Musings: Serendipitous Weekends

So, the Whining Stranger walked into a serendipitous proposition this weekend, my friends. My two serious homebrewer friends invited me to be a judge for a regional beer-brewing competition. That's right: a weekend of sipping porters and California commons and altbiers and filling out comment sheets, in which I scored each beverage on its appearance, its flavor, its aroma, and its "intangibles." Granted it's been a long time since the WS started drinking in the a.m. hours (ah, for my lost salad days), so pacing was a bit of an issue, but overall it was a swimmingly pleasant weekend of foam and hops and good food (prime rib dinner on Saturday night!). A charmed life.

Today though I need to start filling this 30GB of mp3 player space. Any recommendations for must-have songs? Upbeat suggestions are especially welcome since this technological investment was especially made in the interest of charging me up on morning walks to campus, before I go teach. The mp3 player-filling is, of course, another procrastinatory measure when I should be doing scads of backed-up academic work. But all I really want to do is pile into my easy chair with headphones on and a Haruki Murakami novel in my lap. Sigh.

Oh, and go Tigers. Two weeks left to the season and then cling to the AL Central division lead.

Musings: Conversations, Welcome Correspondence and Frothy Ales

Cool autumnal rains made Labor Day weekend a time of acceptable transition. Summer is over, school has begun, I am lost to books and classrooms and sharpened pencils and striped ties again for the better part of the next four months. On Friday we celebrated with dinner out at a favorite restaurant. On Saturday we attended films on campus, and then went for a dinner and drinks get-together at a colleague's that took us into the early morning hours and carried us home with ample wine and beer in our bellies. Sunday saw me at a beer-tasting. (Yes, you read that right.) I drank different style beers all afternoon before we headed out for Thai food and more beer and wine with other friends, till 3 a.m.

Sunday afternoon we walked the dog in the rain. I napped on the couch. We had tilapia and green beans and couscous and salad. Sunday evening saw me smoking and reading Ralph Ellison in a comfy chair and drinking scotch and listening to the patter of rain and the swell of jazz from the radio.

And this weekend I found out that another story of mine has been accepted for publication.

Life.
Is.
Good.

Will decide on the winner of the Summer Writing contest soon and decide on a prize for said victor. I'm still open to late-entries if you get 'em in quickly.