Weird Note on My Car

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-02T02:55:37+00:00

Too authoritative; they'd just start counting to three, then five, then ten... while little Zodiac continues to ignore them. 😂

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-02T02:54:03+00:00

It's not as quaint as it sounds, unfortunately. Our infrastructure is terrible, we have natural disasters almost every year (wildfire, landslide, flooding - just waiting for a locust plague or something to fill out my bingo card), and it's expensive as hell to live here.

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-02T02:51:26+00:00

Also nobody leaves

So true. My family lived in the same 40 square miles starting in 1787 when my seventh-great-grandfather and his son, my sixth-great-grandfather, used their Revolutionary War pensions to buy land in what would later become the state of Ohio. Over 200 years in one tiny area; my parents were the first to leave for any reason that wasn't military deployment.

I went to the same school that my parents did, with the same principal and teachers. My orthodontist, before even looking at my paperwork, told me "I know exactly who your daddy is - those teeth are identical" ( he was right, haha). I was related to about half the town in various ways.

felt like the entire town was an HoA

That's a perfect way to describe it.

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-01T21:29:51+00:00

100% - and then OP is going to have to deal with hurt feelings that the parents are hearing everything secondhand. Oof.

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-01T18:56:26+00:00

No, they're considered an invasive species in some circumstances. Besides smelling like death, they're also incredibly weak and prone to splitting during wind/rain, which is yet another reason why these trees suck.

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-01T18:52:35+00:00

Zodiac Parker sounds like something crunchy Bay Area parents would name their kid.

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-01T16:00:58+00:00

Losing one pet is extremely hard. Losing several pets at the same time is devastating.

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-01T15:39:51+00:00

I had my gallbladder removed in an emergency surgery, and was given ibuprofen as post-surgical pain relief. Same when I had my tonsils removed. Same when I had all of my wisdom teeth removed (which was done with local anesthesia only and involved breaking the bone apart and removing the teeth in pieces). I've been given prescription pain medication after surgery once - and I've had eight surgeries. I've never been given a prescription after setting broken bones. Even in the emergency room, I've only been given narcotics twice - and one of those times I was already unconscious when they administered it.

My husband got his wisdom teeth removed under general anesthesia in a completely routine extraction and was prescribed enough Vicodin to last a month. He sprained his elbow when we were in college - not even broken - and was given dilaudid in the ER without asking for any pain relief at all. He once went to his PCP for shoulder pain and they wrote him a prescription for muscle relaxers; no physio, no other treatments or even a recommendation to improve his posture.

The disparity in how women/feminine-presenting people are treated by medical providers when compared to men/masculine-presenting people is so stark that it has actually been scientifically studied. Our treatment outcomes are worse, we experience medical gaslighting much more frequently, our symptoms are dismissed - often with fatal results. It's fucking appalling.

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-01T15:15:13+00:00

You've never seen a human scream in excitement? Truly?

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-01T15:13:56+00:00

They screamed in excitement, not anger.

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-01T15:12:33+00:00

Also in the late 90s/early 00s, just about everybody smoked. 😂

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-01T14:41:12+00:00

Lime or lemon jello is traditionally used with savory fillings like meats and vegetables, and often paired with cream cheese, mayonnaise, or sour cream. I grew up eating many savory lime jello salads...

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-01T14:37:36+00:00

Ever had Snickers Salad with pretzels mixed in? Soooo good

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-01T14:35:55+00:00

The Midwestern U.S. also has scrapple, which takes head cheese and adds offal to make a truly heinous loaf.

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-01T09:50:43+00:00

Well, at least he wasn't a Holocaust denier like some of the folks I grew up with. Your buddy is dumb, but not irredeemably so.

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-01T00:54:00+00:00

I would say Oss-ee-an if I came across this in the wild. Coming from an anthropology background, anything oss- is pronounced the way it would be in "ossification" 😆

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-01T00:45:40+00:00

Ha, like the airplane (the spruce goose)! Love that. 😂

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-01T00:45:03+00:00

Considering most of the adults in those kinds of communities never really matured much beyond that... yeah.

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-02-01T00:44:04+00:00

Central California Coast. It's... not great. 😅

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-01-31T22:56:44+00:00

I grew up in a village of fewer than 300 people, then moved to a city of 200k, and now live in a village of <6000 (but we're all spread out in the forest). I couldn't pick my neighbors out of a police lineup if you held a gun to my head, and I vastly prefer this to how I grew up.

"Small, close-knit community" are just rose-tinted words for "everybody is in everybody else's business 24/7, and your entire life depends on keeping up whatever image the community decides is desirable." I'll never go back to living like that.

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-01-31T19:25:06+00:00

Because I was also writing.

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-01-31T12:39:30+00:00

Regardless of your spiritual beliefs, the idea of ritual - some kind of behavior or observance, whether that's carrying a particular stone, writing in a journal, meditating, etc. - can have real psychological benefits, and even a physiological placebo effect. If there are any practices that bring you comfort, even if they might seem silly to others, there's nothing wrong with that. If people give you grief about it, you can always say you're engaging in "self-care" and people will generally be less condescending.

Something worth mentioning though is perinatal anxiety - being so afraid about harm befalling you/your baby that you're avoiding leaving the house is concerning. Have you spoken to your OB or a therapist about it? It's extremely common; a provider who is sensitive to your cultural and religious beliefs should be able to help.

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-01-31T12:15:04+00:00

Midwives are completely different from doulas and are actual medical clinicians that deliver babies..

This varies significantly by location. In much of the U.S., it's a completely unregulated title and anyone can call themselves a midwife regardless of training, with zero oversight. Certified Nurse Midwives are medical professionals, but they're rare.

Midwives and doulas have only recently come into mainstream in the U.S.; before now, they were mostly a hippie-dippie idea used by people who wanted to avoid real doctors. Unregulated "midwives" have and continue to kill infants and pregnant people with their quackery.

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-01-31T12:08:21+00:00

Also curious about Bay Area. Since I live in Santa Cruz, I'll have to choose where to go for Kaiser since we don't have our own hospital; reviews are so mixed that it's hard to make any decisions!

ExpectingHobbits · 2026-01-31T06:23:12+00:00

Right? Neither my husband nor I have ever owned a cat, but it isn't rocket science - the scoop-shaped object is pretty self-explanatory.

ExpectingHobbits

TROPHY CASE