I’ve been processing.
I spent all of Thursday on the phone, drafting emails about deferments, helping my daughter with her unemployment application, researching all the new loans. Getting discouraged by the high application fees and the not very favorable repayment terms, reading everything I could until it felt as though Thursday merged right into Friday and I could barely differentiate between the days, what I accomplished and how productive I actually was. By late Friday I had to get outside, so we walked and talked and then virtual cocktailed with a friend, made cookies, started the new season of Ozark. Today, I put on make up and got dressed and we went for a drive, talking about imaginary futures and turning off the stresses of the moment. So, here I am tonight, there’s a really nice rain, we’re probably going to have popcorn for dinner. We’re probably going to watch a movie. We’re probably going to pretend like everything is normal. We’re probably going to make each other laugh, and cook some actual food at midnight when we realize popcorn is not actually dinner, we’re probably going to drink too many cocktails and sleep really late tomorrow and not feel bad that we didn’t write the next best selling novel. Though…this goes on long enough and I might just write that book I’ve been kind of writing for the last several years. Maybe you’re also doing the same. If so, make this EXPERIMENTAL cocktail, built from very basic, not fancy at all, cocktail shelf staples:
1.5 oz rye (we have Jack Daniels rn bc the liquor stores closed and that’s what we got)
3/4oz sweet vermouth (which we also use pretty much anytime we sauté mushrooms)
Juice of half a GRAPEFRUIT
Fresh ground white pepper (it actually has a kind of sweet flavor to me)
Add the first 3 to your cocktail shaker with ice and shake the number of times that correlates to the year your mother was born. If you’ve got an old mom (like me) that’s only 39 times. If you’re like my daughter, you’ll be shaking that thing for quite a bit haha srry.
Cover the whole inside of your cocktail coupe with cracked white pepper. Just grind it right over the glass.
Pour your cocktail in, then add a grapefruit peel.
xoxo!
