I’m having a Friday afternoon cocktail dilemma. I’ve used all my limes, so my usual gimlet or margarita isn’t going to happen. At the moment, I’m eyeing off the spiced rum and wondering how it would go shaken up with some peach syrup, tequila and lots of ice.
Open Thread
by Sarah, Proud and Tall| 92 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Omnes Omnibus
Just put some ice in the glass and add the rum. Sometimes simple is best.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think we have a winner.
jl
I for one welcome my Australian blogging overlord.
How did Invasion Day go? You just recovering?
Omnes Omnibus
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: I have my uses.
the Conster
Not creepy at all/
Omnes Omnibus
@the Conster: Creepy and clown go together like sleazy and televangelist.
ETA: Obligatory clown song.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t think I ever had rum but for sneaking rum and cokes at family parties when I was in high school. I always thought spiced rum sounded good.
If you knew my family, you’d understand.
the Conster
@Omnes Omnibus:
Why are there clowns? Who likes them and wants to be with them who isn’t named John Wayne Gacy?
KG
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: we’ve all had a family when we were teenagers… I’m still fairly certain they are the reason most of us start drinking.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I am a big fan of dark rum. It works well with coke, ginger beer, tonic water, and Roses’ Lime. Also too, hot buttered rum is a fantastic winter drink – especially if you want to be an OG yankee.
Tree With Water
Meanwhile, Down Under:
“..A powerful cyclone roared ashore in a heavily populated area of Australia Friday with authorities warning of a “calamity” as howling winds and torrential rain saw residents hunkering down to wait out the terrifying conditions.
Tropical Cyclone Marcia slammed into the Queensland coast just after 2200 GMT Thursday having been upgraded to a category five, the most severe..”.
Omnes Omnibus
@the Conster: These are questions the answers to which are beyond my ken. I can only say that they are not evidence of loving and merciful deity. Creepy fucks – every one of them.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
Rum and ginger ale or ginger beer (sometimes called a Dark and Stormy) is my current go-to drink. Some recipes put like juice in it, but I don’t think it’s necessary.
BD of MN
The specialty cocktail section of crappy chain restaurants are filled with various concoctions of booze and overly sweet fruity mixtures, so there’s undoubtedly a market for it… keep trying different variations of those ingredients, and after the hangover subsides to a tolerable level tomorrow (or Sunday), sell the recipe to Applebee’s or TGIFridays….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: Rum and ginger beer is a dark-and-stormy, no? I think one of Carl HIassen’s characters drinks them.
Yatsuno
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Sometimes simple is best.
Hello dear. I have missed you terribly. I’ll let wifey know you’re about. Maybe she’ll hang with us for awhile.
Redshift
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Yum! I love both rum and ginger beer; I’ll have to try that!
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Basically. I just tend to call a booze and mixer drink by its ingredient names rather than the made-up name for it. That way I get what I want in a bar. “A Myers dark and ginger beer with a slice of lime” ensures that I get that not someone’s signature take on a Dark and Stormy that involves chanting over the crushed basil.
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus: Rum always reminds me of some crazy spring break trips.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno:
Hello?… hello… hello… Echo… echo… echo… Pinch hitting for Pedro Borbon… Manny Mota… Mota… Mota…
max
Wow. That was a whole lot of boy band.
Gotta cure that.
max
[‘Why don’t they just say fuck it and rename themselves the California Raiders? (Or maybe the Southwest Raiders!) And then they can just play in any stadium that’ll have them.’]
Anne Laurie
@the Conster: I go with Terry Pratchett’s explanation: Clowns exist so that even the lowliest & most miserable among us know that there’s someone having a worse day than you are.
There are clown artists — I was privileged to see Grandma the Clown perform once or twice. But clowning is one of those arts that looks easy, so every spotlight-seeking loser figures he can paint his face and put on a show.
Kind of like teaching, another performance art that every idiot who’s scraped through the fifth grade thinks they’re qualified to critique!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anne Laurie: O, Terry Pratchett… I want more adventures of DEATH
maybe this weekend I’ll mix up a dark and stormy and re-read Mort.
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: Myers Dark is my dad’s drink of choice, so i associate it with him. As the elder son who share’s tastes with the old man it was only fitting. I was talking on the phone with my mom last Sunday night and I told her I heeded to get off the phone so I could watch the Great British Baking Show – she started laughing because my dad, who normally hates reality TV, is addicted to it as well. I am becoming my dad (not a bad thing; he is a pretty good egg overall).
MomSense
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
I make pitchers of dark and stormys in the summer. They are best with really dark ginger beer and fresh limes. Perfect for sitting on the porch after a day of kayaking or sailing.
Viva BrisVegas
@Tree With Water:
Not only do we get a Category 5 Cyclone hitting just 500 miles north of me, we also get a Category 4 Cyclone hitting the coast at nearly the same time about 1500 miles to the north west, near Darwin.
I think it’s the first time in the records that two such powerful cyclones have hit on the same day, let alone within hours of each other.
I blame Al Gore.
srv
You people are the real racists for your reactions to Rudy’s Obama Hates America:
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@jl:
I suspect I am always just recovering.
@Yatsuno:
Hello darlin’. Como vais?
Omnes Omnibus
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Portuguese? Rather novel here.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@the Conster:
@Anne Laurie:
I give you the Long Pigs.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Creepy as fuck. I’ll grant you that they are probably going for creepy. Nevertheless, intentionally or not, they got there.
Jay C
@srv:
Again with the BS “anti-colonialism” gripe? You think Rudy 9/11 even has a clue as to what that even means as a concept of political thought or activity? Other than the simpleton definition of “hates white people”, that is?
Dickwad,
different-church-lady
And?
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@srv:
It’s still weird to me when Americans complain that someone is “anti-colonial.” I guess they think the American Revolution was a mistake.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m practicing so I can pretend to be an old Portuguese lady when I am in Barcelona. I makes sense in my head.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Omnes Omnibus:
I swanned around the Sydney Festival this year, and their show was the best thing I saw. Severed red noses….
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay C: @Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): srv is something rare in this world – a pure troll. S/he will take any position on any issue to fuck with people. Just sit back and enjoy the performance by a member of a dying breed.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@different-church-lady:
At the moment, a cup of tea. But Omnes has me craving scotch on the rocks.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@max:
Just because you have boys in your band, doesn’t make you a boyband.
JustRuss
I feel your pain. The beer and whiskey are gone, 9 days til pay day, and the lime I was counting on for my gin and tonic has disappeared–the joys of having a couple housemates. Fortunately I keep a bottle of of lime juice for just such emergencies. Not the same, but desperate times call for desperate measures….
Mike J
Stupid network sitcoms may insult your intelligence, but they aren’t supposed to make you sad.
On the stupid Big Bang Theory show, Howard’s mom died. Monday I’m supposed to take my mom in for an angio. They’re probably going to say that she’s fine, but they wouldn’t have her in if everything was fine.
While I think she’s wrong on every possible policy question, I’m still not liking this whole mortality thing,
Did I mention that Mom and Dad both go to the same cardiologist? And that Dad’s angio is 2 hours after Mom’s?
I don’t think I’m fated to be a 40-something year old orphan next week, but I don’t have to like any of this.
Omnes Omnibus
@JustRuss: Good god, that reads like the journal of the alcoholic Donner Party. “Day 27: The limes are gone. Roger Hobbits tried chewing the rinds and spitting then into the pitcher of G&Ts to no positive effect. Clem Sauerheimer suggested urinating into the pitcher, but we have not yet reached that degree of desperation for a bit of sourness in our drinks. Ths skiing is good and the boarding acceptable. YRS, Tobias Mellenhouse”
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Mike J:
The actress who played Howard’s mom (as an off-screen voice) died in real life, and I think they were uncomfortable with the idea of replacing her with someone else, so they wrote it into the show.
I hope your mom is okay.
khead
Anyone in the BJ crowd have experience with gall bladder issues?
Mrs. Khead is currently in the local hospital after spending the last 18-24 hours throwing up. Docs think it’s a horrid virus – there were plenty of sick folks in the ER today – or her gall bladder. So, I’m wondering what the hell to expect if they come back in the morning and tell us it’s her gall bladder.
Omnes Omnibus
@khead: My only experience with it is my dad having his out and me being thousands of miles away but worried as hell at the time. You have my good thoughts.
Yatsuno
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: When I look at the ingredients available, I could see the peach syrup with the tequila for a bastard margarita that could fill in until actual limes could be had. But I have oddsfish taste buds.
Wifey says hello. I may still try to lure her over here.
wasabi gasp
This guy is getting his Portuguese on.
Algodão – Mãe Da Filha
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Jesus, get off the Myers’s and get onto (a) Mount Gay, (b) Barbancourt or, if you want really dark, (c) Gosling’s Black Seal.
khead
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thank you. I keep telling myself it’s a virus – my stomach doesn’t like me much right now either but I haven’t been puking for 24 hours. The doc freaked us a bit though when he decided to keep her overnight and do a CT scan on her GB.
SectionH
@khead: If she hasn’t been having pain as bad as being in labor, my bet’s on the virus. (Yes, if she’s never had a kid, she wouldn’t be able to compare, but that’s how bad my gall bladder pain was.) And sure, I know that not everyone has that extreme a crisis. If it is her gall bladder, the laparoscopic procedure is the most common one now, and she’ll probably get to go home the next day. Best wishes for her quick recovery from whatever’s the problem.
Yatsuno
@khead: The vast majority of gall bladder surgeries these days are minimally invasive. So if it is that then it may only be a couple days recovery needed.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@khead:
My co-worker had to have her gall bladder out last year. It wasn’t very fun, and she has to follow a restricted (mostly low-fat) diet for the rest of her life, but it all turned out okay. You can do just fine without a gall bladder — she’s currently pregnant with her second child and apparently there are no issues expected. It’s like your appendix going bad, or losing your spleen.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: I am my father’s son.
Tree With Water
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): She’s got a lot of damn gall, that’s all I’ll say.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
“I am just going outside and may be some time.”
khead
She has pain, but not quite labor pain bad. Doc poked her in the wrong place earlier today and I thought she was gonna stab him. Pretty sure that’s what triggered the scan. Y’all are making me feel a little better though. Plus, I figure she can’t be too bad off since she told me to “go home and feed the damn cats”.
wasabi gasp
These dudes are getting their creepy, dark and stormy on.
Raime – Exist in the Repeat of Practice
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hell, get him moved over too. You’ll both be the better for it. At least no Ron Anything involved.
Portuguese: “E Depois.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: Well, the bindings may take some adjusting. “Best of luck to you. And if you reach civilization or the native tribes, please ask for help as we are sober as hell to our moral detriment.”
Steeplejack
Not Portuguese, but previously known.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): The wife had her’s out 25 years ago, they took it out the old fashioned way(about a 3 inch incision). That was the year we also: sold my mom’s house, bought a house and got married.
Steeplejack
Not Portuguese, but not not Portuguese.
Suzanne
@khead: I had a coworker who had to have her gallbladder removed. Apparently drinking too many energy drinks is linked to fucking up the gallbladder. Anyway, it’s actually not a big deal to not have one. All will be well.
So I got a major project for my company today. An unqualified win. I am so excited.
Steeplejack
@Suzanne:
Congratulations! (On the project, not your coworker having her gallbladder removed.)
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Suzanne:
It’s also related to gaining and then losing weight, which is why so many women have their gallbladders go bad after they have a baby. It doesn’t even have to be a huge amount, just more than your body can tolerate.
wasabi gasp
Yes! Portuguese.
No, not creepy…nor dark…but, Yes! Stormy.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Yatsuno:
It’s good peach syrup. I made it myself. I think I’ll try it and see.
Hello wife!
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Steeplejack:
I saw Seu Jorge in concert last month. He was…. a mixed bag, actually. I liked his Bowie covers.
Anne Laurie
@khead:
If she’s eligible for laparoscopic surgical removal, I’ve heard nothing but good things about it from friends & acquaintances.
Some 20 years ago, I was one of the last patients in Boston to undergo the old-fashioned full-abdominal-incision surgery, which put me in the hospital for five days & from which I didn’t feel fully recovered for several months, and it was still better than living with random attacks of uncontrollable vomiting.
Theoretically, if one is young enough & committed enough to an extremely low-fat, low-calorie, high-fiber diet, one might be able to avoid future attacks. On the other hand, the younger one is, the fewer problems one is liable to have with anesthesia, and the quicker one’s probable recovery.
If you have the insurance coverage, and there aren’t complicating factors, I suspect your wife’s doctors will advise removal… and not just because surgeons always think it’s better to yank organs!
wasabi gasp
@wasabi gasp: After putting on headphones, I realized that Helen O’Connell youtube is all scratchy and banged up. Better (but much louder) audio here.
Steeplejack
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
I know his Bowie covers and a few other things. I like the tone of his voice.
From the same Putumayo album: Marcela, “Os Grilos.”
I may be following you down the “learning Portuguese” track. My brother married a Brazilian guy; in-laws clamoring for visits. Fortaleza!
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
Hey, a chance to cut is a chance to cure! A surgeon t0ld me so.
Anne Laurie
@khead:
If it’s been unstoppable projectile vomiting, and she can’t stop spasming even when she’s run out of bile fluids, that would explain why the ER doc wants to examine her gall bladder. The good news, as the old joke goes, is that doctors know how to cure gall bladder disease (unlike stomach virii).
wasabi gasp
I’m in moderation for/with a better quality Helen O’Connell link. In the meantime: not Portuguese, but a little creepy and dark.
Tujiko Noriko – Narita Made
Wally Ballou
Harris Wittels, the comedian and writer who among other things introduced the term “humblebrag” to the American lexicon, has died at the age of 30.
Too fucking young.
Steeplejack
Still seeing occasional Korbel holiday ads featuring this song: “Together Forever.”
Anne Laurie
@khead:
If the “wrong place” was too high for an inflamed appendix, right up under the diaphram, yeah, that’s a gall-bladder-gone-rogue indicator. Some of my attacks, apart from the projectile-puking part, actually felt like a heart attack — a heavy weight in the center of my ribcage that left me pale & sweaty.
One reason the insurance company stopped stalling & authorized surgery, an urgent care doc told me, is that women tend to have very similar symptoms for those two very different problems, so it’s cheaper to “solve” the gall bladder problem than to pay for repeat it-might-be-a-heart-attack ambulance/ER visits. And that, as I said above, was before they’d had twenty years of practice on the laparoscopic version!
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Steeplejack:
It’s a good language to learn, although I speak (badly) European Portuguese, so the Brazileiros think I speak funny.
It’s quite similar to Catalan, so I’m hoping I can speak Portuguese slowly and get away it.
Anne Laurie
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
Specifically, it’s related to changing the amount of fats your body is processing really fast — you can do it by losing-then-gaining as well as the other way around. (And I suspect that’s the energy drink connection; not what’s in the drinks, so much as the change in fat metabolizing they cause.) That’s also why it’s so much more common in women than men, blame estrogen & its related hormones.
Also, not to get too gross, but living without a gall bladder doesn’t mean you have to give up high-fat foods… just that your body won’t process fats nearly as effectively, so you need to be prepared to deal with the side effects, if you know what I mean. It’s certainly an incentive to be mindful about one’s eating!
Steeplejack
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Well, the Fortaleza region is apparently like the Alabama of Brazil, so the BIL gets accused by other Brazilians of talking with a heavy drawl, or Brazilian equivalent thereof.
But, yeah, they uniformly snort in derision at Portuguese Portuguese. Go figure.
wasabi gasp
Something clownish for the big guy.
Бьянка – Звук гАвно
JustRuss
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m sorry, but if the limes are gone, that’s not really much of a party. Although the peeing in the pitcher may have happened at some point in my murky past.
BillinGlendaleCA
The local news sez that LA may get
one twothree NFL teams. Rams want to build at Hollywood Park, Raiders & Chargers want to build a joint stadium in Carson. I bet is their current locales will all cave and give them all what they want and we will remain with zero NFL teams. At least the prospect of building that moronic Farmers Field is becoming more and more remote.BillinGlendaleCA
@Anne Laurie: The wife had the same surgery you had. They say it’s almost worse than the gall bladder attacks, but at least it does stop them.
KG
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’m so looking forward to having three teams that we all ignore. I really wonder if the nfl hasn’t figured out that after 20 years and Sunday ticket, nobody out here is going to default to rooting for the local team
BillinGlendaleCA
@KG: Tend to agree. Anyway we already have a pro team in LA, they play in the Mausoleum on Saturdays during the fall.
Amir Khalid
A romantic comedy starring Shah Rukh Khan, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, has ended a world-record 1,009 week run in a Mumbai cinema. That run began in 1995.
Ryan
Is there no lime juice in the fridge? How do you marinate!?!
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: ‘Long Pig’ is a form of slang for humans (if you are going to eat one).
WaterGirl
@Mike J: Yeah, that would be disconcerting. Hang in there, and try to keep your imagination in check. Those “what ifs” can get out of hand if you’re not keeping them in line.
P.S. I hate when TV shows do that.
@Suzanne: Unqualified win! That’s so great.
RSA
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m late to this thread, but I wanted to say that this is inspired.
eric nny
Very fun music minus the “Join the NRA” banner that kept popping up. EVERYBODY knows guns and dance music don’t mix.