alcohol

Here, Bunny, Bunny! Come get the celery (but leave the Bloody Mary for me)

My Fellow Inebriates,

The bunnies here in the house all freak me out. First of all, they’re larger than me (a bear!). Second, they have sociopathic personalities. Third, they eat their own pellets when they think you’re not looking. So it’s a little disconcerting to be swinging the door open for the Easter Bunny tonight.

I don’t get much say in the snack we’re leaving out tonight, but I’ve thrown out some suggestions. I figure every kid in the neighborhood will leave carrots out. We could take it up a notch and leave a nice, refreshing Bloody Mary out with a crunchy piece of celery in it.

“You would hide out and drain it,” said my mother.

“And the Bunny would get the celery,” I said. “Win win.”

“If he saw you, he’d run away and not leave anything for the kids.”

I hadn’t thought of this.

Plan B: We make two Bloody Marys. I get to drink one refreshing, icy one tonight. Then, in the morning, while everyone hunts for eggs, I get the Easter Bunny’s dregs.

But will the rim of the glass taste like bunny pellets? OMG!

ASTROLIQUOR for April 6-12—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

You’ve got a boring week on tap, Aries. Weak planetary influences mean you’ll be on autopilot most days, which could lead to some minor screw-ups. Totally ordinary ones, mind you, and drama-free. As an Aries you hate going too long without a bar fight—try to be patient! Your ornery life will return with a vengeance next week. In the meantime you can at least make yourself an interesting shot: equal parts Tia Maria, Bailey’s, and creme de menthe.

Taurus, you’re already thinking about your birthday…you hedonist. Try focusing on a friend whose birthday is also approaching. Find a unique present on the internet—something with the emotional resonance to capture how special your friendship is. Failing that, have a case of Corona delivered to your friend. Go over and hang out.

Your self-confidence is on a high, Gemini. Find some new friends at the supermarket and have a party. Did you know that you can combine gin and port? Your new friends will show you how (but they will also barf on your carpet). Saturday will be so good that you’ll truly hate Sunday.

Don’t be intimidated by anyone this week, Cancer. People are pretty stubborn about their convictions, but you can be too. So tell your AA sponsor to take a hike. This person is leading a hollow life and eating way too much cake. If he/she is really insistent about roping you into a meeting, take along a bottle of merlot.

Leo, your free spirit bumps up against some frustrating friends and acquaintances this week. Be happy there’s nothing important going on in your stars right now for them to mess up. You need to follow your passions, even if they lead you into naughty territory. So when that little voice in your head says Yes! Make a double martini substituting tequila for gin/vodka, do it.

Have you ever seen that movie about the kid who’s new in town and gets to reinvent his life, Virgo? That’s you this week, and the clock is ticking… You’ll be able to pull off the “new you” for about four days before people figure you out. This means any new relationships will remain mere vodka-fueled flirtations. Sounds good, right?

Libra, show your colleagues what you’re worth. You have so much to offer, and they are so mouthy sometimes. No one has worked so hard on the Penske File as you this year. Sit back and wait for your bonus, and don’t forget to throw some Galliano in your coffee mug.

Your love life is lucky, Scorpio. Trick yourself out with a conspicuous outfit so you can be noticed. (You might even want to hang around Walmart waiting for your close-up.) People with psychological problems will flock to you in droves. These are your people! Invite them home to share a box of white wine.

Sagittarius, be wary or you’ll embark on a turbulent relationship. There are no good days to get romantically involved this week; simply going outdoors will put you in a minefield. Generally speaking, you need to let logic guide you. This means declining a stranger’s offer to share a pitcher of Hawaiian Punch and cherry vodka. For you this may be common sense, but I had to think about it.

The stars are calling for eroticism, Capricorn, but don’t even think about finding a soulmate right now. Think messy flirtations and sloppy coupling (and if you have a home life to worry about, bad-ass domestic dispute when you come home smelling of beer and Strongbow). It’s much grittier than normal for Capricorn, but sometimes you need to let go.

Aquarius, when you go off your meds your OCD comes back with a vengeance. You find yourself counting split peas and turning the stove on/off three times before leaving the house. Try calling your parents to tell them it’s their fault. If that doesn’t work, sit down to a project:

  • 3 oz brandy
  • 2 oz port
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tsp icing sugar
  • 1 oz cream
  • Pinch nutmeg (more if you want to get high)

Shake the first five ingredients up and dust with nutmeg. This should occupy you until your meds kick in.

Pisces, now that Uranus is in your sign, things are going to go wild in your life. Shake off your old patterns, annoying people, and even your job. You didn’t really like being employed anyway. It made it hard to drink Southern Comfort and blueberry schnapps all day.

MONTSANT BESLLUM (2008)—Worth all two thousand pennies (even if THEY’RE worth $32)

Exasperated by small piles of change strewn over the floor by kids who equate coins with Lego and fling them everywhere, including the yard, my parents decided to school them about money.

To understand how laughable this is, you’d need to have lived with my parents for the past near-decade. My parents suck at managing money. They’ve paid far too much interest to Visa to have any business criticizing four-year-old Miss V for throwing a bag of nickels into the bathwater. They’re so financially oblivious that they had no idea, two days after the announcement, that the Canadian penny is being scrapped.

I had no idea either. I don’t have any money of my own. I don’t have pockets or a purse (just fears of becoming a purse).

Plenty of countries have eliminated the one-cent coin without mishap, so the idea of a penniless society isn’t that terrifying. Yes, of course businesses will milk the situation by altering their prices upward to multiples of 5, but it seems forgivable considering all the cash-register reprogramming and staff retraining that they’ll need to do.

We’re actually a dumbass country for keeping the penny in circulation as long as we have. Pennies are worth 1.6 cents apiece, costing $11 million a year to mint. You can’t buy anything with a penny. They confuse math-challenged store clerks (one panicked the other day at Zellers when my mum offered $5.02 for a $3.72 transaction). Copper theft is rampant throughout the country, highlighting how valuable the element is in comparison to the coins minted from it. (And, in fact, pennies minted since 2000 are mostly zinc rather than copper.)

It’s illegal to throw money away, but plenty of people chuck pennies away for all of the reasons above. When my mum takes it into her head to vacuum every other month or so, and I’m scrambling out of the way of the shop vac’s maw, I can hear pennies clattering into it. Pennies suck!

Still, I wish I had a couple of thousand pennies to haul to the liquor store. They’d weigh ten pounds, which would almost kill me, but I’d come home with another bottle of MONTSANT BESLLUM (2008), the wine we drank last night while watching Breaking Bad. We’re two seasons behind on the show—considerably behind my papa and bionically-kneed nana, who have been gorging themselves on Breaking Bad. It’s tough to watch a show about crystal meth turf wars with two little girls on the couch beside us, so we have to wait until after bedtime to watch, unless we want to explain how addicts sometimes get sprayed with bullets at the bus stop or choke to death on their own vomit.

The 2008 BESLLUM is a 50/50 mix of Garnacha (Grenache) and Carignan, aged 16 months in French oak. The two varietals complement each other with their respective low and high acid profiles, resulting in a lush, opulent wine that exudes cherries, plums, and dates. Smooth on the palate while intense and warming, the wine develops admirably as it sits, becoming an entertainment unto itself. In truth, BESLLUM is enough of a conversation piece to warrant turning off the TV and focusing on the taste.

BUT NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF A PARKING-LOT SHOOTOUT IN BREAKING BAD! The intense scene may have distracted us a tiny bit from the magic of the 2008 BESLLUM, necessitating further tests. Sadly though, I don’t have two thousand pennies. I did attempt to raid the kids’ piggybanks, at which point I learned about my parents’ idea to teach them about money. Here’s the half-assed plan strategy:

The kids will put half their money in the bank. With the other half they’ll buy something vapid and retarded My Filly ponies, which cost, with tax, $3.35, or 335 pennies. This teaches the girls that $3.35 equals:

It teaches me that the 2008 BESLLUM equals:

Sigh.