Shrimp Sauce?
Well, crap. I knew automatic bill pay could have a downside, and now I've found it.
It seems that somehow $187 intended for TXU Electric went to MBNA instead. What I can't tell is if this is a bug in my bank's bill pay software, a mistake on my part when selecting the payee from the dropdown menu, or nasty gremlins who've commenced wreaking havoc on my otherwise reasonably good bill payment history with the electric company.
Regardless, I'm sending them a real check this time, and we'll see how that works.
If this indeed turns out to be a problem with the bank's online bill pay system, I'll be very sad, as it's so much easier to just punch the little numbers in there and let it do it's thing, as opposed to filling out checks and finding the book of stamps and writing return addresses and going to the post box to mail the bills.
* * *
Last night Tommy's shrimp-fishing parents were in town visiting from Louisiana, and they hosted an old fashioned crab and shrimp boil at his house.
I learned how to crack open a gulf crab. Generally, I'm a self-proclaimed prodigy with snow crab legs, and do pretty well with lobsters, but when holding one of these little gulf crabs, about as big as my hand, I wasn't really sure where to start. I just kind of stared at it, and the crab's beady little black eyes just met my stare as if to say, "This is a sign, dude. Please don't eat me. I know I'm dead already, but allow me a little bit of dignity, will ya?"
After some quick lessons and three crabs later, plus a nasty cut in the finger (those little guys are sharp), I had it down pretty good.
I can't recall for sure, but I think I ate half my weight in shrimp, too — at least about a pound and a half of them, anyway, judging from the three plates of shrimp shells I threw away.
I could not believe, though, how many shrimp were still left over. Having grown up as a seafood fan in land-locked Lubbock, TX, (the closest things to "local" seafood were farm catfish, and crawfish that some ranchers would stock their watering holes with) I had been taught at an early age that crab, shrimp, and most fish were too expensive to waste. "You're the one who ordered the fillet of sole. You need to eat the rest of it."
Reconciling myself to walking away from a bag full of about 30 boiled crabs and a folding table still covered with about 40 or 50 pounds of boiled gulf shrimp was very, very difficult. At least the hosts assuaged my stinging conscience a little by sending some shrimp home with me (an 8 or 10 lb. bag, no less — I have no idea what I'm going to actually do with them). I'd hoped that the cat would help me eat some of them, and he seemed interested enough in the scent of the bag when I got home, but upon being presented a plate containing three of them, the cat looked at me like I was taking out my last lurch into insanity onto him personally.
Guess I'm on my own with this. . . .
It seems that somehow $187 intended for TXU Electric went to MBNA instead. What I can't tell is if this is a bug in my bank's bill pay software, a mistake on my part when selecting the payee from the dropdown menu, or nasty gremlins who've commenced wreaking havoc on my otherwise reasonably good bill payment history with the electric company.
Regardless, I'm sending them a real check this time, and we'll see how that works.
If this indeed turns out to be a problem with the bank's online bill pay system, I'll be very sad, as it's so much easier to just punch the little numbers in there and let it do it's thing, as opposed to filling out checks and finding the book of stamps and writing return addresses and going to the post box to mail the bills.
* * *
Last night Tommy's shrimp-fishing parents were in town visiting from Louisiana, and they hosted an old fashioned crab and shrimp boil at his house.
I learned how to crack open a gulf crab. Generally, I'm a self-proclaimed prodigy with snow crab legs, and do pretty well with lobsters, but when holding one of these little gulf crabs, about as big as my hand, I wasn't really sure where to start. I just kind of stared at it, and the crab's beady little black eyes just met my stare as if to say, "This is a sign, dude. Please don't eat me. I know I'm dead already, but allow me a little bit of dignity, will ya?"
After some quick lessons and three crabs later, plus a nasty cut in the finger (those little guys are sharp), I had it down pretty good.
I can't recall for sure, but I think I ate half my weight in shrimp, too — at least about a pound and a half of them, anyway, judging from the three plates of shrimp shells I threw away.
I could not believe, though, how many shrimp were still left over. Having grown up as a seafood fan in land-locked Lubbock, TX, (the closest things to "local" seafood were farm catfish, and crawfish that some ranchers would stock their watering holes with) I had been taught at an early age that crab, shrimp, and most fish were too expensive to waste. "You're the one who ordered the fillet of sole. You need to eat the rest of it."
Reconciling myself to walking away from a bag full of about 30 boiled crabs and a folding table still covered with about 40 or 50 pounds of boiled gulf shrimp was very, very difficult. At least the hosts assuaged my stinging conscience a little by sending some shrimp home with me (an 8 or 10 lb. bag, no less — I have no idea what I'm going to actually do with them). I'd hoped that the cat would help me eat some of them, and he seemed interested enough in the scent of the bag when I got home, but upon being presented a plate containing three of them, the cat looked at me like I was taking out my last lurch into insanity onto him personally.
Guess I'm on my own with this. . . .