Vegetarian eats crab. Hilarity ensues.

I just returned from a glorious two days in one of my favorite places on earth. One of my favourite rituals when I visit the west coast is to go to my aunt's place on Vancouver Island. She has a beautiful home that overlooks a bay, and she and her partner ensure that I am well fed and extremely relaxed.

I had eaten crab here once before when I was still eating meat, but that was my only previous crab experience. Every Friday in the summer they like to go down to the wharf in Nanaimo and get some fresh caught crab for dinner. Because the crab lived happy lives up until they are caught, I felt like this was an acceptable animal to eat. I forgot, however, how difficult it is to eat crab legs. Here is my lovely crab resting peacefully on my plate.

My aunt was very excited and took many pictures of me preparing to begin the eating of the crab.

Don't I look apprehensive? It took me probably about 5 minutes just to crack into the first one. I just couldn't get the cracker thingy to work. I remembered that the previous time, I had gotten quite skilled at the removal of the meat from the legs, but I couldn't remember what technique I had used. When I asked my delightful hosts to share their secrets, they just laughed and told me not to rush.

I look happy here, but most of the 70 minute eating of the crab consisted of me furrowing my brow and saying, "WHY IS THIS SO HARD????"

Although it took me forever, and each morsel was barely a taste on my tongue, I would say that overall this frustrating experience was pretty delicious. And I think I will do it again next summer.

Back to the farm

*Sigh* I just got back from a really great trip to San Diego. It was so, so nice to be around friends and in a real city with real restaurants and bars and such. I think the trip shocked me out of my denial about the fact that I have moved out of Austin and now live in the middle of nowhere. I have been going along my merry way here in Sackville, pretending that my friends and the awesomeness of Austin were just hiding, and that I was just busy. Last night, when I got home and donned my rubber boots to take the dog for a potty break in my 2 acre yard, the contrast between life in the real world (San Diego) and life in Sackville really struck me.

I went from staying in a fancy 4-star hotel with this view:

To this:

But, I think the cuteness of the puppy makes up for the difference at least a bit:

Damn she's cute!

I realized when looking for pictures to add to this blog entry, that I only took 2 pictures the entire time I was in SD, and both were out the window of the hotel. I will have to get some from my lovely associate who took at least a couple more than I did.

I am also very happy to be headed to Vancouver very soon. Hopefully the extended exposure to a real city will help get it out of my system. Perhaps I will even get so angry at the traffic there that I will be relieved to head back to my little town.

Hugs for Nova

Nova misses her aunty Nanci, so to make her feel better, I give her hugs, Nanci style. (Also known as smothering). I think Nanci does it better, though.


Hugs for Nova from LDH on Vimeo.

The (lack of) customer service Pt 2

One evening, D and I went into Moncton to get some stuff at Home Depot. We decided to grab some fast food because we are broke, and encountered what is becoming the signature lack of customer service in our region. We decided to go to Wendy's because it satisfies my needs as a vegetarian and D's needs for spicy chicken sandwiches. We went into a Wendy's in north Moncton, and both of us had to pee. Thus began our exposure to the most disgusting bathrooms outside of a truck stop. I had to pee SO BAD, so I had no choice, and the bathroom smelled so strongly of pee that I gagged the entire time I was relieving myself. Apparently the men's bathroom was equally as disgusting. The whole experience turned us off the thought of eating there, so we decided to go to Tim Hortons. Pretty much the only food item Tim Horton's serves, besides doughnuts, is sandwiches. Unfortunately, when I ordered my sandwich, I was told they were out of bread! At a place where they bake bread and doughnuts on a regular basis! This wouldn't have been as annoying if the exact same thing hadn't happened at a different Tim Horton's location a week earlier. Clearly there is a running-out-of-bread epidemic that needs to be addressed. We ended up at A & W, which was also filthy, and there were two people working the cash registers, and one guy just standing there staring into space. I think his job was to fetch the soft drinks, but I only saw him do that once. The rest of the time was just spent staring. Even when I told him that the ketchup dispenser was out of ketchup, he just sort of stared at me, and certainly did not attend to the ketchup.

When we walked in to A & W, there was no one in line ahead of us, but there were about 8 people waiting for food. We both ordered veggie burgers and were told that those might take a couple of minutes because no one ever orders them. Twenty minutes later, we had our food. I have officially decided that there is no such thing as fast food in this area of the world.

And don't even get me started on the town coffee shop. I have never seen such slow moving, high-on-pot-looking people. The coffee shop does have good coffee, good food, and a cool atmosphere that reminds me of Austin coffee shops, so I keep going back, but ordering anything more than regular coffee there takes absurd amounts of time. Ds mom commented while she was here, that no one else seems to mind waiting in the long line just to order and then waiting for 10 minutes for their drink to be made. Maybe we are just jerks.