drained

student work – tiles about 4” square

cups – approx. 4” x 2”

That's how I always feel after a workshop (and it's what I did after the workshop, drained some glasses). We had a good group of students, all women, and they really seemed to have a very good time and their projects came out very well, so that makes me happy. It's fun and energizing during the six days but the day after the last day, I am a zombie. Of course, going out to the Flying Saucer with our downtown dweller friend Craig the evening of the last day of the class and having too much beer on a mostly empty stomach might have had something to do with it. I was just a tad hung over yesterday. I'm usually very good about not drinking too much, but this whole beer culture is interesting.

The Flying Saucer Draught Emporium is primarily a beer pub but they do have a complete bar and serve wine as well. We got there early enough that the three of us got seats at the bar (later after the place filled up, we started looking around. Very young crowd, we were easily the oldest people there. By decades). Every time I go there, I like to try different beers. I don't know how many beers they have on tap, hundreds, and just about as many bottled, not to mention the 'traveling' beers they offer.

For my first I just picked one at random from the blackboard of specials and special offers. The bartender looked at me askance and asked me if I was a beer drinker, that this beer had a high IPA (alcohol content). I am a novice at this though I have drunk plenty of regular beer in my lifetime so I just sort of shrugged. He recommended a beer, lite and mild (I don't remember what it was). It was actually pretty tasteless and I could have sent it back but I went ahead and drank it. I prefer a little bite in the taste. Craig recommended Stella Artois which I ordered but it was still pretty mild. And my third beer was Magic Hat #9, a bit stronger in taste but still fairly mild. I also sampled every beer my two companions ordered and tasted at least four others. Oy vey!

After moaning laying around all day yesterday, I'm starting to feel a little more energetic. I do have to finish one last full size drawing and then I am heading into town again tomorrow to pick up the glass for this job so we can get started on the fabrication and also to pick up one of the g'girls for her one-on-one week.

I see lots of cooking in my immediate future.

getting energised

I have dawdled and procrastinated and languished and frittered the time away. Now I have a job and can't seem to find the time to do it, still have not finished the sketches for the second proposal. And we have another week long workshop coming up in a couple of weeks at a new facility in Houston. Add to that, school is out this week and the g'kids are lining up for their weeks. Ack!

Sunday we went in town to party hearty with our friend Craig, the tunnel rat. I call him that because he lives in a loft in downtown Houston and his building is connected to the underground tunnel system that connects most of the main buildings downtown. I don't know how much he actually uses the tunnels though. There's a whole sub-culture down there and I expect mutants to emerge any day now.

Anyway, Craig, as you might remember, has joined the Flying Saucer beer pub club and has downed another 200 different beers and has won his second level plate. So we joined him for the unveiling. He's already nearly a quarter of the way to his third level plate.

We stayed over last night and today dismantled Marc's desk and my drawing table and the contents of both thereof, loaded up the truck and hauled it all down here. Took us nearly all friggin' day! I finally brought all the rest of my reference books and files and pictures and STUFF so now one major part of my studio is all here, however dismantled it may be. Because I have a job and need to get the art work done.

So tomorrow, I was planning to put my stuff, at least, back together again so that I could get started but no, I have been informed that my activity tomorrow is to take the truck down to the dealership and get it inspected and have them look at the AC which only seems to work full blast. Turn it down and it goes off. Still, though, I might be able to get my drawing table remantled.

Marc is going to be otherwise occupied you see. I mentioned before that the actual construction phase of our new shop had finally begun. He's gotten a lot of the walls done in sections but not erected yet. Next Sunday, we are planning on a barn-raising, getting our son and a friend here to help 'git it up' so to speak. Which means of course that all the walls have to be finished. So the heat is on in more ways than one.

Oh yes and Thursday, I am back in the city because my twin g'girls are graduating from elementary school. They passed all the necessary standardized tests 'with commendation' (that means they only got one or two questions wrong on each test) and have asked me if I was coming.

“You're coming to my graduation, right Granny?”  You betcha honey. 

These are the girls that their whole first year at school did not speak to anyone except each other, barely spoke their second. Their mom split them up after the first year and they have been in separate classes ever since.

So did I mention the heat? It's summer. No denying it. It's hot and humid even though we have been having a nice south wind that helps take the edge off especially if you are in the shade. We've started turning the AC on in the afternoons and then shut if back off when we go to bed. So far the fan is doing us fine at night but I don't see that continuing for very much longer.

Well, I actually do have photos to illustrate this fascinating post and I was going to link to stuff but it's late and I don't feel like messing with it. So...later gators.

globes, beer and plates

Gene’s and Liz’s globe (you can see a couple of others in the far distance)

We spent the day in the city yesterday, driving in about noon.  It was a totally different experience than what we are used to because, although we did stop by the house to pick up a few things we forgot, we didn’t go to town to work.  We went to play.  And run a few errands.  We went to the art supply store and the hardware store and then we headed downtown to Discovery Green Park.  

There is a display of globes there, much like the previous cows we had here and the horses I’ve heard of in other places.  You know how it goes, the blank ’sculptures’ are sponsored by different groups and then they contract artists or school kids to paint and or otherwise alter the blank to suit their theme.  Unlike the cows, these are not distributed throughout the city, but rather are all on display at Discovery Green Park, the city’s new jewel of downtown.  

A friend of ours who works in architectural stained and fused glass was part of a two person team that did one of the globes so we went to see it.  We only looked at a few since we found his early on and the weather was misty/drizzly and cold.  I noticed though that they were setting up the outdoor skating rink, having isolated and frozen part of the lake.  This is where I took the grandgirls ice skating last year, but that’s a different post.

The real reason we went into town though was to help our friend Craig, the tunnel rat (although, to be fair, I don’t think he uses the tunnels much), celebrate his ‘plate’ at a beer tavern a couple of blocks from his condo.  

This place (I hesitate to call it a bar as it serves food and mainly beer) is called the Flying Saucer Draught Emporium and when you walk in you understand why.  It is a very high ceilinged place and the walls (and even some on the ceiling) are covered with plates.  Row after row of all sizes and patterns of china and decorative plates.  They also have rows on rows of special wide gold rimmed dinner sizes plates with different colored centers on which different peoples names and little bits of humor and a number are.  

The Flying Saucer is a small (and as I understand it, family owned) chain with others in Austin, Fort Worth, San Antonio and cities in 5 other states.  What they do is beer.  They have hundreds of beers (click on the link above and then on 'beer' for a list) available either on tap or in a bottle.  And they also have ‘visiting’ beers, something not available everyday.  It’s a whole cult, a whole culture.

The other thing about the Flying Saucer is they have a club.  If you register, you get a card that keeps track of the beers you have had and when you get 200 different beers, you get a plate.  The first 200 and you get a black label on your plate.  There are 8 levels so to get a ‘white’ plate you have to have had 1600 beers (in 200 beer increments, each level cannot have repeats, but you can drink yourself through the same 200 different beers list for each level).  But then where would the fun be in that?

It was a little overwhelming when we first got there.  Craig was getting his plate unveiled and they give you $100 credit towards food and drink for a little party.  They had a free-standing bar reserved for Craig so half of us one one side, half on the other on barstools.  Eventually there were 9 people...8 guys and me.  

I never knew beer was so vast and varied.  I also never knew that different types of beers are correctly served in their proper glass style...glass, stem, stein.  I was lost amongst all the choices.  There was no way I could know even where to begin.  That’s why their wait-staff is highly trained and very knowledgeable about beer.  Our waitress, the Beer Goddess (it said on her t-shirt and that’s how we referred to her), selected my first for me after quizzing me on my likes.  She brought me an amber ale.  It was very good.  By the time I finished my first I wasn’t feeling quite so intimidated.  Craig had printed out a bunch of slips from his account describing some of the beers he’s had so I picked my second beer from those.  I can’t remember what it was either but it was very good.  A darker brew than before but a little sweeter.  And we all tasted each other’s different choices.  It was amazing how different each of the different beers tasted.  Husband and I limited ourselves to two each because we were driving back to Wharton, not having come prepared to spend the night.  But it was so interesting, and good, that we are planning to have another go at it but this time we’ll stay with Craig so all we have to do is walk a few blocks to get home.

And Craig's plate?  # 677