Nightglow Window

Hangover Heaven

Not long after our walk to the beach yesterday, Heather G rang. She invited Sydney and Hannah over for a play date with her kids and wanted to know whether I wanted to go with Mike to the tenth annual Strong Ale Festival in the brewery attached to Carlsbad's Pizza Port.

Don't need to ask me twice.

So at around 3:00 p.m. I went over to their house and Mike and I drove down to Pizza Port, ready for a big night. For 25 dollars you got a four-ounce tasting glass, eight taster tickets, and access to an outdoor beer garden where 64 different ales were being served. It was packed. A woman near us unexpectedly toppled over, finding herself looking up at the sunny sky, a strange surprised look on her inebriated face.

We laughed sympathetically, not realizing how easy it would be to find oneself in such a predicament.

The ales were strong -- most had an alcohol percentage of eight or nine or even fourteen percent. Mike and I grabbed a Barrel-Aged Dubbel (8.0%) from Lost Abbey to start with then tried a Bonne Reve Belgian-style Golden (9.0%). We talked about work and it sounds like directing animation is surprisingly similar to editing a magazine -- with some of the same employee management issues.

Anyway, the beer continued to flow, a couple of drunk girls gave us some more tickets, we moved on to the back page of the long beer list, then went over to the VIP taste master area (Mike brews and knows his stuff).

After 10 tasters I was zonked -- even worse than I was after the Flogging Molly show -- so we stumbled over to Hennessey's for dinner. We were sitting outside by the firepit when we met this strange faux Irishman named Finnegan who started the conversation with an thick Irish brogue that slowly slipped to a south jersey drawl. He was in his sixties and served three tours "in the Nam" and the night just got stranger and stranger.

So this morning I was wrecked. I crawled out of bed with serious cotton mouth at 6:00 a.m. Coffee helped, but it wasn't until I had some food in my stomach that my internal gyros began to function again.

I spent the rest of the day repenting for the sins of last night by doing housework in preparation for Christy's return. ("Acts of Service.") Christy got back at around 2:30 p.m. as I was putting away groceries. At 3:00 p.m. we drove back downtown to the city of Carlsbad christmas tree lighting festival where Sydney and Hannah sang with their Girl Scout troops.

After, we went with Heather and Mike and their kids and had dinner at Las Olas.

I was relieved to see that Mike was dragging today just like I was -- even after the Chargers' victory.

Last night was a big night.