some saint quote: being anxious makes you a sinful coward
my anxiety-ridden ass:
St.Dymphna helps! She’s the patron saint of anxiety!
SHOUT OUT TO OUR MENTALLY ILL AND SUPPORTIVE OF THE MENTALLY ILL SAINTS Y’ALL THE REAL MVPS
You can’t post about her and not post her prayer!
Good Saint Dymphna, great wonder-worker in every affliction of
mind and body, I humbly implore your powerful intercession with Jesus
through Mary, the Health of the Sick, in my present need. (Mention it.)
Saint Dymphna, martyr of purity, patroness of those who suffer with
nervous and mental afflictions, beloved child of Jesus and Mary, pray to
Them for me and obtain my request.
(Pray one Our Father, one Hail Mary and one Glory Be.)
Here in Ohio, we’re voting for our state auditor today. Now, we have 3 choices here:
1. A current state representative who is a law school grad with 8 years of state senate experience under his belt. As far as I can tell, no experience in finances or auditing.
2. Another law school grad with 5 years of congressional experience under his belt. Hasn’t been anywhere near politics for the past 7 years. Again, no easily visible experience in finances/auditing.
3. A 32-year accounting and auditing veteran who also worked as an adjunct professor after getting his masters(in finance). In addition to being totally qualified, also seems like a nice guy: does a lot of community services, tutoring, and coaching in his spare time.
Seems like a total wash, right? Candidate 3 seems astronomically more qualified than Candidates 1 & 2. Here’s the problem though: Candidates 1 & 2 are Republican and Democrat respectively. “Who cares? Candidate 3 still seems infinitely more qualified than either of them: he’s definitely going to win right?” Yeah… none of our local news groups are even talking about Candidate 3- or his credentials- because he’s 3rd party.
All of this isn’t even touching on all the discussions we could have about qualified candidates of any party being ignored because of their party affiliation: plenty of moderate candidates- with excellent credentials- that aren’t going to win because they aren’t “hard-line” enough to get their party’s support.
Note to vacationing non-Americans: while it’s true that America doesn’t always have the best food culture, the food in our restaurants is really not representative of what most of us eat at home. The portions at Cheesecake Factory or IHOP are meant to be indulgent, not just “what Americans are used to.”
If you eat at a regular American household, during a regular meal where they’re not going out of their way to impress guests, you probably will not be served twelve pounds of chocolate-covered cream cheese. Please bear this in mind before writing yet another “omg I can’t believe American food” post.
Also, most American restaurant portions are 100% intended as two meals’ worth of food. Some of my older Irish relatives still struggle with the idea that it’s not just not rude to eat half your meal and take the rest home, it’s expected. (Apparently this is somewhat of an American custom.)
Until you’re hitting the “fancy restaurant” tier (the kind of place you go for a celebration or an anniversary date), a dinner out should generally also be lunch for the next day. Leftovers are very much the norm.
From the little time I’ve spent in Canada, this seems to be the case up there as well.
the portions in family restaurants (as opposed to haute cuisine types) are designed so that no one goes away hungry.
volume IS very much a part of the american hospitality tradition, and Nobody Leaves Hungry is important. but you have to recognize that it’s not how we cook for ourselves, it’s how we welcome guests and strengthen community ties.
so in order to give you a celebratory experience and make you feel welcomed, family restaurants make the portions big enough that even if you’re a teenage boy celebrating a hard win on the basketball court, you’re still going to be comfortably full when you leave.
of course, that means that for your average person with a sit-down job, who ate a decent lunch that day, it’s twice as much as they want or more. that’s ok. as mentioned above, taking home leftovers is absolutely encouraged. that, too, is part of american hospitality tradition; it’s meant to invoke fond memories of grandma loading you down with covered dishes so you can have hearty celebration food all week. pot luck church basement get-togethers where the whole town makes sure everybody has enough. that sort of thing. it’s about sharing. it’s about celebrating Plenty.
it’s not about pigging out until you get huge. treating it that way is pretty disrespectful of our culture. and you know, contrary to what the world thinks, we do have one.
Wide Spread Interests 