A good brandy is...

Quote of the day: "A good brandy is like a tiny cat in velvet slippers scampering down your throat. A bad brandy is like that same cat, barefoot, being pulled out by the tail."

I had an afternoon off the day before yesterday and wandered around several neighborhood stores carrying luxury food and drink items in search of belated Christmas gifts for my family who had duly presented such gifts to me. I purchased various teas, the most expensive one - by Niederegger of Lübeck - marzipan, i.e. almond flavored, as well as halvas (one of them a Pişmaniye or floss halva, in the form of wool-resembling nests for my thirteen-year-old niece), and unusual chocolates, such as marzipan and anise-flavored. I also noticed a Pedro Ximenez sherry at one of the stores and was appalled at the price of almost 17 Euros for a regular 0,75 liter bottle but todays web search revealed that price was indeed the lowest I encountered. So I decided to buy the bottle tomorrow and sample the PX once I finish my current sweet (we're talking at least 100 grams of sugar per liter) oak-aged white Crimean wine - Kрымвейн белый крымcкий, one of the delicious products of the renowned Massandra estate, made of the white Kokour, Aligote, Rkatsiteli and other varieties.

I can only enjoy wines occassionally these days as I work a lot, too much in reality, and I don't have enough time to sleep not to mention sobering back into shape. I must have had the Crimean bottle opened for a month and there's still enough left for two small sippings. Being a fortified wine, though, it hasn't really gone bad taste-wise, only the best parts of the aroma are gone. I basically only buy fortified wine now so that it doesn't go to waste if not drunk within tree days, which I can't possibly accomplish. I'm planning to work somewhat less by spring and hopefully will be able to make the necessary formal arrangements with my employers in the coming weeks.

Of other news, the cats have brought in fleas and my place is quite badly infested. I mean a flea jumps on me at least once a day. I saw it happening, that is, I saw what I now know were flea eggs falling out of their fur a couple of weeks ago but - alas - at the time it didn't occur to me what they were. What kind of a strange sand is that in the cats' toilet?, I thought. Does clay litter indeed decompose into such tiny, round, pearly granules? Well, hello, the answer is NO, and on top of working outside the home I now have loads of cleaning and spraying to do inside my apartment. Luckily I don't find fleas particularly disgusting or I might have gone mad thinking about the 95% of the flea population sharing the place with me in any available crevice of the floor and furniture.

I'm off to at least do the washing up before watching today's episode of Colin and Justin's Home Heist... I felt so tired yesterday that I fell asleep at 11:30 p.m., missing all the fireworks, and woke up today at noon.