Rum

Rum and I go way back.

It began with a bottle of Captain Morgan’s Private Stock that a friend, Alan, bought for me, while we were visiting friends in Rhode Island. Appropriate, though I didn’t know it at the time, because back in the day RI was a huge producer of rum.

I used to order a “rum and coke, heavy on the rum.” I was once asked “heavy on the tip” and I believe I was. Lord knows what I was getting for rum, but when it’s late and you can’t actually see your drink anyway, what difference does it make?

When we visited the Rogue brewery in Portland OR, our server blessed me with a shot of their own kind of rum. I remember it being harsh and wicked and as soon as I was home I began looking for it. Years later I found it in the little liquor store next to Hannaford (on Central) and I didn’t even look at the price, I just bought it.

For a while I was big on mojitos and white rums. 10 Cane was my poison of choice. Even the bottle was pretty.

I lost my interest in flavored rums after Bacardi Dragonberry. It was “really good” if you liked candy, and that summer I really did. Then they did something called Torched Cherry and I tried it once and haven’t had any interest in anything flavored since.

For the last year or so I’ve been looking at more “sophisticated” rums. These are more expensive and I don’t usually mix them with anything, sometimes not even ice. I’ve had a lot of success with Vizcaya, and was very happy to find Rhum Barbancourt, from Haiti. They are dark, and smell alchemical, and taste like oak and tobacco.

I still have a soft spot for stupid “pirate” rums, like Pyrat (which, if I remember correctly, is actually pretty good) and Kraken (which, if I remember correctly, is just bad enough to be interesting). I need to try that Sailor Jerry stuff, and Captain Morgan has a new “black” rum I’m either going to love or hate. For that matter, the entirety of black strap rums is unknown to me.

But I’m okay with having room to grow.

Irene Adler

So I watched the first of the three new episodes of BBC’s Sherlock Season 2 last night. And I liked it. A lot. But it spawned a weird thought about how women are portrayed in (at least American) tv and movies. This thought was spawned by the character of Irene Adler.

Now, I can’t remember my Sherlockology very well, but I seem to think that Ms. Adler was just a thief in a few of the original stories. She was not a love interest. Regardless, the recent Big Budget Hollywood Version of Sherlock (1 and 2) picked up on Ms. Adler and turned her into a sort of Victorian bad girl super spy. I worry that she was only in the BBC version because of the American version. But this still isn’t my thought.

In the American movie version, she was Mr. Holmes’ love interest during the first film. Then they kill her in the second film and replace her with a gypsy. Which got me thinking about Batman movies. (I’ve always thought of Batman as a sort of Sherlock Holmes who solves crimes by pretending to be smart but really just having more money to buy better technology. And being pissed off all the time.)

Way back, the woman in Batman’s life was Vicky Vale. And then it was Catwoman. And then it was Poison Ivy. And then it was … And then they rebooted the whole thing and we all had such high hopes for a more mature series, and they just repeated the formula. It was Katie Holmes, and then Maggie Gyllenhaal, and next up it’s Anne Hathaway.

And don’t get me started on that other British fellow, Mr. Bond.

Why do writers do this? Why does this kind of “expendable character” bother the crap out of me so much?

Sunday: Bike Expo and Stuyvesant Plaza

Today I packed up some things and rode to the Bike Expo. They could not have had better weather. Lots of vendors. Food, cupcakes, CDTA had a bus to demonstrate how to put your bike on the rack. Neighborhood associations and bikes shops. A vast improvement over last year. This location works well, with many passersby. Lots of casual riders, which I think is important. TBR had a crazy cargo bike. Downtube had a few Bromptons, which always generate interest. Catskilll Cycles had a Salsa Mukluk, which I got to ride. (Fun, surprisingly light, but not very nimble.) The Handsome XOXO got many compliments.

Definitely a big success. I have to admit, things like this make me hopeful for a more bike friendly Albany.

Then I took off for Stuyvesant Plaza. I was trying a “back roads” route. I went by Buckingham Pond and left on Russell Road. You bike until you feel like you’ve left the city, and then there’s a sign there that says you have, in fact, left the city, at which point you turn right on Monroe Ave. Welcome to suburbia. A weird pocket I had no idea existed, nestled between the Thruway and Western Avenue. No sidewalks, but plenty of perfectly manicured lawns. Follow that until you get to McKown Road, take a right, and that will bring you up to Western. Take a left at the light and take advantage of the “bike lane” for a few blocks.

Getting in to Stuyvesant Plaza represents the first of your challenges. You can go right up Fuller Road and try to make a left through traffic while climbing. Or, like I did, you can go straight on Western and take the right into the Plaza between Créo and TGIF.

Your next challenge is finding a place to park your bike. My recommendation is to bring a cable lock AND a u-lock. Use the cable lock to lock your bike to one of the many poles along the sidewalk, use the u-lock to lock up your wheels and frame. This is hindsight talking. I had to lock my rear wheel to the little kiddie bench outside of the Book House. Then I crossed the plaza to Starbucks, where they have a nice fence you can lock your bike to, but it was too crowded so I just went down to Cold Stone and got a chocolate shake. I locked my bike to a Post Office box.

I read a few pages in my new book. I already know I’m going to like it. Life is too short- if a book doesn’t enthrall you in the first few pages, don’t waste your time. Then I rode home. Happiness is the sun on your face and the wind in your hair.

Winterpills and Rosary Beard at Steamer Number 10

We’d never been to the Steamer Number 10 Theatre, but I won tickets to see Winterpills and Rosary Beard play there. It was a nice night to walk, so we did. We got pizza nearby.

It’s a cute, cozy little place. A small stage and old fashioned seats. It smells of popcorn.

The duo of Winterpills took the stage. A gentleman with a guitar, and a lady accompanying with vocals, a little keyboard, some tambourine, or a harmonica. Their songs were charming, simple and wonderful.

Rosary Beard, being just Hunter and Matthew, sat down and without much preamble began playing guitar. There were no lyrics, the music spoke for itself. Kathleen called it “journey” music, for the road, and “beautiful.” I was impressed by how perfectly in sync they were, how gracefully they wound and unwound the magic of this album. They played Halfmoon Fever, in it’s entirety, with two covers and an unreleased song.

On the way out, we got to chat with both bands for a bit. Rosary Beard gave everyone a copy of the album, and I picked up “All My Lovely Goners” on vinyl from the Winterpills.

If you get a chance to see either of these bands, do so.

I feel I’ve been very lucky lately. So thank you for that.

The House

As some of you may know, we are under contract to buy a house. It will be our first. The closing is currently scheduled for May 31st. I thought I’d try to give a little round up of how things have gone.

We started looking more than a year ago. I was already sick of living where we were living and I didn’t want to stay there any longer. We started looking at houses. Kathleen did most of the research and we both went to open houses. We were recommended a great agent. Our priorities were the garage, the back yard, and the kitchen. Yep.

We made our first offer on a house we thought was “the one” and it was a pretty low offer. They pretty much laughed at us. I think that was late last year. Winter came on and things went dead.

In the Spring things picked up again. That house we’d made an offer on was still on the market. For less. We were a little wiser. We looked at a lot more places. We started taking photos so that when we talked about a place we could actually look at the photos. I could only remember the last two or three places we went to see, so the photos helped a lot. We were going to make an offer on a place, but someone beat us to it.

We made an offer on a second house. The place was really nice, but they wanted too much for it. We made what we thought was a reasonable offer, given what similar houses were actually selling for. She barely budged. We went elsewhere. I may be forgetting things. This is where we cue the 80s music and go to a montage.

Finally we found this place. The kitchen is huge, it has a sliding glass door that looks over the back deck and the back yard. Half of the back yard is garden. It has a little greenhouse. I knew this was “the one” because I felt like a kid in a candy store. All of the others were okay, some of them were nice, this house was just crazy awesome. We made our offer and they countered with something we could live with. We had the inspector come through and nothing huge came up. It’s happening.

I want to tell you about how cool these people are. They built this elaborate thing in the front yard, by hand. It’s very nice, but we didn’t like it. They offered to remove it for us, and we said yes. Two days later we rode by on bikes and the whole thing was gone. In it’s place they’d planted a little tree. I told Kathleen we should bake them some cookies.

We told our absentee landlady that we’re moving out. She took 17 days to get back to us and decided they were going to have to charge us $50 to leave in the middle of the month. I’ll spare you the details and just say that we called shenanigans on that. We’ve been hoarding boxes. We have time off booked. We’re planning our escape.

More as it develops.