Readers and writers blog

Here’s some domestic wisdom I’ve acquired over the better part of seven decades. In fact, it’s not just some, but pretty much the sum total of my domestic wisdom:

Easy brown rice in the microwave: You need only a 2½-quart plastic container with its lid, plus a plastic lid from a much larger container. Put the larger lid downside up in the microwave, put two cups of washed brown rice in the container, add 5½ cups of cold water, top the container with its lid, also upside down, and set the whole thing on the larger lid in the microwave. Cook on high for 35 minutes. The smaller lid, since it’s only sitting loosely on the container, will allow steam and water to bubble out of the container, and this moisture will drip into the larger lid, keeping the microwave clean. This technique makes perfect, just slightly toothy brown rice¹.

Economy wine cooler: Buy six commercial wine coolers in 16-ounce plastic bottles with plastic screw caps. Drink the wine coolers at your leisure, saving the bottles and caps. Then buy a box of really cheap wine (I like the whites) and several 2-liter bottles of flavored seltzer² in the supermarket brand, which also is really cheap. Chill the wine and seltzer, then refill the empty bottles each with 5 ounces of wine and 11 ounces of seltzer and recap. (Each six-bottle refill uses one 2-liter bottle of seltzer. Tidy, huh?)

Decaffeinating: Sciatica acting up? Doc sez cut out the caffeine? Naw, go only halfway. Make coffee with half regular, half decaffeinated grounds. It’ll all taste regular, and your leg won’t hurt so much. Same with your diet cola. (I know it’s diet because if you’re reading this blog, you’re smart enough to know that the sugary stuff will really kill you.) Buy the cola in 2-liter bottles, half of them caffeine-free. Fill your glass (or one of those refillable wine bottles) half and half. You’ll feel better.

Perking up whites: Fill a 2½-gallon plastic bucket with water, add ½ capful of chlorine bleach, then fill your liquid detergent cap with detergent, pour it back in the bottle and swish the cap in the water bucket to add just enough detergent to it. Use the bucket to soak whites between washloads, several days if possible. Particularly good for cotton underwear.

Clean shave: Use antibacterial hand soap. Soak your face (or other part to be shaved) with warm water, then rub in hand soap until heavily foamy. The store brand soap is cheap — much cheaper than that shaving cream in a can — and after shaving, your face will be unusually clean with a light fragrance, sort of like baby powder.

Dental hygiene: One word — toothpicks. We don’t use them enough in this country, probably because it’s still considered crude to use them at the table, especially at a restaurant. But who cares when you end up with fewer cavities? In Europe, the Swiss have added a plastic toothpick to their famous army knife.

Handy fasteners: Again, one word — wood spring clothespins. Perfect for reclosing bags of chips, cookies, frozen vegetables, whatever.

Royalty of fasteners: Velcro, duct tape, Crazy Glue. They’ll hold anything together — the latter, I have found, including your fingers.

Cheez-its: Crumbled, they make everything taste better — veggies, casseroles, even cereal.

Speaking of cereal: Soy milk tastes better on it than regular milk.

Leave the leaves: Don’t rake in the fall. Let the leaves stay through the winter. But rake them as soon as the ground thaws in the spring. So much easier dealing with wet leaves. Experts say this is the absolutely worst thing you can do, but in regions where the lawn freezes, the grass protects it. That’s my theory, and I’m sticking with it.

Domestic tranquility: Every day, find something you like about your spouse and mention it to him/her. Do this more frequently if it doesn’t seem like sucking up, which could raise spousal suspicions. Also, always be very careful writing about spouse, particularly on the Internet and especially WSSOS³.

Latest wisdom: And, oh yeah, something I learned very recently: Not every random thought leads to a good blog post.

– Sid Leavitt

NOTES:

1. White rice? Forget it: There’s no reason to eat white rice instead of brown rice.

2. Southerners and Midwesterners: You may have to use flavored soda water instead. It’s nowhere near as good as seltzer, but hey, that’s life in the belt.

3. When Spouse is Standing Over your Shoulder.