Former alcoholics — they’re always warning you off. In her book
about drinking, the late Caroline Knapp wrote, “Liquor creates
delusion…. A single drink can make you feel unstoppable,
masterful, capable of solving problems that overwhelmed you
just five minutes before. In fact, the opposite is true: drinking
brings your life to a standstill, makes it static as rock over time.”
Knapp quit drinking because she changed her mind about one
thing in particular. She had spent her adult life, she wrote,
believing that she drank because she was unhappy. And then
she thought, “Maybe, just maybe, I’m unhappy because I drink.”

William Leith, from “The Hungry Years”

Shaun and I had a rite of passage this weekend — our first trip to the ER with our daughter.  Actually, we opted for an urgent care facility, but it certainly felt scary and urgent.  Friday Ruby had a fever when we got home from daycare, and even with Tylenol it was spiking up and up every couple hours.  By the time we got to the doc, it was 104.5 and has been twice since (hit 105 once!).  We are certainly thankful it took almost 21 months to get here, but I am sure it is scary whenever your little one gets his/her first really high fever.

I gasped when I touched her this morning — she was like a little piece of pottery fresh out of the kiln.  She has THE FLU — the nurse said “You’ve got a couple rough days ahead of you” when we headed for the car.  That said, I’m going to head for bed myself.  She’s finally down (this morning we read books until 4AM!) and I am going to follow suit.  Zzz.

One of my favorite moments from last night’s Second City show at the Barns of Wolf Trap was Apathy Man. Scene starts and a guy is standing at a bus stop with a little cape on and a big A on his shirt made of electrical tape. A woman walks up with a splint on her arm, looking a little worse for wear. They exchange hellos, she asks if he’s going to a costume party or something. “Nope,” he says, “I’m a superhero.” “Like Superman?” she asks, smiling. “Well, I have all the powers of Superman but I choose not to use them. I’m Apathy Man.”

The woman wigs out and says “You know, that really pisses me off! Sometimes people really need help!  In fact, just last week I was mugged and roughed up pretty badly right here at this bus stop!”

Laughing, he says “Yeah, I saw that!”

It’s a bad sign when you go to a concert and you’re more interested in passing notes with your friend than listening to the music. Last night at the Rams Head Tavern in Annapolis, Dennis and I went to see HEM. I had high hopes for Ben Weaver, the opening act, until it was clear that he was even more morose than I am on a bad day, and that he was gonna tell us aaaaall about it. I realized that about ten years ago, I would have wanted to date Ben, and would have had all his albums and t-shirts and used his tunes on mix-tapes galore. I just don’t have much patience for it anymore. When a performer’s first words are along the lines of “I want to die,” I usually look around to see if there’s anything on the table I can read, or interesting people in the audience I can write stories about in my head. Luckily, Dennis found some paper and started doodling and we passed the time drawing Ben Weaver cartoons. I am sure Ben is a lovely person, and he seemed to have a following at the Tavern — I just couldn’t take it!

When HEM came on they completely erased any sad feelings that Ben had tried to burden us with. HEM is fantastic. Sally Ellyson’s voice is like a warm fuzzy slipper that you put on next to the woodstove in your mountain cabin — I could have listened to her all night. And, their lyrics make you feel things, instead of telling you about feelings. They sing about the land, they sing about family, they sing about place. We were all mesmerized. I would highly recommend Eveningland to the uninitiated. Excellent.

I really did feel bad for Mr. Weaver. At one point, he was repeating the line, over and over again, “I’m getting out of here.” I tried to put myself in his shoes, feel his pain, connect with him in some way, but all I could think was “OK, see ya!”

Saw this little gem today…

How to Write Good

1. Don’t ever present your ideas in the form of a numbered list
2. Never repeat yourself or say things more than once
3. Avoid (whenever possible) the use of parenthetical phrases (unless absolutely necessary)
4. The use of foreign words and expressions is considered a faux pas
5. Avoid cliches like the plague
6. Never adopt a condescending tone with your readers – that means to talk down to them
7. To be avoided at all times is the reverse construction of sentences
8. Eschew obfuscation

I wrote my “about” section today — rather I finished it and popped it onto the site. That’s a tall order, actually! It’s not easy to write about who I am in a few paragraphs. I do hope to learn about a lot of other people as part of this blog journey too. Not a comment yet, though I don’t really know how to get “out there” and get people reading. If you’re here and you like to talk about yourself, type away!

In the meantime, Shaun (and Moose) made me laugh tonight at the end of a self-depracating verbal purge about my stress level(s) and how I let it affect my time with Ruby. We do speak for our dog in this house — Moose has a voice that we both imitate and we speak on his behalf all the time. This evening he (through Shaun) suggested that it might be relaxing for me to try bacon origami. Put on soft music, get into a comfortable place, and make small figures out of folding (smushing?) bacon, before cooking it and feeding it to him. Just the thought of it cracked me up and took a bit of the edge off. I don’t think it would work, but Moose never stops trying to increase the amount of bacon in his life. I admire his commitment.

I have Mormon relatives, lots of them. Usually a few times a year there is a wedding, and usually my parents are invited (as it’s her brother that’s the Mormon in the family). Part two of my visit to my parents’ place (an overnight, it was so nice!) was to help my mom shop for one of said weddings online. Just because I am quicker at the keyboard “wheel,” we sat down to shop together.

This lovely young couple were registered at several places, and we checked them all for the ideal thing. My mom wanted to send something “lasting” like a piece of silver or a serving tray, but their tastes ran more towards building a household (sheets and towels) than collecting a cache of things you pass on to your children, etc.

We were having trouble finding something she was passionate about, there were slim pickin’s left because the wedding is in less than a month. The Target registry had a really wide variety of things — none of which were really Mom’s taste either.

Especially the K. Y. Warming. Liquid.

I was horrified, and actually blushing next to my Mom. I thought it was a little strange when we got to the men’s socks on the registry, and was also puzzled at the five different vaccuum cleaners they had chosen. BUT. I couldn’t believe that they registered for a 5 oz. bottle of KY Warming Liquid. Registered!

I hope somewhere a “tongue in cheek” Mormon couple is laughing it up over sparkling cider and cuddling, keeping an eye on their registry and wondering who’s going to actually BUY and WRAP the JELLY.

My mother decided that the less intimate Crock Pot was the perfect thing.

During a relaxed evening of “Dancing With the Stars” at Mom and Dad’s house (They love it!  Have you seen this show?), I brought up the Frontline presentation that I recently TiVoed about the crystal meth epidemic in America.  I mentioned the “time release” photos of people over the years, and the toll that crystal had taken on their appearance, their lives, their very souls.

I remember from rehab, the “numbers” for meth addicts were very bad — the recovery rate is abysmal for folks that are addicted to this particular drug.  It really just steals your life away, and makes you feel like there’s nothing but the drug worth living for.  I worry about my friends from the program who struggle with “Tina,” she’s a killer.

I sort of mumbled (as the dancing started again) that I was so thankful I had never liked meth.  Truth be told, I am much more of a downer fan than an upper one.  I like euphoria as much as the next person, but 18 hours of it?  I would pull my hair out.  I will take a nice mellow Percoset over cocaine any day.  Poppers?  Nope.  Red wine and lots of it?  Bring it on.  But that’s me.  Course, I ain’t takin’ a-none of those things anymore.  Just occasionally thinking of them with the heavy heart of a jilted lover — we only remember the good stuff.

Mind you, I am sitting with my PARENTS when I make this observation (never LIKED meth, not never DID meth), which leads to a very relaxed, “Oh, you’ve tried crystal meth?” from my father.  Thinking it will help somehow (like nail polish remover on a paper cut), I assure him and my mother (sitting nearby), “Oh, I was really young.”

Nice.  Really young.  Like when I was living in your house.  In high school even.  Probably one night when I was out in one of the vehicles that you owned.  In fact, I then got complete verbal diarrhea and decided to fumble around the story of the ill-fated New Years’ Eve with friends who talked for 9 hours straight while I just sort of held on for dear life and waited for the Scrambler to stop and let me off.  Felt a lot like that moment when I was slipping around on the ice of “these are my parents, not my friends!” even though they are two of my favorites.  Funny line you walk when you are in your thirties and really enjoy the ‘rents.  I still need to remember that I was their little Ruby Dooby Doo one day and that they probably still think of me that way.

After I finished my verbal shit-fest (having made absolutely no sense, progress or difference), I looked over at my mother.  Just like the photos on Frontline, she had sort of grayed out and aged about 40 years.

That Lisa Rinna (who my ex-roommate affectionately calls Baby Fish-Mouth) got robbed, huh?  ROBBED.

Shaun and I have decided to implement date night. Thursdays from here on out, Monica is going to come over and watch Ruby while we go somewhere and stare into each other’s eyes for a bit. Tonight was our first Thursday, and though Shaun is in Denver we decided I would keep the night for myself and go out with a friend. Heaven!

I came home to see Monica (through the lace curtains) leaping around the living room. She opened the front door before I even got to it, and exclaimed that she was pursuing a cucaracha, a GRANDE one. Somehow in Monica’s native tongue that didn’t sound as bad as “a big-ass dirty cockroach the size of my palm just went screaming across your floor.” It’s always so horrifying when someone else sees the bug first. Or the mouse. The one that runs right past our “ratter” Boston terrier and knees him in the groin on the way by. She asked if Moose will kill these little enemies and I said “He will if they are wrapped in bacon.”

I tried to explain about “the city” (I think there are more cockroaches here than in the suburbs?) and that we really are clean people without trash and crumbs lying around for the grande bugs to snack on. After a few blustery sentences I just shrugged and thanked Monica for her understanding and bravery.

She was a very good sport. The good news? She informed me that in Peru, “a cucaracha this big? He fly.”

I am such a coffee ho. I looove me some Starbucks coffee. I am also a complete crossword geek — I find immense pleasure in a Sunday morning (or Saturday evening if you subscribe!) Washington Post crossword puzzle AND an Americano. I’m all for independent coffee shops not getting smashed out by the big corporate giant(s), but Starbucks really is the best coffee! Now that they have put a little kiosk in my Safeway, I can actually crawl there if necessary.

This morning I went to the Starbucks web site to register my gift card (Valentine’s Day from Mom and Dad, don’t you know), and I saw this. Now, I don’t mean to encourage anyone else to participate, because I am going to win. But you can go ahead and play, just for fun.

In the meantime, I am so excited I need to lay down. How embarrassing.