Legitimate

February 27, 2023 3:10 AM

Hello, voyagers, welcome to Monday and your free thread, fully authorized and unyeeted.

Please enjoy!

posted by taz (122 comments total)

Scott Adams is still racist
posted by chavenet at 3:58 AM on February 27, 2023

Is "Terminator: Resistance" a game about SCSI chains?
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 4:13 AM on February 27, 2023 [16 favorites]

Today's the day I have to decide whether to leave the longest running job I've ever had for an objectively better one, and I have so much sunk cost fallacy / loss aversion going on that I'm not sure I can do it.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 4:21 AM on February 27, 2023 [28 favorites]

Scott Adams is still a racist
And 4chan is still trolling U.S. politics (sigh). I blame the media. Read more cartoons…! but maybe not Dilbert, unless of course you’re a racist. Because only racists would read books by racists, right?

Celine’s “Journey to the end of night” is one of the greatest books I ever read. I don’t really care that he was an antisemite. Knowledge is power, knowledge prevents racism and more.
posted by beesbees at 4:29 AM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh hey, is this the free Monday thread that is also free of politics? Or maybe it includes politics? I am not sure but, you know, fuck that dude.

The Monster at the End of this Thread, so sorry to hear about your struggle. Change is hard, even change that appears to be an improvement. I hope you choose to suffer less if you are suffering or unhappy at your current job. Speaking of which, I need to get to work. Happy new week, folks.
posted by Bella Donna at 4:40 AM on February 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

The Monster at the End of this Thread, I'm rooting for you. Leaving something familiar is really hard. You'll figure this out.
posted by Night_owl at 5:02 AM on February 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

I have so much sunk cost fallacy / loss aversion

ugh - we are in the middle of a project right now where we are staring down just this problem. On the one hand - we've come this far, we've done so much already, how much more can this person/company screw up? On the other - they've made a dog's breakfast of almost everything so far, how much more extra work are we willing to have to do?
I want an easy way forward. Someone to come forward and say, "Oh, I know someone who would be perfect for this..." and we meet them and they are perfect and they take over and it's all smooth as water off a duck.

sigh. So, you pull up your pants and get back to work.
posted by From Bklyn at 5:20 AM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

The Monster at the End of this Thread: Somehow, isn't there always an Ocean at the End of the Lane? But it's probably full of opportunities. Maybe you get into a storm, but I'm sure you won't drown and it can't but bring you forward.
posted by flamewise at 5:58 AM on February 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

I leave for Vacation on Friday, at like 6am, my wife haaates mornings. It’s a direct flight to Miami, so we’ll have to kill several hours before checkin time. I really hope Friday won’t be miserable. The dogs are being left with an in-house dog sitter.

I will likely be looking for a new job after I get back. That terrifies me. Even more than boats and planes and weather weirdness and respiratory viruses.
posted by DigDoug at 6:27 AM on February 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

Scott Adams is still racist

MAGAbert (Tom the Dancing Bug)
posted by swift at 6:30 AM on February 27, 2023 [12 favorites]

We have a new washing machine arriving today. As it happened, our old one (which we were going to replace this year anyway) crapped out on President's Day, which just so happens to be a big appliance sale holiday here in the US. After scrambling around to find recommendations before the sales ended, we settled on the LG that radsqd mentioned on Ask MeFi. Hope it'll work out for us.
posted by May Kasahara at 6:48 AM on February 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

3d printing a house for a frog.
posted by dhruva at 6:50 AM on February 27, 2023 [33 favorites]

Still looking for a job myself, in Calgary, from Toronto. Not having much luck even finding suitable listings, much less landing an interview, and thinking I might have to broaden my search to non-library gigs. Boy oh boy what a discouraging slog this process is.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:58 AM on February 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

Just got one of those LG top-loaders a few weeks ago and couldn't be happier. Now I'm trying to replace the (poorly) vented dryer with a more efficient heat pump version, but all the ~7 cubic foot versions from multiple manufacturers are either discontinued or sold out.

Is there a supply chain issue or is the technology to do a ventless heat pump dryer that big not here yet?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:58 AM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh my gosh, that could be a perfect post all on its own, dhruva!
posted by curious nu at 6:58 AM on February 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

FRODRICK HAD A FRIEND OVER. Best of the web. Thank you for that. This morning I was crying in the shower (existential angst, hormones, or some fancy combo of those plus other things!?) but now I'm at work acting like a regular facsimile of a regular person, and pleased to be charmed by Frods.
posted by Glinn at 7:10 AM on February 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

RonButNotStupid you may have to broaden your budget to include Miele. Our ventless(!) T1 dryer was about $2k Canadian and honestly it's amazing and likely the dryer we'll die with. (The matching W1 washer is also amazing.)
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:11 AM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

I took a vacation day Friday and spent the day painting and puttering and the weekend doing lovely things including a trip to the Asian market where I got a bunch of foods I love and a few new things to be excited about, and I wrote over a page on my novel and figured out a story problem and it was a good weekend. Then my brain decided last night at 10 pm that right then was a great time for worry and regret and now I am exhausted from lack of sleep. Brains are dumb.
posted by joannemerriam at 7:12 AM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

Yesterday my son told me he wants a 3D printer for his birthday, but I think they're too expensi-

3d printing a house for a frog.

Take my money.
posted by Kabanos at 7:16 AM on February 27, 2023 [23 favorites]

I have a meeting in an hour about the possibility of arranging a DEAI training at my very small nonprofit, and my brain is dragging. I am not in any shape to be making intelligent arguments either for or against it, and I don't think they will emerge in this meeting either.

Also one colleague forwarded two NYT opinion links on the topic and I am bad at getting around the paywall and kind of hate all opinion columns anyway so am not planning to read them.

This calls for another pot of tea and a scone.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 7:22 AM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

seanmpuckett, thanks for the suggestion, but Miele doesn't offer anything larger than a 4 cubic foot dryer.

I think this is another data point in the maybe-they-dug-too-deep column. My current dryer is ~7 cubic feet, and I'd like to replace it with something comparable in size. LG and Whirlpool had heat pump options in that size but don't seem to any more. I wonder if there's a technical reason (maybe they sucked?) for not going above 4 cubic feet.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:28 AM on February 27, 2023

My wife is heading to Vermont for a couple days to help a friend who just had surgery so I'm on my own. I have a bum knee, possibly a damaged meniscus, and we're supposed to get about six inches of snow so doing the driveway should be... interesting.

I'm on-call for work this week, which means my workload will be higher than usual and I am filled with anxiety and dread, knowing I can be paged at any time day or night.

My daughter has been in Europe all month and still has two weeks left on her trip and it's really, really nice to have a break.

I'm just about finished with a current woodworking project and Saturday I bought a load of cherry to start some new projects. I'm also seriously thinking about starting to sell stuff, just to help turn it into a somewhat self-sustaining hobby. I just have to figure out the best way to do that.
posted by bondcliff at 7:30 AM on February 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

after about 9 months of planning and paperwork, everything is now in order, and tomorrow I relocate to our offices in Malaysia for 3 months (and maybe longer). I am so happy to be able to experience and explore a new place for such a long time.
posted by alchemist at 7:31 AM on February 27, 2023 [6 favorites]

Having total knee replacement (my second) on Wednesday. Not looking forward to the first week, but will be glad to walk without pain. Then...on to my shoulders...that seem to be worse than the knee. Yikes. Age is catching up with me.
posted by byjingo! at 7:32 AM on February 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

3d printing a house for a frog

dhruva, that's DELIGHTFUL! ^_^
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 7:32 AM on February 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

I am starting to enjoy the post-divorce world of App Dating, and did some karaoke this weekend with a dude then made out in a movie theater like teenagers. Lots of people my age are post-first-marriage, it's a surprisingly large dating field.
posted by emjaybee at 7:45 AM on February 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

Back in October, I worked my first day, for just one day, as a production assistant on a long-running basic cable TV show that travels the US a lot; a few weeks ago, I got a call from the show's production coordinator who wanted me to be the PA for another shoot -- this time the full five days!

The shoot was last week: the first day I was a bundle of nerves and made mistakes, but fought through the imposter syndrome until by the end of the shoot things were going really well and the director (who's been working on this show for decades) let me know they'll be happy to hire me back any time they're in town, which seems to be about 2 or 3 times a year.

The episode I worked on in October airs this Sunday; my wife is excited to watch because it's my "debut" in non-local television, but I've tried to explain that I'm not important enough to be in the credits and if you actually see a production assistant on-screen then something went horribly wrong, but at least she supports my freelance work 😊
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:00 AM on February 27, 2023 [11 favorites]

I went wine-tasting with a friend yesterday and then we decided to get dinner. Ended up in a downtown bar with an in-house popup that did fried chicken tacos, while the Warriors game was on. It was surprisingly pre-Covid feeling, and quite charming, to sit in a bar and cheer for Klay Thompson every time he sank a 3-pointer.


(Bay-Area Mefites, it was Fort Green in Oakland Old Town.)

And now I'm sitting on my laptop and I am down to 3 working staff members on a team of 7, and I just want to crawl back to bed. I'm at least five years away from retirement: why did I take this job again?
posted by suelac at 8:07 AM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

So back in college, during my freshman year, I had a mandatory English Composition class that all incoming freshmen were required to take, to catch everyone up to the basic standards of essay-writing or whatever. The TA we had in my group assigned us various readings out of an anthropology book about the customs of a group of people in New Guinea; we had to write about them in our final exam. For some reason I based it on something we'd read about a yam-trading game they played, where the better you were at yam trading the better-regarded you were by the society overall. But in my essay I compared it to the Star Trek TOS episode Shore Leave, where Kirk sends an away team to check out this planet as a possible R&R site and discovers it's a giant theme park. (I think I argued that the more complicated a society you had, the more of a separation you drew between "this is a game" and "this affects the rest of life" or something.)

....Just now, I was trying to write my latest blog post about a somewhat opaque Jean-Luc Godard film that combined French New Wave with both sci-fi and film noir. A lot of it went over my head - but the sense I got was that everything was meant to mean something, I just didn't get the references. So out of desperation I compared the experience of watching it to feeling how Picard must have felt in that Star Trek TNGepisode Darmok.

I guess that when in doubt I compare shit to Star Trek.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:08 AM on February 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

it's too bad Celine couldn't have maintained an even misanthropy across all peoples

when I picked up a used copy of "Death on the Installment Plan" it was a revelation, I was in a low spot and the book was a dark ride but funny, funny as hell. It took a singular asshole to write that stuff, and I suppose I was an asshole at the time.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:13 AM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

beesbees: "Read more cartoons" - YES! I recently asked MeFites to recommend comic strips, and I have been massively enjoying the recommendations like Frazz and Wallace the Brave, along with my existing favorites like Macanudo and Cul de Sac. There are a ton of good comics out there.
posted by kristi at 8:33 AM on February 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

Adams has been dropped by his syndicate, so he's becoming more and more irreverent by the day. We're prepping to move, and my old Dilbert books from the 90s were part of the book purge.
I've been at the same place for 20 years. I'll be fully vested in the pension plan in 2, so I have good reason to stick around. ( My old boss came to a retirement party last year, and highly recommended staying where we are as long as possible.)
posted by Spike Glee at 8:48 AM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

I was at the gym the other day and in the locker room a naked man pointed at me and said "Did you used to live on ___ St in the 2400 block?". I didn't recognize the guy as one of my neighbors there but I replied, hesitantly, "Yes. I moved out of that house in 2007." He said "I was your mail carrier". I maybe recognized him then. He remembered my first name and that I am a doctor.
posted by neuron at 8:57 AM on February 27, 2023 [8 favorites]

fully authorized and unyeeted

Yes, but is it bona fide? I only comment in bona fide threads that have prospects.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:58 AM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

It's getter lighter every day. I can see the sun setting, but the sky is still quite bright.
I feel Adams should go into the designated threads, but I'm not a mod. I just find it more interesting to read how all of you are doing...

This week, I'm going to my last therapy session. I feel ready. I still have my battle scars, but I feel I can handle stuff better now. And lots of good stuff is happening. I'm thinking wether I should try and get a real full-time job, mostly for the security and pension. I don't know yet.
posted by mumimor at 8:59 AM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

Some days I'm happy with the art I produce. Today is not one of those days. Dozens of attempts, all of them feeling like derivative pointless garbage.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:04 AM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

We have a new washing machine arriving today.

Once we went into Sears looking for a new washing machine. The salesman turned out to be a patient of mine. A couple of years before he had come for a routine visit and complained that he had awoken with an aching leg. I looked at it and realized it had no blood flow. I had a hard time convincing him that he needed to take an ambulance to the ER but I talked him into it and the leg was saved. He was able to give us a small discount and free delivery of the washing machine and again with another appliance at some later date.
posted by neuron at 9:04 AM on February 27, 2023 [9 favorites]

Yesterday I went along to the open mic happy hour at a local coffee shop and played a few things. Ended with me totally screwing up one of my fiddlier tracks - everyone was very nice but it was still deeply embarrassing.
I'll rehearse it more for next month.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 9:18 AM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

We decided to start practicing eating with chopsticks now so that we would not embarrass ourselves when we visit Japan this summer. And it turns out that not being good at chopsticks is actually extremely helpful to portion control, as I am forced to eat slower, with more time to recognize when I have had enough and can consider a meal done. I'm eating less and feeling better, so that is cool.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:19 AM on February 27, 2023 [6 favorites]

I was up in Milwaukee this weekend looking at apartments. I drove five hours, had lunch, saw a bunch of apartments, and then - at five o'clock on a very cold Friday! - my check engine light starts blinking.

My car is 11 years old and has 177,000 miles on it. I am not an experienced driver or car owner, and all I could think of was what was going to happen if I had a breakdown on the vast stretch of rural highway across southern Wisconsin and eastern Iowa. (I should have AAA, but I don't, because I don't like their pro-car lobbying.)

I called up every mechanic that came up on my phone. The first one said they could maybe look at it in the middle of next week. (Me, catastrophizing: but my job! but my cat! But how am I going to get approved for the expensive apartment if I need to take out a car loan!?) So I just kept calling until I found a guy who said "I'll take a look at it for you; I don't have time to fix it but at least you'll know what you're dealing with."

I need new spark plugs, an engine tune-up, and one of the cylinders is misfiring. But (he said) it was safe to drive another several hundred miles.

Now that I am back in Iowa, the check engine light is off. I am certain that I still do need spark plugs and a tune-up and so on, and I'll schedule that as soon as I can, but I imagine it was the additional stress of driving many hours in bad weather that pushed things to a "blinking light, immediate emergency!" place.
posted by Jeanne at 9:19 AM on February 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

The Toddler has a cold. She was very sick on Friday night, poor wuzzle, then moping around all weekend, not quite her usual sunny self. Fortunately for me but unfortunately for mama and dada, grandmama is not beloved when Toddler is sick. She has a charming way of waving her hands at you and saying BYE when you are persona non grata. By Sunday all the adults, me included, had the cold as well. It's one of those colds where you're not quite sick enough to go to bed but you're not quite well enough to do much besides slump around in your pajamas saying "I don't feel that well" resentfully to the world. That's why I am sitting here in my converted garage bedroom in my pajamas, answering emails and "working" resentfully.

One of those emails was some bad yet not unexpected work news wherein someone is probably leaving. DAMN IT. You know how you read about those colleges & community colleges where the Board gets taken over by a semi stealth right wing coalition of evil? I work at one. It's not good. One of my human shields might be giving up and heading out and I don't blame them. But it probably means I won't be able to work for this board much longer either and that is. . . really scary.

I'm too old to find another job and if I can just stick it out four more years I'll be fully vested in the pension. I need the pension. I don't have a retirement fund. If I can stick it out nine more years I can fully retire with a pension and social security if that still exists. But being here that long might suddenly have gotten considerably harder to do and it already wasn't easy. FUCK. oh well it's just work. right? right? The large mortgage I am preparing to take out on my house to pay for the foundation repairs is no big deal, right? right? right?
posted by mygothlaundry at 9:21 AM on February 27, 2023 [12 favorites]

Now that I am back in Iowa, the check engine light is off. I am certain that I still do need spark plugs and a tune-up and so on, and I'll schedule that as soon as I can, but I imagine it was the additional stress of driving many hours in bad weather that pushed things to a "blinking light, immediate emergency!" place.

I had a car that would burn through ignition coils like crazy, and I ended up buying one of those $40 code readers from the auto parts store. That combined with the internet has allowed me to diagnose a lot of things with my car that would otherwise have been idiot light worry monsters. I can't recommend this tiny investment enough to keep in your glove compartment. Kill the worry monster before it even really hatches!
posted by hippybear at 9:26 AM on February 27, 2023 [10 favorites]

@seanmpuckett mentioned Miele. Oh yes. We have 3 Miele appliances (washer, dryer and dishwasher) and they are excellent. I hope I don't invite disaster by saying this, but washer and dryer have worked faultlessly for 20 years.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 9:31 AM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

And my wife tells me that the power sockets in half the house are dead (the old half, that hasn't been rewired in 30 years). But none of the the circuit breakers have tripped. *Sigh* Time to go home and investigate.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 9:34 AM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

I had the day off today for free because my company is trialling an annual wellness day type thing. It was pretty great! I went to the gym, got some errands done, and stopped by the fancy chocolate factory outlet store where I picked up some too-broken-to-sell-at-full-price-but-still-delicious offcuts from their christmas range.

We finally finished watching Andromeda on Friday night (thank fuck), so now back to the final two seasons of SG-1 that we didn't get through on our original viewing. And having a long weekend made me feel like we finally had time yesterday to watch Everything Everywhere All At Once, and I'm so glad we did because it absolutely slaps.
posted by terretu at 9:43 AM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Thanks for the words of encouragement.

If pressed I have always said I don't understand the appeal of my kooky little mountain town, but somebody telling me I have to leave it makes me dig in my heels as humans do.

I'm kind of leaning toward staying and trying to give this place a fair shot. I've always said I couldn't afford a house here but I never really checked. Maybe I should at least do that before I abandon ship.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 9:43 AM on February 27, 2023 [5 favorites]

FRODRICK HAD A FRIEND OVER

He pronounces it like Fraud and not like Frodrick Fronkensteen?
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:46 AM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

the power sockets in half the house are dead...But none of the the circuit breakers have tripped.

This is a call for the power company; two 120v "legs" come into your house, one tied to each half of the breakers in your breaker box, but one of the legs has failed, usually at some point outside of your house. There's nothing you can do to fix it, and even if you thought you know where the problem is you shouldn't be touching that.

(Edit: I now see you're in London, so my suggestion is based on US wiring...but I believe the general sentiment is correct, you've lost a connection to the power company, not anything you can fix)
posted by AzraelBrown at 9:57 AM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Did you only pay half your power bill?
posted by hippybear at 10:08 AM on February 27, 2023 [6 favorites]

I saw a power outlet plate attached with Phillips head screws. Never saw this before.
posted by Marky at 10:13 AM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

What I don't recommend: trying to eat a cold Tootsie Roll (*) when you have crowns. I'll be visiting the dentist this afternoon.

(* in a package from Sweetwater, the music store, from whom I'd bought guitar dehumidifier refills. The package had been sitting on the doorstep in 40 degree weather for a while.)


What I do recommend: the Merlin Bird ID app. I went for a walk yesterday at Mallard Lake (in Maryland Heights, MO) and had it identify birdsongs. It found about 16 birds, of which I'd only be able to recognize 4 myself (including the really obvious Canada goose and mockingbird). It kept me paying attention to the sound of my surroundings, when normally I'd probably have put in the earbuds and listened to music instead.
posted by Foosnark at 10:27 AM on February 27, 2023 [8 favorites]

....In retrospect it was probably not smart to stay up until 12:30 am last night watching a rerun of the SAG awards.

SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPER draggy today.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:31 AM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

I started replacing a ceiling light yesterday and discovered (via a voltage probe) that it had been wired to switch the neutral.

This is why you always test and shut the power off at the breaker.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:37 AM on February 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

I invited the nominee for the left-of-centre party (for my riding) to come out to a social event on Friday, the person drove 1.5 hrs to attend with their partner and sibling (and newborn!), and stayed till around 10:00pm. They are not at all polished and I still can't figure out what's motivating them to run a campaign in a riding that mostly votes conservative by default. But hell, I'll knock on doors for them.

The (very polished) incumbent resembles a type of Albertan that is all too familiar.. nice enough in person, but willing to support all manner of garbage (e.g. "Freedom" Convoy, anti-vaxx, etc).. plus, they're just not very effective!
posted by elkevelvet at 10:38 AM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Now that the snow that fell last Wednesday is barely noticeable anymore, the city has taken a plow to my street...which managed to dislodge the manhole cover directly in front of my apartment with an almighty bang (the cover stands slightly proud of the street surface). After I recovered from my initial alarm it was kind of entertaining to watch the driver struggle to get the cover back in place.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:40 AM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

What I don't recommend: trying to eat a cold Tootsie Roll (*) when you have crowns. I'll be visiting the dentist this afternoon.

I had metal crowns when I was a kid, and pulled off about three at once thanks to a mouthful of Milk Duds.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:41 AM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

I went to the gym, got some errands done, and stopped by the fancy chocolate factory outlet store

"Wellness chocolate" should absolutely be a thing!
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:48 AM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Feral cat and Flurb update:

Last week I was at the end of several ropes. My newly indoor cat Flurb had an allergy that was driving him crazy, I couldn't trap my outdoor feral cats to get them neutered/spayed no matter what I did, and I was having no luck at all with my job hunt.

It turns out that asking for help actually helped. I posted on here about my itchy kitty, and ceejaytee remarked that it sounded like one of his cats who's allergic to certain cat litters. I got hypoallergenic litter, and now Flurb is itch-free and completely off of steroids. Thank you so much, ceejaytee, you've made a fluffy little kitty very happy, and taken a huge load off my mind.

My cat colony got taken care of this weekend. I contacted a friend who's connected with the network of volunteers who take care of Tucson's feral cat population, and she got me in touch with a mighty cat hunter. Wendy came out on Friday, and by Sunday we had all three cats trapped and taken care of: Tom Jones, Steve McCoy, and the ever-elusive Luna. Tom and Luna have had their operations and are back home, and Steve, as it turns out, was a reclusive sweetheart of a cat who loved bellyrubs and human contact of all kinds, so he's gone to a rescue organization, and is on his way to becoming a happy housecat.

And I've had an interview with one company, and Metafilter turned up a lead to what's basically my dream job, so I'm studying up for that.

So, thanks for being here. It turns out ranting on Metafilter has made not only my life, but the life of an adorable fluffkitty much better. I really appreciate it.
posted by MrVisible at 10:53 AM on February 27, 2023 [16 favorites]

It’s been a fun few days. I met with a new rheumatologist about starting treatment again. In the meantime, she put me on 10 mg of prednisone to take the edge off of the flares I’m having. I have used steroids on and off all of my life as needed and never had a problem with them before. They always gave me an energy boost, which is not uncommon. I had been on them about a week and it was definitely helping the arthritis, but it was having some side effects I was not aware of at the time. My energy went through the roof and I was doing all kinds of housework and cooking to the point of running myself ragged – up till 11 p.m. baking! Buying canning supplies online (never canned anything in my life). I had SO MUCH ENERGY! This past week I was out running errands in town and started feeling really odd – sort of lightheaded and spacey – hard to describe. I thought maybe I needed to eat because it had been several hours so I stopped for some food. After eating I went to the restroom and noticed that the floor was wiggling around and seemed slick like there was oil on it. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was hallucinating. I left there and got in the car and was in a large shopping parking lot. I pulled up to a 4-way stop and all of a sudden, I couldn’t see anything – just black in front of me as I was pulling forward at the intersection (still in the parking lot). I knew something was wrong so I pulled over after running into a curb. I don’t know if I actually blacked out, but I came extremely close. I decided to call 911 and go to the hospital. I rode the ambulance there and was there from about 11:30 a.m. – 11 p.m. They ran bloodwork, a CT scan, and an MRI and found nothing wrong. The doctor said that I was having an adverse reaction to the prednisone and to contact my rheumatologist. The next day, the doctor dropped my dose to 5 mg. For the next couple of days, chunks of my memory were missing and I had a hard time remembering if I had dreamed some things (like running the errands) or had actually done some of them. Eventually the correct memories came back. So now I’m on 5 mg and it makes me feel like I’m on speed – I have a lot of nervous energy. I hope to be starting some new arthritis medication in the next few days and come off of the prednisone as quickly as possible. Whew!
posted by manageyourexpectations at 10:56 AM on February 27, 2023 [8 favorites]

This is why you always test and shut the power off at the breaker.

Recently the bulb in the ceiling light fixture in front of my bedroom closet went out. When I took off the glass cover to replace it I was (figuratively) shocked to find out it was FULL of water! Apparently my upstairs neighbor had a bathroom plumbing issue of some sort that allowed water into the space between their floor and my ceiling, which then trickled down into the fixture. I shudder to think how much worse it could have been.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:57 AM on February 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

I have a simultaneously satisfying and frustrating hobby.

Satisfying:

I have been making mixtapes since the 1970s. I got my hands on a 4-channel, reel-to-reel recorder in the 1980s which allowed me to really step up my mixtape game.

I've since moved on to digital and use Audacity and Cinelerra.

I take music that I like and add dropins - pieces of audio from TV and movies, mostly - sometimes with a theme - ocean, love, holidays - sometimes at random.

Frustrating:

My immediate family and friends have shown little interest.

I cannot share these things widely because of copyright - attempts at putting them on YouTube have been blocked.

Anyway:

MixCloud seems to have a different take on things - I have a mix up there called "Psychedelic Drag". It's a combination of psychedelic rock from 65-67 mixed with dropins from the "Blue Boy" episode of Dragnet and a few 1960s drug PSAs.

Here's the link if you'd like to take a listen - https://www.mixcloud.com/mmrtnt/psychedelic-drag-20220507/

Also, here's a link to a more in-depth explainer - https://www.botaday.com/node/3035

Apologies if links to personal stuff is forbidden.
posted by mmrtnt at 11:00 AM on February 27, 2023 [9 favorites]

I should have AAA, but I don't, because I don't like their pro-car lobbying.

Better World sounds better and worked well the one time I needed car help. Haven’t used the bike help yet.
posted by clew at 11:10 AM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Digging your mix, mmrtnt!
posted by icebergs at 11:37 AM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

I left a job of 15+ years last summer and I have no regrets. Sometimes change is good.
posted by exolstice at 11:52 AM on February 27, 2023 [7 favorites]

My husband is making mussel and shrimp saganaki (something like this), and it looks and smells amaaaazing. 🍲❤️
posted by taz at 11:54 AM on February 27, 2023 [4 favorites]

I believe that our insurance offers roadside assistance. You might want to check to see if yours does too.
posted by Spike Glee at 11:57 AM on February 27, 2023

Vitamin Voyage Dr. Rohin Francis takes us on a delightful historical voyage about the history of vitamins. Laced with hilarious fashion choices, facial hair styles, accents and comedy. Dr. Francis is an Interventional Cardiologist on the faculty at Essex college. Don't miss the playful banter in the comments. His YouTube channel is called MedLife Crisis. BonVoyage!
posted by effluvia at 12:01 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Re: the LG top loading machines. Watch the area around the bleach dispenser carefully. I don’t know if they’ve fixed this so it doesn’t happen, but those have been known to corrode badly around there. We ended up having to get rid of ours due to that issue. Bummer because it was really good at washing clothes, but there was too much corrosion underneath and it wasn’t going to be cost effective to fix at all.
posted by azpenguin at 12:03 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

This weekend I began the project I mentioned last week of grinding my cast iron pans smooth. I started with the largest (15") and most pebbly-surfaced one - it's a newer pan, and I swear Lodge is using even coarser sand to cast their pans than they used to. After about an hour with the orbital sander and some 60 grit paper I'd knocked down 1/2 - 2/3 of the pebbling but there's still a way to go to grind all the pits out. Also it's always had a hump in the middle so oil tends to run down to the edges, so I'm trying to flatten that out as well (the underside is flat, so it's a manufacturing defect rather than warping and I'm not worried about removing too much metal).

Since 60 grit doesn't seem to be doing it I'm going to buy some 40 grit aluminum oxide sanding pads and really go to town on it. If I still can't get it completely smooth, I'll polish it up as-is with finer grits and call it "good enough" since that's not the pan I'm most interested in getting a mirror finish on; that would be the 10" skillet with fantastic rounded sloped sides that they apparently don't even sell anymore so I especially prize it.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:14 PM on February 27, 2023 [6 favorites]

Last summer I cleaned up a bunch of crusty old Griswold cast iron pans with electrolysis. After about a week and a half of soaking they came out looking like new.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:21 PM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

There's a thing I hate irrationally: when people snap their fingers at my dog. It's irrational because he doesn't even register their bad behaviour, he just continues whatever he is doing. I will be the first to admit that my dog is not well-educated, but he does engage in polite conversation.
But, you just know that those people also snap their fingers at restaurant workers and that is worth hating.
I don't know any dog people who use finger-snapping to communicate with their dogs. Why would you do that? So someone who snaps their fingers at my dog is doing it in spite of all available experience and knowledge.

Yesterday, I cleaned the filter in our washing machine. It was embarrassing, because I realized I hadn't ever done it before. I cleaned our former machine regularly, because otherwise it broke down, but this one can deal with all sorts of serious problems, so I sort of pretended not to know there was an issue. The filter was disgusting. Well, now it's done, and I look forward to cleaner results.
posted by mumimor at 1:23 PM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

I kind of wish we had some snow because, instead, we had a funnel cloud go over our heads this morning with every siren in town going off. It's still February.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:38 PM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

Greg_Ace: I have similar neighbors upstairs and occasionally they leave the shower curtain on the outside of the tub and water comes down through my ceiling light bulb fixture. When it happened with a hot incandescent it was a little scary. I eventually replaced that bulb with an LED bulb. One day, water once more through the fixture. And the light was on! I turned it off and got a stool and removed the light bulb to discover it was full of water! There are holes around the screw in part and that’s how the water got in. Still was working, but…
posted by njohnson23 at 2:59 PM on February 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

azpenguin Re: the LG top loading machines. Watch the area around the bleach dispenser carefully.

I'm well up for a side-rail about how you wash you laundry. Have all your teens eaten the laundry pods* and you're back using granules and a measuring cup? Does your water need softening so it won't scale up the whole machine? And what's with bleach and a boiling hot wash in these climate chaos times?

On one of the last office days I had at a previous job I recognised one of my colleagues was wearing a version of the nice hoodie I kept for office days -- turns out it was a gift for her boyfriend that she adopted after it was shrunk in a boiling-hot wash. I walked away a bit stunned that you'd still wash so hot, and that I didn't have words for the economic and ecological approach I take, using low temperature colour-friendly tabs. Maybe they just couldn't keep them in the house given that laundry tablet challenge going round social media*.

*: It's obligatory to state: while I like joking around, but don't eat laundry products, they are very bad for your insides.
posted by k3ninho at 3:01 PM on February 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

freezing rain
trees sway
as if to walk
with another

2°
fahrenheit.
posted by clavdivs at 3:02 PM on February 27, 2023 [6 favorites]

fully authorized and unyeeted

Yes, but is it bona fide? I only comment in bona fide threads that have prospects.

I'll tell you what it is! It's the poster familias!
posted by Reverend John at 3:19 PM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm well up for a side-rail about how you wash you laundry.

Begrudgingly.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:51 PM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

I, once again, have annoyed my spouse by successfully locating an IMPORTANT ITEM of his without physically looking for it. It is my superpower. His statement upon returning to our bedroom with said item was “I hate it when you are right”.

The item was his current passport. It is needed as kiddo has an appointment for an updated passport tomorrow and both of us need to be in attendance with the relevant documents to demonstrate that 1. We are his parents and 2. We are citizens.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 6:13 PM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

I use State Farm for my car insurance. I spend an additional maybe $8. Per year for roadside assistance. It is great! No AAA for me. Roadside through your insurance provider is the best deal, no one talks about. I drive an old VW van, 8 bucks covers me for anything, anywhere. Locally they often go with their own guys, you have the number.
posted by Oyéah at 6:45 PM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

I'm well up for a side-rail about how you wash you laundry. Have all your teens eaten the laundry pods* and you're back using granules and a measuring cup? Does your water need softening so it won't scale up the whole machine? And what's with bleach and a boiling hot wash in these climate chaos times?

Costco liquid detergent, the kinds with no dyes or perfumes. I’d love to have some fancy smelling detergent but it does very bad things to my skin, not to mention the skin of one of our bulldogs. That’s also why we use a fair amount of bleach - when you have 3-5 rescue bulldogs at a time, you gotta wash a LOT of bedding and towels and some of that stuff is gonna need bleach. Otherwise, everything gets washed cold. I have a lot of wool socks and Columbus shirts, and they hold up very well this way. When possible I hang dry things because we’re out in the desert. Things dry fairly fast, you don’t spike power usage by running the dryer (we can see our power usage because we have solar and the app lets us see our usage, and oh damn does the dryer spike the meter) and things smell really fresh.
posted by azpenguin at 8:13 PM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

Scented detergents don't affect my skin, but they sure as hell affect my nose. I loathe them all, including - especially! - dryer sheets that smell like nothing born of nature*. Once I bought a big jug of some detergent that was supposed to be "the best" but had to leave it, still completely full, in the laundry room with a "FREE" sign on it because I couldn't stand its strong perfume smell.

So I stick to unscented laundry powder, and the farthest I'll go is a cup of white vinegar in the wash that deodorizes my clothes very satisfactorily and leaves no lingering scent. I have to dry the clothes in a dryer because I live in a small apartment in the Pacific Northwest, and wet cotton** is not known for its superior evaporative qualities.

* Spawned from chemical waste, more like...

** I also can't stand to wear synthetic fabrics so my wardrobe is 98% cotton plus a set of silk thermal underwear and a couple pairs of wool socks for the dead of winter.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:38 PM on February 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

I have similar neighbors upstairs

I had a third-floor studio condo in a four-story building. One evening it sounded like it was raining inside the wall. My upstairs neighbor’s pipe under his kitchen sink had failed somehow and he was hard of hearing and when I knocked on his door he didn’t know it had happened but water was pouring into the space behind the walls of my unit.

I learned quickly what a water mitigation specialist was and was forced out of my home for a few days while the mitigators stood up huge heating fans in my unit to dry out the drywall.
posted by bendy at 12:50 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Laundry: When I broke my foot back in 2012, I did so on New Year's Eve; and I'd already planned to do a load of laundry on January 2nd, which was also due to be a day off for me. However, a broken foot put the kibosh on that plan (I still lived in a 4th floor walkup then). However, that's when I discovered that there was a laundromat in my neighborhood that DELIVERED, so I started using them when I was laid up and they were a godsend. (They were also lovely people; one guy actually started SERENADING me as he was picking up my laundry once. I asked whether the load would be ready the following day, and he said yes, then added it may be ready that night. Then he grinned and started an improvised song: "maybe toniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight....")

I switched back to doing my own laundry most of the time when I recovered, toting it to one of the two laundromats near me (one was closer, the other was cheaper). I would still use the pick-up folks when I was too busy or had too much, and I went back to using them again when I broke my knee. My roommate also really is into the idea of pick-up and drop-off laundry. And when we moved, we moved two blocks away from them, so their pickups and dropoffs got even faster than they used to be.

I've recently been getting more budget-conscious, though; not because I need to, more as an intentionality exercise (after so much time in enforced austerity, I feel like I swung a little too far in the other direction, and I've been trying to rein that in a little). I'm still within walking distance from one of the laundromats I used to do my own laundry in, and I am switching back to using them again sometimes.

....One big complaint speaking of laundry - all the laundromats near me switched from being coin-operated to forcing you to get a pay-as-you-go refillable cash card, which was one serious pain in the ass to discover when I turned up with a big sack full of quarters and no way to use them.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:28 AM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Stayed up most of the night. Still paralyzed. Ranting at you all now. Sorry about that.

We imagined raising the Tiny Monster in Asheville, and can't imagine doing it in Charlotte but that's silly because we've never been to Charlotte. Tens of thousands of children are being raised in Charlotte right now. Obviously it's possible.

I don't even really live in my kooky mountain town. I live to the south. I can't afford to live in town. I never will. Only people with much higher incomes or people who have already been there twenty years get to live in town. I have an irrational attachment to a place inhabited by my betters that I get to visit once in a while. Half the things I'll tell you I like about Asheville are national parks and forests to the west or surrounding towns. The other half are mostly food. Toddlers have pretty limited range and stamina so I haven't done any of those things in a long time. The only time I go to a national park is when I sometimes take Blue Ridge Parkway as a shortcut home from work. What's to miss?

Or I can take a job that pays 20% more and be handed a house down payment as a signing bonus, but I have to move to Charlotte to get it. Why do I recoil from that? Maybe I'm just getting old and tired and don't feel like moving again. Maybe I never cared about Asheville until someone decided to try to take it away.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 5:57 AM on February 28, 2023 [10 favorites]

Charlotte is nice! I lived there from 2000-2012, my son was born there and spent the first 10 years of his life there, it's a perfectly fine place to bring up kids, or at least it was a decade ago. Things that are not as nice as Asheville: less natural beauty, more conservative culture, less interesting restaurants. Things that are nicer: more racial diversity, more arts/culture/music opportunities, easier to travel other places (airline hub), easier to access more affordable housing, some public transit, just a bigger city with more stuff in general. We used to do day trips up to Asheville or to the Parkway for hikes, it's a long day but doable.
posted by Daily Alice at 6:24 AM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

It's spring here in the Southern Appalachians (hey The Monster at the End of this Thread!). I am slowly whittling down the number of vehicles I own that are not road-worthy for one reason or another #lifegoals. Also, I am moving my 130-year-old Steinway piano out of storage and into the home I now share with my sweetheart.
posted by Maxwell's demon at 7:58 AM on February 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

The 56-Year Argument About a Hopping Hoop - YouTube

Only because Matt Parker's most recent video uses 'yeet' and serendipity and coincidence.

(Many thoughts about this.....)
posted by zengargoyle at 8:16 AM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

....One big complaint speaking of laundry - all the laundromats near me switched from being coin-operated to forcing you to get a pay-as-you-go refillable cash card, which was one serious pain in the ass to discover when I turned up with a big sack full of quarters and no way to use them.

At my last apartment I would have sold a foot for card-op laundry; I wasn't terribly near a bank and thanks to the pandemic, quarters could not be had for love or money. I ended up buying a jar of quarters for 80 bucks from a guy who could charitably be called a Grey Gardens stan. He had a whole closet just of coin jars.

Now I'm across the street from a bank and coins are a thing again, so it's fine. But the laundromats by me recently started charging for dryers, which they didn't before, and I'm irrationally pissed about it.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:08 AM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

There is life after Asheville, monster. I lived there for 20 years and then five years ago I said fuck it and moved to the Oregon coast, where slowly but surely my whole family joined me. It's not perfect but wow do I not miss North Carolina. Do you know I have met my congressperson several times and I . . . like her? Do you know I get emails from my senators and I don't hate them? This town is full of art and the scenery is amazing and the parks are not full of rich sneering people - it's a lot like the Asheville I remember 20 or more years ago. Oh and people make a living wage. No more acting grateful for $12 an hour in a town that's about as expensive as NYC yet offers nothing to its citizenry.
posted by mygothlaundry at 9:23 AM on February 28, 2023 [6 favorites]

Seconding mygothlaundry, though I ended up in Portland rather than the actual coast. I do miss the fall colors in WNC, though...
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:28 AM on February 28, 2023

I am moving my 130-year-old Steinway piano out of storage

If you haven't already, you might want to call Steinway with details about your piano and the conditions of the storage in which it has been sitting and how long. These things can dry out and get grumpy if they aren't used and kept up, and it might need some tender care to keep from, say, cracking the soundboard during tuning, or something.
posted by hippybear at 10:22 AM on February 28, 2023 [4 favorites]

Speaking of quarters... a true story...

When I was 16, I got cast in a (theater) show that played a playwriting festival on the other side of the state. We stayed in a pretty average-ish hotel in downtown Louisville. Every time we passed the lobby, there was a little old man who would put a dollar into the coin changer and when the quarters fell down, he'd yell "JACKPOT!" and then occasionally, he'd either cash the quarters back in for more ones or toddle off to his room for a while. We had a good laugh every time we saw him do that. The staff thought he was hilarious, too.

Sunday night, as we were leaving, I put a dollar into the change machine to get money to call home and let them know I was on my way.

Ten quarters came out.

JACKPOT.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:24 AM on February 28, 2023 [10 favorites]

mygothlaundry, I met my congressman a few times here in NC-11.

Blech.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 12:27 PM on February 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

NBD just sitting here listening to the owls in my backyard. It's so light outside and they are being so loud!
posted by Lawn Beaver at 12:41 PM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

My mom was supposed to get a cataract removed today but ended up in the ER with 223/97 blood pressure. One of my brothers is there with her now and my spouse assures me this is just a thing that happens with 73 year-old people. But it's the heart that always kills the women in her family, so I'm going to worry anyway, as you do.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:19 PM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

DirtyOldTown, I’m sending good thoughts to you and yours. It is scary as hell when that happens.

Applications for new passports have been sent. In a twist, my expired passport was not considered acceptable identification, but the combination of my driver’s license + kiddo’s birth certificate was enough evidence to prove that kiddo was mine.

The clerk was on it. I explained that I intended to mail my renewal application that morning and tossed the expired one in the envelope and sealed it once she returned it to me. Somehow she managed to stamp and spirit it away without me noticing. Even with the slight delay over expired documentation we were done in 20 minutes.

She was completely booked for the entire day. I hope she was graced with well organized applicants.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 3:54 PM on February 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

I haven't had one dizzy spell since starting the medication to raise my BP. The other day, it was a respectable 101/65.

I have a virtual meeting in 15 minutes. I'm hoping none of the parents show up, but one or two always do. They belong to the kids that do their "homework" packets (it's preschool and they're doing some prep for kindergarden).

I know I need to sell the house I grew up in. It's me and my two cats since my dad passed. But every time I think about it, I start crying. And then I look at the price of apartments and wondering how I'm going to pay rent and keep my cats and pay for health insurance....
posted by kathrynm at 4:15 PM on February 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot failed to make the runoff for the next mayoral term, so mercifully, her time as mayor is drawing to a close.

I guess she really did shatter barriers, reminding us that even a Black lesbian Democrat be an anti-union, anti-teachers simp for the cops.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:20 AM on March 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

The closer we get to Oscar night and the more the other awards get handed out, the more it looks like I'm actually going to achieve my fantasy of seeing Everything Everywhere All At Once sweep everything with Brendan Fraser winning Best Actor.

I have also learned that seeing Ke Huy Quan doing anything can shake me out of a grumpy mood within less than a minute. The man is probably about 98% seratonin.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:09 AM on March 1, 2023 [5 favorites]

My mom is about 24 hours into a "prolonged hypertensive event." I.e., her BP has been very high for 24 hours and they're having trouble bringing it down. She's going in for an EKG now. I promise I won't be live blogging this or anything, but bad got worse, so if you've got any prayers or best wishes, or like, positive mind atoms or whatever, I am accepting those on her behalf.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:12 AM on March 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

Update on the power outage. There is a short in some very old wiring, insulation is flaking off the cables, and according to the electrician it is a fire hazard. So it looks like rewiring half the house, which is going to be expensive as hell and cause a huge amount of mess (because our walls are plaster on brick). What's going to complicate things is that, having just cleared and sold my parents' house, all three rooms are crammed with stuff we are trying to decide what to do with.

Oh, and the boiler needs replacing as well.

But on the plus side, once it's done we'll be up to date *and* have heating.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 9:19 AM on March 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

These are the kind of stories I think of when people ask me incredulously why I rent...
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:31 AM on March 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

DOT, you and your mom are in my thoughts today. Wishing her well and I hope you are holding up.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 9:51 AM on March 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

A friend of mine shared this news with the comment that "I had to read this headline about ten times to make sure I hadn't imagined it...."

Lizzo is on tour in Europe right now, and has been closing out her German gigs by singing a cover of Rammstein's "Du Hast".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:23 PM on March 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

Hm. That worked out.

I'll have a story to tell in a few weeks.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 12:50 PM on March 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

2 much weirdness around here lately, to wit...

1. Suddenly all my attempts to reach metafilter.com began timing out. Reaching some subsites, e.g., Ask, never timed out. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Rebooting, a resort I used a lot more often during the 90s, fixed the problem.
2. We (mrs. kingless & I) found out that our checking account suffered a fraud attack. We closed the account and opened a new one, which I think is kind of like rebooting.

I'm used to the internet's vagaries but the fraud has me looking over my shoulder.
posted by kingless at 5:26 PM on March 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

I had trouble reaching Metafilter.com too, for a half-hour-ish around 10am (US Pacific Time).
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:46 PM on March 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

My mom is home now but the doctors essentially just said, "Meh, she seems fine now." I'm not interested in watching small town doctors drop the ball on heart issues with a second parent. (That's how my dad died, basically.) I'm going to try to convince her to come up to Chicago and stay with us for a while and get some tests.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:54 AM on March 2, 2023 [7 favorites]

That's a very good plan, DOT. I'm glad your mom is okay, and very glad you're looking out for her.
posted by MrVisible at 1:06 PM on March 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm sad that I am somehow late to comment on the Biden's rigatoni dinner.
Because I am a fanatical foody, and yet at my favorite restaurant, I always eat the same food (though I have lunch and dinner variations), and I don't share. If something is good, why change it?
I think it is the most ridiculous outrage ever, even worse than the tan suit thing. And un-American. But the outrage is fun.
posted by mumimor at 11:45 AM on March 3, 2023

To not make this about politics, I'm just suggesting that we share favorite meals. My favorite for lunch is a salade Nicoise. It's not fancy because I'm European. My favorite dinners are moules frites and rabbit.
posted by mumimor at 11:49 AM on March 3, 2023

I am somehow late to comment on the Biden's rigatoni dinner.

....for those of you who are like me and aren't even aware what this is about: Someone found out that the Bidens both got the same order at a restaurant and are whinging about how lame they are or something. That's literally it.

To not make this about politics, I'm just suggesting that we share favorite meals. My favorite for lunch is a salade Nicoise. It's not fancy because I'm European. My favorite dinners are moules frites and rabbit.

These days, if I were to get lucky enough to have a date night again (someday, I live in hope), it'd probably be this recipe my Dad taught me involving swordfish steaks on a bed of spinach, roasted cherry tomato and butter beans.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:56 AM on March 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

My favorite meal out is either jerk chicken nachos or this amazing Argentinian preparation of skirt steak, with sides of melted herbed cheese and mashed potatoes.

My favorite home-cooked meal is pasta with tomato sauce and ground beef. It can be spaghetti, or it could be a short pasta baked with cheese. I am nothing if not completely basic.
posted by Night_owl at 12:10 PM on March 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

I like food
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:13 PM on March 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm shocked! I just went shopping as I often do, but I haven't really been out for the last month because I had a terrible flu. Mayo costs 6 dollars. So I thought OK, we don't have to buy organic Dutch mayo, we can do with Hellman's. Same price pr. KG. I don't really know how to handle this. One thing I know is that there will be no more waste in our house. We can't afford that.

Generally I buy what is in season or on sale, and we have a sane food budget. But some things we need regardless of prices, and mayo is one of them. I'm sad and mad.
posted by mumimor at 3:51 AM on March 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

mumimor, have you considered making your own? (note: I’m totally aware that this is not doable for all people all the time)
posted by Night_owl at 9:10 AM on March 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

Night_owl, I did think about it, but I worry about how long it will keep. We normally buy a jar every two weeks -- can homemade last two weeks? I'd be willing to use pasteurized eggs and a bit of citric acid if that helps.
posted by mumimor at 10:08 AM on March 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

It should last for two weeks in the fridge, but if you're still concerned about it you don't have to make a whole jar's worth - it's very easy to quickly whip up smaller batches that you can make it on demand. I was amazed at how fast and simple it was the first time I did it.

In fact, if you've got a stick/immersion blender, the "slowly drizzling in the oil" bit isn't even necessary. I have made mayo multiple times by dumping all the oil in at once and letting the stick blender blitz it into the creamy texture you expect.

You can even experiment with flavorings - such as herb mix or garlic or hot sauce or curry powder, or capers... One of my favorite tricks is to put just a couple of drops of liquid smoke in it before blending; it adds a subtle warm smokiness without being overpowering.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:20 AM on March 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

Yeah, last time I went to the market I had a similar "excuse me mayo is... how much?" and reacted by making my own. Which is magic of the best kind - quick, easy and delicious. Seriously, 100% worth the minimal effort.
posted by From Bklyn at 4:58 AM on March 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

OK so today I made a Caesar salad and made the sauce/dressing from scratch, using the stick blender method. And it failed! I was so angry and sad all at once. But after reading many comments on the link Night_owl provided, I let it rest for a while and restarted it in a smaller vessel, and it came together within two minutes as promised. Before your good advice, I would just have given the failed sauce to the dog. He is sad over this new turn of events.
Now the kids are scarfing Caesar salad and the other dishes* like they have never seen food (they had shakshuka and piadine for breakfast at midday, then some sort of huge seafood salad for lunch at six, followed by lemon cake). I've lost my appetite, it just took too long. But that appetite will be back, and I will be happy again.

*hortopita and greek salad
posted by mumimor at 11:53 AM on March 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

Can I make mayonnaise safely with US eggs?!?
posted by clew at 12:07 PM on March 5, 2023

Serious Eats is an American site and they recommend fresh eggs. but if you don't feel comfortable using raw eggs, pasteurized are a fine alternative. We had a stubborn salmonella outbreak once, and I used pasteurized eggs for a couple of years for mayo, hollandaise and bearnaise. At least here, you can get organic free range pasteurized, and I think they are cheaper than fresh.
posted by mumimor at 12:31 PM on March 5, 2023 [2 favorites]