Fermented pickled radish is glorious. Just a salt brine, and time. I put a tight lid and shake daily until they are done, a weight or airlock works too.

ETA

More specifically, in case you want to try it. About 4% salt brine, loosen the lid most of the time, tighten to shake it. They will get sour. When they taste the way you want them to, refrigerate them. I always store them in the refrigerator after making them, because of the loosey-goosey process I use but start with clean jar (dishwasher or boil it) and don’t reach in until you are pretty sure they are done, have never lost a batch to mold. I think it’s like tepache, radishes must have a good strong bacteria/yeast balance so they take over quick enough. Good with fennel seeds or dill or mustard seeds.

We have hard wood floor not carpets, have dogs so it’s never going to be some “you can eat off the floors” situation. We run a Roomba thrice daily, my shoes are kept in the bedroom so that’s where I put them on/take them off. So in general it’s the big open room with the kitchen/dining and living room and lounge area that are shoes on spaces, but I am not generally tracking gravel into the house. Y’all really ask everyone to take off their shoes at parties & all? Like a barefoot cocktail hour, barefoot dinner?

The Roomba vac makes an enormous difference, I CAN walk around barefoot without feeling grit on my feet. But it doesn’t bother me that the floor is not pristine, no. And cooking feels safer in shoes.

In other people’s houses I do whatever they want, obviously, but I would never tell someone to take off their shoes for my floor’s sake.

ETA: I asked my husband and he said “up north people take their shoes off at the door in a mudroom and put on house shoes or socks because they have wall to wall carpeting and it gets filthy so fast.” I don’t have a mudroom just a front door.

Hayes Carll sings, in his American Dream song - “Nothing changes, even when it wants to” and that struck me pretty hard.

Older-

Emmylou Harris the whole Red Dirt Girl song, my goodness but particularly “she loved her brother, I remember back when he was fixin up a '49 Indian. He told her “little sister gonna ride the wind, up around the moon and back again.” Well he never got farther than Vietnam, I was standing there with her when the telegram come.”

@[email protected] my kids absolutely LOVE that Vincent song. It’s so good, straight through.

Oh yes, with the leek!

Hobby? I’m on the wrong coast for it but would love to learn to surf. Pretty sure I don’t have time to get good at it. Music, I’d love to learn to play guitar or even to sing well. Not to perform. To be able to do it.

Lifestyle? Not sure, I think what I would change is stuff I can’t change without money or time I don’t have.

Give away 900 million dollars.

I agree with your premise though - too rich is just hoarding. There is no real lifestyle benefit.

Yeah it’s crazy, when I was a teenager we had the lowest cost grocery markets in the US, corn was often 5 cents an ear on sale, maybe 20 cents regular price, watermelon you could buy on the roadside for $1, those are about 1.50 and 7.00 now and that’s pretty representative of the overall increase.

I’m counting everything that is consumed here, by humans (so including entertaining but not pets). Our total housing cost with electricity & insurance and taxes is really high here too (and is another thing that used to be cheap) , but again that housing is holding 5 people right now.

5 person household, all adults now, mostly physically active. Probably 4k a month all-in.

That includes some booze, not much eating out and is paid by all of us so average 800 / month per person, but not evenly spread, kids are more frugal and do meal prep for lunches and husband and I spend more, and feed all of us once a day at least. Not much junk food, buy ingredients not premade things and I do have a garden.

Yuck

Beyond the obvious problem with conflating good with pretty

I don’t think pushing a person towards a more generic middle look makes them more attractive.

RIP dude.

I have never heard the temperature expressed with decimals - my phone says “it’s 14, today’s high will be 20 and low of 4” or whatever. Do oven settings have decimals in places that use Celsius?

Is the temperature expressed beyond whole numbers?

Wow people are so different. I grew up in Florida, without air conditioning until I was 25. 85F is so nice outside in the shade, and 80 in the sun is fine for working outdoors. In the shade, with a fan going, and something to drink, I am comfortable to mid-90s at least, just not moving so much, relaxing. Hot yoga at 103 is sweaty but not dangerous for me.

There are not enough clothes in the world to make me comfortable at 0 F, there is not gear for that, I don’t generate that much internal heat.

I would prefer Celsius if it was smaller degrees, so 0 = freezing is great logic but boiling needs to be 1000 not 100. There just aren’t enough degrees between freezing and boiling, Celsius is too inexact.

And no way is 50 medium in F, it is cold. We might actually put the heater that low because the HVAC system we have is built more for cooling, but that is very, very cold feeling. 0 in F is beyond cold, that is 32 degrees (or 18 of your civilized degrees) below freezing. Hellish cold.

This is amazing.

Oh my ex wanted me to cut his hair, but just pulled it over one shoulder and said cut it off. He wanted to see it cut, understand? No, neither did i. I said “no, it will be slanty because it’s all pulled to one side, let me cut it into a haircut.” He said no, it will be fine, just cut it. “It will be slanty!” He was getting mad, JUST CUT IT! Finally he just took scissors and cut it how he wanted. “Oh no, it’s all slanty!”

Mine don’t love this but sag paneer is heavenly, my kids would eat it by the bucket I think.

Ooh I love beans & rice. But we do eat other stuff, and I find the biggest $ savings comes from avoiding waste, not buying cheap ingredients.

My kids LOVE

Mapo Tofu (ground pork & tofu)

Bulgogi beef or pork with tofu

Cabbage in coconut curry with any protein - tofu, shrimp, chicken, or just veggies.

Rice bowls. This week we had one with chicken tenders, cabbage slaw (dressed in rice vinegar and sesame oil) wasabi carrots (dressed in wasabi and soy sauce), cauliflower (grown in garden, no seasoning), avocado. Sauce of mayo & Sriracha. But most variations they like - a rice, a meat, bunch of veg or sometimes even fruit, a sauce.

Breakfast for any meal, eggs, potatoes, refried beans, and some meat, with onion, cheese, avocado on the side.

Underwater welders, electrocution. You can imagine, all the risks of diving plus welding, plus combining electricity and water.

Seawall builders, the whole process is dangerous because of the water, they can drown or be hit by heavy construction materials.

I just always found it interesting that those were more risky than race car driving. Our highest individual claim actually was a landscaper hit by lightning, who died, but sadly, he did not die quickly, suffered in hospital for some days.

Most of them, I suppose. The list of jobs I could do well enough to be paid for is a shorter one than those I can’t.

I used to work at a payroll company and our highest workers’ comp rates were:

Underwater welders

Seawall builders

Race car drivers

In that order.

It’s funny that the first two right now are 'stopped eating meat" and “stopped eating everything except meat”.

For me it is getting up when I wake up. No alarm. It wasn’t always possible but instead of getting up early to run or be virtuous in some way, I sleep until I wake (not late! Usually between 7-730), have a short but indulgent morning, only water until I get to work (by bicycle) then coffee and breakfast. I wish I had always been able to do this.

And MHT, so glad I tried it - I had no idea I had menopausal symptoms because I never had a hot flash. But the MHT knocked out the migraines I was having, the UTIs, my thinking is clearer, and even though it put a few pounds on me I’m still inside healthy weight. That success convinced me to be more intentional and interventional about aging - I thought all that longevity stuff was about living longer (because of the word) but mostly it’s about staying healthier and that feels physically good.