Idiomatic Expression

300 is the highest score in bowling and the lowest possible credit score. That can’t possibly be a coincidence. This is also my 300th entry on Idiomatic Expression.

In other news it is New Years Eve, everyone party likes its 2005!

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, this book is a great diversion, and a lot of fun, but in my opinion, not a great book. My favorite part of the book was the way each main character grew throughout the novel and drifted apart as they left college to follow their own paths. I found the main themes of what is evil and individuals cast as unwitting pawns in the machinery of evil to be a bit heavy handed, and without any novel insights. Camus‘ Mersault never says “Wow, life sure is absurd!” yet the reader is led to this conclusion in The Stranger. That being said, I will be reading the rest of Maquire’s books because in the end Wicked is a page turner and I hope the rest of his books will be as much fun.

The Double by Jose Saramago translated from Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa , I have only read the first chapter of this novel, which is just enough to be surprised by the first sighting of “the double”. I am in love with Saramago’s writing style and since I can’t say a lot about the book yet here is my favorite sentence from the first chapter.

Sitting now on the bus that will drop him near the building where he has lived for the last six years or so, that is, ever since the divorce, Maximo Afonso, and we use the shortened version of his name here, having been in our view, authorized to do so by its sole lord and master, but mainly because the word Tertuliano, having appeared so recently, only six lines previously, could do a grave disservice to the fluency of the narrative, anyway, as we were saying…

For those that love Kurt Vonnegut’s off hand style or Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ability to craft language into his own creations, you owe it to yourself to check out Jose Saramago.

Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream by Barbara Ehrenreich, not much to say about this one yet, as I have not opened the cover. I really enjoyed Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, even if I had some issues with how she spent the money she earned. I think I could have stretched it a bit further, but this is from someone that had to survive on a five pound bags of Kroger’s Heat n Eat Taters, ketchup stolen from James, and the rare hand out from other friends for a week at a time.

If you are still looking for a New Year’s Resolution, I suggest adding “read more good books” to your list.

In our first year in the new house we didn’t have a tree, in fact the only decoration we had was the beautiful wreath sent by Katherine’s director. However we did have a new roof, and a mostly repaired brick fence in the backyard. The lack of visible Christmas cheer didn’t dampen the season too much. There were presents for both of us a video game and Leatherman for me, and an eight carat Golden Beryl, slippers, and skin care products for Katherine.

Christmas Dinner was at Jenny and Gary’s house, unfortunately they had to join us via iChat from Korea. However James was kind enough to host at their house. Chris smoked a turkey, and kindly allowed me to smoke a Tofurkey when he was done. There was enough food to feed twice the people, but strangely all of the Turkey disappeared. Here are some pictures of the festivity.

This Sunday, James and I headed out for my first (his second)Geocacheing adventure. The day was calm, but the temperatures were below freezing, with a couple of inches of snow on the ground. The perfect weather for using a GPS receiver to find a location and then searching around for a hidden tupperware container.

No really it was, I had been looking forward to a bit of hiking in the snow, and now we had a goal. It didn’t hurt that James was pretty sure he knew the general location we were headed for from previous trips to the Bull Run - Occoquan Trail. With only one mistart (heading a mile in the wrong direction on the trail) we found the Weird Stone House pretty easily. I managed to locate the cache first, so I guess this counts as my first find. My camera ran out of batteries, so I will have to wait for James to post photos.

Yesterday, I defied the brewing gods and made beer. I guess technically I made wort, and right now a colony of yeast is slowly turning it into beer.

It all started when Katherine saw a Washington Post article about DC Metro brew-on-premises establishments. The prices at Shenandoah Brewing were ridiculous so we made an appointment at The Flying Barrel Frederick, MD. The have a beginners special that allows you to brew 5 gallons (2 cases) of beer for seventy-five bucks. After a bit of confusion for each of us in finding a good recipe, Chris, James, Katherine, and I boiled, measured, ground, mashed, sponged, measured some more, stirred, boiled again, hopped, strained, added yeast, measured a bit more, and capped off the fermenter. Then we sampled some beer another customer brought in, and went home empty handed while the yeast (hopefully) went to work. In two to three weeks we can bottle, and two weeks after that we can finally drink our beer. Katherine made Hefeweizen, James made a dark Guinessy brew, Chris went for a Chocolate Stout, and I went for an Extra Hoppy Pale Ale.
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Since moving in on January we have been steadily working on tasks around the house. I always feel like I haven’t accomplished anything useful around the house, but after compiling the following list, I feel a bit better about not getting anything done over the last two weeks of vacation.

Projects completed around the house in 2005

• Removed carpets
• Refinished the hardwood floors on main and upper levels
• Moved in
• Remodeled master bedroom (remove fixture, remove wallpaper, repair walls, paint, new fixtures other than the toilet)
• Removed two layers of wallpaper in master bedroom
• Primed and painted most of master bedroom*
• Replaced laundry sink plumbing and faucet
• Ran two new circuits with wall sockets to the basement
• Replaced roof
• Repaired brick wall surrounding the backyard
• Installed master bedroom ceiling fan

* Katherine is still working on the painting, the ceilings and walls are done, but the trim needs to be finished.

It is a rather large list, and the cost for the things that I could not do my self (floors, roof, and brick wall) totals around $10K. I have no idea what the cost of all of the small projects would add up to. Hopefully the master bedroom will be done and furnished by the end of the year and I really will feel accomplished!