As someone with a long time interest in grammar and usage, I love seeing new words and usages, especially when they are more descriptive or concise than traditional methods. So, I enjoy "sus" and "sketch", and "mailing a letter" and while I know some who abhor "gift" as a verb, isn't it more concise to say "I gifted them the book" rather than "I gave them that book as a gift"? My personal pet peeve, though, are longer phrases that add nothing to a sentence, but that people use to make them seem more important or official. Like on the airplane, when every request begins with "at this time". You could skip those three words and lose nothing. At lot of use of the passive voice falls into this category as well. For some reason people seem to feel like they need to write like this in a lot of business communication. Drives me crazy.

Sounds pretty sus to me.

Sadly, this is a common problem with a lot of volunteer positions. I think a good way to handle this is to be very upfront with leadership about the need for a succession plan. And a succession plan that you can slowly build over a long time frame. Not that you are threatening to quit, but say something like "I love doing this work, but people move or have other commitments come up unexpectedly all the time. I feel like an important component of doing this work is not just the day-to-day ministry, but more importantly, helping develop people who can step in and replace me without a huge loss. Can we start looking today for some people whom I can train and work with that we can all be comfortable with"? That way, you have some helpers to take on some of the work in the short term. Also, I feel much less stressed out about volunteer work if it doesn't appear to be a limitless ask. If I know I only have to do something for, say, a year, it is a lot better than when I'm the only person, and it looks like I'm stuck doing it forever. And, on the other side, it is very hard to find someone willing to take on a huge task like this without any training or coming up to speed. I'm much more likely to volunteer if there's someone who will take me under her wing for a bit, and teach me the ropes.

I'm not a doctor or scientist, but I have to believe that a chlorinated pool, even an indoor one, is relatively safe with respect to covid. I've read that high humidity reduces covid risk, and I'm guessing chlorine is effective against the virus as well. Changing rooms might be more of a problem, but maybe you can change at home? Also, old ladies are awesome.

Well, there's a million places to go and see that you could do, and I'm guessing you only have a limited time, so making choices is hard. Sometimes, flying into one city and out of another can help pack more into a trip. We took a delightful trip to Wales a while back -- seem like, for whatever reason, Wales isn't on the radar of many Americans in the same way that many of the other parts of the UK are. Nonetheless, I found it wonderful.

Many, many years ago, one of my early jobs was doing light secretarial work that included answering phones. Though our office didn't provide any direct service to the public, once in a while, someone needing help would call us. All of us who answered phones were given training in referrals, and a box of index cards with services and phone numbers we could give out, and when to give them. I think this training was maybe 30 minutes, but we did use those cards. Is it possible that there is similar training in your area, and that your law firm could provide it to you?

Tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons? You get can very nice, gem-like dungeons and dragons dice for that price range that may be the sort of really nice gift that they might not buy for themselves, but that they would really appreciate.

It is kind of niche market, and I don't know how far she is from a major interstate highway, but there is a market for horse transfer barns. These are essentially AirBnBs for people and their horses driving across country who need a rental barn for the night for their horses and an airbnb for themselves.

Obviously, Chicago is a big place with people from every imaginable ethnic background, just like every big American city. But when I think what ethnicity is more distinct to Chicago than other large cities, I think Poland. I bet you could make pretty tasty vegan Pierogis, and other potato-based Polish dishes.

In the dark ages, when I was in High School, no guy would ask a girl to prom without having a pretty good idea that she would agree. Often there was an intricate secret web of communications before the actual ask, via friends, friends-of-friends, etc. to negotiate such things like "I'll go, but just as friends", "We can go in a big friend group", or "No thank you", or whatever. Is this not done anymore? As we talk about about consent, seems like this is a good way to get to consent without a lot of embarrassment on the part of the asker or the askee.

While I usually advocate that teens find their own solutions to problems the world throws at them, I feel badly for your DD. Would you consider calling the boy's mom yourself, and explaining the situation, so that she doesn't have to?

I'm so sorry this happened to you. Ignoring the bigger issues for the moment, though, I'm intrigued by the focus on the letter of apology. Is a forced apology really valid, in a moral sense? And how does that really help the issue? Let's say, hypothetically speaking, that you got a short pro-forma apology from the bully. Then what? Would you happily send your kids on the bus and to school with that bully without any more worries? I wouldn't. To me, a written apology wouldn't change the situation at all. I'd at least want assurances from the school that the bully wouldn't be on my kids' bus, or if he had to be, that he would have to sit in the back, so their paths wouldn't cross, or things like that.

Most NCAA/NAIA intercollegiate swim programs (even D III) require an enormous time investment, and I can't recommend them for most students. However, are you familiar with college club swimming? I have seen so many great experiences with students in college club swimming. Club requires much less time investment, usually a couple of practices a week, all voluntary. The students run the practices, and they usually get a couple of meets a year against college clubs at different schools, often with one travel meet. For kids who like the pool, and have spent years in USA club or high school swimming, it is a great way to get exercise, have a friend group with similar interests, and gain some leadership experiences; all while still being able to prioritize classwork and being a student.

Around here, when the boys shave down before a big swim meet, they make a party out of it, and all do it together, and turn it into a "male bonding" experience. I suspect that usually there's at least one boy in the group who has the wisdom to quietly ask a sister for advice, and passes that on.

A friend of mine recently went on an airplane trip, and was talking with a random stranger on the plane who said that she was (proudly) not vaccinated, and had gotten Covid-19 three times already (!) Obviously, an anecdote, but I'm pretty skeptical about natural and herd immunity, especially as the virus continues to mutate.

I'm sorry, but no, this is not what Einstein's famous equation means. At all.

I'm sure that a lot of work is going undone, these stores always look chaotic, but until they start losing business because of it, I don't think management is actually desperate for more employees.

Are they actually desperate for workers? What would it mean for them to really be desperate for workers? How often has the store closed early or not opened because they couldn't get workers? Are they offering hiring or retention bonuses, or (gasp) raising wages? If this chain is the one I'm thinking of, they have been financially booming during the pandemic.

The pictures of the Endurance underwater are amazing!

Does your University have a travel department? If your grant is coming through your University, and not directly to you, I'd book through them, because they probably know about any odd restrictions you might be subject to. For example, if your grant came from some agency of the US Federal government, you may be subject to the Fly America act, and be required to book travel on US-carriers. Some academic institutions may not allow VRBO or other non-traditional venue. You may be subject to a per-diem maximum of how much you can spent, even if your funding covers it.

There's a program I really like called "Total Immersion Swimming", which focuses on teaching you how to swim easily, and finding your floating balance points. I got the book from the library, and there's also a bunch of YouTube videos.

There's been a bunch of kerfuffles in our local public schools lately here about curriculum, and what surprises me, as someone not involved with public schools at all, is how teachers seem to have carte blanche over the curricular materials used in their classrooms. There seems to be a complete disconnect between what the principal and the district think is being taught, and what is actually being used in real classrooms. I had thought that there were administrators in our district's headquarters who select textbooks, workbooks, etc., purchase them for the schools, and get them placed in the classrooms, and then teachers are free to choose from those. But every time, in the recent problems, some teacher got a workbook, or teaching materials from some third party, and when a parent complained about it, both the principal and the school district claimed they knew nothing of these materials, claimed they weren't purchased directly by the district, and that they were inappropriate. For all the talk our districts like to do about standardized curricula, seems like the message isn't making it down to the teachers, where the rubber meets the road. Are other districts like this? Am I just misinformed about how public schools work? (wouldn't be the first time).

What really annoys me about this story is it wasn't "the hospital" that tried to enslave workers, but some human being at that hospital (or beings) decided it was cheaper to sue their employees and competitors in court rather than treat them fairly. But none of the reporting names those human beings who made that decision -- they just get to hide, facelessly, behind the name of "the hospital". Meanwhile, the names of at least some of the worker bees comes out in the reporting.

I don't know what the current state of the art on this is, but early on, there reports of successfully training dogs to sniff for covid. Seems like this could be very useful for certain uses.

I love this idea, and you probably know this, but my experience is that any activity with food will hold the attention of teenagers.