A most social weekend. On Friday night, a zoom.

Not because we feared contagion, but because miles and miles separate Illinois, Tennessee and Washington state.

Early on Saturday afternoon, a phone call — the standard kind, no pictures involved — with a old friend in Texas. I don’t use that term lightly. I’ve known him since the Nixon administration.

Late in the afternoon, other old friends, though not quite as long-standing (all less than 40 years), came to visit and I grilled dinner for them, despite heavy rain for about an hour beginning at 2. The deck was dry by 4, and we had a fine time sitting around there into the early evening, engaging in actual conversation, with comments about how great it was to meet in person again after skipping last year. It was.

One of my guests brought some Space Station Middle Finger beer, a product of Three Floyds Brewing Corp. of Munster, Indiana. Today, I posed one of the empty bottles on top of the now-cold grill.

Nothing like an amusing label. Nice caps, too.

I tried a bottle. I’m hardly one to judge beer, but it did have a smooth flavor going down.