A Quick Gallopin

These days my office stops are much less frequent than I'd like. I've had way too many responsibilities, forcing a wave of respectability that really should be uncharacteristic for me but is becoming tiresomely prevalent. And let's face it, without Dee-Dee Sue around, I'm not as suggestible. Oh sure, I stop off for a café-crème or an espresso whenever I pass the office. But I haven't had the time - or the companionship - to put my behind on that bar stool for an entire afternoon or evening, like in the good ol' days.

Companionship isn't a requirement, as inevitably I know someone in the café. And if not, the U-shape of the bar lends itself to playful (or flirtatious) smiles and head-nods (or eye-rolls) and ultimately full-on conversations. New friends are easily made. Everyone standing around the bar is part of the community. Part of the clan. And there's always the barman.

The other night I was thirsty. Thirsty for a cold beer. Thirsty for the companionship of that very same café clan. Thirsty for a break from all this undesired respectability. Yet it clamored: Small creatures to be fed, bathed and indoctrinated with French grammar. There wasn't much time for a stop, not a real stop.

But there was time for a gallopin.

The standard size of a beer in France is the demi, or 50 centiliters (cl). It's more or less a pint of beer. I say more or less, because a US pint is 47.3 cl, and a UK pint is 56.8 cl. Has anyone a clue why the British pints are more voluminous than American ones?

But the gallopin is about 20 cl, the size of a juice-glass, or the content of a medium-sized wine-glass. It was invented its namesake, Gustav Gallopin, who opened up a brasserie near the Bourse and catered to financiers and journalists. Nobody seems to be able to explain why, but he had the idea to offer up this smaller sip of beer. And now you can go to any café or bar in Paris (or most of France) and order a gallopin and get just enough beer to wet your whistle. Which sometimes, is all you need.

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Out of the Bag

All things San Fermin come to mind, we are focusing on and distracted by our preparation: the washing and ironing of white clothing, buying beads for bull earrings, organizing the arrival at our piso, calculating purchases of actimel on a Sunday, worrying about which pañuelo to wear.

I realized I couldn't put it off any longer, so those dirty shoes came out of the bag and the mysterious gray grime that had caked the side and bottom has been cleared off and cleaned up and this footwear is good to go for another filthy fiesta.

In a lapse of respectability, I actually had a job last week, running a workshop about cold water washing. At the event, I had the privilege of meeting a scientist who referred to himself as a bleach expert, and we had a lengthy discourse about getting tough stains out of white clothing. I told him a little tidbit we learned last year from a little old lady we talked to in the mercado. Dee Dee Sue asked her which of the laundry soaps she recommended to get the gray street filth out of the bottom of white pants and she told us her trick: wash with any laundry soap and a little Coca-Cola! A little secret there I was just ready to give away to the folks at P&G, but they didn't seem impressed.

I tried it after the fiesta last year, washing with the caramel-colored cleanser. Remarkably (I know, how could I doubt a Basque grandmother?), it worked.

And if the countdown to the Chupinazo isn't hard enough, a friend's photographs were featured in the New York Times blog, the Lens, further ramping up our anticipation.

It won't be long now. Ya falta menos.

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Preparing the Whites

It's my birthday today, and since there's no white knight here to celebrate it with me, I've made my own. I bought myself a birthday present his morning. It was as spontaneous as it gets. Saw 'em on the rack, tried 'em on. Sweepin' that Visa with aplomb.

Though, I must say, it wasn't much of a splurge. Dee Dee Sue (and Mother Theresa) will appreciate that in this particular case, the cheaper the better.

Because they won't be white for long, will they?

Ladies, prepare your bleach-pens. And happy birthday to me!
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Farewell Popcorn

Sad to report that this month we lost another legend. The old hillbilly and master moonshiner Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton, known for his white lightning, was busted (for moonshining) and decided the afterlife was preferable to 18-month sentence in prison. He'd evaded the law for so long, he couldn't let the law win.

Popcorn is the subject of a number of documentaries and articles and blogs, including one by his daughter. He was, apparently, the best kind of rogue personality: sly, crafty and soaked with Appalachian wit. And don't you love the title of his autobiography, Me and My Likker?

Popcorn, we'll tip one to ya'.
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Respectability

"Yes. All right--Respectability. That was what did it. I found out some time back that its idleness breeds all our virtues, our most bearable qualities---contemplation, equableness, laziness, letting other people alone; good digestion mental and physical: the wisdom to concentrate on fleshly pleasures---eating and evacuating and fornication and sitting in the sun--than which there is nothing better, nothing to match, nothing else in all this world but to live for the short time you are loaned breath, to be alive and know it--oh yes, she taught me that; she has marked me too forever--nothing, nothing. But it was only recently I have clearly seen, followed out the logical conclusion, that it is one of what we call the prime virtues---thrift, industry, independence--that breeds all the vices--fanaticism, smugness, meddling, fear, and, worst of all, respectability."

I think that this quotation by William Faulkner is the perfect starting point for this blog. And I think it stands alone. And so we begin.