(Untitled)

[menthe_reglisse]

You know when you are boiling rather more potatoes than will actually fit in the size of pan you have selected, so you can't put in quite enough water, so you have to keep adjusting which potatoes are sticking out of the water, so that they all get evenly-ish cooked? It strikes me that this is quite a good metaphor for those times when life feels a

Comments

[steer]

If only life resource balances could be fixed by pouring it all into a bigger pan. "Oh, sure, I used to have problems manipulating the balance between family work and hobbies but since I moved to these new 48 hour days it's all fine."

[menthe_reglisse]

I suppose not being so greedy with your potatoes would be the other solution. If only I didn't have these unrealistic expectations about keeping everyone alive, and vomit-free, and fed, and the house in a state where it does not positively encourage continued cross-infection, and myself earning money, and having some social life, and so on. Maybe I should go over to baked potatoes (ditch the children, or the job, or go and live in a hotel, presumably).

[steer]

If it helps, I think rice takes up less space in the pan.

[menthe_reglisse]

Rice! Also more suited to the delicate stomachs of those recovering from vomiting bug than potatoes. Right, I'm off to completely change my life (or at least I will be when I'm less ill and exhausted. Ah, that may be the flaw in the plan - you have to have enough resources spare to change your carbohydrate choice, and I'm not sure I ever will. Or not until the children have left home, anyway. And since they're the main cause of water shortage, it'll be less necessary then anyway).

[booklectic]

I tend to move some of the potatoes to a second pan, in a literal potato-cooking sense, but I'm not sure how that works metaphorically.

[menthe_reglisse]

Acquire additional life? Or clones. Or, as Steer suggests, change to 48 hour days?

[memevector]

My equivalent metaphor involves a table with too many things. You push them up to make room and some others fall off at the other side. Like those fairground attractions where you're trying to get coins to fall off, except with those you _want_ the coins to fall off.

Not that I have a solution! Just comparing notes as it were... :-)

[slightlyfoxed]

You could cut the spuds smaller, that might get them all underwater. The metaphorical application of this might be to do the work, social life etc. in smaller lumps of time, or to cut the people with whom you have relationships into bits. And then push them into boiling water.

[menthe_reglisse]

cut the people with whom you have relationships into bits. And then push them into boiling water.
Yes. This. (I'll hold you responsible for any ill effects resulting).