Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

  Davie at the beach with my grandparents, circa 1982 Yesterday we attended the funeral of my childhood next door neighbor, Davie. Davie and his wife Sandy had three girls who were roughly the same ages as my brother and me and lived across the street from my parents for 50+ years. And when I say next door neighbor, I mean the kind of neighbor we didn't knock on their door, we just slammed right in their house and made ourselves a sandwich. (Which would have been white bread, butter on one slice, mayo on the other slice, Lebanon Balogna with a dab of yellow mustard and a handful of potato chips jammed in there. But this is beside the point). Davie was a skinny chain-smoking functioning alcoholic with anger management issues. He also was always up to something you desperately wanted to be a part of. One halloween he dressed up like Fig Newton and all I remember is his skinny legs in these bright green tights sticking out of a gigantic green fig costume standing on the corner smoking...

I was at a Thai restaurant last night with Tom and Scott, looking over the signature cocktail menu. I didn't see one that really was calling my name. And, of course, I would never order my go-to bourbon drinks in a Thai restaurant. It's too much cognitive dissonance for even me. So I vaguely waved my hand and asked for a vodka tonic.  Half a screenshot of the cocktail menu at Laut Thai. And then I halted mid-sentence.  "Do you have Fever Tree?" I asked in a panicked voice because I was, in fact, slightly panicked.  I would certainly never drink tonic that came out of a bar gun. Tonic from a gun always has that bitter taste of under-bar tube slime and the bubble quotient is extremely variable. Also I don't like tonic from a previously opened plastic bottle. It doesn't fizz properly. No thank you sir. I like Fever Tree tonic from a single use glass bottle.  Anyway, the Thai restaurant did not have Fever Tree and so I changed my order to a more Thai-forward cockt...