Dear Feastlings,
I fairly sprung out of bed this morning. I was newly eligible for Covid vaccine, and the moratorium on evaluating my PPP loan had ended, and I was feeling bullish all the way around. I had a drizzly bike ride, but not drizzly enough to be discouraging. I tried to sign up. The state’s website said there were no appointments in my area, though, and Banner and TMC both still regard us as ineligible. CVS and Walgreens were booked, Safeway and WalMart still think we’re ineligible, and Pima County, in spite of sending an email that says we’re eligible now, only refers us to sites that say we’re still ineligible. I started flagging. So I did the stupidest thing I could do: I checked on the status of my PPP loan application. It hasn’t budged since February 17. I was just about ready to hang it all up. I could feel my threshold for irritation getting lower and lower. Every noise in the kitchen, every question from a coworker, every email and phone call inched me closer to a meltdown. My money shovel is near its snapping point- the one for shoveling money *into* Feast, regrettably- and I was as ready to snap as that metaphorical shovel. And then: mercy. Mose Allison came on the radio.
I love Mose Allison, and one day, in the middle of the afternoon between the lunch and dinner hours, there was a woman eating lunch by herself here on table 31, and she had made a phone call. It was idle chatter, familiar and quiet and most likely about little things- a line at the post office, or a story about a haircut. And then, as I was walking past the table, Mose Allison came on. She stopped in mid-conversation. “Dad!” she said. “Dad, they’re playing your music in this restaurant!” and she held her phone in the air to catch what was drifting out of the speaker above her. Mose Allison’s daughter was having lunch at Feast, and cheering him up- and cheering ME up- by telling him that we were playing his music, and the radio this afternoon just picked me up out of my simmering frustration and dropped me neatly into the dining room half a dozen years ago, and into the excellent mood it had put me. So thanks, music, and thanks, posthumously, Mose Allison, for everything.
I’ll keep at it, of course- trying to get an appointment, trying to get the PPP loan- but I’m going to hang on for a couple more days before fretting about any of it, and I owe it to Mose and his daughter. And every time I feel the urge to fret, I’m going to play another song.
There’s some good news, for sure- we still have corned beef and cabbage to offer for next Wednesday,
and we’re plotting out our Passover offerings.
We’re still working on the Easter menu, but you’ll know about it soon enough, and there’s a wine tasting tomorrow which I’ve been working on for two weeks, trying to get everyone lined up to speak. And it promises to be a doozy.
I’ve also been organizing our next series of donation runs, and while one of the beneficiaries has yet to get back to me, we’ve got a couple of shelters on the donation calendar:
and if all that doesn’t keep you occupied, at the very least it will keep me fairly saturated. We look forward to seeing you soon, be it at tomorrow’s tasting, picking up a loaf of bread or a jug of wine, or in line for a vaccination.
Thanks, everyone. Especially you, Mose.
Doug