Thursday, December 4, 2008

THANGS I LARNED WILE LIVIN' IN LUSIANA

1. Possums sleep in the middle of the road with their feet in the air.

2. There are 5,000 types of snakes and 4,998 live in LOUISIANA.

3. There are 10,000 types of spiders.

All 10,000 live in LOUISIANA plus a couple no one's seen before.

4. If it grows, it sticks; if it crawls, it bites.

5. Onced and twiced are words.

6. It is not a shopping cart; it is a buggy.

7. Fire ants consider your flesh as a picnic.

8. People actually grow and eat okra.

9. Fix & into is one word: FIXINTO

10. There is no such thing as 'lunch'. There is only dinner and then there is supper.

11. Ice tea is appropriate for all meals, and you start drinking it when you're two. We do like a little tea with our sugar!

12. Backards and forwards means 'I know everything about you.'

13. Jeet? is actually a phrase meaning 'Did you eat?'

14. You don't have to wear a watch because it doesn't matter what time
it is. You work until you're done or it's too dark to see.

15. You don't PUSH buttons, you MASH them.


From my daughter. You see? I taught larned her right.

36 comments:

  1. I used to live in Texas, it's pretty much the same. Coming from California, the dinner/lunch thing kept me confused for a while. I even grew okra, I still am not fond of it.

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  2. There's no need to complain about the snakes. They're edible! Just don't eat any of the Lampropeltis
    genus.

    They're a delicacy in my country!

    Dong Fong-Hong

    PS: I hear that Gator is also good.

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  3. No. 6 Australians usually say shopping trolley but in new Zealand they are 'trundlers' and Australians say speed bumps or humps while New Zealanders say "judderers" I have to learn a whole new language when I move. However new Zealand has no snakes and while it has spiders only one rare native spider is poisonous. Unfortunately 2 poisonous spiders have been imported from Australia. I know there are poisonous spiders and snakes all round my house in Australia.
    On the other hand in Australia possums are protected even though my locals are very likely to enjoy the vegetables I have just planted but in New Zealand where they have been imported from (you guessed it) Australia the only good possum is a dead possum. Have never seen one stopped in the road, they seem to have more sense here.

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  4. Don't you also "rench" your hands in the sink instead of "wash" your hands in the sink, or is that just New Orleans?

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  5. Dong- I ate one of those snakes yesterday! It was black, looked like tire re-treads. Also had scorpion and goose tongue. You'd have to eat a mess o'them scorpions to fill you up. Gator is good, so is swamp rabbit. I've been told that the Chinese will eat anything with four legs except the table, it's pretty much the same in Louisiana. (BTW where are you, I'm in Chengdu)

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  6. Too funny. I have some Louisiana friends. I may send them by.

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  7. I was fixinto write some smart comment but no such luck!

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  8. " Ice tea is appropriate for all meals, and you start drinking it when you're two. We do like a little tea with our sugar!"

    And I'm enjoying some right now with a dune of sugar in the bottom of the glass, as God meant it to be.

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  9. My father loved okra, especially fried.
    My mother refused to touch it.

    I'm not sure nature is any friendlier in Texas where everything stings, sticks, or stinks.
    Oh well, it's all being paved over now anyway. A hill near Possum Kingdom Lake that I used to climb as a boy, and where I found treasure troves of bones and fossils, now has a microwave tower on top and lakeshore condos around the base.

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  10. Too cute! I think almost every state has some of these crazies! But I must admit this one is really funny!

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  11. Great, Mimi, NOW you warn me.

    At least I'm back in the state with radioactivity, occasional bubonic plague, and hantavirus. Whew, what a relief.

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  12. I like okra almost any way it's cooked, in gumbo, fried, boiled and seasoned with salt, pepper, and vinegar, smothered okra and tomatoes.

    I don't mind spiders, except for the two poisonous varieties, the brown recluse and the black and brown widow. We see only the harmless kind in the house, and I don't usually kill them, unless they are unusually large.

    Fran, you did pretty well for being from New Yawk.

    One evening, when I took my walk, I saw both a possum and an armadillo. Neither ran away. They are brazen creatures. I had to cross to the other side of the street.

    Hi Ciss B. Welcome to my humble abode. I warn you we're a crazy bunch.

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  13. Hi Paul. Did you pick up any of the lingo while you were here? Jeet yet?

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  14. I remember a buncha these.

    Bubs, I "rench" my hands, my dishes, and my clothes, but I didnit know how to spell it. And, thank you, I et already; had ice tea with my dinner this afternoon, thank you kindly.

    Possums in New Zealand! Well, I declare! They aint that gooda eatin, IMRVHO--too greasy; I prefer 'coon.

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  15. You have snakes? What sort of a country is that?

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  16. Johnieb, I've eaten a greater variety of meat than I ever thought possible, but I draw the line at possum.

    DP, a country with snakes is no sort of country. Just thinking about them makes me shudder. For several months, my grandson, whom I care for in the afternoons, had a pet female king snake, which he called a queen snake. I was greatly relieved when he released the critter back into the wild. I was terrified that it would get loose in the house and surprise me.

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  17. I et. Delicious Louisiana fried oysters.

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  18. LOL thanks for the help in decifering. I'm guessing the Louisiana chamber of commerce will NOT be hiring you any time soon to help with the tourist trade? LOL...

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  19. Sherry! AFeather! I did not recognize you. Unofficially, I work for the New Orleans tourist office. I often encourage people to go there.

    Here are the words on the list which I use on occasion:

    Buggy for shopping cart (always)

    FIXINTO (depends on whom I'm with)

    Jeet? (same as above)

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  20. Susan, I gave way to the stupid critters. What does that say about me?

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  21. You have pity for the stupid? And you do not like to kill.

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  22. I never had okra until I moved down here. I have to confess I like it. I think fried okra is my favorite, but I also like it stewed with tomatoes.

    When I was a Yankee, the only time I ever heard about chicken-fried steak was on a weird TV show, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, so I just thought it was just a strange joke. Then when I moved down here I was very surprised to see it on some restaurant menus. I will eat it from time to time, but I really don't care for it much. I'd much rather have the real thing, a good schnitzel or Milanese.

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  23. Mike, chicken-fried steak is not often found on menus in south Louisiana. It's not something that I'd order. If I'm going to eat steak, I want steak.

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  24. I had a friend here in New York many years ago who was from the Texas panhandle (he was an artist and lead singer in an East Village punk band). He always complained that he couldn't get decent chicken-fried steak here in New York.

    "I don't want no damn steak in wine sauce! I want real chicken fried steak; shoe-leather dipped in batter deep fried with a cream gravy that I could use as a substitute for Elmer's glue!"

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  25. shoe-leather dipped in batter deep fried with a cream gravy

    Counterlight, that's a near perfect description.

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  26. Counterlight, there is no such thing as a decent chicken-fried steak. I don't even know what they put inside of the breading, and I think I don't want to know.

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  27. I seem to remember that it is "tenderized" round steak. Tenderized by running it through a machine that is supposed to break up the connective tissue(euuuuhhh) so that it can be more easlily cut and chewed, the same way they treat round steak to make 'swiss steak.' Do they have that down there, Mimi?

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  28. Mike, that's right.

    Susan, it's seldom on the menu in south Louisiana. We have much better things to eat. I ate one somewhere, sometime, and once was enough for a lifetime.

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  29. You had Swiss steak? I know you denied CFS, but surely you had swiss steak! ;-)

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  30. Counterlight's sharing of the CFS description seems 'bout right.

    Mimi, I picked up "jeet" when I was in my late teens. It was in the form of a short dialogue.

    Jeet?
    Jet. Jew?
    Squeet!

    Did you eat?
    Not yet. Did you?
    Let's go eat!

    And, dear Grandmèrer, it seems quite obvious that you work for the Louisiana chamber of commerce and the tourist bureau. You delightfully represent the best of your state and your love of it is infectious.

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  31. Paul, nobody pays me a dime for my labors on behalf of Louisiana and New Orleans. It's a pure labor of love.

    I love your little dialogue there. It's a good thing that you translated, because I was struggling.

    What is a "Grandmèrer"? It sounds naughty to me.

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  32. I think a grandmèrer has something to do with my fingers misbehaving, which, by definition, must be naughty.

    They should pay you, but it is obviously a labor of love.

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  33. Does the state that gave the world jambalaya really want anything to do with chicken fried steak? I doubt it.

    By the way, chicken fried steak goes great with mashed potatoes from a box and canned black-eyed peas. To complement the meal, there's nothing like iced tea in a plastic glass.

    Or you could have an East Texas feast of a bologna sandwich (Oscar Meyer on Wonder bread with Miracle Whip) with lime Kool Aid in a plastic glass. Serve in air-conditioning.

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  34. Oh, CL, there has to be cream gravy on top of the CFS, you know, and on the potatoes! Don't sit next to or under the AC outlet or the gravy will get really stiff in a hurry!

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  35. Susan S.,

    I'm wiping away tears of homesickness for the Great State as I polish off my Lobster Newburg here at Delmonico's.

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