Dinner vs. Meeting

So last night I had a stake meeting I could have gone to. I was told I didn't have to go, but I was "invited." Normally, I'd have gone, given the implication of "invited" in Priesthood terminology. I sent a couple of my lackeys to the meeting, so I'll get all the juicy details later.

Instead, we went to my sister's for dinner. She was making corned beef and cabbage. Now, quite frankly, that menu alone would typically be enough to make the stake meeting my top priority ("I'm sorry, it's urgent business which cannot otherwise be postponed or delegated!"). But it had been a while since I had seen my sister, and hey, it was one less meal Anne and I would have to cook and clean-up after.

I remember my mom making this, every year, on St. Patrick's Day. I seem to be the only person in the world who doesn't care for it... Nonetheless, each year I'd go along, eat the meal, and thank my lucky stars that this wasn't a mainstay of American cuisine.

So when my sister told me Wednesday night what she was making, she sensed my forced affirmative reply. She offered to make me a PB&J, which I declined. Then she confessed that she always hated mom's meat loaf. So I ate the food at her house (minus the cabbage), and quite frankly, it wasn't half bad.

I'm not saying that I want to boil a big, red chunk of beef with cabbage balls at my house next year. Don't get me wrong. But I suppose it's something I can tolerate every now and then.

Anne likes the stuff, and I'm really surprised given that her parents were on a cabbage diet at one point during her childhood. Yes, that was about all they ate. Cabbage, cabbage, cabbage. Anne was able to eat normal food during this odd phase of her parents' continuing weight-loss craze, but she said the house always smelled of cabbage. If there's one thing worse than Atkins (anyone who tells me I can't eat pasta or bread has another thing coming), I'd have to say it's the "cabbage diet."