A few weeks ago when I mentioned in a post that grandson Elmo snacked on Goldfish, Stephanie W, a blogger in Ireland, was taken aback and quickly dashed off a Comment. She was thinking “much beloved pet” and I was talking Pepperidge Farm. I sent her a picture of a bag of the little crackers to ease her mind.
It’s always fun to hear from her (how I love Internet!) and she sometimes e-mails incidents from her own life that parallel things that have happened to me. (Steff, tell ’em about the snails!)
When Dearly Beloved and I were at the beach this week, we went out for lunch and something there made me think of SteffiW.
It is a lovely restaurant with wonderful views of the ocean, but we opted to eat on the pier even though it was a cloudy day.
We could see all the surfers. Hmmm. . . don’t they have classes on Fridays?
Don’t drop crumbs! The birds perched on the pier railings and or flew overhead to dive for any abandoned food. The wisdom of umbrellas on a cloudy day became obvious.
Someone was having a birthday.
Our server took our orders and said he’d bring us something to nibble on while we were waiting for our food. No, not Goldfish.
(Are you ready, Stephanie?)
He brought us a basket of . . . (drum roll, please. . . !)
↓ ↓ ↓
HUSH PUPPIES!
Not to worry, these aren’t the tails of too-noisy dogs! Just bits of batter, deep- fried. Not heart- or hip-healthy, but seductively tasty. Like popcorn, you just keep dipping in!
I asked the waiter for a box so that I could take some of the Hush Puppies back to the dog. (Oh, the irony…!)
DB was suspicious when I put the little cup of whipped butter in the box, too, that I might not be exposing my true motives.
Waste not, want not.
Miss Piggy loves Hush Puppies. She makes her little moaning noises–piggy sounds–when she eats one. (Yes, only one!)
It’s a cute name, don’t you think?
Much better than ShutUP Dogs!
Merrilymarylee's Weblog 
Oh, that’s funny! I have a friend in Australia and she always laughs when I say to someone, “You go, girl! I’m rooting for you!” because in Aussie speak, “rooting” means “fu%$#ng.”
One can get a mental picture of how that came to be.
How funny!
Yes Hush is much nicer. In our house, growing up in the 60’s, to say SHUT UP was asking to have your mouth washed out with soap!
What a delightful place to enjoy a meal, sunny or cloudy!
So THAT’S what hush puppies are.
In Australia, they’re a brand of shoe that was sold in the 70s.
Yup, we had those, too. . . the shoes for tired dogs. 🙂
I love the idiosyncrasies of language from different parts of the world. What a fun post with great pictures. Is photography one of your hidden talents?
Too funny about the goldfish. I think it is amusing to hear how the different expressions mean such wildly different things depending on your homeland.
Thought the bird vacuum cleaners were neat.
Thank you for stopping by TNS and for your comment.
Bird vacuum cleaners. . . ! Had to think about that one for a minute!
in Antigua we were offered Dolphin … it’s a fish !
This was a fun post Marylee! When we visited Ireland we were confused by some of the common slang words, like “pratties” for potatoes or “lorrie” for truck. I’m sure no one understood me because of my Brooklyn accent 🙂 Yes, I really do say “cawfee”..lol