RBWells

Marquise, is that you?

I did get a hold of the Amaretto Adriatico, and you might really like that one. Maybe not to pour freely for Christmas, but it's everything they say it is, flavorful, not nearly as sweet.

Go to bed early because it's dark.

Worry about all the food in the refrigerator.

Be hot (or I guess in your case, cold.)

Read books in the daytime, go for walks.

Cook stuff using the grill, drink cold brew.

Take dreadful cold showers.

Count how many socks and underwear are left, do I need to resort to hand washing some?

My kids love these meals and I'm not sure why. I usually say "watch me pull a rabbit out of this hat!" and throw something together. Unless it's a stir fry, they don't like that. But a leftover baked potato becoming home fries with eggs and the half a tomato and half an onion from the fridge? The leftover cabbage going into the last handful of lentils for a stew? Casserole of leftover pasta, odds and ends with cheese, topped with bread crumbs? They are so happy with these oddball meals for some reason, and I think if you can make something with whatever you have, that IS a valuable cooking skill.

The second part of that comment sounds like you are a culinary enthusiast not a survivalist. Like, I grow stuff in the garden to get better, fresher foods and varieties I don't see in the store, and also for the local bees Saving money is secondary(tertiary?), though I think at this point the lines may have crossed and we are saving some money. I do it because I like good food.

If I lived where there was more to forage, you can bet your ass I would be foraging too. Wild food is awesome.

I like weight measurement best, except for a few things I don't really want to bother measuring closely, like cornbread or ricotta cake. Those I just know by volume and can scale up based on the number of eggs, and aren't fussy.

So for cornbread I know the dry mix is half cornmeal half flour, with a spoonful of baking powder, half spoonful of salt, big pinch of baking soda for each cup of that mix. One cup of that for each egg you have; melt a whole stick of butter in the iron skillet at 425F while you mix the dry stuff, when it's hot add the eggs and enough buttermilk to make a thick batter (have literally never measured the buttermilk), pour the melted butter in, stir briefly, then pour batter into pan and bake 20-25 minutes. Has never failed, and I'm sure it's never exactly the same twice. It doesn't matter.

"Recipes" like that I enjoy. And most of my cooking is loosey goosey like that.

But bread, and fancy cakes, and even cocktais, 100% agree, I would prefer to pull out the scale and SO much easier to do weight, in grams.

I do have a cocktails hobby, but would file it under "cooking". Not being drunk as a hobby but creating something delicious is so satisfying. I don't enjoy being drunk but do like a drink, make one 1 to 3 times a week for me and always something great for parties/entertaining.

I almost think it insulates against alcoholism the same way caring about good and delicious food insulates against overweight - I don't really ever drink just to drink, or eat mindlessly. I make intentional meals, intentional drinks, and enjoy them.

It's just so good! And yeah it's cancelled. Preacher went a full 4 seasons, same as the comics.

I think you did the right thing with the voicemail, leave it at that and move on. You can't fix everyone. Surround yourself with people who are thoughtful and supportive, and be the same for them.

I do think a lot of the people who swung right were not trying to hurt anyone, they were misinformed on purpose by targeted propaganda. But again - you are unlikely to be able to get through to them. I stop helping people when it becomes obvious that the help is not helpful. They may come around, they may not, but you cannot personally do anything to make that happen.

And the nonsense about the world not being ready for a woman president is utter twaddle, there have been plenty of them, just not here. Fucking Margaret Thatcher was elected in 1979! Your aunt is off her rocker.

I think it's collecting vs reading. I'm a lady and read comics, well graphic novels, I don't buy the individual issues. Half my bookshelf is graphic novels trade paperbacks. But I do not collect, trade, sell, I don't think of them like that, they are for reading and enjoying.

Collecting I can see as an unattractive trait because it's too close to hoarding.

Preacher

Scavengers Reign

Arcane

The IT crowd

(And of course, Lord of the Rings but you already watched those.)

Well, my last name isn't my mom's last name, it's my dad's, and her last name was her dad's, then her husband's. So why do I care, I don't get a matrilineal name anyway.

I hyphenated, because we both had kids when we got married, and it made it easier to deal with the school stuff for my stepkids.

Otherwise, I really just don't care because my family name is my dad's name and it was only my mom's name because she changed hers to his. Not that I didn't care about my dad, was closer to him than my mom. I just mean I don't feel like it means anything.

ETA: as the OP says, though - I really, truly don't understand it when a lady has a cool last name and the man an awful one and they still use his. I used to work at a payroll place and saw this happen over and over, someone would be calling up for us to change their last name from, say, Valiant or DeLeon to Assing, or Fuckler or something . Really, why wouldn't he be the one happy to change in that scenario?