Is It Five O'Clock Yet?

Its always a drinks hour somewhere and right here, right now, the drinks hour has arrived at Chez Lapin Caustique.

Surprised?  Didn't think I was fluent in Croatian?  Well, there's a lot you don't know about me, particularly because a lot of it is so damn boring. 

So the trash is out with the recycling at the curb, the first load of laundry is in the spin cycle, the rugs are vacumed, the dishwasher is emptied, the cats are fed and its time for a decent cigar and a gin martini.  Thumper and I have been developing martini variant recipes (since there's only one true martini) for use at some point in time when staying in corporate America versus laying it all on the line for potential failure in your own enterprise becomes a metaphorical choice between continuing to take it up the ass daily from Bruce and spending a few nights with a crack whore who looks cleaner than most.  That is to say the eventual martini bar somewhere where "cold" is fifty nine degrees.

We've had a few more fulfilling drinks hours, Thumper and I, over our brief time together.  There was the midnight martini on New Year's Eve in St. Augustine, outside just down the street from the Ponce de Leons.  There was a neat Maker's Mark in Berlin, huddled in the hotel bar while some anti-something rolled down the Friederichstrasse outside.  There were Mojitos in Key West, in a joint that was little more than a covered alleyway but which served some Cuban food that made you want to round up volunteers, boats and guns.  There was the perfect wine after four hours in a rental truck from mid-state, on the front porch in an eighty degree at two a.m. monsoon that's tag teamed you all the way home.  There was the 10.30 am beer can in the foreground, Atlantic Ocean in the background cell phone picture we emailed home to a buddy with the title "all I've managed to get done today".

The cocktail hour at this rabbit's warren has always served as punctuation to the day.  Mostly a period at the end of the sentence, sometimes an exclamation to a particularly good day or rather nasty one.  There have been question marks too, and they are invariably followed by a sleepless night since something is hanging in the air.  A Sunday morning glass of wine while we're frying potatoes and dicing barbeque pork for a good hash is an open quotation to "what shall we do with the rest of this fine day?"

We choose liquor as our ritual for two reasons:  It reflects on how we met, at a local joint over a beer, then to go chasing across town until three a.m. visiting landmarks of our respective lives as we got to gather information on "is this one too weird for a second date?"- and once you get a good drink recipe down, its hard to screw up.  The same can't be said for culinary arts.  We approach meals as a science experiment.  Sometimes you just have to contend with failure.

Benjamin Franklin was alleged to have once said "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."  Maybe, but I'd sooner posit that the cocktail hour is proof that some of God's creations turned out to be complete assholes so God provided respite and relief for the rest of us.

Here's a toast and a tall one to whatever your ritual might be;  drinks, meals, coffee, a long "whew" lay on the couch, a squeeze of the hand and a wink.

Just be sure to always add a twist.

Bunny on.