The Feast of the Seven Fishes

There's been quite a delay in my posts. Partially between a burn out from writing in general, and partially due to the chaos of the holiday season.

Updates:
Boyfriend Jon has gone off to the wilds (aka, California) to spend the holidays with his family. It leaves me with two weeks of pure alone time after work. Although i miss him terribly, I've already started putting it to use; cleaning my bathroom from top to bottom. I'll wash the floor tonight.
Other cleaning is in the works including an entire empty and reorganize of my cupboards, emptying and sorting of all the boxes that have miscellaneous items shoved inside them when i had company coming over. Maybe i'll actually figure out where on earth my second hammer went to.

Then i have projects galore to work on. Wood working and sewing projects which for the time being will remain unspecified because they're Christmas presents.

All i can say is i'm very happy that i found a wood supplier online that has bubinga, one of my favorite woods.

Also, in my family, we have a holiday tradition that many people don't know anything about. It's called the Feast of the Seven Fishes. It stems in my family from my grandfather, my dad's father, who was born in southern Italy. It's supposed to be very religiously related, but there's very little rhetoric in my family. We believe what we believe and that's all there is to it. The Feast of the Seven Fishes has it's own traditional meaning for us that has nothing to do with religion. It is a very special time.

When we were little, on Christmas Eve morning, dad would get us out of bed early, (7am), and treat us to hot chocolate at a coffee shop (which almost never happened during the rest of the year) then we would go to the local fish market and dad would carefully select and buy all kinds of fish and seafood. Shrimp, Sole, Salmon, Halibut, Clams, Crab (more about this later), Scallops, and occasionally Eel, Catfish, Trout, and other random seafood made the menu. Most years, we had no idea what was going to be on the table when everything was concocted.

Then we would stop off at the grocery store and pick up any extra ingredients that were necessary. Then it was back to the house. By that time, usually it was past noon, and food preparation began immediately. I always got tasked with shelling shrimp and de-boneing what i could. And my dad would cook everything, dressed in his blue and white striped apron, going in and out of the back door to check on things cooking in the BBQ.

When the shrimp was done, as with all holidays, i got put to setting the table, arranging shrimp around the rims of these short glasses with snowmen painted on them, and filling them with the sauces. I made sure we used the gold rimmed goblets with snowflakes, and pulled out the candles. And after my grandmother died, her favorite silverware was used.

My mother would go outside with a pair of garden nippers and bring back in several branches from our cedar trees and occasionally the neighbor's pine tree. Then she would arrange it all, with some pine cones and ribbon into a beautiful center piece.

It took all of us years to figure out how he did it, but all the dishes hit the table at the same time. At which point we would dig in to spinach and garlic halibut, seared scallops, grilled salmon, a plethora of other mouth watering dishes.

Even this makes me want to throw up!

When i was really little, everyone in the family would get a kick out of putting the cooked crab right next to my chair. Then dad on my left would rip off the legs and arms with gusto while i tried not to think about those horribly sickening sounds. Then being a trouble maker, he would leave the head of the crab staring at me. I couldn't have been more than five and he would try to get me to touch it, only to make it move when my finger was a hairs breath away.

One year my mother got the hair brained idea to run the cleaned out crab head through the dishwasher with the idea of keeping it to add to her collection of shells. Only she didn't count on my brother Johnny to be the one to empty the dishwasher that night. I'll give you three guesses as to what a sevenish year old boy did with a scary crab shell that made his little sister scream. Oh yeah, he chased me with it. It was cruel, but i survived usually by screaming so loud that my mother put a stop to it. Though to this day, i'm still terrified of crab in the shell. No problems with the meat, it's quite tasty actually. Just the disgusting, creepy, freakish exoskeleton, makes my stomach turn.

Anyway, that was the story when i was little. Now it's a whole different ballgame. Dad still throws a fit if any of us so much as thinks about not attending. But he always has volunteers to go do the fish shopping. When we had fifteen people to feed, the table would be filled with different dishes. Often only limited to seven KINDS of fish, but multiple variations of all of them. Now, we're all more health conscious. Baking instead of frying, and reducing the amounts of butter and cheeses in all the dishes. Also, my sister and I join in on the cooking often bringing a signature dish or two ourselves to save our dad some of the labor.

This year is another first. My sister finally finished her kitchen remodel and wants to host the Feast at her place. My father was giddy that he wouldn't have to cook. But then my sister ended up having to work. So we're going to try preparing some dishes ahead of time. And we won't be without some of my dad's signature dishes this time around.

Full schedule

It seems like every year, after NaNo is over, i hit the ground running trying to play catch up on all the things that fell on the wayside during November.
And then after 2 weeks, suddenly i remember all the things that need to be done before December and the frantic scheduling begins.

I have one...tw...three...............five maybe six wood working projects for christmas presents, including helping a buddy make something for his fiance. As far as i know this friend has a decent cursory knowledge of wood working, as in if i handed him a sander, i'm sure he would know what to do with it. On top of that, i've managed to whittle my christmas list down to about 150 total.

Also, two sewing projects...it's looking like my new duvet cover project is going to be put off until i have spare time.

And finally, some good news.
My sister had a perk to go to a spa hotel overnight for free. And when work travel got in the way of going before the offer expired...guess who she called.
Oh yeah, Canada, baby...look out. Here we come!

NaNo 2011 - Day 29

So on November 24th at 4:50pm, i completed the designated 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo.

And then i stopped writing.

I can't really explain why other than to tell you that my brain keeps demanding that i fix this crappy first draft that i wrote. Yet, i seem to be finding every excuse possible to ignore it.

I've finished the entire Hunger Games trilogy and loved every second of the books. They're complex, twisting, and raw real...not teflon real. you know what i mean: the main character never suffers anything worse than a hangnail. These books were marvelous.

I did write an email apologizing to my read-along-ers and explaining what i had meant to do, especially after i had figured out a much better way to go about it.

I planned out my reward for reaching the 50k: a hour long massage that my back is despairingly in need of
I planned a triple date out with my fellow NaNo-ers where even I will be wearing a dress (gasp)
I planned out my christmas gifts for my family and Jon's family
I planned out my gift to myself: a new duvet cover which i'm sewing because anything i like is over 200$

Basically i did everything i could to avoid the rest of my story. Perhaps it was burn out...perhaps it was frustration that it didn't turn out the way i had hoped. All i know, is that i'm ready for December.

NaNo 2011 - Day 23

If it hadn't been for the severe sleep deprivation, i might have finished last night.

Yup you read that right. my current word count is 48,011k, and if i didn't need these silly sleep things...i probably would have kept going and reached 50 last night.

As it was i was starting to feel physical complications from my late nights and early mornings. I had a muscle knot under my right shoulder blade that was so painful that i could feel it every time i breathed. And i had scary level dark bags under my eyes. Let me tell you, i do not look pretty after chronic lack of sleep.

I did the only thing i knew how to do. I laid on the floor of my apartment with an electric blanket draped over my back turned up on high. And then i had the wonderful Boyfriend Jon massage the bad knot hard. And then i left the blanket on for another hour, typing on my story while still laying on the floor. When i checked later, the knot had dissipated for the most part.

However it is a little bit sad that it took me until 47k to write even a single scene that i had planned out before Nano started. However, the hotel chase scene was fun.

Tonight i'll reach 50. and then immediately book a massage with someone with super strong hands that can grind all the other knots out of my back and neck.

Then we'll see about finishing Foolish Luck and fixing the first 2/3rds of the story so it's not so unbelievably boring.

NaNo 2011 - Day 18

I'm sorry that i'm not keeping up with my daily slog of thoughts during NaNo this year.
A lot is going on in my personal life, and my professional life and i just try to keep my head above water. I've barely had time to write while at work, even when i stay through my lunch hour. and then i come home and try to keep my hands off of Boyfriend Jon. No, get your minds out of the gutter, it's so that he can heat them up with his furnace of a torso.
Then there's been the endless task of making myself comfortable enough to concentrate on writing. All my normal tricks haven't been working. My back starts to ache on the couch, my butt when i'm sitting on the floor, i can't put my feet up on the dining table and i no longer have a desk due to my crazy tiny apartment. Even my characters are being uncooperative. I specifically chose characters that are NOT the strong silent type. But when i write them, they keep trying to be.
Everything this year just seems off. I can't explain how, just disappointingly off.

Normally, by the time i'm past the halfway point, i'm desperately searching for a climax to my story, which is always the hardest part for me. This year, I've been struggling with breaking out of the monotony of their normal lives. I can't for the life of me thing of how to weave mythology into the beginning, and really don't want to have this imaginary line that they cross somewhere on the Atlantic and suddenly, gods and legends become real.

For over 35,000 words and all the way up till now, I've spent my NaNo time writing the extensive back story that i thought i needed to write in order for the parts that i wanted to write all along to make any sense.

It took me 17k to get them out of america.
It took me another 17 to get them off the damn boat on their trans Atlantic crossing.
Then i stupidly put them on a train. And after three thousands words of that, i finally had enough.

This is not the story i wanted to write. It's boring, and my characters are about as deep as a birdbath. I cannot take another 15k words to get things to start happening.

Today is the 18th! Are you kidding me? I've wasted over half the month on the back story? Please someone smack me upside the head with a shoe, i'm such an idiot.  There's no hook for the readers. I feel so sorry for the few people that have been reading along. It's so bad. I know it's bad, and the only way that i can think of to fix it is to just jump ahead of all the boring stuff, and worry about how to connect it later.

I can't take this anymore. I'm terrified now that i'll get to November 30th and will barely have written any of the exciting and gripping tale that i went into NaNo trying to write. And since i really don't do much writing outside of NaNo, i don't want this story to fall by the wayside and never get picked back up again. It has so much potential if i could just stop writing about the fricken train.

My NaNo this year was not meant to be this boring back story. And as of right now, the back story ends.
Ok, random plot twist generator....um no, nijas do not work...lets try again....