Indeed! I don't know if you or your student might have any interest in a fictional account of the plague sweeping through one little village in England, but I recently read The Doomesday Book by Connie Willis, and I thought it was quite good. It's actually part science fiction, part historical fiction. The story starts in a future Oxford where there's a time travelling machine. A young historian gets sent back to just *before* the plague hit England -- well, that was the intention. There was a bit of a mixup. I don't want to give anything else away, but I will warn you that it's not for the faint of heart -- I certainly wouldn't recommend that my daughter read it because it does contain some pretty intense and graphic passages of suffering and death. There may be better options in historical fiction, I don't know. I was reading through the list of Hugo and Nebula award winners. :)

Breakfast is definitely my most repetitive meal. It's almost always a couple of slices of bacon, and a handful of berries with creme fraiche. Sometimes I'll mix it up and have scrambled eggs with cheese and red chile or a "mock danish" (it's a low-carb, high fat kinda-sorta-Danish-like thing). Oh, and every great once in awhile on the weekend if the craving strikes me I'll make low-carb pancakes. But that's pretty much it for breakfast. Lunch and dinner vary more, but really they still come from the same basic foods, just in different combinations. I probably should work on getting a bigger variety of foods into our diets. Oh, and I *always* start my morning with coffee with a little heavy cream. Always. Come to think of it, my drink choices are extremely repetitive: coffee, tea, water, sparkling water. I never drink juice unless it's a tiny splash in a cocktail. :lol:

Studying history definitely makes one more appreciative of the present! I get upset sometimes because it's worrisome raising a daughter in a world where women are less appreciated than men. Then last year, we studied Herodotus, and I read all the delightful stories of systematic forced prostitution and realized that 21st century America is actually a pretty nifty time and place to be a woman.

Where I grew up, the public schools taught it. Where I live now, it's done only by (private) driving schools.

My personal opinion, for what little that's worth, is that it's in her own best interests to stop worrying about it, to definitely NOT question or change the way she dresses and presents herself, to assume the guy meant it as a compliment, to forgive and forget, drop it and move on. But if her husband or anyone else is saying that she should feel flattered, I'm going to firmly disagree with that. I think our culture gets a little carried away with the notion that women are supposed to feel flattered by male attention, whether it was wanted or unwanted, whether it was respectful and complimentary or not. She doesn't have to feel flattered, complimented, or grateful. She's entitled to her conflicted feelings. The compliment was a poorly chosen one at best, actually a back-handed one. It is a term that is used as an insult, to both the husband, and to the wife's character and integrity. The ONLY complimentary thing about that term is with regard to her physical appearance. So saying she should feel flattered would be the same as saying that her physical appearance is what matters most about her.

Maybe I should have given a stronger warning than just "creepy".

I guess there really is a Wikipedia page for everything. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_wife And a creepy picture to illustrate the concept! :lol: If the acquaintance meant it as a compliment, he needs some brushing up on his vocabulary skills. :)

Yes, I completely agree that it's appropriate to teach them about specific situations in which it would be more dangerous to obey the speed limit than to ignore it! But to teach them to just ignore the speed limit as a matter of course? Nope. (And this isn't a high-traffic city, so that scenario is not one they'll encounter here.) But, my information about these courses is all second-hand, so I can't say with certainty how the information was presented. The parents I talked to felt it was not handled well.

Sadly, I think the driving courses may be part of the problem there! I've heard other parents complain that they had to un-teach what was taught in the courses, such as, "don't worry about the speed limit, just go the same speed as the other drivers around you".

I'm glad to hear someone else raise these issues, because this is a huge deal to my dd, and part of the reason she has opted not to take the course. First of all, she's very sensitive, and would be deeply disturbed by the images. Secondly, her awareness of the risks of driving already high and is not going to be raised any further by those tactics. And thirdly, same as your son, she said it's incredibly disrespectful of those people to use their images in that way. In our state, that means she can't get her license until she's 18, but she's fine with that, and says she might not get it even then. To the OP, I took driver's ed at my public high school and I did feel it was very helpful. But from what I've heard about the classes in my state now, they don't sound informative or helpful. They sound more like a legal box-checking measure that doesn't really accomplish anything. If the discount offered by your insurance provider makes it worthwhile financially, then I'd say go for it. If not, and if you feel up to the task of teaching the information yourself, I'd say skip it.

No, unfortunately, the many other treatments I have tried did not work. And the pattern is very clear that my migraines are hormone-triggered and not food related. I really wish that it was something that I had control over, like food. Well, unless it was my favorite foods, then I guess I wouldn't be too happy! :)

Oh, it's not that I object to complimenting someone's appearance. I think it would have been perfectly nice if the acquaintance had said that she was pretty, lovely, beautiful, etc. But if the goal is to *complement* then don't use a loaded, icky, sexist term like "trophy wife"! Use, you know, an actual compliment. :lol:

Thanks, Katie. I didn't realize that was a known side effect. I'll still discuss it with my doc just to be safe, though.

I hate that term. Definitely not flattering. It implies "disposable" to me - you only value a trophy until you earn a better one.

Yes, I'm still having (occasional, erratic) periods. My motivation for taking the HRT was the huge increase in migraines: having a migraine 6 days out of 7 means basically not having a life. If the nausea is a side effect, then I guess I'll have to learn to live with it. :( It's still better than migraines!

Interesting thoughts! Thanks. My husband has commented before that he wonders if there's something weird going on with our house, because he starts to feel ill when he stays home for several days on end. I thought it was just him, to be honest! :) Checking my glucose during an episode is a great idea, and one that I've never done. I will do that if it strikes again today. I sure hope it isn't the HRT doing it. I'm on a low dose, and I'm using it primarily to treat migraines. I guess it's better to be queasy every day than it is to have migraines 5 or 6 days a week like I was (down to 2 with the HRT). So I'll stick with the HRT even if it's the problem. Thanks again!

I'd never heard of this before, but read a description of it, and my symptoms do sound similar. It mentioned blood sugar problems, which I do have. I think the hormone fluctuations I've been having are probably the most likely explanation, but I will ask my doc about this to be sure. Thanks!

I wish it were the hormones of pregnancy instead of the hormones of dying ovaries. :lol:

Wow, that sounds pretty rough. I don't get hungry for breakfast until I've been awake for a few hours, but I'm not usually queasy during that time. Glad you got through menopause so easily, though!

Thank you!!! :)

Thank you, ladies! I'm already on HRT, but maybe the dose could be adjusted. Hadn't thought about the possibility of an ulcer or anything like that. The hive always has such good insights! :)

I'm supposed to have a re-check with the doctor who is helping me with my other symptoms. This wasn't really an issue when I saw her, so of course we didn't discuss it. I've been putting off the re-check just for financial reasons, but maybe I should go ahead and schedule it. Thanks. :)

:grouphug: I'm sorry you've had to deal with this too. Not. Fun.

Age 41 has not exactly been my best health year so far. :( I went into perimenopause rather suddenly almost a year ago now, and I'm having several unpleasant symptoms associated with that. So I'm assuming that what I'm about to describe is just part of that, and not indicative of a problem. Almost every day since about May or June (and continuing now) I get really queasy right around or shortly after lunch time. Nauseated, like I might vomit, only I never do actually vomit. It continues to get worse, reaching it's peak of awfulness right at the time that I have to cook dinner for my husband and daughter! Great fun, cooking when the sight, smell, or even thought of food is almost enough to send you running to the bathroom. I don't eat dinner, but the horrible queasiness starts to subside a couple of hours after dinner. By bedtime, I'm feeling normal again, and eat a light snack before I retire for the night. Next day, repeat. The pattern broke for a short time when we had cooler weather. It's hot again now, and it's back. Short of moving to a part of the world where it never gets above 80 degrees F, is there anything I can do about this?

That's funny - never occurred to me that his wife might have bought it for him, I guess because I personally find it disasteful. Not only would I never buy my husband that t-shirt, I wouldn't let him leave the house wearing it if he bought it himself! :lol: