Rich life (day 146)

bacterial update: I've been away from the cultures for a while and in a way it was good for me to see the progress of the kombucha tea.  The daughter is almost fully formed.  While I was away the pH test strips arrived and I tested the pH this evening.  It tested at about 4.2 which means it's still quite far from being done, though the timeline may not be linear.  As I thought about this high pH I became paranoid about the sugar content not having been high enough which is quite possible because I basically just used 10 tablespoons which is just over half of what is recommended.  I was following the directions of the person who gave me the culture.  Now reading about other people's brewing methods, it all seems to point to me not having used enough sugar.  Anyway, I added a bit of dissolved sugar to the brewing tea, very carefully, with a straw.  This may have been a bad idea and it's still not nearly enough sugar.  If I don't get punished harshly for this by the kombucha gods I swear I will never need to do it again.  It would be a shame to have come this far and fall prey to my own impulsivity.  I keep reminding myself of positive black swans...sometimes you get lucky with accidents.  Though luck favours the experienced.  If it looks bad for my scoby, I'll just start another brew with the right amount of sugar.
The Kefir grains are indeed dormant after being in the refrigerator.  They seem to have done almost nothing in the six days I was away.  I took them out and hopefully they'll come to life nicely by tomorrow evening.

Having had a harrowing day of travel (I will never book connecting flights in LAX again), I'm really happy to be home.  Vancouver is warm and smells good.  I walked to school for a talk happening in the IDS, listening to more of Lords of Finance, my latest auditory obsession.  It was good to move after so much sitting and waiting.  As I walked, the war ends and Germany's fate is being decided by a peace committee.  Irrational behaviour prevails outrage at the treaty ensues, followed by general (expected) non-compliance by Germany.  Keynes resigned from the committee.  I was surprised to learn that he was part of it.  Though he was largely shut out of the discussions about reparations.   It's an interesting book full of little observations about the temperaments and characters at play.  I'm intrigued by the social moors of the time, particularly in relation to the ruling class and bankers.  I'm curious if it is similar today.  I'm aware that besides Entertainment Tonight and The Enquirer I don't have much of a window into the ultra-rich or ever super-rich day to day living.

A song for this post.