Yeah, our parents are both on the same lines as that. It's major surgery, SO's dad. You're having an organ removed. WE WANT TO KNOW! It only came up because we were traveling halfway across the country to help out with my mom's surgery, which was happening the week after. Then we felt like crap because we didn't offer to help out with his dad's surgery. BECAUSE WE DIDN'T KNOW!

Sorry for the asscaps. I can't asscap at our parents, so.

Anyway, I think all parents are like that.

And I still didn't call my mom, even after saying here I was going to. And now it's 10:30 there so I can't. This was easier when they lived in Hawaii and I could call at midnight my time.

Barb, I'm sorry you're having to deal with this, though. Both of our families were not thrilled when we moved away from them, and they totally understood the reasons. But you just have to stand by it and do what's best for you and your immediate family.

My parents have stopped telling me right away when a car hits my dad on his bike (alarming frequency) or, you know, when he falls off a cliff in a fucking cave during a S&R training and has to be carried out. Not like he's 67 or anything.

Parents... My mom got married (4th time) without telling me until after the knot was tied - I hadn't even know she was seriously dating, and I didn't know the man at all. She also once went for a biopsy without telling us that anything might be wrong, and I'm pretty sure she'd have had surgery without telling us. Part privacy issues, but mostly "I didn't want to bother you" stuff.

I can't say much about parents not telling their children, since I put off telling my mother about the cancer. I wanted to be able to tell her just what was going on, which I couldn't really know until the surgery. I couldn't deal with her worry and my own.

I had to give up on Sheri Tepper. The anvils hurt my head too much. A few writers have at least attempted very alien aliens. Vernor Vinge's aliens in A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon the Deep are good examples. James White wasn't a great writer by any means, but his Sector General aliens are a valiant effort at imagining aliens with very different mindsets and biologies.

One thing to try with bad antibiotic reactions is trying to take them at different times and with different amounts of food. Taking antibiotics with food in your stomach is usually the best policy, but not always.

Vernor Vinge's aliens in A Deepness in the Sky and A Fire Upon the Deep are good examples

Those were great. I could stand to read those again.

I was just thinking that myself.

So, my family has been mocking me for making kale chips. According to them, kale chips are a weird newfangled vegan food, with much emphasis on the "weird."

I just saw this [link] . It's a recipe for kale chips, in the NY Times. As an example of typical foods for Rosh Hashanah dinner for a Jewish family in New Hampshire in 1919. My great-grandparents were living in New Hampshire in 1919. I am forwarding this article and recipe to every family member who has mocked my food.

Mom just did it to me again last weekend. Sister asked, "How's your mouth?" and mom said, "It doesn't hurt, the stitches are gone, they'll finish up in December," and I made the ?!!?!?! face.

Sister sighed and glared at mom, who said, "Oh, yeah - in early August I broke a tooth off at the gumline, and..." continued her little discussion of YET ANOTHER SURGERY she didn't tell me about.

To be clear - she's not obligated to, she's my mom, not my kid. But...gah!

Not parents, but i just got a message from one of my girls. Her mom was just in a car accident, her aunt says it doesn't look good.

I was going to try to hit the sack early, but I may be on the phone with her, keeping her sane and awake on her way from KC to Shreveport.

Oh, DJ, your girl is in my thoughts.

Speaking of moving though, Plei, Jilli, SH... what can y'all tell me about the neighborhood this house is in? Plei, I know it's not too far from where you live, yes?

Not the one they claim it is on the listing, in my head. I mean, I suppose you could KIND of call that Green Lake, but it's more Greenwood/Phinney. It is south and west of Jilli by a mile or two, north and west of me by a mile or two. Given my druthers, I'd rather be West of Greenwood, but I'm not sure there's any basis in logic to that belief.