Can dogs have pepto bismol

After googleIO and openAI announcements, it's pretty clear, that big tech has no solutions for the fundamental problems infecting AI today, and they both hiding these problems under the carpet with fancy useless demonstrations. Now you can check your car registration plate in your photos. Wow! I know zero people who don't know his car's plate. You can search for emails from school. Wow! I can do that more easily with a simple filter. But now you can play rock-paper-scissors with AI, or introduce your dog to it, or you can walk with a camera, and ask AI completly obvious questions about everyday objects! Amazingly who the fuck cares about these? Also you can do most useful things with a simple classifier AI for years. But you can do dad-jokes, or you can generate rhytmic noise effects, that people can already do for decades.
But you can now translate real time, only bad thing is there were zero benchmarks, zero realistic situations, we don't even know what languages you can use, and how effective the whole thing is. You can use vision, but where are benchmarks, showing how and AI can read a sensor, recognise a thief, or a fire, or anything practical use cases?
Meanwhile, no big tech said they are on a way to make AI more intelligent, more thrustworthy, less hallucinations, etc. These important things are something that they not like to talk about. What is with alignment and safety? Oh, we work on it. Any benchmark about it? No. They have still completly no idea how to solve these fundamental problems.
Why these demonstrations not showed ANY useful usecases that avarage people can use to help his work or his life, etc? Seems generative AI is stay as it is, can be used for niche things in some fields, but stays completly irrelevant for 99% of avarage people.
No suprised that Ilya Sutskever just left openAI. I guess he already realised that to build AGI it needs completly different approaches, but sitting back to the drawing board is not what bigtech wants after invested billons of dollars into sophisticated uncontrollable bullshit generators and work so much to sell the hype that these bullshitgenerators will be magically intelligent in no time.
At least these demos were good to demistify mythologic things like "exponential progress", AGI soon, and other things that AI belivers saying day by day. Instead of these, we had generative AI renessaince with big data, it lasted a short perido of time, we maxed it, and now it's time to realise that we have no innovations in the field, and AGI is still decades or more further if it is possible at all to achieve.

Playing on Interloper, just passed Day 70. I'm trying to get the Tales done for the first time so I'm planning to start Signal Void. Off I go from Mystery Lake to Forsaken Airfield. I get out there, get the walkie, start the quest up. I have enough food on me to get back, around 40 cat-tails at this point. It's blizzarding in FA so I don't hunt there. I decide to head back on the first clear day. In hindsight, I should have hunted.
Anyway, the trip back is not really eventful but I am not doing a good enough job of keeping my condition up. I am definitely pushing too hard to get back to ML faster. Thinking about it now, I don't even know why I was in such a big hurry. I pushed all the way through Broken Railroad (which I have not looted yet) and things are not going too bad, but the Muskeg is windy as heck and my condition drops below 10%. I have to use a stim to get to the derailed train so I can warm up and recover a bit. I use my last birch bark tea and rest a few hours with the fire burning. I wake up, make a couple of coffees and head off to Camp Office in ML. But it's still pretty dang cold (despite me being at +23 gear). My condition slips back below 10% and now I've got a wolf trailing me. I'm not worried about the wolf really but my condition being so low definitely had me focusing on pushing back to camp office. I get back and at this point I have a couple of cat tails left but no other food. The only food in Camp Office is a couple of ruined dog foods, and I don't want to roll the dice with food poisoning when I'm already under 10%.
So I reluctantly decide that I will eat a piece of bear meat. I am about halfway to Cooking 5 at this point so I still have to be mindful even with cooked food. Surely the 1% intestinal parasites won't get me. Well... turns out I didn't have to worry about the parasites. The 30 KG of bear I left in the rock cache outside Camp Office has of course, disappeared because it dropped to 0 condition. Whoops. This is even funnier to me because I almost never bother with a rock cache for anything. I'll just leave the stack of meat in the snow. And this is why! So... I have no choice, gotta try the Dog Food. I manage to get food poisoning from BOTH cans. Luckily I have medical supplies so I take a reishi tea and then sleep. Get up after my needed 10 hours and obviously mission 1 is food. But my condition is still hovering around 10%.
It's not storming out, but there's no deer about, no ptarmigans nearby. I decide my best bet is my two fishing tip-ups in the nearby fishing huts. I take my coal and some sticks out there. I check the first hut and... line breaks. Well, okay. Check the second hut... at this point it is getting dark, so I am pretty sure I am spending the night in this hut and I need to get lucky here. Thankfully, this line does not break. I catch a big fish, one I've never seen before (the high-level tackles can give you different fish) worth almost 2000 calories. So obviously I cook it up. At that point there's no way I'm chancing a return trip across the lake, since I have enough coal to get through the night. I keep fishing and thankfully this line manages to net me a few more fish before it snaps. By then it's time to sleep anyway. I trek back to Camp Office the next morning with about 1400 calories of fish to get me to my next destination. I stopped there, and have not yet decided my next destination. I might try to hunt the deer near the dam or in Ravine, since my condition is still low and I don't want to continue with the Lost Signal quest until I'm healthier.
So yeah anyway if you read all that, congrats you are also a Long Dark addict like myself. A bit of a harrowing tale, but also I feel like it's not very uncommon for any of us that play. Most of my deaths in this game are user error leading to bad luck, or vice versa. In this instance I made one questionable choice (leaving FA) and that fed into another (passing through BR rather than stopping) which led me to bad choices (how to feed myself back in ML because my bear meat is gone). As I am reminded every time I travel there, it's called "The FAR territory" for a reason. In the end I was lucky enough to survive so... we'll see how I screw it up next.
TLDR: Return from a long excursion almost dead, 30 KG of bear meat decayed and vanished in a rock cache. Horror, chaos, etc.

Looking for a cash in hand job to go alongside my full time job in Clifton area
Has to be within walking distance to Clifton so I can save on buses and be back for my dog if needed
Have experience in cleaning, customer service, catering, childcare, animals. Willing to do anything
Just started this job and don't get paid for another month so really need some money to keep me going until then

My partner and I have been together for 3.5 years (since I was 17 and they were 19), we have lived together for 2 years and we have 3 cats and a dog together. We were both so sure that we would spend the rest of our lives together, but over the past 6 months+ the spark has faded and it has turned into something more platonic. We have both been too afraid to say anything or bring it up, it's just been an unspoken topic. Tonight we finally talked about it and both mutually agreed that we feel like this is more of a friendship and how it's not the same as when we started out. I cannot stop crying, they aren't as upset about it (from what i can tell), I don't know what to do. This is my first long term relationship and i've never had to go through something like this. My main concern is what's going to happen to our pets, I do not want to have to put them up for adoption at all, that would destroy me. My partner would move back in with their parents and take our dog but their mother is allergic to cats. I don't even know where I am going to live or how i'm going to afford it, let alone find a place that will allow me to have pets. I don't know what to do, I don't have friends that I can go to because my partner was/is my best friend. Please give me advice, I hate this so much.

I am so sorry for the length, thank you so much if you read this.
Last time I gave this info:
I'm female, 21, 5'7" and weight around 255. If you scroll through my post history you'll see last year I was dealing with extreme period irregularity. I was never diagnosed with anything like PCOS but did go on a birth control pill which helped to regulate my cycle. I have been on that since November, I have also been on a Wellbutrin/Sertraline combo since August. That and therapy really has my anxiety and depression at wya more manageable levels. The problems I'm about to talk about started in January.
I have started having more digestive type issues since January. I've had almost constant acid reflux for over a year. I tried one of those two week courses of medicine you can find on the shelf to help but it didn't at all. I turned 21 in June, I've tried maybe 6 drinks in that time frame (it's March now) and I hate the taste and it makes me feel yuck and nauseous even after just 1 so I don't drink.
In the past month I have been having times where I wake up 5-6 hours after eating with intense mid to upper stomach and back pain it was like a band of pain that wrapped around my body. It's like a 8/10 on the pain scale. I thought it was heartburn or indigestion so I would try a Pepto, warm shower, nothing would help. I would be up for hours in tears. Before it somewhat subside and I would feel a little better. The last one happened on 3/12 into 3/13. I thought this could be due to large meals, or timing of dinner. I haven't been able to see a pattern though yet.
I feel nauseous way more than I ever used to, after eating or while in the car. Also in the past couple of weeks my bathroom activities have been a lot more different. It used to be, I would have a regular poop once a day, of the firm but not too firm consistency you would expect and normal color unless I ate like something green or blue. Now, I feel like every time I sit on the toilet now (3-5 times a day at least) I poop. It's not completely runny but it's not firm in the slightest. It's also had the strangest, weirdest odor. I have no idea what to explain it like but it's different and worse than normal. It's also become a lot darker. I don't know if it's really a black, I can't really tell but it's definitely a super dark brown at the least and I don't know if it's tarry, it's definitely kind of shiny, I really don't know how to explain it. I have just felt off lately. I haven't eaten anything super fiber containing, the last time I had Pepto was on the 10th. Those were some things I felt important to include as I know pepto could cause black stool.
Another thing, possibly important to know is just food aversion. Lately, food just doesn't taste the same, things don't sound good, and I'm not getting hunger cues like I used to. I often go most of the day without ever feeling hungry, this usually results in me eating 1 meal for dinner and maybe a snack earlier in the day? And my stomach just randomly mildly aches.
I also realized it's probably important to mention the exhaustion. Since January it has been so bad. I know it's normal to be tired expecially as a busy college student but I've missed multiple classes because I overslept or was too tired. And I've never done that before. I'm usually asleep between 10-11pm on the weekdays and around 12am on the weekends. On weekdays I wake up between 7 and 8am and weekends probably 8 and 9am. It's hard to not use electronics before sleep especially with homework and such. But it's been so bad. I just get so exhausted I don't know how to explain it. But I just feel heavy and I can't get out of bed because I'm so tired.I feel like it all probably relates to my weight. It's something I've struggled with and have tried to work on it. I haven't changed my diet in terms of types of food since I was at 200lbs in high school and I've focused on portions and more activity. I guess it could be stress too? But I don't feel like I've been stressed any differently lately?
Here is where I’m at currently: I went to my pcp who check my blood counts, lipase, and did a CMP. A year ago I had elevated ALT/AST levels (diagnosed with fatty liver) and those were back down to well within normal range. Nothing came out of these tests everything was normal. They also checked for H. Pylori and that was negative. So to rule out gallbladder I had a right upper quadrant ultrasound today. I did the fasting for 8 hours before and everything. The ultrasound results were just fatty liver. There was no evidence of gallstones or gallbladder thickening.
The final thing to add before I explain what was currently going on is I was put on 40 mg of pantoprazole to take once in the morning at least 30-60 minutes before first meal. This was because I tried Prilosec in August and that didn’t help, nothing has helped. I’ve been on it for a week and honestly I thought I noticed a difference, definitely a less constant feeling of acid reflux. Something that has been constant for around a year.
After my ultrasound I came home around 5:30pm and had a small amount of fish and fries. I did not eat to full, took time to eat, etc. went about my day. Around 8:30pm I felt a bit hungry so I had some chips and cheese, it wasn’t much but i felt satisfied and good. Like 20 minutes after my stomach started to hurt like it had been, I was confused because I felt confident the cause was in part behind laying down only a few hours after eating but I hadn’t laid down. It’s almost 3am and I am hurting bad. It definitely feels a bit like heartburn but it’s also just a gripping twisting pain right at my ribs from belly button to breast and around my back. I’m just lost and nervous and not sure what next steps will be.

It took a lot of time, and I've finally saved up and am ready to begin the process of purchasing a canoe for my family this summer! I've been lurking around this community for a bit now, and thought I'd take the plunge and ask for some practical advice.
​
I have read the pinned post, and will use the template here:
Do you plan on using the canoe Solo or Tandem?

• Primarily tandem with a young teenager, but have younger kids as well

Where are located and where are you paddling? Whitewater or Flatwater or both?

• Central Wisconsin; primarily lake waters, but am really wanting to do some back-water canoeing like inlets, creeks, and small rivers.

Experience of paddler(s)?

• No experience with paddling, but I grew up on the Oregon coast so I have a lot of boat experience in salt-water and on the Columbia.

Size of paddler(s) & passenger(s)? Is there also a Hound Dog? Kids?

• I myself am about 250, my oldest is around 150, and my other 3 range from 50# - 75# each

Capacity needs (multi-week expeditions? Day trips? How long would be the longest overnight trip you anticipate?) Are you minimalist, do you bring all the luxuries including the kitchen sink, or somewhere in the middle? If you have an idea of actual gear weight, all the better.

• My goal is to go camping for at most 2 days with it, and also fishing. I don't need to bring everything; I'd like a 2 person tent and fishing or hunting gear, extra clothes, and some small commodities like a small gas stove (the real little ones you can screw into the little Coleman propane tanks) and canned food.

Stability (& Capacity) vs Speed - where on the spectrum are you happiest? Fast canoes are fun, but they are less stable and haul less. Related: Are you fishing, and how important is this aspect to you?

• I don't much care about speed. I want something that is stable enough I can stand up if I need to without having to worry too much about tipping immediately. Fishing is my primary goal.

Is light weight important for portaging or loading on a vehicle? Do you need a yoke for portaging/carrying?

• I'm pretty strong, but I'd like to keep it under 75# since I would like to portage.

How will it be stored - will it be inside, outside & protected, outside & exposed to sun?

• In a garage; garage is not temperature controlled.

Do you have any specific needs/desires when it comes to hull material?

• I've been seriously eyeing up T-Formex but have looked into Kevlar

Budget?

• ~$3,000

What do you want to do?

• Fish, camping, and exercise

​
I have been looking into Esquif canoes a lot, and am really leaning towards the Heron. It has 3 seats in the design, which would allow me to "comfortably" take at least 2 of my kids out with me at the same time. I have thought about the Mallard as well.
​
What worries me is the square backing. I definitely can't afford a motor right away, and I don't really want one. I've read and seen on videos that a square back is far from ideal for a paddler. I've thought about the Scout, but it seems a little small for us.
​
I've looked at about every canoe Esquif has on their website, and I can link their videos and websites all day, but that won't help anyone. I'm hoping someone can give some practical advice on a good choice for a family canoe. Thanks y'all!

My friend looks for an animated movie about a villain inside water bucket carried by a dog or a wolf. I searched Internet using different keywords - Google, IMDB and Fandom and nothing fits.
He watched it around 2013-2015 maybe? The animated 2D (or 3D low quality) cartoon movie is set in the world of animals. The people are antropomorphic animals like bears or pandas. They can speak like humans, but they don't understand the speech of other animals. The elder from their community is missing, so other bears dont know where he is. There is a painting of him too. The main villain of this story is a witch who put a curse on the other animals so their speech is incomprehensible and she also put a curse on the elder so that he is stuck inside a painting. The witch doesn't have a body (she lost it bc of a curse?) but she is actually the form of water and is carried around in a water bucket by a dog. She resides in an abandoned cave. The bears set out on a journey to find the witch and defeat her. In the end the curse is broken and the people inside the painting are free and the other animals can now talk.
If you have idea, let me know. Thank you in advance. I think that it is tough to find.

A little about myself,,
I’m 24, live in the new west area with my bf and my two dogs. I used to have a lot of friends but one by one I started to lose contact with them once I graduated university. I’m an introvert but sometimes an extrovert when I get close to someone. Haven’t met up with any friends for a while and it’s getting a bit lonely. I’d love to get to know some people , if you’re Korean that’s a plus! Or if you are interested in Korean culture , music etc that’s cool too.
Sadly, all of my best friends moved to overseas and since then it’s been a bit difficult to find a true friend. I love FaceTiming and calling talking about anything really , gossip / drama lol. I just want to have a best friend that I can really connect with and have fun with.
Send me a message or comment below if you’re wanting to chat! 😊

Hello Everyone! I wanted to say I have appreciated so much of what has been shared here, from personal experiences, remedy recommendations, etc.
I was hoping to ask if anyone knows, is it possible that by me taking too many different types of things to combat stomach pain/nausea be contradicting?
I take daily probiotics, fiber gummies with prebiotics, dicyclomine, activated charcoal, apple cider vinegar gummies, I drink ginger & green tea.
Was thinking about adding on other things like Fennel, Shilajit, peppermint & licorice.
I’m leaving in a few days for a trip to the Philippines and am very very anxious about getting sick, I have some backup meds just in case extreme pain sets in, Ondansetron, Promethazine and Dicyclomine + Pepto Bismol and Imodium for traveler’s diarrhea.
All in all I’m a little nervous about potentially overdoing it by taking all of these things while simultaneously unsure if any of them are canceling each other out (ex: Anti Diarrhea but also Fiber supplements or the Promethazine which can cause constipation) On top of all of this I’m very gassy all the time and would rather not need to constantly run out of the room around my wife’s family while visiting (luckily she is amazing and puts up with it at home lol)
Thank you in advance to anyone who might be able to empathize with me or potentially offer any advice. Appreciate this community so so much.

This is a long read sorry!
Hi, I (22F) literally just joined, I have been on reddit for a while now, I post here or there but I really need the grace that only reddit seems to have, kisses but you know it's true. So, I guess, I am screaming into the void, because the truth is I am so gutturally confused.
Like the title says- I have always fantasized of being a flower child, a changeling, of turning towards the corner of the yard, the woods beckoning me to run away, the gentleness of which the coyotes would pick my bones clean. My childhood felt like a house fire only I could see.
My father's nightcap of whiskey got less and less watered down as nights were uncomfortable to spend on the family room couch. The one that he fiercely protects, once threatening my friend who mistakenly lounged in his spot. My mother's love felt scarce, a luxury only my younger sister could afford. Between that and her ambition to become the first nurse and college graduate of both families, I was more of my father's daughter. My younger sister and I were doll-like children, meek and polite to the price of our own dignity and self. To give a brief snapshot of what it was like being raised by them \~ even though "I'm remembering it all wrong, or not at all" I will try to go in chronological order, but you can quickly see most of these were not isolated incidents and I jump around:
-daily spankings because of crying during daycare drop off (fair technique)
-tricking us out of the "broken" car, in the rain on a dirt road "get gas" and proceeded to speed past us laughing as we ran after his taillights in the mud, we were in another country, on a solo trip with just our dad, we were both elementary school age.
-In elementary school and 6th grade I lived in a sweatshirt because when I hit puberty. I pleaded to my mother how hard it was to hear my father's constant comments about my womanhood and new body. He started to compare me to a hooker around this time, calling me a slut for trying to wear what my friends wore to school- leggings, shorts shorter than the knee but not offensively short I promise, though I strongly feel as clothing does not mean consent.
-For as long as I can remember, he would take pictures of us when we looked embarrassed then show it to family, friends, whoever in conversation in front of us then scold us when we inevitably felt bad or asked him to stop. He would also promise to delete the photo but would continue the previously mentioned above.
-So far, I have just been harping on my father, but the truth is they are a match made in hell, and though I feel like my mother is a victim in her own way. It was very hard to exist without their constant horrible comments about my appearance and character. They both shamed skinny children to be thinner, critiqued my body through puberty, and felt entitled to touch my body when and how they wanted. Examples include my father's frequent ass grabbing, and then allowing his adult male friend to do the same.
-They both would ridicule me for working minimum wage jobs in high school, while my father funnels out of my sister and I's joint accounts, only when we confront him does he fess that he required the money we earned for ourselves for the "mortgage". He continues as well as set monetary account goals, right before trips or plans, he would always be surprised that we had managed to scrape together enough money. He expects me to find a place that will fire and schedule me on a winter vacation, or to amount 5k in less than 3 months, while paying for my own necessities, thank you for teaching me to live on frugality as a means of survival.
-The name calling I touched on, but I would be the first to come home from school, my father would take his lunch to come home and berate me verbally of how much of a loser I am and will continue to be. The verbal arguments were daily, I fully admit to yelling back but in truth I couldn't leave his spewing red face hurling threats, I had to stay glued in place until he had his fill.
-Another solo trip with my father and sister, my mother had cleaned my room while we were away and had found my treasures- vapes, two beers. I got pulled out of the running shower to be beaten on and off through the night whenever my father took a break from tv, my sister sob in the room with my father to stop and I sat on the couch until morning. We had a tourist excursion the next day and I got it again before we left because I was not to "ruining the rest of his vacation with my bad attitude"
-They locked away my childhood cat, sick with cancer, to die alone in the basement so she would ruin their floors with her incontinence. When she passed, they did not tell me, they buried her in the woods behind our house, I wish I could lay beside her, I'm sorry little one.
-My father would come home and yell at me for not having dinner ready for him, because when my mother worked late or was not home, the next one responsible for dinner was my younger sister or me.
-He physically corners us or refuses to let us leave. Threatened my life when I tried to leave the house during an argument.
-Put his hand through the door a couple of times because I “gave attitude” by responding with ok. Readers, please note I am capable of attitude, but this was not the case, I was scared, and I just wanted to give him whatever answer he wanted
-I'm a summer birthday, so for my big 21st I had my cousin, bf and sister have a pool party in my parents' pool. No one told me the plan all day. I was told to just relax by everyone, because normally I would be running around serving people or helping my parents. No one told me anything, so we played some games in the yard, had some wine coolers and then swam. My father flies outside and starts yelling at me from the side of the pool to get my ass out and blow out my candles because he needs to drive my cousin 20 minutes home each way. So, I blew out my candles, soaking wet staring daggers because my father has always managed to underplay or make me feel bad on my birthday too? Another grievance from my 21st birthday is that my father grilled frozen steaks, and I truly do not want to seem like a stuck-up princess, but he proceeded to buy 300$ of food from my favorite restaurant and his favorite food is steak not mine. Note his birthday is the next day following mine.
I may post in regard to the tribulation that was my childhood in this thread again, but it takes a lot out of me, and I have already had myself a day sorry. Now you're all caught up and I just want you to know-
I have long ruminated over my own words and actions; though I have many regrets I do not feel ashamed of my choices or who I am because I try to treat everyone with kindness and most importantly respectability. I know the lengths my immigrant parents have gone through to build themselves a life. I know the struggles my father had with his father, the alcoholic who raised him with cruelty reserved for not even a barn animal. I know that my mother lived in the shadows as a neglected middle child hoping to find someone who realized all her good in the way her parents did not. I can see and understand that I carry the same wounds, and now it is within my responsibility to be better.
So, my relationship with my parents is strained right now. I have been in low contact with my mother and father for nearly four years, with periods of better contact. We have tried therapy, though it's difficult as my mother uses this as an opportunity to explore her wounds rather than our history or relationship. Though the therapist was helpful in directing the conversation back, I believe that the work can only happen with the person wanting to actually work on themselves, so I feel like I am at a frustrating impasse.
Every time I feel like I can take out a brick between the wall I keep between us, my mother will say something that makes me build another layer. I try not to be sensitive, yet I know my mother likes to cut with her words, though she claims otherwise. In a recent conversation my mother admitted that my father and she spent a great effort in making sure my beauty did not go to my head and did this in order to keep me humble.
For context, my mother’s side of the family does not like my father, and this along with other childhood issues festering into adulthood drove a wedge between my mother and her younger brother. His recent divorce and my mother’s empty nest have given them much time and space to rekindle their sibling relationship. So on our already strained phone calls she hits me with these metaphors of her brother and her relationship to ours. Am I off for thinking that those are two very different relationships, yet both have.. Jealousy? Furthermore, I feel a looney because I am fighting to keep them in my life, and they are fighting to be right.? To be absolved of the guilt and shame that maybe they did do the wrong thing.?
What gives them the right? When we all have to lay away at night with our guilt you want me to hold yours? I want a mother and they want a guiltless soul
Truthfully, I do not know what kind of future lies ahead for us. I think I grieve having bullies instead of parents, of what I missed out on and who I could have been. Like I said I am low contact right now, but after a normal phone call talking about the weather and our pets today, I had an anxiety attack to the point I fought to stay conscious. This has not been the first time I have fainted due to anxiety, mostly surrounding situations that remind me of them or things they punished or did to me in the past. The day after I wished my father a happy birthday after a year of no contact, I got two pills of ativan to the face after a ER visit in which they thought my poor bf was trafficking me. Though this is maybe too much, I am always sweating, my sides literally pour, my hands shake, and I can string together a sentence if I try. I feel like a different person, a moist, meek person.. which is not me, I self tattoo and pierce, I can and have tackled an attacking dog and I have punched touchy men square in the nose. I’m tough because I fought tooth and nail to be kind and gentle, we rescued cats and recently a possum, and we let out spiders and bugs, so our cats don’t terrorize them.
Here’s the thing… we’re getting married!
We’re tying the knot in the woods at the end of May, but I feel like an asshole because I have not told my parents. They know we’re engaged.
My mother, in a recent phone call, told me of this travel nurse that she had gotten close to, that was getting married soon, and invited my mother to go dress shopping with her. My mother told me how sad this girl felt that her family was all the way across the country, coincidently much like we are. This felt like she was guilting me, but she went so far as to send me a picture of a couple, I didn’t verify who it actually was.
Another issue is I am dealing with the guilt of getting a ring and bands elsewhere. My father is a high-end jeweler whose work has been showcased by celebs, my whole life I heard that my father was going to design and make my engagement ring. After long consideration, we picked out a ring from Madrid that felt more like me. When I look at my wedding rings I want to think of my husband not my father. I am more than happy with anything else, rings for other occasions, but it makes my skin crawl and my stomach curling because part of me feels as if it's more of a collar than a ring then.
My mother wants to meet over memorial weekend, she wants me to fly out a day to visit before I’m getting married.
I do not know if I should facetime them and break the news before, after or invite them. It’s already last minute so airfare will be expensive, but I know they are going to be so heartbroken. Part of me does not want them there either because I have felt alone my whole life, I figured I would do my wedding the same way, though it's hard because my fiancé's family will be there, and I will have no one. I wish I could hire a friend... lol typed that with a tear in my eye that's ironic.
Suggestions please

I am only just starting my driving lessons soon & although I'd love to travel & dot his pernamently, my main motivator for van life this year is money. So I don't want to get a big van where I can get my dream of having a seperate space for the toilet & the dogs if it's going to cost a lot more monthly.
I'm 24 but with this being my first vehicle, my insurance is already going to be very high.
I'll be buying the van outright when the time comes.
Is the road tax, insurance & petrol money generally a LOT more? Can someone give me a guess of how much more between the 3 types of vans?

I gotta say… I look at her life and feel bad for her. She’s lost her “influencer career” because no one can relate to her. She can’t keep friends, betrays people close to her, clearly isn’t loyal, makes bad life choices, and doesn’t have morals . She has a hard time accepting responsibility, being held accountable, and frankly just lies on the internet— she says she hates when people lie, even make white lies. 🥴
She could have possibly come out on the other side had she done that and making her somewhat relatable. Instead, she continues to make shitty content of mostly vile recipes, brush over ‘the truth’ about what really happened (she could be honest about their side), exploit her co-parenting situation, and she continues to make poor choices— more dogs, cats, and babies. She has some real real trauma that she’s ignoring and desperately in need of real therapy. Instead of finding herself, she and Preston are now both trapped with staying together to save face from what they really did. She especially feels the need to make this relationship last since Oscar is in such a healthy one. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if she just disappeared for a year and try to come back as a new family channel.

I literally grew up eating hot dogs from the Coney I-Lander on Admiral between Memorial and Sheridan. I would have been 4 or 5 years old, 6 tops. So we're talking 1969-72ish.
We ate there at least once every other week. Got to know the manager, whose name was Darrell (feel free to use alternate spellings if that helps). He was probably in his mid-20s or early 30s and a super cool dude. Always hooked me up with one of the paper hats they wore at the time.
Anyway, I remember from the news there was some kind of robbery gone wrong at the I-Lander and Darrell was hanging onto the perpetrators' car until it reached a dangerous speed. He was thrown off, bonked his head and died on the spot. It was the first time I can remember someone I knew -- especially that young -- passing away.
Does anybody else remember this? Am I making something up in my memories that never actually happened?

I am having some trouble worldbuilding for a group of natives in my medieval fantasy setting. One of the big decisions I need to make is deciding on what kind of tribe they should be like. I am curious about the advantages of different tribes when it comes to storytelling purposes.
The situation I am trying to go with is the idea of different tribes of natives. They share the same culture but are generally fighting each other. One of the groups ends up allying themselves with a group of colonizers. Things get a little messy later when those colonists have a civil war and the rise of an organized bandit syndicate.
Outland itself is very similar to Australia in both size and climate. In the sense that it is basically a single continent with a bunch of different biomes such as jungles, desert, forests, and tundras. The colonists themselves refer to the natives as Outlanders and that is what I will be calling them from this point forward.
The Outlanders themselves don't have domesticated animals of any kind until the colonizers arrive. However, despite that I do imagine them outnumbering the colonists at least for much of the conflict. For the sake of discussion we'll assume everyone involved is human. Things will get complicated if I have to explain the races.
If it is relevant there are a few major dangers in the Outland. One of them is an animal called Krero which exist primarily in the jungles where there are massive amounts of wildlife. The Krero act like army ants about the size of dogs, swarming over an area and attacking anything they can find with overwhelming numbers. Then after eating all animals they can get for a while they will leave and setup somewhere else.
There are two types of tribes I am considering to use for the Outlanders. The first is a migratory tribe which would move around for a while and then settle for a not insignificant amount of time before moving again. The second is a more agricultural sedentary tribe that is heavily reliant on farming although they don't build great cities.
I am curious, what are some advantages and disadvantages between these two types of tribes? I am looking for some insight that may help break the tie in this decision.

This is gonna be a long one but I hope you all stick around because I am looking for some clarity I guess.
My ex (23M) and I (26F) met in college and it felt like magic from the get go. We bonded over music and we had an instant connection and we spoke nonstop for days (and years). We went into long distance 2 weeks after we started dating due to covid and we had our ups and downs but we stuck it out. Last year, he came to meet me a bunch of times and they were always magical and happy. By the end of last year, he moved to my city and immediately started saying that we need to move in together, we need to plan our future because marriage is the end goal, and he would constantly keep planning our future. However, I was scared because he was quite inconsistent in his words and actions. Before he moved to my city, he went on a solo trip to vietnam and I felt like something changed in him. I couldnt pinpoint what it was but he had this "no one needs anyone" kind of an attitude. I didn't push it because given his past, he values his freedom a lot, so I let him enjoy his freedom as long as he wanted me and loved me at the same time. But like I said, he was very inconsistent- one day he wanted me and only me, the next day he wanted freedom. I thought he was just confused because he is young, but then I started noticing that he started getting distant. I tried to communicate with him so many times. I even sat him down and asked him if he is leaving me or if he is cheating on me and he just looked at me blankly and said "I have been with you for 4 years, why would I leave you now?". He also used to keep on saying I'm too sensitive and I overthink a lot and he always kept his family issues to himself and never opened up about his problems, so I thought maybe he was having issues unrelated to me. So I chalked it up to anxiety instead of intuition and stopped worrying. The last time I saw him, I asked to see my dog's photos on his phone and he snatched his phone away and said that he didnt have my dog's photos (i always send him my dog's photos so i knew he would have it in my chat, if not in his gallery). So i asked him again if he was cheating on me and he laughed it off. After a week of that, I went to my hometown and he went on a trip with strangers. He called me after the trip and said he had been losing feelings for months after moving to my city and that I deserve better and he spoke to all his friends and cousins (and not me :)) and that he has too many issues and he needs 1 month of no-contact to figure himself out. I was in shock and he didnt even give me the time or space to process anything since he was crying throughout the call and then went no contact. He said was going to therapy but my friends said he is on another trip instead. I felt heartbroken and thought to break up so I told him we're done. He said he was trying to make it work and didn't want to give up on us and he is going to therapy. I told him that we're not broken up then, take your time. Then he called me 4 days later and broke up, saying that he doesnt wanna fix himself and he doesnt love me romantically anymore (he loves me as a family apparently which idk what it means) and that he was close to lying and cheating on me and he thought its best to leave than to wrong me. But knowing him, i know if he is close to cheating, he must've already emotionally cheated on me with someone else. Also we were intimate 12 days before he called me and broke it off. I feel so used, like I was just a body to him. I feel devastated and cant even deal anything or anyone touching me anymore.
A friend told me yesterday that he's on yet another trip with his friends (so 3 trips back to back before and after breakup) and he looks happy and stuff. Meanwhile I've never been more heartbroken in my entire life. I had begged him months ago to go to couples therapy and he straight up said no. I think its normal to fall in and out of love in long term relationships but how can someone do this to someone else?
If you guys have any insight, please help me. Or please suggest ways in which I can move on.
PS. if my ex or any of his friends come across this post: i hope you all know that you're assholes

I didn’t know where to post this, my neighbors been letting his dog out all day while he’s doing outside work for the past week almost. He has this aggressive hyped up dog that he lets wonder in my yard and on my own porch and doesn’t care what his dog is doing. It’s chased away elderly stray cats I feed and eats their food. I’m tired of it and don’t want to talk with the neighbors myself because they’re creepy but I can’t stand it anymore. Animal control is closed tomorrow but can I call the cops if this happens again to have them come talk to the neighbor? There’s a leash law where I live but I’m not sure If it’s big enough to call the cops but I really want to because it’s so aggressive and loud and hangs around my porch like it lives there. I kinda chased it off a little and it came back barking and growling at me in front of my house. Can I call them for this? I know it’ll be out there tomorrow. I’m not trying to be an asshole i love animals but this dog is an aggressive nuisance

To preface I am '22F' and he will be '26M' at the end of the month, we both still live at our parents house. We have been together for 2 years. I'm at my wits end right now, I feel like I'm the only one trying anymore. It all started April 28th when I found out that I was pregnant, not wanted, we met up and he called the abortion center. I was sick as a dog on my birthday the 1st of May the day before the abortion. I wait all day for him to actually say "Happy birthday" or care that I'm sick but I get nothing except a what are you doing for your birthday? The day of my abortion it's straight to business and I'm an extremely emotional person and I might not have wanted a kid, but the whole experience was violating. I had originally expected to take a pill but had to have a surgical abortion, which made me cry and sick to my stomach. I hate needles and I hate being exposed. Everytime I was emotional he kept saying it was fine or to stop crying, instead of actually asking what was wrong. If I understood the doctor through her lingo and my crying I had either had a miscarriage on my birthday or it had been potentially cancerous, which they never actually talked further on which is frightening. After the surgery was over and my boyfriend picked up the drugs he dropped me off at my house and left. This hurt me as it has been my birthday the day before and now I'm going through all this shit on my own and he's basically abandoning me, not celebrating. I also didn't get a birthday gift, I know he payed for the abortion which was quite expensive but I got his gift a month ahead of time and he didn't even know about the pregnancy until days before my birthday. The day of my graduation he wasn't able to get the day off I asked him to request off months in advance, which I understand, but he doesn't congratulate me at all. Monday I try to plan a date for Thursday, and he says no so I ask why. He says he will tell me later and I don't get a response until 4am the next day, 12 hours later. Apparently he went to bed right after work. And now I'm trying my hardest to keep this relationship going and plan a date to talk and he's busy all the time and I haven't seen him since the abortion. I'm sorry for unloading but I'm unsure of if I should try anymore or what I can do?

Hi cat friends! So I currently have 2 cats and a dog. They get along beautifully for the most part (cuddle puddles and interspecies grooming and all that jazz). The cats are both a little over a year. They’re not related but were fostered together as teeny babies and so became bonded. One of them is super calm and the other (orange ofc) is a menace. I do all the things to help combat his crazy (scratchers out the wazoo, dedicated wand time, toys he can chase, I even built him a giant custom catio). At this point I sometimes wonder if it would help if he had a more playful friend who matches his energy.
Which brings me to the present. I’m fostering a litter of kittens and there’s one I’m just SO smitten with it makes me really consider adding a third… and I wonder if an energetic little kitten would help my 1yr old high energy lil guy feel more fulfilled?
On a more shallow note… how many cats is too many cats? As a single 30yr old with a dog and two cats already am I teetering over the edge here and en route to crazy pet lady status? (Tho I may already be there…)
Quick edit to add I’m financially able to take on another and am very familiar with the costs (vet bills, flee/tick meds, sitters, insurance, food, treats, litter etc etc etc)

So I’ve been seeing my therapist for two years now, and we haven’t had many issues for the most part. But I have noticed a pattern of my therapist bringing up the topic of power struggles/imbalances, and it always leaves me feeling very confused. For example, a while back after my first dog passed away, I tried to explain to her that it was hard for me to navigate our sessions bc I was so drained, and I asked her if she could help guide me through it by asking direct questions, etc, so it would be less overwhelming. Her response really caught me off guard bc she was acting very defensively and kept talking about power struggles, I felt like she was accusing me of questioning her ability to treat me, all bc i said it was too overwhelming to have the ball thrown entirely in my court every session, and it made me really angry, I felt so invalidated/degraded. That conversation definitely affected my trust in her and overall comfortability in therapy, I didnt feel like it was safe to keep bringing up so I tried to just move on, but as time went on I noticed that since it was never resolved, it was bleeding into the present, bc I stopped feeling like I could be completely honest but never addressed it again. I made the decision recently to bite the bullet and talk to her about it…. it didnt go well.
I am now even more confused and hurt than before bc I don’t understand what I did to warrant my therapist to respond so out of charecter, she is usually such an amazing listener, but today when I was trying to explain the situation, she became extremely defensive before I could even finish what I was saying. She thought I was accusing her of lacking empathy when my dog passed away, and that wasn’t at all what I even said, but she jumped in and snapped at me before I even finished what I was saying. I tried to clarify things, but it became increasingly harder to do so without crying, bc I didn’t understand why she was so frustrated with me. I never once raised my voice, or anything of the short but she just kept saying she didn’t understand and she was confused, no matter how many times I tried to clarify things. She then, once again kept bringing up power struggles, and mentioned that I apparently have this pattern of challenging/questioning her, in a way that isn’t helpful every couple of weeks, and she mentioned this was in her notes.
I seriously don’t get it, how does questioning a therapist automatically mean you are trying to engage in a power struggle? And how is anything I said even questioning her? She also, mentioned feeling devalued, and said that bringing up things from the past is passive agressive even if i don’t feel like it is. I felt like she wasn’t allowing me to have my own thoughts/feelings about any of this, bc even though I tried to clarify what I meant/my intentions, she was still defensive. I feel completely defeated, like no matter what I do it’s just going to lead to what is actually an argument, even though it’s not technically. My therapist always tells me any feedback is good feedback and that no emotions are bad, she won’t personalize anything, etc. But doesn’t her behavior kind of seem like she is taking it personally? bc if she wasn’t, then why is she getting so defensive?
Also, not to mention my therapist knows that I have a hard time confronting something in the moment, due to issues in my family/social life, I’ve sort of been programmed to feel like it’s unsafe to say something in the moment, and it’s better to bring it up later. So to be told it’s passive agressive when she knows why I do it, makes it even more hurtful.
My therapist also randomly brought up the fact that I have resentment issues with healthcare providers bc of past medical neglect, and experience with doctors dismissing me, etc. (I’m chronically ill) and she said it in a way where it was like she was trying to blame my feelings on that, instead of accepting that she had hurt me personally, I felt like I was being gaslit.
But What really struck me, was the fact that she accused me of being passive aggressive and then wouldn’t accept that it wasn’t my intention, but then proceeded to make a passive aggressive comment at the end of our session, about how she wasn’t going to say what she had been thinking bc it “would sound nasty” like exuse me??
I just don’t understand how she could be so frustrated with me for apparently making therapy about her, but then proceeded to make the entire session about how she felt. That’s extremely hypocritical to me and imo comes off like she’s developed a superiority complex, like she can talk about herself when she’s offended and she needs clarification, but when I’m offended and I need clarification, I’m not allowed to ask for it bc then I’m trying to be the therapist. How does that make sense?
I just feel so hurt and invalidated, I’ve been through hell this past year and I’m currently going through the most difficult time in my life, bc I lost my grandpa recently, This definitely didn’t help.
Anyway, thanks in advance for any insight y’all might provide lol, but I just want to say before anyone suggests finding a different therapist, that isn’t going to be helpful. My therapist has been with me through hell and back and she genuinely knows everything about me, things I’ve never even told anyone about. This isn’t the normal at all, I’ve thanked god for her every night bc she’s helped me so much, so her behavior was very out charecter and I want to be able to work things out and talk through it with her. Having to start over when I am in hardcore grief right now, would be a disaster, I don’t have the mental capacity for it, I’ve been considered inpatient treatment bc of how crippling my depression has been, it wouldn’t be a good idea to start over .

So I’ve been seeing my therapist for two years now, and we haven’t had many issues for the most part. But I have noticed a pattern of my therapist bringing up the topic of power struggles/imbalances, and it always leaves me feeling very confused. For example, a while back after my first dog passed away, I tried to explain to her that it was hard for me to navigate our sessions bc I was so drained, and I asked her if she could help guide me through it by asking direct questions, etc, so it would be less overwhelming. Her response really caught me off guard bc she was acting very defensively and kept talking about power struggles, I felt like she was accusing me of questioning her ability to treat me, all bc i said it was too overwhelming to have the ball thrown entirely in my court every session, and it made me really angry, I felt so invalidated/degraded. That conversation definitely affected my trust in her and overall comfortability in therapy, I didnt feel like it was safe to keep bringing up so I tried to just move on, but as time went on I noticed that since it was never resolved, it was bleeding into the present, bc I stopped feeling like I could be completely honest but never addressed it again. I made the decision recently to bite the bullet and talk to her about it…. it didnt go well.
I am now even more confused and hurt than before bc I don’t understand what I did to warrant my therapist to respond so out of charecter, she is usually such an amazing listener, but today when I was trying to explain the situation, she became extremely defensive before I could even finish what I was saying. She thought I was accusing her of lacking empathy when my dog passed away, and that wasn’t at all what I even said, but she jumped in and snapped at me before I even finished what I was saying. I tried to clarify things, but it became increasingly harder to do so without crying, bc I didn’t understand why she was so frustrated with me. I never once raised my voice, or anything of the short but she just kept saying she didn’t understand and she was confused, no matter how many times I tried to clarify things. She then, once again kept bringing up power struggles, and mentioned that I apparently have this pattern of challenging/questioning her, in a way that isn’t helpful every couple of weeks, and she mentioned this was in her notes.
I seriously don’t get it, how does questioning a therapist automatically mean you are trying to engage in a power struggle? And how is anything I said even questioning her? She also, mentioned feeling devalued, and said that bringing up things from the past is passive agressive even if i don’t feel like it is. I felt like she wasn’t allowing me to have my own thoughts/feelings about any of this, bc even though I tried to clarify what I meant/my intentions, she was still defensive. I feel completely defeated, like no matter what I do it’s just going to lead to what is actually an argument, even though it’s not technically. My therapist always tells me any feedback is good feedback and that no emotions are bad, she won’t personalize anything, etc. But doesn’t her behavior kind of seem like she is taking it personally? bc if she wasn’t, then why is she getting so defensive?
Also, not to mention my therapist knows that I have a hard time confronting something in the moment, due to issues in my family/social life, I’ve sort of been programmed to feel like it’s unsafe to say something in the moment, and it’s better to bring it up later. So to be told it’s passive agressive when she knows why I do it, makes it even more hurtful.
My therapist also randomly brought up the fact that I have resentment issues with healthcare providers bc of past medical neglect, and experience with doctors dismissing me, etc. (I’m chronically ill) and she said it in a way where it was like she was trying to blame my feelings on that, instead of accepting that she had hurt me personally, I felt like I was being gaslit.
But What really struck me, was the fact that she accused me of being passive aggressive and then wouldn’t accept that it wasn’t my intention, but then proceeded to make a passive aggressive comment at the end of our session, about how she wasn’t going to say what she had been thinking bc it “would sound nasty” like exuse me??
I just don’t understand how she could be so frustrated with me for apparently making therapy about her, but then proceeded to make the entire session about how she felt. That’s extremely hypocritical to me and imo comes off like she’s developed a superiority complex, like she can talk about herself when she’s offended and she needs clarification, but when I’m offended and I need clarification, I’m not allowed to ask for it bc then I’m trying to be the therapist. How does that make sense?
I just feel so hurt and invalidated, I’ve been through hell this past year and I’m currently going through the most difficult time in my life, bc I lost my grandpa recently, This definitely didn’t help.
Anyway, thanks in advance for any insight y’all might provide lol, but I just want to say before anyone suggests finding a different therapist, that isn’t going to be helpful. My therapist has been with me through hell and back and she genuinely knows everything about me, things I’ve never even told anyone about. This isn’t the normal at all, I’ve thanked god for her every night bc she’s helped me so much, so her behavior was very out charecter and I want to be able to work things out and talk through it with her. Having to start over when I am in hardcore grief right now, would be a disaster, I don’t have the mental capacity for it, I’ve been considered inpatient treatment bc of how crippling my depression has been, it wouldn’t be a good idea to start over