RBWells

Such an enormous country. Old people doing tai chi in a park. Little kids earning red stars at school. Government trying to control the population too tightly, yet somehow also lacking basic safety regulations. Good food.

Admittedly I run cool, was born here. But ride to work in the Merino wool t-shirts from Unbound or silk/Merino thin knit sweater and also merino socks, and arrive absolutely presentable, so much better than cotton, not better than linen, but better looking for an office. Only the v-neck though, can't stand it near my neck, that does itch. And not all brands, only Unbound for the T-shirts. Silk/Merino blend always rocks.

You'd need to arrange the code ahead of time with whoever you were communicating with. I can imagine a few ways to do it, the number of letters in the words, the arrangement of the spaces between words, first letter of first word, second letter of second word, up through five words and start over, prearranged code phrases of course but nothing that would work with an unwitting recipient.

That homemade laundry soap made with bar soap would be a nightmare in hard water. I don't even want to think about soap scum in the drains and in my clothes.

I just use the smallest amount of detergent I can get out of the bottle, that works well. And don't wash a garment after wearing it once if it's not underwear. Invested in a lot of Merino stuff which manages to be comfortable even here in Florida and doesn't stink ever. I can wear those shirts and just hang them back up.

!Yes, please!

I raised my kids to be independent and was not very controlling - they think I was pretty hands off because they don't remember the earliest years - but I can't imagine doing that without literally teaching them what was reasonable behavior for different spaces. We did restaurant training, sit in your chair, use the utensils, don't yell. (ETA I would do this at teatime when it was slow, and tip double since the bill did not reflect the mess or work at all) In stores, "put your hands behind" was the cue, not "don't touch" because it's easier to tell them to do something than to not do something.

At the park though? My only rule was don't show off, don't do anything to show off. If you want to climb the tree because you want to climb the tree, go for it but no "look at me I'm in the tree" because then you will probably go past what's safe for you. When they fell down while running ask "you gonna be ok?" not "are you ok?"

Compared to their friends' parents, the younger ones think I'm nearly neglectful but it's more than my mom did, parenting right now while there are fewer kids around us so weird. So many parents are so controlling even of their high schoolers. You are trying to raise competent adults, they have to have the space to make decisions and mistakes to do that.

Ooh I want to do a guava and cream cheese croissant now.

I've lived on the streets, in a car, in a house with 10 people so we could cover rent, in slums and have crawled up to solidly middle class. I think it used to be easier to do that than it is now, like every year it gets more stratified with more slipping below average (meaning the mean) but also harder to dig out. Not impossible, but it was hard enough as person of able body and mind back then - I can't imagine how hard now.

At work in my department only one of us has never been very poor, I do think there is some social mobility but for each of us there must be hundreds who did the same things and it didn't work.

I was a wasp agnostic until I saw them pollinating the flowers in my yard. They aren't all assholes. Some hornets are aggressive but most wasps are chill and helpful. Everyone loves bats though, don't they?

I can believe it. Physical inactivity, less creative play for children, distraction all the time.

Mind you, in some ways I don't buy it - the two of my kids who were very academically motivated both learned much more in school than I did (I went during a conservative time when the schools were doing "back to basics" which didn't help, but simple research before the Internet was so difficult that I didn't have access to as much as they did, it took more effort to learn less) and those two are whip-smart. So I think the potential to be smart is higher now. Also maybe we have included more people in the measurements now that it's easier to get the data.

But physical inactivity does harm brain health, plastic probably does, the dumbing down again in the schools here (is this some 40-50 year cycle?) certainly does. I do, like @[email protected] work at maintaining my thinking by trying to learn new things, not just get good at what I am good at already; and do a lot to maintain physical health, meditate, and try to guard my sleep as much as possible within the context of a normal life.

The US is too big for a single answer, but here in Florida bananas are cheap, but potatoes and apples are expensive. Sweet potatoes are often cheap though.

I grow some stuff here, that's not free but is cheap for sure. Okra, jalapeno peppers, watermelon, purple sweet potatoes, basil in the summer. Greens, lettuces, broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, fennel, cilantro in the winter. Mint all year. Have citrus trees and a fig, all dwarf trees so not a huge harvest but an easy one.

I think wine and most booze will get very expensive, grains, so flour, pasta, bagels. Good cheese. A lot of produce since it comes from Mexico and South America and our supreme leader here seems determined to piss them off. Milk will probably stay around the same, maybe domestic cheese. I would logically have said eggs, but apparently not.

Having some tepache today. So delicious, and an easy entry level fermentation project. I've made this dozens of times and it's failed only once.