Sancerre Anniversaire

IV

That afternoon as Bunsen walked down the sidewalk, a festival was happening a few blocks east. By then the weather had cooled down and the knits were starting to come out. Bunsen made sure to never forget his chap stick. It’s a useful item, that chap stick. Not because it really helped fend off the chapping of his lips or defended him against the brutal cold. No, silly – that’s what they market it for. Instead he just liked the feel of it.

He often would sit at diners – specifically diners – and watch young ladies doll themselves up with carnelian-colored paste. This paste was quite similar to his chap stick. It made him laugh – watching these young ladies - especially when the paste ended up sticking to the top of their straws after a good gulp of milkshake. Most of the time he’d order his milkshake based off their choice. #4 was his order number. He liked the sound of it as the adolescent workers announced that his meal was ready.

Bunsen was an odd fellow, to say the least. He preferred to tether his pet iguana to a tree in his backyard instead of letting it live inside his quirky little abode. Only his young piglet named Petunia could roam about the house. Petunia was probably the reason why no one ever came over. Well, that and his character. Bunsen was sort of an outcast on top of being odd.

Yet he wasn’t always this way. He had been raised up by Sir Robert Wallington IV and Madame Theodora Hatherty with great care.

He was their only child, at least known to the public, thus their golden child. He began playing the violin at age 4 and practiced the cello on days when he felt exhausted from the violin. Most of his early childhood was spent picking pears at his grandmother’s house 2 hours north of their estate. Bunsen despised his grandmother, ever since age 8, merely because of this.

You see, Bunsen liked apples. He hated pears. So every time he was forced to go to Grandmother Edna’s, he balked. He screamed and he shouted, pouted and pounded, whined and chimed. It was chiming to him, at least – maybe not so much for Sir Robert and Madame Theodora – but he didn’t care much for them either.

For him, a life with Petunia and Edward, his iguana, seemed ideal. He cooked a lot of beans in a crock in his backyard also, solely because he wanted to feel like he was using nature properly. He’d lop off some branches, hack at a tree and collect old books to create his baked beans fires. It was tradition to him, to make them this way, which is why he began documenting them. For himself.

In his younger days, Bunsen was an avid painter. He liked oil painting because he always could produce the finest shades of red with oil paints. The colors of his works were always very bold also. Lots of apples were painted – but not in the usual still life fashion. Instead he made narratives out of his depictions of apples. Sometimes the apples would be triangles. Sometimes he gave them limbs. In one piece, which was secretly one of his favorites (he had an ongoing list of favorite works by himself), he painted an apple as a melting chronometer dripping on to the face of an apple-topped man, screaming as a green worm crawls from its mouth. He titled it, “Fantastical.”

DRINKING CULTURE
0609-1009

Newport Storm Spring Ale, Providence IPA, Whale’s Tale Pale Ale – Cisco Brewers, Gordon Biersch Schwarz, Captain Lawrence Liquid Gold, Sixpoint Rogue, India Copper NY, Firehouse Pale Ale, Honey Nut, Steenbrugge Dubbel Bruin, Stone Ruination IPA, Arrogant Bastard Ale Cask, Avery White Rascal, Lagunitas Sumpin Sumpin Ale, Smokehaus Shiner, Duman Dupage French Country Ale, Klisch Pilsner, Coney Island Human Block Island, Captain Lawrence, Anderson Bvalley Booney Amber Ale, River Horse Special Ale ESB, Belfast Bay Lobster Ale, Rockies Hazed and Confused, Saison Ale, Einbecker, Obolon Ukranian Lager, Heinnieweisse weissebier farmhouse Ale, Dragon Stout, Hell or High Watermelon Wheat, Maredsous 8, Sword Swallower, Anchor Summer Wheat Beer, Dab Beer, Weinstephaner Dunkel, Wagner Valley Sled Dog Doppelbock, Ft. Collins Kidd Lager, River Horse Double White, Otter Creek Imperial IPA Cask, Hofbrauhaus Maibock, Smuttynose Star Island Single, Sierra Nevada Kellerweis, Rogue St. Rogue Red Ale, Spaten Munchen Dunkel, Lagunitas IPA, Sixpoint Brownstone Ale, Black Iron Brew, Castelian St. Armandus, Bluebird Bitter, OB Korean, Orion Okinawa, Lagunitas Maximator, Lucky 13 Growler, Coney Island Albino Python, Yebisu Malt Beer, Two Brothers Cane & Ebel Rye Cask, Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine Ale, Troubadour Stout, Brooklyn Saricha Ale, Kira White Ale, Einbecker Brauherren Premium Pils, Dr. Fritz Briem 13th Century Grut Bier, Uerige Duffeldorf Alstadt, Smuttynose Hanami Ale, Kostriker Schwarzbier, Smuttynose Old Brown Dog Ale, Wolavers Will Stevens Pumpkin Ale, Otter Creek Oktoberfest, Modelo Especial, Singha Lager, St. Lawrence Wheat, Sixpoint Bengali IPA, Kelso Nut Brown Ale, Allagash Curieux, Abita TurboDog, Shipyard Pumpkin Ale, Menabrea Birra, Shackmeister, Avery Sixteen, Defiant Little Thumper, Tsingtao, Presidente, Model Especial, Otter Creek Oktoberfest, Flying Dog Tire Bite Golden Ale