Stormy Weather

The title refers to a cocktail I made for a dinner party at a friend's Friday night, a female coworker (married) whom I've been friendly with for a year or so but never really socialized with. She and her husband had a small group of coworkers over, and it turned out to be a lot of fun, even with a grueling fifteen minutes or so where a comment from me led to having to reveal a particularly unflattering anecdote. But then, what are friends for?

The Stormy Weather is rougly 1 oz of dark rum (not white, not spiced) over about 5 oz. of ginger beer (not ginger ale, which tends to be too sweet and not gingery enough), and a healthy splash of lime juice. Very refreshing and not all that strong, as ginger beer is just as nonalcoholic as ginger ale. It was kind of a hit at the party.

Good group of people there, though an odd and yet warm end to the night, as a nice, cheerful, morally upright woman and I were given romantic advice from our host and hostess. I only describe her thus because those adjectives apply and I think her upbringing had led her into being used a bit by a man or two, not in really ugly ways, just that her helpful nature was being exploited. It was really nice to meet her, though, and hopefully my coworkers and I will continue to socialize, as I realized at the party that although I'm pretty well-liked, I don't really hang out enough outside of work with these people.

Watched a short documentary on The Pet Shop Boys, which, as music documentaries often attempt to do, places them in a more influential context than I'd probably considered. More importantly, it reminded me I still liked a lot of their music pretty well, and that there's nothing wrong with it. To be clear, I don't mean that it's homoerotic or anything, just that one style of music that hasn't stayed with me that strongly is the very smooth, precise, mannered synthpop. I tend to like more of an edge, weirder sounds and beats. But it's pretty hard to knock their melodies and lyrics, and I respect that as their hitmaking ability has mostly left them, or tastes have changed, they have pushed their music into other areas to stay relevant, such as their musical and their score for silent classic Battleship Potemkin.

Finally, it must be old home week or something. My old high school friend JoAnn, one of the few with whom I've kept in touch, was visiting relatives in San Diego last week, and I saw her one night at their house at the last minute for a nice chat and a tour through her 20th reunion website. She was a year younger, but I did remember quite a few of her classmates. That made me register for my own alumni site (1987), which unfortunately had only seven other registrants, but one of them was another old friend named Tracie. We grew up a few blocks from each other in Illinois and were friends from about third grade through high school, though I can't recall why we didn't stay in touch after that. Knowing me, I probably just never got her info and let it go at that. I have a memory of being nine or ten and swimming with her in a neighbor's cold, dirty aboveground pool. I'm pretty sure she was my first African-American friend, and probably my first female friend as well. She was always cooler and more mature than me, and she fostered my interest in British New Wave and synthpop beyond the Depeche Mode and Duran Durans that everyone knew about and on into Bauhaus, Japan, Specimen, Cabaret Voltaire and more, some of which I gobbled up and some I wasn't ready for. She also was a talented keyboardist and even played a little on some early recordings of mine, probably the closest things to professional I did, even as rough as they were.

Well, I noticed on the site that she and her husband are now living in San Diego, too, after living in Reyjkavik. What are the odds? We've exchanged some emails this weekend but I have yet to call her. I want to get a few things done first, and to be honest, I'm slightly nervous about it, though she still seems to be her great old self. You just want it to be perfect, you know?