The abalone was trying to escape. And, for the last few minutes, I had been formulating a plan to assist it. I lifted the ceramic lid again. The mollusc was still firmly attached but its strong muscular foot was slowly curling toward the rim. Anthropomorphizing is a tricky business, so I hesitate to say it knew it was in mortal peril. Still, it was clear that it did not want to be in that dish and, by extension, part of my meal. That made two of us. I looked around the room at my companions. All were engrossed in the contents of their own platters, eliciting the kind of focus required for a dining experience that had thus far been a bucket list of foreign tastes: shark heart carpaccio, sea urchin roe, greenling sashimi, a gelatinous cube of anglerfish, and a heaping portion of raw cod testes. Would they notice if I slipped the abalone into the folds of my yukata robe? Would they care? A Japanese woman in a floral kimono re-entered the room. Our server. She crouched near my platter with a smile and lit the fuel canister under the dish containing the abalone. If we were going to make a break for it, it was now or never.
Do you ever have those moments when you think to your (present) self how much you appreciate your past self? For me, this usually happens when my past self has done something really nice to help me (i.e., its future self) out. Something like leaving extra bobby pins and a hair elastic in my coat pocket. Or remembering to bring the umbrella back from campus even though the sun came out just so I wouldn’t be SOL during the next thunderstorm. Or, more recently, refilling the poo bag container immediately after using the last one so that I’m not left staring at a massive pile of dog shit in the middle of a deserted field with naught a bag in sight. Anyway, these are things that my past self has been known to do. Somehow though, it did have one recent major slip up. (Warning: the rest of this post, including the photos, may not be suitable for a squeamish reader.)
So we got a dog. A puppy in fact. A rough collie puppy to be specific. And I knew the instant we brought him home at 9:17 p.m. on June 7th that our lives would never be the same.
So it’s taken a while, but I am finally giving in to the gentle—well, some of it not so gentle—prodding from my substantial fan base (thanks, Wilf…Lucas…Jenn) and jumping back on the blogging wagon. And really, I shouldn’t have any excuses. I finished 
salt heart | wet coast 