My Clinical Microbiology teacher: I’m no longer allowed to teach you how to waft plates, but… if you happen to catch a whiff of ____ growing on a plate, you would smell ____. ::wink, wink::

Gotcha! I’ve stuck with Samsung because they make a phone that will fit in the pathetic excuse that is women’s pants pockets. My husband tried to get me to switch to the Pixel but it was too big.

My Samsung does it very easily with decent customization options in Gallery (and has for at least two phones). What phone are you using that can’t? I agree the collage feature in Google photos is lame.

Well how do we know that any scale at all is right?

My lab has weights that get calibrated against a NIST standard annually. We use those weights to perform daily quality control that our scale is accurate (to +/- 0.01g). If the quality control fails then we recalibrate the scale.

I’m still salty that my C-section was at 4pm. My 38w pregnant with twins self was STRUGGLING with the 8 hour fast being during my awake hours. I got up early to eat as much as my squished stomach could hold in preparation.

I still remember the My Buddy and Kid Sister ad jingles 🫣

The 80s were a wild time for kids movies. I loved The Labyrinth but the scene where the puppets took their heads off and played soccer was unsettling. I still don’t like that part.

My husband wanted to throw on The Secret of Nimh for our 5yo twins. He was sitting there confused why I would object, “it’s rated G.” It’s 1980s G; that’s a Don Bleuth Bluth animation! “It will be fine! Come on kids, this is a movie Mommy and Daddy watched when we were kids.” I got up to get a blanket in preparation for the inevitable hiding behind a blanket moments.

I also saw the original Chucky movie when I was a kid at a slumber party. I spent a lot of time helping my friend’s mom make popcorn.

Fast forward to my early 20s. A friend’s 5yo found a Chucky doll at the thrift store. Oh, the poor baby’s hurt! I want to take care of the baby and make it better! So her mom buys it for her and she took it EVERYWHERE. I gave that situation sooooo much side eye, I was not ok. The 5yo had zero idea of the context and loved that “hurt baby”. My friend made it clear to us that we couldn’t explain it to her.

Picard x Moving Out 2

I don’t get it either. I was working in a hospital lab in TX for H1N1 (swine flu) in 2009. The hospital lined up all staff members to get the brand new H1N1 vaccine and you either got it or signed a declination. Declining meant you got a sticker on your badge requiring you to wear a mask for the entire flu season while at work. No fits, no protests, and everyone cooperated. My mind is blown by how toxic the rhetoric became.

Even Nurses with a bachelor’s degree have a very light core science foundation. They take Biology for Health Sciences 1 and 2 instead of the Biology 1, 2, 3, and 4 that biology majors take. I had a nurse ask me if creatinine had a “nice little abbreviation” like Sodium (Na) and Magnesium (Mg)… Creatinine isn’t an element on the periodic table so no, it doesn’t. It is lots of C’s H’s O’s and probably some N’s. I had another nurse ask me to explain saturation. Nurses sent cookies to the lab (a “dirty zone”) in the same carrier tubes that hold sputum, blood, urine, and stool. Then they were confused on why we threw the cookies away and scolded them for the unsafe practice. Their education prepares them for the job of nursing not research scientist.

They are all about the same. Most I have seen are from the 60s but they were manufactured 1961-1975. From my excursion down the rabbit hole, pink and blue are easily found but the champagne color was difficult to find.

I love my safety razor. Go with one that has a longer handle. I have a vintage Lady Gillette Starburst razor that I picked up on eBay. It’s a super close shave. I stay smoother a couple of days longer than I did with cartridge razors. It completely got rid of shave bumps and my skin irritation that was driving me crazy. West Coast shaving sells blade sample packs so you can try a bunch and pick the one you like most.

Fwiw safety razor shaving is a deep deep rabbit hole. You will drop a bunch of money up front but the benefits are great. Some people get into it to save money (it is cheaper than cartridge shaving) but then they turn into collectors with bunches of razors and a huge array of shaving soaps, creams, and after shaves. You don’t HAVE to go that deep.

Leonin ranger

I work in a hospital. I continued to commute to work and do my job through all of the shortages and all of the uncertainty. I died a little each day I had to stop my then 3.5yo twins from rushing to hug me at the door so I could change, drop my clothes in the wash, and wash my hands before they touched me. Then they stopped trying. It was a year before I was greeted at the door with a hug. I knelt there crying the first time they did it again.

I saw all my friends doing all the lock down things and knew that society and employers would never make it up to those of us who worked through it all. We didn’t even get pizza parties because my hospital had a no shared food policy for infection prevention.

I walked past maskless protestors outside my hospital accusing of us every ludicrous talking point there was. For the first time in my career I questioned why I did it. Why was I risking my family’s health and my own to take care of THEM.

Yes… #blessed

I love the tradition of trick or treating in the neighborhood. I hate that it is dying in some communities (instead going to malls, trunk or treat etc). I happily give candy to anyone who knocks on the door and I don’t care how old they are or if it’s “late”. It’s a fun time for everyone.

Gravenstein makes DELICIOUS apple sauce! I have bought a case from a local farm two years in a row.

I make them into apple sauce and use that to make my apple butter. It’s the best apple butter I’ve made to date.

I agree! I would much rather actually retire which now, thanks to my pension providing job, I can.

There are agencies that act as intermediary for healthcare workers to pick up travel gigs. You sign up with the agency. Hospitals/laboratories/etc who need short term staffing solutions (laughs then sobs in COVID staffing shortage) reach out to agencies saying they need a nurse/medical assistant/medical laboratory scientist and the agency sends them the resumes of all their contract workers that are available. If the facility wants you, the agency contacts you to see if you want to take it.

Housing/living expenses are covered and you make BANK compared to the permanent employees (who may resent you for it). The travel pay and contracts are slowly returning to pre COVID levels but it was ludicrous for a while there. I did try to figure out a way to take a leave of absence from my job (don’t want to lose that pension) so that I could pick up a travel gig. It was that lucrative. There’s always a staff shortage in healthcare somewhere in the country.

There is potential for feast and famine so people doing it as their sole income need to plan for that or be willing to work in facilities that are a dumpster fire or in places that they wouldn’t relocate to for permanent work. Most contract agencies don’t offer benefits so that also needs to be planned for. Travelers usually make 2-3 times more per hour than permanent staff and have a separate allowance for living expenses so getting your own health insurance won’t negate your earnings.