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Posts by Lena Webb

Notable And Potable Vol. 10: Reaching Your Boozing Altitude: Tips For Tipsy Traveling

Posted on June 24th, 2011

1. When traveling by bus, you should strive to achieve a buzz that allows you to easily amuse yourself with the passing license plates. For example, pack a cleverly-disguised amount of The Good Doctor and enjoy while trying to make personal ad abbreviations out of license plate numbers. “LNT 30F” is a total gimmie, obviously standing for “Loves Nipple Twists, 30 F.” Something like “860 YFJ” will probably require a few extra sips before you arrive at “860 lbs, Yearning For Jam.” If that’s too depressing, go with “owns 860 pairs of Yellow Fluorescent Jeans.” 2. If you find yourself stuck in a particularly bad airport– say, LAX– for over 10 hours, recite the Serenity Prayer while making a beeline for the nearest bar.…

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Notable and Potable Vol. 7: Choose Your Own Cocktail Adventure, Or Just Let The Ambien Decide

Posted on May 20th, 2011

It is Saturday and your eyeballs are getting tacky from staring at the computer screen. You look outside and are disappointed to see all those active birds– shouldn’t it be dark yet? What have you done today, anyway? You made a tidier-looking pile of dirty laundry, you made a chocolate beet bundt cake that looks very professional but tastes like wet mulch, and now it’s heading towards the gloaming. You see a 10mg Ambien pill on your desk. You:

a) ignore the pill and get to work on that jigsaw puzzle
b) take the pill

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Notable and Potable Vol. 6: A Spirit Pony Guided Quest For Some ‘Lilac Drank’

Posted on May 13th, 2011

I’m sure I always found the smell of lilacs to be pleasant, but it didn’t really hit home for me until I got a My Little Pony that was somehow infused with the scent. She was one of the tall, slender Ponies and she had a lilac sprig tramp stamp on one of her purple flanks. I would bring her into the bathtub with the rest of my colorful herd, and our frolicking would kick up steam that enveloped me in the warm floral odor. Our frolicking also resulted in clumps of rainbow hair being removed from the clogged drain months later, much to my mother’s disgust.

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Notable and Potable Vol. 4: On Making and Sharing Your Own Tonic Water

Posted on April 27th, 2011

It was only when I sat the wrinkled brown paper bag on the table at the bridal shower that I started to feel self-conscious. Beautifully-wrapped large rectangular boxes containing lovely things and useful appliances had already started to accumulate, and here I was, placing what looked like a prankster’s bag of dog shit in their midst. I looked around for a Sharpie in order to write some kind of witty explanation on the bag, but all I could think of was “artisanal tonic syrup” and that would probably just make it seem worse.

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Notable And Potable Vol. 3: Get Off My Lawn (And Into My Glass)

Posted on April 20th, 2011

The smell of freshly cut grass has always been one of my favorites. Usually accompanied by a warm summer day, the anxiolytic odor of mowed lawns has a great effect on my mood and almost always leads to a smile. Here in the Northeast we have just emerged from a particularly terrible and odorless winter, and I probably won’t be huffing any cis-3-hexenal for at least another month. So to bide my time, I set out to create some cocktails that evoke certain feelings associated with grass, landscaping, and general bucolic splendor.

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Notable and Potable Vol. 2: Approaching An Understanding Of The Fizz

Posted on April 15th, 2011

I didn’t know anything about Fizz drinks until a friend assembled all of the ingredients for a Ramos Gin Fizz and invited me over for the frothy ambrosia in August of 2009. I paid little attention to what she was doing to create the drink at the time, but I did raise an eyebrow when I saw some heavy cream go into the mix. I had always assumed that gin and dairy should conduct their potentially curdlesome affair in shameful darkness, if at all, and I asked her if she was sure about this.

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Notable and Potable Vol. 1: The Hide, London

Posted on April 6th, 2011

I recently had the pleasure of spending a week in England, starting with a few days in Cambridge and ending with the better portion of a week in London. The main purpose of the trip was for my husband to participate in his PhD ceremony at Jesus College, three years after actually defending his thesis. Come back for the Circumstance, stay for the Pomp. When combined with the coincidence that my birthday was to fall a few days after the ceremony, the Pomp levels were through the roof. So after enjoying many a pint of truly unique and fantastic cask-conditioned ales in Cambridge, we headed to London to continue the celebration with cocktails.

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