Ballard Street by Jerry Van Amerongen for September 05, 2017

Looks like she might be into her second or fourth martini.

If I was Gloria, I too might acquire a taste for martinis.

I love your dress, Gloria!

I, too, know the feeling, or lack thereof.

The wildfire up the Gorge from us is still zero contained and due to an east wind moving toward us.

We went out on the deck at 11:pm and it looked like it was snowing and the smell of fire and burned wood was very strong.

It’s too dangerous to even go outside, schools are closed tomorrow and they have evacuated several towns.

This is scary, if that thing hops the river, we’re right in the path.

I wish I could use martinis as my excuse.

Alas, I don’t have one.

I know. You’ve all seen me indulge in the occasional banana dak, perhaps the odd Redtail ale, or shot of Glenfidddich, while running the night shift at the Tiki….

But never so often, or to the point, that I can blame them for the problem. Sigh…..

Meanwhile…. Dennis! That’s the very fabric print I keep looking for.

I call them doughnut polka dots, or when they’re small, “hole-protector” polka dots (after those stickers you use on notebook paper holes, to keep stuff from tearing out of your binder.)

If you can get it, I’d like half a bolt of very large (like Gloria is wearing) red doughnut dots on purple, in 100% viscose rayon, please.

And 6 yards of black with slightly smaller white doughnuts.

Thanks.

Liverlips… nothing to worry about.

Monitors have different refresh rates, some slower than others, and the color isn’t continuous…. it’s broken up into rows of 3-color pixels, with tiny spaces in between.

As you scroll, the bits of the image are passing from pixel to pixel, lighting up the appropriate colors in each…. but, as they’re separate, it’s not a perfectly smooth transition..

You can think of it as more like a sub-miniature version of those “chasing” Christmas lights.

If you look closely. it twinkles and glimmers.

…sigh…

I no longer allow myself that tool.

The brain numbness usually set in after about the fourth or fifth martini, in my case.

Susan, we know that, with all your hard labor at the Tiki, you often work up a thirst, and no sane or slightly sober person would ever begrudge you a little liquid relief from your toils. And indeed, like myself, you are often called to “taste test” the various potent potables to insure quality of product. In fact, I believe you were the only official spirits sampler and purveyor until I came along.

We would never, ever think that those little nightly sip…sip…sips would cause any diminution in discernment or dereliction of duty.

Your occasional naps have nothing to to with those nips. We know that your under-the-piano snooze has nothing to do with booze.

I never acquired a taste for martinis.

That’s a damn good martinus.