Your fingers and hands have so many jobs to do now that your sight is not so good, or gone altogether. Maybe you’ve never realized how many other parts and functions besides pointing and grasping your wonderful hands have.
Landing gear: Your pinkie pointing out and down as you start to land your glass on the table lets you know when and where to touch down. Using both hands and both pinkies lets you land your plate or pot just where you want it.
Trailing safety-line: The backs of your fingers trailing along a wall or the front of the kitchen counter keep you oriented, and your hand safe from sharp or hot objects and from knocking stuff over on the countertop. And your palm sliding down the wall locates the edges of the outlet for a safe plug-in.
Shepherding tools: Resting the outside edges of your hands from pinkie-tip to wrist wide apart on the table lets you “herd” things on the table into the center with little sweeping motions. Both hands meet in the middle hopefully clasped around any lost sheep!
Gliding check: Placing your hands wide-spread at the opposite ends of any control panel or set of dials lets you check them out and count them as you glide over. Your hands will meet in the center and you will know what is there. If the area is big, like a drawer of equipment or a countertop, your hands can each check out half the area moving back and forth over the counter like hovercraft. This can feel a bit weird and spidery at first, but it’s the quickest and surest way to find the “start” button, the ice-cream scoop, or the crumbs.
You will have noticed that your left hand (or non-dominant hand) has a big part to play now. It can’t lounge in your lap any longer, and this will take time and practice to remember, but it really does work. There will be more about this in another post soon “Dancing As You Clean”. In last week’s guest post “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” DeAnn Elliott spoke about having to “pat down the room” if you have mislaid your keys. Using the shepherding and gliding techniques might save you some time and distressful moments.
What other hand and finger tip tricks do you use? Please post a comment and let us all benefit from your knowledge.
I use the glide technique to find things in our utensil drawer which works well for me. I do have to keep nagging my family that all sharp kitchen tools have to be kept in the knife drawer. Things like peelers, micro planes, even corkscrews, anything that I can get cut on. They’re getting better but it’s still a work in progress.
A sharp items drawer is a really good idea. another way to handle the sharp knife part is using a magnetic knife rack screwed to the wall. All the blades are stuck to the magnet and all the handles are lined up underneath.