The Little Words Mean the Most

I cannot ... (sigh) ... and ...

... will never STOP celebrating my boon companions, desk toys. (Hint, hint, gift buyers.) I pick them. They pick me. We share our destinies.

Tonight, duck in red top hat became part of my inner circle. He holds in his beak tomorrow's highest priority.

This note would be different on every desk, especially at the tippy-top. Or WOULD it be? I have to prepare a PowerPoint for Chattanooga. What does President Obama's agenda say?

I called Simone

We use the phone as an intercom. I dial her 2nd floor number. She dials my 3rd floor number. She mentioned in passing, taking a break from the exercise bike (as we discussed the TV schedule), that I had to compensate for falling asleep during shows and movies that we're supposed to watch together "as a couple." I phoned her back with my poor-lout rebuttal, "I should never have to compensate for falling asleep." She: "No?" Me: "I don't expect you to make fun of me when I am unconscious!"

Advertising

Go ahead, think Mad Men, the award-winning AMC series about the Golden (if golden is the actual color of a diseased liver) Age of Advertising. You'll notice that the "Golden Age" of any industry is when profits are obscene, competition is shut out, and regulations are a joke. Sort of like now, you know, with ... oh, you fill in the blank.

Jonathan's cocktail wins! (But it's unreproducible.)

We held the cocktail cook-off. Truer words were never spoken: "You know, it's really hard to improve on bourbon." Jonathan (as usual) brought his best effort, deliberation, testing. I (the usual) brought a recipe I'd found online in a panic. L-r, in the photos: the ingredients for Jonathan's trophy-tail, and the dark beauty itself. Recipe: 3 parts bourbon (Eagle Rare is a very good one); 1 part sweet vermouth (Noilly Prat, from near our house in France); 1 part wild raspberry liqueur (in Grand Marnier bottle); 1 part Krupnikas (Lithuanian honey liqueur, in the single malt scotch bottle). Jonathan made the last two himself. The rimmer is freshly ground nutmeg, paprika, and kosher salt. He named it after somebody's puppy, so we'll ignore that part. Oh, okay, he calls it "The Puglier." That's Cricket the beagle on the chair. This is a household deeply infiltrated by agents of the internationalist beagle conspiracy.

Jonathan, don't hate me...

...because I won. I WAS in despair. Had nothing!!! for our cocktail cook-off. And then: uncommon thinking. A liquid's a liquid, right? So I replaced the oz. of sweet vermouth in the Manhattan with -- uh, you'll just have to wait. It's a liquid, that's all I will say at this time. And my SPECIAL liquid, which I order in bulk from Amazon, makes a cocktail which/that social norms (think: your mother with a cocked and disapproving eyebrow) would say is equally acceptable at a Brownie Troop meeting and a "wasted-a-thon." No joke. All science.

Disclaimer, LOUD disclaimer: I take NO responsibility for this cocktail (because it's pretty irresponsible; if you drink this, you deserve what you get). But I DO (yoohoo!?!) want credit. And by the way, bucko: Am I the only one who sees tequila as pretty much a health food?

Title coming

I found this book in a supermarket. Lord knows how it ended up among the romance novels and thrillers, but there it was. I enjoy military history of any era, so I threw it in my cart. What a delightful surprise! I'm almost at the end, and I hate to see the story draw to a close. Baron de Steuben was certainly a name I knew; I always got A's in history. But that's ALL I knew: some foreigner who fought in the American Revolution. Oh, my: the Prussian baron is so much more! Move over, Lafayette; there's a new hero in town! Looking at the facts, Baron de (von) Steuben arguably saved the rebellion from military defeat, probably on more than one occasion. Why isn't this guy on a coin?!? Read the book: draw your own conclusions. It is lively. It is well-stocked with fascinating scholarly odds and ends. And in places it reads like a documentary: you are there, on horseback, pacing a particular patch of ground, with the enemy ready to pounce. This is popular history at its best.

Jonathan, mixologist, a challenge...

But cordial. Politically fathomable. Like Russians vs. US in hockey ... only there's just 1 goal on the ice, not 2. No matter who scores, it's a win for all sides.

We start with a set of ingredients. We try out recipes. We offer our best formulation. We see who can come up with the best, tastiest, most healthful (heehee) cocktail. What think ye?

1st challenge: Using the same basics as the Manhattan (bourbon, sweet vermouth, bitters) plus up to 2 more ingredients of your choice, what can you come up with? You have two weeks.

1st attempt, the next day: Substituting Campari for red vermouth and bitters. Drinkable. Undistinguished.

Morning in Texas

Room service breakfast. The server told me about his trip to Alaska, driving around: Anchorage, Seward, Fairbanks. He grew up in Mexico and wanted to see snow. He and his 70-year-old friend flew up to the glaciers on Denali and hiked around. For me, this morning, prep. Go through the show slide by slide a few times, "ad libbing" comments, adjusting. Travel is fun. But this is what I mostly see: hotel room decor. My taxi driver was born in Jordan and lived a lot in Dubai. His mom is with him here in San Antonio now. She's doing pretty well with chemo. She was given three months to live. She's made it nine months so far.

 

Greetings from San Antonio (again)

Here, speaking at the national conference for Operation Homefront, a charity that helps families of young, deployed, enlisted men and women; and provides free housing for "wounded warriors" undergoing lengthy recuperation. The vertical photo is the famed San Antonio Riverwalk from my hotel balcony. This is my 5th (?) time in San Antonio and I padded right over to...

L-r: ...you guessed it, the Alamo! Let me show you where the Alamo actually is: on the picture of the parking garage draw two imaginary lines, upper left to lower right, then lower left to upper right, and where the lines cross in the middle, down there among all those roofs, resides the Alamo, hemmed in by T-shirt shops, Ripley's Believe or Not, ice cream parlors, and empty store fronts. Last, lonely shot: the fine art of dining alone in strange cities (bring a book).

 

We call this cocktail...

...the Mighty Duck, because "even the mighty duck." Recipe: 2 oz. bourbon,1 oz. campari, 3 oz. grapefruit juice. Drink this? You'd never know you were going in to vote. Still: you wake up in some politician's camp. With only hazy memories of how you got there. The Mighty Duck tastes like commercially-vended dry-side fruit punch. A stealth cocktail. Cocktails are a kind of music. There's a bass. There's the middle. There's the soloist.