{"id":3347,"date":"2013-03-31T17:47:18","date_gmt":"2013-04-01T01:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/?p=3347"},"modified":"2013-04-01T09:00:31","modified_gmt":"2013-04-01T17:00:31","slug":"another-lunch-by-the-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/?p=3347","title":{"rendered":"Another lunch by the sea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/sunflowerstar-eating.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"285\" alt=\"[IMAGE] sunflower seastar at lunch\" \/><\/p>\n<p><font color=#4F4E81>&#8230;click to listen:<\/font><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"\/RealAudio\/FleaCircus.mp3\" style=\"text-decoration:none\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/FleaCircuspg1.html\" style=\"text-decoration:none\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/moregn.jpg\"\/><font color=#4F4E81>&#8230;about the music<\/font><\/a><\/p>\n<p><i><font color=#346513>Don&#8217;t forget to tip your waiter!<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" class=\"twitter-share-button\" data-count=\"none\" data-via=\"alex_shapiro\">Tweet<\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>I looked up from my work to see a bright orange object flying through the air. Around here, I don&#8217;t usually see bright orange things in the sky. I think that&#8217;s more like  <a href=\" http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2013\/02\/15\/russian-meteor-explosion-videos-fireball-chelyabinsk_n_2694496.html\" target=\"_blank\"><b>what happens in Russia.  <\/b><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>The bright orange object was treated to a dizzying aerial view of the coastline, gripped in the beak of a first-winter herring gull who was determined to outpace five other, older gulls chasing him.<br \/>\nWatching the sharp turns and swerves, I thought of the car chase scene from  <a href=\" http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CSAN7ZX02eA\" target=\"_blank\"><b> Bullitt. <\/b><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Gull McQueen here got himself quite a feast: A Sunflower sea star. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/gull-sunstar1.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"288\" alt=\"[IMAGE] gull and lunch\" \/><br \/>\n<em>A sunflower sea star has twenty four limbs.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/gull-sunstar2.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"297\" alt=\"[IMAGE] gull and lunch\" \/><br \/>\n<em>Twenty three.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m really fond of these creatures. Almost every time we tugged a crab pot up over the edge of the sailboat hull last summer, instead of the Dungeness we desired, or along with them, would be one of these huge squishy guys:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/sunflowerstar-inhand.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"484\" alt=\"[IMAGE] sunflower seastar in the sun\" \/><br \/>\n<em>Thanks to Dan for his professional hand modeling services.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Forget about the Circle of Life. Let&#8217;s talk about the Triangle of Lunch:<\/p>\n<p>A friend eats a turkey lunch, and gives us some extra turkey parts.<br \/>\nWe put the organ donor&#8217;s leg in the crab cage.<\/p>\n<p>The crabs love a turkey lunch, too (although I think they&#8217;d appreciate a little deli mustard).<br \/>\nOne or more sunflower seastars crawl in right along with the crabs, and often take over: if they&#8217;re not sucking down some clam innards (see first pic above), these guys <em>also<\/em> love a turkey lunch. Hold the rye, hold the mayo.<br \/>\nAnd they can, cos&#8217; they have all those limbs to hold anything they want.<\/p>\n<p>When we pull up the pot a day or so later, we throw the seastar back in the water.<br \/>\nWe throw the female crabs back, too (how else would we have all these crabs to eat?).<br \/>\nWe keep, cook and eat the male crabs who are large enough to be legal (they carry little I.D. cards to show the bouncer).<\/p>\n<p>Voila: Our crab lunch, via everyone else&#8217;s turkey lunch.<br \/>\nThe Triangle of Lunch is complete.<br \/>\nAll for yum and yum, for all.<br \/>\nEven for those male crabs&#8230; for a while!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/blogpix\/crabs-sunflowerstar.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"426\" alt=\"[IMAGE] don't forget to tip your waiter!\" \/><br \/>\n<em>The Salish Sea version of a well catered party.<\/em><br \/>\n<span style=\"clear: both;\"><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;click to listen: &#8230;about the music Don&#8217;t forget to tip your waiter! Tweet I looked up from my work to see a bright orange object flying through the air. Around here, I don&#8217;t usually see bright orange things in the sky. I think that&#8217;s more like what happens in Russia. The bright orange object was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3347"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3372,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347\/revisions\/3372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexshapiro.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}