Harry Potter and the Craft-Beer Family Reunion

 You guys, I got to enjoy a pretty amazing night out this week.

Turns out I like enjoying stuff.

Well, we finally had a meet-up this week, and just in time, as it looks like the Delta variant and the large numbers of vaccine-resistant morons may be tag-teaming to put us all back in isolation. Never has a single virus so accurately identified the lowest common denominator of an entire society. Well done, SARS-CoV-2. If only you hadn't taken so many good and wise people while you were at it.

No, it's right in front of us.

I've missed my family soooo much. Other than my Precocious Daughter, I hadn't seen any of my relatives in person since before the pandemic roared to life in early 2020. I spent over a year having to encounter potentially infectious total strangers in grocery stores and at work - OK, my co-workers technically aren't strangers, but I don't know what any of these people do outside the office, and for all I know they bathe in Covid juice every day - but out of an abundance of caution I declined to expose my loved ones to any of my secondary contacts.

But I digress.

A group of six of us (seven, if you count my niece's very good doggo who is in training to be a service dog) grabbed a bite to eat and then went to a local craft beer place. Not my usual scene at all, but it had the advantage of having a huge outdoor seating area. It was quite crowded - even in non-pandemic times, I would have been twitchy at the sheer number of people jammed together, because people, ugh. Fortunately, we grabbed a table in the farthest backest corner of the place. The nearest people were eight feet away, and the majority of the crowd was considerably farther than that beyond an empty grassy area. Other than the bit where we had to weave through the sea of humanity to get to that table, I felt quite comfortable in our remote spot.

I didn't have anything to drink, because beer is not my thing. I did have a sip of what the others were having, and let me tell you - creamsicle-flavored beer is not a thing that should exist, in my opinion. Sometimes, when I wonder if I have a drinking problem, I remember the episode of "Family Ties" in which a young Tom Hanks portrays an alcoholic by chugging a bottle of vanilla extract to satisfy his craving for sweet, sweet, booze, and now I can honestly say that if I were crawling across the desert sands dying of thirst while simultaneously in the throes of the DTs, I would pass on creamsicle-flavored beer, so no I don't think I have a drinking problem, thank you very much.

This run-on sentence is brought to you by all kinds of 
questionable choices.

Anyway, we all sat and talked and had a great time being together. We also very much enjoyed the fact that we happened to be there on "Harry Potter Trivia Night." We actually had walked over to this particular watering hole because we'd heard they were doing trivia, and we thought that it might be fun to wander over and maybe participate in a few rounds, even though none of us are exactly Potterheads.

Uh, no.

This was serious business. This was a highly organized, team-based tournament of very competitive nerds. In fact, we learned that the Harry Potter trivia was the sole reason for the large crowd, and on a typical Thursday night there would have been only a small fraction of the people in attendance. So instead of being casual participants, we got to be spectators at a vastly entertaining spectacle.

This was not "What was the name of Harry's owl?"-level trivia. Oh, no. I am not kidding when I say that one of the questions required one to know that in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry's personal prophecy orb was located in exactly the 97th row of shelves in the Hall of Prophecy. I could have gone happily to my grave not knowing that bit of information, and I'll probably forget it long before I do, but there were people here who knew it and were deadly serious about knowing it.

On a good day I can name upwards of three Weasleys.

Now, such a dedicated bunch of half-drunk wizarding fanatics deserves an exceptional master of ceremonies. And the lady running the trivia tournament was that and more. Imagine Roz from Monsters, Inc., only spouting Harry Potter trivia and berating teams for their choice of names ("'Snapes on a Plane' is not nearly as clever as you think it is!'"). The best part is that she seemed to truly consider her role a sacred responsibility and was not having an enjoyable time at all. At one point I realized I probably sound a lot like her when I'm trying to run a lunch meeting at work. It was glorious.

At the end of the night (early, because most of us had to go to work in the morning) we all promised to get together again in August. I hope it happens. PDaughter starts her senior year of college in August, and my nephew starts a new job, and we might all be wearing masks and washing our groceries again by then anyway. But I'm hopeful, because I really love my family.

Maybe next time there will be a few more Muggles at the bar.

Are We Doing Things Again?

Just a short post today, Drunkards. Because something very unusual has happened. 

I'm overbooked today.

Unfortunately, none of it involves madly typing at my computer, which would mean I was spending my Saturday writing. But I'm never not going to use the "cat typing" gif if I can possibly shoehorn it into a post.

I used to be a relatively busy person. Now and again I'll see a Facebook memory where I talk about what a busy day I was planning to have/was having/had. Facebook has become a cesspool of trolls and grumpy acquaintances offering indistinguishable bad takes on silly topics, and I mostly stay away from it these days. But at its best it was a useful chronicle of the 2010s, which were a decade of me being a mom, a wife, a homeowner, a person with some vague notions of having a "career" rather than a job, even a social life. 

Lol, nope, never that. But in retrospect, I had a typical suburban schedule of school activities and DIY projects at home and keeping up with friends and family. I was - not all the time but much of the time - busy.

Gradually my life has slowed down and my world has gotten smaller. It started when I got divorced, which lopped off an entire half a family's worth of social responsibilities (no regerts). It continued with Precocious Daughter graduating from high school and the end of being Marching Band Mom, Karate Mom, etc. Then, of course, the pandemic hit, and even for a homebody like me, normal life became truncated and isolated for a while. 

I'm not going to say that life has picked up where it left off yet, at least not for me. Things like going to the movies, attending concerts, etc. are probably still weeks if not months in my future. I'm not 100% sure they're safe, and I'm 200% sure it's going to take my hermit brain more time to be comfortable around that many people again. Your mileage may vary. I wasn't a fan of crowds or a social butterfly before COVID hit, so while I missed those things when they were taken away, I also adapted very easily to staying home and doing nothing.

Happy little potato, that's me.

Still, there are signs that the old modes of living are returning, for better or for worse. And so today I actually have a - oh, what's that word? - a schedule. Ugh. And it starts with me having to be somewhere at 10:00 a.m. on a freaking Saturday. For a work-related event, of all things. That involves being outside in the Texas heat and humidity and pretending to enjoy myself. I'm sweating on multiple levels just thinking about it.

Then I'm meeting a friend to help him pick out curtains. In an honest-to-glob store. Stores selling things other than toilet paper and lunchmeat still exist in 2021, I'm told. If I'm lucky, I'll have time to go home and shower in between these events. Or not. This excursion may turn out to be a future post if it goes entertainingly enough. Stay tuned. 

Afterwards I have to get home in time to clean up myself and my apartment for Drummer Boy, who is coming over around 5:00. Probably I should stop at the grocery store, too. Drummer Boy likes fresh half-and-half for his coffee on Sunday morning. 

Now, that last part is by far the best part of today's schedule and is what will sustain me through the rest of it. But it still involves managing my time on a scale I haven't had to deal with in more than a year. My normal Saturday schedule in the pandemic era involves clicking "yes" when the TV asks me if I'm still watching, which is so judgmental, if you ask me. You'd think the TV would be happy to be of service. Everybody's a critic.

Anyway. That's my Saturday, which may not sound terribly hectic but is a lot for someone like me who thought we had all agreed to stay home and never interact again. Now I have to shave my legs and everything. 

Do I even have that many tea lights? Do I have to do my nails first? Can my leg actually assume that position? Look, this is getting complicated, so I'll leave you here. 

Whatever your Saturday looks like, Drunkards, make it a good one. 

A Stimulus Story

Hi, guys. Long time, no post.

Those of you who are friends, or at least Facebook friends, IRL know a lot of this story already. This is for my faithful Drunkards who maybe only know me from my unfortunately sporadic posts.

You may remember that in February of this year - February, pre-pandemic, isn't that wild? - Precocious Daughter and I were fortunate to bring The Chonk into our lives.

This handsome large boy right here.

The Chonk lived with PDaughter in her campus apartment, and they were very happy. Then...

Well, in mid-March PDaughter and The Chonk came home for Spring Break and never went back. Classes were canceled. The world changed. And The Chonk went from a stable, unchanging life with one human mom to moving twice in two months with new humans and a Siamese Kitten who didn't necessarily relish a new feline roommate.

He got stressed, as one might imagine. He stopped eating. And he got feline fatty liver disease.

Here are some links about this ailment:

http://www.pethealthnetwork.com/cat-health/cat-diseases-conditions-a-z/fatty-liver-disease-cats-not-eating-can-quickly-kill

https://www.preventivevet.com/cats/how-to-prevent-hepatic-lipidosis-fatty-liver-disease-in-cats

https://www.petmd.com/cat/conditions/digestive/c_ct_hepatic_lipidosis

If you don't want to peruse those links, I'll spell it out: When a change in a cat's routine causes stress, he is likely to stop eating, resulting in fatty liver disease. Without aggressive treatment (or even with it), the prognosis for recovery is about 20%.

The Chonk came very close to death, my friends.

Fortunately, we got him to the vet on time, and the vet was fantastic. FANTASTIC. Operating as an essential business in the midst of this COVID-19 awfulness, they were fully committed to the recovery of The Chonk.

When antibiotics and force-feedings at home failed to keep our boy from fading, the vet took him for a period of time, giving him IV fluids and general TLC. And after several days, he responded.

I have never been so happy to pay a vet bill as I was the day we brought The Chonk home.

He's been back with us for five days, and after a couple of touch-and-go days when his appetite still seemed lacking, The Chonk is eating with a vengeance. He's even venturing to eat the Siamese Kitten's food when she's not looking. And that's fine, because The Chonk is nowhere near chonky after this ordeal. He's painfully thin, and we're doing our best to get him back to a normal weight, let alone his former chonkfulness.

Bottom line: I have been extremely fortunate during the current global crisis. I've been working full-time (on only slightly reduced hours), I got a healthy tax rebate just before the shit hit the fan, and I was among the first to receive my stimulus check. The Chonk's illness was emotionally extremely draining, but I was able to get him the care he needed to recover.

So here's the thing.

The Chonk's vet bills - including vet exams, hospitalizations, medicine, and special food - totaled almost exactly USD $1,500.

PDaughter chipped in $300.

Which means my cost to treat The Chonk was $1,200.

Or exactly one government stimulus check.

I don't think much about divine providence, chance, or the like.

But the fact is that the government sent me exactly what I needed to pay my vet bill.

Call it what you will. I'm just happy our formerly chonky boy is still with us.

Not sure if this picture shows it well,
but he is no longer chonky.

As I grieve for every human who has been affected with COVID-19, I also rejoice for the life of this tuxedo-boy who will live to love us for many more days.

I hope you are all well, Drunkards. My family (PD, cats, and all) loves you.

Mask-erade

Things are changing so fast.

On Thursday, Dallas County (where I live) decreed that we must wear "face coverings," i.e. masks whenever we go out in public.

Look.

I've been pretty good during this pandemic. I have.

I go to work every day because I'm employed by an essential business. I encounter fewer than 10 people a day. I go to the grocery store once a week. I haven't bought freaking toilet paper in more than a month.

I'M TRYING MY BEST, PEOPLE.

But something about the face mask order just broke me.

Because face masks don't protect the assholes I encounter in the course of my *extremely limited* interaction with them.

They literally...marginally...protect other people from my random coughs, sneezes, and utterances of the words "thank you" and "stay six feet back, mofo."

(ASIDE: I totally got into it with some asshole who acted all offended at a retail store when I told them to get the fuck six feet away from me. Word to the wise: I will kick you in the real or imagined balls if you don't respect my social distance, fuckers.)

Anyway.

I was feeling so low, Drunkards. SO. LOW.

And then I got home and told Precocious Daughter about the masks order. And I asked her if she would be interested in going through my fabric stash to find material that we might use to make masks.

Guys.

What would I do without this  20 yo wonderchild?

We've been making masks, you guys. She's my cutter and pinner, and I am chief sewer and assembler.

Ten hundred million thousand thanks to Tiana's Closet for providing the pattern and instructions we've been using. Seriously, guys, send her some love.

We now have masks to die for. (Pictures coming soon...promise.)

Just the act of sewing these things - maybe 15 minutes each, tops - has given me life, and hope, and has made me smile. Not bad for one little face mask.

I will live to see another day or week of this pandemic nonsense.

(If you want/need a mask, I'll soon post a link on my FB page to request one. Promise.)

A Spicy Farewell

I'm sorry to announce the failure of the 2020 pepper crop.

Almost three weeks after my germinated seeds were planted, I haven't seen a single leaf, shoot, or sprout. They've had plenty of sun, plenty of rain, and a rich bed of fertilized soil to flourish in. In which to flourish. Whatever.

I give up.

Not gonna lie, I needed those plants to grow. I needed to see, more than ever before, that life goes on and nature takes its course, no matter what else is going on in the world. That would have been more stimulating than a stimulus check. I'm not saying that I would have traded the continued health of my family and friends for a couple of lousy pepper plants - I wouldn't, no way, no how. But I do feel a bit as if some karmic horticulturist decided to be an asshole and give me only one and not the other.

Looking something like this,
I imagine.

I guess a little bit of lousy hope in our current trying circumstances was too much to ask.

And since seeds are one of the items that everybody has arbitrarily decided to hoard during the pandemic, I doubt if I'll get to plant another crop this year.

In the grand scheme of things, this is not a huge tragedy. It's not a tragedy of any size.

Or maybe it's a tragedy exactly the size of the tiny space in my heart reserved for the joy of helping green things grow.

Also, now what the fuck am I going to write about all summer?

Ten Ways I Won't Celebrate My Birthday This Year

My birthday is Thursday, Drunkards. I'll be 52 years old - one for every week in the calendar, one for every card in the deck. The same age as Adam Schlesinger, who wrote "Stacy's Mom" and "That Thing You Do!" - and who died of COVID-19 last week.

Ssssssigh.

Fucking COVID-19. Just come out of nowhere and turned everything to shit, hasn't it?

My natural, morbid response to our current pandemic has been to re-read Stephen King's "The Stand." I love this book, always have. It's got its flaws and its anachronisms - even King couldn't quite imagine how much pop culture would have changed between 1978, when he wrote it, and 1985, when it's set. No one had really conceptualized or categorized GenX at that point, and as a result almost every character in the book, no matter what their age, is written with the attitudes and experiences of a Baby Boomer. I've always found it hilarious that Larry Underwood, the up-and-coming rock star character, was supposed to be stoked to have done a recording session with Neil Diamond. Come on, Mr. King. Even in 1978, Neil Diamond had become a middle-of-the-road pop crooner. Maybe in 1968, when you were about Larry's age, he had some hipster cred.

Don't get me wrong - 1968 Neil Diamond
was hot.

But I digress.

One of the main differences between the events of "The Stand" and the 'Rona is the timeframe. In the book, the superflu sweeps through America (and presumably the world, although that's only hinted at) literally in a matter of days. By the time anyone realizes what's happening, 99% of the population is dead. There are no quarantines, no shelter-in-place orders - one infected man escapes a top-secret government facility in mid-June, and by the end of the month all but the immune have succumbed.

Here in the real world in 2020, we're not so lucky. Our plague is unfolding in slow motion, relatively speaking. Especially here in America, our fortifications against the Coronavirus have gone up with too little speed, too little urgency, and almost no consistency from place to place. And where the America of "The Stand" has Randall Flagg, the dark incarnation of evil, presiding gleefully over the anticipated annihilation of humanity, we have a fat orange asshole who thinks he has all the time in the world to screw around and be some kind of hero. And the death count keeps rising as the days go by with almost agonizing slowness.

What was I talking about? Oh, right - time.

See what's become of me.

So whereas in fiction, characters are drop-kicked from normality to devastation, here in the real world we're in suspended animation. We can't do most things or go most places (but not all, because some people are too stupid to understand the concept of ripping off a Band-Aid). And so we're stuck, not knowing if we're going to get sick and with little to do while we wait.

And it's my goddamn birthday this week, and it going to suck. I mean, I'm not someone who makes a big deal out her birthday, but even by my standards it's going to be as dull as the part of the daily Pandemic Response Team briefing where the experts all stand around waiting for Trump to finish taking a shit or applying his orange coating or whatever the hell he does before he lumbers out to the podium to spew lies, hate, and nonsense.

Anyway, here are ten things I won't be doing on my birthday this year, thanks to the Coronavirus:

1. Going out to dinner
2. Having lunch with my co-workers
3. Treating myself to a little something from the bookstore or Target
4. Seeing my family
5. Seeing Drummer Boy (OK, so I almost never get to see Drummer Boy on my birthday, but on other birthdays I could at least be disappointed when he didn't come over)
6. Going to the movies
7. Meeting up with a friend and saying "You shouldn't have" when they give me a present
8. Buying a cake just big enough for Precocious Daughter to eat on my behalf because I don't eat cake
9. Getting a hug from anyone
10. Getting a birthday spanking (I haven't actually gotten a birthday spanking in ages, but I couldn't think of one more - and anyway, if I did get birthday spankings, they would definitely be a huge no-no this year)

I don't mean to sound ungrateful. I'm healthy, and the people I love are healthy. I actually get to leave the house every day to go to work, so even though it's the only thing I'm doing, I'm not housebound. Things could be much, much worse.

But this is a rotten time to have a birthday.

On Thursday I'll drink a toast to myself and probably donate some money to a worthy cause. If you want to celebrate my day with me, you could do the same things, wherever you are.

Maybe I'll listen to some Neil Diamond.

Feelings and Other Terrifying Things

I'm pretty stressed out right now.

It was this or a Twenty One Pilots video.
So obviously, this.

It's that whole Coronavirus thing. It's that whole Is the economy going to collapse? thing. It's that whole Precocious-Daughter's-education-on-hold thing. It's that whole "Our President is a not just a moron but an evil moron" thing.

Stress can be punctuated in many ways. Cool cool cool.

I recognize that I'm in good shape relative to many. PDaughter and I are both healthy. My job is in no danger (in fact, I work for an Essential Business, so I actually get to leave the house and go to work every morning, even under a shelter in place order). I'm sure PDaughter's university will get back to the business of educating minds and draining wallets as soon as it can.

And of course, there's an election in November.

Maybe his lizard overlords will claim him before then.

Here's something interesting: We all cope with fear and anxiety in our own way. From a behavioral standpoint, you have your busy-workers: the cookers, the cleaners, the crafters, the exercisers. Then there are the suppressors: those who sleep, who drink, who tune out and drop out. I've heard there are even some who cope by engaging with life normally and in moderation.

Like Rodents of Unusual Size, I don't think they exist.

They're out there, and they're kind of weird.

I tend to ping-pong between busying and suppressing, and somehow manage to be neither productive nor successfully benumbed. I pretty much suck at coping, behaviorally speaking.

Now, emotionally...of course, people process emotions in varying ways. Emotional regulation is an important life skill. It allows us to operate on a psychologically healthy wavelength under most circumstances (unless you're President Reptile Face up there). When we regulate our emotions, we can control, compartmentalize, express, empathize, forbear, respond...all those good human reactions to sensory input that keep us sane and whole.

Some people are programmed to auto-regulate. They tend to process emotions on a closed circuit, relying on internalized standards and checkpoints that are more or less independent of outward influences. They don't wear their heart on their sleeve, and they typically don't want or need to "talk it out" to come to terms with how they feel.

Sorta like this.

Other people are...not that. Other people (see how I'm cleverly throwing you off by talking about "other people"?) seek validation of what they're feeling. They want to compare their emotional state to something outside themselves, to get feedback, to be reassured that they're operating within normal parameters. It's not they can't regulate; they just do it on a more communal, open circuit. They're the proverbial open book when it comes to emotions.

...and sorta like this.

Hey, you guys! Neither type of emotional regulation is better than the other. They're just different. The important thing to remember is that different people have different needs when it comes to processing things like stress, fear, and worry. And many people who cohabitate are discovering that very thing, as the current pandemic has them spending more time together in closer quarters than they're used to.

If you take an inny-regulator and an outy-regulator, who normally have time and space and opportunity to handle what life throws at them in the way they're comfortable with, and squeeze them into one living space for basically 24 hours a day with no one else around to act as either a buffer or a sounding board...

It's less ugly when illustrated with cats.

So, Drunkards who live with other people, that may be why you and your loved one/roommate/parent/child are at each other's throats more than usual. Try to understand that you and they may operate on a different emotional wavelength, and try to be respectful of what they need, even if it's outside your normal mode of operation.

Another thought.

If you are physically separated from someone you love, you should also be aware of those differing approaches to coping with stress.

Because if you want to be reinforced and reassured by someone who can't actually give you a hug or hold your hand...you may get nothing from them at all.

They may be efficiently and rationally self-regulating in their corner of the world and not even realize that you're drowning in yours.

And if you're happier dealing with things by yourself...

...then I guess you're pretty fortunate right now.

Be well and be safe, Drunkards.