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Listen in.

And to cleanse your palate, the song the way I’m more used to hearing it.

• Man, that wind is cold. Cuts right through my jacket. I’ll sure be glad on the way home, when it’s at my back.
• Not a lot of traffic, even for a Tuesday evening about 8.
• C’mon, turn green already.
• Thanks for giving me plenty of space.*
• I’ll have to make sure I turn off my taillight when I lock my bike up.
• C’mon, turn green already.

On the way home:

• Crap, I left the taillight on. Oh well, it doesn’t draw a lot of battery.
• Still not a pile of traffic.
• I”ll be halfway home before G. gets to his truck.
• How can the wind be in my face in both directions?
• Heh. “Pleasure Chest“.
• Oh right, washboard**. This sucks even worse at night.

Later:

• Oh crap, I left my taillight on again.

____

* Not sarcastic; the truck in question went into the other lane, giving me lots of room, something that doesn’t always happen in this town.
** They’re repaving several streets in my neighbourhood. So far they’ve done the part where they tear up the old asphalt. The surface left behind is less fun to bike on than you’d think.

So my friend Kevin called me up last night, just before supper time.  “Are you gonna be at  home for the next ten minutes?”  he says.  “I have a tasting we need to do.”

I said, “I have to take my wife to a dinner party, but I’ll call you later.”

“Okay,” he says.  “I’m on my way home now.  Bring the 1919 when you come.”

#

About 7:30 I got over to his house.  In a grocery bag I had my camera and my bottle of Angostura 1919, a delightfully smooth amber rum that, sadly, can no longer be purchased in my neck of the woods.  (Apparently the Canadian distributor went belly-up shortly after Kevin bought me my bottle of 1919, and so I’ve been rather parsimonious in my rum drinking.)

Kevin had gone to the liquor store with the intent of picking up some boxes, nothing more.  But he’d happened upon a bottle of El Dorado rum, and he’d remembered his uncle, telling him that there existed a rum that was at least the equal of Angostura 1919, and it was El Dorado.  Kevin’s uncle swore by the 40-year-old El Dorado; what Kevin had discovered in the liquor mart was a rack of bottles of 12-year-old instead.

We set them on the counter and, nerd that I am, I snapped the photo above while Kevin was adding ice to tumblers.

Verdict:

The El Dorado is a bit darker, with a bit more molasses flavour to it. I found it sweeter than 1919, but that’s fine by me; I’ll drink green ginger wine, which my wife finds offensively sweet, so sweet isn’t going to put me off.

Both rums seemed to me equally smooth; I distinctly remember telling Kevin, when he first introduced me to 1919, that it was dangerously smooth, that I couldn’t tell there was even alcohol in my drink.  The El Dorado has that same silkiness; it goes down almost too nicely.

In short:  Mmmm.

We seem to have discovered a rum to rival 1919, and it’s one that we can actually buy.

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I must say I’m amused at the idea of calling a provincial trunk highway a “street”. I guess it’s paved…

Today on my lunch break, for no other reason than “because I’m a nerd”, I punched my watch’s serial number into Google, expecting to find — I don’t know, maybe its incept date*. Nothing much, anyways.

Instead, I found a US Marshal forfeiture auction listing that included my watch.

That’s it in the bottom middle of the lot.

The things you learn.

[update] Apparently, the auction company in question “sells all the jewelry[etc.] seized and forfeited nationally for the U.S. Marshals Service.” So… do I have a drug dealer’s watch? Was it seized in a tax forteiture? The rather shallow mystery deepens a very little bit.

[2nd update] As it turns out, there’s no mystery here. What I took to be a unique serial number was apparently in fact a global product number. So it wasn’t my watch in the property auction; just a watch just like mine.
____

* See, there’s that nerd thing creeping in again.

1. gobbledygook
2. thrash
3. chunky
4. buzz
5. oodles
6. pish-tosh
7. dork
8. scruples
9. least
10. worm
11. craw
12. clip
13. hose

One word that doesn’t sound like what it means

1. onomatopoeia

“Keep up the pace! You can do it!”

I have no idea who he was, but I appreciate the humour.

At the last meeting, two weeks ago, we gave each other story prompts. Mine was: “A romance between a worm and a giraffe”. I was all, Thanks.

So here’s what I ended up with:

Sorry? I didn’t hear you.
….

Well, I heard that you said something, but not what you said.

….

Your voice is a little soft, that’s all I’m saying.

….

Fine.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, much better. Where are you?

You can’t feel me?

No. Well, not right now. You know.

I’m in your ear, just inside the outer ear. Listen, you said yesterday that we need to talk. What’s up, babe?

Well…

Spill it. Spit it out.

All right. Listen, you know, we’ve been, well, we’ve been…together for a long time now, and I’m just, well, I’m just wondering where you see this going. You know?

Eight days is a “long time”?

Don’t dodge the question. My mother–

Yeah, I thought she might’ve–

Don’t let’s start. Can we start over?

Sure. We need to talk?

Yes. Where are we going, hon?

Well, I’m enjoying myself, I thought you were enjoying yourself too…

I am, I am. Oh believe me, I am.

Why do you need to put labels on things, then? Are we lovers? Are we goin’ to the chapel, gonna get married? Why can’t two grown creatures just, you know, enjoy themselves?

Well…

Babe, if you need to ask the question, do you want the answer? Think on that one.

That doesn’t even make any sense.

Exactly. Noodle on that one for a while.

Whatever, listen, I just told my mother I’d ask. Because she’s got this need to know. You know?

Are you happy?

I… Yes. Yes I am, love.

Then the hell with your mother’s nosing. You and me, babe, we’re all we need.

You’re right. You know what? Screw her. Screw her meddling ways!

That’s the spirit, babe. Anything else?

Well…

Thought that might not be all. What now? Your dad wants to know if I follow football?

No. This one’s from me. I kind of, well… I want to know… With worms, it’s so hard to tell sometimes…

What? Tell what? Know what?

Well, are you… Are you male or female?

Hmmm. Tough question, I kind of got both goin’ on, you know? Worms, like you say. Hard to define. Hard to pin down.

I know. But when you think about yourself, you know, do you think of yourself as male, or female?

What’s it matter? This is your dad asking, isn’t it?

No, no. I just… I just want to know if I’m… well. I want to know if I’m gay or straight.

Oh baby. You and your labels.

For next meeting, in another fortnight, I’m supposed to have a completed outline of my WiP, the novel Once I was you.

Next time: » Shiai!

When I was in University, there was a girl I knew that had a book called 10,000 Dreams Interpreted*. She pointed one out to me, and it became my favourite dream ever:

To see a horse in human flesh, descending on a hammock through the air, and as it nears your house is metamorphosed into a man, and he approaches your door and throws something at you which seems to be rubber but turns into great bees, denotes miscarriage of hopes and useless endeavors to regain lost valuables. To see animals in human flesh, signifies great advancement to the dreamer, and new friends will be made by modest wearing of well-earned honors. If the human flesh appears diseased or freckled, the miscarriage of well-laid plans is denoted.

– source

Little did I know — until today — that that book was first published in 1901, and that dream’s been haunting peoples’ minds ever since then.

____

* Or something to that effect. Come on, this was 15+ years ago. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering where I put the cordless phone ten minutes ago.**

** Until it rings.