>> trying to carefully lower myself into a too-low chair.
Yeah, those will kill us someday! Airports and even doctor's offices seem to have a fixation on seating people just as close to the floor as a limber teenager can squat.
"Help, I sat down and can't get up!"
I save any thick, stiff foam pads from shipping packages at work. Then I set 1-2 thick foam pads on chairs out in the yard, so I can sit down and then get back up without renting a derrick.
Just like giving kids a telephone book so they can eat at "the grown-up's tables".
In theory, they make a medical foam pad material for seats, but that's more like PosturePedic foam for paralyzed wheel-chair seating 16 hours per day without bed sores. You sink in deep and it's priced so that only insurance companies can afford it.
It helps to tie 2 pads together so they are thick enough but you can still carry them with one hand.
The really stiff ffoam pads give a little spring action when I stand back up, like an ejection seat. BOIIINGGG.
