Moving Abroad: Wastin’ Away Again in Frankensteinaville ~ April 28, 2010

Note ~ While on vacation we’re sharing some favorite stories from our best-selling trilogy of books, Mission: Rescue Your Retirement. Here’s our Readers' Choice from Volume I, "Leap of Faith.” Enjoy!

As I sit here swirling a snifter of Tequila liqueur to begin this blog I ponder several questions. Like, what in the heck is Tequila liqueur? How did it get into my house in the first place? Why am I drinking this weird stuff?

I've written previously about the process of sorting, packing, selling, and giving away all manner of items as we've rummaged through drawers and closets preparing for our move. Perfectly good clothes that we don't wear any more—consignment shop; a set of encyclopedias—Goodwill; George Foreman grill (and yes, the "rock" of a previous entry)—Craigslist. 

There have been numerous old family things like a broken rocking chair that belonged to my grandmother we've been robotically hauling around for years. It's been revelatory to finally come to grips with the fact we or no one else in the family really cares about stuff like this that it seems like you're "supposed" to care about, so it's all outta here.

When we got to the liquor cabinet our slash-and-burn mentality suddenly shifted. Understand that we're predominantly wine drinkers, so purveying our collection of hard spirits happens about as often as searching for Bigfoot. 

We were therefore amazed to discover all sorts of oddities lurking behind those closed cabinet doors. How long had these bottles been there?  What's Guavaberry? I couldn't pick a Guava out of a police lineup and certainly didn't know it had berries. Crown Royal? Must have been a gift. H-m-m-m—no, it’s been opened.

But throw out "perfectly good" alcohol? Oh, hell no. Especially when we're coming down the home stretch and running out of wine. So we've taken to concocting original libations that would make an alchemist proud and a bartender green with...probably nausea.

Some may actually be real drinks served somewhere on the planet. A favorite has been milk, half and half, crème de cacao, and butterscotch schnapps that we call a Chocolate Nipple. The visual on that particular name isn't very appealing, but our creative juices aren't exactly flowing right now.

Speaking of juices, though, after a hard day of packing I sat in the hot tub with a tropical extravaganza of orange juice, Chambord, Cointreau, and peach schnapps. Yikes! I figured, hey, they're all fruits--you throw a bunch of different stuff in a fruit salad, don't you?—and most importantly, the alcohol content of this bad boy should be enough to tranquilize an elephant. The taste was shall we say "unique," but two of them sure ushered in a phenomenal nap.

As the pickings become slimmer the combinations may get so bizarre that we'll probably resort to just doing shots. In the meantime I'm searching for my lost shaker of salt. H-m-m-m—must have packed it already. So let's see what we've got left. How about vermouth & sherry with a rim of paprika? That sounds...interesting.

Cheers!