Tails... or is it tales... my weekend...

Ha!! Got your attention eh? I'll get to the tails in a bit... But first.. a short tale (yeah! yeah! I know, bad Anndi...) I’ve been having a rough week folks… The funk came back… I worked crazy hours… and I didn’t even have the energy to visit very many blogs. The highpoint of my week was on Thursday evening when my Chicklet, the awesome child that I’m raising to be, God-willing, a truly stellar human being, performed in a concert at school. She participated in the opening and closing numbers of the show (the kids sang wonderfully). Towards the end of the extravaganza she recited a poem she wrote. She was the only one to have her writing (her first ever poem) featured in the concert and stood up there while I sat in the audience beaming and demonstrated her artistic flair. (Oh.. by the way.. it's in French). It's a cry out for our planet, one main theme they focused on at school over the past year is reducing waste and pollution. La Terre (The Earth) A poem by Chicklet Ma mère la Terre, (My Mother Earth) mes sœurs les Océans, (my sisters the oceans) mes frères les Continents, (my brothers the continents) ma vie la Nature. (my life is Nature). Depuis longtemps ma famille est en danger. (For some time now, my family has been endangered.) Les océans pollués de l’essence de bateaux, (Boat fuel pollutes the oceans,) les continents sont malades, l’air pollué fait mourir les arbres. (Our continents are sick, air pollution is killing the trees.) La terre a ses eaux polluées et ses continents pollués. (The Earth's oceans and continents are polluted) La terre envoie un S.O.S. (Planet Earth sends out an S.O.S.) The concert was held in my old high school’s auditorium. It brought back many memories, and was bittersweet as it was renamed some time ago for a former vice-principal who died from AIDS. I remember watching “Philadelphia” not too long after he passed. I still can’t watch that movie without crying over his death. I told my Chicklet that the auditorium was named after him, and that he had been a wonderful educator. She asked me what made him so great. “He treated us, the kids, with respect. And we loved him for that.” Too few adults respect kids, and we can stand to learn a thing or two from them, that’s something he taught me by example. And he will forever be in my heart. Je t’aime Serge, tu me manques. Merci pour tout ce que tu as inspiré en moi. My weekend in a lobster shell... The Chicklet was away with her father this weekend, so I had some alone time with Dad, and some time for myself, a tub of Hagen Dazs and a chick movie. As it turns out, Chicklet’s Dad was going to cook a dinner for some friends on Saturday night and some lobster was on the menu along with chicken brochettes (anyone need a bib right about now?). Chicklet has always turned her nose up at lobster, although she loves to visit the lobster tank at the local supermarket. She knows they’re on their way to becoming someone’s food but enjoys saying hi (I say she taunts them… “Your father was a Hamster…”). Well, she agreed to try some! If she’s anything like me and my mother (which she is in almost all aspects of her personality so far…) she just might like it. Of course, she and I both have NOT inherited Mom’s taste (if you can seriously call it that without snickering.. or saying “bad taste”) for liver and something my mother thought was a delicacy, pig tongue pickled in vinegar (all together now… EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!) on saltine crackers (mom was crackers herself sometimes). I drove her to her father’s new apartment. I had changed out of my jammies and pink fuzzy slippers and gotten dressed although I did joke about driving over in my nightwear to a friend (hehehe... you were right! It DID end up in a post LOL!!). Besides, I actually find it easier to drive in high heeled red sandals than the fuzzy pink slippers! And I probably would have caused a slight stir at the market in my baby doll top and cotton capris… After dropping her off, I drove back from the city and stopped off at Dad’s. Some friends are helping to get the pool started and I chatted with them for a bit. Thoughts of lobster were firmly planted... swimming.. crawling(?) in my head and I know it’s been ages since Dad had some. Dad LOVES lobster! We had some fresh from the pier every summer when we went on vacation to Hampton Beach back in the days when I was a kid. So I offered to go pick up some boiled lobster and make Dad a scrumptious lobster salad. Well… seems if you want the folks at the market to boil the lobster for you (and believe you me, that’s what I had in mind) you have to order ahead of time (how inconvenient!). Now, she could have boiled them in a batch later on .. but then Dad would have eaten too late so… I sucked it up, bought two live and squirming lobsters, got the boiling instructions and a small bag of sea salt and then I went into the liquor commission (booze store) and bought a lovely bottle of wine to bolster my courage. When I returned to Dad’s, I set out to commit lobster homicide.... lobstercide? Cooking! I had a big pot with water, some sea salt ( to REALLY make it feel at home), a very large glass of wine (for me) and a big spoon with a very long handle to poke the lobster once I had conned it into believing it was going for a lovely spa experience… A very wise woman suggested I dump a bit of wine in the pot so my squirming and backpedaling soon-to-be dinner would have a little buzz. I decided against it.. can lobsters actually drink I wonder? Besides, by the size of it , it was decidedly underage although I’m willing to commit lobstercide, I stop at providing alcohol to minor lobsters (and I have no clue about Maritime law..) Besides, I do NOT, as a peace loving conscientious Canadian want to cause an international incident.. (what if they were from Maine?). For those of you who have never boiled a lobster, it’s an interesting experience. The hardest part was putting lobster number two in the water… it put up a fight worthy of Muhammad Ali or Laila Ali (depending on it’s sex... and no... I didn’t ask, and I didn’t look.. I’m no perv! Turnbaby, stop snickering this very instant!). All those videos on YouTube about poor unsuspecting people who chuck a lobster in the pot only to find it tries to crawl out of the pot to exact revenge are all too true! Lobster number one (I don't name my food.. I'm funny that way) spread out his claws (I've decided to assume the lobsters were male, don't read too much into it.. really) and tried to hold on to the sides of the pot as I attempted to shove him in the nice lobster jacuzzi. And lobster number 2 (the one on the right in that there picture) just straightened himself out as soon as I invited him to join his compadre making it VERY difficult for me to drop him and close the lid. I learned that lobsters do not, in all actuality, scream the lobster equivalent of "save me" when you put them in boiling water... they mutter something about a pox and attempt to spit on you (but I don't believe they have salivary glands). As I attempted to shove number one and number two in the pot, I stopped to fortify myself with a little vino.. Closing the lid on a jittery lobster feeler was not enjoyable. In fact.. it reminded me David Cronenberg and his bug movie... CREEPY. I kept expecting number one (clearly the more feisty of the two) to sit up, drape his little legs over the rim of the "lobster spa" and carry on a conversation about Noam Chomsky's views on child language acquisition and the innate basic grammatical structures that children are born with allowing them to have the ability to learn any language they are exposed to within the formative years. Ok.. maybe a little too much vino for me... I was reminded of my mother's chief complaint the odd times when she ended up having to steam the lobster herself... the water, sea salt and lobster combination makes the kitchen smell like the ocean.. and NOT in a good way. When all that was said and done... the lobster tails (see.. I finally got to them) were yummy when dipped in homemade garlic butter... Love you all more than my luggage! Hugs, smooches and gropes!