Zen and the Art of Arguing on the Road.

I recently went to a bridal shower. For those of you that may be of the "less fair" sex, allow me to explain that any sort of "shower" usually involves some sort of obligatory ice breaker type game. Not usually my cup of tea, but rules is rules, right? At this bridal shower all the guest were also supposed to provide the bride with a piece of advice to help her achieve everlasting wedded bliss. Thankfully, someone from the other corner of the room yelled, "These can be funny, right?"

So here was my piece of not-so-sage wisdom:

Your biggest fights can become you best stories.

Back in early summer of 2009 my husband and I relocated with our pets from Seattle to San Diego. This is roughly a 20 hour drive. We decided it would logistically be best to break the trip up into 3 days of driving. We would stay near the southern border of Oregon (Ashland) and then in San Francisco before making it to San Diego. Now San Diego was just a 3 month stint for my husband. We decided to live in our friend's spare room so we had packed 3 months worth of stuff while all our other worldly possessions went into storage. So to recap:

1 Me + 1 Husband + 1 Dog + 1 Pissed Cat + 3 Months worth of shit = Once packed Mini Cooper.

That's right friends, we drive a mini cooper. And a packed Mini Cooper it was. So packed, in fact that when we got to Oregon we discovered the trunk latch was no longer functional. That is when things got bad.

We were running late and trying to re-engineer our overnight bags into the truck of the car, but couldn't seem to get the trunk to latch. We kept shoving at boxes and shifting the smaller squishy items but to no avail. We are starting to run late. Then we realize that the trunk latch isn't catching. After about another 20 minutes my husband troubleshoots the situation and figures out that if he uses a screwdriver to manually close the latch and we don't use the key fob to open the trunk, but open the trunk by hand, then the latch will work properly.

Something you should know about me. I love rules. I love protocol. I love when things work properly. If they don't work properly I am 100% convinced it is only a matter of moments before they break in a catastrophic way.

Something you should know about my husband. The only time he is ever short tempered in an irrational way is when he gets hot and sweaty when he isn't supposed to be. For example, getting hot while working out, okay; getting hot while trying to repack a car mid morning in June on a beautiful sunny day in Oregon, definitely NOT okay.

I insist that we continue to repack the trunk to try and prevent any extra pressure again the hatch. I just kept imagining driving down the interstate and suddenly our trunk door just giving way while we are driving, leaving a trail of boxes and pets in our wake. I perhaps go a little overboard here. I climb in the trunk and essentially start trying to repack our tetris game of a car. Nick tries to reason with me. There is no reasoning. I am quickly approaching panic mode. Finally, looses his patience and rams the screwdriver he is still holding into a box. I instantly flip out. I accuse him of trying to stab me in the leg with the screwdriver. (The screwdriver was no where near my leg). He accuses me of overreacting (I totally was). And in what is truly my classiest moment I told him I would show him overreacting and proceeded to start throwing boxes out of the trunk and at my husband.

In retrospect, I kinda hope someone was watching otherwise I feel like that little bit of humanity would have gone to waste. I like to think that another hotel guest heard us and started watching what transpired from their window, then called their spouse into the room to watch. I know that is what I would have done.

I ended up storming off and going up to the hotel room and fuming for about 20 minutes and then realized what a jackass I was. The rest of our trip was really nice. There were no catastrophes. Our trunk didn't explode on the highway. We had a great time actually.

Years later now we still reference and joke about that fight frequently. It is one oh my favorite married stories. Few things show love more sincerely than being able to fly off the handle at each other in public and then be able to laugh about a few hours later, right?

I miss my sweaters.

Fall used to be my favorite season.

However, now I live in a part of the country where fall months are actually just an extension of summer, only with more rain.  And hurricanes.  A billboard told me today that hurricane season lasts until November 30.  What sort of crap is that?

So apparently I need to readjust my thinking and just say that winter is my favorite season.  Which just doesn't sound right, but whatever.

All I am really trying to get at is this; it is August 22.  It should NOT be 90 degrees and muggy.  The weather should be leaning towards this.

Pork

I almost had a small conniption fit at work yesterday because of this.

Some of you may remember that in October of last year Nick and I randomly went to Prince Edward Island , Canada.  Apparently there is just something about the months of August, September, and October that just make me want to get the hell out of town.  I would blame the ungodly heat and humidity of South Carolina, but in all fairness, I think most of our vacations have taken place in the fall, no matter where we were living at the time.

At any rate, I was at work thinking about how great that trip was.  How nice it was to need a jacket.  Then, I remembered we ate at this restaurant, Lot 30.  It was pretty much one of the nicest restaurants in town.  And I kinda get the impression that isn't saying a whole ton.  I am pretty sure that PEI is not really known for it's food culture and during the off season there are whole towns that just don't exist because there aren't tourists to populate them.  But this place was really good.  So good, in fact, that we went there twice in the 5 days we were in town.  The dish that really got us was this pork belly they served.  It was a miracle in food.  The pork meat was moist while the outside was slightly crispy and slightly caramelized, while the entire thing was swimming in a flavorful au jus.  It was life-changing.  We talk about it often.

So while reminiscing at work I found their website and noticed they had listed a recipe on their website? Awesome.  I mean how many restaurants do that?  So I click on the link and it is the recipe for the MOTHER-LOVIN PORK BELLY!!!!!!!!!

Soooooo.......I have a hot date with my butchershop and my kitchen next weekend.  I can't wait!

Fruit for thought

Some months ago I had taken some photos of fruit for a friend's kitchen.  Recently, she requested a few more which was great because it was the perfect excuse to try out my new macro lens for the first time.
Check out a couple of the images here.

While I was out.

A few people (primarily my mom) have wondered when I was going to post again.  So let me quickly catch you up on a few of the major things I have done since I have been away:

• I went back home for my sister's college graduation.
• I tried (and mostly failed) at learning functional Spanish.  The only things have really stuck are "Donde esta el banjo?" and various phrases and vocab one would use ordering food/drink.
• I planned and took a two week trip to Peru with my husband complete with various delightful travel disasters of the best kind.
• I did a little writing/design work for some friends that were changing their business structure.
• I photographed a wedding in a semi-professional manner for the first time ever.
• I took a weekend trip to Myrtle Beach.
• I traveled to the Chicago area to spend the 4th of July with family.
• I hosted some family coming into town.
• I spent a weekend at a hotel downtown celebrating a friends birthday.
• I took a trip up to Washington DC.

And these were just the major things.  Needless to say, I am SO EXCITED that (as of right now) I will be spending all of August in town.  I plan to spend this month happily getting back into a regular schedule, cleaning my house, and picking up my personal projects again.

Dodging a Bullet

It has been a few weeks.  Yes, I was busy, but more than that I just wasn't quite sure what to write.

The first half of March was abnormally heavy for me.  Nothing catastrophic for myself.  Nothing that really impacts my daily life.  Just a series of quite serious things developing for people around me.  It was the type of week that causes one to step back and take stock in where one is, where one is going, and from whence one came.  But above all, at the end of the day, it was the type of month where one just can't end up feel lucky.  My biggest realization, thus far at least, came last week.

When you move and travel frequently enough the world seems to become both bigger and smaller at the same time.  Bigger in the sense that you get to enjoy more of the world's variety.  Smaller in the sense that a broader spread network of friends and acquaintances makes the world a little more accessible and a little less intimidating.  The world felt particularly small when the earthquake and resulting tsunami hit Japan.  Within the past 6 months we had connections that had moved from Japan back to the states, we have connections in Guam, Hawaii and all up and down the West Coast.  Thankfully, no one we knew sustained any damage.  Although, amazingly enough, we found out a couple days later that a friend of ours had a layover in Tokyo a day before the disaster occurred.  Truly a lucky thing that he didn't delay his trip like he had initially planned.  It took me an extra few days to come to the realization that, had things gone my way, we would have been in Japan.

We had never wanted to move back to Charleston.  Our plan was always to go live abroad when Nick took his shore tour.  Japan was our first choice.  When Nick was assigned a position back South Carolina I was devastated.  Even though we have really settled back into the Charleston, made some great friends and love where we live, I still clung to some of the bitterness I had about moving back.  Until last week, when I saw the tsunami footage for what seemed like the 20 time (and somehow each time getting more devastating than the last) when it suddenly dawned on me that, for all intent and purpose, we were supposed to be living there.  I am not sure I could have dodged a bigger bullet.  I have rarely felt more fortunate.


SIDEBAR:  I will be away from posting for the next few weeks as I have a couple large projects that need some attention.  I hope to be back to posting shortly after Easter.

Metaphor

I do not loose things.

I am a very busy person and I get distracted a lot.  Our house is clean, but never really tidy because my husband and I are in a constant state of being in the middle of 3 projects each.  As a result I have learned to combat all these things by being habitual to the point of crazy.  Everything has a place and that place always has some logic behind it.  This is the only way I know how to function.  Ask me what I ate for breakfast this morning and it will probably take me 5 minutes to mentally back track my day.  Ask me where my husband stashed a few cigars that he totally forgot he had, I know immediately.  Ask me if I locked the house when I left and I won't remember actually doing it, I merely have to rely on the habit.  That being said, I have misplaced 3 things in the past week and a half.

We have been extraordinarily busy.  Three weekends ago we were in Kansas City.  The following weekend was the local craft beer festival and this past weekend was the Charleston Wine & Food festival, so the past two weeks have been excessive in every sense of the word.  It really shouldn't be surprising that I lost a few things.

First, the remote for our bedroom TV went missing.  I found that a day later.  It somehow got tossed all the way under the bed.  Second, I realized that my fleece pullover (which I LOVE) was not in any of the places it should be.  We have decided that it must have somehow been left in the hotel we stayed at the night of the beer festival.  So a phone call needs to be placed tomorrow and see if they might still have it (fingers crossed).  Finally, I had lost a ring.

Not an important one.  Just a ring.  I had bought it to go with my outfit for the Wine and Food fest opening night party; which is this big, swank, cocktail dress sort of affair.  So I had gotten this funky cocktail ring which I, naturally, forgot to put on when leaving the house and left on the kitchen counter.  The next day, after the haze of wine and rich food wore off and I had spent a full day at work, I went to retrieve said ring and put it away.  It wasn't there.  My first reaction was to blame the cats.  Something small and sparkly, of course they found it and started batting it across the house.  I gave it an extra day to show up, it didn't.  Then I grabbed a flashlight and started looking under the washer, dryer, stove, fridge, china hutch, couch, everywhere.  Nothing.  After being the third item to up and disappear this stupid ring became my last stand.  I was going to find the damn thing just on principle.  I didn't appear.  I was dejected.  I was angry.  I gave up.

While I was getting ready for bed that night I found my ring.  In my jewelry case.  With all my other cocktail rings.  Apparently when I got home on Thursday after the party, even in my exhausted and inebriated state, I put that ring in it's designated place.  The habit is just that deep-seeded.

While I was happy to find it, I couldn't help but feel a little like an idiot.  I mean really, who does shit like that?  I can't help but feel like there is a life metaphor in there somewhere, but it hasn't revealed itself to me yet.

Needless to say I am very much looking forward to a couple fairly low key weekends before we leave town again at the end of the month.