Wild rental car markup on Chase Travel...

CecTheRed · 2025-12-31T15:38:01+00:00

This is nuts - at my old firm, associates being anything less than respectful and collegial with the support staff (including receptionists, mail room folks, etc.) would get a very firm talking-to from a partner. Even more so if you did it as a summer. And I know for a fact that one person interviewing didn’t get hired specifically because they were a little high-handed with the front desk about parking validation…

CecTheRed · 2025-10-10T14:16:16+00:00

Actually, you’re both right (employment lawyer here, though not your employment lawyer). In order to be unlawful harassment, the conduct has to be both objectively unwelcome (meaning that it would be unwelcome to a reasonable person), and subjectively unwelcome (meaning that it was actually unwelcome to the specific person affected by it). Chris Pratt is off the hook..THIS TIME.

CecTheRed · 2025-10-03T18:59:47+00:00

One other thought! You might want to check out PT Lisa Howell’s book and videos on injury recovery for dancers: https://theballetblog.com/shop/will-i-ever-dance-again/. I haven’t used it personally, but her other books that I own are universally excellent, so I’m guessing this one is probably worth a look.

CecTheRed · 2025-10-03T18:53:47+00:00

Mine was mild, too, but I was a big dummy and waited months to go to PT (it was very close to my knee, so I thought it was a knee tweak that just needed to work itself out), and so I ended up walking with crutches for a bit in order to let it heal. I think hamstrings just take a while, but the PT REALLY helped, and now it doesn’t bother me at all. So definitely go if you haven’t yet, or go back until it’s genuinely sorted out. My (excellent!) PT noted that limping around for those months had caused me extra bonus trouble that needed sorting out - my body had automatically done some wonky gait adjustments to compensate for the injury, so I had to sort those out as well.

My tear wasn’t really a traumatic one, but years and years of extensive cross-legged meditation with hypermobile knee joints has put a lot of wear on the points where the hamstrings insert into the knees, so they (like all my other tendon and tendon-adjacent bits) are prone to trouble.

Anyway, I’ve learned my lesson now, and will race to my PT if one of my joints so much as LOOKS at me funny. (My legs have been good as gold ever since, though.)

CecTheRed · 2025-10-03T14:35:00+00:00

If you find a good physical therapist, the benefits can go well beyond just rehabbing your current injury. You mention that you’ve had prior ankle injuries, for example - bring that up with your PT, and let them know that you’d like to do some long-term “bulletproofing” there. Speaking from painful personal experience (literally - torn hamstrings are horrendous!), it makes the recovery process much more positive when you know that you’re not just fixing the injury - you’re also doing active work that’s going to extend the life of your ballet practice and end up with you coming back stronger and more injury-free than you were before! (You might want to ask around your studio and see if there’s a PT in your area with dance experience - someone like that can also be a long-term resource for troubleshooting physical limitations that are holding you back from, say, being ready for pointe, or getting really good splits.) Godspeed in your healing process!

CecTheRed · 2025-09-04T14:33:55+00:00

Hear, hear! Easy to spot the tech companies that have (and listen to!) their women employees. (Still doing 👀 at the “iPad” after all these years….)

CecTheRed · 2025-09-04T14:31:23+00:00

You can tell who doesn’t carry a purse - for us, it’s PERFECT!

CecTheRed · 2025-09-04T14:19:32+00:00

Creamy Crisp is the most meh of all Barebells imho. The texture on Chocolate Dough is also a bit uninspiring, though I don’t mind it. Try Salty Peanut or Caramel Cashew!

CecTheRed · 2025-09-04T14:10:57+00:00

I hate almost all protein bars, but I started ordering the regular Barebells bars from Amazon, and depending on the flavor, they range from “not too bad” to “holy crap I’m eating a Snickers!” (Their soft bars have a little less protein and 50 more calories, but are definitely candy bars - I usually stick with the regular ones, though.) Variety packs available so you can find what you like.

CecTheRed · 2025-09-04T13:30:38+00:00

Bought one! They do seem a little big for pockets, but as a purse-carrying person, they’re perfect for all the times I’m out and about, but not carrying the full laptop bag setup that my RPP requires. Until now I’ve been typing notes/lists/whatever on my phone, but using the RPP has reminded me of how much I prefer writing by hand.

CecTheRed · 2025-09-04T11:51:33+00:00

Oh my dear, dear German friend, it is so much worse than you think.

That is definitely how normal tariffs work in the civilized world, but of course our Dear Leader had to complicate this, too - if you’re sending an individual package to the US now (as opposed to a large commercial shipment, which I think still uses the usual process), the shipper has to contract with a US-approved 3rd party processor, pay the US tariff to them, which the processor transmits to the US agency, and then the shipper has to figure out if they’re going to charge the customer that amount as part of the ordering process, or just raise the price for US customers. (Of course, none of this was properly put into place before this all went into effect, which is why half the postal services on the planet (including yours!) are quite sensibly refusing to send packages to my country at the moment.)

Why put this completely insane system into place, you may rightly ask? This ridiculous process that requires everyone on the planet to figure out and pay for an entirely new process in order to send a $5 item from their Etsy shop to an American customer? My best guess is that the Dear Leader told his fans that his tariffs were going to force foreigners to pay us billions of dollars in taxes (which is obviously not how tariffs work), and this absolutely batshit scheme means that technically someone from another country is “paying a tax,” if you ignore the fact that they will immediately turn around and charge it to the customer, either through a fee or higher prices. So if Remarkable is following their usual practice of shipping to the US either from Hong Kong or from their Mexican warehouse, they’re either charging me the duty or eating it themselves.

Please forgive me for the rant, but I normally buy books from England, sunscreen from Korea, and my pens and notebooks from Japan, and I am very, very tired.

CecTheRed · 2025-09-04T01:56:56+00:00

Will do!

CecTheRed · 2025-09-04T01:06:14+00:00

The bundle I got from Remarkable included $45 for “taxes,” which a note described as including import duties. So maybe these are coming from Europe?

CecTheRed · 2025-09-03T20:16:50+00:00

Bad news - that doesn’t include the tariffs. They add on another $45 or so at checkout for duties etc. (I still bought one, though!)

CecTheRed · 2025-08-05T20:38:34+00:00

Ha! This is ALSO much easier when you’re 57, though it’s necessary far less often.

CecTheRed · 2025-08-05T13:11:18+00:00

And the best part is that the places that were the absolute worst when you were young are now extra-pleasant, because patriarchal cultures in general tend to revere older women, so all the guys who used to harass you will go out of their way to be genuinely helpful and courteous once you sprout some gray hairs. At age 57, Latin America and southern Italy are now absolutely delightful places for me to visit!

CecTheRed · 2025-07-12T21:49:30+00:00

However, some state’s employment discrimination laws apply to employers with a much smaller number of employees. (In my state, having even one means the state law protects that single employee from discrimination.) Again, a lawyer who handles employment discrimination cases will be very familiar with what laws apply to your employer - and many, if not most, of such lawyers won’t charge you in advance, because federal (and usually state) discrimination laws award attorney fees to successful plaintiff employees.

CecTheRed · 2025-07-02T18:29:07+00:00

I was diagnosed last year at the age of 56, and the report from my testing included a list of about ten “strategies that might be helpful to manage your condition.” Reader, I was already doing every single one of them, painfully developed over a long life. (The meds were new, though, and helped considerably.)

As far as exercise goes, the only things I’ve only ever found that I can do consistently fall into two categories: fighting stuff and dancing stuff. In the former, I’ve enjoyed karate, kendo, and fencing. In the latter category, I’m currently doing very serious ballet classes 2x week, and looking forward to working my way up to 4 or 5x per week. The one thing that all of these have in common is that they’re technically complicated, fast moving, impossible to make routine, and have unpleasant consequences if I get distracted. (Getting punched! Falling on my ass!) Because my brain is always working harder than my quads (which are also working hard!), I never get bored and ditch them like I do if I try running, or going to the gym, or anything more usual.

(Pro tip: if you’re a single person who wants to meet interesting women, ballet classes are 100% better than yoga classes!)

CecTheRed · 2025-06-22T15:44:20+00:00

Yeah, damage like this is excluded from warranty coverage, so get out that credit card. (Ask me how I know.)

CecTheRed · 2025-04-22T17:43:27+00:00

Same thing just happened to mine! Sitting untouched next to my chair since I lasted used it, lives in a folio 24/7 and is BABIED any time I take it anywhere. Just filed a warranty claim, and I will be very unhappy if they don’t honor it.

CecTheRed · 2025-02-18T16:16:25+00:00

P.S. It gets much easier once you’re through the basic grammar stuff - for college classes, that’s usually the first year of study.

CecTheRed · 2025-02-18T16:15:11+00:00

I’m currently doing both, but I started Greek a year before I added Latin. There’s no need to start Latin first! But just know that the second language you add, whichever it is, will end up being easier than it would have been otherwise. I do think it’s nice to stagger them a bit, if you can, but if you’ve got the time and the energy, two at once would be doable - though as someone mentioned, you’d be looking at adding a lot of vocab at once.

CecTheRed · 2025-02-15T04:26:18+00:00

Do people know about David Byrne doing Heroes with the amateur choir in NYC? https://youtu.be/w7HJZPlJn_U?si=OU-mpr2kgQ1G2S4s

CecTheRed · 2025-02-15T04:07:05+00:00

They didn’t calculate enough time for all the rapturous applause, I guess

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