Woot! My first order has arrived! Two large bottles of Smirnoff and one of the last remaining bottles of Appleton Estate 8-year-old double cask rum which is now out of stock. Five calendar days or four business days from time of order. Considering the overload that the liquor store strike has put on every aspect of the distribution system, that’s actually pretty good.
Judging from the timings, second order will probably ship tomorrow and might arrive Monday.
We are officially hot and smokey. Had to go to Billings yesterday for a Dr. appointment–103F when we left. Now there is a fire in Helena which is NNW of us and usual wind direction is normally W-SW but we’re getting the smoke. Not too bad, honestly, but it’s been just lovely up until now.
I’ve told the tale before of a 5 year running tussle with IRS when I wrote them a check for IIRC $48.00 and their bank deposited it as $00.48. They were therefore legitimately short $47.52, but not my fault. This went around a lot of bushes before we finally got everyone on their side to agree that my original timely payment should satisfy the debt timely, even if I had to send them the 47.52 their bank lost a couple months later once I first knew of the discrepancy.
5 years. Not at any great rate, probably 3 back-and forths per year. But they spend a lot more than $47.52 getting their ducks aligned with reality.
This has taught me a number of important lessons about dealing with the government:
Didn’t you say that Appleton Estate rum is something you’ve never had? Now I’m curious what you think of it.
And congratulations. 
Glad to hear it. Now, you won’t be disappointed when I’d ship you a few forty-pounders of Alberta Pure Vodka. Gotta remind you of where I got it, after all. 
Seriously, Alberta’s not bad, especially if you’re making Caesars or Marys. The price is right, anyway. It’s not top shelf, but good enough for such drinks. Other vodka cocktails (e.g. a vodka martini), maybe not; but if all you’re doing with it is mixing it with Clamato juice/tomato juice, it’s fine.
Thanks for sharing the good news!
There’s nothing special about Appleton Estate in general but by sheer accident this turned out to be a fairly unique one. It’s a beautiful bottle with a colourful wrap around the neck that says “Limited Release”, and I’ve been reluctant to open it since I still have an ample supply of Bacardi Gold and more ordinary rum arriving next week, along with (of course) much more vodka! So it may be a while before I open it. Knowing that it’s now irreplaceable gives a sealed unopened bottle a certain cachet!
What I can tell you is that all the extra aging gives it a much deeper amber colour than the ordinary Bacardi Gold, which I believe is aged for only two years. The label on the back claims it has notes of spiced fruit, dried raisins, vanilla, caramel, and honey, among other things.
Yeah I’d wait to open it in that case too.
Reminds me of one of the jockeys at the local racetrack. Many of them (though not all) come from Jamaica, and they’ll come into the bar after the day’s races are over. Nice guys, and they’ll never complain if you choose to buy them a beer out of what you won on the winning horse that they rode.
One of them though, comes in, and his first drink will always be an Appleton on the rocks. After that, it’ll be draft beer, but his first is always Appleton. If you ask him why, he’ll just say, “It’s from Jamaica, like me. A toast to home.”
Much as I love Caesars – and believe me, I do! – I also frequently make martinis. And my martini of choice is made with vodka, not gin, with the addition of only ice and a garlic-stuffed olive. So I’m quite particular about my vodka. I’ve been buying Absolut for so long that I was frankly a little concerned about have to settle for Smirnoff, which I did only because the House of Wolfpup declared a State of Liquor Emergency due to the strike and bought what it could. But Smirnoff is fine, and some people actually prefer it.
But not to worry, Alberta makes many fine products. Your natural gas keeps me warm in winter, and some entrepreneur from Alberta once sold me a nifty gadget that allows my cell phone to connect, via Bluetooth, to my wired landline phones.
Another Caribbean source of rum is Barbados. One of the rum bottles arriving next week is a tribute to that! It’s a Barbados amber rum with 57% alcohol content (or as USAians like to say, 114 proof). This is apparently the traditional ABV of British navy rum. It’s supposed to be great for making rum punches. Many years ago while visiting Barbados we went on a boat cruise on something that looked like a pirate ship. They served us rum punch that I suspect was made with stuff like that, because I was completely wasted after a couple of glasses. I suspect rum punch is in my future this summer to complement the essential Caesars!
And once again, we agree on the basics, yet disagree on the specifics. My martini of choice is Bombay Sapphire gin and Noilly Prat dry vermouth, on the rocks, with an olive, and a garlic-stuffed one is just fine, though if necessary, I can deal with a pimento-stuffed one.
If we ever meet, we’re going to need an extra-extra-well-stocked bar!
Well, now a real rant! This liquor strike business is turning into a real PITA. Good news: my second order was just shipped. Bad news: it’s only the rum. The two jumbo bottles of Smirnoff are out of stock. Worse, there is no indication of whether they might ship them later, but it looks like not. It just lists them as out of stock and the order says “unfulfilled” for those items and it looks like it’s just cancelled.
Currently, there are no large bottles of vodka available, but plenty of 750 ml ones (but the order limit is two). I guess I’ll just have to keep checking back and place yet another order when something becomes available. I feel like I’m living under wartime rationing! 
Medical records that are wrong, wrong, wrong.
20+ years ago, I had a sleep study. The doctor who interpreted the results never met me, yet somehow documented that i had “hypnotic dependent syndrome”. I looked it up, and it means someone who relies on sleeping pills to sleep. At that point in my life, I had had exactly ONE sleeping pill… 4 years earlier. Pretty sure I was not hooked.
I recently looked at my primary care records and was bemused to find out that I have ADHD and am seeing a psychiatrist to manage it. Er, nope (I have a very small stash of Ritalin, to use when I need to drive and am drowsy. I use about 4 tablets a year).
Records from my last confirmed broken bone, a foot, in 2022, note that I fell (I did not).
Records from when I have COVID note that I could not get Paxlovid due to cirrhosis (an incidental dx of NAFLD, from an ultrasound for other reasons years before, is not the same thing).
When my sleep clinic went to a new system, they converted a bunch of historical readings WRONG Note: if my systolic blood pressure was really the same as my weight, I would likely be dead by now.
Not sure just how concerned I should be about all this; I can certainly correct providers, but if someone decides to go by “what’s on the record” versus what “that fibbing patient says”, it could go badly.
Hearts full of youth!
Hearts full of truth!
Six parts gin and one part vermouth!
—martini recipe given in the song Bright College Days, courtesy of T. Lehrer (canonical)
Back when we were in the throws of Covid, the only way to get alkyhaul was to call the local store & place an order over the phone that they would prepare for you to come pickup. Of course they had normal phones &, in many cases, only one line per store. That means if you called & were placing your order, I would get a busy signal. It took me days until I got thru. Then I stymied their whole system when they asked for my car info so they’d know who to open the door for when you knocked They didn’t bring it out & put it in your trunk, you had to knock on the door & they’d open the door & hand it to you. Uhhh, I was going to walk over & make that my outing for the day so I wouldn’t have a car. The clerk had to check with the manager. They weren’t sure they could do it. Ummm, what’s the difference if I walk up from my car or directly from my house???
My rant - drove past road construction last night. There were four construx vehicles before where they were working. Two had big ‘get over’ arrow boards on the back & three had (deployed) scorpion systems. One the shoulder where they were working & past where they were working there was not one but two cop cars. I’ve never understood why they have a cop sit on scene of a work zone; what service are they providing other than raking in OT at taxpayer expense?
Vaguely related;
Back in the 90s my mother had a several months back and forth interaction with a collections agency for a debt she was convinced she didn’t have. The agency was calling several times a week but were vague on details.
Eventually, someone actually gathered whatever debt evidence they had and mailed it to her. The value of the debt was -$0.25.
That isn’t an error.
-$0.25
Someone had erroneously sent her info to a collections agency over a credit of one quarter dollar.
She had to call the damn agency and tell them to read the document, but that phone call did lead to an end to the proceedings.
Welp, I’ve just inched a bit closer to quitting one of my volunteer jobs and the other one I like a lot better is pissing me off right now too.
The first organization decided to change its name a few months ago. It’s a chapter of a national, very well-known org and its name had the name of this national org in it. It doesn’t now.
I was directed to change the name wherever possible on their website. Now the board (which is composed of lots of well-heeled people used to getting their way) is shocked, SHOCKED! that the site has fallen in search engines – to the point that the homepage no longer even shows up on the first page of results. This must be remedied immediately! And searching for both the old and the new name should come up equally well! And of course it’s me that should do something about fixing it.
After I stopped laughing (privately, this is all done via email), I pointed out that changing an org name from something extremely well known to something not known at all might have something to do with this problem. And suggested that someone who knows a whole lot more about SEO (search engine optimization) than I do might be able to help. I believe we have another volunteer whose day job involves that sort of thing – that’s a good place to start.
Idjits doth vex me.
The second org? Well, I just finished a draft of a project for them yesterday, only to find out there’s going to be a problem I never knew about until today with some of the photos.
Fortunately it’s only a few of them, but geez, shouldn’t someone have brought up this issue, like, LAST YEAR when I started doing this particular project? This is the second project of the same type I’ve done, not a peep about it through all of round #1. ::sigh::
Also, Husband? While I appreciate you helping with after-dinner clean-up, could you please spend an extra 60 seconds rinsing the crud out of the dirtier dishes and maybe give them a swipe with a sponge before putting them in the dishwasher? Because when you don’t do that (which is 90% of the time, despite my repeatedly asking), you know what happens? Those bowls with food residue in them then become encrusted with baked-on residue, which means I have to rewash them. It’s also not helpful to nest all those bowls together on the top rack where water can’t even get to the dirty part very well. If the rack is full, don’t throw unrinsed stuff on top of whatever else is in there - not only will that item not get clean, neither will the items under it. Either wash it yourself or rinse it and leave it for the next load.
Not rinsing anything also gunks up the filters really quickly, and then none of the glasses get clean, so I have to rewash those too, and then take out the filters and clean those. You’re actually making more work for me rather than less.
It lowers the number of fatal collisions. They have charts and graphs and everything.
Isn’t it sad that you can have the best, most thorough warning system in place, and some drivers still won’t slow down like they will if there’s a cop car there?
My child, at 3 years of age, was a delight, a joy to experience.
Every other 3yo is a loud fucking brat.
Guess which category I’m surrounded by?