Greetings, Earthlings!

...For lack of a better title.

It's been awhile since I wrote. I'm essentially all settled in, and loving it. I did go into terrible sinus allergies because of all the dry wall dust crusting everything from the refurbishing going on in my wing, but that's finally passed. I'm still a bit compressed in the head, but it's about 90% of where I was a few weeks ago. Ugh.

Last day of nice weather was yesterday, though, sadly, so my time for my terrace is drawing to a close. My plan is to go to Home Depot in a few weeks and get some clear plastic sheeting to make a sort of greenhouse against my terrace wall. I'll also grab some old boxes from the recycling bin outside work and use them to insulate the plants on the floor and against the wall (it's concrete). I'm not sure how I'm going to hang the plastic, but there's wood to which I can perhaps tack it. I need to find away to keep it closed, but also allow for me to get in and water them.

I started doing something like that a few years ago after I lost my plants in a bitter wind that started up after lunch one afternoon in late November; it had actually been rather balmy for that time of the hear, and it was quite sudden that such a fierce wind came in. I finally asked to go home early around 4 so I could go home and get my plants indoors(they had weathered just fine on my terrace the years prior), but by the time I got home, they'd already died. I think the wind chill had been listed at about 17 degrees. Brr.

I'll maybe have Rory, a good friend, who likes to modify things take a look (he buys well-made camping equipment and finds ways to improve it; I keep telling him he should work for R and D at Columbia Sportswear here in town) -- or perhaps my handy father, who kindly came over and fixed my bed this past weekend. One side of the footboard where the bedframe attaches to it had pulled out to reveal lovely particle board that was starting to disintegrate. After 24 hours of being clamped down with super-duper wood glue, it's much better now.

Although I'm not Jewish, I decided to at least honor the Jewish New Year the other day in a very Andrew kind of way: I went to Hagen and got a tasty kosher roast beef sandwich on rye, and I picked up a tasty beer from the Shmaltz Brewing Company; they're based out of New York, and their beer lable is "He'Brew" (har har; it's the "Chosen Beer", as they claim...har har again!) It was founded by two Jewish men from New York, and my favorite is Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A -- A Rye-Based Double I.P.A (India Pale Ale for those of you who don't read Andrew's blog(s) and don't know what it is). It's "brewed with an obscene amount of hops".

The whole labeling and marketing they do is funny; it's somewhat as if Mel Brooks would do a spoof of a Blacksploitation film, except with Jews. There's a lot of schtickyness, so to speak, to the whole website.

To check it out, GO HERE.

It was almost a disaster, though -- I couldn't find the beer, and then, with relief, I found it on a different shelf...with only two left! Apparently other people had the same idea I did. I also included a bag of New York Cheddar Kettle Chips and went home to savor my very tasty dinner.

Oh, and the beer is certified Kosher, too. Too funny. It was a nice way to wind down after a very crazy-making day. (I began eating after sundown, too.)

Anyway, that's sort of all the news I have, and there isn't much. I think I'm going to wait on having an official housewarming until the warm weather comes around again -- that way my terrace will be in full bloom with new flowers, and I can have a BYOM / BYOB (Bring Your Own Meat / Beer) celebration and cook on my grill.

I've been thoroughly enjoying my DVR and getting House, M.D. in HD, as well as the Science Channel and the National Geographic Channel. Plus it's nice to be able to set up a series recording and slurp up every episode of something you want. I just have to be careful to stick in some exercise here and there!

-- H