The Morning Jaywalk

From the North side of Pennsylvania Avenue Southeast, just west of 8th Street, people cross to the South side without going to the crosswalk in order to get to the Metro in the most direct manner possible. From the Metro, these same people cross to the same point to go to points North and East. In this picture, the North-South street on the right is 8th Street, and by the red dot one can see where the median has been worn away by people crossing to and from the escalators visible in the lower left of the picture.

This morning was unseasonably cold, and a number of morning commuters were waiting to cross at the usual location. Then a cop, with lights flashing, came around the bend and parked right in front of where people make their illegal crossing. Almost everyone reluctantly walked back to 8th Street and waited for the light. One person, however, held his ground, and when the light changed, he crossed right in front of the police car. The officer might have been stunned by the pedestrian's sheer brazenness, but he still possessed the wherewithal to pump his siren. In response, the jaywalker looked back, with scorn or even anger, then continued to cross the street unabated. The pedestrian was wearing headphones, and didn't know whether the cop shouted at him, or got out of the car. Perhaps the jaywalker figured that it was too cold for the cop to get out of his car to chase a jaywalker, that maybe the morning coffee and donut were more important to the cop than hassling one person about doing what he and everyone else would do the next day the cop wasn't there. Perhaps the jaywalker was outraged by the cop focusing on such trivial offenses when cars driving in the neighborhood routinely drive 15-20 miles per hour over the speed limit, and no one has ever heard of, much less seen, a cop taking the trouble to ticket a driver. Perhaps the jaywalker was simply cold, and eager to get where he was heading as quickly as possible.

Regardless of what he was thinking, the jaywalker continued across the street, to the escalator, and descended into the Metro station. As he boarded his train, the cop was nowhere to be found.

Post-Party Oppression

Last post I talked about our party that's taken place the first Friday in December for the last 10 years, but I didn't discuss a newer tradition, the second night. Yes, Saturday has become the beer geek tasting, when I invite people from RateBeer, along with a few of my other beer geeky friends, to hang out and drink some rarer beers (most of which they provide). So we really serve as hosts of a non-stop beer-bash weekend. As usual, this past weekend was amazing in terms of the people who came, and in the quality and quantity of beer.

Regarding the quantity, on Thursday a neighbor came by, apologized for not being able to come on Friday, and handed over a high-quality case of beer. At 5pm the day of the party, a couple came over with three cases of beer (he's the manager of a liquor store), including a case of homebrew. So by the time we were up to two guests, we already had four cases of beer (thank goodness this year I decided not to "prime" the beer fridge). And from then on, people brought six packs or more, much of the beer relegated to sitting on the porch out back, kept chilled by the cold weather. A former co-worker of Kathy's showed up with a growler (half a gallon) of a Chicago brewpub's winter seasonal, along with another dozen bottles of top-notch beers -- I don't think we even got to try any of those on Friday. There was a fair amount of drinking, but even so, lots of beer was never was put out back to cool or refrigerated, as there was no chance it would be consumed. The later guests were all given mixed 6-packs to take home, as were those who came on Saturday night. I left a six pack with the neighbor who'd brought the case. And after giving all those beers away (~3 cases), by Sunday afternoon we were able to fit the remainder of the cold beer into the two refrigerators (I have an under-the-counter beer fridge). Barely. We needed to go grocery shopping, but there's been no place to put any of the perishables.

So I'm condemned to keep drinking through our beers, to clear out space for food. It's a thankless task, one that appears Sisyphean. Today I gave out another couple of six packs to co-workers, now we have room for orange juice. I seem to be fighting a cold, but I must keep drinking. I'm not sure it'll be enough, I think I need help. What does it mean when I've been thanking people for giving my beers a good home?

Incidentally, even once we clear out beer from the fridge, there's still lots more beer in the cupboards, and yesterday, another mixed 12-pack arrived as a make-good from someone who stiffed me a couple of months earlier.

Finally, I'd have to say that my decision last night to attend a beer tasting, despite the gallons waiting for me at home, removes any lingering doubt on the question of whether I'm sane when it comes to beer.

Party Time

This evening will be my 10th time hosting a Holiday Beer Party, the 8th time with Kathy. With one exception, the party has always been held on the first Friday of December (when my sister got married that weekend, it got moved to the following Friday), and guests who have attended most of them have learned to set aside that date in their busy seasonal calendar. Originally the party started simply as a recognition that winter seasonal beers make some of the best beers out there. Holiday beers are when brewers get the most creative, and the designation doesn't necessarily mean anything other than that the brewer decided to brew something special for the winter. Generally speaking, there are two types of winter beers. Quoting from an article I wrote a few years ago:

The first is a spiced treat - the most commonly used spices seem to be nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, orange peel, and cardamom. Probably the most well-known examples in the U.S. are Anchor Our Special Ale and Harpoon Winter Warmer. Quite a few of these beers, including Our Special Ale, change their recipes from year to year, thereby increasing the excitement associated with their annual appearances. The differences each year also encourage one to try vertical tastings, assuming you can stand to leave some to sit for a couple of years.

The second type of winter seasonal is big and bold, and likely high in alcohol. Certain barley wines, imperial stouts and Belgian-style strong ales only make their appearance to counter those brutal winter nights. Victory Old Horizontal is one example, the Belgian treat Delirium Noël another. One of the most extreme examples is the relatively recent Dogfish Head World Wide Stout, all 23% ABV of it. A few of the beers in this second category also change recipes, but even when they don?t, the beers can still vary noticeably across the years.

This isn't a party just for beer geeks, as it's anything but a formal tasting. That being said, we provide tasting glasses, which lets people drink less than a whole bottle at a time, thereby giving them a chance to sample more beers without acquiring an otherwise certain hangover (though they're still welcome to hangovers if that's what they really want). Not everyone partakes of the beer -- some even stick to soda. Imagine, some of our friends find they have a good time with us even if they're not drinking alcohol!

The first time Kathy joined me in hosting the party, she started decorating like crazy. When I asked her why, she answered that she was preparing for the Holiday "Beer Party." I tried to explain that it was a "Holiday Beer" Party, but to no avail -- now it's both (ah, the compromises one makes in a relationship).

That first year together was also the first year we started the tradition of serving up a U.S. Capitol made out of Belgian chocolate (in recognition that we live on Capitol Hill) -- it's delicious, and I find myself enjoying the leftovers for the following month. One tradition that's been around since the first party is chili. That being said, what started as a double batch of the chili I've been making regularly since college (though it's evolved considerably, and switched from ground beef to ground turkey) has turned into my making 2 quadruple batches that add special ingredients (this year each quadruple batch includes a bottle of Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout), and Kathy making a veggie chili that's about half that amount. We cook the chili at least one night in advance (that's right, this year's is already made). Aside from making it easier to do set-up when not also having to cook, it tastes better -- the meat (and in Kathy's case, the beans and veggies) does a better job of soaking up the seasonings, resulting in a more flavorful chili.

With Kathy's adherence to the "better to have too much than run out" school, we offer up a lot beyond chili and chocolate. Almost makes me wonder why we don't start the party at 6 rather than 7:30. Almost.

Hope everyone has a similarly fun holiday party to attend tonight.

The Most Wretched Part of this Time of the Year

The day after Thanksgiving marked the commercial beginning of the Holiday season, and consequently, Christmas music is everywhere -- in the hotel lobby where we stayed over Thanksgiving weekend, in many restaurants, and of course in every retail store. All of which would combine to drive me crazy, were it not for the fact that I can avoid these places for a month (except maybe for brewpubs that pipe in Xmas music) -- thank goodness for internet shopping.

I suppose I'm coming across as a Scrooge, and I guess I deserve such appellation. Still, I don't mind the holidays, or the gift exchanging (Kathy's the one who minds exchanging gifts on account of the fact that there's very little I want). I could even tolerate going into real live stores were it not for the insipid selection of holiday music that pervades each and every one of them. Don't you think that one of them could come up with an ad campaign where the central theme is a promise not to play a single holdiay tune -- a respite for weary holiday shoppers eager to hear plain old boring Muzak?

But even as I'm moaning about the misery I experience when I find myself in any of these places, I occasionally take a moment to think of those less fortunate than I, the poor souls who work at these places, stuck with the unending drone of overly chipper holiday songs, on top of the holiday rush they face. For their sake, I hope they possess a sense of self-survival that enables them to tune out the tunes; otherwise I can't see that their days will be merry and bright.

Help Kathy...

One of several things I stink at is subscribing to the consumer society. I mean, sure there are some gadgets I wouldn't want to do without (but which I already have), and some music, some foods, and of course some beers, but for the most part there's very little in the way of material possessions that I want. Consequently, when I've already gone ahead and given Kathy her Christmas present in advance, one she can't stop beaming about, she's at a bit of a loss because she has no idea how to reciprocate.

So if anyone has any ideas of what it is I'd really want if only I knew about it, I ask that you help Kathy out and post your ideas here -- she deserves better.

Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity

Among the family events during Thanksgiving weekend was celebrating my folks 40th anniversary three weeks early. We had a lovely gathering at my brother's house -- there was way too much food, all of it excellent, along with flowers and balloons and good cheer all around. For their anniversary gift, we had already gotten them their a gas grill, per their request. Dad said that it didn't come with a cannister of gas, and he wanted to get some briquettes and a set of grilling utensils. This morning I called them up to let them know that he should get those accessories and that I would treat as a Holiday gift. I honestly have to say, however, that I'm not sure how much my offer was tied to a desire to be generous, and how much was tied to the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to give my folks (artificial) coal for the holidays, and be thanked for it.

Glad News of the Natural World

The last time I went to the library, I grabbed three books by authors I'd never heard of, all based on the book jackets. The first had its moments, but ultimately was a disappointment. The second, T. R. Pearson's Glad News of the Natural World, would be my book of the year, if I did enough reading of current fiction to make such a declaration meaningful. Pearson's protagonist, Louis Benfield, was the central character in an earlier novel, but I can assure you that it is unnecessary to read that book to appreciate our narrator. Benfield is a Carolinian in New York -- NYC may be a scary city to some, particularly non-natives, but somehow Benfield is able to create a niche for himself. He's unable to keep a steady job, but he's nevertheless able to make a living. He keeps looking for love in the wrong places, but at least by the end of the book he seems more aware of just what he should be looking for.

The humor is wry, evocative of a Southern Garrison Keillor, though that comparison does an injustice to both Pearson and Keillor, as each speaks in a unique voice. I read several passages to Kathy, and felt I could have read several more, but for the fact that I want her to read it herself (I renewed it, so she has a couple of weeks to do so). My favorite chapter is about the death of his great, aunt, a.k.a. Aunt Sister, juxtaposing the sad occasion of the present with family lore of what sort of person she was. Indeed, the manner in which he weaves her story, combined with the priceless details themselves, make it one of my favorite chapters ever (side note -- does anyone actually rate book chapters, the way people rate songs rather than the albums? I know that I haven't, but I still feel safe in declaring this chapter among my favorites).

I don't know that anyone who reads this book will walk away smarter, but I'd nevertheless expect them to be affected by the experience. As for me, I'll be adding some of Pearson's earlier works to my holiday wishlist.

Rating: 10/10

Nats Redux et cetera

Damn Nationals!!! I wonder how much the final bill will be? Certainly higher than the latest revision. It was a bad deal when it was signed, and it's only getting worse. Send 'em to Vegas and let us be done with them!!

In other news, I'm headed to Arizona tomorrow night for T-giving with my clan, so I don't expect to post much over the next few days. But it could happen.

Stefan

Prague, 1996.

A pale young man comes to the open door of my hostel room. He's in his early 20s, tall with short, straight dark hair and brown eyes. His English is fluent, which is a good thing given my monolingualism. He asks about the time, or something equally inane, and before I know it, the silence of my solo travels is broken with a lengthy conversation. Even though I have been enjoying my solitude, I welcome the respite from my journal entries, a chance to converse with someone.

We seem to get along, this German and I, until somehow it comes out that I am Jewish. Fear enters his eyes, and he begins a long apology for the sins his countrymen committed over 50 years earlier. I interrupt before long, explaining that no apology is needed -- he has done no wrong, either to me or my family, even though some family did in fact die in the Holocaust. He relates that once not too long ago, he'd been in an elevator with an Israeli woman and her daughter. The woman harangued him for his heritage and raised her arm as if to strike him, and he felt terrified and ashamed. I do not subscribe to the theory that the sins of the fathers fall upon their children, and do what I can to put him back at ease.

Ironically, the next day I plan to go to the old Jewish Quarter of Prague, so I invite him along. He gladly accepts. When morning comes, we venture forth and learn the story of the Jews who inhabited this small area for centuries, up until the start of the 20th century. While I am soaking in the knowledge, reading of such things as Rabbi Loew and the golem, he is nervous and edgy, unable to concentrate on the placards, focused instead on the possibility of encountering other angry Jews, in a place he feels he does not belong. For all the years that Jews dwelled in this tiny space, they must have felt the same way whenever they left these walls.

Eventually we leave the Jewish Quarter to see other sites/sights. Graffiti-covered Lennon Wall strikes a chord with us both -- joy at the dangerous mischief that inspired all those Czechs to defy the Communist authorities, sadness at its hardly recognizable condition. At day's end we exchange names and addresses, though neither of us ever contacts the other.

The Coast of Akron

The curse and blessing of having your local library branch be mediocre at best is that you are forced, if you're too lazy to reserve books that can come from other branches or to go to those other branches, to consider books that you otherwise might have ignored. Sometimes this results in truly delightful reads, but other times.... In this manner I stumbled across Adrienne Miller's The Coast of Akron, a story of family dysfunction that should make almost anyone feel good about his or her own family. The story revolves around four central characters -- Lowell, the semi-famous artist known for his self-portraits that mysteriously stopped being made five years earlier; Jenny, his ex-wife; Merit, Jenny's and Lowell's daughter; and Fergus, Jenny's ex-best friend and now Lowell's lover.

The story is told from three perspectives -- Merit's and Fergus's in the present, and Jenny's in the past, through the journals she kept beginning thirty years ago. Jenny's journals tell us about the incredibly charismatic Lowell, and show how she lost something by putting herself within Lowell's orbit. And even though much of the present tales are about Merit and Fergus, so too are they about the unhappiness that Lowell seems to create around him. So much of their sorry lives, it seems, can be traced back to Lowell in some way. Merit dove into a marriage with someone so clearly wrong for her, but so clearly because he is the anti-Lowell. This mismatch has resulted in her increasingly self-destructive behavior. Fergus "won" Lowell from Jenny, and his life appears much the worse because of his Pyrrhic victory. He skulks around his own mansion, largely afraid of encountering this man he loves. Although Jenny has finally broken away from Lowell in one sense, her life seems never to have recovered. Interestingly, even though Lowell is the epicenter of the dysfunction, the story has very little of his presence.

The writing is generally engaging, and the flawed characters encourage sympathy if not empathy. The story builds toward a giant party thrown by Fergus at Lowell's request. Sadly though, the closer I got to the ending, the less I enjoyed the book. It seems that Miller became more interested in the journey and forgot to include a destination, as evidenced by the spectacularly awful and absurdly improbable ending. Calling it an ending, however, may be an overstatement, as the end of the book resolves nothing.

Rating: 5/10