Pastiche post
Jan. 30th, 2009 09:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snousleLook, it's the end of the month! And my goal of getting going with marketing in January? FAIL.
It's not laziness, it's reluctance. I'm not feeling terribly confident about being a professional caterer right now. For no particular reason other than the fact that I actually have to DO it, for real. It's not like this is a rip-roaring time to get going on a new venture, nor is there any great urgency from the financial end of things, but it is kind of a waste of time to not be rolling with this immediately.
"Waste of time" is an interesting concept in itself. Part of the problem is that life up here is so deliciously wonderful. I am really happy being out of the city, so much so that the sheer fabulousness of it has taken nearly a year to sink in. With thisgreat terrible great weather we've been having, running around the countryside is an irresistible temptation. And there is never any shortage of work.
Dealing with the now-all-but-inevitable water crisis - the thing that makes the wonderful weather so terrible - has also been a bit of a distraction. We put 3000 gallons in one of the new tanks, but I think the situation hit home when we discovered that the upper tank was empty. I hiked up and inspected the whole line, no problems. Bill thought there must be something wrong until I pointed out that we aren't replenishing the tank all that quickly, even in January - at our current miserable flow rate, it will be at least week before it is full again.
Internet cruising is proving to be a bit of a bust. Despite a flurry of messages I have yet to get a single real date out of it. One guy visiting town wanted me to rendezvous with him at his motel, but was annoyingly vague on the details, which of course left me hanging all day. When he finally called at 8:30 it was too late on my end. Other than that, four out of four planned meetings have fallen through from the other end. Not sure how to remedy this situation. Maybe my profile needs adjustment? It's a delicate balance, presenting myself in a way that attracts the kinds of men I'm looking for without sending them running for cover. In any case, it's not like any of these are foreclosed on forever, it may well be that persistence and patience will be rewarded.
I'm getting a sense of the size and shape of the social network up here. It's not very big but it's just the kind of crowd I like hanging with. The big difference here is that all relationships are long-term relationships; the sense of novelty is a temporary thing, and I'm going to be embedded with the same people for a very long time. (Pun intended. ;-) That changes pretty much everything, and IMHO it's very much for the better. Although the permanence of being here might seem stifling, at the same time, the wondrous sense of space leaves me feeling very free and at ease, and brings people together with greater intensity than you get from simple crowding.
Wednesday night is "Hump Night" at the Cattle Company, where they have a themed potluck with prizes for the best entry. Last Wednesday was "Asian Night" so I brought one of my favorite things, a salad of whole wheat noodles, onions, green peppers, and shredded chicken. Time management is a big concern now - having steamed the chicken earlier, I got it put together in 60 minutes, including making the noodles. Unfortunately I had to rush out the door with the kitchen still in a mess - not good - but I arrived right on time.
I did not win. For one thing, I hadn't made enough dressing, and the whole thing wasn't salty enough, so it came out a little dull. And the same noodles that might make a superior plate of hiyashi chuka aren't really so great on a buffet line where they are forced to co-mingle with all sorts of other crap on the plate. More importantly, I got smoked by an asian woman who brought a very simple BBQ pork salad that absolutely delighted the palate. Even I voted for her dish in favor of my own.
(Not surprisingly, most everything on the hot line was absolutely dreadful, with the exception of a few heat-friendly things that didn't turn into pallid slime.)
However, if I had won both the evening's event and the finale, the $200 prize would have paid me as well, on an hourly basis, as a real catering gig. So that provided something to think about. A significant goal of this business is not just to "make money" but to "have fun without spending money". If I can go to the bar for the evening and come back with more money than I left, that's not such a difficult thing, and if I keep my eyes open I can probably find a lot of different ways to make that happen.
So while it might seem a little silly to obsess over a crappy bar potluck, it was, shall we say, educational.
Now, time to get off the Internet. It is way too easy to lose the whole morning to reading stuff online. Hard to know how much of it is the "right amount" when it's all so interesting.
It's not laziness, it's reluctance. I'm not feeling terribly confident about being a professional caterer right now. For no particular reason other than the fact that I actually have to DO it, for real. It's not like this is a rip-roaring time to get going on a new venture, nor is there any great urgency from the financial end of things, but it is kind of a waste of time to not be rolling with this immediately.
"Waste of time" is an interesting concept in itself. Part of the problem is that life up here is so deliciously wonderful. I am really happy being out of the city, so much so that the sheer fabulousness of it has taken nearly a year to sink in. With this
Dealing with the now-all-but-inevitable water crisis - the thing that makes the wonderful weather so terrible - has also been a bit of a distraction. We put 3000 gallons in one of the new tanks, but I think the situation hit home when we discovered that the upper tank was empty. I hiked up and inspected the whole line, no problems. Bill thought there must be something wrong until I pointed out that we aren't replenishing the tank all that quickly, even in January - at our current miserable flow rate, it will be at least week before it is full again.
Internet cruising is proving to be a bit of a bust. Despite a flurry of messages I have yet to get a single real date out of it. One guy visiting town wanted me to rendezvous with him at his motel, but was annoyingly vague on the details, which of course left me hanging all day. When he finally called at 8:30 it was too late on my end. Other than that, four out of four planned meetings have fallen through from the other end. Not sure how to remedy this situation. Maybe my profile needs adjustment? It's a delicate balance, presenting myself in a way that attracts the kinds of men I'm looking for without sending them running for cover. In any case, it's not like any of these are foreclosed on forever, it may well be that persistence and patience will be rewarded.
I'm getting a sense of the size and shape of the social network up here. It's not very big but it's just the kind of crowd I like hanging with. The big difference here is that all relationships are long-term relationships; the sense of novelty is a temporary thing, and I'm going to be embedded with the same people for a very long time. (Pun intended. ;-) That changes pretty much everything, and IMHO it's very much for the better. Although the permanence of being here might seem stifling, at the same time, the wondrous sense of space leaves me feeling very free and at ease, and brings people together with greater intensity than you get from simple crowding.
Wednesday night is "Hump Night" at the Cattle Company, where they have a themed potluck with prizes for the best entry. Last Wednesday was "Asian Night" so I brought one of my favorite things, a salad of whole wheat noodles, onions, green peppers, and shredded chicken. Time management is a big concern now - having steamed the chicken earlier, I got it put together in 60 minutes, including making the noodles. Unfortunately I had to rush out the door with the kitchen still in a mess - not good - but I arrived right on time.
I did not win. For one thing, I hadn't made enough dressing, and the whole thing wasn't salty enough, so it came out a little dull. And the same noodles that might make a superior plate of hiyashi chuka aren't really so great on a buffet line where they are forced to co-mingle with all sorts of other crap on the plate. More importantly, I got smoked by an asian woman who brought a very simple BBQ pork salad that absolutely delighted the palate. Even I voted for her dish in favor of my own.
(Not surprisingly, most everything on the hot line was absolutely dreadful, with the exception of a few heat-friendly things that didn't turn into pallid slime.)
However, if I had won both the evening's event and the finale, the $200 prize would have paid me as well, on an hourly basis, as a real catering gig. So that provided something to think about. A significant goal of this business is not just to "make money" but to "have fun without spending money". If I can go to the bar for the evening and come back with more money than I left, that's not such a difficult thing, and if I keep my eyes open I can probably find a lot of different ways to make that happen.
So while it might seem a little silly to obsess over a crappy bar potluck, it was, shall we say, educational.
Now, time to get off the Internet. It is way too easy to lose the whole morning to reading stuff online. Hard to know how much of it is the "right amount" when it's all so interesting.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 05:55 am (UTC)Ain't that the truth!
I'll confess, as much as I love SF, I'm realizing more and more each day that the country is where I really belong.
I'm enjoying following your blog, especially now that you're up north full time. Am I envious? Um, yeah. But in a good way, as in this envy will help motivate me to make the appropriate decisions to get me to where Gary and I need to be.