Tiny Triumphs

[Jennifer]

I've NEVER had dry, cracked hands, not even in the middle of the harshest and driest of New England winters ... because I use lotion BEFORE my skin can get that way.

[Jennifer]

Heh, as an afterthought I went through the small suitcase-bag containing the toiletries we take to hotels (since I rather doubt we'll be doing any traveling anytime soon) -- found two more mini-bottles of lotion in there, so whatever else happens, we should not be plagued by uncomfortably dry skin. Good thing, too--with the state of emergency, the stores are all closed by the time Jeff leaves work, so he doesn't have the option of stopping by the 24-hour Kroger or Walmart or whatever afterwards, to pick up whatever incidentals he might need.

[Jennifer]

...In other news: Jeff is a grown man, intelligent, very responsible in many many ways -- but if not for me, he would not own ANY dry-skin-moisturizing products at all.

I don't want to bring up any sexist stereotypes about men compared to women, but ... damn.

I still do not want to bring up (let alone start believing) any sexist stereotypes about men compared to women, especially not the man I happen to be married to, but: a couple days ago he mentioned a minor annoyance while tending to a personal-grooming matter: he noticed (in the magnifying mirror we use for various grooming tasks) that his face was really dry, and then when he shaved it, hilarity did NOT ensue.

I'm actually unclear on the details, because when someone tells me a story starting with "My skin was really dry" I expect the next statement to be some variant of "so I applied moisturizer," and when Jeff instead mentioned dragging a razor blade across said dry skin I kinda lost focus. I recommended he use some facial moisturizer -- and warned him NOT to rub hand or body lotion on his face, because that WILL cause a major breakout -- and also I went ahead and moved my open jar of Nivea cream out of the "gold bathroom" (where we take showers) and into the "blue bathroom" (where we do personal grooming and store related stuff that doesn't do well stored in a steam room), put that jar with his shaving stuff next to the magnifying mirror, then put a new unopened jar in the old one's spot.

A day or two later, I asked him if he'd tried the Nivea cream, and if he'd noticed a difference. He said he'd tried it, and he supposed his skin is a LITTLE better maybe, but it took him forever to wash it all off.

"What?" I said. "You're not supposed to wash it off, you're supposed to rub it in until it's gone!" And he said he did, but he kept rubbing and rubbing but his face was still white from the cream. "Well, how much did you take?" and he said "Not much" but did not specify beyond that.

[D.A. Ridgely]

If he's using shaving soap or foam from a can as a lubricant, it's probably drying out his face even more. I don't like them because I have mixed/oily skin but there are shaving oils that can be used in place of shaving soap and that do a bit of moisturizing in the process. Also, in lieu of aftershave lotion which has a high alcohol content, there are aftershave creams. As I said, I don't like the oil but I've used the aftershave cream by The Art of Shaving for a number of years now. There are other brands out there, too; I'm just not familiar with them. They're all a bit pricey, but then most men are flabbergasted at the price and quantity of skin care products women use. You might consider getting him a small 'starter set' as a gift and see if he (1) used it and (2) liked it?

[Eric the .5b]

Huh. I'm just trying to imagine the areas on my face where hair grows being dry.

Trying a shaving oil might help with that. They're usually very moisturizing, though you only use a couple drops (literally) per shave.

[Jennifer]

Jeff doesn't have much in the way of actual beard growth, presumably due to his strain of Indian ancestry (since his brother and his all-Scottish-ancestry father had or have thick beard growth). Even when he goes literally days without shaving, he still won't have so much as a recognizable five o'clock shadow; at most he looks like someone with "normal" beard growth who maybe went a day or two without shaving, then got drunk and did a really sloppy job: mostly smooth cheeks but the area around the chin and mouth is scraggly/stubbly.

[lunchstealer]

FWIW, with the Mach 3 if I've shaved even kind of recently (so beard growth isn't long) and am pretty freshly out of the shower (so the hair is still more-or-less saturated with water) I can shave with nothing but water as a lubricant.

And as one who has to use very heavy moisturizers in combination with steroid creams to prevent eczema horror of thick, cracky, flaky skin - like there's vanicream next to every sink in the house and within arm's reach almost everywhere I spend any amount of time, and hydrocortizone in all of those places and a few other stashed locations - if he puts too much on and it won't rub all the way into the skin, he can just wipe off the excess with a towel or paper towel or kleenex or the like. It will wipe away excess without removing the therapeutic amount.

[Jennifer]

...a couple days ago [Jeff] mentioned a minor annoyance while tending to a personal-grooming matter: he noticed (in the magnifying mirror we use for various grooming tasks) that his face was really dry, and then when he shaved it, hilarity did NOT ensue. ... I recommended he use some facial moisturizer ... also I went ahead and moved my open jar of Nivea cream ... with his shaving stuff next to the magnifying mirror .... A day or two later, I asked him if he'd tried the Nivea cream, and ... [tale of absolute failure deleted]

Don't know if Jeff is still using the Nivea or not -- I can't be bothered to pay attention to the freaking levels in the jar, especially since I'm still using it too rather than remove the internal wrapping from an unopened one -- but I remembered: in addition to those big, heavy glass jars (in a bathroom with limited counter space, since much of it is occupied by the various little plastic Sterilite chests-of-drawers we use in lieu of a medicine cabinet), I also had a tiny one-ounce tin of Nivea, which used to be in the bag kept packed with toiletries for hotel stays, but I recently emptied that bag since I don't expect either of us will be traveling anytime soon. So, just now, I moved the heavy Nivea jar out of that bathroom (Jeff had already moved it to the opposite end of the counter from his shaving mirror anyway), put it back in the bathroom where we take showers, then put the little one-ounce tin in the "grooming bathroom," specifically in the small plastic tray where he keeps his preferred pairs of tweezers, nail clippers and similar small things. Maybe the tiny amount in the partly-used tin, compared to the rather substantial amount in that big jar, will inspire a more realistic idea of "just how much of this stuff are you supposed to scoop out and slather on your face, anyway?" compared to his first attempt. And of course removing the big jar frees up a bit more counterspace in there, too.

May as well use up that little tin anyway -- I don't remember exactly when I bought it (post-Georgia, is all I know), but it must be at least two years old, given how much is left and how often we traveled overnight before this happened. I'll not mention any of this to him unless he asks about it -- but I will check the contents of the tin in a week or so. If he uses any, it'll be obvious because his fingers will leave much wider tracks/grooves in the cream than mine have.

[Highway]

Turned on the ceiling fan on Thursday night, and it made a horrible noise that sounded like the bearings had failed. So today I replaced it, and along the way diagnosed the problem with the new one where the light wouldn't work to a misalignment in the fakey molex-style connectors that had pushed the pin out. So new fan is up and seems to work well!

[dhex]

Nice!

I cut down a 15ft tree today with a hand saw. Don't recommend it!

[D.A. Ridgely]

Nice!

I cut down a 15ft tree today with a hand saw. Don't recommend it!

[Insert "Lumberjack Song" joke here.]

[Warren]

I salute both your manly triumphs with grain alcohol!

[dhex]

Nice!

I cut down a 15ft tree today with a hand saw. Don't recommend it!

[Insert "Lumberjack Song" joke here.]

It hit neither me nor my house so I'd say that I am OK...

[Eric the .5b]

Voted/cancelled the vote of the friend I went to the polls with. Managed not to strangle any of the idiots without masks.

[JD]

Yesterday I finally broke down and reinstalled MacOS on my desktop computer. And it went smoothly and honestly I would hardly even know, except that Time Machine actually appears to be working properly now.

[Hugh Akston]

Yesterday I finally broke down and reinstalled MacOS on my desktop computer. And it went smoothly and honestly I would hardly even know, except that Time Machine actually appears to be working properly now.

Mojave?

[JD]

Yesterday I finally broke down and reinstalled MacOS on my desktop computer. And it went smoothly and honestly I would hardly even know, except that Time Machine actually appears to be working properly now.

Mojave?

Catalina. My Mac was working fine until I installed Catalina, and ever since I've been having trouble. Reinstalling seemed to fix at least TM, though.

[Warren]

Yesterday I finally broke down and reinstalled MacOS on my desktop computer. And it went smoothly and honestly I would hardly even know, except that Time Machine actually appears to be working properly now.

Mojave?

Catalina. My Mac was working fine until I installed Catalina, and ever since I've been having trouble. Reinstalling seemed to fix at least TM, though.

Catalina hasn't caused me any issues that I know of. I don't use TM though. Late 2015 iMac.
Upgrading memory was a big boost. I assume you're maxed out on RAM.

[JD]

Catalina hasn't caused me any issues that I know of. I don't use TM though. Late 2015 iMac.
Upgrading memory was a big boost. I assume you're maxed out on RAM.

Yup, maxed out. Late 2012 Mac Mini, over here. I'd like to try to wait until the ARM-based Macs are out before upgrading. As I don't use this machine for anything more demanding than audio recording and some very light gaming, I can probably get away with it assuming the hardware doesn't just up and die.

[Hugh Akston]

Catalina hasn't caused me any issues that I know of. I don't use TM though. Late 2015 iMac.
Upgrading memory was a big boost. I assume you're maxed out on RAM.

Yup, maxed out. Late 2012 Mac Mini, over here. I'd like to try to wait until the ARM-based Macs are out before upgrading. As I don't use this machine for anything more demanding than audio recording and some very light gaming, I can probably get away with it assuming the hardware doesn't just up and die.

Same. I have a 2012 iMac, and I would really like to wait until the new Macs hit the streets. I wish I could wait for the second generation, but this machine is starting to show her age a little.

[JD]

Well, it looks like I might have been too optimistic about my Time Machine problems. I'm starting to think it might have something to do with the TM disk going to sleep and not waking back up until it's power-cycled, which would at least be easy to fix.

And the new ARM machines are out a little sooner than I expected, including the Mini:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/10/215 ... date-price

The only thing that surprises me is that the new Mini maxes out at 16GB of RAM, exactly the same as my 2012 model.

[dhex]

I may have convinced the wife to let me make beef tenderloin for Thanksgiving in lieu of the hated bird.

[lunchstealer]

I may have convinced the wife to let me make beef tenderloin for Thanksgiving in lieu of the hated bird.

May the lord open, yo.

[dead_elvis]

in lieu of the hated bird.

Hey, mother-in-law can be quite tender if marinated long enough.

(ba-dump-tish, I keed I keed. I know that plenty of MIL relationships don't fit the stereotype, including ours)

[D.A. Ridgely]

I may have convinced the wife to let me make beef tenderloin for Thanksgiving in lieu of the hated bird.

A year from now? I mean you're not a month behind everyone else like you're in some bad Twilight Zone episode, right?