Thursday, July 16, 2009

the odds and ends

Watch and marvel as I tie together a stream of seemingly unrelated matters, mixing metaphors all the way:

1.) Mr Indemnity was in Tennessee last weekend celebrating his birthday with his girlfriend who has been working down there for several weeks (all together now: Happy Birthday, Mr Indemnity!!!!) and one of the fun activities they partook in was a tour of the Jack Daniels distillery. Mr Indemnity informs me that while the tour was very interesting and the distillery itself was actually beautiful, the whole experience was missing one crucial ingredient. Because it is located in a dry county, the distillery cannot give its tour-takers any free samples. Now, I myself am more of an Irish whiskey girl, and then usually only in Irish coffee, but were I to visit the place they make the Jack Daniels, I believe I would feel cheated and, indeed, teased to have to leave without a wee taste. So, boo.

2.) But speaking of the Irish and alcohol, Mr Barma and I were having a disagreement on alternate Red Sox jerseys and memorabilia. He is against the green Red Sox shirts. I am for them, if only on an aesthetic level: as you know, green is one of my favorite colors, particularly as it pertains to clothing and accessories. Then he said he was uncertain about the pink Red Sox shirts/caps. I looked at him as if he had suddenly grown another head somewhere in the middle of his chest and informed him that those were an abomination, and worn only by girls who know nothing and care nothing about baseball, yet accompany their boyfriends to the games anyway, and you know how I feel about women like that. (Not that I think everyone has to appreciate spectator sports, nevermind the exact same ones that I do, but the kind of woman who would think a pink Red Sox shirt is "cute" is the kind of woman I would happily spill my beer in the lap of, even if it were a waste of a perfectly mediocre beer. Just sayin'.) Mr Barma then said that green Red Sox shirts were worn only by drunken Irish guys who would rather be at a Celtics game. I had, sadly, no comeback for that. I still like the green shirts purely for their looks.

3.) This particular conversation occurred last night as Mr Barma and I were walking back to his house from the Spinnahs game, where we saw Jed Lowrie play. We must point out that Mr Lowrie is hitting about .200, against minor league pitching. This bodes well, one would think, for Nicky Green keeping his employment and since I have become quite fond of Mr Green (that's why he lets me call him Nicky, hahaha) I can't say I am very disappointed. Though I was always partial to Mr Lowrie and his ability to actually field his position as well.

4.) What else did you do when you were visiting Mr Barma, Andrea? Glad you asked! Mr Barma arranged for me to meet the fabled Alicia and get my Carla Bruni haircut. I think it came out very nice.

5.) Because I had my new haircut and my tragic tragic dry ends are somewhat at bay, I wore my hair down, not in a ponytail/half-ponytail, to work today for the first time in months. Let me say this: I also did my color last weekend, and I went a shade darker. No one noticed. Today, with my hair down, at least four people stopped me as soon as they saw me and said, "Oooo, your hair is darker! I like it!" Apparently when my hair is in a ponytail, it is totally beneath the radar.

I had one more thing, but since I can't smoothly segue into it and it isn't important, I believe it can wait for another day.

xoxo

5 comments:

Craig H said...

I have to say, up or down, you rock the do to the point where I am quite sure Carla Bruni will be bringing a picture of YOU to her stylist next month and saying "that's the look".

And, no, I'm not just saying that because you do a rockin' massage.

Nicky Sarkozy should be so lucky.

malevolent andrea said...

I was gonna say Mr Sakozy probably has his own personal massage therapist, it just ain't Carla, but then I realized I have no idea how the French feel about bodywork. On the one hand, they aren't very health conscious, what with the smoking and the pastries and the mistresses. OTOH, they're apparently pretty hedonistic, what with the smoking and the pastries and the mistresses. Massage being one of the few things in life that demonstrably both feels good and is healthy for you, it could go either way.

But, since I saw "Sicko" and now know that when you have a bebe in France, the government sends a nice lady to your house to do your freakin' laundry for you, I'ma guess Mr Sarkozy *does* have his own personal massage therapist.

Anonymous said...

I'll point out that even though we couldn't actually drink the Jack Daniel's, there were several occasions when we could smell it. I guess More's County isn't quite that dry.

You would not believe just how strong an alcoholic smell you get out of a 5,000 gallon vat of fermenting whisky mash. Jesus Christ. And it's really bubbling away in the process... it looks like something out of The Blob but smells like something out of a very, very divey bar.

One interesting smell, though. After the 140-proof Jack-Daniel's-to-be is distilled, it then is filtered through a huge multi-story-tall barrel of charcoal (apparently it takes six days to filter through all the charcoal). Smells of the Jack before and after it goes through the charcoal were remarkably different, and the post-filtered had a much nicer aroma, even though both pre- and post- filtered Jack were clear as water.

IIRC the distillery claims Jack Daniel's is the only whiskey that's charcoal filtered. And they create their own mounds of charcoal from local trees (oak, I think). What do they use as non-contaminating accelerant to get the five foot tall mounds of wood caught on fire? Why, 140 proof Jack Daniel's, of course.

Now I only need to actually try some Jack Daniel's. Not sure I've ever actually had any.

One person who does get to try the Jack Daniel's is the master distiller, who tastes each day's batch every couple of years to see if it's ready to bottle. I wonder how they reconcile that with More's County's anti-alcohol stance? Maybe it's ok if he doesn't swallow... so to speak.

malevolent andrea said...

I am sure he spits. Really.

Uncle said...

I remember--barely--having that swallows and spits conversation the first time I had Jack Daniel's. The shady memory being a function of both age and whisky.

Dammit! Here I am, going to Pawtucket tomorrow, partly in hopes of seeing Clay Buchholz pitch (to make my own mind up), and of course he gets called up to the bigs. Maybe I can fit a Spinnahs excursion in just because.