Salon thread 2: Making dealing with the world easier

[jenett]

Welcome to our second salon discussion thread. Wander in, invite a friend along, and chat! (Not sure what's going on? Here, have a brief FAQ.) The first one went swimmingly! People! Talking! About awesome stuff! Feel free to talk about anything: my topic of the day is just to get us started.

Some of the comments in last week's thread got me thinking about the little stuff we do to make dealing with the world easier for us (lifehacks). And then why. Some stuff I do (briefly, on the theory it might encourage conversation)

1) I am very boring about my clothing. (basically, a black skirt and coloured knit top, or a coloured skirt and a black knit top.) Except for special occasion clothing, it is all cotton, it all goes in the wash together, and I basically only have to think about it when I want to. When I want to be fancier, that's what jewelry is for.

2) I do not have glasses in my house. I have pottery mugs. I am less likely to drop them (yay, handles) and if I do, they break into bigger and much less transparent pieces. (I am not as clumsy as I was during the worst of the medical foo, but, y'know. It's still useful.)

3) I have no idea what I did before a smartphone, which for me is less phone, and more "thing that fills at least a dozen other needs, but is only one thing to keep track of, plus more than enough books to keep even *me* occupied for a while, and oh, yeah, occasionally it makes phone calls.")

4) I periodically write up a document called "The care and feeding of Jenetts (or at least this one)" designed to help people navigate spending time with me. I had hoped to have a sample here but a) the week got away from me a bit and there was other stuff that had to take priority and b) some bits of it need to go under access lock. (For those who can see my locked posts, I expect to finish it by the end of the week.)

Anyway, this includes things like methods of communication, privacy notes, basic health stuff, more in-depth health stuff (with a focus on "Here's what you need to know so we can enjoy time together."), things I like as presents, things I'm really bad at doing, foods I eat and don't eat (and a brief "why" so people can figure out which bits really apply in a given setting), and stuff people should know if they want to visit me.

What stuff do you do? I'm especially curious about anything where you do it and other people look at you and blink and then go "Oh, that's an awesome idea!" (I've had that with my mugs, for example.)

(A word on advice: please don't give it in this discussion unless someone asks for it. A bunch of people I know will read this have Complicated Stuff, and I trust that they have found solutions that work for them for reasons that work for them. That said, if you'd like advice, go ahead and ask for it!)

Music in the background: Last week's salon had a lot to say about the topic of music, and it got me thinking about listening to the stuff that connects us to the universe. So, on my playlist for this week's salon are "One Voice" by the Wailin' Jennys, "All Will Be Well" by Meg Barnhouse, "Brave" by Sarah Bareilles, "Allegria" by Cirque du Soleil and "Give us room to roar" from Ruth Mackenzie's Kalevala: Dream of the Salmon Maiden.

A quick reminder
As noted, the basic thing here is 'leave the conversation better than you found it, or at least not worse'. The FAQ has more help with your choices for comment (DW account, OpenID account, or anonymously) if you need a hand. Or ask, and someone (likely me, but maybe not) will be along to help. We'll work everything else out as we go.

Comments

[redbird]

One thing that helps me is to identify which things take more and less effort, mentally as well as physically.

Example: I've thought of cooking plain white rice as easy for years. A few weeks ago, I realized that while it takes some time, physical effort, and at least one stove burner (I'm still learning this electric stove business), it seems to come free, mentally. So if I have no idea of what to cook, I may start a pot of rice, and then think about what can go with that. This seems to save initiation energy, because I don't have to think "start cooking X now," the rice is already on the stove.

I don't know how transferable or generalizable this is. Someone else's version might be "anything can go in a salad." And it takes having some kind of basic, flexible food that is that easy for you. Objectively, a pot of pasta is probably simpler/easier to get right, but in my brain rice is automatic and pasta requires thought.

[jenett]

Oh, yes. This. (And I'm the other way around: pasta is easy, and rice is very very very hard. My brain has an automatic timer for "go check the pasta", anyway, that results in burnt rice.)

I also have days when food that requires more than two steps is just Not Going To Happen. And apparently for my brain "remove from fridge, dig for label, heat, and eat" is four steps.

(Heating something that is in a clearly labelled package I don't have to think about at all is often okay. Reheating a can of soup is okay. Making tuna fish is too much on those days. Etc.)

[crystalpyramid]

We eat a lot of rice, and we rely a ton on our rice cooker for it — it takes longer, but you dump the rice in the rice cooker and the rice cooker cooks it until it's done (it has a temperature sensor that figures that out) and then stops cooking and keeps it warm until you remember to go check on the rice. It also works for brown rice, quinoa, and, according to college friends who made stuff in dorm rooms, pasta.

[kyrielle]

I seldom make rice because it's too much trouble. Somewhere, I have a rice cooker we were recently gifted that I have yet to open because it seemed silly. I need to open it and see if it will do what yours does, because in that case I have been Very Silly to not have it open and in use. My brain filed it away (for some reason) under "fluffy single-use object and darnit, I'm not great in the kitchen but I *can* boil water". My brain: not always as knowledgeable as it thinks.

Thank you for making me pay more attention to possible benefits!

[crystalpyramid]

Yeah, I had a long period of not using the rice cooker for similar "fluffy single-use object" reasons, over the protests of my half-Japanese boyfriend (who got me the rice cooker, of course). But it's really nice to have rice become one of those "leave it and forget about it" things.

[kyrielle]

Yes, definitely! Strangely enough, *scrambled eggs* have appeared on my list of "essentially free"...if the boys aren't awake at least. My oldest asks to "hatch" the eggs for me if he is, and managing his handling of raw eggs (he's four) is no longer free. LOL. (Also, I have to consciously not think about the term hatch if I want to be able to eat the resultant eggs before they're cold. I have no problem with the actual source of my eggs, but the visual that gives me is...yeah. And he's so thrilled/excited to help.)