Where's the runs around like Yosemite Sam mad emoji? The one I have isn't good enough. So much entitled syndrome out there.

Olay, thanks. Dh likes dried cranberries on his salads so I thought these might be a fun change, but wasn't sure really what to expect. The Hive always knows!!

So I am not creative with fruit. Never have been. I see these berries on Misfits, and am curious but if I bought them, don't have a clue what to do with them or if we would even like them. What do all of you do with them? What is there taste and texture similar to?

I wasn't speaking about Alaska. I was speaking to extreme cold in my area. Please.do not make assumptions. My region rarely, until accelerated climate change, had weeks of temps below zero coupled with windchills below zero in double digits. Rare. Very rare. When these schools were built, they were built with heating systems not rated or manufactured to handle such extremes. The elementary aged kids are currently, due to staffing issues, housed mostly in the gymnasium and taken out in small groups for limited instruction. The temperature yesterday in that gym when kids arrived at school? 48F. Please go set your thermostat at 48F and spend the day doing academic work so you cam have the experience. Some of the bus drivers reported that inside, the temps with the heaters running did not exceed 32 degrees so it isn't like these kids for toasty warmed up before entering the building. Half of all Michigan schools currently have heating systems that are so old they cannot compete with this. My area is also low income. Kids don't have Carhart or Llbean or REI coats. They have crap sold at the local Walmart. This store does not carry extreme weather clothing. The thrift stores and clothing pantries have been advertising a desperate need for coats, gloves, and hats rated below zero. The average kid has a pair of dollar store gloves, and a dollar store beanie hat. The kids raised on farms are better off because their parents do buy them very good outer wear so they can manage farm chores. 75% of the student body qualifies for free breakfast and lunch, backpacks and boxes of free food sent home on the weekend. So no, they don't have outer wear that manages to compete with going on three weeks of this. When I was a kid, this kind of cold was unheard of here. Now, with climate change, I think it is going to be common. But that means the infrastructure which includes new insulation and heating systems for an awful lot of schools has to be upgraded. Our right wing nutter legislature who cares not one iota for kids isn't going to bite on that. So if the local community cannot bear the costs off some rather extreme millage taxes to make payments on loans for it, it isn't happening. I am sure that for Alaskans, it sounds like mainlanders are just being whiney wimps. But you apparently are not dealing with an infrastructure that has its collective head in the sand for two decades about how much more extreme our weather was going to get and has done nothing about it. Maybe you live in an area with very few people who are low income or in poverty. It isn't everywhere in Michigan to be certain. Many of the schools in the U.P. were apparently built much more soundly, and investments in heating were made that took into account big and prolonged weather extremes. When I have been in Marquette, thrifts stores have had far higher quality, used cold weather gear than here. They seem to have more "common sense" about extreme weather conditions than my region. Most of what is available to lower income families here is exceptionally low quality.

Agreed. And people need to remember that many an inexperienced high school driver is headed out for school with siblings. So out here on rural roads where response time for tow trucks, police, and road side assistance is 45 minutes to an hour sometimes more, it is very scary to have them out in these kinds of temps when the car/truck/bus isn't running. We have about 200 teen drivers at the local high school. Obviously they are not experienced drivers, and they often transport siblings to school. So it is kind of nail biter on days when the temps are in the "hypothermia/frostbite within five minutes" weather or when they superintendents don't want to deal with making up snow days and refuse to call of school during blizzards and ice storms even when the sheriff's office calls and says, "What the hell? Get off the roads!" (Yes, our sheriff talks like that. He is kind of bull in a china shop, as the saying goes, but actually a pretty good sheriff in practice.)

Can he check with CVS and Walgreens who are supposed to be able to distribute the free federal masks? My hope is that they would have been given more than just one size for distribution.

Also, it should be pointed out that there are only 179 people living in my town, and 1476 in my zip code. Two kids hospitalized and one going to die of this should be a wake up call, a warning, something that moves the needle on the selfishness if nothing more from the scare that it might happen to their own child or grandchild. Nope.

It Is already in Michigan. They sequenced a sample of it from a case back in Decemeber, the 21st if memory serves. So my guess is that this state will be in a very bad way for a long time. We had not even gotten on the downside of the Delta surgery and then had omicron bam. We haven't peaked get here on BA.1 and already have BA.2. I feel like we should have closed the airports and the borders, allowing only Michiganders and returning college students in, and then only allowed travel for people on the border who live on one side of the border yet worked on the other side. We have almost no masks anywhere in schools. A few districts did a two week pause and are virtual. But what they need is an entire month virtual, and then everyone in KN95 or N95 after that. I really do not know how much more our HCW's can take. We need a spring 2020 style shut down again. But "freedumbs" won, so nothing is going to happen. Another child from on my community, 16 year old with a seizure disorder has been hospitalized with double covid pneumonia. She is not expected to survive. The parents at the high school, many of whom know her and her family personally, have been posting "she was already sick, so this isn't a big deal, not our problem, don't mask my kid" and all kinds of crap. I cannot imagine the pain and horror her family feels seeing that sh#t! The little 5 year old boy is stable. He isn't getting better, but has he gotten worse either so there is hope for him.

Hurray!!

That is too cold especially if children are waiting outside for the bus.

The third person in all this says he has proof that it was Falwell's idea, and he was involved in the whole thing sexually. So someone in this threesome is lying. It will be interesting to see what comes of the book and Hulu documentary. My guess is the truth is a mishmash of bits and pieces of the Falwell's version, and Giancarlo as version mixed with some sort of hash of whatever Michael Cohen says. Just a big steaming pile of manure. So yes, I agree that whatever the nitty gritty was, it is far worse than what has been admitted to because why bother paying for "The Fixer", ie Cohen? He could have just said, " My wife has been having a raging affair, and I am leaving her." In fundie, mega church world, he would have been considered a victim of a shrew, and the divorce would have been fine. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/jerry-becki-falwell-affair-giancarlo-granda-trump/2020/09/18/456a1568-eccc-11ea-b4bc-3a2098fc73d4_story.html According to this, there is video/photo proof that Falwell is lying about his role. Of course there was also the alcoholism. The 911 call she made when he was unconscious from alcohol poisoning points to a major substance abuse issue. There is just a lot of rotting fish smell with this one! I think this interview was a way to try to get out ahead of the book and documentary with their cleaned up version of this.

Okay, that last bit? Nope just a hard no. Medical people, even the ones addicted to McD's, don't tell their patients to eat whatever the neck they want. At this point, she really is being wilfully ignorant. But, you can't fix that either.

This is brilliant! I mean if she isn't going to listen, helping her torture is putrid butt would be some nice Karma. "Here is your spinach, dandelion weed, and beet greens salad!" Some of the alternative medicine stuff is just as nasty as allopathic. My sister in law sells some concoction that has got to be chicken dung, grass clippings, mulch, sileage, and milk pods composted and then fermented. I do not know how anyone could ever choke to down. Would be hilarious if he choked down some of that stuff just to keep up the con.

I agree with you that there is some willful ostrichness going on. When it crashes, it is going to be quite a train wreck. 😱

Yes, dh and I have always been well suited to be that way with each other. My mother in law never had it nor did my mother. I consider myself very, very fortunate.

He could have started it as a money scam, didn't pan out, and then knew if he admitted it to her, she might leave him. If he thinks he would be wiped out financially in a divorce, that would be a good incentive to run the con as long as he can.

Unfortunately, there are so many of these slimes, that I can't keep track of them all from memory. Hyles is disguting, and then oh from that same area, Bill Hybles (?).

My husband's bosses wife, his first boss many moons ago, was raised very Duggar style. She was profoundly gullible! Like we were just "Wow" at the level of basic grown up living stuff.that she did not know. Epic. And it stuck with her. she just didn't get over it. Later on when she had teens, we caught up with them again, and it was the same thing. Her own kids did a lot of, "Mom, you have got to start thinking" type comments. The worst thing was her misogynist prick husband thought it was hilarious to tell her all kinds of untrue crap and watch her fall for it, find out later he had lied, and then end up embarassed . He was a jerk boss too so it is good that DH didn't work for him very long before finding a better job.

Also covid protocols make it easier. Locally, no one can bring another person into the medical facility for an appointment without approval. For MIL, I can walk her to the door but despite her confusion, memory lapse, and poor physical condition, I am not allowed inside the office/lab/hospital. If she had a surgical procedure, I might be able to get permission, but mostly it is all, "go sit in the car or at home and wait to be briefed by phone if she says it is okay for us to call". He may be able to use that for a little duck and cover. He legally has a right to privacy. He does not have to allow her to have access to his medical information nor attend an appointment. If she has very limited or zero experience with serious illness or injury, combined with a desire to ostrich because she doesn't want to face the truth, I can see it happening. Sociopaths are good at what they do and especially so with a naive victim. It is crazy. Normally there is a financial motive, but maybe he is just a sicko who likes to pull one over on her.

Come to think of it, I think of I had been allowed to have my chocolate ditch bunny in my lap during the S.A.T.'s, it would have greatly increased my score! 🐇

The case I knew the best was a friend from high school. Her fiance ` faked cancer and managed to snow her, her parents, and his parents. They were in college, and eventually this roommate squealed on him. He didn't do it for money, but for attention and to cover for failing a bunch of classes which he blamed on being sick from chemo. They were fundie and very very anti physical contact prior to marriage, so for him it was extra easy to do.

For the vast majority of my father's life, he did not let my mom attend his medical appointments. He wasn't hiding anything so much ad he was a misogynist who didn't give a flip if she was informed, and for darn certain did not want her opinion. He hid serious heart disease for three years because he did not want to take a break from his business for surgery.

My ds's college has therapy dogs, cats, and bunnies on campus all during finals week. The students LOVE it. I am sure it lowers stress and anxiety levels.

Ours are owned by private investment firms, and the board of directors have very few physicians on them. One of them also has a huge investment in it from a drug company. It makes people pretty leery about the intent of the medical practice at it.

Which ever works, or both? I mean it's all good, right? 😉