Dear Feastlings,
I’m pleased to know that a couple of you read these emails so regularly that people have actually checked in on me to make sure we’re okay. The answer is yes, as long as “okay” doesn’t mean that we’re not still consistently overwhelmed at all that we have to accomplish. But, as I told one of you, there’s no need to send the police around for a wellness check, and as she pointed out, she’d likely have been dismissed as a crackpot anyhow.
What’s got me overwhelmed? Interviewing, for one- with time running out on additional unemployment benefits, we’re finally starting to get responses to our help wanted ads, but that said, it’s so far still people with a level experience that makes me realize it’s better to stay closed for lunch than hire these people and let them begin ruining your day by making or serving your lunch. But fingers crossed- all we need is a few, and we just need to separate the wheat from the chaff.
The next order business is setting up our next donation run, to six different locations of housing for people who are not only living at the poverty line but are doing so because they’re afflicted with severe mental illness. Not a particularly light-hearted thought, I’m well aware, but it will be nice to get them some nourishing meals, as according to our friend Maryann from Compass Affordable Housing, who manages the properties and keeps staff on hand to help out the residents, they often eat poorly due to their financial and mental health-related circumstances. There’ll be more about it when I work it out with Maryann, but it’s nice to be able to help people.
There are also the upcoming events we’ve been working on, like this Saturday’s tasting, which happens not to be a wine tasting but a tasting of aperitifs and post-prandial beverages, the details of which can be found here:
We’re also laying the groundwork for Father’s Day specials
and celebrating the Bonfires of San Juan, which is, like many a Catholic holiday, a clever way to bend a pagan observation like the summer solstice to a Catholic framework, like a celebration of Saint John the Baptist. In spite of not growing up Catholic myself, I must profess an admiration for the religion’s ability to turn an event that was likely celebrated quietly by druids with a little campfire and a snack at Stonehenge or the Ring of Brodgar, or more likely at a circle of lighter-weight stones in an unassuming forest somewhere, into a spectacle full of feasts and massive fires and pageantry.
https://www.spain.info/en/calendar/bonfires-san-juan-alicante/
In any case, our own celebration will be closer to the small-stones-in-an-unassuming forest version of things, but at least there’ll be good food and wine:
and no real fires to speak of aside from the stovetop. Though it does give me an earworm, the Ink Spots “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire,” which I’m now reminded has that goofy little intro that EVERY Ink Spots song has, and that somehow cheers me up a great deal. But how could the Ink Spots NOT cheer you up?
You’ll get more details about the donation delivery run as soon as they’re hashed out with the various and sundry apartments and the people running them, but in the meanwhile, enjoy a little Ink Spots, and maybe a snack at Feast, and maybe a little something before or after the meal. See you soon.
Yours,
Doug