alcohol

“Versatile”? Don’t you mean “random”?

My Fellow Inebriates,

I’ve been avoiding something.

It’s not like there aren’t plenty of things I avoid. Responsibility, work, paying for things, sobriety—avoidance is pretty much my M.O. But when you start avoiding good things, you have to ask yourself why.

Case in point: The Versatile Blogger Award.

Astonishingly, I’ve been tapped twice for this honor—first by Emily (The Waiting) and next by Red (Momma’s Money Matters). My embarrassed thanks to them both. I hope they’ll forgive me if I accuse them of confusing versatility with randomness 😉

Understanding this award and how it works didn’t come easily to me despite clear instructions and encouragement from these terrific writers. I’ve simply been too drunk, but I think I finally get what I need to do:

  • Accept the award (humbly, gratefully)
  • Bore you with seven facts about my furry self
  • Share the love with 15 of my favorite bloggers
  • Tell them about it

First. I’ve proudly posted the award on my front page. Yay! It feels good to look at it. Maybe I’ll get inspired to turn my life around, crawl out of the bottle, find some normalcy. LOL.

Second. Just the facts, bear.

  1. My retail price was $5. It was a charity deal: buy two bears for $10—one goes to charity, one goes home with the customer. I went home with the customer. I shudder to think where my drunken twin went. Probably gutting it out with teetotalers somewhere.
  2. I live with two little girls, age 4 and 6. They love me, but thankfully they love puppies and ponies more. This is what has spared me from the Maytag and the sewing needle (so far).
  3. Whenever the family vacations, I go too, along with one other bear. Sometimes we cause trouble because the people we visit are bothered by our constant presence at the breakfast table, in front of the TV, etc. One of us caused a fight once by giving a relative the finger.
  4. I’m addicted to an online game called Wrestler Unstoppable. My avatar is called “LB the Alcoholic Bear.” He does okay, depending on his fur-alcohol level.
  5. Despite considerable effort, I can’t find my junk. I know it must be somewhere under my fur, because I doubt I’d find Dolly quite so intriguing otherwise, but nothing’s turned up, and Dolly says she’s not helping any more.
  6. My dad runs an audio-visual business and my mum’s an editor. They are totally boring.
  7. I get upset when I hear about drinking and driving.

Third. Now that the factoids are out of the way, here’s to my much more accomplished peers.

The Waiting: The Joys and Toils of Growing a Baby. Not just your average mommy blog, this site bubbles with ear-to-the-ground culture. Worth seeing for Nyan Cat, but then there’s so much more…

Momma’s Money Matters: Money and Parenting Advice from a Momma of Ten. Daunting on two accounts, this blog tackles things that would otherwise be incomprehensible to me—money and parenting. If only Red could see our bookkeeping…

Yoyo-Dyne Propulsion Systems: Reno Division—Fear and Loathing in Reno. Versatile with a capital V, this humorous site is an intelligent oasis, and never afraid to be dark.

The Bloggess. Can I include this one? If I can’t, well, blame the booze. Post a tagline like “For the love of God. Let my vagina sleep” and I’ll read it. For sure. But she looks like she could kill me.

Taylor's Dan Lacey painting?

It’s Taylor Made: No Refunds Accepted. I suspect Taylor outbid me on a Dan Lacey painting I desperately wanted. Big points for art appreciation.

Good Spirits News: The world of spirits & cocktails in the news. Comprehensive and professional, this is my go-to for thorough, insightful booze reviews.

On My Square: Trying to figure life out…and keep confusion down. Real life, real humanity, real humor. Impossible to read this and not care deeply.

Snide Reply: Where I Talk Back to Life. Satisfying, well-crafted writing about parenting.

Eldon: We Specialize in Awkward. Poignant yet hilarious and strikingly honest.

Okay, so I’m halfway there. My typist is disappearing to take the kids to a playdate, which means it’s time to tackle the corkscrew again. Maybe this time I can manage it…

BAILEY’S IRISH CREAM—emulsification, coagulation, inebriation

My Fellow Inebriates,

The recycling truck just passed by (we missed it and are stuck for another week with sky-high paper and corrugated cardboard). The house looks like a tornado hit it. What is all this holiday loot? Will it enhance our lives? Or is it tomorrow’s litter?

A few favorite things…

Last fall the four-year-old acquired Nacho the Chihuahua, complete with hook for attaching to keys or a child’s backpack. Miss V quickly elevated the animal to near-godhood, its presence necessary for sleep, bath, and all special occasions, including its own twice-weekly birthdays for which cakes are baked and decorated. For Christmas Santa brought the next-size-up Nacho, prompting an ecstatic family reunion for the two of them and, not least, Miss V.

I don’t mind Chihuahuas, but they make me think of tequila and our lack of it. Despite Nacho’s status as favorite pre-K Christmas present, it makes me really thirsty.

The six-year-old’s fave gift? An Easy Bake Oven. I was relieved to see the small opening in this frightening appliance as well as the exhortation to parents to participate in its use. This means I probably won’t get cooked in it, although the smaller Nacho might.

For my dad? A T-shirt. I don’t know if this was his favorite gift, but anything that prevents my dad from walking around shirtless is okay in my book.

And my mum? She got the best gift of all: BAILEY’S IRISH CREAM. Yes, it’s ass-expanding and heart-squeezing, but ahhhhh, there is nothing like Bailey’s (although, come to think of it, Carolan’s and Feeney’s are pretty good substitutes). Decadent and silky, BAILEY’S on ice is the best end-of-day reward for putting up with kids parenting. It’s gentle enough for whiskey novices to appreciate, and for those who still find it strong, a little milk dilutes it nicely.

Supposedly the BAILEY’S recipe wasn’t perfected until 1973 because whiskey and cream don’t naturally mix together. Plenty of DIY Irish cream chefs have experienced having to shake up their separated home versions. Gilbey’s of Ireland homogenizes BAILEY’S with the aid of an emulsifier, which is why theirs stays together and yours doesn’t. (But I wonder which tastes better? I still haven’t tried the DIY version.)

Brain Hemorrhage

The best thing about BAILEY’S is its versatility. It can be drunk straight, over ice, as part of a cocktail, or poured into coffee. A number of shooters call for BAILEY’S specifically because it coagulates when combined with acidic mixers, creating foul-looking drinks intended to be shot for sport and gross-out factor. It’s important to down these shooters really fast or the texture will make you toss your cookies.

What did you get for the holidays? Will it get you drunk? Or will it enhance your life in some other way?

THIRSTY BEAVER AMBER ALE

My Fellow Inebriates,

After ripping into our gifts, packing our tummies and killing our brain cells (or “cell,” as my mum refers to my neurological supply), we’re left with a lull in which to contemplate other things besides seasonal shopping mayhem and gluttony.

It’s amazing how much crazy shit happens in a 365-day space. The magnitude-9 earthquake in Japan; Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gadafi, and Kim Jong-il all toast this year; floods and natural disasters; political movements both violent and nonviolent; economic bailouts; scandalous document dumps; surreptitious bomb-grade uranium shipments—how do we make sense of it all?

It’s true that current events generally just confuse me and my little brain cell. So I thought I’d google what the Internet considered most important in 2011.

And check it out—solidly in CBC’s top 10 stories: Angry beaver roams through N.W.T. town.

According to Jason Mercredi, who filmed the animal holding up a main street, “He’s pissed.” Witnesses said the beaver was the size of a dog, zigzagging through people’s lawns and confronting their dogs with a wild, hissing noise.

What the hell is a beaver anyway? These wet, nasty-looking things were the basis of the Canadian fur trade and still grace the back of the five-cent coin. Sexual parlance, explicably or not, happily incorporates the beaver, as do literary magazines, sporting organizations and youth groups.

Basically beavers are not bad things, unless they are romping through your town scaring the pets. Emblematic on a broad spectrum, the beaver represents the ideal dichotomy of wholesomeness/debauchery.

Which leads me to THIRSTY BEAVER AMBER ALE (Tree Brewing). Admittedly it’s been a long time since I had some of this lovely dark amber nectar, but that rampaging beaver reminded me of it.

THIRSTY BEAVER is crisply carbonated, with a nice layer of foam that doesn’t dissipate immediately. Caramel and nut aromas float gently to the nose. The taste is malty with neither excessive sweetness nor bitterness, an easy drinker that quenches thirst but makes you pause to explore its character. While it’s less hoppy than some amber ales, it still asserts itself as a serious beer contender and would be welcome in my fridge again.

And with a classy name like THIRSTY BEAVER, how could such a beer disappoint? No wonder it’s Tree Brewing’s top seller.

With enough THIRSTY BEAVER in me, current events become meaningless, as do New Year’s resolutions. Isn’t that a wonderful way to end the year?