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Thursday, April 03, 2008

The Elks, drunken fruit and Tolstoy

I found a new place to watch city council meetings twice a month. I usually go home, have a glass of wine or a captain/coke and amuse myself from my own living room giggling at my co-workers on TV. Last night I was invited to the Elks for a drink and found out that they watch the council meetings there and call it “The Best Show in Town”. I may join the Elks!

Yesterday, I heard (again) an old wives tale about the health benefits of eating gin soaked raisins, which a good friend who happens to be an Old Italian wife told me about. She swears by them for easing joint pain. This time I asked a few questions. It must be golden raisins and it's easier on the palate if it’s expensive gin. You need a glass pan, a week of time and then you consume 9 a day to eradicate any and all joint pain. Her testimony…before eating this drunken fruit she couldn’t bend her pinky finger and consequently couldn’t deal cards at her poker club, the other ladies had to deal for her. Afterwards, the finger is as flexible as the other nine digits and the cards can practically deal themselves. I’ll be mixing this concoction this weekend and I’ll get back to you in a few weeks as to any benefits. It was suggested that I eat them on my morning oatmeal – hmmm.

I started reading “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy. It’s a pretty long book, over 800 pages and I’m reading from a tiny paperback that I found in a used book store that has a college students notes in the margin. I like that, but the print is so tiny, I’ll have to eat lots of carrots (in addition to those raisins) to sharpen my eyesight. The first line is a classic that everyone should recognize “ALL happy families are like one another; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The Oblonsky character had me laughing so hard in the very first chapter that I’m hooked. I’m going to give it the 100 page test and if I’m not wildly entertained, I’m going to skip it and wipe it off my list.

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