My restorative yoga guru tells us that everybody, but particularly women > 40, really benefit from ensuring that our legs are higher than our backs & neck for at least 10 minutes a day. Like, in class we scoot our butts right up next to a wall and just lie there on our backs with our legs propped up the wall. TBH I feel too ridiculous to incorporate this into a daily at home routine (...) but there's no reason one couldn't read in that position. Beware the kindle breaking your nose, however...

Sigh. Deer are a plague in places where they don't belong. Thirding the ideas of DNR and air horn if it comes to that. But before enlisting such measure, I'd first suggest just... walking over and ringing the doorbell and talking to the neighbors? Letting them know what's happening? They very well may not know, and they very well might act responsibly if they did know. Turning them in, or blasting an early morning horn on them (whose purpose and context they won't know, unless you tell them) starts out with escalation when a short conversation might very well do the trick, KWIM? Most people on this earth are pretty decent people.

You are a ROLE MODEL in, like, ten different ways. Wow. So glad you're doing this, have found your peeps to do it with, and so clearly are enjoying it.

I'm interested now in the geography of where nursing mothers have felt hostility. I breastfed in restaurants and other public places in NJ, NYC and CT and never got negative feedback. Within this thread, I've heard similar from Maine and Hawaii? Other experiences? (I've never thought about this, and without having thought about it I think I would have EXPECTED that redder / more traditionally and vocally "pro-family" demographics would be more welcoming of breastfeeding? But maybe not?)

Yeah, I don't think wearing or not wearing a bra has anything to do with feminism. Feminism (to my old school mind at least) is about agency to make a full range of decisions, not some designation from On High about what the "right" decision is, whether that designation is Thou Must _______ or Thou Must NOT ________. I don't wear a bra because they *always* left red welt marks on my skin, when I hit menopause and 3.5 years and still going, sigh, of chronic hot flashes I started to get rashes as well; and I don't jiggle or get back pain. If I did, I WOULD wear one... *for my own comfort*, not because of the expectations of patriarchy or bodily shame. To me, that is what agency looks like. There's a special circle in hell for men with creeping hands. Spiders crawl, slowly, over them, and only bite when the men move.

text -> set up a mutually good time to chat This. I have a couple of good friends and a cousin-who's-like-a-sister who live 4++ hours away, and we often text "LMK good time to chat" and set up a time. Now that we're all super-dooper-computer-wizards we often zoom or facetime or, just chat the old fashioned way. In person is obvi better but one of the besties is in Colorado; that's not happening with any frequency. And also yes to the cup of coffee or glass of wine!

Sometime during lockdown I noticed that one of my daughters (who, like me, is small boobed, no jingle) didn't ever wear a bra and I thought to myself, I went onto Amazon -- in those days, every time the truck rolled down the driveway somebody would shout CARGO!!!! -- and ordered a couple of cotton tank tops with a built in shelf bra -- more than sufficient to cover any nipple business, softer and less abrasive than any actual bra -- and I've never looked back. I now have perhaps 10 of those things in every shade I wear, some more fitted that I wear under more dressed-up jackets and sweaters, others with sport backs for yoga, others loose & flowing. I wear them as my base layer in cold weather and my only layer in warm. Never looking back. (I'm not big enough to jiggle, so I dunno if they have enough support to deal with that. Certainly they do not have enough support to alleviate back pain.)

Oh and for more on the between-shrub front spaces I forgot japanese painted and their taller cousin ghost ferns, both of them critter-resistant shade loving and both with a nice contrast of texture and gray-purple color; and golden hakune grass.

For foundation planting, I like to think through to a mix of 1. both broadleaf and confer evergreen (so you're not left with a row of dead sticks through the winter), 2. some variation of leaf color (so you don't have a mass wall of just-green through the summer) and 3. some variation of height (so you don't have a row with everything at waist height). Blossoms are lovely but they do not last; by thinking in those three categories you end up with contrast and interest throughout the year. Without knowing your water and critter constraints, to those three elements: Winter: Evergreen: boxwood is the classic formal broadleaf evergreen; variegated euonymous, hardy rhodedendron, and various hollies should also work in your zone. Pencil Sky holly is a really nice narrow vertical upright, to be positioned between two windows without encroaching on the view (5 is the bottom of its zone, but it's warmer right by the house and I think it'd be ok). Among conifers, there are a bunch of false cypress in both golden and blue, some of them dwarf and all of them slow-growing. Arborvitae grows FAST, which is a blessing in the first two years but that close to the house you have to plan to rip it out by year 8 or so. Color: In my area, the most rock-solid reliable golden shrub is golden spirea. Honestly you can't kill it; it takes well to pruning but if you don't it's still fine, if you prune it right after it blooms (here, late June) it'll bloom a second time here, end-July). There are also some very nice variegated weigela that bloom, or similar-leaf variegated dogwood whose white blossoms don't really show up but have gorgeous bright red sticks in the winter. I love anything with red leaves -- my favorite small tree in my garden is a dwarf Japanese maple, ahhhhhhh; and ninebark and elderberry also do OK in shade. Height: in the between-spaces, I ADORE all forms of tough-as-nails EVERGREEN!!! liriope which comes in several sizes and leaf shapes and actually shoots up some usually-purple blossoms right around now; and I'd definitely try hosta which if you don't have critters are endlessly adaptable (and also send up not-terribly-interesting spires of blossoms in late summer). I use heuchera a lot, but I don't think it'd survive zone 5 winters, though you can plonk them in as annuals. Do.not.use.pachysandra or ajuga; both were sent to earth by demons.

Yeah, I haven't faced this exact situation but I expect this is how my PCP would respond as well -- an adult with a long history of good response to a single medication, particularly for ADHD, I'd expect he'd be fine with. It's the titration-up-and-down, tinkering-with-cocktails that he's expressed he really feels requires a level of expertise he doesn't have. I get that and respect that. As a country, we definitely need more mental health professionals (both prescribing and other forms of therapy). (And I'm in an area that has comparatively more of them.)

My PCP 100% "believes" in the value of such treatment but also believes that their proper use is sufficiently complicated that he refers patients to specialists for them. (An occasional anti-anxiety for a long trip he'd be OK with, but for chronic issues he'd refer.)

re awe and wonder When I first read the bolded bit I thought you were speaking metaphorically. When I carried on and realized, no, what you're saying is literally, y'all can't SEE the evidence that actually IS there before us, visible to our own naked eyes... ... well, wow, there's metaphor there as well. Thank you. The greatest appeal of conspiracy theories is the ego boost / adrenaline rush that we, and only we, are in the know and all the other folks are dolts and sheep. That kind of affirmation is powerfully addictive. Pollution, you might even call it.

This. A single enforceable boundary, the dog has to go, would go a good distance towards alleviating (not eliminating, there are no GOOD solutions here), the fact-based fears of others living on the compound. But the far bigger issue does appear to be that the compound members are not accepting that he is disabled. If he were a quadriplegic, if he had Downs, if he were 85 years old, there would not be the same expectations that he just pull himself together; and from all accounts there would also be greater acceptance that he would require not just financial and logistical support but also that there would be times when he would be an exhausting trying PITA. Because disability.

yeah, the Kings Cross (!!! talk about hit-us-over-the-head with the references, lol!!!) scene: Harry: Professor! Is this all real? or is it all just happening inside my head? Dumbledore: Of course it's all happening inside your head. Why should that mean that it's not real?

re choose your pill / world Right. Even within Matrix, the Follow the White Rabbit instruction sets up the first of several references to Alice in Wonderland, another of many stories with a (traveler choosing between this world v other world ) frame... including the pill scene. I didn't notice this the first time around, but the pink pump that Barbie chose had a little blue-pill-shaped ornament near the toe, same size and shape as in Matrix. MP = Monty Python

K, so I went for a second time with my husband last night, having first prepped by streaming the Matrix a few days ago. 1. a full month after release... the theater wasn't FILLED, but for a Monday night in a sleepy suburb... it's doing fine. Several sets of 4++ middle aged women dressed in pink; given that it's a full month after release, surely a number of them were, like me, on a second viewing. 2. re references -- my husband watched Matrix sitting right beside me, mere days ago, and STILL totally missed the reference. Without spoilers, the whole point of the referent scene in the Matrix is that the character's whole life has pointed him toward a particular decision; whereas the whole point of the Barbie scene is that... well, it's a quite different narrative arc. That's what makes it funny whether the reference lands or not. He got Space Odyssey, missed the MP horses, and associated the walk-with-Ruth scene with The Good Place, which I haven't seen anyone else mention 3. FWIW he came out of first viewing saying "I can't believe I insisted on seeing Oppenheimer instead of this. Oppenheimer was good enough but I've already forgotten it; Barbie will keep turning over for weeks. Barbie's the one that folks will still be watching 25 years from now." He is rarely effusive.

"what is a homeschooler?" "what is a Christian?" "what is a white person?" "what is a parent?" "what is a sister?" ... and I can think of 20 other questions, without trying, with seemingly perfectly obvious answers that simultaneously have nuance and complexity and circumstance-specificity and blah, blah, blah. I don't trust folks who insist on "simple" answers.

from POV of only-vaguely social Jewish introvert... ... Quaker silent meeting is FANTASTIC. A fusion of the extended zen of meditation with the companionable felt presence of a community; with the added bonus of of comfy seat cushions and (in the meeting in my town) a huge stone fireplace in which a fire roars in the winter and a pedestal candle stands in other seasons. An absolute paradise for vaguely-social introverts. At ours, after ~75 minutes or so one/ several members may feel moved to offer up a testimony of how they experienced the silence ("I felt a great sense of support from Meeting today, and I am very grateful for that as I'm carrying a lot of heaviness" or "the light from the candle really evoked for me the divine light in every one of us" or etc). At the very end of the 90 minutes, the silence closes when a Meeting elder welcomes any newcomers, thanks everyone for coming, perhaps makes a couple announcements about upcoming Meeting events or social action efforts, and tells us where the coffee and muffins are. No touching but a lot of eye contact and smiling. Truly, it's wonderful.

Sort of OT, but, I've grown to really love the end-of-yoga-session namaste. Folded hands, eye contact with each person individually, a sort of nod/ individual acknowledgment, and no contact. It accomplishes the one-one acknowledgment/ "I see you, you individually, and recognize your humanity" that I agree with @Farrar is important to building connective tissue between people and within organizations & society... but doesn't involve touch or (for me at least) any of the other landmines that pp have identified. I wish we did it outside yoga, but thus far it hasn't cottoned on...

re stress v rage Yes. Depending on the stressor, I definitely do stress clean. And ambient mess is one of my stressors, so, cleaning is directly adaptive, directly easing one of the stressors. Rage is different. When enraged, I am... (erm)... extremely disinclined to do anything at all that would in any way benefit anyone at whom I am enraged. In my case, that would not be adaptive in the least; it would add fuel to my simmering monkeymind resentment. I'm not the least bit PROUD of this distinction, but my ability to manage both stress (frequent) and rage (fortunately, less so) has improved since I've recognized and accepted it.

My periods were regular until age ~57 and then just stopped. That was that. Hot flashes otoh started age ~55 and show NO SIGN of slowing down at 60, still cycling ~4-6 times every hour, 24/7. By this point my base layer 12 months a year is a sleeveless tank with built in shelf bra, which I have in every color, and I just pile a range of cardigans / blazers / hoodies on top with a range of scarves / shawls / wraps to accessorize and/or serve as an additional layer. ETA and my mother had exactly one hot flash in all her life, and was done with periods by 50. So her experience has given very little guidance to mine, sigh.

re plate-smashing emporia My eldest (lives in NYC) goes to those places with some regularity (most recently, featured in the Bachelorette party organized by her two besties). It sounds AWESOME. When my knees were younger, I used to rage run. I definitely need both to blow off physical energy, and also not to be picking up or washing up after the very folks who are eliciting the rage. Upon reading the other responses, I realize I do rage-rake and rage-dig in the garden, which is all-mine.

I wish. (I don't actually DO it of course, but when I'm ragey the impulse is much closer to smashing plates and burning the possessions of people who are p!ssing me off, LOL.)

again re references flying right on over Quoting myself because this morning I woke up and sat bolt upright in bed with the sudden realization OMG lolololol (feeling very, very grateful to have been tipped off as I would NEVER have worked that out on my own; not feeling condescended to in.the.least)

re what's the problem with missing a reference? ex act ly. Some you get, some fly right on over. Way back on p. 1 of this thread, *before I saw the movie*, someone pointed out not only the Space Odyssey opening reference, but also that there was a Matrix red/ blue pill reference. I've never seen Matrix, though I've had surface-level secondhand osmosis exposure to some of its precepts; and *even knowing before I saw the movie that there was going to be a Matrix reference in the move*.... I wholly missed the reference. I could not even name the scene. So... so what? I catch some, I miss some. The ones I miss, I'm interested to have pointed out to me. That's not condescending; that's just how it goes, no one knows everything (though students of film like GG know a LOT, much more than most of us regulars on this board.). What is there to be defensive or tetchy about? Ought artists refrain from references because some folks might get tetchy and defensive about missing a satiric reference? Indeed. Right. GG is a lifetime student of film (I know this from my youngest, a lifetime student of film. Were it not for my youngest, I would not have seen Ladybird until AFTER it scooped up awards; or understood the visual chromacode of Little Women). Barbie is CHOCK FULL of references to other films. The references are simultaneously honoring those classics, poking fun at those classics, and instrumentalizing and refracting those classics to shine light on the messaging she's imbuing in her own work. As references do. As artists do.