I Can Smell Those Shrimp Just Beginning to Boil

It's not very obvious but if you look closely, you can you see a little dragonfly doing a handstand on one of the hurricane lily petals. It practically begged me to take its picture. It was probably a young'un. "Hey lady! Look what I can do!" 

I could have done better with the photo but the mosquitoes are suddenly raging and ravenous. I guess we had a recent hatch from that last big rain. They are bad. Bloodthirsty little fuckers. Slap, scratch, slap, scratch. Curse. Repeat. 

You know what? I don't really have a thing to write about. Today was a resting day. I remembered the Sabbath and kept it wholly here at the Church of the Batshit Crazy. Of course I made the traditional Sunday morning breakfast or at least the one we eat when the kids aren't here and demand their pancakes. Bacon or sausage is always involved, as are biscuits. Today we had grits with those and eggs instead of air-fried potatoes with onions and peppers because I was feeling really lazy. Grits require no slicing, dicing, chopping, or peeling. The biscuits were decent and I got out some of last year's fig preserves to go on them. 

I patched a hole in a pair of Mr. Moon's shorts. It's a lousy patch in that he said that he might still end up wearing those shorts to town sometimes so I should probably try to match the patch to the shorts in color and not do any fancy embroidery stuff on them. And I tried to keep it all neat but, well, as I told him, from fifty feet away no one will be able to see the patch at all. 
It's on the butt so if someone sees it and is perturbed by my messy-ish patch, it is on them. Don't be looking at my man's butt! Or alternately, fine. Look at my man's butt but don't be judging my patching skills! Or hell. Look AND judge. I really do not care. 

While I sewed, I watched some more of "Nine Perfect Strangers" on Hulu. I have to say that's a pretty decent series. They deviated from the book at the end but I guess that's just the way it goes. I sure do like Melissa McCarthy. That woman can act and by the way, she's beautiful. Excellent casting there. I'm warming up to Nicole Kidman a little bit. It's only taken me about seven episodes but it is slowly happening. 

So it's a long story which I will not go into but yesterday Glen did bring home not only fish he'd caught but also some lovely shrimp from a local purveyor of seafood. And so I'm going to make a shrimp salad tonight- the recipe based on what our darling Anne-Helene from Norway used to make when she lived with us. Some of you may have heard the story of how a six-foot tall Norwegian woman came to live with our family but some of you probably have not. I'll just say that we met her and her traveling companion, a ridiculously handsome guy, in Cozumel in 1987. I thought they were rock stars, actually, but it turned out they were psychiatric nurses. Anyway, before you could say "Una margarita sin sal, por favor," Anna became part of our family. She was so glorious. 
And she made this delicious shrimp salad that was somewhat informed by what she and I had for supper many nights in Cozumel which was half an avocado with shrimp in it and a delicious dressing over it. So Anne's salad included good lettuce (not iceberg), tomatoes, avocados, small seashell pasta, peppers (I think), hard-boiled eggs, and cheese. Oh! And corn! And I made my grandmother's goop that she made when we had crab for dinner which was extremely rare even though there was a crab house packing plant right down the road from Roseland. Now eventually the crab house was torn down and at some point, Arlo Guthrie built a house on that property or bought a house that had been built on that property, I am not sure which, drawn to the area because his guru lived in Roseland and had a community based where I attended church as a child- The Roseland Garden's Community Church. 
I am not making this up. 
But that's all beside the point. The goop is the point and I have discussed this too. It is nothing more than mayonnaise, a tiny bit of Miracle Whip, and Heinz Chili Sauce, mixed together. It tastes a great deal like the dressing on the avocado/shrimp salad that Anne and I used to get at La Mission in Cozumel and so it is as integral a part of the salad as is the shrimp. 
Hank often asks for this shrimp salad for his birthday. And of course I make it. It is delicious. I am thinking I have forgotten an ingredient or two and I always worry about this. 
Hank- what have I forgotten? 
I always encouraged Anne-Helene to add black olives but she was not a fan. Sometimes now I do add them as we are fans. Especially Mr. Moon. 

Man. If anyone can take nothing and make something of it, it's me. It's like my ability to use leftovers to make more leftovers. I just did a search of my blog for "Shrimp Salad" and this ground has been covered more than the dirt in a too-small chicken coop with a too-large flock.
Okay. Maybe not that much. Or maybe more than that. I don't know. Here's the funny thing- I have so many stories I have NOT told. Some of them I haven't told because they are not entirely mine to tell. Some of them I haven't told because they are deeply personal. Some of them I have not told because they would be embarrassing for me or some other person. Some of them I have not told because it would be an inappropriate breach of someone's privacy. 
But hey! Who knows? The older and more dementia-ish I become, the more apt I may be to throw caution to the winds and tell it all. 

One never knows. 

Love...Ms. Moon