One year younger

Hi All,

As it is me and my sister's birthday today... 32 years of age. Phew, we're well old now !

Tradition is that we say the Psalm for the next birthday to look forward to, which in our case is Psalm 33 : "Sing joyfully to the L-rd"

PS - here's some stuff on Martian food menus

To humans reading - if they can get a Martian menu translated into a human language - a menu in a Martian restaurant is highly confusing. This is because Martians do not have a concept of basic stuff like starters, mains or deserts. Instead Martian tradition lists foods and beverages by flavours and fragrances,  but in terms of  nouns, rather than verbs.  Look at the list of 'salts' and it will include Fish and Chips or alternatively if you look at 'Roasts' and it will include  chocolate,  peanuts , nuts , coffees; plus  beers or wines which have a roasted flavour.   The food comes out as a sort of sharing Tapas, because a) Martian culture doesn't believe people should be alone and b) They are very communal. I guess it is like having, on the one table  plates of pate , apple pie, custard, gravy , fish and chips , curry , chilli beef, spag bol,  beef burgers and strawberries. The sort of thing a pregnant woman with cravings  might order.   

Added to this Martian culture is heavily religious and Martian religion is very ritual and practical centric, both in private and in public. Thus even when dining out the waiting staff will give you prayer scrolls specific to the day , time of day, season, food and who you are with , which you have to say before, during and after a meal.  The chefs and cooking staff also engage in ritual prayer before and after they cook food: their cooking books are half prayer and half instruction.

Non Martians are not expected to participate in such prayers, but it is said somewhere in one of their holy texts  that 'Angels sing in Heaven when foreigners praise from their lips, gratefulness to God for their food from that which they no not, but can come to know through dining' . Added to this, like religions on Earth, Martians have a specific set of religious criteria as to what can and cannot be eaten; foreign foods aren't forbidden, depending on the clerical interpretation of adapting these food laws to non Martian produce. Although some humans do get confused with  Daileys, an alcoholic beverage from Martian chickens milk . Then there is roasted  fish shanks with viscous  gravy.....