March 2009

Here’s a fun bedtime story for all you kids out there. Last night I was doing some cleaning out of the ‘ol refrigerator and came across a bottle of sake. Since I’ve never bought a bottle of sake in my life I was pretty sure this wasn’t mine, but I didn’t know how it ended up in my fridge. I should preface that by saying there are tons of things in my fridge that I didn’t buy, some brought by friends, some left over from houseguests, and some who knows what but what I’m saying is just because something is in my fridge doesn’t mean I put it there. Back to this sake. Where the hell did it come from? Well there could be a few options. Someone could have brought it over for a party sometime in the past year and I just didn’t know it. A friend who was staying here at the end of the year could have left it. Or it could be left over from year and years ago. I didn’t really know so I did the only reasonable thing.

I tasted it.

Now I’m not taking poured myself a glass and kicked back by the fire tasted it, I’m taking crazy small sip barely enough to swallow tasted it. I don’t really know what sake is supposed to taste like, so I didn’t know if that was good or bad, it was just weird, so i poured the rest down the sink and trashed the bottle. No matter what it was old and I wasn’t going to drink it so no reason to keep it. All was fine. For about 3 hours.

I started to feel not so hot and did some googling. I learned that sake, when kept in a fridge should last indefinitely. This was good as clearly this bottle was in my fridge. I felt relieved. Then I saw the exception, which stated that sake kept refrigerated would keep for a long time, EXCEPT it had been opened, in which case it will go bad in under a week. This bottle was definitely open, and possibly years and years prior. This was not good. Shit. Literally.

I spent the next 7 hours or so sitting on, leaning over, or curled up on the floor shaking next to my toilet. Let’s just say last night was not a stellar experience and leave it at that. By about noon today I could walk to the kitchen, get a glass of water, drink a sip of it or two and go back to bed without serious pain, and about 2 hours ago I ate a cracker. It was lovely. Slightly salty. I didn’t go back for seconds. I’m still pretty exhausted and wiped out but I’m alive which is a good sign.

The take away lesson from this experience is this: That thing that you found that you don’t really know what it is or where it came from, do not put it in your mouth. Yes I know this is a lesson usually learned by 3 year olds, but whatever. Additionally, please do not offer me sake anytime in the next 5-6 years lest I vomit on you immediately.

A few months ago I bought Michael’s Husky 610. I’d been lusting over it since the day he bought it and since dude has 17 Ducati’s this never really fit in his collection anyway. Plus it’s black, which means it’s way better suited for me. Since then he’s been threatening to drag me up into Angeles Crest Highway with him and his Ducati posse and today he finally did. This was some seriously new shit for me because, while I was riding motorcycles before I drove a car, 99% of my motorcycling experience has been on flat ground, so twisty hills pretty much scared me to death. But in an awesome way.