Just waiting. Baby is bound to come in the next week or so. Let the clock watching begin.
At the start of this week, there was a thick fluffy snow that seemed to just to float away after an afternoon breeze took it away. The above photo is from this snowfall. Then the rain came. Our near feet of accumulated snow turned into pillowy slush, stopping up the few drains in Portland, and made all of new england remember what spring is like with 50f temps and on/off showers. This winter has been meager at best, not a whole lot of snow, not really that cold.
Just in the past couple of days I have gotten to know the UPS delivery guy. I think after talking with my mother and saying that I was worried about having the right amount of things – clothes, diapers, etc. The packages are coming in those huge oversized boxes and a single onesie (or two) everyday.
The baby is coming. Very soon, any day. Worry has melded into excitement and the unknown. Time will only tell.
I thought I’d take a second as to why I love brewing and to a greater extent – beer. Initial impressions would lead people to think I’m a drunk; that I make the cheapest swill garbage possible with as much booze as spirits, and then get blasted for fun. Reality being, for me, that drinking my work is only an added bonus. Then folks may say, oh sure – I brew huge bomb beers, sure I enjoy the process, but I’m basically out to get plastered. Still not true, I brewed a ~3.5-4% abv last go-round. Then ‘they’ will say oh, so you are just a super ned with a hobby of fun toys, making a slightly more complicated version of tea, and reading. To that I’d say – oh, so you are a homebrewer as well?
It’s really less about the drunk part so much as the process. The ability to make something that [nearly] everyone can enjoy. It’s about cultivating a living organism, watching it grow and chew away at sugars and hearing the ‘clink clink’ of the airlock. Sure, like most homebrewers the process can lead to frustrations, burning your extract, missing your target OG, having a stuck sparge, ect – but the clouds clear after the first deep sniff of a bubbling blow-off tub. Even if the beer sucks (I’m looking at you cranberry beer) there is a flood of happiness that fills you when you watch someone drink your beer. It’s a learning process, something to be picked up, cleaned up next time. You shuffle again and deal. Didn’t like the bitterness in this one? Want to tweak a famous beer you had? There is almost nothing the big boys do that you cannot. There are few hurdles, which I think make it appealing in the first place.
A year only I’ve been at it. I’ve plowed thorough a handful of beer making books, cram my day full of reading beer blogs, it envelops my day. Finally a passion, a goal orientated hobby, and a relatively cheap one, comparatively. I don’t see this ending soon. You could maybe expect bottles for Christmas gifts.
Everything seems in order, our hospital bag is packed – sort of. Baby’s bed is ready save for the fact that our male cat Ike is peeing (again), and thus the bedding is waiting in the wings. We’ve met with our pediatrician, he’s quite nice. It’s snowing again in Maine, meaning slick roads and little-to-no clean up. My brews are waiting either to be kegged or bottled. I’m fairly certain both braggots are inoculated due to the use of the raw honey, but are clearing and chilling in the hallways at about 61°f. The mushroom grow box Gary bought me for Christmas is starting to really spout – hideous and disgusting, but interesting.
I’d like to address a quick… how should I put it, nuance. A few folks have been using a phrase (possibly without even thinking about it) that has Lis and I wondering. A simple three lettered word when in reference to Lis and I’s unborn child – “our.” Sure, it’s normal and fine for the two of us to use it, because – well – it’s ours. But when grandparents and great-grandparents use it, it sounds – oddly possessive. Maybe I’m only noticing this because of my close reading background, maybe I’m an attentive parent, but when “our baby” shows up in an email – I’ve got to wonder and fear how they mean it. Where do they see themselves fitting into our child’s life? A part of myself is concerned about their idea their interaction, their ‘teaching’ us to parent, and their influence on us. I think our seclusion and distance may seem like a hindrance, but it may also be a blessing – only time will tell.
I’m not worried about the raising a kid part as of now, more about the safety of my wife and child during labor. A symptom of my cross-that-bridge-edness that I can’t help.
A short time left. Anxiety may be getting to us all, but the longer I’m with Lis the closer I feel.
This week I brewed up two (sort of three) brews.
On Wednesday, I brewed up my first real mini-mash – an (attempted) red farmhouse ale in which I call Red Barn. This is also the first (of hopefully) many farmhouse ales that I will create for the time being. Recently, I’ve been evaluating the beer I’m drinking a lot more closely and find myself drawn to these types because of their straightforward ingredients but complex in the profiles – seemingly beautiful in their simplicity. Easy drinking, easy to make – what is not to love? Their fruity profiles allow for those who “don’t like beer” to drink up, and those beer snobs to find the malty buried blow the yeast profile or sniff the complex hops – heavy or light. The broad definition also allows for any kind of interpretation as well, from inky black to a clear pilsner-like color, adding any spices, adjuncts, etc. I created a darker farmhouse ale using the same yeast (3711) this past summer and wanted to make something a bit less ‘sip-able’ and more ‘drinkable.’ This is that attempt.
I’ve looked at brewing a braggot (1/2 honey/malt) for sometime and finally was able to once my uncle shipped me some of his wild flower honey from his farm in Michigan. Again, I wanted something low alcohol so I aimed for two gallons to split between two gallon jugs I kept from whole foods apple juice. I pitched two separate yeasts in them, which is where the “sort of three” comes in. In one, ‘normal’ yeast that will showcase the honey and malts nicely, and the other was dregs from a local brew and one with wild yeast from Michigan – quite fitting, I think. First, the dregs from the local brew were pulled and incubated to a point where they could become pitchable – creating a wort and simply pouring the dark muck that sits in the bottom of bottle conditioned beers. I grew the sample to ~1L yeast starter, then [drunkenly] decided to toss in the Jolly Pumpkin sediment after finishing the bottle off on New Years Eve. Simply chilled (or cold crashed) the samples till the yeast separated from the “beer” and on brew day warmed, shook, and dumped it in. My first sour beer.
All three are happily bubbling away and I’ll post more on them once they become drinkable.
I’ve been sort of avoiding the start of this for some reason. Maybe I wasn’t sure where to start, or what to begin with but I thought objects might be something, an easy in.
Soon after christmas we had to do a little spending. We only had a crib, chair and a faux grass rug. We took our list from Amazon and picked up everything listed in our new book under the ‘need’ section. That and a couple rolls of wall stickers that we couldn’t live without. The boxes came and of course they were those oversized room-filling packages. I’m not sure I can solely blame amazon here because the foam changing pad wasn’t vacuumed small and its own box – so I can’t point fingers to shipping.
The room is coming together in strange ways. Recently when we move, we’re already carrying most of what we own. We change addresses, but the same photos, paintings, furniture (mostly) all go into different rooms. With the baby’s room were getting it together piecemeal, it seemed awkward and strange in a way. I guess when I was a child my room ‘grew’ in this way, but it just seems foreign now.
I’m unsure if I’m fearful, worried, or a whole host of other emotions that I’m feeling about this whole thing. For sure, I’m excited. The wonder of my child learning their way and navigating the world in new and interesting ways. I don’t want my kid to feel the weight of ADHD like I had, or the ensuing drug gamut that tried to ‘cure’ me. The possibility to avoid my awkward and lost middle school years, miss some of my substance abuse in High School, and sheer lack of motivation through 80% of it all. Sure, I worry about being a ‘good’ dad, making sure the cats don’t pee on it, I don’t drop it, or any other seemingly stupid things to think about – but I’ve seen some bad parenting and if I can just be marginally better than them, then I did okay.
Lis and I made a visit to the birthing center last week and it was a touch overwhelming; it was like being shown what you surgery is going to look like in stark realism. Really, really nice set up over there so I think that should help smooth things a bit. I can just be thankful Lis hasn’t written up a list of ‘demands’ as part of our birthing plan – heck nothing is even on paper. She seems only focused on not getting a c-section, and allow the rest to ‘just happen’. Shockingly.
As far as this blog goes, I plan on keeping it loose. I will try to post a bit about each week with the baby, with photos. The whole deal. Lis and I thought up maybe writing a first person perspective of baby ‘nutz’ – we’ll see how that plays out. Next post will be about my first partial mash brew day.
In the dizzying days of Chicago summertime, outdoor play-time became squished by the sun’s ability to seemingly ‘pop-a-squat’ on the midwest. It was here, in the sun soaked summertime of my preteen childhood that we took refuge in the most unlikely place – tents.
Let me back track a bit here and say something about what a tent means to young kid: independence. It’s a room outside our own homes where we can do or say anything we want, be as loud as we want, it becomes a small home of our own. But for us, a tent wasn’t a place to be loud and stomp around, it’s a place of quiet. An eery quiet that laid over all of us like a thick blanket. One moment we’d be screaming, charging to the zipper entrance, but once inside the breeze blowing through the fine mesh and polyester made it hard to shout. Waggling, thick green leaves sounded distant and alien inside. We could build a life in there, it was an escape and had the lure of being outside but not vulnerable.
We put tents in the back, front, and side yards of every kid’s house in our circle of friends. Sleep-overs eventually became camp-outs as the summer’s drew themselves out in long stretches of our adolescence. In the hushed conversations of the open night air we allowed ourselves to be most unguarded behind the shroud of darkness. We admitted fear, love, lust and true friendship. There were crickets between our thoughts for once. Time to settle into ourselves.
About a month ago I quit my job at the gelato place. Sinking ships bring everyone down.
A porcelain ditch sat pulled through a small town on the edges of the New River, surrounding the city were puffy hills covered in mature trees. Dragged into the distance in both directions, the object was a mystery to all and ignored by most. In town of Pembroke most of their waking life was spent working – until spring vacation.
Our story focuses on two of the Pembroke kids, whom had grown up near each other. Their knack for adventure landed them stranded in the foothills past the lighting of the street lamps. No police were called, but butts were spanked. Sal, the older of the two pondered day and night over the tub. It haunted his dreams and collected itself like a swelling ball inside this mind – he’d catch himself watching the way the leaves or snow fell and wondered where they’d end up after falling into the tub. Sal would cast small paper boats into the tub’s shallow water, keeping a watchful eye until his eyes couldn’t separate the alabaster sides of the vessel from the notebook paper boat.
Henry, the younger and lesser of the dreamers couldn’t care less about it. He kept at Sal that it was just always there, will always be there and wouldn’t lead to anywhere interesting. He was always bringing Sal back down to earth – burying his dreams of finding the end of the tub.
Spring sprung in Pembroke and the week’s vacation for all the middle school kids had broken out. All winter long Sal watched the flakes melt and collect in the basin that ran through their town and he hatched an idea to explore the tub.
Sal and Henry walked over the small wooden bridge over the tub they took every day on their way home from school.
They stopped in the middle of the tiny foot bridge. “Meet me back here tomorrow. We’re going…” Sal trailed off and looked out to the horizon where there white tank seemed to split the tree coated hills forever.
Henry knew he’d have to go along and tired to think of some excuse. “What about food Sal? Huh? Our parents, they’ll lose it.” He did all he could to reel him back, but somehow Henry knew this would prove fruitless. Sal was going this time if Henry came along or not. “What do we tell ‘um?”
“We’ll say we’re spending the night at each other’s place. After the second night they’ll just think we’re spending spring break at each other’s house.” Sal’s face fixated on the far hills, and the thin ivory line stretching into infinity.
“Tomorrow?” Henry was ready to go home.
“Yeah, early. Pack for a hike Henry, not for a slumber party.”
Henry was already walking away and said over his shoulder: “Got is Sal. Tomorrow!”
That night, Sal was restless. The growing idea of this tub had been brewing away in his young mind for as long as he can remember. He packed his bag first thing getting home, laying out each piece, a small pillow, his pocket knife, a small pad of paper and pen, socks, granola bars, a few changes of clothes, and his sleeping bag. Imagining the end of the tub was filling his mind; a simple drain, a hole to the ends of the earth, maybe it just wrapped all the way around the world. It was part of who Sal was, finding out about the tub. No one in town ever talked about it and even acted as though it was a normal fixture to have, like a tree or bush in your yard, something that placed itself against the scenery and backdrop of everyday life. Sal cannot ignore it anymore, the hollow space it carves into his world, was coming to a point. Something was out there and they were going to find out what.
The first morning birds spotted the sun before Sal finally fell asleep.
In my family we never really got a car when got our license. My sister got my great-grandfather’s car: a swaying awkward Pontiac with a statuette of Saint Christopher. A near dead CB radio sat between the driver and passenger footwells, not connected to anything but the mounting hardware. Gray interior with partial stains and a distant smell of cigarette smoke. That is until my sister got her hands on it.
She didn’t do much; somehow she managed to have a constant flow of dolphin shaped air fresheners and a white outline of a fairy. Not just any fairy, but one that took up a great deal of the angled back window, making it impossible to avoid when checking the rearview mirror.
This is where I come in. This was my car, in which I had a license but had to beg my sister to take it anywhere, a painful experience for any teenager. I didn’t have my own set of keys and she had a couple of embarrassing trinkets hanging from her keys too – a big clunky chain-gang like apparatus that made it even more clear that this was not my car.
One of these times I borrowed her car, a friend and I drove to a concert at the Congress theater. I was 16. This part of the city had yet seen the spreading fingers of the gay community, not even the lesbians had moved in yet. After the show we got lost. We found Roosevelt road. Two white sixteen year old kids from the suburbs driving around Humboldt Park then down and through the near south and parts of the west side till we finally realized we could scurry back home. We couldn’t help but laugh the whole time though – it was a cool day so the windows were fogged and the massive fairy watching over us. Laughter helped coat the fear and made easier to swallow.
So I think I owe my sister a thank you for putting that white fairy in the window.