“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 865 (Thursday) – thirsty thursday

The weather got a little crazy. There was a tornado warning in central Massachusetts, and a severe thunderstorm warning in a broader area. It was mixed sun and clouds at my house. Around 4:30, as colleagues and I were wrapping up a video conference call, thunder rumbled faintly. The clouds over the back yard that were visible from the remote office window became moody. The many branches in the tree in the yard behind The BungaLowell began swaying wildly in the wind which had suddenly picked up enthusiasm.

Epiphany double IPA.

The connection to the work server posted messages about a lost connection. The clouds deepened to dark charcoal gray and the sun was still shining. Large raindrops fell, leaving splat marks that looked like pop art splatters on the hot pavement and the back door deck. 

The wild weather was over as quickly as it started. There were so few comically large rain splats that they could be counted, and just as suddenly as it began, it stopped raining. It would have been easy to miss the entire episode had I not been near a window. At 5:30, as I was ready to head downtown to the book club meeting, the sun was back out. It was as if the little weather tantrum had never happened. 

Book club had a lot of cancellations tonight and we ended up being four people instead of 12, which  made for plenty of appetizers for each of us and leftovers to take home. There were fried pickles, French fries, sweet potato fries, onion rings, and mozzarella sticks. 

My beverage selection was Foundation Brewing Company’s Epiphany, a beer I never heard of, for the double joys of exploration and logging a new beer in the Untapped app. The server said it was a “double IPA,” and when I said I had no idea what that meant, she offered me a taster. I can be a bit reckless and told her I would just go for it. I’m reckless like that. Unlike my last book club adventurous beer gamble on Bull Spit Brewing’s Rodeo Clown, which was awful, Epiphany is pretty good. It was a nice evening. The book club group was fun, the beer and snacks were yummy, and I was home by 7:15. It was a big contrast to Thursday nights of yore, but for now, it was the perfect old lady “night out.”

The beer in the fancy glass doesn't count in the work wellness hydration challenge, but the daylong overall water consumption was good. A sixteen ounce glass of ice water was at hand all day, and refilled a few times, and repeated upon arrival at home. The weird thing is, the more water consumed today, the thirstier I get.