Something Fishy

Got Georgia on my mind today.. and lotsa sweet treats for my holiday peeps. 

Welcome to Brunswick Georgia! 

I’ll discuss this morning’s ( totally awesome!) excursion momentarily, but let me tell you about last night’s Salute to the Seventies show.   

It turned out not to be that,  but something swapped with a show scheduled later in the week, a one man singer/ saxophonist/ pianist  named Lucas who brought lots of folks endless reasons to bop and weave to Elton  John and Billy Joel, while the octogenarians were comatose,still clutching their glasses of bourbon.  It was fantastic!

Ok. 

Now to recap this amazing excursion on the Lady Jane shrimp boat, with the beautiful rays reflecting on the ripples, the gentle breezes, and the angry birds.

You know how  many ways there are to prepare freshly caught shrimp?

You can boil them, broil them, deep fry them, bake them, lightly salute them….there’s red pepper shrimp and garlic shrimp.. lemon shrimp, pineapple shrimp and …that’s all I have to say about that. 

(And if you don’t get this reference you have no business being on my blog)

 

Oh! 

Before I forget.. 

Cruise Director Kyla announced last night to not pull on the red knob  in the staterooms unless it was a true emergency, and I’m thinking Kyla shouldn’t tell anyone what to pull or when and where to pull it.

Jim  and I  board the coach bus for the five minute drive to the pier when he noticed daggers darting from the eyes from everyone already aboard. 

They were all Arizonans and he was wearing his University of Michigan shirt. 

I told him to ditch the tee he bought yesterday that read, “ Calm Down, It’s Only a Gator” to a custom one that says, “Calm Down, It’s Only a Wolverine.”

( enough college basketball talk)

I feel so patriotic on this American Cruise Line adventure, filled with veterans and proud Americans. 

I begin to softly sing  to all of them, “ oh beautiful, for patriot skies, with amber ( vials of pills??)

The speaker on the Lady Jane looked a lot like Cam Tucker from “Modern Family” and he began to talk about the soft and muddy bottom of the river, plus very interesting information about marine life. 

We were constantly  followed by a flock of angry birds, aggressive pelicans who recognize shrimp boats like dairy state motorists recognize an Old Country Buffet restaurant each time they drive by one. 

The flock was so massive, so Hitchcockian,  that I’m grateful not to be a  petite blond named Tippi. 

There were 572 of them ( yes, I counted!) and one of them kept screaming out the word “ mine!” once the trawl was lowered, and we called  him Nigel because, of course we did. 

“Cam” lowered his trawl a total of three times, and everyone on board anxiously awaited what he’d haul back up. 

There was a tang fish who instructed everyone to just keep swimming.. 

The trawl was lifted, and its contents were put onto a large metal tray. Cam shoveled the undesirables back into the water and put the creatures he wanted to examine more closely into an adjacent tub. 

He holds up a gar fish  ( who I called Teri Garr fish) and began to fondle her from fin to tail. 

( couldn’t he at least buy her dinner first?)

He holds up a large, brown, slimy starfish that looked like a dirty bath mat I was too lazy to clean during the pandemic. Jim was instructed to toss her overboard after everyone had his way with her, and I’m not sure if it was suicide or not.

. I do know that a pelican got a nice healthy lunch. 

We saw way too many creatures to talk about in detail here, but I really liked the sponge. It was very sponge worthy, and it made the excursion one of the most memorable we’ve ever taken in all our years of globe trotting. 

There was also a sea creature that eats a fish’s tongue and becomes the tongue. 

Whatever the fish  eats, it also eats. 

If that doesn’t sound AI, I don’t know what does.

A woman on board the shrimp boat asked me on five different occasions where I was from, despite the words “ New Jersey “ being clearly written on my required lanyard I wore around my neck.

By the fifth inquiry, I just gave up and answered, “ originally Hong Kong,  but I moved to Dayton Ohio to study restless leg syndrome in small primates.”

She seemed pleased.

It’s as good as any answer. 

Today’s dessert was a white chocolate cup filled with raspberry mousse on a plate decorated with a lime drizzle, and  a man at our table remarked that it “ looked like somebody wiped their nose on my plate” so there goes eating for the duration of the trip. 

Stay tuned…​