unsafe at any speed

My 1980 Escort story led to a bunch of you sharing first car stories with me; thank you! Another story about that car arose: it was rusting badly enough that it was having trouble maintaining structural stability. My dad built a wooden frame inside the trunk to hold it together for me. In retrospect, WTF, but this family attitude explains a number of things about my past and current life choices.

some things I want to finish quickly

I previously mentioned eating weird food combinations because of the need to nutrition-max when I was losing weight. Now my cholesterol came back slightly elevated, so I'm reducing saturated fat and eating more oats and psyllium. I apparently can't get past the nutrition-maxing though because I added both TVP and riced cauliflower to oatmeal to increase nutrition and volume. It turns out that I don't WANT oatmeal to have any more volume than it already does, so lesson learned! 

(Oh, and cutting saturated fat means no longer eating as much of the yogurt and cottage cheese which became my protein staples last year- the low-fat versions are foul to me. Beans have usually been my primary protein source and I'm going back to them, but since my metabolism slowed this will require eating fewer FUN carbs, alas.)

tolerance

Good post on why it's wrong to oust annoying people from our communities. We don't have to be FRIENDS with them, but it's worthwhile to examine whether we are finding excuses to ban someone solely because they make us uncomfortable. "There are cats you will never want to pet. Feed them anyway." 

exactly what they seem

 I started to hear screech owls calling this week, establishing their autumn hunting territories. I love this early harbinger of my favorite season, and that I've been in the same place long enough to get to know and anticipate them. (They've been a little earlier for the past couple years- hopefully this means they've been breeding so successfully that they're warning off potential competition.)

save the birds

Article about how the controls available with LEDs give them the potential to dramatically reduce light pollution. I've been frustrated for years at our failure to do even the most basic things to minimize light pollution, so unfortunately we probably STILL won't do it, but here's hoping.

table of contents to epilogue

A "couch to 5K" for people who want to read more. 

Mmm, solid broth

When losing weight, I ate a lot of weird stuff to attempt to get all the protein and calories I needed within a tiny calorie budget. (I became pretty darn creative with cottage cheese and protein powder.) So while I would not make an aspic like this, I definitely understand the motivation.

passport

I renewed my passport online (using a truly hideous photo one of my coworkers took for me) and a new one arrived within 10 days. Do we actually live in the future now? 

AI: not for the likes of me

MORE THINGS WHICH AI SHOULD BE USEFUL FOR BUT ISN'T

-Organizing my shopping list by store and shelf location

-Summarizing important outcomes of audiobook scenes I find boring (typically battle and sex scenes)

-Providing accurate home improvement cost estimates 

-Displaying at a glance which of my list of to-read books are available in which formats from my library

-Telling me exactly what time to drive within a two-hour window to most likely avoid traffic slowdowns