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| Tom With Crabs |
There's nothing better than good friends. But if there was, it would be good friends with a boat and a beach house. Our good friends Margie and Tom invited us to the coast for a combination fishing/crabbing expedition, which meant there was something for everybody. I love to fish, and Dave loves to crab. Fishing is wonderful. You can fish all day long without ever having to come into contact with anything slimy that needs to be slain and gutted. There you are with your pole in your hand, trolling along in the rain, knowing that at any moment something exciting might happen, or not. Just like life, and I like life. Many people, including Dave, profess to be bored by holding a motionless fishing pole for hours on end, but they do not properly appreciate anticipation. Which is the best part of Christmas, after all.
You can leave the pole in the pole-holder, and then react when it does, but I always hang onto mine. I want to feel it at the very moment it snags up against a huge log and must be battled back up to the surface, covered in weeds and debris. Just like life.
The agenda was to put in seven crab-pots first thing in the morning as the tide comes in, then fish for a few hours until it's time to pick up the pots. Dave loves picking up the pots. He likes nothing better than to reel up a pot heavy enough to engage the stomach muscles, haul it aboard, and begin sorting through a frightening melee of crustaceans that might, at any time, separate him from his thumb. It's like sticking your hand into a vat of knives. What fun!
Crabs themselves are pointy and malevolent and capable of great self-expression when faced with the proposition of a short ride in a bucket. They appear rigid, but they are nevertheless capable of hinging themselves backwards if held from the rear and signing autographs with your blood. Dave plunges in without fear and without gloves, although he does keep his crotch out of range. In an instant the boat is filled with scuttling prehistoric meat-eaters in search of fresh toes. Myself, I prefer my food more apathetic.
I also do not eat much crab. It's sweet and delicious, not revolting like something in the Sea-Loogie family (oysters, clams, etc.), but I overdid it one day just before a long ride in the back seat of a rhythmically rolling old-model Pontiac, and struggled not to go all Jackson Pollock on the floor-mats. It has affected my crab consumption ever since. I feel the same way about Scotch.
In general I question the wisdom of going to all that trouble to eat something with sci-fi monster mouth-parts that you've pulled off the bay bottom after luring it with rotten chicken. Dave is unmoved by this and unfazed by the prospect of tossing them into a vat of boiling water. He is very comfortable in his position near the top of the food chain.
I was comfortable with the previous several hours spent not catching a twenty-pound--my mistake, it was fifty, easy--Chinook salmon that would have to be dispatched in some way and relieved of its unattractive innards. Left to my own devices, I would be a stellar vegetarian. It's my good fortune to have been born in a time when someone else does the distasteful stuff, and yet there's still pigs.
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Yummmm....sea loogies and crab! I love all critters in the sea--the pathetic, the apathetic, and the gung-ho to boot.
ReplyDeleteI'll even clean my own if that's what it takes.
My pillow is now soaked in drool. I blame you. Feel my hungry insomniac wrath!
Even back when I ate meat, I wouldn't have eaten something that basically looks like a hugely-enlarged louse. Arthropods should be tiny -- barely seen and not at all heard.
ReplyDeleteWell, modern ones, anyway. Back in the Devonian there were sea-scorpions seven feet long. Try throwing one of those in a bucket and you'd find your top-of-the-food-chain position slipping very quickly.
What! You don't like Sea-Loogies!?! We ate half a bushel of the tasty little bi-valves just last night.
ReplyDeleteI have long referred to oysters as phlegm-balls. I like to watch Deadliest Catch, but only to hear Mike Rowe talk.
ReplyDeleteWell, as Jonathan Swift said, "He was a brave man who first ate an oyster". I feel that way about most bivalves and aquatic crustaceans...and is there anything as depressing as a lobster tank 1,400 miles inland with the desperate creatures inside clinging to hope for life with their claws wrapped in elastics?
ReplyDeleteBut too bad the salmon got away!
My brother-in-law took me deer hunting once. I recall climbing up and down hills looking for the creatures. I never saw one because, as far as I can tell, they are all in the local residential neighborhoods around our home where I see them all the time.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I sat down on a stump and realized that if I shot one, I would have to do all sorts of unmentionable things to it like what a serial killer does... then drag the heavy "usable" part back to the truck.
My brother-in-law was disappointed that we didn't get a deer. I feigned disappointment along with him.
I can't clean crab without fighting to hold my lunch where I put it. I have them clean it at the store and wrap it in nice clean paper. Mmmm, the way god intended.
And a lovely day was had by all, except the crabs. I totally "get" fishing. The anticipation is where it's at!
ReplyDeleteI love the taste of crab, but it's a lot of bother what with all that boiling and shelling and dipping into lemon butter. Usually, by the time I'm halfway through it, it's cold and not so appetizing as it was when I started. What I need is to be annointed Supreme Ruler. Then I could have my well-compensated slaves (I would be the good sort of Supreme Ruler) crack the steaming-hot crab for me while I'm fishing. I also like to fish, although I've long believed that it should be called something else, like rodding, or untangling, or drinking beer near the water.
ReplyDeleteAgain, buckets of great sentences; a feast for the hungry mind! And this recounted experience is so far removed from my high desert life, that I feel like an anthropologist peeking in. Love it.
ReplyDeleteSo, bottom line, you're saying that having crabs is a good thing?
ReplyDeleteBy the way, you do know what happens when you have one too many crab cakes, right? I see another poop post for that one.
Great writing is just great writing.
ReplyDeleteFor example,
"In general I question the wisdom of going to all that trouble to eat something with sci-fi monster mouth-parts that you've pulled off the bay bottom after luring it with rotten chicken."
That's exactly how I felt about Mr. Obama's tax cut deal with Republicans.
Miraculous, ain't it?
You know you've tapped the zeitgeist when someone thinks you can make a poop post out of another post. That's some fine digestion.
ReplyDeleteLove lobster, crab, and even oysters. Went fishing once. Don't care for it. Wet. Boring. And the whole cleaning thing -- ugh. My farmer cousin accuses me of thinking that all food comes from grocery stores. I say, "Yeah. What's your point?"
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas.
Your's is the only blog I read from margin to margin, where the comment-writers are as gifted as the blogger herself. ~Applause~
ReplyDeleteThank you! I do think it's a special bunch. Short-bus special, maybe, but still.
ReplyDeleteDungeness Crab is my favoritest food in the world!
ReplyDeleteYour's is the only blog I read from margin to margin, where the comment-writers are as gifted as the blogger herself. ~Applause~
ReplyDeleteLove lobster, crab, and even oysters. Went fishing once. Don't care for it. Wet. Boring. And the whole cleaning thing -- ugh. My farmer cousin accuses me of thinking that all food comes from grocery stores. I say, "Yeah. What's your point?"
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas.
Great writing is just great writing.
ReplyDeleteFor example,
"In general I question the wisdom of going to all that trouble to eat something with sci-fi monster mouth-parts that you've pulled off the bay bottom after luring it with rotten chicken."
That's exactly how I felt about Mr. Obama's tax cut deal with Republicans.
Miraculous, ain't it?