A Holby in the District

I am really bad at blogging keeping up with my blogs.

There are so many distractions that can creep into life that make typing to no one about your day really difficult to do on a regular basis, but I hope that this time (3rd try) will be successful. There are lots of people that I want to keep up with in Birmingham and other places, and I think there are a fair number of people that will want to keep up with me. This should help me keep up with you, too.

Things are becoming more or less settled. My room is put together (mostly). I hope I can put a good picture of it up soon. It’s a deep red, almost crimson color with a white textured ceiling, greyish carpet and a big bay window with nearly see-through window treatments. I have a book shelf and a book case just as you walk in the door and a temporary bedside table made from a moving box draped in a blanket. I thought that last item of furniture was pretty clever, hehe. Check these out for now:

Today was not expected to be as eventful as it turned out to be. I woke up late because my alarm didn’t go off – because the power was out. Ughh. After doing some exploring around the house, I figured out that we’d lost power to just the left side. WTF?!? I called the property manager and the owner of the house after calling the power company and was told we were experiencing a “partial outage”. I thought there was one power line that came to the house, not a few! To pass the time, Franklin and I sat around the living room and read the local paper (the Washington! Post!)

Around noon, I took a shower and caught a bus up to the Van Dorn Metro Station on Connecticut Ave. I am determined to figure this public transportation thing out – the subway is easy, busses are friggin hard! So what would’ve been a twenty minute car trip turned into an hour bus trip. I went over to Wachovia and got the remainder of my bank account (I had to prove to them that I actually live at 1010 Euclid St) and then I ventured over to Calvert Woodley – my first serious wine shop stop since moving.

This place is very different from almost any wine shop in Birmingham. About 2000 different wines are *packed* in to a very small space about the size of the wine department at Western Supermarkets in Mountain Brook. Unlike Western, the only ‘grocery’ part of the store was a small deli and cheese department; the rest of the store looked like an ABC with some really good beer. Okay, now I’ll gush: Wow! What a selection! What great prices! Their French selection is MASSIVE because they import almost all of it directly to the store in bulk. You can’t do that anywhere else in the country. And the wine they buy from distributors they buy in bulk and on special whenever possible. I pointed out some Palazzo Della Torre that was 18.99 (reg. around 20 in Birmingham) and Cliff (my wine helper) said they’d had it on sale last week for 12.99!!! Simply incredible. I told myself I couldn’t buy too much because I had to walk about 1/2 mile home from where the bus drops me off.

Nine bottles of wine, three beers and 30 minutes waiting for the bus later, I was on my way home. Thankfully, I won’t buy anything new soon and if we open something at the house, people who partake can give me a few bucks to cover some costs.

PS – They’re hiring – I love employee discounts.

Power to the entire house was off when I got home. CRAP. When JP and Jenny got home, we all decided to go down to Ben’s Chili Bowl for dinner and then Bohemian Caverns for Belgian Beer happy hour. Yum. If you’re an Alton Brown fanatic like I am, it made me happy to eat some “road food” tonight. It was totally bad for me, but oh-so-tasty .

Afterward, the family minus Webb (who was doing a Truman thing) went to a bar called Bohemian Caverns for their Belgian Beer night. I had my first Chimay Grande Reserve aka Chimay Blue. Definitely one of the most complex beers I’ve ever tasted, but maybe not the best. I’ll try it again in a less bar-like setting.

When we all got home (Webb met everyone at BC) we ended up playing a game of Apples to Apples – an excellent board/card game. I’ll refrain from describing it because this post is already running waaaaaayyyyy too long.

More tomorrow. Cheers!