Saturday, January 9, 2016

Gepetto's whale (the slippery beast)

This week, we were at the church, and the elders came in and were like, "Hey,
there's a present for you."
G.shimai (my companion): Is it a pony?
elder: Nope.
Me: Is it a whale?
elder: Close!

It was a gigantic fish. It was a salmon that could barely fit in the
church freezer. It wouldn't stand a chance in ours. We stared at it
for maybe two minutes.

Me: ...What do we do with this?
G. Shimai: ...Mount it on our wall?
Me: Play baseball with it?

We left it there, until we could decide what to do with it.


…Day two of worrying about the fish in the freezer.
…Day three of worrying about the fish in the freezer. (I found out my dear junior
does not like fish. So I am left to eat it on my own.)

THE FISH.
Take one, and...action!

After teaching and meeting people and working pretty hard, we decided to stop by the church and take home the fish.
This thing is gigantic – a meter long - so we string it under the flap of my shoulder bag and get going. (Now, I understand all you fishing professionals/Alaska frequenters are like,
"Please. We catch 5-foot salmon on bad days." but when you have no room in the freezer, the sink, or your non-existent bike basket; no way to cook it and not enough time to get home, you may as well strap Gepetto’s whale onto your back) We do pretty well until we turned off the main road and the monster fish slipped out of its holster and almost assaulted a passerby.

Me: *dismounts and picks up the blunt weapon* Sumimasen. Shitsurei
shimashita :) *apologizes and returns the fleshy ice block to its temporary home*
*remounts*

THE FISH.
Take two, and...action!

About five minutes later, the jostling disturbed the beast and it once again escaped face first onto the sidewalk. A man walking by stopped and picked it up. With a smile, he handed the monster to us and said, "Good fish."     In English.

M. shimai took the now-melting aquatic ice club and stuck it out of a plastic bag on her handlebars. This bag was a third of the fish's size, but we went on.

THE FISH.
Take three, and...action!

Another five minutes later, as we biked in a straight line, the fish leaped from its confines and bounced on the asphalt twice before finally resting as we met another passerby. This one, we used the fish as an opportunity to talk with her and had a fairly good, if short, lesson. Nothing came of it (Not today, at least ;) ), but with that, we finally got to take the fish home by wedging it between M. shimai's back and backpack.

THE END. (I'll tell you later how it goes when we figure out how to cook it.)

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