my guinea pig herdleader likes when everyone gets to eat a treat.

she didn’t really get why the cat liked meatpaste, but she’d yell until I put out a treat for the cat. I often grab a little something to eat while I sit next to the pen with them while they eat their veggies. it makes them feel like I am part of their little herd. i get all the positive reinforcement grooming and nuzzling affection.

she’s just a little too greedy to give me her food, though.

“Hey, I need to use my lunch break to get away from work things/have some quiet down time. Give me a break and I’ll be better for the afternoon.” Subjects you don’t want to discuss: “Oooh, that doesn’t seem like a topic appropriate for work. What about [thing you are comfortable discussing, work thing].”

I highly recommend becoming very willing to spend time discussing one personal thing so they feel like they’re making a connection. I use my pets, but you can use a sports team as some others suggest, or a hobby you don’t mind sharing, like your progress on painting minis/knitting that sweater/book you’re reading/ latest album from favorite musician. Extroverts want a connection, give them a little and redirect to that thing when they probe.

If your boss persists in bothering you at lunch, ask if you should clock in since this is a work discussion, or if it’s really your personal time to use as you wish.

If they persist in bringing up wildly inappropriate topics like sex, say that you’re uncomfortable. Make it obvious they’re being weird at work. saying “I don’t like discussing my sexual preferences at work”, or similar, loud enough for others in the breakroom to hear should make them uncomfortable. if that doesn’t get you anywhere, there are protections in the US for some things. go to HR, explain you’ve tried explicitly telling them not to talk to you about whatever inappropriate topic, and it’s continuing. Call out that you’re feeling harassed by them continuing to bring up this subject that is not work related. HR might want to try a mediated discussion about it; 1 is reasonable, multiple is not.

if it gets to where you need HR and are worried about your legal rights, find a local worker’s rights lawyer to provide advice. they should be able to tell you what is reasonable effort from the company to fix the situation. be prepared to lose your job if it gets this far.

you shouldn’t have to discuss sex at work as small talk. it can come up in some jobs (medicine, sex work) but shouldn’t be in most workplaces, and there are protections from this kind of harassment in the US.

I’ve got a couple guinea pigs. one assumes the tarp is the limit of his territory, whether or not there’s fencing.

the other one regularly goes wandering, but respects the areas I’ve said are off limits. and she knows she has to get back to her territory - the tarp - to get any treats.

so it’s entirely possible this bunny recognizes his “room”, as defined by the new rug.

quoting from your link: No reductions were statistically significant. Only one difference [re:disease] was statistically significant.

plus it was done by a pro-vegan group with obvious bias. so the results from the pro-vegan funded study are not terribly good at supporting veganism for cats as more healthy. it’s about the same, maybe less disease (severity of disease wasn’t covered in the abstract but would be a significant part of a decision). show me a study not funded by a pro-vegan group with similar or better results before I consider feeding my pet a diet very different from their natural diet.

not the guy you asked, but I just got a trike.

1. I have balance issues so I’ve never been able to balance a regular bike.
2. carrying capacity with a basket.

there are definitely options to address the carry capacity with a bike, but I haven’t seen anything to assist with balance.

yeah, I do.

I was a kid on free and reduced lunch. there’s stigma around being poor enough to need it, and I was bullied for it. my home life was sufficiently dysfunctional that it could be the only food I ate that day, and there were still times I’d rather be hungry than bullied.

so in the interest of removing something kids can be bullied over, sure. tax the rich more, and let a relatively tiny bit of our taxes buy every child at least one meal a day.

-childless taxpayer

my grandparents have passed away now, but when i knew them they were unfailingly polite in public.

in private, Grandma had reservations about japanese people. i gave her leeway. Pearl Harbor was bombed on her birthday, and Grandpa went to Iwo Jima. i still felt i could bring a japanese boyfriend around, and as long as i was happy, he’d be treated right. Grandpa didn’t even suggest reservations. he took everyone as an individual worthy of respect until their behavior suggested differently.

my parents are in their 60s now, but i don’t have contact with them for other reasons. the last time i looked at my mom’s twitter i thought she had been hacked, the MAGA rhetoric she was spewing was so awful. not hacked, just an asshole.

thinking OP shouldn’t be in the comments is so weird. you should start a conversation but not take part?

in any case, i check the comments here to see what new interesting things i can learn!

ferrets are like kittens that never become cats. they get a little slower with age, but given they start like they’re running 3 times faster than the rest of the world, it’s not noticeable until you get a young ferret again.

my grandpa used commode, but i haven’t heard it from anyone younger. grandpa was a Depression era kid, and the family was poor to begin with.

he also said “shorts” instead of “underpants”, which caused my brother who only wore long pants some confusion and trouble.

you mean the thing where people, often women, have spent decades trying to expose the abuse happening in private homes, and trying to get it addressed?

because that’s what happened. women’s voices, speaking about marital rape and domestic abuse. getting the political power to change laws, to make it illegal, and give domestic victims the means to escape. it also surfaced the child abuse, again. it’s just not been buried again yet.

if one of these just ramps up the anxiety, skip that sense and do the others. trying to pick 5 things i can see is. …not useful. …in a panic attack. but closing my eyes and doing the others does help. it took a very long time before someone suggested skipping sight to me, so i share the insight whenever this method is suggested.

my cat loses it if she wakes up and can’t see me. I live in a studio. there aren’t a lot of “out of sight” options. at one point, there was just a screen between me, in my computer chair, and her, on the bed. we still did the whole call and response.

she doesn’t look for me, she just starts yelling until I respond.

yep. I self-select out of dog friendly offices. if that’s a “benefit”, I can’t work there.

my cat thinks “up” and “down” both mean “get off my lap”.

she also recognizes that when I sit and talk to myself (voice chat) is perfect petting and cuddles time. she’s well known to my therapist and team because of zoom meetings.

and both guinea pigs and the cat have all decided that we do cuddles about 830pm. I thought it was “after work and dinner, sometime before bed”. but the number of times I look up to see what the fuss is, and it’s 830 and all 3 are looking at me expectantly… I assume they figure the time by daylight, because it’s not consistent when I get home.

for me, it’s seeing how similar we are. I went low contact and moved away almost 20 years ago. getting to know my now-transmasc brother when we’re both adults is wild. he’s dealt with things differently, but despite 8 years age gap and 18 years not talking, we have a lot in common still.

1984, not 1948, in case anyone goes looking for the reference

I had ferrets for a while. they liked to steal and hide things. you learn to check under the couch weekly just so you don’t find things by smell. and hope it’s not somehow inside the couch.

mostly it was the one guy, who preferred his chips and sweets, but knew his sister liked other things. she didn’t eat tomatoes or apples or fruit, but he’d carry that stinky orange down stairs for her, lips peeled back so he didn’t have to taste it too much.

not the OP you replied to, but someone else who loves the Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain book.

I think 5 days is ambitious. but a lot of what the exercises are doing is training you to see a different way. so it’s not impossible.

someone neurodivergent may struggle to get what the exercises are trying to teach or to reach the point they’re aiming for, so it might take them longer. those more inclined to pick it up faster probably aren’t going to need the exercises in the book; it’s already natural to them.

as we grow up, we learn “this is what a tree looks like, this is a dog looks like, this is what a car looks like”, etc etc. the way we see a new car then goes through that filter of “this is what a car looks like”. those filters are great for quickly identifying things and generally being a human in the world, so you don’t get hit by a car while you’re still figuring out if it is a car.

but those filters get in the way of drawing accurately. your eyes aren’t literally filtering anything; that’s all in your brain. so you need to learn to stop that part of your brain when you draw. that’s the biggest part of being able to draw decently. the rest is technical skill you get with practice.

I’d still recommend the original OP look for an artist collaborator, since children’s books need the illustrations to be as strong as the writing. there’s no way to get there in just 5 days.

I’m sorry for this. I adore seeing men being fathers, being positive adults in the lives of children. my own dad was more absent than not, but my grandfathers taught me a lot about how to be a decent human being, how to have relationships with others.

please don’t be absent for your daughter just because too many people have forgotten men are also capable of being nurturing adults for children.