Well, fuck. The Brewer’s Art, a mainstay of Mt. Vernon, and host of one of the best basement bars in all of Baltimore (RIP Wroten’s), abruptly announced its closure on Monday, citing over $150K in debt. I don’t know what would have happened there—it was always busy—but this is a loss for Baltimore’s nightlife scene. I spent many an evening tucked away in a corner of the basement nursing an OZZY or four (Fuck you Sharon, it’ll always be OZZY to me), and have a special place in my heart for it.
These days I’m drinking very light beer and mostly staying away from the brown alcohols, but the Wirecutter’s rating of canned cocktails piqued my interest, especially the Old Fashioned option. I recently bought a bottle of Bulleit’s premixed Manhattan cocktail and found it a bit harsher than what I’d been mixing at home; it’s amazing how much a proper vermouth smooths out the recipe. Given their cost per unit, I won’t be testing any of these anytime soon.
Well, this week has been a real test of my sanity; there were points when I felt like I was doing OK and at other times I was a terrible husband, father, and Co-Acting-Director-whatever. I’m not used to the sheer amount of meetings coming at us now, and the immediate need to be caught up with all of the inside information we don’t know is overwhelming. My friend Lauren comiserated with me last week, saying, one day you’re looking around for the adult in the room to make a decision, and you suddenly realize that’s you. So much truth in that observation.
Stories to Watch launched on time after an intense three weeks of shooting, editing, organizing, and producing. This year’s production was, in a lot of ways, easier than last year’s (and I wasn’t trapped in my bedroom with COVID, which was nice) but other stressors were still front and center up until the morning of the event. The video portion, if I do say so, looked fantastic. We got a lot of great feedback on the presentation, and when I was in the office later that day, my CEO found me and shook my hand to thank me and the team for all our work. That felt very good.
I was in the office not for the event, but because I had to help another team mix epoxy and glue laser-etched plaques to the front of five trophies that had been 3D printed with sand and shipped from Germany. Don’t let ’em tell you different: the life of a Co-Acting-Director-whatever is full of glamour. Due to some internal production confusion we had to source the plaques and some laser-cut felt to complete the pieces in-house, so I brought tools and a pile of nitrile gloves and we got down to business. They made me glue and set the plaques: no pressure. This coming Tuesday I’m headed up to New York City to help produce the awards event itself, where I’ll be shooting video. Two nights in Manhattan ain’t so bad, I guess.
Meanwhile we visited with Jen’s Dad last Saturday, and I got to work setting a subfloor in the common bathroom. This involved cutting and fitting two sheets of waterproof hardi-board, mixing a bed of thinset, and setting them in place before screwing everything down. It went in with only a few small hitches, and should be good to go for the next step: this coming weekend I’m renting a wet saw and laying the tile. It did involve a ton of work on my knees, cutting, fitting, troweling, and screwing, and I felt it in my back that evening. Between that and 9-hour days at my desk my whole body is pretty pissed at me right now. Hazel got her first walk in 5 days this afternoon; it was like we’d sprung her from Solitary.
And the built-in project is moving along. I found a decent 12′ board for the top shelf and cut it into place. Then I cut and fit small insets under each of the shelves that dress up the horizontals and give them a little visual weight. Jen and I discussed how to finish off the top and after some negotiation we agreed upon a solution to box in and frame out the top shelf with a section of moulding that matches the stuff above all our windows. So I’ve got to get a 12′ piece of that from the mill in Glen Burnie on a dry sunny day ’cause it won’t fit inside the car.
Jen has been bugging me to try smoking some meat since my first abortive attempt in June of 2015, when I turned a chicken into a block of cement. The smoker has been sitting in the garage since then, taking up space, silently mocking me. Fed up with waiting, Jen found a recipe, drove us to the butcher, and kicked me out of the car to go buy some meat. Sunday morning I cleaned out the smoker, lit some charcoal, and rubbed spices into two cuts of tri-tip. Throwing some wet mesquite onto the fire, I put thermometers into each cut, laid them on the grill, and said a prayer.
It’s pretty obvious in hindsight, but cooking meat with a good thermometer changes the game entirely. The smoker did a great job and I was able to get the meat up to temperature right on schedule. I ran out of charcoal so Hazel and I ran to the 7-11 to pick up another bag. They had no matchlite, so I had to resort to lighter fluid. Because I was in a hurry and not thinking, I didn’t set up the new charcoal the way I should have, and I wound up flash-burning my hand pretty good when the chamber full of vapor lit off, as well as ruining a good fleece jacket. Lesson learned.
After four hours smoking, I wrapped the meat in foil and let them get up to final temperature, which took less time than the recipe called for. We had an early dinner at the table with coleslaw and French fries, and the meat tasted absolutely fantastic. I made a Manhattan to go with it. We all ate until we were stuffed, and decided there will be more smoked meals in our future.
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After some hesitation, I put Finley’s blue bike up on Craigslist this afternoon. in hindsight I should have done it last year, when people were desperate to get bikes, but for some reason I waited. Ever the sentimental fool, I’m sad to see this one go. It’s the one she learned how to ride on, the one Santa brought her. It’s even the same color as Ox (this was not coincidence). But her legs are almost as long as mine now, and it’s time to find a new rider. I hope it makes good memories for the next little girl who climbs aboard..
On Saturday I re-organized the greenhouse so that the spare table is up front where most of the light will be, and prepared a bunch of bins with soil and fertilizer. The seedlings are on their second day of hardening, so by next Saturday they should be ready to plant. There are seedlings on one tray that are 8″ tall at this point, which is fantastic; I’m much further along this spring than I was last year.
Hazel is home from the vet minus stitches and life preserver. Apparently she’s got a clean bill of health to run and play as much as she wants, but she’s not allowed to roughhouse with dogs for a week. This is good and bad; she’s been cooped up so long without any other canine activity that she’s absolutely spastic during the day and pulls like a sled dog when it’s time to take a walk. However, she hasn’t visited any of her usual haunts for several weeks, so the hound part of her brain shuts down all other inputs besides her nose. A SQUIRREL HAS PEED HERE. I MUST INVESTIGATE. This makes each walk feel like a rush hour cab drive through midtown Manhattan: moments of frantic, barely contained activity, followed by a jarring stop and a long, boring wait staring at my phone. Last night I took her out after I got home and we spent a moonlit half hour crashing into each other as she followed meandering squirrel trails in the woods, doubling back on herself and tangling the leash between my legs.
Her strangest new behavior is the rotating poop: She’ll sniff around for a while and her posture will change ever so slightly, from I’m-following-this-squirrel to I’M-GOING-TO-DROP-A-DEUCE, and then she’ll quickly assume the position and then start vibrating. Her legs start moving and she tippy-toes around in one direction until she’s made a 360˚ Circle of Feces, only barely avoiding stepping in her own production. I don’t know if she’s having a seizure or attempting to summon a Shoggoth on the lawn of the church. At least she’s doing it on someone else’s property; it’s hard to sell a house with a portal to hell in the backyard.
Last night, I dragged the second crate up into the spare room and set it up next to the futon. She was demoted from the bed to the crate so that I could actually rest, and apart from some initial whining and a brief episode at about 2:30AM, she was quiet in there. I will be happy to have her back on a regular schedule, because last night was the first good night’s sleep I’ve had since the middle of October. I think moving the heating pad in there did not hurt; at this point her sleeping arrangements are more luxurious than ours are.
A side effect of weaning off the sedatives has been that she found her bark hiding under the couch somewhere; what started as a BUFF and a low growl has now graduated to a full BORR-RORR-RORR-RORR whenever a door closes, a car passes or a dog barks a half a mile away. Her anxiety is at an all-time high, which means she’s tuned to the danger frequency even when she’s snoring. More than once over the past week I was woken to a BUFF and a growl next to my head in the darkness; I would wait until she let out another BUFF and then put a hand on her flank or her head and quietly tell her to go back to sleep. Falling leaves will set her off. Jen and I joke that the house is surrounded by Chupacabra and Hazel the only one who can see them. I don’t know what she’s going to do when it snows; I don’t think there are enough drugs to calm her when Chupacabra start falling from the sky.
I’m sad to read this morning that Ric Ocasek, frontman of the Cars, died in New York at age 75. As the author of one of the best rock songs of all time, this is a loss for humanity.
I’m also strangely excited about the news that Gary Larson may be resurrecting The Far Side after a long, dark hiatus. I don’t know if this means he’s going to be reprinting old strips or just producing new ones, but I hope it’s the latter. The world needs more weird humor. (On my desk here at work sits the Midvale School for the Gifted mug my parents bought me for my college dorm in 1989; I’ve had it with me ever since).
I’m sitting out on the deck of the beach house in 80˚ weather pretending the sun on my crispy face doesn’t sting too badly. The air is blowing in from the water and the waves are gently beating the shoreline about 300 yards from here. It’s Friday and we’re all settled comfortably into a lazy beach schedule: rise when we feel like it, stumble around the house and make some coffee, lay about in our PJ’s until we’ve rustled up some breakfast, and then slowly make preparations for the beach. By about noon or so we’re packed and ready, and we head out to the warm sand.
We got here at the tail end of the brutal heatwave that gripped the East Coast, so our first two days on the beach were a challenge. The heat was intense and the air wasn’t moving so we baked on the sand and were assaulted by clouds of horseflies; the only saving grace was that the ocean was warm and horseflies can’t bite underwater. On Tuesday the storm blew through and cooled everything down, so the rest of the week has been idyllic: temperatures in the high 80’s, a 5-10mph wind blowing from the south, and cool ocean water with 2′ waves to jump around in.
This year we’ve scaled way back on our culinary requirements; in years past we’ve gone the extra mile to source and prepare wonderful dinners. This year we’re all in EASY mode and not stressing ourselves out by spending two hours on a gourmet meal. Lunch is sandwiches in the cooler and bags of cheesy-poofs (we brought seven bags between two families), a spiked iced tea/lemonade mix for the ladies and cold Coronas for me, and various snacks we’d never allow the kids to eat on a regular day. By 3PM we’re lit and the day rolls smoothly on from there.
The house itself is comfortable and appointed well. While nothing is ever laid out how I’d arrange it, this one has everything we need and has enough room for us all to come together and separate when we need space. The kitchen is large and easy to use. And the outdoor shower is large enough to fit three sandy bodies at once.
Few things in life relax me more than a house at the beach; I love the rhythm of the days here and the sounds and smells. I love the giggles of my girl jumping the swells, a manhattan on the deck under the stars, throwing my nephew into the waves until my arms are sore, the scent of salt air on the back of my wife’s neck, the feel of sand between my toes, and going to bed tired and sore and slightly drunk and very happy we are all together.
Monday morning I took advantage of working from home and drove into Glen Burnie to visit the specialty moulding shop I mentioned a few weeks ago. The guy at the counter immediately identified what I needed and went in back to cut up the sizes I specified; within 15 minutes I had 62 feet of moulding shrinkwrapped and ready to stuff in the CR-V. Once the shelves are hung I’ll start mitering the cap moulding and installing it, which will be a nice indoor winter project.
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I was out with a group of work friends on Tuesday night and stepped up to the bar to pay our tab. I noticed the bartender expertly mixing a manhattan and asked her what rye she used while waiting for my bill to be rung up. We got into a discussion about the quality of the various rye whiskeys available. When I told her I favored Bulleit, she frowned and said many of the bartenders in DC have stopped carrying it in a show of LGBT solidarity. Puzzled, I asked for details. Apparently one of the children of the founders came out and they shut her out of the company as a result. Disappointed, I asked her what I should use as a replacement and she suggested Rittenhouse, which I will definitely try. Or, I could go with Pikesville Rye, distilled by the same company, which uses a Maryland-based recipe originating in 1895.
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Jeep announced the new Gladiator today, a four-door pickup based on an elongated Wrangler platform. This is the first Jeep I’ve actually been interested in purchasing since the old Cherokee platform (the 2-door model of which I was reasonably happy to own for five years). Two items of note: the windshield folds down and the roof comes off, which is pretty awesome, and it comes with an optional 6-speed manual transmission. No idea on price yet (I’d imagine it’s steep) but I’d consider buying one of these.
I went back into work on Thursday and Friday to a lovely welcome from the staff; there were gifts and signs and a card on my desk when I got in, which was a surprise that made me a little misty. I got lots of hugs from everyone and a ton of support that really made me feel humble and appreciated. The Grinch in my heart melted quite a bit, I admit.
Renie came into town this weekend to visit, wrapping a tiny business trip into a great 3-day weekend with family. The weather decided to drop about 2 inches of snow on us the morning she hit the road, but the plows were out and she made it down with no drama. We spent Saturday evening and most of Sunday catching up in between a trip out to Second Chance and Housewerks, punctuated with Manhattans and a fantastic sushi dinner (after being froze out of football by a balky FIOS box). She shared the details of her engagement(!) and life in Upstate NY, and we caught up among the rows of cabinets and mismatched toilets. On Monday morning it was with a heavy heart that we waved goodbye to the Subaru on snow tires. I’ve been doing a lousy job of keeping in touch with everyone this year, but as I said after Rob passed, my #1 resolution is to keep better and regular communication with all of my loved ones.
As mentioned earlier, there’s been a ton of progress on the bathroom. Everything is taped, mudded, sanded and primed. I asked Mario to continue the drywall up the stairs to the edge of the attic door, and he drywalled that part last night. He framed in one window on the weekend and it looks OK but it’s not up to my standard–the vertical wood has a gap at the top where it meets the cap board, and the way he made the bullnose isn’t the way I do it. So that will need to be redone in the spring. We’re nearing the end of this phase, which means we’ve got to identify the radiant floor heat system and floor tile we want. The former I know but the latter is a mystery.
Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix is a good read but I’ve forgotten what whiny teens they all are in this book. I think it might be my least favorite of all of the books in the series. Still, it’s the highlight of the day to pass the book to each other over sleeping cats while the wind howls outside.
I’m writing from an uncomfortable IKEA couch in the living room of our rental, which is only steps from the beach and is thus the most awesome IKEA couch in Delaware. It’s day 13 of our two-week vacation and I’m trying not to accept the reality of our impending drive home on Saturday; we’ve got one half-day on the sand left and then we are slaves to a typewritten sheet of directions on the fridge: make the beds, vacuum the floors, lock the windows, set the AC to 77˚.
Our stay has been lazy and carefree and unstructured as possible, which is exactly the way we planned it. Slow mornings to rise, gather some breakfast together, form coherent thoughts, and begin organizing for the beach. Make some sandwiches, pack a cooler with water and alcohol, grab some cheesy-poofs and find a dry suit to wear. Grab a towel, drop clean clothes off at the outdoor shower, and assemble downstairs at the beach buggy.
We have experienced the luxury of a beachside house twice. It is the difference between carrying everything for a five hour stay out to the sand or just grabbing a chair and a cold beer. This house is perched between the road and the edge of the barrier channel between Delaware and the bay; the public access path is steps from the driveway across the road. It’s only just on the other side of the road, but it means we must pack like the Joads heading to California every day. The buggy carries our chairs, the tent, the umbrella, all the toys, the cooler(s), a couple of floats, and the kite. Wide wheels make it easy to pull over the sand, and it collapses into a packable unit. After a couple of days we got the assembly of our beach camp down to a science, and learned what had to come with us and what we could leave behind. I also learned that the Coleman half-tent I got on sale at Amazon was worth less than what I paid for it.
The first week we shared with Karean and Zachary, and it was good for the five of us even though there was a giant empty space where Rob should have been. Karean brought a picture of the four of us, which we’ve kept on the shelf since we got here, and I find myself looking at it multiple times a day. For the first few days Zachary obsessed over Minecraft until the iPad mysteriously disappeared but once he’d forgotten about it he and Finn settled in to an easy working relationship. Our days were relaxed and the weather was excellent; the first few days the water was balmy and mild. We took a break from the sun on Wednesday to hit Rehobeth for some games and fun, and had some dinner in town to break things up.
On their final day, Karean and I walked out to the beach to scatter some of Rob’s ashes in the water. I stayed several steps behind and tried not to intrude, terrified I would say something/the wrong thing. I watched her from the tide line until she beckoned me down into the water. She gave me a handful, which I gripped in one hand as I said a prayer to the ocean, and I let the wind take it from me.
Rob and Karis joined us for our second week, and we’ve integrated them into our loose routine. We got chased from the beach on Monday by high winds and Tuesday was nothing but driving rain. Wednesday cleared up, but the wind was still strong and the surf powerful. Thursday the water was placid, and Rob got Barrett slowly over his fear of the water by early afternoon.
Finn was lucky to find a friend a few houses up the beach, named Jenna, and they quickly went off together to collect horseshoe crabs, spin cartwheels, and jump in the surf. I walked over and chatted up her parents, who seem like lovely people, and Jen and I breathed a sigh of relief to know she’d have a playmate her age for our second week. On Wednesday they were nice enough to invite Finn back to their house, so we paid it back by taking her into Milton for some ice cream.
Harvey kicked the shit out of Houston but seems to have affected us only slightly; apart from Wednesday’s storm and the rough surf on the days before and after, we’ve enjoyed warm, calm weather with only a few overcast days. Overall, it’s been an ideal two weeks, and we’re already making plans for next year.
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Since hosting my parents earlier this year, I’ve been working on a recipe for Manhattans so that I could prove to my father they don’t need to taste like turpentine. I followed some recommendations from Esquire and wound up with a midlevel rye whiskey and vermouth, which made a middling Manhattan. When Matt came into town, he gave me some advice on better quality ingredients. When we hit the liquor store upon arriving in Milton I picked up some Bulleit rye whisky and a bottle of the only sweet vermouth I could find. This made a shitty Manhattan. Later I was able to get a bottle of Dolan vermouth and this made all the difference in the world. I’m now at the end of the Bulleit but will be looking for some Blantons when I get home.
Saturday morning broke warm and sunny, and we all got up eager to get outside. At least, I did. After prodding the neighbor to come and split wood (he was working) I lit a fire and got busy splitting the last of the small stuff, and actually split a 30″ round by hand. I’m definitely at the point where I can’t do anything else without hydraulic assistance so I’m at his mercy in terms of scheduling. I cleaned up the area, adjusted the tarps on the cribs, collected a wheelbarrow full of dry chips for kindling, and a bunch of other small yard tasks before the sky turned dark. In the space of about five minutes it went from sunny and 70˚ to gray and 50˚, and the wind howled in like the aftershock of a nuclear blast. I came inside and changed the cartridge on our water filter, which has needed doing for a while now, only to find that the outgoing valve (the one that keeps water on the house side from pouring back down onto the floor) is leaking uncontrollably, because it is made of plastic and is shit. The plumbers will be here Monday morning to look that situation over, and meanwhile we have a 5-gallon bucket keeping the floor dry.
That was OK though because Mama and I had a reservation at Parts & Labor, a butcher/restaurant in Remington, and it was time to get ready. After setting the babysitter up with the technology we drove into the city and found a spot across the street. Remington has changed dramatically since the last time we were up there; there’s a huge condo/workspace around the corner from the Paper Moon diner that looks like it landed from Mars.
Parts & Labor is a lovely restaurant with killer cocktails and a very courteous staff. Our meals were delicious (Jen won this time with the lambchetta) and we enjoyed every minute of our stay. Strangely, we were done in an hour and a half–usually we shut restaurants down when we’ve got a sitter–so we moseyed up to Golden West and joined the hipsters at the bar for more cocktails. There we enjoyed a couple hours of uninterrupted conversation before the CR-V turned into a pumpkin.
I’ll say that even though I was a little rocky this morning I’m gaining an appreciation for both a well-mixed Manhattan and an Old Fashioned. I don’t drink bourbon or rye as a rule (brown alcohol and I don’t mix) but these two were delicious. Jen and I discussed laying in some good bourbon, bitters, and vermouth and trying to perfect our own recipe over the winter.
Sunday was 40˚ and windy, with gusts of 20mph or more (definitely more) and my neighbor was working again, so there was no splitting for us at all. I went down to pick up the CSA, then came back to clean the yard for winter. This included re-fastening the plastic on the far side of the greenhouse, which had come completely loose, and organizing the contents so that the rest of the chairs and hoses would fit inside. Other than that, it was a relaxed Sunday.