So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[LizzieMaine]

Live lobsters are a common grocery store item here -- all you want at $5 a pound. You take them home in a waxed cardboard take-out box, and you are responsible for what happens from there on.

Often obnoxious little children will rap on the tanks where the lobsters are kept and will get them worked up so they'll try and fight, which they can't do since their claws are banded. It's very common to see signs posted reading DON'T HASSLE THE LOBSTERS or some such.

 

[tonyb]

The missus relays the story of being aboard a city bus when the driver opens the door to let more passengers aboard, among them a young man with a live hen under each arm.

"Don't tell me," the driver says. "Service chickens?"

 

[Trenchfriend]

@LizzieMaine

Are there more lobsters/crayfishes in Maine available, than the people can eat?

 

[LizzieMaine]

@LizzieMaine

Are there more lobsters/crayfishes in Maine available, than the people can eat?

Probably more than the locals can eat. That's why we bus in tourists.

In truth, it's probably been five years since I ate a lobster. I had so much of it growing up that it's just blah to me. Now, a good pastrami sandwich, that I always have time for.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Pastrami never came to Germany. Probably, because of our "Schinken-Brot".

 

[JimWagner]

"Pet Parents". That gets me going every time I hear it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

All this is making me hungry for seafood !
What’s a good seafood diner in your neck of the woods ?

You can get good seafood anywhere here, but the locals go to the Rockland Cafe, where it's all you can eat and the prices aren't jacked up like they are in the tourist traps/goormay joints.

The only shrimp I'll eat is the kind you buy off a guy with an old truck at the side of the road. And that's no longer available at the moment due to the Gulf of Maine shrimp fisheries being closed due to overfishing. I won't under any circumstances eat the filthy frozen shrimp imported from Thailand, which is packed under unsanitary, unconscionable conditions by slaves.

 

[Trenchfriend]

You can get good seafood anywhere here, but the locals go to the Rockland Cafe, where it's all you can eat and the prices aren't jacked up like they are in the tourist traps/goormay joints.

The only shrimp I'll eat is the kind you buy off a guy with an old truck at the side of the road. And that's no longer available at the moment due to the Gulf of Maine shrimp fisheries being closed due to overfishing. I won't under any circumstances eat the filthy frozen shrimp imported from Thailand, which is packed under unsanitary, unconscionable conditions by slaves.

And atlantic-herings, right out of the glass? Best fast-food, ever invented, to me! I can buy a nice Döner and pay 3,50 Euro or get on supermarket a glass of "Rollmops" (5 pieces), for 1,79 Euro. Mmmmmh, yummy.

 

[p51]

"Pet Parents". That gets me going every time I hear it.

Yeah, well, there are people who couldn't have two-legged children (like my wife and I). Just don't forget that before you judge people who use that term...

 

[JimWagner]

I'm genuinely sorry you couldn't have children. That said, no matter how much you love your pets you aren't their parents. Not judgement - fact.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm never under the illusion that I'm my cat's parent. I'm her staff.

 

[sheeplady]

I think it might be because American culture is a mongrel job from start to finish -- unless you're a Passamaquoddy or a Cherokee, what it means to be an "American" is a hash made up of dozens of different bits and pieces of everybody's culture. I have Scottish, Irish, English, French, Italian, and probably Jewish blood -- what's "American" to me but a fried pastrami-and-cheddar sandwich on a baguette? There *is* no one, monolithic American culture unless it's that random mixture of other people's cultures, which is different for every person. Unless it's that Boys From Marketing vision of bland, synthesized Miracle Whip "Americanism" cooked up out of whole cloth in the twentieth century.

As for Christianity as the dominant culture of America, I think a lot depends on how you define Christianity. The concept of what "Christianity" really was was a highly divisive question for most of the first hundred and fifty years of American life, unlike today when if you tell people you're a "Christian" they assume you mean a Southern Evangelical unless you explain otherwise. In the Era it was a lot more complicated. Very few people called themselves just plain "Christians," or were willing to view others as such. it had to be qualified in some philosophical or denominational way. Methodist? Congregationalist? Episcopalian? Adventist? Trinitarian? Unitarian? Immortality? Soul-sleep? Premillenial dispensationalist? Postmillenialist? Mary Baker Eddy? Joseph Smith? Charles Taze Russell? Was Christianity best explained thru Calvinism? Wesleyanism? Catholicism?

The divisions were deep at the beginning of America, and remained deep well into the Era. The traditions and beliefs of a Boston Catholic, a Virginia Presbyterian, and a Mississippi Baptist could not possibly be further removed from one another -- the blurry outlines might be similar, but they're in no way the same, and even in the Era there were plenty of neighborhoods where the differences could get you ostracised or beaten up. Significantly, when people talked about "intermarriage" in the Era they didn't mean blacks and whites -- they meant Protestants and Catholics, and the practice was highly frowned upon from both sides. "You can't marry him, he doesn't believe in the Blessed Virgin!" "You ain't raising my grandkids to be toe-kissers!"

In such an environment you might not have had to worry about saying "Merry Christmas," but there was a whole lot more you *did* have to worry about, about whether your particular strain of "Christianity" might get you frowns on the street, ostracized in school, or thrown into jail.

There are still people who don't view Catholics as Christians. I went to high school with some of them. As adults they continue to believe this.

Unitarians don't believe in the Holy Trinity (Jesus is a son of God, not the son of God, no belief in the Holy Ghost), and therefore aren't considered Christians. You can be a Christian and an Unitarian Universalist, but then you tend more towards universalism. Just as you can be a Jewish and a UU or a Pagan and a UU, etc.

 

[2jakes]

I'm never under the illusion that I'm my cat's parent. I'm her staff.

I tell folks that Polo (cat) found me wandering on the tennis courts & gave me a home.

I am now the head butler & life is good!

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's a few other denominations which reject Trinitarianism but do profess Christianity -- the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Christian Scientists are the best known, and just as the Universalists, they're often accused of "not being Christian," even though the Trinity itself as it's now understood didn't get codified into a formal belief until the fourth century. Prior to that, the doctrine was heavily debated.

Some American Quakers, the Christadelphians, and various Church of God groups also reject trinitarianism, but they don't seem to attract the attention of the groups mentioned earlier.

 

[sheeplady]

There's a few other denominations which reject Trinitarianism but do profess Christianity -- the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Christian Scientists are the best known, and just as the Universalists, they're often accused of "not being Christian," even though the Trinity itself as it's now understood didn't get codified into a formal belief until the fourth century. Prior to that, the doctrine was heavily debated.

Some American Quakers, the Christadelphians, and various Church of God groups also reject trinitarianism, but they don't seem to attract the attention of the groups mentioned earlier.

And one of the arguments for not adopting the Trinity (according to my understanding) was the fact that it was a difficult concept for worshippers to understand.

But interestingly enough is that while some people are quick to point out that "our founding fathers were Christian!" those are typically the same people who believe Unitarians, Quakers, etc. aren't really Christian.

How convenient that they count as Christians when they found a country but not when they're your neighbor in flesh and blood.

 

[DNO]

I'm never under the illusion that I'm my cat's parent. I'm her staff.

As the saying goes, "Dogs have owners. Cats have staff". Or, as Churchill pointed out, 'cats look down on us'.

My cat made me write that.

 

[GHT]

Women and cats will do as they please. Men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

 

[2jakes]

Women and cats will do as they please. Men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

Not necessarily.
I came from a family of 5 sisters & one brother.
The boys could do no wrong while my sisters had to tow the line
for my mother.

And if there is any ounce of decency & respect for women, I feel I
owe this to my grandmother who gave me the love to understand &
appreciate many things in life at a young age.

 

[GHT]

The boys could do no wrong while my sisters had to tow the line for my mother.

We have been married for 48 years, known each other for more than fifty. Our relationship works because I'm the boss and I have her permission to tell you that.

 

[Zombie_61]

I'm genuinely sorry you couldn't have children. That said, no matter how much you love your pets you aren't their parents. Not judgement - fact.

Try telling that to our cat and dog.