Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Three Beautiful Things 08/26/19: The Arrival, New Dryer, Beer Party

1. Debbie and I hustled around this morning, vacuuming, scrubbing, sweeping, straightening, and laundering in preparation for Adrienne, Josh, and Jack's arrival shortly after noon. At one point, I had to laugh. In the middle of it all, our dryer went on the blink. No heat. It's over twenty years old. Mom bought it at the same time that she bought her washer and hot water tank, both of which have been put to pasture and replaced. I didn't deal with the dryer right away because Adrienne, Josh, and Jack arrived shortly after noon after a long day of travel from Cottage Valley to Newark to Denver to Spokane to Kellogg. We had sloppy joes ready to eat when they arrived and we sat on the deck and had lunch together. We started to get caught up on all kinds of things.

2. Soon, there was a break in the action. Josh and Jack took a Kellogg stroll. Adrienne and Debbie rested. I vaulted into the Sube and bolted to Pinehurst to Watts Appliance and purchased a new dryer. One of the many things I like about Watts Appliance is that they are a small store with a limited number of appliances on their show floor. I wanted a gas dryer. They had two available. One was white. It was on sale. My choice was easy. Now, all I have to do is wait for the phone call from Sherri or Lawanna and PRESTO! Brock and Sherri will deliver the dryer and take the conked out one away.

3. Late in the afternoon, Adrienne took Jack upstairs to read to him, help him settle down, and possibly go to sleep. It worked. Josh, Debbie, and I got a beer party under way and split cans and bottles of beer -- some were beers Debbie had brought to Kellogg from Eugene and others were the beers from the Boise area that Rocky brought me when we had our Still Alive at 65 party up the river. It's been a while since I'd drunk a variety of beers. I loved it. We sampled IPAs, a saison, a pale ale, and wrapped up our session with a thick and tasty coffee stout. I can't begin to list all the brewers, but I can say the beers came from Boise, Camas, Yachats, St. Louis, and points in between.

As our beer party progressed, we headed out back and sat on the deck and Christy joined us. She had made two delicious loaves of zucchini bread -- one a carrot/apple loaf and the other a chocolate chip -- for Debbie and me. Fortunately, Debbie and I hadn't eaten both loaves on our own -- but we could have! -- and so the pleasure of our beer sampling was augmented by these delicious zucchini breads (and some, so I hear, addicting pretzels that Debbie bought at Yoke's that came to Kellogg from North Dakota).

I hadn't stopped doing stuff during the day to nap and, by about 8 o'clock or so, I hit the wall and hit the hay, happy to have had such a good day with family and looking forward to Adrienne, Josh, and Jack being here until Sunday.

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