bear

Afternoon Comfort

My Fellow Inebriates,

It’s pouring rain outside, making the outdoors no place for furry bear with a beanbag ass. I fear water like nothing else. Weighing less than a pound under dry conditions, I manage to shuffle around through willpower and/or my parents’ deranged imaginations. But I manage. Add water and it’s all over.

With some liquid courage in me (an Island Punch actually: rum/orange and pineapple juices/grenadine in a collins glass), I decided to research the washing of “stuffies,” the somewhat pejorative term for me and my cohorts. You see, my friend Violet Purplebunny recently had a washing-machine experience that changed her personality permanently, robbing her of all empathy and converting her from a partial to a complete sociopath. Ever since then I’ve been haunted by questions about the pair of LG machines that lurk in our upstairs closet, and what really goes on in them.

Violet’s people put her in the Maytag because—picture my relief, humans—she does not possess a beanbag ass. Unlike me and lots of my friends, her bum doesn’t crunch when she sits; it’s what we call a foam ass and will dry as fast as your underwear will. Shudder…

My friend Scarybear has the biggest beanbag ass I’ve ever seen. Because of this he will never go in any washing machine, unless he is completely saturated with vomit or feces, and then perhaps his people would opt to dry-clean him. Of course that would add to the brain damage he’s already developed over the years through his violent lifestyle. Just as he lives with that dread, so do I fear the dry-cleaner, although I could probably trust my parents to be too cheap to cough up for it.

Where was I? Let me sharpen up my Island Punch with some green-apple Bacardi. Oh yeah, the machine…

For animals such as myself, the washing machine is our Room 101. I cannot bring myself to fully imagine the agitation, the cold, the hot, the wet, the poisons, the scents. So I did an innocent search for washing info, hoping to find some kind soul with a solution for dirty animals that would not be quite so…final. Instead my horror was reinforced by http://www.mamaslaundrytalk.com/2011/02/07/washing-stuffed-animals/comment-page-1/#comment-4480

And this seemed gentle compared to the following psychotic advice (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061028155228AA00BPE):

“You can wash them in the washer. If they have any stains on them, spray with whatever stain remover you use and then put the stuffed animals in a pillow case and tie a knot in the pillow case and wash on gentle cycle and then throw in the dryer while still in the pillow case and they will come out very clean and fluffy…used this method for years and they come out great….”

Holy shit, people!

Whatever sobriety I entertained a notion of is out the window as I medicate myself back into a calm state with the following:

  • 2 oz amaretto
  • 1 oz Southern Comfort peach
  • 1 oz vodka
  • 3 oz sweet-and-sour
  • Red Bull

Ahhhh, I feel safer now. But I’d better not spill any on me.

POLAR ICE Vodka

My Fellow Inebriates,

I was attracted to POLAR ICE for obvious reasons. With a bear on the label, you can’t go wrong. With its reasonable price and plastic mickey, POLAR ICE struck me as unpretentious and safely shatterproof—not to mention as bear-friendly as a vodka can get without devising some sort of opening mechanism for thumbless bears who lack grip strength.

So my first order of business this week was to procure a bottle of POLAR ICE and reel around with it.

For twelve bucks ($24 for 750 mL) I expected something on the rough side, and so my first taste of POLAR ICE was a shock, albeit a clean, refreshing one. This is a smooth, smooth vodka, quadruple-distilled from rye, and the sort of spirit that easily disappears into a mixer. This is exactly the sort of vodka that gets bears into trouble.

And so I plied my friend Glen Bear with some POLAR ICE. Now, Glen is a genuine polar bear; he’s big and brawny and goes around on all fours. Permanently infantile and for IQ purposes pushing the high 20s, Glen is as dumb an animal as you can find. But I thought it fitting to share my vodka with a lovable polar bear, and Glen was hanging around, drooling slightly.

Glen loved it. If I’d had any doubts about embracing this cheap(ish) vodka, they were vanquished watching Glen lumber drunkenly around the house after lapping POLAR ICE out of a bowl.

You have to be careful with polar bears, I realize now. I should have remembered my mum has this friend whose dad was in the armed forces up north, and one time he saw a polar bear trying to take down a helicopter while holding a seal under its arm. They are powerful creatures and you really don’t want to get them too f#cked up. So I had to comfort Glen a little, and spoon with him until he got himself under control.

All in all, another good adventure, and good reason to RECOMMEND this product.

SILENT SAM Vodka

My Fellow Inebriates,

One of my parents tells me that when she and her friends convened around the liquor store before prom with money in hand for a runner, all agreed said runner should just buy “something clear.” SILENT SAM was duly placed in their underage hands, and the rest is a historic blackout.

Of course it’s a myth that SILENT SAM has no taste. Water has a taste, air has a taste, and so does alcohol. But SILENT SAM is renowned for its ability to disappear into mixers. It’s filtered through silk to remove any impurities that might lend it extra, unwanted flavor.

And like most entry-level vodkas these days, SILENT SAM is distilled from grain, not potatoes, which would contribute a fuller taste.

First the silk. This makes vegans hopping mad: all those little wormies being exploited just to make a screwdriver taste more like Tang and less like vodka.

I say those little guys are lucky; they should see what tequila producers do with worms.

Now the potatoes. Very few vodkas are made with actual potatoes these days, nor is a potato base essential to the definition of vodka (“water” in Polish). However, potato vodkas are more expensive to produce and tend to be more high-end.

Just this morning my good friend Boo suggested I try BISON GRASS vodka.

I woke my dad up this morning and told him to go and get me some BISON GRASS. Although he decided to be a jerk and go to work instead, I have high hopes that I can rope him into a grain-versus-potato experiment. According to another, much more eloquent reviewer than yours truly, it’s delightful: http://goodspiritsnews.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/gsn-review-baks-bison-grass-vodka/?blogsub=confirmed#blog_subscription-3

My dad’s priorities need reordering (what is with my parents and the stigma they think attaches to morning drinking?) but until he decides to help me by stocking our liquor cabinet, all I can do is humbly thank the booze-review pioneers who’ve already discovered all the good stuff out there. And for you Boo, I say: you’re one lucky bear to have a human who understands you. But will she boot for you at grad?