Oysters, Authors and Me

March 1st. According to the old saying, if the weather comes in like a lamb, it will go out like a lion OR the reverse. I haven't really figured out whether today was a lamb or a lion. When I pulled back the curtains this morning, there were big fluffy snowflakes floating from the sky. Lots of them. For people who are looking forward to spring, I would say that this is not a good sign. But it was all mellow, and warm. What I did notice was that there was no sky...



By the time, I walked out of the gym two hours later, the sun was shining, and all the snow that had collected on my walkway was gone. This is definitely good - the shoveller seems to have left the country.

By late afternoon, the sky was cloud-filled and grey, and still warmish.

What does that sound like to you?? Lion or Lamb?

I was weary this morning after a weekend of the joy of staying up late. Both evenings, I took advantage of my non-requirement to get up for work, and I enjoyed being awake in the quietness of the night. Part of my waking was that I found this, having been introduced to it by a Facebook friend.

How I spent the early evening on Saturday was at Oysters, Authors and Ale....making literacy everyone's pearl. This was a fundraiser for the local literacy group. The evening included the oysters, readings by authors and brew by the Nelson Brewing Company. An added treat were chocolates from Nelson Chocofella.

When we arrived at the door, I was presented with a sticker...



The oyster fare was cooked, smoked and raw. There were 3 types of cooked oyster - the one I chose had fresh tomatoes and asiago cheese - quite the presentation inside of its shell. What I thought at that moment was that there was not anything in my entire life that had melted cheese on it that I didn't like. Melted cheese has got to help. So here I was, years away from that young girl who refused to eat many foods, facing an oyster.

What I discovered last night as I ate my asiago cheese crusted oyster is that oysters are not that big, and they don't really take that long to eat. Good thing.

During a break from the readings, I looked down at my sticker on my jacket, and said, "I guess I can take this off now - I'm not a virgin anymore."

Well, technically, though I had eaten an oyster, I hadn't eaten a raw oyster. So I went back in the queue. Except now, there wasn't a queue. The shuckers were pretty much done their work, and so I got some one-on-one training. My friend, Randi, was also there to help me along. First, the shucker loosened the oyster from its shell, and then I squeezed lemon over top. "Take a sip," she said. "Taste the ocean?" Indeed. Randi advised to go for the tabasco sauce which I dribbled over top of the oyster. Earlier, Randi had advised that not a lot of chewing was necessary.

I tipped back the oyster shell and the oyster was gone. Down the hatch, so to speak. A done deal before I knew it. All that was left was fire in the mouth.

We wandered back to the table, and then I had a thought. There were two oysters inside of me, one cooked and one not. I realized I had a question that I might have asked the shucker ahead of time.... It brought up a new question... Was that second oyster squiggling inside of me?