READIN

Friday, May 23rd, 2003

I had a good time playing with Sylvia yesterday evening -- when I came home she was in a really good mood; we played with her stuffed animals, blocks, trains, etc. for a good two hours. She can stack a very tall pile of blocks before it falls over -- she would not let me count them but I think it must have been 10 or 11 blocks high! Also a long sentence, "My kitty cat is not feeling well."

posted morning of May 23rd, 2003: Respond
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Thursday, May 22nd, 2003

🦋 Mead

I met Jim Tuesday night at a mead tasting (more specifically a T'ej tasting) -- it was a meeting of the NYC Home Brewers' Association, at Brewsky's on 7th Street between 2nd and 3rd. Before I went I had been drinking beer with Gary at Zum Schneider -- I mention this because I want to note, Erdecker Maibock is a very fine beer, I would be glad to drink some more of it. Anyway, my feeling on the matter is basically that mead is not going to replace beer in my affections anytime soon. I quite liked one mead, a rosemary flavored one that one of the home brewers had made -- all the others just tasted bad.

Then we went to a Japanese place for dinner and I drank some sake, ended up pretty high, and rode home on the train with Michael -- Ellen ran into Jim (Cross) Wednesday and he asked if I had slept in that morning -- so apparently I am the subject of neighborhood gossip now...

posted morning of May 22nd, 2003: Respond

Monday, May 19th, 2003

🦋 Birthday

My birthday party was last night and I quite enjoyed it, though not many people were there. Got a nice blues tape from Janice and a bag from Gary & Suzy. Ed gave me a cd -- it is MP3 format so listening will have to wait until I am multi-media-capable.

Update: I just found out, Mark Kleiman and Matt Yglesias are also born May 18th; Matt is 22 and Mark is 52, so I'm 11 years older than Matt and 19 younger than Mark.

posted morning of May 19th, 2003: Respond
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Friday, May 16th, 2003

While I was buying peanuts today from a news vendor I witnessed a kind of funny transaction -- a man came up and asked the vendor for matches (a few times, as the vendor was dealing with another man buying a number of lotter tickets.) The vendor eventually took notice and handed the man a lighter. He said no, no, matches. The vendor then said "Matches, 5 cents!" So the man grumbled, fished out a dime and handed it over. The vendor gave him matches and a quarter, and he said hey, why are you giving me a quarter. The vendor refused to acknowledge that he had given incorrect change, repeating a few times "It's a nickel" even when the man showed him the quarter. So the man walked away, 15 cents richer.

posted afternoon of May 16th, 2003: Respond
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Thursday, May 15th, 2003

Further along in Killing Time -- it seems like the best way to read it is quickly. The story is really engaging, I just get bogged down if I try to process the absurdly pretentious prose. Seems like nearly every page contains a howler passage of over-constructed, useless language -- I'm just ignoring these as much as I can and reading for the action.

posted morning of May 15th, 2003: Respond
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Tuesday, May 13th, 2003

I've been reading Killing Time by Caleb Carr, which Janice lent me, and having a problem with it which I have had wih other science fiction -- it seems like a really good kernel of a story, but told terribly. The characters are flat, the dialogue and interactions not believable, every incident is preceded and followed by reams of exposition. I am giving the book some more of a chance because I trust Janice's word (and also Gary's, who recommended The Alienist a few years back) -- and also because the story-line is quite gripping.

posted evening of May 13th, 2003: Respond
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Sunday, May 11th, 2003

Mom and Dad have been visiting this weekend, I have been doing a lot of yard work with help and direction from Dad. We discovered a big climbing rose bush against the back fence, behind all the underbrush there, much of which we cleared away. There are also a whole lot of a plant that the man from Rutgers Co-op Extension says is honeysuckle -- we took some clippings from 4 plants in to the county fair to see what they are, and though the Master Gardener was not there, the person on hand was able to speculate some.

Also, some weirdo took a flower pot off of our front porch -- everyone thinks it was taken to be used as a Mother's Day present.

posted evening of May 11th, 2003: Respond
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Wednesday, May 7th, 2003

🦋 Working with Sylvia

So I was varnishing the shoe rack yesterday evening and Sylvia decided she wanted to help -- I figured it would be hard to do it any worse than I would be myself so I said sure. (Finishing is not one of my strong points. Gave her a little art brush and showed her how to dip it and wipe it off before brushing, and she helped for a good long while. And wonder of wonders, no catastrophes! She's about as good at it as I am, I'd say -- no tipping over the varnish, no dipping her hands or other body parts... Just stood there with me, dip, wipe, brush (though I had to remind her pretty frequently to wipe the brush off after dipping), and it came out pretty well. And again, the little grin and "We're making shoe racks!"

posted morning of May 7th, 2003: Respond

Monday, May 5th, 2003

🦋 More Clifford Soap

Yesterday it seems to me Sylvia told me she took a bath with Clifford and his head kept coming off. Which would make some sense, as the head of her Clifford soap container is its lid, and thus removable. However I cannot swear that this actually happened; it may have been a dream image.

posted morning of May 5th, 2003: Respond
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Saturday, May third, 2003

🦋 Finishing up

Well I let the moment slip last weekend and did not finish the shoe rack... So I was all set to do it this morning. Brought the rack out to the driveway, with brushes, thinner, alcohol, everything I needed, except varnish -- the varnish I was confident was in a box in the garage, where I had packed it away when we moved. But when I looked there I was sorely disappointed.

I started the search; combed the garage, the basement, nothing -- did some other yard work, then went over the search again -- still nothing. I was getting kind of upset; Ellen offered to look and she had a little better luck, discovering a bottle of Behlen's master-gel; this was not what I had planned to use but it should work. So I started trying to open it and discovered it was welded fast by old dried finish. After a lot of fretting, I hit on drilling it open; over to the drill press and I took a nice ½" circle out of the lid. Great! But alas, I went to use it and found the entire contents of the bottle had dried solid. Not actually too surprising as it's been open for a year and a half or more. But I was back to square one.

The day went by, and eventually I found an opening to drive over to the hardware store and get new varnish. I went to Main Street Hardware in West Orange, a place I've had my eye on for a couple of weeks, and was glad I did -- it is all I want a hardware store to be. Home Depot will play less of a role in my life now. Got some Minwax Spar Urethane and after dinner I put it on the rack! Tomorrow morning I will do a second coat and that will be the end of that project.

And meantime, this morning I started to draw up plans for my next project, a breakfast nook. More on that later...

posted evening of May third, 2003: Respond
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