Often I feel that my job takes up more of my time than I would like. [Whininess alert! (Wow, "whininess" looks so weird to write, but I can't think of how else one would spell it...)] Theoretically, Colin and I put in around 40 hours a week and can take vacation flexibly, within reason. This was the case for my first 2 or 3 months here, but lately things have been getting seemingly crazier. Granted, we are nearing harvest, but this does not account for all the business. In the past month I've been averaging around 9 hours a day, been forced to work 2 Saturdays and had to work one crazy 12 and a half hour day. Now I understand that plenty of farm interns in the area work this and much more for a mere stipend (= much less money), but this is not what I signed up for. And I guess what frustrates me most is that a good majority of the work that I deem "excessive" comes as a result of poor planning on the part of my employers (or it seems more excessive than it should because they only tell us of extra hours we have to work a day or two (or sometimes a few hours) before we have to work them) - we have to bottle gin this Saturday because we've been backordered for weeks (because we ran out of bottles), yesterday Colin was informed at the beginning of the day that he was to accompany Lance to an event in Grand Junction all afternoon/evening - so much for canning tomatoes... And so it goes. Sometimes Colin and I can find humor in all of it, and sometimes we're just pissed. Last Monday we found humor and good fun - barely - in a day packed with frenzied and panicked preparations for a farm dinner; it was a cold day so dining under the cottonwood tree was out, and so we had to figure out where to put 50 guests indoors. [I don't mean to nitpicky, but aren't Plan B's more effective if you come up with them before you need them??] What follows is the tale of that eventful day.
The day began as usual, only colder. And I was tired. The past weekend some friends and I had gone backpacking in the Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderness Area (gorgeous, and with the Aspens beginning to turn yellow, what's more). It was a spledid trip, though on our last day we hiked out in a considerable amount of cold rain. It seemed that autumn had arrived. We all celebrated our feat of energy expension by eating cookies and watching a movie, only Colin and I didn't arrive back at our home until well after bedtime. Bummer.
I was tired, and it was cold. Whereas the week before I donned Chacos and shorts I took one step outside and realized that jeans and shoes would be necessary. The second step told me that a flannel shirt might also be advisable. The morning briefing told me that I would spend the morning moving wine from the winery to the newly-built storage area in the barn and that Colin would distill gin all day. True, guests would be arriving for our second and last (for this season) farm dinner by 4 or 5 pm, but all we would need to do in preparation was set up tables and chairs, maybe do a bit of cleaning - nothing that couldn't be accomplished in an afternoon. All right! Forklift time! (As an aside, driving the forklift is probably my new favorite thing. There are so many neat levers to operate and it is a very spacial and careful task. It's kind of like a routine joyride for me [for which I get paid] ... until I do some math and - yipe! - that vat I'm moving contains around $50,000 in wine. Con cuidado, Mateo, con cuidado...)
I set about my chore (not easy, as all the wine I was to move was blocked in by approximately five gazillion other pallates) and soon realized that the rising sun was not doing much to bring relief from the cold. The flannel shirt would stay on! (Unless I was being totally buff and lifting really heavy things. Then I would take it off, misplace it, then get cold again and curse my forgetfulness as soon as I was done being buff.) Shortly before lunch, the reality of the weather began to sink in. If it's cold now... Yes, guests dining out of doors would indeed become popsicles, especially once the sun went down. Lance started to consider moving the party indoors. Anna was not at first convinced but was gradually won over. Underpaid workers: enact... 'Plan B'!!!! But as the discerning reader has already noted, there was no Plan B. The wine thankfully moved, Anna and I set about the full-time task of discovering Plan B.
We can fit fifty people into the distilling shed right? (She meant sitting comfortably at tables. I wondered if fifty people could stand in there.) We cleared tanks and pallates of bottles out and then proceeded to play rearrange the folding tables with Colin's help. Unfortunately the folding tables won and only allowed us to fit around 35 people inside (assuming that all the servers had a profile slimmer than the 6 or 7 inches left between the rows made once folding chairs were set up). Where could we put fifteen more people? The kitchen/dining room? That was soon ruled out. Mark Fischer, chef extraordinaire and owner of two amazing Carbondale restaurants, arrived midafternoon with his whole posse, and it became clear that they would take up most or all of the kitchen. Where else?... Colin's suggestion won the day. If we could move most of the barrels out of the aging room, maybe (just maybe) we could squeeze 15 people in. It's mid-afternoon already. We are all starting to panic.
Anna and I drive to the barn to get the pallet jack (inconveniently left over there) to help us move barrels. Even though the pallet jack aids us in dealing with the weight of the barrels, it doesn't make the aging room any larger. It's like gridlock (the puzzle game) meets tug of war... with the Countdown Clock of Impending Doom thrown in the mix just for fun (T minus 2 hours until guests begin to arrive). After much rearranging, we manage to squeeze two tables in the small room. Anna and I high five each other. Hopefully the wine the guests will be served will prove an adequate adornment for the bare cement slab walls and dim lighting that the aging room features...
"Now what do I do?" I ask Lance. There is an immense sense of unpreparedness all around and yet I can't think of any one thing that needs to be done that I can do. Lance thinks a moment and tells me to go down by the cottonwood and right the overturned tables (that have been sitting down there for 2 weeks, since the last farm dinner) and relocate (i.e. shovel into an inconspicuous pile) the numerous cow patties that have accumulated under the tree. [Apparently even though it is cold, guests will be served cocktails under the tree. Apparently during the last farm dinner guests did not appreciate the rustic and "authentic farm touch" that stepping in cow shit had to offer. Apparently when the cows escaped (twice) during the past week, they only traveled several feet to the shade of the cottonwood... and managed to triple the Cow Shit Density factor of the surrounding area.] Glad I could be of help. A few shovelfuls of crap later, and I spy a bemusing scene. I pause, bite my lip and call Lance: "Yeah, so uh, one of the tables blew over in the wind... and a cow took a huge dump on it. Do you want me to take it up and pressure wash it or just leave it?" I loaded the table into the RTV, and hauled it up to the winery, chuckling to myself. Apparently by this point Lance was laughing at the whole situation too, as were Colin and Anna. We're not ready. This is crazy. What more can you do but laugh? And as the "doom" continued to impend, laugh we did. And as it turned out, once the doom arrived, it turned out to be just a fun party.
After I cleaned up the table (I may or may not have pressure washed cow doo doo onto Mark Fischer's car...) Lance gave me the go ahead to zip home and change into nicer clothes. Apparently tattered jeans and a sunbleached ball cap are not befitting to a server of a 5 or 6 (lost count) course gourmet meal. Also, while home I was to inform Howard (resident grandpa) that he should print out 50 menus, the PDF emailed to him - the printer at the winery had just run out of toner. Perfect. I relayed the message to Howard and selected a nicer outfit. As I prepared to leave for the winery again, I knocked on Howard's door. No answer. Oh well. Colin still had to change, so he could pick the menus up. I returned to the growing festivities. Anna accosted me. "Where are the menus? Howard said he left them on the table for you." Uh... What? I was pretty sure someone was crazy. I mentally ruled myself out while Anna decided that Howard was probably just confused. Later Colin arrived with the menus and provided me with a more satisfactory explaination: After I took over his post at the still he had gone home to change. Upon arriving home, however, first priority was taking a dump. And - of course - as soon as he sat down to do his thing Howard knocked on the door. Howard is a bit hard of hearing and does not take no for an answer. These qualities may have contributed to the fact that he hollered and hollered at the door (Colin mentally willing him away) until finally Colin broke down and hollered back. Only Howard thought Colin was me, not yet changed and dropping a load. So at approximately 4:30 pm last Monday I broke some law of physics (I've been out of school for over a year, so I'm allowed to forget exactly which one) and existed at two places at once - checking the proof on gin coming out of the still (surrounded by inquisitive guests) and negotiating a drop location for fifty menus with a semi-deaf man while yelling at the top of my lungs and taking a crap. What an epic way to make scientific history...
The rest of the evening was much less stressful, mostly fun and enjoyable, and therefore much less humorous-account-worthy (guests never did meander down to the cottonwood that I had so diligently deshitified...). We hung out with an amazing chef (He assured us that he was just the figurehead - Bryce, the cook who came along was the real hero. Whatever the case the food rocked.), ate his amazing food (four-way tie for best course: arepes with BBQ lamb, warm Olathe corn soup, roast Berkshire pork with grits, mozarella and peaches and apple bread pudding with caramel, spiced pecans, and sweet creme friache), and schmoozed with the guests.
Later, after most people left, we hung out with Ron - one of the guests as well as our winery's soils specialist and a good friend of Lance and Anna's - who had brought his telescope. He showed us Jupiter's moons and the Andromeda Galaxy with his telescope and a good many constellations besides. What fun. And after that Colin and I came inside to listen to some musician friends of Lance and Anna's jamming in the kitchen. They had come to serenade the dining guests, but after most of them left they retired to the kitchen to rehearse for an upcoming gig. And it was awesome.
And here in the course of one long writing I've gone from being extremely negative about my work situation to loving it (or rather, the opportunities it brings me) immensely. So, ask me if I like working here. Depending on the day the answer will vary. But I can say consistently that work here is varied, exciting [written with a tinge of irony] and full of surprises. Also, I find it humorous to note that the title of this post, while accurately describing the post, essentially sums up my work here. I complain a lot, but in retrospect it makes for a fun and interesting story...
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