5 posts tagged “tequila”

Feeling out of sorts that my memories are not staying put in their hermetically sealed mental compartments.

How dare people live, evolve, and generally move on with their lives.

Why aren't you all where I left you? 

I thought I finally had you organized, somewhat figured out, a semblance of order,
and here you are surprising me with all this growing up nonsense.

The nerve.

The gall; continuing to live after the time we knew each other.

Least you could do is not leave clues where I might stumble, unawares, upon your updated info.

Now I have to revisit/reorder how I feel about everything all over again.

I think it's going to be a good thing,
or rather it is already a good thing, and I will come to that realization eventually.

Going to need a bigger brain, and a bigger bottle of tequila.

Excuse me, I must intoxicate, inebriate, and otherwise imbibe.

The wife and I got a sitter for the young'uns and headed into downtown for the Sushi Meetup event.

This month it was at a Mexican place.

It's a niche Meetup group that doesn't like to be pigeon-holed; go figure.

We ended up at the end of one of the tables with a group of diners we hadn't mingled with yet at the other Meetups.

One of them was a therapist by trade.

He was sharing an anecdote about his session with his own therapist.

Topics surrounding inter-mingling of the sexes.

There was sharing of ideas, discussion of perspectives, and analysis from personal recollections.

He looks over at me after a while, takes a pull of margarita, and surmises, "Let me guess, you were a bad-boy back in the day?"

Expert opinions.

I lean back, take a pull from my own Azul margarita and propose,
"Recovering is for alcoholics; let's just call it reformed."

And then the waitress was back and I was asking if they knew how to make sopaipillas
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopaipilla )  even though they weren't on the menu.

I propose a new named sandwich.

The "Neutered Groove"

Apologies if this list of arranged ingredients already exists under another sandwich moniker.

It's not that I will desist, mind you.

I just want to be clear that it has now been dispossessed of its ingredients and will need to find new ones should it wish to go forward as a named sandwich, or risk being de-listed from the sandwich board exchange.

A "Neutered Groove" consists of:

Two slices of bread, any bread, I usually go wholewheat.

Onions slices and tomato slices, one or two of each.

A spring mix of various salad leafy greens and reds.

Two slices of pepper jack cheese, otherwise known as Monterey Jack with Jalapeno bits incorporated.

Seven deli-thin slices of hickory smoked ham.

Two slices of hard salami.

Point zero eight ounce, approximately, crushed ripe black olives.

One squirt ketchup.

One squirt mustard.

One shot glass.

One bottle of tequila.

One bottle of vodka.

4 albums of music:
A) Gas Huffer - "One Inch Masters"
B) Claw Hammer - "Thank The Holder Uppers"
C) Mercury Rev - "Boces"
D) Col. Bruce Hampton & The Aquarium Rescue Unit - "Self-titled"

Assembly instructions required to qualify as an official "Neutered Groove":

Begin playing the music in the order listed from albums A - D.

Do not shuffle.

Play straight through.

Drizzle the bread with Jose Quervo Black Medallion Tequila.
Butter one side liberally and place in a pan on medium heat (butter-side down.)

Place the one of the two cheese slices on top of the bread.

Simmer the onion/tomato slices in vodka until soft.

Add one of the two slices of hard salami on top of the cheese and bread.

Add all seven deli slices of ham on top of the salami, cheese, and bread.

Add squirt of mustard on ham, salami, cheese, and bread.

Add the leafy greens on top of the mustard, ham, salami, cheese, and bread.

Add the onions/tomato on top of the leafy greeens, mustard, ham, salami, cheese, and bread.

Add the second slice of hard salami on top of the onion/tomato, leafy greens, mustard, ham, other salami, cheese and bread.

Add squirt of ketchup on second slice of hard salami, onion/tomato, leafy greens, mustard, ham, other salami, cheese, and bread.

Add the second slice of cheese on top of the ketchup, second salami, onion/tomato, leafy greens, mustard, ham, other salami, other cheese, and bread.

Add the crushed olives on the second cheese slice, ketchup, second salami, onion/tomato, leafy greens, mustard, ham, other salami, other cheese, and bread.

Add second slice of tequila drizzled bread on second slice of cheese, ketchup, second salami, onion/tomato slices, leafy greens, mustard, ham, other salami, other cheese slice, and bread.

Compress the stack with a large spatula flipper, butter the top slice of bread, and flip the arrangement, ass over tea kettle.

Now, and this bit is truely make or break, do exactly three shots of vodka, and three shots of tequila.

By the time you're done, the bottom side of the sandwich will be golden buttery brown and you'll be in a state fully capable of appreciating this culinary delinquent.

Now, sit in a comfy chair, turn down the lights, eat the sandwich, and let what remains of the play list finish out.

Your groove will be neutered.

I've christened myself (drum-roll)...

"Kerbside"

As in Groove "Kerbside" Neuter, affecting the Scots spelling in honour of the Rebus works by Ian Rankin
that I mentioned discovering in earlier posts.

Currently reading "Let It Bleed" by the aforementioned author featuring the aforementioned character.

But I've set down the aforementioned book for a tumbler-sized nip of Jose Cuervo Black Medallion tequila.

Aged in Oak for 12 months, it moves interestingly close to a malt whisky, with a South-of-the-border agave cactus accent mind you.

Now, off to my quiche in the oven and raising the curtain on Friday Night Date Night.

After graduating college together in Arizona, the wife and I got married in California and then moved to Seattle.

All within a month.

It was the early cusp of the dot-com boom there.

She was hired on her first interview and got me a job at the same place within weeks.

My qualifications, in their eyes, consisted of the fact that I was married to her, and they thought that if she thought I was good enough to marry, then I was probably good enough for them to hire.

The average age at the company was mid-20's.

There was copious amounts of drinking on and off the clock.

Free snacks, soda, and yes, beer in the company kitchen refrigerator.

Even for breakfast.

My usual was a two-pack of Grandma's chocolate chip or fudge cookies, an orange juice (Sunny Dee I think), and a beer, all before the 8am morning sales meeting.

The company grew fast and all office meeting space was converted to work stations, which led to all meetings of any sort larger than two people being held at the coffee shop on the corner.

With the exception of afternoon meetings.

Anything after 2pm was held at the tequila bar across the street, where just received "spiffs" and commissions were applied to bar tabs.

Company meetings included a local micro-brew keg of one variety or another.

Then the company went public, because that's what you did in Seattle at the time, if you were a technology company.

Very much celebratory drinking and calculating of stock options.

Then being public sucked ass, what with the constant reporting.

The free food and drinks went away.  The company drinking was strongly curtailed.

They installed for-pay vending machines.  The company grew exponentially and the average age increased to the late 30's or early 40's.

The stock price followed the company's spirit... down.

So the company went private, because that's what you did in Seattle at the time, if you were a technology company.

There was much celebratory drinking and calculating of stock loss tax write-offs.

Yes, the drinking came back in force once the company was private again.

What I'm getting at is that during our combined years at the company, we've had gallons of varied alcoholic beverages bought by the company.  It's just part of their culture.

The company birthday is St Patty's day.

They hand out yearly customized pint glasses to each employee on said birthday, filled (repeatedly).

I left the company and they relocated my wife out of Seattle to the MidWest office, but the group out here were largely transplants like us from the Seattle office, so the culture continued here.

Then, say about a year and a half ago my wife left the company to work for her client company (and her old company was now one of her vendors.)

Not much changed on the drinking front, as she was now their client, we still received dinners and booze as part of account entertainment.

Which brings us to the present and last night.

My wife is now leaving the client company and we're relocating, changing industries.

The free booze on the company will finally draw to a close.

So the director of client accounts and the COO of the company took us out for one last dinner.

We selected the local microbrewery.  Fitting we thought.

I savored my two pints (seasonal strong IPA, then a stout) and steak dinner on the company dime reminiscing with the COO who joined the company a few months after I left it, about all the old good/bad wild days that he'd missed.

Then we had dessert, they wished us luck, and the bar door swung slowly closed on an era.