after ecstacy, the laundry

[rmd]

i came home last night, after the big win (second is the new first, you know), and discovered one of the cats had horked on the bed. while clauclauclaudia was hunting down clean sheets, i took the money out and touched it and fondled it. because i've never had that kind of cash in hand. but the cat horking explains why there's nothing but a mattress pad on the bed in this picture. i am usually civilized enough to have sheets on the bed.

so, i spread it all out and then took a picture of it with a big naked hairy pussy on it. yeah baby. she rolled around in it, even



and then today i walked around with the money in my pocket till i made it to the bank. then i paid off my car loan and on my way home i bought a nice bottle of scotch and a nice bottle of port. next weekend, in addition to my usual weekend ritual of dealing with mail and doing bills, i'll be writing a nice big check to the american cancer society (yeah, cancer made me a better poker player, but i don't advocate this approach for other people). also smaller checks to other groups. heifer project, an ovarian cancer education group, doctors without borders, rosie's place, etc.

i thought about divvying up the money differently instead of throwing it all at the car loan, but then i realized that not only was it the worst loan i had, but that i really wanted to be able to say that i'd paid it off with poker winnings.

one thing i noticed yesterday and today was that walking around with that kind of money felt a lot like wandering around with a concealed handgun. that same kind of "be very aware of it and make sure it doesn't end up falling off your person or that you aren't flashing it at people without realizing it" caution coupled with the "be casual and don't make it obvious you're doing anything different."

Comments

[babasyzygy.livejournal.com]

Mmmm. I just finally got around to trying the Dow 20 year old. Nice stuff. I had some nice Cockburn's 20 year old just before it, which was nice - similar but less complex.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'm still getting a handle on this Port stuff...

[rmd.livejournal.com]

oh, port is still a new thing for me, too. claudia turned me on to the tastiness of nice ports by plying me with a tawny port (taylor fladgate, iirc) and we've been experimenting with some at home.

i haven't opened up the dow yet. we're still working our way thru whatever the open bottle is (which i've forgotten at the moment)

[babasyzygy.livejournal.com]

Ah, Taylor Fladgate was my gateway drug, too. Prior to trying a 10 year, I thought all ports were indistinguishable from cough syrup. Now, I'm afraid I've accumulated some Taylor Fladgates that I shouldn't open up for years to come...

The Dow's quite nice. In fact, so far I'm finding that anything with "20 year" and "Tawny" together, is pretty good. They're all different from one another, but have pretty much the same basic yumminess to them.

Dangerous stuff to develop a taste for, pocketbook-wise -- I ended up having to buy a 40-bottle wine rack the other day, to accomodate the just-1-or-2-bottles-here, just-1-or-2-bottles-there buying I've been doing. I even stumbled on an $80 bottle of a fortified french wine from 1947 that I was unable to resist snagging (the store's resident wine snot said it would be quite nice, and other prices I've found on-line have been from $110-$160) - I have no idea what'll prod me to open that one...

Normal wines didn't really grab on to me, but tawny ports and icewines have. Liquid candy, snootiness, and alcohol - what more can one ask?

[rmd.livejournal.com]

yeah, i don't care for most wines. tasty sweet wines, tho... yum.

I'm afraid I've accumulated some Taylor Fladgates that I shouldn't open up for years to come...
i didn't think tawny ports continued to age in the bottle. or is this for other kinds of port?

[babasyzygy.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely sure, I'm not clear on what makes something count as a Tawny or otherwise - the one source I have (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1840923741) says that all ports are either Ruby, Tawny, or White, but then seems to differentiate Tawnies from Vintages. The word might shift meaning depending on context, perhaps - it says that tawnies are made *either* by accelerating the aging *or* by blending ruby and white, and then it goes on to talk about "old tawnies" being replaced by tawnies with specific year (10, 20, 30, and 40 only) . Perhaps in some contexts the "old" becomes silent?

I think they all do age in the bottle - I think the aging/ready-to-drink thing has more to do with how they were originally aged and fined (ie, the sediments removed) rather than how red they are. But that's tentative until I get a better understanding of it all.

Away from the "tawny" terminology, I'm a little more certain - What I gather so far is that the "n-year" ones are ready to drink, while the "Vintage 19nn" ones are intended to age ("crust") first, for up to 30-40 years but ideally a minimum of 10 years... I found a discussion online of the relative costs of buying ports at auction versus buying them new and aging them one's self. Taylor Fladgate (http://www.taylor.pt/ourport_frame.htm) has a pretty chart here (http://www.taylor.pt/maturationchart.htm), with some of them classified as "bottled & sold for buyer to age," some as "sold when mature, will improve" and others as "fined, bottled, and sold ready to drink."

In any case, in the absence of a complete understanding of the process I'm wimping out and falling back to the text in fine print on the back of the bottle... some of them say something to the effect of, "you can drink this now if you really want to, you goddamned philistine, but we'll hate you and curse your descendants if you don't age it first. Back away from the bottle now." (translated from, "will improve with age and may be kept for many years in the bottle. Store horizontally and decant before drinking.").

I have a couple of 1995s, a 1999 LBV (which I gather is another one with some aging games already played on it), and a 2003. The vintage 2003 was actually fairly pricy ($100) but still has that "age me, goddamn it" text on it so I'm guessing it should be spectacular once it does age. I got the two 1995s, because I know I won't be able to resist trying one of them some time soon.

The vintages don't say "tawny" on them anywhere, nor "ruby," (just "vintage") so I just don't know. Perhaps the "three categories" classification isn't actually complete.

Sorry for the rambling, I'm learning as I dig. I'll understand it a lot better in the near future - I have a few more books on order that should arrive today or tomorrow.

One thing I do know is that so far none of the bottles I've bought myself have tasted like cough syrup, which is quite a pleasant surprise.

[babasyzygy.livejournal.com]

Ahah, according to the rec.food.drink wine FAQ (http://www.faqs.org/faqs/drink/wine-faq/part6/), port comes in two types: vintage and wood ports. It's the wood ports that are broken into ruby, tawny, and white and it's the vintage ports that you age.

So I guess Taylor Fladgate does vintage, tawny, and white ports (I haven't seen a ruby yet, at least).