mastering

Two bits of this damp weekend:

1. Yesterday, I took Ryan to a colleague's house where many fleece-wearing men regularly meet to brew a hundred gallons of beer. The garage seemed like a lovely escape--art prints tacked to the walls, a collection of moldy classics in a glass fronted case, a desk with photographs pinned beneath glass. And movement: coolers full of steaming grains, small propane burners with kettles blackening, the smell of brew wafting into the chilly spring air, snow flitting down as background distraction, hoses flushing and purging and, of course, taste testing from batches previous. We brought our wedding mead along as well, were told it's not actually terrible and that mead is even better when aged a few years. In fact, it had mellowed. We're hoping Ryan can join in again this summer when another batch moves through; he's intimidated, but I have a feeling he'll learn a great deal.

2. Ryan's master's defense is coming up this week, which means he truly needs to finalize his thesis. We spent yesterday afternoon together on the sofa; I read his work out loud and we corrected verb tenses, parallel structure issues, and smoothed out his syntax. I had to re-read much of it; I got lost in his phrasing and the strange acronyms and references. Fortunately, he was adorably patient. I tried to explain, "An infinitive..." and he'd give me a lopsided grin, shooting his finger in the air and enthusing, "And beyond!" I would tell him he needed word variety (increases, increases, increased) and he called from his study, "My cinnamon finder isn't working!" I suppose these are all tidbits that are more endearing for me, for a witness, (ah-hem, for someone who loves him unconditionally) but I think, when it comes to a master's thesis, you can exude one of two things: you can stress and be a general fright, or you can be playful, and this is how he chose to be, this is how he brightens my days, this is how the sun was shining, even when the world around us was gray and wet.