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bolt.

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Everything posted by bolt.

  1. If it helps, blanket statements usually have their roots in the experiences of the person who sets them out. If Melissa's thoughts come plaguing you in some future days, try to remember that they are thoughts that Melissa has about her own experiences with the family that she actually has, and the families that she knows. She isn't qualified to have thoughts like that about your family members because she doesn't know them, and hasn't experienced how your family works.
  2. I'm sorry for what you are enduring... but thank you for writing it out for our amusement! She's hilarious! (from a distance)
  3. Hasn't it always been a Christian perspective that gossip (of all kinds) is unethical? I think it's one thing to be informed and aware of information that has become public by a variety of means. But to me, continuing the chain (either by adding my own speculations anywhere outside of my own brain, or by amplifying the existing information sources) or rewarding the perpetrators (even indirectly by providing view/click statistics) is clearly outside of the general understanding of ethical behaviour within my faith. It's a clear violation of the golden rule, even without it being a specific sin identified in the Bible.
  4. It also might be (just guessing) that you might not be hearing the actual words these parents are using. Many parents have tried to say things like that very gently, and with lots of padding and kind words -- only for their teenagers to wail, "My parents think I'm a failure!" and the parents to be left bewildered by the hurt that was drawn out of their gentle words. It could be that these conversations, while devastating in their impact, were softer in their intent, involving questions like, "Sweetie, is this kind of job something that eventually pays enough to live well on your own? Does it grow or the pay go up? Do you have any plans in that direction?" Or, "Have you thought of all your options? Not everybody needs to go straight to college, you know. Some people make a good living in the trades and have spare time for extras like you love." If you are only the young adults' confidante, you may be getting the 'condensed version' tainted by the hurting person's interpretations.
  5. I'm someone who would gently and respectfully try to influence a teen away from anything 'strictly arts' for their post-secondary education and intended career. Although I would totally accept a teaching degree that focused on one of the arts (if that art was reasonably expected to be taught in school from a full-time position teacher-salary) as a good sensible way to continue to enjoy and share one's art and talent into a responsible adult life. To me, that's one of the few sensible plans for someone who is arts-inclined in today's society. It's sad, but to me there are no *reliable* ways to expect to make a living *in* the arts. (Apart from being an arts educator.) Some people make it big. Most people don't. And that path leads to some combination of poverty and/or a day job. So my advice for budding artists is to get good training in a solid 'day job' that is actually a reasonable career. Try to pick something that has good boundaries and the kinds of hours you can work your arts commitments around.
  6. I think you might be better served by using the time between now and your mid-70s to try to get a plan in place for your senior years and needs. As a resident of that property, you probably already have some protection against eviction -- even though you are co-living with your landlords, not renting a separate space (which changes things in some areas). I'd start there, find out your existing rights, and see if that feels sufficient. Do you and your 'landlords' have a lease agreement? If not, it's a good idea to catch up on that paperwork, and include some provisions for what happens if one or both of them dies (and their heir(s) become your landlords) or if they (at any point) want you to leave (because people do change, especially if one or more of you begin to experience dementia). Or even if you owe them anything, and what is fair notice, if you want to leave (they may be dependent on the rental income). Do they have a will? Almost definitely if only one of them passes, the other will inherit the house -- but who are their heirs if both pass? Has any provision been made for a transitional time for you? Are you a potential inheritor? It's okay to ask to understand their plans, as long as it's clear that you are not asking *for* anything. Since you are living well right now, and paying "half" living expenses: Do you have enough to set aside for retirement savings and medical costs? Do you have insurance for when you may eventually need nursing care? Do you have a plan for assisted living or other types of housing that elderly folks usually need in their final years? I don't know how that works where you live (I'm Canadian) but it's a good thing to begin to understand and plan for as early as possible. It's highly likely that you will need to move somewhere, for some reason, at some point, around your 80s. So that's the scenario I would plan for -- whether through savings or insurance. Even if the house remains available to you through those years, it's not very likely that living on your own is going to be feasible right up to the end. Planning for a "move-out-when-you-need-care" scenario will cover you for a "move-out-because-the-house-is-gone" scenario too.
  7. I have severe skin allergies, but mostly to fragrance ingredients. Therefore I can use the standard brands, but only the "unscented" scent. One of my kids is the same. (I started the kids entirely on unscented products their whole lives -- because I had to touch the stuff. Later I let them branch out and try things with fragrances. One was fine and loves the fun of products with pretty smells. The other is like me and has to be boring.)
  8. My kiddo goes to high school, where she is assigned a lock and a locker (they are separate objects). I assume they use it to the degree that they find it useful -- but I haven't really asked. If I was in the situation with a kid that didn't choose to use a locker they had access to -- I would have absolutely no feelings whatsoever. Honestly, I've got bigger fish to fry. It seems really strange to set out to decide, on behalf of a teenager, that whichever inconvenient task I would find most annoying (ie learning to use a locker or choosing to carry belongings) must have a role in influencing their school life. To me, that's a strange degree of overlap. My teenager is in charge of much more consequential personal decisions than whether they like lockers or not. It's not up to me to declare minor decisions that aren't my preferences to be not rational enough to tolerate in a member of my family. It's certain that I would never chose to enter the school with the intent to teach that skill (at all), far less with plans to make an intentionally embarrassing incident out of it. (Who burns the bridges of love and trust that teens depend on with their parents over locker-use choices??? That's not old school -- it's just plain intrusive and hurtful.) I suppose if it only 'drove me nuts' and made me 'very frustrated' but I kept it to myself and let the teenager steer their own course -- fine, feelings are feelings and all your feelings belong. But it does seem like a very small molehill to be having any kind of reaction to.
  9. For me, basically only if I think someone needs hospital services, such as: - The are dehydrated and not able to accept fluids. (They can do IV fluids and other meds as needed.) - Their breathing or blood oxygen leads me to suspect problems in the lungs. (They can do imagery on the lungs.) - They seem dangerously lethargic or disoriented. (They can do a full assessment in case something not-the-flu is going on.) For any of the above, I'd choose emergency or urgent care. I'd choose my own doctor only if it has lasted long enough that I have reason to suspect an infection has developed: maybe 2+ weeks? (They can check for infections, make referrals for imagery as needed, and prescribe antibiotics if that's the right path.) If I'm hemming and hawing, I usually call the nurse hotline and follow their advice. In your case, I wouldn't be doing anything for just fever, congestion and misery. I'd be looking out for signs of dehydration, lethargy, low blood ox, compromised breathing, or disorientation. You haven't mentioned any of those, so if it was me I would choose to just wait it out. You should also ask family members to help you watch for those things, in case you don't have great personal judgement or awareness by the time they show up. (Antivirals are an uncommon choice for doctors around here, and I'd be really surprised to see them being prescribed in an ordinary cold/flu case in a healthy adult -- but that may have changed lately, or be in the process of changing.)
  10. It certainly might. People who reject their children (if these folks go the rejection route here) may find that they have awkwardness in their social circles going forward. They also might find that's the least of the problems that result from an estrangement like that. But it's really not hurting anyone but themselves much. Losing out on access to parents/grandparents who have strong instincts for control (and everything that goes with it) isn't a serious level of harm or loss to everyone else, really. As for awkwardness, I assume over the years you could pick up on some ways to deflect it squarely back to where it belongs, or learn to ignore it. Even the 'worst case scenario' for this situation, if it goes that way, isn't really all that bad. (The actual 'worst case' is if she returns to her parents, begins to believe they were right all along, and lives that life under their thumbs for her entire future -- all the while blaming you and your son for trying to seduce her off the straight and narrow for a few months in her teens. *That* would legitimately suck)
  11. Scarlett, this is going to sound confrontational, and I know that doesn't always feel good between you and I. So I want to remind you that I like you, that I've always had your back, that I want this situation to turn out well, and that I *only* give advice that challenges people's thinking when I have hopes that a changed perspective could make them happier. Therefore: I want you to become happier by: letting other people manage their own emotional lives. The feelings, however uncomfortable, that happen inside this woman's heart and mind are: "Not your monkeys, not your circus." And I know that you only care because you care. Maybe you have affection for this girl and you wish that her relationship with her mom wasn't causing her pain and difficulty. Obviously you deeply love your son, and you probably hope he isn't going to experience a rollercoaster of a relationship with a girl always up and down and hurting from her mom's words and actions. Possibly even you have some goodwill and hopes for this woman, knowing that she could be more at peace, and closer to her daughter by doing things differently. And maybe you feel some-proportion responsible. Possibly since you assisted and supported some of the kid's upsetting actions. Possibly just because you 'provided' your son (who exists because of you, and is the other half of a relationship that is a component of one of the kid's upsetting choices) (and whose conduct was, to a degree, shaped by your parenting). And maybe by feeling a somehow-somewhat responsible, you are drawn into a headspace that tells you to 'do something' to make it better, to facilitate peace, to lower the level of hurt. But I don't think you can. I think if this mom is determined to grieve the semi-loss of her teenage daughter with anger, with lashing out, with attempts to regain control, with random outbursts of blaming others, etc. That's okay. It's okay for her to walk her journey. It's okay for her to see things out of her own eyes and indulge in a little willful blindness and inappropriate judgementalism. It's okay for her to spend her time in that painful headspace for as long or as short of a time as makes sense to her. You don't need to make that easier for her. You can just let her be mad. Being mad is an internal state, which mostly (and almost exclusively) involves the person who is having the feeling. Someone else's anger is not a community event. It's up to that person to resolve it (or endure it) of their own free will -- it's only hurting that one person. (Unless they lash out. But that's a reason to get some distance, not a reason to take (even partial) responsibility for someone else's emotional life. The turmoil is hers alone. Support the girl instead. Keep helping her with independence and boundaries. (Help her watch out for reactive bad choices: choices made just to thwart her mother. Help her focus instead on the things she authentically wants.)
  12. Total distraction moment! Can we spin this off or provide a recipe, please?
  13. For what it's worth, it makes me nauseous too. As a religious person, I consider the abject service of money that is elevated as a value for capitalists to be a form of idolatry and a deadly sin. In plain philosophy, I consider it an abnegation of humanity. But I'm not shocked, surprised, or blown away. It is entirely consistent with my education and worldview -- to know that I share a world with such humans who would behave in such a way, to be sure that such snakes will inevitably rise to the top (and that good folks will not), and to know that I unwillingly am constrained and conditioned to support and to fund such people -- And even to know that I personally derive benefit from their activities. We live in places where business *does* supersede humanity (and pretty much always has) and where money has consistently triumphed over people from time immemorial. That many of us have believed otherwise for a time is simply a function of marketing strategies. Figuring out how to face such truths with a personally acceptable balance between fatalism and activism is a task for all of us.
  14. I think you have misunderstood capitalism. The descriptions you are giving are for food (or other product) collective or co-operative organizations. In capitalism the goal of any company is to generate profits for its owners/shareholders. It is their duty (and sometimes their legal obligation) to generate profits maximally, to the degree that it can do so under government regulation (or by paying fines) and to the degree that the market will maximally bear. That's the company's job. It's the CEO's job. It's the management's job. It's the employees' job. And it's even your job. You as the consumer are the foundational source of the wealth that works through this system. That's why you are called 'the consumer'. If this idea is mind-blowing, I'm surprised. It has been a component of the basic understanding of companies, corporations, and businesses under capitalism since Adam Smith, Karl Marx and their contemporary economic theorists. Under the current model of capitalism, a 'company' who provided food, shoes, or any other good in the manner you suggest would both fail (in the practical sense, either fail to launch or fail to succeed) and probably be subject to lawsuits by its investors (for failing to provide expected returns when they reasonably could have done so, but chose not to). Unregulated capitalism was always going to, 'make a relative handful of people insanely wealthy while the masses are expected to sacrifice their nutrition [or make other unwitting sacrifices and contributions] to sustain that wealth.' It was fully predictable and fully predicted. Regulated capitalism wasn't supposed to get us to quite the same point. Unfortunately, under modern democracy, money buys for the rich the privilege of influencing the regulations to suit themselves -- so that was the end of that. The only two ways out of this trap (that I can see) are: 1. To use our role as consumers to apply leverage when possible (although in the case of food, that set of actions is seriously difficult) and permanently and generously direct our money towards what we perceive as 'more responsible' commercial entities (thereby making 'responsibility' (or the appearance thereof) profitable enough to at least survive. 2. To use our role as voters to seek out reforms to political & campaign financing regulations, together with strict oversight and harsh penalties for violators. (That's how we get the politicians some freedom and independence from the already-rich oligarchs, thereby reducing their power to have their commercial enterprises under-regulated and under-taxed through the variety of forms of legal bribery currently available to them.)
  15. I suppose that makes a little more sense -- but I don't know what can be accomplished, really. There are some few ways to source some of our foods apart from corporate interests. Maybe short rotating boycotts help give us practice in doing that? There are unconventional ways of eating and unusual ways of sourcing ingredients that lead to less dependence on food corporations So, in the long run -- if these are our values, than that's our path. But in the short term, for those of us who can't (or don't want to) go whole-hog into direct purchasing from local producers, and limiting our nutrition to sources that we find as altruistic as our personal values are... I don't see that we have a lot of options. But it is true that our power is in our purchasing power. Because capitalism cares about profits above any other value, and it might be possible to redirect some of our funds away from food conglomerates entirely. They won't cease chasing profits, of course, but maybe we will be slightly less personally complicit. And they might begin looking for marketing strategies that match our evolving sentiments, in order to regain access to those funds. (But it's also likely that they will just purchase the independent local sellers that we find for ourselves and loop us back in that way.) Is there such a thing as being 'too big to boycott'? Or am I just in a sour mood today?
  16. This kind of public reaction always surprises me and amuses me a little. I guess I'm just not that surprised to find robber-barons at the top of the food chain of our everyday mega companies. Did people really think these things were run by Joe-ordinary folks who are struggling to pay their bills? I mean, I know he put his foot in his mouth by saying the quiet part out loud -- but literally every one of these CEO's is *mandated* and fully expected to be able to answer the question, "How can we get even more money out of people under these circumstances of stress." That's. Their. Job. He observed that replacing the supper meal (that often contains meat and other expensive ingredients) with cereal alone (which basically contains empty carbs) instead *could* be made to appeal to someone whose main priority is saving money. That's not untrue. It's a sound strategy for increasing his profits at the expense of people who are poor and suffering. He's supposed to be developing strategies like that. Bottom feeders rule the world. But the rest of them are exactly the same. It's capitalism. That's how it works. That's *why* it works.
  17. If it was just me, I think I'd be more free to indulge in higher-end foods. Buying a small amount of a luxury good 'just for me' is less impactful than the way I feel if I was trying to feed a family that way. Also higher end foods tend to come in smaller packages, and I'd need to carefully not over-buy anything perishable. I'd also lose the unit-price cost savings of buying in bulk for a family. In my family, I definitely enjoy good steaks, other meat, fine cheeses, fancy herbs and spices, out-of-season fruit and veg, artisanal bread, etc. much more-so than the other folks around here. I'm glad I'm in charge of the groceries around here, and nobody else really sees the price of having strawberries and brie in the house (or complains when I enjoy a good steak).
  18. Oh, also be sure to keep a colour photocopy of his passport at home with you. That way, if things go wrong, you might be able to be some help.
  19. It sounds like it is fairly new (and wasn't relevant when I was in Italy in 2019) but, yes, Italian law requires ID issued nationally (not by states or provinces) to be carried at all times. That's a passport. So he definitely needs some kind of under-clothing method to carry that around daily. He should not take it out for just anyone. Hopefully things that only need to verify his identity for tickets etc., will accept his driver's license or state ID and he won't have to open his secure wallet in public. Technically only the police can demand that he show his passport on the street. (Hotels and airports also need the passport itself, though.) Here is a recent (2023) article on the rules and procedures -- but I disagree with the article's advice that over-clothing bags of any kind are secure enough for a passport under these circumstances. https://iheartitaly.co/do-i-have-to-carry-my-passport-in-italy/ Since pick-pocketing is a real risk and apparently quite common -- what you really want is for him to be able to go on with his day and his trip easily after an incident. Let him lose a little cash, cancel a card, and replace his ID when he gets home. That's no big deal. Losing a passport during travel will immediately ruin the trip (for himself *and* for others) and maybe have even more consequences than that. Using his phone for contactless payments is a really good idea -- then he wouldn't need money at all, and might not need to carry a 'losable' wallet for his daily needs. (As long as his phone is backed up, he has the paper copies of things I mentioned above, and he has some other alternative method(s) of payment in his secure wallet -- in case of phone loss.) If it were humanly possible to talk a teenager into a lanyard for his phone, I'd certainly try. Is his phone, at least, maybe something older and less appealing to thieves? I don't know if that would make a difference.
  20. I should add that my 'rules' are designed for travelling 'everywhere' -- because I don't like to design multiple systems for various destinations and do something different every time. It may be that It's a tiny bit of overkill for Italy itself. But I'm on the side of 'better safe than sorry' especially as it would be really upsetting for a teen to have an adverse event without their parents there to help sort things out.
  21. I'm averaging between 1 and 2 hours per week, and it's still cold here.
  22. He should have some sort of body-based secure storage place -- such as a money belt or passport wallet. We call this a 'secure wallet'. It should be something that goes on his body, under his clothing. The only safe places for a passport while travelling is to keep it next to your skin (under your clothes) or in a hotel safe (if the hotel is not sketchy). He should also have a wallet that feels 'losable'. In there keep some kind of ID that can be fairly easily replaced once he gets home (like a driver's license or gov't ID card) and some small amount of cash, and just one card (if he is taking cards). The rest of his cash and cards should be in his secure wallet with his passport. He can move money and cards between is 'losable wallet' and his 'secure wallet' in a bathroom if he needs to do that, or he can pull out his secure wallet if he is in a safe place. (This is to have 'on hand' for use during the day, without revealing where he keeps his actual valuables.) It's best if his pants and/or coats have zipper pockets. His phone and 'losable' wallet can be kept in those pockets, or even in a non-zip front pocket. He could also carry a cross-body bag or a fanny pack if pockets aren't going to work. Never put a phone or wallet in a back pocket, and absolutely never in a backpack. When he sets down his backpack, or if he takes off a cross-body bag, teach him to put his foot through the strap and lean it against his leg. It's also good to have a few things in paper copy, even though everything he needs is on his phone. Because phones do get lost, stolen, or damaged sometimes. He needs his flight info and confirmation numbers, his accommodation addresses and reservation numbers, contact info for you, his tour people, the appropriate embassy/consulate, and his bank or credit card companies (in case his cards are stolen), and a photo copy of his passport -- all in hard copy somewhere in his luggage. He will probably never need these, but it's better safe than sorry. He should not travel with other valuables (such as jewelry) because that's really pointless and makes him a target.
  23. Our go-to spring gifts are: - Socks, and undergarments - Arts and crafting supplies - Spring sporting, outerwear, footwear, or clothing needs You might consider digital options like: credits for audiobooks, the in-game currencies of things he already plays, or spotify-type subscriptions
  24. I have 4 small white plastic ones, that go in my dishwasher, no bigger than a plate. Then I have a couple of larger ones (also white plastic) that I use rarely if I'm cutting something particularly large. They can go in the dishwasher too, but only if it's not too full.
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