Audrey

This can vary by state! In Minnesota they are tied to the vehicle rather than the person, but we still don’t need to know or use the plate number very often.

State control of historical memory is a classic hallmark of authoritarian regimes, just FYI.

In high school, I went into the ditch less than a mile from my very rural home. 3 cars stopped to help in the 5 minutes it took my dad to get there. The 3rd waited until he arrived to make sure I wasn’t stuck too long. I cannot imagine a more sincere expression of contempt from a Minnesotan.

Worst plot, best knitwear.

It is my final week commuting through DC, where I’ve had to pass the national guard every day for months, before moving home to Minnesota. Lots of feelings, mostly rage.

They’ll adopt Denmark’s vaccine guidelines but not Denmark’s health care or parental leave policies.

gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/30/o...

My grandmother literally referred to herself as the Instant Mom. My dad still talks about how much better the food was when he joined the navy.

I think about him every time I make a sandwich. “Lettuce, tomato, lettuce, meat meat meat meat meat, cheese, lettuce.”

Ornaments or coasters using a rolling pin and cookie cutters?

Best guess: Some vaccines are developed with fetal cell lines, others use a small amount of pork derived gelatin as a stabilizer. So a religion might not ban vaccines as a whole, but some people may be opposed to specific vaccines due to their personal faith.

Always the same shape, only very numerous.

I just want something that hasn’t been in the top 10 since the American Revolution and doesn’t sound like a celebrity baby name

Pie crusts tonight, pies and Cabernet reduction tomorrow. Cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes are in the freezer and a sourdough is cold proofing in the fridge to bake tomorrow night or Thursday morning along with cinnamon rolls.

Yes! My experience is also colored by having a large extended family, we often had 30 or more in attendance. With that many people bringing a side dish and a dessert, the spread could get out of hand rather quickly.

Thanksgiving menu: Gingerbread cinnamon rolls, quiche, cheese board with apples, prime rib with Cabernet reduction, turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy, Brussels sprouts with bacon and goat cheese, cranberry sauce, sourdough bread, mini apple pie, mini pecan pie.

For perspective, this is my plan for 2 people and I’m still trying to decide if I can manage another side or two. This covers breakfast through dinner and I’m making small portions of everything, but variety is the goal. I do not enjoy green bean casserole.

The sides are very much the star of Thanksgiving. It’s easy to have 2-3 bites of a dozen or so different dishes on a single plate, and the goal is to have leftovers for days. If anything, the example spread is lacking some core dishes.

To be fair, this post is referring to Thanksgiving! That said I can’t imagine a Christmas without pie.

You don’t need evidence of criminality to fire someone, and educators in particular are often fired for much less.

I think of pantyhose as specifically being skin toned, tights are the same thing but other colors.

Swapping them out for fleece lined tights that pretend to be sheer so I can feel like I’m wearing yoga pants to the office

I once cried so hard about going to daycare my dad worried they were being mean to me. No, I refused to leave the house because my dress didn’t have pockets. As an engineer, he really should have anticipated this.

Small talk got a lot more fun for me, personally, when I decided it can just always be as much fun as talking to drunk girls in the bathroom. I don’t go to bars anymore but I can still have nice things!

That documentary is called The Man with 1000 Kids, and I think it’s on Netflix

It’s harder to the back of the hand, but I can do both and I failed the flexibility portion of those presidential fitness tests

Yes, pad to nail. No, pad to pad.

Instagram post from 2022, in which Stephen’s wife required stitches after she injured her toe setting up for church service. The caption ends with a joke, “Now go set up the rest of the chairs.” I would not find this funny, but I did not marry a mega church pastor who once wrote a baffling essay about cheating on every girlfriend he ever had.

“Disappointed but not surprised”

An underrated element of this series is the way the pictures progressively deteriorate, a la Dorian Gray

Whimsical Soup