Birthday Tidings

How do you stick candles into shrimp?

Today is John's birthday and to celebrate in style we're heading to Red Lobster for their annual Shrimp Fest. No cakes, no candles, no overly gift wrapped presents. What we will have are plates upon plates of buttery-garlicky goodness of shrimp scampi.

What does "scampi" mean, I wondered. It does refer to the garlic-butter sauce, but is also a word for a shrimp or prawn, therefore shrimp scampi is almost like saying "shrimp shrimp". It is derivative of the Italian word "scampo" meaning "a kind of lobster". Thus ends our lesson in etymology.

I've made chicken scampi before and it tastes just as good as the shrimp variety. I wonder if there was a painful trial and error process in someone's kitchen to determine what foods could be "scampi-tized"?

I digress along a culinary path, forgetting that today is about John's birthday...Indeed, he is celebrating one of the unforgettable ages for it is not a milestone age. Next year will land him resolutely in "middle age" and he'll be due for a mid-life crisis.

Departing Soon

John is set to depart for North Carolina on the 14th, so about 8 days to go. He still hasn't received his "relocation package" from the company that will outline and detail what benefits he's been given. Perhaps all he will receive is a map and one of those lame compasses that floats in water and randomly points north?

He is taking Teddy and Stash with him so that he may have feline companionship. Honestly, it is Teddy that cannot live without John. Teddy requires a beard to nestle into and I lack sufficient facial hair. Teddy and I have never warmed up to each other. I'm too busy swooning over Smee to notice that there are the other cats. (Madam Ming is domesticating to the point now where she does accept the love and worship, even seeking it out.)

I'm considering soliciting for a roommate. There is plenty of house for another person to share, only I've never done anything like that before and hopefully will find someone suitable who must like cats.

By later this afternoon I just know I'm going to feel like a stuffed prawn.