Adam missed the great potluck, pre-camping trip dinner, which might be the real reason there have now been concerned parental offers of satellite phones, St. Bernards and Navy submersion suits. His large, responsible and calming presence would have, I am quite sure, reassured the group. Unless, of course, they were privy to this image

and his mea culpa:

“As I ordered up the French Martini in The Flamingo Lounge just before dancing our brains out for a couple of hours, I wasn’t thinking about the morrow, nor the coming evening. A sense of invincibility had descended, following down two pomegranate Margaritas and a glass of Veuve Clicquot during socializing and appetizers, and 2 or 3 glasses of very good Pinot Noir with dinner………

That frothy, light purple specialite du maison — made of Chambord, vodka, Grand Marnier and pineapple juice, amongst perhaps other things — was probably the single most direct mistake of the evening, but the whole trajectory was as well — a trajectory that followed the purple kiss of death by culminating in two shots of Don Julio tequila (my favorite alcohol thus bookending the evening) just before climbing into the hottub for an hour starting at 1:15 a.m.

So not only did I suffer the physical consequences, which were quite prolongedly miserable, but I’ve let down my best friend, thwarted his generous return of my reincarnated edged implements, and deprived myself of an equally anticipated second round of socializing. Bad call.

Not to wallow in regret, but I do apologize…………….”

Photos of the party, a birthday celebration for a close friend, to which Adam refers.

In unfairness to Adam, when he posted the above photos on our common website, I asked if he were writing a story to accompany them.

“Say whuuuuuuuuuuht……………???

I just spent 2 hours creating the flyer for the next DLF event in Pagemaker and Photoshop. I’m beat. Make something up. Tell terrible torrid tales of trials and temptation. Speak of unspeakable musical abandon, gourmand weaknesses of the flesh, and commingling in a frothing hottub in the night beneath the uplit topiaries of David’s obsessive horticultural madness. Detail the tastes of culinary labors of love you’ve neither whiffed nor masticated, and leave no leer unriddled, no stumble unremarked, no sartorial overreach unpinned. But say it gloriously and generously, elevating the fools who play their familiar parts to masters of plot and vision, whose Bacchannalian ritual is not to be judged by those to whom “calorie” and “hangover” have meaning.

And then sign my name and let fly.”

I replied that I wasn’t writing no story for him but would post the pics with his emails, and I did, and there you have it, his words, unedited.

That makes three. I wrote a story, Ed gave me the okay to post his emails, and we now have Adam’s Bacchannalian tale…I sense something is missing.

Well, here’s something……. The subject’s post-facto postscript (yes, ’tis I, little drummer boy…..). First — yes, it’s all true, alas. But second — lest it mislead, the above image is from three years ago, no direct relation to this more injurious episode, and that’s mere exhaustion you see, not a drunken stupor. It was 3:45 a.m., if I recall………