My time running a night club comes to an end

I have been managing a night club for the past five months, and my original arrangement with the owner was that I would do this for the summer and then decide from there. I decided on August 16 that I had about six weeks left in me and then I need to be doing something else.

This has definitely been one of my more interesting jobs. I had a lot of really solid management skills from past experience:
- in my younger days I received management training when I was working in fast food
- when my mum had a cappuccino shop on northern Vancouver Island and had no previous food service experience, I was able to help her with that side of things
- at the hospital I worked at I took what was originally a chaotic environment and managed to streamline processes and make things efficient
- I managed to get my Master's project completed and thesis written
- I led an extra-curricular club when I was in university that met every two weeks and put together one or two events every semester that were much like putting together a theatrical play

My current job has allowed me to use all my skills in managing data, logistics, events, money, and people. Turns out, I love managing data. I keep stats on just about everything. Logistics are fun because I am challenged to envision what things we will need, from more seating, to who will be my sound guy when my regular sound guy is performing and my back up sound guy is in another country. I have *always* loved planning events, anyone who knows me knows I love to throw parties. Managing money (so much as I have responsibility for) in this case is really quite easy, but I have particularly paid attention to what kinds of bands will bring in the cash - and if they don't, we don't book them again. But it has been managing people here that has brought me the most satisfaction. When I started it was just me and my sound guy. I have since been able to hire two more bartenders (one who has become my right hand, I rely heavily on her). I had a bouncer for a couple of months, then he got hired at a new restaurant, and I have since had to hire two more because we are getting so busy that we need crowd management. Then there is the managing of bands, customers, vendors, media, colleagues and other sundry people I deal with. I really enjoy that for the most part, even when I have to play the bouncer myself (which is a bit stressful, I admit). I have learned really a lot in this job and I definitely feel like my management muscles have been flexed.

But I can't sustain this pace. I'm working six days a week and three of those are late nights, which absolutely messes with my sleep schedule for the rest of the week, so I am finding that I am always tired. My weekends are also entirely taken over with work which is often the only time I would normally get to spend time with my husband, from whom I was separated for 20 months having had to wait for immigration, so I would like to have my weekends back too. Also I still have my student loan debt to consider, so I need to be paying that off as soon as I can so we can one day start thinking about buying property...

I am looking to return to health care research, academic administration or management. I have applied for everything I am interested in/qualified for at East Carolina University (about 30 miles from here) and so far have only heard back from one posting, who will be doing interviews in September. Fingers crossed I am in a new position in my field by the end of September, as my last day at the Red Room will be September 21st. If I can't find something in my field before then, I'll find another temporary job - a day job - until I do.

I must say I am very proud of what we have accomplished at the club in these past five months. I appreciate all my staff do and say so every day. We have really gelled as a family and it feels good to know that if something goes sideways on a crazy busy night, there are 20 people standing beside me who have my back. I hope my replacement finds enjoyment in this work as I have, but is more adaptable to the schedule than me - I'm nearing 40 and am ready for a regular schedule.

trip to the coast

On Saturday (July 20) we drove out to the Fort Fisher aquarium, one of three North Carolina Aquariums.

An albino alligator. She's by herself because they are rare, and in the wild they are susceptible to all kinds of bad things, including sunburn. 

 Turtles mating.

 I forget what kind of fish these were, but they had really interesting scale patterning that I think might be fun to replicate in a knitting pattern one day.

 The poisonous snake collection.

 More turtles!

 All the fish were really responding to Dan. He was wishing he was in the water with them.

There are three snakes in this photo, two big ones and one little one nestled in the other two.

The only shrimp in the whole place. 

Mr. Moray Eel coming to say hello.

 All around the aquarium they had art projects done by school classes. This goes to show you it is amazing what kids can do with cardboard.

This was the highlight of my day. In all the aquariums I have been to I have never seen an active octopus. I felt sorry for her because all the kids and stupid people were tapping on the glass and talking about how gross/ugly it is, and I said "no, she is beautiful!"

 Jelly sculpture

See even I could do this. Crocheted jellies all around our house?

 Aquatic creatures are so beautiful that they beg to have art made in their honour.

 The octopus was in a cylindrical container. I took about 50 photos of her.

Glowing jellies!

The big puffer fish. It was one of those moments when I wish I could say "hold still". 

The little fish in the middle was just somebody's lunch. 

Skeleton of a moray eel. 

Mr Camouflage.



It really was a fantastic day for us. We stopped in Jacksonville on the way to grab lunch at Jeff's Burgers and Shakes and I had the best fries in North Carolina there. Dan and I got a membership/family pass to the aquarium for $60/year, well worth the money, and now we can see zoos and aquariums and science museums all over the country for free or 50% off. After the aquarium we went to the beach, just half a mile down from the aquarium parking lot. I had never swum in the Atlantic Ocean before and it was quite a strange feeling to be in the ocean and have it be warm. We didn't go out too far in the waves because the tide was coming in and there was undertow as well as a rip current, and I am still mighty scared of big water. It was fun riding the waves though and feeling flopsy. The salt water cleansed us both and we felt great after.

We headed from Fort Fisher back up to Wilmington to go to Trader Joe's and then to Flaming Amy's Burrito Barn. I hadn't been to a Trader Joe's since I was in Arizona in 2004 and it is still pretty awesome. Impulse buy: chocolate covered espresso beans. Also maple syrup from Quebec.

I realize it has been more than a month since I last posted. Things are moving along at the night club and my job is at times really fun and other times really stressful. I'm still learning a lot but I'm working six days a week and putting in about 45 hours a week, which isn't really sustainable so I'm trying to find a way to better manage my time. I have hardly touched my knitting in months, and it has gotten so hot that I have also sort of lost interest in maintaining the yard (combined with being in full view of all our neighbors, I'm not used to this kind of scrutiny). Dan is distilling now and I have also become keenly interested in the world of spirits. There has been some weird stuff happening in my family, not bad, just weird, but events are still unfolding so I'll say more about that later. I'll just say that 23 years after having divorced my dad, it looks like my mum will finally get her settlement from that marriage so she can get on with her life.

Also I have unlocked my Twitter account.

More soon, I promise!

Mr. Sexual Harassment Guy: the follow-up

This story has a happy ending.

Friday night we were the busiest I have ever seen it in the club. I had two other people behind the bar with me and we were pouring drinks nonstop for five solid hours. It was nuts. Mr. Sexual Harassment guy came in and I gave him the usual excellent customer service. It helps that he always drinks the same thing so that, when there are ten people at the bar waiting for a drink, it's easy just to slip his Usual to him in the time it takes for the three people next to him to figure out what they want.

At the end of the night though when the room had cleared a bit he was rubbing up against Courtney and I tore him a new asshole. I was stern/bitchy/mad and told him don't touch me, don't touch Courtney, any further inappropriate sexual remarks and he would either be banned from the club or I would call the police. He shook his head and said "that's not necessary", which I interpreted to mean he thought I was overreacting. In colorful language I said yes it is necessary after the things he said to me last weekend. He paid and left shortly after that.

Then on Saturday, it was like that interaction from the night before had never even happened. Or maybe we're just letting bygones be bygones and starting fresh. At any rate, he was pleasant to deal with on Saturday and made no inappropriate remarks or gestures.

I sure am learning a lot working in a night club.

I had a thing happen to me last weekend

So, I'm working in a bar now, and while it can be a lot of fun, occasionally there are some uncomfortable moments. My staff person Courtney and I are, to be modest, on the cute side and thus we get flirted with a lot. Quite often a guy will be flirting with one of us, and when they get shut down will try to work on the other one (she's in her early 20s, I am nearly 40). We have each other's back when it comes to safety and protection but sometimes there are moments when one of us is out gathering cups or we are really busy and can't pay attention to what the other one is doing.

There is this guy who has been coming in every weekend and flirting with me a lot. Now I get this every weekend from men in their 20s to men in their 50s in beyond, but this one in particular has been rather persistent despite constant mention of my husband. On Friday there was a moment where no one else was around and he asked what my situation was. I said "I am happily married, my husband and I spent 20 months apart and despite opportunity and temptation we remained true to each other. We are rock solid, he is my best friend and my soul mate." To this, guy responded "Do you want to have sex?"

I felt like I was in a bad movie.

I also froze right up. How does one respond in this situation? Good grief.

I don't remember exactly how I responded but I know it was something like "to even consider that would be to disrespect my marriage and I won't do that".

I think the thing that pissed me off the most was the utter lack of respect for me as a person. He just saw me as some hot chick he wanted to get into bed with. Guys like that will never understand women like me - if you respect me and my brain, then we can be friends. If not, I have no time for you. 

I have been sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, I have been drugged and raped. I have gone through the entire spectrum of unwanted sexual attention (well except for physical violence, thank goodness) and every time, in that moment where in afterthought I wonder "why didn't I punch the guy?" instead I feel paralyzed, shocked that someone would speak that way to me.

Other people started coming around to interrupt this private conversation, thank goodness, but guy still put his hands on me and whispered "let me know if you change your mind, it would be really good and I think you know that" and all I could do was cringe. I had given him no indication of reciprocation of this attention, how did he think that this was okay?

I hate sexual predators. They are the scum of the earth in my opinion and if I had seen someone doing this to Courtney I would have gotten violent. Seriously. Instead of turning me on, this guy just pissed me off - partly for his inappropriate behavior but also for making me feel violated and like this is a thing I have to deal with now. Men like this blame alcohol for this kind of behavior, I have heard that song before. I know plenty of men who, despite copious amounts of alcohol, seem to be able to resist me, so it can't be the booze.

I don't know what I will say the next time this guy comes in. He clearly doesn't understand NO so I will say the words "sexual harassment" and if it continues, I will call the police. That is not an instinct I have because in the past when I have gone to the police, I have either been accused of lying or blamed for putting myself in that situation. I'm told that the police here will absolutely protect me, as will every single person who works at the brewery, I have only to make a phone call and I'll have my team here.

I admit I am traumatized by this. Not enough that I need to get therapy or anything, but this instance brought up memories of the other times I have had to deal with unwanted sexual attention. I was naive to think that being married and almost 40 would make me immune to this but no. It is still a man's world. I am also hearing people say "well that's par for the course when you work in a bar". WHY? Why is it expected/accepted that this is just a thing that happens? What will it take for grownups to behave like grownups even after they have been drinking? If you have an answer, please do let me know. I would love it if we could find a way for anyone in a serving position, male or female, would never have to experience this kind of harassment.

making time for you

I have spent the better part of the last five years with having all kinds of time to do whatever I wanted, as long as I hit a few deadlines or showed up to a thing every now and then. Now that I am working and managing a night club, I am finding myself with not very much time on my hands these days to knit or get out into the garden.

That makes me a little sad.

However, I am really learning a lot about booking bands, ordering beer and wine, creating a drink menu with spirits, what it takes to run a bar and be a real bartender (something that was on my bucket list), manage staff, interface with other people in the community, promote events, participate in social media (I had to return to facebook), learn North Carolina liquor laws, deal with difficult customers, happily interact with nice customers, while cooperating with all the other people I work with in order to get my stuff done. In short, I am working my ass off these days and I am really learning a lot.

I thought I would have more time to write once we got past the BBQ Festival on the Neuse a few weeks ago, but that hasn't been the case. I'm amazed I get any laundry done but thank the heavens we bought me a front-loading washing machine a few weeks ago, as well as a clothes drying rack, so I am managing to stay on top of it.

Things are really happening in Kinston, and I am excited to be a part of it. Just before the festival was the opening of a new Asian restaurant called Ginger 108. They are in a sense part of of the Mother Earth family (or really the larger food and beverage community in downtown Kinston) and we have had the opportunity to go and sample menu selections they are considering, which is really fun. Of course Dan and I have lived in Asia and are from the Asian part of Canada (Vancouver/Victoria), so we have a good sense of what those flavors should be.

Another thing that happened recently is the opening of The Overland Gallery. (note: neither of these places has websites yet or I would link to them). Cynthia and Michael Dunn have renovated an historic building in downtown Kinston (which, incidentally, is not even two blocks from our house) and have thrown their doors open wide for artists and patrons to come and enjoy art that is produced locally. Recently they announced a call for submissions called the 4x4(x4) for anyone and everyone to make a tiny piece of art for display in August. The idea is to make art accessible to everyone and I think it's great. I went into the Gallery yesterday and Cynthia (who loves to brag about Dan) asked if we would be submitting. Of course! I said, but we don't know yet what to make. Dan can do any number of mediums (metal, wood, pen/ink, textile, clay, glass, or whatever he can get his hands on, really) and mine will very likely be textile. Cynthia gave me two 4x4 inch panels as a guide or the base for the submission. My mind has been chewing on this challenge since yesterday and I already have two ideas - one flat piece and one 3D (4x4x4). You'll see in August what I end up making!

Last week I attended a function called From Our Farm to Your Table, at which there were a number of people from the community who had tables with information and samples, and one of the farmers gave a talk about the importance of creating local food systems. Coming from a permaculture perspective, naturally I support this movement and I am excited that it is happening here and that I get to be a part of it. First I spoke to the lady at the Farmer's Market table. I am not a vendor (yet) but I would like to get involved, so she invited me to a function sometime in June. Kinston's farmer's market runs year round on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and they are looking to start occupying an indoor space in the winter. One of Kinston's two health food stores had a table there, and she is a fervent supporter of local farmers, even offers a CSA through her store.

Vivian from Chef and the Farmer was there with her sous chef. They were serving a spicy beef sampling on lettuce leaves with some fresh herbs, that alone made it worth the trip for me. So good. We talked about things I might be able to grow for her, as Vivian's mandate is to support local farmers and I want to be a local farmer. I am also hoping to collect their fruit and vegetable scraps for my compost bin; we'll have a conversation later in the month.

Vivian's sister Leraine owns Queen Street Deli, she too had a table there with some offerings of her shop. The staff at Queen Street are very familiar with everyone from the brewery, as we all go there at least once a week for lunch. It's to the point where, yesterday, when I ordered a sandwich for Dan (who wasn't with me), they knew he wanted his sandwich on pumpernickel and that he wanted potato salad on the side. I'm hoping to talk to them at some point about getting their coffee grounds for my compost.

Next to Leraine was Warren, the only vegetable farmer there. He recognized me from The Red Room (and this is happening more and more, gotta love small towns). I purchased from him some baby bok choi, kale, new potatoes and some broccolini. There was also a meat farmer and a poultry farmer. It struck me odd that out of the three farmers, that there was only one produce guy. There is room for growth, room for me to become a food producer and I bet I could find customers for my produce within 1000 yards of where I live.

This got me pretty excited. Now that my compost is going, I'm going to need sources of biomass to keep it going. I got my hair cut at Salon Steven last week and asked Kari if they would be okay if I took their hair trimmings for my compost pile. She said she would ask, and I think that would be a cool thing. Turns out there are slugs in North Carolina and hair makes a pretty good mulch around lettuces against slugs.

I have been invited to join both the Historic District Commission and the Mitchelltown Preservation Society. Unfortunately I am not eligible to vote in Lenoir County (or at all yet, not until I get citizenship) so I don't think I would be allowed to join the HDC, but the MPS is still an option. The neighborhood we live in is Mitchelltown, so I have a vested interest in keeping up with the Society.

I'll work tonight and tomorrow night at The Red Room, and then after closing Saturday night (Sunday morning) Dan and I will drive to Washington, DC, to visit an aunt he has not seen in more than ten years and whom I have never met. Dan has business in Philadelphia on Monday, we'll return on Tuesday. It will be quick trip but it will be nice to get out of town, do something different, meet more of Dan's family, and see more of the US! (Yes, we have someone looking after Sam).

So on the whole I will say that I am very busy these days, forced to be organized (which I enjoy), and while I don't get to spend much time with knitting or gardening at the moment, at some point the dust from the whirlwind will settle, I'll hit my stride and relax into a routine. It's good, I am happy.

Three weeks, swallowed by the BBQ festival

We have been busy.

Last week was the biggest event that happens in Kinston, the Festival on the Neuse, also known as the BBQ festival. I spent all of last week preparing the Red Room for an Arts Council event on the Thursday night, then for Friday night and being open during the day on Saturday. There was the top-to-bottom scrubbing of the whole place, the assisting the Arts Council people with their set up, and actually working the event, serving beer and wine. It was an extremely busy week and I think we are all still recovering from it!

These were all taken before the Arts Council event Evening with the Stars. The place was just so shiny and clean I had to take photos!

I have a lot more photos to share with you, but I wanted to get this little post out while I had a few minutes to spare. Stay tuned!

hours in the day

We need more of them. Or fewer things to do. I don't know, but I can tell you that I have been very busy as I have now flung myself into working.

I received a letter from my friend in Metchosin, British Columbia, the other day, and it reminded me that I have not written since I had the choice of jobs in front of me. I have since chosen, and I am now running the night club, called The Red Room. It's really a lot of fun when it's open and I am learning the names of many locals. I also feel a lot more secure with a bit of footing now, so I really feel like I can put down roots, figuratively and literally.

Sam, happily rolling around on the back porch as I'm working outside in the yard. 

 Here I have planted a line of sunflowers, arugula, and flax. The following day I planted another line next to it, of more sunflowers interspersed with radishes. This isn't the actual garden, but we haven't had time to build my raised beds and I needed to plant something.

This is along the west side of the house, so it is a bit sheltered from the wind but only gets sun in the second half of the day.

Every day I can I go out for an hour or two in the morning and do some work. Sometimes it is digging and planting - I don't know anything about the fertility of this soil, but it's mostly sand and floods when it rains heavily, so I know I have work to do on the soil building front. Luckily, that is underway!

Last week a lot of good things came into our life. On Monday we drove out to Beaufort, which is about an hour and twenty minutes away on North Carolina's coast and bought a planer/jointer, a router table and a wet/dry grinder/sharpener from someone on Craigslist. These are tools that Dan has always wanted and finally has them now, so he can start building furniture for our house, we can build our fence, we can build anything we want!

The next day I think it was, this lovely package stuffed full of yarn arrived from Ursa, who sent this to me as a birthday gift. Her generosity with yarn abounds with me and I am so tickled to be able to add to my stash! I haven't made plans for any of it yet, but it includes the likes of Indigo Moon, Madeline Tosh (I have never knit with MadTosh before!), Sanguine Gryphon (which has since split into two companies) and a few I hadn't heard of. I am also thrilled to have two skeins from Ursa's former company, Gaia's Colours, of the Pales sock yarn. I have knit three garments with this yarn and let me tell you - it holds up! Thanks Ursa!

A few days after that, Dan went to an auction at a local woodworking yard where they were selling everything and concentrating their operations in Greenville or Goldsboro. That afternoon we went with the truck and the van to pick up an entire rack of weird pieces of all sorts of lumber, four work tables, a number of step stools, a weird throne/chair made of 2x4s, and a "mulch display". I should have taken a photo of the latter. It looked great - it's two smallish tables that were full of "mulch" - but in my mind mulch is something that is biodegradable and that adds fertility to the soil. In this display were shredded rubber tires, painted three shades of brown. We were absolutely puzzled by this. Do people use painted shredded rubber tires as mulch? Or was this just meant to look like real mulch? We haven't decided what to do with it. Obviously we aren't going to use it in our yard, it simply will not go with permaculture. Should we try to sell it on Craigslist?

 On Sunday with a bunch of pallets that Dan and brought over from the brewery and with our newly acquired scrap lumber, Dan and I put together my long-longed-for three-bin compost system. It's not quite finished but it is at least usable.

 We found a bunch of wire mesh laying around the yard, just the perfect amount!

 My Sweety rests.

 This is the meadowland/backyard of the house next door to us. It is vacant at the moment, but a friend of ours is about to move into it and he has no interest in gardening. If we are allowed to have chickens, that would be a most excellent place for them.

 This is the view from the compost bin. The big tree in the almost middle is a beautiful lodgepole pine. Behind and to the right is a magnolia. Lots of space to figure out what to do with. We are thinking about putting berry bushes around the perimeter of the pine tree, maybe next spring.

 We have a pond! When we moved in, it was a really big pile of debris, old lumber full of nails, and a massive heap of leaves, branches and twigs. We started clearing things away last week to see what was under and how far it goes. I was delighted to discover...

 Actual finished compost. This biomass had been here so long in the perfect condition that it has now turned into black gold! I am so pleased - I can't wait to excavate it and use it to inoculate my new compost piles as well as on top of my raised beds when we get them in.

Sam is enjoying being an outside kitty, although she is really becoming a neighborhood menace with all the feral cats around who are not used to an aggressive female.

 Today Dan brought me over a bin of spent grain from the brewery, which I am excited to finally have for my compost piles!

 I started by laying down piles of cardboard, and put the grain right on top of the two on the left. I had already started a compost pile yesterday with the contents of the pond, so I'm just going to keep building these up.

And this is now as it sits, with a layer of leaves and twigs on top. I'll try to do another layer in each stall tonight (once it cools down, it's now too hot to be working outside during the day, at least for this gal!) and hopefully one more before we leave for Hickory tomorrow. I'll be going with Dan and some of the brewery staff to the Hickory Hops festival this weekend but don't worry, Sam will be in good hands! 

Once I have these piles built to my satisfaction and once there is a lid and slats in the front to hold it all in, I'll ignore the thing for a week and then start turning. With these massive piles and the heat here it should only be a matter of weeks before I have excellent usable compost. Hopefully by then I will have raised beds, a compost sifter (for any large pieces that have not yet decomposed), and several yards of topsoil to put in my raised beds. It is warm enough now that I can have tomatoes and peppers outside and my little babies indoors are ready to be transplanted! 

I am, if you haven't noticed, really excited about composting, gardening, and permaculture. We have some great ideas of how we want to landscape and develop our yard, and even with this little chipping away at it an hour or two a day seems to make a difference. Working out in the yard has been a good way to meet neighbors who have lived here a long time - long enough to have seen fish in the pond more than a decade ago. As I write I am mindful of the bombing of the Boston Marathon, the ricin poisoned letters that were sent to government officials, the fertilizer plant explosion in Waco, Texas, and today I heard that Chicago has flooded and there are sinkholes swallowing people. It's been a hell of a week for America and I don't think it's a bad idea to get my food systems in place (for food security) while building community, just in case disaster strikes our area. If something should happen, I want to be in a position where I can help.