Had a much better night’s sleep last night. I was able to get about 7.5 hours of snooze time, interrupted by only one trip to the bathroom. Being off the constant saline IV drip certainly has its benefits!😊 Today’s big adventure will probably consist of tracking down and then ravaging an honest-to-God crawfish boil for lunch. I’ve never had the little buggers before and I’ve been itching to try them, along with all the good Cajun fixin’s – potatoes, sausage, corn, shrimp, maybe even some Boudin balls. (I have no clue what these are but I’ve seen them listed on a few restaurant menus and, well, what the hell.) My next step: Review how to actually EAT mud bugs without looking like a complete rookie.😄

I’m waiting for the caffeine jolt to kick in from my first real high-octane cup of coffee. I sincerely hope it doesn’t knock me flat in my current weakened state, but I’ll report the consequences. It certainly tasted a whole lot better than the thin tasteless sludge that passes for coffee in the hospital.

Well. That was interesting. We’re back from our crawfish boil lunch and while I really enjoyed eating the little buggers, they were a LOT of effort for not a whole lot of payoff. Plus, the tips of my thumbs and first two fingers on each hand are thoroughly trashed. The shells are extremely hard, much tougher than shrimp shells, and while I had reviewed the technique on a few YouTube videos, I found myself using my teeth as makeshift shell crackers because roughly half of our two pounds of mud bugs refused to leave their shells without a struggle. Also, the videos didn’t tell me that there was a nice little nugget of meat in the claws but it was virtually impossible to get to without specialized hardware of the type used to break whole lobster apart. Still, I’m glad I tried them, and the sides we had were very tasty and helped to fill in the spaces left by the small amount of meat extracted from the critters. The Boudin balls were especially good, sort of like a cross between large hush puppies and egg rolls. On the whole, it was a worthy experiment, but I don’t think I’ll be ordering crawfish again any time soon.

Yes, I’m eating again. (Veggie roll sushi. Yum.) Yes, I’m being a shameless glutton. Nope, I don’t give a flying phfffftt.😆

One of my offspring (Basil) cooked dinner tonight – a delicious pasta with home made pesto and roasted veggies. I’m so grateful for my kid and my family as a whole. I had hoped to be able to prepare dinner once during my break but I don’t think my strength will hold out long enough for what I had in mind – scratch-made xiaolongbao. Also, I’m having a hard time tracking down the ingredients here in town, though I haven’t yet been over to Granzin’s meat market. I scoped out our HEB today but they didn’t have what I was looking for, which admittedly are some pretty strange items. Ah, well… I can always wait until my next break. I should hopefully be feeling a bit less fragile by then.😊