I understand (from my American perspective of course). I live in a swing state in the U.S. that went for Trump. I have the same fears and can only hope if war results from us that it is kept within the borders of this country. Obviously I would prefer violence not be the end result regardless.

Please just know that there are many many people here that are just as concerned and fearful as you are. The people I know that voted for him are either woefully uneducated or are misled by their religion (which in and of itself is a form of ignorance/being uneducated). And while they can still be dangerous, the true fascist zealots are still a minority.

I cannot excuse the people here who voted for this, at this point all I can say is that I am a human, you are a human. I don’t want you to hurt, I’m pretty darn sure you don’t want me to hurt. Let’s do our best to separate this fucking mess from the individual humans who are stuck in it and on the periphery of it, and hope to hell none of us become collateral damage.

Please do not make us a monolith. I am not my country, I was just born here. That kind of thinking leads to radicalism and violence. I can perfectly understand caution with “unknowns” from a group you have reason to be concerned about. Honestly from a personal safety standpoint we do this all the time. But to unilaterally decide we are all one thing and write us off (or worse) is false and dangerous.

I don’t know where you are in Europe but I love the continent and have visited many countries there. I do my best to be respectful when I visit and look up local cultures and norms so I don’t stand out and be “that American.” I’m not ashamed of being an American tourist, but I don’t want to adhere to the worst of our stereotypes. If other countries’ people decide we are inherently dangerous, being annoying may be the least of my worries should I have the fortune of making another trip there.

I’m not sure why Bernie is the exception for me…I feel like a giant hypocrite being ok with this. But dude does still seem spry AF.

Thank u for replying! You give me hope that it won’t be too hard. :)

A family member recommended target circle as a replacement for Amazon prime and I am researching it. It’s still a big company…but where I live there really isn’t TRULY local options (I.E. small businesses) for household goods and such. I figure target is a pretty good alternative and since we have a store pretty close, I can pickup stuff instead of getting so much extra shipping.

Keeping our Amazon prime until it’s 2025 expiration date. Spent today researching alternatives so I can placate my Amazon loving spouse. Fortunately coming armed with info and the promise that they’ll have a several month “get used to it” cooling down period, they took it pretty well. I also reminded them if they MUST get something from Amazon, they still do the free 2 day shipping if u spend over $35. But it’ll probably be easier than they think with all but the oddest of purchases.

Been wanting to get rid of it anyways and this was the nail in the coffin.

I really love it, been using it for about 2 months, came from YNAB, used that for probably 3-5 years. Although I wish it was a little more mobile friendly, it works on mobile well enuf for me to record my daily transactions and then I just use a desktop once a week when I do all my bill payments and budget catch up.

I really like the reporting options, and also it has some mass note append/prepend/replace functionality which works great for me hashtagging the expenses I have addressed, confirmed and moved around to various accounts.

I do wish it had flagging, I really loved the colored flags, but I’m using the hashtagging as a replacement and it works pretty well.

It’s my profession and I’m a little bit of a nut about it (in that I like the job, haha) plus many people do not understand taxes - nor should they because it’s been made SOOO unnecessarily complicated. So I’m always happy to try and explain our ridiculous system, lol. Thanks for reading it!

Generally those who own their home in cities have higher property tax bills. Prior to the TCJA, there wasn’t a dollar cap on your real estate tax deduction if you itemized. Now there is a $10k cap which includes your state taxes paid (like from your w2 or estimated taxes). For someone like me who lives in a somewhat low COL area…no biggie. My property taxes are pretty low and don’t come near that cap. But it’s pretty easy to hit that cap when you live in a city and your property taxes alone are 10k or more…but before that u also were able to deduct your state taxes paid. So many people who previously were able to itemize and even might be able to now if they got the full amount of property taxes, will only get the standard decision and thus more of their income is taxable.

There are sources that say that the property tax deduction primarily benefited higher income earners, but some of these higher income earners also live in higher COL areas and thus don’t make as much money as it may seem because it’s so much more expensive to live where they live.

My cat died.

He had been acting funny for a little while (week or so). Not moving much, growling when you pressed his belly. I was a young teen and my mom didn’t have a lot of money and basically hoped to ignore it away.

Turns out he had some sort of bladder blockage and it burst the evening of my birthday. He died in awful pain while I could only watch helpless (mom worked nights and wasn’t there). I tried to comfort him but he ended up biting my finger, I still have a scar some 30 years later.

RIP Eclipse. You deserved so much better.

If you can, donate to your LOCAL non-profits or the local branches of larger non-profits. Get to know the people in those organizations (volunteer, visit organization open houses/orientations, go to a hosted event) and you’ll feel a lot better about where your dollars are going.

I used to be on the board of a local domestic abuse shelter and now I’m on the board of a local food pantry. Both are amazing organizations, both have incredibly passionate people working for them, and the board is filled with mostly normal working people who have or want to have good community connections.

My partner has a little with big brothers big sisters and that turned into a board position for him because he was super enthusiastic and active. That’s a bigger organization but his contributions are at the local level and we’ve gotten to know the local “ceo” as well.

Also, 501©(3) orgs must publicly list their tax returns and you can find out the salaries of the executives on those tax returns. So even tho in my experience, the executives of the orgs at the local levels earn every damn penny (and it’s def not enuf) you can also find that info out for yourself. But please remember that if a non profit doesn’t have an excellent, passionate and well paid staff, they will NOT be able to get the donations and funding they need to fulfill their actual purpose. I’m talking specifically about local orgs tho, some of those giant orgs with executives making millions definitely should take a closer look at their priorities.

And finally…if you can’t donate money of course there is always volunteering but there is ALSO serving on a board. Every non-profit ive been involved with has had problems filling their board seats with active, enthusiastic individuals. Sometimes there are monetary asks of board members but no one is going to kick you out if you truly only have time and no money. And if u experience that, find a better board, they are out there and they are working really really hard to make things better.

Oh man Lisey’s Story was one hell of a slog and I thought perhaps King had lost it since it’s one of his more modern offerings. But then he wrote Duma Key and 11/22/63 and I realized it was just a dud. Good luck getting through it!

I have, at certain points in my life, been a rabid King fan. As someone who was trying to think of how to describe and recommend books from an author as eclectic as King, thank you. You’ve done my work for me.

And I had completely forgotten about Hearts in Atlantis which I loved. Isn’t that one a short story? I was probably a very young adult when I read that.

And I will pile on and also say I would recommend Gerald’s Game and Insomnia as two of his more unique horror novel takes.

“It” is also not only my favorite King book but my favorite book of all time. However, I get some flack for that due to some problematic sexual themes involving children and also it’s just a dang long story with a LOT of sub stories in it. But it captured me a long time ago and nothing else has done that since. All that to say, I absolutely love that story but am careful about recommending it since I usually get the side eye eventually.

Doctor Sleep also expands on the powers in The Shining and Needful Things references many of the evil entities in the stand and It.

I have always loved the way King weaves his baddies into many of his stories and basically implies that they are all the same kind of evil dressed up in the “clothing” to suit its purpose at any given time.

Now that I think of it…I think in Cujo when he is narrating the dogs infected mind, he alludes to the generalized evil as well. It’s been a while since I read that one tho.

Yep, she was Wendy

Out of pure curiosity, is your statement linking abortion opinions and psychopathy based on any studies you can link?

I fully educated myself about tampon insertion and toxic shock syndrome during trips to the bathroom.

My wish would be that after he loses this election - and I think would truly become unable to run again (because at that point I think almost everyone would be able to admit he’s too old) - that everyone simply forgets about him. His ongoing trials would get no more than a blip in coverage, whether he’s sentenced to jail or slapped with probation, it barely gets talked about. There can be no worse punishment from that man’s perspective than screaming into a void and no one hears him and no one cares.

This is a total pipe dream, but I am willing to turn off any news program, ignore any news link and not buy any newspaper that has an article about him if it contributes to ignoring him until he turns into an old useless husk and departs from this world. I wish it could be done now but people still need to be consistently reminded how dangerous he is until their vote is locked in this November.

According to the cdc website pretty much everywhere in the u.s. went up during 2020-2021 and things started coming down 2022-2023. In fact it looks like the average across the u.s. was pretty much back to “normal” by 2023. But what we see here is that while things declined again for TX in 2022, they still remain quite elevated above 2019 while the u.s. average went back to pre-pandemic average, which would tell me that something else is going on in TX unrelated to the pandemic.

Even better!