Roaches do have a smell. Yuck. Ants though? There are so many different kinds of them, I can’t smell them, or I haven’t noticed if so.

My lunatic ex had a nose like a bloodhound. He could smell anything.

Holy shit I actually did tell my daughter not to bring her phone to the protest.

They’re not spread out like churches though. Here, it might work, we have an insane # of churches per capita and a lot of homeless, but what about LA? No way there are as many churches as homeless there. Same with houses, as someone suggests upthread. There are few vacant spaces here and many who need homes but in any state beginning with the letter I maybe there are thousands of homes and few homeless because they would freeze to death in the winter.

I live here and it’s fine in the cities, they just have us gerrymandered to shit. And yes, I grew up here and never saw the beauty until I left for awhile and came back.

This guy is so cool. Really sees the beauty of Florida.

He waited years for one photo

This looks like you did ok, I would check the prices on dried beans, those are usually cheap and a nutritional powerhouse. I strongly dislike the junk food you bought (personally) but don’t think it’s blowing up your budget. I make bread instead of buying it but that’s because I like fancy bread.

Overall - if you are vegetarian not vegan, I think eggs, dry beans, brown rice, tomato paste would be good additions and I will add my voice to the chorus expressing dismay at your choice of canned green beans. If you are underweight, nuts too - expensive but so good and so many calories, healthy fat and protein.

If you are up north, it’s a good time to start some seeds indoors, grow something you like to eat, if you are like me in a warm place, can start them outdoors now.

And I do think you did OK.

This is the one thing this post gets right. Hands and knees is better because then the baby can move downward, if you are on your back you have to push it up and out.

Yeah it sucks. If it’s coded as “screening” it’s covered. As a tip - my GYN says she can see as much in the 3d mammogram as she can with the regular plus ultrasound and that one she can code as screening and it costs about $25 as an add-on.

Our dryer does this to us:

Put clothes in, start it - it estimates 35 units of time. Come back in 15 minutes to check, it says 15 units left. Come back in 15 minutes, it now says 21 units left.

I am, like all of us, unsure of the fundamental nature of time. But the dryer even more so. The units are not one standard length, and they don’t move always in the same direction.

We’ve never had Spectrum and they relentlessly woo us as well. When we ignored the mailings, they started sending them in Spanish, as though they thought we simply couldn’t understand them. Like nobody could possibly resist them if they could read the advertisements, right? Waiting to see what they try next.

Kvass is what I make with fruit usually, drinks like Tepache. If I put some pineapple chunks in with the peels, those get such a gorgeous flavor, they would make a lovely fermented salsa. Any sturdy fruit you use in a kvass might work as a base. But I’ve found also that ginger bug does work to kick start just about any fruit ferment so if you don’t mind it being gingery that is something to try.

Cranberries in honey never really fermented for me, just didn’t spoil. Eventually I put them in the refrigerator and just use them like preserves.

They need to talk to the people who make flour bags. Those paper bags glued shut with the strongest glue known to man, so that they are impossible to open without tearing a big hole in the bag, rendering it impossible to store the flour in.

“Like you would make it for your grandma” usually works for me. But not if it’s the whole order, only if I am trying to get one item really spicy.

Once at an Indian buffet, the owner had okra out & I was so happy, love okra but he kept warning me off it - “no, no, it’s spicy” and I was like “Great!” and he would say “no, no, I mean it’s spicy” he really was worried.

Nope. It was not. Like, some perceptible heat, sure. But nothing anyone would consider too spicy. Like medium taco bell packet of hot sauce spicy. I was so disappointed after all the warnings!

I will miss my manual transmission car. What do you not understand? I have a Honda Accord and the manual is what made it actually fun to drive. Feels so much more like driving, more engaged with what I am doing. Even my kid who resisted learning to drive it now always wants to take my car everywhere. This is likely my last gas powered car, a 2014 I bought new, but yes I love driving a manual shift car, never have I bought an automatic. Also clutch & manual gearbox so much cheaper to fix. When the automatic transmission fails, the car is basically totalled, and it will fail eventually.

I will miss my beloved manual shift car, yes.

Yes and the glorious “playing near you” feature of Play Music. That made the best recommendations for local shows, and I mean local, within a few miles, not just bands I’d listened to but always relevant and often small shows! That feature, I found several new bands I liked that way and good live music. YouTube has nothing like that. Also interface not as intuitive, more cluttered. My kids like it better because they do like having the videos available, but as I do not give a fuck about that but do like live music this is still not as good as the Play Music.

Exactly. Not fruit punch. I try to make something complex, with some bitter, some sour, some sweet. Young pineapple tepache or ginger beer, before they get at all boozy are good if you aren’t serving actual recently recovering alcoholics as they are non-intoxicating and delicious and complex. Grapefruit juice non alcoholic cocktails are also good and complex.

Chinotto soda or Malta can also be good adult choices for a party.

Usually even the drinkers at a party like the non alcoholic fancy drinks. And Diet Coke is always popular too.

Alcohol abuse absolutely affects everyone around you. We had a friend who used to say “there is no problem in the world that can’t be made worse with alcohol!”

Even setting aside things like car crashes under the influence and violence under the influence - lost days at work affect your coworkers, hung over parent who can’t help out, alcohol abuse harms others, not just the abuser.

Yeah it’s so hard because for most of us, alcohol is food culture, not so much a drug. I drink one cocktail 2 - 3 times a week, only ever one because I don’t enjoy being drunk, and make drinks at parties BUT also always make sure there is something adult, delicious, and not alcoholic plus plenty of soda and pitchers of water because I know not everyone can just pick it up and put it down like that. But most people can & do. Fewer people just smoke a couple times a week.

Humans have been fermenting things to get alcoholic drinks for a really long time.

Another fan of ginger bug ginger beer - I love it, delicious and seems magical, like sourdough. I always make a strong, sweet ginger and lemon infusion (for a gallon pitcher 2 cups sugar, about 4 lemons and as much ginger as I can stand to grate) bring to a simmer, cool and then strain it into the pitcher, strain in the ginger bug, and top with cool water if needed to make a gallon. This way no solids, less chance of failure.

Also love to ferment grapefruit juice with ginger bug. For that - the juice of 8 grapefruit & 2 lemons, less sugar, water to top and strained ginger bug OR mixing grapefruit juice with finished ginger beer half and half, add simple syrup and let it sit out a day or two till fizzy. Such a complex flavor and not intoxicating.

Jalapenos, onions, garlic, carrots is a fermented Jalapenos en escabeche and hands down my favorite pickle. When serving add a splash of olive oil.

Carrot, turnip, horseradish root is good (the horseradish doesn’t get soft but does give flavor to the carrot & turnip). And hello fermenters!