The other Jewish Elvis in Cajun country

Apologies for the extended delay in posting but for much of the past two weeks I've been in the San Francisco Bay Area where, as you know, they don't have the Internet. Within this trip home to see family and friends was another trip I had planned with JoeJa and Steve-0h Please Don't Call Me a Stewardess Again. Between all these trips I flew on eight different airplanes with four different airlines in the space of nine days and spent plenty of quality time at the airport. I learned one valuable lesson: In this time of international terrorism and coded alert levels, where everyone on a flight to the white bread Northwest eyes the lone Arab passenger suspiciously, it is a matter not only of convenience and comfort - but security, also - that airplane booze be free.

There's a lot to be jittery about in the air these days and I see free liquor as more of a necessity than a luxury. Do the airlines charge you to use the bathroom? Then why should our mental health take a back seat to the health of our back seat?

I know, a few bad apples get sauced and take a dump on a food cart, but for the occasional heathen to impinge on law abiding passengers' cocktail hours is downright unAmerican.

This also could be a dire safety matter. Imagine the scenario: a passenger sporting a crew cut, mustache, camouflage union suit and wad of chew is glaring at a Sikh he thinks is an Arab. The Sikh man, as nervous as the rest of the passengers, is fidgeting and reaches into his jacket. Mr. Mustache, sober and on edge, figures he must be going for a box cutter. You see, free cocktails may even prevent hate crimes.

So, Horizon Airlines, a toast to you for taking a stand for free booze and against hate. Our country is safer for it.

In between all of this flying and grousing about the above earth-shattering topics, I did actually visit with people and participate in various merriments. The first week was mostly hanging out with family and friends and watching in horror as my mother drove her new Prius hybrid wholly set on maximizing her mileage with no concern for other drivers, stop signs or small children (blog to come later on the disturbing phenomenon of Irritating Hybrid Driver Syndrome).

Then began the great Canada saga. JoeJa, Steve and I had planned a three-day snowboard/drinking trip to Kelowna, British Columbia. We all left Saturday morning - Steve and I on early morning flights and Joe, because he's a big douche, on a later flight - and I met up with Steve at the Seattle-Tacoma airport. While we were waiting to get on the plane, Steve got a call from Joe. Boise airport was completely fogged in and they weren't letting anyone take off (note: the early morning flight made it out of Boise as Joe was getting his beauty sleep).

Ad libbing, Steve and I decided that we would instead hop on a flight to Sun Valley, Idaho, a two and a half hour drive for Joe. In the meantime, we had about three hour wait for our flight, so Steve and I hit the airport bar at 9 a.m. Hard. We wobbled onto our Horizon flight to claim the free drinks that glorious airline offers and stepped off the plane in beautiful Sun Valley just as our designated driver, Joe, pulled into the airport parking lot and whisked us away to our swank slopeside Best Western (not that slopeside matters when you're too hungover to ski, but that comes later).

From there we embarked on an epic night, battling single digit temperatures with cold weather kryptonite: gin. Over dinner we conversed about the relative merits of gin, lamenting it's replacement in many drinks, such as martinis and tonic mixers, with vodka. It was a perfect night to bring the once glorious drink, one that helped the British build their empire and later helped Snoop Dogg stay up 'till 6 in the mo'ning, regain its rightful place in drinking culture. A gin gimlet, gin martini, gin and juice, gin and tonic (x2) and several whiskys later (I needed to mix it up) we decided it was time for a break and we hit the hot tub and took an ill-advised drunken swim in the hotel pool before getting booted by a crabby maintenance man who clearly hates fun.

It was a good reason to get back to work. We met up with one of Steve's co-workers, who was sober and no doubt appalled at the state we were in. But she humored us and had a few drinks before we closed out the bar and walked back to the hotel with the temperature a crisp 1.

The next day, wrecked, we hobbled over to a restaurant for lunch. Our waiter came over, recited the specials and then said, "And can I interest you in a pitcher of beer?" This immediately triggered my stomach demons and I had to run to the bathroom where I puked up all of the water I had drank that morning and that I desperately needed in my system (see pic on JoeJa's phlog). Needless to say, we didn't make it to the mountain that morning.

There's more, but that's most of the good stuff, and if you've made it this far, you deserve a medal.