Teal Beer

Thursday after work Travalon and I went to the "rooftop music" event the University has every third Thursday in the summer. I have been on the rooftop many times myself, but every time Travalon has gone, they hold it inside for various reasons - this time it was due to extreme heat. The band was All That Jazz, and they were really good! They didn't know my requests of "The Ramble" and "Topsy" (guess my taste in jazz is too old and obscure), but they did play Travalon's requests of "Summertime" and the John Coltrane version of "My Favorite Things." Their last song was "Fly Me to the Moon," which as many of my readers may remember was the first dance at our wedding, so we danced to it. We love those old standards!

Here are some photos from my noontime walk on Thursday down to the Allen Centennial Gardens. First, a lavender hibiscus! How often do you see something like that?

I just love this bright red flower, but I can't remember what it's called.

The koi think I am going to feed them! When I looked at them, they all swarmed toward me.

Sorry that this isn't such a good photo, but it's a red water lily! They have also had magenta and lavender ones, but most of them are either white or yellow.

I also took a picture of a magenta-flowering magnolia that is still blooming at this late date, which amazes me, but the photo didn't really turn out. You can barely see the flowers.

My succulent with the bright pink flowers is blooming even more. The leaves are very cool too - that's the reason I bought it, I had no idea it would have such pretty flowers. I'll try to post a photo of the leaves sometime.

Then last night Travalon and I had a quiet evening at home in the air conditioning, since ours still worked. (There was an explosion at the power plant - it was on national news! - and 13,000 people in town had no power on the hottest day of the year. My bus buddy saw the explosion out her office window! I saw the thick black smoke afterwards. Amazingly, nobody was injured.) Travalon made catfish for dinner, then we thought maybe we should go out for a quick drink at Mariner's, since we can walk there. Travalon reminded me that there was a teal beer at Octopi Brewing that he thought I might like, since it is a raspberry sour, so we went there instead. On the way we saw this stunning sunset with fascinating lines... fading contrails? Those same lines were in the sunset the night before too.

Here is my teal beer! It is as tasty as it is beautiful. And I love the Octopi logo on the glass, of an O made with an octopus tentacle.

Good thing I tried that beer because they are down to their last keg! They think it will be tapped out today. There might be some still for sale in cans at Woodman's... For my second beer, I had a sour made with Tabasco sauce, lime, and salt. It was really tasty too, if not as photogenic.

As we came home, the heat lightning to the north was so crazy that it looked like the sky was full of strobe lights. What a storm that must have been! I tried to make a video, but it didn't turn out at all, so you will just have to imagine it if you didn't see it.

Famous Hat