If You Please

This particular evening is ending in the same grand way this morning began: Black Velvet.

If you have toasted with me in the past month, you probably know that this is my new favorite drink - half hard cider, half Guinness (all deliciousness).

Now, technically a Black Velvet is supposed to be made with champagne instead of cider, but I don’t know of any bar that will mix that for you. However, today was my lucky day; it just so happens that someone gave me a bottle of champagne along with specific instructions that it be opened when I moved into my new place. So this morning, my first morning as an official resident of Charlotte, I popped the top and, taking a swig right from the bottle, toasted my new digs. But straight champagne was a bit too sweet for me at eleven this ante meridiem, so I figured I would add a little Guinness and see how a true Black Velvet is supposed to taste. Par excellence!

I spent the day unpacking, painting, and slowly working my way through the bottles of bubbly and stout. Now I am sitting here (with "Thyme Green" paint in my hair) finishing the last of the booze and getting ready to try and find some room amongst all the boxes to camp out on my new living room floor for the night.

After an entire day of sitting open, the champagne has gotten pretty flat, but the widget enhanced Guinness is making up for it - which brings me to an excellent bit of knowledge for you beer drinkers out there. I emailed the boys at Guinness a couple of days ago with a question that has been bugging the hell out of me, and (despite the excessive exclamation points) I was quite pleased with the response:

To: Lilo
From: Consumer Care, Guinness
Subject: RE: Green Guinness?

Dear Ms. Lilo,

Thank you for taking time to contact Guinness. Your feedback is important to us.

We are proud to inform you that Guinness cans and bottles are all recyclable without removing the widget.

Once again, thank you for contacting Guinness.

Sincerely,
Scott Alcorn
Guinness Consumer Representative

Cheers!!
Drinking Responsibly is Brilliant!!!


Oh, and here you go - just in case reading about it has you humming.

Of Nantucket Sleigh Rides and Narrow Sidewalks

Tuesday was the sort of day that usually only occurs on the second day of vacation. The travelling is out of the way, and you get your first day to truly relax and stretch your legs because you want to, not because they're cramped.

It was the sort of day where breakfast consisted of several 3 cheese pierogies and a Harpoon IPA, and a good smoke in my garage served as the poo-tee-weet (Vonneguterrally speaking, of course).

I think the pierogies and beer was probably the least Southern breakfast I've ever had-- a far cry from the scrambled eggs and grits of my youth. I also felt that this would be a perfect meal (for there are many) to have whilst enjoying a baseball game. I ate on the sofa which is right under my front window, so I had that nice 10 AM sun shining through, warming my back, which is a small pleasure in life that will never grow old.

This was my first breakfast in my new house. I already love this place because it's close to everything and it has a hardwood floor with a creaky place. The creaky place is in the hallway as you turn right out of the bathroom. My former place of residence was a trailer in the woods (a bear was seen less than 100 yards away from our front door) so you can see that although my image is not nearly as gruff (or sketchy), the new place is an upgrade.

Some friends and I discovered around dinner time that we could walk to a little independent pizza place on a nearby corner. The sidewalk was narrow and treacherous, and we also discovered that while there are foot traffic signals to direct us to the grocery store on one side of the intersection, none exist to guide us to Tito's Pizza from either side of its corner. We made like any sensible group of adults and ran like Scotsmen in a charge against the English across Pleasantburg Drive. This was one of those times that can be described in the words of Eddie Izzard as "having fun 3 months from now."

Tito's is a wonderful place I suspect I will frequent. You almost feel as if you're in the beginning of Goodfellas (though it only takes one rat-tail to bring that aura to an end). I say almost because we're in Upstate South Carolina, so anyone expecting to walk in and see Ray Liotta and Paul Sorvino would probably be disappointed. The experience was complete when I saw an old couple sipping red wine compliment Tito himself on his stromboli.

After the walk back to the house (which didn't seem to take as long) we opened up the garage door (one of the old school doors that swings up because it's a giant sheet of plywood) and shared a smoke or two. I think I wound up going to bed at a quarter of twelve, not because I was exhausted; sleep just seemed like a fun idea.

Good day. Good times.

Opening Day

We popped the cork on the dusty bottle of champagne that had sat sadly on the shelf for months (having been purchased last year in anticipation of the boys making the World Series). We hoped it would be the perfect lucky start to this season - year one hundred.

The bubbles always feel good, but I think they are more exceptional at ten in the morning. I am also quite certain they made the beer and peanuts, noshed on later in the day at the game, taste even better than usual.

The Cubs failed to uphold their end of the bargain though, and lost. (sigh)

Flask By The Door

As I was putting my tie on for work this morning, I took a couple of nips off of the flask that I keep on one my bookshelves. I generally keep some form of whiskey in there; right now that whiskey happens to be Jameson.

I promptly walked out of my trailer, forgetting my guitar. I’ve been bringing it to work with me because I usually get there an hour early, so I have time to sit in the back room and practice.

The other day I was playing “Stand By Me.” It’s your standard 4-chord song (G, E Minor, C, and D7), and if you want to play the bass line on the guitar, you only use two strings. I sat in a chair practicing this bass line, which repeats itself over and over, and before I knew it, I was playing with my eyes shut. I suppose I think I’m rock star all of a sudden because I can play one of the simplest pieces of music in existence.

Music has this funny way of crawling inside people. I always thought it was odd how musicians would get these intense expressions on their faces or move around in crazy ways as they played. Then I actually picked up an instrument and started playing. I’m not to the point where I can sing and play at the same time, but those simple notes resonated inside me, and there I was playing with my eyes closed. To anyone who has ever played Guitar Hero or Rock Band, doing the real thing is so much better; you should give it a try (not that I discourage playing Rock Band, I’m an animal on the drums).

I think in the spirit of this blog, I will need to learn some good drinking songs so I can be a menace to my new neighborhood and of course be the life of any party. I wonder if you can successfully play guitar and swing a beer around at the same time.