Just trying out the app. Conclusion...don’t try this with the dog in the room. He’s more unhappy about my singing than he is about my son’s trombone playing.

I don’t know...my son has been in Scouts for years and loves it. It gives him a chance to be overtly dorky with a bunch of other extremely geeky boys without trying to impress girls. I think that’s a valuable thing for him...different than his day-to-day life in a public high school.

Boy Scouts can be a pretty expensive endeavor. We probably spend around 2000 - 2500 a year on trips, uniforms, gear, etc. for my son. Our troop has a lot of well-off families and also has some fundraisers that bring in quite a bit of cash, so there is always scholarship money available. I think some of the other…

If that’s available, I’ll have to see if I can work something into the vacation budget.

The rich white lady is also a lesbian. Does that make her fears count?

Roanoke was...not good. At all. I much preferred Hotel, if only for the gorgeous clothes on Lady Gaga and the amazing setting.

That sounds like heaven. We’re planning a family trip to India this year and I’m already dreading the long, long flight in economy. I’m afraid we just can’t afford to put all of us in 1st. It would cost a small fortune.

You nailed it. The whole experience is so uncomfortable that the least you can do for yourself is dress comfortably.

There is no ‘dignity of the occasion.’ Flying has become such an uncomfortable, PITA experience that there’s no way I’m dressing up for it. I usually wear jeans, a tee, a cardigan I can easily take off, and comfy flat shoes. If I’m on an international overnight flight, it’s going to be some form of yoga pants or…

I do this, but my grocery store keeps changing things around. They went through a major expansion and remodel, and so I thought everything would be set, but no...I guess they’re still fine-tuning the layout, but it’s so annoying to hunt for things that you could easily locate the week before.

I have a very well-stocked spice cabinet. I do always buy the smallest possible container of those spices that take a long time to use. That way I don’t feel so bad when I have to chuck something past it’s prime.

Nutmeg is the best. I had some mashed potatoes in a restaurant that were so good (and I’m normally not a big fan) that I had to ask the chef about it. Freshly ground nutmeg was his secret. You can’t really quite identify it, but it definitely brings mashed potatoes up a notch.

I actually use white pepper all the time. I got into the habit when my kid was little and objected to black pepper specks in light-colored foods. I found I really liked the bit of heat it brings, so I use it quite a lot.

Yum. Just made Swedish meat balls with a healthy dose of cardamom. It smells sooooo good.

A leash? Oh, I don’t know. The only time I ever saw a situation where a leash seemed appropriate was when I saw a dad with triplets, three adorable little girls, maybe three years old, at an outdoor market. They were all connected to him with leashes. If you’re a parent with triplets who occasionally wants to leave…

Travelled a few hours to a park in the path of totality, with more than 2 1/2 minutes of total sun coverage. The quality of the light as totality approached was really weird. It was eerie, almost like strangely colored artificial light. The shadows were very strange, too. Very, very crisp. And we saw some of those…

I really thought the coolest part was the ‘diamond ring’ effect you could see just as totality was ending. I think I gasped out loud. Seriously beautiful.

They’re looking for 100,000 names and are getting close, so sign now if you support the petition. It takes like, 2 seconds.

Honestly, when I heard, I thought, ‘Jerry Lewis was still alive as recently as, like, yesterday?’ He’s one of those celebrities I assumed had dies some years ago.

You’re very smart. That is all.