I feel like in the absence of further information, the house cleaner/caregiver is Rosie from The Jetsons, and the sex robot is Jude Law from AI.

In THAT case, I'm in.

How's the weather, Kate? Are you safe at home with Rose now?

Thanks for asking, Amy! Turns out we didn't have any tornado watches/warnings yesterday after all, despite several days of apocalyptically dire forecasts beforehand. (Phew.)

Re: sex with a robot, I think for me it would depend significantly on how advanced and humanlike the robot was. [link] , NSM. [link] ? Hell yeah. edit: Gigolo Joe x-post!

Debet, how often do you expect you'll be able to wash your clothes?

Gigolo Joe x-post!

I mean, obviously!

Bearing in mind that I have a small amount of packing space, what mix of long sleeves, short sleeves, and tanks would you recommend?

One long sleeve, one lightweight cardigan that goes with everything (or jacket; something you wear on the plane), the rest short sleeves. It's like the kitchen rule: no one-task clothing. Only bring the tank if you specifically have a use for it, otherwise stick to sleeves that are more appropriate for more settings.

This isn't good enough for you people?!

Bearing in mind that I have a small amount of packing space, what mix of long sleeves, short sleeves, and tanks would you recommend?

OK, when I did similar I made sure that everything matched and everything was multifunctional. As I recall my wardrobe was:

One long sleeved nice looking t-shirt
One button-down shirt
Two plain white Ts
One giant T (doubled as night shirt)
One cardigan
Two bras

I wasn't a tank top girl, if I were I might have swapped out one white t for a tank.

Otherwise I had:

One long pair of leggings (doubled as jamma pants)
One short pair of leggings (also jammas)
One pair of jeans
One pair of shorts
One broomstick skirt
One fold just-up-from-a-garbage-bag slicker
One bathing suit
One pair of walking shoes (wore those most)
One pair of flip-flops
One pair of attractive sandals
One sarongy piece of fabric
Unrecalled number of pairs of undies (plenty)
Unrecalled number of pairs of socks (not so much)

If I got cold, it all went on.

The advice I lived by was "You'll always wish you had less stuff". My sister is partial to "We're going to ________, not Turkish prison."

This isn't good enough for you people?!

Ha!

So I was thinking today of signing us up for a family membership at the Nashville Zoo for Rose's first birthday present, but I don't actually think she'd really be into the zoo yet. But it might not be long, and I like the idea of walking around outside with her and showing her all the animals. Those of you who have taken young kids to zoos, what do you think would be the youngest age they'd really appreciate it?

Pretty little kids enjoy the zoo, in my experience. Especially a zoo where they can get up close, even through plexiglass or whatever. And if it's a good size (not too big, not too small) and close enough to get to often, it might be a good investment for 75% of the year in that part of the country.

This isn't good enough for you people?!

Yikes.

I actually haven't been to the zoo here yet, but I think it's a decent size, and I'm looking for more things to do with her outside the house. It's pretty close by, maybe 10-15 minutes away. A family membership is $100, and individual adult tickets are $15, so assuming we usually would all go together, it would only take four trips for the membership to cost less than the individual tickets for Mark and me.

Maybe we can all go next weekend and see what we think of it, and how she reacts. I haven't been to a zoo in ages!