Brewblog, Entry Five

Has it really been a month and a half since the last brewblog entry? Yes, yes, it has. Catch-up time!

June 26th, 2010 - Brewed Sour Strawberry Wheat (SSW)

There is a large bin full of Wheat Malt in my brew studio. There was a time that we thought we'd do a lot more wheat beers than we have been doing, but difficulties with stuck sparges and a general overall dissatisfaction with our end products has left that Wheat Malt more or less untouched for months.

But every once in a while, we decide to give it another shot. This American Wheat Beer recipe had a simple 50% Pale Malt, 50% Wheat Malt base, with just a touch of Crystal 40 for body, in an attempt to make a light and refreshing beer for summer consumption. Winter Wheat 2, which scored very respectably in the ALES competition, was the template for the recipe, but we had a Wyeast American Wheat Beer yeast to use in place of the Safale yeast used previously. I also substituted Hallertau hops for Tettnang in the new recipe, although the quantity of hops is so low as to make that change likely imperceptible.

I have no idea if this beer (originally dubbed Beat the Heat Wheat) would have turned out better than Winter Wheat 2 or not, because it was unfortunately soured during primary fermentation. Goddammit!

This Sour Wheat is hopefully the end of the sour beer scandal that rocked our brew club this summer. As a refresher, a few months back we had the not-so-bright idea to attempt to make a sour beer on purpose. Sourness is caused by wild yeasts, and with time and aging often lends an interesting complexity to a beer. Our problem started when the wild yeasts somehow started infecting unrelated batches, beginning with Simon's Blonde and ending with the 112... or so we thought. We thoroughly cleaned all equipment that we thought had come in contact with the sour beers, and we crossed our fingers that it was over. But it next came out of seemingly nowhere to rear its ugly head in the Belgian IPA. And then the same apparently infected equipment was used for the Beat the Heat Wheat, before the sourness had been detected in the Belgian IPA. This equipment has now been marked as "Contaminated?" and set aside to never be used for regular beers again.

I think it was Trevor that had the bright idea how to possibly save the Sour Wheat. I was commenting on how many strawberries I had in the garden this year, more than I could eat myself, so it was suggested that it couldn't hurt to add a pound of sliced strawberries to the Sour Wheat. I ended up adding a kilogram.

We've now bottled the Sour Strawberry Wheat, but it isn't quite ready for consumption. From our sampling, I'm not sure that adding the strawberries made it good, but it definitely made it much more drinkable and appealing than the Belgian IPA and 112, so it'll do.

July 10, 2010 - Brewed Brewniversity #6 (224)

Our first 200-level Brewniversity recipe, 224 was a refinement of the very well received 124. Brewniversity recipes are always quite straightforward, generally using only Pale Malt as a base and Munich and/or Crystal Malt as an adjunct. For yeast, we continued our recent trend of using Wyeast liquid yeasts; Simon had a yeast cake of European Ale that was healthy and ready to go.

The 124 was our first attempt at staggered hop additions, adding a small amount (17g) of Cascade hops at every 15 minute interval (for a total addition of 85g). For the 224, I slightly increased the overall quantity of Cascade to 112g, and scheduled 10 minute hop additions. My problem with the 15 minute additions was that it only hit one of the three hop utilization peaks that are often key to recipe formulation. Bitterness is easy; the longer the hops are in the boil, the better the bitterness utilization. For hop flavour, the recommended addition time is approximately 20 minutes before the end of the boil. For hop aroma, the recommended addition is between 5 and 10 minutes before the end of the boil. Understanding this, the 10 minute interval makes much more sense than 15, although it requires you to stay on top of the clock more, which isn't always easy while thoroughly drunk.

The end result is in its carboy right now, awaiting bottling on this coming weekend. I will be dry hopping the 224 a few days before bottling to maximize the hop aroma in the beer. The sample I had after primary fermentation showed no signs of sourness--so, yay!--and was very, very good. I have high hopes.

July 17, 2010 - Brewed Honey Nut Brown (HNB)

After racking the 224 to its carboy, I noticed that the Wyeast European Ale yeast was still looking quite healthy. Having failed to plan a recipe for this brew day in advance, I decided to look at what other beer styles Wyeast recommended for the yeast. Southern English Brown Ale stood out to me in the list. We hadn't yet made a Brown Ale of any style (at least on purpose), and I am quite a big fan of Browns personally.

I browsed a few Brown Ale recipes on the internet, not really finding anything that excited me. I then pulled out Radical Brewing, which reminded me about the Oud Bruin that was aging in my basement and had recently ruined four batches of beer (how could I forget?). The base recipe for the Oud Bruin was a quite good Brown Ale, from what I could remember of the pre-sour sample I had tried months back.

But I decided I wanted to take that Oud Bruin base to the next level for this beer. And the easiest way to do that was to go crazy on the malt profile. Over the past year, we have accumulated some interesting adjuncts that were only used once or twice, and I decided that my Brown Ale was going to use as much of them as I could. I grabbed the rarely used Honey Malt, Melanoidin Malt, and Special B out of the pantry, as well as some much more common Biscuit, Crystal 40, Munich, and Chocolate Malts. The base malt would still be Pale, but only just barely (42%). And thus was born Scott's Honey Nut Brown. For hops, which should be more or less undetectable in the sweet maltiness of the final product, I went with Fuggles.

The end result is sitting in its carboy alongside the 224, waiting for a later bottling date. The sample I had after primary fermentation was pretty much exactly how I hoped it would taste at that stage--and again, no sourness, yay! So, again, I have high hopes.

July 24, 2010 - Brewed Wee Heavy (WH)

A Wyeast Scottish Ale yeast had been sitting in my fridge for quite some time, awaiting this day. A bag of Peated Malt had been sitting in my pantry for quite some time, awaiting this day. Our previous attempt at a Scottish Ale, technically a Scottish Export 80, made with Safale dry yeast, had been a reasonable example of the style, although with some unfortunate off-flavours, but all of its bottles were long gone. It was time to make a Wee Heavy.

The recipe for the Wee Heavy was an extension of the first Scottish Ale, but with all quantities of malts and hops effectively doubled. To give it an extra kick of booziness, I also added a pound of table sugar.

My work for this brew day started earlier than normal. On the morning of July 23rd, I prepared my first yeast starter. I followed Wyeast's instructions: 100g of light dry malt extract in 1L of water, with one-half teaspoon yeast nutrient added, boiled for a few minutes for sanitation, and then added when cooled to a sanitized container with the yeast. I have to say that the yeast starter worked like gangbusters.

The Wee Heavy's original gravity was a very strong 1091, and after only three days of seemingly mild fermentation (from visual inspection of the krausen), the specific gravity dropped to an unexpectedly low 1022. Wow. At this point, I'd describe the flavour of the 9% Wee Heavy as peat and burning. It will need time to mellow, but I'm quite confident that we have a winner on our hands there.

Next time on Brewblog

It looks like we will be brewing on Sunday of this coming weekend. I have a few more Wyeast liquid yeasts in my fridge that are begging to be used. Saison is on the top of the list.

Blogging about summer (Part 3 of 3)

Previously on "Blogging about summer," Christina and I decided that being roommates was a good idea, attended a "family" wedding "together," and then killed rainy time in Calgary watching Queer as Folk.

Like last time, to keep this blog relevant and not rooted in the past, I'll start with some current event updates.

A divided/shared home once more

Context! Get your context here!

I have previously mentioned that Christina will be moving into the guest bedroom of my house, and that I have to remove all of the guest furniture that is in the room to make space available for Christina's shit. (So, where will guests stay now? In a hotel, apparently. Or, if they don't have an aversion to cat hair and biting, there's a hide-a-bed in the basement.)

Talks have now progressed to sharing the rest of the house. Just as I was getting used to not having to share, this happens, and now I have to rethink everything about the common areas. It's probably a good thing this is happening now and not a year from now, because my selfish tendencies would have just gotten worse and worse. And it's also (maybe) a good thing this is happening with Christina, because I at least know that we made this work in the past, so we should be able to make it work now. There will likely be copious fighting, though, probably more than we ever fought as a couple.

What's especially fun is that Christina and I were never good at sharing. There was always a "this is mine, this is yours," division. Amusingly, that attitude is now the appropriate way to handle our property and shared living areas. If we are going to pay for our own living expenses, there needs to be a clear way of recognizing mine vs hers.

Some areas of the house that I claimed after Christina vacated are not reverting to enemy control. I am still owner and occupier of the master bedroom, and thus the walk-in closet and en suite are still all mine. Yes! Christina now gets to slum it in the upstairs guest bathroom, ie. what used to be my bathroom. She can have it. The en suite is so much sweeter. And Christina has her own closet in the guest bedroom, albeit a small one.

Christina's old art studio, ie. the third bedroom, is now prime brewery real estate. There was a time that the brewery operated out of the basement, but a certain cat pissing and shitting on the floor initiated a redesign of the process. And there is no going back there. The new system works so much better than the old. It's clean, inaccessible to animals, and handy in all the right ways. The only way it could be handier is if I lived in a bungalow. However, with smart use of shelving, and the removal of a few heavy storage bins full of books, it is theoretically possible that the third bedroom could become a dual purpose art and brew studio.

But now Christina is asking for space for her stuff in the kitchen and pantry. Pretty demanding one, that ex-wife of mine. Saturday brewery services require ample space in both the refrigerator and pantry. I can't give that up. Not for her... Ha! I kid. I kid. Just jokes. The brewery and I will adapt to these changes.

When we were married, I had one dedicated shelf in the refrigerator. It was full of bread and beer. (That's all you need!) After Christina left, the beer multiplied. And the bread got its own dedicated shelf. Not being a dick, I have been planning in my head a reasonable way to deal with Christina's return to the refrigerator, and the solution was quite simple--although it did cost $200. I have purchased a 4.4 cu. ft. bar fridge. During summer (not sure about winter), it will sit in the garage, as its primary application is brew day refreshment disbursement. It will also hold all yeasts and hops that currently occupy the refrigerator. The bread will keep its dedicated shelf, though. That's essential.

One of the big benefits of Christina moving back in is that I get some of my stuff back. One of the major items that I sacrificed to the gods of divorce was our large upright freezer. The return of the freezer will provide ample room for the brewery's 10 (maybe 8 now?) pounds of frozen hops. Now we can buy more hops! Although there is still most of a grass-fed cow in that freezer...

Sharing the pantry, aka "brewery storage," is a bigger challenge. One shelf in the pantry is wasted on recycling bins; those can easily be moved to the floor of a nearby closet. And, sure, an outsider to the brewing operation would look at all of the small competition bottles of beer and say, "Why do those need to be here?" I may even have been asked that question already. The answer is pretty much, "Because. You just don't get it." But it looks like I'm going to have to compromise here. Bah. There is a large storage cabinet in the brew studio that is currently full of Christina's "junk" that she left behind last year. That cabinet will henceforth be full of competition bottles of beer, not to mention whatever else I can fit into it, which may end up being most of everything that's currently on the floor of the brew studio.

So I have some big projects ahead of me in the next three weeks: empty the guest bedroom; remove heavy bins full of books from the brew studio; relocate all competition bottles of beer to the brew studio from the pantry; stock my new bar fridge with almost everything beer-related from the kitchen refrigerator (leaving a reasonable quantity of beer in there for regular daily consumption); and rearrange shit in the basement to make room for additional storage. But I won't complain too much, because I have it easy compared with Christina, who has to pack her entire apartment into bins. Fun!

The Days Were Golden

Fun factoid. When Christina was planning her exodus from Regina last year, she was initially fixated on moving to Golden, B.C. Personally, I didn't understand why, but she had recently visited the town and came back raving about it. As you all know, in the end, she moved to Calgary, but since those days, I've been very curious about this amazing Golden place.

So, that's why we chose to visit Golden on our day trip to the mountains on June 17th. Leaving Calgary, it was still raining, but the weather cleared up as we drove deeper into the mountains. In our five years together, Christina and I have visited Banff numerous times, but this was the first time we had driven into British Columbia together. We didn't spend much time in the town of Golden itself, which did seem somewhat charming, but mostly unremarkable, instead driving through it to get to a nice nearby campground, where we had a hot dog and smokey camp cookout for lunch. We then drove around the Golden area all afternoon, doing touristy things like taking numerous pictures of everything. Pro-tip: the Kicking Horse gondola doesn't run on Thursdays in June. In late afternoon, we returned to the campground, took a quick paddle-boat tour of the lake (goddamn, paddle-boats are hard work!), and had another hot dog and smokey camp cookout.

For those with an aversion to Facebook, here's some of my favourite pictures from the day, presented without explanation or comment:


On the way back to Calgary in the evening, I suggested that we check out scenic Lake Louise, which I haven't visited in summer since I was a kid. Since we hadn't purchased a National Park pass, we couldn't access Lac Louise and instead had to settle with Moraine Lake, which fortunately turned out to be the prettiest site we had seen all day:


I love the mountains. I mean, who doesn't love the mountains? They are fucking awesome!

A Spontaneous Trip to Northern Saskatchewan

As we packed my car to leave Calgary on June 18th, we found that we now had more stuff than would fit. We decided that we would leave the camping equipment behind in Calgary, and then on the long weekend, we would return and actually try camping in the mountains this time. As the long weekend approached, we started second guessing the plan to return to Calgary for numerous reasons. For something different to do, Christina suggested that we check out La Ronge.

For reasons beyond the scope of this blog, Christina is very interested in Northern Saskatchewan right now, so it's not really surprising that she wanted to travel to La Ronge. What is surprising is how quickly and easily I agreed to this spontaneous plan to drive as far north as paved roads will take you.

The farthest north I had previously been in Saskatchewan was Prince Albert National Park, and that was many years ago. La Ronge is actually not much farther than Waskasiu, but there is a major change in scenery in that extra hour and a bit of driving as you enter the Canadian Shield. La Ronge is approximately six hours (although I was expecting it to take longer, based on Google Maps's estimation) from Regina on highway two, and we also traveled the extra hour on less quality roads to Missinipe on one of the days.

We stayed in a decent hotel in La Ronge with Duke, Daisy, and little Buffy the Finger Slayer on her first and last trip with us. Daisy slept in my bed, Duke slept in Christina's bed, and Buffy slept in the bathroom.

We arrived mid-afternoon on July 1st. After checking in to our hotel, we avoided the Canada Day crowds at the town beach and instead drove around looking at the various campgrounds in the area. We eventually found a beautiful, private beach north of La Ronge, in Wadin Bay, where we probably would have spent a couple of hours if not for the arrival of the horse fly infestation.

I have never been bitten by a horse fly, so when Christina started freaking out about the horse flies at the Wadin Bay beach, I was like, "What's the big deal?" She assured me that if I had ever been bit by a horse fly, I would know what the big deal was, so we fled to our car as quickly as we could. The horse flies concentrated their attacks on the dogs, but they were circling us as well the whole time. Neither of us got bit over the course of the weekend, but that didn't stop horse flies from quickly becoming the weekend's nemesis.

On July 2nd, our plan was to rent a boat and explore Lac La Ronge in the morning, and then drive to Missinipe in the afternoon. Boating into the middle of a giant lake and picking a random island to hang out on for a while was probably the highlight of my entire year so far. It was awesome. But, damn, the horse flies! Horse flies really fuck with skinny dippi--oh, wait, pretend I didn't say that. They chase boats and sometimes out-run boats. They bring their friends. They mercilessly attack dogs. They apparently crash every party in Northern Saskatchewan. Motherfuckers!

The trip to Missinipe was pretty uneventful. The road is shit, but the Neon survived. Christina wanted to meet with some people that she may get to know quite well in the coming years, so we did that. And then we had some ice cream and headed back to La Ronge.

And on Saturday morning, we packed and headed home. It was a short but thoroughly memorable trip.

Once again, for those with an aversion to Facebook, here are some of my favourite pictures from this fantastic trip, presented without explanation or comment:


Unquestionably, I will be spending more time in Northern Saskatchewan in the coming years. Next time I hope to camp, rather than stay in a hotel, and it would be nice if it was not the peak of horse fly season.

All aboard the Caribbean Princess, winter 2011/2012?

Christina and I never had a honeymoon. Regrets, I've had a few. It's not like we made the decision to not spend a bunch of money on an expensive vacation lightly, and there was seemingly no rush; we had lots of time to get our finances in order and then take a great memorable trip together. Burn.

Early last summer, I started planning for a Caribbean cruise, because we had both agreed that a cruise would be a nice late honeymoon. I decided to not cheap out, so budgeted $10,000 for everything, and planned to have a luxurious room with a balcony aboard the Caribbean Princess liner.

When Christina left, I was pretty frustrated (for many reasons, including) that my cruise plan would now be scrapped, but she told me that if I still wanted to go on a cruise someday in the future, she would go with me. I scoffed at that idea. It would be pretty silly to go on a cruise with your ex-wife, am I right?

As Christina and I traveled from Saskatchewan to Alberta to British Columbia and back this summer, I realized pretty early on that there was no good reason that we couldn't travel together to other places. And the idea of the Caribbean cruise popped back into my head. On the way home from La Ronge, I asked the burning question, would she still go with me on a cruise with the understanding that she would now have to pay for herself. And she agreed.

We are still early in the planning stages. We haven't settled on a cruise liner or destination yet. My personal preference is the 7-day Classic Southern Caribbean cruise aboard the Caribbean Princess. It is a nice island hopping route with minimal long stretches on the water. And I did a lot of research on the various cruise companies back in summer 2009, and I think Princess is the best for our wants and needs.

There is also the matter of when. I had hoped to plan the cruise for summer 2011, but that's not an option with the cruises that I have been looking at. Instead, a winter cruise is most likely. I would like to plan the cruise during a week that Christina's mom is available to house and animal sit for us, so I could go away with no worries about what I am leaving behind, the biggest problem I have with traveling.

I want to travel more than I do. I like seeing new places. I have never left this continent, which is silly. And now that my financial situation is stabilizing quickly, I will soon no longer have any excuses. A trustworthy house-sitter that could deal with the local zoo is essential to my getting away from home peace of mind. Christina is likely the best bet to take on this role in the near future. United Kingdom, summer 2012?

The End

I'm sure glad I decided a week and a half ago to break "Blogging about summer" into three parts. I banged the first part out quickly, but I felt (quite accurately) that it would take me a while to get to the end of the story. Part two took forever to write (forever = one week of sparse writing), and then my new editor delayed its posting by a day. I don't normally post blog entries on Saturdays, because I'm not normally in any condition after a brew day to write anything sensible. Have you seen my Saturday Facebook posts? I can't stop myself from drunk Facebooking, but I do try to avoid drunk blogging as much as possible.

Now that I'm at the end of part three, which took more time to write than part one but significantly less time than part two, I realize that I've neglected the regular posts on this blog. I'm going to need another Week in Review catch-up post soon, but next I have another somewhat infected brewblog to write. And maybe I should do some work.

Blogging about summer (Part 2 of 3)

Last week in "Blogging about summer," I blogged about a major upcoming change in my life that has gone a long way towards getting me out of a many month long funk. And then I started talking about my summer, the supposed topic of the post, just in time to throw in a "to be continued." That was a little fun misdirection; now I will continue the actual (exciting) summer narrative.

After this quick news break

Before getting into old news about my summer vacation from a month ago (ha!--got ya!), I wanted to quickly update the blog with some more recent events.

Christina is currently back in Calgary, beginning the long process of sorting and packing. The big move is on August 18th, just short of one year from the last big move in the opposite direction. I will be driving to Calgary to help pack the trailer on the 17th, and then driving back to Regina to help unpack the trailer on the 18th. Prior to this, I need to remove all of the furniture from what will soon be Christina's bedroom, as she will be bringing her own bed and dresser with her. (Does anyone want a good quality, ultra plush, 10-year-old double bed mattress and box spring? For free?)

Household pet population has now been reset to the 2009 standard of two dogs and four cats because Duke and Squeak have already moved in permanently. Christina wasn't originally planning to leave Duke behind, as she really does love that stupid fucking dog, but I offered to keep him to make it easier for her to deal with her coming month of near constant stress. If you are wondering where the fourth cat came from, I'm impressed by your attention to detail. Hang in there.

My focus for the coming month of complete and utter boredom will be catching up on as many shows that I know Christina has no interest in (Eureka, for a start) as is possible, and reading as much Malazan as my stupid newly-ADD-addled brain can handle. And fucking yardwork. I love strawberries and raspberries, but goddamn I hate picking them.

A Wedding in Hanna

For those that haven't been paying attention, or possibly haven't read my earlier posts on this topic, my ex-wife Christina's brother was getting married on June 12th in Hanna, Alberta. I actually booked my summer vacation to start on June 11th so I could attend this specific event, have some time to visit with Christina's family for the first time since things fell apart, and then hopefully hang around the Calgary area for a while.

I don't want to bore you with details. I know you don't give a fuck about every stupid thing I did on this weekend. But, for a quick time-line, the wedding weekend went a little like this: on Friday, June 11th, Christina and I drove to Hanna, checked into our hotel room, helped decorate the hall, and attended the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner; on Saturday, June 12th, we dropped off the dogs in Christina's mom's barn, met Buffy (more on this later) for the first time, I squeezed into my suit, we attended the wedding ceremony and reception, Christina MCd, I picked up the dogs from the barn, and I returned to the hall in time to dance; on Sunday, June 13th, we attended the gift opening, relocated from the hotel to Christina's mom's farm, and visited with family; and on Monday, June 14th, we drove to Calgary.

(It is disturbing for me to imagine what this weekend would have been like if circumstances in Christina's life had worked out differently. Although I had suggested otherwise, I know I would have still attended the wedding, out of a desire to appear stronger than I am. And everything about that day would have been completely different and awkward and painful. (This comment was intentionally vague and will only be understandable by friends of Christina that are in the know about what her life has been like since our separation.))

Duke and Daisy

I spent a fair bit of time this weekend on Duke and Daisy duty. After weeks and weeks of steady rain, June 11th and 12th were two beautiful, hot, sunny days in the Hanna area. That would normally be a good thing, especially for a wedding, but with two big dogs in tow that can not stay in a hot car by themselves, nice weather is a bit of a hassle. While Christina helped decorate the hall, I walked Duke and Daisy around the town of Hanna until there was finally enough shade outside the hall for the dogs to not die of heatstroke inside the car. On the day of the wedding, we had initially planned to drop the dogs off in a kennel, but the only kennel within reasonable driving distance insisted on Bordatella (ie. kennel cough) shots that our dogs don't have (they do have rabies shots!) and are, to paraphrase Christina, complete bullshit (it's apparently the equivalent of humans getting a shot for the common cold).

So, instead, Duke and Daisy got to spend the day of the wedding in a barn. Dropping them off in the morning at the barn was uneventful. Picking them up was a different story. We decided that it would be unnecessarily mean to leave them in the barn over night, so then the question was when to pick them up. I figured foolishly that I could pick them up between the end of the wedding reception speeches and the beginning of the dance, therefore avoiding trying to stumble through an unfamiliar farm yard in the dark. I'm not saying I didn't accomplish this task successfully, but here were the flaws in my plan.

1. I wasn't exactly sober at this point in the evening.
2. Hanna has some of the most randomly placed stop signs I've ever encountered.
1+2. I accidentally ran a stop sign and nearly smashed my car to bits in a huge depression in the road. Apparently that stop sign wasn't so random after all.

3. I was wearing my suit.
4. Said suit was ridiculously tight. (Twenty pounds ago, it fit great!)
5. The mosquitoes on said farm were the most insane I have ever encountered.
6. I didn't exactly want mosquito bits and blood on my suit jacket, and bug spray was not an option because I was heading back to a wedding dance.
1+3+4+5+6. Me running madly away from swarms of mosquitoes in my tight suit must have been thoroughly comical. Fortunately, no one was there to witness that.

Still one of the family

It should come as no surprise that my biggest worry about this wedding weekend was how I would be greeted by Christina's family. I had no reason to worry. And how would they react to Christina and I being unusually friendly for a recently separated couple? Some weirdness is to be expected, but overall I was treated like I'm still a member of their family.

Right away, during Friday's rehearsal, I learned that I was still considered a member of the family by the bride and groom and would be seated in the front row. Seeing as I had a month earlier been offered the chance to be a groomsman, this seemed reasonable.

The reactions from the rest of the family to my presence in Hanna on this weekend varied quite a lot, from "Holy shit, is that Scott?" to complete disinterest. Some, like Christina's mom, already knew I would be attending and were just happy to see me again. Some, like Christina's dad's wife, were shocked but delighted that I was there. On average, Christina's parents and grandparents were happy to see me, but her extended family didn't give a shit (with some notable exceptions: hi, Karen!). And that sat fine with me.

During the wedding reception and dance, I attempted to sit with each group and let them see that I was doing okay. The best conversation was had with Christina's dad and his wife. They admitted that they had been very worried about me being alone in Regina and were happy to see that I was doing okay, although I had to insist it was true before they would believe me.

My favourite WTF moment of the weekend came early Sunday morning during the gift opening. Christina's bible-thumping (irrelevant but fun detail) grandfather (on her dad's side) said the following to me about Christina (paraphrasing): "Hang onto that one. She's a keeper." I laughed, quite hard, initially thinking that he had just cracked a pretty damn good joke. But then Christina and I started discussing the comment and were left wondering if it had in fact been a joke. It was entirely possible that, despite MC Christina's groan-worthy jokes during the reception about not being an expert on making a marriage work, he had forgotten that we were no longer together (or, ridiculously, assumed by our non-asshole-ishness that we were back together). To this day, I still don't know how I was supposed to take that comment. If he had meant it seriously, what did he think when I laughed out loud?

Even better, when we told this story to Christina's mom later that day, her response was that he had gotten it backwards (Christina's unnecessary clarification: implying that she should have held onto me). BURN! And Christina's grandmother (her mom's mom) immediately and hilarious echoed that sentiment. It's pretty awesome (for me, not so much Christina) when your ex-wife's family thinks she made a huge mistake leaving you.

Buffy the Finger Slayer

I have a new kitten! Buffy the Finger Slayer!

The second reason, besides not wanting my dad to have to deal with cat shit on the floor every day when he was looking after my cats, for putting down Cinnamon in May was because there was a strong possibility I would come back home from Hanna with a new kitten. ("I'm not heartless" context.) And I did!

Buffy is lucky to be alive. Luckier than the rest of her family, certainly. Christina's mom rescued her, bottle fed her, and apparently turned her into a completely psychotic monster. Christina's mom could not keep her, so she offered the kitten to me, her favourite ex-son-in-law.

I had to arm wrestle Christina's brother for her, but I won handily. (This blog has no fact checkers.)

Buffy fanboy alert! I have always wanted to name one of my cats Buffy. Furlicity was going to be Buffy, but Christina wouldn't have it, so I picked an even stupider name that I assumed she would reject and say, "Okay, fine, call her Buffy." Didn't work. This time, Christina couldn't stop me, because Buffy is my cat, not our cat, as per Christina's mom's insistence. However, after meeting Buffy, I strongly considered going with Darla instead. Buffy is a little monster and loves to bite the shit out of you, making her very much worthy of being named after a vampire. In the end, I stuck with my original plan, because she's also a worthy Finger Slayer.

Resting in Calgary: Yay, Softcore Gay Porn!

Due to unending rain, the plan to spend a few days camping in the mountains during the week of the 14th was scrapped. We instead decided to wait for a reasonable day to do a day trip. That ended up working fine, but that story is coming in part 3.

So, with tons of inside time on our hands, we naturally decided to watch a shit load of TV. (We also visited the super cool and educational Body Worlds display at the science centre and checked out the large and growing Cross Iron Mills mall, but there's not a lot to blog about there, other than to say: "We had fun. Yay!")

Christina has wanted me to watch the Showtime version of Queer as Folk with her for years, so this seemed like as good a time as any to start. She had scared me away from the show earlier by overstating the gay-porn-ishness of the show. While gay sex is definitely a big component on the show, it does not dominate the screen the way she made me think it would.

So imagine my surprise to learn that it is actually a pretty good show, with equal parts humour and drama, diverse characters, and only a couple storyline missteps in the two seasons that I have watched so far. On the downside, it's not exactly the most unpredictable show in the world. I saw the season one cliffhanger coming from a mile away, but I didn't expect the brutality and the effect it would have on early season two episodes. I also correctly predicted a major character's sudden death out loud to Christina minutes before it happened on screen, which was greatly amusing to me. The show also has a hilarious conceit in that every handsome guy that comes along is 90% likely to be gay.

One thing that I find interesting is that I am somehow able to enjoy the show despite not being able to identify with any of the characters' lifestyles at all. Usually I get attached to a show because I can identify with one or two of the characters on screen. And I'm not saying this because they have gay sex. If I am to believe Queer as Folk's depiction of the gay lifestyle, only one in five gay men has a healthy, stable relationship, and nearly every gay man parties at gay clubs every weekend. I can't identify with that shit at all.

To be continued...

Next time: a day trip to the mountains, and a surprisingly spontaneous (for me) Canada Day long weekend trip to Northern Saskatchewan.

Blogging about summer (Part 1 of 3)

I realize that for most people summer is just starting, but for me, my summer is effectively over. Other than the odd long weekend, I'll be working throughout the rest of July and all of August. And I'll be on-call from my job for half of that time. But that's okay; I packed a lot of goodness into June and early July, and I'm content.

Going into my summer vacation, I had four goals: finish two Malazan books; get in shape; and survive a wedding and a reunion. The reunion was canceled, so that was easy. The wedding somehow turned into something enjoyable instead of torturous, so check. But I failed miserably at the other two goals; I'm only halfway through House of Chains and I'm most likely in worse shape now than I was in May. And I don't care. Because it was a great month full of unexpected highlights. (And I can keep chipping away at House of Chains on weekends. And I'll hopefully resume getting in shape right about now.)

The primary reason this summer took a different path than expected was because I didn't spend it alone.

The blog comes full circle... kinda

My first rule for this blog is that I don't talk about other people's personal lives, so when I tell the following story there will be a lot of gaps. I can only focus on how these events relate to me and affect me. My second rule has been a no names policy, which was as awkward to write as it probably was to read. My ex-wife, herein called by her actual name, Christina, got so annoyed by the frequent "ex-wife" references that she made a special request for me to stop that nonsense.

This story starts in August of 2009 when terms of our marital separation were being discussed. I have previously mentioned that I have financial obligations to Christina, but details have been sparse for none of your business reasons. But for this story's purpose, a few extra details are required. The major terms we both accepted (and had lawyered) were as follows: for two years, I would pay monthly equalization payments of a fixed amount (that was selected on the basis of her rent payment in Calgary); and at the end of the second year, I would refinance my mortgage to buy out her share of our home's equity (that will be a big cheque). Under the table, we had an understanding that if she had financial difficulties, I would assist by drawing unofficially from the equity amount that was owed.

It is beyond this blog's scope to discuss the hows and whys Christina ended up having financial difficulties, but it is relevant to note that I have drawn from that equity amount significantly to help her in the past ten months. I am willing to do so, to a reasonable extent, because Christina could easily have insisted that I refinance my mortgage immediately upon signing of our separation agreement. That would have financially destroyed me, but it was within her rights. Fortunately, we weren't jerks and we mutually worked out terms that we could both live with.

In March (or possibly April) of this year, Christina came for a visit, and the topic of discussion eventually turned to the monies. My monthly equalization payment was all going to her rent, and therefore wasn't quite cutting it when it came to keeping up with living expenses in Calgary. I suggested that she look for a different place to rent at the end of her one-year lease, to hopefully save a couple hundred dollars a month or so. This is virtually impossible in Calgary, so naturally other locations were discussed. At some point, I (half-jokingly) offered that she could rent the spare bedroom in my house for a very reasonable sum.

I don't quite remember how she initially reacted to that offer, but I certainly did not expect her to accept. I wouldn't have made the offer if I didn't think it was doable, but I knew it was also fucking crazy. I believed the offer was off the table until a couple of days later when she mentioned that her friend in town had told her that she should take me up on it. I was flabbergasted. I believe all I said at the time was, "Oh?"

And then we started planning. And this is the crazy result (unless something even crazier happens in the next two months, derailing everything): at the end of August, my ex-wife Christina will move back into my house, living out of my (formerly) spare bedroom. She will pay rent, which includes her share of the utilities, and she will cover her own additional living expenses. The separation agreement will still be executed as planned. And we are both free to halt this roommate arrangement at any time.

The first question that always comes up here, understandably, is "Are you guys getting back together?" The answer is no. Christina wanted out of the marriage for reasons that have not gone away.

Although I've never explained the main reasons for our break-up--nor will I, not anytime soon--I will say that it definitely had nothing to do with how we get along as a couple. Throughout all this crazy shit, we have remained good friends. I'm not saying there weren't some tough times; there were definitely times I felt I'd be better off if she was out of my life for good. But in the past four months, the friendship has been renewed in a big way, and we have thoroughly tested the efficacy of this proposed roommate arrangement.

It's become a cliche for us to say, but it holds true: other people are way more weirded out by this arrangement than we are. Ultimately, large stretches of this past year were complete hell for me primarily because I missed the companionship of having a friend always around. I had previously brought up the idea with Christina that all I really needed was a roommate to fend off the crushing loneliness. Who would have guessed that she would end up being that roommate? Not me, that's for fucking sure.

Proof of concept: May

In May, Christina's best friend broke her leg. Christina offered to help her friend out with chores and looking after her baby for a few weeks. This provided an excellent opportunity for us to test out this roommate arrangement for a reasonable length of time. And it obviously worked out fine.

Vacation: June

Christina was still in Regina when my summer vacation started on June 11th, so it made economical sense to travel together back to Alberta for the big wedding festivities. And I'm saving the rest of this story for part two...

A Month in Review, Jun 7 to Jul 4

Shit, I'm far behind on this blog now. My absence started with two weeks off for vacation, but then was extended because I felt overwhelmed with the thought of trying to catch up with my television reviews, and I had a long-term houseguest keeping me busy. I have racked my brain for a way to catch up quickly with minimal effort, and here it is!

I will put a lot more effort into my next post, where I will discuss my summer vacation, pet populations, some very interesting personal developments, and probably include the next brewblog.

The Month in Television

Before diving into the month of new shows, I need to do a quick review of Breaking Bad, now that I've completed watching its third season. In one word: awesome! In eight words: my favourite non-genre drama series of all time. I threw the non-genre qualifier in there for one major reason: it's very hard to compare a series like Breaking Bad to a series like Angel or Star Trek. They come from completely different places. And I will always have a soft spot in my heart for sci-fi or fantasy television, and the rewatchability of sci-fi or fantasy shows is higher for me. But no matter; Breaking Bad is consistently fantastic; intense, shocking, devastating, exhilarating... I could go on and on like this. The third season somehow managed to deliver some of the best moments of the series, culminating in a terrifically dark ending that sets up a very interesting fourth season. Vince Gilligan, you fucking rock! (Vince Gilligan was the best thing about the last five or so seasons of the X-Files, and I'm thrilled that he's kicking so much ass with his first series.)

The Big Catch-up

Loved: Doctor Who (5x12,13), Futurama (7x1-3), Glee (1x22), Party Down (2x8-10), True Blood (3x1,2)
Liked: Doctor Who (5x11), Penn & Teller: Bullshit (8x1-4), So You Think You Can Dance (7x4-11), Stargate Universe (1x20), Top Gear (14x1,2), True Blood (3x3)
Meh: Entourage (7x1), Hung (2x1)

Holy fuck, I still watch a shitload of shows during the supposedly slow summer. I'm not going to go through each and every episode of each and every show; I'm going to just mention the highlights.

The best thing I watched on my TV during June that was not Breaking Bad was Doctor Who's two-part finale, "The Pandorica Opens" and "The Big Bang". (The previous episode, "The Lodger" was inconsequential but quite fun, far better than most episode elevens in new Doctor Who history.) While I have greatly enjoyed previous new Who finales, none were nearly as satisfying as this. Everything fell into place beautifully. Very fairytale-like, which seems strange for a supposedly sci-fi series, but I love it. Although there weren't any single episodes this season on the level of Steven Moffat's previous work on the series, he pretty much nailed this season as a whole.

In other positives, Glee ended its first season with what was easily its strongest episode since the mid-season finale, True Blood came back stronger than ever for the first three episodes of its werewolf-enhanced third season, and Party Down ended its second season with three more hilarious episodes. Party Down has now been canceled, which is sad, but like similarly ratings challenged and hilarious Better Off Ted, I'm just glad I got two seasons out of it.

Less satisfyingly, Stargate Universe's season finale was quite good, but very incomplete in terms of storytelling, leaving a lot of material for the second season premiere in the fall. Penn & Teller: Bullshit is always entertaining, but the topics they have left to cover after so many seasons are not nearly as interesting. The first two episodes of Top Gear's new season were above average for episodes I've seen (which is not many), but frustratingly inconsistent. And So You Think You Can Dance (shut-up!) is... nevermind.

Entourage's seventh season premiere was thoroughly weak sauce. And Hung was also a little lacking in its second season premiere, although I expect things to pick up soon there.

Phew. That wasn't so hard.

Edited to add: How could I forget Futurama's return to TV? It could be just the fact that it's new Futurama and I loves me some new Futurama, but I laughed my ass off at the first three episodes of this unexpected season. Yay, Futurama!

Next week: the thoroughly dumb but entertaining Warehouse 13 returns, and I start trying to catch up on similarly dumb but entertaining Eureka. And maybe I'll finish some fucking books already...