Ode to cocktails

What an odd thing to write about on a Sunday morning.

The first time I drank a cocktail, a Tom Collins (see pic right) mixed by the bartender at an air force base dance, circa 1986, was a revelation. Wine is fine, beer brings cheer, liquor is quicker, but cocktails are sublime. Alcohol + sweet or sour, fire or cool, jewel fruit or earthy spices creates a recipe meant to evoke emotions, inspire enthusiasm, or mellow temperaments; in the hands of a skilled bartender, cocktails = alchemy. I mean, I slurped that Tom Collins with such gusto that I almost went home with a complete stranger that night, a Quebec air force minion; talk about stranger danger. And I don't even like gin!

I discovered a new cocktail of my own concoction this week, which I just had to share [NOT pictured, that's a margarita on the left]. President's Choice has a new product called Blood Orange-Juice in Italian Soda. I put cubes and gold tequila in a tall glass and topped it with the Blood Orange Soda: delicious and slightly nutritious (real blood orange juice in the soda). Now, lately I think tequila tastes just right in almost any cocktail, but this one was special: the slightly sour but mostly sweet orange soda, the fresh cubes clinking against the glass, the bite of the tequila, the bubbles; ah, a great summer drink. I will definitely serve that at my next party, along with margaritas for the tequila-traditionalists. [Not those frozen abominations called margaritas, the real thing, where you still taste the tequila and it doesn't give you an ice-cream headache].

My favourite cocktail is a cosmopolitan (pic right), and I cannot believe how many places I've visited in Canada where they don't know how to mix one. I mean, this drink recipe has been around for more than 30 years. Catch up, people! I was starting to get really annoyed by the enormous variation in cosmos that I was served, until I realized that I really didn't care that much, as long as I just called it a "cocktail" and enjoyed the drink for its own self and the effort of the maker. I did buy a book called "The Little Pink Book of Cocktails" because it's the perfect size to fit in my purse, and when a waitress at a small place says they do make cocktails but they don't know how to make a cosmo, I can whip out my book and show them the recipe.

Just for the edification and future reference of my readers, a cosmo requires (amounts are for those who enjoy the flavour of vodka, if you want it fruitier, increase the cranberry and lime slightly):

1 oz vodka

1/4 oz triple sec

1/4 oz lime juice

1 dash cranberry juice

Mix vodka, triple sec, lime, and cranberry juice in an iced mixing cup. Strain into a martini glass. Garnish with a lime wedge. Now, is that such a difficult drink recipe to have in your permanent repertoire, people who pretend to be bartenders but really ARE NOT? NOTE: in a mixed drink, premium vodka is optional; regular vodka will do, and saves the wallet. They've done taste tests, and most people cannot tell the diff between vodkas.

In the garden with Mulligan

Now, I adore my Mulligan (see her pic at the top of my blog), my sweet pupster, but sometimes her doggie behaviours irk me. Take this week, for instance, when I was beginning to think about gardening, after a long cold winter followed by a very lazy spring. A new plant I stuck in the ground last year tried its darndest to peek out from under the giant peony bush, so I cut back the peony and wished and hoped that this new (read "expensive") plant would find the sun and not drown in the excessive rain of late April and early May and would make a go of it in my backyard. A few new leaves appeared; I thought it might struggle into glorious burgundy "flame" (the name on the tag included "flaming" something or other to describe the colour). The very next day, while I was out in the yard on scooper duty, I noticed that my beloved pooch had started a new hole, right where my new plant was had been trying to survive. Struggle no more, little plant, now in two pieces and completely extruded from its nice warm bed of mother-earth. I think the dog was trying to get to the other side of the world, by the looks of that gaping maw she excavated. I said goodbye to my little plant and vowed to never buy a new plant for the backyard again, especially after inspecting my new hostas, which were showing signs of shredding from repeated "there's a raccoon! there's a raccoon!" stompings at 5.30 am.
Update on the hole: I allow Mulligan two spots for holes in the fence-hugging garden beds because (1) she's a dog, (2) it's really her yard, and (3) we have too many rabbits in this neighbourhood to expect a dog not to dig near a fence when she espies a rabbit. However, I may have to watch her a little more carefully when digging is in the offing, as her second excavation of the new hole resulted in an injury that could have been terrible: she skinned her carpal pad (that pad about two inches above her foot on the back of her front legs) so badly that it bled. She is an enthusiastic digger! It seems to be healing fine today, after a worrisome yesterday. So, not only does she irk me sometimes, but she worries me often; not entirely her fault since I am a worrywart.

And then I get to enjoy the cuteness; man, my dog is cute. She was resting in the warm grass on the front lawn, under our baby-tree, sniffing up the neighbourhood while I pruned the euonymous shrubbery at the front of the house. No leash, no rope, just my periodic vocal reminders that I was watching her. And her second-favourite place is looking out our upstairs window, which she sits at right now while I'm typing. When the light is right, the neighbours can see her, surveying her kingdom: they always tell me that they wave at her, so they think she's pretty cute too. This pic is of her with the badminton gear; Dan taught her to come get a birdie from him and bring it over to me while we were playing badminton in the backyard.
Enough gushing about my dog; I just wanted to write it down somewhere, how much I enjoy my pupster, even when she's irksome or worrisome, she's still actually pretty cute -- you should see her dig that hole!

More yakkin' about books

I will now describe three books that I own but have not yet read; what a boring way to start a blog entry. How about I start it with some marauding and plundering, downright thievery: I stole this idea to write about books I haven't yet read from a friend's parent's blog. I think it is a great concept, so I will credit that particular book-blog and then only write the occasional entry in this same vein. All great ideas inspire other people to create their own version of those great ideas; that's why you can't copyright an IDEA, just the execution of that idea.

Three books I bought and truly meant to read when I shelled out the cash for them, but still haven't slogged my way through for some reason are: C.G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Jack Hodgins, A Passion for Narrative, and Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves [the link takes you to a review of this book]. They have survived my periodic book-cleansing ritual, so somewhere in my mind they maintain their status as must-reads. And yet, they don't really fit into my summer-reading plan of only dystopian lit., so I guess I'm writing about them now in order to remind myself that they are waiting my attention, maybe in the autumn this year.
Just a quick scan of the table of contents for the Jung book made me want to dive into it, from the chapter on dream analysis to the one on psychology and literature, to the obliquely titled "Psychotherapists or the Clergy." I haven't read any psychotherapy tomes, and barely anything deeper than pop-psychology, but Jung's ideas have always fascinated me, or what I've read that other people have described as Jung's ideas. And I don't read German, so this translation will have to do. I really do want to read a book by someone who titles his first chapter, "Dream Analysis in Its Practical Applications"; that has got to be a mind-blower.
To be perfectly honest, I have read most of A Passion for Narrative: A Guide for Writing Fiction, but only in bits and pieces, or skimming sections. I want to sit down and devour it over a few days, making copious notes, and getting inspired. I think that is why I have put off for so long reading this book, I hear it inspires writers to WRITE. This blogging has really helped me get into the habit of writing, just sitting down and writing something, anything, and I'm enjoying that part of the process, which enjoyment I have not felt about writing for many years. I think I'm scared of the Hodgins book, that once I read it I will be compelled to write a novel, and then what will happen?
And I started to read Women Who Run with the Wolves years ago when I first bought it; I see the bookmark resides still in the place where I faltered and stopped reading it (1997). the subtitle tells why I wanted to read this one in the first place: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. I picked this one up halfway through my decade of reading mainly self-help, pop-psych, and other self-improvement volumes. Women Who Run with the Wolves is a "deeply spiritual" book, according to the contemporary review in the Washington Post Book World, and the prospect of reading about the power that women may find deep within and in our genes, and in our stories from eons past, thrills me. I really don't remember why I stopped reading this book, although it is almost 600 pages of teeny tiny type. My commitment to long books is weak at best. Maybe I will tackle that one in bits and pieces; prepare to be astonished, I tell myself: I think this book is full of wondrous words and startling ideas.
I'm sure I've kept all three of these disparately themed books for that very reason: they are all full, full, full of great ideas and my inner bookshelf requires me to keep them around so that I will eventually take them into myself and be inspired by these other writers' words to write more of my own. Every little thing I've ever read has certainly affected me in some way that will reveal itself in all the quirky details with which I will imbue my characters and progress my plots in the future works that are just waiting to leap to life on the page from the ends of my fingertips as I tap, tap, tap away on this keyboard. Just writing about writing like this is inspiring me right now.
Contented sigh.

The summer of my dystopia

Created by Oatmeal

I know this because I took a quiz on the "The Oatmeal" site. HEART "The Oatmeal" forever.
Obligatory cephalopod share:
theoatmeal.com/story/octopus
And one of my all-time favourite "The Oatmeal" rants, NSFW:
theoatmeal.com/comics/ptero
And he posts excellent grammar instructions too; man, I wish I could blog like THAT GUY!

Yakkin' about books

I can't believe this is my first blog entry about books; books are such an integral part of my life, that I imagined I would never stop yakking about them in a blog sit-cha-ma-ta-tion (situation). Whenever the topic of "interests" or "hobbies" comes up, reading is the first thing that I think to mention or type into the "about you" form on facebook or other profile page. Years ago, I entered a phase of divestiture, after watching way too many episodes of the tv show "Clean Sweep." I used to have piles of books, and many in boxes hoarded in my parent's attic back in Nova Scotia. Now, I go through my books periodically and give them away by leaving them on a hallway table at work, trade them in to a secondhand bookstore, or pass them along to friends. I've only kept a few books for a very long time, two in particular I want to mention here and recommend as good summer reads: /Winter's Tale/ (1983) by Mark Helprin, and yes I bought it new, and /Weaveworld/ (1987) by Clive Barker, yes that Clive Barker. 

Winter's Tale fits in the genre of magical realism, of which I have not read much. [Note: I read another novel by Helprin, /Freddy and Fredericka/, but I strongly disliked it, so I am not recommending the author, rather the specific book.] The characters and the dialogue are so real and mesmerizing that you fall in love with the people of this novel almost immediately; the magical elements are appealing and revealing and at the same time stunning and mystifying. I have kept this giant book all these years because I plan to reread it more than once again in my life, and I want to keep something so beautifully wrought around me forever.
Weaveworld by the horror-move-meister Clive Barker relates a tale of supreme fantasy with monstrous elements that terrify and delight simultaneously. This novel does not fit in the horror genre, but the story is as rich and stimulating as any work in Clive Barker's horror oeuvre. "Nothing ever begins." is the first line of this novel, and that's how the story feels, like it has always been around and always will be, something buried deep in the genetic psyche of humans, too close and personal to not be true.
Both novels are urban fantasies, and I love a good gritty-city novel. They teem with political ideals and ideas, dreams of anarchy and freedom, sorrows over the death of imagination in our daily lives. I adore these books, and I want to share them with everyone. Neither could be made into a movie unless it was a 10-part miniseries for each, but even then, the medium of film would never ever succeed in replicating the gorgeous images that these two writers generate in your brain when you sink into these delights.
My summer reading this year of 2010, my year to try new things, is to embrace the dystopia novel and Zombie works in general. I'm currently working on two books that were filed in the comedy section of my local bookstore: The Zombie Survival Guide and The Zombie Combat Manual. I also recently bought a prequel: /Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Dawn of the Dreadfuls/. Check out that link for a live-action promo for the book. (I read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and enjoyed it so much that I mention to almost every person I know about once a month: annoying, I know). These 3 books fit in well with my dystopia theme, but for a more specific example of the genre, I picked up /Neuromancer/ (1984) by Canadian sci fi genius William Gibson. I'll blog a review of it after I finish it, but so far it's awesome! The other books on my dystopia reading list for summer 2010 include Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley; Anthem, by Ayn Rand; Farenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. Any suggestions of other dystopia novels to add to the list would be greatly appreciated. Signing off with wishes of happy reading to all! Or, for me, this summer anyway: Morbid Reading!

Does not play well with others

Last night, following a lovely dinner party, I roped three people into playing crokinole with me. It's a board game where you flick little wooden discs around; I couldn't remember all the rules, not having played it for many years, so we decided we were playing the "Hamilton Rules" version of the game. 
Playing with those three was immensely fun; people even came in from the party-on-deck outside to see what we were laughing about. But, at some point early on in the game, my evil, overly competitive snarky inner bi-atch surfaced, and I found myself saying the craziest things. And I noticed I was saying them, but I couldn't or wouldn't stop. I won't detail them here, because that would be like saying them out loud all over again, and I don't think any of them were very nice and should not have been put out into the universe. I like snarky humour as much as the next person, but from a comedian, on stage, who does it for a living. I really don't like getting that way when I play crazy board games, or when I'm drinking a bit and playing board games, which was probably part of the problem, you know, that losing-your-inhibitions thing that happens when alcohol soaks into your brain. I really didn't know any of those people well enough to be that snarky. I now have post-snarky regret clouding my brain and making me feel sorry for myself ... all day ... ruining my Sunday. I'm doing this to myself, snap out of it, SELF!
Now that I'm rethinking the whole episode, maybe snarky-Alice wasn't as extremely horrible as I recall, because the other three people kept playing and playing and playing for more than a hour, and we laughed altogether quite a lot; and I was actually the one who broke up the crokinole session ... when my flicking-finger started to get too sore. Ah, self-doubt, what would a post-party, blue-day, Sunday, last day of weekend, deep low-pressure system sort of day be without you? Blergh.

On days like today, I need to find my own "Ego Kevin" to achieve homeostasis ("look it up: wikipedia it" LOL).