u/winooskiwinter

I know I am preaching to the choir here, but oh my god, here’s what’s annoyed me off so far:

— why can’t I just get one single order that doesn’t require a product substitution?!

—estimating that a trip to Lowe’s for three items should take five minutes is INSANE.

— the app not letting me choose which store to start at when shopping two orders in the same area.

—customers who aren’t available to chat while I’m shopping. How am I supposed to guess which of the 25 flavors of hummus you’d prefer if I need to make a substitution?

—holy shit there are a lot of places in a grocery store where they might put precessed meats. Is the cubed ham in with the cold cuts, the salami, the bacon, the pork, the hotdogs, or the deli items?

—why are people shopping from the most expensive grocery stores so stingy with tips??? Just saw a 76-item order from the organic food coop with a 20 mile rt drive offering a two dollar tip.

— people who ask for perfectly ripe avocados in. Vermont in October. What am I, some kind of miracle worker?

—people who add a ton of items while you're shopping

I have been working on crossing off all the trails on Mt. Mansfield, and it has been difficult to find good information about whether the less popular trails are safe and doable for dogs. I am 90% of the way through the trails and thought it might be helpful to post my unofficial guide on Reddit so that people who search for this information can find it more easily!

My assessments are based on the idea that your dog is experienced on Vermont trails (or trails like them) and is in good shape, relatively intrepid, etc. My dog is a 45 lb mutt with hundreds of miles of VT trail experience, so obviously my judgments are somewhat biased toward similar dogs. Just because I have listed a trail as ok for dogs does not mean that it isn't strenuous! It simply means that, in my opinion, it does not pose significant safety risks or logistical issues for hikers with dogs. It also assumes good trail conditions (by Vermont standards, of course), so this list is not a guide for winter hiking or very rainy conditions. And you know your dog best, so please don't take this list as gospel! I am just a random Reddit stranger, after all.

Should I take the dog?

Yes

• Butler Lodge Trail
• Cantilever Rock Trail
• Amherst Trail
• Forehead Bypass
• Frost Trail
• Halfway House Trail
• Haselton Trail
• Lake Mansfield Trail
• Laura Cowles Trail
• Nebraska Notch Trail
• Sunset Ridge Trail
• South Link
• Wallace Cutoff
• Long Trail from Taylor Lodge to Forehead
• Long Trail from top of Forehead to Mansfield summit
• Long trail from Taft Lodge to Barnes Camp

Maybe

• Maple Ridge Trail (fine from CCC road to Rock Garden; no from Rock Garden to Wampahoofus because of a significant jump over a gap and a weird cliff thing that is hard even for a human; fine from Wampahoofus to Long Trail)
• Rock Garden Trail (a few boosts needed, but my dog has done it twice and it was manageable; a harness with a handle would come in handy)

No: All of these trails have ladders, significant scrambles that would require a lot of lifting, precarious drop-offs, and/or otherwise legitimately dangerous scenarios for dogs. Honestly, many of these trails feel pretty dangerous for full-grown humans to do, let alone our canine companions.

• Canyon Trail (all of them)
• Clara Bow Trail
• Cliff Trail
• Hellbrook Trail
• Hellbrook Cutoff
• Lakeview trail
• Profanity Trail
• Subway Trail
• Wampahoofus
• Long Trail over the forehead
• Long Trail down from the chin (or coming up to the chin going south)

Please chime in if you have hiked these trails with your dog and disagree/have more context to add! I would love for this to be a useful document and will edit as necessary.

Today was my last day with a family of two years because youngest NK is starting school. I sort of expected something small from the kids — a drawing or a card, maybe — but I think the build-up to school tomorrow has made everything pretty hectic and so the kids didn’t really acknowledge it. I’m going to the older NK’s birthday party this weekend so I just left telling them I’d see them there.

I think I’m mostly just sad about it being the end. A few months ago I told NK 5 that I was sad that I wasn’t going to see her anymore next year because she’ll be in kindergarten, and she said “that’s ok, I’ll still have my family.” Which is totally developmentally appropriate and I love how secure she feels with her family, but it hurt my heart a little. I made the kids t-shirts this summer with the name of our “camp“ and a drawing NK did of us together, and I wore my shirt today and I said they should to to celebrate our last day they were both like… nah, we’re wearing our new school clothes.

Kids will be kids! I guess I just wish the parents had nudged them to say/do something small. They have mentioned us having dinner in a few weeks when things quiet down. Ugh, just sad.

I’m going on four weeks with a cold (sore throat, cough, congestion, fatigue, exercise intolerance) and have heard rumors that a relatively low-grade but endless bug is going around. This is the longest cold of my life and urgent care says there’s nothing they can do.

Please tell me that you’ve had this and gotten over it, because I’m so tired of being sick.

anyone else find that their dog doesn’t bark at the new EV versions of the USPS mail trucks? She used to lose her mind when the old ones drove by, and she still barks like a maniac when she sees or hears the UPS truck. Maybe the sound of the brakes is part of what she hates about them? or maybe I just have a very environmentally-minded dog.

kid 1 (7): how do dogs have babies?
Me: they grow in their mommy’s tummies, just like human babies.
K1: but how to they get out?
Me: umm, the same way they get out of people?
K1: so a doctor helps them?
Me: (silently cursing their parents for having had the convenient c-section workaround to this question and not giving the whole story) well… the puppies come out of the dog’s vagina.
Girls: yuck! Really?
Me: Yup, that’s how it works for a lot of animals. 
K2 (5) (after a thoughtful pause): I’m pretending I’m being born out of a dog’s vagina.
I swear I almost choked trying not to laugh.

There has been discussion here about how few -- if any -- books there are for kids that even mention the existence of nannies. I have been coming back to the question a lot recently, about what I think a good picture book about nannies would include.

I kind of have a vision of a book for younger kids (1-3 maybe) that's just about different kids doing different things with their (diverse) nannies, and normalizes our existence in a kid's life. Something along the lines of, "Olivia's nanny Tanya is a hopscotch master; Jaden and Joel's nanny Michael does the best spooky voices when he reads ghost stories," etc.

For older kids, I can imagine a book that is less explicitly about nannies and just has a main character who is a nanny. Like, there's a mystery and the kid and their nanny solve it together.

Curious about what other people would want to see in a book about nannies, and if you have your own ideas for stories!

I have a friend staying with my this summer while she goes through an egg retrieval. She’s 38.5 and I’m 40, and I warned her that the process can be tough and disappointing at this age. I did a round of IVF in January, had 11 eggs which turned into 3 (untested) embryos, first transfer failed. I’ve been talking to my therapist about whether this experience will be triggering for me, and I didn’t think it would be — I like the idea of being there for my friend and supporting her through what was a very tough process for me. Anyway, she had her baseline today and had 30 follicles. I suddenly felt overwhelmed with jealousy. I had prepared to support her through a process that was like mine, not one which is way more successful than mine. I feel like shit that I felt jealous rather than happy for her. I know that follicles don’t mean anything about final result, but it just really triggered my sense of inadequacy and failure in this process.

anyone else being fed the annoying AI ada on YouTube about a family that moves from LA to Burlington and loves everything about it but the cost of car insurance? Makes me roll my eyes every time when he talks about how cheap Vermont is.

I have a therapist who i have seen twice who bites her nails in session. it’s on zoom, if that’s relevant. I wouldn’t have predicted that it would gross me out, but it really does.

should I just get over it? should I say something to her? should I say something to the agency she works for (gently) so they can talk to her? I don’t want to be a jerk, but it kind of makes me not want to work with her.

and she’s exactly as far along as I would be if my FET hadn’t ended in a chemical.

I wish I could feel happy for her. And I also wish my family members who know about my fertility journey would show any awareness that this could be hard for me.