First Foot

We are off in half an hour to a neighbour's house. They are another household with a small child, so plans are afoot to set the clocks ahead three hours so we can all get to bed at a decent hour.

(Thing I Miss About Not Having Children, #34 - New Year's Eve)

At the last minute I realized that, if I were going to a neighbour's house on New Year's, for "snacks and drinks", I'd better bring some snacks and drinks. So, I threw a Bean Dip on the stove, dug an unopened Boursin out of the deli drawer, fished around for some Carr's table crackers, and made room in the freezer for my (alas) single bottle of lime Perrier and six Pepsis. "I'll just grab something out of the liquor cabinet," I said to myself as I furrowed my brow trying to remember where the liquor cabinet is. At last it came back to me and I opened the cabinet, blew the cobwebs off the dusty bottles, and took stock... depressing.

I'll bring the half-bottle of Captain Morgan, but I'm damned if I'm going to present to my hostess the following as my contribution to the evening:

1) a quarter cup of cherry brandy left over from my Singapore Sling afternoon with Megan six years ago;

2) the sticky-lidded bottle of Kahlua we brought with us when we moved to the interior in 2001....then brought with us when we moved back two years later, with the same amount inside it;

3) a third of a bottle of bitter Cinzano; or

4) the two tablespoons that remain of my Napoleon St. Remy brandy (kept for medicinal purposes. Troubled with the Norwalk virus? Pesky lactose intolerance won't leave you alone? Partook a little too freely of the Bean Dip your neighbour brought to your house on New Year's Eve? An ounce of this, an ounce of hot water, and toss it back. You'll be, as Vera Drake said, right as rain).

And, let's hope there's not some sort of curse you can bring on yourself by starting the New Year with a house that looks like ten orphaned children have been living in it for a month, or like the mighty finger of God has just reached down from the sky and stirred everything in it. Because, if so, I'm doomed.

Happy Hogmanay everybody. Sigh.

BUI

Just back from a spectacular, butter-glutted, wine-soaked Thanksgiving feast. Sadly, the effects of the alcohol are about to wear off, so I'd better post quick before I think better of it. My friend Sandy and I consumed two bottles of wine and a respectably-mixed Blueberry Tea during and after her admirably appointed dinner tonight, notwithstanding the fact that our children were present. Luckily the husbands were in attendance to see to all matters of infant hygiene, care and feeding.

Here is what I've noticed. Now that I have had children, my alcohol tolerance has gone the way of the full-night's-sleep and the long-soak-in-the-tub. Why is that? How did I become simultaneously:
- a nursing mother, cradling my young one at the breast, wiping away little bits of frothy milk from her cherubic lips;
- a daughter of Artemis (or would it be Hestia?) at once gentle, terrible, and fecund, nurturing the children scampering about my feet; and
- a totally cheap drunk?

Please don't examine too closely the punctuation of that last sentence. I finally had to settle on a bulleted list to make any sense of it.

Tomorrow, daughter #2's finished cardigan. If I'm not too hung over.