Cerise is out of town on business this weekend, and Twinkle is staying overnight at the vet, leaving me, so I thought, alone for the day. What’s more, I am completely caught up on my work, too. Therefore, I figured I’d relax on the sofa at home with the latest editions of Harpers, the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, Scientific American and some of my other favorite periodicals. And so I did this afternoon, a double cappuccino accented with shots of Godiva Dark Chocolate liqueur and Grand Marnier to accompany my reading. About halfway through that cup, however, Veronica walked in and sat down next to me. “Tom,” she purred, “can you do me a big favor?” “What?” I inquired [...]
Feb 112012
I didn’t go in to the office this morning, and eagerly anticipated a quiet Saturday at home in Great Falls, Virginia with my girlfriend Cerise and my cat Twinkle. We had, however, just finished a tasty late winter Tidewater lunch of shad roe with chard and roasted red fingerling potatoes when my POTS land line rang. It was Dr. Pedro “Pete” Tontogrande Chupacerdo y Boludo del Alcantarilla, former Juan Perón Professor of International Peace, Tolerance and Diplomacy at the University of Buenos Aries and current Primary Counselor for Political and Economic Policy at the Embassy of Argentina here in Washington, DC. Dr. Pete: Tom! I hope I’m not intruding. Tom: Certainly not, Professor del Alcantarilla. I’ve always been available on [...]
Feb 062012
My extended family organized two Super Bowl parties last night. There was one for the hordes of children belonging to my dear sister Rose, her husband Hank, Hank’s brother and his wife – that one was held at the home in Fairfax, Virginia where, thanks to the folly of our real estate market, both large Catholic families now live, pooling their resources to meet a hopelessly underwater mortgage. The party was overseen by Hank’s eldest son, Hank Jr., who, although an undergraduate art student at Brown, happened to be in the DC metro area this weekend curating for the Smithsonian. The adults – which is to say, everybody who is old enough to drink – gathered at my home in Great Falls. And [...]
Virginia Catholic Church Excommunicates the Girl Scouts
My dear sister Rose and I have lunch together about once a month – on me, of course, as regular readers of this Web log would readily surmise. Yesterday, she selected Tosca, on F Street. She started off with prosciutto di Parma con cavoletti di Brussels e pecorino pinzani tartufo “riserva” and I with guazzetto di vongole e polipo con patate, olive in salsa di astice, over which we split a bottle of 2006 Sicilian Donna Fugata mille una notte. For a main course, Rose ordered the filet mignon alla griglia con erbette di campo alla Toscana, fagiolini alla provenzale e salsa alla coda di bue, and I the merluzzo in crosta di nocciole con purea di cavolfiori tartufata, bietole [...]