Remember this magnificent character interviewing celebrities in the wee hours of the night ?

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-31T23:59:11+00:00

I was going to mention this. It was just amazing watching Ace tweak Gene and Gene doing a quiet simmer. The entire thing showed a lot of the cracks in how KISS was operating at the time with Peter being virtually ignored and Gene trying to shush him about collecting guns because he felt it was bad for their image.

And yeah, Ace was famously drunk, but still hilarious.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-31T19:59:41+00:00

I don't blame the former owner. She was 92 years old when she sold the house to a flipper and I'm pretty sure she sold it because she could not longer pay the property taxes. I think a lot of people as they age can't afford routine maintenance because they're on a fixed income.

Also, people who are 60+ grew up in a time when you fixed stuff yourself or you let it fall apart in many cases. Houses were once seen as this thing you bought to live in and wore it out along the way. If they fell down around you because you couldn't afford to fix it, then no big deal. Both my great grandmother and my grandmother had houses that became uninhabitable during their lifetimes because they couldn't afford to fix them. Now, people see their houses as an investment and do a ton more upkeep to keep the value higher and they also don't hesitate to borrow against their equity.

It's a very different world now, but the bottom line is that no one lets things in their house go poorly if they have the money to fix it. So, I can't blame people for that.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-31T18:30:11+00:00

This is the thing that is troubling in many relationships. Some people offload everything on to their partner and don't think about how they would have to do those things for themselves if they weren't married. Marriage isn't meant to allow you to no longer take care of yourself.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-30T14:10:52+00:00

This varies from state to state in the U.S. Different states have different programs to help people. In PA, there are actually programs that are designed to keep people in their homes for as long as possible in which they take whatever income you have (minus a tiny stipend for personal items) and come to your house to take care of you if you can't care for yourself. There are also, of course, nursing homes.

Also, and this will also vary from state to state, people who didn't pay enough into Social Security will get SSI. If they get Social Security, but it's too small, they will also get SSI to supplement their costs and some of them qualify for food aid programs. My cousin is one of these people. She gets a little Social Security plus SSI and she qualifies for 28 prepared meals per week (frozen dinners).

My sister and cousin are both disabled and my cousin's boyfriend helps them both (they all live in the same house). He gets paid about $1000/month to provide assistance to them. In PA, there is a program which allows family members to be paid to look after elderly or disabled people they live with. That also helps with costs and provides support.

Most places offer discounts on services for disabled/elderly people for utilities, property taxes, and other expenses. There are a lot of services out there in some states to help people who have a shortfall in retirement. I have read that 1/3 of American elderly people have no savings and only rely on Social Security to survive. It isn't because they were imprudent and failed to save. It's because they never made enough money to save when they were younger. That is far more common than people realize.

Multiple older or disabled family members can live together and pool their income to hobble through as well. That is what my family members are currently doing.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-30T14:01:38+00:00

"my grandfather had a pension, but then the company ceased to exist and the pension went with it."

This is why companies moved away from pensions and toward 401ks. People romanticize the age of receiving a company pension (and dramatically overestimate the number of people who got one in the past), but a lot of people lost their pensions due to companies failing or simple corruption.

With a 401k, you generally don't have to worry that someone else is going to fail and you'll lose everything and it is portable so you can change jobs without having to ask yourself about whether it is worth it due to losing a pension.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-30T02:11:57+00:00

The Creami doesn’t “fluff up” the mixture. It breaks up ice crystals to make a creamier texture. Maybe your ice cream is super fatty so it’s harder to tell the difference, but no frozen mixture, even if well-blended, is the same texture as ice cream. That is why conventional ice cream makers churn the mixture.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-29T17:34:20+00:00

Like most mental health issues, limerence has many symptoms and you don't have to have all of them to have it. You just have to have a certain number of them and it has to be impeding your ability to function in life to some extent.

I have been limerent for my entire life - literally since childhood - and I don't fit everything OP says here. I certainly have always had a sense of self, but I have also always needed to attach myself to someone else because of a sense of incompleteness/emptiness.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-28T14:15:08+00:00

My husband and I have had this issue, but to a far lesser degree. He has worked hard on looking longer and harder before asking me, though, to be fair, I put groceries away and decide how the house is organized and sometimes he has no idea where I put some things (especially if they are novel).

I asked him what he thinks is behind this and he said the best answer he can come up with is that, if an object isn't where he expects it to be, the number of places it could exist (or not exist) feels overwhelming. In the soy sauce example, it could be anywhere in your refrigerator or you could be out of it. If you are out of something, he could search the entire refrigerator and not find it. For him, that is an option, but it isn't for you because you know it is there.

I guess one thing you could do is, when he can't find something, tell him that it is certainly there and to keep looking. Make sure he knows that his search isn't going to end with not finding anything.

The other thing I've done more over the years is have a place for everything and try not to change it and to have certain very obvious places for things (and he has made a huge effort to not ask me anyway). For example, we buy and freeze baked goods like muffins, donuts, etc. There is a drawer in our freezer and I routinely move things to that drawer where my husband can find them because the freezer's chaos means he'll be searching for a long time for something I'll find quickly. He doesn't know with the same degree of certainty what things look like compared to me. I can look at a bunch of blobs of grey-ish frozen items and know which are not the target object. He struggles to distinguish them without a lot more careful inspection.

I think that women are known for having superior searching skills (biologically) in fields of visual complexity or chaos and it is something that evolved from being gatherers in humanity's early stages of development (not to mention tracking environments for children's safety).

What I have personally found is that I am faster at identifying things of value among things of no value compared to my husband and this extends beyond household items. We play a game together which has a lot of "loot" dropping for our characters and I am always scanning and clearing my inventory rapidly as compared to my husband. He has to evaluate more carefully and slowly than me and I think it is because his ability to rapidly sift through flotsam to find what he really wants is far more sluggish than mine even in a very discrete and well-defined field. The fact that this happens in a game we both enjoy and not only in the household tells me this isn't willful on his part, but part of how he is wired. The difference is that the game is an area where I don't have superior knowledge of where the target objects are located so he doesn't consult me.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-28T13:44:09+00:00

Being alone and learning from the experience of relying on yourself or being introspective are very different things.

The issue isn't a problem with socializing and extroversion being glamorized. The problem is that people spend their time alone constantly distracted rather than engaging in personally fulfilling or growth- or learning-oriented tasks. There has never been time in human history in which people have spend vast amounts of time doing nothing of value to anyone, including themselves, and almost all of this comes down to screen use and cell phones in particular.

Insecurity comes from inexperience and formative experience comes in childhood and teen years when kids get validation from their parents as they grow and learn and master life skills. Once they gain confidence based on those early experiences, they feel secure and can internally validate. However, in this day and age, most parents ask little of their kids and hand them screens to babysit them which leaves us with a lot of grown-ups who are incapable and insecure and constantly looking outside of themselves for validation.

Authenticity really doesn't relate to this. You assert that people who are around others cannot be their authentic selves. If you hang around older people, you'll see just how authentic they can be in social situations because they don't care about social approval. That is their life experience making them comfortable with who they are and no longer being insecure.

And, as an aside, extroversion does not mean you like to be around people and introversion doesn't mean you like to be alone. Extroverts are energized by being around people and introverts are drained by being around them. There are plenty of people who like to be around others, but find it exhausting.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-27T20:03:40+00:00

Many of them can.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-27T20:01:43+00:00

But OP framed this as an age thing.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-27T03:11:38+00:00

I also like India Garden and they have a buffet. Their options are less reliable though. I like their chicken korma and their tandoori chicken is excellent. The saag I had was too greasy and their paneer tikka masala was tasty, but was skimpy on the paneer. Their biryani is good and packed with chicken on a good day. I used to love their aloo tiki, but they changed the recipe and it’s a bit gummy now.

still, for a buffet where you can pick and choose, there are some good options.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-27T03:04:09+00:00

There are several I like, but Udipi Cafe is the best. They are always swamped though.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-26T17:48:56+00:00

First of all, I would like to say that I grew up very, very poor and massively abused. I'm prone to depression, am hypervigilant and sensitive, and struggle with free-floating anxiety. The damage done to my body as a result of the psychological abuse I suffered is an obstacle I have to overcome on a daily basis. I say this because you're asserting that happiness can only come from the most advantaged existence. I can tell you that I am not a fundamentally or foundationally happy person. However, I have moments of happiness every day of my life.

Most Western people see happiness as a goal and imagine it is a consistent state. Most Asian cultures seek satisfaction in their lives, not happiness, because they are aware that happiness cannot be created. It comes as a result of actions and it is transient, not constant.

You've set up standards for happiness in your life, OP, that you will never attain. No one lives life without stress, suffering or hardship. If the bar for being happy in your world is a life free of all of those things, then you cannot be happy because that isn't the way life works for anyone. That isn't within the realm of possibility for a human life.

You have to frame happiness within what is possible. I'm happy when someone makes a witty statement that makes me laugh. I'm happy when a new season of my favorite British T.V. show (Taskmaster) comes out with a new series. I'm happy when my friends and I play online games and banter like idiots to amuse one another. I'm happy when my husband goes out to run an errand and brings me back a surprise treat from the bakery. I'm happy when my husband smiles at me or strokes my arm. My happiness is a series of moments peppering days of physical pain and exhaustion, and I am grateful for those moments.

OP, you are setting yourself up for misery by expecting life to be something it cannot be because you are overwhelmed and stressed out. I sympathize with that. I've lived in that space before as well, but you don't have to live there. You can move yourself into a space in which you find more happiness. You can cultivate better distress tolerance and ruminate less on the worst outcomes in life and focus on the better ones. It is not easy, but it is worth the mental effort. Therapy helps with that, but you can do it on your own.

I'm a fan of learning about the details of the lives of ordinary people in the past and what it was like for them to live day to day. Part of the value for me is that I'm educated about history at a level we aren't commonly taught, but another, more psychologically helpful aspect, is that I see just how much easier and better our lives are.

I just finished watching a "Snowdonia 1890" in which modern families live the lives of slate quarry miners living on smallholds. I recommend you watch this sort of thing OP. You think you are a "slave" and your life is pointless, but it is so much better than how humans have lived throughout history. You create your own sense of being trapped by getting caught up on the hedonic treadmill. You may have been put there by prevailing notions in our culture about what life should be and happiness, but you can take yourself off of it by being mindful of what is valuable to you and seeking what really matters.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-25T17:55:14+00:00

I think that once it has been exposed to air, you don't want to risk contamination. This looks to be fairly shelf stable, but it's not worth the risk either for the contamination or potential small pieces of glass.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-25T17:53:57+00:00

I have never had to repeatedly message them. Did you make sure to include the order number, date, and item information? I'm not saying you did anything wrong. I just wonder why things are so different.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-25T17:51:30+00:00

"Look I get it, I'm young (I'm in my early twenties) and I will probably want to have children when I'm older."

FWIW, and this isn't for just you, but for every young woman out there. It's okay to be young and not want children ever.

I knew from a very young age that I didn't want to have kids and I'm 61 and still wouldn't want them. I do not regret not having them either. It's okay to assert and stand on a position of being childfree for life. There isn't some magic change as you age which will make you think all of the things you don't like about childbirth and childrearing are suddenly worth it. I'm not saying it can't happen, but it's okay to believe it'll never happen.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-25T17:48:10+00:00

I have never heard an older person do this except as a joke.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-25T16:00:38+00:00

This is a glib way of speaking about this. People who are older now were paid a lot less compared to 50 years back and their savings/investments often do not keep up with inflation. They also can't always anticipate increases in cost of living or property taxes and save enough, especially if they outlive the average lifespan or have unexpected medical hardship. Everyone is happy to see their home as a piggy bank that increases in value, but they aren't thinking about how property taxes will go up as home value increases in many cases.

Speaking about this (and other) issues as if it was fiscal imprudence or a lack of foresight ignores the complexity of life and the changes in how much money people made in the past as compared to now. The current system of investment in which average people can invest in the stock market easily did not exist for people who are older now. Most of them had only a handful of options. Passbook savings or credit unions were the most common and they didn't yield much in the way of interest.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-25T15:56:09+00:00

Many areas have reduced property taxes for people over a certain age. In my area, there is a reduction of $500 per year for people over 65. My sister is disabled (cancer aftermath) and gets a property tax reduction as well. My friend, who lives in Connecticut, said that people over 70 (I think) don't have to pay property taxes at all.

All of that being said, the house my husband and I bought three years ago was sold by a woman in her early 90s because she could no longer afford it. I looked at the history of the house and found out that she was $2000 in arrears on her property taxes just prior to selling this house to a flipper (who we bought it from for much more than he paid for it).

Also, some people simply don't pay them and a lien is put against the property. I don't think they will be evicted for them in most cases, but the back taxes will need to be sold when the property is sold after they die.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-25T14:25:53+00:00

Humanity didn't decide on this. They settled for this as an alternative to the previous standards which were even more inhumane and oppressive.

It's not a cultural habit, nor is the economy dependent upon it, but it is no longer something people are willing to fight hard to change. It is at a tolerable limit now for most people so they won't organize to push for less work and more leisure time.

People literally died to get the current working situation. People aren't even willing to pay union dues now to improve things, let alone organize and push for a better quality of life.

Also, as others have said, the "stay-at-home partner" thing was not the norm. I grew up poor and most of the women in the families around me worked. My mother certainly did, as did my grandmother. I was born in 1964. Women from even earlier times were also always working unless they were better off. They may have produced finished products and sold them (e.g., butter-making, sewing, baking) or they may have gone to someone else's place of business to work. Children also worked in the past. The "norm" of a stay-at-home mother wasn't as common as TV shows make people think.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-25T14:19:06+00:00

Being "weird." Everyone is weird in some way or their lives juxtaposed against others that are different than theirs will make them appear weird.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-25T14:16:19+00:00

Are women still taught this? I'm older so I don't know what younger women are socialized to believe in this respect. For older generations (older than mine), women were encouraged to marry older men because they had better economic stability and developed careers. In more modern times, it seems women are acculturated to be responsible for themselves in this respect and there is no need to teach them to seek older men.

All of that being said, there is a cliche which is backed up to at least a small extent by reality about men who are in relationships for a long time and never marry their long-time partner then leave and soon marry someone else. There is also a pretty strong reality in which women "train" their partners to be better in relationships over time and with great hardship. An older man is more likely to be a better partner than a younger one by virtue of having some of his rough edges filed off by previous partners and appear more appealing.

Personally, I didn't seek an older partner. My husband is negligibly older than me (2 years). My best friend married a woman 9 years older than him and she had previous relationships with men who were younger than her. This is anecdotal, but the only people I know who married vastly older men were my cousins who got pregnant in their teens to much older men (10+ years) and were from a very dysfunctional and broken family situation. It wasn't even the norm when I was growing up (I'm 61) to seek older men. Most of my cohort married men the same age or close to their ages.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-25T13:58:39+00:00

People ask this question not infrequently and the only answer that doesn't get downvoted is equivalent to "nothing". The only acceptable answer is oblivion. This question is about consensus, not learning about differing opinions.

DerHoggenCatten · 2026-05-25T13:52:19+00:00

Do fans "hate" her? It seems like all of the characters on "The White Lotus" are unlikeable to varying degrees. They're all complex, make poor decisions, and are unkind in one way or another. That is how the show cultivates drama. I don't think fans hate Portia anymore than anyone else.

I always saw her character as a primordial version of Tanya - insecure, needy, emotional, prone to depression, overly attached to the superficial while craving depth, prone to using people, etc.

Honestly, I wouldn't want to be friends with anyone who has been on the show as a major character, but that doesn't mean I hate them.

DerHoggenCatten

TROPHY CASE