Signs of Spring

     We had some bitterly cold weather in early January,  but something that I've always loved about the DC area is that warm-ish days pop up in the middle of winter, breaking up the monotony of cold. Last weekend we were up to 16C, which felt positively balmy. I worked in the garden, cleaning up old plants from the beds, and biked to work without a jacket.
     There are about six weeks in mid-winter when biking is hard because it gets dark so early that I wouldn't be able to put a full day's work in before needing to go home. Better lights would help, but the truth is that lots of the forest trails are pretty deserted this time of year and I don't feel safe biking in the dark. As a result, I carefully pay attention to the changing amount of daylight. We are only five weeks past solstice but there's already plenty of light for biking, so I can make that my regular commuting method again. I have to skip it when there's ice on the roads, but that only happens a few times a month.
     And while summer seems far away, my gardening spreadsheet tells me that I can start planting things in two weeks - as long as the planting takes place under my grow light in the basement. Still, once it's time to play around with the potting soil and urge the little seedlings to grow, winter seems like it's almost at an end.

King Cake

     A few weeks ago I had an irresistible desire to eat King Cake. As I don't celebrate many Christian holidays, I found convinced my friends N&S that I should make a cake that I could share with their family. Luckily, this was an easy sell, and everyone loved it. In researching recipes, I learned a lot. This cake is eaten any time between Epiphany and Lent and it can be a plain brioche or filled. Receiving the piece with the Baby Jesus usually means that you are "king" for the day, or that you have to bring the cake next year.
     I chose to make a braided brioche version, with a cinnamon-nut filling in the middle of each strand. It was insanely sweet (not a problem for the under-ten crowd, of course) but delicious. I have been eating it all week. A co-worker did hint that if I was going to bring such nice breakfasts to our meetings perhaps I need to bring enough for everyone...

Canada, Part 2

     It snowed something fierce during the first day of my trip. My flight was only delayed a few hours, but then it took five hours to cover what Google had promised would be a three-hour drive. I was ever so grateful that I learned to drive in Ohio and wasn't scared of thickly swirling snow and not-quite-plowed roads. Furthermore, Canadians are more seasoned winter drivers than DC denizens, so I didn't fear for my life in the intersections.
     The next morning, nothing had been plowed. My little rental car would certainly not have managed the streets, so I hiked to the meeting, having wrapped my shoes in garbage bags. (I hadn't packed any boots, of course.) I felt like quite the intrepid winter business traveler.
     Alas, Sunday saw my not-quite-so-intrepid side. After a very nice breakfast at my BnB, I packed up the car and started it up so that it could warm up while I de-iced and de-snowed it. After ten minutes' work I realized that I had a clean, warm car that I had unfortunately locked my keys into. This was the only point in the trip where I came near tears. I had no phone, no ID, no recollection of which rental company owned the car, and no clear idea of how to break into a rental car. In the end, it all worked out. The BnB owner had an account with the Canadian Auto Association. I had to wait about 30 minutes for them to arrive, and then it took them about four minutes to free my car. It is astounding how easy one can break into a car with the right tools (See: air wedge). I will be suggesting to my boss that I earned hazard pay.
     In the end, the trip went fine. This particular conference requires extra attention, so it's important that I attended. I got to use the metric system (I *love* it) and eat Tim Horton's (the Dunkin' Donuts of Canada). I also drank about a gallon of tea, because tea in the UK, Canada, and Australia is always better than US tea (and I really wish I could figure out how to replicate it.) On the other hand, I lived on cheese sandwiches and pizza - undergraduates did the catering - and interacted with people fourteen hours a day. In response, I will spend my vacation day tomorrow sleeping, eating vegetables, and hopefully not talking to another living soul.

Canada

     I headed to the great white north this weekend, which will likely bit a bit whiter than usual. As I may have mentioned before, one of the projects I work on runs a dozen conference simultaneously across North America. These always happen on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, and I almost always go to one in the north. This year I'm headed to Kingston, Ontario. You will note that that means I am going to Canada, where they are having ice storms. Thus, I have been hanging out at the DC airport while they continually delay my flight to Toronto. Should I be lucky enough to eventually land in Toronto, I will still need to drive 275 km on ice-sheeted roads to Kingston.
     You might think that the Magical Unicorn Pony God of Travel has won this round, but at this point I'm not willing to concede anything more than a draw. Mainly because I don't care. As long as I get there before 11pm, I'll be happy. I have plenty of work, plus two good books and a dozen podcasts. And maybe I'll even get some poutine out of this trip.

Bathroom installation, part 3

The next step in the bathroom installation was to take all the loose rockwool insulation that we had removed from the storage (aka future bathroom) and haul it up to the attic. With 15 bags, at 40 pounds per bag, this was an undertaking. Especially since the crew (my friend M and I) could only carry  small amounts up the ladder and shove them through the hole in the ceiling. M is the only friend I have who is smaller than me, so we're not exactly the buffest construction crew out there. Still, we were able to move all the insulation in a few hours AND nobody fell through the ceiling. That latter point was actually the most critical accomplishment - the only thing preventing a person in the attic from falling through were a few scraps of plywood that we balanced on the joists. I live in fear of damaging my ceilings; I know how to repair things, but my ceiling tiles are probably forty years old and I have no idea how to find a replacement.

More in a few weeks, when I begin pulling up all the floor boards.