The scary bug and how to get an exhaust fan fixed

Fall's a comin'

Recipes?

Hiya hiya hiya! Late Summer…almost time for my annual recipe post!

Do you have any good zucchini or tomato or other veg recipes that we get too many of and want to feed to people and not trash or be driven to learn pickling? Do tell!

How to get an exhaust fan fixed

It’s actually chilly here in New Hampshire today. Like, 55 degrees this morning! Amazing sleeping weather. I feel so refreshed!

No I don’t. I feel exactly the same as I do when I sleep well in the city. Pretty good, which is ….pretty good. Anyway. As Fall is bearing down on us, I suddenly realized that the exhaust fan over my stove doesn’t work (hasn’t for months but who cooks on a stove in the summer?). The fan is from 2008 when we all (literally everyone) moved to the next house to bring up our lil’ cherubs (because don’t they need the perfect home to become the perfect middle schoolers, high schoolers, college kids and then, adults we can be proud if?? New Flash: it doesn’t work that way. But, who knew? ).

We were all in one place for one night!

I do like to cook and that does require a hood or the whole house will smell like charred salmon or other oily thing that will hang all over the house for weeks. MUST GET HOOD FIXED. Ha. Not as easy as you think it should be, lady.

I had the place that I bought the appliances from come take a gander and they came back a week later with something. Whoops! Silly them, it wasn’t the right power so, they scheduled to come back a few weeks later. This is Summer after all. They came back and took the whole thing apart. Took the motor out and wouldn’t you know? It didn’t fit. See, the company was sold and the new owners don’t make that fan anymore and so. And so. Oh, yeah, btw, we don’t sell that brand anymore and haven’t for seven years. My eye starts twitching.

So, why didn’t you tell me that to begin with? I might have called the company and found out who still services this beast? No? No matter. Three visits later over several months and I am at square two. I have a new group and they called the manufacturer and they too have discovered that the fan is no longer made. I had mentioned that, but, who am I? We do all need to seek our own truths, I guess.

BUT! This group is a little wily. They are up for rigging something and cramming it into my orange exhaust hood (goal of situation: get exhaust fixed but not at the cost of loosing my orange hood…priorities, people!). The hood is so roomy the guy and I were joking I should rent it out (housing shortage joke with a side of judgement for the fancy zip code). Stand by, the next visit is on the horizon but I sure hope it works out in time for soup season.

The Scary Bug

It’s nearly the size of a hummingbird, I know it is because I sat there staring at it and almost convinced myself it indeed was a hummingbird. It has a long beak like thing, a body and fiercely flapping wings. It also has two sets of legs. It is not a hummingbird.

Now I am starting to convince myself that it might be evil. As in demonic. I know I took photos and a video and yet, they are no where in my library or my trash. I just looked. I have no question in my mind that the bug is not a good thing and that it probably can deliver a sting second only to a scorpion. I am a little afraid of it!!!

Hopefully I will happen upon it before this post goes out. I did just see it and went for my phone and looked up and it was gone. Demon-bug. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Is it a shoot to kill moment with this most likely invasive species? Please let me know….I’ll try to get a photo.

GOT IT! What the holy F is this thing??? PS. I have a creepy video I’ll put on Notes….

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I’m thinking about a few things:

• The response to my article on mean girls

• Adult kids moving home

• The article in the NYTimes A Generation on Antidepressants Searches for the Exit by Camille Bromley

MEAN GIRLS

I have received a lot of feed back on the piece I wrote last week. Talking about mean girls really stirred you all up!

I get that.

As I wrote the piece, and later received feedback, I realized there were other stories to tell. Like:

• There are women who do not want to share their close friend with another close friend. Why?

• Apparently, there are a lot of mean girls after fifty. I stand corrected. I’m just not meeting them. Very often. For the most part. Only occasionally.

• Retirement homes are full of former high school mean girls who behave like high school mean girls. Unfortunately. Anyone have experience with this?

• Why choose to be “mean?”

• Is “mean” a habit? Like nail biting? Is it something one can stop doing?

There is a lot to cover. I’d like to hear from you. A lot of you have had or are having some rough mean girl experiences out there. Be strong.

What aspect of mean girls affects you? If at all.

• I want to hear from the over 70 gang. Tell me about your world and mean girls.

• I want to hear from the mean girls. Let’s hear your side.

• I want to look at the sociology of the middle aged mean girl, the “why” and what were they like as kids? Same goes for the mean senior citizen gramma.

Please read, “like” and comment:

ADULT KIDS MOVING HOME

I thought of the following, full of hyperbole and just for fun:

I think “boomerang” kids have been weaponized against us by an enemy state. Russia? Iran? Canada? Like Sisyphus, our kids we thought we had “launched” keep coming back into our homes with all of their baggage both literal and emotional. It’s the perfect weapon to distract every single grown up with kids over twenty. Nothing will ever get done.

I’m writing a piece on adult kids moving home and I would love your input. It will be funny but it will also be real.

How are you feeling about it? Most of us with multiple kids have one or two cycling through the house on their way to or from something post college. This is normal! It’s fine and really nice, actually. But, I wonder what you all are experiencing.

I am in Adult Kid Moved Home-Lite. Meaning, I have one who just graduated and is job searching (painful) and one that stays with us (bombs house) when she is on the East Coast as a landing pad (pig stye) and one who will be cycling back before she moves out west, date is uncertain, current lease has a month left. We may have three kids living here again. At least two.

I do not want to grocery shop and there have been complaints. I really really hate grocery shopping and this is a whole other piece I can write…loathe. Grocery. Shopping.

Last year, and while they were all in college we only had vacations as the time they were home opening seltzers, not drinking them and leaving them where they left them. Sweat ring beneath a warming can, permanently staining the table. Now, it could be anytime and all the time!

And PS there is a piece in the NYTimes about that today, too!

The article in the NYTimes A Generation on Antidepressants Searches for the Exit by Camille Bromley

This is a timely article for those of us in our fifties with kids in their twenties. We know that a lot of them went on SSRIs and are still on them. Is/was this a good thing? The article may not help answer this question, but it’s a good start. What do you think?

Strangers, Belle Burden

I read Strangers by Belle Burden in May. I have a lot of thoughts on it, and this surprised me. It isn’t a vapid, sob story. It isn’t a braggie Housewives of Blah Blah story. It is a life plan gone painfully, unexpectedly wrong. It’s shattered trust and bad decisions.

She’s in what she thought was a happy marriage, kids, massive privilege, one moment to his telling her, as she learns of his affair: “I thought I was happy but I’m not. I thought I wanted our life but I don’t.” He tells her she can have everything, including custody of the children. “I don’t want it,” he says. “I don’t want any of it.” (NYTimes By Alex Kuczynski Published Jan. 11, 2026Updated May 29, 2026). And, that’s it. he’s done. It’s particularly stinging he wants no custody of the kids. It gets worse.

Have you read it? What did you think? Shall we meet in Boston and have coffee this Fall? Mid September?

WORTH YOUR TIME!

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