Boy I'm dumb (x3)

    Apart from the whole inability to communicate in English thing, I've had a number of reminders lately that my status as a genius might in some ways be less than set in stone. As I've mentioned, I have narrow feet and have been unable to find narrow shoes to go with them. So I've been trying to tie my laces real tight (OK, very tightly. See what I mean about that inability to communicate thing?). Yesterday, the laces popped. As I have a lot of old shoes around that I haven't donated to thrift stores yet, I just recycled the laces from an old pair.
    Sneakers and walking shoes have this little slot on the tongue that you're supposed to run both laces through. The idea appears to be that this will keep the tongue from lolling around. But it also prevents you from tying the shoes particularly tightly. I skipped it, and magic: suddenly I could tie my shoes tight! Genius I tell you... if I'd thought of this three years ago, say.
    Even I'm embarrassed to admit the second thing. For ages now, I've been rinsing my dishes rather than washing them with detergent. Hell, it seemed sufficient, and I didn't want the taste of soap on my dishes and in my food. But the drain rack got just unbelievably foul, presumably from grease dripping off poorly cleaned dishes. So as part of my New Year's resolution not to be an idiot anymore, I've started washing dishes properly. Drain rack looks a lot cleaner, but then it takes a while for it to get really scummy. Maybe it'll turn out that detergent doesn't really make a difference. I'd be at least a little relieved to find that I'm not a total idiot.
    But not that relieved. The third thing? I completely forgot it. And I used to be fairly smart.
    One non-idiotic idea is to get Dad's dialysis days changed so that he and Margaret could go to the dances at the Senior Center on Friday nights. We've seen that he has no energy after dialysis, so Fridays would be a no-go at the moment. I'll have to see if it can be done, and how easy or hard it would be for them to be able to go on Fridays anyway. Anyway, it's a fun idea.