Aunts and Brew

Right now the rain is pouring and I’m trying to find my favorite pair of wool socks, but over the weekend we had one of those wonderful reprieves of winter weather that we get from time to time here.  The temperatures were in the 60s, the sun was shinning, and the humidity was so low we actually had a fire warning.  Even though the February scenery of dormant plants and lawns was still around it felt like Spring.  It also enticed a few of our bulbs (tulips, daffodils, crocuses) to show themselves a little more.  We planted them two Falls ago, they came last year but we didn’t really believe they would do it again.  This whole season thing still messes with our minds when it comes to plants (and other things).  Where I’m from if a plant looks dead, it’s dead-none of this “good-bye see you in five months business”.

Along with the gorgeous weather we had a wonderful weekend.  On Friday we tried a new restaurant, Honey got an excellent bourbon and a plate of various specialties.  I got a lobster mac and cheese, because I was feeling decetant.  Honey’s meal ended up giving each of us enough leftovers for lunch the next day.   It was incredible and now from the bullying and shoving we saw for a piece of meat, we now know what the cat’s favorite restaurant is too.

On Saturday we spent most of the day at home, prepping the garden for Spring and enjoying some patio time. After the sun set we headed inside a worked on the latest phase of a Christmas gift.  A friend of ours gave Honey a gallon beer brewing kit this year.  After a few weeks of hanging out in the guest bathroom tub (I’ll explain) and our bedroom closet the beer was ready to be bottled.  We had bathtub beer because I have heard horror stories of chemical reactions and pressure changes resulting in exploding beer in places like closets or pantries.  So I thought if such things were to occur, it would be better to have them in a easily cleanable place, along with easy access to water.

Of course halfway through the process I decided to have my cousin spend the night so the beer had to moved to our closet.  Thankfully the move did not rattle it and it kept to itself for its remaining week of processing.

Unlike brewing the beer, the bottling was a two person job. We ordered some Thai food and carefully practiced with the tubing and bottles until we had worked out the physics of the bottling process.  We had some equipment failures resulting in us pouring for the second part, but it was helpful because now we know what we’ll need for the next batch, if this batch isn’t revoltingly terrible.

On Sunday we met with our friends Poppy and Monte for brunch and we found out that Honey and I are going to be “Aunts” (in the way Joey Tribbiani thinks).  They are having a little girl and they wanted our input for a name. :-O  I don’t know about you but I have never been asked to help with a name for a baby.  Even when my sister came I was never asked.  Poppy and Monte have some names in mind of course but the really wanted our picks.  I started off by sending her a picture of a page in my writing journal with a bunch of female names that I brainstormed when I was writing a very female-heavy story.  I tried to write a new name for every letter of the alphabet several times.  There are over 90 names on the page, but of course in this exercise I had repeated a few names, one of which being one they had already chosen.  She took it as my leaning towards that name, which was not the case. I had looked up popular names for what was going to be the birth year of these characters and I had chosen some from there.

I’ll come up with some more and send them her way, I know that truly I don’t have any actual influence in this department-they will name their daughter the name they want her to have-as it should be. But I appreciate them asking, I just hope with no strange twist of storytelling and time that I get credited for naming her. Haha.