the latest shrimp

Driving to work the other morning I past a buffalo standing in a field. Not that unusual, I agree. After all, I was driving down a country road and I have noticed more and more buffalo meat on the menus and behind the butcher counters around town. It just a bit out of the normal, if you know what I mean. Even for Oregon. Buffalo's are huge animals and when your brain is expecting cows or horses and you instead see a big steaming creature with giant horns and dark, deep set eyes, there is a momentary sensation of, "whoa, that was a buffalo." Not to mention, it was Sunday morning before sunrise and I slept probably 4 hours the night before. So what was I doing that required me to pass a buffalo standing in a field alongside a country road? Well, as many of you know, Heather and I put on a real blow out gathering this summer to celebrate our wedding. To pay for it, I have been trying to pick up some extra work and I was able to get a job working at a vineyard on the weekends.

Now you're thinking, "oh a vineyard, picking grapes that can't be all that bad." Well not exactly. You see I wasn't going to be picking grapes I was going to be setting chokers on old tires. The owner of the vineyard recently bought a piece of property adjacent to his land that hasn't exactly been maintained or cared for. This is putting it lightly, the place is an utter disaster. I call it "Squaller Holler." There are dilapidated buildings filled with assorted bits of trash, random piles of scrap metal, rusted out cars, old mobile homes, and enormous piles of tires covered in blackberry thickets. Ironic. I grew up in Southern Oregon surrounded by loggers, mill workers, and forestry related employment. I spent my summers pruning christmas trees, bucking hay, and doing odd jobs. I had many jobs as a young man in the woods; doing stream enhancement projects even fighting wildfires. But out of all those jobs I never once set a choker until last Sunday. For those of you who are not familiar with what a choker is, it is basically a huge steal cable with a male fastener on one end and a female on the other. The idea is to wrap the cable, presumably around a log but in this case through a tire, so that the log or tire is securely attached and then can be pulled by a heavy machine. Which in this case was a bulldozer. The work wasn't that difficult, although it was hard to imagine how these people had managed to acquire so many tires. There are literally 1000's of tires on this property. All of which will eventually be cleared away to make room for more pinot noir. 

Mid-day the new owner and I were standing out in the field that in a few years he would begin planting with young grape shoots. As we talked he mentioned that he was interested in finding another buyer for his grapes. I told him that for my wedding my wife and I had bought wine from a friend of mine who makes wine and who is often looking for pinot noir grapes. "The label is Two Birds and a Sheep", I said. At which point the vineyard owner looked at me, turned and pointed up the hill. "You aren't going to believe this, but those grapes up there are the grapes he used to make your wine."

 Now there are 100's of vineyards in the Willamette Valley. Granted there are not that many wineries and the chances of my friend who made the wine being connected or even knowing this fellow are not all that unpredictable. But it was still a wonderful coincidence.

 

A Plate of Shrimp for Your Head

For years my friends and I have been fascinated by events in our lives that reflect the wonderment of coincidence. In fact, the more we became aware of such moments, the more often they occurred. This is probably not uncommon, as with anything relative to awareness, we are collectively only scratching the surface of the many interlaced connections between time, place, and happenstance. For us the expression "a plate of shrimp" has become synonymous with these experiences. A google search of  "a plate of shrimp" typically turns up a link to some culinary reference and occasionally to the movie Repo Man, in which the saying was coined.  Sure, if you do a little research about the probability of coincidence you will find a mathematical explanation. Even Deepak Chopra "pooh pooh's" the idea of coincidence explaining that "everything that occurs can be related to prior cause or association." So much for the mystics getting that tingly sensation of the hairs raising on the back of their necks. Regardless of the nay saying, we all can appreciate that feeling, when and if we get it. Thus the impetuous for writing this blog.