I’ve always prided myself on being empathetic and sympathetic to people no matter what. During the me too times, a lady was being interviewed about why survivors and victims don’t go to the authorities about their treatment from (men) powerful people.

She said something along the lines of “stand with us if you want things to change, but don’t you dare stand opposite to tell me how offended I’m allowed to be”. In an instant I realised I’d been guilty of minimizing the suffering of others simply because I’d not been through what they’d been through (in a sense - if I wouldn’t be offended why should they?). Changed my whole outlook on life actually

An Instant Pot. The amount of things you can cook / steam / pressure cook is amazing. I cook as much as I can with it as it saves money on using gas cookers. It saves a huge amount of time and money cooking Indian food and there are hundreds of websites out there dedicated to recipes specifically for the instant pot

Story two. Our neighbours were disgusting. House full of trash, garden like a jungle and just complete neglect of their property. The landlord kicks them out and has to do a complete refurb of the house top to bottom. It turns out that the thousands of cockroaches that lived in that house suddenly had to up sticks and find a new house. That house was my house. After a few months we had cockroaches everywhere. In the toilet, bathroom, kitchen. Just everywhere. Daily occurrences: switch on the kitchen light and be greeted by hundreds of cockroaches running off. Open a cupboard and cockroaches would drop out of it onto my feet. Shoes with cockroaches in them.

We called up an exterminator and after describing the shape, size and color of these things he told us they were an invasive species and there was very little we could do. He said if we could find the place where they were breeding we could have a chance of getting rid if them. My dad and I knew the kitchen was there base so we started to pull cabinets up and see what was going on behind them. We pulled up a large cabinet and saw a few signs that there had been cockroaches on the back of the cabinet. But once we turned the cabinet upside down we saw near rows of thousands of cockroach eggs. And I mean thousands. All ready to hatch and send even more cockroaches into our house. It was something out of an alien movie. I can still those eggs to this day (this all happened in the 90’s)

Two horror stories - I’ll write them as two separate posts

Story one: we had a mouse in our house once. My mum is petrified of mice so we were told to buy an old fashioned mouse trap with a spring trap. We put it in an area where the mouse was seen and went to sleep. We heard the trap go in the middle of the night so thought our troubles were over. Next morning we checked the trap and under the spring was a HUGE cockroach. Not the size of a mouse but bloody close. So my brother takes the trap, pull open the spring to throw the cockroach away and the damn thing is still alive. It dropped out of the trap and just scurried away under a cabinet. I’m not sure if it survived or not but that thing had no right to be alive after getting caught full force by a mouse trap.

I actually have elastic laces on all my shoes. The comfort level is through the roof.

Syphon Filter - damn that was a great game

When I need to learn something and think it over I use pen and paper. If it’s noting stuff down to read later or record somewhere, then it’s digital.

Actually it could be both - I have experience of both

The advice I give to all my colleagues (and family) is this: you can’t control the behaviours of others, which means situations can go to places you were not expecting. So for me rule number one is to write everything down. Dates and times and any incidents or interactions that you’ve had. All communication with the other person through official channels and if you need to speak either do it with witnesses, and I know sometimes that’s not possible, so write everything that’s said between you down. If you can do it while you’re meeting with them great, otherwise straight afterwards. Sounds like a lot of work, and it is, but depending on what happens in the future it can save you a lot of heart ache

I’m getting on in years but I mainly watch YouTube as my “TV” over streaming services. I think there’s the YouTuber who just ends up lost in a sea of algorithm suggested garbage (like I used to be). Myself I search out things that really fascinate me - politics, woodworking, programming and over time my suggestions on the home page are really good. So I don’t get videos like “I have everybody in the world $10000000 to spend in 10 seconds”, but I do get really well made and interesting stuff.

I’m going to guess you’re in the States? I’m from England and live in the Netherlands. I’ve never met anybody ever who didn’t own a kettle. Is it true that it’s really not that common in the States to own a kettle?

My go to travel meals are:

Bread with cheese (and almost whatever else you might put in there). Wrap it in foil and it will be ready to eat whenever.

Cold pasta with cheese - or even normal pasta with tomato sauce cold is great. My Italian friends eat this for lunch regularly.

Cold pizza slices are great - I normally make simple pizza using baguettes and tomato sauce (passata) with cheese. One baguette is enough to make pizza for my family of 4.

Pasta salad - pasta cooked and cooked and then salad of your choice - even cold cuts of meat to well in here and it’s economical to make a huge amount and put it in the fridge

Actually thinking about it, I eat a lot of lunches made from cold leftovers and I think they taste brilliant without having to heat them up. Obviously things like soup, or ramen noodles and other hot liquid meals don’t taste good at all cold.

I really feel for my ISSs brothers and sisters and your unaffordable medicine. I count myself lucky living where I do.

These two links might single handedly change my life. Many thanks!!