how now brownpau
I’m happy to announce that my fianceée is now a Washingtonian. (Well, partly a NoVAn, but that still counts as DC.) She’s landed a library job and a room near the river, and is this moment buzzing around, unpacking and moving things about.
We’ll still be going up to NJ once a month or so for family visits, premarital counseling with the Pasta, and pilgrimages to the Water Sphere, but the first step to Amy’s DC-ness is complete. She is One Of Us now.
Since we haven’t had a photo of the cat here for a while, and some of you aren’t always watching the photostream 24/7, I give you a few photos of Pandora taken in recent weeks:
Also see Pandora Dreams of Swimming.
Remember when I deCaffed? I was successfully off caffeine for over a year and a half after that, with only an occasional root beer or venti frappuccino in emergencies. I say this in the past tense because I went back to drinking coffee in January, thanks to the pressure of my ventures into entrepreneurship, plus the lovely Christmas present of a coffee maker from my fianceéw’s parents.
Now I’ve got it bad — even worse than before, when I was just a Starbucks and Folgers dabbler. Now I’ve been buying those scoopable gourmet blends at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, running them through the store grinder at a slightly finer setting than is recommended for paper filters, and partaking of the wonder of coffee at least once daily every morning, with lots and lots of milk and a cube of sugar. I’ve learned to keep bags of ground coffee tightly sealed so as to preserve the oils in the blend from contact with the air, and am seriously considering the purchase of one of those “As Seen on TV” vacuum seal pumps.
Now I worry I’m turning into one of those “Whole Bean” snobs who needs an electric grinder to enjoy the coffee at its freshest. I’ve made the mistake of getting bagged preground Starbucks and grocery-brand coffee, so it is with bitterness in my mouth that I ask you: what coffees should I be getting aside from my random selection from the Whole Foods/Trader Joe’s bean bins? Any recommendations?
Moose
Some nights it’s faster to walk home from the Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro station than it is to wait for the train, so that’s what I did Monday. As I walked by a slightly unkempt, middle-aged man limping with a cane near 3rd and Mass Ave NW, he very nearly jumped in surprise away from me. “You okay?” I asked, and he replied, “Sorry, you startled me, can’t be too careful at night in this part of DC.”
It turned out he was the feature photographer for Street Sense. We talked at length as we walked, about photography, homelessness, mathematics, philosophy, and life as a homeless black man getting back on his feet. He called himself Moose, and he’d had a rich history here in Washington. I’ll have to make sure to look out for his photos in the next paper.
Manno
Yesterday, I was trawling (not trolling) through Craigslist for a cheap DVD player, and found one being sold by a guy who turned out to be the [now-former] Assistant Director for Team Development, Nats Minor League Operations. Not anything huge, but still pretty cool to meet up with someone closely connected to our local baseball team — and buy his DVD player. Now I don’t need to shuttle my iBook between the computer desk and the TV table anymore.
A few updates on children who in various ways are connected to this weblog:
In my “Assorted Classical” iTunes playlist (a haphazardly arranged collection of single tracks and downloads which stand alone or can’t be bothered to join with their parent works), Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture immediately precedes The Celtic Tenors’ rendition of Danny Boy. The two pieces are performed in the same key, and start with almost the same three notes, such that, with just the right amount of audio crossfade, the 1812 Overture sounds like a grand, lengthy introduction to Danny Boy. It is quite a funny effect, especially when heard with cannons, which is really the only proper way to listen to 1812. I’m sure Danny Boy would benefit from some cannons as well.
From a copy of the Oxford Companion to the English Language. I love how the entry does not even bother to mention the erroneous usage; it just presents BTQ as is, straightforwardly and simply.
Update: It was a great day and a fun festival, plus I scored some amazing 19th Century artifacts at the book sale (more on that soon). Photos of the festival here. The band is The Beanstalk Library.
This is where I’m going to be all day today. I’ve been on the planning committee for the past month or so, and it’ll be great to finally get to the event itself. In fact, I’m running late to pre-festival setup just to post this. For you!
So, if you’re in the neighborhood (Dupont Circle / 17th Street area), come on over. I hear word on the street that the new Dunkin’ on 17th will be there with free donuts and coffee. We’ll also have a local farm setting up a table to sell organic produce, the youth are doing a bake sale, and we’re hauling up a bunch of books from the basement to sell cheap. Live music, too. Oh, and a moon bounce for the kids (or “bouncy castle,” as they call it in England). And hay bales. Can’t have a fall festival without hay bales. (Would you believe we almost rented a sno-cone machine with the moon bounce? Fortunately cooler heads prevailed. Get it? Cooler? Haw haw!)
Um, so, yeah. 17th and O Streets NW, then. Festival runs 10am to 3pm. See you there.
Here is a mobile self-portrait of me on the Metro. I’m thirty years old today, and I celebrated this morning with a giant breakfast of sausages and eggs and hash browns and toast and coffee at the Billy Goat, followed by a trip to the DC DMV to get my ID renewed. I’ve cooked up a nice big pot of adobo, and tonight Amy and I are going to dine on it with some rice and broccoli and lemon-cilantro tomato (a suitable substitute in the absence of green mangoes and bagoong) while watching campy classic Star Trek episodes from my TOS DVD set. It’s cold now; a front passing through last night dropped temperatures from the 70s down to the 40s, with freeze warnings tonight, and snow up in Chicago and Buffalo. Perfect weather for adobo and arroz caldo and curling up in bed with a warm cat.
Gifts received so far: ESV Reformation Study Bible from Amy. Firefly and Ultimate Manilow from Martin. This list will be updated as further loot rolls in. If you have not given me a birthday present and wish to assuage your guilt at this grievous omission, press this button:
It felt good to be doing some editing again, I must say. This is a disjointed chronicle of my recent life, made with leftover video footage thrown together in iMovie. Music is Satie’s Gymnopédie, funny dancing guy is Tag, guy getting coffee is Woody, island is Verde Island in Dec 2004. Watch out for the “there’s always a bigger fish” moment. Aged film effect is mostly used just to hide jaggy video from my mobile phone’s video recorder.