DEAR HARRIETTE: One of my coworkers has had a lot of personal stuff on her plate lately. I am always an advocate for work-life balance, because no matter what, you should always take care of yourself (mentally, physically, spiritually, personally – whatever that looks like).
Dear Doctors: Any advice on controlling chiggers? When I work in the yard, they eat me alive unless I wear long pants. My wife does not garden and is rarely bitten. My son worked with me last weekend and said they don’t bother him.
DEAR HARRIETTE: My friend has always made comments about my weight, saying that I’m too skinny and that I should eat more. At first, I tried to laugh it off or change the subject, but over time, it started to really bother me. I have felt self-conscious and frustrated, but I didn’t know how to tell her how hurtful her remarks were.
In our household, my husband, Peter, and I have acquired nicknames which we imagine our cat, Felix, calls us by. To Felix, I am Mama and Peter is Mouse.
If there was an award for courage and honor in politics, it should go to a stalwart band of Republicans in the Indiana state Senate who have resisted enormous pressure from President Trump and rejected his egregious efforts to rig next year’s elections.
DEAR HARRIETTE: My friend “Janice” is mad at me. We had plans to go to a food festival, and she canceled at the last minute. I had already bought both tickets, and since she said she couldn’t make it, I didn’t want the tickets to go to waste. I asked another friend if she wanted to go instead, and she happily agreed.
Did something spook President Donald Trump? Recently, he announced that he would roll back tariffs on food, just days after he embraced a much more moderate tone on immigration. The question is whether this is a momentary shift or a real change of heart prompted by sour polling, scary economic indicators and private conversations with alarmed business leaders.
Dear Doctors: Does taking calcium help keep your bones strong or not? I am going through perimenopause now, and osteoporosis is on my mind. A friend says that just a calcium supplement isn’t enough, you need to think about vitamin K.
DEAR HARRIETTE: My friend always changes her story when it comes to small things, but I feel like the accumulation of all these small inconsistencies is starting to get to me. For example, she was just talking about how she plans to work at the company we both work at for five more years, but then not even two minutes later, she mentioned wanting to apply to grad school within the next year. It’s hard to keep up when her story changes so frequently, and sometimes I feel like I can’t tell what’s actually true.
DEAR HARRIETTE: I work from home, and my roommate does, too. At first, it wasn’t a big deal; we thought we could share the space easily and just use headphones when we had meetings. Lately, our schedules have started to clash, and we both end up taking video calls at the same time. Since our apartment is small, there’s no real privacy, and her voice often carries into my meetings. It’s gotten to the point where I find myself distracted, missing key points and feeling embarrassed when my manager comments on the background noise. I’ve tried dropping hints, like mentioning how hectic it gets when we both talk at once, but she never seems to pick up on it. She tends to brush it off and say, “Yeah, it’s just part of working from home,” but I don’t think she realizes how much it’s impacting my performance.