Ok Senator Ernst.
Y’all are definitely overestimating what I mean by learning to swim. It wasn’t lessons so much as getting tossed into the pool/ocean and eventually not dying. With a parent or older sibling paying some amount of attention. I just figured all you non southerners swam in creeks and lakes and rivers and things. Ya know, due to the lack of gators or amoebas
I think it’s really different up here swimming wise! We all learned to swim in Florida because we went swimming all the time. Our fingers were permanently pruny! I remember my dad teaching me to float, but then we just swam around.
But you really have to go out of your way to swim here - there’s only a couple of months of outdoor swimming and it’s still too cold for me. So there do seem to be a lot more organized swimming classes, but it’s pretty expensive.
I grew up in a pretty poor area of the midwest, and we had swimming lessons all throughout elementary PE. I would say about 50% of kids learned how to swim there. I don’t know how this was done safely tbh.
I did join swim team at 5, but my mom coached the high school swim team so I learned to swim very early. There is a 6 and under age group in USA swimming, so 5 year old swimmers aren’t uncommon at all. I coached them for a summer, and they mostly did ok attention wise. They had to be able to swim 25 yards without stopping to join the team.
I’m in an upper class suburb in the Midwest now and swimming is not part of PE, but all of the families I know had their kids in lessons at the y or goldfish by 3 or 4. We have a pool in the neighborhood with a swim team and swim lessons, which plays a huge part in that, I’m sure.
My dd’s elementary school in Pittsburgh had a swimming pool in the basement and they had swimming lessons in PE! They don’t build them like that anymore! (It was very much not heated and dd hated it.)
I’m a little afraid to post this because I know there are people on this forum with big opinions about coffee 
but… our coffee grinder just died. Any recommendations for a new one? Does it get any more nuanced than “this effectively grinds coffee”?
For context, my husband usually grinds beans once a day and makes a single pot of pour-over with it. Once in a while (more often now that summer is approaching) he’ll make a bottle of cold brew, which I understand calls for a coarser grind. We have a small kitchen and aren’t interested in larger gadgets.
The thing you don’t want is uneven grinding. Consistent grind size means coffee extracts into hot water in a predictable way.
If you use a spice grinder for coffee it will be totally inconsistent.
If you use a burr grinder it will be drastically more consistent.
There are lots of companies that make amazing grinders. For small footprint and reasonable price, start with oxo and bodum burr grinders.
I really liked the OXO Conical Burr ($99) for pour over and cold brew. It didn’t go fine enough for spouse to use with the espresso machine so we “upgraded”.
My parents have a Breville smart grinder pro which… no complaints but it costs twice as much. You can fill the hopper and grind a certain quantity at a time, but I’m not sure that’s worth the cost (also, goes stale faster).
This is what we have! We are also daily pour-over people and it’s been doing great for years.
I have the oxo conical burr, works great!
I have a Baratza Encore that I purchased lightly used after reading many reviews. It does a nice job! We appreciate good coffee but we are not super particular about the exact nuances of how to make it…
I’m not sure if it’s too big for your space though.
What if I use my coffee bean grinder for spices? 
Wouldn’t that make the spices taste like coffee?
Really, just a gentle question? I was expecting/hoping for an outraged scolding!
You mistake me for someone with an evangelical urge to have everyone care about what I care about, in the way I care about it.
The question was genuine. Do you grind rice between other things to avoid cross contamination?
No. I buy coffee that is already ground and consider my bean grinder to be my spice grinder, which I use about once a year, at most. I have never ground rice. Just washed it?
I tried the ground beans thing many years ago but I didn’t really notice a difference in flavor, just extra steps before I got to the coffee. Don’t like the extra steps.
I’m very pleased that you like your coffee. That’s the whole point!
My coffee process has several steps, which I find satisfying. Which is the whole point!
I learned from Alton Brown that a cheap coffee grinder is perfect for grinding spices. I do not use it for coffee though.
A cheap grinder also seems fine for French press, but I rarely use it anymore. As you say, more steps. Some day when I retire I will be a coffee snob. For now - I use ground coffee and for iced coffee, I mix instant coffee with cold water and lots of creamer and I am happy.
I’ve been using a cheap spice grinder for French press and it works great. But I am still annoyed at the 5 min of prep it takes for coffee to exist in the morning. I’ve been thinking of going pre-ground with a drip coffee maker on a timer…because I’m honestly not convinced I will notice the difference. I have a friend from Columbia and I was telling her about this recently and she rolled her eyes so hard 1. because she is (rightfully) very particular about coffee and 2. because she thinks it’s hilarious that I consider the 5 min of waiting for French press to be an inconvenience and just confirmed her thought that Americans are incredibly impatient
But those 5 minutes are when you’re tired and groggy! It’s probably more efficient to make the coffee the night before when you’re alert anyway 
I also hate making coffee in the morning and use a preset drip machine.