I feel this. I have adapted very well to small talk and kid talk, but veer off this and I realise how little I have in common with other parents. I even work in a field that should be full of lefties, but I can only think of one person there I can have these proper conversations with.
Luckily my neighbour is more on my wavelength when it comes to billionaires. Actually had a conversation today that went to cursing their existence within minutes. Can’t remember what started it!
Per the article posted in the comments, this is a new-build. In the UK, 90% of them are built in the same style that uses a lot of traditional features.
I do agree with the old homes being awkward though. Our staircase is straight, but narrow and very steep. The house itself was probably well built, but the decades of renovations made to it are not necessarily well done. We’ve found that we’ve had to strip rooms down to the brick and dirt floor to do it properly.
That customer sounds insufferable. Might well be the fault of the company but him going on about how much his house cost (and the sofa) makes him sound like a right tosspot.
My kid is learning it now (UK primary school). His writing is awful because he’s supposed to do it the way he’s taught instead of finding his own way to make it legible. He has a talent for drawing neat little cartoons, so he can clearly manage a pencil, but his writing is near unreadable.
In a message directly to them, and referencing having come out as gay, he said: “I know it’s not easy being a trans kid in our country today, the trans community is at the wrong end of all of the statistics for mental ill health, self-harm and suicide."
I just wanted to quote this bit of the article, as I feel this is often used in bad faith arguments such as: “I don’t hate trans people, I just want to protect them from the bad outcomes that come with being trans.”
Do these people ever stop to think that it may be the way that trans people are treated, talked about, and denied essential medical care that contributes to poor mental health outcomes? Maybe if we didn’t treat people shittily, they wouldn’t feel shit.
1, I used to work for this company when I was young and had no idea what my rights were. They very much took advantage of this, such as calling me in on an hour’s notice on my days off.
2, The Raw Egg Nationalist is a right-wing twat. https://hopenothate.org.uk/2024/06/20/egg-sposed-we-reveal-the-identity-of-far-right-bodybuilder-the-raw-egg-nationalist/
I’m trying to think of something I can actually do, but all I can think about are weird coincidences beyond my control:
My parents and my husband’s parents were married on the same day in different parts of the country. His dad also shares my birthday.
My first child was born on the same day as a moderately famous comedian’s first child. Later, when I looked that comedian up, I realised my second child was born on his 50th birthday.
He’s a Chug (chihuahua x pug). He’s a very sweet boy, but not all that smart!
Not my potato, but I did get his permission to post
This is a regular lunch for me. Leftover rice and grated cheddar microwaved, then slathered with Cholula sauce. I agree it belongs here!
I’m just speaking for myself here, so not saying this is true for everyone or even many people, but the cost of the gym isn’t the biggest barrier for me.
I like what you say about expanding availability - there isn’t a gym within (reasonable) walking distance of me. I think facilities being in communities makes a difference.
However, one of the biggest barriers to me is childcare. Somewhere where I could take them to do their own activities while I worked out would make it far more likely that I use it, and I suspect this is the case for others. My partner works long, unpredictable hours, so I can’t sign up for the weekly classes (that I did before having children) as I don’t know that he’ll be around to look after them.
I also have chronic health issues, which don’t prevent me exercising all the time, but there are days where I cannot leave my bed because of migraine, so again, committing to something regular is difficult. (Again, persoal to me, but I’m not alone in having a chronic condition.)
I tend to walk everywhere I can as accessing formal exercise has too many barriers for me, so I do have an acceptable level of fitness, but I miss doing classes as I found these really motivating.
Sorry for the long reply - I don’t disagree that price and access are issues, but there are more besides that I think need to be addressed. Stress and available time being factors in additional to the others I mentioned.
I also think there are issues with the weight loss drugs besides cost, one of those being the need to stay on them longterm. That’s not even getting into using weight as the sole metric of health.
You might enjoy the podcast Maintenance Phase if you don’t already know it. They have a Dr Oz episode and Oprah has a few of her own too.
That’s so weird - I heard about, for the first time, and looked up this ice-cream only this morning. There was a failed petition to change the name, which generated a number of counter petitions.
Me too. Still the celebrity death that most upset me. Would have loved to see him do Taskmaster too.
Someone I know was working with a person who has a therapy dog. Apparently the dog is trained to understand when they become overwhelmed and just sit on them. It sounds like it has a similar mechanism to these techniques.
Our house is about 150 years old and we dug down to the dirt floor in one of the downstairs rooms. We found suspicious white bits, and had to send a sample off. Luckily it came back clear. It was unlikely anyway, as asbestos wasn’t in widespread use here in the 19th century.
However, we do have corrugated asbestos roofing on our “scullery” but it’s in one piece so can be left until we renovate that part, then disposed of safely. It’s pretty common to find it on sheds and outbuildings here.
Psych too