The Fantabulous Life of Miss Mary Anne

Ah, the first day back at work. All the tan kids after their week off sailing in the Caribbean or visiting Grandmama on the French Riveria. (It’s Snooty Country Day in DC–there’s a large contingent of kids of the various international diplomatic corps)

So, all the teachers are freaking out, especially in the high school, because final projects are due in JUST A FEW MONTHS blah blah blah

Anyway, the point is, the library was hopping today. Kids all over the place, supposedly doing research, but really just updating their myspace pages to get all the post-Spring Break dirt and comparing tans and making out in the corner. And of course a lot of this:

“You have a good Spring Break Miss Mary Mary Anne?”
“Well, I was here the whole time. I only had Friday and Monday off. Didn’t you notice my lovely florescent light tan?”
“Daaaaaaaaaaamn that’s weak.”
“Don’t swear”

Yes, I have to be that stuffy at work.

But then Miss Snooty herself, Snooty McHeadmistress comes in and wants to talk to me about my proposed budget for next year. Because, I don’t have a bunch of kids who need monitoring and sometimes, actually helping them with their research. She’s had this document in her possesion for over a month. Why we couldn’t have discussed it last week when there were no students anywhere, I don’t know. But, she wanted to discuss it NOW.

“Can we step into your office for a moment?”
“No we cannot, unless all these kids running around only exist in my imagination, which is entirely possible, I had a lot of margaritas last night.”
“Well, can I just ask you a few quick questions?”
“Sure, hang on– Johnny, don’t throw things.”
And then she proceeds to make me justify the entire thing.

So now, more margaritas are obviously the answer, right? Right.

So, all in all, not the best day at work. I then went home, but Claire wasn’t there. This is extremely odd, as she works from home. Well, she works out of the basement-level apartment in her row house. Apparently she went to get something called “Apple Jack” because she wanted to try a cocktail she read about in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal. But, she was unsuccsesful. I’m wary of this cocktail–it involves maple syrup.

Today was a little chilly, so we just had Manhattans instead.

Our recipie:

1 pt. sweet vermouth

2 pts. bourbon

Dash of bitters (I prefer Stirrings Blood Orange)

Shake with ice and strain into a tumbler with a heavy bottom (ok, so technically I think this is supposed to go into a cocktail glass, which today means martini glass, but I can’t see bourbon in a martini glass, can you? It just seems wrong)

Garnish with a bit of cherry and a bit of the syrup they’re jarred in.

And now I’m off to read a stack of books to decide if I should buy them for the library.