Ahhhhh.... Time to breath a little--at least for an hour or so. My biz partner and I have a meeting at around 4 today to come up with menus for the following:

1. A birthday party for an affluent individual and 15 of her friends

2. Another wine tasting

3. A family gathering in April

And we've gotta cover whether or not we want to be auctioned off for a good cause and cook for free... While I'm a giver, I'm also a bit strapped financially so, while this would be excellent PR, I'm just not sure how keen on it I am. The one time we did this we got fucked over and ended out being "coerced" into essentially cleaning the extremely powerful (in this community, anyway) winner's house after we had catered for 60 people--all because it was a "free" promo for one of my favorite institutions: THE CHURCH.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a very spiritual person. I just despise fucking organized religion. I feel that an individual's relationship with his/her god is between the individual and the power at the heart of that individual's spirituality.

Sure, there are people who benefit greatly from organized religion. It's impossible not to recognize the important elements of family and belonging fostered in a church setting. Hell, I got married Catholic (the priest was one of the nicest guys I've ever known).

But I just can't get over some of the things done in the name of organized religion. Two words for ya: THE CRUSADES.

What a mess.

So--back to my dilemma. Do I auction off our services and run the risk of pulling an 18 hour "scour the house" gig, or not?

I suppose the best bet (this just now came to me) is to be an asshole about it and lock them in a contract so over-the-top tight that an atom couldn't escape it. Seems like a crappy thing to do for a charity event, but...

Any suggestions about anything OTHER than my religious views are wholly welcome!

Just figured I'd put that in there in case...
 

Today I'm making two bleu cheese souffles for a wine tasting. Time consuming as hell--and as I've never made them I'm not really sure what they're supposed to look like.

I've pulled the first out of the oven and now have two wait two hours for it to cool so that I can use the spring-form pan to make another (those damn pans are expensive!).

The souffle looks sort of like... I dunno... a lumpy cheese cake with bacon and onions in it. Even if it doesn't come out completely correct, it won't suck. I'm mean, shit. Nothing with 1/2 pound of fucking bleu cheese and 1/2 pound of bacon in it would suck. Unless it's coated in chocolate or something...
 

Way too much going on. Have to cater a doctor's office, a birthday, and a wine tasting this weekend... AND put a small porch on the front of the house... AND do yardwork... AND somehow write.

How is it possible?????!!!?!?!?!?
 

Okay, so here I am ready to plunge into the Blog to do a little warm up before working on my novel. And my hard drive crashes. Won't boot. Just kind'a sits there making a gagging, scraping sound like a stick being dragged across tarmac.

At first I feel I'm well and truly fucked. Then I start messing with it. Now, over seven hours later, I'm back among the digital living--without a single word written on the novel thanks to all of the time wasted on getting my machine back up.

All the while, as I'm running diagnostic programs on the system, the phone would not stop ringing. The catering business is taking off--which is good. But it's starting to really get in the way of the writing. Waaaaaaaaaaaay in the way.

I've not had an opportunity to write in almost two months--until today. And my computer fucked that for me.