EssentialNPC

That's been part of the plan, but Wifey wasn't sure if we should be baked or sober. I'm going to lobby for baked on this one.

Lost Spirits was going to be a highlight of our trip, and we are damn sad that it is closing before we go in July. I wish we could have experienced it.

I've read about there being no actual weed on the strip. My wife hates the taste of pot, so we almost exclusively use Wana fast acting gummies, which are thankfully available at several places in Vegas. I'll be sure to check out The Reef while we are there since we are staying nearby at The Venetian. Actually, I think The Reef is where the guy at my local pot shop told me to buy after we check out Planet 13 for the spectacle.

Thank you!

Super regular, but thanks for the warning. I also can't vape because oral cancer - unrelated to smoking - took half my tongue. Doctors aren't keen on vaping after that for some reason.

The fast acting edibles out there now are way more forgiving than traditional as well. They hit much faster so there is less risk of overdoing it.

Why none of the adult shows? Gambling makes sense, and we won't be doing much of that anyway.

We are staying at the Venetian, and now I am doubly looking forward to it.

Perfect. Thank you!

That's great, thanks! I'm looking forward to being blazed on Fremont. We love getting high as hell and exploring new places.

Yeah, it is. The injections suck, and the hormone shifts are awful. One of my friends is a general practitioner in the Navy, and every time he prescribes any fertility hormone, he also gives a referral for couples counseling. "I know you believe you won't need it, and you might be right, but in my experience by the time you realize you need it, you need it RIGHT NOW." The IVF hormones are around then the ones he can prescribe, and it was a wild ride.

Of course I don't know your SIL, but please extend my best to her and her family at some point. As one stranger on the Internet who knows roughly the path she walked, I am very happy it went well for her in the end.

Also, real talk, you sound like a great in-law to her for being so aware of everything. Kudos to you.

For those who are truly into etiquette, we understand that it is a gift we give to others and hope they will choose to return in kind. It is actually extremely poor etiquette to point out the missteps of others. The superior you unfortunately had to deal with was an asshole. Being an asshole is pretty much never appropriate.

I stand to greet others because it shows them respect and maybe because I am a little old fashioned. I take off my hat in private spaces for the same reason. I also know enough etiquette to know that modern hat customs have been modified because they are more of a fashion piece now than a protective garment. Hats have different rules when their primary purpose is to be an accessory.

Do you know what I do when someone gets etiquette "wrong?" Nothing! It is rude to police others. The most someone should do is to gently steer others away from a faux pas if it would likely cause them embarrassment or future difficulty.

I think what I really want to write is that I am sorry etiquette has been used as a social bludgeon against you. Good etiquette should feel seamless and unobtrusive. Formality can be lovely, and instead it has been a bad experience for you. That sucks.

Edit to add: I am really talking about classic English/American etiquette. I am in no place to comment on things like the etiquette in many Asian nations. I know some of the customs, but little of the nuance that goes into them.

I agree 100% that it is initially confusing to the outsider. I will admit that I struggle with charitable feelings when this topic gets tossed around so often and it is easily researchable. Perhaps I am just tired of having the same discussion so many times.

And yeah, the "pray to X" used a shorthand by many for "ask X to pray on my behalf" doesn't help. It also gets further confounded by the huge number of both discrete and nuanced folk religions that exist simultaneously within members of the Catholic faith.

Catholics do not worship the saints. The dogma is that one may ask a saint to pray on their behalf. Do some Catholics not follow this format to the letter? Nope, some do not. Some/many will follow dogma mentally but use a short hand phrase like, "pray to X," to mean requesting intercession.

The statues, pendants, and other ornaments are not idols but just works of art or symbols of allegiance to a specific order. They hold extra significance for some, but that is effectively as far as they go.

Offerings are to the church. Leaving an offering at the shrine of a saint is not an offering to that saint. It is an offering to the church, possibly to the portion of the church maintaining that specific shrine.

I know this can feel nit-picky, but it is what happens when teachings build upon teachings for thousands of years. One can certainly argue that Catholics are wrong about any number of things in this world, but the notion that Catholicism runs on idolatry is at best an accidental misinterpretation and unfortunately is often an intentional misrepresentation by the leaders of fellow Christians.

The concept of changing the Bible gets a little weird because we are almost universally discussing a translation of the "original" text, with the original as we commonly think of it being a Greek translation that was commonly in use in the years preceding and including the life of the historical Jesus. It gets more complex than that, but it's a good start.

I am using the historical Jesus as a reference point because there are things that scholars, theistic and non-theistic alike, almost universally agree to as being historical as opposed to matters of faith.

Jews, Catholics, and Protestants number the commandments differently though all contain effectively the same content and total up to 10. The Catholic numbering predates the Protestant numbering by centuries. I do not know the timeline of the Jewish numbering. One could easily assume it predates the Catholic numbering, but many Jewish customs date to later eras (often medieval Rabbinical Judaism). I have not looked up the Jewish tradition recently. Regardless, the Catholic numbering predates the Protestant numbering.

Idols are an interesting thing, especially taken in the context of the belief of ancient Semitic peoples. The short version being that it takes much more than just the existence of a statue or an image to be an idol. There are cultural nuances from the time, but at the very least it requires worship of the image as on par with God. The comment you cite even includes the concept that worshipping these images is what makes them bad. The images in Catholic churches are not treated that way.