Tuesday, September 13, 2011

No Electricity = Crabs

What to do when you have no power thanks to the hurricane? Meet up with your cousin and eat crabs! My cousin Ali and I had already had this Sunday lunch on the books for a few weeks. Well, when Irene decided to make her little visit to our area, we said, Naa-aah, you aren't going to make us cancel. So, on Sunday morning, Ali and her fiance Brian met up with Clint and me at a local Annapolis favorite, Cantler's. They are known for their hard crab. We had heard you might have to wait 2 hours to even get in the place. Well, not so on the day after the hurricane. We couldn't have picked a better time. *Note to Southerners like me who didn't know: When I say hard crab, I'm not talking about crab legs. No ma'am, I mean busting up the whole entire crab. This isn't just a meal, it's an event. Something that I have been told is a "Maryland thang." Apparently, hard crab in the Chesapeake is the equivalent to BBQ in the South. So of course I wanted to try it.



Thankfully, Ali had done this type of eating before and her instructions proved to be vital to my hard crab experience. Clint and Brian played it safe and ordered something else from the menu. Leave it to the girls to order the all-you-can-eat crab feast. Let me just tell you, it's not really all you can eat. It's more like all you can break open. Man, after the first 2 crab, I was getting sick and tired of cracking and hammering that puppy for only a few morsels of crab meat goodness. Final verdict: Give me the crab legs any day. I prefer not to have to beat out the guts and such. So much work for such little reward. Now I see why this is an "event." And my gracious, what a mess! However, so glad that I can say that I've do it now and won't look like a total idiot if I ever have to do it again. So glad I was with family!


Afterwards, we decided to take Ali and Brian our new favorite place, Menchies. You know Clint and I love any form of ice cream. Since this is frozen yogurt, we feel like we are saving ourselves a few calories. (Let's just overlook the fact that we top that yogurt with candy and sprinkles, m'kay!) This was a perfect ending to our meal since Ali and I were still a bit hungry. The amount of crab I consumed was more like an appetizer.


Thank you Ali and Brian for making the drive to our parts. Couldn't have been a better time!

Ali and me at the National Harbor back in May

After the crabs...told ya it was messy!



Mmm, Menchies. Please overlook the girl in green. She was having a rough time getting herself together without having power or a shower.

Unusual Weather

Or is it? That is what everyone around here keeps telling me. But, I’m beginning to think that I should pretty much just expect anything. I mean what would you think when you experience a 5.9 earthquake on Tuesday and a hurricane on Saturday? Even though Irene took away our power for 3 days, the earthquake was a bit scarier. Probably for the simple fact that we had no warning it was coming. (You better believe folks heeded the hurricane warning after we just had an earthquake.)

I was on the top floor of our building when I felt the first shake. I sat in my office for a minute but once the building started to sway and pictures fell from the bookshelves, I decided it was probably best to see what the heck was going on. When I stepped out in the hallway, our program assistant was bolting out of her office. No words were spoken between us; we just latched arms and make a mad dash to the stairwell. Side Note: Apparently, this is NOT what you are supposed to do during an earthquake. But how the heck was I suppose to know. In elementary school, we learned all about what to do in case of a fire or tornado but never an earthquake. (Don’t get many of those in TN.) And really, common sense wasn’t prevailing at this point, it was all about survival. My brain said, “Get the heck out of this swaying building that could collapse at any moment.”

Sad part about our little escape story was that it wasn’t until we were both safely outside did we wonder where our student workers were, oops! They ended up following us out but I guess it doesn’t say too much about us that we wouldn’t even think about their safety. Life lesson here is that when it comes to fight or flight, I’m more of the flight kind of girl, and you just better follow me out ‘cause I’m not waiting on you!
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