Have Oven, Will Travel

This weekend we will be out on our first 2005 event for my concession business—the Newport Wine and Seafood Festival. Heavy on the "Wine…"

This event is basically one big drunken party. Long queues of festival aficionados arrive two or three hours before the doors open, and the faithful are willing to stand in line for hours (usually in some form of precipitation, since this does take place on the rainy Oregon coast…) to gain admission to the inner sanctum. In anticipation of this long wait, most of them have liberally partaken of some kind of fortifying alcoholic substance before arriving. Even after the doors are opened, only something like a couple thousand folks are allowed inside the building at a time, so after the first rush of patrons gets in, everybody else stands in line and...waits some more, until people start to leave. One in, one out. And, by God, those stalwart folks will stand out there and wait. Personally, I don’t understand the attraction. But if crowds of people are that insanely dedicated to getting in somewhere to eat and drink, I want to be there pushing my wares in their faces.

For the past two weeks, I have been working on building my food inventory, cleaning up equipment, sprucing up the booth, and re-vamping the signage. Everything has gone so smoothly so far, that I’m almost certain something really disastrous is going to happen. The transmission in the van has been cranky lately…I have visions it giving out halfway up one of the hills in the coast range, where the cel phone gods laugh in your face and say, "Signal? You don’t get no stinking signal!" Oooh! Gotta snap out of that little reverie! Think…only…positive…thoughts….

Wish us luck, and, while I’m gone, I’d appreciate if you would ponder something for me and give me your input. For some time now, I’ve been thinking about renaming this journal. When I started it, I WAS "Coming to terms with middle age," and that was what the journal was about. But it seems to have morphed into something quite different. I do feel a sentimental attachment to the name. (If something is in my life for more than two days, I get attached to it. I can become attached to a spider living in my bedroom window…) But the name just doesn’t seem to describe the things I’ve been writing about lately—most notably my penchant for political ranting. What do y’all think? Should I change the name? Any suggestions for a new name? I’d run a contest or something, but what would I give as a prize? One of my political opinion entries printed in gold on expensive vellum?

Help me out here. See you all on Monday!