I am in debt with the rest of humanity for the tardiness of this little post. It has been two and a half months of radio silence which most of you do not deserve. (Some of you do, but that is entirely another problem.) In my defense, I can claim that in the whole two and a half month period, I have had only one Johnless week. For the rest of the period, Big and Little have co-ordinated their comings and goings (feel free to interpret) to ensure that I got man-to-man coverage, involving, as you know, copious consumption of Absolut on the one hand and ous consumption of whatever Big thinks will ease him along the way, from his car to his bed, without a four hour snooze on the garage floor. As the designated drinker that accompanies any disfunctional punter on a binge, I got co-opted into a nine week frenzy, what with Magda gone, 'From Russia With Love', start drinking early so I fall over early so I can make it to work tomorrow, why would you be drinking Cuba Lights when I can cram a few Absoluts down your face, and all the other reasons which seemed perfectly logical at the time.
At the moment, Little is gone but Big is back with a thirst on him and to make matters worse, Little was on the wagon for a few before his meeting with Betty Ford in California, so I daresay he will have a thirst on him to when he arrives sometime this weekend. If the yanks don't arrest him for his shoes or something and introduce him to his new girlfriend Leroy in the Folsom County Jail. That would be a disaster...even Johnny Case who could have sung Little's potential jailhouse woes has departed the quick and was last seen doing a duet with Elvis at St. Peter's Grand Opry.
On the other front, Number One Ex, the former CB, is being her usual relentless ninja vigilante self to ensure that I get absolutely none from anyone, resorting to guerilla tactics to discourage anything remotely female and under the age of Mother Teresa from coming to within a country mile of my starved personage. All that with a sweet, innocent little smile. So much for my affair with Patricia! Indeed. I would appreciate, nay, remunerate anyone out there could find her work starting early every morning or starting a fair distance from Brazil, so that I might get my breath back.
A few scraps of news if you will, from here and there;
Tina (Hacking, as in Doug & Tina) appears to have opened a shop, parlour, lounge, café, artsy-fartsy kitsch with dollops of karma thingie in Mexico City. There are no reports of Dougie having been caught smiling! Good luck, Teen!
We had a visit also from our other Mexican embedded family, this time from Guadalajara; Karla with a K (and a pair of other things), with Jürgen and Johan (I prefer the Dutch spelling, sorry K) in tow, graced our evenings with with her usual ebullient charm.
Congrats also to John-a-than on Mari's new pad. It is a beautiful apartment and it was a loverly housewarming with loverly snacks, copious beer and behaviour being marshalled by Mari herself.
We had a flying visit again, from that grand (word chosen carefully) purveyor of fine single malt whiskies, Sem Davies, and his little friend Chris (shaping up nicely as a purveyor of fine bourbons; cheers, Chris). This will have led to a binge, you may say, but you were on one anyway, so what's the problem? Well, you remember the bit about Little being on the wagon for a few days? So, now guess exactly when Sem and his little ward were here. Correct. Yet another step towards my retirement at Chirrosis-by-the-Sea.
The horizon holds more dark clouds as my 46th hurtles toward me at a rate of knots, bringing in its wake, the Stupid Mexican (Yes, it is Gabe) and Garfield 'the Scrooge' Ogilvie. Garf is that famous deep pockets man. Unfortunately the arms are wee bit short. Would have made a great Scot! Rumours indeed, that our very own and favourite consumer of cold beverages, Tim Vaas might also be here after a prolonged absence. I still miss those evening sat outside O'Malley's, gazing at the moon as sponsored by Heineken, while discussing Carthesian philosophy with the big Dutchman.
Now, since the last missive, the helm at the kitchen has changed hands a couple of times, moving from Gallic (FROG) to Skando (that was the shortlived Dane) to Eye-tie-American, the famous Felzi with his famous temper and his new and gorgeous wife Geovanna. Felzi will explore the limits of Irish-Italian cooking, so we are all looking out for noodles in the Irish stew. He will not repeat the experimental apple pie with oregano.
Joking aside, Felzi dreamt up a wonderful meal, for a wonderful occasion, the 50th birthday of Chris, (a.k.a. Thin Bastard) now also an Old Bastard. With the patio decked out like a posh restaurant, an incredible mish mash of wonderful people had a tremendous amount of fun. The Bastard family was largely present, including American Bastard, Bastard and Big Bastard. Little Bastard however is lost to the world, probably trying to trade in his sixteen year-old girlfriend for two of eight.
Talking of the Bastards, Big Bastard, our very own Peter Gordon won the pool tournament recently organised by Kieran Gartlan of Gringoes.com. He is still complaining that the cue that he won didn't have a tip. He must be odds on favourite for the O'Malley's triathlon. That would be, for those able-bodied endurance sportsmen who can take the punishment, a tournament where athletes need to compete in pool, darts and backgammon. Gentlemen (and gentlewomen), start limbering up!
Oh, and that most likely trio of Vitus the Viking, Alek the Croat and Hector the Horrible are now living under the same roof. Two great parties but the Lord have mercy upon us! Ash the Bash did well to stay out of that one! Needless to say, Hec will be playing sweet, melodious music, now that the V-man is in charge of the motley crew of a Sunday evening band, Toil'n'Trouble. If you don't like music, show up on a Sunday evening. If you DO like music, there's a great little blues band on, on Mondays! (gotta do a little advertising, right!?)
This was a bumperish issue. Even if it wasn't, I'm signing off because a terrible thirst has taken hold of me. Need to get a couple in before Big comes in and obliges me to drink! Tough life.
