Fuck Christmas, Fuck it in the Face

This may seem like a brash and downright vulgar thing to say about the holiday on which our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was born, but I feel that it is the only way to truly express how much I love Christmas. I would totally fuck it in the face. I know that Christmas doesn’t really have a face, and that if it did it probably would look a lot like Santa but I’m willing to overlook these facts. Honestly I’d fuck Christmas in whatever orifice was open to me. Mistletoe or not Christmas is gonna get so royally fucked this year it’s not even funny.

My wife agrees and is totally down. We are going to run a holiday train on Christmas and totally fuck its junk up. When you see Christmas in the morning and it’s kinda walking weird, maybe looking a little sore, that was me and my wife. We were the ones who fucked Christmas so hard.

I love you Christmas, you dirty little whore. I know you only come once a year so I’m gonna make you come like you’ve never come before. You can be as loud as you want, you can scratch, you can claw, you can even pull my hair I don’t care. This year it’s all about you Christmas. We can try anything you want. You don’t even have to come down the chimney like you usually do.

All right, seriously though, I do really love Christmas. And I’m sorry if I’ve offended anyone’s sensibilities with all this x-rated Christmas talk. I guess in a way I’m trying to make a point. Christmas seems to have gone so far off the tracks that you very well might find it starring in some seedy face fucking porno. I mean, am I wrong? Hasn’t Christmas just become some sort of orgy of consumerism? Hasn’t the whole point of the holiday become some kind of macro-economic guilt trip aimed at herding us into the stores so that we can “rescue” our economy? Buy, buy, buy. Save, save, save. Now, now, now. You know you want it! Yeah, that’s right, give it to me, ew baby, ew baby, yeah, like that, with the charge card, yeah, I can feel it getting bigger, max it out, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Disgusting isn’t it? Well, I for one am just tired of it. It doesn’t get me off anymore. The catalogue porn, the window shopping, the mall, all the plastic Christmas cheer, it’s all a big turn off. I mean if I’m going to be forced into fucking Christmas I’m sure as hell not gonna do it in public. I’m not about humiliating the holiday. I’d want to go some place quiet, put on some mood music, maybe a little jingle bells or noel, maybe Chris G.’s album This Christmas Let’s Get Messed Up, turn down the lights and take things at a slower pace. I’d want it to be tender and meaningful. None of this impersonal wham, bam, thank you ma’am shit that the cheer mongers seem to be pushing. Just another one night stand. Get drunk and fuck something, anything, it doesn’t matter, you won’t remember it in the morning anyway. That’s just not how I roll. I don’t want to regret having sex with Christmas. I don’t want Christmas to regret it either. I want to wake up in the morning and be proud that I invited it over. Hell, I want to make it breakfast. I want to call it again.

But how do we get back to this kind of relationship with Christmas? How do we repair years of abuse and neglect, how do we make Christmas feel special again, pure and virginal? Well for starters we can stop using Christmas as an excuse to slake our perverted little desires to own more shit. Stop buying so much stuff people! I know they say that if we put away our credit cards we’ll wreck the economy. That we have to buy stuff because it’s part of our genetic make-up. And that if we don’t get people presents we’ll look like a cheapskate and a humbug. Well I say fuck what people say. Buying stuff is not the answer to a quality Christmas holiday.

I don’t really know what the answer is. I’m not a Christmas guru, an oracle, a trend setter or anything else, but what I do know is what works for me. This is how I make sweet love to Christmas. First of all I try not to kill too much shit getting my holiday nut. For example my wife and I went to this tree farm in the county and bought this live tree.

I know what you’re thinking, but despite the fact that it looks straight out of the Peanuts’ Christmas Special this tree is gonna be around a lot longer than any of us. We figure it will live in the house till spring, so as not to screw up its equilibrium with a sudden temperature change, and then we’ll keep it on the deck until next year when we’ll have it for our tree again. Cat has named it and everything. She calls it Frosty, but I think it should be called Sharpie, or Prickly, or something like that because this is the pokiest damn tree I’ve ever come across. Maybe it’s because it’s so young that its needles are so sharp, kind of like kittens and puppies, but twice now Frosty has drawn blood.

Honestly we don’t know too much about keeping a Sitka Spruce as an indoor pet but we did a little interweb investigation and it doesn’t seem too hard. It’s not recommended that you keep a tree like this one inside for more than a few days, but we’re going to go against that rule as long as Frosty doesn’t seem to be suffering. I’ve placed his pot inside a bucket that’s got a little water in the bottom so that he can drink what he needs. And I’ve chosen not to put any lights on him because the added warmth would be bad for his needles and his overall well being.

Instead I’ve painstakingly threaded a bunch of popcorn together to make a garland to drape over his branches. I used about three or four tablespoons vegetable oil, about a half a cup of popcorn, and popped it all on the stove top in an eight quart pot with a lid. If you’re going to use popcorn for decorative purposes don’t put any butter or salt on it. I let the popcorn cool for several hours then took this old sewing kit I got from some hotel and went to work. I never really noticed before how much individual popcorn kernels resemble octopus but it’s pretty uncanny. Here’s a random gift idea. If you have any Filipino friends or relatives get them a fresh octopus. They’ll be your friend forever I promise.

For gifts this year I’m giving homemade blackberry jam, homebrew, spicy pickled green tomatoes and a few little bottles of booze and some lottery tickets.

Cat spent three days putting together this massive batch of green curry for her gifts, grinding all the ingredients in a mortar. She’s going to get some “real” presents from me too, mostly functional and sensible things, but for the most part my family is just getting food. I don’t know if that makes me seem cheap or if it makes me seem thrifty and thoughtful. I don’t really care. If they don’t want the stuff then I’ll be glad to take it back. In fact I had real difficulty saving these jars of jam (I picked the blackberries after I returned from the Bay), and I’m having trouble parting with them now. No matter how I feel about this stuff I already know what kind of response I’ll get. It’ll be sort of like all the canned salmon and smoked salmon I’ve been giving my parents and brothers all these years. The jars will end up in their cupboard collecting dust, or in my Mom’s case in the back of the fridge with all those tiny forgotten bottles of horseradish sauce. My Mom is paranoid about botulism so she would never store something I’d canned myself in the cupboard where it belongs. She’d rather put it in her refrigerator where it looks like a bomb went off. I’ve cleaned out her fridge on a number of occasions and found food so old that it had grown its own personality. I’ve given up trying to rectify the matter though. I’ve tried to tell her that she should look in the fridge before she goes to the store but that’s a concept she just can’t understand. As a consequence there’s a lot of redundancy, a lot of spoilage and a lot of MIA’s. When Cat and I visit, my Mom goes shopping like she’s going to be feeding the fifth battalion for a month. We’re bombarded by snacking suggestions. Flanked by cookies and surrounded by dips and cheeses. Our meals are like a military parade. One dish after another hits the table in its own fancy bowl or plate, until an assembly the size the Red Army is lying there just challenging you to concur it. I don’t really know who wins these battles but there isn’t any quarter given because there isn’t anywhere in the fridge to put the leftovers.

I’m kind of off track here but it’s been that kind of day. My older brother is sitting across from me now holding forth on how global warming is bullshit, my Dad is tinkering with his new flatscreen tv, Cat is knitting her Christmas stocking. My little brother is trying to drink all the Wild Turkey before any of us get any, and my Mom is slaving away in the kitchen nowhere near emancipation. My older brother suggested that I wrap this up by quoting the last paragraph of It’s a Wonderful Life, but I think Cat’s suggestion is much better. She wanted me to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and remind everyone that every time a bell rings an Angel gets fucked in the face.

Merry Christmas everyone. When I sober up I’ll try and add some recipes for the jam and spicy green tomatoes. I’ll also explain how I think my sauerkraut when horribly, horribly wrong.

Now for the booze.

That's Not How My Mom Does It

We were fortunate this Thanksgiving to have several of our friends and family travel great distances to be with us for the holiday. One particular couple, Sarah and James, travelled from Northern California to visit our home and join us for the repast. I have known these two for as long as I’ve known my wife, and in fact have to give Sarah a lot of credit for getting us together. Well, I guess Evan Williams deserves recognition too, but the lion’s share definitely has to go to Sarah for her skillful application of his spirits.

Sarah and my wife have been friends for a long time. They lived together in Santa Cruz, California, both enjoying a carefree life of breathing fire, skinny dipping and all around hell raising. They have both walked the entire Appalachian Trail, Sarah doing the trip with James, and Cat, my wife, doing the journey solo a year later. I’m not sure how they decided on fishing together in Alaska but somehow by the grace of god they showed up one night on the beaches of Humpy Pointe to be part of a set netting crew that I’d been working on for ten years.


It’s funny how things work out sometimes. Going into that season I had been under the impression that I was ending a chapter in my life. My tenure as a salmon fisherman was coming to an end. I’d just started crabbing in the Bering Sea and my services were required for tendering in the Bay. Somehow I’d weaseled out of that summer’s detail to fulfill a commitment I’d made to my old boss and a desire I’d had to end my career there at an even decade. I had no idea what was about to hit me, no frame of reference that could have prepared me for the kind of female force that was about to descend on our tiny beach community. I got an inkling the morning after Sarah and Cat arrived, when I heard rumors that after reaching camp late that night they’d immediately stripped naked and ran into the Inlet. Naturally my first question was, why the fuck didn’t anyone wake me up? But then a more sober feeling came over me. As the foreman of the crew I was going to have to deal with these women. I had to be professional. I was their boss.

It really is funny how things work out sometimes. For one glorious summer I was the one giving orders. Now I’m the one receiving them. Honestly I don’t know if my wife ever took me too seriously as her boss. I know Sarah didn’t. She was the cook on the site and immediately took the position that she didn’t have to answer to anyone but the head honcho. I don’t know where she got that idea but it turned out to be right. Apparently ten seconds as the cook outweighs ten years as a fish choking grunt! I’d been the cook on several boats by that time too but had never started any assignment with that kind of presumption. I preferred to slowly work my way into a feeling a haughty contempt for the other fishermen. I liked to feel that I was on solid ground, that I could keep up with them on deck and cook the food that sustained them. Only then did I feel I could be as big of a dictator as I wanted. The same went for working in a restaurant. I felt out the place first. I didn’t just jump right in and start abusing the servers without first finding out who wrote legible tickets and who was capable of turning in their appetizer and dinner orders in a timely fashion.

I don’t know, maybe it was something about Sarah’s nature. She’d never cooked professionally before but she certainly had the aura of a tyrannical chef. She drew lines in the galley across which no one was allowed to cross, she scolded people for overtaxing the cookie jar and for wasting food, she stomped her feet and hollered directions like she was commanding a pack of dogs. I was thankful in a way for her strong management of the galley even though I was a little bitter about being treated like a three year old in what amounted to my own home. I tolerated it mostly because I didn’t know how to handle it otherwise and it was just one less aspect of the day to day operation that I didn’t have to personally oversea. Besides that she turned out to be a tremendous cook and a very funny and kind person provided you stayed out of her way.

Often times, while I had Cat, James and the other crew members out slaving away mending nets I would amble into the cook shack to look in on what was for dinner. I have always had a lot of ideas on how things ought to be done and so despite my better judgment I would offer Sarah unsolicited advice on how certain dishes should be prepared. I was never really aware that I was doing it until it was too late. Sarah would turn this hawkish look on me and squint her eyes like she was trying to figure out how best to rip out my throat if I said another word. It was at those moments that I realized just how limited my prerogative as foreman really was. It was much later that I discovered that my unwelcome advice had become kind of a joke between Sarah and Cat. As it turns out I was using the phrase, “that’s not how my Mom does it,” maybe a little more frequently than a grown man ought to.

At the risk of impugning my own manhood I have to confess that I am sort of a mama’s boy. My Mom was a stay-at-home-mom so I found myself under her governance most of the time. Far from doting on my Mother or being at her beck and call I spent my childhood in loving fear of her temper and in quiet awe of her energy and varied skills. I was genuinely interested in some of the things she taught me, like how to cook and sew, but was marshaled in a lot of other tasks, like weeding in the garden and vacuuming the house, that left me wishing she’d be hit by a bus.

Like most boys I had mixed feelings about my Mother’s influence over me. She never tried to force my brothers and I to play with dolls or anything but I did have an Easy Bake Oven growing up and I was encouraged to participate in the kitchen. I don’t know exactly how I got interested in cooking. The Easy Bake Oven was a big part of it I guess, the kind of science-like mixing of ingredients, the application of fire (what turned out to be a 60 watt light bulb) and of course the tasty baked goods that resulted. But even that came after a much more organic experiment I had undertaken in the street one hot summer day in July when I was about five.

My older brother and I were both in a pyrotechnic phase of our development, demonstrating our primordial powers over nature and trying perhaps to discover some distance from our Mother’s apron strings. We’d been disciplined a couple of times already for playing with matches so we’d sought other ways of harnessing fire by following our Father’s suggestions that it could be caused by rubbing two sticks together or by focusing sunlight through a magnifying glass. My older brother was always pretty analytical and also very bossy so I didn’t get too much pleasure from these attempts. We came close to causing fire several times but somehow I was always to blame for it not working out. I wasn’t rubbing the sticks together vigorously enough, or I’d stood in his light at a critical point in combustion. I’d just about lost all excitement for these experiments when on that hot summer day I’d overheard my Dad comparing the weather to when he was a boy, saying that “It got so hot when I was a kid that we actually fried an egg on the street.”

For the next hour I begged my Mom for an egg so that I could see for myself if it really worked. I’d never cooked anything before but I’d watched my Mom cook eggs on several occasions and I felt like I had a pretty good grasp of how it was done. First I would need a spatula and something to butter the street with. Then I would need salt and pepper and a plate to put the egg on once it was done. I can’t say my Mom wasn’t impressed by my knowledge of egg preparation but she wasn’t about to surrender any of these things to me just so that I could “make a mess in the street.” I promised on all things holy, crossed my heart and hoped to die that I wouldn't make a mess. I told her that I had every intention of eating my egg once it was done. I had big plans for that egg. I was going to put it between two pieces of white bread with mayonnaise and have it for lunch. This last part I think was what convinced her that I was serious. Not only was I going to cook something but I was going to combine it with other ingredients in a kind of rudimentary recipe, one, in fact, that she’d prepared for me before. I was showing real initiative, and, with my final suggestion that I might add some of that red stuff, like on the deviled eggs, signs of a natural flare for cooking.

When I reached the street and announced to the neighbor kids that I was about to make cooking history some sneered in disbelief and others gathered around with great enthusiasm. With an egg in one hand and a daring idea I had separated myself from the rest of the children on my block. For a brief moment I had become a minor celebrity. I was both exhilarated by the attention, and terrified by it. Suddenly I realized that I had to perform. I had an egg and an idea but no practical skills. I’d never cracked an egg before. I’d never deposited it on a surface without breaking the yolk. And that’s when it hit me; through all the jeering and yelling I could see a clear image of my Mom performing this task. Her motions were deliberate but effortless, a reflex from years of cracking eggs, a flawless, elegant transaction between a hard surface and a delicate object.

Cracking that egg and laying it on the street with such perfection was my first great triumph as a cook. Watching it sit there, raw and unresponsive, as the children lost interest and moved on to other games was my first great defeat. I don’t remember what happened to that egg once I realized it was never going to cook. Maybe a dog ate it, or maybe I’d cleaned it up like I’d promised. What I do know is that from that experience I can sort of trace my development as a cook. I know now how much I’ve relied on my Mother’s techniques over the years. They are the foundation for my confidence as a chef. And even though we no longer cook similarly (she is a disciple of recipes and I’m a scratch cook) I still have a tendency to relate certain foods to her masterful preparation of them. I know that it is sort of ridiculous to maintain that my Mom makes the best Caesar Salad on the planet, or the best Cheesecake, but I will never eat these foods again without comparing them to her achievements.

I suppose it is natural for a man to have a strong connection to the food his mother prepares. It is, besides gestation, birth and nursing, the most physical relationship and bond he’ll have with her for the rest of his life. This is perhaps why comfort food is so important. It is a reminder of our ancestry, and a genuine connection to our origin. It might also explain why a man might complain if a dish is not prepared like his mother made it.

Food is part of our individual identity, and Thanksgiving, more than any other holiday, is an expression of that identity. Personally I’m not totally married to the old traditions. Mine and my wife’s first Thanksgiving together consisted of Rib-eye steak and King crab legs. But when it came to this year’s giant gathering I tried to please all of our guest’s sensibilities. Turkey for the traditionalists. Oyster dressing for my Dad. Cranberry Sauce with Orange Zest, compliments of my Mother-in-law, and apples in the stuffing for my wife’s side of the family. Crab cakes and King Salmon because we’re fishermen and because seafood has always defined mine and my wife’s relationship. And our friends Craig and Kari (Craig is also a Humpy Pointe alum) brought a delicious Green bean casserole to round out the feast.

It was an added treat to have Sarah there to try some of my Mom’s and our family’s traditional offerings. It was also nice because when the question of gravy came up Sarah was able to step in and spell my Mother, who’s been suffering from a fractured tibia. I have to confess, Sarah does make gravy just like my Mom. That was certainly one thing I never griped about back on the beach.

I want to thank everyone for coming to our house this Fall and for all the wine and treats you brought us. We’ll do it again some time. I want to thank Sarah and James for the beautiful Hubbard Squash they left us (it’s about 15-20 pounds). I almost feel like it’s part of the family. It’s gonna be hard to carve it up some day but I plan on eventually featuring it in this blog.

I want to leave you all with a recipe compliments of my Mom.

Snow Pea Salad (part of our traditional Thanksgiving fare)

1 bag of frozen petit peas (12 to 16oz.)
Equal amount snow peas, raw and julienned
1 can sliced water chestnuts, slivered
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1 small bottle Kraft Coleslaw dressing
4 -6 slices maple flavored bacon, crisped and crumbled
1 small package hazelnuts or filberts, roasted and crushed

Set oven to bake at 300° F, place nuts on baking pan and bake 20 minutes.
Cook bacon over medium heat until it is browned on both sides, place on paper towel or used grocery bag to drain grease.
In a small microwave safe bowl microwave frozen peas for 5 minutes on medium to high heat depending on the power of your microwave. If you don’t have a microwave set the peas out a couple hours ahead of time to thaw.
Julienne the snow peas, sliver the water chestnuts, and chop the green onions widthwise.
In a large bowl mix the petit peas, snow peas, green onions, water chestnuts and desired amount of Coleslaw dressing (my Mom uses about 2/3 cup).
Over the top crumble the bacon and the crushed hazelnuts.

Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Balls

After ten days of company, fourteen guests for thanksgiving, numerous cases of beer, bottles of wine, of booze, and three different illnesses I have to say without the least bit of irony that I’d rather be sorting Opies.

I know that probably won’t mean much to those of you who have never had the pleasure but let me just say for the record that there is nothing, I mean nothing, in my experience that is more painful, more hopeless, more soul crushing, mind numbing, melancholy and self hateful than sorting Opies.

For the last couple of days I’ve been beating my head against the wall trying to shake loose some way of describing exactly what that experience is like but have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to render in a concise enough form to appear on this blog. To accurately describe its horrors would take an effort like Dante’s Inferno, or Celine’s Journey to the End of the Night. I unfortunately am not in command of those types of literary powers. I’m a fisherman and a cook. A man of simple expressions simply expressed. I mean, I may know how it feels to get kicked in the balls, all guys do right, but I’m not the guy who’s going to be able to finally communicate to a woman what that sensation is really like. And that’s sort of the position I’m in here with this sorting Opies reference. I don’t know how to communicate how bad it really is to somebody who’s never had the experience themselves. I mean, I could say that being at the sorting table is like being Sisyphus, that every time you think you’ve got the table cleared of one mountain of crab another nightmarish peak takes its place and the climb begins again. Or I might want to compare the experience to having back surgery without anesthesia. Or due to the table guy’s proximity to the shit shoot (a hole that opens to the sea where we eject all the small crab and rotten bait) it might be likened to being water boarded with vomit and tiny throwing stars. Whatever comparison I make it will undoubtedly sound like an exaggeration to those who have never been there. Kind of like when my wife has “play” kicked me in the nuts while we’re horsing around and just stands there laughing in disbelief as I writhe on the ground. “Oh come on honey, it can’t hurt that bad, I barely touched you.”

It does hurt that bad, and that’s why it always kind of surprised me that during Opilio season, during these grueling marathons of self-abuse, we would always joke that there was nothing in the world we’d rather be doing than sorting Opies. I don’t know if this was some strange brand of reverse psychology or just another aspect of the masochism that led us all inexorably to this particular profession, but the objects most often targeted in these lampoons were the best, most cherished thoughts of our lives on land. It seems that somehow by pretending to favor sorting Opies over, say, having sex with our wives or girlfriends gave us a kind of criminal pleasure, made us forget for a moment how miserable and inhuman we’d become. We knew it was wrong, that this subversion was like saying you’d rather be out stabbing kittens or mutilating yourself with a ball peen hammer, but we couldn’t help it. That was the sort of thing that passed as humor when you’d crossed over into the dark side of Opilio season. It was best just to embrace it. You could always rid yourself of these notions once you returned to civilization. After all they were ridiculous, weren’t they? How could any sane person favor sorting Opies over sex, or booze, or a turkey dinner?

With my prospects of ever embarking on another Opie season fading from view I guess I never imagined I’d hear myself uttering such an absurdity again. But after this last week, this long terrifying week of thanksgiving and its aftermath I have realized that there are some things worse than sorting Opies. Not far worse, but worse enough. Worse enough to make me nostalgic for the Bering Sea in February. Worse enough that I actually kind of miss those fucking little sea spiders we know as Snow Crab.

I guess things wouldn’t have been all that bad if I hadn’t started out the whole ordeal with a severe cold. I missed the god damn Marine Expo because of that cold and then bam, before I even had a chance to convalesce my in-laws were on top of me and then more company, and then more. I felt dog piled. I mean, each of these folks separately and in small doses would have probably had a medicinal effect on me, but all at once it was like poison. My mind and body were overwhelmed. I had this huge meal to cook, all these arrangements to attend to, socializing, schmoozing, boozing and all without losing the one thing I am most apt to lose while in the kitchen, my temper.


My wife was a real trooper. She knew I was being a prick but graciously gave me space and let me rush around the kitchen like I was saving pictures from a house fire. She and several other guests kept offering to help but as I was undertaking a well thought out plan I kept not-so-gently rebuffing them. My wife has always had a problem with my domineering nature in the kitchen. My mouth has never worked all that well while I’m in the middle of something time sensitive and complicated. It used to drive her up the wall when we worked together on a skiff set-netting for Salmon and something would go wrong and there was only a few seconds to fix the problem before things got irreparably worse and I’d just snatch whatever it was out of her hands and take over. She accused me of being a bad teacher because I hadn’t explained to her what to do while it was happening. I’ve never learned verbally, and as a consequence I don’t think I should be expected to teach that way. Watch what I do. Do what I do. Then you’ll be able to do it yourself. Until then, stay the fuck out of my way!

Anyhow, that’s neither here nor there. So I pissed my wife off this Thanksgiving. I’m sorry honey but it was necessary. Despite the bad blood between us the meal came off fantastically. The bird was beautiful. The fish was cooked just right. The crab cakes, though they seemed burnt at first, were crisp and delicious, and all the sides, the hors d’oeuvres, the relish, and gravy (which I will admit I stepped aside on because I have never had the aptitude) were all well timed and perfect.

Once the cooking was done and I announced to our guests that they could proceed to the kitchen to serve themselves buffet style I sank down on our velvet couch and felt like weeping. My Mom happened to be sitting close by and she looked back at me and said with a laugh in her voice, “It’s not as easy as it looks, huh?” I have to admit I felt a tremendous connection to my Mother at that moment, I was choked up, I wanted to fall to my knees and kiss her hand, to praise her for all those countless times she’d pulled together that exact feat. It’s not that easy, not that easy at all. Finally I’d been kicked in my Thanksgiving balls like she’d been kicked for all those years.

I know that prior to the meal a Thanksgiving toast was raised in my honor and that I in turn gave a toast to our guests, but the real dedication I think should have gone to my Mother, and to all Mothers for their tireless service and sacrifice during the holiday seasons. I’m happy to know that even though my Mom brought two hors d’oeuvres, a pea salad and dozens of cranberry muffins, she finally got to sit during a Thanksgiving gathering and actually enjoy the company. I guess that’s what I’m most thankful for this Thanksgiving.

Next on my list would have to be the fact that no one but me ate any of the left over Oyster dressing on Friday.

I knew going into this that it was only a matter of time before the cruel irony of naming myself The Deadliest Chef came back to haunt me, and that really, as a fishermen, it was foolish of me to tempt fate by slapping it so cavalierly in the face. I’m just glad that of all the nightmares I’ve been having about the consequences of this action the one least destructive to those around me was the one that actually struck. And I guess the fact that it was shellfish was a suiting punishment. But why dear god did it have to be on Friday? Wasn’t the crippling hang-over enough. Hadn’t I suffered bravely through my illness and in-laws? Now to smite me with such cruel disproportion! I just don’t know what to say.

All personal suffering aside I guess I should at least give you a word of warning. If you ever make oyster dressing (it’s the one in the blue ceramic dish) for god sakes refrigerate it immediately after it’s served. Don’t let it sit out half the afternoon and then the whole evening while you pick at the other leftovers. Don’t put it off so you can retire to the deck to smoke cigars, drink wine and scotch whiskey. Don’t ignore this smorgasbord of bacteria while you go gallivanting off to the store for more booze and smokes and lottery tickets. And for god sakes don’t break out the tequila and open some champagne before, as an afterthought, stoned out of your mind, you start cobbling together Tupperware to put away these crusty remains. If you’re going to do all that you need to just say fuck everything with fish or raw egg in it. Believe me you can’t trust your wife, who doesn’t even eat shellfish, when she says it’ll all be fine, that germs make you stronger. Remember she’s as drunk as you are and that even though she holds a Washington State food handlers card that does not make her a fucking Health inspector.

On the other hand, if you’re one of those people who harbors a great deal of gorger’s remorse after a huge feast you might just want to puke and shit yourself silly for two days following the holiday. I guarantee that on the Red Tide Diet Plan you will lose all those unwanted pounds. You won’t even want to eat solid food for several days afterwards. You’ll go back to work looking trim and pale, the envy of the office. While you’re co-workers are boring new holes in the end of their belts you’ll be delirious, floating out of your chair, your spirit lifting you as it tries to escape your body. It may not be the safest way to lose weight, but if it doesn’t kill you it certainly is effective.

On a closing note I have to say that despite e. coli, and in-laws, and lingering guests I have not thrown in the towel. In fact, given enough distance from the actual event I’ll probably tell people that it was fun. We fishermen are sick like that. No matter what misery we may face or how bad we piss and moan about it, we’re more than likely going to say we enjoyed the experience and would do it again once it’s over. I can’t figure it. And maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I should just be glad that come November next year I’ll be sending out those invitations all over again, ready and willing to face another massacre.

Bring on those Opies. I’m ready.