Sept in the TVM.... recruiting Males of Middle Earth!

[Tookish_Traveler]

Hmmm..... I thinking we ought to do shrimp month like we did the dinosaur thing a few years ago......

[heliona]

I had some lovely tiger prawns in Helsinki. In fact, I took a photo of them (the photos are my Flickr account). I'm in the middle of writing up a moot report, but I've forgotten when we went to one place, and I'm trying to remember it! Once I've got everything in order, I'll post it.

[Gamgee Wench]

Tooks....remind me, how did we do dinosaur month? (and how would we apply that to shrimp?) I do love shrimp scampi.

Heliona....looking forward to the trip report! I'm very envious. Also envious of Rosemorningstar and her meeting with rwhen. Well, I get to look forward to seeing NL in a year or so.

So....I woke up this morning and realized that it's been 5 years since my mum passed away. Kinda hit me hard. First, I can't believe how quickly that time went. Second, I can't believe how much I still miss her....so much I want to share with her. I wish she could see my kids now. Ahh well...death is part of life...but a crappy part. I'm glad we had her around as long as we did. (sorry about being a bit of a bummer there)

On a positive note....we finally got some good rain. We needed it.

[Cock-Robin]

One never gets over such things. My mom passed away 11 years ago this month, and it's still with me.

[truehobbit]

Big supportive hugs for Wenchie and Robin - - and I'm so sorry to hear about vison's husband, that went very quickly all of a sudden.
Rwhen, give vison a hug from me, too.

And, re, the recent movie disappointment, I think we should all make The Hobbit together! A TORC-project!!!

Mmh, I'm not a big fan of shrimps, but I like them occasionally and had a lovely dish of asparagus quiche with scampi skewers recently.

heliona, your pics are lovely!

I had a fabulous time m00ting in Helsinki.

[Tookish_Traveler]

Wenchie, the month we visited dinosaurs we met all sorts of them... Calmasaurus, Wenchiesaurus, and of course, the colorful Tooksasaurus....



I still got the pics on photobucket somewhere. :D:D:D


Has it been that long since your mom is gone? I've been using some of the cross stitch stuff you gave me. I'm glad to put it to good use!

:hugs: all around.


*goes off to do some shrimping*

[notlistening]

Oh, I remember the Tookasaurus now! I think I kept my dinosaur pic that she made up. Must be on my home 'puter.

Wenchie! A sad day for you. for CR too. Time is a great healer but one always misses one's mum.

I am still lucky enough to have my mum. I'm hoping she sticks around a lot longer to see the grandkids get bigger.

Rowan, you could stay with Torcers all round the world on your trip!

[SilverScribe]

{{hugs}} for Wenchie and CR. Though time helps ease the loss, it's a tribute to your mothers that you still miss them so. And it's good that you both have gentle and joyful memories.

Like NL, I'm fortunate to still have my mother with me, 84 and still ticking. I had lunch with her today, as I do every Tuesday. My sister was able to join us so it was like old times when we were still at home.

I think the Dinosaur Month was before I started hanging out with you buncha loons. Though the term Tookasaurus does ring some bells . . .

Off to watch another movie. I'm just too tired and brain dead to do much else.

I think I'll work from home tomorrow. I've damaged my cast so I may need to go for an "adjustment", LOLOL . . .

Have a good one all!!

. . . stumbles off . . .

:D:D

[notlistening]

Did you damage it by stumbling...

[Tookish_Traveler]

The infamous.... TOOKASAURUS!!111











LOL. In my search for the pics, I couldn't help but notice there were lots of Hugh pics. Maybe we should have a Hugh month sometime....


Hmmmm...had a few of Desmond too. Go figure.

[rowanberry]

to Wenchie and CR.

I'm still lucky to have both of my parents around. But, especially my mother's health isn't the best. Sometimes, when I get annoyed by her, I try to remember that she probably won't have too many years ahead.

Good photos, Heliona! I'll go and comment them when I've got a suitavle moment.

[Cock-Robin]

Nice pic of the Tookasaurus!

[IrisBrandybuck]

Wenchie, CR:

[heliona]

I obviously missed dinosaur month - I'd have remembered the Tookasaurus.

for everyone. This Friday would have been my "MIL"s birthday - it's been just over a year since she passed. We're all getting together for a late lunch.

My mother is fighting fit, but she wasn't when I was about 8 or 9, so I'm grateful for all the time I have with her. My father too is well, for the most part, but life has made me realise to be grateful for the time we have with everyone, be they young or old.

Rowan, please do comment and correct anything that I've got wrong! I did try to use the internet to get some of the names correct, but that doesn't mean they're right!

[SilverScribe]

Did you damage it by stumbling...

Nope. By carrying a case 'o wine downstairs . . . But to be fair, it was damaged before that. I honestly think they just didn't glue that bit properly and when I was doing the normal flexing, which I'm supposed to do, it started the degeneration . . .

Good photos, Heliona! I'll go and comment them when I've got a suitavle moment.

Did I miss the link?

ROFL Tooks!! And i think a Hugh month sounds . . . delicious. We could follow it with a Dr. Who month . . . hmmm . . .

Okay, working from home means that I really should be working, LOL.

Have a good one y'all. Later!!

:D:D

[Tookish_Traveler]

Hugh month...sounds great. :D:D We will plan on that soon.

A case of wine, Scribbles??? Stocking up for the winter already??
:D:D




But, since shrimp month is t0by's fault.......





....here is the tasteh oldtoby shrimp!!!!!







:D:D:D

[SilverScribe]

A case of wine, Scribbles??? Stocking up for the winter already??

Winter? HAH!!! As if any of this has a hope of making it to the winter . . . Try "stocking up for the month" . . . We'll likely be having folks over for a lot of BBQ's so it's always good to have a dozen or more bottles on hand.

ROFL!! on Teh Toby Shrimp. That could become a classic.

OK. time for lunch . . .

:D:D

[Storyteller]

Shirimp month? That's so not kosher!

[Tookish_Traveler]

Well, you can drink Scribbles wine, can't you?????



And how about some nice tasty salmon???


:D:D

[heliona]

Salmon? Did someone mention salmon? Love the stuff. I'm now a convert to Finnish salmon soup. *drool*

Scribbles, you didn't miss the link, I just mentioned that they were up on my Flickr account (and I also put a link to them on Facebook, which may be where Rowan saw them).

For the benefit of everyone else: they should be here. Just click on the "Helisnki set".

[Hiril Elfwraith]

Shrimp is good, even if most cocktail shrimp sauces are too spicy for the me-person; I am a very mild gal culinary-wise. Salmon is yummyful too. Just not my mom's salmon rice soup. Not my fave. You lot would probably like it, though...

*forgets what she was going to say, if indeed she was going to say anything impressive at all*

So...um...yeah.

Oh yeah...in Social Studies, my class is watching Forrest Gump, and today we watched the part where he gets to be a gazillionaire in the (wait for it...) shrimp business. :D:D

[Storyteller]

Well, you can drink Scribbles wine, can't you?????



And how about some nice tasty salmon???


:D:D

I can definitely eat the salmon. Any fish with fins and scales... which means eels are out, in case anyone was going to serve one. *Glares at Tooks*

I first tasted shrimp when I was maybe 12. (Didn't know a thing about Judaism at that point except that there were these few days every year when my parents would bring home that crunchy stuff called matzo and my grandma would make chicken soup with matzo balls.) Seafood was rare and difficult to buy where we lived, but my mom went to Moldova to visit her school friend, and she took me with her. And in Kishinev, they were selling tinned shrimp meat, which was pricy but tasted nice.

Later on, in the really hungry years when meat shops had nothing but dust and cockroaches on shelves, at some point they started selling squid meat. It was plentiful and much cheaper than normal meat, but it was bitter when boiled and hard as a shoe sole when fried. Nobody could figure out how to cook it, so nobody bought it. My dad, who is resourceful beyond reasonable, managed to find someone who either was a sailor in the merchant fleet or worked on a fishing trawler, but the bottom line was, he knew how to make squid edible. The meat shortage issues were solved for a good few months

[Tookish_Traveler]

*Glares at Tooks*

Hey! Why do I get blamed for everything? I normally only send spiders in the mail....

There used to be lots of eels in the Susquehanna, but they are hard to find now. Pollution and dams and all that.

As for squid.... :P Anybody who can make that palatable is a culinary wizard!

Salmon is one of my faves. yum.
As is Perch, for some reason.



*realizes she has a rubber snake in the drawer at work...wonders if it will pass for an eel*


Hiril, I was thinking of using BubbaGump shrimp sometime this month.

[heliona]

Give squid and octopus a very good beating before cooking it - that's generally a good start. (You see people beating octopus on the piers and breakwaters all the time in Greece and other places where they catch and eat a lot of it.)

Personally I can't eat the stuff because of the squeaky texture - it drives me up the wall. The same goes for green beans - I love the taste but when they are squeaky I cringe every time I bite into them.

Anyway, just to say that my Helsinki moot report is up in the relevant Events thread, if anyone is interested.

[SilverScribe]

heliona, Ihate to be a bother, but when i click on the link, all I see under Groups are "NWT Nature" and "Lookup Glasgow" . . . I know y'all think I'm a total Luddite because I don't have Facebook or Flickr accounts, LOLOL . . .

I looooooves Salmon, British Columbia Wild Salmon to be exact. Verrrrrah Tasteh. We BBQ a lot of it in the summer.

Hiril, LOLOL! I've so missed your posts . . . and you too.

A meat shortage ST? Yowzer. I think squid is like haggis. When it's good, it's very, very good, but when it's bad, it sucks the hind one HUGE, no question about it. I love calamari, but when it's prepared badly, it truly tastes like deep fried rubber bands. Eck.

Well, I got in to see the cast/splint technician today and had to hang my head in shame when I held up my broken and fibreglass-taped mess. LOLOL. Luckily this stuff is very repairable and she's exquisitely skilled, I was in and out of there in under an hour with a fixed splint that's as good as new . . . and a whole new list of "DON'T DO'S" . . .

Hehehe, now I can see how this baby will hold up to heavy gardening.

. . . goes off to read heliona's moot report . . .

:D:D

[notlistening]

We could follow it with a Dr. Who month . . . hmmm . . .

I'm IN!!!

I'm with Heliona on the texture thing. ewww! Then again, except for some fish, I don't care for seafood much.

Tooks, why am I not surprised you have a rubber snake in your work drawer?

Scribbles, you really have to come down here for wine. We have (according to my wine drinking friends) have the most excellent wineries in Oz. A lot within a 90 min drive from my place. And since I don't drink, I can do all the driving whilst you and hub imbibe!!

[heliona]

That's all right, Scribbles. I can't actually access Flickr from work, so I just put in a link that I could remember!

However, I'd forgotten that I'd posted a direct link to the album in the Events thread. So here it is - hopefully.

[SilverScribe]

No worries heliona, I caught the link in the moot report. Mmmmmm, those shrimp DO look absolutely delicious. I'll have to go through the album again after dinner, looking at the pics of you folks eating has made me hungry!

:D:D

[truehobbit]

The dinosaur month must have been before my time, too - looks like fun!

Scribbles - wine is to be kept within reach for drinking at any time, not carried all the way down into the cellar.
Glad your cast could be repaired so quickly.

*packs to visit NL and the wineries around her*

I don't like shellfish for the texture much, either, but I'll eat it, if it's just a part of the dish.
I had some octopus in Italy last year, where it seemed to be a local specialty - I liked it. I like salmon much more, though.

Pics from Helsinki will be a few days more, for me - it's my guy's birthday tomorrow and it's a long weekend for most people, too, and from what I understand, he's planning on our being together pretty much the whole time.
Not that I mind, but it'll mean another weekend of getting nothing done. I guess I still have to learn how to combine normal life with a relationship - at the moment it's beyond me how you can have a life of your own when you're together with someone all the time. Ah well, party first.

[heliona]

Hobby, you're still in the early stages of the relationship, that's why. Of course, you can point out subtly that you may want some time to yourself to do things that you like to do, on your own, although I would suggest that around his birthday is not a good time! (Wish him happy birthday, by the way.)

Plus, after a while, doing things on your own isn't so bad - it doesn't feel like you're spending time that could be better spent with your other half. Although I would also suggest that you get used to sharing things with someone and therefore when you are doing something on your own, want that other person there to share it with you. When I was down for my exams and had the weekend to do what I wanted, although I enjoyed myself cycling around the woods, I knew that I would have enjoyed it more if Wilko had been there (or in fact any of my friends. But I'm a very gregarious person.).

Surely you can't be spending all of your time with each other, though? You still live in separate places, so you must have some evenings to yourself. (I actually won't see Wilko for four days thanks to me working four night shifts, which is a bit odd, after having spent several days with him. )

Oh, yes, Scribbles, I forgot to say congratulations on your new cast/arm contraption being sorted so quickly. Bring on the heavy lifting.