Crab Claws and Wassau

This is a stone crab.




This is a stone crab claw. It's one of the most delectable things you can put in your mouth (minus the shell, of course). So imagine my delight when Davis came home Saturday with a bucket of them for lunch! That Davis!



Stone crabs live in deep water. And they're endangered, so you can't just take a bushel of crabs home to eat them. When you catch a crab, you can only take one of its claws, and it must be at least 2 3/4 inches long. The crab needs its other claw to protect itself in the water. Last week, Davis went on a mission for stone crabs. He put two traps in the Back River and returned to them daily to check on his catch.

He caught a mess-o-crabs.

Cooking those crab claws isn't difficult, but to get the best meat, it's good to follow a process. Davis boiled them in a pot of water seasoned with Old Bay. After boiling them for five minutes, he drained them, then shocked them in ice water for seven minutes. That encourages the meat to let go of the shell for easier crab picking.

Boy, were those crab claws good! Clorox loved them too. He must have thought it was Christmas, because we never feed him fresh crab meat. After his meal, Davis said Clorox was so happy he had a glow about him. After a heavenly lunch, Clorox took a nap in his laughing place: the kitchen cabinet.

We, on the other hand, hopped in the boat for an afternoon trip to Wassau Island. We anchored there and watched the tide come in while Stephen and the kids fished and dove off the boat. With the cool breeze and the sunny sky, Wassau was the place to be Sunday afternoon.

Tattoo for You?

If I ever wanted a tattoo, I'd have trouble deciding on what picture to ink permanently into my skin. But now I can cross that difficult decision-making process off my list of things to worry about, because Monday I visited the world's biggest tattoo design showcase: White Water.

I think my family and I were the only people in the place without tattoos. Talk about being marginalized. White Water patrons put tattoos in every margin of their bodies. Piercings, too. And with everyone walking around in bathing suits (many of them having no business doing so), I had every opportunity to view my potential tattoo options. Tramp stamps. Sleeves. Blue-inked messages inscribed in memory of some deceased relative. They were all out there for my examination. Sabra and I even saw one tattoo we thought was supposed to be inspiring, but we weren't exactly sure: "To keep up means to get up." Hmm. The owner of that jewel gets to display it on her left shoulder for the rest of her life! Imagine how many times she'll have to explain it. No need for me to bring a book. I just people watched.

And I slid. Okay, sometimes I just floated down the lazy river, but I put in my fair share of slipping and sliding through tubes, tunnels, and tracks. And I didn't even lose my sunglasses.

The person who got all the goodie out of that park was Lawson Remler, who only stopped for lunch. We remained at White Water from open to close, and Lawson spent all but one hour of it sliding first on his front and then on his back. Up and down, in and out, under and over. He dragged his father along with him the whole way. They even took multiple trips down the intimidating Tornado, which hurled patrons through a giant funnel. Lawson thought it was a gas. Stephen bruised his butt.

But White Water wasn't the only thrilling experience of our recent whirlwind trip to Atlanta:

Lawson got to see the Big Chicken.

We also ate at the hip, fun FLIP Burger Boutique, which not only serves the cutest array of small burgers, but also fabulous milkshakes. We opted for the Nutella and burnt marshmallow flavor. Yum!

Also, Stephen took his first trip to Trader Joe's. Oh, why can't we have one in Savannah? Someone once told me the reason had to do with difficult distribution to our part of the state. I don't get it. Isn't that what I-16 is for? We got our favorite Goddess dressing, and we tried to get JoJo her favorite Two Buck Chuck wine. Alas, it was Sunday. But we did find some ice cream she might like. If it wouldn't have melted on the way home, we would have gotten her a carton. Maybe next time, JoJo.

Many thanks to Sabra, Martin and Elizabeth for hosting our fun, fabulous family trip to the Big A.

Little Blog About the Prairie

Sabra and I often catch Little House reruns when we can. By text message, we often alert each other of memorable episodes. Such texts read like this:

Mary gets glasses, but Nellie and Willie call her four-eyes. She hides the glasses until she learns Miss Beadle has a beau. If she can get a beau wearing glasses, so can Mary! She takes the specs out of hiding and Pa cries.

Mr. Edwards comes to visit and finds Half Pint with a fever and tonsillitis. The sick child reminds him of his own family, whom he lost to illness. He mourns them. Pa cries.

Nellie mistreats her horse Bunny and then gets bucked off. Then she pretends to be paralyzed until Laura pushes her wheelchair into the fish pond. The jig is up, and Pa cries.

You get the gist.

Anyway, I recently read a review about Alison Arngrim's (Nellie Oleson's) autobiography, Confessions of a Prairie Bitch. I was intrigued. And since it's summer, I thought it would be an entertaining quick read. Once on Amazon, I realized that Melissa Gilbert and Melissa Sue Anderson also have published autobiographies recently. So over the July 4th weekend, I read a Little House on the Prairie autobiographical trilogy. I'll review them in my sidebar.

I learned a lot about Little House behind the scenes, like why Carrie falls flat on her face in those opening credits, why Pa always walks around shirtless, why the Ingalls family ate so much Dinty Moore beef stew at dinner, that kind of stuff.

But I never learned the answer to the question that's been eating at me for years: Why were the Garvey and the Edwards families never on the same show?

The three Little Actresses wrote much about Victor French, who played the gruff, beloved, Mr. Edwards. But they say nothing about Merlin Olson and Hersha Parady, who played Jonathan and Alice Garvey. How could they ignore Mr. Garvey?

Think about it. Pa frequently falls and breaks ribs (it's always a rib, never an arm or a leg), gets sick or gets beaten up. And when the beat ups come, Mr. Garvey's always the one to step in. Take, for example, the episode "As Long as We're Together," in season 5 when bullies harass blind Mary and her blind beau Adam. Pa steps in, and the bullies beat him up. Mary and Adam run inside for help, and to the rescue come Jonathan Garvey and Nels Oleson. Of course, all Mr. Oleson does is hold Garvey's hat, while Garvey opens up a can of whoop-ass on the two bullies and in so doing gets a job as a bouncer.

If it weren't for Garvey, Pa would be using a walker and eating pudding for the rest of his life.

Garvey may be beefy, but he's got a heart of gold, platinum even. After Albert burns down the blind school, killing Alice Garvey and Mary's baby, Garvey and Mary go a little insane for a while, until guilt-ridden Albert runs away. Pa takes Garvey by the shoulders, shakes him, and cries, "Man up, Garvey. We've got to find my son!" When they do, Garvey's the one to ease Albert's pain: "Don't worry boy. Even though you killed my wife and your own nephew, everybody still loves you. " Pa cried.

Charles Ingalls has the best friends ever: the gruff but lovable Edwards and the beefy but lovable Garvey. Why did Pa never introduced them? Maybe getting the Edwardses and Garveys together would have caused tear duct overload. We'll never know.