Another Night Trip To Miami

I didn't want to go, although I had been warned a week earlier about the birthday of a colleague of Leopoldo's; still I conspired to get out of it. Simple reasoning didn't work as I got The Sad Look (and I can't deal with that). Injuring myself wouldn't work; days earlier in a radical turn into the driveway I had an encounter with a tree branch that left me with a band aid on the bridge of my nose. "Nobody will notice it," Leo said. "Right," I thought, "an entire room of fashionistas will think it's a nose job." So I decided on an old course of action, Culinary Warfare, and presented a four-course Italian dinner--usually a sure TKO. But the dinner just energized him, especially the dessert of raspberry sorbet topped with cream and a raspberry sauce made with soon-to-be-history raspberries (I love whipping up near death items) and blackberry brandy (another pint of which I had downed in a testing while making it). I resigned myself to traveling to Miami at night, one of my biggest nightmares.

Half way to Miami, holding a bag with a liter of liquor, I heard Leopoldo gasp and turned to see him looking at my exquisite, white, embroidered shirt. There--just next to my left sleeve was a red stain; in clearing the table before leaving of the raspberry dessert the heavens sort to wreak havoc on my nerves by a small splatter of the red delight. I started to shudder and wanted to jump out and run home. "Nobody will notice it." Leo said, this time with considerably less conviction. Later he said he noticed my arm hold the bag shaking with the onset of the panic attack, but wisely said nothing as I stared straight ahead thinking that a leap from the penthouse apartment on his friend Tony was preferable to attending a party of fashion and entertainment people with a band aid on my nose and a red blotch on my shirt. As the elevator slowly brought us up to the fifteenth flood, I said,"Now all I need is dog poo on my shoe with a piece of toilet paper stuck to it." Jumping was becoming a welcome relief from the pain of life.

Long story short: It was a tropical-themed party and as soon as we entered I was bestowed with several red leis which covered the stain, and--to my amazement--everyone must have thought I had a nose job. And the first person I met was a bartender from Twist and we even left before the cake and champagne was served. As The Countess would say, I got my panties all tied up for nothing. Today we are joining Pimpernell for lunch at China Grill. My panties will be untied.