Cheers! Lets Muse over Piña Coladas…

and some chips and salsa.

I know it’s only 6am on Monday morning but I have already had one jigger of Rum liqueur and you need to catch up. We could snack on blueberry muffins but I am sure you will agree that is not the perfect pairing with Piña Coladas.  We will have Blueberry muffins later today!

It was not easy drinking a Piña Coladas today (Sunday), but you should know by now that I am not a quitter. Did I ever tell you the best story I know about not quitting?

At some family event a long time ago–Joe’s sister Susan and I were visiting and the subject of the Opera came up.I think Susan and Richard had just been to the Der Ring des Nibelungen, which is a cycle of 4 epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner. They are sometimes refereed to as the Ring Cycle, Wagner’s Ring, or simply the Ring. The operas are presented in three complete cycles over the course of a couple of days. In other words, 18 hours of opera over a weekend.

I have seen exactly one opera in my whole life and it was a short three hour light opera–The Merry Widow with Beverly Sills; it was very good, but I never bought tickets for another opera. I like the idea of the OPERA, but the actual performances–not so much so.

I mentioned this to Susan and she said, “You know, Katybeth. I did not like Opera for about the first 12 years we were season ticket holders, but after about 12 years I thought it was ok, after 15 years I liked it, and by 20 years, I loved it.”

Are you wondering what in the world would have kept Susan going back to the opera year after year after year if she really did not like it? I asked her that pivotal question.

“Why did you keep going to the opera for so many years if you didn’t like it?”

Susan answered, ‘I’m not a quitter.”

And while Susan may not have known it at the time, she added a catch phrase to our family that we have used ever since our opera conversation.

When, Joe asked me why in the world I would travel to 10 McDonalds to get Cole the happy meal toy standing between him and happiness…I would answer “I’m not a quitter.” When Joe spent 6 hours haggling with an AYSO soccer team manager over players, I asked him how he managed to stick it out and exit the guy’s house with exactly the team he wanted–Joe answered, “I am not a quitter.” When I ask my mom how she sticks to her exercise program day in and day out no matter what, she smiles and says, “Because I am not a quitter.” When Cole and I failed at making our Easter Egg Bunny Cake 5 times this past April, I asked him why we were making it one more time and he answered, ‘Because we are not quitters.”

Now back to Piña Coladas Day–

Our Goal is to eat or drink the food of the day every day for a year, so today we needed to find a place to drink a Piña Coladas.
Our plan was to have dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise. The burgers are good enough and they serve a darn good Piña Coladas. Joe, Cole, and I used to enjoy stopping in after weekend soccer games. The only glitch to our plan was the Cheeseburger in Paradise we usually went to had closed and the nearest one was a 30 mile drive.

But we are not quitters.

So, we decided to go to Wildfire for dinner. Great food with an impressive bar. Except we found out, when we sat down to order, that it was a Martini bar without a blender for frozen drinks–would I like a Pineapple, Coconut, Gin Martini? NOOO, I would not. I ordered a coke. Cole and I looked at one another and pulled out our i-Phones to google the recipe for Piña Coladas

We are not quitters.

On the way, home we stopped at the grocery store and I bought the ingredients needed to make a Piña Coladas.

Once home and armed with the ingredients, we managed to make two excellent Pina Coladas–one with rum and one without. All that was missing from our drinks were little umbrellas, but hey–there is always next year.

Cheers to Susan who is not a quitter, my mom, and Richard who will happily drink to Susan who is not a quitter, and of course, to all my Odd readers.

Today is Blueberry Muffin Day! and on that note I better get baking!

♥