Ohhh, That's Why I'm Drunk

A couple weeks ago, Dave and I had a chance to meet my uncle and his partner for dinner.  We had a great time and I was feeling very posh because we went to a very swanky restaurant in Boston.  Since I leave work at 4 pm, I knew I would get there before Dave and everyone else, so I invited a colleague of mine, Beth, to head to the bar and have a drink while I waited.

Being my poshest, swankiest self, I ordered a Maker's Mark Manhattan.  I drank vodka in my twenties, so I'm starting to turn to whiskey, which my Irish heritage is appreciative of.  Unfortunately I don't know many whiskey drinks.  Except what my mother, who is a whiskey drinker, always ordered when she was feeling her poshest, swankiest self (which is pretty much always).  And since I was in a posh, swanky place, I didn't want just any whiskey, I wanted the good stuff.  Which, again following my mom's orders, is Maker's Mark.

The lovely bartender made me a lovely drink and I enjoyed it.  (We'll ignore the part where I sat at the bar and changed from my flats into heels which I had pulled out of my purse. Again, I was posh and swanky.)  The drink was large, to say the least, but for $15 bucks it better be.  The cherry at the bottom was quite intoxicated in and of itself and no I did not trip when I got off the barstool yes I ate lunch and no I don't need help going down the stairs thank you very much.

Finishing our drinks, Dave and I said good bye to Beth, met my uncle and headed to dinner.  Where of course I ordered another Maker's Mark Manhattan.  And proceeded to have a lovely evening being very posh and swanky and ordered delicious food, had wonderful conversation and laughs and enjoyed the poshness and swankiness of this uber-cool restaurant.

At the end of the evenings, we said our goodbyes and Dave and I made our way to the subway to get back to the car and head home.  On the subway I turned to Dave.

Me: I think I might be a little drunk.

Dave: Really? You think?

Me: I'm going to text people in the car.

Dave: No.  You're not allowed to text anyone.

Me: Why?

Dave: Because you're drunk.

Me: Can't I just text Amy?

Dave: Ok, you can text Amy.

Me: And Cindy?

Dave: Amy and Cindy but no one else.

Me: Fine.

Dave, being of his faculties, drove us home and I proceeded to sit in the passenger's seat texting Amy and Cindy very deliberately: I'm drunk and Dave said I'm only allowed to text you.  Then I decided to text Lisa too because Dave would never know. (Oops.  Cat's out of the bag.  He's probably going to take my phone away from me next time.)

Cindy was at first concerned that I was sad-drunk as in I tried to wash away my worries with booze, but then remembered I had gone out that night.  Then she was quite sad because she wasn't drunk with me.

Amy didn't reply until the next morning because she had somewhere in the range of a dozen 8 year old boys playing laser tag in her backyard for my nephew's birthday.  It's ok, I forgive her.

Lisa asked me how I was so drunk, quickly followed up with the more important question of How are you so drunk before 9 pm?  I told her it was because I had 2 very large beverages containing nothing but alcohol (at this point I'd forgotten they also had fruit--so they must be healthy, right?), but the definitive answer should have been Because I started at 4 pm, what are you waiting for?

Me: I don't understand.  I mean, I guess 30+ more years of drinking helps, but my mom never got this ripped on 2 drinks....ooooooooohhhhh.

Dave: What?

Me: My mom always drank Manhattans on the rocks.

Dave: Yeah, that will make a difference from the pure alcohol.

Me: Funny.  She never ordered them that way. I've never heard her order a drink on the rocks.  They just show up with ice in them.

Fast forward two days later when I share this with my mom.

Mom: You did what?  I'll bet that knocked you on your ass.

Me: But you never order them on the rocks.

Mom: I always order them on the rocks.

Me: I swear I've never heard you say that phrase.

Mom: Every. Time.

So, apparently I didn't learn to drink from my mom even though I thought I had.

And I promise my brother will make fun of me for this because I can usually handle more than him.  Except I'm pretty sure he would have been done after one of these iceless wonders.

Halloween Redux

Saturday was our Halloween fun night.  We had a blast.  Our friends Stacy, Rachel and John all came over for dinner.  Stacy had to leave early since she had to get to work at a bar near our house (like down the street near our house), so we promised to come by and see her with our costumes on before we went to the party.

After at least thirty minutes in the bathroom applying my make up with the help of makeupgeek.com (Thank you!), I got my costume on and emerged victorious, despite only having fake eyelashes on one eye because the other kept falling off.

Dave was Mr. Freeze.

Rachel was super excited to be a Sheriff, what with pink guns with ponies on them that made noise.  And John was a great Bill Lumbergh (you know, the boss in Office Space--come on, he looks great!)

Once properly dressed (well, maybe not so proper--it was cold outside and, well, I was dressed up as Catwoman), we headed to the bar to meet Stacy.  We had a few drinks and got to see her in her costume as a cancan dancer, which she hadn't finished putting on before leaving our house.

Everyone looked great, and then our friends Cindy and Keith called to say they would meet us at Stacy's bar, instead of another one we'd planned on.  Cindy is our costumer and made costumes for Dave, Keith, Stacy, our friend Erin, me and herself, among others.

Cindy absolutely outdid herself.  Not just with making so many costumes (she is to costumes as I am to cookies), but her own costume might just be the most amazing thing I've ever seen her make.  It was amazingand I love it.  The absolute best Queen of Hearts.  Initially we were all supposed to be Batman villains (hence Dave and I), but Keith really wanted to be the Mad Hatter, and I'm so glad they went with it.  They looked fabulous.

After another round, we headed to another bar and met up with Erin, who Cindy transformed into a sailor.

They love us at this bar, and the manager took a great shot of us.

We finally headed over to the Knights of Columbus for a party.  It's totally random, but these two guys have been renting out the place and getting a DJ for about 6 years.  It's always more and more crowded and this year it was packed.  We met up with Erin's boyfriend, Adam, and just had a great time dancing and talking to people.

They always do a variety of costume contests.  Last year Dave was in the Best Overall (as opposed to Most Creative and Sexiest) Contest as Beetlejuice and came in second.  This year, Keith made it to the Best Overall Contest.  And again, he came is second.  First place went to Pinhead, which was at least interesting and well done.  I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I don't think it was a mask.

Although there were two guys (I guess they were guys) who had costumes I loved.

Aren't they great?  The Yip Yips from Sesame Street!  Look at how great those costumes are:

from sesamestreet.com

It was such a fun night, as always.  Eventually we got tired of the crowd and decided to head back home.  Rachel and John spent the night with us, and we invited Cindy and Keith back too.  On the way home, we got the late-night drinking munchies, so I ended up making pizza and mini-muffins at 1:30 in the morning.  We ate, watched part of a terrible Halloween movie, and finally called it a night.

Now it's time to think about next year's costumes!

Hip-Hop Grandmas

I have a distinct memory of being in my room when I was in either 5th or 6th grade, and Grandma made a sudden appearance. She and Grandpap had come over for the evening and were playing cards with my parents. Apparently my brother or sister had won the TV battle, since I was playing up in my room instead of hanging out, watching TGIF on ABC or some family movie. My brother was probably watching baseball.

Anyway, I'm in my room, listening to the radio and the dance party/remix set that came on after 8:00 pm was jamming. All I needed was a disco ball and I was ready to bust a move. The Electric Slide started to play and I continued playing or reading or whatever I was doing. I'd heard Grandma come upstairs, and when she heard the music, she came in, "I love this song!" I smiled and laughed because I knew it was true. Grandma and Grandpap used to go out dancing most weekends, so I wasn't surprised.

Grandma: Why aren't you dancing?

Me: Oh, I don't know it.

Grandma: It's easy! I'll show you.

And that's the story of how Grandma taught me the Electric Slide in my bedroom. Growing up with such an influence, I'm rarely flustered at the actions and comments of, well, grandmas. So it should come as no surprise, that this past weekend I wasn't fazed by a few things.

Over the weekend, my mother-in-law, M, and I traveled to the Allentown, PA, area to go to my husband's cousin's fiance's bridal shower (did you get that?). We stayed with D's step-grandmother, A (D's grandfather passed away last year, but A is a part of this very small, close family). On Friday night, we piled into A's car to go out to dinner. Now, I wasn't actually surprised, but I was curious when I heard Ke$ha playing on the radio. Later, on the way back to the house, A addressed the interesting choice of music, now playing a little ditty by Ludacris.

A: How do you like my radio station, C?

Me: It's pretty good. Not what I'd think you'd have on, but I'm not complaining.

A: Well, they play different stuff during the day, and then in the evening it switches for more of what the kids to listen, so I just never bother to change the channel. I don't mind it.

Me: That's cool. I don't know which is funnier, that you listen to this station or that my 4 year old niece knows all the words to these songs.

A: Well, last week I was in the car with my daughter and my grandkids and they had their iPod hooked up. We're driving along and all of a sudden, I say, "That's Usher." Just about blew them away.

I laughed, and then A admitted that she cheated a bit because Usher had just been on Oprah so that's the only way she knew his name. Regardless, I was impressed that she recognized and remembered the song. It made me wonder if she could do the Electric Slide. (I checked our wedding photos and couldn't find any evidence of such behavior, but that doesn't mean she wasn't out there!)

The next day, after the shower, we had come back to the house and A said, "I need a drink," meaning she was parched and wanted some water, but the way it came out made us giggle that it was happy hour. This sparked something for A and she had M and I follow her to the basement so we could help her with something. She opened one of the cabinets and we saw this:

About 40 bottles of varying alcohol that hadn't been touched since the late 1970s, so far as M and A could determine. It had been added to over the years (wine that D's grandfather had received as gifts from work and such), but no one had actually consumed any of it and many bottles were totally untouched.

A: What do I do with it?

Me: I think we need to dump it. If it's that old, it's not good any more.

A: Even the unopened bottles?

Me: Yeah. With the temperature changes and humidity down here, I don't think any of that could have survived one year's worth of temperature swings, let alone 30.

And so it commenced. I'm sure my Irish grandfather rolled over in his grave when I poured a 5th of Seagram's down the drain. As I popped corks from wine bottles, they disintegrated and it wasn't long until the entire basement smelled like a distillery.

Before we started, I sent D and text: We're going to help A empty out the liquor cabinet from the 1970s.

In return, he wrote: I wouldn't drink any of that if it's that old.

I didn't know what to make of that: My husband thought his wife, mother and step-grandmother were going to get totally sloshed on a Saturday afternoon by drinking 40 bottles of booze or he thought I would actually drink 30 year old liquor. (He told me later he was joking about us drinking it.)

When we were done, this is what we accomplished:


Oh, the humanity.

And poor, A is so concerned about throwing the bottles out. Living in a small town, she's planning to throw out a few at a time, so as to not cause suspicion that she had a wild party.

Car Key Management FAIL

This weekend I went on a wonderful Girls' Weekend away to Vermont with my closest friends from college. We celebrated our collective 30th birthdays and we had some little bachelorette festivities for my friend L who will be getting married next month. It was great.

In preparation for the weekend, I'd planned to go into work late since I'd be staying late to pick up two friends from the airport before driving up to Vermont. This gave me a chance to work out, shower, have breakfast with D and get everything packed up in the morning. Additionally, I worked it out so that I could stop by the liquor store and pick up a couple of bottles of champagne before I headed to work/as soon as it opened. Because nothing says lush like walking into a liquor store at 9:00 am.

I said good bye to D, headed out the driveway and pulled into the parking lot of Kappy's before getting on the highway to Boston. My purse for the weekend was my huge bag that serves as purse/suitcase for anything I need to travel that isn't clothes, so I thought, "I'm just running into to grab two bottles of champagne, I'll just take my wallet and keys." I did just that, came back out to the car and popped the trunk. I set down my keys and wallet so I could peel the price tags off the bottles (because nothing says tacky like showing up to a party with the price tag on the bottles you brought). Then I had to wedge the bottles in the trunk so they wouldn't roll all over the place. Satisfied, I picked up my wallet and shut the trunk.

Dammit.

My keys were now locked safely in the trunk and my phone was locked safely in the car.

Dammit.

Maybe nothing says lush like having to walk back into a liquor store at 9:00 am and ask to use their phone because you locked your keys in your trunk? The idea of walking the 1/2 mile back to the house flitted across my mind to save from the embarrassment, but I didn't want to get sweaty and knew it would be faster to have D bring me the other set of keys.

So I went back in and the woman at the register was very kind. She smiled, but didn't laugh (while I was there). I called D and prayed his phone was on and he would answer. He did.

Me: Hi. I stopped at Kappy's and proceeded to lock my keys it the trunk.

D: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Me: So are you coming?

D (still giggling): Yeah, I'll be right there.

Ain't he a peach?

He did come and I rescued my keys. To D's credit, he didn't razz me too much more. But I was paranoid about locking my keys in my car for the rest of the weekend.


PS: I've got lots more fun stories from the weekend with the girls coming!

Emergency Birthday Party

(A time lapse may or may not be involved here...I've been busy living these stories--no time to write about them!)

My friend C had a birthday last weekend. Her fiance K had planned a dinner out at a wonderful restaurant. They'd gotten through appetizers and their entrees when he was called into work. Bummer. C said she was pouty for about 6 minutes and then ordered dessert to go. She texted D and I to see if we wanted to celebrate with her. Always ready for a good time, we said yes, however we were still out to dinner ourselves. Ever the optimist and not about to sit around twiddling her thumbs, C went to get a margarita and waited for us.

D & I quickly finished dinner and then went to get emergency birthday party supplies. What does one need for an emergency birthday party, you ask? Ice, margarita mix, a lime and tequila. What did you think I was going to say?

We called a few friends, got them to come over, told C we were home and voila! Instant birthday party.

The following details are a bit fuzzy, but the gist of it is, we drank. A lot. I was working on my tasty beverage--a Red-Headed Slut--after killing the bottle of Jaeger when C showed up. D was making margaritas, so I had to hurry. I slammed my drink and moved on to the frozen concoctions.

Here is where I plug my blender. D and I registered for a KitchenAid mamma-jamma blender for our wedding even though our blender "worked." We ended up receiving the KitchenAid as a gift, but hadn't actually used it yet. Holy crap. This sucker is amazing. It was all slushy and perfect--like a restaurant margarita. It's amazing how much better those things are when made with the appropriate blender (and don't even get me started on the milkshakes I made last night).

So after 2 margaritas, we decided to play my new favorite Wii game (yes, Just Dance--I'm still obsessed). C had introduced me to it and we had a mild dance off, during which our friend E came over. A few more margaritas later, we had danced enough and were off to stumble down the street to the most dive of dive bars where a friend, S, was bartender that night. We go in, she's surprised, and then the wheels start to come off the bus. She makes us the strongest drinks I've ever had (getting back at the doorman for charging her friends' a cover) and then brings a round of shots. I believe some of my best statements included lines like, "I can't feel my lips. Are they still there?" and "Hey, let's text K!!"

Upon leaving the dive, we "walked" back up the hill to the house, where I decided to tell everyone to "SHHHHHHHH! IT'S LATE!" and "I keep falling down. How come my legs stopped working?" Surprisingly, I made it all the way home without inflicting bodily harm. Although I discovered I did lose my pedometer at some point--I can't imagine how that could have possibly happened.

So what do 4 drunk adults do when they get back into the house? Play Just Dance, of course. (Seriously, it's not just my obsession. Although I may or may not have already written a letter to Ubisoft explaining to them why I want my favorite songs in Just Dance, Vol. II, out by this holiday season.) Guess what--I'm not that good when I'm drunk either. But I'll bet you knew that.

I'm pretty sure I woke up at 7 am still drunk, evidenced by the number of walls I ran into en route to the bathroom. D and I dragged our sorry asses out of bed at 10 am to make a Dunkin' Donuts run and came back to enjoyed such bad for you, but good for the hangover treats like my Chocolate Stick and his Sausage, Egg and Cheese sandwich. And then at 10:30 am, D said the 5 little words that made me realize I'd married the perfect man, "I think it's nap time."