But… Fish Were Made on a Different Day

      28 Comments on But… Fish Were Made on a Different Day

Dear Little One,

Since the last story featured my mom, I figured the next should have your dad’s mom.  Dealing with your dad’s mom has always been an interesting challenge for me.

On the one hand, we’re quite similar.  We’re both strong-willed yet caring and kind (mostly), we’re both very opinionated and passionate, and we both absolutely adore our child(ren).  On the other hand, we can be exceedingly different.  She is a devout Catholic, whereas I loosely define myself as “…Idk, agnostic? I guess?”  She is highly conservative (especially fiscally), whereas I’m more “I <3 science and learning! Everyone deserves healthcare/food/shelter/education! (etc.)”

For the most part, we’ve been able to maintain a fairly good relationship throughout the last 11.5 years, but every once in a while we run into a point where we are so bafflingly different that we need to take a step back and recalibrate.  Usually, this involves your dad stepping in and trying to bridge the gap and/or explain something.

One of these came up while we were planning our wedding.

wedding, rings, hands

Here’s me & your dad exchanging rings

Planning our wedding was annoying, fun, terrible, and exciting all at the same time.  We were dirt poor and going to college, but we were determined to at least try to pay for the wedding ourselves (spoiler: we failed, but still did better than most).  There were a lot of things we struggled to pay for, one of which was the food.

We couldn’t afford any of our venue’s 3 approved caterers, and they didn’t really fit our style anyway.  So we decided to have a two-part reception.  Cake and champagne directly following the mid-day ceremony at the venue, with a full meal to follow at your grandparents’ house.  They had a family friend who did catering and offered to charge us only for the food and called her & her daughter’s labor our wedding gift.  It was awesome.

We started to plan the menu.

We agreed that we wanted it to be basically an hors d’oeuvres/small bites buffet.  Lots of little things that people could easily grab rather than specific chicken/fish/whatever plates.  We also wanted to be very accommodating to people who were kosher, vegetarian, etc.  At least partly because ~1/2 of my family and ~1/4 of our friends were vegetarian (including the best man & maid of honor).

Most people we knew with special diets were very kind and usually said things like “Oh no, it’s totally fine, we’ll be completely happy with just this side of pasta.  Don’t worry about us! :)”  But that’s not how I roll.  You’ll get a full meal, dammit.  With choices and everything!

So, as we talked this over with his mom, she starts going on and on about how she could do something with salmon and it would be great! We were confused, as we were talking about vegetarian food, which means no animal flesh.  We said that, while that might work fine for most of the guests, it wouldn’t fulfill our vegetarian requirement.  She paused, then uttered one of the most unique sentences I’d ever heard her say:

“But… fish were made on a different day?!”

Ummm… what?

fish, open mouth, surprised, swimming

Wat?

She was referring to the fact that the bible says god made fish and birds on day five, whereas animals and humans were day six.  For some reason, she knew chicken wasn’t vegetarian, but thought that fish was.  To me, this seemed insane, but it actually explained why I’d seen fish given to vegetarians in some places in France.  Not everyone is on the same page about what is or isn’t an animal, apparently.

I was speechless, but your dad stepped in and tried to explain it from a scientific standpoint, since he and his father are scientists.  He started going into the taxonomic ranks (domain, kingdom, etc.) and talked about how they’re all in the Animalia kingdom, which means they are – scientifically – all animals.  She just kept repeating the same sentence.  While we didn’t necessarily get her to agree with the scientific rankings, she did at least agree to not put fish in everything.

Later, once she’d had some time to digest the information a bit, we talked to her about the different versions of vegetarian diets.  Specifically, we explained that she was thinking of pescatarian, but our friends and family were mostly lacto-ovo vegetarians.

Over the years, she’s gotten much better about this sort of thing.  But you won’t always be able to bridge those gaps with people.  Throughout all this, neither side got angry, neither side got loud/shouty, and everything turned out just fine.  Talking things over won’t always fix problems, but often it can help people come to some sort of understanding.  This was not the last time we would come across this odd gap between our worldviews, but it was one of the most memorable.

28 thoughts on “But… Fish Were Made on a Different Day”

  1. Lelandgrown

    Hi, I do believe this is an excellent blog. I stumbledupon it 😉 I will revisit once again since i have saved as a favorite it. Money and freedom is the greatest way to change, may you be rich and continue to help other people.

    Reply ↓
  2. Lelandgrown

    I do not know if it’s just me or if perhaps everyone else experiencing issues with your site. It appears as if some of the text on your posts are running off the screen. Can somebody else please provide feedback and let me know if this is happening to them too? This might be a problem with my internet browser because I’ve had this happen before. Thanks

    Reply ↓
  3. Lelandgrown

    I was suggested this blog by my cousin. I’m not sure whether this post is written by him as no one else know such detailed about my problem. You’re amazing! Thanks!

    Reply ↓
  5. heroes evolved jewel build

    I must show my admiration for your generosity giving support to women who have the need for assistance with this particular theme.Your real commitment to getting the solution along appeared to be especially interesting and have in most cases helped people much like me to get to their dreams.Your entire helpful useful information signifies a whole lot to me and a whole lot more to my mates.Thank you; from each one of us. heroes evolved jewel build

    Reply ↓
  6. ผ้าอ้อม goon ซื้อ 1 แถม 1

    Along with every little thing that seems to be developing throughout this subject matter, a significant percentage of opinions are generally somewhat radical.Having said that, I beg your pardon, but I do not give credence to your whole plan, all be it exciting none the less.It looks to everybody that your commentary are generally not completely justified and in actuality you are generally yourself not even fully confident of the point.In any case I did enjoy examining it. ผ้าอ้อม goon ซื้อ 1 แถม 1

    Reply ↓
  8. Knives Out Hack

    My programmer is trying to convince me to move to .net from PHP.I have always disliked the idea because of the expenses.But he’s tryiong none the less.I’ve been using Movable-type on numerous websites for about a year and am concerned about switching to another platform.I have heard very good things about blogengine.net.Is there a way I can transfer all my wordpress posts into it? Any help would be really appreciated! Knives Out Hack

    Reply ↓
  9. Need For Speed No Limits Woods Hack

    Hey there would you mind sharing which blog platform you’re working with? I’m looking to start my own blog in the near future but I’m having a hard time selecting between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal.The reason I ask is because your design and style seems different then most blogs and I’m looking for something unique. P.S Sorry for getting off-topic but I had to ask! Need For Speed No Limits Woods Hack

    Reply ↓
  10. Heroes Evolved Hack

    I have been exploring for a little bit for any high-quality articles or blog posts on this kind of space .Exploring in Yahoo I ultimately stumbled upon this website.Reading this info So i am happy to exhibit that I have a very good uncanny feeling I came upon just what I needed.I most definitely will make sure to do not fail to remember this web site and give it a glance regularly. Heroes Evolved Hack

    Reply ↓
  13. Need For Speed No Limits Online Generator

    What i do not understood is actually how you’re not really much more well-liked than you may be now.You are so intelligent.You realize thus considerably relating to this subject, produced me personally consider it from so many varied angles.Its like women and men aren’t fascinated unless it is one thing to do with Lady gaga! Your own stuffs excellent.Always maintain it up! Need For Speed No Limits Online Generator

    Reply ↓
  14. Knives Out Hack

    Thanks for your marvelous posting! I genuinely enjoyed reading it, you could be a great author.I will be sure to bookmark your blog and will eventually come back later on.I want to encourage that you continue your great job, have a nice afternoon! Knives Out Hack

    Reply ↓
  25. IOS Game Cheat Destiny 6

    What i do not understood is if truth be told how you’re not actually a lot more smartly-preferred than you might be right now.You are very intelligent.You already know thus significantly in terms of this matter, made me individually imagine it from numerous varied angles.Its like women and men aren’t fascinated unless it is one thing to accomplish with Girl gaga! Your own stuffs nice.All the time deal with it up! IOS Game Cheat Destiny 6

    Reply ↓
  28. Game Hack

    I’m not sure why but this website is loading extremely slow for me.Is anyone else having this issue or is it a problem on my end? I’ll check back later on and see if the problem still exists. Game Hack

    Reply ↓

Leave a Reply