Dillards 81: Volunteering for God

[PennySycamore]

1 hour ago, Maggie Mae said:

I'm fairly certain my former dog and my current cat would absolutely eat the paper plate too. YMMV, of course. 

Well, Gwen tries to eat the paper bowl after she comes back in from her potty break so I have to be quick about picking them up.  She loves to eat  paper almost as much as she loves to eat socks.  Trinket, fortunately, has no appetite for paper.  

[AliceInFundyland]

Another reason to use disposables nobody has mentioned - huge skepticism about pipe quality and the cabinet paint lightly flaking off over time and adhering to everything. My microwave and toaster have a speckled patina I can't scrub off. I don't want that on cups and plates. Y'know? On my bestest day I'm not anal enough to combat that.

ETA: In my initial comment on this subject. I was speaking generally, not to @Maggie. I don't want my comment to seem snarky or veiled and I see that it could. She and I tend to get on.

Edited December 1, 2019 by AliceInFundyland
Clarification

[grandmadugger]

21 hours ago, Maggie Mae said:

I can't think of anything where paper plates are "appropriate." They are wasteful and stupid and flimsy. But I can't help but think that maybe some of the Duggars don't even know what nice plates are like or their purpose. I mean, if your entire life you've eaten off paper plates, you might think that reusable plates are for people you deem "less than."  

 

Glad you can’t think of any appropriate uses for paper plates. Let me give you a few reasons that are appropriate unless you Maggie Mae are going to volunteer to do dishes. 

Mental or physical health issues that means a pb&j are too hard to make. 

A bunch of people coming to eat and you are responsible for doing all the dishes by hand. 

Working multiple jobs and you don’t have time to wash dishes. 

If you want to snark on the Duggars who have the manpower and resources to wash lots of dishes fine but not everyone has that. 

[kiwi]

We use melamine for bbq’s, etc. less likely to be broken by kids and dishwasher safe. When hosting its not exactly hard to start out with an empty dishwasher and rinse and load after the meal. We recently hosted 37 for a bbq. No disposable anything.

My next bigish “hosting” purchases is going to be washable napkins so we dont have to use paper serviettes anymore. I just havent found any that I love yet, also that are available later on to add on if needed.

[Granwych]

24 minutes ago, grandmadugger said:

Glad you can’t think of any appropriate uses for paper plates. Let me give you a few reasons that are appropriate unless you Maggie Mae are going to volunteer to do dishes. 

Mental or physical health issues that means a pb&j are too hard to make. 

A bunch of people coming to eat and you are responsible for doing all the dishes by hand. 

Working multiple jobs and you don’t have time to wash dishes. 

If you want to snark on the Duggars who have the manpower and resources to wash lots of dishes fine but not everyone has that. 

I’d be more concerned about having ample servings of healthy, good-tasting food to put on plates , paper or not .

[feministxtian]

I haven't used regular dishes much lately. For me, it's so much easier to grab a paper plate, put my burritos on it and then toss the plate when I'm done. "regular" meal times are non-existent right now, We (son and I) sleep at weird times, so we might be awake at 3am and in bed at 3pm. Depression and shit fucks you up bigtime. We're both basically zombies. The cats get fed and watered, the litter boxes get cleaned out regularly, but not much of anything else. 

Maybe someday in the future we'll get our shit together again, 

[Daisy0322]

It honestly never occurred to me to use paper plates ?‍♀️ I didn't know it was a thing until a few years ago. It doesn't bother me though, you gotta do what you gotta do in life and if paper plates make your life easier then so be it. What I find odd is my cousins wife will only keep 3 of everything (one for her, my cousin and their kid) in the cabinets like 3 plates, 3 cups, 3 forks, and so on then if they have people over the guests use paper plates. She says it makes it easier to do dishes and she doesn't like clutter. But whatever floats your boat I guess it's not hurting anyone although I find it a tad rude. She also throws out any toys that their daughter doesn't play with in 7 days but buys her enough clothes that I'm not sure they do laundry ?

[LillyP]

I'm dying at all this paper plate nonsense. People are really this up in arms over using paper plates on a holiday? Like WTF does it matter what someone else does? 

DH and I host the holidays every year at our home with an all out spread - complete with restaurant style chafing dishes. We're sticklers for properly hosting your guests - and he's even so particular about it he won't even bake the pies the day before...they must be baked fresh that morning. Even still we use the plastic plates & silverware that mimic china. Why? Because who has enough real dishes/china for 20+ people? 

Now on Christmas it's a MUCH smaller crowd of just immediate family and we always use real china. 

 

Edited December 1, 2019 by LillyP
double post

[Gobbles]

On 11/30/2019 at 8:26 AM, aprilx said:

I have never defrosted a turkey, always buy a fresh one! Our butchers is already taking orders to be collected in the week before Christmas ! I think that’s normal for the UK. What about other countries? 

Same here. I wrote the mail to our butcher yesterday for a turkey for Christmas. We make them on the 25th and 26th. We get the birds on the 24th fresh, prepare them and then they are in our fridge until the next day.

EDIT: We get the organic turkeys. They are expensive, but when it comes down to price per meal/person it is not much. Last year we paid over 100€ for two birds. In the supermarket they are much cheaper and usually frozen. 

Edited December 1, 2019 by Gobbles

[WiseGirl]

Given my parents are 85 and 87, dad just got out of rehab, and I live out of state but do everything for the meal, damn right I'm using paper plates. At this stage I'm so grateful to still have my parents they're my focus not the plates I use.

 

[SilverBeach]

9 hours ago, AliceInFundyland said:

Another reason to use disposables nobody has mentioned - huge skepticism about pipe quality and the cabinet paint lightly flaking off over time and adhering to everything.

Is this common? My cabinets are wooden, not painted on the outside or inside.  What would pipe quality have to do with it? Seldom used dishes may be washed first by most people anyway. 

32 minutes ago, WiseGirl said:

Given my parents are 85 and 87, dad just got out of rehab, and I live out of state but do everything for the meal, damn right I'm using paper plates. At this stage I'm so grateful to still have my parents they're my focus not the plates I use.

 

No one would expect you to focus on the plates you use or for you to feel like you need to justify your choices.  It's the Duggars and other mega-wasteful families that deserve criticism for their wasteful practices. And maybe other folks that are just lazy.  But no one is criticizing you. 

1 hour ago, LillyP said:

I'm dying at all this paper plate nonsense. People are really this up in arms over using paper plates on a holiday? Like WTF does it matter what someone else does? 

Nobody is up in arms, for heaven's sake. People are just commenting. It doesn't matter what someone else does, except we all live on this planet. I would say that most thread drift would be characterized as "nonsense" by somebody, yet these are things some posters want to discuss, which is OK by me even if I'm not interested.  I just scroll on by.

Edited December 1, 2019 by SilverBeach

[PennySycamore]

@SilverBeach, maybe pipe quality that @AliceInFundyland is talking about is the integrity of the pipes and its impact on water quality.

@kiwi,  we may have used paper plates on Thursday at my daughter's but I brought my cloth napkins from home.  Frankly, our food would have fit better on real china as the plates are bigger.  Everything was a bit too squashed together.

[SilverBeach]

18 minutes ago, PennySycamore said:

maybe pipe quality that @AliceInFundyland is talking about is the integrity of the pipes and its impact on water quality.

Maybe, but water not suitable for drinking is still usually ok for washing things. It was just an odd comment to me, as I work in the environmental field and have never heard such a thing. 

Edited December 1, 2019 by SilverBeach

[nvmbr02]

We mostly used real plates when I was growing up. My grandmother only had about 60 plates though and for holidays we usually had 70-75 people. Not everyone was there to eat though, some were just stopping by before or after a meal somewhere else. So the real plates were used and paper plates were back up if we ran out. 

In our home now we generally used regular plates. Holidays I do like to use the china, but if we have more than 10 or so people I tend to just use our everyday dishes since they can go into the dishwasher. That being said, I am not against using paper now and then if it makes life easier. I used paper sometimes when the kids were small and my husband traveled for work a lot. Not everyday or every meal, but a few times a week when I was totally over doing dishes. Now that all 3 of my kids are old enough to load the dishwasher or help hand wash a few dishes paper plates are used pretty infrequently but we do still generally have them on hand.

[SilverBeach]

2 minutes ago, nvmbr02 said:

That being said, I am not against using paper now and then if it makes life easier.

Me either. 

[louannems]

10 hours ago, kiwi said:

We use melamine for bbq’s, etc. less likely to be broken by kids and dishwasher safe. When hosting its not exactly hard to start out with an empty dishwasher and rinse and load after the meal. We recently hosted 37 for a bbq. No disposable anything.

My next bigish “hosting” purchases is going to be washable napkins so we dont have to use paper serviettes anymore. I just havent found any that I love yet, also that are available later on to add on if needed.

I love these cotton napkins and bought a bunch.  They wash beautifully and the best thing is the edges will never curl up in the dryer.  They are super absorbant.  We also stopped using paper towels nearly 20 years ago.  Instead, I keep a stack of bulk-bought wash cloths on the kitchen counter.  The color coordinates with my counter color.  They get washed in hot water with a bit of bleach and last for years.

https://www.vermontcountrystore.com/mountain-weave-single-cotton-napkin-2-sizes/product/54201

Sorry, I gave the link to the holiday color.  Vermont Country Store sells these in many other colors and patterns, too! The thing with Vermont Country Store is they do offer the same items in the same color/patterns year after year so you can add on as needed.  I bought mine many years ago and they still offer the same one!

Edited December 1, 2019 by louannems

[mollysmom]

2 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

@SilverBeach, maybe pipe quality that @AliceInFundyland is talking about is the integrity of the pipes and its impact on water quality.

@kiwi,  we may have used paper plates on Thursday at my daughter's but I brought my cloth napkins from home.  Frankly, our food would have fit better on real china as the plates are bigger.  Everything was a bit too squashed together.

I'm not @AliceInFundyland (obviously lol) but if I remember correctly she has ALOT of pipe related issues in her apartment....can't even use her own bathroom....so I think that's what she was talking about but I could be wrong. That's how I took it anyways! 

[FleeJanaFree]

so what was the actual comment Derrick was replying to? Still lost on that.

[apandaaries]

16 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

Well, Gwen tries to eat the paper bowl after she comes back in from her potty break so I have to be quick about picking them up.  She loves to eat  paper almost as much as she loves to eat socks.  Trinket, fortunately, has no appetite for paper.  

I knew a golden retriever who was crazy about eating paper. Her human was a writer and computer programmer, so maybe that influenced her tastes..? 
 

What I despise about the fundie families and their constant use of paper plates is the waste involved. Large families have been standard for centuries, and dishes have still been washed. Why do we need single-use disposable items when a little elbow grease would be much better?*

Anyone else remember the magazine Sassy? I still remember rereading, in horror, interviews with Quiverfull teenagers (not then identified as such) who decried environmentalism as nonsense, pointing to the corn fields to justify their huge families. “There was enough” of everything to those huge families — land, water, food, etc, so their regular waste was really no big deal. This constantly rings in my mind when I see the Duggars or Andersons using paper plates and cutlery, then complaining about the time spent at Costco to buy all this shit they use once and then throw away — as though there’s a magical place where former trees are restored to their glory, not landfills overcome by single-use products.

I really hate plastics and single use items, if you didn’t get that by now. I love @Meggo’s idea of thrifted dishware you cycle throughout the holidays (there are so many awesome items at goodwill!). 
 

With my depression-era grandparents, nothing went to waste and no one tried to bring paper ware to festivities. Leftovers went home with everyone and all the dishes were clean by the time people left (usually cleaned by the women, but that’s another subject).  Since my grandparents have passed, holidays are smaller. We wash as we go, then do dishes afterwards. Thus far, we’ve had zero fatalities.
 

*No shame, no blame, no judgement on those whose life circumstances make dealing with these issues too monumental. But I’d still prefer a system where a human could step in, help out, and maybe get paid to support those in life crises. If you’re mourning the passing of a loved one or battling cancer or whatever else, wouldn’t it be better to have a government-supported friend/ally/comrade to help with these tasks? Maybe that would be preferable to amazon not paying any taxes despite their multi-billion revenue? Or perhaps three fewer tanks for the military, to be spent supporting the populace, rather than menacing the “enemies,” ie, those people born within the wrong border?  But I’m the type of person who wanted red diapers for her baby, so...take your grains of salt.

 

[Granwych]

8 hours ago, Gobbles said:

Same here. I wrote the mail to our butcher yesterday for a turkey for Christmas. We make them on the 25th and 26th. We get the birds on the 24th fresh, prepare them and then they are in our fridge until the next day.

EDIT: We get the organic turkeys. They are expensive, but when it comes down to price per meal/person it is not much. Last year we paid over 100€ for two birds. In the supermarket they are much cheaper and usually frozen. 

Is there a noticeable flavor to the meat?

[QuiverFullofBooks]

4 hours ago, FleeJanaFree said:

so what was the actual comment Derrick was replying to? Still lost on that.

Can you be more specific? He’s on Twitter a lot.

[AliceInFundyland]

The insides and outsides of my cabinets and drawers in my very old apartment have been painted numerous times. It flakes off.

And yes, the pipes are easily multiple decades old. Our city water fine. My building water may be. But, it runs reddish-brown for at least 30 seconds and then things happen like the toilet clogging and the bathtub drain burping up grit simultaneously . I view it all with a bit of side eye.

Edited December 1, 2019 by AliceInFundyland

[PennySycamore]

@Granwych,  I've always roasted fresh turkeys and people rave about how delicious the bird is.  If I had the money, I'd get a heritage breed of turkey as they are supposed to be especially flavorfull.

[WiseGirl]

3 hours ago, apandaaries said:

wouldn’t it be better to have a government-supported  friend/ally/comrade to help with these tasks? 

In the United States? Surely you jest. These past few weeks have taught me how incredibly expensive it is to get old here and need support and trying to find support without bankrupting...it's so sad and frustrating. 

[apandaaries]

9 minutes ago, WiseGirl said:

In the United States? Surely you jest. These past few weeks have taught me how incredibly expensive it is to get old here and need support and trying to find support without bankrupting...it's so sad and frustrating. 

I mean, we’re known for our GDP, so why not help out our citizens? 
But yeah, this is the US, so... why not have Jeff Bezos build an insane mansion while people starve on the streets or in their homes? Bootstraps, etc... ?