Farewell Miami Cocktail No. 2

I am going to miss the cocktails. This is what I was thinking last night when I was sitting at the bar at Libertine drinking a Miami Cocktail No.2 with my sister Elissa, brother-in-law-to-be Jules, and Lissy's friend Gretch.

I love a good cocktail. Preferably tall ones with lime and lots of gin. Similar to how I like my men, just sans the lime and gin. But at  around $15 a pop, cocktails are another item I will have to add to my no-go zone for the next income-less six months. The zone seems to be getting bigger than a security zone for Barack Obama in the Middle East.

Which got me to thinking that I should probably send personal notes to Borders, Country Road and Veronika Maine warning them to expect a significant decrease in profits over the next 12 months.

Dear Country Road

I am writing to advise you that I wont be making any purchases in your lovely store for, oh, about a year. It's not that your summer collection is off the mark - although I am really not so sure that an ankle length horizontal stripe skirt in jersey stretch material would be all that flattering - but that I will have no money to afford to buy any of it and will have nowhere to go to wear it anyway.

Yours faithfully

Kathryn Tyrrell

PS - If you would like to consider sponsoring me with a year's supply of trakkie-daks though, as a token of your appreciation for my many years of loyalty, that would be greatly appreciated.

So farewell Miami Cocktail No.2 and Country Road, hello tap water and current overloaded wardrobe, my new best friends.

And before you go and tell me I am being all dramatic about the tap water - let me just say it has been a successful sympathy vote for me once before. Cut to 1993 when I was interviewed to be a Rotary Youth Exchange Student. I was 16 years old and sitting opposite an interview panel of 12 Rotarians. Clearly young, naive and willing to stretch the truth, I was asked what I drank when I went to parties and was surrounded by my peers drinking alcohol. After a brief pause where my mind cut to visions of passion pop, fire engines and west coast coolers, I replied "Um, I find a tap in the garden and just drink water".

Either I won a sympathy vote for my pathetic answer or they believed me (I would hazard a guess at option A) because several months later I found myself boarding a plane to South Africa for 12 months. The land of Castle Lager, Hunters Cider and Amarello. Strangely enough I never did manage to find many taps in Pretoria.

Tonight we are off to Ortiga. I have a feeling I am going to struggle to find a tap there too. Two more pay checks to go - no need to rush into the no-go zone just yet.