inoffensive nickname

I have committed myself to training for a long distance marathon walk for a charitable cause, and I also walk for fitness/weight loss. As part of my training, I occasionally sprint while I am walking, but by no means consider myself a runner. I've been looking to buy some decent shoes, under $100, and am confused about the difference between running and walking shoes. If I buy a good running shoe, will there not be enough support for walking? If I buy a good walking shoe, will it be too bulky for my occasional sprints?

I'm middle aged and overweight, so I know that good shoes will make a huge difference on how my knees and hips feel after a walk/run.

So with that all said, does anyone have any suggestions on picking out a good pair of athletic shoes?

Or is there a national holiday that the teenagers have off school today?

My husband has a 3G 20GB b/w iPod that he absolutely adores and last week he accidentally dropped it. It's out of warranty, but I purchased Apple Care on it when he first got it. Does anyone know whether it is worth it to send an iPod in for repair, whether Apple repairs iPods this old, or would it be cheaper to just buy him a new one?

Has anyone had experience using a tanning bed to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)? If so, did you discover it by accident or was it recommended by a counselor/therapist/physician?

Does anyone else here have a hard time taking questions seriously when they appear to be coming from cartoon characters? Does anyone take MY questions seriously because my avatar has a dog licking her leg?

Just pondering...

In speaking to a counselor about feeling like I just want to run away and for everyone to leave me alone, she said those were "passive suicidal" feelings. I don't want to die. I just want a vacation. What does passive suicidal mean?

Does it change your opinion of a coworker if you had a certain opinion of them at work and witnessed them doing something contrary to your previous opinion outside of work?

Examples: While you were driving back to work from lunch, you see one of your coworkers whom you thought was generally nice and laid back in the midst of some road rage, riding someone's behind and making obscene guestures; or you run into one of your coworkers, whom you previously thought was a cold hearted jerk, doing volunteer work for the local Lion's Club.

I currently am the not-so-proud owner of a Palm Zire72 that won't hold a charge, so I'm looking to upgrade. I think the Palm OS platform is ok, but I haven't tried anything else. Right now I can't afford the additional $50 per month to get a smart phone or PDA phone, and I am fine with my current cell phone/service.

I want the device primarily for keeping a calendar that I can upload to my computers at home and at work. My cell phone does not work well for keeping a calendar.

Any suggestions on what brand/platform to look for? I am not impressed with what Palm has out there anymore.

I have never purchased insurance/protection on a cell phone before because I'm responsible and have only lost one cell phone in the 15 years we've owned a cell phone (yea, we had the old "bag phones" back in the day), but now I find myself in the posession of a LG enV2 with front buttons that don't work. I'm sure that it's out of warranty, since it was purchased in late June. I'm also sure that if I go back to Verizon, they are going to charge me an arm and a leg for a replacement.

Does anyone know where or how I can get a less expen$ive replacement that's compatible with Verizon, or should I just wait it out for another 19 months (so I can get my new every 2 discount) with a phone that only works when it's opened up?

I've recently graduated from MT school and a couple of months back, I had traded massages with a former classmate. Well actually, I massaged her, and then she disappeared for a while (until I ran into her a couple of weeks ago). We exchanged numbers again, and she was all apologetic for not keeping in touch..said she had lost her phone and my number, and she remembered that she still owes me a massage. No big deal...

Ok, so recently, I took my certification exam and passed, and she asked me if I will help her study to take her exam...again, no big deal. I'm always happy to help a friend study.

For the past three days, I've had a tension headache, and so I contacted her to ask if she's ready to give me that massage and she says she will do it for $30.

Granted, I can afford the $30, and she probably needs it, but is she taking advantage of me? Should I just schedule with another colleague, who I know is reliable and will trade, or do I just give her the benefit of the doubt? I don't know this girl all that well. She seems kind, but she also seems flaky.

What would you do?

What's going to happen now that the House of Representatives has passed the bailout bill? I understand it will go to the Senate and then the President for approval, but what happens if it passes? What happens if it doesn't?

My husband and I have not been getting along for most of this year, and recently I'm starting to discover that he has a drinking problem. He's done a lot of things that if things were normal right now, I'd be resentful, but still aware that we're trying to work on things together. He had agreed to counseling, but recently he has fallen ill and gone back to his old assinine ways.

Granted, he's sick, but I am having a horrible time finding any sympathy for him. I do my best to be the dutiful wife, but when I go home from visiting him in the hospital at night, all I can seem to muster up is resentment and a sense of relief that he's there, and not home with me. Our fifteen year old son refuses to go to the hospital to see him, and I think that my resentment is showing through, no matter how hard I try to hide it.

Any advice on getting by until he comes home from the hospital and we can get started in some counseling?

Ok, so after mom caught hubby on the motorcycle with the bimbo stripper, I told him under no uncertain terms to end it, and I called her phone and told her (in a non-threatening way) that she needs to leave my husband alone and went on to explain that we've been married 16 years and have two teenaged sons and that her presence is really not appreciated nor warranted, so back off.

She hung up on me after the first "You need to leave my husband alone." so I called her back and left her a calm voice mail explaining the rest. So I look at the phone bill and not 4 days later, she calls him and I see that they spoke for 3 minutes.

He says he was just telling her that I say he can't see her anymore. I think he gave her his work cell phone number so I can't check the bill anymore...so now what?

Please don't suggest I leave... I do love him in spite of his idiocy and I think this is just a midlife crisis, but I'm getting more and more frustrated and he refuses counseling. He just says he will play by my rules for a while.. what does that mean?

If, after 16 years of marriage, your spouse (in his/her early 40's) started doing stupid things, like trying to look and act younger, and partying with people half their age, and staying out all hours, hanging out at strip clubs and taking the strippers around on his motorcycle, and you were pretty sure they were headed down the wrong path, but you also believed your relationship was strong enough to survive, how would you handle it?

I had a great talk with my mom the other day and confessed that I was pretty sure my husband was cheating on me. She knows I'm frustrated since he's not properly taking care of business at home, so she suggested I hide his Viagra and only give it to him on nights when I'm in the mood. However, she doesn't realize he takes Cialis, which usually has a few days' residual effect, whereas Viagra is more of a one-time-for-one-night medication at least for my hubby.

How can I get his doctor to change his prescription so he will stop running around on me without letting him know that I'm going to be hiding and rationing his Viagra once he gets a new prescription? I can't think of any way around working with Cialis, because having sex as often as possible until he can't get an erection anymore doesn't seem to keep him happy enough to not run around on me.

By the way, I saw an ad last night for daily Cialis...it's supposed to help a man with ED be ready anytime instead of having to wait a couple of hours for it to kick in. I'm hoping he doesn't want to try that.

I think he's going through a midlife crisis and I'm not sure how to keep it from tearing us apart.

My husband and I married in our mid-20's and since then, I have been there, nudging and helping him get through school and encouraging him to follow his dreams, and have put my life on hold to be the stable parent for the good of the family. Now that my boys are older, hubby is very well employed, and has been more supportive of my goals in life, but he's also drifted away from me and seems to be in a midlife crisis. The things he does are mostly forgivable, but still hurtful, and I know what he's up to, but the other day, my mother and our sons caught him out for a joyride with another woman. I am aware of her existence, and while I don't condone it, I've been of the mindset of "don't ask, don't tell" for a while now.

I don't leave, because there is no way I could support myself the way he does, and frankly, I feel entitled to his support, because I was the one who was always there when the kids were little and when he was in school... we've had a true partnership and I do love him, in spite of the fact that I'm not in love with him anymore.

I do work full time and am taking on a second job to be able to afford to pursue my own interests, but I just don't think I am going to be able to explain to my mother why I put up with it. She's concerned because she doesn't want to see me and her grandchildren hurt by my husband's activities, and I am not sure how to explain to her that it's simply the lesser of two evils.

Any suggestions?

I understand the whole energy thing about acupuncture and to me, it's a lot like Reiki, and I'm not so sure I believe in stabilizing the body's energy flow. However, I recently went for an acupuncture treatment to write a paper on alternative therapies, and I actually got muscular pain relief from the needling. I didn't tell the practitioner that I had pain in both calves, just the left one. She treated just the left calf along with the energy alignment stuff. The right calf was still sore after treatment, but the left calf was pain free. Later that night, the tops of my feet were numb.

How does needling promote analgesia?

I'm tired of going out to bars. I rarely drink alcohol and frankly I just don't see any reason to sit around and drink expensive pop and watch others get drunk and make asses of themselves. My friends and coworkers keep inviting me out to bars. I don't want to be antisocial, but I honestly get sick and tired of being DD, as well as seeing my friends make asses of themselves, and end up having to babysit a bunch of drunks. It's not like I'm in my 20's anymore either. I'm 41 and there's got to be more to life than going to bars and drinking.

I think I may come across as judgmental, but I really don't give a dang what they do as long as it doesn't negatively affect me, and when I'm always stuck being DD or babysitting, it negatively affects me.

I'm just tired of dealing with it and would rather find more productive things to do with my time than babysit a bunch of drunks who can't moderate themselves enough to drive home safely. Is there a polite, nonjudgmental way of telling them this?

I'm in kind of a bad mood today, but I'm not letting that affect how I treat others. Still, I'm being quiet, and want to be left alone and everyone around me seems to think I should be smiling and wants to cheer me up. While I appreciate their concern, I just don't feel like being all chipper and happy today and would rather just sit quietly without a lot of pressure to be ecstatic. How do I ask these people politely to get out of my face?

My parents were married for 18 years, and split when I was about 12 years old. Dad ended up married to Mom's former best friend, and Dad pretty much turned his back on my sister and I in favor of his new wife. Fast forward about 15 years, and in the meantime my mother remarried and was widowed, and because of all the strife with his kids after he passed, my mother decided it was time to make up with Dad, so I brought him back into my life and have forgiven, and even learned to accept his new wife.

However, Saturday, I received an invitation to Dad's 25th anniversary, and I can't help but feel a little sick to my stomach at the prospect of going. I can't help but feel like I'm betraying my mother just a little bit by attending. My sister no longer has contact with Dad, but I've forgiven and I thought I had moved on.

I just don't know whether I should send my congratulations and have other plans that weekend (it's also my younger son's 13th birthday). My husband is supportive.