Firstly, you should have talked to him earlier. It wasn't "nice" to not tell him to stay off your yard. It just caused him to think he could do whatever. Put up highly visible cameras, post no trespassing signs, and have a lawyer send a cease and desist letter. Any lawyer can send one out in their sleep. I think you ought to put a fence up, but since you don't want to do that you need to be extremely clear that he is NOT allowed to do ANYTHING on your property - period. And stop being a pushover. If you have a problem with your neighbor, tell them to their face the first time. I mean, look at it this way - if YOUR non-essential behavior was driving your neighbors to tears, wouldn't you want to know? Of course, because you're a good person, and you try to be nice. You'd want to find a compromise. Nice people want to know, so nice people *tell others* when they're being put out.

Feral means that a cat is NOT friendly and amenable to human contact. This kitty is just a stray. Definitely get her fixed, and ask the vet and the shelter if they know of any people who are looking for a cat as a pet or even as a foster while they look for a forever home.

I see you misplaced the cat. *hugs* about your mother's birthday.

They're wrong, though. Being a gun owner is the single biggest risk factor for dying or being severely injured by a gun. The fact that other people have easy access to guns has got to be the second biggest risk factor, but don't quote me on that one. Lots of people think lots of things, but that doesn't make those things true, and it doesn't make sense to keep pretending that their false beliefs are valid.

The Pern books are a bit rapey, honestly. I wouldn't *encourage* a kid to read them. When I was that age I was more than a little obsessed with the Dragon Milk trilogy (ignore the fourth book, it's mediocre) but lemme ask my kids if they have any recs.

You're not wrong. However, on the other hand... is the dog going in the same shopping cart where people often put their toddlers? Because if so, I don't see how dog slobber is worse than kid slobber and possibly slightly-less-than-fresh diapers. I may only be trying to stir the pot here.

You don't know anything of the sort. We know things when we have data - not when we just guess. How about we give this a try, and see what the data says in 20 years?

We shouldn't need to explain to you that if there people aren't buying legal guns, there are less guns to steal. Nor should we have to explain to you that if everybody locked their weapons up - and their ammunition! - it'd be harder to steal those guns in the first place. Better regulations can reduce the number of illegal guns on the streets. It's not like marijuana or alcohol. You can't just grow guns in your backyard or brew them up in your bathtub.

No more exemptions. There are currently lots of little loopholes that allow you to get a gun with no background check.

I wouldn't clarify it, Lillyfee, unless he says something. It'll be less awkward all around to just let it drop. If you have an accent then he knows you're not a native speaker, and even if you don't we ALL have weird brain farts. The other day I went to visit somebody in the hospital, got on the wrong bus going home. Didn't realize for about five minutes, which translates to 15 minutes walking back, trying to retrace my route so I can find my stop. Naturally, that was the only stop they shared....

Well, that's just bad parenting. If you're so bound and determined to make failure memes or montages, post pictures featuring your own hobbies.

Take a kitty, leave a kitty....

Going back to an earlier comment, you said other parents post videos of their daughters and, like, wow, your kid is not doing that. Here's the thing: other parents are lying liars and they lie. Oh, yeah, the videos are of things that actually happened, they're not deepfakes - but those parents aren't posting videos of those times their kids said "No way!" and threw a tantrum rather than practice, or "practiced" in some really obviously lazy way. Everybody likes to brag about their kids. We all talk about how great our kids are. Nobody likes to admit their kids are not the best and the brightest at all things all the times, although statistically speaking - they're not.

If his oxygen is hovering so low, he's not thinking clearly. You cannot blame him for making bad choices when he's oxygen-deprived. Sure, I understand that he's got this weird thing about doctors regardless - but that doesn't change the situation as it is now, which is that he's in no position to take care of himself and it's not his fault that he can't. I think you're going to have to simply call an ambulance for him and deal with the fallout later.

Graduation ceremonies are boring. I may have said here before that I only attended my own high school graduation under duress, and I still regret the choice. SO BORING, and my sister and foster sister forgot to put on adequate sunscreen and both burned terribly. Serves them right - they're the ones who argued me into going on the grounds of "But your/our grandmother came out!", and it's not like I didn't remind them beforehand that sunburns are a thing that happen to very fair-skinned people. Not that they ought to have needed me to remind them. So my advice is to call the *school* and tell them that none of you will be attending due to their lax security procedures. Because really, this is on the school. You are not the first nor only family with a problematic family member, and you certainly won't be the last. Plenty of students have family members who will gatecrash with the intention of doing *worse* than simply being a bother - and if you're in America, I feel it would be remiss not to point out that some of those angry family members might be armed. The school needs to make all ceremonies of this sort ticketed, in some sort of area that has clear entrances and exits. And then go to the beach or something instead, avoid the drama. (You're not going to follow the beach part of the advice, I can see that now. Nobody ever does, although it's excellent advice. My second best advice is not to reply to your mother at all, but please *do* contact the school, just as I said. This situation is really unacceptable.)

If YOU have no real connection to those kids then I'd max it out at some low number - no more than $25, and honestly, I wouldn't even go that far for "sister's boyfriend's kid you have only met twice" or "kid you see at meets who lives an hour away". A card and perhaps $5 or $10 seems more than enough for that sort of distant relationship. (Though, after reading the above reply, it does occur to me that if the boyfriend is quite a serious boyfriend you may want to up however much you give your de facto stepniece. Not because you have a relationship with her, sounds like you don't, but because you don't want to be rude to your sister's partner.)

Before doing anything I'd ask the studio what they recommend. You're not the first or only person with this problem, and it may be that they prefer to do it all in-house.

Shelf stable foods are, well, shelf stable. The "best by" dates are put there by the manufacturer and have no real legal meaning. The manufacturer just estimates that that date is when the quality will begin to degrade a little... but that can mean that the color or taste is a little off, or for a velveeta it might mean that there is some slight separation. It doesn't mean the food has gone bad or is even noticeably unpalatable. So long as the food looks and smells fine when you open it, and the packaging isn't obviously suspect (bulging or damaged) you can trust that it IS fine.

"Best by" dates on shelf-stable products are determined by the manufacturer - not by the government. They indicate when the manufacturer estimates the quality will start to decline a little. However, that means that the taste might be a little stale, not that they've become inedible or dangerous in some way. You can ignore them so long as the product looks and smells the way it's supposed to.

Fraud is punishable that way, yes. In my experience, somebody* somehow** forgetting to file their state and federal income taxes for nearly a decade may be punishable the same way, but they try the soft method of "freezing your accounts" first in order to make you pay up. It's cheaper, and bean counters love to count those beans. Just because they *can* do the other method doesn't mean they *will* if they can get what they want in another, cheaper way. * Wasn't me! It was another family member who is no longer allowed to file their own taxes.... ** I may have said that everybody in my family is on the broader autistic spectrum before, so when I say "somehow" I mean "serious executive function issues".

The worst that happens if you don't pay your property tax is that the property is seized and sold at auction. Nobody goes to prison over this. That would *cost* money. The point of taxes is for the government to *gain* money, not for the government to spend it. You can say one thing for the tax-collecting arm of government - these are people who know the difference between bringing money in and spending it fruitlessly.

Google tells me that budgies only live 5 - 8 years to begin with. I wouldn't necessarily jump to euthanasia just now, but I certainly wouldn't consider any sort of aggressive treatment. I don't think it's ethical to destroy an animal's quality of life when they're near the end of their natural lifespan anyway. It's not like they can understand why you're doing it. Of course, by all means, get a second opinion from a vet. It'll make you and your daughter feel better to know you double checked, and at the same time you can figure out what species this bird actually is.

Mathnerd, their paycheck only partially comes from taxation. A lot of it also comes from speeding tickets and civil asset forfeiture!

FFS, isn't there *already* a shortage of these devices? This is NOT going to help that.

It's always about money.