Some brewery in Scotland decided that the way to make an I.P.A. unique would be to pay some fishing boat or puffer or wreck of a tramp steamer to take out x number of barrels into the Atlantic for as long as clipper ships used to go to India, so then they could say, with a reasonably straight face that there were authentic notes about the product, and since some of it had been lost over the side under undescribed circumstances the resulting bottles were worth... ooh... about twenty six dollars each. Why not? Look what whisky costs and its only gas, condensed into juice, with sherry barrel or caramel or some such notes added, and not a hint of atlantic transit or jetsam about it. Maybe someone should tell the world's navies that there's money to be made in liquid passage? I mean what wouldn't you pay for vodka that had been on a real sub, say to the pole and back? Hooch, nuked, *under* the rocks?
What the French call *la vie quotidienne* is often dull, but it's also the vehicle in which we travel to surprises. My wife and I sat through a stage adaptation of "Snow Falling on Cedars." I applauded, though mostly I was amazed by how slow they'd made the tale.
Later that night we learned that E.--in France-- was sick. We fired up the computer, digested her quite ghostly picture.
At one in the morning our time, a doctor came to call. He greeted we Skypers half the world away and then, with a spoon from the kitchen, and a blood pressure cuff, and a stethoscope, he ruled things out.
Paperwork cures many contemporary ills; insurances will be sent the bill.
With an eye to *le weekend* and *la vie quotidienne*, she's now on the mend. For us it is once again an extraordinary world, with a couple of early flowers in the garden out and, blessedly hereabouts, nary a hint of snow.
David Ritchie, Portland, Oregon ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
