Gooooooooooooooooooooaaaaal!!!!!! (oriented)

Today was the first day of the rest of my clamming.

After a brief hiccup at the Southold town hall ("You can't turn the doorhandle. It doesn't open then," said the helpful chap who found us wandering around, bewildered that the building was locked at midday.) we became the proud recipients of official Town of Southold/Non-Resident/Non-Commercial Shellfish Permit(s)! We also became the confused recipients of a very thick, very grainy stack of photocopies telling us a great many things that I, at least, had no freaking idea how to interpret. Oh noes: we can't fish in our own creek? Oh, wait, we can if we are South of the Southern Southward something-or-other, and leewards of the osprey pole on the North-facing quadrangle, and only on alternate November 27ths. Or something. I am, admittedly, a very poor reader of maps, and after paying $50 for my permit, became panic-fully convinced that our entire area was "closed to shellfishing," After more careful map-reading, the DH discovered that we WERE in fact on the right side of the osprey pole, and so we were happily off clamming! Right after I got lost for like an hour looking for the bait shop so I could buy a clam bucket and a little net for The Child.

Okay. So NOW, we were happily off clamming! We just clammed up a storm! We were clamming here and clamming there, and having a great old time. Or rather, the DH was clamming up a storm, The Child was proudly putting empty shells in the clam bucket and catching enough laver in his net to feed Wales. I was determinedly fishing! I was fishing the "sporting" way, sans bait, with naught but a flashy lure and determination! Boy-howdy, did I ever fish! I fished, and I fished, by myself and not by myself, as my family clammed and kayakers came and went and every osprey on the island ate its fill of bluefish and then flew back to assorted Southy quadrangulous poles to laugh at me. I fished until the waters around me were alive with bluefish snapping mosquitoes out of the deepening dusk and I kept fishing when massive, ornery crabs suddenly burst forth from the eelgrass as though by prearranged signal, causing the DH to scoop up The Child from the crabbily roiling shallows. The DH and The Child returned to the house. I backed gingerly out of the water as foot-long crabs surrounded me, menacingly waving their claws like interpretive dancers trying to be trees. I stood on the shore, changed lures for the umpteenth time, and kept casting away, flashily and with determination. I caught laver. I caught more of that freaky Old Gregg hair stuff. I almost caught an osprey and went to federal prison, but didn't. I changed lures again, and kept casting into the by now crazily-jumping bluefish 20 feet from shore. I vowed to stay all night if need be.

After an indeterminate period of time, my dehydration-enhanced concentration was broken by a repetitive, urgent sound; it was the DH, hollering my name in a fashion both repetitive and urgent. Duh. As I turned to holler back, I noticed a somewhat confused-looking fellow on a bike doing his best to evince disgust at all the hollering. And then, I noticed something else! A tug on the line!! A BIG tug!! I hollered something unintelligible at nobody in particular, but I did notice that bike-man quickly rode away. I tugged, the (giant fish!) tugged back, and I ever so gently, carefully- brimming with pride- reeled in my line. Something very large and pale was at the end, fighting hard! As I delicately reeled in the last few feet, I finally got a glimpse of my (giant fish!)

A very large, pale, hard-fighting crab. I lost the crab. I wandered off towards home, feeling neither flashy nor determined. I told the DH that fishing without bait was dumb, and I was never doing it again. He said that it was more challenging, or something like that; that it was about the experience. I said screw the experience, I wanted my bluefish.

He said he forgot how "goal oriented" I was. He was right. I am not the sporting type. I am the type who wants to catch a fish, and preferably, many fish. I mean, sure I enjoy communing with nature and all that...as long as I catch my fish.

But at least we had all those clams, right?

Um...not quite. so after we had them all in the bucket, and swished them clean and all that happy stuff, I was stricken by an attack of law-abiding citizen's paranoia. I once again tried to make sense of the grainy photocopied maps provided by the town hall, and my paranoia increased. There were grey areas delineating off-limits areas, and grey areas delineating open areas. And the pages of regulations accompanying the maps appeared to delineate regulations either contradictory or completely unrelated to the maps. It felt sort of like trying to get legal advice from a Mel Brooks script, except less funny.

The DH put the clams back in the creek.

We ordered pizza and a chicken parm hero.

They were out of sandwich rolls, but luckily I am feeling less goal oriented on the hero front than the bluefish front. Mostly I just feel itchy. Very, very itchy. I just took 2 Benadryl but they don't seem to be working.

It was a really exciting day! I am proud of my family. Bluefish can wait; The Child wants to cuddle and that's just about the best thing ever. My goals just got reoriented! And I couldn't be happier.

In Summation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Z6tDSb6c8