The Beginning of the End

 Suntory Time!

The key line here is : For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.

The Old Suntory is not available where I live. This is a blended whiskey (boo, hiss) which is satisfyingly floral and soft. No decent Noir detective would be caught dead (or alive) drinking this stuff.

Luckily, I'm all about noir but not in the detective line of work. 

It is a fine summer "scortch" and as we're having a long drawn-out fall of warm days and light sweater nights by the fire: this bottle is perfect.

Laphroaig isn't quite in the offing this year. I need a good hard evening frost and a fire in the woodstove to take a dram of of the peat-y and settle down with _August 1914_  which I try to read every second year or so. Last year I re-read _Anna Kerensky_. 

 I love that Count Vronsky's horse Frau Frau had large nostrils .... like Anna. Yep - a line from the book.

The news today: 

 A vaccine is being submitted for approval which has a 90+ % efficacy rate in clinical studies.

It is going to be a slog to get it into 250+ Million Americans. That is sort of the epidemiologist's "base number" for public health control. We have about 335 M people in the U.S. With a 90% efficacy rate, the anti-vax folks and those medically unable to tolerate the vaccine will benefit from the greater populations' induced immunity.

 

Now, there are things we don't know for certain. The studies look good but the argument for release is the difference between 99% certainty it won't give you "The Crimp" and 99.999% certainty it won't.

"The Crimp" is shorthand for viral-induced consequences of an unintended sort.

WHAT THE MEANS TO YOU: 

You will be able to take those fishing trips you've put off sometime into 2022. The process of getting people inoculated and adapting to a new-new reality will take a bit.

Monday Night Flies is up and running virtually. 

Last week featured a few friendly soft-hackles.

 

 

Above: the Purple and Slate. This has been good for me in winter waters. Not great -> but good.

 

 

Above: My own Grey Drake. Size 16 to size 8 these work for any spinner fall. Meh. 

 

Above: the Partridge and Gold. Works as a hendrickson when in #16. Works as everything else in #12.

I'm trying a clock tonight. In North Country parlance, clock is a beetle. My box is shy of beetles. I'm fine on ant but good classic beetles? Shy. I have a nice collection of crayon-grade foam beetles from a trip to Yellowstone waters. They work but lack any soft-hackle style.

Almost time to fill my glass and step into the virtual den.

Maybe I can fly in the fall.