A new thing in my life is this crab fisher man who welcomes me to haunt his house. He comes and goes in his long wool coat, with the tide and conditions of the mama pacific. He brings the delicious wholesome bounty of the ocean for us to share.
At around six pm on the third or fourth string of days when Fred works 14 hours at a time, I get word from the pirate ship Joyce Marie that she's headed back to land with delicious ling cod and dungies for the taking!
Mind buzzing like wasp crossed with a canary I lather, rinse and repeat every dish on the counter and every surface of the kitchen. I rip an unsuspecting head of romaine into a gory heap of destruction, add carrot, cue comber and broccoli, and place that to the stack of tasks finished.
I add cornstarch and baking powder to flour, an egg to a good long splash of Blue Boar by henry weinhardt- man, I wish I had a darker flavor- mix the wet in with the dry and complete the second task. Oil into the cast iron pot of doom, heat to low. The third task before instant gratification and YUM!
I fiddle with the television, groom the carpet of it's excess pet fur and dander. Before I am through washing up, the fish is here- and so is the Crab Man!! I handle the fresh fish fillets as the volatile, federal offense they represent as recognizably Ling, separating the metallic colored skin from the clear/white flesh in a short process of messy cuts and curses. Before you know it the cod mysteriously finds it's self in two-bites sized lumps, covered in thick puffy batter, undergoing the miracle of hot oil meets food.
Can I just say, I LOVE FISH FRY NIGHTS! Thanks, Crab Man.
The quad ride in the hills with Wayne was as always composed of good ol' fun, and a string of comments and one liners which always mean more to me than any outsider could think.We rode the four wheelers around logging roads and shot holes into plastic things, tin things and glass things. The clay pigeon he found reminded me of the ranch- that field in front of 'Papa Dave's" house where the guys had one of those clay pigeon flingers. And the gun club on chinook valley road that Wayne joined before I knew what Chinook Valley Road was. The good ol days. It's amazing how much time a young person spends staring at the ground, kind of not sure about what else they ought to do, emotionalizing the various debris.
That little pink gun is, on the one hand a silly thing. On the other hand, or in Wayne's hands for example, that pistol is not something I would wish on anyone.
With a few to-the-point quick pointers, wayne had me shooting pretty darn accurately, I shot that clay pigeon straight through the center. Then in a frenzy of rapid fire from Mom's .22 pistol, the circle became chaos! Why is it fun to shoot things? The breath of total focus before you slowly squeeze the trigger? Every so often I shoot a gun for no good reason. It's like a game, its a trip down memory lane, it's what I came from!
I love it.
If I look at the person I was during some of the rough parts of my trip to where I now find myself, I am grateful for and in awe of the trans-formative nature of the years of life, and the way that children aren't born clean slates. I wasn't anyway. I was born a stubborn infection, a resilient mold. Over time I have evolved- slightly. I think now I am something less horrible, a little more useful. Maybe a sourdough start. Or perhaps homemade yogurt. Yeah.
Today is a sunny. cold January treat. What will I accomplish? Who will I see? Maybe nothing and no one other than the Crab Man. But that's okay. Four dungies hear the death toll. My hugest pot has been preparing to boil all morning. My sourdough is out of the fridge, and almost done wrapping its head around the idea of becoming a loaf of bread to be dipped into a crab packed chowder, chunk by gloriously ripped off chunk!!! What? Since when did it become so weird to let your whole world revolve around your kitchen? I love it.
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