Well, this is a bummer. We have a gorgeous weekend ahead of us. My work at the office has tapered off a little bit. Only two kid functions this weekend, and they're taking place at the same time at the same park facility (parents with few children lament such things; I welcome the multitasking). I was getting ready to enjoy some beers this weekend, possibly at the drinking club. I thought I'd take Marie with me around 4:00 and relax: a perfect threesome (Marie, beer, and me). But she's been called to Detroit to see an ailing aunt. She departs immediately after our regular Friday Mass routine, leaving me with the six older children (read: babysitters) and beer. I'll get over it (somehow someway, someale), but I was looking forward to that threesome.
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I don't know if this is a cerebral reference or a beer reference. Maybe it's both (cerebrale?): Zmirak reviews Chesterton's The Everlasting Man, and he spikes it with drinking references. It's called "The Ale-Drinker's Answer to Hegel" and I highly recommend it ("Hey Scheske, you recommend all Zmirak's stuff! What, are ya queer for him?" . . . them's fightin' words, Prosopopeia). It's been years since I read TEM. Zmirak's summary prompted me to pull it off the shelf. I'll start it again this afternoon.
From the Introduction of Zmirak's review:
One of the books I'm teaching this semester is a title that, over the years, I've found indispensable for my sanity, such as it is: G. K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man. If you don't know the book, stop reading now. Click over and order your copy. Go ahead, I can wait . . .
When your package arrives, settle into a comfy chair with a decent supply of monastic beer, because you're in for a wild ride. In this easy book of medium length, Chesterton tries the impossible -- and nails it. A roistering tale of earthly life, and its fitful pilgrimage from the primordial ooze up through the conversion of Evelyn Waugh, The Everlasting Man is the ale-drinker's answer to Hegel.
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Maybe Al Gore invented the phrase: Ben Franklin did not say beer is proof that God wants us to be happy. Just as well. He was a dirty old man.
But if you need to attribute that phrase to someone, feel free to use my name.
