Saturday night, Cerise talked me into dinner at Fogo de Chao downtown. She’s my Significant Other, which is to say, my current girlfriend, and I have a policy of always doing what my SO wants, provided it’s within reason. Fogo de Chao is a pretty good deal if you like roasted meat and you’re really hungry, but don’t order any single malt scotch – the prices are truly outrageous, about twice what other decent restaurants in DC charge for the same brands. After that, we took in “Color Me Kubrick” at the E Street Cinema. Cerise had told me only that it concerned the director Stanley Kubrick and that it stars John Malkovich. Well, that’s true, as far as it goes. In case it plays near you, dear reader, I won’t spoil things, but be warned, it’s a very unusual motion picture, to say the least.
After that, we strolled along the Tidal Basin, taking in the cherry blossoms, which are very impressive this year. Shortly after midnight, her Blackberry started playing the opening bars of “Giant Steps.” After a brief conversation, she put the Blackberry back in her purse and gave me a long, passionate kiss.
“You’ll never guess,” she said, as we finished, “who that was.”
“Don’t keep an idiot in suspense, dear,” I replied, as I recovered my composure, “who, what, where, when and why?”
“The ‘who’ is my college room mate, Jill. ‘Where’ is right over there,” she pointed, “at the Willard. ‘When’ is as soon as we can walk over there. The ‘what’ and the ‘why,’ – that’s kind of special.”
“Special?” I asked, as we began walking toward the Mall.
Cerise took my arm and leaned her head against my shoulder. “Did I ever tell you that I was L.U.G.?”
“Does that mean what I think it does?” I was more than a bit flabbergasted.
“That’s right – lesbian until graduation. Jill was my partner.”
I concentrated on walking straight, since my knees were, for some reason, threatening to buckle on me. “That’s, ah, interesting,” I finally managed. “I’m certainly glad you turned out to be bisexual.”
“Me, too,” she smiled, hugging my arm a bit tighter, “and I really do prefer men,” she gave my left cheek a peck, “most of the time. Jill’s here on business. She said she’d call me this weekend. She wants to get together with me while she’s here, and she also says she’s very excited about meeting you.”
“I… we… sure… I’m flattered,” I replied, not my usual eloquent self by any means, “did you say ‘very excited?’”
Cerise smiled that wicked little smile of hers, the one she saves for especially naughty mischief, “Oh, yes,” she purred, “very, very excited.”
As we made our way down 15th Street past the Washington Monument to the Willard Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, Cerise volunteered all the fascinating details of her relationship with Jill, starting with their meeting during freshman orientation, including the stories of four rollicking spring breaks, numerous amorous weekend getaways to the city and countless steamy all-nighters preparing for exams. By the time we were riding the elevator up to her suite, I won’t kid you, dear reader, Tom was very, very, very excited to meet Jill.
Cerise knocked. The door opened. It was pitch black inside. Coquettishly, she grabbed my hand and pulled me into the room.
“SURPRISE!” The lights went on. There were Rob Roy, Katje, Rose, Hank, Vinnie and about a dozen other friends and associates, all grinning like the cat that ate the canary. Yeah, April First is my birthday – and I’m sure, dear reader, that you, like so many others, probably find that extremely appropriate. No, this wasn’t the first time a celebration of my birthday had been combined with an April Fool’s Day prank, and, after so many of them, one might think I would have learned by now. But I won’t pretend that I wasn’t taken in – no, dear friends and relatives, you and Cerise had me in spades. I was completely fooled; I was really expecting Cerise and her college room mate to… well, you know, and Cerise knew that fixating any male on such thoughts would render him completely gullible. It worked like a charm.
I’m particularly fond of German chocolate cake, and there was a large one displayed on a gleaming pastry cart, festooned with too damn many candles. Buckets of champagne, of course, streamers, a huge HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner, silly hats, confetti, noise makers and a pile of truly exquisite and thoughtful gifts. Jill was actually there, too – and it’s also a fact that she and Cerise were room mates in college. They are, however, both straight, or so I was informed – not that there’s anything wrong with lesbians, of course. No, not at all, or bisexuals, either, for that matter, quite the contrary, IMHO. *Sigh*
After about three hours of revelry, the party broke up, and everyone bid Cerise and me goodbye, leaving us alone in the hotel suite.
“April Fool,” she giggled, snuggling close, “and happy birthday to my most favorite person in the whole world.”
The rest, as they say, is history.
So, many thanks and all my affection to that zany bunch who went to so much trouble to see that I once more lived up to that nickname you all call me behind my back – oh, you think I don’t know?
“Tomfoolery,” indeed.
Ever since starting this Web log, I have intended to write a quarterly post in which I respond to the emails I have received. This is the first one, and since I started this Web log in late 2006, it includes the last two weeks or so of last December as well as the emails I have received since New Year’s Day.
I have responded to some emails already, in my post “What’s in a Name?” While that did reduce many of the communications I have received since concerning use of the name “Tom Collins,” as well as those expressing doubt that “Tom Collins” is my real name and, I am glad to say, those from people named Collins requesting help in locating lost relatives, nevertheless, epistles of all three varieties continue to arrive. So, let me reiterate here, once more, the key points. First, my real name is Tom Collins Martini. Second, I post so many details about myself in this Web log, only a moron could possibly mistake me for somebody else named “Tom Collins.” Third, I’m named after a type of nouveau martini, the Tom Collins martini, that my dear father, a famous bartender, invented in the 1970’s, and consequently, there’s no way I am related, in any significant or meaningful manner, to anybody named Collins. So no more of those types of emails, please. Now, let’s see what else was in the mail bag for the first quarter of 2007:
Morton, I’m gratified to know that you now have an honest job designing software to kill people and blow things up in the name of the United States. Is there a higher calling?
Peekaboo, all is forgiven and we still share deep karma. But, as you might expect, I’ve got a girlfriend at the moment – don’t I always have a woman hanging around? OTOH, if you read about my birthday party, well, a nod is as good as a wink to a blind bat – wangle an excuse to visit DC and let’s see what happens.
Dorkman, you need a better lawyer. What were you thinking, flying off the handle after I posted that stuff? Remember which side your bread is buttered on, boyo. Kudos to Xian, Carly and Tex, who wrote in with suggestions to improve the ideas presented in Dorkman’s purloined papers. The “Hannibal Cannibal Weekends” idea, where our troops are “given the option to eat the Iraqis’ hearts and minds,” is quite special, because it was one of those ideas in the original documents (suggested by the White House, BTW) that I could not bring myself to post online. But, since the same thing occurred to not one, but two of my dear readers, I figure it must be a case of great minds thinking alike. You know who you are – and if you aren’t working inside the Beltway, you’re wasting your talent! “The Running of the Congressmen” through downtown Baghdad has some definite possibilities, too – I hear McCain says it’s safe to walk around there now, so why not?
And speaking of Congress – to the various members of the House and Senate who had their staff contact me for further advice concerning the details of how to get away with taking bribes, forget it – I’ve said all I am going to say.
Mr. Hair Helmet, your lawyer is more of an ass than Dorkman’s, and I ain’t afraid of your egotistical bombast – if you don’t want ideas for improving your tawdry beauty pageants, then don’t hire consultants to think of them for you. Say, I’ve got an idea you can have for free – why don’t you run for president? Everybody else is. Your candidacy could get more laughs than H. Ross Perot’s.
Sorry, Herb, but there’s no way I’m attending your trial in Bhutan as a character witness; and BTW, how did you end up in Bhutan, anyway? And when will you stop involving your business end in risky business? Maybe a few years eating rice gruel will teach you a lesson.
Congratulations to Jim and his brain-child. But no, I won’t post the link to the new blog. Let it sink or swim on its own, I say.
Very nice thank you note from Rabbi Slivovitz for saving his life; you are welcome, rabbi. Sorry, Chai-D, I am not going to post any of your poems on my blog – start your own damn blog, OK, nudnick? Thanks for the invite, Notorious Nosh. It was, indeed, a [deleted] nudnick [deleted] time, and come up to my crib whenever.
Yes, Mr. Habib, I will send some more Dior handkerchiefs to your boss, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. I can readily understand why he is going through so many of them so quickly.
Nice thank you note from Bixby, and much appreciated. Deliverable preparation is on schedule. We will make certain that the recent developments with the British naval hostages are factored into the mathematical models for war with Iran, but as of today, it looks like they are being released, so don’t be too puzzled if certain parameters are on the order of ten to the negative sixth in the final draft.
Apparently, Jason’s cell phone can send emails, too. Your doting uncle says you’re welcome for keeping you out of prison in Virginia – tell your parents don’t forget what I said about moving north of the Potomac as soon as possible.
I’m sorry, “Lady N.” I’ve already got my hands full, so to speak, with my current SO, and even though I am impressed by the fact you have “a distinguished scientific career in aerospace,” I’m not sure I could handle your “secret fetish” involving “special undergarments” – something tells me you’re talking about diapers, and frankly, thinking about that makes me kind of sick to my stomach.
I hereby acknowledge what must surely be some kind of record number of “football” (i.e., international soccer) related death threats. The imaginations of these twisted sports fanatics are truly astounding. The most impressive was a promise to skin me alive and cover me with fire ants. Needless to say, I’m not planning any travel abroad to places where “football” is popular any time soon.
It seems that I made a lot of people who like peanut butter extremely angry, too. Hey, it wasn’t me who put the bugs in the Peter Pan, folks, all I did was bail out somebody who made a bad commodity investment. Mail in favor of Mexican peanut butter wrestling ran slightly higher, though, so I think I probably did the right thing.
Both Clinton and Obama partisans wrote in, each threatening to make me pay dearly for portraying the person they worship in a less than glorified light. Their threats were by no means as graphic as the international soccer fans, but doubtless just as sincere. My reply is that my initial assessment back in February pales in light of the subsequent events.
No, “Colonel Slaughter,” if that’s your real name, I’m not the least bit intimidated by your suggestions. Maybe those aircraft were manufactured for the Department of Defense, and maybe they weren’t. I hope you don’t jump into cadet’s pants as readily as you jump to conclusions.
Several readers wrote in to scold me for suggesting to my sister Rose that she start sneaking her husband Henry St. John’s Wort in his food so he would stop compulsively diddling around with his 401(k) account, and then for having had the temerity to later advise her to double the dosage in order to dampen his libido and thereby lessen the chances he ends up in the sack with Rose’s sister-in-law. Hey, what’s all the hue and cry about, folks? Henry’s a married man with a family and consequently has no rights other than those granted by his wife and children – it’s the unwritten law, and the basis for every family situation comedy since the invention of the genre during the Golden Age of Radio.
A passel of Mormons got all bent out of shape and wrote in to tell me what it’s going to be like when their God sends me to Mormon Hell. They say He will do that to me for making fun of D. Kyle Sampson, the gentleman at the Justice Department who developed diarrhea of the fingers and sent embarrassing emails all over town, revealing political motivations behind the firing of eight United States Attorneys and a plot to cover that up by claiming they were incompetent. Based on what those folks threatened my immortal soul with, I’d say Mormon Hell is pretty wimpy. You sand-fly bitten deseret salt-lake dippers ought to check out Dante’s “Inferno,” which describes what Catholic Hell is like – now there’s a Hell worth going to! As noted in my previous post, I submit a list of names to my Catholic God Almighty on a regular basis, requesting not only that those individuals be damned for all eternity, but also suggesting some appropriate tortures. What do I have in mind for these prissy Mormons? They’re going to have to wait until they die to find out – bwhahaha!
Strangely enough, not one single person wrote in to rip on me for dragging Scooter Libby three times around the walls of Troy. 5h0ut2 0ut to John, Randy, Sadie, Harry, Carmine, Bob, Ellen, Janice, Ahmed, Tyree, LaShonda, Tiffany, Mike, Mohammed, Isaac, Jake, Sam, Don, Zhu, Pierre and Bjorn, who all wrote in, some mentioning Libby and some mentioning Sampson, asking “Where’s Karl Rove?” What can I say? It looks like Rove got his Teflon coating from the same shop that did Ronald Reagan. But stay tuned – Rove is so arrogant, he might slip up yet – maybe on his own Teflon.
Quite a few people wrote to tell me that, in their opinion, my colleagues and I got what we deserved when that SWAT team mistakenly burst in on our damage-control meeting concerning the alleged madame who was threatening to release her escort service’s telephone records for public scrutiny. About half of them apparently missed the point and railed at me for promoting the ladies of the evening – to them I say, no, you silly twits, we were hired by somebody who was paid to worry about possible damage to the escort service’s clients. The remainder seemed to understand that, but instead upbraided me for working for such people, whom, they said, should be subjected to as much public ridicule as possible. Alas, this is Washington, DC, ladies and gentlemen. If I worried about the moral suitability of my clients, I’d never work at all.
There was a very healthy response to my account of Sergeant Vinnie’s plight and how he finally worked things out to his advantage. I received plenty of horror stories about Walter Reed and the VA, of course, plus several requests for Vinnie’s telephone number from grunts in Iraq who want advice on how he did it. As also might be expected, a lot of people disapproved of Vinnie becoming an Army recruiter, sending kids to Iraq so he won’t have to go there himself anymore. I’d say Vinnie just learned to apply the same approach that everybody in Congress adopted when they voted to invade Iraq in the first place.
Good thing I’ve got plenty of disk space at my Web site, because there was an avalanche of mail about the people in the Civil Service who are tired of being people and want to change their species identifications. Apparently, the thought of having their tax dollars pay fat federal employee salaries to freaks who want to change themselves into ersatz imitation aardvarks and spiny anteaters sent a lot of folks right over the edge. But hey, how come my mentions of federal employees engaged in corruption, double-dipping, featherbedding and systematic theft hardly drew any emails at all? That ordinary, everyday waste, fraud and abuse soaks up at least half of your taxes, ya know, while these trans-species cases aren’t going to amount to a teacup in the vast Niagara of squander that is your United States federal government.
My last post of the quarter drew a rousing chorus of “amen” from readers who either know somebody like those bozos who live across the street from me in Great Falls or have been fending off real estate agents with blunt instruments, feeling, they say, for all the world like they’re the last, un-bitten humans left, surrounded by ravenous ghouls in “Night of the Living Dead.” Garlic, sliver bullets and crucifixes have no effect on real estate agents, but there’s one way to get rid of them – yell “My credit score is 425!” A year ago, that wouldn’t work, but it does now.
I also got a lot of emails from people who, I suspect, are missing the point of my Web log altogether. They write in offering me free laptops, free legal dirty secrets to watch 3000+ satellite TV channels, free success kits, free computer games, free iTunes, free airline miles and free opportunities to test and keep all kinds of merchandise, from toaster ovens to golf clubs. If you read my posts, you people who are sending me emails like that will realize that I’m doing just fine and don’t need any free stuff. It’s very thoughtful and altruistic of you to want to give all kinds of things away, of course, and I appreciate your sincere attempts to give things away absolutely free without any obligation or hidden conditions, so I have a suggestion – why not send your emails to college students instead? They never have enough money and I’m sure they will have a use for the things you are so anxious to give away to somebody, anybody, somewhere.
Moving on to another correspondent who just doesn’t seem to get it, I would say, IMHO, “Evil Empire,” that the British are no more to blame for the mess this world is in than anybody else. Sure, they got involved in all kinds of stuff – they had an empire. Well, duh! So did the French, and I don’t get any mail from people who think the French are responsible for global warming, AIDs, the Illuminati, the International Masonic Conspiracy, the Knights Templar, the Kennedy assassinations, UFOs, secret mind control projects or the fact that we’re not on the gold standard anymore.
Mrs. Okavango, sorry to hear about your terminal cancer. I’m sure that if you keep trying, you’ll find somebody to help you extricate that FORTY MILLION US DOLLARS your late husband, the Diamond Mining Minister of Nigeria, tied up in a business deal at the Central Bank of Dubai just days before his untimely death in an airplane crash over the Caspian Sea. I’m rather busy, though, and can’t spare the time. Good luck.
MD’s Dr. Johnson, Dr. Dixon, Dr. Wang; and Dr. Wood, Ph.D., your messages remind me of that story, the one about the Boston society matron who, upon a visit to the British Isles, asked a member of the Black Watch “What is worn beneath your kilt?” Just as the canny Scotsman replied, gentlemen, I can assure you that “nothing’s worn; everything in perfect working order.” Thus, none of your well-intentioned assistance is in the least necessary; therefore, I suggest that you try contacting others who may, in fact, need it – such as members of Congress, the Executive Office of the President, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and, of course, the Supreme Court.