AnnieF

The outlook is not good. Expect to hear a lot from me about fires and smoke this summer, because it's going to be bad. :( And me too. :)I started taking an antidepressant a couple of days ago. Been feeling pretty crappy (physically, mentally) so I'm trying this. I'll let you know if I'm feeling any better in 4-6 weeks, heh. Thinking of your itchies with sympathy, KPC. That's no fun at all.

KPC, I am a gluten-free person, and I'm here to tell you, it can be done. I also went dairy-free when I cut out the wheat and stuff, and then introduced it back into my diet gradually; it doesn't seem to have a negative impact on me, so I eat dairy. But getting rid of the wheat made an enormous difference for me. My pain levels are lower. That is enough to make it worth it. In my experience, the most difficult day was day three post-bread, when I had sudden HUGE cravings for French bread. Like, almost literally said "fuck it" and went and bought some. I had a similar reaction to going off opiate medication, which...heh. The way our brains process opiates and sugars is very similar. The biochemistry is fascinating. Anyway, that's all a very long-winded way of saying that I am here to be your moral support if you decide that you're desperate enough to cut out some food groups. :) Been thinking of you and hoping that you'e not completely buried, dusky. Over here on the other side of the country, the headline on yesterday's paper was "Our Vanishing Snowpack." We'e in deep doo-doo. Ship us some of that stuff, wouldja? ;)

They will do anything not to have to pay, the rat bastards. I'm so sorry you have to deal with this shit, L&b.

Big vibes and love to you, your family, and especially your dad, cko.

"12 Monkeys" is confusing as fuck on first viewing. Subsequent viewings are awesome, imo, but I've always liked the movie. YMMV. ;)

I cannot begin to fathom doing something so traumatic to a child, let alone your own child. This particular situation got, well, let's just say "out of hand" for lack of better swear words, but even if it had gone according to plan, they still traumatized a child! A six-year-old. And I mean, there are just so many things about this story that are...what? The very first thing: a stranger successfully lured the child into his truck. This is the very first step where the whole plan should have failed. It takes some training to teach a child not to get into a car with a stranger, but it is totally possible. It really is. Even friendly, gregarious children who talk to everyone can be taught this. You may have to drill it over and over, but if you give an actual fuck about your kid, that's what you do. Jesus Haploid Christ, some people make me so fucking angry.

Yeah, how many of the asshole parents at my kids' elementary school drive like complete maniacs through the school zone, and yet have taken a "personal belief" exemption from vaccinations? People. Are. Morons. Sigh. It's unfortunate, really. I had high hope for these "humans," but apparently they're too stupid to go on.

I do have a couple of examples of unpleasant experiences on public transit while pretty young; I started taking the city bus to the mall from my suburban home when I was 12, and because I had breasts and was already 5'7", this made me a target for creepy harassers. For a while I could turn my brace-face on them and speak in an exaggeratedly young voice, but once the braces came off, that bit of camouflage (which of course as I'm sure y'all have already surmised, didn't even always work), stopped being effective. The other example isn't me, but my friend's son who suffered premature puberty was, before medication got things under control, much, MUCH bigger than other kids his age. Since he took a short city bus ride to school, this sometimes led to arguments with adults on the bus who didn't understand why it was taking so long for him to give them directions to the Embarcadero, or whatever. He doesn't need to know that yet (and therefore can't help you, clueless tourists ; he's 12). Having said all that, would I change those experiences? For my friend's kid, it's not my place to say, but she says he does a very good job handling himself in public now that he's a bit older. And my experiences taught me early on that the world is a much more hostile place for girls and women than it is for boys and men. So. Yeah. That helped me avoid some workplace shit later on, but hell, that could also just have been luck.

Yes, so much this. I'd leave my kids for 20 minutes or so at the beginning, working up slowly so that by the time the kids were teens, they'd done the alone thing and know how to handle it. This is all part of teaching children to be independent, and it makes me so sad that so many kids aren't getting any training or experience in...well, in how to exist independently in the world. It is much, much safer to be a kid today than it was in the 70s when a lot of us here were little. Kidnapping numbers are way down, as are all violent crime numbers. But parents get freaked about the stupidest shit. It's way more likely that a kid will get injured by an unsecured firearm than that they will be the victim of a stranger abduction. We worry about the exact wrong things. My parenting tends to follow the lead of Lenore Skenazy, the mother who ignited a firestorm several years ago by allowing her 9-year-old to ride the NYC subway by himself.

Oh, Earl, that sucks. Like you say, all kids are different, but unless he has some special needs, that kid is old enough to be home by himself for a long chunk of the day. And I think it is more than fair for you to be annoyed. It's not fair to you. And it's not fair to the poor kid. Helicopter parents, man. Doing so much more harm than good.

Wow, trudi, I'd have a hard time too. Strangle your child's independence much? Poor kid. I was assuming your coworker was leaving their too-young kids alone, Earl (straight-up assumption on my part) but is it the other direction? Are these kids old enough for some responsibility, but aren't being allowed to demonstrate their competence? 'Cause that sucks too. :(

I started leaving my kids at home for short stretches (as in, I was heading over to the market that was a 1-minute drive from my house) when they were, I wanna say, around 7 and 10. Definitely did not allow anything longer than that before the younger one was older than 7. Now they are 12 and 15, so y'know. Whatever. ;) Of course, they've both been drilled to here and back about what to do if there's an emergency, and my younger son is weirdly responsible, so at this point I'd almost expect him to handle an emergency better than his older brother. Seven years old is considered the age at which children begin to be able to do some complex reasoning. I might be comfortable with leaving a responsible 7-year-old who has been repeatedly drilled about emergency procedures alone for a couple of hours. Maybe. Younger than that, and for longer than that? No way.

Teenagers are the worst. The F-ster will be 15 in a couple of weeks, and he is driving me up a goddamn wall. He just won't do any schoolwork. Doesn't wanna. Arrrrrrgggghhhhhh. I feel your pain, dusky. Big vibes everyone. I've been dealing with family crap, fallout from Xmas, and it's fucking exhausting. I don't want to be in the middle of anything, and yet. Here I am. Whee. Sorry for the vague, it' just too tiring to type it all out. But I am sympathizing hard with everyone's family dramz. Vibes for everyone. :)

Yes, because I'm still stuck on the idea of anyplace saying "no salwar kameez." I mean, what? Indeed, there are several folks here who could blow our cov...I mean, identify us as different people. Totally fine, go right ahead. I'm not worried at all, and neither is "Loandbehold."

Wait, at your company? Or in Dubai as a whole, 'cause that seems weird (well, it seems weird either way. Wtf, people, it's clothes). I'm glad you're settling in okay, romantic idiot, and I hope it goes really well for you while you're there. :)Vibes all around, excuse the exhaustion. :) Oy, y'all's snow. Please be safe. It sounds like it's a bad one.

No lie. Sharpest thing on Earth.

Baby fingernails are fucking death blades. Sharper than sharp, those little bastards. Keeping them clipped is essential to your own safety. The malleable cold packs are definitely the way to go. Stepstools, maybe? If the kid/s can wash their own hands, will they be able to reach the sink, or do they need a step. It was a glorious day in the F household when the F-let was tall enough to reach the sink without a stool. :-D

Erratic, you've probably thought of this stuff, but I'll put down what springs to my mind anyway. ;) Medicine cabinet-type stuff, like baby and children's Advil and Tylenol, bandaids in various sizes with, I dunno, Spongebob or something on them, a mild disinfectant for owies, hot-cold packs, various types of thermometers (oral, ear, forehead). What else...my older son had ear infection after ear infection, and it helped him to lie with his ear on one of those pillows full of seed husks or whatever that you can heat up in the microwave. Popsicles are handy to have lying around in the freezer, especially the kind that you want for just after your kid has been barfing and you're just trying to get something sorta foodlike into them to see if it'll stay down. So, frozen sugar-water, essentially, heh. Those last forever. Hmm, if I think of anything else I'll edit. I hope this isn't all "duh, Annie, we got all that shit already." :-) ETA: a million washcloths. Seriously, whether the kids are quite wee or somewhat bigger, you will go through so many friggin' washcloths all the time. Or I did anyway, because I didn't use throw-away wipes for anything but diaper clean-up. For all other yuck (snotty noses, dirty hands, whatev) I used washcloths, because they were washable and reusable and cheaper. ) EATA: Crayons and big pads of paper. And other art supplies that are nontoxic. If the kids are a bit older and have some problems, doing art might be a really good thing for them. Heck, it's good for all kids. My boys created a huge drawing of a candy factory that spread over several large pieces of art paper when they were around 7 and 10, and it is a thing of beauty, all made by themselves. These days they create in Lego, and it is glorious to see and hear what they make. So, yeah, anyway, these kinds of toys that allow creative play will vary depending on the age of the kids, but I think stashing away some art supplies is a good idea.

Very exciting, Erratic! Will you need to buy furniture in a hurry (cribs or beds) once you learn who's coming to Casa Erratic?

I tried for stealth, but options were limited. :) I also know who my Santa was because of return address; thank you, cko! "Rogue demon hunter" is my alter ego, so there you go. Hee hee.

Thank you for the input about "Black Mirror," Endeavour and romantic idiot. I think I'll skip it for now. My brain is giving me enough disquieting crap all by itself. ;) And thanks for info on "Orphan Black." That'll probably remain a future thing too.

Whoever recommended "Wentworth" to me -- thank you, that show is awesome. But now I have to wait for s3, dammit. Let me ask about "Black Mirror," since folks like that one too -- any disturbing imagery in it? Things that stick in your brain and make it hard to go to sleep? I feel I need to know this before possibly trying it. And what's the deal with "Orphan Black"? This one's not Netflixable, right? So how does one access it?

Crap, I'm back to not being able to edit. You're not the only one, KPC. An easy way to figure out the "who/whom" thing is to substitute "him"* for the word you think might ought to be "whom," so in the case of Erratic's example it's the second "who" that should be "whom." "I am dying to find out who gave him what." Aha. :) *You can substitute any other objective pronoun (her, us, them) but the assonance of whom/him makes it an easy choice for substitution, IMO.

Go very slow and carefully, Harvester! ;)

Jesus wept.