Katie Joseph’s Blog

One of Amos’s newer hobbies is beer-brewing.  Actually, “hobby” may not be the right word here.  For Amos, hobbies are not casual pursuits, but take on shades of obsession.  When he got interested in electronics, a kit here and there wasn’t enough to satisfy.  He had to make his own circuit boards, modular synthesizers, and eventually design his own projects.  When he rediscovered arcade games, he didn’t just load up an emulator on our entertainment PC, he got a cocktail-style cabinet and filled it with its own computer and an actual honest-to-Pete arcade monitor.  He’d mentioned wanting to brew beer in the past, so it didn’t surprise me that when he took it up, it wasn’t with a casual Mr. Beer kit.  He found the country’s best home brew supplier (free instructional DVDs!), ordered up one of their nicer kits and almost immediately started scheming for a kegerator.

If my count is right, this will be his fourth batch of beer.  Since a watched wort never boils, he’s enjoying some Buffy the Vampire Slayer on his laptop (headphones necessary due to the noise of the kitchen fan.) His first batch is on the cusp of being ready for consumption; the sample I had on Wednesday night was delightful if a bit under-carbonated.

I fully support this hobby and not just as a loving spouse.  I do enjoy our project nights (making our own tonic and bottling beer being two recent examples), but the real reason for my enthusiasm is that homebrewing produces a microbrew-quality product at a Pabst Blue Ribbon price.   I don’t even mind the mildly Vegemite-y smell it produces, or sharing my kitchen workspace with Amos.

In other news, hosting Thanksgiving was a success thanks to lots of help and advice from my friend Neal.  The man peeled ten pounds of potatoes and probably half as many carrots for me on Wednesday night and loaned me a wide assortment of Star-Trek-weapon-like specialty utensils.  We had a total of fourteen people over including four adorable kids ranging from a couple of months to five years old.  The cats are only now recovering.  Between you and me, Internet, I love it when my  house is full of warm and fuzzy chaos.

But at least Dave will be with me in the trenches.

We receive several catalogues at the Joseph household, and the holiday season has brought a bounty of weirdness to our doorstep.  First up is J. Crew.  I’m not sure why I turned out this way — mom, it’s not your fault — but I watch typography like a hawk, and this one has me wondering:

Some letters in italics, some not, and there’s no recognizable pattern.  Is it Morse code?  Is it Morse code plus a cipher?  I don’t know.  But I do know that someone is trying to tell us something.

Second up, which you may have predicted, is something that caused me to draw my trusty Sharpie from its holster:

And last but not least, [cue the smarmy voice] something for the ladies:

Cheaper Than Dirt is one of my very favorite catalogs for casual browsing.  They peddle lots of military surplus (you too can own a used-in-good-condition Israeli army gas can), and lots of things to add to your gun to give it a “tactical appearance,” which means that it will make things so much more realistic when you pretend to be on the SWAT team.  And just in time for the holidays: your very own pink taser.  What more could a girl want, besides a few replacement cartridges?

Lichens along the Arkansas River

Boy does time ever fly when you’re up to your eyeballs in work.  Doesn’t seem like it, but it’s been a week since I got back from Arkansas.  Here’s a gallery of pictures.  Not a whole lot going on this coming week except for work and me trying frantically to finish some baby shower gifts.  If people would stop producing offspring for a year or so, I might be able to catch up.

People.  “Gift” is not a verb unless you’re referring to a method of transfer with respect to the tax code.

We already have a word for transferring something to another person and expecting nothing in return.  It is “give.”  Past tense is “gave.”  Not “gifted.”

I know language evolves and I’m all for that generally speaking.  This is going too far — it is redundant and results in a loss of specificity.  And it sounds bad.  I will fight this tooth and claw, using vigilante methods where necessary.  I go forth, red pen in hand.

Just back from visiting Julee and Tyrone in lovely Conway, AR.  They used to live in a dome home, but have gone with something decidedly more vertical this time (see photo).  Details and photos of eye-popping fall color and general tomfoolery later, once I’m unpacked.

Before I head to work, though, my mother called before I left on the trip and pointed out that football stew cooks *in the oven* for approximately the length of a football game.  Not the crockpot.  Which explains why it took so dang long.