely agree George Floyd was needlessly murdered, but they don’t seem to get that it’s not just swearing off certain tactics that needs to happen. So anyway my husband is frustrated, we aren’t in a great place financially for him to just quit, but he’s still considering it. All that to say too, we are white, nothing we are experiencing is anything like what POC experience, but you are right LEOs (at least the decent ones) are questioning what they are doing.

      1. If your husband realizes that it is not just that the murder of Floyd was bad then that is great. We need retraining and a new police culture.

    5. “I know this is what black people have also had to deal with forever but these kids are brand new to it and have no coping skills.“

      Are you kidding me with this?! I was with you until here. You think black babies are born knowing how to deal with white supremacists? Like it’s some ingrained skill since their ancestors have been oppressed for hundreds of years? No, sorry. Get on out of here with this bs.

      2. Sorry. I made my point really poorly. I made the post above the line you took issue with in another form, without that line and was told “black kids have been dealing with this forever.” That led into a whole debate (that I wasn’t even part of, I came back to it) about how by the time they are teenagers, they have sadly experienced racism already and have been taught by their parents how to respond to it. That’s all. I don’t think they should have to deal with that AT ALL.

  12. Since week 2 of WFH due to COVID, I’ve been wearing the True & Co vneck bra from Target. They were great but now they seem to roll up under the girls. Are the ones directly from T&C better?

    1. I ordered one from Nordstrom and have been impressed so far. Wearing it approx every other week, wash in a mesh bag and air dry.

    2. Yes they are! I started out with the Target version as well and eventually had the same experience. Bought the real thing and they are a little thicker and roll up less. I LOVE these bras!! 36C fyi.

    3. Chantelle Soft Stretch Wireless Padded V-Neck Bra is a similar option, a couple colors are on sale at Nordstrom right now. I have the Nile Green and it is really pretty.

    4. Yummie Bra has a nylon seamless bra that look similar to the True & Co ones – has anyone tried those?

  13. In 2019, I never would have thought I would have gone to a boarded up grocery store with National Guard in the parking lot, while wearing a face mask with disinfecting products in tow. 2020 is something.

    1. Husband and I were talking the other day about remember at the beginning of the year when Trump ordered the assassination of that Iranian general and we all thought we were headed for WWIII? How long ago does that seem? 2020 just. keeps. coming.

      1. It’s the LONGEST year. And we are having a tropical storm/hurricane this weekend here. So glad, 2020 was getting boring! Going to the grocery this week was fun, as some things that were back in stock have now disappeared again for storm prep. It’s the neverending story.

        1. I heard from others that stores were totally depleted earlier this week for Riot Prep, but today it seemed OK. My quest for rinse aid and plain almond butter continues though.

        2. Ugh. I forgot that things were going to disappear for storm prep! Fortunately, we have bread, milk, and eggs. And toilet paper. But I guess I should buy groceries for at least through Monday?

          1. Yep! It’s an extra-fun dimension to pandemic shopping. Like the oddest things were gone – no pancake mix? I already have tons of perishables in the freezer, so I picked up bread, tuna, ice cream, chips and wine. Worse comes to worst, I will have a snack binge if there’s no power – and I have already laid claim to “rescuing” the ice cream should the power go out by eating it all immediately.

      2. I just keep thinking of people who voted for Trump and at the time said “what’s the worst that could happen” while the rest of us were like “you have no idea.” Not the kind of thing I want to be right about.

      3. Totally agree! Even impeachment seems like a distant memory and an inconsequential event. The other day I found myself reaching deep into my memory to recall why he was even impeached.

        1. OH RIGHT Trump got impeached at one point. That totally happened. I legit forgot about that until you mentioned it.

          Anything that happened pre-March is just a big gray blur at this point.

    2. Sorry — I was replying to it and mistakenly hit “report comment.” Hopefully it will come back.

    3. Presumably enough people accidentally reported it that it ended up in purgatory until someone gets around to reading it and realizes that it is in no way shape or form offensive.

  15. Y’all, I am finally going to watch Schmitt’s Creek while I recover from upcoming surgery. I’ve watched a f ew episodes and OMG I adore every single thing that Catherine O’Hara’s character wears. It is so perfect and crazy, like something for now or when I finally go back to a post-Corona office. I also love the daughter’s outfits — better than my WFH Corona wear by far! Any guesses where they shopped for these characters? (I also hard-crushed all of Selina Meyer’s outfits but these are more dystopian and also more realistic.)

    1. Most of Moira’s outfits are vintage or consignment designer that they spend years tracking down.

    3. Alexis Rose’s wardrobe is my DREAM wardrobe. I love that show with my entire heart and I have never coveted a fictional character’s clothing more. I’m not sure if links are allowed here, but you can find a blog that lists many of the characters’ clothing sources by googling “worn on TV, Schitt’s Creek.” Unfortunately for me, many of Alexis’s items of clothing are on the FAR upper end of my budget haha.

  16. Today would have been essential frontline worker Breonna Taylor’s birthday, but she was killed in a spray of bullets by the police in her bed — in March. Every ounce of accountability has been hard fought by her mother who refused to be quiet but there is still so much to do.

    We cannot be feminists without standing up for all women, including and especially now Black women and women of color. For Breonna, for her mother, for all Black women, and for all Americans, I want to urge the hive to take 5 minutes to call or email and demand accountability. It could not be easier.

    1. Do you/others have ideas about what specifically to demand or is it mostly important to acknowledge & speak up?

      1. Hi, yes, sorry, I put it in the reply below but it wasn’t approved through the queue quickly. There is contact info along with things to say or demands to make- some have been met and some still open ended.

        But also good to talk about it as that is the point of #SayHerName, in that women of color are not only subjected to more violence but often then left out of the conversation.

  17. I was late to the discussion the other day about setting goals. I recently listened to a CLE presented by a fantastic speaker named Carrie Williams. She has a good that’s called “Eyes on the Prize: A kickass guide to setting and achieving goals.” I highly recommend the book and/or a session with Carrie. She is truly a gifted speaker and writer. I was inspired by the practical tips she gave in her CLE.

  18. I’m about 15 pounds from my goal weight, though I’m still “skinny fat” and working on muscle tone. Can anyone who has successfully kept weight off estimate how close I need to be in order to replace my bras? I don’t mind thrifting for shirts and pants at my in-between sizes, but I’m not buying used bras, so they need to be once-and-done.

    I’m 45 pound down so far, and very hourglassy.

    1. No idea, but you could buy them at your target size and then buy bra extenders until you’re the size you want to be

    2. Buy to fit you now and then again if you lose the weight. Life is too short to wear the wrong size bra.

    3. I think this is something that varies a lot, unfortunately. If I were in that situation, I’d just buy a cheap pack of sports bras plus two “real” bras in my current size and alternate them during the week, and then wash them and while they’re drying wear a sports bra.

    4. Really hard to say. 15 lbs from goal weight is still at least one band size and one or two cup sizes for me because I lose in the bust last/put on in the bust first. So I would not buy molded cups until I am very close to goal/sustainable weight.

    5. I’m very hourglassy, and I gain weight very evenly distributed, and still look very hourglassy whatever weight. When I loose weight, I always seem to keep the boobs the longest. First I loose water, then waist/back/face/arms, then thighs, then at last boobs.

      I’m skinny with some fat (mostly my UK H-cup breasts…), and my bra band does not change a lot – partly because if I gain at underbust – it’s fat/squishy. I have had variations of at least 10 pounds the last 3 year – never changing bra size. I do however use bras that have elastic lace in the cups, not anything padded or with hard seams at the decolletage.

      So if you’re anything like me – you might not need a very different bra size at all, or at least not more than one cup size.

      1. This was my experience too. I’m an hourglass who lost 30 pounds. I went down one cup size but my band stayed the same.

        I agree with the poster above who said buy cheap bras that fit throughout your weight loss journey — I’ve always had good luck with finding my normal brands at Marshall’s or TJ Maxx. When you reach goal, you can stock up on the expensive ones.

    1. We had a watermelon and feta salad at lunch last week and I recreated it last night for dinner and it was so good! The original had toasted hazelnuts, but I didn’t bother with it. We debated a bit between an aged balsamic and a balsamic glaze. We tasted both and decided on the (premade) balsamic glaze. I cut the watermelon into small chunks, then added some halved sweet cherries. I sprinkled on some feta, then drizzled it with the balsamic glaze and topped it with chiffonade mint. I let it sit in the fridge for a while to let the flavors marry. It was so good and really refreshing.

  21. Hey all – are minimalistic earrings still trendy for this year? I love them and want to keep wearing / buying them, but been seeing lots of big colorful ones in fashion mags…those are fun, but not for every day. Thoughts?

  22. Um. I’m about to try a variation on meatloaf that includes lentils and oatmeal (I’m combining a “healthy” spa meatloaf and a lentil oat loaf recipe). Want to have meaty stuff with less meat. Not really exotic at all but it’s what I got.
    I also tried a slow cooker kimchi beef stew recently and it was lovely. I may also make coconut millet porridge. Very curious about millet. Anyway, wish me luck on the meat loaf!

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