First Time For: Shrimp!

Growing up, my family and I never really ate seafood, so when I get an opportunity to try it now (or anything new and different for that matter), I'm totally game to try!
Sometimes though, being a complete novice at this whole 'seafood' thing, I get a little surprised:

Once, a friend invited me over for dinner and said she'd be serving fish.
"No problem," I thought. "I've had fish."
...but not the way she served it. I walked up to the pan to grab a helping and found... a fish. A legit, whole fish. My only experience with eating fish prior to that was a de-scaled, de-boned, de-everything fish.
However, not one to let on that I was surprised, I calmly proceeded to dish up a helping for myself. Things were proceeding well until my friend noticed I was delicately removing the skin (scaly part) from my piece of fish.
"You don't eat that?" She quizzed.
"Oh, ummm... can you?" I asked.
"Oh yes!" She replied enthusiastically. "And if you don't want yours, I'll eat it."
I glanced down at my plate and the fish and it's skin...
"I'll try some." I said. After all, it couldn't be that bad, right? Actually, right. To my surprise it was quite good! Who knew fish skin would taste so... good?

Since I never grew up eating seafood, there's a lot of things I haven't tried from that food group. I've never had shrimp before in my life: until today. First. Time. Ever.
 

And the verdict is...?
"WHY HAVE I NEVER HAD THIS BEFORE?!"

I really, really liked it. Granted, it didn't taste anything like what I'd imagine it to taste like, but I was hardly disappointed. More, I think, pleasantly surprised by it's unique taste.

Such a sad thing when you come to the end of a good thing...

I have a feeling that in the future, I'll be seeing a lot more of shrimp... we're bff's now.

If you've never had shrimp, go and try it. Now. You won't regret it. Just make sure you don't eat the tail thingy at the end. Unless of course, chewing forever on a crunchy tail is your type of thing. If so, chew on my friend!

Poetry Piece: Caged Spirit

When you write a daily poem every day, sometimes it's hard to come up with new and interesting subjects that you have not yet already written about. Of course there's nothing wrong with re-exploring a subject you've already explored, but from time to time, you just need something DIFFERENT.
When I run out of poetry inspiration, I turn to my friends for help.

"Hey (so and so, insert name), can you help me out? I'm trying to write a poem and I need a one word prompt. What's the first word that comes to mind? Anything!"

From there, I write a poem about whatever word they give me. Sometimes the subjects are... interesting. But I write a poem with it anyway. It's a great challenge!

This poem, Caged Spirit, is from a word prompt I got from a friend on Facebook. Her one word prompt? Spirit. As soon as I read it, I was completely inspired and excited by the possibilities for the poem. It's amazing what a single word can invoke in the mind of a writer!