My beer brewing adventure

My friend Mark lent me his brew kit so I decided to give it a try. I went to this really nice brew shop close to our house. I also drove around all of Culver City, Marina del Rey, and Venice Beach looking for a place to fill my propane tank. I finally found a place behind Sony Pictures Studios (to think that Alex Trebek was just on the other side of that wall!). When I was at the grocery store buying ice and water, the cashier asked me what I was doing with all of this stuff. I told him and he made me promise that I would bring him one of my homemade beers. So I made the promise.

Anyway, I brought the six pounds of wheat extract (looks like really thick maple syrup and tastes pretty sweet) to a boil using five gallons of spring water...a LOT of beer. After it was done foaming (called the "hot break") I added the hops (tiny little pellets that smell like herbs and spices). I brought my beer "wort" (another word for this strange concoction) to a rolling boil for about an hour out on the deck. It gurgled and boiled and there was all kinds of strange crap floating around in it. It smelled so good... like sweet cereal... mmmm. I was out there watching it to make sure it did not boil over when our neighbor Kaitlin, was curious about what I was doing... ha ha ha! She was pretty happy to hear I was making beer even though she was hungover from the previous night. Then I cooled it in the kitchen sink by putting ice and cold water around it. It had to be cooled quickly from 200 degrees to 80 degrees and I then strained it into a sanitized bucket. I threw in the yeast when it was at 75 degrees. Next, I put a cover on the bucket along with an airlock that lets the CO2 out slowly (the by-product of the yeast eating all the sugary delight and making the precious alcohol). I put the bucket in the closet of the guest room to ferment for three weeks.

Amazingly, I did not have any huge disasters and it was not as much work as I thought it might be. In three weeks, I will bottle all of the beer and they will have to sit for another two weeks to get conditioned and carbonated. Just in time for new years.

Soon, many of our most famous residents may be gone!

They aren't native. They make a mess and provide no comfort (by means of shade). They do little to remove carbon dioxide from the air and are expensive to maintain. Wow... sounds alarmingly like many of the people who live in this lovely city. Alas: an article here about the slow death of the Southern California palm tree.

Two [almost dead] white dogs and one dead turkey

As you can see, I have been posting quite a bit here lately. It's mostly because I have had the week off and have nothing better to do. Or I actually have a life again and therefore have something to write about.

So let me first confess something. Well, I confess this sin for both Greg and I: we almost killed two cute white dogs. Our good friends Nate and Ryan asked us to housesit for them while they were up in Paso Roblos last weekend. I mean, maybe we tried to kill them because we were jealous that our friends were tasting wine without us, but I can asure you that was not the motive. Greg and I are just a little bit spacey. Somewhere along the line Ryan must have told us when they were getting back. But for some reason, we believed that they would be back on Sunday (when in fact they would be home on Monday afternoon). So we packed up all our stuff and left on Sunday morning. The dogs were home for over 24 hours by themselves. Amazingly, they did not starve to death and they didn't even have accidents in the house (hardly would they be called accidents at this point). Anyway, the dogs are alive and well. I couldn't afford to replace those pure-bred Westies anyway...

So on to Thanksgiving. We went to Sam and Pete's house after spending the morning with Adam. By the way, Adam made our apartment smell wonderful as he baked his little heart out in our kitchen: pumpkin pie and cream puff dessert. It was soooo good! Plus, he made this incredible shrimp dip thing. Of course, Sam and Pete's apartment looked gorgeous. Especially the table (see left).

I volunteered this year to bring the turkey. Yeah, you thought I was vegetarian but I ordered a free-range turkey from the natural foods store down the street. What the hell, I had almost killed two cute white dogs and didn't feel bad about that, so was I really supposed to care about an ugly ass turkey? But seriously, this turkey had a fine life pecking in the open fields before it was killed at the beginning of this week. Pete said there were a few feathers this hand plucked bird (yikes, now that is fresh!). I did try a bit, but I still don't care for meat all that much. I am thankful that the evil corporation of Tyson got none of our money this year.

After dinner we were all stuffed and Adam almost gave birth to his Thanksgiving Dinner Baby (see right). A walk around the block prevented his water from breaking. As you can see from the photo evidence, he was really pregnant looking and super grumpy like a real maternal maniac. Later in the evening, Frank stopped over and we listened to music and played games. Making it's second annual appearance, Greg's snoring filled the room at about 11pm. Below, you see a picture of Greg dealing out the leftovers for everyone to take home. By the way, if anyone wants any of Sam's fluffy buttery mashed potatoes we have about 10 pounds of them in our fridge.

The Hotel D&G

I begin this blog with Greg relaxing in his mint julep mask... oh wait... where is the mask? The title is not what you might be thinking. We did not stay a few nights at a boutique hotel in Beverly Hills that only caters to people who wear overpriced Italian shoes, tight pants, and gallons of cologne. I am talking about how my apartment became the hustling and bustling "Hotel Dan & Greg" of lovely Mar Vista (it sure beats the Jolly Roger Motel down the street). In case you are wondering our past guests included:
Monday - David arrives
Tuesday - Chris arrives
Wednesday - Chris departs, Adam arrives
Thursday - at 4am, David departs; Adam departs
...next Wednesday - parents arrive

All of this comes with a free shuttle service to wherever you please. Trips to downtown are frequent and depart daily. May include side tour of skid-row and tent city* and wrong turns down dark streets/alleys. *Not responsible for any loss of personal belongings.

Okay, for real. I had a great time showing off my lovely city. It was 80 on Monday and I took David to the beach.

On Monday night, we hosted the fabulous "second bi-annual make-your-own-pizza" party.

This picture to the left shows our first guest to arrive: Fran(k). He made a delicious summer squash pizza. In addition to this precious chef, we had a lot of friends here including Ryan and Nate, Chris, Kent, Jeanette and Joel, Tyler, Kaila, Tim, Melissa, Ryan A., and Brian. Greg beat everyone at Mario Kart on Nintendo:
This is an example of one of the pizzas (they did not last long!)... look at these hungry bitches.

Better than Sprinkles?

I just had a cupcake from this new place by our apartment called Hotcakes Bakes. You may or may not know but along with the overpriced frozen yogurt fad (Pinkberry) is the Los Angeles overpriced cupcake fad. Luckily these cupcakes are not as overpriced as the world famous Sprinkles in Beverly Hills. The frosting is not as thick (but still tasty) and the red velvet cake inside is moist and delicious! The lady that runs the shop is french and I will definitely be back to taste the amazing looking baguettes...

Ice Skating and Pumpkin Carving

Me on thin blades traveling on ice was highly entertaining for all observers. People: I can only walk with my feet as the good lord intended! I tip toed around the edge of the rink while Pete and Sam wizzed by at 60 mph. Adam, Ian, and Greg were a bit slower but by no means did they suck compared to me. Marcus refused to go on the ice (this was about the best decision anyone made that evening). We wore our scarves and mittens even though it was a brisk 70 degrees outside. I must say, my favorite part of the evening was getting back on solid ground. Here's a picture of Pete taunting me from the rink...

After our ice capades at Culver Arena, we all went to carve pumpkins. Fran(k) had dirty thoughts as he poked around inside the pumpkin with his hand. He had to excuse himself to have a moment. Kidding! I was a skeptic but his cat pumpkin turned out great. Adam's was by far the scariest. It took him the longest to complete and he is quite the perfectionist when it comes to fruit art. And, Virginia's... well... it was... a sad styrofoam pumpkin. At least her's will be around forever as it will never biodegrade. Mine only lasted for 3 days in the Southern California sun before melting into a pool of water and mold. It was pretty gross. Here is a picture of the pumpkin line-up for 2006 lit up at night for all to enjoy:
Greg made pumpkin seeds (from nine pumpkins!) in the oven the following day.

Being a burglar

So I woke up at 5:30am to go for a 3 mile run. It felt great since I have been super lazy lately. So I ran my little bit and came back to my house and poof... my house key had disappeared from my running pants. So I ran the 3 miles again and looked on the sidewalk for the key since I assumed it fell out. It vanished completely... no sign anywhere for the damn thing. Greg is out of town and I am completely locked out. Oh, and I have to be at work at 7:45am and it is now 6:55am. It takes me 20 minutes to drive to work. Luckily my neighbor was out sweeping his sidewalk and he offered to "spot" me while I climbed onto the roof to let myself in through an open window. The most frightening thing is no one on the busy street even did a double take while my ghetto ass was hanging out of the window while falling half way into our bedroom as the older latino man was coaching me.... Hmmm... It was fun burglarizing my own apartment.

Ring of hair around the toilet

So arrived here on Wednesday night. The Super Shuttle dropped me off and of course I had no keys to get into the place I was subletting. The sky was ominous and it looked like tornadoes were going to drop down at any moment and I actually thought for a brief moment I would be sleeping under the small bridge that leads to the entrance of the apartments. Luckily, someone came and gave me keys.

Let's discuss this apartment. First off, Thursday was a GORGEOUS day. Bright, sunny, birds churping, etc. Okay, at least I have a roof over my head. But I quickly discovered that the inside of this place is a black cavern in the middle of the day. Very few windows... and they don't open. I have to run the air conditioner constantly because it gets stuffy. It's the anti-fresh apartment.

I found dirty dishes in the sink that have been sitting there since the END OF APRIL. There was a huge spider hanging out on one of the plates and unfortunately Greg was not here to take care of it. I had to wash it down into the food disposal while screaming like a girl... After murdering the not-so-itsy bitsy spider, I loaded the dishes into the dishwasher. I turned it on and it started smoking and hissing. Hmmmm.

Then I journeyed into the bathroom where I found the most disgusting hair and piss encrusted toilet. It looked like someone had opened a pubic hair barber shop. I was gagging but managed to deal with the mess. Oh, and there was no shower curtain. And I have no car. And the apartment is nowhere near a Target.

Luckily, I have met some nice people with cars.

LAXative

Thank god I just checked my 8000 pound suitcase. I am usually a pretty light packer... only taking either a bookbag or small duffle bag... but for this little adventure I loaded up a suit case the size of a small home. By the way, I absolutely hate going through those security lines because you have to take off your shoes, put your laptop in one of those gray bins while you walk through the beeping door frame in your socks holding just your ID and a crinkled plane ticket. Then, you have to retrieve all of your stuff while it flies out of the x ray tunnel and put on your shoes as quickly as possible. All while some guy says, "keep moving folks"

So I am sitting here at LAX watching the people sitting around me. On the right, a couple is existing in utter misery... She says, "There must be water in this airport.... I have not seen any fresh fruit". She goes to wipe crumbs off his lap. She says, "Is my cell phone ringing or is that yours?" She gets up to use the restroom. She comes back and says "I think grandpa prays, do you think he prays?" The husband just sits there saying nothing. In front of me, the line for Burger King is a little longer than it should be and there are people in line that should not be breaking their diets. There's a family of eight traveling together to my left. Around me: a few lonely souls as myself sitting around typing on their computers. Maybe they are closing business deals or maybe they are on myspace?

Will I ever wash the suit?

So I leave for Michigan on Wednesday and I am really excited yet sad to leave all of my wonderful friends in Los Angeles for the summer. I am especially going to miss Greg! Ugh... I am going to miss the beach!!! I really do not know how I survived this past week: conducting a lot of 8,9 and 10 year olds in a hot gym in a hot stinky suit (that I still need to dry clean). Then all of the pizza parties at school to celebrate. I need a 4-6 week sabatical from any Pizza Hut smell. Just so you know, that smell lurks in a classroom for a long time...epecially when it is 80 degress outside. ICK!

I am also really going to miss Dawn, my coworker. She has been an absolute insipiration for me in rejuvinating my love and motivation for teaching. Plus, she has been become one of my closest friends in such a short amount of time.