1. Debbie arrived home around 2:00 after two weeks in Eugene and five tiring days of substitute teaching. She furthered my efforts to Save the Porter by bringing four Oregon brewed porters home, three of them Baltic Porters. The Baltic Porter is not an ale, but a lager. I've read that it could be thought of as the imperial stout of the lager world. Well, whether or not that's true, Debbie and I split a pint of Block 15's Ocean Man, their Baltic Porter, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. We then split a pint of the style of porter we are more used to, the ale kind, Arch Rock Porter, a silky and delicious beer. I hadn't drunk any beer since back on Saturday a week ago. I don't enjoy drinking beer, or any other alcohol, really, alone. I was happy Debbie brought me these beers from Eugene and happy we were back splitting pints again.
2. At 6:00, Christy, Carol, Paul, Debbie, and I congregated at Christy's house for family dinner. About ninety minutes before dinner, I prepared my contributions. I put two pounds of baby carrots in a bowl, drizzled olive oil over them, added some salt and pepper, and then roasted them in the oven. When I took them out, I sprinkled cinnamon over them and then covered them with a combination of melted butter and honey.
I also fixed a batch of jasmine rice big enough to almost fill our smaller Dutch oven so that we'd have rice for tonight's dinner and leftover rice for future uses.
3. To get started for dinner, Christy mixed us each a tasty improvised cocktail composed of different citrus infused liquors she wanted to make use of. She set out crostini and hummus and right away we launched into animated conversation about Christy and Tracy's Creative Rendezvous in Missoula and visit to the Cataldo Mission, Carol and Paul's visit to Meridian, and Debbie's time away in Eugene. Molly had had one of those days and wanted some time to herself and didn't join us.
Somehow, these conversations detoured into a fun discussion of how we Woolum siblings got started playing instruments in summer band in elementary school and I got to use the word "trumpappy", our father's nickname for my baritone horn.
For dinner, Christy oven baked a batch of BBQ chicken and made a corn, cucumber, spinach, and chive salad. I brought over the jasmine rice and the honey butter cinnamon carrots I prepared earlier and Carol and Paul contributed wine.
Scattered conversation continued to animate our get together. Before long, Christy served us a strawberry shortcake dessert.
By about 8:00 or so, I was bushed and headed home early. Happy to see me, Luna and Copper leapt on the bed and we settled into a pretty good night of rest and sleep.
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