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My wife grew cucumbers and dill in the garden this year so I made overnight pickles two days ago, and we ate them yesterday. Best batch I think I've ever made. They were good enough they cheered up my wife who'd had a very rough evening. My son spontaneously decided he no longer likes pickles -- more for the rest of us! As I was eating one I realized I couldn't remember if I'd added vinegar to the brine and decided I probably hadn't. So from now on I won't.
 
I thought this was going to be about: being careful around dangerous things has gone out of style and the modern attitude is to blame the oven when you get a burn...
 
When I was proofing my bread in the oven just using the light it burned out. I didn't have a replacement so had to switch the bulb from the lower oven. I couldn't easily get to it because the oven door was in the way. Rather than laying in the floor I removed the lower oven door. The Neff oven would have been nice but my Whirlpool has lift off doors which also works. My wife has been burned several times due to the door causing her to reach in from the side or most often not opening the door all the way.
 
I know someone who as a toddler was playing in the kitchen and the mom had opened the oven door. Kid ran up and fell on the open door and got burned. Happened so fast the mom hadn't been able to stop him & he didn't know it would be hot, as he was so young. I'm not blaming the oven, its just sometimes people are clumsy or have bad luck. I don't see a problem with making products safer to reduce chance of injuries. It isn't even about being careless, sometimes people lose their balance or just klutz out. Plus it's annoying having to lean in from the side to get stuff out.

Today I went to the store to pick up a prescription. My brother woke me up and was very insistent on going. He got a bunch of stuff I'm allergic to and is trying to gaslight me and claim I'm not allergic. We picked up mail and got home. He then started cutting up the peppers. I walked in to the kitchen and the smell hit me. I covered my nose and he started yelling at me about "faking" and that I couldn't possibly smell them bc he supposedly has a better sense of smell than me. But he isn't allergic and he doesn't have a problem with them. I do. He called me a "f***ing liar" and said I was being overly dramatic about. All I did was cover my nose with my shirt as I walked through the room and I didn't say anything about it or complain about it. He's cooking it now and the smell is wafting in to my room. My nose and eyes are burning. I told him that it's just as real as his hay allergies so he can shut the f*** up about it and stop gaslighting me. He doesn't know what I do or don't smell and he doesn't get to call me a liar just bc he's not allergic and it doesn't bother him. I'm a bit irritated with him right now over that. I've never accused him of faking when he was having an allergic reaction. Not sure why he's pulling that BS with me now. Maybe it's bc I asked him not to get the peppers & told him I'm allergic but he insisted and he doesn't want to admit he was wrong so he's doubling down and being an ***. But he can f*** off on that. He knows I'm allergic to peppers and it would be like me deliberately bringing a bunch of hay into the house, but he doesn't see it that way. It's giving me a headache and making me nauseous now.

On the upside, when I had to reinstall windows on my computer after a crash, it unregistered my version of windows & I couldn't find the registration code again. It kept making my computer run slower and pop up nag windows claiming it wasn't a valid version of windows. I finally got a code off of ebay that was "guaranteed to work". I had to use the command prompt to enter it and it took 3 attempts before I realize I had to enter the dashes. Finally worked so computer is running faster and no longer getting the nag messages.
 
z... Please call all the TV studios. I have never watched reality TV, but I would try.
 
I'm not so sure an oven is safer just because the door can be tucked away underneath. For one thing, this leaves the oven wide open with no quick way of closing it. For another, tucking the door away means the area in front of the oven is clear so that obstructions can gather there, and these now would need to be removed before the oven can be closed again. (If the obstruction is "toddler throwing a tantrum" then you have a major safety hazard, unlike with a conventional oven where you can just quickly close the door. Even if it's just a few cats, it's easier to brush a cat aside and close a door than have to hold one out of the way while you pull a door out and only then flip it up.)

And another thing is the risk of creating a fake sense of safety. I'm super careful around my oven door (and my power tools, and my gun, etc.) in large part because the danger from them is so clear. I've been burned on my oven a few times, and on hot drill bits and stuff, to where caution is now second nature, and this makes those objects safer for me to use.

So Zannej I think your fear of ovens is probably a directionally good thing, and you should not get a different kind of oven that you're not afraid of because that would actually be more dangerous; instead you just need to control your fear response a bit. (I am not a clinical psychologist and this is not medical advice; please take words from strangers on the internet with a grain of salt.)

The only advantage I can see to this type of oven is maybe they're easier to clean or change the bulbs in, and they're probably better for people in wheelchairs or with similar mobility issues. I wouldn't be surprised if Europe's generally more stringent disability laws have something to do with why these ovens are more common over there.

PS. Isn't "gaslighting" when the person being lied to doesn't know it's a lie? If your brother's saying you're faking your allergies when for 41 years he's known you really are allergic, then that would be trolling, not gaslighting.
 
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I have never inserted a video before only links. Thought I would show you my canoe eye view of our party of 9 coming down the creek that's in my backyard (just about) we are a block away. We went about 12 miles in about 4 hours. Saw some deer, a black squirrel, two eagles, ducks and geese, one hellbender and a 16' circular blowup couch full of women floating along. The modified canoe worked great. Two weeks before the water was 7' higher and left 10" of mud on the ramp. After i pushed each person down the ramp and into the water I was last and the canoe got stuck on a root and I was attempting to get around it to pull and down I went backwards into the mud. Didn't get a movie of that.
View attachment IMG_1673.MOV
 
I thought the Neff oven door worked like a normal door unless one wanted to fully open and push into the store position. I'm guessing my wall oven doors if hot and left open would prove problematic for a toddler. However toddlers are temporary and my wall double oven is in its 48th year.
 
Eddie, you're correct, you can simply tip the Neff door out like a normal oven door but you also have the option of pushing it all the way underneath (or even partially underneath) to get it out of the way. They used it on the Great British Baking Championship (or something like that) because space was limited.

Flyover, gaslighting is telling someone that their own perceptions are false. It came from a story about a man who was trying to drive his wife crazy back in the days when lights were still lit via gas. He was turning the gas up and down and then lying to her about noticing the lights were dimmer or brighter. He did this until she truly doubted her own sanity.

In this case, my brother was telling me that I wasn't actually smelling what I was smelling. Apparently he went to my mother to gripe & claim that I was being "a drama queen" and that I was "pretending" to smell something when I didn't. She told him that I am allergic so she knew I smelled them and told him to shut the hell up. So, it was him truly not believing me because he didn't want to admit that the peppers had a strong odor.

He also left the sink full of the pepper residue and had it coated all over dishes. Didn't bother to rinse anything. If I had left hay lying around for him to pick up, he would have had a fit. But he is also in denial about me having an allergy to peppers because he doesn't want to believe it. It's inconvenient to him because he loves peppers. He's a selfish prig.

I went to cook some corned beef hash for mom and when I picked up the can of what I'd thought was the hash I realized it was Alpo dog food. Then I thought I saw the can in a bag but it was my brother's canned cheese. Turns out we're out of the hash so I'll have to buy more. It's on my grocery list. Which reminds me, I wanted to make a list for pickup at Walmart but my local store is not listed. The pickup options are all at stores that are an hour away. I guess my store doesn't do the pickup- despite having parking spaces for it.
 
zannej said:
But he is also in denial about me having an allergy to peppers because he doesn't want to believe it.
Click to expand...
For how long has he been in denial about this?? The argument you two had seems like something that would happen between a young child and his sibling who just got diagnosed with allergies a few days ago. But you said he's 41. Thus why I figured he can't possibly be gaslighting you: you know you have allergies, he surely must know you have them too (or so I figured), and he's just trolling you because he's immature and wants to fight about something or selfishly doesn't want to have to admit he shouldn't be cooking peppers in the house.

BTW do you mean regular bell peppers or spicy ones like jalapenos? Are you allergic to all nightshades? I've heard the leaves of nightshades are poisonous, but I've never heard of allergies to their fruits. (Not saying you don't have them, just expressing surprise.)

Re. the ovens, yes obviously if you just tip the door down like a regular oven it's no different; the extra risks I stated would come into play if you've also slid it underneath.

I had work today so I didn't get much done DIY-wise. After I finished for the day I watched the two younger kids, including the baby, splash in the kiddie pool, which was very entertaining. I sat on the side in a patio chair with my feet in the water, both to be close by in case I needed to scoop the baby out and because it helped me cool off. The baby was yelling and kicking excitedly, and at one point leaned over and started sucking on one of my toes, which tickled more than anything I can remember and was also just hilarious because she's never done that before despite playing with my feet occasionally.
 
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Flyover, well, he's not trolling because I can tell when he's trolling. He doesn't get mad when he's trolling. He was actually angry. I've had a pepper allergy for years and he knows it. But, like I said, he's in denial about it because he likes peppers. He's always been the type to deny things when it's inconvenient for him. I generally don't eat foods with peppers spicy or otherwise if I can avoid it. I don't know about bell peppers but I absolutely hate them. I often have to take allergy meds after eating stuff that has pepper. His anger over me simply covering my nose when I walked through the kitchen really surprised me. I do think on some level he does know I'm allergic but doesn't want to feel guilty and it makes him angry so he directed the anger at me instead. I really wish he'd grow up or at the very least stop disrespecting me.

I wish I could go back in time and have a conversation with my parents about putting their feet down and making him do stuff instead of guilt-tripping me into doing everything instead because it just leads to him being irresponsible. I would also tell myself not to give in to guilt-trips and to insist that he has to do his own chores instead of me picking up the slack every time. My father felt that it was easier to do things himself or to get me to do them instead of trying to get my brother to do them. If they had taken away his video games or cut off his internet when he didn't do things, maybe he would have learned to do them. Of course, he's also the type who would break something if he gets disconnected from the internet. Not sure if he would have gotten away with it when Dad was alive. He actually respected Dad. He does not respect me and Mom. For the record, my brother was rather proud of his "slack bastardism"-- putting more energy in to refusing to do something than actually doing it. He went from being Mom's favorite who could get away with anything to her constantly being mad at him for being a spoiled prig who won't lift a finger to help around the house unless harrangued into it. Plus he started eating her food so she was getting mad. She doesn't know how to speak to him like an adult, but in fairness, he doesn't act like an adult. He wants to be spoken to like an adult but doesn't want to have adult responsibilities.

Speaking of babies, my friend's gf's baby now has a fever. They have been in quarantine about a week. Friend and his gf are both sick. His ex came and picked up the daughter who is supposed to be in quarantine & took her away and plans to send her to school tomorrow. The gf assured me that the baby and daughter were not sick but a few hours later she said the baby has a fever. If it's not Covid it could be the flu. I told her the ex needs to be told not to send the daughter to school just in case. She never should have taken her away only 6 days through quarantine.
 
@zannej
Haha, every time you explain something about your family it raises more questions than it answers!

Like for instance how does someone make it to 41 acting like your brother and not get kicked out? I can't discern your financial situation so pardon me for making assumptions (and of course it's none of my business anyway) but it seems like you're the main breadwinner/person who supports the household and keeps the bills paid and pipes working etc. thus in a decision-making position--why do you tolerate his shenanigans? I know he's your brother but I've known several families where adult siblings ended up being kicked out for much less, and rightly so. Not for lack of love either, in fact I think a lot of people would agree that if you love someone you should not enable them in their floundering.
 
I just remembered: @zannej, since you're out in the cut and frequently awake in the middle of the night, you might want to step outside between 3-5am and look up, this is one of the last nights to see the Purseids (annual meteor shower).

I got up at 5:30am for work this morning as usual, but instead of making coffee and logging in first thing like I normally do, I went out to the deck, tossed a blanket, and laid down to look at the sky. I saw a lot of little flecks that might have been shooting stars or might have been my own eyeballs playing tricks on me, but I definitely did see one very bright, very large shooting star. It was worth it.
 
Flyover, I'm not the breadwinner in the family. I'm a full time caregiver for my Mom. We live off my dad's death benefits/pension that goes to Mom. I'm not officially an employee because they don't have that set up in my state, but I live here and she pays for my stuff in exchange for me taking care of her and doing what I can to try to keep the house up. She sometimes falls down or gets low blood sugar so she doesn't want me being out of the house for long periods of time. I couldn't leave her when my brother was working and even when he's not working, he's not reliable to help her because he locks himself in his room with noise canceling headset and plays computer games. He also is very hard to wake up when he's sleeping. So she could fall & he wouldn't know it. Even when he had a job he never paid rent or contributed to the bills. I have a little bit of money I saved up and I sometimes buy stuff with it but for the most part I'm leaving it in savings to accrue interest. I had been planning to get a part-time job on different days/hours than my brother but then the pandemic hit. Then my brother showed how unreliable he is. I'm hoping things will clear up soon though because I want to get some sort of job. Probably a desk job since I do have a college degree and I can't stand for long periods of time. I'm really hoping that when we get Starlink that I can get a job working from home.

Before my Dad died, I'd been taking over more responsibilities and helping him and my Mom with fixing stuff at the farm, driving them to dr appointments, handling insurance claims, bush-hogging the yard, etc. But my health took a dive so it's a lot harder to do stuff. My dad liked having me around because I helped him with projects & he just enjoyed my company and didn't want me to move away like my sister did. I had no desire to move away either. I previously worked as a zookeeper, interned at a computer care center (tech support), and worked as a tutor in computer studies.

But because I'm an unpaid caregiver (unless you count mom covering almost all my expenses) I don't accrue social security and don't qualify for any benefits like Medicaid. If I lived out near my sister I could get paid by my mother's insurance to be her caregiver. But Mom doesn't want to live out there. I'm still trying to get my energy back. Chronic Fatigue really sucks.

I will say that my brother does sometimes help carrying heavy groceries in and he helps me with grocery shopping since I've had trouble with my back and shoulder. Shoulder is on the mend though. Still doesn't have the mobility it used to have but isn't as sore. But he doesn't help with cleaning, clean up after himself, or do much. He doesn't know what to do with power tools and doesn't know how to fix things. He can cook pretty well though. He just chooses not to cook for anyone but himself most of the time. I'm not much of a cook so poor mom gets frozen meals heated up a lot.

Heard from my friend, he's feeling really bad. Stomach pain. Can't seem to quench his thirst no matter how much he drinks. Diarrhea. On top of sore throat, coughing, shortness of breath, etc. I wish I could bring him something to help but he said he didn't want pepto or anti-diarrhea meds. Also found out that the school demanded that his ex bring their daughter to school. Said they didn't care if she was sick that if she hadn't been Covid tested and had it come out positive, she *had* to come to school. His ex told them she was in quarantine but they said if she didn't come to school it would be unexcused absence. Really stupid attitude for schools to have.
 
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