For all my mnemonic failings, I'm really quite good at keeping faces I've seen fresh in my mind. The trouble is, I'm not always good about remembering context. Ok, it's not that much trouble save for the fact that when I do see faces out of context, it drives me crazy until I can definitively say where I know the person from. It's kind of like the actor's name you know you know, but just can't call up until you stop thinking about it. Several days later.

This sort of thing happens more and more frequently.

I was introduced to friends of burkean and cinemama over the weekend, and as soon as they walked in the room, I was certain I had seen them before. I'd been told for several weeks that I needed to meet these folks, and somehow, somewhere, I already had. Dinner was had (If you haven't had the cheese chili relleno at Sol Azteca? Go. Now.) and I still could not place them. It baffled me. It vexed me. I was filled with vexation.

After dinner, when we had gathered around our cars and had stood in the cold talking... like you do... we eventually got on the subject of beer. A- asked if I ever go to the festivals, and just as I said I'd been volunteering for beersummit since Oktoberfest, 2002, both of us went wide-eyed. I remembered them from last BeerSummit. I remembered cracking open the rationed Ephemere early for her because they had kept coming back to the Unibroue table and because she asked nicely.

The wide eyes were for the tiny planet I live on. It's just crazy sometimes.