Happy Beerthday

So now I can finally blog about the *surprise* birthday festivities. The irony is that Thursday’s actual-birthday night pub crawl was followed by Saturday’s *surprise* microbrew crawl. Hmmmm, does anyone see an issue theme here?

That’s right, Rita surprised me on Saturday by organizing a tour of various microbreweries in San Diego. How fun is that? What made this all the more special is that most of the 7 or 8 people who joined us don’t even drink beer. [Perhaps they just joined because they didn’t want to risk missing another rousing chorus of Whiskey in the Jar]. It really is so odd…nobody in Nashville drinks wine and nobody in California drinks beer. Must I bridge EVERY cultural divide?? [I’m still working on that football thing.]

Honestly – it’s like the Mississippi river is the demarcation line of alcohol. Tanins to the west, hops to the east and never the twain shall meet – or as Dr. Seuss put it: Red State, Blue State, Cab state, Brew state.

But when my wine-drinking friends DO engage in beer drinking, they are apt to say things like…”ohhh I taste apricot on the finish of this beer – don’t you?” Ummmm, I generally taste another beer on the finish of my beer. Just sayin’

And with the conclusion of the pub-crawlin birthday festivus…we officially return tomorrow to more installments about Southwest travel.

Pub Crawl

Before we get to the Saturday *surprise* birthday festivities, let me recap last Thursday’s actual birthday night event. Given my choice of any plan – I opted for a pub crawl in the neighborhood:

• Who knew that Rita lived in Tin Pan Alley? No joke, there are like 14 bars within walking distance of her house. I knew I moved out here for a reason.
• Next year, I think we'll introduce food at stop 2 and not stop 13
• The Irish drinking song “Whiskey in The Jar” must come with the juke box starter kit – because we played it at EVERY single bar we went to. Someone put so many quarters into the jukebox at the The Ould Sod that it’s STILL playing there.
• My mom’s visit to San Diego is now planned
• You know it was a good night when members of your party are alternatively doing the moonwalk and a two-step (neither one being location-appropriate at the time, but no matter). It does look a little funny to see your neighbor moonwalking to Whiskey in the Jar, but the girl with the pool glove kind of liked it.
• Tell me again how Joe and Emily ended up entangled in the boot of that Audi? I might be wrong – but I think they came out wearing each others’ shirts.
• The pool hall was a particularly interesting stop. It spawned its own mini-list:

1. Ummm, do NOT challenge the woman with her own pool cue to a game of pool a) you’ll lose b) she thinks it’s flirting
2. I’ve been to a pool bar or two in my day (I am from Southern Indiana, afterall) and didn’t even know they MADE pool gloves. It’s like a glove for only your index finger & thumb – so as to leave your other fingers free & clear to grip your beer
3. Where else can you get an hour’s (or hours) worth of entertainment for 75 cents?

Books

Rita got me the Kindle for my birthday. How cool is that? It is a pretty appropriate gift given my propensity to read these big non-fiction tomes while criss-crossing the country. Seriously, in 2007 and 2008, I read the book “Harry S. Truman” by David McCullough. At 975 pages, the book was akin to carrying around the actual bodyweight of our 33rd president. Given that I read about 3 pages an hour…the book saw me through two winters. Which means it traveled from Evansville to Philly to Rio to home. If they had stamped it like a passport, it would have at least become interesting.

So a Kindle should be MUCH more convenient. At first, I was a little ambivalent about the Kindle because I wondered how I could pretend to be smart to the people sitting next to me on the plane. Oh well...everytime I think I am going to impress the person sitting beside me with my newest historical opus, they pull out something like the Bible and I feel foolish.

Actually, I have fairly diverse taste in books. My recent shipment from Amazon consisted of “Are You There Vodka, It’s Me Chelsea” and “Gandhi and Churchill”. I’m sure they were all equally offended by the company being kept in the shipment box. Guess which of the two I actually finished.

Well…gotta run, time to download Sarah Palin’s new autobiography.

Birthday celebration

I like to subtly remind people that my birthday is coming up…mostly by saying things like – hey it’s my birthday Thursday. This year, however, Rita has beat me to it by inviting a group of friends in San Diego to a special Saturday birthday celebration tomorrow (apparently she didn’t get the memo about celebrating AFTER my birthday, but it’s okay because I’ve outgrown such things). But here’s the kicker, I don’t have any idea what the Saturday celebration involves. That’s right – a complete unknown. So after some understandable discomfort resulting from my lack of total control of the proceedings, I am now getting quite excited about the event.

Here are some of my theories on what Rita may have planned for the all-day surprise celebration:

• An all-day garage cleaning festivus. (I keep telling Rita that branding it a festivus does NOT make it festive)
• I have no idea because Rita gives really, really bad clues…e.g., we have to drive there [well at least that garage thing is out]. You should wear something comfortable [good to know that I shouldn’t be uncomfortable during this particular celebration], food will be provided [and I was SO sure I would be cooking for my own birthday]. Really – a LOUSY clue giver. [Did I mention lack of control of the event?]
• It starts at 9 am – so it must involve the breakfast beer
• I take this as a good sign – so far, nary a single seating chart has been prepared
• It couldn’t possibly involve those big fat sumo costumes again – it isn’t going to be anywhere near 103 degrees on Saturday
• Wait a second…a secret event…a group of friends…is this an intervention!??!?
• I don’t know what it is…but I think Jon Stewart is going to be there (expectations for the event have obviously NOT been managed appropriately)
  

At least I am reasonably assured of having something to blog about next week.

Dining Out

Rita & I recently joined our friends Joe & Paul in an excursion to a one-of-a-kind restaurant. It was no accident that we ended up at this particular restaurant because the foodies in the group (hint: not me or Joe) have been stalking this place for years. All it took was the Great Recession and voila – reservations are available to the common folk.

This restaurant is apparently famous (fame being relative, of course) for pioneering new ways of preparing and serving food in the most extravagant aesthetic way possible. By way of context – if Rube Goldberg were still alive, he would be in charge of table service. For example, one course was served on a pillow. That’s right – a pillow. But wait, there’s more. A pillow filled with lavender-infused air. As the pillow deflated, lavender escaped and mingled with your rhubarb sorbet. Are you freakin kidding me?? (The waiter did NOT appreciate my comparison to a “pot-pourri satchel who’s fragrance would enhance your entire underwear drawer”.)

The steak course (and by course, I mean 2 inch square of wagyu beef) was presented alongside a ceramic vase­ on the table containing dry ice and herbs. When our waiter added the water to the centerpiece, clouds of rosemary-infused smoke began erupting from the vase and cascading onto the floor. And I mean ALL over the floor. Between our particular table of patrons and the billowy smoke effects, we were one Donna Summer song away from official gay-bar designation.

The presentation of each course seemed to escalate throughout the night until I was certain the last course was going to be shot out of a dessert cannon from the kitchen (I was NOT that far off).

I find it challenging enough to deal with any food that isn't served in its own wrapper. If you provide a course inverted on its head, suspended over a soup bowl or dangling off a wire – you better expect some tablecloth casualties from the food “day-brie” that will go flying around me. (Obviously “aethestics” do not call for low-centers-of-gravity that might otherwise assist when Lucy Ricardo’s bumbling cousin comes to dinner). By the second course, the restaurant had allocated one whole server to nothing but my spillages.

And the topper…Rita bought the cookbook.

Is Sarah Palin Breaking Up with Us?

Sarah, don’t do it. I still have two more months ‘til football starts and I need SOMETHING to read on the internet during all those conference calls. Surely it will take more than one rambling, incoherent resignation speech to stop the juggernaut of Caribou Barbie.

Have you honestly seen any other failed VP candidate cause this kind of a stir? Lloyd Bentsen lived to be 105 and never accumulated this much publicity. (My apologies to Lloyd Bentsen if he’s actually still alive – but it would underscore my point.)

Actually, in this particular episode of Northern Exposure – it's the pundits and professionals that are the most fun to watch. People who would otherwise be in President McCain’s cabinet right now are busy engaging in an especially catty episode of Gossip Girl all over the pages of Vanity Fair magazine. Bloggers have started a “Shoe Watch” in anticipation of the rest of the story. And Sarah Palin is alternatively “crazy like a fox” or “one nutty buddy” depending on whether you lean Wall Street Journal or New York Times.

I read the text of her resignation speech which…I swear…contained 17 exclamation points and 2 smiley faces. As Gail Collins wrote: “Truly, Sarah Palin has come a long way. When she ran for vice president, she frequently became disjointed and garbled when she departed from her prepared remarks. Now the prepared remarks are incoherent, too.”

But me? I couldn’t help but feel inspired to “effect positive change outside government at this point in time on another scale and actually make a difference for our priorities.”

Oh, Sarah…I can’t quit you.

Cooking Class Part II

So the class that I gave Rita for her birthday was all Vietnamese cooking. Mostly I picked this class because I thought it included sake (turns out sake isn’t Vietnamese after all…).

I expected the teacher to be a little Asian woman. Imagine my surprise when we were met by the whitest 2nd whitest woman in San Diego. She immediately had my sympathy because would you want to be the one to teach cooking to Rita (or worse…her trusty sidekick Papa John)? I knew when she passed around the scrapbook of her recent visit to Vietnam that we were in for a long night.

My key takeaway from the Vietnamese cooking class is this:
A good cook in Vietnam only buys live animals because then they know how their meat stock died.

I don’t know about you…but to me…the sign of any good meal is its dependence on an autopsy. And my friends want to know why I don’t want to join them on their next trip to Vietnam. [“That steak looks lovely – but how was it feeling the day before it died?”]. You know…”eat what you kill” has a MUCH better connotation in the consulting world.

The other valuable tidbits I took away about Vietnamese cooking:

• Fish sauce lasts forever [ummmm….so do Twinkies? Do we know how the fish in this sauce died?]
• Fish sauce is the Vietnamese equivalent of ketchup [smelly, sticky, nuclear-winter survivin’ ketchup]
• If it takes forever to fry your crispy noodles, than your oil is too cold [For this I went to class?]

And my BIGGEST takeaway from the TV-like cooking show…it’s a lot easier to be a great cook when someone else cuts everything up for you. Unfortunately, Rita learned the same thing =(