Coffee Break: Collapsible Electric Kettle

54 Comments

1. I cannot with work today and I want a reward when I get home. Ice cream bar? Pretzel chicken nuggets? Craft hour?

   1. Cannot with work either so I keep refreshing here, but it’s not like the old days when conversation would be bumping – now it’s refreshing every 20 minutes to see 2 new comments, whereas several years ago, it would have been 20 new comments in 2 minutes. Guess I’ll be looking for a better treat too! Perhaps that ice cream bar?

      1. +1. The higher number of comments in the old days was a nice distraction when it felt like I just could not deal with work for another second (like today). I vote for the ice cream bar.

   2. Personally, I am a fan of the gas station ice cream treat. Pick something colorful from the cooler (nostalgia is a bonus), and pair it with a couple cheap lottery scratchers.

   3. I am going for a hot chocolate later as a reward for surviving 10 meetings between 7:30am and 3pm, with a ten minute “lunch break”.
      And a walk to the nature area near my house is definitely on the agenda.

      If I hear “operationalizing our operating principles” or “executing on our strategy” one more time today, I am going to loose it.

      Off to hugging some trees now…

   4. I love the Yasso frozen yogurt bars so I vote for those!

      1. So do we. The ones with the chocolate shells are so much more delicious, and we only buy those!

   5. When I want a treat but don’t feel like going to the store or bakery, I make the chocolate mug cake from Tastes Better from Scratch on the web. Made entirely from pantry staples. Only makes one serving because it doesn’t use an egg (mug cake recipes with egg tend to make two servings to avoid dividing an egg). Top with ice cream or whipped cream if you have any on hand.

      1. To halve the egg called for in a recipe, you just use the yolk. No need to break the whole thing, beat it and then eyeball a “half” of an egg.

   6. Download a new book for your Kindle and binge-read.

2. Weeeeee more microplastics

   1. My exact thoughts. Even though silicone is more inert than other types of plastic. (Looking at you, takeout containers.)

   2. For anyone truly looking for a travel solution, my dad was a big tea drinker and never travelled without a travel immersion water heater. His dated back to the 1980s or possibly earlier and only required a mug and an outlet. Lo-fi but worked like a charm.

      https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Immersion-Heater-Electric-Camping-Accessories

      1. I used this when I was in college. It worked well.

3. Last week I realized that my “healthy afternoon snack” of yogurt was causing nasty acid reflux. Any suggestions for good substitutes that have at least 15g of protein?

   1. Blended chia seed pudding! If you blend it all up, it has more of a mousse texture than the gelatinous texture that chia seed pudding often has. I make four servings on Sunday night to have during the week. I add two scoops of collagen protein to help me feel fuller.

      1. interesting! what’s your recipe? can you use one of those little foamer things to blend it or do you need an actual blender?

         1. You need a high-powered blender to puree the chia seeds. For traditional chia pudding, you can mix with a whisk.

         2. I use my Vitamix! You might be able to do it with a food processor too? This is my rough recipe:

            1/2 cup chia seeds
            2 or 3 scoops of collagen protein powder
            2 Tbsp cocoa powder
            1 and 1/2 cups of dairy or non-dairy milk (I use the Fairlife skim milk)
            Sweetener to taste (maple syrup is my go-to)

            Blend until it starts to thicken and then separate into 3 containers and refrigerate.

            Calculations vary depending on types of milk/protein powder/etc., but I usually calculate around 18-20 grams of protein and 10 grams of fiber. Sometimes I add raspberries or a few chocolate chips, but usually I just eat it on its own when I’m hangry in the afternoon.

   2. A hard boiled egg? You can boil 5 on Sunday and have one for each day of the work week.

      1. I kind of doubt that would be better for reflux than yogurt.

         But I’d honestly see a doctor if either snack were giving me reflux like that.

      2. I love eggs but you need 2.5 eggs to get 15g of protein. Egg is only 6g.

      3. Eggs have about 6 grams of protein.

         1. I have learned something today.

   3. Cashews?

   4. Cottage cheese but guessing that wouldn’t be better

4. Lawyers (and maybe people interested in this):

   Would you go to a CLE where a lawyer, someone from an ER or hospital admin, someone from a hospice, and maybe a chaplain discuss how POAs, health care POAs, living wills, DNRs, POLSTs, and HIPAA waivers work in emergencies and with people going through something like a stage 4 cancer diagnosis? Or is this just too bleak and maybe emotionally overwhelming?

   1. I’m not a lawyer but would find that interesting as a citizen!

   2. I would. That’s relevant to my practice and, blessedly, not something that would be emotionally overwhelming to me right now based on what’s going on in my life. It also sounds like useful, practical knowledge that is tedious to sort out just through research.

      1. Agreed on your last sentence. OP, my trusts and estates class in law school was extremely practical in the way I think you’re envisioning for this, and was taught by a priest, who was also a lawyer who had spent the ’80s writing (free or low cost?) wills for AIDS patients in the hospital and had started adjuncting when his own mother got old and sick enough he had to figure out how to pay for her elder care. He was a good teacher regardless, but I think especially having worn so many T&E relevant hats made him excellent for that class, and I’d welcome another voice-of-experience learning opportunity on this stuff.

   3. This doesn’t seem too bleak and emotionally overwhelming in the abstract (do you mean for people in the thick of it?).

      Emergencies seem really different from some other scenarios (especially when thinking about something like a DNR). I do wonder about things like medical bracelets though (like is that really the best way to communicate about unexpected contraindications or unusual diagnoses to an emergency team?).

   4. Hasn’t this same question been posted like five times this year?

      1. No. Getta grip.

   5. If it’s free and has food, yes. If not, no. CLEs are inherently useless, so I’m not going for the content.

   6. I would find this interesting theoretically but the odds of their advice working in my own personal situation with a parent… I would view as slim to none.

   7. Yes. I think you can leave it as “in emergencies” without specifying the emergency in the invite to get broader interest.

   8. I’m a healthcare compliance lawyer and get questions on this sort of thing a lot. It wouldn’t seem emotionally overwhelming to me – I know what kind of work my clients are doing and these things are just part of the territory . (I definitely get “wow, that’s so sad” moments, but it’s pretty rare that it’s actually emotional.) I probably would expect I know enough about this issue that I wouldn’t get much from a CLE, but I certainly would send a greener colleague to one.

   9. as these things go that might be interesting but i pick my CLES based on ease/ price/ network potential not topic.

   10. My old firm used to do a variation of this, as does the local bar association. Never understood why until I needed to sign my parents up for Medicare and all the brain trust of all the graduate degrees in the group chat just about melted down about it. If you wanted to make it less bleak, focus more on planning than crisis and how to have the conversation with parents.

5. how much of the news are you reading? i feel like every day i scroll to the bottom of the NYT and read a wellness article. i read the other headlines but feel numb to them.

   1. Plenty of news plus podcasts. When I’m avoiding I use the AI Miss Marples and AI Poirot stories on YouTube.

   2. I usually read 4-5 articles from the WSJ and read the headlines of the NYTimes and Politico daily. I feel numb too. Depressing headlines. And then I can’t escape discussions about AI on insta or LI, with “the world is about to end” vibes. I already quit FB because my feed was a horror line-up of crime stories, often involving women or children. Anyone else experience this on social media?

      1. When I updated Facebook about the loss of a household pet, my Facebook feed updated so that it was constantly showing me posts about the illness or death of household pets from all over the world. It seems like it doesn’t take much to move that algorithm in a really dark direction.

6. Makeup comment –

   Older Gen X here. For years, mascara was my ride or die cosmetic.

   I remember in my 20s reading an interview with a famous makeup artist who said if he could use only one cosmetic product, it would be blush. For me it was so clearly mascara, I couldn’t understand it.

   Now I’m older and I would guess my essential products are a sheer lip color and a tinted brow gel. I just find mascara incredibly annoying. Not just time consuming to put on and avoid or clean up oopsies, but also a pain to get off at the end of the day. Anyone else?

   1. What is your favorite tinted eye gel? And sheer lip color / product?

      Also GenX here.

      1. Not OP, but I love Thrive’s tinted eye gel. Stays put and looks super natural while being easy to apply.

      2. I’m a Beauty Pie member and I really like that one. I buy both blonde girl and perfect brown shades depending on how dark I walk my eyebrows should be that day. I don’t apply much and I just go once through.

   2. I still use mascara daily. Mascara tends to be more hit or miss than other products, and there are a lot of bad ones out there that clump or smudge on your face. But some are pretty good. I do like blush.

   3. Young GenX/Elder Millennial. I have retired from mascara. I’ve had so many different brands over the years, at all ends of the quality spectrum. Even the best ones tend to irritate my sensitive eyes or flake. And like you said, it’s a pain to take off, and sleeping in it is terrible for you. Personally, I have my suspicions that all the scrubbing at the eye area to remove it contribute to wrinkles. So I’ve simply opted out, aside from the biggest of occasions.

      For me, a good lip color is where it’s at. That’s my essential product.

   4. Also older Gen X here! I only put mascara on my upper lashes, so it’s not that big a deal at the end of the day. I use regular cleanser to get mascara and the end-of-the-day gunk off.

      I’d been using the same Clinique mascara since the 1980s, and of course they discontinued it a couple of years ago. Luckily I had a stash, but still. I’m still trying to find a substitute.

      1. Another older Gen X! I also only do my upper lashes, and use a tubing mascara to avoid smudging. My go-to is Blinc, and it comes off easily with water or makeup remover. Its only drawback is that it’ll tend to come off if you get sweaty, so wearing it while exercising is a no-go.

   5. Xennial here.

      I have blonde lashes, so I still do my upper lashes, but for color, not oomph. I don’t mind going without, though.

      Have a newfound appreciation for both blush and lippy as I age and get lower contrasts.

   6. You are not alone! I similarly considered mascara and a lip tint to be a minimum viable make up combo. Mascara is a pita and will inevitably smear even though it’s only on the top lashes. I have dark long lashes so stopped using it, and live continued. Now I’m older, I do tinted eyebrow gel and a lip tint, but a bit of under eye concealer and bronzer is very helpful too if there’s time.

7. This seems like a frivolous waste of plastic destined for the trash. Most Air B&Bs that have electricity have a microwave. Ditto for business hotel rooms. Just microwave your water.

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