supposebly

I don't cook my oats. I use large flake (steel cut?) oats, soak them in milk (any kind will do) a bit (or over night) and add walnuts and fruit. It's not a slimy as cooked oatmeal. I basically grew up on this, often sweetened with jam or simply dried fruit. We call it muesli. This is a good Swiss recipe for Bircher muesli but it really doesn't require all that stuff. https://cookieandkate.com/homemade-bircher-muesli-recipe/

I'm fairly certain it's an addiction that often starts in childhood. There is also research that shows that processed food lights up the pleasure centers of people's brains more than other food. Other research disagrees but there is certainly an element of physical/psychological addiction to certain foods and junk food, aka processed food is high on the list. And like with every addiction, eventually you need to have more and more to get the same high. I weaned myself off of most processed foods and now I find most of it overly salty and unpleasant. But that's not how I started out. That doesn't explain how some people get addicted and others don't. I once read about how modern processed food is developed. Apparently, there is a certain bliss point that tries to get to an ideal balance between fat, salt and sugar. https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/should-we-really-beware-the-bliss-point-hiding-in-healthy-foods-20200625-p55686.html That point is different for different kinds of foods. Salty for chips but sweeter for breads. I bake my own bread and buy only from small bakeries and I noticed every time I buy a sandwich from our cafeteria that uses bread from huge brands, it tastes like cake to me, it's so sweet. But again, if that's all the bread you've ever had, "real" bread would not taste good. Actual bead would not contain any added sugar. I can't think of a bread recipe that would have that unless it's to help with raising.

I started taking singing lessons during the pandemic on Zoom and the "homework" means I sing for 5 minutes in the morning. It makes a lot of difference in my day and lowers my anxiety considerably.

So, I watched this. Very boring. The soundtrack was good but I overall failed to see what the point of it all was. And yes, way too long. I kept thinking now that's a Robert Pattinson vampire I can get on board with.

I'm very late to this and just wanted to say how much I enjoyed it. I was a bit sorry to see that eventually, we had very clear bad guy(s) but overall, I really liked how we got there. The cast was phenomenal overall.

I remember this being a thing in the early 90s with a friend of mine who was working part time as a teacher and his wife worked full-time. She made a lot more money. He said he's never been so insulted in his life on playdates, at school, playgrounds, etc. Not only by other parents, but also teachers, friends, his parents and parents in law, strangers on the street. From the condescending (I hope you know what you're doing, shouldn't your wife be there), to the emasculating (you look ridiculous with the stroller) to the over-praising. I remember him saying people treat him like he had some brains missing while at the same time praising him for the smallest thing. Like you do with a toddler when they manage not to spill their food all over the place. Needless to say, his wife got insulted and shamed for not "helping" him and leaving the kids with him. As if he was some unpaid and unreliable babysitter. I would have thought this stuff would have changed in 30 years. I guess not much. I talked to a friend of mine who is a retired judge and who was a very active feminist. She says the most infuriating thing for her is that somehow women got better represented at the work place and they STILL end up doing most of the unpaid work at home. How did that happen?

I know. But in the grand scheme of things, it's one of the very few processed things that I eat. And only maybe once every two months or so in the winter. I haven't liked any other non-meat alternatives before. So, at the odd time when I feel like a burger, this is what I choose. I don't eat beef except maybe a really good steak once a year. The meat I still eat regularly is chicken. And fish and seafood. Hahaha! I think they confuse 'vegetable' with 'vegetarian'?

Have you tried meditation? Sleep time yoga? I'm someone who's always had a hard time falling asleep, half an hour is quick for me, adding a 10 minute routine of this kind has helped. Not always but it has made a difference.

Interesting discussion. I wonder if there are local differences in the use? And how would womxn be pronounced? I often found womyn a bit odd since it's not pronounced differently from women, so it really only shows when written? Or is it pronounced differently? As a woman approaching menopause, I might get annoyed with the term menstruating person, though. Older women are invisible enough as it is. Ah, breast is only used for women until they're diseased. Then it's breast cancer for men too. I try not to read too much into that.😉 In German, the word breast Brust is used for men and women. However, a woman has breasts Brüste plural while a man only ever has one Brust.

I use it when I need to sleep on a cross Atlantic flight. It works well for me.

This site discusses it. Apparently, the character Marion was 15 when Indy was with her. Originally, they thought it would be fine if she was even younger. https://www.polygon.com/2015/8/3/9089181/indiana-jones-abusive-creep And I'm completely side-eyeing Harrison Ford for getting it on with a 19year old Carrie Fisher when he was over 30 and married. But that's a different issue. I mostly have issues with a lot of the characters he's played. To me, he never had the charm so I could ignore it. He always came across as a predatory. Granted, it's a problem in a lot of films and television but I always found it quite apparent with this characters. Even before I became more aware of these issues.

I never understood the appeal of the Indiana Jones movies. The racisms, the statutory rape...but then, I never understood the appeal of Harrison Ford either. This clip pretty much sums up how I feel about Harrison Ford's acting and his famous characters.

I often prefer barley over rice. But I love rice WITH cauliflower. But I like cauliflower in general. Rice, it really depends what I eat it with. Or the kind of rice. I have found a brand of Japanese rice that I like a lot. I eat Quinoa more since I found one that is grown right here in Saskatchewan. Most of my vegetables are made in the oven on a sheet. Tossed in a bit of oil and spices/herbs. I have replaced beef burgers with meat replacement like impossible meat. It feels less heavy. I can't do a whole beef burger anymore. Even one of those, I eat maybe once every two months.

It's a tough decision in any case. What bugs me that often people get pets who never think much about even the basic costs that are involved or can't even afford the spay/neuter. That's why we have such an overpopulation of cats. Don't even get me started on all the pets that got returned after the pandemic. It's a difficult decision to have a pet and it should be carefully considered is all I'm saying.

I put some money away every month. This is what I use for unexpected vet expenses if my panthers get really sick. I used it when I had to have a few extra checks for Scully when she got sick last year. Now that it turns out she has asthma that needs to be treated with an inhaler every day, those are regular costs every 2 months and are now in my regular budget. When they get older, I expect to use more of that emergency fund. I tell everyone, unless you have the means to spend the money, don't get a pet. I volunteer at a cat rescue and having cats be brought back is the second worst part. After finding cats and kittens thrown out on the street because people couldn't/wouldn't get them neutered/keep them inside and then can't afford the bills for even more cats.

Hahahahahahaha! I'm sorry but what? 🤣

I'm....shocked😉

But that's the last consonant that's different, not the vowel represented by either oo or o. loose - goose lose - terrible twos I think the problem for many is the vowel that gets two different spellings. I wonder if there are dialects where even the consonant at the end is the same for both words.

That makes very little sense. Cats' digestive systems are very short and straight too and they are obligate carnivores. Actual herbivores' digestive systems are even longer than humans, so as omnivores, we are somewhere in the middle. I think originally, canines are carnivores too. Same goes for our teeth, they are designed to work for meat and plants although our canine teeth are shorter than carnivore's teeth. A little internet reading shows that it seems that more recent research shows that while dogs have adapted to a somewhat omnivore diet, they are in fact closer to carnivores based on their teeth and their digestive system. ETA: The more I think about this, the more this makes no sense. If humans were designed to be herbivores, early hunter and gatherer societies would not make sense. Neither would arctic populations. Their primary food source is animals with some berries and moss collecting in addition during the short summer. Not a lot of plants to eat up there.

English has one of the most inconsistent letter-to-sound correspondences in its spelling among the languages that use alphabets for writing. Not only do we get different words spelled identically (bat (animal) vs bat (for hitting things)) but also different words that are pronounced the same but spelled differently (weak vs week), the same sounds corresponding to different letters or letter combinations (tough fast philosophy) or the same letter or letter combination representing different sounds (fear bear). I always felt sorry for all children having to learn to read and write in English. Only French is worse. So why do we spell it moose instead of mose? Why is lose pronounced like loose but rose like toes? It rarely makes sense.

I find that reducing meat in my diet is overall good for me. However, I have a hard time eliminating dairy, mostly because I can't live without cheese and I find vegan "cheese" weird. I've replaced milk with oat variants for most uses except in my coffee. So, reduction instead of elimination. I can't live without eggs but I only buy eggs from local farms where the chickens run free outside. I do wish there was a way to create milk that doesn't involve cows. I have found in the rare cases when I would like a burger, I actually prefer meat replacements such as impossible meat, etc. Not often, but I like it well. I don't think we're "meant" to eat anything one way or another. We are omnivores. What I find is that if I abstain from something for a while and then eat it again, it doesn't quite agree with me. It improves however once I eat it more regularly. I had that issue with mushrooms a few months ago. Pretty much every research on nutrition tells us to have more plant-based food and less meat, especially red meat. We just have to find the plants that work for us.

That's what I was thinking.

Especially in Toronto! Where almost everyone is multi-something.

It's very difficult to break patterns especially with family members. Congratulations to both of you!

So, this endeth my binging all the new Star Trek shows in the last few weeks while recovering. I have mixed feelings. I don't have a strong attachment to Trek but I like the updating of the original characters. Which helps with Pike and Nurse Chapel in particular. I only watched the original show a few years ago, so I can't imagine anyone wanting these terrible characterizations again. I actually think the new Pike is more Kirk than Paul Wesley. TOS Kirk wasn't entirely a daring-do rule-breaking maverick until later, so, that made this Pike feel even more like TOS Kirk to me. Must be the hair. 😉 I like the episodic writing with the line-through of Pike trying to come to terms with his fate. I have to say, I like Discovery a lot, especially season 1, 3, and 4, but this is nice too. I really like new Spock and T'Prin. I don't remember what happened to his marriage (don't tell me!), so I'm looking forward to the next season. I hope Chapel gets over Spock soon. Pining best friends are annoying in any genre and with any gender. I don't care about that kind of continuity.