Three Beautiful Things 03/11/16: New Ceiling, Looking After David and Olivia, Great Beer BONUS: RIP Keith Emerson

1. Luis arrived, as promised, shortly after 9 a.m. and spent much of the day cutting out the damaged shower ceiling piece, replacing it, plastering, painting, leaving, returning, touching up and the job is done and it looks great.

2. Molly needed to see her doctor to find out if the sore throat plaguing her is strep (no it isn't), and so I sprang into the Sube and jetted over to the Diazes to be with Olivia and David -- Molly took Ana with her. So, for about and hour and a half or so, Olivia and David completely took care of themselves -- they played a game on a computer for a while and then each got out pens and markers and drew monsters, ghosts, and cats, and David showed me a Lego puzzle he made for Olivia and before we knew it Molly was back. I hardly spoke with the children or anything for that hour and a half because they were so content to do their own things independent of my attention or supervision. Oh! And they had zero disputes -- a great relief for me -- I'm crappy at intervening in disputes.

3. The Deke and I sure enjoy going to the Old Line Bistro on Friday nights. Laura provided her impeccable service and Marcus came over to chat for a few minutes. I ordered an awesome flight of four beers: Maniacal 2IPA from Port City in Alexandria; Double Duckpin from Union up in Baltimore; a very unusual, herbal infused IPA from 7 Locks in Rockville, MD called Leap Year V.2; and I was very happy to get to try Firestone Walker's brand new  Luponic Distortion Revolution No. 001 -- the first of a series of experimental beers from Firestone Walker. The variety of different hops and the range of tastes in these beers made for a most enjoyable session.

BONUS: With the passing of Keith Emerson, I've had all kinds of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer tunes spinning in my head. The memories are especially sweet, all connected with my college days, first at NIC and the many evenings with Bruce, Robert, Sluggo, Liz, and others at the Cockroach Castle listening to ELP albums or having them pop up on the Q-FM rotation and then in my single dorm room in the Village at Whitworth where I played passages from the album Brain Salad Surgery to inspire myself to keep reading or to keep writing as I pursued my studies.