Aaah yes, thank you, so much clearer! I appreciate that the Green Party is actually green, ha. Also I am gonna be tripped up by the red blue dichotomy if I understand Labour vs. Tories correctly since it’s kind of the opposite here in the states. We need some different colors over here too.

Sorry—I thought they were all separate parties? Like Why are the Green Party the same color as the Conservative Party? Or are those different colors actually? Ignorant American over here just trying to understand a bit better.

Do the colors mean anything?

And we love you for it.

My dog does one solid poop on walks, followed by one loose poop, and then she continues to try to go and manages to squeeze out liquid shit if I let her try. I’ve stopped letting her slow down after the second one. What is up with that?

I’m the primary driver in our household and I don’t have good parking spot luck. Meanwhile, my husband has excellent parking luck. It’s gotten kind of funny actually. Before we really recognized it, he wondered why I didn’t like going to a particular grocery store. It’s because the parking lot is terrible. “You mean you don’t just park up front?” Uh, what? How would I do that exactly when none of those spots are ever free? But on the off chance that he’s driving, there is always, always a spot close to the door. It’s gotten to the point where if we’re going somewhere where the parking is going to be difficult, he drives.

Honestly, it has never occurred to me to try any canned fish. I don’t even like seared ahi. As soon as it’s cooked at all, it tastes like the nasty childhood tuna. Fully raw sushi tuna is okay though, thankfully.

Canned tuna. Childhood daycare food. Both my brother and I can’t stand it. It never made me vomit but it was a real challenge to get down, and I think he threw up from it once. I’m not sure what she did to make it so vile but there was a lot of mayo too and I couldn’t handle mayo for a very long time.

Also still accurate for a lot of people, sadly.

I have one of those too. Due to lack of space, my desk is next to the tv and couch, and she gets pretty demanding when she thinks it’s couch time but I’m working.

My son once peed when he was getting changed and managed to hit himself in the face. He never did it again after that. Win!

Anyway, hugs, you’re in the thick of it, but as everyone says, it does get better.

I guess I don’t think of the higher agencies as cops, even though they are. And those higher agencies (FBI, NSA, CIA, etc.) don’t strike me as the type of groups who want to keep the public informed—quite the contrary, actually. I would expect local cops to praise themselves if they got something right, sure.

Or they have stopped them, so we haven’t heard about it.

I’m not advocating giving up privacy but you don’t know for sure that these tactics don’t “work.”

I wasn’t actually so mad at first. They bought back our smaller cheaper car and we felt very compensated. But for the second car, which was much bigger and more expensive, they only offered a “fix” which they said wouldn’t affect performance (yeah right), and a small amount in restitution. It felt like a slap in the face. In hindsight I would have gone about things differently but let’s just say that I have little to no faith in the way our justice system works anymore due to how we decided to proceed after that, and we will never buy a car from VW ever again.

Meanwhile, we actually replaced those cars with Teslas. And now we feel like we’re kind of back in the same place, having given money to a company that is pretty shit. We try to vote with our wallets as much as possible but there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, after all. It’s just really depressing and disheartening and makes me not want to buy anything anymore.

Please tell me about any sewing-related communities you’re subbed to because I want to make sure I am also subbed to them! (I love linen)

I’m in the opposite camp. What are the reasons you don’t like Rivian? (I don’t like VW because we had not one, but two vehicles caught up in Dieselgate. They’re dead to me. Which is a shame because I really liked them.)

Thanks!

I’ve tried. The thing that’s hard to replicate is the beans, actually. Though I’ve mostly used canned refried beans; I’ve been meaning to get a can of whole pintos and mash them myself, and see if that helps.

The Double Decker taco came back for like a month last year and I went to Taco Bell probably eight times once I realized it because it’s my favorite and I’m super pissed that they won’t just make one for me even though they have all of the ingredients, FFS.

I am pro-woke and aspire to be woke, but I’m also woke enough to know that I probably have blind spots that I’m not even aware of, despite my best efforts. I also live in a blue state and in a socially blue area.