A Jellyfish-in-the-Ass Kind of Day

This has been one of those weeks. Or so I thought.  Then I read this. And realized, I ain't having a bad day...


Bob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an email he sent to his sister.

"Hi Sue,

Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all.

Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wet suit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: we have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea and heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose.

Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wet suit. This floods my whole suit with warm water; it's like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my arse started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it, however, the crack of my arse was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my arse.

I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers were all laughing hysterically. Needless to say, I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression.

When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't shit for two days because my ass was swollen shut."

So next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your arse. Now repeat to yourself "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job!" Whenever you have a bad day ask yourself "Is this a jellyfish bad day?"

Hold The Phone! No...Really.

This week, I had what would normally be a catastrophic event for most people....I broke my phone.  Not intentionally, mind you, but a perfect drop and the only rock within 20 yards, and my verbal link to the outside world was severed.

And I could not have been happier.  First of all, I found 3 dollars on the ground, and it was $2 Fried Chicken Day. Score! How can one be distraught when there's free fried chicken?

But the real glory was in that NO ONE COULD REACH ME.  It was like a self-imposed isolation that so few of us ever get.  I got more WORK done, more PLANNING done, and more RESEARCH done, than I have in weeks.  It was glorious.

This was almost a perfect test case for the disaster plan I had worked out a few months ago.  There were still a few hiccups, which I have now addressed, but all in all, this was a great thing that happened.  And the PRODUCTIVITY? Worth it!

Finally, the lasting benefit is that at least two people have given up calling me.  Now to get the remaining 67 to stop, and life will be even better...

Why am I Peeing?

I had a grand podcast conversation yesterday with Debbie and Karen of Cool Cooking.com and Book Goodies.com.  One thing that came out of that was the need for social media when it comes to promoting a book.  In short. I hate it.  The landscape has no roadmap to explain how to do it, when to do it or what do do.  And that frustrates me.

At the end of the day, I want to connect with people. Real people.  Not tweets, or twits, or status updates or GPS coordinates. Maybe someone likes what I'm doing. I thank you for that. And equally so, maybe someone doesn't like what I'm doing.  Guess what? I thank you for giving a damn either way.  So in the world that is evolving of he said, she said, shares and forwards, let's not forget it is about connecting with people. People like a Sacramento-based Karen who loves Voodoo Donuts, or a Rochester-born Debbie who is the guardian of secret family recipes. Or my story (and books)...besides, if you don't connect, I can't send you our family's wonderful pecans!

Why Do We Travel?

This week, I gave an interview about the book that started it all, Signature Tastes of Bellingham (at Village Books, don't go anywhere else for it!), and the writer, Jessica Verner and I crafted the below...it captures our motivation perfectly...


Why do we travel?

For some, it’s a break from a well-known daily routine.  For others, it’s the triple thrill pleasures of planning, experiencing and remembering.  No matter why, when we do strike out and see a new place, we always bring something back.  The airport tag on the luggage stays attached until the next trip.  The coaster from that funky little bar gets tacked to the corkboard in our cubicle.  All of it, a visual reminder lest we forget.

Here in Bellingham, that very notion has taken root in the form of a cookbook.  Well, maybe not so much a cookbook as a “Culinary Postcard”.   A recently transplanted firefighter, Steven W. Siler, came here and saw with a visitor’s eyes things that made Bellingham special: the people and the food.  So he went out and heard the stories.  He gathered the recipes. And he photographed almost everything. Rarely the food, but the sights and the people caught red-handed in the act of being themselves. And from that, the Signature Tastes of Bellingham was born.

And while the City of Subdued Excitement is a unique place, it’s not the only place that’s special.  That firefighter knew they were everywhere.  So that notion that began as a simple homage to the city has now become not just a nationwide, but an international effort. Its purpose is to capture and share those wonderful sights, those incredible tastes and intriguing places that define the area.  Thus, the Signature Tastes series of “culinary postcards” was born, to become the one takeaway that visitors and locals alike can embrace when they start a sentence with “…Remember that place?...”.

The Southern Gift of Gab

Yes, I live in the Northwest.  And yes, I stick out like the first topless bikini on a beach.  Wait, you mean ya’ll don’t wear seersucker, pastel shirts (love me some mauve) and straw hats here? And don’t say “ya’ll”? Oh well.

But my own inimitable nature is one that allows me to start a conversation with a stranger, a stranger’s dog, and on one occasion, a beautiful transvestite who was being deported (I didn’t see the handcuffs). For this I thank my Southern-ness.  Years spent apprenticing in the company of skilled conversationalists who know no fear has served me well.

I mention this, because today, in the space of three conversations, I was able to score a television interview, a radio interview, and a production meeting for Signature Tastes (the television show). All unplanned, all unsolicited, and truly a result of the Southern Gift of Gab.

So please, don’t be afraid to engage your fellow man or woman.  They have a story, and Facebook is proof enough that a whole bunch of folks want to share that story.  And it makes for a hell of a good story at times. Now about that beautiful transvestite…

You Don’t Need Books For A Book Signing

Slade Weston making some great Apple-lachian Brown Betties

This weekend, Steve Weston had his launch party for his stellar book, In The Wild Chef, in Boise, Idaho.  The only hitch? No books. That’s right.

We had ordered them from the printer. We knew it was a tight deadline, but we thought we could make it.  Alas, one day late shipping, one holiday, and UPS closed on Saturday (really???), and all we had at the signing was the proof copy, and last minute samplers printed at Office Depot (which cost twice as much as the books. Ugh!).

And it went off perfectly.

Steve had his support network of friends, associates and others there at Sierra Trading Post to support him.  He had wicked cool t-shirts to give away. And he and friends prepared 4 recipes from his cookbook.  God it was delicious. We gave away free $25 Restaurant.com gift cards. And a good time was had by all. On the way home, we stopped by Barnes & Noble to show them the sampler. They ordered 25 books.  Sweeeeetttt…

The result? In The Wild Chef bumped from #37 to #19 on Amazon. 

Which shows that with support and goodies, you don’t even need books at a book signing.

It’s 3 AM I must be lonely…

Yup. The clock isn’t exactly stuck at 3, but its making an interminable march towards it.  Am I lonely? How about alone instead?  Me and 3 AM are becoming fast friends, though.  

I am almost asleep…right on the edge…slipping…

Into another idea that lights up my brain like a phosphorus grenade.  In this case, it’s an extension of the Signature Tastes brand into 200 new markets.  Because I don’t have enough to do, right? So here I am, mapping out a production and distribution plan, sending out emails and inquiries and creating mock covers and such. No wonder people think I am a bit crazy. You would think so too if you saw my timestamps on my emails.

It will be successful, this I am sure of.  Because it woke me up from almost-sleep.  Your subconscious is always working, and once you get into that frame of mind where you are absorbed by your work, it will come through in spades for you.  Couldn’t it do it like 9 a.m. with a fresh Café au Lait instead? Apparently not.

But that is my life. I chose this, remember Siler?

And I wouldn’t trade it for anything in this anything in the world.

Except to maybe not see 3 AM for a few days…