u/greytgreyatx

My partner plays D&D/role-playing games online with some friends on the West Coast. So every week or so he has a call that runs very late into the night (they're two hours behind us) and his office is right beside our bedroom. I have a sound machine, but I can hear him and it keeps me awake. So we're wondering if there is someplace that's open late at night where he might be able to set up his laptop and be able to enjoy a couple of hours without my having to "enjoy" it, too, since my day starts much earlier than his usually does. Thanks for any ideas!

I recently replaced my kitchen faucet and garbage disposal, and realized a week later that the disposal was leaking at the ring where it sits in the kitchen sink. I took it all apart and put it back together and seemed to have the leak taken care of, but today (3ish weeks later) I checked and it looked like a tiny bit of water was coming through still, because under the cabinets it was wet.

I broke down to get a plumber out, they came while my partner was home alone, and I just got the bill, which was over $700! There was a $95 visit fee, which I expected. The plumber found that the ring that went in the sink drain was bent and provided one, so I expected to pay for that. Maybe even another $100 for labor as he was out about an hour. But I cannot in any world understand the gall of charging $700 for what happened here.

We've used that company before and they've never charged that much! I have a call in to their service supervisor, but I'd love a reality check. Am I out of touch, or does a one-hour (edit: company says it was 2 hours; second edit: My partner said the first hour was trying to sell us on the premium plan) service call plus a part equal SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS??

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone for your input! I think we'll look more closely at Princess and then also watch any good sales (if those exist) for HAL.

_____

My kid REALLY wants to do an Alaska cruise, and we're looking, but we need some time to save up as it's more expensive than the Caribbean/Bahamas cruises we usually take from Texas.

There are three ships that sail to Alaska: Spirit, Legend, and Luminosa (which has longer itineraries and that might put it out of reach financially). Experienced folks, which of these ships is the best? I'm talking about the shipboard experience rather than the ports.

Thanks for your input! Can't wait to hear it.

Earlier this year, my mom was diagnosed with mild cognitive decline. Her dad had Alzheimer's and by the time he was my mom's age (81) he was running away at night and accusing my cousin's husband of trying to steal my grandma from him. My mom is just kind of scatterbrained compared to him.

She had my dad buy her this book for her birthday and she is SO excited. She's also fallen for diet culture BS my whole life, and I'm concerned because this book looks Blue Zone adjacent. I don't want to rain on her parade, but does anyone know of things I should be on the lookout for?

What are we doing to monitor the cat when the "one device" has to leave the house? I paired it with my phone at the vet's without realizing that makes me the de facto person for the next 10 days. I'm fortunate to be home a lot, but I homeschool my kid and we have activities for a couple of hours many days of the week.

My cat is getting used to insulin and has gotten down to 69 a couple of times, so we really need to be able to make sure he's not going hypo. But when I logged out and my adult kid (who is the one really heading this up) tried to log in as me on their phone, the app won't even let them do that.

It makes me wonder what parents do if they want to watch their kid's levels when the kid is at school or a friend's house...

My sister and I live in Austin and my parents are looking to build a small place nearer to us.

We're looking at Tilson Homes and their price is quite a bit lower than some other custom builders (we understand they're only semi-custom but they have a plan that would work with minor tweaking).

Another builder my sister knows personally said that they might not be including total costs for things like prepping on top of limestone (the build site is in Hill Country) or other factors. We do see that they have a "x feet to power and x feet to sewer line" included in their estimate.

So we're curious: Has anyone used Tilson and if so, how much did the finished price line up with the initial cost estimate? What was the timeline like? How responsive are they once you're in the process? Do they work well with entities like the county (which in this case would be Hays, even with an Austin address), HOA, etc?

Thanks for any input.

We've had Rudy for 15.5 years; adopted him from a shelter when he was about a year and a half old. My 24-year-old went through some rough times with him (my divorce, remarriage, and having another kid) and my 11-year-old has had him as a companion his whole life.

Rudy's been acting... well, now we know - diabetic for a bit and we just got bloodwork done that confirmed this. His glucose was fine a year ago, but his kidney function was off and it's fine now. All of his bloodwork besides the glucose was within range, but cholesterol and triglycerides were a touch high but nothing crazy.

Another thing about him is that he has had a single mast cell tumor on the back of his neck for years and within the past year has developed a second. It is my understanding that mast cell inflammation can spike blood sugar, something I did not know until this week, but we're not in a financial position to have them surgically removed... and I'm concerned we're not in a position to treat his diabetes, either.

Before we got the diagnosis, the vet recommended we stop feeding him kibble and only feed wet food. For several years (since another cat who has now passed developed urinary tract issues), we've fed our cats a small serving of wet food in the morning and at night, but kibble was always available to round it out if they got hungry otherwise. I've since removed that and bumped up the wet food so they get enough calories from that.

Our family is going to have a meeting over the weekend to discuss whether or not we can manage insulin with him. I am unable to commit to that, as I am the primary caregiver to everyone in our home and do not have the bandwidth to do it. My partner works random hours in retail so cannot, either. My adult child, who still lives with us, has said that they will manage Rudy's care.

I'd love some input from you about how likely insulin is to help a very old cat who has tumors that while aggravate his histamines and inflammation and might interfere with it; how you think a cat this old will fare (and hopefully thrive) with the early flurry of vet appointments, monitor insertions, and that sort of thing; and whether you think it might be worth it to give him a bit of time on a high-protein diet to see if that changes anything.

Other than the expected weight loss (weighed 12 pounds a year ago and 10 pounds now), thirst, hunger, and lethargy expected with diabetes, some of the other "there's a problem" signs like eliminating outside of the litter box, stopping eating, etc. are absent from him.

This is just a lot to process and I'd appreciate some input from experienced pet owners, especially if your cat was pretty old when diagnosed.

He's always been a sleepy boy.

I'm trying to get him to move around more because he's quite the old-man sedentary cat... but it feels like his prey drive is dead. He isn't swayed by the flirt stick, nor the laser pointer. We tried having 3 people in our family in different rooms and calling to him, but he'd just kind of lope along until he saw one of us.

Has anyone gotten their old farts up and happily moving? I burned more calories in the 10 minutes I worked with him than he did, by a long shot. I'm thinking of going outside with him to let him romp out there (but he'll try to eat grass, and he isn't supposed to eat anything but his wet food... I'll cross that bridge if we get to it). What else can I try?

We want to go swimming, but Rudy thinks the beach blanket is a pillow.

I have a friend who is sending her child to school for the first time next year. She will be in sixth grade and my friend thinks she has registered her daughter but cannot confirm it. She said that when she calls it goes straight to voicemail, and it says that someone will be available to answer her question on July 13. But before when she called, there was a voicemail saying that information will be available on July 6. Since it is getting pretty far into the summer, she's a little nervous and does not know how this works since she's homeschooled up until now. Can anyone help me track the information down or reassure her that this is normal?

I'm a homeschooling mom with a 24-year-old and an 11-year-old (K, the pertinent child here). K has a friend, R (10), and they've known each other for 6+ years. I'm now good friends with R's mom, and 4 years ago, we started an LGBT-friendly meetup group because we're in an area of the US where affirmation is not a given.

About a year after we started this group, another child, C (12), started coming to the group. C was in the group for about a year, then his family moved away. During the year C was gone, C, R, and K all started meeting up online and gaming together. They, as a triad, became much closer friends than they had been when C lived in our town. After a year, C started telling his parents that he was lonely and wanted to move back "home." Although his parents were happier where they were, they came back because they realized C deserved a childhood with friends and that just hadn't panned out where they were.

There's a big difference in the little kids who met versus the pre-teens they now are. The problem we're running into is because C's mom will not let him go into anyone's house that he's not related to. We've talked about it a bit and 1) the mom admits that she has very bad anxiety and only in the past 6 months has she allowed C out of her sight at all; 2) I think this "no inside of the house" rule has to do with something traumatic that happened to her when she was a young person.

My child, K, and my friend's child, R, spend a lot of time together, both at activities and also just at each other's homes. They often invite C, but when C comes, they have to stay outdoors (even though at this point C's mom allows him to stay in our yard unaccompanied).

Recently, K went over to R's house, and mentioned it to C. C wanted to go, too, and R (and mom) was fine with it, but C's mom felt he'd invited himself and said no. Later, she messaged me and asked me if K could just not mention to C when he and R were hanging out because while C knows he can't be a part of everything, he doesn't need to know about it. I get that, and that's fine, but...

K and R would invite C to EVERYTHING they do together, but for the fact that it has to be outdoors. Where we live, it is HOT and they swim at R's house, but at our house, it's just a back yard. I have a high-powered fan on the porch to help, but they're uncomfortable and want to be inside.

I feel bad for whatever happened to C's mom when she was younger, but I also worry that her anxiety and attempts to avoid the same thing happening to C are going to screw up his chances to make friends as he ages. Would it be inappropriate for me to ask her if there's a target age where she'll feel comfortable letting him gauge his own comfort and safety with going inside a friend's house? Or is that rude?

He has a phone, I'm happy to tell her I'd answer a video call on the first ring if she wanted to do random calls to check the house... I just don't know whether that's my place. We are friendly but not close, and I'm so worried about how this child is going to cope when he's an adult and has not been able to strengthen his social muscles.

Should I talk to her, or just let it play out?

EDIT: Thanks, everyone. I'll get in touch with a Realtor. I think the issue is that apartments are listing themselves as "houses" to get around the search function limits.

-----

My parents are trying to move from Temple to the Austin area to be closer to my sister and me, as they are aging and require more input from us as they're octogenarians and one is going blind while the other is in mild cognitive decline and needs to stop driving.

They've been looking at moving onto my sister's back lot in a custom ADU, but construction is so expensive right now that I'm helping my dad look for rentals in that area of town (Austin but Hays County near Nutty Brown is where my sister's family lives).

When I look on any site, I make sure that I specify "house" because my dad considers sharing walls a deal-breaker so even duplexes are out.

What I'm looking for is a single-story 1 or 2 BR with a minimum of 2 toilets (so it can be 1.25 bath; they're just both old and when they gotta go, they can't be waiting around for the other one to finish up), detached, no yard work, for around $2k per month. Do I just have to click on EVERY listing and hope it's not an apartment, or...??? What am I missing?

Growing up, in the days before the widespread ubiquity of the internet (1970s and 1980s), I was told by my maternal grandmother (born in 1923) that Meriwether Lewis was her great great great great uncle. Her maiden name had been Lewis, and she said she remembered her grandfather telling her stories about him. I always took this as the truth because my grandmother was not a liar.

I did not learn until I was an adult that it used to be a normal thing to pick someone notable with your same last name and claim them as family whether that was reality or not. And when I saw that Lewis's only brother (it would have to be a brother, since allegedly the Lewis name was passed down through the generations) did not have children... Well, it just doesn't seem likely that was the case.

So... it isn't like I'm trying to get back to the Scottish Highlands in 1400 or anything, but is there nowhere I can go just to prove to myself that this was only family legend and absolutely not true without traveling to genealogy libraries or paying online for a subscription? One of my mom's uncles had put together a lot of family history, but I cannot understand how it all fits together and he can no longer explain what it all means.

Thanks for any readily available resources. It feels like 4 generations shouldn't be too difficult to track down, but obviously I'm not having any luck.

My kid's friend and he have been meeting up every Sunday for about 5 years. We used to just go to McDonald's and the mom and I would chat while the kids played. But now they're nearly teenagers and have outgrown "playing" at McD's. We've taken them to the mall to let them walk around, and we've met at places like Lakeline for the splash pad.

Is there anywhere in Cedar Park/Leander where a couple of older kids could hang out and a couple of moms could visit while the kids were doing their own thing?? Specifically, I'm looking for something indoors for those many days that it's too hot to be outside if not in the water.