Father's Day Cook Out

I still have the taste of St. Louis spare ribs in my mouth.  Last night we went over to our friends' house.  They're the ones who live in the neighborhood, the ones we've continued to see (from a safe distance, in their back yard) throughout the pandemic.  Last night, we had a real meal, not our usual meal of cheese, crackers, and wine.

Our friend had gotten a new smoker, and he really wanted to make ribs for us all.  So we said yes.  Other friends joined us--one I knew from long ago when he taught Psychology for my General Education department at a different school, one of whom was a friend of that friend.  That friend was dog sitting, so he brought 2 adorable dogs that were a mix of poodle and some sort of small hunting/herding dog.

It was good to catch up, with the introductory "Do you know anyone who has the disease?" which then went into comparisons of odd sicknesses through the winter--could we have already had the dread disease?

It was a delight to be together, comparing notes, on a night that seemed normal.  The dogs frolicked in the long grass, and it seemed like a regular night in early summer.  We had festive drinks (aged port!) and regular drinks.  The dogs got in the pool, then decided they didn't like it.  We had collard greens, corn on the cob, and homemade potato salad to go with the spare ribs.  Yummmmm.    After dinner, one dog went from lap to lap looking for cuddles.

We watched hawks fight other birds over territory in the spiky, pine tree, an interloper to these shores.

We also saw a striped lizard that none of us had seen before--another interloper?

And we had interesting discussions about what it means to be an interloper--of course we did, with the mix of psychologists, an English major, and a Philosophy major.

We left just before sunset, so I only saw shreds of the sunset from my kitchen window.  But my friend posted all of these pictures, so I'm borrowing them:

The red cloudiness looks downright apocalyptic, doesn't it?  But that, too, is a normal part of our summer--we've got some sand that's traveled from the Sahara, and it makes our sunsets glorious.

It was a wonderful meal, a good reminder of some of the advantages to staying here where we already have a community formed.  Of course our conversation went to the other apocalypse that's always on the brain of thinking people in South Florida:  how long before sea level rise makes life untenable here?

We have no answers, so we ate a bit more, watched the dogs chase each other, and had aged port instead of dessert.