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One of my cousins came to visit last weekend with her husband. The stated reason was to attend a bbq, beer, and bourbon festival, but part of me thinks that they just wanted to come see how I’m living here in Durham.

We started off Friday evening with a short walk to a very good ramen place that doubles up with some very good desserts. No, that is not a natural combination. Yes, it works. Then we finished the evening at one of the many cocktail bars within a ten minute walking radius of my apartment. Given the travel adventure they’d had on their journey, venturing much more than that was out of the question.

On Saturday morning, we strolled over to the farmer’s market and my guests got some coffee. I didn’t actually do any shopping like I normally would, but that wasn’t the point. The point was just to show them what is here (even if I was unable to provide any commentary or recommendations about the coffee). The festival was at an amphitheater in Cary that I didn’t even know existed before hearing about this event, so I took us on a meandering path to get there that saw us go past several of the new developments that are springing up everywhere and past Cary’s new downtown park that is a compact haven for young families.

At the festival, it was hot and humid. I didn’t have anything earth-shattering and the bbq sandwich I had was a bit spicy, but I did have a bourbon that incorporated some French oak staves and so had a unique profile. This wasn’t the first of this type I’d had, but I did prefer it to its more well-known competitor. There was also a Cheerwine ale that I sampled. It matched the profile of Cheerwine, but I’m not a big fan of the cherry drink so I don’t think I’ll be picking up any of that novelty beer the next time I’m at the grocery store.

We left just in advance of a large squall line of a storm and waited most of it out at what I consider to be Cary’s best brewery. Then when we got hungry we drove back to Durham and ate the very generous portions of my favorite Thai restaurant, including the mango sticky risk for dessert.

Then on Sunday morning, we had breakfast at a little restaurant in a converted gas station and I saw them off back westward. It was the sort of trip that might have given my visitors the impression that I eat out all of the time when I really only eat out for two or three meals per week. At least they should now better understand why I chose Durham instead of Raleigh when I decided to return to the Triangle a year ago. Then it was back to reality for me with grocery shopping and laundry. That reality sure can be a pesky thing sometimes.

Food is very important to me. More than once, I’ve planned large parts of vacations around meals and restaurants. My most recent such trip was to Mexico City in the spring, where things tilted a bit too heavily towards things that looked pretty online as opposed to finding the absolute best food possible (I still had some really good food though). Nonetheless, my cooking at home tends to be just a few dishes that I cook in something like a two week rotation. Slowly, I’m working to branch out and introduce new elements into my home cooking and this weekend I had some free time to do just that.

A few times per year, I visit World Market and head straight to the food section. I’ll pick up a few things I’ve encountered on my travels if they are in stock (anyone else fancy an Almdudler on occasion), but I also try to buy a few things that I’ve never had before and might make for good experiments. In this way, I’ve found a few fruit spreads that go nicely with pork chops and have picked up new snacks to sprinkle into my rotation and sauces that I can use when I choose to experiment.

One of the purchases on my most recent trip was chimichurri, a mix of herbs and oil common in parts of Latin America. I wanted an Argentinian kick for dinner on Sunday so I cooked a steak and went through the full process of cooking morrones asados, including taking the time to let the peppers steam so that I could peel them before adding the oregano. The pairing worked nicely even if I opted against adding malbec for what would have been a more complete experience.

Then I followed it up with some mango sticky rice for dessert. That was much more of an adventure as I was working with a new kind of rice and opted for a more involved cooking method than my little trusty rice cooker. I also don’t think I got the ratios spot on for the sauce, but the final result was still a good dessert even if it wasn’t restaurant quality this time. And if anyone has a problem with me mixing food from South America and Asia in the same meal, then I encourage you to try a few “crazy” combinations yourself. With AI, all you have to do is type in the ingredients you have and what sort of taste or location you want and you can get multiple recipe options in seconds.

This weekend, my curling club hosted a bonspiel (tournament) for the members. It wasn’t meant to be a true club championship as there was plenty of encouragement to mix experience levels on teams, but there was still seeding for purposes of the early stages. Though I’ve now been a member of the club for a few years, I still don’t have a deep network of connections and so got left out of the early discussions as teams formed. I put myself on the list of people who would like to join a team, but a few weeks out I just assumed that all spots were full and that I’d miss out. I then received an email from someone I didn’t recognize. Upon hearing that there was room for one more team to sign up, this person had taken the initiative to sign up a team consisting of the first four people on the availability list. And just like that, I had a team and was signed up to play in my first bonspiel.

For those who don’t know, the most common form of curling has four-person teams. Each person throws two consecutive stones. I’ve played every position now and was willing to play any position on this team. As we discovered through a bit of email conversation, I was also the only one of the four of us who had ever played skip (the one who throws last and is akin to the team captain). That meant I got the job. Mind you, I’d only played skip in two games prior to the bonspiel, so I was by far the least experienced skip in the 32-team field. We met about 15 minutes before our first game and jumped straight into it after the shortest of talks about how I planned to play defensively so that we’d stay in the game as long as possible and hopefully not get crushed.

We were the lowest seed in our section of the bracket, which gave us a little bonus power up that I successfully used to tie the game after the fifth end (ends are like innings in baseball only there are 8 in curling the way we were playing). That is not where we expected to be. I thought we’d give up 4 or 5 early and be out of it. Even my last rock had a theoretical chance of tying the game, which surprised everyone in the building. The hypothetical hero shot didn’t work and we lost, but it wasn’t a blowout. We’d exceeded my expectations and had our opponents concerned until almost the very end.

Our second game was the most painful. Both of the first two games were against people I play with or against in my regular Monday league, and I’ve actually won the Monday league playing for both of the skips I was now drawn against. In the second game, we were up by four with two ends to play. Then we narrowly missed a few shots, they made some great shots, and I missed a wide open hit at the end by aiming too wide and we lost by one. We had the game won and let it slip through our hands. Even though I’d now only known my teammates for a few hours in total, I felt terrible for having let them down. At some point I’ll watch the film to analyze the game but it’s still too raw.

The third game was more of the same—narrow misses on multiple shots that would have won the game for us and a bad break when one of the other team’s misses resulted in a tremendous outcome for them and multiple points in the end. Again I had a chance with my final rock and again the effort at a hero shot was unsuccessful. No blowouts, but 0-3 nonetheless.

I still haven’t won a game as skip, but that will change in time. Curling is a different game when you play the back end instead of the front end. I’ve now played all four positions enough to at least attest to that. I’ve gotten to the point where strategy comes into play and that makes the game so much more mentally engaging and fun. Now I’ll spend the rest of this season practicing my technique and skills in preparation for taking another step up in competition in the fall. I’ll probably go down a YouTube rabbit hole on strategy and there are even a few books on the subject too. I enjoy the grind of working to achieve more than basic competence at a skill. To go deeper is to be able to appreciate greatness, and I’d like to have more of both greatness and appreciation in my life.

In a text thread yesterday, I was reminded that the Super Bowl is Sunday. I had completely forgotten about it. I only watched about two football games all season and after my team was eliminated in the final game of the regular season I didn’t bother watching any of the playoffs. This is the continuation of a trend over the past three or so years, really since I stopped participating in any fantasy football leagues, whereby I have watched less and less football.

Only a few years ago I would have thought it impossible that there might come a time when I would not care one iota about who won our professional football championship. I used to be personally invested in the games and cheering for or against certain personalities. There used to be big watch parties around the game, but I haven’t been to one of those since before the pandemic lockdowns. What I choose to focus on has shifted. I suppose it was always myopic to think that my interests wouldn’t change, but they have and have even done so without me giving the matter much thought.

I may yet watch the game as I’ll be with other people on Sunday night, but it will be background to the unfolding conversation more than the night’s main entertainment. Is this how most people have always treated the Super Bowl? Am I the only one who has lost the passion for watching the sport?