Crabbin down Bal'mer

Baltimore named their new football team The Ravens, in honor of Poe -- an alcoholic depressive pedophile who died incoherent in a gutter. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

The Zoo is still more animal prison than zoo, but the inmates are active. The prairie dogs were highly entertaining, as was the polar bear. But the small mammal house is enough to make you join PETA.

We ate lunch at city cafe, near the symphony and allegedly the site of the city's first gay dance club. Original marble floor desparately in need of repair, but holds some sentimental and/or historic value.

The city that invented urban blight and shoebox housing now boasts, "Reading by Nine!" and they don't mean "in the morning." The narrow streets of windowless buildings look like a breath of air could blow them away. Gaping holes in particle board walls, and greasy screenless windows.

But, damn, those crabs. The blazing red crabs, smothered in Old Bay, so hot you can't touch them, and the meat falls off, so it really is better to wait, but you just can't stand it. You should order a salad, but you don't -- just the pitcher of beer, a wooden mallet, a plastic knife. Fork? Why bother.

You work up a sweat getting to them, and wonder how Native Americans chose this creature to keep instead of throw back. The second one is the best because it's cooled enough, your technique is better, and you're not full yet ("foo," sat the locals). The sun finally set and the flies went to bed, the breeze dried the sweat on our foreheads and we sailed through #3, deep in conversation and not even noticing.