an update with photos

I had a post written that I was going to post on Monday, but it seems somehow obsolete now. Instead, I'll just show you a bunch of photos and insert commentary.


Dan and I don't usually do anything special on Valentine's Day. We figure we have so much love in our life every day that to devote only one day to it seemed silly. We don't need commercial excuses to go out for dinner or do nice things for each other. So what ended up happening is that Dan picked me up and brought me back to the tap room while he did some stuff. I hung out, knitting (an easy project) while Sean the tap room manager poured me beer.  Oatmeal Porter, in particular. It was good. I had great conversations with a number of people about knitting, gardening, food, and pouring concrete.

Later Dan took me to one of Kinston's three Mexican restaurants for dinner. I am still not accustomed to the volume of food they give you in restaurants here.



Earlier in the day I had decided to make a little Valentine's decoration. I happened to have some love-colored card stock from when I was sending out heart butterflies last year, strung the hearts together with some yarn, and voila! A romantic gesture. Dan thought it was sweet.

 Dan recently acquired a musical saw. Did you know that there was such a thing? As in a saw made by Stradivarius and other makers of fine instruments? Well, Dan is one of those people who can just pick up an instrument and figure it out. He can play any sort of wind instrument (he played low brass in high school and university), and has been earnestly playing his banjo since he's been in North Carolina. He even built a canjo (banjo made from a can) and put up a YouTube video (flounderguts). Back to the saw, Dan was finding it a bit hard to handle at the end so, you know, he just whipped one up. He had a bit of mahogany laying around, zip zip on the bandsaw, a turn of the lathe, then attach it to the saw. As he was doing this, I tweeted it. It got noticed by Natalia Paruz, The Saw Lady. (Seriously, go check out her story, it's so inspirational!) 

(I am still trying to convince Dan that we should go to New York in June. I think that would be awesome. I have never been to New York).


In other news, I mentioned previously that we'll be having a St. Patrick's Day party. Dan's plan for the event is to make Corned Beef and Cabbage, one of the meals he prepares that are my favorite. On Saturday, we drove out to New Bern to meet a new friend and to do a bit of exploring. We had lunch at Spunky McDoogle's. 

 Yeah it was a bit kitschy but who doesn't love kitsch? It was on our way back that it started snowing, as I mentioned in my last post, so we headed back to Kinston.

The next day, since Dan couldn't go outside and work on the Dodge (cold, wet), we decided to take a trip to Goldsboro, about 35 miles from here. Since we had been expecting to move into our house by now (I mean come on, what is taking so long?), we hadn't unpacked our boxes of books from the truck. Dan wrapped each box in saran wrap before we left Canada. Dan covered the truck with a tarp the night it snowed but even with that, some of the boxes were wet. WE PANICKED.

 We brought all the books to the storage area at the brewery and unpacked/checked for damage. It wasn't as bad as we thought. It would really have sucked to have been carrying these books around all these years and then 3,600 miles only to lose them to a night of water damage. A few of the paperbacks were wrinkled but it was mostly the boxes that took the hit.

  I should add too that it was late Saturday night/Sunday morning that I got the message that my mum's aunt Mid passed away. She was 86 I think, had lost her husband (Unc) of 63 years in 2010 and immediately fell into dementia when he passed. She had a fall last year sometime and was put into a care home, but the stubborn old gal hung on I guess, until these last few weeks when she decided to leave. Mid and Unc were surrogate grandparents for me and my sister, since my mum's mom died when I was in grade 5 (1984?) and Grandpa died in 1992. Mid was the record keeper of the family, the one who kept in touch with everyone and always remembered every birthday. Her passing was not a sad one, but one of joy, since she can finally be together with her beloved. I can't help but think she was waiting for me to move to the US and get settled here so I wouldn't feel obliged to attend her funeral, as I have no doubt that the family shit will start flying soon. What better time to open old wounds and fling accusations than when a family matriarch has died? Yup, I'll be happy to avoid all that. My mum and sister will go to the funeral this Saturday in Kelowna, BC. I'll wait for news.

Right. On to happier things. Below is a photo of a chandelier that Dan built for the distillery. I don't think it is rigged up with lights just yet, but I believe it will have LEDs in it. The ceiling is made of recycled barrel staves and the wall made of recycled pallets.





This is the entrance/exit to Dan's office. Up by steep ladder/stair, down via slide.




Now that Dan and I are back together, we can eat meals together again. He's a great cook, did I tell you? Dan makes the best salads.

pizza party!

On Friday, we had some friends over for pizza.  Above is the apple rhubarb berry crisp Toni and I made for dessert.

I use the pizza dough recipe from The Breadbaker's Apprentice and this was the third time I had made it.  I kept on forgetting to make the dough ahead of time to give it a long proof period, and ended up only making the dough that morning. I liked the effect - it was much more manageable and I could stretch the dough out quite a bit more without tears.

Clockwise from top left: smoked tuna, sun-dried tomatoes, red onion, mushroom, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives

Two pounds of shredded mozzarella!

Table setting for six

 Other toppings: wine salami, spinach, garlic, feta

The sauce - I smeared a spoonful of pesto, then sprinkled a teaspoon of oregano, then a couple spoons of home made tomato sauce. 

I'm really terrible at waiting for guests to arrive when I have everything ready half an hour before they get there. I had so much dough for pizza, I figured I had time for a food experiment. I brushed a blank with olive oil and sprinkled sea salt on it. YUM it was so good. 

This is the second one. They turned out pretty impressive. 

Toni and the Skipper decided we needed a pesto only appy. Again, YUM. 

Things start to get a bit fuzzy here because the guests arrived, bottles of wine and beer were opened and poured, and some went in me. I was cooking the pizzas, drinking wine and beer as well as conversing with my dear friends, so I couldn't tell you about the individual pizzas that followed except that they were all delicious. 

I admit I started out with wine, but gosh my friends are so good at beers too that it was hard not to drink a little of everything on the table.

We had lots of leftovers and everyone was fully stuffed by night's end. I definitely overindulged but it was so good. I went to bed full and drunk. Woke up with a screaming headache at 4:30am, took something, and went back to bed.

It was so wonderful to have dinner with five people I love dearly. It made me deeply thankful for the good people in my life. There was talk of a big send-off party for me when I go (whenever that is - we still don't know but we are now halfway through the promised five months). I have left the Island so many times and have had lots of farewell parties thrown for me. You know me, I love a good party. Maybe that's why I keep on leaving and coming back? ;-)

Floundertruck arrives safely

Here is what I know:

Dan arrived at Mother Earth Brewing sometime early this afternoon local time. North Carolina is three hours ahead of me. There were many introductions to lots of nice people, some beer was imbibed. Dan was overwhelmed with the size of the place (he got lost in it) and how COOL it is and how great the people are. His temporary accommodations are great and he said "Everything we're doing is worth it", he feels like he's won the Brewery Lottery.

Relief!

I wasn't too worried, actually, about this aspect. Sure we got burned when we moved to the Pacific Rim area, but we both had a good feeling about Mother Earth, the people, the place. Soon after Dan accepted the job, we all started following each other on Twitter, and Josh the Brewer has been reading my blog. (Hi Josh).

So it's good. I am so glad that Dan feels we have made the right decision. I have to say, today has been the hardest day since he left. Almost as soon as I got up this morning, I started missing Dan so much it hurt. I cried almost for two hours, including the drive to Tofino and for the first half hour of my shift. Alice, the lovely laundry lady at the hospital, brought me some peppermint tea and a box of 'good' tissues, gave me a hug. (Alice is the best!)

Missing Dan is hard. I think the hardest part is the uncertainty, of not knowing when we will be reunited. It's not like he's been deployed to Afghanistan, or has been sent off to some mission from which he might not return. We will see each other again soon. Dan tells me the folks at the brewery will help to find me a job that will get me there as soon as possible. Already I want to hug them.

I can rest a bit easier now, since starting tomorrow I will be able to communicate with Dan via Skype. I think at least being able to connect that way will be good for us both, emotionally. There is so much going on in our life right now, between driving and new job and moving and packing and cleaning and leaving a job and training up replacement and change of address and getting in a last round of visits. Every day I get asked "when is your last day?" and I don't know. I don't know! On the books it's something like the end of July, but it could well be sooner. I hope it's sooner.