Bacardi Big Apple

Keeping your poppy on

My Fellow Inebriates,

We’ve bought, like, ten poppies this week. The kids keep losing them. We discover them only late at night when the lights are out and someone lets out the scream of the toe-pierced.

Okay, so the pins are simple. These poppies have to be inexpensively made or they wouldn’t accomplish much fundraising—fair enough. But we can’t recall ever keeping one on a jacket for more than half a day. For kids it’s more like half a minute.

Unlike adults, the kids don’t give a damn where these stabby little poppies fall. They do care that their precious flowers have fallen, however, which is why we keep buying new ones, effectively turning our house into a pinfield (if you saw my parents’ housekeeping this would make sense).

My dad doesn’t like bleeding, so he did this:

Remove and discard the pin that comes with the poppy. Put the black middle piece aside.

Prick a small hole 3 mm from the original hole in the poppy.

 

Shove a small safety pin through one of the holes so the bendy part goes through the hole. Be sober for this or you’ll rip the poppy.

 

You want the “spine” of the safety pin to end up as the part showing through the front of the poppy, so the closure will face out from the back.

 

Glue the black middle piece on top of the poppy front where the pin shows through. Now it looks even better than it did before and you won’t get stabbed.

 

“That was ingenious,” I told my dad after he’d come up with this amazing solution. “You deserve a drink. Although, if we’d bought any more poppies, I’d be offering you heroin instead, LOL.”

Remembering the Bacardi Big Apple my parents poured down the sink. (And OMFG! that’s not a shirt, people, ow!)

LBHQ: The year in pictures

OMG, my fellow inebriates, I almost slept through my anniversary. Only by accident did I even realize this daily dose of randomness is a year old. Holy crap, how did that happen?

One year ago I had no idea what this thing was going to be about. Well, sure, I knew it would be about liquor, but I didn’t even have any idea what to say. Uh, liquor is good? The picture above was my banner, then this one…

Up until the blog, scenes like this defined my life:

But as the humans around me realized I was actually going to do this blog thing for real, scenes like the one below became more the norm. This day in November is still one of the most awesome I’ve ever had. My parents’ friend Pixie gave me a bottle of Crystal Head vodka—the best breakfast ever.

I loved that bottle, even though the vodka was kind of crappy.

But vodka wasn’t the only inspirational liquid to flow into LBHQ. When I learned our liquor store was no longer carrying one of my favorite products, Broker’s Gin, I hastened to contact Broker’s and ended up making one of the best friends I’ve ever had. I know Broker’s Gin Business Development Manager Julia Gale would do anything for me, as I would for her.

While I couldn’t have my beloved gin (and still haven’t got it, although I’ve cheated on Julia with at least half a dozen other brands this year), I did have art. In January artist Dan Lacey kindly sent me a print:

Blogging ideas often came unbidden…

But it wasn’t as challenging as you might think to connect subjects to alcohol.

Still, I had other obligations at home…

I lived in terror. When I wasn’t involved in “play,” I was listening to Scarybear’s prophecies about the end of the world. And then there was Fluffy…

Harboring the ghost of my dead Granny, Fluffy had arrived recently from Ireland. Our home would never be at peace again…bumps in the night, freaky cold spots, big wads of paper jamming up the toilet. Was there nothing Fluffy wouldn’t do to terrify us?

I needed distractions.

Some distractions were good, others not so good…

I tried to account for myself.

I had projects to do. Talking a bunch of gummy bears into (accidentally) a suicide mission was just one of them. (I didn’t know they’d melt in the Bacardi Big Apple.)

Depressed, I went to my friend Blackie for help.

I don’t think he’s a real psychiatrist. He’s not supposed to laugh, is he?

Another project that did not go well. So I just tried to figure stuff out.

I learned all about colonoscopies.

But I couldn’t figure this out.

We moved headquarters in August and my parents liquidated our already meager stock.

I don’t think my mother ever cleans the sink; it tasted horrible.

I went on a deep search for wisdom. I was lost, people. Living with functioning human beings who didn’t descend nightly into a drunken binge wasn’t working for me. I needed a message—some sort of message that everything was going to be okay…

I think it’s going to be okay.

Thanks for reading, my fellow inebriates! You’ve made me so happy this past year. Let me know what you’re drinking tonight 🙂

Holy crap, are we moving to Utah?

My Fellow Inebriates,

My parents did something hateful yesterday.

They said there was no point packing bottles that nobody (excuse me?) was ever going to drink.

Now, I thought we were moving eight blocks, not to freaking Utah. What the hell are they thinking getting rid of (reasonably) potable booze?

It was yet another instance of horrific cruelty leading up to our move. First the wine glasses got packed. Then our weird assortment of bottle openers. And then the bloodletting started. Nine-year-old languishing Malibu—down the drain. Bacardi Big Apple (RIP, gummy bears)—gone (with despicable insensitivity to yours truly, skulking by the filthy sink). Mezcal con gusano—saved only because it is too small to take up much room.

Look how disgusting our sink is. I swear my mother never cleans it. I mean, it tasted awful.