I’m not a professional wine taster so I’ll do my best to avoid as much as the jargon as possible.  The rating is not intended to reference to a standard wine scale, but rather my perception of the value offered by the taste in relation to its cost.

Wine: Solaz
Producer: Bodegas Osborne
Region: Castilla, Spain
Grape: Tempranillo (80%), Cabernet Sauvignon (20%)
Vintage: 2006
Alcohol: 13.5%
What I paid: $12.99

I was not initially drawn to the bottle due to its rather drab label. But the signature Spanish bull stopped me, and the idea of a blend of Tempranillo (my favorite grape) and Cebernet seemed interesting.

The wine poured smoothly and with a nice medium ruby color. The first smell revealed the oak from the barrels very clearly. The first taste presented the oak once again, a flavor which detracted somewhat from the grape blend. But the bitterness of the wood diminished after swallowing, leaving the flavor to linger for long time. This is where the strength of the wine is.

With the second drink I held the wine in my mouth for a bit longer, and the sweetness of the cabernet broke through a little more. The dryness of the tempranillo was tempered very well by the cabernet. The wine was rather crisp, and despite it’s four years of aging, still tasted rather youthful. In addition to the presence of oak, the fruitiness of the grapes stood out, similar to plum.

The wine was easy to drink, despite its initial flavor clashes. The wine offered a very nice lingering taste, and I found it much more enjoyable if I let the wine rest in my mouth for a bit of time. Perhaps a little more aging would even out its properties. As it stands, however, this bottle was a little too pricey for what it offers.

Rated two and one-half stars for lots of potential that just wasn’t given enough time to develop.

I imagine the plane that we should be on according to our original itinerary with empty our seats. Except that they are filled by the will and intent that we created upon our original booking. The temporal vortex created by the focused energies of will and siphoned through the jet turbines in turn cause the matter and anti-matter existing in the void where we should be to solidify with our shapes and thought patterns, exact replicas. And they, of course, arrive before we do, and do all the things that we should be doing, before we get a chance to do them.

A few hours later, we’ll arrive to the flat in Madrid and find exact copies of our luggage. In our panic and the dawning realization we will go unconscious from the shock. Our doppelgangers will return a short time later and find us sprawled on the floor. But since their reality is now more real than ours, since they live in the timeline that we should have lived in, our existence will fade and our unconscious bodies will disintegrate into the ether, and the copies will become the originals.

Or we’ll just sit in the airport for a couple of hours think of ways to kill time until our next flight.

Rated two stars for annoying delays, sci-fi disasters, and numb butts. Would have scored a one star if it weren’t for the fact that we will be in Paris, even if only in the airport.

Traveling is the thing that we look forward most to doing. The chance to get away, for days, or weeks when we are lucky, and get the chance to explore is a thrill that is singular. Visiting Spain is always the quintessential trip for many reasons, not the least of which is that it simultaneously beautiful, exotic, and conveniently, my wife’s native country. We get the pleasure of the foreign while having the security of extended family. The latter also adds the luxury of economy. Having relatives to bunk with does save more than a little pocket change.

But one of the highlight of our Spanish travels has always been the chance to visit my wife’s grandfather, the man who has been the most constant caregiver and father to her. Sharing time in his flats in Madrid and Lugo was sometimes trying, more often comforting, but never lonely. But as we prepare to depart, the Spain that we head towards will be different. The charming, adoring, man that was such a large part of my wife’s, and in our time together, my own, will not be there to greet us at his door with tears and hugs. The Madrid flat that we will arrive to Monday morning will be quiet and empty.

We are traveling to Spain to begin settling his affairs. And the finality of this role that my wife and I will be fulfilling greatly dampens our preparations for departure. As opposed to the pressures of wanting to do too much in the time we are there, we need to do more than time could ever possibly allow. And beyond the business, the affairs of his estate, the simple lack of his presence is biggest impediment to preparation, mostly because there is no possible preparation to returning to an empty home.

His empty home.

This is the shadow that extends over our trip. It is the empty chair in his living room that I am not ready to see.

But this is also a trip that must be made, something that we are looking forward to. The last year of his life was difficult as he dealt with injuries and illness. We were not able to be with him at his death and so this homecoming gives us the chance to visit his grave and say goodbye. Even the chance to be in the spaces that he occupied for so many years, to go through his clothes, look at his photos, will be a comfort. And despite the sadness of the occasion, we will be in one of the most beautiful places on Earth, and even the saddest of times cannot hide that. Although we will not have the opportunity to explore as much as we have in the past, just being there in our second home will be grand. And who knows what surprises the streets of Madrid and Lugo will throw at us while we are completing our business.

So we are checking off the items on our to-do list, and making sure we are as set as we can be. Traveling, no matter what the reason, is always an adventure. This will be a pilgrimage of sorts as we let go of Abuelo’s Spain, the Spain of my wife’s childhood, and begin to make it our Spain for today and the future.

 
Rated four stars for pre-travel jitters, the certain arrival of tears, and the excitement of Spain. Would have been rated five stars if Abuelo could give the first homecoming toast.

Salud.

We just concluded a trip to Philadelphia, and traveling reminded us how difficult it can be to plan one’s meals on the road.

Just to recap, the simplest way of explaining our restrictions is that we don’t eat grains. That’s no breads, cereals, pastas, oats, corn, ect., and we also exclude potatoes. So that leaves us with meat and veggies, and as far as most American restaurants go, that’s a big limitation. As you peruse the menu at your next out-of-home dining experience, just consider your meal. What portion of your plate is grain/potato based? This is not a judgment on your eating habits, just a lament on the limitation of options for those like my wife and I who want nothing more than some fresh veggies to accompany our main course.

We are home-cooked meal people for the most part. Beyond the reasons already mentioned, preparing one’s own food is cheaper. I can prepare a meal that will serve as lunch/dinner for the next day or two for less than the price of a meal for two at most restaurants, especially when you consider things like beverages (read: wine). Cooking our own meals also allows for us to control exactly what goes into the preparation of the meal; things like salt or marinades that have ingredients that we avoid, high fructose corn syrup/sugar for the most part. And honestly, there are so many things that have a dusting 0f flour for thickening or corn for texture that it is simply impossible to control what you are being served. Considering these things, traveling can be a difficult proposition, for both planning the trip and for our bank accounts.

Earlier in this year we took a road trip to Louisville, KY where we were visiting my brother. Because we were staying with him at his apartment, we were able to grocery shop and prepare our own meals while we were there. This was a boon for us since we could pack lunches for our day trips and prepare our dinners at home. But as we planned a trip to Philadelphia in November, we were realizing that we were facing a new kind of challenge for our style of eating.

You have to understand, when you completely change the content of your diet as we have, it’s not exactly like you can take a vacation from it. If we were just calorie counters or simply “trying to eat more healthy foods” as so many people often say, it would be easy enough to say that for the few days that we would be away from home we could just relax a little and eat whatever. But when you remove entire swaths of food types from your diet, re-introducing them suddenly, even if sparingly, can have some seriously unwanted (read: ew and ouch) consequences.

While our hotel room had a refrigerator, allowing us to store some foods in the room, it lacked a kitchenette. This meant many hours of walking through the Philadelphia streets and perusing online restaurant guides looking for menus containing items that were friendly to our needs. It sounds easy enough, right? But the catch is that many of the places who could cater to our needs were very high priced. We had some luck while walking to a museum in finding a grocery store where we could purchase some supplies that would get us through breakfast and provide some snacks, but we still needed to find some restaurants for the big stuff. While we did become very familiar with downtown Philadelphia, walking up and down the streets looking for places to eat did become frustrating. At least most restaurants follow the tradition of posting their menus in the windows so that we could make quick decisions.

It wasn’t all bad, however. We did come across some dining jewels where we were able to eat comfortably with few digestive consequences. While walking through the Reading terminal station we found a Mediterranean stall that served good stewed meat with veggies for just a few bucks.  There was a pub that had a good menu and cheap wine. We also found a cute Thai restaurant that had fantastic soups. But the real treat was a restaurant call Sahara Grill, a middle-eastern diner that was very reasonably priced and had great food. So good, in fact, that we ate dinner there twice. And there was another restaurant that was good and bad at the same time. We decided to go to a fancy Spanish tapas restaurant for our anniversary, a place where we knew we would be spending some money. The wine/sangria were both good, as were the cheese and meat plates. But these positives were tempered by potatoes where we were not expecting them and paying premium prices for tapas that in Spain would cost just a few euros for the real thing. It’s hard to put these things out of my mind when I’ve been to Spain with my Spanish wife, but maybe that was our mistake for expecting too much.

Perhaps when we become wealthy (read: teacher and social worker) dining on the road will be easier since money won’t be a concern. But for the time being, this trip has shown one of the drawbacks of controlling what goes into one’s own body. There are only so many ways that you can dress up lettuce. And not all steaks are cooked equally, no matter how much they cost.

Rated two and one-half stars for mixed days of dining frustration and culinary delights.

She spent some time describing the Paleolithic diet, or just paleo for short. It is not enough to simply call it a diet in the traditional weight loss sense. Going paleo is a change of lifestyle. In the strictest sense, eating paleo means giving up grains, dairy, sugar, and legumes, not to mention others.

Yeah, none of that.

Or that.

Definitely not that.

So we said thanks, but no thanks.

Now, this has been a road that my wife and I have been traveling down for some time. Health has always been a concern for us since both of our families are prone to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. While neither of us were fat, weight loss has always been a goal. Four years ago we made a New Year resolution to stop eating fast food. That is something we have stuck to ever since. We stopped drinking sodas, a big step for me, the cola connoisseur. But what really pushed me was when giving blood two years ago the phlebotomist informed me that my blood pressure was 150 over 95. I was shocked. I knew I could shed a few pounds, but those numbers were shocking. My father had a heart attack when he was in his late forties and has been dealing with hypertension and angina for over 20 years. I did not want to end up like that.

The doctor was disturbingly unconcerned as he took my blood pressure reading the next day. It was not quite as high, 140 over 90, and he told me to try to lose a little weight and exercise. He also had some blood work done to check my cholesterol. It was 205. I can’t even explain to you how scary it is to be in your mid twenties and have both high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

So in addition to the fast food and the soda we dedicated ourselves to only whole grains and completely cutting high fructose corn syrup from our diets. We became label readers. Let me tell you, finding foods that don’t have HFCS can be difficult. And on top of this we began a consistent exercise plan. And while we found some success with these changes, and we certainly felt good about ourselves, we would make only modest gains in the battle against our weights.

Our friend came for another visit.

“Still Paleo?”

“Yep. And you know, whenever I travel I almost always have to eat something that I normally wouldn’t and I feel like crap for a week.”

She ate some stuff she normally wouldn’t while she was at our house, but I never had the heart to ask about the consequences.

I accepted that more drastic measures needed to be made. So I began doing what any sensible person does when they need more information; I went to wikipedia. Paleo practitioners come from all walks of life and spout all sorts of different rationale. Some say that they are returning to the natural evolutionary diet of paleolithic humans; the foods that we would eat if we were living in the wild. Others say the onset of agriculture set us down a path of eating foods unnatural to our digestive systems, from modified strains of corn to genetically engineered livestock. But the most sensible of arguments that I have heard, the one that I cling to, is that the paleo diet allows for one to be in better control of their blood sugar level by regulating glycemic indices of foods, the amount of sugar released into the blood stream by the digestion of carbohydrates.

In specific, we read an article called What if It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie by Gary Taubes. I’m not going to say that everything he states in the article is accurate, but it created just enough doubt and and rang true, at least relating to our own lifestyles and eating habits. In the article he questions the validity of the modern food pyramid, links common chronic illnesses from heart disease to diabetes, and even federal subsidies to agribusiness. He links all of them to the adoption of the low-fat/high-carb focus of the food pyramid.

So basically he took everything I ever thought I knew about the food I eat and chucked it.

Taubes mentions several diets that he feels have been wrongly slighted by society, the most notable if which is the Atkins diet. A common comment that I get when I begin explaining our eating lifestyle is, “Oh, so it’s like Atkins?”

“Kinda yes, but kinda no.”

What we have come to realize is that every type of food needs to be considered individually. We are not true practitioners of the Paleo Diet. We still eat dairy, but we try to only eat all natural yogurt and aged cheeses so that the lactose has been broken down by the bacteria (did you know lactose allows funky bacteria to grow in your tummy?). We eat legumes, but usually only lentils since their health benefits far outweigh the risks, and we do so only sparingly. And we still drink wine, our biggest vice. But all of these things are done with careful attention to the totality of our diet, and in careful moderation. But the bulk of our daily meals conform to paleo guidelines: we eat only lean meats (lean vs. fatty, and fat levels in general are some things other low-carb “diets” don’t address as much), Fruits and vegetables account for the bulk of our caloric intake, we have cut processed sugar completely from our diet, and nuts are our snacks of choice.

The first weeks were hard. Sometimes it was the cravings, peanut butter being the biggest (peanuts are legumes, DUH!). Sometimes it was the frustration at a seeming lack of options in food choices. But as we did more and more research, looked up more and more recipes, it got easier. And honestly, I really don’t miss anything. In fact, when we go out to eat and select our lean steak with steamed vegetables and no garlic bread, thank you, or our salad with sliced chicken, my wife and I share a knowing glance with one another as others in our party order their carbs with a side of carbs, and a chunk of meat. If we ate that stuff now, we would simply die.

And that is one of the biggest benefits. We are very in tune with our own bodies, and we know when we have eaten something that we shouldn’t have. Either our tongues will swell from all the salt, our we will have upset stomachs, or our weight will suddenly spike for a couple of days. Yes, it happens that quickly.

It’s not for everyone, but it works for us. We have both lost weight; me, 45 pounds in five months. Eva, two pants sizes. We feel great, we move faster, and I know that we are healthier. The biggest step was moving past the idea that it was some sort of sacrifice and more of an increase in quality.

You can even have some cake, paleo style!

You really don’t realize how much crap you are eating until you stop.

Rated four and one-half stars for weight loss, health, and a happier life. Would have received a perfect five stars if not for the three wardrobes that I have gone through in the past five months.

I received a letter from FSU, thin, nondescript. I ran inside to share with my wife the good news. She waited as I read the one page letter silently, watched as the childish grin faded from my face. “Looks like I need to start looking for a full time job,” was the first thing I said.

I sat in front of the computer for hours examining help wanted ads, not really getting excited about any of them. I thought what the heck am I supposed to do with a degree in creative writing other than write and go to college? As a student I would often fantasize about being in front of a class. I remember analyzing the teaching styles, both good and bad, of my most influential instructors. I remember thinking that it could be something that I could, would be good at. I love learning. Why not share that with students? And then I got to college, switched my major a half-dozen times, and forgot about it. But as I sat at my desk in front of my computer scouring page after page for jobs that I knew would leave me unfulfilled, the idea of being a teacher began to take more and more of my mental space.

I don’t believe in fate, but I do recognize convenient coincidences. Our neighbor at the time, a young woman, was just finishing up her beginning teacher training in our county. I inquired to her about the process of getting certified and she gave me some pointers on where to get started. With excitement, I turned to go register with the department of education. Who knew all one needed to get a temporary certification to teach in the state of Florida was a bachelor’s degree and an application fee? But as I flew up the steps into our house she called me back. “You can try talking with individual principals at all the schools in town, but it won’t really work.” She had poked a hole in my rapidly inflating hope balloon, and she saw it’s baby blue girth begin to sink. “What you need to do is apply for available positions on the county’s website, and then register for the teacher hiring fair. That’s where they will fill all their empty teaching positions.” The hole was plugged, but the balloon still hovered a little lower than before. “It’s two weeks away, so get moving. And show up early, it will be crazy.” With her help and endless amounts of encouragement from my wife, I got it done, and got a job. And in my second year I even got to teach creative writing, my dream job.

My plan was always to re-apply to grad school and get into the MFA program. My wife finished her undergrad and got accepted to her MSW program, and so we decided that we would take turns. Time passed, and I just finished the fourth year at my school. Though I love teaching, writing has always been my true passion. I completed all the necessary education studies to get my full certification and shunned the absurd redundancy of studying for an Ed. degree. My literary elitism drove me ever onwards toward the MFA, hell, maybe even study in film. But never education.

This summer I was invited to participate in National Writing Project’s Summer Institute at FSU. As a teacher of English and writing, and having heard the praises of this prestigious program, I enrolled. It is an interesting method of professional development that employs a model of teachers teaching teachers. It emphasizes the value of research based writing instruction and interaction with our peers. Over the month long program while working with other teachers and honing my own skills as a teacher, it became clear that I am pretty good at this teaching gig, and might be in it for the long haul. One of the best aspects of the Summer Institute is its dedication to pairing teaching method with personal writing time. A simply fact became clear: I can be a writer and a teacher at the same time. In fact, gaining credibility as a well established, well educated, experienced teacher could actually facilitate my writing goals. In fact, over the past year I have developed several ideas for education focused articles and research projects that I can develop into publishing opportunities.

A large impediment, however, is that I lack credibility in my field, not having an education degree or research history. So I swallowed my literary elitist pride, approached one of the leaders of the Summer Institute, and asked her how I might use some of these amassed education credits towards my Master of English Education degree. She knew my goals of attaining the MFA, smiled at me knowingly, and said simply, “Just get your Ph.D. in writing afterwards.”

Why didn’t I think of that?

Over the next week I scrambled to gather all the necessary materials. I wrote a crafty letter of intent, collected my necessary letters of recommendation, wrote a fresh resume with all of my education credentials and experience, called in a few favors since the application deadline had already passed, and by that Friday had applied. I am truly excited, more so than I have been about my career in a long time. I am confident about my opportunities as an educator, I am confident in my ever developing skills as a writer. I think I may have stagnated for a long time, never really coming to grips with the true disappointment that I felt in my rejection. I always told myself that it was the fault of my delinquency in turning in my MFA application so close to the deadline, and I never pursued it further. My wife is wonderful in that she has always pushed my in my endeavors. “Do you still want to be a writer?” she asks as I lounge on the couch, a dozen incomplete pieces of writing lingering in my computer. “Have you met your submission goals this month?” she asks as I begin a new writing idea, leaving another incomplete. When I told her about my intent to start this new plan, she smiled at me, excited, proud. “Please, keep on me about my writing,” I told her. “That is still my goal.”

So, now here I am in the summer, waiting for that letter once again.

Rated four and one-half stars for the possibilities of the future, making goals that are attainable, and being excited for the things to come. Would have been rated a perfect five stars if my acceptance were a sure thing. But then where would the excitement be?

graphics borrowed from Married To The Sea

“This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don’t understand very much about what they do- no why it works when it’s good, not why it doesn’t when it’s bad. I figured the shorter the book, the less bullshit.”

Say what you want about King, about his writing, or about his standing in the literary world. When it comes to the bullshit, he’s right.

I was doing research for the creative writing classes that I teach. My students often come to me looking for resources to help them improve their writing. For various reasons, budget being the primary, I have never been able to purchase writing text books, and honestly, I wouldn’t have much use for them. Text books have a nasty way of turning off the student/reader with the technicality of language and general redundancy of activities. So I began looking for alternative writing guides and activity books for my kids. At least I thought that was my rationale.

But as I read through the second half of this book, the “On Writing” portion, I found myself waiting for King to transmit through the pages that secret mystery of success that all struggling writers are grasping for. I am in the same boat as my students.

On Writing does not have the silver bullet I am looking for. King says as much himself. Throughout the course of the book he has difficulty explicating how he is does what he does, and instead focuses instead on the process.

The end goal of any working writer is, of course, to be published. King has arranged his book into two halves to help writers reach this goal. The first half serves as an autobiography of sorts, the major themes of his life that has influenced his path to be the writer he became. The events of his life are somewhat common, but he applies his masterful skill at storytelling to craft a compelling narrative of his life as a writer. It is often funny, sometimes sad, but never boring. The second half is what he describes as a writer’s toolkit. Rather than doing what most books on writing do like have interesting and redundant writing prompts or hackneyed self-help style guides, he instead creates several suggestions for building good writing habits which can make the journey to being published a little easier. These suggestions include simple ideas like use words you know, have a daily writing schedule, and revise your work. Reading these one might say, “DUH Stevie!” But each tool in the toolkit is given context through King’s interesting anecdotes and writing samples. The most compelling thing in the whole book is towards the end when he presents a first draft of a piece of writing and then shows his own edits on the first read, before even showing it to someone else. The importance of revision is obvious.

Not all of what he says is golden, however. There is a particularly awkward section where he describes how he perceives a hierarchy of writers, from bad writers to great writers. Some on the hierarchy, he says, can jump up a level, but others are doomed to be forever stuck. It’s something that I, as a writing instructor, cannot swallow so easily. How could I enter my creative writing classes every day and teach if I thought that no matter what I did, it could not improve my students’ work? But these gaffs are sparse and do not detract from an otherwise interesting look into the writing habits of one of the most successful authors ever.

Why I enjoyed the book so much, and why I intend to use it as a writing tool in my class is that he addresses writers as peers, never making seem things beyond anyone’s grasp so long as they are willing to put the time and effort in. His writing philosophy matches mine in that I believe that the only way to become better is to practice and to revise. Even if I were not a writer, I think I would have enjoyed On Writing for the insight it gives into King’s life and practice. But it is made even more valuable as an honest discussion of the craft.

Rated four stars for mostly entertaining anecdotes and mostly helpful suggestions for improving one’s writing.

I have never succeeded in planning a party with the same degree of success that my wife has. People present? Yes. Food edible? Sure. But what she does, it’s a whole package, a special quality of presentation. And she will not stop working until things are just right. And yet, she had never had a party in her honor to equal what she put on for me, for friends. So this year, her 25th birthday, I decided that it was time for her to have her party.

Let me start by saying that I have never really planned a party. I have thrown a party, an impromptu gathering of people without much consideration to food, location, music, or theme. They have been more of a, “hey, you wanna invite some people over?” type situations. My wife is usually the one who handles the preconceived engagements, and I am glad she does. I understand the effort that she puts into these gatherings and the pride and pleasure she gets out of a well executed plan. And it’s that plan bit that was really worrying me as I sat down to get the ball rolling on my wife’s birthday party.

It’s not that I don’t like having a plan or being prepared, it’s just that I’m more of a “let’s get all the necessary ingredients, have a goal in mind, and find the natural path from start to finish,” kind of person. And it’s not about everything. I like knowing where we are going to stay before we arrive, at least generally. And I like having a general idea of what I am going to buy before I head out. I’m a general person. I like having an outline, a guide, but still having flexibility, some wiggle room. But I knew that there would be no wiggle room if I was going to get this right. So the first step was the plan.

As school let out and I had a week or so of free time I sat down one morning and made a list, a detailed point by point catalogue of all the things that I wanted for the party. I remembered that a few months back my wife had told me that she would like a luau. She likes surprises, but is usually too clever and observant to miss when something is coming down the pipe. So I decided to be safe and go with the luau theme, something she had previously expressed interest in. But I would also try to keep the specifics of the whole thing a mystery. Once the theme was in place, the checklist was easy to build. Music and decorations were easy enough to plan out, but food, guests, and location would be tricky.

The guest list was lengthy, and that was actually the first thing on my to-do list. But several hours of cross-referencing my and my wife’s address books and facebook friend lists resulted in a weighty invite list, one that I was satisfied with. Even if only a quarter of the invitees were to RSVP, there would still be over 30 people, a record for me. And this let to the issues that I was having with the food and location. Feeding a lot of people is difficult, and having a place to hold them all and still allow for the theme was tricky too. Not to mention that food and property rental would represent the two biggest expenses of the whole affair. Again, she had mentioned a party idea in the past, that we might have her graduation party at Lichgate on High Road, the same place we were married. It would be perfect. A beautiful outdoor location, room for lots of people, and someplace that is very dear for both of us. I contacted our friend who manages Lichgate and booked the date. That only left the food to deal with.

My sister had stepped in early in the process to help me make all the party arrangements. I told her that in fitting with the luau theme I wanted to roast a whole pig. My first intention was to buy the pig and rent a roasting spit. But my super hero sister took the reins on the food situation and found a restaurant in town, Gordos, the owner of which was super nice, super generous, and took care of everything for us.

Everything was set. After a couple weeks of planning, dare I say work, we were ready to go. The date and time were set, we had tons of RSVPs, the food and location were ready, the decorations itching to be put in place. But we all know that plans, even those best laid, go astray.

By this point, my wife knew something was up. Several people had accidentally let slip that there was a party going on, even mentioning the hula dance. But she was a good sport and didn’t ask too many questions. And when my father showed up, kinda-sorta unannounced about a week before the big day, and then my brother a few days later, the jig was pretty much up. But I had hopes that there would still be some shock value once she saw how much work we (this had become a family ordeal) had all done. In the days leading up to the party I became jokingly known by my wife as the firefighter. My phone was ringing off the hook, dealing with all the issues and speed bumps that naturally come up with these things. She saw me stressed, asked what was wrong, and I would simply tell her, “nothing, just putting out some fires.” We had a good laugh, and she didn’t ask too much of what was going on behind the scenes.

On the big day I snuck out early to let the caterers into Lichgate to get the pig roasting. When I checked the guest list, several more people had RSVPed and I was genuinely concerned that we wouldn’t have enough food. But the caterer assured me that there is always left overs. Comforted, I went about decorating the Lichgate green with tents, hula girls, grass table skirts, and totem poles. It was all grand, festive, and consistently themed. My wife would be proud. As I was relieved of decorating duty by my sister and her husband (thank you Scott), I went home to make sure Eva was getting ready. I made last minute additions to the authentic Hawaiian play list, and took Eva on a roundabout path through town, trying to confuse the fact that the journey from our house to Lichgate is all of three minutes. And as we drove, the calls began to come in.

Since the party’s end, this has been the toughest part for me to deal with. No matter how much planning we did, no matter how over-prepared we were, no matter how perfect the decorations were, things were never going to be perfect. Things will always only be perfect enough. As we drove two people called to say that despite their RSVP, they would not be able to make it. Okay, no problem, still plenty of people were on the guest list. Next on the uh-oh list was the fact that it was about one million degrees outside. Despite our, and everyone at the party’s appropriate dress, it could not change the fact that just standing still outside would render once incapacitated after a few moments without cold drink. But we continued on.

And as we finally arrived at Lichgate, my wife’s eyes still closed (she’s a very good sport), everyone shouted surprise as we got out of the car. It was a lovely gathering, and a hearty welcome for the birthday girl. We greeted all the guests, drank some cold water, mingled for a while, and then drank some more. Finally, The roasted pig was ready and served. Of all the things at the party, the food was most perfect. Everyone ate, and ate well. But as I observed the serving line, I noticed that the food wasn’t really going anywhere. So many who had said they were planning didn’t, and that is the toughest part of the whole thing.

This is not intended to be a rant against those who didn’t or couldn’t come. I understand the realities of life, that things can and do come up when least expected. I am guilty of not showing at parties where I was expected. But in the moment it was difficult to overcome the feeling of wasted energy, wasted money, and disappointment.

“How many said they were coming?” she asked me.

“Lots,” I responded.

She nodded, kissed my cheek, and we ate our second full plate of food.

My wife is a kind woman, and protective. When I get upset, she gets angry, and we had a nice venom spitting conversation over a cold glass of wine and more food later in the evening. And then I felt better about the whole thing.

She had loved it. All who came were kind and loving, enjoyed the shade beneath the sprawling Lichgate Oak, enjoyed each other’s company, and left with full bellies. We listened to great Hawaiian music, ate sweet pineapple cake, and drank chilled wine. We were amongst family, both blood and otherwise, in the most beautiful and relaxing place in Tallahassee. Most importantly, my wife knew that she was special, that we had all come together to celebrate her quarter-century of life and all the days still to come, and who cared if it was a million degrees outside?

In the days after the party, as we finally finished off the remaining food, I said I would never plan another party on this scale. But I know this isn’t true. She’s graduating soon from grad school, and certainly that’s something worth celebrating. I even still have the decorations, and the limbo is still not done.

Rated four and one-half stars for heat, hard work, planning and fire fighting, and the payoff of a wife who knows she special.

9. Waking up with my face in my pillow

…and having a helluva neck crick for the rest of the day that only intensified as time passed.

8. Students

… or at least the ones who are jerks

7. Cafeteria food

It really is difficult to identify what I ate. The white pasty stuff had the texture and consistency of mashed potatoes. The spherical breaded things claimed to be chicken nuggets. The yellow objects floating in watery fluid might indeed at one time have been corn. But we don’t ask questions for fear of the answers.

6. Losing a belt notch

Ouch.

5. High blood pressure for the first time in a long time

I had a scare in ’07 and have had it under control since then. Is it stress from work? Probably. But not getting my but out the door and to jog isn’t helping either.

4. Feeling unaccomplished

I know that I have done and still do many things to feel accomplished about. But sometimes, I just feel left in the dust.

3. Broken stuff

Especially really expensive stuff that I’ve only had for four months and will now have to mail off to be repaired and work around for three to four weeks.

2. No Battlestar Galactica

Sure, the ending was… meh. But I really miss going on new adventures with the characters. I miss Starbuck, and Apollo, and the Admiral, and the Old Girl.

1.

The Wife at work

She has an art therapy Friday nights. The house is just so empty without her. But it makes her coming home really awesome.

Two siblings played cello in orchestra. Another sibling played several brass instruments in band. My own tastes leaned to the strings and so I followed the path of least resistance and picked up the cello, too. It was difficult growing up in a family of very musically inclined people, the elder cellist a veritable prodigy (he even once played with Yo Yo Ma. Yes, that Yo Yo Ma). And while I was proficient with the instrument, I never assumed such heights. I loved being in the orchestra, I loved being on stage.

I loved performing.

But I eventually put the cello down and pursued other hobbies. My love for music never faded, though, and if anything I think my ear has become more discerning and critical having had the experience of learning to read music and play an instrument. With this love for music, good music, that I have, I often find myself asking why I stopped playing. And the obvious answer struck me: there aren’t many cellos in the music that I listen to. There are of course exceptions to this. Many bands include orchestral accompaniment with their music, and one band, Rasputina, is actually composed of two cellists and a percussionist. But the common denominator in much of the music that I follow is the guitar.

When I was in middle school, in  the midst of my classical music training, my father got me a beautiful Fender jazz bass guitar. The possibility of reaching one of my life’s goals, being in a rock band, had suddenly been thrust into my open arms. For weeks I would put on my favorite songs, power up my amp, and mimic the tones that I heard. And while I could follow along with the simpler bass patterns, and even read tabs, the more technical, and by that I mean better and more interesting songs remained beyond my reach. While my middle school did have a competent musical program, it lacked a guitar class. And so after a month or so of toying around with my prized possession, it eventually found itself back within its hard-shell case, leaning against the wall in my bedroom.

 
(same as my bass, sans scuff marks, and mine is fretless)

In my freshman year in high school, while still in orchestra, there was a fellow cellist who was also a very talented guitarist. He was putting together a band and was looking for a bassist. I mentioned that I owned a bass and had learned some songs and he invited me over to practice. When I got there, he was tearing away on riffs that were way over my head, but the drummer that was there with him didn’t seem to have a problem keeping up. So I plugged in my bass, ashamed at the dust that had gathered on the pick-ups and the fingerboard, plugged it in and began to tune up. He asked me something that I knew, and I rattled off one of the five or so songs that I had managed to put to memory. Without hesitation he began counting off and, accompanied by the drummer, began picking out the notes of the song’s intro. I was in over my head, in a band practice with two guys who knew what they were doing, and the bass line was fast approaching.

I plucked away. And to my amazement, no, I’ll be honest, to my joy we sounded good. If we had played that one song over and over again until the end of time I could have been happy. But at the song’s conclusion by guitarist/cellist buddy flipped through a folder he had with him, set up a music stand, and dropped a dozen or so sheets of bass tabs for songs that I had heads, but never even attempted to play. He called the first one up, counted off, and he and the drummer were playing without me. They got through a couple bars, noticed that I was not keeping up and stopped. I was ready to sit the rest out, but he simply said, “let’s try it again.” And we did, lots. I was really bad, but by the end of the practice, about an hour later, I could play two more songs. I couldn’t play them well, but I could keep up. I was in a band.

(not us, but we looked similar, I’m sure)

He moved a week or so later. I have never been in a band since. We never even got to pick a name. My bass sits in its hard case, leaning against the wall in a closet.

But the truth is I never really learned to play my bass. I could follow along with some tabs, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. I have an ear for music. I understand technically, and intuitively what makes a song good. I just never learned to play.

My wife has a fender acoustic guitar that is, quite frankly, intimidating. One of the things that I love about the bass is that it only has four strings. For a novice, and someone having learned to read and play music on a cello, four strings is just natural. What am I supposed to do with two extra strings? In addition, a pick is just alien to me. How am I possible expected to use a tiny plastic triangle to pick between those six strings? But I have decided that it is up to me to learn.

I have guitar envy, I can admit this now. I always hated it when at a social gathering my friends could pick up their guitars and start strumming away. Within seconds they were leading a chorus in some cliched standard tune, I was left there to sing along with the masses. I fancy myself a decent singer, but what mediocre voice isn’t immediately enhanced when they are playing the guitar?

So I picked up my wife’s fender, googled first guitar lesson, and learned my first three chords. I spent ten seconds getting my too-fat fingers into the right positions only to strum out a chord that twanged and rattled because my fingertip grazed another string. But after a few strums I had my G major chord down. A few minutes (yes, minutes) later the C major followed. And finally the D major. I know I can just call them G, C, and D, but calling them MAJOR just makes them seem that much more significant. And that was the end of the lesson. Strum these three chords over and over again. I did, and it took me ten seconds or so to maneuver my fingers to the proper places each time I switched. I get so frustrated at my own ineptitude at what should be, and what so many people I know make to look like a simple task. Put three fingers where they go. I am struggling with my three chords, but am determined to master them. This is the part where I grow impatient and jump straight to Stairway to Heaven, the classic “first guitar song I ever learned!” But I have resisted the urge and have instead spend the past two days practicing my first three chords. Stairway can wait.

Perhaps, once I have tackled the guitar (and I will) I’ll go back to my bass. I still prefer its four strings and low register. But having learned to play the guitar, will be be a better bassist. But the ultimate goal isn’t to be in a band, so much as being able to pick up a guitar and lead a group of friends in one of those cheesy, overly-sentimental tunes that has been sung far too many times, and love every second of it. It’s going to happen.

I’m still working on a band name.

Rated four and one-half stars for doing something that I have wanted to do my whole life. Would have been rated a perfect five stars were it not for the blisters growing on my fingers and the endless frustration that comes with not hitting the right chord.