Three Beautiful Things 09/17/15: Smarty Pants Phone, Pennsylvania Beer & Idaho Memories, Popcorn Dinner

1.  So.

Family members have been urging me for months, maybe years, to move from my low IQ phone to a smart one. Sister Christy, months ago, passed the smart phone she used for a few years on to me after she upgraded. Finally, today, I powered up the phone Christy gave me and I went to the Verizon store and Kevin fiddled and diddled and switched my service from the low IQ phone to the smart phone and moved my contacts over and now I carry a computer and a still camera and video camera and, oh, so much more in my pocket. Surely this will improve the quality of my life.  Right?

2. The Deke texted me a request for gin and tonics with lime when she got off work. I thought she meant we would go out for gin and tonics with lime after work, but I think she meant that she'd like me to go to one of Greenbelt's dimly lit, charmless, joyless liquor stores and pick up some gin and tonic and lime.  I didn't. No problem. We just headed north to Beltsville to the Old Line Bistro, plopped ourselves on stools at the bar, exchanged some good words with Lemar, and decided to drink a couple of Pennsylvania's very finest beer:  Troegs Hop Knife Harvest Ale.  We both loved this beer. I tend to enjoy the more citrusy IPAs -- and this beer delivered tasty citrus tones, but here's what surprised and pleased me.  It also had a piney, resinous character and, honestly, with each gulp I could swear I was among the great Ponderosa pines of North Idaho, searching for a wayward drive down the left side of the 7th hole at the Pinehurst Golf Course.  The beer intoxicated me slightly, but nothing like the pine tree memories of golf -- and, I just thought of this -- of July weeks at Camp Easton on Coeur d'Alene Lake as a Boy Scout.  Complex flavor and great memories:  now that's a good beer in my book!

3.  After some solid conversation at the bar, the Deke and I returned home.  I had planned to cook up a creamy tomato spinach pasta sauce to pour over some penne, but we said, "Forget it" and I popped a stock pot overflowing with popcorn, buttered it, and salted it and that was our dinner tonight.