Erin Alberty
@erinalberty
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Utah news reporter for @axios. Gardener, word puzzler, mom. Happiest in the mountains. @PulitzerPrizes winner.
Salt Lake City
Joined October 2007
I just told my 3rd grader about the shooting. She replied:. "Yeah. We had a lockdown drill today. There aren't very many hiding places in our room. The good ones all get taken in like 3 seconds.". Then she left.
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I'm finally recommended for a hysterectomy after 32 years of anemia, ruined clothes, ruined furniture, ruined trips, ruined relationships, embarrassment, harassment, wasted money, waste in the landfill, sleeping on bathroom floors after barfing up birth control & iron pills . .
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If anything stands in the way of this surgery — insurance, billing offices, schedules, ANYTHING — there will be blood. (It may be mine, but I'll be leaving it EVERYWHERE just to be gross.). 32 years. I don't get that time back, do I.
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passing out, crying, leaving pools of blood on public transportation in god so many times zones, being scoffed at by male doctors, more crying, and PTSD from such high-wire acts as standing up, coughing, laughing, sneezing or leaving the house on the wrong day of the month. .
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I'm struggling to keep up with all of your beautiful, vulnerable and sisterly posts! Please keep them coming, because I will read them all once I'm out of the snow! (Fully armed with products today — and if all else fails, my cool new ski name will be Red Streak.)
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Every time I leave Utah I realize how big a relief it is to be able to take my kid to dinner and not have to make phone calls & worry about whether she's allowed to eat there.
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My kid's science fair is a nightmare. It started with a 3-page list of FORBIDDEN projects: all the normal science fair projects, like "how does x affect seed germination." The reason? They've been done too many times. Yes, I'm sorry my kid is not the World's First 5th Grader.
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@beatrice_wende I was willing to try less invasive things & didn't realize how harmful the anemia was until recently. Also didn't know how far beyond "normal" I really was, even with partial remedies. And I was told "no way" by previous docs so I didn't stomp my feet until last year.
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@steffdaz Yeah it's not good. My dad was visiting us during a lockdown day back when she was in kindergarten. It about did him in, listening to his 5-year-old granddaughter recite the "active shooter" protocols in the flat, clinical language of a police department press release.
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@stokedchaos I hate that my first reaction to this is to be genuinely grateful for the bathroom stall hiding tip. Since Aurora I can't even go to a movie without cataloguing exit routes during the previews.
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I've been covering coronavirus since January. A big takeaway for me is that Utah's cultural compulsion to always put on a positive front is really interfering with public messaging about how serious the situation is.
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@49ers_Avs I'm only on birth control because of blood loss. I don't need it for contraception.
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Federal judge: No, a Utah teen's religious freedom wasn't violated when he had sex with his girlfriend in the high school parking lot.
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@5neeks Last year my kid's classroom had an outside door. I told her to run away from the building if she ever hears pops from inside the school during a lockdown. But this year her classroom doesn't even have windows.
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SO many people dressed as Chrissy in the @Stranger_Things panel at @fanxsaltlake, and huge cheers for @GraceVanDien. The guys in my group are surprised how resonant her short-lived character is. I'm *not* surprised & have my own theories about her appeal — but what are yours?
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“Hospitals are going to exceed their capacity within the next 4-8 weeks.". "We are quickly getting to a point where the only viable option . will be a complete shutdown.". "This might be our last chance for course correction.". Bad news in Utah.
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I am at the most Utah piano recital. One (1) family says the entire front row is "saved.". The front row has 14 seats. They also want half of the second row. Now another family wants to claim more than half of a row. This room has 7 rows. 28 children are scheduled to play.
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@FaeWilkes This, this, this. I'm losing twice as much blood as my husband is allowed to donate.
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Emerson Elementary students & their families are protesting the anti-trans bathroom training being broadcast in class this morning. (They're at the grocery store so the district can't call police again.) Disclosure: My kid's here, so I'm not reporting — just sharing the scene.
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@colorblindark My kid never drinks. She still can't go into places where we all want to eat.
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They were told to research to confirm their projects did not answer already-known questions. What?! These aren't grad-students, they're 5th graders. Are they supposed to get Lexus accounts?. Kids with surveys had to fill out the UofU's ethics forms for human subjects.
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@NC5PhilWilliams There are a bunch of different liquor licenses at bars & restaurants. You can't take kids to "bars" at all, even for brunch. You dont usually know until you get there (or call to ask). Some restaurants she can enter, but only certain seating areas. Others are unrestricted but.
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After 15 years, this is my last day as a reporter for @sltrib. I'll tell you about my new adventure on Monday. But for today, I'm full of gratitude and high hopes for my beloved Trib coworkers. I'll always be proud of the journalism we did together.
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@vanderhoofy When I started in the early aughts, the "unpaid internship" was coastal media's way of reserving advancement opportunities for kids with families rich enough to support them. I wonder who makes up the current generation of NYC editors and publishers.
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I just found out that my kid has, for months, been using my YouTube account to leave scathing reviews on the art tutorials she watches obsessively during quarantine.
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Uhhh my kid's teacher didn't let her class go see the eclipse? They had to stay in while the rest of the school went outside to ooh and ahh. Now she's on the verge of tears, asking when the next one is, and I'm just gonna lie.
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OK, so BECAUSE they found polyps at my last colonoscopy, my insurance is making me pay for my next one. Guess what, insurance company shitheads: CANCER WILL MAKE ME MORE EXPENSIVE THAN A COLONOSCOPY.
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More than 50 little Utah babies under age 1 were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the past two weeks.
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I keep having to sign consent forms so her classmates can "experiment" on my child. All they're doing is asking "which writing sample is AI-generated" and "how does this music make you feel?". The whole process has involved half-explained requirements of college-level research.
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Here's Terrance Mannery, the ice cream shop worker who took on a mob of angry young white men who were threatening and chasing gay people this weekend during the Utah Pride Festival.
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Apparently the kids found some YouTube science fair videos for *educators* and shared them around to make sense of the requirements. Last year, she was docked for correcting a misspelling on her poster because the WhiteOut called into question the integrity of her research.🙄.
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My childhood neighbor died from the coronavirus this afternoon. He was one year younger than I am.
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As a Michigan newsmedia veteran, I am 100% unsurprised by this charming celebrity coverage. 😂 "He ate at a Bob Evans!".
This is the first time I’ve seen this quote from Daniel Radcliffe and honestly this needs to be a #PureMichigan ad
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Utah governor celebrates Black History Month and "improving access to opportunity" two days after banning DEI programs
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Turns out the CEO who got a no-bid contract to run also sits on the board of the company that's selling stockpiles of hydroxychloroquine to the state. Now questions about the controversial drug are on the screening form.
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My husband starts humming “Hall of the Mountain King” while serving some Christmas fruitcake and we all look at him like wtf and he says “What? It’s the Nutcracker song!” and it turns out he truly believes all classical music in a minor key is the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.
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Her back hurts from being hunched over. My head hurts from resentment. We have so little free time as a family, and I just want to die. Oh, and now she hates science in addition to social studies. At least we still have math. We all like math.
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It's funny, I've been at The Tribune for nearly 15 years. Our coverage hasn't changed. What's changed is that people in positions of public trust are less embarrassed to admit they feel entitled to exercise power without accountability.
I find it deeply troubling that a Utah lawmaker said he "would love to label The Salt Lake Tribune as a vexatious requester" for asking for PUBLIC records. Regardless of whether someone finds records requests annoying, they are necessary to hold public officials accountable.
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I know lots of readers have been worried for Justin, so an update from his mom last night: He's still sedated but breathing a bit more easily. He'd been in the PICU since Jan. 15 without much improvement until late this week. That progress is a big relief.
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At today's COVID-19 briefing by @GovHerbert, the three reporters from @sltrib were prevented from asking a single question.
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Are you an organization with a news media contact? . For the love of God, just give me a phone number. I hate your "press@" email. You don't check your email. You don't reply to your email. Your email cannot confirm that you're even still alive. Give. Me. A. Phone. Number.
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My kid is testing how ambient temp affects the effectiveness of our fog machine chiller for Halloween. Amid all the strict nitty gritty on experiment design & ethics, apparently no one explained what a "control" is.
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I'll go YEARS in Utah without anyone asking me where I went to college. But I went to a wedding in DC, and in a single weekend at least a dozen people asked where I went to college. To people sizing me up, it mattered more than my profession did. It's a creepy thing back east.
1/7 In my early days of working in the media in NYC, a coworker said, "It's interesting how most midwesterners go to state schools; I guess you all like to stick close to home." I was shocked by the classism. I said nothing. But here's what I wish I would have said:.
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Trying to get a COVID test for my kid after learning of a positive in her class. As of my last check there is only one state testing site (TestUtah) along the whole Wasatch Front with availability before Sept. 7. It’s in Brigham City.
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@isabelkaplan My hubs does more than his share of housework, but when I have big/hard stories he basically lets me hole up & disappear. He said facilitating my work is community service. He's always proud & shares my stories. It's not always a perfect union, but on this point he's pure gold.
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A storm is blustering into SLC, so there’s not much election reaction in the streets here. But one woman is rallying from a street corner downtown.
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If this is your take on Trump’s appearance at the ballgame tonight, you might be a Sinclair station. 😂
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@BPaxton12 Columbine happened a couple years after one boy shot another in the head at our drivers ed class. At the time it seemed beyond belief . like, to witness such a thing despite being a normal person in a normal place. It does not feel unbelievable anymore.
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@clhubes Like when people give clothes a bad product rating because it didn't fit them personally. "It was too long for my torso. 1 star.".
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So as a result of my suggestion that we test the fog rise time with and without the chiller at each temp, she's crying and comparing me to Donald Trump!. She spent 7 hours yesterday watching teacher-training videos and feverishly revising her hypothesis and methodology.
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We've heard a third of the staff was laid off at @sltrib. I got an email that I still have a job, and I'm beyond grateful. But I'm more crushed with each colleague I learn is gone. Please stick with us, Utahns. Powerful interests want us all to stay uninformed & out of their way.
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Wait, this bird was in Utah?.
The beautiful white-faced ibis with its colorful purple, crimson, teal and gold feathers is sure to brighten your Monday morning! . Photo at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge in Utah courtesy of Leslie Scopes Anderson
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When Paul went up to claim our Pulitzer Prize (for stories that mostly printed before he had any connection to The Salt Lake Tribune), he told me to stay at the lunch table and hold his camera up to film him. I wrote the majority of the winning entry.
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More than 467,000 people in Utah and Nebraska voted against removing slavery from their state constitutions. The idea that it's all about voter confusion is a little silly to me.
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OH! I forgot to mention the part where I got our THREE (3) Halloween fog machines out, only to discover they all no longer work. I had to frantically drive 30 miles to and from Guitar Center this morning to buy a new one!.
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Wow, about 85% masked at the Scipio gas station in rural Utah. Was not expecting that!.
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Anyone who has moved to Utah from some other place knows this is true because that's how weirdly excited people here are to find an opportunity to snitch. Zero apology for painting in broad strokes. Thirteen years, and the all the tattling in this place still blows me away.
She had gone to her roommate to say she was feeling suicidal. The roommate brushed her off, saying she was being dramatic. The roommate then went to the housing management and told on her.
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@NC5PhilWilliams I was in NYC & a nanny was singing a jazz set at my hotel lounge after hours. The kids came to watch & cheer for her, and my jaw dropped in envy bc my kid would LOVE that. Then we go to Texas and there's a playground at the pub!.
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@colorblindark Ooh, you went to one of the places where you can take kids. Good for you. That doesn't change all the places where we can't go but would be able to in any other state. You're obviously grasping at straws to recover from a totally illogical comment.
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I'm working on a sex assault story today. Our norm is not to identify victims, but one woman said she wanted to use her full name. She just called back and asked me to withhold her last name. The reason: "I just watched five minutes of Kavanaugh. I don't want any part of this.".
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We noticed a lot of Utahns saying they were getting lousy yields from their gardens this year, right as food prices are soaring. Climate change means Utahns will probably need to change how we grow food.
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BYU students & alumni describe being interrogated for sexual details, punished for years-old social media posts, and ordered to inform on their roommates for offenses like "passionate kissing" as part of the @LDSChurch schools' Honor Code enforcement.
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Flashback: The editor of the Deseret News told @Axios in March that Mandel would no longer be contributing "political opinion and culture pieces" after her controversial tweets on race and ethnicity resurfaced.
"When it comes to his advice on building a family, the statistics are on Tucker Carlson's side," @bethanyshondark writes in @DNewsOpinion.
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i just had to do the heimlich maneuver for the first time in my life and i guess it worked but also i may never stop shaking.
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The objections to Utah's Juneteenth proclamation are really something. There's only one reason to oppose celebrating people's freedom from slavery. There's no dog whistling this one. There's no dubious false-equivalency fig leaf for you to hide behind.
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Time to sound off: Does Utah have a seat-saving problem?. I feel my stomach tense up just thinking about the pre-outdoor-concert ritual of stumbling over a patchwork of unoccupied picnic blankets anywhere you can see the stage.
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Whoa, UPDATE: .Retail giant REI joins boycott of major #Utah outdoors gear company over gun industry ties.
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It's been 14 years, two months and one day since I moved to Utah. I still miss buying wine in the grocery store.
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Utah's elected officials charged in to attack an Olympic boxer's gender — including a governor who polished his LGBTQ+ ally bona fides for years.
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@bjonesbrown @calvinjburke More than once:. Men unwittingly repeat my reporting back to me. I reply, all friendly-like, "Oh, yeah! I actually wrote that story. I'm so happy folks read it!" . And then they UNBLINKINGLY CONTINUE TO REPEAT DETAILS OF MY OWN COVERAGE BACK TO ME. "Yeah, well did you know THIS?".
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@NC5PhilWilliams you can't order a drink unless you order food, & they get in trouble if they don't sell enuf food. All sports bars are off limits. Like shes only seen a few Michigan fb games w/ her dad bc we don't have cable & she can't go out to watch. Live 🎶 also mostly off limits.
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"It could have ended long ago if we just put the needs of others ahead of our own,” one doctor said as a record 854 COVID patients were hospitalized & 10 more Utahns died from the virus.
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@lesliemeans If I could unlive all of my periods and just agree to die a decade early, I wouldn't need to think about it. I would take that deal in a heartbeat.
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Kid: I don’t see why women have to fight for rights if men just get to have them. Me: Just a sec, I gotta tweet that shit. Kid: I’m not going to make you put a dollar in the swear jar because that was the perfect time to say it.
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The coronavirus testing shortage has gotten so dire in Utah that state health officials are now telling people NOT to seek testing unless their symptoms are so severe that they require extra medical care.
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@Simon08says My daughter also says that's the scary part -- the person trying to open the door while they hide.
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Liberty Park in SLC, after the storm. Watch to the end to see the worst of it.
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I'm going to absolutely lose my shit if SLC closes another inch of road in Sugar House before finishing what they've started.
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@IGoBySteve As an out-of-stater applying for a job in Utah, I was asked in my interview whether I was LDS. Believe it or not, it wasn't the most troubling question I was asked.
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Do you think SLC needs more neighborhood pubs? One's in the works!
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A former police chief on CNN is going off about how Adam Toledo was 13 & out at 2:30 a.m. & that shows people "put themselves in the situation" to get shot by police. I hung out with friends at ALL hours when I was in middle school. But it's just "antics" when white kids do it.
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@CharlotteM28898 Omg that is SO stressful. God, what a nightmare. Even if the dude is cool and helpful, they know you know they know how embarrassed you are!!.
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Look at the big huge scarecrow my family made with the neighbor kids!
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State extends TestUtah contract for another $2.6 million despite 22 lab violations in federal audit. The Utah tech company in charge has billed the state $7.6 million for the COVID-19 testing system, initially promoted as a philanthropic effort.
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This girl is 14. Listen to Leia, a Utah Paiute teen, speak out against Cedar High School's mascot: The Redmen. Leia's at another school in Cedar City in part bc of the mascot. Read the town's reaction here: Video excerpted from @ColorCountryPolitics.
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BREAKING: Federal regulators found that TestUtah's mistakes amount to "immediate jeopardy" — the highest level of violation lab inspectors can report. From @BethRodgersSLT & me.
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Acclaimed author Margaret Atwood — i.e. "the most dangerous little old lady of 84 you've ever heard of!" — clapped back as Utah banned her book in schools statewide. Today's story at @axios:.
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@colorblindark I mean you're the one getting hostile over a stranger's vacation photo but it's okay I'll back away slowly & give you your space.
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My kid finally asked how babies are made. "Well, there's an egg and a—" ."What, you go and get an egg?"."No, the eggs are inside of our bodies."."WHAT.". That's when she laughed at me and left the room.
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Got my daughter a Facebook Kids account to message friends and family during coronavirus, and now I'm seeing she sent pictures of herself to all the grandparents, with animated ornaments and the label "Big Sister." . Uhhh. That's not happening. Time to get on the phone.
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@bjrop91 bleh, the misery-go-round of "remedies" that don't work or are only temporary. I hate that it's a prerequisite. And the tiniest improvement is like "welp I guess this is the best I can hope for?" so you try to live with it, as if years of guinea-pigging isn't a cost.
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Fifteen years ago today, I moved to Salt Lake City. And it took all 15 of those years for me to discover that we have in this town a bar that sells boxed wine by the frosty mug. Cheers, friends. You changed my life.
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