Menu changes

I spent the morning analyzing the wedding menu and making it a little more streamlined. I originally wanted to do a big crawfish boil for the rehearsal dinner on Friday, but the logistics of overnighting 200 pounds of live crawfish, then finding two 80-pound boiling pots to cook them in, plus providing all the fixin's for 75 people, were proving difficult. Not to mention that overnighting 200 pounds of crawfish would cost me about $1000, and who knows whether the FedEx guy could find our little house way up in the mountains in time? So I eliminated the cost and the panic factor by cutting the menu back to crawfish gumbo. I can use frozen crawfish for that, and I don't have to find an 80-pound boiling pot to cook them in.

Same process for the pig roast on Saturday--I was having a hard time finding a caterer willing (and able) to roast a whole hog and then deliver it. Either I had to get the pig with all the trimmings, which I didn't want, or I'd have to drive three hours to pick it up myself, which I didn't want either. So I'm going to roast several huge pork shoulders instead. Same great taste, no "ewwwww" factor from guests unfamiliar with picking through a hog carcass, and significantly cheaper. I'm hoping to channel all the saved money into more beer purchases.

The underground foodie scene in Pamplin, VA

Well, I'm just gobsmacked. The teeny-tiny town I grew up in (Pamplin, VA: population 200) has finally developed a few links to the outside world. Yesterday, while reading Serious Eats (one of my favorite foodie blogs) I discovered an old article about Frog Bottom Farm, an organic CSA farm in Pamplin. My reaction ran the gamut between "WTF? In PAMPLIN?!" and "That's so (expletive deleted) cool," and "Why didn't anyone tell ME about this?" I checked out Frog Bottom's website and discovered that although I don't know the owners (they moved down from Northern Virginia), they're the sort of people I want to know. Small, locally-owned, organic CSA farms are exactly what I was searching for all those years I lived in New York, and now here's one in my (former) backyard. What are the odds?

So I did some more Googling and discovered a wealth of local wineries, small organic free-range pig/poultry/lamb/goat farms (here's one), local apiaries, microbreweries, and even more CSA farms. There's a WINERY. In PAMPLIN. (Until about a year ago, Appomattox County was completely dry.) There's even an off-the-grid modern Danish kit house in Pamplin now, complete with solar panels and recycled insulation. The community of food outliers I'd always sought in New York, hanging out in the wilds of Central Virginia.

I was appalled that no one had bothered to tell me of these new developments, so I called my parents and asked them why they hadn't told me. "Well, you don't live here anymore," my mom helpfully pointed out. Apparently these small farms are struggling--the locals are notoriously wary of outsiders, and an organic CSA farm will win no favor with them, the vast majority of whom already maintain their own extensive vegetable gardens. In New York, when your options are 1) buy organic from the farmer's market or 2) go to the corner deli and pay $3 for a head of lettuce that's doused in pesticides, shrinkwrapped in plastic, and flown in from Chile, it's no wonder that people are increasingly turning to #1. But out in the country, where people already grow their own vegetables, there's no incentive to pay the premium for "organic" at either the grocery store or the farmer's market. I get that. I'm sure Frog Bottom's customers all come from the bigger cities in Virginia.

But it still warms my heart to see a burgeoning community of people who share my passions about food right in my own hometown. Now I want to locally source the food for the wedding, featuring the local organic veggies and pork and maybe even some local wines/microbrews. I realize I'll be the only person at the wedding that cares. But that's what the locavore movement is about, right? Supporting the farmers around you? I hope these ventures take root and become successful. I'm having pleasant daydreams of living in Appomattox Country again, surrounded by fresh-grown organic fruits and veggies, free-range chickens and pork, local wines and microbrews, sitting on the back porch after a good meal talking about all those things with fellow foodies. And trust me, never ever before this did I ever have a pleasant daydream about living in Appomattox County again. If they manage to conjure up a good cheese store, all hope may be lost for me.

Finances hurt my brain.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to clean up the household finances. You know, all that grown-up stuff you have to do when you get married: plan a budget. Make a will. Get life insurance. Et cetera. It's proving more difficult than I thought it would be, for various reasons--and most of these reasons are outside my purview, meaning I get to spend a lot of time beating my head against the wall, wondering why the universe keeps throwing up so many stumbling blocks. All these years I thought I was the fiscally irresponsible one--I didn't have kids, or a mortgage, or a car, I had a lot of credit card and student loan debt, I had a fetish for international travel and expensive shoes. Turns out I'm a lot more financially savvy than I thought (debt load aside). I'm hoping that once the combining process is finally complete, then it will just be a matter of maintaining the whole thing--that I won't have to spend every month, in perpetuity, beating my head against the wall.

The first priority, of course, is paying off the debt. I think I'm going to get a second job, waiting tables or something, to help expedite that. If my new stepson is going to live with us, we need a bigger apartment and a second car, and right now we can't afford either one.

The good news is that a dry run of my taxes will yield enough of a return to pay back all the money I owe the IRS. So that's one debt crossed off the list. I guess that's the good part of not making any money--you don't owe any to the government!

Lots of weird dreams last night. I dreamed Pockets was coming after me with a knife, and then I dreamed another close friend of mine was dead, and then the old I'm-being-forced-to-go-back-to-high-school recurring nightmare cropped up. Good times.

I have a job!

That is, a permanent one! My temp job was officially made perm today--the financial firm I've been working for is finally extending an offer. Pro: they're offering more money than I'm currently making as a temp. Plus benefits. Con: that amount is more than $20K less than what I was making in New York, in essentially the exact same position. More con: I could make that NY amount in LA or San Francisco. San Diego's labor force seems to be retardedly underpriced.

But there's not really anything I can do about it--the high-priced jobs don't really exist here and the salary offer they made was firm (non-negotiable; and yes, I asked). So I'm taking it, and breathing a sigh of relief. Now I can go to the dentist, start my 401k back up, and not have to worry about my paycheck disappearing.

(Well, sort of. If this past year has taught me anything, it's that you can't assume anything. So I find it helpful to assume two completely contradictory things at once, i.e., I will have this job for the next year, and, I could lose my job tomorrow. But hopefully not.)

Addendum to Deep Thoughts on a Friday

Oh, and my aunt's in Haiti. She's a nurse. Currently fixing broken people. So there's that to think/pray/worry about, too.

My aunt and uncle go to Haiti every year on a mission trip, so she knows the country well and is able to travel around with people she already knows. Fortunately her updates are regular and the country is not the seething cesspool of violence CNN makes it out to be. Most people are helpful and courteous and do not fight each other while waiting in line for clean water. But there is too little food, clean water and medical attention to go around. The water runs grey with filth and the air is thick with the smell of rotting bodies. Wounds are beginning to fester because they've been untended for so long. I hope she's able to fix some people, and get home safely. And I think I'm going to go update my earthquake insurance.

Deep thoughts on a Friday

A very dear friend of mine has a two-year-old who's just had a brain tumor removed. They're waiting for biopsy results. I'm praying to every god I can think of.

Which makes me want to be all responsible and stuff and file a will and an advanced health care directive. Which makes me think I should get a life insurance policy, and maybe some supplemental long term care insurance, and I really hope nothing happens to me between now and the wedding because I still have no health insurance. And I really, really hope my soon-to-be-stepson will learn how to enjoy food that doesn't come out of a fast-food wrapper so that he can avoid overuse of said health insurance.

This thing with Pockets, and now this cancer scare, makes me want to round up all the people I care about and give them a really big, long hug.

Pockets update

I sent a wedding invitation to Pockets, with a note. In it, I asked her forgiveness. I told her I missed her, that I couldn’t imagine my wedding day without her, that I hoped she wouldn’t sacrifice thirty years of friendship over this.

Her Facebook status later proclaimed me to be "selfish," "without respect or boundaries," and "stupid."

So, lessons learned. I don't think I can say or do anything else at this point to win her back. Maybe I just have to chalk this up as the cosmic price I have to pay for love and happiness. Maybe my mother was right about her all along. Maybe I should have listened to my brother all those years ago when she blew up on him in a similar fashion. Well, anyway. Net loss: one best friend. Net gain: a husband, a son, and some pretty super rockin' in-laws. There's no real contest, of course. But. Damn. I miss her.