Fine dining and other snippets

You know when you watch a scene unfolding, and it doesn't seem real, until you realise it is and you spring into action - let's say, because your cat is eating from your daughter's plate.  As happened today.  Mad Max was in his customary place under the table, where, unless we remember to put him out first, he likes to lie in wait for scraps to fall and for small legs to dangle, just waiting for him to claw at, which he duly does, completely unperturbed by the shrieks and squawks that ensue.  So there was he, and there was Hedda eating fish fingers and mashed potato, and I had to go outside for a second.  Then I saw, from the garden, that Hedda had gone and in her place sat Max, like a fine diner, front paws on the table and the rest of him neatly arranged on her chair.  I banged on the window and he looked round, face smeared with mayonnaise, paused his chewing for a second to check I was no imminent threat, and continued.  Hedda comes back into the room.  Screams.  I think about making her eat it anyway, but don't want to get into trouble with Social Services.  Give the rest to Max.  One nil to cat.

Next snippet for today.  Last night saw the first of many parents' evenings.  Luckily CG was around, as we had two at the same time.   We drew lots for who should attend the less dull.  I lost.  Two hours and umpteen digressions, boring anecdotes and petty squabbles later, we - that is to say, the teacher and the parents who could still be bothered to talk - were discussing the first grade timetable.  The woman next me was trying to ascertain which religious education class her child should attend.  (From the wide range of Catholic and Protestant.)  Easy, says Teacher.  Whichever one you like!!  Ah, says woman.  We are Muslims.  All the Catholic mothers then piped up, choose ours - it's much more similar to Islam!  If I hadn't been so desperate to get home I might have ventured a comment.  Can anybody please tell me why Catholicism is more similar to Islam than the Protestant Church?  Surely the major role played by the Virgin Mary renders Catholicism further removed, not nearer to Islam? Or am I missing something?

Last snippet, quite literally.  I took my newly acquired Bavarian outfit to the dour dressmaker today.  She was a bit sniffy about it, as I knew she would be.  My pointing out it was a bargain didn't move her one bit.  If you're going to live here, then might as well have one, she grudgingly said.  But real ones should have ... and then she launched into a list of dirndl attributes, all the while sticking pins into my midriff.  I left the dress with her, privately wondering when I would see it again.  There's no rush, is there, she said.  It's not as if you'll be wearing it to the Oktoberfest.  I am still wondering why she said that.