When I look at these rows and rows of barrels of rum, all I can think of are those cartoons where dudes lose all their clothes and have to wear a barrel over their nudie-tudiness and that barrel is held up by suspenders.
I mean, really, that’s just preposterous.
Two measly suspenders will NOT hold up a barrel. You’d need at least seven.
That, my friends, is a pig. And that, in his mouth, is a can of beer.
He looks rather looks joyous, no?
There’s a place called the Domino Club on St. Croix where, for a nominal fee, you can feed a pig a beer.
Mmmm….beer-flavored bacon…..*
Before you go calling PETA, don’t worry, the beer is non-alcoholic. It used to be the regular, full-octane kind, but apparently drunk pigs stumbling about is just not cool.
Gotta keep it classy, you know.
*According to the employees at the Domino Club, they don’t actually eat the pigs. (I’m sure they eat other pigs, just not these ones.) They’re too much like pets, they told me, and eating them would just be weird.
Today’s theme: BEGINNING
The start of a very tasty evening.
Back on President’s Day, Swede, his roommate and I took a trip out to Catoctin Creek distillery as part of Swede’s birthday extravaganza, and, well, because we are partial to tours that hand us free booze at the end.
Thankfully, this was pre-Lenten promise to not drink during the week, though to be honest, I’m not much of a straight hard booze drinker, and handed off most of my samples to Swede. Except for the sample of bourbon maple syrup.
That one I kept for myself.
And then immediately wanted to eat a short stack or a plate of silver dollars.
Yes, it was that good.
(For the record, however, what you’re seeing in the glass is not maple syrup. It’s Catoctin’s Roundstone Rye, which, if you’re a rye drinker, is apparently pretty delicious. Me, I preferred their gin, and no, not a soul from Catoctin Creek is paying me to day that. Of my own volition I will tell you that if you’d like a boozy good time, pay those friendly distillers a visit. You won’t be sorry.)
Today’s theme: REMOVE
Today is my birthday, and to kick off my 33rd year, I would like to remove many several of these and celebrate. Come on over, it’s a beautiful day.
Today is Ash Wednesday, which is the national Catholic day of grief as we prepare to give up the things we love for forty days and forty nights because you guys, for real, me giving up Cheetos is completely akin to Jesus dying on the cross for our sins.
Tit for tat.
Catholics across the world last night took their last sip of gin, their last bite of pizza, gave an Edward R. Murrow-esque signoff to Facebook, clicked off of the ShopBop website or dusted off their rosary beads and brushed up on the Apostles’ Creed* with a promise to return to church for the next month of Sundays.
The discussions of what to give up for Lent are always interesting ones to me mostly because they largely take place in my head, where I’ll have you know I am a scintillating conversationalist. There is a push-pull feeling to these debates, what do I want to give up, what SHOULD I give up, but should I really give X, Y or Z up? Because I know I cannot live for forty days without it, and I’ll just end up breaking my Lenten promise and feel bad about myself and that doesn’t really do Jesus any good, now does it?
Ergo, giving up pizza is out of the question.
Plus, what else am I supposed to eat on Lenten Fridays, when I can’t eat meat?
In the past, I’ve given up alcohol, sweets, potato chips, French fries, clothes shopping, and for a brief two weeks in high school, pop. But that last one was only until my best girlfriends convinced me that really, Jesus would not mind if I started drinking pop again, because me without my Pepsi products is simply a cruel boil on the world at large. Better to remain a delicate, if over-caffeinated, flower bringing peace and aspartame to the masses than cuss out Sister Mary Lightacandle every day because she walks too slowly down the hall. (Under my breath, of course.)
And before you question the giving up of sweets from the self-proclaimed salty/savory lover, know this: As soon as you tell me I can’t have something, I immediately want it/crave it. Which is how I found myself gulping huge quantities of root beer floats for breakfast a couple of years ago on Mardi Gras morning, followed by an éclair cake binge later in the day.
No judging.
This year the debate has loomed large in my head. Maybe clothes shopping again? No, I’ve been on a shopping hiatus anyway, so it would be more just an extension of my normal life, which seems like cheating to me. Try for another forty days of no sweets? Maybe, but I just got a bounty of flour from my friend Turner (another story for another post), and I don’t want to wait to use it. Pasta, or maybe carbs in general might be a good one, but that bears too much of a whiff of being akin to Atkins, or like a diet, and in my head while Lent might essentially be a test of willpower, using it as a God-approved time to diet seems, well, it just doesn’t seem right.
So I’ve made the executive decision: No booze. During the week.
Weekends, though. Different story.
BOOZE CROOZE USA, BITCHES!
(Kidding.)
(Maybe.)
What, if anything, are you giving up for Lent?
*At which point they will be in for a shock, because they changed the words. All that work Miss Traman did in second grade, making us memorize the creed for our first reconciliation? DOWN THE DRAIN. Thanks a lot, Pope.
Bridgeport is an area of Chicago I’ve long known about, but seldom have spent a large amount of time there outside of Sox games.
I have a feeling that could be about to change, now that I’ve visited Maria’s once or thrice.
And especially now that I know just what Maria’s Bridgeport Shandy tastes like.
(Hint: summer, delicious and tantalizing, all in one glass.)
Sometimes your main squeeze leaves early for a trip, which leaves you with a completely free weekend—nowhere to be, no plans on the docket, nothing. It’s not an easy situation to handle, but pull up a chair, Interwebers, and I’ll walk you through the coping process.
First, flip open your iTunes and put on some Shannon McNally, warbling at the top of your lungs as if all the pain and suffering and pining in the world doesn’t hold a candle to your heartache, “When will I see my oh-oh-only one?” and completely disregard the fact that only a few hours earlier you said to your main squeeze, “How can I miss you if you never leave?” as you cheerily waved him off at the airport. Mope around in circles for awhile annoying your neighbors with your singing. And maybe pretending you are in a very arty music video and wonder why YOU haven’t become a singer, because damn, girl, you can sing along with this song like nobody’s fucking business.
Next, pull the vodka out of the freezer. Invite your friend HO over with promises of lemon drop martinis. Ask her politely to pick up an extra lemon.
Gather the ingredients, and thank your lucky stars that you paid attention when your friend Consuela at the golf club told you how to make a lemon drop.
Slice the lemons, and run one lightly around the edge of your martini glass. This helps the sugar stick to the rim. Turn your glass upside down on the pile of sugar, and voila! A sugared rim. Which is key to a lemon drop. Okay, maybe not key, but it’s yummy and it looks fancy and sometimes you just need a little fancy.
Pour vodka into a shaker, and squeeze in the juice of about half the lemon. (More or less depending on how lemon-inclined you are.) Add a little bar sugar if you so desire, and if you don’t have bar sugar, add in table sugar, but don’t be alarmed when it all clumps at the bottom of your glass.
Realize that you don’t have a martini shaker.
Look around fruitlessly for your main squeeze’s Amazon.com water bottle that you’d previously used as a cocktail shaker, only to realize that you actually returned that to him at some point. Shake your fist both at yourself and your main squeeze, who has not one but two cocktail shakers and wonder why he couldn’t leave THAT at your apartment instead of a half-empty carton of chocolate soy milk that was yours to begin with.
Spot your main squeeze’s coffee travel mug that you brought him from your Alaskan adventure.
Ponder.
Decide it can totally double as a cocktail shaker.
Resume making cocktails.
Shake the cocktail over the sink, just to be sure that nothing leaks. Because maybe you forgot to close the sipping part of the lid.
Pour the drink into your sugared rim martini glass and sip. DO NOT GUZZLE. Otherwise, you’ll be drunk before you know it and you’ll do something stupid. Don’t try an deny it. Everyone does stupid shit when they’re drunk. And if your main squeeze is out of town, it will probably involve him and then in the morning you’re going to have to explain why you sent him 14 texts with all the lyrics to Stairway to Heaven. Instead, sip, and enjoy the company of HO while you discuss Very Important Topics that can’t be discussed when your main squeeze is around, like her insane job, and the breakfast menu that you’re going to make the morning of Everyone Needs a Julie’s wedding, and how you got a massage that morning and felt like you got beat up by the time you were done. In a good way. Not that your main squeeze doesn’t enjoy hearing about these things, but he’s heard about them a million times and is probably tired of it. Best to have these conversations with your girlfriends who have the capacity to talk about these topics ad nauseum.
Repeat the above steps for a second cocktail before your friend HO pulls herself from the couch to head home. Wave goodbye, and gently close the door. Call your main squeeze and think about bragging about your lemon drop martini-making skillz and be all, “You missed out, suckah! You in Chicago!” then realize that he probably doesn’t care because he spent the evening drinking German beer and eating German food. Be mildly bummed that you didn’t drink beer or eat schnitzel, but cheered by the fact that you at least have your lemon drop making skillz. Say goodnight.
Spy a couple of limes that you bogarted from your main squeeze’s house on the way out the door to the airport. Think about making gimlets tomorrow night.
Did you know that there’s an Irish bar by me that can pull a pretty decent pint of Guinness, AND also make a mean gimlet?
Well, there is.
Don’t judge me.
At least it wasn’t white wine in an Irish bar.
Now that would be mock-worthy.
I’m just being honest.
I have my standards, you know.
Is deceptive, really, this weather.
Was quite warm last week. Quite warm. Almost too warm for This Girl. But not too warm, thankfully. It was just right. It was perfect for this:
And now it’s gone back to chilly. Sunny, but chilly.
So it’s deceptive, really.
Because when you look out the window, it makes you think of this
and this.
But it’s not quite that. It’s almost that. But not quite.
Thankfully, though, it’s not still this
or this.
Because I’ve had enough of that at the moment. So for now, I lurv what I do have. And look forward to this:
The end.
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