The day in the day: welcome to Wednesday
September 22, 2013
8:15. It is, of course, a workday for me. I bike to work every day in the not-cold weather. I’ve wimped out. I used to bike all year, down to about 15F/-10C and/or unless it was slippery-slushy-treacherous. Not any more. Now I only go down to about 40F/5C, mostly because I prefer to walk, but when it’s nice outside I can’t overlook the time savings of biking, even though it’s more stressful. I have to cross from one side of downtown to the other. I forgot to start taking photos, so you get the original of one I took to post on Instagram.
8:30. I am at my desk. I’ve eaten my breakfast and checked in with the kitten cam (eating breakfast while I’m dong things like checking email saves me precious minutes at home). It’s time to dig in. I’m project managing and art directing a 500+-page illustrated children’s story bible. No time to waste!
9:30. Oh damn, nobody made coffee yet.
10:30. My boss asked me to read a thing. It’s a series of sort of spoofy, fake news stories written from the points of view of characters from other books that we’re publishing.
11:45. Lunch at my desk. I usually eat at my desk whether I pack or go out and bring something back. Today it’s the veggie pie recipe I posted last week. In this week’s version I used brown rice, a poblano pepper, a red bell pepper, an onion, and three tomatoes. Still versatile, still delicious!
12:45. Post-lunch. This is the first and last bathroom mirror selfie you will ever, EVAR see of me.
2:00. I drink a lot of water anyway, plus the air in our building is really dry, so I feel better if I drink even more water. At a minimum I drink one glass in the morning, one with lunch, and one or two in the afternoon. Lately I’ve been getting two in before lunch, partly as a result of the weather’s having been incredibly hot for a stretch.
2:45. We play hangman with dry erase markers on the kitchen window. I’m the wordmaster this time around. The word is hubbub.
3:45. Still slaving away.
4:45. Freedom! Or at least it will be when I make it back across downtown.
5:00. First destination of the evening, a neighborhood, er, microbrewery?… brewpub? This is Minnesota and we still have on the books antiquated liquor laws from the Prohibition Era that restrict how breweries may behave. Because this one is classified as a brewpub (I think that’s what they actually are), they must keep production below 3,500 barrels per year. They’ve gotten around this by exploiting a loophole which allows them to increase capacity if they have additional physical locations. So they’ve opened a tap bar and a bowling alley bar, which garners them an extra two 3,500s of capacity per year. But I digress.
The bowling alley venue just opened up and I am in one of the inaugural bowling leagues there. I was talking to the owner as I bowled against him and he said I should get to the brewery and try the limited release very limited quantity wee heavy ale that they had tapped a few days earlier which wouldn’t be around for long and which had turned out particularly well this year (each of the three locations serve all the regular beers, but each also has one or two brews that are exclusive to it). Since the brewery is across the street from my actual first destination on Wednesdays, I complied. It was, in fact, delicious as promised. Not as boozy as some wee heavies and with a pleasant brown sugar and prune taste.
5:45. Now I’m across the street waiting for my usual early activity, beer school. Yes, I said beer school. There’s a really nifty organization called the Better Beer Society that was formed to be an educational facilitator both for people who offer and serve beer and for people who drink beer. To that end, they put on two thirteen-week sessions per year of Beer University. I am a longtime student.
6:45. This week it was learning about three of the four basic ingredients of beer (malted grain, yeast, hops, and water), which kinds of flavors each imparts, and how to taste beer, presented by beer smartypants Michael Agnew. We sampled five without knowing what they were and had to identify what we tasted, and then make a guess about the style if not the actual brand. I correctly guessed the first sample to be Victory Prima Pils and the fourth to be Rodenbach Grand Cru. I am ashamed that I did not recognize that the third sample was Odell Myrcenary, one of my top favorite beers. It was fun and interesting as always.
8:00. Now I’m at another neighborhood venue where I kill two birds with one stone. First up is to drink the Midweek Beer Geek beer, which is usually something limited that’s just been released for the season or ever, or something less common that maybe is in extremely limited release. This week it was Stone 17th Anniversary Götterdämmerung (whoa, iOS, totally impressive that you predicted Götterdämmerung after just the Gött!). Over the last couple of years, I’ve gotten pretty geeky with a lot of people who work in beer in town, so the local Stone Brewing brewery rep, Corey, was happy to mug it up with me for a photo. I’m going to leave the photo dark because he doesn’t know that I wanted the picture to post here.
9:30. The smartest thing I did in the context of beer, bars, and doing things was to defect from my Thursday bocce ball league to a Wednesday team (with one of my fellow Midweek Beer Geeks)—because I’m there anyway. There are two courts and four shifts, so our matches begin anywhere between 6:15 and 10:00 (there’s a schedule, of course). Tonight we played at 8:45. We actually won two of the three games. We’re very streaky.
10:30. As if I haven’t already had enough fun on Wednesdays, a year or so ago I realized that yet another other neighborhood bar has karaoke. If you’ve been with me on this blog for a long time, you may remember that I used to publish my Thursday Karaoke Report, where I’d share crappy iPhone recordings of my karaoke warblings after bowling. I still record every performance but I’m not currently doing that over here on WordPress, though I was thinking I might at least make a page to just list what I’ve sung each time.
Karaoke is where I get in trouble, because I love it so much that I tend to stay until the bitter end, and then I’m so amped up that it can sometimes be 2am by the time I get to sleep. That, of course, makes for some rather difficult Thursdays. Tonight, though I still felt compelled to go over there, oddly enough I wasn’t actually in the mood to sing, though of course I did. It was busy and I was tired already anyway, so I did actually hit the sidewalk after just the one song. Last week it was really fun because it was really slow, to the point that it was just me, another gal, and the bar staff, to Joel the host got it in his head that we all should. participate in running through the Beatles’ Abbey Road album. It was a blast! And yes, I recorded the whole thing.
Midnight. So I actually got home early for a Wednesday, though not nearly early enough for how tired I was the whole day. The cat’s got the right idea.
Good night!
Stepping
July 13, 2011
Everybody has a favorite place in their home, right? Whether you rent or own, house or apartment, there’s some place where you like to spend time. An obvious answer for me would be in my bed. I love sleeping. I love fading in and out on a weekend morning. But when I’m asleep, I’m not awake actually enjoying it. For the awake experience, I choose my front steps.
As you can see, beer once again is usually involved. That’s because a couple of years ago, two things came into play. First, I had been working out regularly since March and it was then summer and warm. After working out after work, I would then walk or bike home. Second, at some point I accidentally discovered that Sorella Wine & Spirits was a not inconvenient one block detour on that walk or bike home. I’d pop over for some tasty supplies for what I started calling Home Happy Hour. Because it was summer, I’d enjoy sitting on my front steps when the air was still warm from the day, but the sun had sunk behind the god-awful ugly high-rises and wasn’t directly cooking me. It became a favorite thing to do.
Last summer, I bought two cheap, low lawn chairs—I guess they’re known as “beach chairs”—and that transformed the experience for the better. The steps were good, but now I had a more comfortable seat with a chairback and which was low to the ground to facilitate stretching my legs out. Heaven. Then I discovered that the chair tucks nicely into my front door alcove and combines with the protection of the second level deck overhead to make for a wonderful storm-enjoying setup. It’s usually after dark when I sit outside for that, with or without tasty beverage.
It’s not always Home Happy Hour when I sit on the steps, but most of the time it is (oh, and a couple of gratuitous rabbits from the yard). What’s your favorite place at home?
Flannel sheets surprise
June 5, 2010
I???ve already extolled the virtues of hot water and the morning shower. I???ve said how I love to sleep and wish I did more of it. If you have pets yourself, you know that they can melt away the day???s troubles with a well-timed purr. That these things make up a feel-good trifecta is no surprise. What does surprise me is that in the suddenly summer weather we???ve been having, my flannel sheets are not too warm.
Mother Nature has been confusing us Minnesotans this spring. I don???t waste time getting the flannel sheets onto the bed in the fall. then we had an early warm spell, so I didn???t waste time taking them off as spring approached. Trouble is, the warm didn???t last for very long and we swung to unseasonably cool temperatures. The flannel sheets make a curtain call. The cool stayed around and the flannel stayed on.
Then, practically overnight, summer made another push into the scene. Being the cynical Minnesotan that I am, it took me a long time to be convinced that it wouldn???t snow again. The flannel sheets stayed on. Then, me being me, when I did laundry, I just put them back on rather than have to fold them up.
It has continued to be summery warm. I have flung open my windows. And I am completely surprised that I haven???t been roasting sleeping in those flannel sheets. I have come to this conclusion: flannel sheets aren???t warmer than regular sheets. They just seem that way in the winter because they???re fuzzy. They aren???t cold to the initial touch when you get into bed. You don???t have to wait for your body heat to warm up the points of contact.
Last fall I was surprised when an online acquaintance who lives in central Illinois???further south, more humid???said that he leaves his flannel sheets on year round. Now I know he???s not crazy!
June 2, 2010
Childhood food memories, part 2: family routine
May 5, 2010
When you were a kid, was there something that your family always did on a particular day of the week? The one I remember was grilled cheese sandwiches and sardines in front of the tv on Sunday nights.
I have doublechecked with my parents who are visiting this week and according to their accounts, I am actually merging two memories.
Usually we ate in the kitchen, at the table. And as I believe I have previously recounted, I often had the unpleasant experience of remaining at said table until I had eaten the last bite of food on my plate. When this involved liver, particularly chicken liver, a large part of my evening was wasted.
But on two nights of the week, I knew I would be safe. On those nights, we ate fun stuff in the living room in front of the tv while we watched my parents’ favorite shows.??
The appointment viewing that I remember was for Mary Tyler Moore and All in the Family, and Lawrence Welk and Andy Williams. But I got my meals mixed up.
Those shows must have been for pizza night on Saturdays. On parent or the other would run downtown to pick up a pie from John & Toni???s, and then we???d sit on the living room floor and dine while viewing.
The routine I remember more vividly was Sundays, when we???d have grilled cheese sandwiches and sardines. My dad says the show we watched was Ed Sullivan, of which I have no recollection. But I do remember that minding the sandwiches in the oven was one of my early cooking responsibilities. My mom would prepare the sandwiches and pop them in to brown, and I was in charge of telling her when they were toasted and ready to be flipped. I took this duty very seriously.??
When the sandwiches were served, the plate was garnished with sardines. I thought it was just something we did; my dad said it was a tradition in his family. This weekend I enjoyed the combination for the first time in thrity years and it was delicious.
Time is an illusion
May 1, 2010
Meet the masters of my morning, Alarm Clock, Bathroom Clock, and Kitchen Clock. Together, they perform the amazing feat of getting me out the door and to work relatively on time.
I???m lucky that my office is pretty flexible about arrival time. My bosses only ask that we are there by 9:30 and put our eight hours in. Some people get there much earlier, some of us get there right around that time.
I am not a morning person, and even though I adore sleeping and wish I did more of it, I often stay up later than I meant to; case in point right now, though I did just get home from a show. But you will notice that I am not going right to bed, even though it is midnight:30 and I want to get up promptly tomorrow morning to fit some things in before I need to be someplace at noon.
So in order to increase the chances that I???ll do the responsible thing day after day and get to work on time, I engage in self-trickery with my analog clocks. You know, the ones that are willing accomplices because they aren???t governed by a network time server. Alarm Clock is set five minutes fast, and Bathroom Clock and Kitchen Clock are set about seven or eight minutes fast.
When I use Alarm Clock, I rarely don???t set it for on the hour, whatever hour that is. I don???t believe in the seven-minute snooze???what use is that? You can???t work up a good head of sleep in seven minutes. No, I work with sixty-minute snoozes because I reset the alarm time, and that???s easiest to do in whole hours. Very occasionally, I???ll reset it for half past, but not usually because that would take, like, fifteen seconds to wait for the minutes to get to 30. I want to be back in bed, man.
By the time I stop at my computer to check in with my peeps on the way from my bed to my shower (because I???m so pathetic that I can???t wait half an hour until I could multitask it with eating breakfast), it appears to be about twenty after the hour. I get anxious and move fast.
Summer is a wonderful thing because I can ride my bike to work, which takes about eight minutes less than walking to the light rail station, waiting for the next train, and enduring the seven minute ride. Work is 1.75 miles away and the bike ride takes about 10 minutes. I know how to hit the traffic lights.
But if I do take the light rail, I know that my preferred carriage, the 9:11, almost always comes two minutes early, so I???m doing alright if I???m walking out the door when Kitchen Clock says 9:10.
The light rail platform clocks are obviously on a network time server because they match my iPhone exactly. For the rest of the day, then, I???m on precise time until Alarm Clock takes back over at bedtime and I think, uh oh, I???m getting to bed five even more minutes later than I meant to.
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