• 0 Posts
  • 1.07K Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 14th, 2023

help-circle






  • Yeah in the city I grew up in, I can find my way like a taxi driver, it’s exciting when I get lost because it doesn’t happen much, and my kids used to think it was funny that once we had been to a venue somewhere by car (like a gym meet in another city) I could always get there again without looking at a map or address, I HATE the audio navigation while driving, would rather wander, I’m not easily turned around on city streets, I am well oriented in the world but

    Out in the wild? Useless. I had a friend though who was so good at knowing which way she was facing, you could blindfold her and spin her (like for pun the tail on the donkey game ) and she would walk always in the right direction, could feel where north/south were even while blind.


  • I can parallel park fine (but am kinda old and used to have to) and was not dyslexic or anything - I think part of my problem with that puzzle was that you can take a p and flip it to be a b or q or d, the whole idea of them starting out as mirror or not didn’t compute somehow, lost between my eyes and brain.

    Maps, yes, it used to mess up my life but no more, now that you can rotate them. I used to take paper maps and lay them on the ground with north pointing north and could not easily read MapQuest on my work computer because my desk faced south. If I had to navigate while my ex was driving he would laugh at me for holding the map sideways or upside down but it was much easier to read upside down words than a map that was upside down in relationship to the world.




  • Oh, holy crap, I have the same. I was looking at a Scientific American print magazine a long time ago and in the back there were 2 quizzes. One said take these letters and make as many words as you can, and I knocked that out of the park, so easy. The other was a series of images of pairs of 3d models - like the ball-and-stick things used to show molecules. They said some are mirror images and some are the same, and they were rotated in different ways. Basically said find which are mirrors and which aren’t, how many can you find in 5 minutes.

    None. Not in any amount of minutes. I looked at them for an hour, until I was crying, my brain would not see it. I also can’t read maps unless they are facing the same way as I am, oriented with the actual world, but that must be common because phones do show them that way now.



  • I can’t whistle so always called my kids with a trill sound (like a loud Spanish RR, not Arabic ululation) and it is also my recall sound for the dogs. But I really can’t whistle. Can sort of make a sound but it’s laughably mockably wimpy.

    Can’t catch at all either, can throw reasonably accurately most of the time but an object coming at me never goes where my hands think it should. I am shamed by my penultimate daughter, who despite nearsightedness worse even than mine was, and a strong drive to be non-athletic, can pluck anything out of the air, has both lighting fast reflexes and intuitive hand eye coordination. But it doesn’t really affect me other than occasional embarrassment - I just pick whatever it is up off the floor after it hits me.




  • Kids these days. They are nicer than when I was in school, and mine and their peers got much better education than I did (though that has declined again, there are like 20 consecutive years of kids who were better served by the school system that are just now young adults).

    The rise of renewable energy marching on.

    The drop in the birth rate. Not because I’m anti-natal, but because it seems like nature is working, that’s a much gentler means of reducing population than most.

    The fact that insect life cycles are so short. The insect apocalypse is to me the most dire and frightening thing happening, but if we can address it at least the rebound wouldn’t take as long as with other creatures.




  • I don’t drink beer, but honestly down here I’d ice it too, and put it in an insulated cup. Anything that’s supposed to be that cold won’t stay cold except between the months of December and February.

    Wine I like not iced, it’s ok tepid, more important that it sits open awhile to aerate, and coffee and tea are good hot, so I guess not literally every drink. Love that fancy ice though!


  • I had some in my 20s and some late 30s and I personally wouldn’t want to literally be pregnant older than 40.

    If I was not married though, and if I had more money wouldn’t mind fostering to adopt a couple of teenagers. My kids are adult now, they are a good network and those older kids get set free without any help or place to land, we could give family to more kids.

    More relevant to your situation - there are no guarantees even if you aren’t old. My dad died when I was 16, he was only in his 50s and I wouldn’t change anything, we were so close, I would rather have had him for my early years than anyone else for longer. And my kids and step kids, the gap between oldest and youngest is 22 years and they all get along. If his kids have kids I do think that could get weird.

    ETA - old dads do introduce some risk, higher chance of schizophrenia for one thing, so do consider that, if you thought it was only the mom’s age that mattered.