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This charmer knew how to take care of business on St Valentine's Day...with a forget-me-nots bouquet
of Tommy Guns & Hot Lead
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Back in the days before skinny jeans, soul patches, man-buns, and Weezer, every self-respecting straight guy in Chicago could give a fairly accurate summary of The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre when Al Capone's boys ambushed the Bugs Moran gang on Chicago's North Side on February 14, 1929. Bugs was trying to move in on Capone's numbers racket and bootlegging operation and Scarface wasn't pleased.
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| Good Catholic boy Bugs Moran thought Capone beneath contempt for dealing in prostitution. |
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| Law enforcement recreates the scene of Capone's henchmen disguised as policemen lining up Bugs Moran's Gang against a wall before opening fire. 7 men were killed although Bugs, who was supposed to be there and misidentified by a lookout to signal the hit, lived to identify Capone as culprit. Capone was never charged. |
GSL had his own Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. only without the high bodycount, that the Good Doctor gleefully reminds me of every year. I'll set the stage: What started as a blind Boxing Day coffee date extended well into the night (natch) with dinner/drinks etc. (ahem) follow-on....and then a NYE date and on and on and before you know it, GSL is in a pickle.
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| The shapely school teacher was a dead ringer for a young Meredith Viera (American telly presenter). Estella loves debriefing GSL on nocturnal adventures and to give her a visual, we often label them (to protect the innocent) with a public figure they most resemble. Estella can recount the incidents with the Elizabeth Shue, Katie Couric, Lauren Becall (based on voice, not appearance unfortunately), and 'Clarice' to name a few. |
She was a very nice and attractive school teacher (which GSL loves) but relentlessly dull. Getting thru dinner with her alone was work....even with 3 double-scotches and as the Good Doctor can attest, I'm often less than pro-active at extricating myself from these not-in-my-best-interest associations. Good Doc knew I was suffering and kept urging me to cut my losses but GSL kept enduring the punishment like a schmuck. Then I find myself locked into a Valentine's Day date?!?!?! How does a crafty old pro like GSL let this happen you wonder? Well, me too as I've long railed against this most ridiculous of days.
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| Scene of the Crime: Brasserie Jo circa 1997: GSL would gladly have swapped places with one of Bugs' boys standing against the wall rather than endure what followed. |
Ok, so GSL decides that V-Day will be when we bring all this pain and suffering to a close. GSL is awful at these little "let's just be friends" initiations as drama always follows and I wish they had texting back then to make a cowardly exit as I'd have been all over that. But we were in Brasserie Jo, then in it's late prime, when it had SATC ratification where all you girls used to order rounds of Cosmos and bandy that tired SATC dialog to and fro while aspiring to Conde' Nast sanctioned lives with a Mr. Big of your own...
Just as GSL summons up the courage to nip this thing in the bud, after inhaling 2 quick double scotches, shapely school teacher reaches into her bag to hand me a gift. While this is occurring the smoking hot redhead that caught my eye at the bar was being seated at the table just behind school teach and she eschews the hostess's suggestion and sits so we can furtively make eyes at each other which we do and she was apparently in the same "put me out of my misery" sitch as GSL so we begin volleying clandestine pantomimes of "get me the hell out of here" which we both found amusing. As school teach hands me gift, luscious redhead can see the agony etched in my bewildered brow and stifles a giggle as her schmuck of a date turns to see what she's reacting to.
As I unwrap the gift, this is what I'm looking at and hold up so luscious redhead can take a gander.
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Angling to take our 'relationship' well past 'item' status, school teacher and hairdresser, Brandon, set a Venus Fly-Trap..
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Reading that gooey Writ of Habeas Corpus aloud nearly gave me 3 cavities and I thought they were going to have to wheel the redhead out on a gurney.
Epilogue: Never saw redhead again and Good Doc shared her amusement at what had transpired. A few hours ago I got my annual Sonnets from the Portuguese text from Good Doc.
Has anyone ever had a Valentine's Day actually go well?
Well, this one, actually, except for that pesky snow storm's driving our lovies home much too soon. We had just finished a fabulous brunch up at Caro's half of the house, with all sorts of fruit and pastries and supreme scrambled eggs and bacon and grits, a sublime potato dish and nibbles from everybody's candy boxes, as well as unwrapping countless goodies and sweets and fun things from our treasure-bags, when the snow started in for REAL, going sidewise across the windows where we'd just been watching the starlings and cardinals diving headfirst into the enormous Weather Bush (great big old evergreen shrub, round as a a tall green igloo, and apparently quite the haven amongst all the naked trees and bushes around the yard). It was like a boozeless cruise in 10-Forward, with gigantic white cornflakes warping past our view.
ReplyDeleteWe'd been talking and sipping and nibbling chocolate, talking our heads off and debating just a TASTE of those gorgeous pink rose-decorated cupcakes and maybe one more of the enormous strawberries---just laughing like loons and enjoying the fast and furious wit and fun. And then the wet blanket---FROZEN wet blanket, covering us like a beautiful cloud, and causing a reluctant-but-necessary exit in order to get home "before it really sets in," as it's projected for another five or six hours of the heavy stuff.
So they've texted "safe home," with quite an assortment of goodies and leftovers for their supper, as we stack some dishes, wipe a counter, settle in with our NOOKS an Longmire, for the enclosing afternoon.So---WAY more Right than WRONG, I'd say. A weather-glitch beats a Life Glitch, any day.
And you? Hope yours is beautiful and romantic and as cozy and warm, where hearts and flowers and chocolate abound.
r
Rarely a decent V-day for me and this year is no different sadly. I have zero use for gift giving occasions. I love Christmas decorating, cooking and baking but trying to think of things people might want or need, no thank you. Don't want anything either. The only memorable Valentine's Day I've had was 1980 when Cary gave me a white stuffed Unicorn sporting an amethyst, diamond and gold promise ring. Been all down hill from there.
ReplyDeleteMine have been going downhill since I was forced, like every other boy, to give every single girl in my class a Valentine back around 1972 or '73 I think was when that nonsense began.
DeleteI hope that promise ring was so he'd never rub that babyoil on his cheek to give his complexion a shiny glow before exiting his car....such a candy ass he was.
Rachel all those delish nibbles everyone enjoyed will never be as sweet as those memories they all will carry long past the Spring thaw.
ReplyDeleteI'm just about to go pick up my Thai takeout from across the street. They well know my Panang Chicken Curry drill.
Moss, as always I love hearing your account of that day. I am of course intimately familiar with the such and never tire of hearing more. Got to keep a good sense of humor about these things and we do! Ha! Proudly, I've passed this into my step daughter (a beautiful 35 to unmarried doctor) who can recant a bad or weak date and laugh off the unflattering details like water off a ducks back. No getting us girls down with silly romance.
ReplyDeleteI seen to recall you saying that this unfortunate V-day victim "are herself out of the line-up". Nice. Remember that?
ReplyDeleteExcuse me... meant to read far worse, "ATE herself out of the line-up". That's worth getting right.
ReplyDelete...that does ring a bell but her less than stimulating company had me yearning for shots of hemlock rather than those double-Scotches
DeleteI have had my share of Valentine's disasters, it really is a tricky day, I think for both genders! Now I try to send Valentine cards to my best girlfriends, and my mother and grandmother, and this year I wrote in the card that they should pretend the card was a giant hug from me! I extend the same wishes to you, dear GSL, even though I am a couple of days late. Thank you for always making me laugh! x
ReplyDeleteThank you for the giant hug Dear Jill and please pretend this reply is a handsy reciprocity. x
DeleteGSL your comment on my tote is cracking me up. It's giant because I am going to use it for all those huge library books on fine jewelry I haul back to my lair! I cannot believe you invoked the name of Larry but it's making me laugh this morning. Thank you for that! x
ReplyDeleteYou'd have to check that thing before getting on a plane.
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