20 July 2014

Turkish Wine of the Week - A Preview

Yes, it's Sunday night...well technically I suppose it's Monday morning which means I'm early for my usual wine post. And I have no pictures because I'm old school and I actually have to upload them from a camera, resize them, then upload them to the blog. HOWEVER, I've been asked by one of my current guests, to live blog our current wine adventures. It is...1:07 AM and I'm on my terrace with five if my new favorite people, one of whom has asked me to live blog our current drinking adventures.

We began our evening at one of my favorite restaurants in Sultanahment (The Anatolya Cafe and Restaurant) with four bottles of wine. And, like a good Turk, I invited them back to mine for more. We are now on our eighth bottle and I've been asked to both live and guest blog the drinking. I promise that pictures and real reviews will follow.

M has just now helped me fix the view as I somehow managed to make it really tiny. I know how to fix this on Chrome but not Firefox. And while I peer at my keyboard (we're on the terrace so my only light is from the screen and ambient city life (and bleeding ell now I've gone and blown up the view so now I'm typing a blog for either a child or a really really blind person) but the conversation in the background is about gay people, Nosferatu, and fish sandwiches (balik ekmek).

It's been pointed out to me that this might sound less than PC and I should mention that E is gay. So it's ok that I mentioned that we're talking about gay people.

"My office did not say one word when SCOTUS struck down Don't Ask Don't Tell and Prop 8 and DOMA..."and now I've lost the quotation but apparently you need one gay guy on a boat. And you have to pay an extra dollar for white rice at Jandara Thai in Woodley Park.

And we're back to a revolving conversation about C needing to replace his carpet. Apparently his wife is Skyping in from a third county to do house cleaning inspections. Which is awesome.

And apparently, for my visitors, this trip is about  transitioning his job to M and E touching M's milky white skin...dude I don't even know anymore. And now we're making babies. Not actively though, however the conversation is about as fun as actually making a baby. And K and M, who are both under 30 (ugh, seriously that just hurts me) have just been relegated to the children's table.


And now we're talking about how I'm too old to have children and I'm sounding veeery Western MI. Luckily I have K to remind me that we're not from Minnesota...and now E (who's gay remember) has moved on to a woman he slept with in New Orleans. This is fascinating. And I have to correct a lot of spelling errors. More than usual.

I don't even know how to write this but the conversation has shifted to sex and babies with Mexicans. Which I didn't quite think should be included here...but when the visitors tells you to do things, you have to do them.

This is actually a really difficult conversation to document. Having worked in a series of NGOs I'm fairly familiar with a number of acronyms but my friends have a whole different set of their own.

"Have ya'll ever done Ketamine?"

Yes this is my life. It consists of Turkish classes, drinking wine, my cat, online classes (I now know all about blood spatter), and bizarre people. But bizarre people really are the best.

"What is a wet burger?"

"Just let your mouth taste it!"

"What's that brown bag in your freezer?"*

It is now 1:57 AM. I assume that I don't have to work tomorrow. I sent my current employer a message to ascertain whether or not I am needed tomorrow (they're about 45 min away) but I have no emails. So Imma turn off my alarm clock. Which doesn't matter because Sherlock (currently hiding in my bedroom) is going to wake me before 8 AM for her morning wet food feeding.

Apparently C only brought one pair of pants. He insists that M not spill wine on them because he's not going to Gap. I said there wasn't one here but he corrected me. There is indeed a Gap here. In the same mall on Istiklal where there's an Arby's. Sadly, Arby's does not deliver.

I worry we might be too loud but the Ramadan drum banging guy has already started so...and now we're putting things on our nipples. Well, no. E is putting things on his nipples and my not to be named employed friends are posing with said nipples (at C's urging I named their employer earlier  but that has since been edited out). There are pictures. I will not post them. You're welcome.

"This is the one that asked me for the vaginal soap. With cranberry oil.  Triple action."

I don't even know anymore.

Also apparently I'm getting a hundred million dollars to move to Gaziantep. That is my base price for moving there, so that's cool.

E just said one of his subordinates needed a butt plug.  Classy.

'Furtive' is apparently a white verb. I'm not even sure what that means.

And M just broke suuuuper expensive sunglasses trying to pick up poor Sherlock. My poor baby.



"You don't have good people in government." Truer words, man. Truer words.

"Go Ramadan!" (In response to drummer ass butt).

"Do you smell my Patchouli?" 2:51 AM

C is now reading my coffee fortune. I tried to speed drink my coffee but it was so hot... I apparently have three smoke stacks. They are overtly good luck and the fact that I have three are a good sign. I have a lot of white sections which excite him because it means I have a lot of opportunity ahead of me. And he sees mountains. Which means heights of expecations which are the challanges I will succeed in achieving. The only concern he has is the dark bottom. I had to thumb print it which was really hard and now my hand is covered in coffee grounds.Now there's Arabic which I don't understand. Now i have a fish and a giver which means I have generosity and opportunity which is the 2nd time he said opportunity. It's a man giving fish apparently. Flying fish represents zeal and enthusians and passion for something. And he sees a pregnant woman. The preganat wonam has long hair. Like mine. I will become pregnant in the next 12 months. C says the baby dadddy is someone in Scotland. I must leave the cup, which is a good one, for a couple days. I will take a not drunk blurry pic tomorrow morning. It's a white a white cup which means clarity and purity, lack of confusion.


He likes the cup. And I must admit that I am not confused. Drink, and faced with wine I did not finish (I abandoned my cup for the coffee) but not confused!

Also I hope my neighbors, mostly my downstairs neighbor who is also my Sherlock sitter, is not disturbed by our noise. After they left and Sherlock came in (poor baby, she was not happy, I had to give her more wet food) I dropped the padlock to my terrace and it made a terrible clatter.

At this point I have no idea what I've written. Apparently it is a masterpiece and I am Pulitzer bound. Is there a blog Pulitzer? I shall post this before we all come to our senses.

I'm pretty sure I've read this and have edited everything that is legally not supposed to be said...if not I imagine they will tell me. I'm to send them all the link. I really hope they make it back to their hotel alive. It would be bad on many levels if I contributed to their death,

It is now 3:22 AM. My alarm is definitely being turned off. I will attempt to stay awake until I figure they've all stopped for a wet hamburger (jealous much) and got to their hotel. Apparently there will be more drinking tomorrow. God help me.

*It's coffee by the way. The brown bag in my freezer.

4 comments:

Cormac Bracken said...

You are the Hunter S. Thompson of wine reviewers.

Andrea said...

I am assuming and taking that as a compliment; thank you :)

Andrea said...

Frighteningly I don't actually remember having written the last quarter of this.

Cormac Bracken said...

It's like - HST was originally a sports writer, and personally sport is an unspeakably dull subject to read about. And then you read HST on the Kentucky Derby or that off-road rally, or chatting with Nixon about football, and you realise, it really doesn't matter what the f**k he's writing about, it's still a good read.