In the process of applying for a liquor license, Erik and I must list the addresses at which we lived for the last 10 years.

I can recite the provinces of Canada with alacrity.

When I lived in which Belltown Apartment and when is impossible.

In performing a background check on myself, I am listed as living places I have never lived. Unnerving.

How exactly am I going to recall which Belltown Apartment I moved to when? It dawned on me who would know... my mother.

She wrote everything down. Did I keep her daytimer?

I'm off to a shed to find out.

Erik, for my birthday, bought me a Wii Fit Plus.

To play the wii Fit Plus, you have to go through a body test. According to our perky little balance board character, (an animated friend that inspires Wiley attack the screen with wild eyes) I am not a well woman.

Happy 35th birthday to me!

If you've ever watched someone play Wii Fit, you know that Wii Fit isn't about working out, it's about laughing at the person trying to fly like a chicken over an ocean.

Have you ever watched a grown man try to flap their little wings and land on a piling? It's an excellent ab-toning exercise. You clear out the tear ducts too. Careful that you don't hit the floor too hard as you laugh hysterically while he bumps into large numbered balls with is groin.

The other thing about Wii Fit that it is best played with a glass of wine. Wine is not great for your balance, but it is an excellent facilitator when learning about gravity. Even better, observe someone learn about gravity as they walk the tight rope over an alley between buildings – their little hands fluttering in panic as they weebill-wobble to their Wii doom.

It's been a lovely distraction to the lip-biting mania of running a restaurant.

When you have a restaurant, you get a lot of feedback. Some of it is valid (put unscented hand soap in the bathroom). A bunch of it is bullshit (the more people who know about your restaurant, the better).

The other day, in a kind intent to give me a compliment, someone called me Erik's right hand man. I let it slide (at the time), as he meant all the best and I dearly love him.

In the process of renovating a building, from putting the first foot in the door to maintaining the vision when the dust obscured everything, I have found that when it comes to plumbing, electrical, structural conversations – regardless of the gender of the person speaking – they always spoke to Erik about the details of the project.

I found this an odd way of communicating with me.

The fact of the matter is, though I can work as hard as Erik, though I can worry as hard as Erik, though I clean and plan and think as hard as Erik though I can rewire and install light fixtures and reconfigure old pieces of throw away furniture, though I can replumb a sink and he will not – I am not his equal in the eyes of many who look at us.

This, let me say, is not Erik's fault. If Erik were a Joe or a Dave or an Adam, the case would still be that people tend to believe the man is the leader and the woman is following along. Even if that woman is me, Adrianne Dow Fucking Young.

In the not-so-recent past, the attitude that my male partner is the leader and I am the follower would have caused me hard thoughts.

At present, I'm too tired and too busy to care that I am considered a right hand man. This exhaustion has liberated me as a woman. Ironic as it is, those who cannot talk to me about plumbing and electrical or even food, no longer have opinions that matter to me – they have become the lesser.

I can ignore the rest of what they say and go on to the next bathroom remodel or restaurant design in peace.

It is Erik that must patiently listen to all of their expertise. Poor man!

This realization, I must say, has renewed my vigor for doing more of everything and being better at it still.

Every morning (ish) I take the dog for a bit of a walk/run around the park and past the orchards that sit along the waterfront. It is low, marsh-like land that used to be owned by the local tribe. The road is one of scents: Spring cherry and apple blossoms; hot hose water; chemical spray; Apples, Rotting apples, apple cider, frost.

I listen to music on my walks because the earphones are really the only time I can really hear music. Having one dead eardrum is like having a SPAM filter. I hear only what I have decided to receive – the rest is noise.

On my playlist is Faith by George Michael. I guess I had never really listened to the song before. Had I, I would have made fun of it's bi-polar self entitled b.s. long ago.

In a nutshell, this guy wants to have sex but falls in love but doesn't want to be hurt (he's been tied down by rules in the past) so he is saying goodbye, but he has to have faith (in love or leaving, I don't know).

I start to really cock my head at the country guitar solo that evolves into a surfer guitar solo.

This was a very popular song in its day! Did no one else listen to the lyrics?

Sometimes the song comes up just as I pass the apple orchard. Up until a week ago there were apples fermenting on the ground, and Faith smelled like pickling. Yesterday Faith smelled like the sewer line. Sometimes I watch the cooper hawks slice through the sky and grab at the little birds. It is then that Faith seems to make sense – the psychotic chase for something fulfilling.

It's the song, I think that starts off our restaurant. From where we started to where we are, we have landed in a place of potential. Now to press forward though the ever-lamented-by-the-locals-and-beyond winter.

The Cafe is almost up and running. It's been a haul. A 90-day scrub and paint fest.

The next chapter, my friends, has begun.

4:30 AM
Rooster One : Hey Guys! I'm up! Anyone else awake yet?

Rooster Two: Cough. Hack. Cough. Where are my smokes?

Rooster One: Hey Guys! I'm up! ANYONE?

Rooster Two: (inhales) Cough. Cough. I. I -ah- I am.

Rooster One: HEY GUYS! GUYS! GUYS! HEY!

Human turns over. Other Human turns over.

Human: noooo.

Other Human: wragh.

5:30 AM
Cat: Good Morning! I'm awake and ready to destroy your house. Allow me to demonstrate how sharp my claws are on the corner of this chair. Yeeeaaaahh that feels soooooooo good! How's it sound? Does it sound irritating enough for you to pick me up and place me in front of my food bowl?

A Human: ARNEIS!

Cat: You could feed me...

Another Human: ARNEIS, NO!

Big Dog: I-gotta-pee-I-gotta-pee

Small Dog: Don't you give him cheese without me. oh, he's just going for a pee. I could go for a pee.

A Human gets up, opens door for dogs. Human proceeds to flip over cat-abused chair. Cat slinks under other object of destruction.

Small Dog: I've taken to barking. Watch!

Big Dog: What's that! What are you seeing that I'm not? Where? Where? Where?

Another Human: Officer! Wiley! That Will Do.

Big Dog: hrmph. Just one more good give-em-hell.

Small Dog: But it's cute when I bark, it sounds like a frog being squished! Listen! See, don't I sound like a frog being squished?

Rooster One: For the kabillionth time, is anyone else is up?

Rooster Two: Cough. -inhales- Scotch! Gimme scotch!

A Human ushers dogs inside, grabs at cat, cat relents to human goes back to bed where other human coos at cat.

Sleep ensues. almost.



6:30 AM
Large-hunting-dog-in-white-truck: I got my head out the window and I am really happy about it.

(repeat the above 20 times in a high pitched yip)

Cat claws and bites any human body part that is convenient.

Big Dog: WTF! Where? What? Who are you?

Rooster One: Hey dawg! 'sup!

Rooster Two: I'm still relevant, damn it! -inhales- Cock-of-the-walk-I-was-I-was. Co-cough-ck.

Rooster Three (yes, three): Whoa, you guys wake up early. Dudes, shut up.

Big Dog: I'm bored. Can I have a pony? What's that over there? Get up. What's over here? I'm bored. Can I go play? What's over this way? Maybe I should go back over there. A Human, Another Human, get up.

A Human: Wiley, settle.

Small Dog: I think this barking thing is kinda fun. Listen to this, wrah-wrah-wrah.

Big Dog: Is there something out there to bark at? GREAT!

Small Dog: What are you barking at? I'm going to bark at it with you!

Big Dog: Wait, you're not barking at something?

Small Dog: Ummm, well I'm barking.

Big Dog: At what?

Small Dog: idunno. Does it matter?

Rooster Three (yes, three): So how do you do this crowing thing do you start out high and go low or do you go low and start out high. I like high to low, wait no maybe I like low to hi... no let's try that again.

A Human: Coffee?

Another Human: Coffee.

Every night I dream that my mother is still alive and that she has come to me because she's dying. It's a particular hell, the expectation of disaster.

The fact that my mother is dead is bothersome but I keep busy to ignore the fact. Yesterday, I needed to call her about a veritable resister. I have 8 lights on a single pole, do I need a specific resister? Do they come in 1,000 Watts? Erik mentioned that he was told we needed a bigger one. I can't imagine why people don't tell me these things. I am the one installing the damn stuff.

I went on to replace old and poorly wired fixtures with older ones (the details of why are dull and not worth writing about). The wiring was so shoddy, I clipped off the bare ends and started anew. As I stripped insulation off of the return (the white line) and watched my hands twist the fixture wires clockwise, I was given pause.

My hands look remarkably like hers. They aren't as strong and they certainly are not as nimble, but they are lean with heavily lined palms. My mother, though no longer able to tell me what to do or how, is here and she is incredibly useful to have around.

Between installing light fixtures to hanging wall paper to digging in the garden to cooking for the people, I've let myself go a bit. The other day I stopped everything to put on a pot of wax – I actually had a waxing emergency.

We've done nothing but work and what I have to show for it is the reflection of an unkempt woman in ill fitting clothes with bags under her eyes.

It's time to put down the screwdriver and pick up the mascara.

We're getting closer in the restaurant space. Things have been painted. Refrigeration is in. We even have four chairs!

Hazah!

One of the tomatoes in the garden has not, in its history of being a plant, looked like a candidate for the cover of Tomato Weekly.

It has looked like the Charlie Brown Tree in our garden. For the past couple of weeks, with a steady diet of Kelp tea and new compost, the plant looked as if it would be the star of the place.

Then Tomato Hornworm found it. Then the aphids got to it. The white flies are coming in.

Still, I will not give up on it. There is too much I don't know to decide to act on what I do know.

The plant has yet to produce fruit and I think maybe it's telling me something.

It used to be I was nurturing to people, rather than plants, in the hope that they grow. My mother used to tell me that I would always befriend the lonely little kid in school. Teachers were always telling her I was compassionate. Telling a kid what they are is an effective way of ensuring that they act out their title.

I must admit that since my mother has died, I've stopped all that. I've given up on friends that have failed to thrive. Unlike plants, people have the ability to change their lives, walk away from the things that cause them harm, feed themselves with what they need and produce fruit.

In every life, one's talent lapses and a certain amount of failure creeps in. Souls become lost and ideas fade. It is a pathetic state to have no direction and a dim desire to work toward a goal.

It is one thing to be without direction for a few years. It is quite another to lump into life without having evolved with it.

I must admit of being guilty of the latter. At the time I didn't realize that I had changed and my goals hadn't. I just kept plodding along in the same mode as before. Inevitably, this lead to failure on many fronts.

On the other hand, there is something to be said for sticking to what you want to do. Eventually you either succeed or you die.

In partnering up with Erik, starting a restaurant and cooking professionally, we have certainly changed the direction of my life. Where I was once bitterly confused as to why I could not find the time to write and read, I now see the simple beauty in it.

Of late, we have been working hard on revising the cheeks of a building that I had come to see as an architectural meth monkey. It is pockmarked. It stands with it's weight to one side and limps with a stiff right leg. The floors have been abused with a toxic disregard to the future. It seemed so dirty, so neglected, so far gone that everyone who walked through the door looked as if they felt sorry for us. As if we, the parents, had obviously made some poor choices in life.

But now, the building, Erik and I are doing better. We have a new goal. We have many challenges to overcome. We have future together.

We receive the NY Times Sunday paper on Monday. It is one of our few luxuries and an important one when you live in the middle of nowhere.

It's easy to become small town centered. It's easy to stop paying attention to the world when your world is less than a mile long.

Though I love country life, I wish that I could have the NY Times Sunday paper in my hands on Sunday. It would be nice to listen to a little Chopin and read the Week in Review.

Especially after last night. Last night I took a drive, ran out of gas, met some pretty amazing small town people, walked home and danced to country western music on the patio under the stars.

It was a wild night that could only have been had in a village.

To counter-balance such an experience, I'd like very much to read about how everyone is surprised at Cheney's secrecy in his attempt to, umm, protect this country.

On second thought, maybe Chopin can be had with last week's Times. In the end, there is no such thing as new news.

This past December, Erik and I went to a dance at the local social club. It was the night of the first big snow and the village clubhouse was warm with wet wool and old wood.

We danced. Erik is a natural ballroom dancer.

There were door prizes and speeches and we left feeling we were exiting a scene of a movie. It wasn't our movie but it was someone's and we were happy to be a part of it. As winter continued, so did the magic of being in one place for more than a few months. Even if the bedroom was 43°.

Last night, the wind raged through our house like the final scene of Alfred Hitchcock's Rebbecca. The windows were open (it was 90°) and the drapes snapped up and into each other. Rain flew through the window screen and spattered against my bare flesh.

Insects came to land on us as we nakedly sprawled on top of the twisted sheets. Amazing how temperature can cause two newlyweds to avoid all physical contact.

At one point the Doug fir next to the house shook so hard I wondered if sleep were prudent. Maybe we should be awake when the thing came crashing down onto our heads.

There was no rest to be had. Everything seemed wrong.

This morning the ground is damp and the soil smells rich. The birds are happy to have survived. So are we.

The tomatoes are ripening, the herb garden growing and we have lettuce to harvest.

Even still, fall seems like a season to anticipate.

Our wedding, a thing of great and wonderful chaos, was about being without expectations.

There was no perfect dress.

There was no perfect party.

There was only a perfect moment.

Erik and I have seen bad moments everywhere. We read the paper, we know that in this time of being married, there are others who cannot or who will not or will not live to think of it. If I thought about it too hard, I'd move back to a shed.

We each, Erik and I, have horrible moments. The loss or the glory of our lives could not be summed up in a wedding party.

So we do this thing that celebrates the moment. We have fun in them. It's fun. The bad moments fall by as a part of life. The good ones stick.

It's better than the other way around.

Erik and I are married. It's been a huge wedding a wonderful party. Clean up took four days.

Now for the rest of our lives – by the moment.