Miscellany

Looking pretty good for a hungover chick!

I've not blogged since Sunday - bad Viviana! Bad, naughty Viviana! So today I catch up - again, after an evening of heavy imbibing. What does that say about my readership that I can only face them when I'm hungover?

In truth, though, I'm actually feeling quite well; I took a couple of aspirin last night before bed, and this morning consumed a hang over lozenge* whilst showering, so that when I finally left the house I was ready for my morning caffeine fix.

Why am I hungover? I went out last night with one of the mad scientists from MegaDyneCorp Technologies, Dr Moriarty, and his lovely wife Cleopatra. We started the evening at my favorite sushi bar, enjoying a lovely selection of premium sakes - Wakatake Onikoroshi (my favorite - if I could marry a sake, it would be this delightful beverage), Ichinokura, and Bishonen (f0rgive my mispellings if there are any). So yes, I had two boxes (masu?) of premium sake, and then we retired to the good evil doctor's home to sample some scotches.

A malt scotch (not single malt, but a mix of, say, three different single malts - different from blended scotch - don't ask me for the details, 'tis what The Google is for) with a name like "Extra Smoky Peaty" was the first sample. I do like the peaty, smokey single malts, particularly once the weather cools down. It'll warm ye up like nothing else in this world (except habaneros or being burned at the stake). I can't say I loved it, but it wasn't bad, and if you're feeling a little adventurous in the scotch department - and like it peaty - it's interesting to try it out and catch the differences in palate.

The next was some 12-yr-old Suntory (a Japanese single-malt). Not awful, but it reminded me of some Speyburn that I got talked into buying in my early days of scotch consumption. I ended up using the Speyburn for toddies (when your single malt ends up being used for a toddy, you know the owner dinna much care for it). I think the Suntory was better than that, but I wouldn't hurt myself to get a bottle of it - although the bottle itself was quite nice. I also had a taste of some sort of rice alcohol from China - gag! Rocket fuel! Yecch yecch yecch!

However, amends were made when I was given a glass of authentic absinthe, to be consumed in the 19th century style. It was rather like being in New Orleans, as we sat around and discussed Southerners and the importance of social hierarchy in the south.

Pardon me, readers - I ended up going on a shopping trip to get birthday gifts for a good friend, so I've totally lost my train of thought on this entry. I'll begin another one, and hopefully at some point relocate this particular stream of consciousness.


*Sweet Botanicals Hangover Drops are the latest and greatest cure for hell-on-earth hangovers. These delicious candies are made from real red fruit juices, bramble, lemon, orange, rose hips, and a smidgen of ginseng. {from a blog ad.}

A Bonney Sonday

Ah am a body hung ower quinie.

I had a nice day yesterday, hanging with my BFF, discussing my brilliant future as writer and celebrity (and I'll nae be telling ye whither or no' I've me knickers on until you see the up-skirt photos fur yoorselves).

Ye will hae tae pardon my drifting into Scots dialect; not only have I been listening to Parcel of Rogues, but last night Ah enjoyed a leisurely steep in a hot tub by moonlight with about three shots of Lismore on the rocks. And I found the coolest English-to-Scots online translator, which has me mair excited than mah new Fluevogs!

However, you should add to the consumption of the Lismore a handful of Edradour Single Malt Whisky Fudge , a tasty treat fur sure!

An' finally, if ye huvnae hud enaw ay Scots dialect here, check out James Hogg's Jacobite Relics. Lang bide th' Scots separatist movement, as Rabbie Burns would hae said!

O, would, or I had seen the day
That Treason thus could sell us,
My auld grey head had lien in clay
Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace!
But pith and power, till my last hour
I'll mak this declaration :-
'We're bought and sold for English gold'--
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

Old Home Day

Dear Readers, all three of you, I went in today for my exit interview. It was a time of great sadness - seeing all my coworkers toiling away, dreading another pair of office moves and furniture refittings, laying bets on when Mega DyneCorp Technologies would fold up its tents and steal away in the night with the investors' dollars, worrying over continued deck chair rearrangings in the form of newly issued org charts...indeed, although I might be poor, unemployed, facing the frightening task of manipulating someone into hiring me, at least I don't have those fears haunting my dreams these days.

It was nice to see some of the old gang whom I hadn't seen in weeks (some I hadn't seen since the middle of July, on my last day). My faux hubby is still promising me my sausage alimony - and has yet to deliver. Now that I've no Mad Scientist to keep me in sausages, I'm really in need of my alimony. Heh heh, that reminds me, I need to check out the status of my roster for my Yahoo! Fantasy Football team, The Big Salamis, named after this fellow:


Brett Favre is my QB, which is pretty cool - even I know this, and I haven't payed attention to players in decades. I wonder how he'd feel about the team photo.

Well, I'd love to chat longer with y'all, but I've got to read up on TSEs - apparently they've managed to create a new species-jumping prion in a laboratory. As a long-time follower of BSE (Mad Cow Disease), I like to keep up on my prion news.

Speaking of mad cows, I had my first Mexican sandwich today - so I now get the Krusty the Clown joke in the Simspons movie:

Hey hey! It's your old pal Krusty for my new pork sandwich, the clogger! If you can find a greasier sandwich, you're in Mexico!

In spite of the joke, it was an interesting and yummy eating experience. I've become very interested in non-European versions of the sandwich - anyone who knows me well knows I love the Vietnamese sandwiches.

Now that I've gotten everyone craving meat, let's go read about brain-wasting spongiform diseases - woo hoo!

The Heartbreak of Large Hadron Colliders

Or, It Ain't Me, Babe...

Well, dear readers, I have to confess to a shameful fact – I’ve been dumped. Yes, the mad scientist has decided to move on to greener pastures. And I have to admit to being rather down about it; I was enjoying our dates. I thought he was too, but apparently the LHC has more appeal than I do with my paltry beaker mug and broken Geiger counter. Yes, he told me that he cared for me, but that his first love would always be the Higgs boson. And let's face it, no matter how good I look in a low-cut sweater, my brand of magnetism pales in comparison to 1,232 dipole magnets and 392 quadrupole magnets.

What’s next, you say? Well, I wasn’t looking for a relationship of any kind when the mad scientist asked me out, so I suspect I’ll go back to not looking for a relationship. That’s what I get for letting myself be distracted from my whaling novel. I am glad I went with the steam-powered submarine suggested by one of my readers. Nuclear is nice – but my Geiger counter doesn ’t work, and nuclear will simply remind me of my failures in the dating scene. My erstwhile beau was interested in nuclear power, not steam engines.

Of course, perhaps my three loyal readers can help me compose a nerd-friendly write-up for some dating sites....Yes, I said nerds. I don't want to date men who are a too much of a challenge. When I want a serious challenge, I'll study Cantonese.

Beeting and Plumming

My friend, her cat Drusilla, and yours truly enjoying morning coffee & email

Yes, more canning work accomplished this week. Two bloody days of scrubbing, boiling and peeling beets for canning. My friend wanted to do 25 pounds worth - we both agreed, never again. Our maximum is 15 pounds, folks. At least we've established a limit, which is good, and we've enough beets canned to keep the rebel alliance alive through the winter.

The plum jam - three batches, but I must say, it's really beautiful, lovely, gorgeous jam. Some lucky few might get a taste of it. The rest of you will be living lives of deprivation, not knowing what you're missing except for my effusive descriptions of jam and toast.

Right now I'm trying to convince my friend that I've earned breakfast; after all, I baked a batch of chocolate chips early today (around 7:30 AM), and feel that I've earned a fried egg and some toast with just a smidgen of homemade plum jam.

I must apologize for being gone so long; two days last week were spent with the mater, trying to find a refrigerator that would make her as happy as the one she got in 1964 - if you think tilting at windmills is a waste of time, I assure you, the hunt for the refrigerator like the one the mater had in 1964 is equally as futile and uses much more gasoline.

Sunday was spent helping Egon, my mad scientist friend, construct a small space for his next series of experiments. The actual lab work probably won't commence until sweater season starts. After all, one must wear the proper clothing for the task at hand. I did explain to him Washington Administrative Code for the use of PPE the other day; he stayed awake through the entire lecture, telling me that he truly is a nerd. However, since I have so much to say about PPE, SOPs, NIST-traceable weights and calibration records, it's just as well I'm spending time with someone who finds that information useful. Monday was spent delivering beets. 25 pounds of beets. I think it will be a couple of days before I want to have anything to do with beets again.

I've also been reading up quite a bit for my novels. Titles include: The Steam Engine, It's History & Mechanism, Crimes & Punishments, Reminiscences of My Military Life, and The Girls Own Book. One must be thoroughly grounded in the political, economic, technological and social activities of the era one writes about, otherwise one will sound like a complete wantwit. I'm enjoying my forays into previous centuries, and it's entirely possible that I won't even bother returning to the present.

I have to admit that I was excited last week when I saw the headlines, "Palin is McCain's Choice for VP" until I realized it was not Michael Palin. For some few brief seconds I was looking forward to a Vice President who would jump up and down and yell, "Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!" No such luck, sad to say.

That's okay - Ralph Wiggum may yet end up being my choice for president in the end. After all, he's been a good boy!