Drowning Our Troubles At The Brewery

Burnside Brewery Goddess Molly Fox

Dave called me on his new Mobile Cellular Telephone the other day while he was on a walk and I was home writing. I was at that crucial stage between picking at my hair and looking out the window--that golden moment that comes just before bailing out on getting anything written down at all. And he said he was three miles away from the Burnside Brewery. Which meant if we both started walking in that direction, we'd get there at the same time. To add to the serendipity, the Burnside Brewery--unlike other random places equidistant from both of us at that moment--serves up an India Pale Ale that'll put hair on your esophagus and then comb it all the way down. You throw that much serendipity at a girl and she'd be a plumb fool to turn it down. It would be an insult to the universe.

So off I went. It looked like it might could rain; in other words, it was a normal evening. Nothing to put on rain gear for. Walking is very helpful for my writing. In a good walk I can come up with all sorts of turns of phrase and plot points and such that are polished into brilliance later by my inability to recall them. Portland is noted for its rainfall but it isn't a very big deal. Most of the time it's like fog with punctuation. Sometimes it assembles itself into raindrops but a lot of times it's just moist enough to make an old lady's face-fur gleam like fiber optics.

We settled into a booth at the Burnside Brewery. The booths were elevated on a little platform. I've always been drawn to booths. When I was younger they seemed more canoodly. Now they just make it easier for us to hear each other. We sat on the same side to make it easier yet, and watched Saturday evening unfold outside. First Marilyn Monroe went by accompanied by a generic zombie princess. More zombies followed, interspersed with young people expressing their individuality in their arrangements of clothing that is either ripped or stripey or both. There might have been a zombie event in the vicinity or it might have just been the overflow from Voodoo Donuts on NE Davis meeting the overflow from Voodoo Donuts on SW Third. At any rate, a good time was being had by all, as required. Then came a little ripple of thunder.

Where I grew up, there was a thunderstorm every summer afternoon at four o'clock. That is either true, or it is a tidy memory-packet I've assembled for my nostalgia kit based on a single week in 1968. At any rate, it was not unusual, as it is here. Here in Portland thunder is attended with flying eyebrows of surprise, and, in a public place such as the Burnside Brewery, applause. The air thickened abruptly. Soon the polite smokers hunched under their hoodies at the far end of the parking lot began to stream ominously into the building. Then the parking lot disappeared. The sky dropped a single raindrop a mile wide. The picture window grew a vertical river, in spite of being under wide eaves. Dave and I were so entertained by the scene that it took a while to notice bobbing tables beginning to accumulate in our peripheral vision. We glanced down from our platform to observe that the diners at tables were polishing off their beers with their feet off the floor. An army of wait staff began aerobic floor-squeegeeing. Bright yellow sandwich boards reading "CAUTION: WET FLOOR" floated informatively by. The bar split in two with the bow end sticking straight up before sliding into the sea. A pair of giraffes poked inquisitive noses into the front door. I don't blame them. Noah probably didn't serve a good IPA.

We got 1.02 inches of rain in an hour.  It makes sense. We average 2.5 inches for the month of May, but it had been oddly sunny a lot of the month. We didn't have much time to make up the difference, so down it came. We're a fun-loving bunch, but we're not anarchists. Not most of us, anyway.

How To Live Forever

It has recently come to my attention that, at 56-1/2, I may be more than halfway done with life. I'm not taking that to the bank yet, but it's a good reminder to start taking care of myself. At a certain age, we should all have a plan for health. I've got mine.

Women my age must, for instance, guard against osteoporosis. Old people, and women in particular, are subject to a dangerous thinning of the bones. These can deteriorate to the point that they will turn to powder at the slightest exertion--for instance, throwing the Belvedere into reverse or pounding the armchair during The Price Is Right. It's not something you want.

But a recent medical study showed that beer drinking is conducive to the building of strong bones. This is thought to be due to the prevalence of the element silicon in hops. Imperial Pale Ales, which, gosh, happen to be my favorite, top the list of beers most likely to fight osteoporosis at 41.5 mg silicon/liter. None of this surprises me. I have yet to feel at all fragile

even at my age, and I fall down all the time. I've always kept up a healthy rate of IPA infusion, and if I bump that up a little more, I should have a skeleton that will outlast my coffin. Later I'll look into why I fall down so often.

According to the Healthy Beer study, light lagers, at 17.2 mg silicon/liter, bring up the rear in osteoporosis protection. And since we have brought up the rear: carting around a massive one also happens to fight osteoporosis. Weight-bearing exercise builds strong bones, and your own personal weight counts. There is no need to run around carrying weights if you can grow your own. With this in mind, I plan to further increase my beer intake until my rear has reached planetary mass and density. It's a win-win.

According to my plan, I shall have developed a skeleton of steel in a few short months. And this should give me a framework sturdy enough to hoist my own enlarging liver (win-win-win). I don't worry much about the liver, because worrying causes heart disease. Besides, the liver is the only organ in the body capable of regenerating itself, which is a little tidbit I have been counting on. You do want a reasonably healthy liver; it keeps a lot of your other important parts from sliding down too far. It also produces bile, but with right-wing radio

picking up a lot of the slack there, we do not need to count on it so much from the liver. The liver is also the largest organ of the body, and rests just below the diaphragm, which explains why I was never able to locate mine when I lost it back in the seventies.

So the only thing you really need to be careful of, with the liver, is that you can blow the whole thing in no time with the right mushrooms. But really, you can blow a lot of things with the right mushrooms.