Frazz by Jef Mallett for February 07, 2021

Wait. Isn’t coffee a guilty pleasure?

My guilty pleasure is skipping past complex explanations.

I thought her guilty pleasure was Frazz.

My guilty pleasure is all the time I waste on comic-strip websites.

I’m fairly sure Scherzo will want to wade in on this!

My guilty pleasure is commenting, even though I know my posted thought will evanesce faster than dew under a hot sun!

My pleasure is when i land on a page where the comments are better than the strip..

Looks like Caulfield’s spirit has taken over Miss. Plainwell.

The teacher teaches the teacher.

This requires too much thought for a snowy Sunday morning!

I sense an aire of superiority oh her comments….

Plainwell is a foil to Frazz’s mental meanderings. More pragmatic than philosophic.

I’m past the age for guilty pleasures. I figure I’ve earned any I can achieve.

Who says that running a dishwasher with just one or two items is greener than washing those one or two items by hand? I suspect a faulty premise here.

reading and playing computer games.

I used to have a neighbor who would wipe off the leaves of her houseplants after she watered them so there would be no water spots. Now THAT’s a Neurosis!

There are many ways to hide in plain sight.

How is running a dishwasher greener? And what about single persons?

There are other aspects in the equation. We’d babied our LG dishwasher for 6 years past its expected lifespan, so it gave out almost a year ago. Given the pandemic, and given that my areas of learning are such that I could assess risks reasonably, we decided to do without a dishwasher for a while. Rediscovering doing all dishes and pots by hand led to some other discoveries: doing that chore one to three times a day improves posture, for those of us with allergies (especially asthma) the steam is a definite plus for personal comfort, putting on a good hand cream and then using rubber gloves allows the heat to let the hand cream work extra well, and quite frankly the dishes and utensils are cleaner. So, we are still without a dishwasher, though one will probably be in our future, but that is not turning out to at all be the burden expected.

It is like finding some other pandemic surprises, especially the ones from having a pantry once again: like discovering that the first brand of powdered milk I’d tried in about 60 years (Aspen Naturals) works great with canned condensed cream type soups and for drinking it is amazing with Torani sugar-free peach syrup to taste, that good olive oils and vinegars like Sciabica’s and other premium brands turn canned veggies into incredible salads with just a bit of marinading, and rediscovering that we really can make some very tasty burritos with canned vegetarian refries, veggies, soft tortillas, and favorite salsas (and for that I am thanking Renfro’s).

We found some housework surprises. Shamwows have cut our papertowel use. We also got some cleaning microfiber cloths — not the types used on screens or monitors — and learned that we can do a lot of the cleaning without cleansers. When one of us goes into the shower the person takes along a microfiber cloth and wipes part of the wet shower. That approach adds just a tiny bit of time but works great.

NO connection to brands mentioned beyond liking them.

Actually washing dishes by hand is greener. Save that water and use it to wring out the rag used to wipe down the stove and counters. Also, the suds will remain soapy and warm for at least a couple of hours so one can readily wash hands after playing with dogs or doing yard work instead of having to draw water and waste until it becomes hot.