I've had a great life...its been a roller coaster ride....but backwards...super exhilarating on the uphills and terrifying on the downhills ...this is the tale of that experience on planet earth
Nothing like a frittata on a Sunday morning in front of the fire watching footy. This was a “what in the fridge” sort of breakfast. I threw it all together and YUMMY! The secret is to spread the the ingredients evenly across the skillet carefully pour the custard (with the garlic and spices) over the vegies etc, then crumble fetta cheese over the top. Drop it in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes and sprinkle chopped italian parsley over it before serving.
Another one inspired by Pagliacci Pizza, Theirs includes Cascioppo’s Italian sausage, mushrooms, fresh mozzarella, sea salt and olive oil with crushed Italian tomatoes as a base. Our version uses Hot Italian sausage. This pizza needs a lot more flavor. More heat for sure! Work to do. On the other hand, our sourdough pizza crust was stellar.
This pizza is inspired by Pagliacci’s version which includes thyme-roasted artichoke hearts, peperonata peppers, ricotta, fontina and mozzarella over their pesto base. Ours includes fresh thyme along with marinated artichokes and a sweet pepper we had in the fridge. Its a pretty good pizza if I am honest. The Artichokes eat like meat and have a nice acidic brininess to them. We enjoyed it. More importantly, we used our first iteration of sourdough crust on this one. I feel pretty chuffed about that. It was definitely great dough.
This is another one of my favorite easy go to meals. It works with both fresh and canned clams. I like it both ways. This version was made with canned clams. One thing though, this is a better dish with dried spaghetti than fresh pasta. I have had it both ways, and because the clam meat is so soft, the toothiness of the el dente spaghetti makes the dish sing. Its basically 5 ingredients:
Garlic
Clams
Spaghetti
Red pepper flakes
Flat leaf parsley
While the spaghetti is boiling, in a pan you get the garlic going, not burnt, but fragrant. Next I add a good pinch of red pepper flakes. I like to add a little anchovy paste, some white wine, and the juice of half a lemon. The base of the sauce is really the clam juice either from the cans or from the shells opening. If you make it with fresh clams, then discard the shells. Add the clams themselves then as the spaghetti gets to lightly done, add it to the pan to finish. Toss in the chopped parsley and you have one hell of a good dish! It’s basically ready to eat in 12 minutes.
Every once in a while, we enjoy a burger. We start with a pound of ground beef. I mix it with some shredded cheese to keep it moist. This time I added gochujang and some hot korean chili sauce for flavor. I always add an egg to bind it, and if its too wet when all that is added, then I add bread crumbs to get the wetness right. It needs to feel moist not wet. I let it all come together in the fridge for an hour or two, then I weigh it and divide it into 4 equal parts forming them into balls, then once I am done with that, I flatten them out to make patties, cover them and put them back in the fridge.
I roast and clean and divide an Anaheim pepper, crisp two strips of bacon, and cut two slices of cheese. I then make our special sauce. It’s typically mayo, ketchup and Tabasco. This time, to keep the Korean theme, I made it with gochujang, Korean chilli paste, a little ketchup, may and a splash of Tabasco to get the heat right.
I salt and pepper the burger before it goes into a hot pan, and sear both sides till the inner temp is 130 or so, then the cheese goes on and into a hot oven it goes under the broiler. We toast the ciabatta buns, sauce them, put lettuce, tomato and pickles on the bun, add the burger, on top the roasted pepper and the bacon and we are in business! It’s a prety fucking good burger, even if I say so myself!
Growing up, we had a roast leg of lamb as our sunday dinner for as long as I can remember. I have not had it since my mom moved into an old age home 20 years ago. We were shopping at Costco the other day, and they had boneless leg of NZ lamb at a very good price, so we picked up a 5 pound leg.
One of the things that I LOVE with lamb is mint sauce. Heather had never had either leg of lamb, or mint sauce, so she was very excited to make it happen.
First I unrolled the leg, and then I made a rosemary, garlic, salt and olive oil spread that I laid across it all before I rolled it and then tied it using my best version of chef’s knots. (Not good!)
Next I put slits around the meat and placed thin slices of garlic in each slit all around the meat.
That went into the fridge overnight, before being cooked over a deeper pan on a grid over a water bath. I went hot, 450 F for 15 minutes, then about 15 minutes per pound at 350 looking for an internal temperature of 130 degrees.
While the lamb was roasting, I made mint sauce with water, rice wine vinegar, a little salt and sugar to balance it. I use about a cup of finely chopped mint, two table spoons of sugar, about a half cup of vinegar and about a cup of water along with half a teaspoon of salt.
In addition we roasted potatoes with rosemary and garlic, and made roasted asparagus )salt, pepper and olive oil.)
All in all, it was an amazing meal. Heather LOVED it, esp the mint sauce with the lamb, and for me, it was a real throwback to my youth. I really channeled my mom as I was in the kitchen pulling it together.
This one is inspired by the seasonal pizza, the Tricolore, offered for a limited time by Pagliacci. From their website, …” [the Tricolore] features burrata, an artisanal cheese that originated in Puglia, the region of southern Italy located in the heel of the boot-shaped country. Burrata’s exterior resembles fresh milky mozzarella, but when you split it open molten ribbons of cheese curd and cream spill out from the center. The cheese melts in your mouth. Our Tricolore features a generous layer of burrata over a Margherita base topped with drizzled pesto. We finish the pie with a sprinkle of coarse sea salt.”
This is a delicious pie. Super yummy. We added some spicy Korean sausage we had left over from an earlier pie, and we had trouble with the pesto squirting, but even so, it is a combination of seriously yummy flavors. We also had a yummy tomato sauce base from the scratch sauce we made last week. Gotta say, this one will be on our repeat list.
Its been quite a journey to get to here. I have had several realizations along the way. First of all, everything I knew about relationship was, well, wrong. For 30 years, I suffered the emotional abuse of the woman who was supposed to love me, which left me feeling lonely, sad, resigned and cynical. To be fair, when we got separated, it felt like being released from prison. I began to meet new people and in a very short time, I came to realize that instead of being unlovable, I was in fact, loveable. That had me create a clear picture of what was missing from my marriage, whch in turn gave me the clarity to create something new. I set out to create intimacy. This was back in early 2018 fully 4 years of exploring after my separation. We finally got divorced in 2017, so by 2018, I was ready to find my life partner.
I created a tattoo in the trash polka style that had the elements of what I set out to discover and find. I believed in attraction, which is represented by the pheromone symbol, I believed that life is random which the black and red strips represent. I believe we live in an infinite universe which the dots represent. Mostly, I wanted to be truly loved more than anything, which the lips represent. Together, the tattoo says I am lovable. It took me 7 months to get the tattoo on my chest over my heart.
With that resolved, I created a seeking post that was quite specific, painting a life of fun with a partner in crime. I put it out into the universe in the cities close to Seattle, including Tacoma, Portland, Vancouver BC and Denver as well as Seattle. I had a number of women reach out to me and even met a few before Heather, who was on her own search for happiness, found my post and made contact with me.
We courted for about 6 months, meeting for meals and drinks and walks in the park before we made the choice to begin our relationship formally. It was only a few weeks after that, that Heather moved in with me. For the next year we really took time to get to know each other, and when Heather’s divorce was final, on the winter solsctice of 2019, we celebrated by committing to each other that we would “create something new”. Then covid happend. For the next year, we spent 24 hours a day together and it was bliss. We really got to know each other inside and out. We were committed that we would not experience another long term relationship on the terms we had both expereinced in the past. In her case, Heather had dealt with a long term abusive marriage at the hands of her narcicistic husband, and she was committed to not have a similar experience. We were both on the same page. We were clear about what we did not want to create.
We spent the next several years being with each other, making great food, and even better cocktails, we explored a truly wonderful sex life and by any measure, we were happier that either of us had ever been. One thing that was true, and a real surprise for both of us, was the amazing allignment that existed between us. At the time, it was notable because each of us had been so out of allignment with our previous partners. To this day, that is still true. We are incredibly allinged.
When we started out, we were both of a mind that marriage was not the objective. In fact, we both made the choice overtly to “never get married again.” It was with that backdrop that our love blossomed. To be fair, Heather was the one who first shared that she was experinecing loving feelings toward me. I made the choice to be with that and to be loved by her. I was hungry for love. Internally, I beleived I was not lovable even though by then, I knew that I was. So, from early 2019 till late 2023, we blissfully made our way as lovers without a thought about marriage.
Then we began to explore mind-expansion. First with mushrooms and then with MDMA. To be quite clear, the impact was completely unexpected. Less so with the mushrooms, which made us laugh hysterically with statements like, “Be careful on that dangerous carpet” as I left the living room, our mirth occuring all day long. It was the experience on MDMA that changed everything. As you might know, MDMA creates a massive dopamine dump which has you see each other newly. I was clear that my feelings for Heather transcended anything I had ever expreinced. It took a few days to process, but we spoke about it one day in these terms when I said to her, “Having seen you newly, now I just cannot unsee you!” She agreed that it was a game changer. A shift in context. A new realm had been created. With that, we agreed that the next thing to do in our relationship was to get married. Wow! We were both on exactly the same page. Heather said, “Lets set a date to get engaged because I also want to ask you to marry me.” We had formalized our relationship initially on the winter solstice of 2019, and now we would take the next step on the winter solstice of 2023.
It was magical really. we both got dressed up and we met in the living room having taken MDMA for the purpose, and we spoke the words we had written to each other and we asked each other to marry. We both agreed, of course, and we set about creating the greatest engagement period we could imagine.
Our engament unleashed Heather’s creative mind. She set about making a “Love Quilt”. Her family are all Master Quilters and OH MY GOD, The quilt she created is mind boggling. The intention is that we first use the quilt to wrap ourselves in when we get married, and the use it as our bed quilt going forward. Its beautiful and made with such love. I am really moved by this quilt.
Not only that, she also made a flask with two spouts for us to drink wine from together at our wedding. The flask is painted to capture her “spirit animal” the Snow Leopard, and my spirit, the science of aliveness as represented by the prism breaking up whote light as referenced on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. Pink Floyd being my favorite band also captures my preferered vibrational energy.
This period, the period between the winter solstice and summer solstice has been the most amazing time of my life. In about 2 weeks we are going to marry on the summer solstice. We have committed to create our marriage newly each and every day. When my previous marriage came to an end, I realized that my ex-wife and I had pretended to be married to each other. With Heather, we are committed that we are not prepared to be anything other than 100% present at all times with each other. Its going to be the greatest marriage in the history of marriage! We are so excited for the next stage to begin. It will be a whole new realm.
The next 10 years were a blur. Having 4 children under age 8 meant that we were basically logistics minded creatures. At one point, we realized that we had over 100 adults we were interacting with around our kids activities. Between teachers, coaches, extra lessons, music and so on, it was amazing. When the kids were little, it was mostly Melissa who was the primary care giver. As they got to the age of about 6, I came into my own as they took on sports and camping events. For example, all the kids participated in the Y-Guides (When Sam, the oldest participated, it was still called the “Indian Guides”. Anyway, there is a great campsite called Camp Orkila which is located on the tip of Orcas Island in the San Juan’s facing into the Straights of Juan de Fuca.
I loved taking the kids to the camp. There were lots of activities, like orienteering, rock climbing, air rifle, archery and so on. The camp was fun, only dads and their kids, and it was either an all boy or all girl camp. The kids went from age 5 to about age 8, which means that I got to go about 12 times. The ferry ride to Orcas Island is really spectacular as the ferry weaves between the islands.
In addition to camping with the kids, I coached their teams. All of their teams, except for swimming and water polo, which they got to enjoy at the Mercerwood Shore Club, a private swimming, diving and tennis club on the East side of the Island that we joined after we moved there. In any event, I coached soccer (what Americans call football), baseball, and basketball. I found it difficult to coach these American sports since I did not grow up with them, so I read books about the sports and watched the pro’s, the Seattle Sonics basketball team, which was great in those days, and the Seattle Mariners, who were crap mostly but had a good run at one point. In addition to coaching all the sports, I also earned my Soccer Coaching “C License” which had me coaching at Mercer Island High School where I coached the Freshman girls for one season, and then the JV girls team for about 4 seasons. There was one season where I was coaching all four kids soccer teams and the high school team. My daughter Mia was playing recreational soccer, Josh was playing his last year of recreational soccer, Quinn was playing Club Select and Sam was playing Premier soccer and of course I had the high school team. each team had practices and matches each week. Between work and coaching I was working like 20 hours a day it seemed.
I felt that I contributed to their lives in a really meaningful way during their formative years and it occurs to me as I write this now, that I was an excellent dad.
I took on being a dad with the view to exploring childhood through the eyes of my children. I was essentially an only child growing up, my sibs were 8, 9 and 12 years older than me. To be fair, I really did explore my youth newly as my kids grew up. We took them on trips to Hawaii, Western Europe, Colorado, California, Florida, NYC, Montana, Mexico, Canada and more. In addition, we made sure they all had music or art, played sport and that we had dinner as a family each night. Our purpose was parenting.
This of course meant that our relationship was not a priority. The result of that was the massive distance that was created between us by the time Mia was about 3 years old. From that point forward, there was practically no intimacy between us, and certainly no sex. For the last 10 years of my marriage I was depressed. I gained weight, drank more and generally kept to myself at home (watching cooking shows). I coexisted with Melissa, and felt the pain of her contempt.
I was feeling ambitious, and because I had been staring at that piece of dirt for years, I hired a landscape architect to help me design the hardscape. I had sat with those plans a while, when at a party one night, I met a guy who sold landscape rock. I went to work and started shopping for rock. I rented a digger and went to work. In the end, it looked great! I had built a patio! I was very proud of it too.
I mostly did the work myself, but did get help from a couple of contractors for the technical work like to properly construct the wall and luckily, my rugby friend Ryan was able to lay the slate professionally. I loved doing this project and really enjoyed the result. In the end it added value to the house which looked like this at the time before I took this on.
It was not long after I completed that project that Mia graduated from high school where Melissa and took her off to school across the state. We went on an extended road trip to Yellowstone after we left Wall Walla (the town so nice, they named it twice,) and it was on that trip I do believe that Melissa made the determination to leave me. She said otherwise, but it was downhill after that. Her behavior toward me deteriorated to the point of abuse. She was rude, disrespectful, cruel and unkind. I did what I could to cater to her as she pulled away. I was under no illusions, and was clear that we were not going to stay together. That was crystal clear. The last straw occurred when she went off to the Bahamas with a girlfriend, and while there contracted a bladder infection. I took care of her when she returned, but something happened that precipitated her stating that she wanted a divorce. She had fractured her right shoulder in a bicycle accident a few weeks prior to her vacation, and we she returned, after we dropped off her friend, we went to the Roanoke, a local pub, for dinner. I was sitting to her right at the bar. When our dinner came, we began to eat, and our elbows touched, which unfortunately lit up her shoulder fracture. She freaked out and started screaming at me at the top of her voice in this crowded pub. I was mortified. “Don’t talk to me like that, and keep your voice down.” I said to which she responded, “I’m leaving.” and she got up and walked out. I quickly paid the bill and followed her out. She was standing at the car so, I unlocked the doors and she got in. We drove home in silence. We walked in and I went to the living room to sit and lick my wounded pride. She walked in and sat across from me. “I want a divorce” she said as matter of fact.
I said, “Thank you for being straight with me for the first time in your life.”
The next few years were a real challenge to navigate. My children abandoned me, which hurt a lot given how much I had committed to them and supported them throughout their lives. About the most most important thing I did at that time was register for Landmark education. I remember the gasps when I stood up to share and said, “My dog died, my mom died, my house flooded, my marriage of 30 years ended when my wife left me and my business of 30 years failed all during the last 6 months.” It was through Landmark education that I chose to live an authentic life, and I made the choice to live into the distinction of the teaching. I finally met Heather, who, after a period of courtship, became my lover and constant companion. The almost 7 years since we became lovers have sped by. That pretty much brings me up to date at the time of this writing. Heather and I are happier than either of us had ever been. We have such a beautiful relationship. From when Melissa and I first talked about divorce, as well as during the process of getting divorced all the way till Heather and I moved in together, my life was messy. Now all that has changed and while my kids adhere to their group agreement to have no contact with me, after 9 years of that, I am at peace with it. I have resigned myself to the knowledge that they are firmly in their mothers camp. Its their loss because they have never known me while I have been this happy and fulfilled. I am living my best life. I am blissfully happy, I am in love with my beautiful, sexy hot fun partner, and we are living a transcendent life of bliss.
In 2024, Heather and I got married. We both consider it our first marriage even though we were both married before. The reason is that we are seeing ourselves newly and marriage newly and what we are up to is nothing like anything that we participated in in the past. So, yes, it;’s really our first marriage.
At about that time, I was nominated and elected to be the Treasurer of the Washington State Physical Therapy Association and to serve on the Board and the Executive Committee. I looked at their finances and committed the Association to purchasing a building in Olympia for their offices. It was a bold move that made the Washington State Chapter one of the most financially stable chapters in the country. At the time of this writing, the building is paid off and the chapter is healthy.
Melissa and I got used to being married and we continued to dive for recreation. We also ran in occasional 10K races and I continued sailing on both the Yellow Bucket and also on big boats, specifically Bravado, the Islander 40.
Tom and Heidi and done some work on the house. They had installed a deck in the back and put a hot tub downstairs in a glassed in porch. The room had been lined with cedar planks and the hot tub was a circular wooden tub about 8 feet across. They also made the family room downstairs hospitable by installing a brick hearth and a wood burning stove.
We used to go diving with our buds and then come home for a crab and sea cucumber fry and a soak. I remember a shore dive on the peninsula in the Hood Canal region we went to with a group of friends, and we all gathered sea cucumbers and Dungeness crab. We came home, everybody skinny dipped in the hot tub to warm up and then we cooked up the feast. It was fun.
The sea cucumber has 4 strips of muscle in the shell. So you slice it open and strip out the muscle layer, slice it up, bread and fry it and its a lot like calamari.
Well Melissa and I turned the downstairs into the Master Bedroom. The house was a split level with two bedrooms up stairs and a tiny bedroom downstairs. So we built out the shower downstairs to make a double shower, and we re-carpeted and painted. The one bedroom upstairs was a guest room and the other became a study since it had doors going out to the porch.
Later, we updated the kitchen, opened the wall up, installed a table and new cabinets and lighting.
I did a lot of the work but we also paid a neighbor, Jack, who was a contractor to do a lot of the work. I remember one time being in the attic when I accidentally set fire to some insulation with a light getting too warm. I snuffed it out but that was close.
We took a few trips during this time. Probably the most significant was to London where we stayed with my sister Carol, and then when I came home, Melissa went on to Europe with her mom. We also went skiing in Canada at Big Sky, we went to Hawaii, we went to Oregon, we went to San Diego. But mostly we were home bodies working on being home owners.
During this time, I was racing big boats on the Sound, and my friends Mitch and Brad invited me and another fellow on a “Macho Cruise” so called. The idea was that we would sail Mitch’s boat, a 34 ft Sloop, out to the open ocean and back without stopping. This was ambitious. Mitch and I and sailed, and Brad had not, plus he couldn’t swim. Mitch’s other friend he invited had also never sailed overnight.
We met on Lake Union and we went out into the Sound through the Ballard Locks.
We made it through the locks in the dark and we sailed out into the night…our first encounter was with a giant freighter as we crossed the shipping lanes and Mitch fired up the engine to get us out of the path of the vessel. It was a bit scary. We realized we were in trouble when I said to Mitch…”whats that green light” and we looked across from east to west before we saw the red light on the port bough…He said “OH FUCK” and gunned it….we got safely out of the way, and sailed North in light air.
I went to sleep about midnight, finding comfort among the sails below.
In the morning I woke up and went up on deck to find Brad manning the wheel. “You drive” he said as he went below.
I was single handing the boat in light air as we crossed into the Straights of Juan De Fuca. It was blue sky and the Olympics were out in all their splendor. It was magnificent.
I sailed along and then noticed an aircraft flying back and forth…..it was an Orion prop plane and it seemed to be flying back and forth in a pattern.
I watched it for a while and then it suddenly flew off….I didnt think much of it until a Trident Submarine surfaced nearby heading South into the Sound towards Bremerton. I got quite a surprise. Those things are HUGE!
We sailed on and crossed the Straights with some fanfare….it was windy and the tide made it choppy. I was lying at the bough at one point, watching a Dall’s Porpoise playing in the bough wave.
They look like little Orca…and they are ridiculously good swimmers.
We sailed out to the open ocean and turned around and started to work our way back. The wind was too strong and the waves too big. Brad went below and I ventured onto the foredeck to take down our jib. I sat on the bough pulpit and wrapped my legs around the structure and pulled the sail down as we plunged through the waves…. I was soaked when we pulled into Victoria.
We spent the night and then in the morning started to make our way back. We returned without much excitement compared to the journey out.
Our lives changed when Melissa got pregnant, or at least she thought she got pregnant. She had all the symptoms but it seemed like she miscarried around the 6 week mark. She seemed to be super tired leading up to when she lost the baby. She was heart broken. We had been “trying” to get her pregnant for going on a year.
Then, well, we just kept trying and then finally, she got pregnant with our first born, Sam
Our life really did change at that time. We were no longer a happy go lucky couple. We had a child on the way. All of a sudden, everything had changed. We now started getting ready for a child in our lives. Nesting level 10! As the impact of that reality set in, we thought of ourselves differently. We were going to be parents.
My Life: A Memoir 