phew!

There will be lots and LOTS to come on our vacation (I swear; last time I said that I didn't follow through, but this time it's on). The set-up goes something like this...

A couple of months ago, I was asked by the management at my old job to come back for one event: the wedding of two other former employees. One, the groom-to-be, happens to be a very good friend of mine, so I said I would. That meant asking for time off work, and the wedding happened to coincide with the days Jak and I were planning to take off already for the Cubs-Tigers series in Detroit. This was all well and good; I had the time off; everything according to plan--except when I called up the old job to find out details, they replied by leaving me a message that I wouldn't be needed because they'd figured out staffing. It wouldn't have been a big deal if I hadn't taken a full week off work, but.... eh. I managed to pick up one shift, but the damage was more or less done.

Vacation started, then, Sunday morning with a quick jaunt to Traverse City for Father's Day. I ended up spending as much time with my stepmother and mom as I did with my dad, but that's fine too. The idea was that I'd be back from TC Monday afternoon, Jak and I would start the journey to Southeast Michigan that night and stay in a hotel room, and Tuesday we'd start the baseball extravaganza.

Much to my delight, when I got back home Monday afternoon, Jak suggested that we hold off leaving until the next day, make Monday a date night, and head down to Founders for a couple of pints and some pool. I'm always up for that, and had also been driving three hours already, so that sounded just fine to me. Once we got to Founders and sat down, it occurred to us to check the MBG guide to see exactly how many Michigan breweries we'd been to.

The answer was: frighteningly few. We'd been to most of the GR sites, all of the Ann Arbors. I've hit the Traverse breweries and two Summer Fests, but otherwise... nada. So it occurred to us at that point: if we took a slightly more southerly route to Ann Arbor, we could hit at least three breweries on the way; there were tons around Detroit, to be visited before and after baseball games; there were a couple around Lansing to catch on the way back home.

Suddenly: a plan. Beer and baseball, AKA The American Dream Tour 2009.

Short recap: Cubs got swept. We had fun regardless. Our schedule of nine to ten breweries got diminished and the reality was seven (time constraints and traffic defeated us on three). We got stuck in God-awful traffic twice, didn't actually get lost in downtown Detroit, and I took at least six pages of tasting notes on all the beers. That's going to get rewritten and edited down into the bulk of my next few posts over the next week or so. (So, fair warning: if you're not that into beer, feel free to skip the next several--I'd say up to seven, but more likely four--entries. It's just going to be recaps of breweries, beers, and travel time.)

Starting out Monday night: Founders and The BOB. Stay tuned...

Today's story

My stepmother was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease about nine years ago. She was in her mid-40s at the time, which is SUPER young for Parkinson's. Needless to say, Michael J Fox is something of a hero in the house.

In the last five years, she's had surgeries (plural) to correct a palate/nasal cavity/jaw abnormality. She never quite regained full nerve function in her jaw, looks completely different (I mean, her face got rebuilt twice!) and since then, the symptoms of her Parkinson's have progressed significantly. She's doing... well, I suppose... but what it comes down to is that her medication load has increased by about 200% in the last five years and it won't ever go down. It's a degenerative disorder, so things will only ever get worse and it's all her doctors can do to keep up. At this point, her meds are organized in a full-sized fishing tackle box, by day, time, and type. She's taking easily thirty pills per day for tremors, speech, pain, dopamine, nausea, fatigue, and God only knows what else.

About a month from now, she'll be going through a process called deep brain stimulation surgery. The basic idea is that an electrode implanted in her brain (sort of like a pacemaker) will block the bad impulses that cause her tremors and speech problems. It's a three-part surgery that will end up taking at least six weeks (likely closer to three months). The hope is that this will get her off at least half of her medication--which, because no one really knows what the meds DO, especially when mixed--will help her fatigue, nausea, night terrors, and other symptoms ease up as well.

At any rate: I spent last night in a wrecked state emotionally; most of this morning was spent waiting to call my dad to make sure everything was okay. And I did. And it is.

It's a beautiful day and my cat just ate a fly.

Back in the saddle

My appetite has more or less come back. Still not eating as much as I was before mid-May, but definitely more than last week. I think that's a good thing.

New (ish) beers over the past week...
Delirium Tremens (draft at Ashley's 5/30; bottle at HopCat 5/31; draft at Logan's Alley 5/31) Nice, fruity fake-tripel. Tastes a lot like apricot biscuits--the front is stone fruit and light hops, finish is yeast and flour, with some butter for good measure. Very drinkable but I was not blown away. Bottle is much, much better than draft.

Chimay Tripel Cinq-Cent (draft at Ashley's 5/30; bottle at HopCat 5/31) Delicious. Nicely acidic, tart, great example of a well-made tripel. Also much better bottled than on draft--this, I've come to understand, is a characteristic of most Trappist beers. Has to do with the bottle conditioning.

Westmalle Tripel (bottle at HopCat 5/31). By far my favorite beer from this weekend. Perfect for its class and style. Lovely, crisp, refreshing--fantastic summer beer, if a bit spendy.

Rochefort 6 (bottle at HopCat 5/29-ish?) Malty, sugar, great color and flavor. More of a sipper than a quaffer, and while nothing I've been drinking is really sessionable (everything's well over 8% ABV) this is by far the least likely beer this week to sit down and drink a lot of. Took me well over an hour to finish the (standard-sized) bottle due to its intense fig-cookie-butter-sugar richness. Lovely, but damn.

Golden Cap Saison (sample/draft at Vitale's 5/31) Pretty straightforward: I like it. It's tasty, and it's local. Probably not the best example of a saison I'll have this summer, but honestly? Not bad.

La Chouffe Houblon Dobbelen IPA Tripel (draft at HopCat... nightly? Bottle to-go 5/31 [yes, I drank A LOT on Sunday]). Okay. I have to preface this by saying that before about two weeks ago, I had zero desire to drink Belgians outside of a basic understanding of the tasting notes so I could sell them. In my head, I was thinking about Belgian Wits and overdoses of coriander and orange peel and syrup sweetness or overpowering sourness. I tried Brooklyn Brewery's Flemish Gold about a month ago and really enjoyed it, so when one of the guys at work opened a bottle of the Houblon, I was ready to taste something outside my usual IPA, hop-bomb box.
Lucky me. For real. The bottle isn't cheap by any stretch and we split it evenly. And it is seriously, beautifully, eye-poppingly amazing. The really fun thing, though, is that we have it on draft as well, and the side-by-side tasting was astonishing. Next to the bottle, the draft tasted bad. In the sense of it tasted spoiled, not low-quality--all the tones were there, it just didn't taste right. (Bottle-conditioning Belgians FTW!) Now, La Chouffe has done something interesting with this beer, and to my knowledge it's fairly unique: they made a double IPA (so lots of hops, lots of malt) and brewed it as a traditional tripel. So while it's got the clarity, crispness, and general flavor profile of the tripel, it's also got a shit-ton of hop aroma and maltiness. And it is truly sublime. Favorite beer of the last few months, no question.

I'll probably write about this weekend later--one of my besties got married, so I spent the weekend in Ann Arbor, ate a lot, drank a fair bit, and pretty much just had a blast. Still don't have any of the pictures uploaded, so that's no fun...

I have to work tonight. Last Tuesday was painfully slow (ie, I had $150 in sales at 10:30pm) so hoping this week will be a bit better as I'm scheduled (again) to close. Tomorrow is deep-cleaning day and possibly lunch with Jak's parents, then Mom is coming down Thursday and staying overnight on her way to Lansing. Yay Mom!