drink!

That's not a command, though if you choose to interpret it as one and pour yourself something, I won't dissuade you. No, Drink is a bar in the South Station/waterfront area where you go to have cocktails. Not that they won't serve you a beer or a glass of wine, but if that's what you choose to imbibe, you're missing the point. See, Drink has a conceit: they don't have a cocktail menu and their bartenders are mixologists. You inform them what you might be in the mood for or what sorts of things you usually like to drink, and they take their creativity and encyclopedic knowledge of alcohol and make you up something they think you are gonna like.

And so it came to be that I spent last evening imbibing various champagne cocktails, since it was my birthday eve and I wanted something celebratory. 3 and 1/2 variations of champagne cocktails, to be exact. (We'll get back to the half later.) The second one, which contained champagne and bourbon, is, I think, the one that got me wasted, despite my efforts to drink it slowly. There was a fuckload of alcohol in that thing. More alcohol than the delicious little finger foods they also serve could keep up with. I recommend the fancy grilled cheese that's served up in bite-sized pieces, and not just because I've been relatively carb-deprived the past few months. It was good. Also good were the cupcakes the bunch of girls down the bar, who were celebrating someone's 30th, shared with us. Don't you love the camaraderie of friendly drunken generous strangers when you're out on a mission to get annihilated? What's NOT to love?

But back to the half drink. Those of you who know me well, know that I am fairly clutzy. I have next to no hand-eye coordination, and it's a daily marvel to me that I manage to pull together enough fine motor skills to actually perform my job. So even under the best of circumstances, the chances of my dropping, spilling, tripping, etc, are not inconsiderable. When I'm drunk? All bets are off. And thus halfway through drink #3, whilst making an expansive hand gesture to punctuate my point in the conversation, I sent my flute flying off the end of the bar and onto the floor, where some poor peon had to come out with a flashlight and pick up shards of glass before any mixologists pierced their feet. I apologized profusely to my bartender, who said NBD, and that the lifespan of a glass in a bar is not a long one, generally. Then he said he'd like to make me another drink, to make up for that one. Imagine my surprise when the bill came and it was on there. I totally thought he was offering me a freebie!

But even a non-free drink did not harsh my buzz, because as you people also know, I am a very happy drunk. Also a hungry one. Mr Indemnity walked me to Haymarket to make sure I got on my bus home in my inebriated condition. (Who then got him home on the red line safely in his inebriated condition, I dunno. But he is alive today, so it happened somehow!) But on reaching Haymarket and finding I had twenty minutes till my bus, I insisted we run over to the North End and buy a cannoli. You would think this would be easily accomplished in twenty minutes, but we ended up cutting it very close and stuffing Italian pastry in our faces as we speedwalked back. There's some kind of white residue on my purse straps today. I can only assume it's powdered sugar, because, hey, the night didn't get *that* out of hand.

In summary: we give this evening two thumbs up even though my belleh understandably feels like crap today. That will not, however, keep me from eating birthday onion rings tonight. I'm tough like that!

xoxo