(Butter Poached Lobster Tail & Lobster Ravioli with Creamy Fennel Gratin, Savory & Sherry Lobster Sauce. The Lovely Bea and Jon-with -no-H’s cocktails, courtesy of Big Jim complete the tableaux. Photo Socotra. It did not look like this for long.)

Well, the Government did it to us last night. A “request for proposal” dropped on the classified system sometime around the moment that Jon-with-no-H and the Lovely Bea were about to tuck into their lobster appetizer at Willow. The event could have curtailed the general merriment, but damn the torpedoes, as they say.

We will let the delicate appetizer stand as a metaphor for what is going to happen today, and perhaps provide a last gasp of “eat drink and be merry” as the Government spasms its way to the end of this disconcerting year.

The refusal to panic in the early evening unfortunately had downstream consequences. Instead of relaxing here at the home computer and easing into the morning, we are in full panic mode, fight or flight. There is a double-wrapped package protecting 44 pages of technical requirements that needs to be examined and parsed for obscure meaning, and a technical meeting to attend at Joint Base Bolling-Anacostia in just a few hours.

I was going to tell you about more fun with eTrade panic stock buying with my Day Trader buddy, and the astonishing announcement of Mr. Bernanke that interest rates will stay at near zero for years and years, and the collective idiots who have been named to the Super Congress panel that is supposed to chart a course out of this mess.

But this story on this morning will just have to serve as an appetizer. Jon and Bea pronounced the lobster “excellent.”

That is likely to be better than this day, but eat drink and be merry, you know?

Bon appetite!

Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com