1. With the food I planned to serve late this afternoon pretty much done -- I heated the naan, cut up celery sticks, and turned the buffalo chicken pasta from a refrigerated to a room temperature dish --, I divided my time between keeping an eye on the U. S. Open and spiffing up the house -- cleaning the kitchen, vacuuming floors and rugs, cleaning the bathroom, and setting up the deck for hosting Hugh and Carol Crozier, Stu, Christy, Paul, and Carol for tonight's special edition of family dinner.
2. To prepare for this year's golf season, Bryson DeChambeau put on forty pounds of body mass (he has forearms and biceps like a hyper-spinached up Popeye!) and continued his very scientific and mathematical analytical approach to all aspects of the game: his swing, ball speed on his putts, angles on the green, and other areas. With his added physical strength, DeChambeau bombed his tee shots, often landing in the rough, but because he is so strong, he muscled his shots out of the rough, often from much closer to the green than his opponents. It was a stunning display of brains and brawn, and, to top it off, DeChambeau played the more delicate aspects of his game brilliantly. He putted, in his words, "immacuately" and when he had to scramble around the greens, his chips and pitches were deft -- beautifully analyzed and delicately executed. Brains, brawn, and feathery touch. In the end, no one could match the balance of his performance and he won the U. S. Open by six strokes and inspired countless discussions about his unorthodox approach to the game.
3. I was having a good weekend, planning, cooking, cleaning, watching golf, but the very very best came as the weekend was ending.
By 3:00, I had everything set up for dinner.
First, Stu arrived and we had some time to yak before Carol and Paul came on the scene. Soon Christy arrived. I mixed some cocktails, Stu and his longtime friends, my sisters, yakked, and, before long, Hugh and Carol arrived.
Hugh had just finished the sixth grade and our 1966 Little League season when his family moved to the Seattle area. Hugh and I became friends on Facebook a few years ago. In December of 2019, he made a business trip to Spokane and, along with Stu, Lars, Mary, and Kathy, I got to see Hugh for several hours, mostly at Perry Street Brewing, for the first time in fifty-three years.
Until today, none of us seated on the deck had ever met Hugh's wife Carol. My sisters and Hugh have had some interaction on Facebook, but I'm not sure how much Christy and Hugh ever talked or anything the one school year Hugh was at Sunnyside Elementary. Today, Carol and Paul met Hugh and Carol for the first time.
Before everyone arrived, I wondered, how will this work out? Will it be awkward getting acquainted or will things go smoothly, will conversation, laughter, and mirth just sort of easily happen?
Within minutes I had my answer. Conversation immediately erupted. It turns out everyone had lots to talk about, not only the good old days in Kellogg and Elk Creek, but the good new days in recent years as well. Carol Crozier seemed to feel at home right off the bat -- at one point, Christy escorted her to the she shed for a tour! Hugh brought an armload of beers from Washington, Stu brought a couple of bombers brewed by Wallace Brewing, and I shared beer with Hugh that Patrick brought from Oregon.
The beers were out of sight: red ale, double IPA, German chocolate stout, and an Imperial stout. Hugh and I split each beer, making it safe to try four beers out and keep our wits about us.
For food, I put out a Thai noodle salad, the buffalo chicken pasta dish, a rice salad, naan with hummus, celery sticks with a simple blue cheese dressing I made, a bowl of peanuts, pickled onions, pickled green tomatoes, pickled asparagus, and bread and butter pickles. Yeah, it was probably too much food, but I thought it would be fun to have a variety of things to graze and everyone seemed to enjoy what they ate.
I was beaming throughout dinner. I loved that Christy, Carol, Paul, and Stu are so easy to get along with and were so gracious and so interested in getting better acquainted with Carol and Hugh, asking them questions about themselves and telling stories, too. The conversation among all of us was easy, laughter came readily and naturally, we learned a ton about things in the past around Kellogg and a ton about things in present day Seattle and Renton, and present day Kellogg as well.
I spent the party seated on the back porch adjacent to the deck and, from my perch, it was a perfect party, a perfect family dinner.
Here's a limerick by Stu:
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