The Forgetful

You know what it's like. It's the day-after-the-night-before feeling all over again.
My folks are here visiting for a couple of weeks, even though mum never thought they'd actually get on the plane (first he had to take out the screwdriver from one pocket because the metal detector started screaming. Then he had to take out his flashlight from the other pocket, and then it was the belt buckle and then something else. Why do you bring stuff like that on a flight? I guess only dad knows. The funny thing is that he always manages to find a use for the stuff, so that it seems to make sense and be a matter of foresight.). In the end, they did get on the plane.

They've been here a few days now, and late last night Lady D got the idea to call an old friend of ours who owns a bar up in the Combat Zone and say that we were coming over. That's always only an almost, but not quite, good idea, because it is the Combat Zone, where numerous glorious battles were fought over the local women between the local men and the GIs until they were pulled out in '79. The first bars along lane 32 still send out their escort girls to try to get us into their bars. They always do, and I always wonder why -- they clearly see that we are the kind that come in couples. It's not like I'm going to abandon D to go in and pay through the nose for a watery drink with some escort girl in a tacky bar and hope that she'll make my wildest dreams come true. D already does that.

Anyway, we got our machetes out and fought our way through the thick of it, and eventually we made it through the driving rain and snow to A-m's place where we learned that he had just gotten his hands on the new Absolut, Raspberri, new for this month. Since even my folks who came straight from Sweden had never heard of it, that's what we had. And the whole bottle of it, too. We had already had a bottle of wine with dinner and a drink when D had the bright idea to go to A-m's place, but despite that, I seem to remember thinking that Raspberri was good with cola and a drop or two of fresh lemon juice. Since there was a lot to talk about, as usual and because A-m and my folks hadn't met for eight years, time went by as fast as the vodka went down.

By 2.30am, the vodka was gone and A-m had signed a book of his calligraphy for mom and dad, and promised to have an extra special calligraphy scroll for pops on his 80th birthday when we go over to A-m's place for dinner next week sometime.