1. It was bound to be a slower day today after the pageantry of Carol's birthday spectacular on Saturday. That turned out to be just the case. I spent much of the morning relaxing with Wordle, Quordle, Waffle, the Sunday NYTimes Crossword puzzle, and blogging.
If you didn't read my correction to my blog post yesterday, I'll repeat the correction today: I originally said (because I thought it was true!) that Carol had initiated the plan for her birthday shindig. (Didn't she initiate what happened in what's now our backyard twenty years ago for her 40th birthday?)
Well, she didn't. Over the Christmas holiday, Christy, Paul, Molly, Cosette, and Zoe huddled and eventually came up with the plan that took shape as Saturday's fun-filled, celebratory hullabaloo.
2. Unexpectedly and delightfully, today was not at all intolerably hot. In fact, it was temperate and breezy outside, making it comfortable and relaxing to sit on the patio, watch Ellie play, sample beers, and enjoy one another's company.
3. For me, the highlight of today's beer tasting occurred when I brought out a bomber of Unibroue's C'e n'est pas La Fin de Monde. The Troxstar gave me this bottle many months ago and I couldn't bring myself to open it until I had a fellow Belgian beer fan to share the beer with. Its ABV is 9.5% and if I tried to drink the entire 22 oz of this beer, it would wreck me.
Josh loves Belgian beers and so today the time was right and with some help from Debbie and Adrienne, we savored this mash up between the Old World complexity of a Belgian tripel and the New World power of contemporary IPAs.
It was the best beer I've tasted in a long time and, inevitably, transported me, in my imagination, back to the days in Eugene when the Troxstar, Shane, Loren, and others from St. Mary's Episcopal Church gathered on occasion at the Bier Stein to enjoy an evening long Belgian Blowout.
Those were among the best beer drinking sessions of my beer drinking life, both for the exquisite flavors of the different Belgian beers and for the great company at our table.
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