What’s even screening???
Seems like everything that was meant to screen here in 2020 has been delayed until cinemas are at capacity again.
Have you lot all seen Minions and Bond already?? 
I would only be 100% jealous if you have.
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I’ve only watched stuff on the Telly when it was simultaneously released in theaters and HBO Max. Thoroughly enjoyed Godzilla vs Kong Kong last night.
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I saw Tenet, Wonder Woman 1984, and Raya and the Last Dragon in theaters. (We also paid for the premium subscription for Raya right after, that’s how much we loved it!)
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I’ve seen:
Raya and the Last Dragon (4 times)
Land (twice)
Judas and the Black Messiah
The Courier
Nomadland
in theaters since early March in theaters in NYC.
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It amazes me how often this happens. Routinely during the summer, even without COVID, the ERs here will go on divert in the biggest towns due to shortage of ICU beds.
Thank goodness COVID did not hit here until the winter, i.e. after trauma season.
On the other hand, that seasonal, chronic lack of capacity probably helped them deal with COVID. On the other, other hand, maybe they have learned lessons about capacity; and also how to quickly convert regular beds to ICU beds. One can hope.
There is nothing more expensive than an ICU bed, except the one you don’t have when you need it.
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It’s been explained to me that we are always over 100% capacity in our ICU. With rare exception. Usually the least needy gets bumped to get fresh one. Sometimes crazy bleep happens at bedside til the bed is open. Respiratory therapists are miracle workers.
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Yes indeed. When we had our COVID spike, the hospital had to use anesthesia machines as vents. I’m sure this happened in many if not most places.
So that meant an anesthesiologist or nurse anesthetist had to adjust the machine. That is some costly respiratory therapy right there.
I think regionally we have pretty good ICU capacity for the simple reason that sometimes it’s hard to transfer patients (weather, distance). But the two biggest hospitals, in Billings, often are on divert because they can handle the highest acuity so they get a lot of transports. Luckily, there are two of them.
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You and @ryan1 are very supportive of your young adult kids’ potential marriages and confident in their choices. It is great that you feel that way and it seems to come easy to both of you. While I realize I will have no say in what my kids ultimately decide once they are adults, I will be subtly encouraging them to wait until they are at least 30 to get married. I remember my Grandma pushing me (not so subtly) to wait when I was in a long term relationship in my early 20s. Fortunately mine are both under 6 y/o so I don’t have to think about that for awhile! (Note - DW would likely be in the same camp as you if she really liked the bf/gf.)
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When I was about 22, my very Scottish great-auntie asked me “Are you married yet?” and I said “No”. Then she said, “Have you had any offers?” and I said “Yes,” and she clapped her hands happily and said “Well, then! That’s fine.”
Oh… this is a hard one. But I think if the offspring in question is a female who wants several children, that’s not what I would probably do.
Fertility declines after age 30 (well, after age 25 but it’s not clinically relevant) and modern medicine just hasn’t been able to affect that very much. A few go-rounds with broken-hearted couples who’ve deferred childbearing and then could not conceive & ran out of time convinced me there’s much to be said for having kids more on the early side.
The impression one gets reading the non-medical press is that science can re-set the biological clock, but that’s not true. Just a peek at the success rates (and cost) for things like freezing eggs and other technology is a real eye-opener.
It is tragic when folks are in their 40s and it’s too late, which it often is. I can’t emphasize enough how awful this can be. As a parent, I would not ever want to contribute to that, however slight the risk might be.
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Fertility was the first thing I thought about. We tried for a year for our youngest and I was only 28 when we started, he was born 2 weeks before my 30th.
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It is more complex than that. We are confident in their choices only after counseling them and helping them while dating to focus on the areas of their relationships that we see might be potential stumbling blocks. We have had deep conversations with own sons, as well as with their potential spouses. Our DS21 who is now engaged dated a girl a few years ago who we knew wasn’t right for him. We didn’t forbid the relationship…but we did ask questions and such, being simultaneously supportive but cautious until he came to the same realization. We also encourage the importance of marrying the person who is your best friend. Friendship first. As such we don’t encourage typical dating, but purposeful dating. That is, if you are interested in someone, you first become friends and hang out in group situations, etc. And when you think there is potential for the relationship to progress to eventual marriage, more formal dating is the time to move the relationship forward in that way. (Not that the dating will lead to marriage, only that dating purely for the fun of it isn’t terribly beneficial.)
So, by the time our kids decide to marry, it is obvious they are right for each other. That’s when it “comes easy.” 
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My DH and I are celebrating out 25th ‘date anniversary’ today (when we went to my senior prom together) and our 20th wedding anniversary in September. I married my high school sweetheart just after college at 22 and we waited to have DS until I was 30 - I wouldn’t have it any other way! For some, it just works 
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Another consideration is how helpful you want to be able to be as a grandparent. It never occurred to us to factor this into our childbearing timeline!
We figured we were doing the responsible thing by waiting until we were both well established in our careers before having kids. (We were blessed never to have fertility issues, as that wasn’t on our minds at all either, but I have several dear friends who have, so I’m not discounting that factor at all. We are more an anecdotal success on that front. Likely blessed by genetics. My grandma had her youngest at age 47!)
We had our oldest when I was ~30 and our youngest when I was ~40. We got lucky that my mom had me when she was <20, so she was in the 50-60 range when the kids were babies and an immense help to us. I’m not sure how we would have gotten through those early years without her help. She’ll be in her mid to late 70s when the youngest are in high school.
But if she had had me when she was in the 30-40 range, that means she would have been in the 60-80 range when we had kids, and would be in the 80-100 range when our kids would be in college.
Waiting to have kids can really changed the role from an actively involved grandparent to a hopefully present grandparent.
I didn’t realize this math until a few years ago, when the 10 year age gap between DM and both my stepdad and my in-laws became more pronounced. DM will be 77 when the DS11 twins start college. My stepdad is gone. My biological dad is long gone (lung cancer when I was 21). My DMIL is gone. My DFIL has beginning stages of Alzheimer’s so we’ll see.
But you might want to math out how much “active” overlap you want to have with your grandkids @davej. And then how much active overlap your kids might have with theirs. It wasn’t something that was on my radar at all when we were deciding when to have kids. The difference in having kids in the 20-30 window vs 30-40 window over 2 generations is more significant than one would expect.
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Congratulations!
My wife and I just had our 25th first-dateiversary last month.
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My favorite baby story story (and I have a lot of them!) was a friend who had tried and tried to have kids and finally adopted a baby from overseas. They put in for a second, and on the day it finally went through- they found out they were having one on their own! And she was 45. So they ended up with 3 beautiful little girls.
So true. I never knew my grandparents at all, and my own parents also died before my kids were born. It’s rough to be poor and live in a coal camp. My parents escaped but it stilled killed them from conditions acquired when they were there.
They both had heart failure, late sequelae of the rheumatic fever they had in camp (it’s from a type of strep A that is no longer around, gratefully). And dad had black lung as well. There’s a really touching telegram I have where my mother & aunt were asking about my father’s condition while he was away at electrician’s school in Chicago. It’s framed.
I hope to break the family tradition.
Congrats to you young whippersnappers!
Our first date wasn’t so great, but I remember what he was wearing when I first laid eyes on him. Bike shorts. I had just moved to San Diego from the more conservatively-dressed Midwest, and I thought to my self- “I just love California.”
The date wasn’t wonderful because that day was when they called to tell me my dad had died while out walking the dog. We had barely met, but my future husband stayed with me all night long and put me on the plane the next day. So I knew what he was made out of from the start.
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If I could do it again, I’d have kids a little later, but God had other plans. Just finishing school totally broke, and having a stepson with no father in the picture, a new baby, and in laws that wouldn’t help us on the principle of “no one helped them” made for about as much stress as I could handle. But on the flip side, my youngest was born when i was just 27, and so my wife and i will have plenty of time to have to ourselves later on instead of at the beginning, and better odds of being very involved in grandkids lives.
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I was married at 23 (DH was 20) and had my first kid at 24 (He was 21.) Our second we were 29 and 24, respectively.
My youngest I was 41. (Surprise!!!)
I actually think I was a better, more engaged parent in my 20’s. We intended to have kids young so that we could enjoy our later years together while we were still healthy and active. Now, not even considering youngest DS’ special needs, we will have minor kids in our home until I am 60.
My parents were older when I was born also… I was acutely aware of the fact that they wouldn’t be around as long. I spent a lot of my teen/adult years wondering if they would live to see me graduate/get married/ have kids. I wouldn’t intentionally have done that to my kids.
Also, the point that complications increase and fertility declines after 30 is a valid one. There’s a good possibility that DS’ disabilities are partially exacerbated by my age.
Things to think about.
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We had our first when I was 19 and DH was 17, got married at 27 and 25, and had the youngest at 29 and 27. Now we only have a year and a half before the youngest goes to Uni when we will be coming up to 48 & 46. But DH has got MS and is quite severely disabled, so even though we are still young we actually do very little outside the house. I guess it’s just as well we did have the kids young.
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Yes. Because my parents were also ill from about the time I was in 3rd grade, it affected me greatly, and the ramifications of that insecurity have stayed with me to this day.
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Same. My parents weren’t coal miners/children of coal miners, but they did have a very hard upbringing and were both heavy smokers. My parents were both in complete dentures and very sick by the time I graduated HS.
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