It Ain't Over 'Til The Fish Stops Flapping

Thursday

This past Tuesday, Ro started a sports skills class that meets weekly after school for an hour. They will cover the fundamentals of basketball, field hockey (it's a co-ed sport here), soccer, rugby, etc...until the end of this last school term. They started off with basketball, and Ro had a blast learning to dribble and shoot with all the other kids.

The local home improvement warehouse has a playground, which Ro put to good use

To Ro, anything that bounces is good

Window washer at The Anchorage

Today, Kathryn invited Sherry and Ro over after school to watch Bill bring the kentiki in. For those of you who aren't in the know, the kentiki is a fishing system that utilizes a motorized hauler that carries a fishing line with multiple hooks out into the water, and is connected to a winch for retrieval after letting the lines sit in the water for a long period of time.

http://www.kentiki.co.nz/

Kathryn and Sherry dropped Mat and Ro off on the beach with Bill, and went up to have a coffee, since they live just across the road from the beach. After a relaxing chat, they decided to go take snacks and water to the boys since it was time to bring in the kentiki. Ro and Mat were building a sand castle along the dunes, having a great time. Bill had already started the retrieval, and what a catch! He caught 12 large fish, mostly golden snapper.

By now it was getting late, and Kathryn and Bill insisted Sherry take home two of the large snappers, but as she doesn't eat fish herself, she just took one to surprise Mark with when he got home from his evening shift for midnight supper. She asked Bill for the quick and dirty on gutting and scaling, and he and Kathryn made it sound so easy, Sherry was certain she could do it on her own for the first time in her life and make Mark proud.

Her confidence began to dissipate as the huge snapper Bill had bagged for her kept flapping...and flapping...and flapping. And that was just the walk from the beach to her BIKE. Ro was delighted at every little squeal Sherry let loose every time the fish flapped. On the bike ride home, with the fish flapping in the bike basket and Sherry squealing, she kept wishing it a quick and merciful death. Sherry stopped at Sunny's to see if there was such a thing as a fish scaling tool for sale there, and left her bike with the fish still flapping outside the store. Alas, remembering Bill's advice to "just use a sharp knife," she settled for a sharp kitchen utility knife and brought the flapping fish home as the skies blackened and threatened rain.

Sherry set about cooking tacos for Ro per his request and put the fish in the sink, where it continued to flap, albeit less frequently. After Ro had eaten, the fish had finally stopped breathing, and the moment of truth had arrived! Was she Womouse or Woman? She armed Ro with the camera to document events, starting with a smiling shot of her and the fish. The smile evaporated quickly as she laid the fish on the stainless steel sink sideboard and made the ventral cut, "not too deep, to keep the gut intact."

How hard can this be?

The fish flapped violently! Sherry screamed and held the new slit together. Ro snapped a photo but ran to hide when Sherry continued squealing and the fish kept flapping! Sherry had to coax him out of the hallway, begging him not to leave her please, that the fish was not going to bite her (as Ro thought), but explained that mommy was just sad because the fish might be hurting. Ro patted Sherry on the legs and said, "Oh mommy, you can do it!" but quickly retreated to a safer vantage point behind the bar.

Gotta love that woman

After the flapping ceased, seemingly eons later, Sherry quickly realized she would have to now pull the insides out. "EEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!" she squealed with high drama. Ro offered to "do this part" with frighteningly morbid interest, but Sherry declined. After the insides were outside, the scaling saga began.

Sherry made one pass with the knife in the direction shown to her by Kathryn, and three things happened. First, scales went everywhere, including her hair and down her shirt. Ewww. Second, she pricked her finger on something sharp - on the fin? Her own knife? She was too busy spitting out scales to notice. Third, she fruitlessly consulted YouTube for a "how to" video to make sure she was scaling correctly. She was. Turns out, scales just go everywhere, and if it wasn't pouring rain outside, she would've been out there. Instead, she put the fish inside a clean garbage bag and just went for it.

When fishy was prepped and ready to throw in the oven, she stuck it in the fridge and set about cleaning. She found scales all the way over by the dining table, a good twelve feet from the scene of the crime. While tidying up, she noted that Ronan did not offer to help with this leg of the journey, and was more interested in drawing ancient sea creatures (think megalodons and orthocones) on the patio with his colored chalk.

Most of Ro's self-portraits were blurry because he would turn the camera around too fast to look at the picture

When Mark crawled into bed at 5am, Sherry woke up and asked him if she'd done a good job. "It was tasty, honey!" and when asked if he bit into any scales, "only about a half-dozen." Oops!