paradox and some ramblings from a "writer"

I've been thinking alot about paradoxes lately.  Thinking about and experiencing them.

This past week I worked alot.  It was alot even based on my normal standard which is too much for normal humans.  My boss is on vacation, and we're understaffed and there was some crazy stuff happening at work, on top of having the last D'Asporto events for a while.  In the midst of all the chaos, I was at peace.  Don't get me wrong, I didn't go straight to peace... I definitely took a few detours into despair, madness, (at one point I literally sat underneath the desk at work) depression, anger, manic happiness, and eventually I found a nice lane was with this peace that was absolutely necessary to make it through.

It felt like a jet stream.  I've never been a pilot or a bird so I'm not exactly sure if this analogy holds up, but looking at my situation there is no where that I could see peace.  It was all chaos.  Constant fires to put out, and everywhere I turned there was something else that required all of my focus and attention to figure out.  Once I found my peace, I started to get some traction, some things started to go my way, and with each little victory I started feeling more and more at ease.  Alot of things were still on fire, but I wasn't feeling the heat, I had this inexplicable focus.  I'm not sure if I was just beyond exhausted or I just found a new gear to go into.

There are at least 50 things I would have done differently, and I'm not necessarily proud of the job I did for the last week.  However, I did it.  Last week happened and I'm still kicking.

__________________________________________________________

I wrote wrote that in October last year and never finished the post.  So I'm going to pick it back up and expand.  Much like the title, I feel like alot has happened since October, and at the same time, not much has happened.  Funny how that works huh?  How sometimes at a micro scale everything seems so busy and so much is moving and changing, however at the macro, it's all basically the same.

I did make it out of that week alive.  It changed me in ways that I didn't realize at the time.  That week was a wake up call.  I began to see some things the way they really are.  I have a tendency to function in the present with the reality of the past dictating my thoughts, opinions, and motivations.  I guess we all do that to a certain extent.  For me this equates to a lazy ignorance to change which causes me to just spin my wheels and wonder why I haven't made any progress.  For example... I consider myself a writer.  In the past when I have not sat down to write creatively I would always excuse myself because part of my job dictates that I write and I would try to present ideas and situations in a creative way, in my own voice if you will.  However I realized recently that I don't do that.  I write what I'm supposed to, bare minimum, and call it good.  So by the reality of the past (me writing every day, storytelling, expanding on ideas, daydreams, etc) I can consider myself a writer, I can say I love writing,  it's fun for me.  However what is actually going on is, that I never sit down to write.  Even now, I'm writing this as a way of procrastinating doing other "more important" things.

So yet again, I find myself in another terrible cycle of wanting to do something, without making the time for it.  Here's to 2018.  I don't think I'll figure it out this year, but I am pretty excited for somethings that are in the works.  Dana and I are going to have a eventful year.  Will I write more?  sure.  Will it be consistent?  doubtful.  Will I try?  yeah.  or at least I'll tell myself I'll try so that I can feel better about calling myself a writer.  What is a storyteller who doesn't tell stories?  I think I figured that out over the last year and I don't like it.  So here's to telling stories.  Here's to making things happen in the macro and slowing it down in the micro.

Cheers.

Learnings from the road...

Hello beautiful people.  blah blah blah excuse excuse excuse for why I haven't written in forever...

Ok now that's out of the way.  Let's talk about problem solving and getting to do things that you are massively under-qualified and unprepared for.  That's been my summer.  I can't remember if I have stated on here before but for those who don't know, I work for Tutta Bella again.  I came back in November of last year.  Coming back was a separate story that I'll tell you later... I want to fast forward to this summer.  The thick of it... Actually.... I'll ease all of you into it...D'Asporto is Tutta Bella's food truck.  It's a retrofitted shipping container with a neapolitan wood-fired pizza oven in the back of it, pulled by a 2001 International 4700 Diesel engine. It's part of the reason I came back.  I get the privilege of managing/figuring out making it a successful endeavor for the company.  I m going to tell you about the first 3 events which seem like forever ago...

March 29th.  The first D'Asporto event I've ever done.   Here's what happened.  I didn't think that the company who requested the truck was going to confirm, so I didn't pay much attention to it.  The truck had been parked without a fire in the oven since October, so it needed to be reseasoned.  In order to reseason the oven we needed a good 6-8 weeks of a fire in the oven, building it bigger and hotter and burning it longer each day.  It's a delicate oven and needs alot tender love and care.  I've never had to season anything except my cast irons at home and you can ask Dana, I'm not very good at that either.  SO turned out that the group did confirm, so instead of the 8 weeks to reseason the oven I have 5.  So every day for 5 weeks I went to the truck and lit a fire in the oven and let it burn for a few hours.

So game time.  It's March 29th.  I get up with PLENTY of time to get to the truck, and hit the road.  My kitchen manager Moises (who is the best!!) was planning on meeting me at the event space.  The oven needs at 3 hours to safely get to the cooking temperature.  I was at the truck in time to get to the event 4 hours before service just to be safe.  I climbed into the cab of D'Asporto with my heart leaping out of my chest, veins coursing the adrenaline.  I put the key in the ignition.  I turn the key.

nothing...

silence.   This was a cold spring morning.  It was 5am.  Peaceful tranquility.  The silence was ripped apart, not by the rumble of a diesel engine but by my screaming the f word.  I'm not proud of that moment... Probably woke up some people in the neighborhood... taught their kids a new word.. oops.


The next moment though, I am very proud.  Instead of screaming more, crying, breaking stuff,  or quitting, I immediately started to google mobile truck repair.  I finally got a hold of the hero of the day at Duke's Truck Repair.  He came out in 20 minutes and diagnosed the problem.  He said my alternator was shot.  He got my battery charged up and agreed to meet me at the event space with a new alternator and replaced it for me on site.  Talk about customer service! So I left columbia city an hour and a half later than I wanted to, finally got to the event.  Moises, Victor and Gary (the crew for the day) we already there ready to load in.  I touched base with the event planner, and we got set up and ready to go.  Everything went flawlessly during the event despite the rain and the wind and having to roll 6 pizzas in at a time for a buffet for 75 people.

I got back from that event emotionally and physically exhausted, and here's the kicker:  excited.  I'm starting to discover that I am wired for adversity.  I see a challenge, and push through it.  Learn and get better.  Learn and get better.  Rinse and repeat.  

The next event we had was a wedding in Ballard at the Golden Garden Bathhouse.  My good friend Alan Yee was in town visiting and he got to ride with me during one of the scariest drives I've taken in D'Asporto: the first time I went down Denny Hill in this monster of a truck.  For that event, we parked the truck way further away from the venue than was ideal.  It was raining sideways, we literally had pizzas fly off of the tray we were using to take them inside to the venue.  We couldn't figure out how to use the prosciutto slicer, smoke from the oven dumped into the container right before we needed to start cooking pizzas.  All in all though we made it work.  The event went well both bride and groom were very happy.  I got turned around on my way back to columbia city and ended up having to up Denny Hill which was even more scary than going down.  By the time I got back to the area where I park D'Asporto someone had blocked the parking lot off, and due to some stupid Seattle parking enforcement laws, I didn't have the legal authority to get them towed so I had to wait until about 2:30 AM for them to move their cars.   Same story at the end though, mentally and physically exhausted and unexplicably excited for the next one.  

The next event was the oven blessing.  It's a neapolitan tradition to have your pizza oven blessed by priest, and we decided to take the truck to a men's shelter in Seattle, have a friends and family party, do the oven blessing ceremony and then feed 250+ homeless men and women after the party.  To say I was excited about this event is a massive understatement.  This is why I came back to Tutta Bella.  We had the means to meet people where they were at and fed them a fresh hot meal.  I think I have another one of these events coming up in November, and I can't wait.     

We cranked out 350+ pizzas that day.  Maria, Moises, Gary and Jessalyn crushed it.  There was news cameras there, tons of people I haven't seen in forever, overall it was a crazy event, and I'll never forget it. Leading up to it was a ton of planning and coordinating between the shelter, the city of Seattle for a parking permit (which we actually didn't end up finalizing... oh well it all worked out) getting the nameplate for the oven fabricated and installed, finding a priest who wasn't serving during a Maundy Thursday Mass, and coordinating with Costantino's family on if they would be joining us.  We named our oven after a dear friend Costantino who passed away from stomach cancer last year.  His sister came out from Rome and was a part of the blessing ceremony.  Joe invited Dana and I out to dinner with her the following night and turns out she's a videographer and just a delightful person, so now I have a new friend in Rome! 

These events were all in consecutive weeks.  During this time, when I wasn't on the truck, I was in our Bellevue location running shifts in the dining room.  

You might be thinking, "wow I didn't know Sam had experience running a food truck." or "wow good thing Sam knows alot about how to fix or work on a vehicle" OR "I didn't know Sam was experienced in driving large vehicles".  Well the truth is that as of March 28th of this year I didn't have  the experience, the knowledge, or the qualifications to do any of it.  

Seafair almost killed me.

Here's what I did have:  A company, owner, director of operations, GM, management team, and employees who believed in me,  They gave me the freedom and guidance to figure things out. I also have more problem solving skills, creativity, and a morbid curiosity than I realized.  Was it always fun?  I'm not gonna lie, most of the time it was, and the reason I say that is because I am a weirdo. I absolutely love hard work. It wasn't all just the fun and games I show on my facebook live videos.  What you haven't seen is my prep for the Ferrari of Seattle events I had this summer where I wake up at 2am and pack the truck by myself and drive 3 hours to Shelton, WA and set up a breakfast pastry and fruit buffet by myself.    This summer has been hard, back breaking, mind numbing, exhausting work.  2 weeks ago I put in 82 hours.  Not ideal, I know.  Dana is certainly not a fan of me working 82 hours a week (I had to hire her for events so we could get some more time to hang out!) and it's in no way a sustainable strategy however in year 1 of D'Asporto it is what was needed.  Year 2 is going to be bonkers.  Less figuring out, more doing things better, more efficient, more often.   

So much happened this summer, now that I'm back to writing, I'm sure I'll tell you all more stories from the road.  This is the first time that I've thought of these 3 events in months.  I've done 40+ since, each one (for the most part) getting easier to execute than the last.

I've also been really pondering the idea of paradox.  I think life is a collection of paradoxes that we have to navigate.... more on that later. Thanks for reading.  More to come.  

A note from your uncle in Seattle

Dear Melody River Guerieri,

I know that it will be a year or so before I meet you and there is a solid chance that you'll never read this.  I want you to know that you are entering the world in one of the most amazing times ever.  Not because of the president or the state of the economy or the brand new Kroger in Hernando, MS (although I heard that its pretty sweet).

You have been born into a family that I have had the honor of seeing grow and flourish.  You have a mom who has been by your dad's side through some really crazy times.

Your dad is so dedicated to taking care of your family that he would do whatever it takes to provide for you and your sisters' health, wellfair and safety.  Your mom and dad have loved each other for a long time.  The home you are going to grow up in will allow you to become whoever it is you want to be.  You might not know this but your mom and dad are very talented artists.  Both of them are incredibly strong and intelligent.  They aren't perfect.  They are going to mess up.  Probably a lot, but through all of it, I know that they love you, and they are trying to do their best to not totally screw you up.

I think most importantly, and what I am the most excited about, is all of the fun you are going to have.  I know you just met them, but let me tell you... your sisters are hilarious.

 Lilly Grace is as sassy as your mom and Harper is as goofy as your dad.  I cannot wait to hear about all of the shenanigans that you 3 will be getting into.  There is a piece of me that feels sorry for your mom and dad because I know there is going to be broken bones, hurt feelings, unexpected haircuts, crayons on walls, and all other manner of childhood tomfoolery.

 I think about the squad of teens that are going to be running around north MS in 13 years and I cant help but picture me and your dad when we snuck out of our houses to skateboard around our neighborhood.  I think about the countless number of shows that we went to in what is now your dad's print shop.

Melody, I cant imagine the technology that will be invented in your lifetime.  I mean if you had told me 15 years ago that I could text a pizza emoji to Domino's and have a pizza delivered to my house I would have never believed you.  You were born on International Women's Day.  You are here on earth and in America during a time where the rights of women, immigrants, and minorities are at the forefront of every other news story.  Those rights are in danger, and hopefully the champions for these people groups will stay passionate and stay loud.  Society is moving forward no matter how hard those who oppose want to pull it back.  You have a better chance of getting equal pay, equal opportunity.  You are the coolest thing that happened today.  I am on the other side of the country on a  cold dreary Seattle day and yet I am so warm and happy today because you were born.  I'm not the only one.  Your parents have a crew of friends that are all kinds of awesome.  We are all happy that you are joining this family, and can't wait to see you grow.

I cannot wait to meet you.  Happy Birthday.

That one time I got fired

I was walking around downtown Seattle last week on the way back to my car from the dentist.  I walked past the only business I've ever been fired from, and accross the street from that business was a pretty freshly demolished building, and the parking lot had already been ripped up.  Knowing Seattle, it will probably be another condo building by the time this actually posts.  So I thought that it might be fun to tell the story of getting fired.

When I first moved to Seattle I had very few spots to go hang out at, Lighthouse coffee was one of them, and I was there a lot.  They were opening up a second location in downtown Seattle called Wheelhouse Coffee.  When Wheelhouse opened up that was my new second home since my internship at the time was downtown, and Jon Mansen worked there so I would stay there for his entire shift goofing around and getting work done.  Wheelhouse put in beer taps and was going to start serving beer.  They had a "grand opening" event and they needed a bartender (someone who had a permit to serve alcohol) so I told them I'd do it for free beer and some tips.  It was a super fun event, Jon and I just served up coffee and beer all night.  I apparently did well enough that the owner, Ed, asked me if I was interested in working there.  I was part time at Tutta Bella, so I had the time to pick up some early morning hours at Wheelhouse.  This was so exciting for me because at the time I wasn't super happy at Tutta Bella, we had gone through another set of managers and I had lost my bartendering shifts.  I thought I could stick around at wheelhouse long enough to graduate to Lighthouse, which would have been perfect because at the time Dana and I lived down the street from Lighthouse in Fremont.  I was also friends with the crew at lighthouse.  Things were really looking up.

Fast Forward and I work 2-3 mornings at Wheelhouse and one of them was a open-close shift on Saturdays mornings.  Saturday mornings at Wheelhouse were not the most exciting shifts.  I would bring my computer and do some writing, send emails,  or watch netflix because I would normally have about 10 people come in all day.  We were so slow at that point that as a joke we had made a twitter account for Wheelhouse and would tweet dumb stuff, innocent stuff, but dumb none the less.

At this point, you're probably thinking, "Man Sam sounds like a pretty terrible employee!"  Well the truth is that I was.  Even my unhappiness at Tutta Bella could be tracked back to the fact that I just didn't care, and it showed in my work.  I loved connecting with people, it was just all the other things about working that I didn't really care enough about to work hard.  I was a punk ass plain and simple.

Back to Wheelhouse,  One day in particular I decided that as a joke I would "live-tweet" my shift.  THis is a dumb joke because basically nothing would happen.

The first customers of the day were almost always without fail Toyota car salesman.  They worked at the dealership accross the street and they were my least favorite customers.  They always pulled on the locked door 20 minutes before I opened up at the butt crack of dawn, Knock until I walked over an unlocked the door, order 4-5 drinks, 4-5 pastries and tip me at the most $1.  The other times they'd come in would be in the middle of a rare rush, and while there were little kids in line they would really loudly swear and cuss and "talk shop" and they'd try to give me "the nod" which works if you're not a douche (basically the nod communicates to the barista, "hey I'm just getting the usual, if you want to start it now, to save us both some time).

So As I was live-tweeting my shift, I was tweeting things like "still no one here". "I promise i showered today, come hang out with me at Wheelhouse!"  And then a crew of really rude Toyota folk came in and I just started to see red.  After they left, I started tweeting about them.  It was mostly just rants, and then as the day went on, I started to tweet at them.  I would say "hey at Toyota of seattle, why do your employees come in and cuss and swear in front of kids?"  And "hey at Toyota of Seattle We open at 6 on saturdays not 5:30, please let your staff know".   I didn't think twice when I was just complaining on twitter about them, however when I started to actually tweet at them I did have a moment of pause.  I thought to myself, "Sam you could get in trouble for this..." and I decided at that point that I didn't care about the extra $60 a week I got from working at Wheelhouse and hit send on those tweets.

Fast forward to the next week.  I am at Tutta Bella in between shifts and I get a call from Ed the owner of Wheelhosue and Lighthouse.   This was years ago, so I'll give you a paraphrase of the conversation we had,
Ed:  Hey Sam, what up with this Twitter account?  I didn't even know there was one.
Sam:  Oh yeah, I started it as a joke, just messing around we only have about 8 followers.
Ed:  Well if its not a big deal why did I get a call from Toyota today?  What the hell were you thinking on Saturday?
Sam:  Not gonna lie Ed, I had a bad day on Saturday and those guys just got really under my skin.  I was out of line, I'm sorry
Ed: Well I can understand that,  but running your mouth like that isn't good for business.... You know I have to fire you right?
Sam:  Oh damn, yeah i understand.  I'll post an apology to Toyota and delete the account tonight.
Ed:  I didn't want to do this Sam, but you kind of forced my hand here.  I need you to get that apology up now and delete the account right now.  You can't mess around with social media like that...
Sam:  Yeah I figured, I'm sorry Ed.  I'll get it done as soon as we get off the phone.
Ed:  please do.  Bye

One thing you should know an out Ed, is that he is a pretty chill old dude who has been roasting coffee for decades.  Word on the street is that he basically taught the guy who started stumptown how to roast coffee.  The 1st stumptown in Portland looks eerily like Lighthouse coffee.  Ed didn't care about social media at that point at all.  I don't even think he has a Facebook account.

So even though I knew what was coming, the feeling of getting fired was really weird.  I felt unwanted, not good enough, angry, sad, and relieved.  It was just this nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach.  Even though I was literally at my other job, and starting to like Tutta Bella more and more, I still couldn't shake that feeling for a while.  I don't think I'll ever forget it.

 Firing people is one of my least favorite things of my current job.  I had to do it last week, and even  though everyone involved agreed it was for the best for all parties, it still sucked.  I failed that person, whether it was in training, being clear in feedback, having unreal expectations or maybe I failed them by hiring them.  Firing someone means admitting that failure.  It doesn't feel much better on the other side of the table either.

I'm glad to see that Wheelhouse is still there and much busier than they were in the beginning.  I am also  confident that anyone I've fired has another job now, and I hope they are happy and successful there.

Not going to lie though, I was really happy to see that the Toyota dealership closed and got demolitoned.  It was like sweet vindication when I saw that.  I smiled a big goofy smile so that my freshly clean teeth showed all the way to my car.

Have you ever been fired? Have you ever fired someone?  Let me hear about it.  Hope all is well with you and yours.  I'm starting to make a series of videos where Garry Potter learns to do things.  I post them on all my social media accounts and YouTube channel. Here's a link to my YouTube channel.  Check them out, Let me know what you'd like to see Garry learn.

Allen Greenburg, Albus Dumbledore, and other nerd ramblings

I've been mighty quiet on the blog front as of late because I haven't made time to sort out all of the things that are happening.  There's been so much emotions, thoughts, and feelings, that I just have been feeling somewhat numb.  One thing that I have been doing is listening to the Harry Potter books on my way to and from work.  I had only read 2 of the books prior, so it was really fun to revisit the whole series and to hear all the parts and characters that the movies left out ( seriously, why didn't they include Peeves in the movies?!?).  I just finished the last one a few days ago.  There were a few times when listening through these books lines up eerily with my life and that's what I want to talk about today.

I guess I should say spoiler alerts, but seriously, if you haven't read the books or seen the movies by now, what's your deal?  

OK so first of all, I would like to warn any of you who may be listening through the books or planning on doing so to make sure that you are NOT on your way to do anything important by the time you get to the end of Goblet of Fire.  Not to say that there aren't emotional moment up until that point, but WOW.  I finished Goblet of Fire as I was pulling up to work and just sat there.  Cedric- gone Voldemort- back Harry-almost gets murdered by someone who he had grown close to all year at school.  Dumbledore- radiates with power (the first time really seeing him in this way) I think Goblet of Fire has the most intense ending of any of the books.  All of the emotions.  I just sat in my car and thought to myself...  I was emotionally tired and overwhelmed from listening to the end of a kids book.  It was a relatively calm shift at work which was nice, but word to the wise.  Find a nice safe place before you finish that one.   

The first time the books lined up with my life was when I wa finishing listening to Half-Blood Prince.  I remember working at camp when this book came out and everyone who was feverishly reading this on the weekend in between camps was devastated by the end of it.  Albus Dumbledore dies.  I found myself in my car, quietly weeping.  Yes I was sad that the character had died, but what led me to tears is that my dear friend Allen Greenburg had passed away just days prior.  I got to thinking about how Allen and Albus would have been friends.  My friend Allen was a fierce friend, loved the unlovable, was amazingly gifted when it came to caring for children, told some of the best stories, and was quite esoteric.

 He was in his 70's and as you can see the physical resemblance to Dumbledore goes without saying.  I don't know if Albus ever had dreadlocks, but in a beard off I think it'd be a tie.  They both had the whimsical looks of mischief on their faces.  They were both borderline irreverent and very genuine.  Allen had many different jobs over the course of his life, and I think the last one was his favorite.  He was a professional playground monitor.  He'd give out bouncy balls to the kids (even if he wasn't supposed to) and make sure that the children had a safe and fun environment to play.   Allen lived in the Artist Reformation house with Dana and I along with 4 other 20 somethings and developed a really close friendship with my friend Brendan (or Brandon as Allen would call him). They'd share stories, go to rummage sales, and they just connected in a real way.  They'd sit at coffee shops and talk about God while smoking cigarettes and meeting whoever would stop by long enough to talk.  I can just picture Allen standing up in front of a whole school and saying, "Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you.". And then sitting down with a giant grin on his face.  Allen Greenburg was the closet thing to a real life Dumbledore that I'll ever know.  The world is a little colder without Allen.  So experiencing Dumbeldore's death in the book was just another wave of grief that engulfed me.  Not knowing how to feel or what to do afterwards, I was blessed enough to have friends come into town that knew him and did my utmost to be as present with them as possible, knowing that we were all hurting and dealing with our loss in different ways.  It was awesome and it sucked all at the same time.  

The next time the books lined up with the real world is when I was beginning The Deathly Hallows.  This one was less profound (for me) as the loss of Allen/Dumbledore, but it still struck me.  The day that Trump signed and announced Executive Order  that bans people from certain countries from entering the US, I was listening to the part where they are referencing how Voldemort has control of the ministry and they were starting a muggle registration and putting people of muggle heritage on trial.  Seeing the marches, protests, and general dissent of this executive order, reminded me of these kids standing up to injustice (Ron offers to testify that Hermione is a distant cousin of the Weasley's which would put her "blood-status" as a witch and not a muggle-born) doing whatever they would think to do and at the end of the day it boiled down to sticking together, standing up for each other, and treating everyone with respect (house elves, goblins, giants, etc) while the ruling powers try to legislate and institutionalize racism (purebloods first) and pushing out everyone who didn't fit that mold, ignoring truth and justice.  If only we had an elderwand to help defeat Trump.

If anyone in this world has horcruxes its Donald Trump.  So if any of you are sitting on the sword of Griffindor, some Basalisk fangs, cursed fire, or any other goblin made goods...

All that being said, my message to all of you is the same as before.  Love each other.  Get out into your communities, meet people that are different than you. Fight injustice with love and grace.  Find a way to love those whom you don't understand.  That's what Allen did, and As I mourn my friend, as I am bothered by what is going on in politics, I am reminded that the only way to get through this grief, this loss, this turmoil is together. I still believe that God is sovereign and am genuinely curious and yearning to see where he's going to show himself in these situations because I am confident that there won't be a human solution to this problem.   It's bigger than one president, one political party, or  on election cycle.  It's a broken world that needs God's love to permeate this torn society and culture of vitriol and hate.   

Still working on a few more posts, however as life goes and friends die,  I get pretty distracted from this therapeutic creative endeavor. I hope you are all well and safe.  

  

Update!

Thanksgiving was Dana and my 4 year anniversary.  We got married the saturday after thanksgiving, so we knew that eventually it would fall on thanksgiving and this was the first time it did!  We went down to Rockaway Beach to hang out with Troy, Allyson, and Christy Jo (who I haven't seen in FOREVER!). Camp Magruder was pretty quiet, and it was really nice to see Troy seem a bit more relaxed and Allison a bit more "at home" than our last visit this past summer.  It is such a blessing to have them so close (5 hour drive), and I plan on visiting them more often.  I deaned a junior high camp at Magruder this past summer and cant wait to do it again next summer.  Dana hadn't seen me in "camp mode" and she got a good dose of that and a vacation out of it!

Thanksgiving was amazingly delicious, Allyson cooked up a storm.  Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce... She's such a bad ass.  I made Pumpkin pie and Apple pie.  I did mini gluten free pies as well.  Not a fan of gluten free baking.  You can ask Dana Jill, even with regular pie dough, when it comes time to roll it out and put it in the pie dish I start losing my mind.  The dough never quite does what I want it to and no dough is more stubborn than gluten free pie dough.  Anyway, they turned out alright, the apples macerated a little to long so they were a bit mushy.  The pumpkin pie was the best I've ever made (eclipsing the previous title holder last year's pumpkin pie from Christmas).  We also made a gluten free skillet cornbread that was good (not as good as the glutinous one but still delicious) and we all shared a really yummy Cab Franc from 2012 that I brought in honor of our anniversary (we got married in 2012)

Digby was looking at me 1 second before I took this picture... 

We brought Garry along with us, and he spent a good amount of time in the car.  We bought him a huge bone, and gave him that in the car while we ate thanksgiving.  Troy and Ally have a super cute scruffy dog named Digby, and Digby isn't a fan of other dogs.  We brought Garry inside and they were cordial at first, and then Garry just would not stop wining and wanting to wrestle with Digby and Digby wasn't having it so back to the car went Garry.  At the end of the night we took both dogs out to a wide open area and through tennis balls for them to chase to get some energy out.  It was fairly rainy so we were left with 2 soaking wet happy and tired out pups.

I'm also getting settled back into Tutta Bella.  They needed someone to take over their new food truck, 'D'Asporto' and I've always dreamed of having my own food truck so it was really exciting when the director of operations reached out to me as a possible candidate for the position.  It's been really amazing to see how the company has grown since I left.  In my re-training I was assigned to read some training material that I had written years ago, which was a really cool experience and a good reminder that I need to be more patient when it comes to changing systems and structures, and that my opinion and my voice is valued.

 Dana has been very sweet and patient with me as of late.  With any job transition comes a new collection of stressors, and when I'm not diligently processing what's going on, I tend to be a real genuine douche bag to her.  I'm also pretty good at apologizing and Dana is very forgiving, so it all works out in the end.  She just made a giant batch of Mo-Mo's Mini's (delicious and delightful little Christmas cookies) that I've been trying to avoid eating all of them so that we can actually give them as gifts.

Don't know if I gave everyone an update on our Ketogenic experiment.  I got down to 207 which was a loss of 22 pounds in 30 days.  Dana saw some benefits in energy levels and clear thinking.  She felt sick almost the whole time though.  I am more than likely going to give it another go at some point next year for a couple months.  I have gained 10 pounds back, and I'm thankful that we were able to go through something like this together.  Didn't end up doing crossfit since it's ridiculously expensive.

That's all I have for you today; I know it's been a while since I've posted, and my excuse is that it's been a very busy season.  A few posts I'm working on right now are the idea of being a stranger (partly inspired by one of my new favorite podcasts "Harry Potter and the Sacred Text" That my friend Hope introduced me to.  If you even remotely enjoy Harry Potter I highly recommend it)And one that revisits the idea that life happens around food. I'm also working on a few more posts all at the same time so that I can get back to posting on a regular basis.  As always comment or whatever with suggestions or questions.  Love you all, Miss you. Thanks for reading.

What to do now....

I had an entire post written about what happened on tuesday and I deleted it.  It was my take on what we should do now in light of who we will have in the whitehouse as of January 20th.  I deleted it because I have nothing to say about any of it anymore.  I'm at a loss for words for a different reason today.

I lost a friend earlier this week.  I found out about it today.  I'm not going to share her name out of respect to her family because it's not really public knowledge yet. I haven't seen my friend in years.  I haven't even spoken to her in quite some time.  When I first heard that she passed I was sad.  Then I started to think.  This person brought so much joy into the world.  People feel differently about themselves, better, more hopeful, unique, special, and cool because they spent time around her.

3rd grade was the first year of school that sucked for me.  I got fat, there was another Sam in my class so I had to go by Samuel for half the year, my teacher was mean.... So by the time summer between 3rd and 4th ended I wasn't super excited to go back to school.  She was one of the first people who was nice to me in 4th grade.  I have little to no memories from 4th grade other than my teacher was cool and that my friend that passed away was nice to me.  She was one of the first people who was nice to me at a time where I started to develop a negative self imagine it was people like her who made me laugh, made me smile, and made me feel like not such a fat loser.

When I found out this morning, I was bummed out.  I needed to get my mind off of the sadness, so before work I noticed that Heavyweights is on Netflix and I haven't seen that movie in a long time.  It's a lighthearted comedy about a fat camp.  There's a scene where the camp has a dance and true to reality the girls are on one side, and the fat dudes of Camp Hope are on the other.  Neither are interacting or dancing.  Also much like reality the counselors are the ones who jump in the middle of an empty dance floor and dance and make a fool of themselves and then all the kids realize that it's ok to have fun.  This scene is hilarious, especially if you have ever been to a junior high camp before.  I paused the movie and realize that I was weeping.  She was the type of person that would and could make a fool of herself so that other people would realize that it's ok to be silly.

She was hurting.  She was struggling with something and must have felt isolated and alone.  I can't even imagine the hurt she was wrestling with but my heart is absolutely shattered to know that someone who had such a profound effect on my life and many others, who was such a bright light, was hurting so deeply.

In the Northwest, there are very few people that I have known since before I moved out here.  I can count them on one hand.  She was one of them.  She was on my list of "I should connect with her because even though I'm sure she has her own community of friends; it's always nice to see an old familiar face and to catch up". Well now she's gone, and I wont get a chance to grab a coffee and catch up.  I wont get a chance to hear about all the wonderful things that she's been a part of.  I won't ever get to tell her how much her kindness meant to me and that sucks.

I'm writing this as part of my grieving process but also, for those who are reading it hear this:

There is so much darkness and hate in this world. It is SOO easy to isolate ourselves especially today.  You can still feel "connected" to people who you genuinely care deeply about through facebook or IG or whatever social media outlet you choose to follow their lives on.  What I am begging each and every one of you to do is to reach out.  Call someone.  Catch up with old friends.  Take the trips to see the people you haven't seen in a while.  Spend the time connecting to each other.  Share your light, your joy, and your hope with others.  You don't know what people are going through, and if no one asks, then its easy to believe that no one cares.  Please let someone you care about know how you feel, let them know how they make you feel.  Be real, be honest, and be vulnerable.  If you are hurting, reach out.  I don't know what else to say....