Cocktail Confessions

It’s 7 days until Christmas and I’m still not feeling it.

Earlier this week, we had incredibly warm weather.  It was actually 90 degrees in certain parts of the county.  However, there’s a cooling trend right now and we started getting rain by Thursday late evening.  It’s supposed to rain for the next five days straight, so for sure I will not be putting up any lights on the house this year.  Besides, my wife still has all her Halloween stuff up inside (yes, on Dec. 18th, it’s still Halloween in my house).

Speaking of rain, I feel really sorry for my little buddy, that is my mini Schnauzer.  He’s very fickle about having to go to the bathroom and doesn’t like to go outside when it’s raining.  I don’t blame him and I can’t fault him.  When was the last time you wanted to take a dump hunched over with someone spraying you with a water hose from above.  So the bad news about this is that he is holding it which cannot be healthy and comfortable.  I know he’s holding it because he keeps farting and smelling his own gas and it’s getting worse and worse as the day goes on.  My wife and I have even taken turns donning an umbrella and standing out in the backyard with him in hopes that he’ll go either way when there’s a slight break in the downpour.

I recall last year the same thing happened and in his sleep, when he was super relaxed and dreaming about chasing rabbits and birds, a small tootsie roll emerged from his behind for us to find.  Of course I wasn’t mad, I mean how can I be mad for something he did in his sleep because he hates the rain?  I’m just thankful his crap is small and I don’t have a great dane or mastiff instead! 

I also feel bad that he can’t be walked.  Must be hard, even for a small dog to be stuck inside the house for a few days, your human parents not really willing to brave the elements and take you for a walk.  Well, I may try it today…a small walk just inside our culdesac, just enough to stretch his legs and maybe get something out of him.

Okay, so back to Christmas week.  Yesterday was my big work party at the car dealership (see previous posting on this), and I did end up calling in sick.  But I don’t feel as bad as I could have because I was legitimately not feeling well.  I woke up with such a headache I wanted to vomit myself.  A hot shower, some aspirin, and laying in bed helped, but I didn’t start felling better until mid-afternoon.  I’m also glad I didn’t have to drive in the rain or get stuck in traffic.  My buddy had to pick his parents up from the airport yesterday and made mention that in 2 hours he has only made it a total of 23 miles.

There is no baking in my house this year either.  In the past I’ve made holiday breads….not this year.  Way too lazy.

I will wrap a few presents today, albeit they are only stocking stuffers.  Nothing exciting.  This year we also really held back on the gift giving.  It was a mutual decision with my family and we all discussed it ahead of time.  Yeah, it bothers me a bit….we’ve always had very nice gift giving, but needless to say with this economy the last two years, I think we all feel the sting in our wallets this year.  But I cannot not give nothing, so hence I’m doing some stocking stuffers.  I requested that my step-daughter (whose 19 and works part time) may want to think about buying my mother, (her step-grandmother) a small gift this year.  Her step-grandmother has done a lot for her and is always picking her up small things throughout he year and I want to teach my daughter the idea of ‘reciprocation’.  I tried to put it delicately and said spend no more than $20.  I actually got the “are you kidding me look?”.  She did actually say “Let me put some thought in it.” (translation: I don’t want to think about this now old man whose not my father and make a commitment on spending money on anyone).  I could tell that me asking her didn’t seem to go over very well at first attempt and that’s bothersome to me.  The thought of her actually spending money on someone else who is not her is very, very tough.  Man, she has a got a long road ahead of her in life.

I’ll also go shopping at the grocery store today.  I have a menu to prepare for eight people for Christmas eve.  Thank goodness, my aunt helped me out by sending me a check to buy the champagne she likes, and my mom also helped out with grocery certificates.  I’m making an Italian themed dinner this year which will include a soup course, main course, and dessert.  I’m either making pumpkin bisque or roasted cauliflower soup and homemade Parmesan croutons.  Main dish will most likely be oven roasted chicken cannelloni with a bechamel sauce but the last few days I’m now thinking veal scallopini.  Appetizer will be sausage stuffed mushrooms.  Desert will be vanilla gellato topped off with an espresso and hazelnut drizzle served with biscotti.  Anyway, that’s the plan, although it may change on the fly when I’m in the store.

I actually need a strong drink today.  I’m in a pisser mood (brought to you by my pointless work meetings that go nowhere, and my wife’s spending habits).  I’ve been clenching my jaw so hard today and fixating on things I’m actually feeling a stress headache coming on, so no doubt am I happy to discuss a libation or two.

If you take a look over at my Cocktails page, you’ll see that around this time last year I offered up two Gingerbread martini recipes for the holiday season.  Well, now I’m back with a third recipe that my friend Patrice shared with me.  Her and her husband recently had a cocktail party at their house to commemorate the completion of their recent restroom renovation.  Yes, it’s just a veiled excuse to throw a party, but who am I to complain or turn it down.  Anyway, Patrice and her daughter supposedly had been working very diligently to perfect their Gingerbread martini recipe and by the result I myself tasted, I think they are spot on.

So without further ado, here is version 3.0:

Gingerbread Martini v3

• 1 oz Ketel One (or other premium) vodka
• 1 oz Bailey’s Irish Creme
• 1/2 oz Kahlua
• 1/2 oz gingerbread syrup (try Starbucks brand if you can)
• 1/2 scoop of semi melted quality vanilla ice cream.
• Place all ingredients in a blender, give a quick mix, then pour over ice in cocktail shaker.
• Strain in a sugar rimmed martini glass and serve with a gingerbread man cookie as garnish.

Okay, as you can tell, this is a little heavy on the calories and the sugar.  It truly is a dessert cocktail that is reminiscent of a hand poured ice cream shake.  Be careful though…too many of these may equal one dandy of a headache.

Got another one for you as well, just for kicks:

Candy Cane

• 3oz Blue Ice vodka
• 1/2-1 oz Peppermint Schnapps (adjust to your preference)
• Combine in cocktail shaker with ice, strain into martini glass.
• Garnish with small candy cane stick as a twizzler.

So it’s that time of year again, the time of year where companies try and pretend to get into the seasonal spirit and motivate employees by attempting to throw a ‘holiday’ party to help boost morale.  Note I said *holiday* because in a nation founded under the principles of a single creator, the political correct police and ACLU have infiltrated all facets of our lives and God forbid (pun intended) we offend someone.

It actually started with the ‘no tree’ policy this year.  When I started at my current place of employment just over three years ago, I recall that the department I worked in allowed its employees to decorate their cubicles with lights, and cards, and in the main lobby was a large Christmas tree.  Our division had a potluck and our boss took our particular department out for lunch.  Amongst ourselves a few people traded gifts if they wanted to and everything seemed ‘okay’, although somewhat downplayed a tad.

Two years ago we were told no longer could we decorate cubicles with lights.  It was now considered a possible saftey issue that could result in a fire or someone tripping.  We were also told too many decorations, Christmas or otherwise, was not in the ‘spirit’ of making our offices look neat, organized, and professional.  The tree was still in the lobby, but now the optional holiday lunch was in the cafeteria, although we had to do it in shifts and there was no longer any adult beverages. 

Last year the ‘departmental’ lunch was not in the budget, and we had a mandatory all company party in the warehouse.  They rented one dilapidated pool table, 8 ping-pong tables (each in various states of disrepair), and a few blackjack tables.  You could tell this was asian thing…it was all about ping-pong, gambling and bad karoke.  And who the hell thought one pool table was going to be enough for over 500 employees?  And yes, I want to hear broken-english Japanese metro-sexuals singing Christmas carols.

This year, there is no tree.  I guess I wasn’t the only person who noticed, but the poor receptionist wasn’t given any information to quell our various inquiries.  It’s all speculation as to why there is no tree.  Perhaps its a budget thing?  Well, that wouldn’t surprise me as it seems anything that costs more than $5 these days needs a myriad of signatures and approvals both up and down the chain anymore.  We also just terminated 21 employees the week after Thanksgiving, so maybe it was one of those poor folks that did the ordering and decoration of this years said missing tree?  Maybe no one felt festive enough to put up a tree with the black cloud of despair so thick in the air?

Nothing says "Happy Holiday's" like a car dealership.

But here’s the kicker…..we have a MANDATORY party offsite at a…car museum…of all places?  WTF?  Seriously….WTF? 

And get this, the company is asking us to come in early that day so we don’t lose a lot of productivity time AND they want us to carpool together to get there and back.  Yes, not only is the party looking to be mandatory (an automatic buzzkill in my opinion to make it required), but we now have to adjust our schedules to make sure we get to work by 7am in the morning AND they won’t rent any shuttles or buses, so we have to carpool oursleves?  Why in the heck do I want to drive the opposite direction of where I live to attend a party at a car showroom I don’t care about and make arrangements to get there and back in the middle of rush hour traffic??

Okay, so you’re probably thinking, “Hey, why don’t you be thankful you get a party to begin with, jerk?”  Yeah, I get that.  Yeah, I’m happy I have a job, that I wasn’t one of those 21 people who was let go just a mere 4 weeks prior to Christmas, I totally get that.  It’s the fact that this ‘morale boosting’ project is at a location no one wants to go to, cares about, and the discussion everyone is having is “Do we have to go?” , “Can we leave early?”.  I get that part of it.  Again, why do I want to drive further away from my house and get stuck driving back in rush hour traffic playing either playing taxi driver myself, or being dependent on someone else? 

Look how much fun we aren't having.

And why Euromasters showroom?  At the end of the day, it’s a CAR DEALERSHIP.  My ‘holiday’ party is at a fricken CAR DEALERSHIP.  Go ahead, repeat that out loud.  Now say that again.  Our holiday party is at a honest to goodness car dealership.   I don’t care if it is 37,000 square feet.  Can I drive the cars? No.  Can I sit in them? No.  Can I touch them? No.  Am I getting a new car that day?  No.  So what the heck are we going to do there?  Look at them and marvel from afar while we eat Subway sandwiches and drink luke-warm soda (no alcohol folks) from either a can or generic styrofoam cup with 500 other employees?  On top of all this blur of excitement, our V.P. sent out an email today asking that we wear ‘holiday sweaters’.  Oh joy.  How original.  How 1950′s and clever we are.  He wants us to wear our sweaters because “it’s cute“.  Yeah, and it is also supposed to be 80 degrees in So. Cal. that day, so no, I’m not wearing a fricken sweater.  Really?  This is our motivational holiday party?

I think I’ll be calling in sick that day.

Hopefully I’ll get back to writing some new entries here with a bit more consistency.  Although I don’t have much to show for it, it does seem that my free time as of late is luxury I do not seem to have much of.  With that in mind, I have a few planned entries for the days coming  so thanks for hanging in there and checking back in.

My Droid phone is a year old now, and I still love it.  I’m passing on getting the Droid II or Droid Pro for now.  With Verizon now beginning to rollout their LTE network and with dual core smartphones in the pipeline, I figure I can wait a bit longer.  Not sure I’ll jump on the iPhone bandwagon or not.  Yes, I understand people call it the ‘Jesus phone’ and I do realize it can do a lot of things, but Apple is so over-priced and so proprietary, it’s become almost a personal mission statement for me not to get anything Apple.

In a few short months, Motorola will offer up Olympus (aka Terminator) and it’s only a matter of time before the Google Honeycomb OS makes it’s official debut, so I’ll try to stick out until then.  I’m also looking forward to the day I can afford a nice 10.1″ Android tablet as well.  I can see myself reading books (ala Kindle), magazines, and playing a few social games and looking things up while I watch TV.  Plus it’ll be easier on my eyes.

Speaking of eyes, I’ve been wearing my reading glasses now for a few months, but am already thinking I may need to go visit the optometrist again.  My eyes have been very tired and sore as of late.  While the glasses do help and my mid range to long distance vision still seems really good, it does seem my close up abilities are even getting worse than when I had them first checked out a few months back.  I notice that things close up tend to be more blurry, take longer to focus and seem to put more strain on my eyes.  It’s not even the end of the day anymore where I just want to close my eyes for a few minutes and rest them.

Okay, back to my phone.  What a racket cell batteries are.  My battery isn’t holding a charge like it used to for my phone.  Whereas when I first had my Droid the battery seemed to last at least 2 days, maybe a tad more on average; these days it’s lucky to hold a charge for a full day under normal usage.  Of course, if I don’t look up anything, the battery will last longer, but that’s the whole point of getting a smart phone: reading emails, surfing the net, looking up restaurants in the area, shopping, taking pictures and updating Facebook.  So anyways, Verizon still wants $39.99 for a standard battery.  WHAT?!?  $39.99?  That’s ridiculous!  If you can wait a few days for shipping, buy on Amazon.com.  Here, I found a new battery (well, hopefully new and not counterfeit) for $5 +S/H.  Yeah, I’d rather spend a total of $8 than $39.99+ tax for the same thing.  It’s analogous to buying accessories at the car dealership.  The same floormats for $69.99 found at the car dealership can generally be found at Target or Walmart for $14.99, so why would you do the same phone accessories?