My dad has an anti-Catholic bias, which is probably why I used to think Catholics are weird....

One of my best friends as a kid was Italian and Catholic, and I thought being Catholic (and Italian, actually) seemed so cool. They got to light candles! And have saints! And they did the whole traditional seafood supper on Christmas Eve, which fascinated me (pasta and sauce and FISH?! at Christmas?! which was for turkey and stuffing?!).

I still think the ritual of Catholicism must be very soothing -- the incense and the candles and the different saints to appeal to. There are absolutely no bells and whistles about being Presbyterian.

Heh. Unless your dad's a dairy farmer.

See! I was basing my beliefs on a sample of ONE family! But they were really the only Protestants I was close to growing up aside from some of my dad's family who also used margarine.

But not both.

Bwah!

Dude, I'm totally not ready for Lent. I haven't even been thinking about it. Guess I need to figure out if I'm doing anything. Maybe I could, like, give up the idea of joining up my old game (at $50/month). Then after Lent, I could be all, hey, I have to celebrate, and join the game.

Hmm. Not really the spirit of the thing, I'm thinking.

We never observed Lent growing up. I only started to with one of my adult friends (who was Franciscan, like vow of poverty and the whole bit).

I think any animal that you eat where the food is the name of the animal was poor people's food. If you call the food something else (like beef instead of cow), that was on the well-heeled menu.

Well, but like, chitlins and haggis are definitley poor people's food (they're made of stomach, intestine -- basically, they are proto-hotdogs). And chitlins are not called pig-intestines; they are called chitlins.

Also, between mutton and lamb, mutton is definitely poorer -- being both tougher and gamier in taste -- but which one is the same name as the critter being et?

I think that the big three of animal protein -- chicken, beef and pork -- got all the names because they were eaten all the time in the history of the English language. Because seafood keeps so badly, people not actually living near the shore were very unlikely to eat seafood (unless it be smoked herring) until the invention of reliable refrigeration.

(Somehow, we have lost most of the chicken-words that used to exist: you see them in, like, Laura Ingalls Wilder books, about pullets and fryers, etc. I blame Frank Perdue.)

Wow. That thing that just happened on Heroes was seriously joymaking.

Steph, I think you can justify anything pre-Lenten as Mardi Gras (or equivalent) if you're finishing off the good stuff before the abstinence kicks in. So if that means getting the champagne finished before midnight, so be it.

I'm not sure why I wasn't consulted on this tradition. I have lots of good ideas.

That thing that just happened on Heroes was seriously joymaking.

Which thing?

between mutton and lamb, mutton is definitely poorer -- being both tougher and gamier in taste

Something's inverted about my taste buds. I can't deal with lamb because it's nasty stinky, but mutton is quite delish.

Which thing?

The death of Simone. Almost long overdue.

Hee. Joe sat on the couch just staring at the screen.

Neither New Orleans nor Mobile started Mardi Gras, of course.

Las Vegas didn't invent tackiness either. But there's something to be said for being the city that refines a concept to perfection.