It also can depend on the state. There are places where “excessive” bail is not allowed and for a person who has no money, any amount of bail is excessive since they have no way to pay. The person is released without paying the bail and must appear in court at a later date. I don’t know about California specifically, but with what I do know about how California handles the homeless population in general, I would not be surprised if something like this exists in California.

It may be common, but it is not a given. My current Fitbit is over 2yrs old with no issues. The one I had before was over a year old before it was given to me used, and i used it for over a year before it stopped working.

Also depends on your state regulations and the insurance company of the person who hit you. If you are in a “no fault” state then the fight will be with your insurance company, and you probably won’t get what you want. Otherwise, you (or your insurance company) will have to fight with the insurance company of the person who hit you.

My mom had that done for several years. According to her, the shots were very painful and there was additional soreness for a day or two after the shots then her pain would decrease. The first shot in the series did provide some relief, but the 2nd and 3rd set of shots provided greater relief. Then after some time, she had to start the series of shots over again. She was not a good candidate for surgery, so this was her best option at pain relief in her knees. The big downside was that when her knees were not hurting so much she would walk more which caused pain in other areas because her muscles had atrophied.

Lifestyle creep is a real thing. It used to be called Keeping Up with the Jones’s. I will admit that my DH and I were part of this for many, many years. While we didn’t think we were trying to keep up with anyone, we wanted all the shiny new things, and we bought them all on payments, and we lived in a relatively low cost of living area. A big part of it is lack of financial education when we were young. We just didn’t understand at first. Later when my DH would listen to Dave Ramsey on the radio, we started to understand but thought we were so far in the hole that we would never get out. It took us moving to a different state, and an extremely different environment (from urban/surburban to rural ranch country) for us to make the dramatic changes that we needed in order to change. I am embarrassed to say just how far in debt we were, and none of it was student loans, but I am proud to say that in less than one year we will have all our debt paid off except for the house. It has taken us 13 years to get out of that hole we built, but it is almost done. I think that lifestyle creep could be a different issue than people who live in super high cost of living areas like California and NYC, but I don’t know enough about that to really comment. I do live close to popular tourist/vacation areas where there is a huge lack of affordable housing for all the lower and moderate income service workers. The workers then have to live 45-60 min from their jobs and/or the business just can’t find enough workers to support the amount of tourists that want to utilize the business. New businesses can’t grow because they can’t get enough employees so the economy can’t grow.

I don’t know. I often feel like doctors I see do not bother to read any before I come in, so I would find it hard to believe that a dr would go through pages and pages of back records to find one sentence about what someone was wearing.

You are not wrong for not calling your DH at work. My DH is in law enforcement. For the past 32 years he has had to go to work in all kinds of emergency situations where other people do not -hurricanes, floods, wild fires, even a blizzard earlier this week. While I do worry about his safety at times, I had to learn long ago not to let the worry takeover. As 73349 said, my calling DH at work just to check on him would make his job harder and less safe. My MIL used to do something similar when DH was first in law enforcement, and I learned to screen her calls at times. I couldn’t be responsible for her anxiety too.

Years ago I worked with a blind 8th grade girl. She had a genetic condition and was born blind. One day she shared with me that her mother (from a different culture than myself) was planning to take the girl to some kind of faith healer on their next trip back to Mexico who was going to put some kind of special mud on her eyes to “cure” her. Then the girl asked me if I thought that would fix her eyes. I had to tell the girl that no, I didn’t think it would work, but her mother loves her, and her mother would feel bad if she didn’t try everything she could to help the girl no matter what other people might think. I lady that I knew had cancer. I don’t remember what kind of cancer it was. After exhausting all possible medical options, the cancer was still killing her. She and her husband went on a pilgrimage to some religious site to follow some prescribed ritual to hope for a real miracle cure. don’t remember the details, but it didn’t work. While neither of these attempts at cures are something I believe in or would try, I don’t see anything wrong with these families trying everything they can even with very little possibility of success. As far as your friend goes, couldn’t you say something along the lines of “I hope you find something that gives you some relief”. You don’t have to believe in what she decides to do, but expressing compassion may go a lot further to help your friend than harsh judgement.

This probably doesn’t help, but at 6th grade my DS would not or could not do much of any school work on his own. Even art was difficult for him. As much as it was frustrating for me, it took years to get him to where he could complete his school work independently. Just so you don’t lose hope - he is 21 now and is completely independent in his community college classes.

I’m impressed with how many people can remember that much detail about daily life at 11yrs old. I can barely remember being 11 much less what I ate or how I exercised.

We keep tools including knives in our vesicles general use, but not for the express purpose of cutting a seat belt or getting ourselves out of a wrecked car. In the event of an accident bad enough to require a seat belt cutter or a window punch, the contents of the car is likely to be rearranged to the extent that it would be difficult to locate the tool anyway. We do have plenty of tools that could be used to assist another driver should we come upon an accident. With that in mind, a letterman or other multitool could be handy to have in a vehicle.

Since it is a road trip, I assume you will have plenty of food, water, blankets, flashlights, small shovel, etc in case you get stuck somewhere for an extended time. I’d add a battery pack to recharge phones if the car won’t start.

I had my parent mail forwarded to my house when mom entered a nursing home. They have both passed away and they get more mail at my house than we do, and they have never lived here. I’m am sure that long after we move, they will still get mail here.

This doesn’t generally come up in elementary math because division with remainders is only taught through 4th or maybe early 5th grade. By the time division with negative numbers is introduced, students are diving to decimals rather than remainders.

I’ve done lots and lots of different weight loss programs over the last 20 yrs including Weight Watchers. I lost weight on all of them. I lost the most weight on one of those controlled programs where you only eat the food purchased from the program, but as soon as I stopped following the program, I began to gain weight again. I don’t think any one weight loss program is the “right” one. I like WW because it fits with how I like to eat. When I am following the program, I do lose weight even with including all the free foods, but what I like the best about WW is the community. I have a very close friend who does WW as well and we are frequently sharing recipes, meal ideas, etc. WW doesn’t work for my DD because she has lots of food issues and doesn’t like most of the free foods. She does better with straight calorie tracking.

It may also depend on what is causing your heal pain. I have flat feet, weak ankles, and I over pronate. I need shoes with lots of support and stability. I haven’t noticed much difference for my feet between my Hokas or Brooks. But I do feel a huge difference between $50 Walmart shoes and the $150 shoes. Saucony is another brand that I had good results with. My plantar faculties is practically gone and I attribute that to better quality shoes.

There is a place not too far from me that is similar to what you describe. It used to be all assisted living, but now it allows and advertises for anyone to rent there. I think the regular rent is a bit expensive for the area, but it does after AL services to residents with an extra fee. I don’t know if it has dining services, but I have seen that it offers a “club house” for all residents.

I’m not sure the following is helpful, but I do want you to know that there are other people going through this. My sister is in a similar situation with a son with many special needs. She is the physical target for his anger, and the police have been called to her home many times. The most difficult part is that even when they/the police want him in a facility, the few facilities that take kids his age are nearly always full. One time, the boy had to be taken 3 hrs away in the back of a police car to a hospital with the father following behind in his own car. The saddest part to me is that this boy’s brain is truly broken (he was adopted from Extreme abuse and drug exposure) and there is no good way to get him the help he needs. My sister is just biding her time until he turns 17/18 and will enter the adult criminal justice system. She is so broken down that she doesn’t see any other way out, and I don’t see one for her either. As I think about it more, I have had three different extended family members go through serious mental health challenges with kids ( all were adopted from foster care from abuse situations) that resulted in frequent police visits in 2 different states. It is a shame that our system has so little resources to help the kids and parents. All the IEPs in the world, meeting all the deadlines and following all the rules, didn’t do anything to help at home. My sister and her now ex are both sped teachers. A different family member with a different kid was also a SPED teacher. You can focus on fighting with the school, but that won’t make much difference. My sister does what she needs to do at home even when the school wants to handle things a different way. The only good thing I can think of in my sister’s case is that the boy doesn’t target his siblings. Another family member with a different child, allowed the boy to terrorize his sibling to the point that the sibling left home as soon as she could and avoids any contact with the now adult brother.

The no SS card seems very suspect to me. Doesn’t the kid have to have a SS number to be claimed on the parents income taxes. If she has a number and the patent won’t give the card, it isn’t that hard to get a replacement card.

That sounds like a book I read once where the teen girl finds out she was kidnapped at birth. She wasn’t allowed to get a driver’s license because the person who raised her didn’t have a birth certificate for the girl. I don’t remember in the story if the girl had a phone, but she wasn’t allowed to get a real job or go to college because the “mother” who had kidnapped her was afraid of getting caught. That was a fictional story though. In real life that sounds like an abusive situation.

UPS - have to be 21 to drive a truck, but they will hire younger for warehouse and seasonal. Has a strong union. Can be hard to get in, but I was told that they tend to hire people for full time that have worked seasonal for a couple of years. Hours aren’t great, mandatory overtime during the holidays, limited flexibility in work hours - can’t get off early for kid’s events and stuff like that. But the pay is good and so are the benefits. Still has pensions which is pretty rare these days.

If your state has medical marijuana but not recreational, would she let you take her to the doctor to get a card/prescription?

Maseca is what is sold here. Homemade tortillas are a staple here, but everyone seems to make four tortillas not corn.

I am still dealing with the last of my mom’s hoard. I think I’ve got all the household items sorted. Now I have to deal with her salt shaker collection and some art that may actually be worth some money, but I think I found a consignment art place that may take it. When I get done with her stuff, I do need to start on our own stuff. I am determined not to leave the same kind of mess for my own kids to clean up.

I’m not looking for any specific items. I just like going out and watching everyone else, and maybe finding a few good deal. I take that back, I do look for holiday food items on clearance such as bags of candy and the themed boxed mixes from Walmart. We go through such a small amount of wrapping paper now that I don’t bother to stock up after Christmas.