Make it Suntory Time

Alison is in Mexico, but the yacht is still here and the weather decided to take a nasty turn. It's freakin' freezing here right now and Ali's sipping margaritas on a beach in Puerto Vallarta.

As we all know, Tuesday was Valentine's Day and I did something that I've never done before - I bought flowers. Not roses - my new favourite gerberas. This also happens to be Ali's favourite and she loved them. Of course it didn't help Monday night when she told me that she picked up an extra shift and wouldn't be home on the day. I had to rush down to Durban and get the florist to change the delivery. It was close, but I managed it, unfortunately the flowers looked painfully tired when I saw them after work. She dropped another bomb on Monday night, too. I don't normally watch 24, but it was on so we watched it over a weak spaghetti con funghi. I admit it, I messed that one up. We watched a little 24, then Ali turned to me and said, "He's like Bruce Willis". I'm not a Kiefer fan, but those who are love Kiefer. I wonder how my co-workers are going to feel when I mention that Jack Bauer is just the new version of the guy from Die Hard. I imagine they won't be very happy.

The next evening, we had Veuve Clicquot, another nice champagne that Alphonse introduced me to. My French is pretty good or as Alison would say, "fucking amazing". But that doesn't mean that a person who doesn't speak French on a regular basis will understand what you are saying. As I may have said before, Alison has a really good sense of humour so when I read the label "Veueve Clicquot du Pontsardin Brut", Ali started to laugh her ass off. She had a straight face until I got to brut, which apparently sounded to her like a nasty burp. When she was done laughing, she patted me on the back and said "Bless you". I just kept repeating the word until she couldn't breathe from laughter. She hadn't even sipped the champagne yet. We had an otherwise quiet Valentine's. In return for the flowers I received a chocolate monkey and some soy and nori flavoured crackers. I triumphantly announced that I couldn't possibly eat the chocolate because I was on a diet, but ate the monkey after taking Ali home because I was so hungry. Al told me she chose the monkey because she liked that type of chocolate which she eats every day. Whu?? I thought she is/was on a diet. Well, if she can lose weight by eating chocolate every day, then I dropping South Beach.

On Wednesday, I received a call in which Ali tried to tell me she was in Orchard St., which she corrected again and again because apparently I had complained about her r's. She started with a total absence of r's replaced by an elongated preceding vowel, but after about the fourth time she had it perfectly. We went back to the 30-minute cake place on Thursday because she was leaving the next day and she couldn't stay out late. Again, we had to put up with people who insist upon taking flash photos in restaurants. That's what I like about Alison's workplace - there's a discreet yet highly visible warning not to use cameras in the shop and it come with an illustration so that EVERYBODY can read it. I had a disappointing hedgehog cake, and she had a "fucking amazing" triple chocolate mousse. That is if you believe white chocolate is chocolate. It's chocolate like saccharine is sugar. It tastes kinda like what its supposed to be but its not. White chocolate is made from cocoa butter, not cocoa bean solids like other chocolate, but whatever. Its called white chocolate and I'm just one person. I can't educate the whole world. My hedgehog cake was disappointing in that it was vanilla cake (I rationally expected chocolate) and it was very dry. Alison didn't eat very much of her triple chocolate mousse, and despite my protest of being on a diet, I was forced to eat the rest of it. A good two thirds of it - the two thirds of the wider part of the wedge. She practiced more r sounds, totally mocking me by saying that it is only possible for her to pronounce an "american" r if she does the same arm movements that I was doing. These are the same arm movements that game show models use when they're trying to make a stackable washer/dryer set seem appealing, and the same movements I used when giving Sissy a guided walking tour of historic Quincy, California. Hmmm, it took longer to read the brochure than it did to take the tour of all eight buildings. We had no choice - we were stuck in that shithole and I was trying to provide a little levity to the whole embarrassing ordeal.

Last night I saw Lost in Translation starring Bill Murray, and Scarlett Johansson with Giovanni Ribisi and music by Kevin Shields. I remember that back in 2003, Shields was shlepping around the BBC trying to promote his new album. The stuff they played was good, but the kind of stuff you forget if you're not listening. This was also the first Scarlett Johansson movie I've seen. Is she supposed to a babe or something? Yes, she's fetching but I just don't see the babe that everyone tells me about. It didn't help of course to see that she had the same bum and the EXACT same legs as my ex-girlfriend. The triggers are rare now, but once in a while...

If you haven't heard, the movie is written, produced and directed by Sofia Coppola and is about an aging actor who is in Tokyo to promote Suntory whiskey à la Sean Connery and his friendship with a newly wed, bored-out-of-her-skull wife who are both staying in the Park Hyatt hotel. I heard nice things about this hotel before I even considered watching Lost in Translation, but now I may even stay there on my next trip to Japan. Probably just for a night though, because I prefer the comfort offered at traditional Japanese inns. Murray's character Bob is stuck in Tokyo, kinda like I was stuck in Quincy and he decides to make a go of it and tries to have a little fun. Sure, but wouldn't it be more fun if you could do that with a girl half your age? So Bob and Charlotte party around Tokyo while Charlotte's husband is off taking photos of a band. They check out house parties, night clubs, strip clubs and karaoke bars where Charlotte sings my go to song Brass in Pocket. Pure coincidence, I assure you. I've been singing that song at karaoke since about 1998, four years before principal photography and five years before the movie came out. Eventually, Bob has to go back to his real life in the States and leaves Charlotte behind with a whispered message that wasn't in the script and was part of a whole improvised bit including a kiss. I guess only Bob and Charlotte will ever know what he said. That's how it ends - Bob gets to go back to his wife and kids as Charlotte is left in the streets of Tokyo pondering what to do with her future and a degree in Philosophy.