My thoughts:

We have it at my work (just called paid parental leave) and the guys seem to really consider it a benefit, they take it. Like you. Nobody has ever said anything but Congratulations. This is in Florida. You ARE supporting your family. I got 0 weeks paid when I gave birth, I’m really happy this is starting to change. Parenting is valuable work.

Nah, I’d probably believe it, unless things inside the city were so bad I had some reason to doubt.

Yes of course. We have had to stop and go take care of life several times. Sounds of crashing glass, someone at front door, kid knocking at bedroom door (at least all are trained to knock “NEVER try to open my door, you do not want to accidentally open it at a bad time and traumatize yourself”)

Doechii didn’t win that Grammy out of nowhere, her new album is really good. My kids love Roman Holiday by Nikki Minaj, I am less convinced but they do love it.

If you can’t do anything about it, and pushing through isn’t going to make matters worse.

Or if you know it won’t last forever and you can manage it.

Sometimes the only way out is through - like with grief, or childbirth, you cannot get past it without just feeling it.

Oh, no, Timmy fell down the well again!

You don’t ever have to have a relationship if you don’t want to, it’s your life, live how you want. I do personally think there is a benefit to early life relationships, helps us learn to relate to others, people who stay alone for so long get too particular about their lives and can’t always transition to shared lives. But that’s not insurmountable even if it happens to you, and it might not, or you might decide you don’t ever want to couple-up. All that is up to you, enjoy!

Be glad I’m the good one, I guess? Or can we achieve balance and each end up with 50% good, 50% bad?

Monsoon Wedding

I had a shitty house and it is so stressful. Just do things as you can. #1 was metal roof so I didn’t have to think about the roof ever again. Get tented for dry wood termites after paying off the roof (they are everywhere here but very slow eaters). Get flooring one room at a time. Learn enough plumbing to replace fixtures, and get new piping throughout house after recovering.

My only real tip is get roommates, split these costs among more wage earners or if you know someone handy and homeless let them live with you for free and pay them a little for the work too.

Mmm, that’s not too hard to make. Orange-olive oil cake is so good.

I had an old Mustang and used to say I could cuss start it.

Oh I believe in precognitive dreams, because I used to write down my dreams and had some that happened later. And I don’t mean big things like deaths or pregnancies. I mean piddly details that meant nothing and can’t have been foreseen. Once dreamed that I was at the local bank, three people were in line, I got on the scale they had there to weigh myself but the dial went backwards then I turned around and saw this girl Joann that I’d not seen since middle school. Wrote all this in the dream journal.

Couple of weeks later went to the bank. 3 people in line. I got on the scale but it was broken and said I weighed 30lb. I got off the scale and turned around, and yep, Joann from middle school, turns out she’d moved away but had moved back to town.

That’s the one I remember and I would have just thought I had dejavu if I’d not written that dream down.

And honestly it pissed me off pretty bad. I want to believe in free will, that we can choose, that the future has not happened yet. The dreams kind of broke that.

Mind-body. That you can think yourself sick, or well. Not like magic, but a lot of the time. Like how people won’t get sick until vacation a lot of the time, they say “don’t have time to get sick” so then on the day off, the mind tells the body “ok now you have time!”. All of my kids were born on a day off or weekend, same thing in a way. And once I read a book where the protagonist’ hands were burned, very vividly described, and got blisters on my fingertips.

I just really believe a lot of physical illness, and health, comes from thinking.

We do? At least where I live I see mango trees all over, saw a longan the other day, there are loquats all over too, and until citrus canker there were orange trees in most backyards. At my old house we had loquat, tangelo, lemon, lime, carambola and bananas, and a papaya tree.

At this house we have lemon, lime, Valencia, and sugar bell citrus trees, a fig (all of these are dwarf trees) and a vegetable garden but all are in back. In front a small lawn, a few ornamental plants and sometimes I plant bulb fennel out there.

Everything that has to be individually worked like that is a drag. Each one rolled out and cooked by itself. And it’s never one, right? The only time we do that is for a party so it’s at least two dozen.

I love homemade croissants, and make them, mostly because with sourdough starter in there the flavor is incredible but while I am a reasonably neat- handed person, you are understating the difficulty of laminated dough. It wants to tear, the dough and butter have to each be at the perfect magical temperature, can’t overwork it, dough is delicate and butter is tough. It’s fussy as fuck.

My first one didn’t last, but my second try, made with regular all purpose flour from the grocery and tap water, has been going strong for over a decade now. I do ferment other stuff too. Wondering if he could seed it with starter from someone local, I’ve shared mine before and it helped people.

I just made that this week and think I may agree with you, or at least I’d not try on a workday again. I didn’t have the right peppers and used dried ancho, jarred roasted red pepper and a little fresh red pepper and it came out really good, sorta new world /old world delicious fusion but my God, toasting, grinding, processing, tasting, resting the paste. Started in the morning and let it rest while I was at work. Also started sourdough naan in the morning & of course made a vegetable dish to go with the meat - everything was good but I was exhausted by the end of the day!

Well if money is no object then a world tour that lasts the rest of my life, thanks (or if I can use this magic purse on behalf of others instead, stay home and buy up all the world’s debt, sponsor a jubilee year.)