Sauntering, Destination Undetermined

*unmutes*

for instance, green tea, freshly steeped and served without additives, is hot and dry, and therefore has an aspect of fire.

a mocha, on the other hand, while hot, is sweet, and therefore wet, and thus has an an aspect of air.

lemonade, which is wet and cold, has a water aspect.

If you have hoofed, sentient creatures (centaurs, fauns, etc.) do they wear horseshoes? Or are horseshoes a compromise between cost, effort in looking after the animal etc. Is there something "better" (in comfort, utility, fashion) that sentient creatures would prefer? Possibly also a metal thing that's nailed in, but different in some way?

Interesting! I'm no expert, of course, but here are some thoughts that may help you on your journey. Take what you can use and disregard what you can't!

I know this already sounds bad but hear me out.

So I (30M) am the sole employee of this guy (62M) who’s honestly just a miserable boss and an even more miserable person. It sucks so bad working for him—the pay is horrendous, he’s verbally abusive, and the working conditions are awful (in the winter I literally have to stay bundled up the whole work day because he refuses to put the heat on in the office). He wouldn’t even give me holidays off if it wasn’t for the fact that there’s basically nothing to do those days because everywhere else is closed. I’m almost positive he unironically thinks poor people should die if they can’t work. His nephew (aka his only living relative and just the nicest guy) came by yesterday to invite him to Christmas dinner and he told him he’d see him in hell.

I cannot stress this enough—it’s BAD. I’d quit, but it’s been hard finding a better job and I’ve got four kids at home, including one with special needs.

Anyway, so here’s where I’m wondering if I’d be the asshole. Today was Christmas Day and he showed up at my house out of nowhere (huge red flag, I know). At first I thought he’d forgotten I had the day off and he was here to chew me out, which was worrying enough, but then his whole demeanor changed and he was super happy and excited and talking about how he was going to raise my salary. He even mentioned possibly making me a partner in the firm.

Now if that was it, I’d feel a little weird about the suddenness of it but it’d be fine. I’m not going to complain about having more money to feed my family. But then he started talking about how he wanted to pay our mortgage off. He talked about wanting to pay for our son to get the very expensive medical care that’s probably going to save his life. He mentioned at one point that he was going to be donating a huge amount of money to charity too—I knew he was rich but it staggered me. All this from a guy who doesn’t (didn’t?) even want to turn on the heat or the lights because it costs too much money.

It was such a sudden and drastic change that happened very literally overnight and now I’m kind of concerned he’s having a manic episode or something. I really, really want to accept his sudden generosity (I probably will; my wife is all for it and thinks he owes it to us), and I would love to believe that he’s truly had a sudden change of heart (an actual Christmas miracle lol) but I’m just worried about the possible consequences of accepting huge financial gifts like this from someone who I believe might be experiencing some kind of break from reality. Even if there’s nothing legally wrong with it, I’m worried about the ethics of it.

@rpepperpotshipssciencebros please forgive me for this one

RIP (In loving, random access memory)

The Blitz here manages to qualify as Britain's Darkest Hour, thus triggering the return of Arthur from the Realm Avalon.

He does not speak a lick of modern English. He speaks an unholy mishmash of Brittonic and Late Classical Latin.

(Honestly I can see the latter becoming a plot point if they manage to get their hands on a Roman Catholic priest to act as a translator. It wouldn't be a perfect arrangement, but probably better than anything else.)

Truthfully he probably gets mistaken for a madman.

Somehow manages to steal a Spitfire out from under the RAF's nose, proceeds to use it to bring down like half an enemy squadron on his own, then lands in a field in the middle of nowhere.

It's very hot and dusty and outside of towns you won't be on the power grid. If you're working farms etc. outside of the towns, be prepared to live on generator power. If you're lucky they might have solar by now.

If this is a road trip, bring enough water and fuel or you could very easily die. Do NOT go on fun little side adventures off the road without telling someone EXACTLY where you are going first. I cannot overstate how easy it is to get lost in the desert when you're unfamiliar with the area and how unlikely it is that anyone will find you if they don't know to look, and where to look. Phone service is spotty at best away from the homesteads.

Expect to pay about 3x as much for everything as you're used to. Tiny town supermarkets have city petrol station prices. This is doubly true if you're in a town where they know they're the last stop for petrol for a long while, which you'll run into if you're going down the middle. They will milk that petrol price as much as they can. PAY IT. You do NOT want to be low on petrol in the middle of nowhere.

The little libraries and museums in the towns will be fucking tiny. Every town has one or two cafes and a pub; the pub food is usually pretty stable. The cafe food is exorbitantly priced and absolute slop 95% of the time. These places can and will fuck up supermarket convenience meals from the freezer aisle, inflate the price of the ruined food five times, and sell it to you. The other 5% of the time, the cafe has the best food you've ever had. (They're usually good with ice cream and bad with fried food, if that helps.)

The eagles are endangered. Admire them from a distance and leave them alone.

Did I mention that it's very hot and dusty? If you have a modern car with air conditioning, good. If you have something made before the year 2000, upgrade. You want good air conditioning in your car.

There will be dust everywhere.

Sometimes it's not hot and dusty. Sometimes it's hot and muddy. When it's muddy, you will get bogged worse than you've ever been bogged before, and the people who come to rescue your vehicle will also get bogged. This is the Law of the Desert.

Don't drive at dusk and dawn unless it's an emergency. You will likely lose any fight you get into with a kangaroo - I've seen roos jump off after a crash, but the cars were unusable.

If you're going off the main highways at all, take enough drinking water for at least a week.

A tea light can warm up the interior of your car quite nicely, just DO NOT fall asleep while it's burning and make sure to ventilate a little once you blow it out. Those chemical warm packets are better and can go into the blanket nest with you, though don't have them in direct contact with your skin. If there are two of you, both people wrapped in the same two blankets is better than each of you having one to yourself.

Don't try to sleep on the ground unless you're prepped for it. Better stiff knees in the morning than having all the heat sucked out of your body by The Entire Earth.

Cover your head to sleep - wrap a spare shirt around it or something, don't sacrifice a whole blanket.