This is an announcements post I guess. Back to talking about poems soon.

An almost complete shawl crocheted from viridian green cotton-wool blended yarn with the crochet hook at the top of the image. It's laying on a weathered brown wood desktop

A while back my oldest daughter Brittany asked me to make her a shawl for her wedding. She chose the pattern and then proceeded to get married much sooner than planned for reasons, which is fine. They’re having a party/reception next year which is when the shawl will officially debut.

I got the yarn for it when I was in Japan earlier this year co-leading a study abroad course for the College of Engineering. I bought it from a shop in Tokyo called Daruma—you can read about them here—and I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s the most pleasant yarn I’ve ever worked with.

As you’ve probably gathered from the photo, it’s not finished. I bought more than the pattern said I would need and did a swatch and everything to make sure I was using the correct hook (not what I usually do) but not enough. I’m on row 62 of 64. When it started to become obvious I didn’t have enough, I went online to the store, found the correct yarn, and ordered some. Sure it would be a little pricier than usual to ship it to the US, but not outrageous.

Except no. Because the Trump administration did away with the de minimis exemption, thus requiring tariffs on everything, no matter how small, Daruma decided (and I get it) that it’t not worth it to ship individual orders to the US anymore. Well, shit.

BUT!!! Amy was awarded a Fulbright earlier this year so we’re going to be relocating to Romania, the city of Iași specifically, for the coming school year. And Daruma will ship to Romania, so I can order it once we’re settled there and finish the shawl. The day is saved!

The shawl from above folded and placed in a Ziplock bag along with the hook, a band from one of the skeins of wool, and a note reminding me where I am in the process along with a bunch of other data about the shawl.

Did I bury the real news there? Yeah a bit. We’re moving to Romania in roughly a month and will be there a year. Amy busted her ass to win this honor and I couldn’t be more proud of her. There’s a lot of upheaval right now around it as you might imagine. We’ve had to re-home some animals and we’re converting our home of nearly 12 years into a short term rental, which means removing most of what makes a place a home and replacing it with bland functionality.

This also means I had to take a leave of absence from my paying job, because they weren’t willing to let me teach remotely from Europe, which fair I guess. I turned in my last set of grades for the semester earlier today. I have a couple of other things to do connected to that and then I’ll be pseudo-unemployed, which brings me to the title of this post.

I’m planning a new project, hopefully one with money attached. I’m starting a Patreon for this new project, which is tentatively titled “Eating Popeye’s In Romania,” and the early plan is to write and maybe make videos about our experiences in Romania for the coming year. I’m using Popeye’s as one of the lenses for this project because it’s been a running joke for me ever since I left Louisiana in 1999 that the first thing I look for in a new place is to see if there’s a Popeye’s. Sometimes I think the hardest part of the 4 years I did at Arkansas for my MFA wasn’t the workshops, it was the lack of spicy fried chicken and dirty rice that I didn’t make myself.

So it was kind of a surprise to learn that Popeye’s has opened a number of places in Romania, including multiple restaurants in Iași. I searched for it as a joke and found multiple stories about how Popeye’s entered Romania 4 years ago and already has 22 stores and plans to open more. I’m not saying that I’m going to turn this into a quest to eat at every one of the locations (though if Popeyes in Romania is looking to sponsor me, I’m happy to talk). But the food I grew up with has always been important to me, and Popeye’s was the first local fast food chain I experienced. The first store opened in New Orleans not long before we moved to Louisiana, and I have strong memories of eating at the one in Slidell in the parking lot of the K&B Drugstore with my sister and parents before going to the Kingdom Hall.

I still have a lot to do to get the Patreon up and running. I’m posting this today mostly as a way to kick myself in the ass and get it done. But rest assured I’ll be posting more details as it starts to round into shape.

Next post will be about another poem to love, though, I promise.

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Published by Brian

I'm Senior Poetry Editor of The Rumpus, as well as a published poet. My first book, A Witness in Exile was published in 2011 by Louisiana Literature Press.

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