Pixel 5 is my new phone, lol. I had the original Pixel, now the 5. One of my kids used the original one for a few months after I upgraded too.

I do miss headphone jack :(

It’s ok, and getting better. My big problem with it is (like you) that Google Play Music was incredible, so good, and they discontinued it in favor of the much worse and awkwardly named YouTube Music.

Whoever convinced them to give up the branding of “Play Store, Play Music, Play Movies” should be drawn and quartered.

I think populations will crash, either gently through fewer kids, or violently through war and disease. That will likely throw us backwards technologically, maybe not.

Or, who knows, maybe the population will stabilize and we get everything going in the right direction, then an asteroid hits.

I am so confused. Did he think he had to marry a man because it’s pride month? I can’t ever wrap my mind around people who think letting others love who they want to somehow reduces their own freedom to love who they want to.

Congratulations, I guess. May your children be many, and gay.

Our Kimchi is working so hard on this and I don’t usually think of her as clever. She knows the knob opens the door so she bats at it, hangs on it.

Neither cat has been messing with the toilet paper lately though.

I got a new laptop at work and everything, every file I worked in, was creating a second copy of itself on OneDrive. It was so annoying and took awhile but I found instructions on deleting the duplicates.

It took all the files off my local machine and left the ones on OneDrive.

Aaaargh!

Emmylou Harris wrote two that are so beautiful and so sad, if you need to cry, Boulder to Birmingham:

"I don’t want to hear a sad song full of heartbreak and desire

The last time I felt like this, I was in the wilderness, and the canyon was on fire

And I stood on the mountain in the night and I watched it burn, I watched it burn"

And also in the same song she sings - “well you really got me this time, and the hardest part is knowing I’ll survive” wow.

If that somehow doesn’t work, Red Dirt Girl might.

"She loved her brother, I remember back when

He was fixing up a 49 Indian

Told her, little sister gonna ride the wind, up around the moon and back again

Well he never got farther than Vietnam, I was standing there with her when the telegram come for Lillian

Now he’s lying somewhere about a million miles from Meridian "

Beebop-a-rebop-a-rhubarbar!

You told it well here, I enjoyed this story.

You might really enjoy the short story ‘26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss’ by Kij Johnson.

Florida too. Even with the influx of racist northerners, it’s mixed politically here, mixed in every way imaginable actually but you’d never know it looking at the legislature.

Charlotte? Raleigh? DC?

I’m in Tampa and it’s a real mix here, but oof housing cost is out of control.

If you don’t like to be in a city, you will probably be in a backwards place, that’s just how the US works. But lots of mid sized cities are moderate politically.

My mom wasn’t much of a cook but I loved when she made seafood boils, put newspaper all over the table and we ate it all with hands.

My dad made Chicken Kiev it was so good.

Maternal grandma made fried chicken, and gave us bags of pecans, she would sit on the porch with her boyfriend for hours while they shelled pecans and talked.

Paternal grandma I remember oyster dressing at Christmas, yum. And I remember her lighting cigarettes on the gas stove.

My daughter doesn’t like it either - I find it has an affinity for pineapple, and I make tepache and also fresh pineapple juice a lot, so get a lot of mileage out of it. It was really good with Cynar in the pas de loup one too but the drink wasn’t spicy overall.

If you never figure it out, try it in or on pineapple upside down cake, or on vanilla ice cream. Or the Pas De Loup one I tried, 2 parts mezcal to 1 part Cynar to 1/2 part Ancho Reyes, lemon and honey to taste.

I don’t think that’s a complete explanation of inflation. Prices sort of get bidden up. So say everyone wants a car now, but there aren’t yet enough of them to go around. Someone will pay more because they value it more, and the seller will always sell to the higher paying customer.

I do think an abundance economy is possible, with everyone working just enough and a more reasonable allocation of the money. In that scenario we need more automation, because a lot of essential (tough, time consuming, underpaid) jobs are done now by people. The ownership of these robots would have to be spread out to everyone. I do think then everyone could be rich, in the sense of having a nice house, household help, food and clothes and fresh water, transportation. As long as society shares in these benefits it will work, yes.

What do you mean about Monaco? Are there no underpaid housekeepers and nannies and other workers there?

I just wanna say I am sorry that it is near impossible for single dads to adopt kids. I understand the reasoning but want to cry because there are kids who need parents but you can’t be the parent to one.

I made a Tang-a-Rita for a redneck themed party a friend was having and it really was better than it should be.

Medjool Dates fresh are heavenly.

We get these fresh here, and wow I agree, these are so sweet and flavorful. Even if they don’t look as ripe as the other ones they taste better, you can smell them when you approach the display.

I suppose I am a basic bitch - Honeycrisp apples, Mission figs (fresh), haas avocados and the wee golden Champagne mangoes are the best IMO.

Oranges, though? Valencia or tangelos are flavorful, the navel oranges are bland nonsense.

I don’t. Or more accurately, I focus on what makes money so we can survive, and dabble in the other interests.

So in your example - become a psychologist, and just stay interested in the other stuff. Travel and learn about archaeology. Read and learn about zoomorphology, learn to draw and do illustrations, sell them as your side hustle. Do cosplay and be critical of the wardrobes in historical dramas. Use your other interests to enrich your life to the extent you can manage to enjoy at a pace you find best. And be mindful, don’t always focus on what you can’t do, be present in your life, live it.