Sure, and I've had lags of days, weeks, or even months in using starter. Too long and you risk mould formation, which I've recently dealt with. In that case,

Sure, and I've had lags of days, weeks, or even months in using starter. Too long and you risk mould formation, which I've recently dealt with. In that case, I ended up starting over from some dried starter which has been sitting in the freezer since April 2020. A tablespoon of that with an otherwise typical feed (100g flour, 100g water), and about six feeds before the starter was back up to desired activity. "Discard" is a term that's relative to your starter batch itself. There are recipes for discard, one of the simplest is a "starter pancake", which I realised was pretty much a crumpet, and indeed adding about 1/2 tsp salt and 1 tsp baking soda gives the bubbly form of a familiar crumpet. Fry in butter or oil in a small frying pan or using crumpet rings, about 5 minutes per side. To prepare for eating, toast about 3--4 minutes. These may be eaten sweet (butter and jam) or savory (onions, eggs, tomatoes, etc.), as desired. There are collections of starter discard recipes. If you're only baking a few times weekly, storing your starter in the fridge is fine. For longer downtimes, I strongly recommend drying and freezing your starter once established. As I wrote elsewhere in this thread, make backups. It's also possible to feed daily and store the discard for a weekly batch of discard-friendly recipes (crumpets, English Muffins, sourdough pancakes, and numerous others).