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2006-08-28

In which I reveal my deeply held hatred for ingesting things that swim...

I don�t eat fish. I don�t eat any manner of sea creature.

These facts are not outrageous when you grow up in land-locked Pennsylvania. But if you tell New Englanders you don�t eat fish, they give you this look of incredulity and repugnance that is usually reserved only for Yankees� fans.

A few years ago, we moved to Massachusetts, where my husband was born and raised. Approximately 95% of Geoff�s family live in New England, and he doesn�t associate with that remaining 5%. Adjusting to life here has been a little bit of a challenge. There are quite a few quirks to New England. The hardest to get used to were:

  1. that you can�t order a �milkshake� and you always feel a little silly ordering a �frappe;�
  2. that you sometimes encounter a blinking green light in Massachusetts, making driving so confusing because what the hell does that mean;* and
  3. that the Red Sox have such an influence on day-to-day living even if you aren�t a baseball fan.

The fact that I still have trouble with these three things combined with the not-eating-seafood thing made my odds of ever being considered a �real� New Englander about as good as seeing the Sox win another World Series in my lifetime.

But I beat the odds.**

This weekend Geoff and I went to visit his relatives at the Cape. We walked along the beach on Sunday looking for sea glass. I found a piece of green sea glass that was finished and contained the bottom part of a bottle. Apparently this is a Really Big Find in terms of sea glass collecting. My Aunt, who has collected the stuff for years, was very excited about it. She has a gazillion dollar house on the beach but present her with a piece of broken trash you found and she is forever grateful. So grateful in fact that she said, �Now that you�ve found this piece of sea glass you can automatically call yourself a New Englander.�

And there you have it.

When I give my acceptance speech for my entrance into the Society of People Who Call Themselves New Englanders (SPWCTNE, for short), I guess I�ll have to thank Heineken.

*Seriously. What does it mean? No one can tell me.

**I know you�re asking: how�d you do it Megan because we�d like to know? So I�ll tell you because I�m a kind and generous New Englander.