I work in a wonderland now.

It's weird how life takes your plans of what you think should happen and then turns them totally upside down like a basket of laundry you don't know if it's dirty or you should fold it or wash it again for good measure.

I thought I hated wine. When you get burned from two different places with one similarity so rapid fire, it's easy to think -fuck this shit, I'm trying something else.
After trying to wait tables, contemplating being chained to a kitchen, and bein put through the ringer with general job applications, I reluctantly turned back to the wine industry as now, that's what I know. It's what I'm good at. It challenges me and excites me, keeps moving in different ways and... Well, maybe I'll get a Saturday night off and won't be chained to a desk.

After weighing out my options, I set my sights high, aimed for the big fish in the area, the one I was always jealous of but never considered jumping ship and going for. Fuck it. Nothing to lose. Went for it. After weeks of terrible limbo....


I got it.


This is wine making Mecca.

I drive in to work and every day I think holy fuck. I can't believe I work here.

Top of the line equipment all the way down to awesome people to work with. Holy fuck. I can't believe I work here.
Harvest is going great. I have a winemaker who values my opinion and has the money to back any purchase. I have customers integrated through a production room with peep holes showing every aspect of the wine making. Wines are priced high and customers flow. It is  so weird. I can't believe I work here.

This is one of the smoothest harvests ever. I have an awesome team and the weight isn't all on me and no one blames me or assumes I'm an idiot. I am learning a ton, but also lending them a bit of my experience with our pain in the ass grapes I have dealt with for 5 previous harvest seasons.


I still drink beer at night, but damn am I happy for some good wine now.

Keep your feet moving.

The rain mists outside my bedroom window, floating in and kissing my cheek when the wind changes for a brief moment, not enough to get up and close the window. I dreamt of the rain turning into a light dusting of snow, fatal to the growing season in mid-August as I scrambled around assessing the damages.
I feel scorned today. The stars must not be aligned in my favor or god(s) don't like me right now etc. I am not sure what I did or what to do now.

Usually I'm so sure of myself. No call backs from jobs has me in limbo, standing uncomfortably off balance and not sure how to remedy it. My one month cushion is gone now and I am applying at odd jobs I never thought I would apply for.

In the end, I really just wish I had a big piece of land and a workable business model. I am not scared of labor. Scared of laboring in vain, yes.

Going to visit one farm a week to ask them questions on their model, problems, and solutions they found. Going to fill my pantry and freezer with garden produce. Going to build a pig pen. Keep my feet moving, I guess.

Just hope I'm going in the right direction.

Reworking water drops

I feel like I was running as fast as I could for so long, beyond the point of exhaustion into muscle memory, heart pumping, legs twitching, muscles aching and then I smashed into a brick wall, like a raindrop hitting a hard surface, transforming from one droplet of water into hundreds. Resting in a hundred little droplets, dazed, I'm slowly reabsorbing, picking up different debris along the way as I gather into a completely different drop of water.

This weight of stress is off of me now. I sleep a lot. I meander most days, not sure what to do with myself. Half-assed looking for jobs. Not sure what industry to pursue let alone where and why. My computer is helping by not loading craigslist. Sigh.

So now I'm off to shower, refocus, and head out to my third night at my new job. A new craft is to be learned, honed, and perfected. I still feel the sting of the last job like a fresh wound, which soon will heal, but in the meantime it's nice to be busy.

Always and never

Sometimes when you find the most wonderful people in your life, it's hard to let them go.

Not sure why the knife is twisting right now, but just experiencing loss after loss today.

I don't understand finality. Or perhaps I understand but don't like the concept. I imagine no one likes being told what to do. And my parents told me to avoid using the word always and never eg I never want to have kids.
Seems like life is a lot more fluid then that.

So breakup are hard. Leaving a job is hard. Losing a friend is hard.

I guess today is a new day. Let's see what happens.

The end of a chapter

Today I lost my job. 

There's something terribly disheartening about losing something I put so much of myself into. I guess I should have seen it coming when they wanted to rip up my strawberry patch leading up to the front door. Or when they stopped talking to me months ago. I kept trying to figure different things out but wouldn't get a response. 

I am sad for all the customers I collected that I will no longer see. I will miss my staff I carefully groomed. I liked being outside in the vines tending the crop and then coming in and working on the wine and serving and playing with food and chocolate pairings. I liked building events up until they became giant behemoths of creative minds and ideas all with wine glasses in hand. I liked putting out Tuesday night recipe ideas like grilled peaches and chicken that went well with certain wines, getting people excited about 4 ingredient cooking over an open flame. 

I am devastated. 

I don't know where to go from here. 

Last night I dreamed of a tornado. I was driving in a city, working with this local shop for some idea I had or consultation when I finished and got in my car, turned on the radio and got the news too late to head towards the basement. The tornado was coming right at me, like it was walking up the street. I ran into a building and tried to get to the stairs when all the windows shattered and I was consumed in black fury and white light. I remember thinking I should be terrified but I wasn't. I was just tired and sick of running. 

And then I woke up

Side effects may include...

I avoid medicine. Medical procedures. Medical establishments, workers, topics, all of it. I run. I don't have a doctor. Unless you count the stat care doctor. I don't imagine that counts but I convince myself it does.
So when all my hobbies involve rusty metal and dirt and my tetnus shot was 11 years old when a vineyard razor blade went into my hand, I started thinking about getting a tetnus shot.

"Started thinking" is not an understament. It took 6 months for the process to sink in.  The wound healed. My jaw didn't lock up and progress into a terrible back breaking convulsion so I figured I was fine.
Until bro-captain-medschool came home and told me I could die every time I picked up a rusty something or other or put my  hands to the dirt. Believe me, three loads of scrap metal and there are a ton of rusty spring thingies around that made cat scratches all up and down my arms.

So ok. Predicament. I have an involuntary, irrational aversion to all things medical. No idea why or where and if I could talk myself out of it of course I would. Like I enjoy collapsing or crying hysterically while some poor nurse takes my blood pressure. Stitches required straight jackets for young jane and as I got older I got more talkative in convincing my way out of med procedures.

Novicane does not work on my clan. Always a fun time in the dentist chair when they think you're full of shit, screaming because the horses dose they injected you with isn't doing anything. Trust gets shot pretty quick.
But I know I need this shot, no insurance means I'm going to the clinic and that means I avoids having homeless people look down on me as I shake and sob over a needle.

There was a pregnant woman in the card aisle. I thought damn, if only I could be they brave as having an impending surgical medicinal date growing inside me.

I told myself it was just a beer run. With an extra stop.

I did the best I ever had. No fainting. No crying. Just a little meditation and imagining my emotions as a garden hose that I could shut off.

Worked for me

Got the shot. No crying. Promptly wen home and started going through wicked side effects. Nausea and headaches and my left arm going numb and feeling terrible.

It's been a couple days. My arm still feels like I sat on it and the prickly numbness  is there. I remember my last tetnus shot hurting worse than the sawblade to the thumb injury that merited it. The doctor told me she wouldn't remove the sawblade until after I got the shot and still I sat there and thought about it for awhile. I eventually got it in the opposite arm and saw splinter pulled out of the other thumb. Then I got on my bike and while riding home, ended up curling the tetnus shot up and having to ride with one bandaged hand and a throbbing, punching pain.

So I'm wondering what comes first, the fear or the side effects. And if these drugs really are being rejected by my body or my mind.
And I hope I can feel my left hand again soon. Maybe it's time to get a real doctor instead of these bandaid treatments in emergency mode.

Sandor Kraut

I hate socks. The first thing I do when I get home from a long day on my feet is plop down and promptly remove my shoes and socks. That's the sign of relaxation for me. Feet are overused and under appreciated. The minute the cool night air hits them and starts to evaporate the sweat, that's when the good part of the day starts.
Crack a beer. Remove socks. Sit down. And take a deep breath.
So that's the point in my night now. The socks are off. Tonight I enjoy a birthday beer, a nice rye IPA while the rain pours off the now gutter less roof in buckets. I enjoy my newly super cleaned tiny living quarters. The broom still looms close to the couch as a warning to the dust bunnies as I find myself cleaning more frequently and thoroughly as my domesile shrank.  (Perhaps I don't want that huge house in the hills?)

I have a 6am departure time for Asheville tomorrow morning.  It's well past midnight and the coffee from a long night of prepping for "vacation" along with a new release party had me running like a mad woman.
But now the socks are off.

I can't wait to go visit my uncle in the mountains and see a new city. The anticipation of even hearng the cadence of Sandor Katz is invigorating , as though the books I have clung to are now getting voices of their own.
 I find a very primal lust for learning at the core of myself. I can even watch some master at something I am not interested in, but in mastering an art, I become in awe and want to pry apart and examine what makes someone so and all the delicate intricacies of it.
I have a day of riding ahead of me tomorrow. And I should get some sleep. But as I stretch my toes and ponder articulation, I can't close my eyes. There's too much excitement in the air.