Fish Story

I'm back! Did you miss me? I just noticed that I managed, just barely, to miss the ENTIRE month of June. Sorry.

I have to tell you...I'm just sort of that way. Inconsistent. Things in my life tend to happen in bursts where they get a lot of attention for a while and then just lie dormant. I'm sure it is a constant source of frustration to the people who love me, and it's something I've wanted to improve upon for my whole life, but...well, here we are. I can't promise it's going to change. And it doesn't mean I don't love you. :)

Having said that, things really were nuts around here. Shortly after the 10k life devolved into a flurry centering around the end of the public school year (WOW, that was intense) and our preparations for our stay in Colorado. Which is where we are now.

We're taking seminary classes out here. I love, love, love being a student, but this first class really kicked my butt. Mark was taking it, too, and we've been working pretty much nonstop for the last two weeks. I submitted my final paper this afternoon, and now I can breathe for a couple of days until we start the next class on Monday.

I'd love to expound on the virtues of Fort Collins, Colorado, where we are staying, but if I try to do that in earnest I'll blather on forever and never get to the point of this post. So I'll just give you a couple of highlights from our trip so far...

• Favorite scenery: OK, there's no contest here, but I had to include them. We're right at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. I tried to go to the end of the street and take a picture of them just now, but my crappy camera did the same thing it did with the supermoon. So here, once again, is someone else's much nicer picture of the Fort Collins landscape:

See? So pretty, right? They make me want to write poetry and buy trail mix.

• Favorite quote: Jack (2), looking at lots of new wildlife as we drive to yard sales: "Hey! I see a rabbit! Oh, wait...it's a horse."
• Most surprising personal discovery: Apparently my hair is curly. My hair, which has been pin-straight my whole life, can never, ever, ever be allowed to air-dry in New Jersey...the humidity does very bad things to it. Very bad. The other day, though, my frantic scholarly endeavors prevented me from drying my hair, and a couple of hours later I discovered that I had this beachy, wavy, not-out-of-control thing going on. Someone told me I looked "sun-kissed." (!!!) I will be experimenting and will try to photograph.

OK, enough. The real subject of this post happened a couple of days ago when our 11-person coaching group from our Biblical Interpretation class all went out to lunch together. We landed at some kind of Asian bistro (which: is it just me, or is that an odd juxtaposition?) where there was a sushi bar. I figured this was probably a sign from God that I needed to knock sushi off my list. One of the guys in our class, Joel, is half-Japanese and knows his way around the world of raw fish, so he agreed to help me do the following things:

1. Case the joint to see if it looked trustworthy. I've been told a number of times (though once would have been enough) that you can't eat sushi from a less-than-stellar establishment. He agreed, but to my secret dismay, the Asian bistro passed muster.
2. Choose what to order. Because I have NO idea. I told him that I'd let him pick for me, though I have to say, if the words "squid" or "octopus" had made an appearance, the deal would have been off.
3. Answer my many questions, all of which would likely be asked for the sole purpose of stalling once the sushi was in front of me.
   

After some deliberations, Joel told me that tuna and salmon are probably the most typical sushi choices. I ordered two pieces of tuna. And I ordered chicken teriyaki. Because I never promised I would eat a LOT of sushi.

When the tuna arrived, it looked like this.
Each piece was about three inches long, and elegantly simple in its construction: an oblong pile of white rice topped with a slab of raw fish. And it was a slab, to be sure. I had envisioned a cute little silver-dollar-sized nugget of rice wrapped in seaweed with a little piece of fish in the middle. This was...well, not that.

I took the above picture partially for you but mostly to stall. I wouldn't have gotten any meaningful photos of the event at all had it not been for my friend Pam, who sent me these pics from her phone when we got home. You can thank her. She's a lovely person.

Here's me taking the stalling picture.
See how big they look now? Am I wrong?

To the left of the pic is Joel, who has an actual sushi lunch in front of him, like a grownup who eats sophisticated food. Mark is on the other side, feeling not sorry for me.

"You know, no one is making you do this," he said.

"I want to do this."

"You don't look like you want to do this."

"It's on my list."

"You wrote the list."

"Shut up! It's on the list!" (I'm gracious and articulate when working up my nerve.)

He gave up trying to talk sense into me and returned to being supportive.

I looked at the tuna for another couple of minutes, poking it occasionally with my chopsticks. I learned about the wasabi (green pile of hot) and the pickled ginger (supposed to cleanse your palate...tastes like I imagine smelling salts might taste).

"People love this," I said at Joel.

"Yes," he confirmed.

"They eat it all the time."

"Yes."

"They eat it, and then later they decide they'd like to eat it again. On purpose."

"Yes."

I took my chopsticks and picked up one of the two piles, having been instructed that they are intended to be ONE BITE EACH. The Japanese must have very large mouths. I dipped it in the little bowl of soy sauce and held it for a moment. Then, mostly because at this point people were watching, I put it in my mouth.


My three impressions from the first five seconds:

1. It tasted fine. No fishy weirdness to speak of.
2. The texture was like...like...a cross between a roasted red pepper and a slice of bologna. Soft and wet, but firm enough that you had to actually bite through it.
3. One of these is a LOT OF FOOD to eat all at once. There was zero available space left in my mouth, which made the chewing extremely challenging. It had nowhere to go, and so I had to chomp away at it for about seven years.
   

Everyone around me was watching for my reaction, so I tried to manage a smile (though my mouth was too full to really allow it), but I don't think I really fooled anyone.
You will note that Mark is graciously not gloating.

Laughing good-naturedly at my reaction, everyone returned to their lunches and left me alone to battle my giant mouthful of marine life. I did eventually swallow it and take a long draught of Diet Coke. I even ate half of the other piece, because A) no one is the boss of whether I eat sushi, and B) I am an idiot. Then I turned to my chicken teriyaki, which has never tasted so good.

I suffered no ill effects from the experience, except that for the rest of the afternoon I was constantly aware of the presence of raw fish in my stomach.

Joel felt badly, I think, that I wasn't thrilled by my first sushi experience. There's no need for that...he was extremely helpful and patient. He suggested that maybe next time I should try something like a California roll, which I gather looks less like it has fish sunbathing on the top of it. I wasn't willing to commit at the time.

But having gotten over the hurdle of trying the thing, and now being three days removed and not having developed any frightening illnesses, I have to say it's not outside the realm of possibility. I might be brave enough to give it another shot. Anything's possible.

For now, though...check. Next.