They brought some over to our house once… they said it was beef, and it LOOKED like beef. They described it as “tender”… but it was so “tender” that when you chewed it, you couldn’t even distinguish any fibers. It reminded me of the time I tried to tenderize steak with fresh pineapple juice, and it turned to mush. It also had nearly no beef flavor. My husband thinks it’s maybe ostrich? They wanted us to go in with them on buying five cases of the stuff, cause then they get a freezer. We couldn’t afford it, and even if we could have… ugh. I’d rather eat vienna sausages. At least I know when I bite into one of them it is supposed to be mushy and flavorless. I’ve had good, tender beef, and that stuff isn’t it.
That sounds like airline food beef- I had some sort of beef in wine sauce when I flew to Vegas and it was just like that- looked and smelled like beef, but was more like a pressed beef product. I was drunk though, so I ate it.
They brought some over to our house once… they said it was beef, and it LOOKED like beef. They described it as “tender”… but it was so “tender” that when you chewed it, you couldn’t even distinguish any fibers. It reminded me of the time I tried to tenderize steak with fresh pineapple juice, and it turned to mush. It also had nearly no beef flavor. My husband thinks it’s maybe ostrich? They wanted us to go in with them on buying five cases of the stuff, cause then they get a freezer. We couldn’t afford it, and even if we could have… ugh. I’d rather eat vienna sausages. At least I know when I bite into one of them it is supposed to be mushy and flavorless. I’ve had good, tender beef, and that stuff isn’t it. They are apparently under the impression that this is fine, aged beef… but I wouldn’t eat it again. Usually even not-great steak isn’t THAT bad, but this stuff was repellent.
Steak repellent? 
oops… dunno how the double post with one extra sentence happened. Sorry. :smack:
Well, technically, instead of spending the Fourth in your lovely, spacious, flower-ringed yard, you’d be spending in your presumably cat-free house, looking out the window at your spacious, flower-ringed mud pit. If it’s too rainy to be outside at Sis’s, it’s too rainy to be outside at your place, unless you have one of those yard tent thingies. Actually, even if you have a tent, it would still be more pleasant to be inside, usually.
From the OP, I get the feeling there are actually three seperate issues here. Mostly, you’re allergic to SIL’s cats and have asthma attacks when you spend time in her apartment. This is a perfectly valid reason not to go there. As a sub-issue, you don’t like SIL. This is also a perfectly valid reason not to accept a dinner invitation. Judging by the language of the OP (“lovely, spacious, flower-ringed yard” vs. “crappy rathole apartment” and the whole quotes around the word house thing), the sub-sub-issue is that you feel her home to be so vastly inferior to yours that you hate to lower yourself to go over there. If my inlaws talked about me and my home like that, I’d not only quit trying to offer them hospitality, I’d tell them to go fuck themselves up the ass with a sharp stick. Of course, I’ve been told I have an attitude problem, so her mileage may vary.
It wouldn’t bother me so much if not for 1. the cat dander, and 2. the constant intimations from my SIL that everything she has, does and thinks is vastly superior to everything we have, do or think, even when by any reasonable standard, this isn’t the case. An apartment is an apartment and a house is a house. I don’t call my house a mansion, because it’s not. It’s a house. All we get from SIL is how totally stupid we are for having a house instead of saving money by having an apartment like vastly superior her. And her apartment is over-cluttered and kinda gross, and never really clean when we go over there. But she always complains about how we keep our house when she comes over here. But, honestly, I wouldn’t care so much about the little crummy apartment if she weren’t always trying to pretend it’s not.
And then there are those lucky ones among us (me) who are allergic to animal spit, dander, and fur. Huzzah.
Don’t go. And tell her why.
Does she own or rent? If she rents and thinks she’s superior to you homeowners, she’s nuts. Homeowners are hardly ever in danger of being evicted.
This really is interesting. (BTW, I wasn’t trying to be snitty, Jeff, in case that came out wrong.) When it comes to fighting ignorance about this, I’m unarmed. Actually I didn’t know there’s a difference between sensitivities to spit, dander and fur. Not that is probably matters a bit when it comes to itching, etc.
Really, Minnie, it sounds like neither you nor your husband enjoy being at your SIL’s place because of the way she behaves toward you. Nobody enjoys “fun” events where their life choices are dissected and criticized at length, even when it’s family doing it. Nobody ever wins those arguments anyway.
You have a perfectly valid, value-neutral reason to not attend in your asthma and reaction to her cats. So you can just politely cite that as a reason. Leave out any mention of your SIL’s annoying habits and enjoy the heck outta not being around her.
Veb
Mmm, she sounds like quite the piece of work. Coming to someone’s home as a guest and criticizing their housekeeping. Talk about deliberately being offensive. Sheesh, and I thought it was bad when my mil used to come visit and offer to help us pay for a cleaning lady. (No, really, she didn’t mean it that way. She knows what wretched shape his apartment was in when he lived alone and how much I dislike doing housework. She honestly was just trying to do something nice for us and would be horrified if she realized the other way it could be taken.)
Given the situation, I still think it’s not very nice to call someone’s home a rathole, but I can certainly understand the urge. I have to confess, though, I’d be far more likely to just tell her that since my home is so far below her standards, I’d understand perfectly if she never darkened the door again. But that’s probably that attitude problem cropping up again.
It really does sound like Mr. Pearl needs to learn some tactful evasive maneuvers. He’s not sure if you’ve already made plans, and you’ve been having so much trouble with your asthma and the cats aggravate it, and he certainly couldn’t commit you without talking to you first, and oh gosh look at the time, he’s really got to be going.
No, what you said was perfectly fine but thanks just the same.