kaf

This squirrel attempted to jump a full six feet (yes, I measured) from a nearby bush to the bird feeder. Its first two misses were spectacular, so much so that when it made it on the third try, I let it hang out and eat as many peanuts as it wanted.

The Rodeo Rule: you only have to do it for the first time once.

The Rohan Rule: if you are at a social function full of new people and you want to be liked, find someone doing important work like setup or food prep and offer to help.

The Tutorial Mode Rule: to navigate an unfamiliar situation where you fear you will mess up an interaction, preface the interaction by mentioning that you've never done this before, and let them know if you have a specific concern or question.

The Rocket Science Rule: most new things you want to try seem very complicated but are simple when taken step by step.

The [X] Will Remember That Rule: if you need to make small talk with the same person on a regular basis, try to save one fact or current event in their life from a given conversation and bring it up next time you talk.

I have an autistic coworker who used to say really uncomfortable things to museum guests while making small talk. like bringing up active, controversial revolutions in their countries if they were international, and such. finally, after a group of Hawaiian guys got visibly angry when he asked if they were "in the military or just rich" to be able to live there- meant to be a cost of living joke -I said, "hey, personally, I try not to talk politics with guests. sometimes it may upset them and we don't get paid enough to deal with that"

he looked thoughtful and said, "oh, I never considered it that way." turns out he was just a geopolitics nerd and didn't realize people might react emotionally to what he saw as a purely intellectual discussion

Here it is again. You might want to save it just in case an accident like that happens again

Also the further you move toward the poles the more pronounced the difference between the length of day and night is. Worst part of a far-north (or south) heatwave is it doesn’t get dark long enough for meaningful cooling.