Last night, we faced the cocktail hour without, for the second night, any maraschino cherries for our Manhattans. Despite my ordering cherries yesterday from Amazon which were supposed to arrive today, they will be delivered tomorrow.

I copped Rhonda’s move from last night and grabbed some fresh black cherries from the fridge, sprinkled them liberally with sugar, and mashed them up in a measuring cup. I strained this over a fine-mesh strainer into our usual couple glasses, and that was that. Just as good.

Maybe better.