All kinds of things happened while I was sleeping today. First of all, my dad is changing careers. I had no idea because I never ask him about stuff like that. I should, because how we get paid is pretty relevant to how we buy booze.

My dad is shutting down his business and taking a management job for another company. OMG! This means booze. Doesn’t it? Regular paycheques, a predictable booze budget?

Maybe some celebratory booze right now?

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The next thing that happened: a message for me on Plenty of Fish! Check it out, my fellow inebriates:

hey, 😉 wanna meet up tonight , for a good time 😉 call me 604 4xx 6xxx

I thought nobody was ever going to message me on Plenty of Fish. This woman is lovely and friendly and she wants to meet me tonight. I think I need some advice.

• Should I wear clothes? All I have is a bow tie. Will that make my nudity more classic? Or more suggestive or Chippendales? Neither, perhaps?
• Should I tell her I’m an alcoholic or just bring a discreet flask?
• What does bus fare cost for bears?

And—oh no!—what if she is just messing with me? I decided to answer her note:

I’d love to meet you. You look like a very nice person. Is it okay if I bring a flask with me? (I am a functional alcoholic.) Also, should I wear clothes? Although I usually go nude, I hear it’s cold outside. Perhaps the frigid air would help me detect some anatomical details that have always eluded me. But I wouldn’t want to freak anyone out, haha.

Looking forward to chatting more.

LB

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Another weird thing about today was waking up surrounded by apples with faces. The kids have been augmenting apples with facial features for a contest called Artful Apple. The winner gets a family trip to the Okanagan. There were apples everywhere after the kids were done!

When I looked at them I immediately thought of STRONGBOW APPLE CIDER. Ordinarily I don’t gravitate to cider products unless I’ve exhausted the other alcoholic inventory. They are typically sweet and artificial with little more than a hint of actual fruit.

STRONGBOW is an exception. Tart, crisp, and definitively apply, this 5.3% cider is infinitely more refreshing than would-be competitors boasting flavors such as glacier berry, apple cinnamon, peach (keep going; the list is almost unlimited). What differentiates STRONGBOW is its lack of cloying sugar on the tongue. Clear yellow-gold in the glass and lightly sparkling, STRONGBOW serves up genuine apples—think Macintosh or Granny Smith, and not the rotten ones on the ground but the fresh, shiny ones in the orchard.

Compared to STRONGBOW, other ciders don’t even seem crafted for grown-ups. And looking at the kids’ apple efforts, I almost wonder if they wouldn’t care for a cider. A crappy dealcoholized one! And I’d toast their artful apples with a STRONGBOW.

So I just need my dad to put cider in the budget. He shouldn’t mind prioritizing that right now, right?