Martini Virgin

"Less is the new More." -Patrick McPartlin

Back at the Chateau Monday morning...or as close to morning as hungover people get, for the revered and ritualistic infamous Brunch. Hawk cracks a Guinness for me. I decide I don't like it. The Bloody bar is set up, but I know I don't like Bloody Marys, even if I drank tomato juice, which I don't.

"Do you like martinis?"

"I won't know until you make one for me."

He quizzes me as to particulars, and apparently I want a small, wet, dirty martini. (THAT's what I'M talkin' about!)With lots of olives.

"It's all about the olives, isn't it?"

I continue the Guinness, as only hours separate me from appearing at my mother's, and well lubricated is the way to go.

BuddahPat finishes the martini- five olives!- before I've finished the beer, so I drink two-fisted. The Animal gets a shot, but I doubt I'll post it; too lazy to keep pace with technology.

Gracie's disappeared, and reappears smelling as a showered woman should. Another veggie in the house is nice, especially one Gracie-cool. Most of the veggies I know are prigs.

I convince Ryan to bring me coffee, since he's put down the newspaper. He tries, dismayed that the coffee is GONE.

(Gone, Daddy-O? Man, I'll HAVE me some of that craaaaazy java.)

Sparky cranks the machine, which grinds beans immediately before pumping hot water through, for the very freshest of fresh cuppas imaginable.

"Have you named the skull yet?"

"In fact, we haven't."

There are three names for dogs, Fido, Rover, and Rex, and many names for cats that also serve hampsters or rabbits, if you're into that sort of thing (oh, all right: Whiskers, Fluffy, Patches, and Snowball, for starters), but only ONE thing to call a skull.

Sparky and I roll puns around the name Yorick for a bit, stopping to pursue flights of breakfast as have rarely graced the tables of humankind.

(Actually, it was simply eggs, potatoes and lots of meat, plus biscuits. However, I love elevating the ordinary, and am trying to clear my tender psyche of four manuscripts I critiqued for an MWA novel contest. Two were wonderful, but the others were worse than Vogon poetry. My brain is still puking up blood.)

I don't care for the martini, I suspect because of vermouth. Vodka and I have a Longstanding Relationship, such that I rarely touch the dangerous godnectar. Three quarters each of two drinks I don't like still tastes like Happy Juice to me.

"You just wanted olives," chides BuddahPat.

Very likely.

"Coco, do you love me enough to bring a coffee the way I like it?"

"Is that rhetorical, or do you actually want coffee?"

I love it here. I hate to leave.

Coco kisses me: "Don't let mom kill your buzz."

Oh, if only.