How I Spent My Winter Vacation (so far)

It’s been quite a holiday so far. So far, I guess, in that the main events are well past us and the house is mostly cleaned up again. We managed to get through the Christmas Eve party and Christmas day dinner with no real casualties. J-Bro bowed out from the dinner as he wasn’t feeling well as was quite apparent from the previous evening (three of his children and three of his grandchildren, not to mention his ex-wife, all came to the big Eve Event.) Everyone seemed very grateful for KG’s work and generosity in putting on the (really) big show. They ate and drank like fishes, and were in turn quite generous with us and the kids. My brother John (not J-Bro) bought all of the wine/liquor and left us with an embarrassing quantity of it. G-lo brought grandmother’s red cabbage and kohlrabi, and a nice lemon cake. We asked everyone to please direct any gifts to the two girls, not to us, and they dutifully did so. Teen girls need love too and at previous events such as these, it seemed the girls didn’t really show on anyone’s radar. That changed this time. Everyone went home yesterday, I drove Sam down to Fredericksburg (oye, what traffic!), and so I spent last night sort of decompressing. I don’t go back to work until next Wednesday so I expect to be pretty well decompressed by the time that occurs, but I do have a few things to do before then.

The Limoncello was a hit. Many knew nothing of it but we included a thoughtful explanation on the bottle and while much of it may not ever be sampled, it was a sweet little gift idea and will look good on KG’s entertainment blog.

For Christmas dinner, we all had nametags with a day of Christmas on them. Before dinner we all sang the 12 Days of Christmas, one day at a time by nametag and counting down. It is a tradition in KG’s family and now looks to be a tradition in ours as well. Hey, I guess that’s how traditions work.

It’s all been a lot of damned work though, and not just for me (is there a facetious emoticon?) KG got through the ordeal with virtually no trauma (amazing enough when considering some of the personalities involved) but she was pretty over allocated for a while. What a champ she is! She took her leave on Wednesday to run up to New Paltz to visit her sister and the kids and will return today after dropping Ronnie off at her Dad’s in Brooklyn, probably even more tired from the travel. Me? I’m feeling better today, mostly.

I say mostly because while trying to clear some spyware on KG’s PC yesterday, I messed up her the machine and it will no longer load Windows, even in safe mode. I mostly backed it up before I did it so her files (except her .pst from Outlook) are safe, but I need to get the post office file from her old drive and then buy her a new machine today. The old one was a loaner from my office and was pretty well past its prime anyhow, so as long as the .pst is recoverable (I guess I’ll mount the old drive as a slave on another machine and copy it off) the net outcome will be generally favorable (except that now KG will have to learn Vista on her own as I know almost nothing about it and then have to learn Office 2007 as well (I can help with that.) It may annoy her a bit.)
So, at least I don’t have to put out the 1500lbs of garbage today. I have another day to try to locate and buy some carbon offsets for it.

Christians and Pagans was about G-lo and J-Bro and much of his family coming to our party. He’s a Presbyterian minister and is forever trying to insert his vengeful, jealous, patriarchal deity into our lives, and G-lo uses religion like a weapon, the guilt from which to better control the world. The rest of his family turned out to be pretty secular, but if only by association with the holiday, there were some iffy overtones.

Heroine was just that I was feeling tired and disassociated, as if, I suppose, I were on heroin, but I like the version of the song on her album and Dar Williams is kind of my heroine these days.
The good part of Christmas is that we all got together and had a good time and got home safely with no apparent issues.

So, I’d better get to it.

Christians and Pagans

It’s past time to leave some tracks here, I know. To say that things have been hectic isn’t really adequate, the daily bump and grind has been placed in some sort of quaint historical perspective by the near-constant bumping and grinding of the last week or so. It would be tedious just to attempt a recounting, but things are as of today assuming more of a look of being in place for the upcoming show.
Christmas is a project and KG is a project manager. She has lists of lists and if she had MS Project, she’d likely have Gantt charts of when things need to be done and by whom listing all dependencies and resources.
So, my brother and SIL arrive today. I’ll go to the Schmidlaps’ place later and we’ll do a bit of bottle shopping, then I have some beers for sampling and G-lo is putting out a bite to eat. I hope it’ll be low-key and that I’ll be home early enough to get a head start on tomorrow before things get crowded and complicated out in the world at large.
Tomorrow we need to purchase the remainder of the vittles, mostly see-food (and eat it) and a few remaining details. I found some cheap blue crab today which influences the menu if only by its availability. Clams are cheap as well, so Clams Casino looks to be on the menu, and maybe some Calamar or fried oysters to round things out. We already have shrimp so the scampi is assured. We only have a family-sized deep fryer instead of the institutional sized one we should have, so sequencing of things is important as is using the oven and stovetop when possible.
Poor Jade (Princess Jade of Eastern Colesville) has a little cold and she’s sitting next to the PC while I type and sneezing on me. Holiday illness always reminds me of Sam’s mom having faux-appendicitis while I was visiting a few years back. I kept making fun of her (come on, appendicitis on Christmas Eve?) and when the ultrasound came back negative she protested so loudly (she’s an RN and knows the buzzwords) they removed her fucking appendix just to shut her up. Bless you, Jade.
Funniest gift of the season, so far, is a leg of lamb from Dean and DeLuca from the Schmidlaps. This thing was from a pretty big lamb, it’s like a carcass in the freezer and KG is ready to buy the thing a saddle and see if we can ride it around the neighborhood. It’s funny because the Universe is always talking to us (yes, all of us) and both KG and I are on the cusp of vegetarianism so for this giant leg of dead meat to show up in the mail is simply absurd, I mean it had joints on both ends of the leg and you could use it for a bat or a medieval weapon. Blech, when are we going to make that? Funnier (?) yet is that my brother and SIL also received one and my SIL is already a vegetarian. What funny gifts one receives from the elderly.
We’re giving everyone little bottles of Limoncello. I spent much of yesterday bottling and labeling it. Yes, that’s me, but not recently.

I bought a heating pad recently to keep some of my beer warm, at least while it’s trying to bottle condition and carbonate. The Imperial IPA I made a month or so ago was flat and going nowhere fast until I put it on the pad, now it’s having a great old time carbonating with a whole new fermentation going. It’s all cloudy and frothy and, while it’s still a bit too raw to enjoy, I enjoy it anyhow. The holiday ale fermented nicely and when I tested and tasted it the other day was no longer like a chocolate malted, the wormwood bitterness was more forward and the sweetness mostly gone. It’s compelling, I’m very much looking forward to bottling it after all of the Christmas guests return to their own worlds. It’s amazing what you can make with some malt, water, and yeast (and sugar and cinnamon and nutmeg and various strange herbs.) I’m still very excited by this brewing process in spite of finding a general shortage of time to pursue it of late.
The Gertrude’s Holiday Party was last Monday and the bar manager is also interested in beer. I told him about Wild Horse Belgian Sour Ale and Beneath the Kilt Scottish Ale and he begged me to give him some (beer.) Consequently, I’m stopping at Gertrude’s on the way to the Schmids today to give him a taste of each. Hey, it’s the holidays and it’s already noon somewhere.

If I’m wrapping the mackerel, it must be Friday

Hey, this is getting fun. It’s as though the hands on my life’s personal timepiece are speeding up and spinning round and round and going ever faster. It’s like three days until Christmas vacation. Oh, that was last week while I was still a kid. I do get some time off beginning on the 21st, but it’s not like it was when I was a kid. Still, a few days of no work demands, replaced by those of a more familial orientation, will be a nice change.
We’re getting ready. The Limoncello needs sugar and water and then we bottle it. That may happen later today or tomorrow. I’ve a batch of holiday ale fermenting in the new bathroom that needs to be done by the time guests get here (so as to free up that bath for actual use.) Finished fermenting, that is, the way it’s going it’ll be all ready for next year. It’s a very malty brew bittered with wormwood and sweet gale (they give it a very nice herbal quality) and then spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg. It’s too early to know for sure how it’ll eventually turn out but the wort, after I finished the boil and before I added the yeast, tasted delicious; like a cinnamon chocolate-malted or Ibarra, that Mexican hot chocolate. Hot chocolate beer, okay.
We paid a local landscaper to remove the leaves in the yard and he just finished. What an unholy mess that was but now the yard is showing again and, at least outside, the house looks sort of refreshed. In inside news, the fireplace is ***almost*** done. I’m having a little issue finding the right screws for the side vents, but it’s sealed and the mantle is up and it’s all decorated for the holidays. Yes, we’re still looking for a screen and yes, that IS The Goddess.

This weekend I’m going to mount a new medicine cabinet in our bathroom, install a new toilet, and maybe put some hardware on the vanity drawers and cabinets. KG is sort of managing the bathroom remodel but she’s working both nights this weekend so I’m helping out. It’s the old bathroom but KG’s excellent design sense has allowed us to refresh it for a relatively small sum. It’s a miracle.
So that’s the haps.

Wrapping the Mackerel

Wow, Fridays are coming around fast these days.

It’s pretty great working from home. I get more done faster than I would at the office and I only goof off slightly more. It’s a win-win and it uses no gas.

I’m supposed to meet Michael at Dogfish Head Brewpub this afternoon for a couple of happy hour beers. It’s a schlep over there but we’ve not had a chance for any male bonding in a few weeks and our team spirit is suffering for it. Maybe I can write off a few beers as ‘Teambuilding.’

I’m not quite right today. I spoke with Sam’s mom yesterday to arrange for Sam to come up for the Christmas celebration. Cindy wanted to hang on to her until Christmas day and when I told her that wasn’t going to work she deferred to our divorce decree. It says something different anyhow but when I told her I needed Sam by the 23^rd at the latest, she feigned a headache and hung up. I called her again today and she still claimed to be sick but I reiterated in clear and forceful terms that I would pick Sam up on the 23^rd or the 21^st, it was her choice. It skeeves me and kind of upsets my ka or wa or whatever it is that one calls the ocean inside (it’s all choppy now.)

Just to lump all of my issues together, I had dinner with G-lo and J-Bro last night. G-lo was fishing for any resentments I might have against any of my various family members, or better yet against KG or Ronnie. I told her I’d never been happier, all was good. She was disappointed but she kept digging. They took me to a little French restaurant in B’more, Petit Louis. The menu was designed back when Julia Childs was still in high school, so you’d expect them to have it down, and they do, but it’s just so much the same year after year and it’s not really all that interesting to begin with. I had a Roquefort salad and a small piece of broiled Rockfish over a few roasted Cauliflower florets. The wine was good though; a Gran Cru Chablis, not as dry as I like but smooth and creamy and just hinting at raisiny.

G-lo gave me a shirt, an Indian Madras in green and purple from Orvis. It’s really not my style but I’m not all that stylish of late and she may well have missed it even if she had been paying attention. KG felt kind of bad because G-lo gave her a $10 bouquet and I got a $70 shirt, reinforcing that for G-lo it’s all about ‘blood.’ Blood makes noise. Partially in the spirit of ‘What Would Jesus Buy?’, we’re trying to get past gift-giving this year and truly the last thing I need is another shirt. For the Christmas parties we specified no gifts for anyone but the kids. I don’t know how it’ll work but maybe it’ll keep the pathology and melodrama down a little. Then again it’ll still give G-lo an excuse to give Sam a better gift than Ronnie ($50 vs. $100, with the big bucks going to blood.) If that happens there are going to be words said, and I don’t want to have to say them but I will. Maybe we should have said no gifts.

So, still looking for a program. Northwestern has one with the best professional fit (Clinical Informatics) but it’s $33K. What with the girls starting college next year and us trying to move, I don’t yet know where that might come from but the Universe is generous and I am trusting that at least part of it will come from somewhere. The other programs I’ve found are sort of unknown online universities and I’m not sure saying I have an MS from McDonald’s University is the message I’m paying all that money to convey. Hmmm, well G-lo said she was very happy that I am going back to school, oh boy.

My Belgian Saison ale that I added Brettanomyces to is turning out to be a terrific beer. I’m making a label for the case I still have left. Since Brett confers flavors described as horsy or barnyard, and since Brett is a wild yeast, I’m calling it Wild Horse Ale. Here’s the label so far.

Donald Trump’s Hairpiece

So, here I am on December 4, 2007, 55 years old. How can it be? Sweet Jesus Juice, what happened to the last few decades?

I’m considering going back to school. I think I need a Masters degree if I’m going to do anything except what I’m currently doing, and you know what happens when one stands still. 55 and considering going back to school, now that fries my noodle even more.

Damn, I’m trying not to get morose but it’s a fine line between consciousness and depression sometimes.

The weekend in New Jersey was a riot. KG and I drove up Friday afternoon. It was a gorgeous fall day, cool but not cold, with some residual leaves still giving a rusty look to the roadside foliage. We drove over the bridge to Long Beach Island a little after three and settled into our room at Daddy O for a short nap before dinner. The room was sparse and modern, but comfortable. Actually, KG took a nap, I walked down to the beach and checked out the neighborhood. It really was a long beach, 18 miles to be exact. Not real wide, but it was clean and deserted, and surprisingly cold. In spite of it being close to 40F, the wind kept things pretty fresh.

We ate dinner in the bar that evening, a happy hour feast of Kobe beef sliders, steamed clams, and a nice chopped salad. During the time we sat there various locals and visitors rotated through; we touched all of them in one way or another (not that way though.) One guy was a local, an environmental engineer. I asked him about the buried munitions in Surf City and got the whole story. New Jersey is a trip in many ways but environmentally it is mind boggling. They say you get used to the smell.

It was a good night and we slept well.

Saturday we went out early and found breakfast at a pancake house. It was all locals and was quite a slice of life. KG, who is ethnically Italian and a New Yorker, fit right in. I was obvious worthy of some suspicion but generally tolerated. Actually, everyone the entire weekend was really charming to us. Anyhow, after an embarrassingly large breakfast we drove up and down the island to check out both ends and then went back to the room for another nap. We had a little more chopped salad before we left for Atlantic City at about 3pm and arrived about an hour later.

Atlantic City, I don’t quite know how to describe it. Maybe as a bus station in an ashtray. During the concert, Suzanne Vega, who has a new song called ‘New York is a Woman’, asked ‘if New York is a woman, what is Atlantic City?’ I wasn’t quite quick enough to shout out that it’s Donald Trump’s hairpiece, but that’s what I thought.

Anyhow, we hung out drinking and gambling for a couple hours before the concert. It was boring but we had fun in a being together way. We played video poker at a bar for a while, went away and had some appetizers at Hard Rock, and then went back to the bar where the same woman was still playing and still shoveling 20s into the machine. She looked like she was ready to leave but her fingers wouldn’t let her go. Onward and onward she played, losing and losing, smoking and drinking and losing. Losing kind of sums it up, really.

You know KG and I got married in Las Vegas, and we always thought Vegas was kind of seedy, but not like Atlantic City is.

So before the concert they had to search us for weapons and drugs and shit. What the fuck was that about? The room held about 250 mostly middle-aged people, arranged in three sections on folding chairs in a banquet room with the worst acoustics one can imagine. It didn’t start on time either, but of all of the detractors to the concert, the acoustics were the worst, except that for all one couldn’t hear of the band, during quiet moments one could plainly hear the bartender arguing with the security guards. House of Blues, Atlantic City, it sucked (and I don’t often say that.)

Suzanne Vega was really good. In spite of the venue, she was professional and charming and played three encores. The guitar and bass were too loud but I think it was because of the acoustics and that we were on the side. As a concert, it was great to see Suzanne Vega but I’ll not go back to the House of Blues there.

We got back to Daddy O a little after midnight and settled in for a long winters nap. When we woke up on Sunday it had snowed. Not a lot, but enough to look pretty cool. We packed up and on the way back to the turnpike stopped for breakfast at the Stafford Diner. That place was great, a real 24 hour diner.

In spite of some nasty weather we got home in good time and safely, tired but happy, and not at all ready for another week. It was a fun trip and it made coming home seem really nice.