NH: I believe the Oakland Zoo accepts used stuffies. They hang them upside-down in the giant fruit bat enclosure for the bats to cuddle.
(Yes, I have watched a bat with a boner dry-humping Piglet.)
If this image doesn't put you off, I have a friend who works there and I can give you her email address.
...this instantly brought an episode of rescue rangers to mind.
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Yeah. Yeah. This is okay, totally.
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Birthday was *excellent*.
We had been planning to take the kids to Glen Rose, Texas to see the dinosaur tracks, but the trackway was flooded from all the rain, so we couldn't go. So instead we picked up pazcki from the Polish deli (they had plum butter and rosehip marmalade and currant fillings, and honestly, I can't say which was best)
Rose.
You can also made marmalade out of rose petals. It's gorgeous filling for pączki, cookies, and various cakes.
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Final bell to get out of school for Zelda's kids is 2:15pm. Granted, they are 11, 14, and 17, so after school care is not a real issue for her anymore, but she's a single parent working 30+ miles away until 4-6pm most nights. If the kids were younger, she would absolutely need someone to watch the kids after school. Her family lives in Wisconsin. She left her husband 2 years ago and moved from Wisconsin to Illinois. Aiymi and I live 40 miles away from her (we help when and where we can). Her church is not that organized (individual faith paths, no building for all of them to meet, Tequila knows what I'm talking about), she doesn't make enough to afford the area day care centers. It's not always simple.
Day care around here is *not* $10/hour (closer to $20-$30), and even teenagers who want to earn a few bucks babysitting *have to take courses and get licensed* in Illinois.
One of my techs has his sister-in-law watch his kid after school. Kid started kindergarten this year. She charges him and his wife...her own sister, remember...$250/week to watch her own niece.
NH - what you advocate is the ideal, and I would love for it to be true, but it's just not reality for the majority. And none of what I'm bringing up even touches on what Lynora brought up - mental health issues merely compound the problems by an order of magnitude. Most people have limited support networks they can draw from, but those dealing with the additional complications of mental health (just using "mental health" as a generic catch-all) pretty well destroys any help you could have otherwise maybe found.
EDIT: And while I was typing this about 10 more posts were made, including NH's further explanation.
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It's offensive, but I'll say it again. If you can't be bothered to be responsible for them, then don't have kids.
This is something I sign on with both hands, a leg, and a ...
Yeah, I don't have kids. By choice.
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Birthday was *excellent*.
We had been planning to take the kids to Glen Rose, Texas to see the dinosaur tracks, but the trackway was flooded from all the rain, so we couldn't go. So instead we picked up pazcki from the Polish deli (they had plum butter and rosehip marmalade and currant fillings, and honestly, I can't say which was best)Rose.
You can also made marmalade out of rose petals. It's gorgeous filling for pączki, cookies, and various cakes.
YES.
I adore rose-flavored things. My favorite gelato shop in Berkeley, Almare, occasionally made a rose gelato that was exquisite.And one of my science teachers in high school taught us how to make rose petal syrup for pancakes, etc.
I cannot say that I have ever had rose used in any cooking that I've ever been aware of.
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Ah, reading plays in class. Inevitable course:
1st kid: Serious reading with careful inflection
2nd kid: Monotone get-it-over-with reading
3rd kid: Mostly serious reading with inexplicable southern accent
As for 2, I dont know what my mom would have done without grandma(s). School let out shockingly early in retrospect.Right. And that's the thing. Every family is supposed to have a support network: Family. Church. Money. Charity. Siblings. Some or all of the above.
I get incensed at the people who are two parents working full-time, and therefore theoretically have enough money to afford after-school care, which is appallingly cheap even here (I think the quote we heard when our kids were in elementary school was $10/hour), and yet want the school to keep everyone's kids prisoner so they don't have to pay for such care.
*sigh* What happened to the free-range kids, those that handled themselves for a few hours without any cataclysmic events happening?!
Ok, I might have got a concussion by being careless when unsupervised while I was six, but that was because I failed to jump off of swing, and presence of anyone older wouldn't help at all. At best it would mean I would be taken to hospital immediately instead of when I started vomiting an hour or two later. Though likely I wouldn't be taken to hospital until I started to vomit anyway.
It's offensive, but I'll say it again. If you can't be bothered to be responsible for them, then don't have kids.I can barely be responsible enough to care for my dog, I know better than to have any kids.
I choose not to have cats or dogs.
hi Drejk
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It's offensive, but I'll say it again. If you can't be bothered to be responsible for them, then don't have kids.I can barely be responsible enough to care for my dog, I know better than to have any kids.
Are you me?
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hi everyFaWtL
long time no see, very busy with work and kids
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I cannot say that I have ever had rose used in any cooking that I've ever been aware of.
Let's say that I am pretty sure I have more often consumed roses than gave them to anyone.
hi Drejk
Hello!
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hi everyFaWtL
long time no see, very busy with work and kids
Perfect timing - NobodysHome complained about busy parents with kids... :D
hi everyFaWtL
long time no see, very busy with work and kids
HEY THERE!
hi Freehold,
how are you?
my wife send her best regards
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my boy trained his sister to howl like a wolf on command
Ha! that's a good brother.
hi Freehold,
how are you?
I am waiting to go to lunch.
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Awww, I saw photo of Max's kitty!
Final bell to get out of school for Zelda's kids is 2:15pm. Granted, they are 11, 14, and 17, so after school care is not a real issue for her anymore, but she's a single parent working 30+ miles away until 4-6pm most nights. If the kids were younger, she would absolutely need someone to watch the kids after school. Her family lives in Wisconsin. She left her husband 2 years ago and moved from Wisconsin to Illinois. Aiymi and I live 40 miles away from her (we help when and where we can). Her church is not that organized (individual faith paths, no building for all of them to meet, Tequila knows what I'm talking about), she doesn't make enough to afford the area day care centers. It's not always simple.
Day care around here is *not* $10/hour (closer to $20-$30), and even teenagers who want to earn a few bucks babysitting *have to take courses and get licensed* in Illinois.
One of my techs has his sister-in-law watch his kid after school. Kid started kindergarten this year. She charges him and his wife...her own sister, remember...$250/week to watch her own niece.
NH - what you advocate is the ideal, and I would love for it to be true, but it's just not reality for the majority. And none of what I'm bringing up even touches on what Lynora brought up - mental health issues merely compound the problems by an order of magnitude. Most people have limited support networks they can draw from, but those dealing with the additional complications of mental health (just using "mental health" as a generic catch-all) pretty well destroys any help you could have otherwise maybe found.
EDIT: And while I was typing this about 10 more posts were made, including NH's further explanation.
one of my "grown ups are weird" moments as a kid was wondering why I was waking up at 7 am to go to school for 8:15 am when I was leaving at 2 pm. I was only gone for 6 hours, and 5 of those were in class, doing stupidly easy work. Unless I had computer class, which was fun.
This was before the evils of math became apparent, for any curious souls out there.
It turned out that I might have gotten a mild case of food poisoning from some tea that had gone bad. Feeling a bit better, today, after sleeping all day. See everyone tomorrow. P.S. Don't trust gas station food or drinks.
*Offers more man-hugs, scotch and well-wishes*
Feeling much better, today. Doing laundry right now.
Yay!!!
*More of the above ^^*
Birthday was *excellent*.
We had been planning to take the kids to Glen Rose, Texas to see the dinosaur tracks, but the trackway was flooded from all the rain, so we couldn't go. So instead we picked up pazcki from the Polish deli (they had plum butter and rosehip marmalade and currant fillings, and honestly, I can't say which was best), then went out to a fantastic little Greek restaurant a few miles from our house for lunch (and I got loukamedes!), went home to play board games all afternoon (because thunderstorms), then went to my in-laws for dinner. So it was lovely in spite of the change in plans.
Eerrrr…
Happy belated birthday!| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
*yawn* Tired.
Soon I'll go to sleep only to get up at some unholy hour and spend the day packing more games for sending...
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Mini tournament at HEMA tonight . I came joint third, and learned how very, very useful shields are.
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… 2) U.S. working parents' attitude of "school is day care":
I have already pointed out that my kids work more hours per week in high school than I do in a six-figure job. And now there's a movement from working parents to extend the school day to 8:30 am - 5:00 pm. Why? Because it's too hard to get day care, so they want the kids to stay at school for the entire working day.Y'know, if *you* can't figure out how to care for your kids during the day, maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't be having them. Don't force every kid in the country to be in school for 8.5 hours a day because you don't want to pay for day care, you don't qualify for the multitude of free programs, you don't go to a church that provides such services, and you have no relatives in the area. It just incenses me for a multitude of reasons, the "big two" being how negatively it would impact the lives of both teachers and students.
…
Don't really know what to say…
Cause, you know, thing over here in efficient government services/welfare-topia/nanny state-land/'insert your own political statement land' (I prefer just a plain 'welfare state', but since 'welfare' have different connotations overseas…), things are well different then in the states.Back to the topic at hand.
A quick broad overview of the typical public school and day-care system (variations are common, but this is the, as said above broad outline).
First off - School (free/tax funded)
The school days over here typically last from 8am to 16pm.
During that time the pupil will typically have 8 lessons, each 45min in length. In total that'll take up around 6 of their 8 hours in school ( typically they will have 3-5 lessons a week, that are 'free lessons' where the pupil has a choice of different activities - homework workshops if you're behind on your homework, sports activities, fun and games, just taking a walk for a bit of exercise or even if there's no other lessons for the day, they can go to their day-care).
The leftover 2 hours are taken up by breaks between lessons, a big lunch break and other school-ajecent activities (going to the school library and the like).
Secondly - Day-care (tax-subsidised, with further subsidisations based on income and other social, health or miscellaneous factors)
Most schools are partially combined with day-care offers for children ages 8-15. often theses even share common grounds or are placed very close to one and other, so that children can go directly from school into the day-care center with nothing more then a short walk.
So the idea is generally for the day-care to be there for the children until around 18pm (or in rarer cases 19pm), when most parents have gotten off work and can pick up the kids.
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Happy belated birthday, LM.
About kids - if your kid is not "normal", I would think it would take a lot more to find daycare. You see you have kids with mild autism, and sent to mainstream school. The teacher can either deal with the kid when he starts getting one of his episodes and be unable to deal with the class, or just let the kid do his own thing, telling the class to ignore him. Autism isn't the sort of thing you can just tell the kid to behave, and if other kids see the autistic kid misbehave and get away with it, they will misbehave to test the boundaries.
I strongly feel that children with mental issues shouldn't be in mainstream schools. But that's my two cents.
I would expect that Lynora would find it hard to get day care for her kiddo, since you'd need specially trained professionals to deal with someone with autism.
And in Singapore, the cost of living is so high that both parents have to work, so you try to drop the after-school care to the grandparents, or in the case of my cousin, my aunt. I still think that my overly energetic nephew needs to be taken to the Mc Ritchie nature reserve to get to the great outdoors, though I think he would probably want a place where he can see more animals.
Mc Ritchie you can spot stuff, like slinks and monitor lizards but you need to move quietly, which he hasn't gotten the idea off yet. Is it too early to start teaching a 4 year old kid, if you want to see your furry friends, you need to be quiet?
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I will absolutely let this go to my head!
I will absolutely let this go to my head!
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I will absolutely let this go to my head!
"Custom Outdoor Living Area"?
So, if we're in California, does that mean a "one yoga mat" area, or a luxury "two yoga mat" area?
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You could fit the whole f*%~ing yoga studio on that patio.
I will absolutely let this go to my head!
What, you composed the soundtrack for the video?
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So I got high for the first time ever, unintentionally.
I mean, I ate that special gummy in the wee hours this morning thinking it would help me sleep. But it was later in the wee hours than I realized, I had never eaten a whole gummy before (the other half-gummies never seemed to do anything), and of course I was on an empty stomach.
About the time I normally leave for work, I realized I couldn't form coherent thoughts, and texted my manager to tell him I'd be late. It was a two-sentence text, and I forgot what I was writing or words right out of my head half a dozen times and reread it about ten times to make sure I didn't let on anything compromising.
Hoooooboy, it was a sleepy dopey high and a bit unpleasant.
What, you composed the soundtrack for the video?I will absolutely let this go to my head!
Yes. It was magical.
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So I got high for the first time ever, unintentionally.
I mean, I ate that special gummy in the wee hours this morning thinking it would help me sleep. But it was later in the wee hours than I realized, I had never eaten a whole gummy before (the other half-gummies never seemed to do anything), and of course I was on an empty stomach.
About the time I normally leave for work, I realized I couldn't form coherent thoughts, and texted my manager to tell him I'd be late. It was a two-sentence text, and I forgot what I was writing or words right out of my head half a dozen times and reread it about ten times to make sure I didn't let on anything compromising.
Hoooooboy, it was a sleepy dopey high and a bit unpleasant.
Next time chase it with caffeine, that'll greatly diminish the sleepiness.
They work surprisingly well with each other.
So we've heard...
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And in some more good news, my elbow that I thought I'd have to rehab all winter has been showing marked improvement in the last few days, and here I was worried I'd need Tommy John surgery. :-)
It's like I'm the only one in the family that watched every running for class president episode and movie scenario ever made.
Looks like somebody needs a campaign manager alias!
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Perhaps I've gone too far...
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Perhaps I've gone too far...
no, not at, you have to shoot him. And make HIM apologize to YOU for it.
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wait a minute. Whose birthday did I miss? Please say I didnt miss your birthday!Birthday was *excellent*.
We had been planning to take the kids to Glen Rose, Texas to see the dinosaur tracks, but the trackway was flooded from all the rain, so we couldn't go. So instead we picked up pazcki from the Polish deli (they had plum butter and rosehip marmalade and currant fillings, and honestly, I can't say which was best), then went out to a fantastic little Greek restaurant a few miles from our house for lunch (and I got loukamedes!), went home to play board games all afternoon (because thunderstorms), then went to my in-laws for dinner. So it was lovely in spite of the change in plans.
Mine is in 4 days.
Also tag out for john.
"Flashbangs" and "fireplaces" are examples of extreme laziness when it comes to naming things.
Same as Gran ry de los mono but for other reasons.