Big Dick Energy

Well. Guess what? The party crasher showed up on Saturday, day 70. If you don't know what I’m talking about, you're fortunate. If you're fortunate and curious, please refer to my last post. This is what manifesting is like - you have to be careful so as to not manifest some shit you don't want.

Andrea and I spent Thanksgiving on the “northern neck” of Virginia, which is where is the part of Virginia where our cottage is located. We did our grocery shopping in Richmond and then schlepped everything to the cottage. The cottage is outfit with everything we need to cook and serve meals for ourselves. Normal meals. Not a Thanksgiving dinner. On Sunday, Andrea pointed out that I didn't have a pan for making green bean casserole. We remedied this problem at the local grocery store. The next day, I realized we didn't have a pan for the stuffing. So back to the grocery store we went. On Thanksgiving, we made a turkey breast in the crockpot - which was so easy, and tasted so good that I now think, “Why bother with an entire turkey again?”

The cottage and it's location invite and demand pause, slowing down. As we drove to the cottage, we spotted two Mennonite’s wearing fluorescent vests pedaling their bikes. In the summer, the neighboring town of Kilmarnock hustles with tourists. The flow of tourists slows to a trickle after Labor Day and the shops and restaurants respond accordingly - adjusting their hours. This is how we found ourself at a new to us restaurant, as it was one of the few places open for food on a Wednesday before 4 or 5 PM. The building must have been a dentist’ office before - as giant toothbrushes greet approaching visitors outside the restaurant and tooth themed decor is inside the restaurant. Which is kind of odd but their food was good and mocktails reasonably priced. Apparently, you could have placed an order for your Thanksgiving meal there - pans be damned - as the restaurant had a steady flow of people picking up their boxed Thanksgiving.

You shouldn't really trust posted business hours on the Northern Neck this time of year - because a business owner could, on a whim, decide to not open. On Friday, we called the Nacho Average Brew Pub to confirm they were open before making the trek. This particular establishment happens to be run by the mayor, an older guy who also happens to own the Kilmarnock Inn. The brew pub has abandoned the idea of brewing their own beer - but their nachos are good and they have video games that Andrea enjoys beating me at.

There are two community theaters near the cottage, each with their own space, which is surprising considering that community theaters in Richmond do not have their own space. In Richmond, groups are nomadic, sometimes staging a production in a church basement and then the next production at another place. During our last visit to the cottage, we drove by a banner advertising a local, community theater production of It’s a Wonderful Life & bought tickets to see the show the day after Thanksgiving. This theater has been putting on shows since 1979 and their space is really nice - outfitted with a little bar and a separate concession stand that sells baked goods and coffee. (Pic of outside of theater below).

It's hard to tell how many patrons the theater holds (it may say on their website but I was too lazy to look when writing this) but the run of their production was sold out. At the end of every scene, people clapped and Andrea was like “what are they doing? It's not an elementary school production.” which made me laugh between scenes. The show was fine - we would see another - but honestly, community theater in Massachusetts is so good that it's turned us into insufferable patrons - you get spoiled in Massachusetts. There's a lot of talent - entire casts full of talent. And talented direction too - the last scene of It's a Wonderful Life could have benefited from Nancy Curran Willis’s pacing stick.

I should mention that going places from the cottage is nothing at all like going places from our home in Richmond. See above reference to slowing down. Doordash and the like will not be bringing food to your door and your a good 20-minutes, one way, from a coffee shop. The roads near the cottage are dark & windy. If you’re at all inclined to play the game “beat the gps”, you likely won’t win near the cottage. I must have missed a turn on the way home, adding 4 minutes to the time and popping out at a completely different location than we expected. But - we made it home without any deer throwing themselves in front of our car.

Lately, when I wake up, my brain searches for an irrational worry to latch onto so that I cannot fall back to sleep. It’s usually work related - because there is a lot going on at work - but it’s also dumb. A problem I logically know that I do not need to work through over and over, but my brain is like, “….are you sure?”

This morning, I pulled a tarot card and remarked, “Lately I keep getting these cards with big dick energy.”

“Did you just say ‘big dick energy’?” Andrea asks.

“Yes! I got the emperor!” I say, reading a description of the card’s meaning to Andrea.

“Oh - see. This work shit will be fine.” Andrea says.

Indeed.