Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Cocktails

 I left my mother yesterday afternoon and went to my house to take care of chores that were needed there.  I had emptied out the crispers in the refrigerator, but some of the vegetables had rotted so badly, there was a cold soup in the drawers.  The mushrooms had really done a number, but there were beet leaves glued to the sides as well.  I took them outside, hosed and scrubbed them good, and left them to dry.  I chucked a lot more mystery food, too, and cleaned the shelves.  I ran the printer, checked the mail, and updated my computer which has been crashing on its own, in its sleep, for reasons unknown.  Scary.  I showered and shaved and fed the cat.  It was mid-afternoon.  

I wanted a cocktail. 

I thought about going to one of my favorite bars for a drink and some lunch.  I haven't been there since my birthday just prior to the Covid outbreak.  I Googled their menu and found that they were closed.  Son of a bitch.  What to do?  I tried to think of other places I might go, but couldn't.  I am out of practice.  No other bar in town makes cocktails as good as this one.  

I decided to make my own.  I had ingredients for a Margarita.  Bing, bang, bong.  

There are two reasons for drinking a cocktail.  The other is letting your friends know.  Out came the phone.  A little manipulation, and my cocktail/photo masterpiece was zeroes and ones in the internet ether.  A bit later, so was number two.  

What can spoil the fun of drinking more, however, than when your friends are not.  My travel/art buddy texted back that this was the first dry day at his house.  Q has been a dry drunk for sometime now.  CC is still taking his cocktails, however, but one and a half out of three isn't a great number.  It gets worse.  My replacement has substituted weed for calories, or so he says.  A gal pal doesn't drink during the week.  Another friend is experimenting with his mental health and LSD.  Health issues prevents my old college roommate from even drinking beer.  What has happened, anyway?  

When I got back to my mother's, I poured a scotch and lit a little cheroot.  My mother wasn't hungry and was going to eat cottage cheese and pineapple for dinner. I didn't feel like cooking, so I went to a little Peruvian dive up the street and got take out chicken, fried plantains, black beans and rice.  Well. . . it used to be a Peruvian restaurant.  That doesn't sound very Peruvian, though.  But the portions are big and the price is right.  Back at my mother's, I ate half of it with a beer.  Then an after dinner drink.  

You see what I'm saying?  Perhaps it is time to limit myself to the after dinner scotch.  I mean only that.  I don't want to quit drinking, but maybe I shouldn't be drinking as much.  I can't smoke the ganja like my art dealer.  After the wreck, my lung can't take the smoke.  I don't enjoy eating it much.  It just takes too long to kick in and then I eat more and wake up in the night all kinds of weird.  

But I have gotten unforgivably fat.  It makes me sad.  Where is the skinny lad who could break a beautiful woman's heart?  He's been eaten by a drunk, it seems.  

I'm not good at absolutes.  Abstinence is the root of all evil.  But look what happened to Falstaff.  I don't want to meet up with my friends for some celery juice, but maybe I should be drinking a little more of that at home.  You know--chlorophyl!  I need to settle in at mother's.  Fill the fridge.  Kambucha.  Jamba Juice.  Elixers of Life.  

Last night, I watched "The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia" with my mother.  I'd seen it before, but I wanted her to see it.  I grew up with those people.  My mother's side of the family are full of such hillbillies.  Watching their constant ingestion of anything that would get them high. . . well. . . it wasn't attractive.  

Still. . . a sophisticated cocktail is another thing.  Not the kind you get at Pete's Hideaway, but the one you used to drink at the old Oak Room in Manhattan.  I have a photo of Q sitting with his current ex-wife in the window there somewhere.  I am outside and he has turned to look through the tall window at me.  Why was I outside?  Was I meeting them there?  

O.K.  No more Pete's.  Cocktails are sophisticated things.  I'll limit myself to those wonderful moments.  Sucking up the scotch on the couch at my mother's house could do me in.  


2 comments:


  1. Whew. What a fucking day. I just got in. I did drop off the house key to my babysitting gig - I hope they go away again soon. I was reminded of how fun it was to babysit. The only thing missing was a Boy that I could sneak in to visit.

    Anyway. I'm making shakshuka - I know it is late but it will be my first meal of the day. Except for coffee and almonds. I'm starved.

    My cousin is one of 10. We grew up together - us cousins. My parents house and my grandparents house were the only two places (other than the beach house) where that family got invited. I mean - it was an instant plus 12 with them.

    Every year my grandparents had a huge Labor Day picnic. It was a grand celebration that lasted from daylight -long into the night - an outdoor fireplace roaring (maybe cooking some more corn on the cob or a second round of hotdogs or hamburgers). We couldn't wait til dark - that's when we got our sparklers.

    My uncle's kids were "different." They weren't allowed all the freedoms we were - be it going with Uncle Nick (father of the 10) to the reservoir and jumping off the rocks into the water or flying over the water on a rope swing - or even simply sparklers. Their mother was, what is known today as a helicopter mom.

    Anyway, in that "different family" our oldest cousin was K. Well he liked us girls. There are 7 girls in the 10 and me.

    Last night, after several delicious cocktails, at my first outdoor gathering of the season, we revealed to my mother (again) that Kevin used to try to slip us the tongue and feel us up when we greeted him, which we tried to avoid for as long as possible.

    Oh, we'd giggle and be disgusted by his antics in private - "Don't ever get caught with him in the garage!! Grandpa's car ( a
    dodge dart) is parked in there and there is no escape!"

    "Don't let him get you when you are coming out of the bathroom - ewwwww."

    If you didn't greet him when he arrived - it was his mission to "catch up to you," at some point during the party.

    "Liiiisa, you didn't say hello...."

    My cousin and I were laughing whole-heartedly re-telling the stories.

    Is that wrong? Should I report him? (JK)

    I remember his very wet, thin lips - and the feel of his stubby tongue trying to slip in my mouth. My cousin remembers him grabbing her ass and pressing her boobs into his chest.

    My mother, of course, said "you two are telling tales." I suggested we should - right then - call the cousins involved and ask them their memories - no doubt we'd gain pages of corroborating evidence.

    "Kevin is a married man with two children," she tried to say.

    As if that has anything to do with being 16/17 and feeling up your girl cousins.

    And we aren't even hillbillies.

    I'm not even sure I should be telling that story. Would they try to arrest him now? Christ. What a world. I mean, I'm not condoning molestation, of course, but we all made it through. Is that wrong to say as well? Shit.

    Can't blame it on Monsanto - can we?

    Where was I?

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  2. Like the snaps btw.

    "dry drunk" made me giggle.

    Well. It's late. I have to drive up to the faraway office tomorrow. I suppose I should save my story about being asked to participate in a threeway (again) for another time.

    You can't make this shit up.

    You know, I still get crazy about the thought of U, even though I'm 150 years old and you don't think of me that way. It's a fun happy feeling now. It's okay for me to say it, right?

    Tonight the G.B. said again "Your face, your skin - you look like you are getting younger -- you look beautiful." That was kind of him.

    It's the Gua sha stone. The roller is good but the guasha stone - that is hardcore. Oh and probably my new curtain bangs help.

    My brother, was at one time, wrapped up in a pyramid selling scheme of green plant slime that was supposed to make you live forever - or something. It began with K.

    okies. my eyes are closing. Stay safe from the storm.

    every day is a day in the right direction for Ma - and U. x

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