It’s heating that allowed people to live in places where the winter will kill you, long before air conditioning was a thing, and I did live here in West Central Florida with no central air until I was almost 25.

At least the summer won’t kill most people, as long as you have shade and hydration. The winter up north will kill people without climate control in buildings.

I would upvote this as an unpopular opinion, even though here people do mostly prefer winter (since it’s not dangerously cold), because it completely disregards the fact that heating buildings in the winter is also energy intensive and polluting. Here in hot climate in the winter we just open the windows for part of the day, or use the heat pump to raise the temp inside a few degrees, instead of using it to lower the temp. That is not so energy intensive.

That’s Hillsborough County not Tampa the city, that goes Republican. We are pretty progressive inside the city but the sprawling county has enough people to drown us out.

I do schedule my wellness visits when leaving my wellness visits so yes, a year in advance. Just in case, and so that I will do it. But can get in for urgent care if needed, same or next day. And stuff like prescriptions they can often do online without an appointment if it’s an ongoing one. About a month wait for non urgent specialist care, sometimes two-three (that is often because I refuse to travel to outlying areas though, so wait for a local appointment)

And I do NOT live in any sort of medical desert. Lots of doctors offices here, probably more than most similar size cities. Several hospitals, a medical college, so many doctors.

It’s not worse than I remember it being in the 90s, I remember 6 months wait for dermatologist, months for pediatric orthopedic (there is an orthopedic urgent care though, which has saved us from going to emergency at least ten times) . I remember thinking back then that people who said “but in Canada they have to wait for care” were idiots, we wait here too!

Honestly one of the things I’m grateful for, is having had both rich family and very poor family. The thing about actually rich people is they don’t care, in my experience they are pretty gracious as long as you are relaxed. Dress to the absolute minimum of what is required (I’ve gotten away with $20 dresses and good shoes and nobody batted an eye.)

If you can keep the clothes, get stuff you like, negotiate for a spa day, get your hair done, keep the style very, very simple and outshine them all! You can do it!

Or you could decline the invite, if you aren’t interested in a fancy dress ball.

I don’t like the smell of any smoke but unsmoked cigarettes smell really good.

Slide the seat back some, dude!

Ok, if this is not a BDSM arrangement, tell him to fuck off. Respect is earned, not taken. I did make my kids say Ma’am and Sir to waiters and cashiers and teachers. Not me, we are family.

If you need an adoptive online family, I’ve so many kids, what’s one more?

If it is a BDSM arrangement, wow that is hot.

Is your dad the speaker of the house Mike Johnson?

I don’t. The flat iron skillet (comal) is nonstick enough at this point that even my kids never complain about making eggs on it, they release well. Tomato sauce does fine in stainless steel. Though I also haven’t made guests cook for themselves yet. Had one nonstick pan in the early 1990s and that was enough to sour me on them.

That is behavior of a child, not a man. An adult can take care of themselves.

I do agree with the comment further up though - if he’s housing and providing financially for you while you are in school, consider it a part time job you are doing for the money. Keep asking him for grocery money and put some away in the bank for you.

What a benevolent view of rich people. Not sure I share it. Some subset of them probably fit this mold but plenty got rich wrecking the environment, deferring and externalizing costs that ought to have been borne by the business. Not leaving a better world for others to enjoy. So they extracted wealth from society and instead of that $ going towards mitigation of those damages they pass it to their kids and leave the cleanup for the rest of us.

I still don’t get it. So, he benefits from society, then the ethical thing to do is to set up his own family not the society he benefits from?

To a wife of that time, I understand - that is someone who did unpaid labor for decades so that he could have a career. So that money, yes she helped earn it.

I dunno, something about the whole system offends me. Taking more than you need, then directing the excess to your own kids. If literally every family could do it, sure. But how it works now just attenuates inequality.

I wholeheartedly agree with that - what we need is not a system of generational wealth being passed down particular families, but an economic system that spreads it out better.

Yeah but how did they get it, and who will get it when they die? It’s like a feedback loop.

My mom just wanted to make enough to spend it over her lifetime, and that seems fair to me. She got nothing from her parents and had to support her own mom in her old age, and didn’t want to cost us anything.

I would argue that inheritance is a huge driver of inequality. I have gotten small amounts from the estate of my dad’s parents (my dad died when I was 16) and a childless relative and even those amounts jumped us ahead some, I can imagine what some huge amount unearned would do - but it’s just that. Unearned.

I found corn broth really improves the vegan dough. You can use cobs to make it, and save the corn for something else. Corn cobs & an onion.

Me too! So flavorful. I don’t do bone broth exactly, can’t get them that clean. But there are some in my freezer right now waiting.

My kids have asked for tamales every year since I made them for Christmas about ten years ago, but I am not yet rested up from that batch. Even though we had a tamalada and they helped wrap them, the days ahead making tamale dough (two versions because we have vegans) and fillings (several versions because, again, vegans) it was exhausting. I think it will be either gumbo or oxtail soup this year, and a big pot of beans.

Whew, that’s good news. My MIL always just buys a bucket of Manteca but I don’t like to do that either.

Not an answer for you right now, but I just make lard whenever we get a big hunk of pork, I get the one with a bone and skin cut the skin & fat off and render it and it’s quite a project but makes enough for my purposes though the year, I don’t use it often. I wouldn’t expect a shop to do that for me for any amount I’d be willing to pay!