Day 11: My favorite TV show...not really its about crab mac and cheese on a hotdog

I have no idea what my favorite TV show is.  It changes from year to year and now with Netflix month to month.  I can tell you I don’t like Downtown Abby.  Wow talking about TV did not take very long.  Now let’s talk about Crab and milkshakes.
 
Iam in Baltimore Maryland and had some time Tuesday night and decided to go out for blue crab.  I have heard about them but never tried them.  I love crab and we catch Dungeness and Rock Crab near our home every year.  When it is on sale I buy King Crab and Snow Crab they are great on the grill or in a shell fish boil.  Anyway back to the blue crab.  I went to Saint Andrews Crab House out on the docks.  I selected the all you can eat option.  A few minutes later the server brought me out 2 dozen boiled crab covered in Old Bay Seasoning.  I tore into these things and immediately realized they are a lot of work.  The legs are completely a waste of time unless you want a shellfish flavored tooth pic.  The claws are tough to crack and the body meat is hard to get to.  However when you get to the meat it is a bit stronger flavored that Dungeness meat and very good.  It was succulent and wonderful both warm and cold.
 
It became evident very quickly this particular variety of crab is like a McDonalds milkshake.  You know when you get a milkshake on a hot summer day and are so excited to taste that chocolate, strawberry or vanilla goodness.  You peel the wrapper off of the straw and stick it into the cup and start to suck and suck and suck.  Then you take a break and because you are light headed and don’t have the lung power to actually get the shake up the straw.  You pull the straw out of the cup and lick the outside of the straw to remind you of what you are trying to get.  Then start the sucking part all over again.  This is kind of how blue crabs are.  They give you just enough meat to keep you going but not enough to really fill you up.  After 2 hours and 30 crab later my fingers were too tired to keep going and my lips burned from the Old Bay Seasoning.  (A milkshake would have totally rocked at that moment of time.)  So today I learned from my mistakes and had crab mac and cheese on a hotdog for lunch today.  I know sounds gross and low rent however it completely surprised me.  It was kind of like salt...hard to describe unless you have tasted it (go ahead and describe salt without using the word salt, let me know that works out for you).  The combinations of flavors and textures of the crab, hotdog and mac were quite wonderful.  All in all Baltimore from a food point of view has been more fun than most of the trips I go on.

Day 10: Something I am afraid of

I know it has been a few days since I posted and I know I skipped over day 9 on my 30 day blog challenge.  But it is my blog so I can do what I want.  I actually quit writing because I only thought my sister read this and it is easier to call her and just talk.  However I have spoken in recent days to an old high school friend in Maryland and a cousin in Ohio that both said they read my blog and called me out for not completing the 30 day challenge so here it is. 

I have all the normal fears any father of 5 would have:

• teenage boys  (easy handles with a unblinking stare and refusal to smile, they run off like little girls)
• homemade parachutes (if you have sons this is self explanitory)
• the great legos vs littlest petshop debate between son and daughter will get violent.
• teeenage auto insurance rates (How do they calculate these insurance rates?  It has to be with some new math or international version where they are counting in pesos and charge in dallors.

I also have a fear of hitting someone in a cross walk.  When I was 17 I was driving in McMinnville Oregon and not really paying attention and this old lady was crossing the street.  I had a red light and had to lock the tires up to stop in time.  The tires screeched, there was smoke from the tires sliding and the card kind of slid sideways.  I stopped about 2 feet from here she was there screaming holding her chest then shaking her finger at me.  I have had an ongoing fear of actually mowing someone over since then.  Come to think about it maybe the teenage insurance rates are not so far out of line.

I don't do horror movies at all.  I am a total and complete wimp.  The Wizard of Oz has freaked me out as a kid and I refuse to watch it now.  When Rhonda and I went and saw Wicked last year there were a couple of scenes with the flying monkeys and I found myself looking for the exits. 

In fact there is one scene in the comedy Harry and the Hendersons that came out in 1987 that completly scary.  I was screaming when I saw it for the first time and the 2nd and the 3rd.  As I watched the clip today so I could include it here they must have changed the movie because it is not nearly as scary as I remember.  I did go back and look at the flying monkeys as well they are just a creepy as I remember.

I also have a fear of kissing and old lady and she gets the wrong message and slips me the toungue.  It acutally happened once so I this is not an unrealistic fear.  As it turns out she was trying to scare me...it worked. 

Bangy Bangy, performing Twist and Shout

It is not often that my kids truly surprise me and leave me dumbfounded...in a good way.  This happened last night at their schools annual parents night.  We home school our kids but they are part of a home school group that is run by Crescent School District called OPHC.  I am sure OPHC stands for something but I have no idea what.  Anyway so every Wednesday morning our kids head over to a local church that the school has contracted to use for holding class. I know is my kids have music, ballet, art, cooking, math and drama.  There might be some other stuff too however that is the wife's department to keep track of.    

Last night we got to see Payton's ballet class perform to the rainbow connection (video comming tommorrow).  Something about twelve 9 year old girls in tutus that just warms the heart.  They were very cute.  There were the other requisite pictures on the walls, poetry readings, drama performances etc... the stuff that is fun to watch if it is your kid but truly painful if it is not.  At the end of the evening all the kids got their awards and we had a performance from the band class.  There are 11 kids in this class.  4 of them sing vocals, 6 play some guitar like instrument and 1 plays the drums.  They have a teacher who plays the piano and boom you have a band, they named themselves Bangy Bangy.  I new Regann was in this class and I new they were performing and that is all I new.  I had no idea she was singing lead and that they actually were singing fun songs...compared to those my band class did in junior high school.   I have to say she rocked it.

Bangy Bangy performing Twist and Shout