I've never thought of myself as clumsy, but when you factor in my immoderate and lazy behavior, accidents are almost bound to happen.
I'm happy to announce that there have been no complications from my appendectomy. I'm completely healed. I have some hairline scars on my abdomen and some staple wounds which are still healing up, but apart from that I'm cured. I just need to avoid lifting heavy objects for six weeks. I still think I'm going to die soon, though. I'm talking about last Friday night (May 30), when I was walking home—admittedly under the influence of makgeolliand beer—and stopped by a public restroom near the Yangjae Stream. The stalls were somewhat cramped, which I learned to my cost when I stood up somewhat abruptly and smashed my head against the toilet-paper dispenser. Just...don't ask. Please. It happened, all right? That's all you need to know. Anyway, my head was somewhat fuzzy (makgeolli or concussion, I don't know) so I didn't really notice that I had hit myself hard enough to draw blood. This precluded me from putting antibiotic ointment on my noggin, and... ...well, sure enough, I came down with a head cold on Saturday, May 31, which prostrated me all through Sunday. Even on this warm, damp, drizzly morning of June 2, I'm not still wholly back together. Infection-induced, no doubt. What a sap I am. And speaking of sap, what kind of moron doesn't use hot pads to remove a scalding-hot bowl of oatmeal from the microwave? Me, that's who. The same moron who, early this morning, touched the hottest part of the bowl, dropped the bowl, tried to catch the bowl and stuck both his hands knuckle-deep into said scalding-hot oatmeal. I am now typing on this keyboard with several first-degree burns on my fingers.
I hope there isn't a university-sponsored polo match this weekend, or I'm a goner. There isn't too much other news. Miss H and I went to see X-Men: Days of Future Past on Thursday evening, and both got a kick out of it. We also got our Hong Kong accommodations booked, so all the hotels 'n' stuff have been taken care of for my big Southeast Asia tour in July and August. (Now I just need to reserve my train tickets.) I had a lovely time with some of my work buddies on Friday night, drinking that aforementioned makgeolli and eating tofu (dubu in Korean) made from cactus in Achasan, near Gwangnaru, where Miss H and I used to live. Then I went to a barbecue in Maebong later that night with one of the dudes I brew with and his buddies, and nearly cracked my skull open in a public restroom around 12:30 a.m. Then I spent the weekend being sick. I'll spend the three days of my workweek (Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday) conducting writing assessments. On Thursday evening (which is technically a Friday, as we have a three-day weekend this week) I'll have a drink with Sang-ook, the Korean fellow I shared a ward room with when I got my appendix out a couple of weeks ago. I promise I won't hit my head on anything this time. No, really. Honest.
It's 12:35 a.m. on a Friday night (or a Saturday morning, if you want to think about it that way). I've had a hard week and a glass of bourbon. I don't feel like posting anything particularly profound, and you know what that means—time for some more sci-fi art.
This one's called "Ancestors." I don't know what the title means, and I have no clue what the contents were meant to portray. And that's the beauty of it, really. Just stare at that half-ruined structure and the stunning panorama in the skies above it, and wonder.
1. Sing along to The Planets suite by Gustav Holst.
2. Give my characters names like "Rita Book" and "Justin Thyme" on The Oregon Trail.
3. Argue that the main characters of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann are the pinnacle of manliness.
4. Croon "O Tannin Bomb" as I'm opening a bottle of red wine.
5. Watch Monty Python sketches on YouTube for hours on end.
6. Or Bugs Bunny cartoons.
7. Or episodes of Cheers.
8. Liking the Black Keys does not make me an "honorary hipster."
9. Consume a can of mixed nuts and a bottle of beer and call it an appetizer.
10. Demand that my students use the phrase "sock puppets" in every essay they write.
11. Watch the climactic scene in The Road Warrior while listening to "Yakety Sax."
12. Not listening to K-pop does not make me Nietzsche's Übermensch.
13. Finish all my sentences with the word "TOASTY!"
14.
When cooking bacon, I am to actually chop the bacon into bite-size
pieces rather than thwack at it with a blunt knife until it's in
barely-digestible chunks.
15. Walking down five flights of stairs does not count as exercise.
16. Advance the theory that Jim Morrison is actually kind of a poet.
17. Refer to Kim Jong-un as "Jackie Flan."
18. Hang a sign on my cubicle wall that reads 'THE DOCTOR IS IN' during office hours.
19. Pretend I know jack squat about British, Irish, Australian or New Zealand politics.
20. Complain about the mysterious brown and green stains in my copy of The Bartender's Bible.
21. "To Serve Man" is not the best Twilight Zone episode.
22. Refuse to shave and claim that I'm saving money on razor blades.
23. Before spraying the bathroom walls down with bleach, I must remember to remove towels and toothbrushes from the area.
24. At the Mountains of Madness is not H.P. Lovecraft's annual family camping trip.
25. Intimidate my pupils with French if they complain that English is too hard.
26. Clean my glasses with my necktie.
27. Cooking with vodka is not an excuse to do frequent taste tests.
28. Name every chapter of my novel after a classic rock song.
29. I am not permitted to sell the extra pistol ammo I pick up during side missions in RAGE. This is called war profiteering.
30. Play air piano along with David Bowie's "Life on Mars?"
31. The fire alarm does not signify that North Korea is invading.
32. "Motorcycling through South America" is not a valid reason for a sabbatical.
33. Use hashtags on Facebook in the name of satire.
I can't say much right now because it's 1:26 p.m. KST and I have work in thirty minutes. But I've been having a hard time lately. Somebody's karma ran over my dogma or something.
Long story short (pun intended), I'm five thousand words behind on my NaNoWriMo project. I have three tests left to grade and input. Miss H has gone home for two weeks to get some stuff done. The cat's acting crazy and I'm getting over a head cold. But hey, at least the weather's nice. It's cool and moist. There was a luscious thick fog at 5:00 this morning and it was so dense I couldn't even see the neon sign on the church a hundred yards away. (Yes, the churches here light up their crosses with red or blue neon lights, and usually have illuminated names, too.)
Excuse me, I'm going to go grade the hell out of those tests and then eat me some stir-fried squid over rice (ojingeo deopbap, for your edification). TGIF, people. TGIF.
From the correct side of the International Dateline, this is Postie. Over and out.
And that means it's time for yet another cocktail review, courtesy of your humble bartender. Correspondent, I mean. Yes, correspondent.
Yeah, okay. I know. I haven't done a cocktail review since December. Cry your pardon. Things have been mad around here. I promise that, even if I don't keep up with the other crap, I'll put a cocktail review up every Friday, at least. Does that suit you?
And you're in luck. You've happily stumbled across the second of my rarer-than-political-accountability SHOT REVIEWS!
Today's is the Golden Apple, discovered in The Professional Bartender's Handbook, a semi-recent acquisition and a fine supplement to The Bartender's Bible. Fifteen hundred drink recipes listed in plain English. If the book has a flaw, it's that the drinks are not organized by spirit (whiskey, rum, vodka, etc.); they're alphabetical. Good luck trying to find a shot or a good tequila cocktail with TPBH.
Anyway, I happened to spot this recipe in there and, captivated by the mythological reference, I decided to—
Oh, don't tell me you don't get the mythological reference.
Well, that just means I'll have to educate you bums a bit. Let the digression begin!
Atalanta was a minor figure in Greek mythology. As the story goes, her father, King Misogynist, wanted a son. When his daughter was born, he left her on a mountaintop to die. Rumor has it that a she-bear found her and nursed her, and she grew up wild and fierce and furry as most bears do. (Presumably, she ate a lot of fish and beat the shit out of any male bears she came across.)
She was independent, though. When she grew up she decided she didn't need men and took an oath of virginity to the goddess Artemis, another forest-dwelling lady who had taken the same oath. And unlike Miley Cyrus, Atalanta stuck to her vow. When two centaurs tried to rape her, she killed them. That may not have anything to do with her oath, though. I don't think even Aphrodite was into the whole centaur-rape thing. Hermes, maybe. But not Aphrodite.
After Atalanta had made a name for herself with some rousing adventures, King Misogynist finally found her again. Suddenly proud, he wanted to marry her off. Atalanta agreed to marry, but only if her suitor could outrun her, fully armed and armored. A lotta men tried, and a lotta men died (heat stroke, cardiac arrest, and jealousy being the main contributors).
One day an enterprising young man appeared on the horizon. His name was Hippomenes (or Melanion, depending on which embarrassing nickname you prefer: "Hippo" or "Melonhead"). He fell hopelessly in love with Atalanta at first sight. In desperation, he asked the love goddess Aphrodite to help him win the race. Aphrodite, already irked at Atalanta for eschewing love and sex, agreed to help Hippo despite his embarrassing moniker. She gave the kid three golden apples.
"Here, Hip," she said. "Take these. They're irresistible. Every time Atalanta draws even with you, chuck one of 'em in front of her. That'll slow her down."
"Irresistible?" asked Hippo. "Does Atalanta like apples that much?" "No, Hippo. Girls like shiny things. Everybody knows it. Give a woman something shiny and she suddenly forgets everything. You know the song "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend"? Of course you don't, because Marilyn Monroe won't be born for another two thousand years. Never mind who she is. Bitch'll have a better body than mine. But the rule applies, and has ever since Day One. Trust me. Toss one of these babies into her path and she'll go ga-ga over it. Should buy you some time."
"Oh," Hippo said. He hesitated.
"Should I wash them first?"
"Get going, Melonhead."
So the day of the race arrived. Hippo did what Aphrodite said. Every time Atalanta was about to pull ahead of him, he rolled a golden apple in front of her. Every time, she stopped to pick it up. Soon Hippo got the idea and was throwing the golden fruit as far as he could. He won the race while Atalanta was hunting around under the bleachers for the third apple. A & H got married and had some heroic sons. Eventually Zeus turned the married couple into lions, allegedly because they'd done the dirty deed in one of his temples. (The belief at the time was that lions could not mate with their own species, only with leopards; and so Zeus believed he was biologically exiling A & H from one another. Boy, was he barking up the wrong Doric column.)
And so, this story proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, once and for all, that girls just can't resist shiny things.
But I digress. Here's the recipe for a Golden Apple shot:
½ ounce Goldschläger
½ ounce Sour Apple Pucker
Pour the ingredients into a shot glass.
As you might expect, Goldschläger being cinnamon schnapps and Sour Apple Pucker being (what else?) sour apple schnapps, this shooter tastes remarkably like...
...APPLE CINNAMON!
For real and for true. While imbibing, one is given the impression that one is sucking down an rather runny, spicy apple pie. Very spicy. It packs a punch. Goldschläger burns. And Sour Apple Pucker is pretty sour stuff, as you might expect. So, after a quick draw and a quicker gulp, one finds oneself simultaneously puckering up and coughing. The spice sticks to the back of the throat, the sourness pervades the palate, and the finish is a glorious combination of cinnamon and apple, working as much magic on the memory as it does upon the gustatory calyculi. All in all, a challenging, flavorful, and remarkably simple shooter.
Just don't let the gold flakes get stuck in your teeth.
Man, was it ever a beautiful day today. The temperature was in the mid-70s, with lots of sun and a mild breeze out of the north. Absolutely perfect, in other words. Spring is in the air, all right...
Work went swimmingly. There was a lot of traffic in the skies this morning, and the winds kicked up a little in the afternoon, but we escorted the UAV safely out and back. I think I'm even getting the hang of flying the Mooney. It's a tenacious beast, and quite finicky, but if you know what you're doing, it's a hot rod. I just can't get the dang thing trimmed right.
What is "trimming," you ask?
Good question. No, I didn't have to climb out of the airplane in mid-air and take snippets off the wings with a pair of garden shears. You'd like that, wouldn't you?
"Trim" refers to minute adjustments of the control surfaces to keep the plane level and make flying easier on the pilot. In small planes, it's usually controlled by a wheel in the cockpit somewhere. In the Mooney, spinning the wheel moves the entire tail. (That's why it's a complex plane, sweetheart.)
Boss #3, Dawg, let me take over the controls as soon as we were at a safe altitude climbing out of Apple Valley, and I got everything else done as far as leveling out was concerned: pulling the throttle back until the manifold pressure gauge was at 20 inches or so; twiddling the propeller knob until the tachometer was at 2450 RPM; but the trim wouldn't get set right. Either I've got an unsteady hand on the controls, or the plane kept wanting to climb or descend.
Oh well. Everything else went fine today. We cracked the door open as soon as we touched down for a landing, letting the delicious breeze get blown into the cockpit by the prop wash.
Moving on...
The Sententious Vaunter has made some new friends!
Following the Drunk At First Sight Blogfest, we've got a few new faces around here. Plus there's a few new blogs I've found that I'd like to tell you about, so I think I'll take a leaf out of Jon Paul's book and share some link love with you.
Dr. Bamboo - No, of course mine is not the only boozy blog out there. The good doctor knows a heck of a lot more about the drinking game than I do. Check this blog out for some rare and insanely interesting cocktail recipes and a wealth of knowledge and witty writing about our favorite libations.
From the Faraway, Nearby - This photographer's been all around, and best of all, he's taken pictures of most of it. For some of the most ethereally beautiful photographs you've ever seen, check this blog out.
Ftocheia - This blog is not for the faint of heart. Thanatos's writing is dark, certainly, but it's well done. There's more raw emotional power in one of her posts than there is in some tragic novels. For creative fiction and shared thoughts, you must have a look.
Murrmurrs - A former postal worker muses on some of life's quirks. Trust me, you haven't looked at things from this angle before. Or rather, you have. You just haven't heard them phrased so cleverly before. Her philosophy is "Really, most things are funny." How can you go wrong with that?
Points of Claire-ification - Claire lives in Japan and blogs with the infectious enthusiasm of somebody who is doing something really cool and knows it (but isn't sententious about it, like me). For tear-jerking graduation stories, writing tales (and jolly good writing), and random Japanese lessons, this blog is a must.
Got that? Now, I'd like each and every one of you who's read this to check those links out (except, of course, your own) and see what they're about. It'll be worth your while. Spread the love. And this isn't the end, either. I might share some more links later on if this trend works out.
To all those of you who clicked that "Follow" button, I just want to say: thank you. I'll try not to disappoint.
Four people crowd around a small table in a one-room apartment on a tilted, crooked street. The street is in the second-largest town on the second-largest island off the southern coast of South Korea. Two of these people are English, one is Canadian, the other American. The lights are low. The drink has been flowing for several hours, courtesy of yours truly, your friendly neighborhood expatriate bartender-in-training. There's a bed, a few poles with clothes hung on them, a dresser, a derelict TV, a refrigerator, a tiny kitchenette, and a bathroom around the corner. By now, the linoleum floor is gritty with tortilla chip crumbs and dropped peanuts. The air is filled with the smell of alcohol, salty snacks, laundry detergent, Korean pepper paste, citrus, and maraschino cherries. The laptop is on. Several YouTube videos on the screen, one playing Curtis Mayfield's "Superfly"; Groove Armada and Oasis wait in the wings. Jokes are being cracked, stories told, laughs exchanged, fun had. Four plastic highball glasses (filled with rum daisies, tequila moonrises or Chelsea Hotels) are making the rounds between table and lips. Occasionally, one of the four people leaves to use the lavatory; sometimes the entire company adjourns to the rooftop to stargaze, or to look out over the uneven, haphazard, Mary-Poppins skyline of the city. All of us are in a drunken stupor, a happy haze. We've had a hard day of teaching hyperactive Korean children the finer points of the English language. Perhaps we graded 30 journals at a stretch, having to add in all the articles (or subtract all the excess) ourselves. Maybe little Tommy was acting up again and gave us a headache. Maybe it was hot as hell in the classroom because the head secretary's too goddamn cheap to turn on the A/C. Maybe we just had a bad day. But it's all gone now.
September 25 was my 23rd birthday. Seeing as how I am back in Apple Valley, where I once lived for seven years and attended high school (among other things), I was in a unique position. Many of my old high school chums were back in town, either living with their parents, too, or working, or attending Victor Valley College. Not only that, but September 25 fell on a Friday. Not only that, but my parents would also be out of town that weekend, in Wyoming, signing over the Cheyenne house to the buyers.
So, naturally, I decided to throw a party. I put the word out on Facebook, a dozen people signed up to come, and before you knew it the 25th had rolled around. And it was a fun party.
No, more fun than that...
Okay, now we're getting there...
Perfect.
I'd been dismissed on Thursday (see a small dose of the real world). Nevertheless I had set my teeth and created a master to-do list that evening, including the comestibles I needed to buy, the cleaning I had to do, the unrelated errands I had to run, and so forth.
Let's take a look at the liquor-and-snack page:
BOOZE
One liter gold tequila
Two 750-ml bottles of sparkling wine
Four 750-ml bottles of Sauternes
Two 24-packs of beer
COMESTIBLES
One bottle of lemon juice
Two or three 12-packs of soda
Three bottles of assorted fruit juice
Several different bags of chips
Several bags of Chex mix
Some jars of peanuts
One honeydew melon
Broccoli florets
Carrot sticks
Cherry tomatoes
Celery
Ranch dip [I meant to write "dressing"]
Tortillas
Microwaveable chicken fingers or cheese sticks
Pizza Rolls
Three cans of dog food
One block of ice
Paper cups
Impressive, isn't it? Just to clear the air, the dog food was, indeed, for the dogs. We were running low, so I thought I'd just grab some while I was out. With the exception of the beer, all the of the booze (and the honeydew melon) was intended for the punch I was going to make: Frank Davis punch, as borrowed from The Bartender's Bible.
And so I sallied forth boldly on Friday morning, shaking off whatever self-esteem issues were still lingering about after Thursday's events, to buy up these materials.
It took two and a half hours. True, I had to stop and buy some hoses for my car (see how to register a car in Southern California), but that was still the longest food-shopping trip I've been on in a while. I managed to procure all the ingredients at WinCo except for the block of ice. I was originally going to buy a head of broccoli and make the florets myself, but I saw an inexpensive bag of pre-cut ones already on the shelf in the produce section. I had to double back once because I forgot the honeydew melon, but apart from that my progress through the store was chronological and orderly. I shouldn't have gotten paper cups (or plates, or napkins) because we'd just had a rather large get-together at our house (see Swedish farriers and so on) and there was a stockpile of artificial dinnerware heaped in our pantry already. WinCo didn't have Sauternes in the strictest sense of the word, so I substituted white zinfandel instead. The beer was a monstrous success. I got three twelve-packs of Widmer's Drifter Pale Ale, Newcastle Brown Ale, and St. Pauli Girl, respectively. I couldn't find a block of ice to save my soul, not even at Rite-Aid. Oh well. For better of for worse, I acquired the ingredients, completed my errands, and got home without losing anything (either my groceries or my marbles).
Then came the cleaning. I managed to avoid tying a handkerchief around my head, but it was a close thing. I vacuumed the whole house, hard floors and everything; swept the front and back porches, and the garage; cleaned the bathroom (yuck); spot-mopped things like the kitchen counter and the bathroom scale; cleared all the zombies out of the attic (just joking); and picked up all the dog poop in the backyard. Then I sat myself down and waited. I decided I wasn't going to set out a whole bunch of snacks before the party began; I wasn't expecting an enormous influx of guests right off the bat. Whoever came first would come first and then I'd start preparing munchies (and punch...uh, punchies). I turned on the Yankees/Red Sox game and settled in for the guests to arrive.
About 5:00 I got a call from Chris, class of '06 (two behind me); I'd asked him an hour earlier to bring me a bag of ice. He called up and said he had, so would it be okay if he could come out an hour early? I said fine, I was just sitting around. A ridiculously short time later, Chris pulled up. (He has a tomato-red 2004 Ford Mustang, and drives it as such; he told me he was doing 40 mph up the dirt roads to my house.) We secured the ice in the freezer, poured some into the cooler to chill the faux-Sauternes and the bubbly, and then Chris suddenly gave me my presents.
And what presents! I'd dropped a little hint on Facebook earlier in the week, suggesting that I was low on particular varieties of liquor. Little did I guess how zealously my guests would take it to heart. Chris had brought me not one, but two bottles: Stolichnaya and some 15-year-old Glenfiddich. Real Russian vodka and some single-malt Scotch which I'd always wanted to sample. Needless to say, I grabbed his head and gave the man a big ol' kiss right on the forehead. And then I went ahead and made us both some kamikazes. Two ounces of Stolichnaya and a little sweetened lime juice, drunk in one go. It was tricky (Stolichnaya's got a little bite to it) but fun. Then I poured Chris a beer and we chatted for a while. I set out the grapes, some chips, and some Chex mix.
Before long, Crystal called in and said she was on her way, and which road should she turn down again? I filled her in, and she showed up quickly. From her small white car, she unloaded her baby son, Andrew; a backpack filled with toys and diapers; some oranges that had been injected with tequila; and half a bottle of Jose Cuervo Black Medallion.
This was going to be good.
Andrew was a marvelous little chap, and was so throughout the whole party. Our rambunctious talk didn't faze him. He didn't cry, he just looked around at us all with an adorable, bemused expression on his face. Crystal kept a close and loving eye on him, and didn't drink hardly a drop. (All of our designated drivers, Crystal, John and Amanda, did splendid work and demonstrated exemplary restraint: all were stone-sober when they arrived, stone-sober while they partied, and stone-sober when they left.) Little Andrew conked out about midnight and slept right through our Apples to Apples game, except when I was stupid and loud.
The tequila-laced oranges were good; I couldn't really taste the booze in them but there might have been a hint of it lurking just underneath the citrus flavor.
I haven't sampled the Jose Cuervo yet. That comes tomorrow.
After Crystal arrived, I set out some peanuts and some watermelon. I was working off the theory of graduated snack increase.
Crystal, Chris and I stood around and chatted for another hour and half until about 7:20, when the rest of the party began to trickle in. John and Basel were first, and after I greeted them at the door, beer in hand, they unloaded their generosity upon me: bottles of Grey Goose vodka and Speyburn 10-year-old Scotch, plus a couple of cigars, Cohiba and Ashton respectively. The words "yippee" and "Jumpin' Jehoshaphat YEEHAW" were running through my head at this point. John and Basel got settled in, and I washed the veggies, sliced some celery and set out the vegetable platter (with ranch dip). I also toasted up some Pizza Rolls. The five of us stood around and gabbed about things like deadly weaponry, the state of our alma mater, and politics while we drank beer. It was about this point that I switched off the baseball game (which had since ended, and turned into Spider-man) and put on the music, a nice little selection ranging from AC/DC to James Brown. People seemed to enjoy it.
And then the girls arrived. Beth, Amanda and Virginia pulled up to the front of the house. It was dark by this time, so as soon as John and Basel spotted headlights on the road they leaped out of the front door and into the shadowy recesses of the shrubs. Crystal edged left, out of the harsh yellow glare thrown by the porch light. Chris and I were left to stand on the stoop, already half-drunk, and wonder innocently where the rest of the guests had got to, speculating loudly on the identities of the three girls who had just arrived. Amanda, Beth and Virginia were escorted inside, Basel and John and Crystal monitoring their every move like hungry tigers, and then the party really began. We made the punch (a messy process indeed, especially without a melon baller), I mixed up cocktails for everybody, refilled the Pizza Roll dish almost constantly, and kept up what intelligible conversation I could under the hectic circumstances. Virginia presented me with a giant two-liter bottle of Smirnoff, while Beth and Amanda had chipped in for some Admiral Nelson's Spiced Rum and Wild Turkey, respectively. That's not to mention the wonderfully thoughtful cards that they got me, which lent to my heart that abnormally pleasant fuzzy feeling.
Jeez, could this birthday possibly get any better?
It did. Once we'd all had a few drinks of the punch (and some cocktails: screwdriver, Mozart, tiger juice, etc.), we sat down to play Apples to Apples. For those poor suckers out there in the audience who don't know what that is, here's the skinny. There are several varieties, but the one played most often goes like this: you put a "green apple card" down in the middle of the table (floor, car hood, stripper's stomach, as the case may be). Each player is dealt seven "red apple cards." Each of the green cards has an adjective on it. It could be anything: cute, dangerous, frustrating, pretty, fuzzy, morbid, exemplary, extraordinary...while each of the red cards has a noun or a noun phrase on it. Rolling the car, elephants, Liberace, guns, hippies, the 1970s, Richard M. Nixon, Indiana Jones, all of those and more. Each player puts down the red card (face-down) that they think matches the green card best. Say, if the green card was "adventurous" then a player might put down "Indiana Jones." Another player might put down "the 1960s," and so on. The dealer judges these cards, saying them aloud and laying them down on the table for extra hilarity. (For even more hilarity, players can put down the card they think least approximates the meaning of the adjective; i.e. the proper noun "Richard M. Nixon" being matched with the adjective "trustworthy.") Whoever put down the red card which the dealer selects as the best match gets to keep the matching green card, and scores a point. First person to a certain number of points wins.
Man, this game is always fun, and always hilarious. Seeing the words people put down to match up with certain adjectives (particularly when they don't have a very good hand) is a gut-busting experience.
And so we played until late into the night, Andrew curled up on the couch, all of us sitting around the coffee table (in the armchairs I had huffed and puffed to get out of the back bedrooms into the living room), laughing and joking and insulting one another, occasionally getting up to go to the bathroom or make another cocktail. All too soon, at about 1:30, John, Basel, Amanda, Beth and Virginia headed home, either because they had work in the morning or had to get back down the hill. I thanked them again profusely and saw them out, mentally praying that the horrendously bumpy dirt roads wouldn't defeat them on their way out. Chris, Crystal and I lingered a little longer, but soon Crystal was packing up the baby things and departing with much cheer (not before she masterfully and selflessly cleaned up the kitchen and front room; I hardly had to do anything the next morning). Chris and I were rather soused, so I insisted Chris stay the night and prepared a bed for him. We both fell asleep almost immediately and snored until about 9 a.m. the next morning.
We rolled out of bed, popped a couple of ibuprofen, drank some fruit juice, and ate some fried eggs and ham. Then Chris climbed into his hot rod and headed off into the hot morning sunshine.
And the party was over. (Only in a nice way, not like in The Shining.)
Echoing George Harrison, I would just like to say "Thanks for the pepperoni": pepperoni here meaning booze, thoughtful birthday cards, booze, cigars, booze, good times, booze, kind words, booze, and more booze. Thanks, guys. You made my century.
