Last night I went over to Port Townsend to attend the Strangebrewfest. It was a weekend-long street party with a beer competition. Port Townsend is a cool place with a kind of hippie/artist vibe – it was one place I went to a few months back in another post. There were guys walking around in kilts, people with Conehead things on their heads, live music, wood-fired pizza and fish or prawn tacos, and people smoking weed right out in public. What a country… let freedom ring!
I tried three different beers – well, actually had a taste of a couple of others as well. I had a heather beer that was made without hops – more like a tea, actually, and it would be good on a hot day. I don’t know why I got an IPA since I don’t like them, but I did. I STILL don’t like them. The one I had was really bitter – worse than normal. I had another beer that was okay – it was kind similar to a wheat beer but I don’t remember what it was other than some type of a mead beer. They had beers made with ghost chiles – the hottest pepper on the planet, fruit beers, and hard ciders.
One of the other ones I tried was made with those nasty-ass coffee beans. Literally. It was made with the beans that those jungle cats (or whatever these creatures are) eat and then they poop ’em out. At some point in history, some genius though “Hmm… I wonder what coffee would taste like if I dug the beans out of a pile of shit in the jungle and brewed them?”. Then at some other point in history, someone said “Hey! Let’s make beer out of those turdy coffee beans!”. Then at yet another, more recent point in history, I agreed to give this beer a taste. Guess what? It tasted like shit! I do not like coffee anyhoo, and this was even worse. I had to try it though.
A good day at work today. I have been getting a lot of compliments on how clean we keep the beach here and the place in general. I even get people thanking me for volunteering, and one guy today thanked me and gave me a $10 card for the diner that he owns in town. Quite a nice gesture and it is greatly appreciated! Work was followed by a rousing good time at the laundromat, where I saw some kids doing laundry.
It seems as though these kids had been shoving their dirty clothes in the closet for quite some time. Mom found out and took them and ALL of their laundry to make them wash their dirty clothes. I have never seen so many washers and dryers full of clothes from one family – there aren’t even that many dirty clothes in a Walmart on payday. I do not know how they even got them all in the minivan. It was absolutely insane how many clothes they had washing and drying. I do not know how they had room in the closet for anything else. Just while I was there they probably hauled out 15 trash bags of clothes from the dryer. They took some out before I got there and many, many more were drying when I was leaving.
After my songwriting workshop last week I found out that there is an Open Mic night here in Sequim every Wednesday night. I met some really nice people at said workshop, and we had to get in groups and write a verse for a song. We drew random ideas out of a basket during the exercise, and the one that was drawn by the guy next to me happened to be mine that I had come up with and he was in our group. We ended up changing just a few things on the verse he wrote, and put it to some music that I have been working on for another song. The guy in our group that had his guitar (I did not know to bring one, but don’t have an acoustic anyway and he is a better player, too!) transposed the key to a different one, and I must say we did a four part harmony that sounded pretty nice! It was a lot of fun and there are some really good players in the area. It was odd to be singing and not playing in front of a group of strangers but it was fun. Maybe I will find someone in this group of people to write with up here.
I was going to go to Open Mic last week, but wanted to stay home and relax that night after a busy, hectic week. I think I will go this week and check it out to see what they are doing since I have never been to one of these yet. I am not sure if I will get up and do any songs this week or not – I did come straight home tonight after laundry to practice and work on some different arrangements of a few songs I have so they will work live if I decide to get up and play. Still need to get my chops up and practice these new arrangements, so maybe I will work on that the next few nights.
