Three Beautiful Things 09/30/17: Preparing for Guests, Nailing Down the Kitchen, Great Night Out

1.  With Laura and David coming to visit, I needed to clear out room upstairs to open the futon and this led to a morning trip to St. Vincent de Paul's and a trip to the dump. The futon needed some cleaning and the Deke vacuumed it and we found brand new bedding and laundered it and the Deke made the bed. I transferred things I want to consult with Christy and Carol about into the upstairs bedroom and I brought the rocking chair that's been in that bedroom for years down to the living room. We have more work ahead of us to get the top floor of the house cleared out, but I made a pretty good dent in that job today.

2.Back in August, Christy, Carol, and I went through Mom's kitchen and donated food to the local food bank, disposed of outdated stuff, and cleared out other things. Today, I made another pass at downsizing the items in the kitchen. I disposed of more things and I added other items to the St. Vincent de Paul collection. The Deke and I are rearranging things in the kitchen and I'm starting to really like how we've opened up space in the cupboards, reserved floor level cupboards for things we won't often use, and redefined, say, space that was once for dishes now storing food. When it comes to food, I can tell we'll be making decisions about how much to have on hand in accordance with the amount of cupboard space we have.  I enjoy making trips to the grocery store and buying small quantities of things and so this quirk of mine will coincide well with our kitchen's storage space and it looks to me like we will not store many canned goods and other food items in the basement -- a break from a long standing

3.  Laura (of the Babes with Axes) and David arrived around 5:30 and we piled into the Sube and headed straight for Radio Brewing. I had gone uptown a little while earlier to say hello to Cas at the Inland Lounge and got to meet City Councilman Ron Delcamp and say hello again after many years to Doug Yrjana and saw Mike Pierce pulling on a Bud Lite at the end of the bar.

Laura, David, the Deke, and I had an exceptionally good time at Radio Brewing. The place was packed and got even more packed when a large party of well-behaved, lively revelers stormed in, all wearing costumes from the 1920s. It looked like a Great Gatsby party.  The Deke and I often go to Radio Brewing on weekday afternoons when it's much quieter and it was uplifting to see the place so busy and to see so many people having so much fun.

Back home, I went to bed early and as I fell asleep, David, Laura, and the Deke were playing some music and I fell asleep to the sounds of Richard and Linda Thompson's haunting and sweet song, "Dimming of the Day".  It was a perfect end to another new day in Kellogg, Idaho.