The voice was familiar...

I went to pick ZBoy up from camp the other day, and as I passed through the entry building, I heard a man talking to the front desk lady. He was a rather large man with gray hair and a friendly face. He didn't look familiar, but his voice was. I didn't pay attention to their conversation as I pushed through the second set of doors and headed down to the playground where the kids gather for pickup.


Z was in rare form that day. It was the day of the "split pants emergency" and he begged to stop in at the museum shop before we left. I agreed that we could stop to look, but no buying!!!


He zipped into the store and started buzzing around all the displays, while I mosey'd over to the cashier's desk to inspect the mood rings on display. The cashier came out of her little office all smiles.


"Oh, it's too bad you weren't here about five minutes ago!" she twittered.


"Why is that?" I asked.


"We had a very special visitor. He was over doing some voice work in Pensacola and stopped by here on a whim on his way back to Orlando. Isn't that neat????"


I looked at her blankly. "Who, exactly, was it?"

None other than the voice of Eyeore!!!!



FLORIDA GIRL DISCOVERIES
I'm not sure how I managed to grow up in Florida and not go fishing. Or even know about scalloping and that there is a season for it here. I don't remember ever even eating a scallop before Darling Man introduced me to both scalloping and scallops. But as with fishing, he took me in hand and took me out to the shallows looking for scallops. Quick little things. They look like they would just sit there and you could pick them up, but NO. You reach, they squirt water through their shell and the chase is on.


I learned how to catch them, clean them (a long, involved process - which is probably why they cost so much if you just buy them), and eat them - fried, steamed, stir-fried, broiled. They are my absolute favorite seafood, even more than shrimp.


I don't actually GO scalloping much. The weekends are just crazy, wall-to-wall boats, and I have a job that likes me to be in the office during the week. Darling Man's schedule is much more flexible than mine, so this last week, he and his friends George and Ross went out to gather as many of those succulent little bivalves as possible/legal.


They've been rather sparse in the last few years - and small. Perhaps the hurricanes of 2004/2005 just really kept things too stirred up for them. But this year? JACKPOT!

They made their limit off the St. Marks Lighthouse in 45 minutes.

And they weren't little puny things. They were quite large for bay scallops!

When they finished, Darling Man came by work to get a spoon (for cleaning) while the other two guys brought the boat in and showed me the entire catch. A whole cooler-full! We got to keep a third of them.

See the eyes? They're the little blue dots in the scallop of the shell. They rim the whole shell, which is probably why they're so good at spotting people intent on catching them. Unfortunately for them, we catch them anyway.


So dinner that night was fried scallops, cheese grits, whole wheat french bread and salad.


I may have to change my "last supper" listed in a meme somewhere from Thanksgiving fare to this. I can't think of a better way to go out.