If you decide at some point that you want a hypoallergenic cat, there's a lot of good and bad information out there about Siberians. I looked into it a bunch before we got ours, and I've posted some of it here before.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 4:21 PM on July 21, 2008

When your mom says she wants Mrs. Range to have her ring, are you sure she means she's up for resetting the diamond in a different style? That would reduce the 'awww!' factor a bit, in my opinion. And, since I haven't personally every known anyone whose diamond fell out of any setting, I'm wondering whether it's more common than I think, or less common than you do, even with the kinds of activities you're describing.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 5:21 PM on July 20, 2008

When I was a kid and something scared me at night, I used to imagine an invisible shield that arched over my bed and protected me. Once you've moved in, if you have trouble sleeping, combat your fanciful mind with itself. However engrossed you get in thinking about ghosts, get equally engrossed in conjuring up a comforting and infallible protection for yourself. Sleep tight!
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 5:19 PM on June 18, 2008

I haven't done these, but I can report that one of the leaders is a good individual therapist.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 4:51 AM on June 18, 2008

You two seem to have different expectations about some things. Like, when visiting a couple, how much time should the friend half of the couple spend alone with the visitor? And, when hosting a visitor, how much responsibility does the host have to make the decisions and plans? These are not questions that have a single right answer. Your right answer is at a different point on the spectrum than your friend's.

So, you can end up hurt, thinking, "How could she waste... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 5:46 AM on June 14, 2008

Statues come to life in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. That was written in 1950 - too old? Here's a plot summary of the chapter with the statues.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 4:43 AM on June 14, 2008

If it were me, charging would shift the dynamic slightly in ways that I would appreciate, outside of whether or not I'd appreciate the cash itself. If they didn't pay me, and they asked me again in the future, saying no would feel like turning down a request to do a favor. If they did pay me and I wanted to say no in the future, I'd be turning down an offer of a gig, which would feel easier to me. Likewise, during the two weeks, if I was doing it as a favor, I'd feel I had to decide which extras... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 6:55 AM on June 3, 2008

These are GREAT answers. Thank you so much. A number of them fit the bill, but Samorost 2 from the link crios pointed me to fulfills the combination of criteria even better than I could have hoped! Thanks for all the help.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 2:22 PM on June 2, 2008

It sounds to me like you may be looking to your work performance to define a bit too much of your sense of self-worth. It also sounds like you're looking externally, to your CEO, to define the value of your work performance, and he's not the type to do so automatically. Then, you're looking for metrics to be the way he does that (and I agree with previous posters that your particular work situation doesn't sound like one where metrics would make a whole lot of sense). There are other ways to get... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 4:21 AM on June 2, 2008

Etsy has an area where you can make requests just like this, and get bids.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 5:43 AM on May 31, 2008

I've often thought about being a craftsperson, but I'm very practical and risk-averse, and that's steered me away from trying to do it for my living. I recently decided to explore whether I was being too fearful. I went to one of the most prestigious, juried craft shows in the country, and I went around interviewing the artisans about what it was like trying to make a living as a craftsperson.

Even though these artisans were a very select group who actively pursued their... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 4:15 AM on May 31, 2008

I don't think it's me - I have another manually winding watch that I wear without any problems. I haven't deliberately tried different orientations on my nightstand, but I have purposely flipped it over now and then, and I've been inconsistent in how I put it down, and it's still run fine. So, I suspect it may be the motion of wearing it, but the band is not loose. I don't work with any unusual magnetic stuff.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 4:01 PM on December 2, 2007

At least it would be cool if I shared the kryptonite gene, 45moore45. Thanks for the well-wishing, unprepentanthippie. Flakypastry, your guy is only an hour or so from me. I just told him the story by phone, and he said he'd like to have a look. I'll post a follow-up sooner (if he says don't bother) or later (if he tries and then it takes a while to see if it's really fixed). Thanks all! If anyone else has ideas, I'd still love to hear them, too.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 7:49 AM on December 3, 2007

Great lead, Nelson, thanks. I think I'll let things play out with the guy Flakypastry referred me to first, but it's good to know there's a next avenue of possibility after that one.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 7:18 AM on December 4, 2007

Update: The pro that Flakypastry suggested got it working! It took several attempts, since he wanted to try to preserve the original mechanism, and each time, it would work for him, I would wear it, and it would stop again. Finally, he put in a modern (quartz) mechanism, and I got it today. Unlike the previous watch repair person, he was able to fit one in and even retain the second-hand. So, as a purist, I can imagine he's a little disappointed, but as someone who just wants to wear the watch,... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 6:23 AM on May 28, 2008

Update II. Turns out, amazingly, it's still having the same problem, even with the all-new mechanism. Still working on it...
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 4:15 PM on May 30, 2008

It seems likely that it's something in the house, since it clears up when you're away. Mold is only one possibility, though. Establishing that it's a particular allergen and that that allergen is in the house would take some effort. Carbon monoxide occurred to me. I think headaches from carbon monoxide clear up quickly when you get out of the house, and maybe you'd be experiencing symptoms also if that were it, but do you have a detector?
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 4:45 PM on May 28, 2008

I'm conjecturing here.

If your daughter doesn't have complete fluidity with seeing a letter and knowing its sound, then one thing that reading 4+ letter words requires that writing doesn't is holding the 4+ sounds in memory at once, and accessing that memory fluidly enough to string the sounds together into a word. In contrast, when she writes, your daughter just has to remember one word (the one she's writing), and then figure out the one sound that she needs to write... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 7:11 PM on May 25, 2008 marked best answer

Where poison ivy grows, often so does jewelweed. I've had poison ivy badly enough to be put on steroids, and I swear by this stuff to nearly instantly stop the spreading and start the healing. To use it, I've collected it, mashed up the juicy stems with a rolling pin (or I bet a food processor or a mortar & pestle would do), and applied it like a poultice for 10 minutes or so. I don't know where I got that method, so you might poke around and find others that would work as well or better.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 7:41 AM on May 24, 2008

Thanks for the suggestions. Kidspiration is cool, but too transparently kid-directed for our client to use with their execs, and OmniPlan looks like an improvement on Project, but more like it than not. Since the perfect digital thing seems not to exist, I think I'm going to build some physical pieces for them to move around instead. Thanks again.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 4:07 PM on May 22, 2008

I have a Siberian and a husband who is super-allergic to most cats, and not at all to her. In the course of getting her, I accumulated a lot of allergen info. Here's some of it... A lot of it is from one of the founders of Siberian Research, who is also the first breeder linked below. (Allerca claims weren't trustworthy enough for me to pursue beyond a certain point.)

Lots of sites will talk about how every Siberian is individual, and you should visit with particular... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 2:17 PM on May 22, 2008 marked best answer

My husband and I took a free introductory dance lesson before our wedding, and the first thing they taught us was this big, sweeping entrance to starting any dance. So, we did that, everyone oohed over our impressive moment, and then we went straight into can't-dance-so-we'll-sway mode for the rest of our dance. Worked great.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 6:43 AM on May 20, 2008

Our Simmons Beautyrest is not a Classic, and we didn't buy it within the last 3 years (more like 5-6), but I remember finding similar, alarmist reviews back when we did. If I'm remembering right, I then found other sources that said the reviews were planted by those in the mattress sales industry, because Simmons had upset some big players with aggressive, exclusionary policies that kept some chains from being able to carry them. I don't know if that's still the case, but with our mattress, we... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 4:58 AM on May 9, 2008

Well, I don't see what your friend is getting at, but to try, I put each line of the poem in words that, while clunky and mundane, make their literal meaning more immediately understandable to me. Like you, it didn't help me get to an interpretation aside from the obvious one, but maybe it will help others?

The whole universe is a sign that
God creates lots more than we know.
Neither genies nor men have seen
or told about those... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 5:54 PM on May 2, 2008 marked best answer

Not sure whether or not it suit your use, but do you already know about the super-cool visual thesaurus?
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 5:54 AM on April 29, 2008

The inspection we had done when we bought our house carried a warranty. Did yours? Any chance this might be covered?
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 6:11 AM on April 20, 2008

It seems highly unlikely that you'd need to know what your grandparent's basis costs were. As far as I understand, the principle underlying the cost basis calculation is to determine what the value of this thing was when you acquired it...

mhum, I don't think this is right, because the IRS's instructions for Schedule D say, "The basis of property acquired by gift is generally the basis of the property in the hands of the donor." (Do you... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 4:27 PM on April 10, 2008

I received some really valuable help off-thread. For date acquired, I’ll put 1958, when my grandma inherited it. For cost basis, here’s what one has to do:

Start with the number of shares of Lucent I have now, which is 39. By consulting historical data for Lucent and at&t, determine that 39 shares now would have had to come from 5 shares of 1958 at&t, because the following occurred:

3:1 AT& T split 4/24/59
2:1 AT&T... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 8:15 AM on April 12, 2008

Our kitten was flown to us across the country in cargo, and while she made it without any apparent harm, it's to be avoided if at all possible -- they put all the animal crates near each other, which can freak out some cats especially if there are barking dogs, and the temperature is controlled but not as tightly as one might want. Our kitten arrived pretty out of it, but she came around fairly quickly. She was tiny and it was a long flight, so your cats will probably do better if you find... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 4:32 AM on April 7, 2008 marked best answer

Parent A bought something and then it was lost on Parent A's watch -- there's no way that Parent B owes anything out of fairness, obligation, or responsibility.

BUT, out of kindness, I can imagine both parents wanting to wipe the slate clean, disregarding who bought it and who lost it, and just dealing with what's true now: "Look, we both see how much he loves an iPod, we both want him to have one, so let's split getting him another."
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 7:58 AM on April 5, 2008

I was a very academically focused student, and I went to one of the highest rated public high schools in the country, and then to an Ivy. The kids who had come from the decent private schools were much better prepared than I was for college classes. The most concrete and basic example is that in this renowned public high, I'd only ever written one paper longer than 10 or so pages, and only then for an elective class where the entire semester was focused on writing a longer paper. The private... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 4:25 PM on April 2, 2008

I heartily agree with Zocalo, Punjab, and Blue Ribbon - which I think actually beats Redbones hands down. We also like Toraya - the sushi is ordinary, but there are some specials that circulate onto the white board that are great, like the silky-smooth hot savory custard that has several kinds of seafood and unusual Asian veggies in it, the monkfish pate, and, believe it or not, the flan for dessert - and I don't even like flan.

Also, if you haven't seen the Virtual Suck... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 5:44 AM on March 6, 2008 marked best answer

Do you know about find your spot? You can put in the aspects of a city that you want, and lots of other factors, including some cost factors at the end, and it will tell you places that match your criteria.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 5:06 PM on February 24, 2008

I've heard that the idea of bathing more than once a week or so evolved in the '50's due to soap ads, but I don't have a specific cite.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 5:57 PM on February 18, 2008

Hmm, I wonder if it was washing hair more than about once a week that became common in the '50's due to ads? Or maybe the article dhartung links debunks that, too - I'll get a chance to read it after work. Anyone else hear anything like these disputed rumors, and have a cite?
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 4:10 AM on February 19, 2008

I really like this New York Times article about sleep, and it has some things in it that might apply to you. One of the things it says is that, "for many centuries, and perhaps back to Homer, Western society slept in two shifts. People went to sleep, got up in the middle of the night for an hour or so, and then went to sleep again." It doesn't say anything about exercise making this sleep pattern more likely, but the timing you're experiencing matches the pattern they describe fairly... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 5:39 PM on February 18, 2008

Is it this one? "It is more difficult to process information if it is coming at you in the
written and spoken form at the same time... the research shows the human
brain processes and retains more information if it is digested in either its
verbal or written form, but not both at the same time."
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 3:19 PM on February 8, 2008 marked best answer

Purdue also says 6-9 months, depending on the chicken product, and assuming 0 degree storage soon after purchase.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 3:11 PM on January 27, 2008

If you believe humans are the only species that creates art, you've never watched Attenborough's pieces on bower birds, like this one.

I bet we're the only species that worries about what we do that no other species does, though.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 10:13 AM on January 27, 2008 marked best answer

(Oops, should have read prior responses more carefully! Only species to fail to preview?)
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 10:17 AM on January 27, 2008

I agree with all above that the spanking with the belt is awful, but the rest is normal. You're a single woman who he's close to and has had sex with. Given the complexities in male-female friendships, it would be entirely reasonable in many relationships for a girlfriend to ask him to limit contact with you and/or for him to decide to do so, even though you feel it's clear that you're just friends.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 4:50 AM on January 23, 2008

I also encounter this problem, despite having formatted as text and despite having widened my column. I sometimes resort to taking the text out and pasting it back in a bit at a time until I find the characters that are freaking excel out, but I've never figured out the pattern. I hope someone here will know.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 4:33 AM on January 23, 2008

I don't have any specific suggestions for you, but do you know about findYourSpot.com?
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 6:20 PM on January 14, 2008

Congratulations!

In a lifelong relationship, assume that you'll go through some difficult periods of time, when you don't feel like being together. When you feel like being together, you don't need any vows to stay together. So, when you hit those periods, remember that that's what the vows were for, and with dedication and luck, you'll emerge out the other side together, even better than before. (I haven't had to test this one yet, but we talk about it, and knowing we... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 5:01 PM on January 1, 2008

NAPFA stands for National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, but many (most?) experienced, good advisors also do comprehensive financial planning. . You need to register to do a search for NAPFA members near you, but I did, it's free, and I haven't gotten any spam. In the search results, there are summaries and links that you can use to see which do planning, and in some cases, what asset range they work with. We found our new advisor through them, in Newton, MA, and we've been happy... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 8:49 AM on December 30, 2007

I don't have any knowledge to share related to most of your question, but this part really caught me: She was my grandmother, she was old and I'm an adult, and I understand I'm supposed to really quickly get over it. I don't believe you're supposed to get over this sad event in your life on any particular timetable, or to feel less sad because she was old. So, I'm very sorry you're going through this, and I hope you find some peace about the reasonable questions you have,... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 5:38 PM on December 14, 2007

Too bad you didn't phrase this differently, because I'll be sad if it gets deleted as chatfilter. (I'd suggest something like, "Is there any evidence about whether love at first sight is real? I'm most interested in any research that, e.g., tracked relationship success of people who did and didn't believe they'd experienced it, but first-hand accounts are also welcome.")

That said, here's what I believe:
-People sometimes meet and instantly feel... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 4:33 AM on November 30, 2007

I wonder if this technique for preventing sugar crystals in caramels would apply: While the mix is cooking, each time that stirring deposits some of it to harden on the sides of the pot, wash it down with a pastry brush dipped in ice water.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 2:10 PM on November 28, 2007

Maybe aside from the Excedrin, the items that don't trigger migraines have less caffeine that the ones that do, and it's the medicine in the Excedrin that stops it from falling into the triggering groupp?
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 7:53 PM on November 17, 2007

Moving on slightly from protocol to logistics, I wonder if you might find this helpful... it's a google maps mashup that takes all the craigslist rentals, shows them on a map, and lets you apply filters, including one for dogs. Click your city, then Show Filters, and select the dogs checkbox.
posted to Ask Metafilter by daisyace at 3:52 AM on November 9, 2007