Thing Not To Do Today: get in a stew.

 I try to be broad-minded, but I can't say I'd ever want to have cannibals as house-guests.*

Anyway, I hope you're not in a stew, either literally or figuratively, because if you are, you're in hot water.

I certainly hope you're not stewing in your own juices (that is, suffering from the consequences of your own actions). 

Isn't it odd that the English language should be so determined that a nice warm bath should be a symbol of muddle and worry? 

Still, I suppose it's a place where you get hot, if not exactly bothered.

Thing Not To Do Today: get in a stew. The word stew appeared in English in the 1300s, when it meant to have a steam bath. The word comes from the Old French estuver, to have a hot bath, but where it came from before that isn't entirely clear. The Latin extufare means to evaporate, from vapor, which means steam. 

On the other hand the Old English stuf-bæþ means hot-air bath, so stew-type words have been around for a long time.

People have been stewing in their own juices since the 1650s. 

*Though cannibalism isn't so bad if the joint has died of genuinely natural (and non-infectious) causes. But I'll still have the salad, all the same.