Choo choo

Somehow, I don't imagine this is our conductor.

Secret Agent Fred and I are spending Christmas day taking the train down the coast to Los Angeles.  It's supposed to be a really spectacular trip and I like riding on trains,

but right now, four hours before we're supposed to leave, Fred and I are both sort of loaded (in Fred's case, you can delete the "sort of" part.  Plowed would be a better description.)  Still, how hard can it be to get on a train?

Hmmm.

We'll be back soonish, I'll tell you all about it.

Houseless

Oops, I forgot to mention after all the drama about trying to buy that house in New Orleans that it didn't work out.  Oops.  The rapacious sellers simply wanted too much money for a house equipped with an antique electrical system and plumbing that was essentially a bog.

I looked it up just now and it's back on the market with an increased price tag.  Wow,  just wow.  When I was considering it, the price they were asking was a chunk over comparable places in the neighborhood, so how they're justifying this is beyond me.  They do mention in the description it has "updated" plumbing, which I assume means they've patched up the sewer.

I'm still looking for a place there, but there's nothing on the market and probably won't be until after New Year's.

Maybe I'll just invest in muscular Australian youths.

More Thanks. Lotsa Thanks.

Oh, hay.  Do I still have a blog?  Waddya know?

Do you remember Thanksgiving?  A couple of weeks ago?  Some friends and I went down to Big Sur to spend the Feast of Fat in this place that was astonishingly sumptuous.

This is the view from the backyard.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, "I find it harder and harder every day to live up to Northern California's excessive prettiness."  Sometimes it's sort of oppressive, much like what I assume dating this guy might be like.

I made turkey and cornbread dressing and gravy, all of which was totally delicious, if I say so myself, and our friend J made pulled pork for sammiches, which was even more tasty and the place even had a dance floor where mrpeenee demonstrated the moves that made him the terror of bars throughout the 80s

and there was a giant soaking jacuzzi tub for after dancing.  All fabulous.  And that's when the cocaine came out.

Oh my little schnitzels, I haven't done any coke since Ronald Reagan was president, but it turns out I can still snorfle it up like a Dyson.  My co-miscreants, all of whom are considerably younger than me and were not around for the Liza Minnelli years were most impressed.  Apparently they had fallen for my respectable facade all these years.

Equally impressive to them was at the very end, when there was only smallish pile left and someone (NOT ME) spilled water on it.  I had only the briefest pause before I announced "I'm licking that up."  Who wants to waste cocaine?  It was one of those decisions you make that even as you're processing it, you think "Probably not the best idea," but that doesn't stop you.  And besides the feeling returned to my tongue by the next morning.  Pretty much.

A lovely Thanksgiving.

Everything counts in large amounts.