Sunday, October 01, 2006
Happiness is an Empty Glass...
Greetings everyone.
Well, it has been a somewhat stressful but altogether very exciting weekend.
My first couple of days on the island were relaxing, although when my mom and I went on a long walk to the beach I did manage to pull something of a Steve Irwinesque maneuver, which fortunately I'm still around to write about. I was trying to take a picture of a gigantic star-shaped maroon and transluscent jellyfish that had washed up on the shore, when I tripped over a slippery log and BAM! I hit the sand so hard that it left an impressive scrape and a gory bruise on my leg and screwed up my arm in a three-advil-a-day kind of way for the rest of the weekend. What a klutz. Give me an award.
The actual benefit party went off without a hitch after two rather panicked days spent cooking immaculate little hors d'oevres and concocting signature drinks for my bar. I ended up with two cocktails, both based on animals Glavin describes in Waiting for the Macaws. The first, a crantini-like elixir made from cranberry juice, vodka, triple sec, and a splash of lime, and garnished with two fresh cranberries and a sugar rim, I called The Scarlet Macaw. The other, a modified version of some poncy-as-hell cocktail I found in a magazine, I called The Black Dragon, and it was a mixture of our own grape juice made from the garden's prodigious grape harvest this year, infused with classic Absolut, and topped with champagne, with a crazy infused sugar rim made from toasted orange peels, cinnamon, and real vanilla beans. I didn't actually even try the thing until my ancient childhood friend (adorable redhead with a brand-new pixie cut - I've known her since we were 8) gave me a sip of hers. It tasted like Christmas with a significant hit of piles and piles of crisp autumn leaves. The grape was an interesting flavour too. If any of you are ever in the same city as me, I'll make you one on the proverbial house.
It was sweet seeing my old friend again. She has been in Australia, of all places, and I've missed her terribly. For the purpo
ses of this blog let's call her Jess.
It was neat to hear Glavin speak as well, and even neater to have him drive me back up the island so we could discuss the magical creatures of the earth for a half hour in the car. He and my parents spent the whole night reminiscing about their shared youth, while I tucked myself into bed with some naughty text messages from Claire.
The girl sent me alternately sweet and sexy messages all weekend, even though my poor cell phone signal out up there in the forest prevented me from writing her back. She didn't seem to mind there being no reciprocation, although I did call her a few times and at one point got so frustrated by not being able to respond to her messages that I sat down and wrote her an actual, honest-to-god, love letter (or perhaps at this point, a "like letter"). Then this morning, since I'm such a goddamned romantic, I cut the last roses of the season for her and slipped them into the envelope.
I still can't believe how much Claire seems to be able to read my mind. We talk to each other about everything, but somehow she still seems particularly good at guessing what I like and what I want before I have to say or do anything at all. She always seems to know my craziest little fantasies before I even tell her anything about them. And on a much more basic level, she always does the sweetest and wildest things to me without my ever having to suggest them to her. Honestly the biggest problem with her is that she lives far away. Other than that she is exquisitely fantastic, and I am so very into her.
She sent me a message this weekend telling me she wanted to take photos of me with her ancient old film camera and make paintings out of them. I was thrilled. She seems to have a really solid romantic core, and that really, really appeals to me. I know that I can be both intimate and wild 
in her presence and neither will scare her or turn her off.
And somehow, with 33 hours of work per week spread out in the most ridiculous way so I don't even have a weekend anymore, I hope to manage to see her enough so that neither of us drives ourselves crazy from deprivation.
So far so good, but this week will be hard as nails. I have classes every single day, and for the next three days I work from 9:30 am to 8:00 pm, with only scant breaks in between. So I'm terribly sorry in advance that I haven't been reading anyone's blogs. I miss you all terribly.
And on that note, I must get to my lesson plans.
I love that photo of my kitty, by the way. I think he looks like he's praying.
I hope you all had a great weekend.
Laters,
N
