I'm having a big "shopping my pantry" week so I didn't have to get much in the store yesterday. Our meals are: Salsibury steak and mashed potatoes - the boys made this when I was in a class last night. Tuna casserole and Caesar salad Chicken fajitas. beans, rice Orange chicken, steamed rice, stir fried veggies pork potstickers, Asian chopped salad Big Breakfast stuff - bacon, grits, eggs, pancakes or waffles, fruit - this'll be a couple meals Jambalaya and a southwest salad, Pizza - I've got to pick up 00 flour for a new crust recipe I'm trying. That's a wegman's trip. I get several meals out of yogurt-banana-peanut butter-oatmeal smoothies, but nobody but me is interested. I used to always do them with almond meal, but i ran out and i like the peanut butter just as much and it's a lot cheaper. I went hard on the bagged crunchy kale/cabbage salads this week because I felt lazy. On the topic of lazy, it's almost 3 and nobody has asked me for food. I slept in, so I assume they ate while I was asleep, but I'm afraid to ask. I had dinner so late last night that I'm just not hungry enough to make an effort yet. It's a good day for hibernating here; all cloudy and sleety.

Maybe look at poached salmon recipes to recreate what your friend did? I love the taste of salmon and have been known to just eat the leftovers cold with a little salt. My favorite method is to just sear both sides in a cast iron skillet then put the lid on and remove from the heat until it gets opaque all the way through. I like it just with lemon, or with a teryaki sauce, a creamy dill sauce, or a hollandiase. I like it over a chef salad too. It's so quick on the stove top that I get everything else ready, do the salmon, then plate and serve. Great, now I want Salmon and it's not on the menu this week.

Ask the guy in the wine store to help you or read the labels. It's normal to go in and say "I'm cooking X and need a dry white wine." For cooking, I don't usually spend more than $15. If you have no intention of drinking the rest with the meal, freeze it for future sauces.

I'll do my best, but I'm open to suggestions to get the other 327 million people here on board. Has your vote managed to get all of your preferred politicians seated? While we can read the thread and be more careful about our individual behaviors, there is a limit to what your boardies can do on a national scale. I get your frustration. We're frustrated too. Your last sentence illustrates how we can't get it right anyway. I'm hearing "Stay out of it and what took you so long." We'd need a whole new thread to discuss how we and the world might be better off if we closed up shop internationally and brought everyone home. If animosity about our politics is what is really bothering you about Americans, then toning down the gesticulating and lowering our voices won't actually help how we're seen abroad. I would never "just tell people I'm Canadian." That's silly and dishonest. I was also raised in a culture where I was taught never to "put people out." My voice is quiet. I take up as little space as possible and can read a room. I wouldn't ask for a glass of water if I was on fire and would always just wait until you offered. My looks prevent me from 'blending' in half the world so that's not a realistic goal for me, but I am considerate in social situations. I do what I can, but I'm no match for a culture that's hanging on to anger about how the WWII generation behaved on leave. I have been very interested in all of the tips on how to do better and cultural differences absolutely fascinate me. This thread has been very interesting. I do wonder though, if we got ALL American tourists on board and successfully managed ALL of the offensive behaviors, would it actually help how we're viewed? We've been taught to accept cultural differences. As long as people are considerate, really trying, and apologize when the inevitable goof-up occurs, that's all that can really be expected and we have to meet them half way. Where I live (and this is regional) it is not socially acceptable to be galvanized against a whole group of people. That seems like out-dated cold war thinking that you'd lump with xenophobic old people and not a currently acceptable behavioral norm.

I’m GLAD you all didn’t sugar coat it. Thank you. Where else can we get this information? People in real life won’t have this conversation. Someone would be too polite or too uncomfortable for it conversation to go this far. The truth is just so much more useful and interesting and I don’t think it’s rude to answer a question honestly. It was a little cringey to see people really lean into the thin-skinned stereotype. Hopefully we can look at that more next time we explore white frailty.

Have a First Moon party! (How has nobody linked that video? "Periods don't have glitter") OR Line up a bunch of shows to watch. Watch every sitcom episode that deals with this subject. The episode of Blackish where Diane gets her period is good. I'm actually kidding. My child would not have liked anything like this. She just wanted midol and supplies. This is when she stole my microwaveable heating thing.

I'm willing to bet they're wrong more than they know. In grad school my Dh had a funny conversation with two of his classmates. He spoke with them separately and it came out that each was sure that the other one was Japanese. Nobody was Japanese. They were both Chinese, but they "just knew." He didn't tell them for a while and this went on for a couple of weeks before they bothered to have a conversation with each other. Sometimes people are wrong and just don't know it.

I'm not seeing how "I identified you by your artificially perfect teeth" is an insult to anyone who doesn't buy into that. No, don't regret it. A LOT of people found it interesting enough to follow and comment. It's why it's gone on so long. People have chosen to participate. To me there is a big difference between "bad" teeth, good teeth and "perfect" teeth. Maybe it's a sign that I'm a geezer and don't get it, but the artificially white, cosmetic surgery smile can look a bit extreme. We call them plasti-teeth when they're whitened beyond anything nature can provide and just glowing at you. I think of the episode of Friend's where Ross over-whitened and glowed under a black light, or of the Hunger Games where they described the enhanced characteristics of the Capital dwellers. I don't think it's an insult to any other culture to peg THAT look as American. I'm not sure that going in so hard with cosmetic facial alterations is all that admirable and there are orthodontists getting wealthy by perpetuating this image. If my children had crooked teeth, I would probably pay to have them look like they were naturally straight, but natural looking straight teeth aren't going to get you noticed as American overseas. Other people HAVE nice, natural teeth. That's not the same thing.

Wait, so you've never heard anyone who isn't American get angry and yell when things don't go their way while they are guests in an other country? You've never heard anyone from another nationality double down and insist that their nation's food, family values, life style, landscape, music, art, etc is THE best and why you should do it their way instead? You've never had a group with 5 people, and 7 languages among you, and you had to pick the most common language for communication efficiency? (Or two most common to minimize the layers of translation.)

Yeah, but what does "shocked" really look like. My guess is that the real life conversation was "Oh, you're American. I didn't realize." This becomes "absolute shock" in the retelling. It could have been something as simple as they just assumed a person was another nationality until they heard the accent.

I considered it, and would have if it came with guarantees that it would only be a year or two, but these things can take on a life of their own and I couldn't risk an open-ended stay. Dh was also just beginning his transition away from that type of work and this would have only sucked him in further. I don't regret how the big picture turned out, but I do know we missed out on a cool life experience by opting out.

I see your shame spiral and raise you!

yup

Ooooh, here's an interesting cultural observation. When I shop at the Korean grocery store I have to be more aggressive than usual or my cart and I are just not moving. People are packed in closer than comfort, focused on the task at hand, and everyone seems fine with pushing about to get through. It's a bit uncomfortable, but you figure out the system and adapt. I stopped even trying to use a cart. On the other hand, when I took my son there in his manual wheelchair, people jumped out of the way and gave us loads of room to push the chair. It was a bit of a Moses-parting-the-Red-Sea miracle. I'm completely fascinated by the differences in my shopping experiences there with and without my son. We once took a hard pass on a chance to move to Australia for a few years. I sometimes wonder if I should regret it, but at the time living in the middle of Australia didn't seem all that appealing. It seemed like all of the fun stuff was at the edges. Maybe we SHOULD have given it a chance and we really missed out on a learning experience, but the risk of "getting stranded out there" should the contract go longer than anticipated seemed too great at the time.

I think the whole thread is interesting. Boring threads don't usually go for 7-plus pages. A polite stranger wouldn't list your idiosyncrasies if you asked about them, but an honest friend would. It's a given that not every behavior could apply to every American, but it can be nice to have a little heads-up that it's common practice to hit the mute button when your group gets on the tube or to beeline for some shop keeper chit chat in France. I'm sure that some (but OF COURSE, not all) tourists coming here would appreciate a crash course on tipping or, for the love, staying to the right if you want to treat D.C. Metro escalators like a ride. Some of the military comments can be a bit damned if you do damned if you don't. As Americans you get real used to people lambasting you for getting involved with anything AND ALSO criticizing you for not getting involved somewhere else. "How dare you insert yourself AND how could you let this happen?" It can also be frustrating to have tolerance for other cultures drilled into you, then learn that you're expected to respect other people's differences but keep your own in check.

I've always called this the Irish Exit and feel that perfecting it can only improve everyone's lives.

I think you support zero waste by NOT buying things, or at least not brand new things. I’ve been able to transition most things in my house, to the point that I now have to rob a grocery store recycling bin to get enough bags to stuff a project. 🤣 I still haven’t found an acceptable substitute for my freezer. It’s small and the freezer bags keep the food safe and compact. I don’t know that the answer is there.

My friend had a tool that looked like a tiny comb, but must have been some sort of facial grooming razor. I was having professional photos done. My hair is virtually invisible so I never do anything, but my photographer and make-up artist friends double-teamed me and said it would show up on these high definition photos because of the harsh lights and quality of the camera. It's either true or some sort of stealth intervention. ANYWAY, she just quickly scraped above my lip a few times and the "situation" was remedied. There was no plucking or chemicals or pain. It was some sort of women's facial razor. They probably have an electric version if that sounds scary.

But that's not true. I doubt anyone has any hair on their body that's ten years old.

About once a decade, but we seem unusually gentle on our home. My kids and dog just weren't destructive. I want to repaint my kitchen, but it's not urgent. I may get around to it in the summer.

We had one in our living room for YEARS. It was a huge 5x6 square on our wall and was a fixture from the time my kids were preschoolers until the youngest was almost in high school. It was great. I believe I used crayola/rustoleum brand? I can picture what the can looked like and I think it was decorated like a chalkboard. I just taped off a square and painted a few coats and it lasted for years. I didn't bother to do anything to my wall texture beforehand, so it wasn't a smooth as a proper slate board, but MUCH nicer than plastic toy chalkboards. It was great for teaching, free play, and was a huge magnet for visitors. Dh like to use it for big, complicated equations because he is partial to a huge chalkboard. It was big enough that 2 or 3 kids could use it at once. I say go for it. I've been toying with painting one in my kitchen and another in my dance room. I could do both with a quart of paint, but it hasn't come up on my to-do list. The only drawback was that I never installed a chalk tray so colored chalk dust drifted down and was much harder to get out of my light carpet than white chalk. I never tried the green kind, because black looked better in my home, so I don't know if it's different. I cleaned it with a wet cloth. If you hate it, you can paint back over it. If I'm ever blessed with grandchildren I will definitely add this feature for them. Here is the brand I used, and I just learned today they have it in CLEAR! You might not even have to change the color of your wall! (A dark color will show up better, but with this clear kind you're not limited to black and green.) https://www.amazon.com/Rust-Oleum-284469-Specialty-Chalkboard-30-Ounce/dp/B00RGFT2GU ETA: I easily painted over my chalkboard with only two coats of SW Sea Salt, which is a fairly light color. I wouldn't worry about painting over it later. Modern paints make this a non-issue.

I sit right next to my friends, male or female. Dh informs me that two men always leave a space. He even does this when he goes with his brother.

I’ve made this recipe for YEARS. If you’re worried about the salt, you could use low sodium soy sauce. It’s simple and good. We top ours with provolone and melt under the broiler for a few minutes before serving. It’s a similar idea without consommé or bullion. https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/french-dip/

Why don’t you buy a thin piece of foam at JoAnnes, cut it to size, and customize the thickness of your pillow? That might make it just right for you.

I got a cheap $15 foam neck pillow at Ikea and I love it like my children. I travel with it. I had zero expectations when I bought it, but now I can't live without it. Oh good gravy. They changed it ever-so-slightly. I hope they haven't ruined my life. https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/rosenskaerm-ergonomic-pillow-side-back-sleeper-90444371/