u/MyToesAreHaunted

I had to put my cat down yesterday.

We noticed a small limp and that he wasn’t eating his food, so we made him an appointment Wednesday. We took him in, the vet looks at his paw and then immediately they said they were scared it was cancer. It was so shocking because I went in expecting to get antibiotics and then leave. She said that his paw had “firm” swelling and most of the time if it’s an infection the swelling wouldn’t be so firm.

They said we would need to do a chest X-ray as well as look at his paw, so they scheduled it for yesterday and gave me pain medicine for him and antibiotics, probably out of pity for me, because I was begging them to tell me it could be anything else.

He responded well to the pain medication on Wednesday and Thursday, but the morning of his scan he stopped eating again, and I couldn’t even tempt him with treats to get him to take his medicine. He didn’t even fight me going into his carrier.

We took him for his X-rays, and the vet came in with a grave face saying that the findings were terrible.

My poor, sweet, perfect little man had only one half-functioning lung. He was silently drowning because his lungs were filling with fluid. They showed me the X-rays and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was told that even if they referred us to a specialist, even if we did every test and treatment, there was nothing that would extend his life and that he was suffering.

I went in Wednesday thinking my sweet boy hurt his paw and just needed antibiotics. Then I was told he probably had cancer, I had to spend two days in absolute denial waiting for his scan, and then went to that scan not realizing that I wouldn’t be leaving with my cat.

My Goku. My perfect, sweet little man.

He had just turned 10 in April. He has been with me through so much. So many moves, relationship changes, heartbreaks, successes. He was there for my marriage, my pregnancy, he was there when my dad died during my pregnancy, and he was there during my difficult postpartum. He was always there. Always happy. Always purring.

Even at the vet, while he was probably scared and in immense pain, he was purring so, so loudly. I love him so much. And I know he loved us and knew how much he mattered.

I truly always had a feeling he was going to live past 20 and die a happy old man. Instead, he was dying painfully and slowly, and he hid it so well that we didn’t even notice something was wrong until it was far too late.

I asked the vet, “How long has he been feeling like this?” and she told me something like this usually gets bad within a few months or weeks. She said cats are experts at hiding it and told me not to feel guilt. But Guilt is all I feel.

He was my best friend, my family, my responsibility, and I completely and utterly failed him.

I know the vet told me that cats are experts at hiding illness. I know that we noticed something was wrong, made an appointment, followed up, and did everything we could once we knew how serious it was. But that doesn’t make the guilt go away.

I keep thinking about the fact that he was hurting and I didn’t know. I keep wondering how long he had been feeling this way. I keep thinking about all the times I looked at him and had no idea that something so horrible was happening inside of him.

I wish I could have known. I wish I could have done more. I wish I could have saved him.

But by the time we knew, there was nothing left to save him from. The only thing we could do was make sure he didn’t suffer anymore.

I was hugging on him, petting him, and loving on him the whole appointment, as was my husband. I made sure to tell Goku that we all love him so much. I told him thank you, so, so much for choosing me all those years ago. I told him thank you for being the best companion. Thank you for your unconditional love throughout all the changing seasons of my life. And lastly, I apologized to him that there wasn’t more we could do and that I hoped he could forgive us.

The vet was even crying while he passed. I still can’t believe I have to say “when he passed.”

My 30th birthday is Wednesday, and I don’t even know how to grasp that I have to enter this new decade without my best friend of the last decade. Goku was supposed to be here.

I wasn’t supposed to lose him at 10. He wasn’t supposed to go in such a painful way. He didn’t deserve even a moment of suffering.

He was there for an entire decade of my life. He was there through so many versions of me, through things I never could have imagined when I first got him. He was there for all the moves, all the dating, all the heartbreaks, all the success. He was there for my marriage, my pregnancy, he was there when my dad died while I was pregnant. He was there for my incredibly difficult postpartum period. He was there every time when my life changed completely, and somehow he was always this one constant little piece of home. And now he’s just… gone.

I miss him so much. I love him so much. I just want him back.

I want to hear him purring. I want to see him sleeping somewhere he shouldn’t be. I want to pick him up and love on him. I want one more completely normal day with him, where I don’t know that something is wrong and I don’t know that it’s going to be the last.

I know he was loved. I know he knew he was loved. I know that when the time came, he was surrounded by the people who loved him and that we did the kindest thing we could do for him.

But I still feel like I should have been able to save him.
He was my best friend. He was my family. He was my little constant through an entire decade of my life.
And I don’t know how I’m supposed to enter this next decade without him.

I just know that I love him.

Thank you for choosing me, Goku. Thank you for being the best companion I could have ever asked for. Thank you for being there through every changing season of my life.

I hope you knew how deeply you were loved.

I love you forever, my sweet boy. ❤️

My husband and I are having a joint birthday party next month for our 30th birthday.

Our close friend generously offered his cocktail bar as a venue and said we are free to bring in food for the party if we want to because they don’t serve food there

We are going to be there about 3 hours before heading on to dance clubs or karaoke, and it is the summer in the south, so I am trying to think of some good appetizers to serve for a cocktail party.

I don’t really want to have to heat things up or have any heating elements on, so I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for anything I could get at Sam’s club for this type of event?

I personally have never been to Sam’s club, but my husband’s grandmother is a member and said she would go in and get whatever we needed. I just need to know what to write down lol

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

ETA: we are expecting like 25 guests

I’m looking for advice from anyone who returned to community college after taking a few years off, especially if you applied to a competitive allied health program.

I was a strong student before life took an unexpected turn. I had a 4.0 GPA, made the Dean’s List and President’s List multiple times, and was on track to transfer for a bachelor’s degree. But then, life happened. I got pregnant and then my dad passed away while I was a month away from having my baby. After having her, I tried going back to school almost immediately and ended up failing two classes. I haven’t been back since.

Now, a few years later, I found a Cardiac Sonography program at my community college that I’m really excited about. Looking at the requirements, I’ve already completed all of the prerequisites except Physics. My next steps are getting back into my student account, taking Physics, attending the required health programs information session, and preparing for the TEAS.

But I am a little nervous. I still haven’t regained my confidence from failing chemistry and trigonometry. It’s the first classes I ever failed in college and after such a long break, I feel even less prepared. I don’t want to retake those classes, and they aren’t required for this program. But I am still concerned the two failing grades will have an impact on my application. They only accept 20 people a year into the program, so my application needs to be super competitive.

For those who have returned to school after a break, how did you get back into a student mindset, how did you prepare for the TEAS after being out of school? Also, if you applied to a really competitive program, how did you navigate that?

I’m excited but definitely nervous. I’d love to hear from anyone who’s been in a similar situation.

I am looking for some insight from people who have made the jump from restaurant bartending to cocktail bars.

I am turning 30 in a few months and I have worked in restaurants since I was 17 and started bartending at 21. I’ve always bartended in a restaurant environment, so my shifts usually involve having bar seats, making drinks for the entire restaurant, doing batches, stocking, inventory, and taking a 5 table section on top of everything else.

These days I only bartend 2 shifts a week because I’m mainly a stay-at-home mom with a toddler. The extra money helps a lot, I have some great regulars, and honestly I still enjoy meeting and talking to all kinds of people. That said, I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with where I’m at.

A lot of the people working more shifts than me just aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing. I’ll come in after a few days off and nothing has been stocked or batched since I was last there. I went on vacation and came back over a week later to find batches with my initials still sitting in the cooler. I’ve brought concerns up in our group chat and pointed things out to management as politely as possible, but nothing changes. At this point I feel like everyone knows I’ll eventually do it, so they just don’t bother.

Also, working in a restaurant means a lot of my coworkers are very young. Most of the servers are 18-20, and many of the hosts are still in high school. I sometimes feel like I’m in such a different stage of life now that I don’t have much in common with a lot of my coworkers or much to talk about with them outside of work, and sometimes they come up to my bar and try to talk to me about stuff I truly do not need to or want to be talk about with people that much younger than me. I just sometimes feel like I don’t fit the culture there the same way I did when I was a bit younger.

On top of that, management keeps trying to push me into management. I’ve been very clear that I have zero interest in managing, but it keeps getting brought up.

Now for the reason I’m posting. A childhood friend of my husband’s owns several cocktail bars downtown and has been trying to recruit me for a while. He thinks I’d enjoy the environment more, make better money, and be around people closer to my age and experience level. He keeps encouraging me to come do a trial shift on a weeknight just to see if I like it, and says there’s no pressure if I decide it’s not for me.

I do have some concerns about the switch, though. I’d be getting home around 2 AM instead of 10 PM which might be hard because I would still be alone with my toddler all day. I also don’t want coworkers assuming I’m only there because I’m friends with the owner.

The actual change in environment does scare me a little too because I have been in an actual restaurant for so so long I don’t really know anything different. I’m sure the pace is completely different than what I’m used to.
While I wouldn’t be serving tables anymore, I imagine the volume of cocktails in a busy downtown bar is way higher than what I deal with now.

For anyone who’s worked in a busy city cocktail bar, or made the transition from restaurant bartending to cocktail bartending, what was the adjustment like? Was it worth it?

(I hope this flair works for this topic. I truly trued to pick the most appropriate one)

I live in North Carolina, and I’m honestly exhausted by people telling women not to be concerned about what’s happening.

There is currently a bill being discussed that would classify abortion as homicide. Every time women express fear about proposals like this, we’re told we’re overreacting, being dramatic, or comparing things to dystopian fiction. But at what point are we allowed to be alarmed?

What exactly is the appropriate reaction when lawmakers are discussing whether women who make reproductive decisions should be treated as killers under the law? What are we supposed to think when bills are introduced that have wording that would allow someone to use deadly force against us for preventing implantation?

What is especially disturbing to me is that many of the people supporting these ideas don’t stop at abortion. They argue that life begins at fertilization, not implantation. If fertilization is the standard, then the conversation inevitably expands beyond abortion and into emergency contraception, certain forms of birth control, fertility treatments, miscarriages, and countless private medical decisions.

As a woman, how am I supposed to hear that and not feel threatened? I am almost 30 years old. More than a decade ago, I had an abortion. I have spent years assuming that my reproductive choices were my own and that the government had no business reaching into my medical history. Now I find myself wondering where the line is. If proposals keep getting more extreme, what happens next? What is to say they wouldn’t start punishing women retroactively? What happens to anyone who had an abortion when they were legally available then? What rights are women expected to surrender before we’re finally allowed to say enough?

And what I cannot wrap my head around is the contradiction. I keep hearing that this is all about being “pro-life.” To protect life. Yet I see people supporting policies that would criminalize women, investigate women, prosecute women, imprison women, and potentially expose women to deadly consequences under legal frameworks that allow anyone to use deadly force on women who take control of their reproductive health.

How is that pro-life? How can concern for life be centered on an embryo while showing so little concern for the living, breathing woman carrying it?

Maybe this bill won’t pass. I hope it doesn’t. But the fact that it is being discussed at all should concern everyone. History is full of examples of rights disappearing gradually while people insist that nobody has anything to worry about. The most frightening changes are often the ones that begin as ideas people dismiss as impossible.

I don’t feel like I’m watching a debate about policy anymore. I feel like I’m watching people test how far they can push the boundaries of women’s rights before the public finally objects. We see protests, we see online outrage but as a whole we really are not doing much to stop this terrifying progression. Maybe that’s uncomfortable to hear, but as a woman living in this state, I find it a lot more uncomfortable to watch lawmakers debate whether women deserve autonomy over their own bodies or whether they should be killed for refusing to carry a child to term. I am tired of being told I’m the one overreacting for being scared.

In the finale, I was really intrigued by the women who took Becka away to that holding facility. this a completely new role for women in Gilead that we just haven’t seen before. It’s confirmed that Gilead has female run prisons and that was a bit surprising to me.

We have seen handmaids get taken by male eyes in THT, so I wonder if this female division is only for higher ranking women (plums/greens/wives) or if it’s a brand new concept that started after THT ended and all women are handled by them now.

That entire place seemed to be run by women. The guards looked like women, the workers looked like women, and of course the prisoners were women too. It felt very separate from the usual male controlled systems we normally see in Gilead.

I’m also curious about how these women are chosen for these roles. Are they trained for it the same way Aunts are? Could some women who are being considered for Aunt training end up in this division instead? Or is this a separate branch entirely?

The whole scene felt really important and different from anything we’ve seen before, so I really hope season 2 expands on it because I want to know a lot more about how it works.

Taking my 2.5 year old toddler to the beach for the first time and I’m trying to make sure I’m actually prepared 😂

We’re staying 3 nights and so far I packed:

•	2 pairs of water shoes  
•	2 UV protection swimsuits  
•	2 pairs of sunglasses  
•	2 sun hats  
•	Misting fan  
•	Swim diapers  
•	Kids sunscreen  
•	Bug spray  
•	Collapsible sand buckets/toys  
•	Toddler beach tent that can hold water  
•	Big beach mat  
•	Beach wagon  
•	Umbrellas  
•	First aid kit  
•	Favorite cups/plates  
•	3 favorite toys  
•	A couple stuffed animals

(And of course normal clothes, socks, shoes, diapers, wipes, lotion, cream, towels, etc.)
Am I forgetting anything important? I’ve never done a beach trip with a toddler before so I feel like I’m probably overlooking something obvious.

Also what is a realistic beach day actually like with a toddler?

I told my husband I seriously doubt we’re going to be able to do the old “sit on the beach for 8+ hours” thing like we did before kids. My thought was waking up early, going down for a few hours in the morning, then heading back up to the room around noon before the UV index gets brutal and before everyone gets overtired or she overheats. I said we should spend the afternoons doing something like indoor mini golf, an aquarium, or other indoor activities.

He seems to think we’ll be able to stay out much longer than that, so now I’m curious what everyone else’s experience has been. Are most toddler beach days more of a short morning outing and maybe another evening walk later?

After this latest episode of The Testaments I’m honestly a bit concerned about Daisy.

Obviously we are all worried about Becka right now because she did murder her father in Gilead, even if he absolutely deserved it and they were planning to salvage him anyway. Gilead is not just going to let that go unchecked. She is a woman who killed a man and took away their opportunity to publicly make an example of him. That matters to them.

I also found it really interesting that the people who took Becka away looked like female silhouettes. I’m very curious who they are and what that means.

But while Becka’s danger is obvious, I feel like the episode was also quietly showing that Daisy could be in serious trouble too.

Look at everything that happened

She ripped off her clothes in Dr. Grove’s office and ran out screaming that he touched her. I do think the only reason he didn’t touch her is because he realized she wasn’t naive like the other girls. The girls we see raised in Gilead like Agnes and Hilda are confused, ashamed, and more likely to stay quiet. Daisy was raised outside Gilead and actually understands what’s happening. She straight up told the aunts he made her touch his Penis. The other girls wouldn’t even have the proper terminology to flat out say what happened. We saw Hilda saw “pressed her hand against him” but that isn’t as shocking to hear as “he made me touch his penis” so it cannot be spun in a different direction.

But then we immediately see Aunt Lydia dismiss everyone else to talk alone with Daisy. She does say the details didn’t add up. Lydia clearly knew Daisy wasn’t being fully truthful. She may keep quiet about it, but what happens if someone else starts thinking about it more critically and questioning it? Someone like Vidala or Weston would not be nearly as forgiving.

Then Daisy tells Garth she lied but “had to” because he was assaulting other girls. Girl. Spy code 101. Why are you admitting this to anyone? I don’t care that he’s your handler. Some information doesn’t get shared with anyone at all.

Then Agnes starts questioning Daisy’s actual intentions for being there. She basically asks if Daisy truly wanted safety and a future there, why would she risk all of it like that? And honestly Daisy stumbled through that explanation badly.

And now with Becka doing what she did, I could absolutely see people quietly blaming Daisy emotionally, even if not officially. Daisy arrived and suddenly all of this crazy stuff started happening to them all. At minimum this is probably going to isolate her more from the other girls.

And honestly even without all of this happening, Daisy is still now considered a fertile girl in Gilead. That alone puts her in danger.

They could still force her into marriage even after the accusations against Dr. Grove.

Why did they randomly mention Maddox? Was that setup? Does she get paired with him? Does Becka’s engagement dissolve and they pair Daisy with Garth instead? Does Penny die and Daisy ends up married to Judd somehow? Or does Lydia decide that the safest way to protect her is training her as an Aunt? We can assume Lydia knows Daisy is mayday and wants to keep her around.

There are just too many possible directions this could go now and honestly not many of them seem good for Daisy. I am honestly so terrified for all of them and I cannot wait for next week. What a fantastic episode.