There they go again

There was an old joke I remember, where a married couple and their small child were in a restaurant and after the meal the mother asked for a doggie bag.  The kid then shouts with glee, "Yay! We're getting a dog!"

I don't get to fine dining restaurants very often but I have no problem asking for a doggie bag or its styrofoam equivalent.  After a few  pieces of bread, soup, and salad the entree is usually more than I can handle.  Folks from Europe are often amazed at the large portions served in the US, and I think they're right.  If the main entree was a little smaller, I might even have some room for a nice dessert, something I seldom enjoy in a restaurant; I'm just too full and it would be a little strange to ask for a dessert to go but maybe I should give it a try.

Sometimes in a movie I'll see some people leaving a restaurant not with a doggie bag but their food wrapped up in aluminum foil, usually in the shape of a swan.  At first I didn't know what the hell that was, and the diners treated it like a treasure, which I suppose it was.  Maybe that's a Hollywood thing, only seen in movies.

-----

I don't recall the video that Old Dog speaks of.  Does he still know where it is?

Not a clue, but I could probably find it if the gods of Google-Fu are smiling.

Technically I could be fined for it but I also keep a couple bird feeders.
 
Fined for what, exactly, encroaching vegetation?  This doesn't sound illegal, so it must be part of the condo covenant.

-----

Sometimes I want to smack myself because I don't see the forest for the trees.  There I was, musing about the lack of Frenchies in American communities while competely forgetting that, a few hundred yards from my apartment, there is the Lycée Français de Chicago, an English/French bilingual elementary and high school.  If you didn't notice the signage on the building you'd never think it was a school because it's awfully quiet, with none of the usual noise I associate with school-age children.  Besides French the kids are probably taught good manners, too.

-----

Well, I finally found something I never thought existed, a Finnish stand-up comedian.  The guy's name is Ismo Leikola and he has a YouTube channel; I've forgotten how distinctive the Finnish accent is but it brought back memories of my northern Wisconsin kinfolk.  He's not knee-slapping funny but he makes some nice observations about America, especially the meaning of the word shit.

-----

Recently I noticed a slight change in the English language, the usage of the word "they" as a gender-neutral singular pronoun.  It first came to my attention in the cable series Billions, where one of the characters is very gender-neutral although a biological female.  It was a little baffling at first but I've since become accustomed to it.  People can call themselves whatever they want, even if I think they're on the wrong track.  Gender neutrality is not a concept that I understand, nor do I want to.  There are two genders; pick one and move on.