Wry On The Rocks

    My wife and I always enjoy a few glasses of wine with dinner and the other night had a particularly lovely 2008 fish bladder with our lamb chops.  It was slightly more expensive than usual because it was not just any fish bladder, but sturgeon bladder which has less of a hint of salt water to it.  Not everyone, of course, favors fish bladder;some of our friends, for example, prefer a hint of egg white in their Pinot Noir while others prefer the smooth taste of milk byproducts in their Merlots.  These are just a few of the items that vintners might add to their grape concoctions.

     Because of the slew of forest fires in California this past year or so, you may find more and more wine from the state higher than usual amounts of fish bladder or other “additives” to hide the smokey taste of the recent harvests.

     If the FDA ever gets around to demanding full disclosure on wine labels it will be a boon to the average consumer.  I can never remember if the ’99 is better than the ’04 or vice-versa, but I damn sure know how much fish bladder I want in my burgundy.

     I  just finished driving 1500 miles from Boston to Longboat Key, Florida and here’s my question today;  why isn’t Interstate 95 knee-deep in dead young motorcyclists?  Look up death wish in the dictionary and you’ll see a picture of a kid on a Honda, hunched over his handle bars, weaving through traffic in an attempt to break the sound barrier. This kid is 20 going on 12.  But, he’s OK…he’s wearing a helmet.  He’s wearing a tee shirt, cut-offs, sneakers,…and a helmet.  This is very good, of course, because the last thing you want to be without when you hit the pavement at 190 miles an hour is a helmet.  It is very useful in helping to  identify the body.  

      Higher up the food chain is the Harley Dude.  He is between 30 and 50 and sports gray hair pulled back in a ponytail which sneaks out from under his WW II helmet. He is  fully clad in either denim or leather and looks like he just finished adjusting carburetors or flushing cooling systems.  But, unlike Kid on a Honda, all tight and intent on keeping his date with destiny, Harley Dude is cool.  He sits back in the saddle with his handle bars cranked up so high he appears to kind of hang from them.  You’ll find that most Harley Dudes have very long arms. 

     At the highest end of the motorcycle spectrum is the Senior Rider.  This guy is over 50 and is riding in a small  RV on two wheels.  He is often pulling a small, matching  trailer which presumably carries his Depends and back-up dentures.  The dashboard was originally designed for the 747.  Whereas the  Honda is usually yellow or red and the Harley dude’s bike is black, Senior Rider’s traveling motel is invariably maroon.  It’s the law.  His bike is maroon, his trailer is maroon and his helmet is maroon.  The helmet , incidentally, was designed by NASA and includes a two-way radio  which allows him to communicate with his wife who sits in a Lazy-Boy at his back.  You don’t see them talking very often.

      I’m sure that all of these folks have a reason why they’d rather tempt fate on two wheels, but I suppose it could be worse.  They could be driving a Toyota.

    The president of Toyota cars, Akio Toyoda, has been making the rounds recently to re-assure customers that he still makes the best cars in the world.  “I personally insure the quality of every car”, said Mr. Toyoda, “because my name is on every Toyota.”

    Now why should we trust anything said by a man that can’t even spell his own name.