Generation Gaps

I was at my Mom's house to pick up the girls after work. When I got there, Riley and Mom were working on Riley's homework. Lucy was sitting at the breakfast bar, sans shirt, eating mashed potatoes and gravy. Grandma was laying down, having stayed up to late watching the election results.

Eventually, Riley finished up and I had a salad. Grandma got up and sat down near by. We talked about how amazing last night was and got emotional. Well, I got emotional. As I was futzing around with my dishes, my Mom jumped and reached for a box...

"Oh, hey, Mom? Where are those glasses we bought?" she asked my Grandma.

"Over there on the counter."

"Look at this," Mom said as she showed me a box of ice shot glasses.

"What is that?"

"I think it's for making Jello shots, see?" she said as she pointed to the dark cherry contents of the glasses in the picture.

"Oh, they're so good! Aren't they, Mom?" my Mom asked of my Grandma.

"Oh, yes."

"Wait a minute," I said as I read the box, "These are "ice" shot glasses...they are glasses made of ice."

"I know," Mom said, "Aren't they pretty?"

"Well, yes, but they're not glass glasses...they're glasses made of ice."

"What?"

"Here, let me see," my Grandma said as she joined us at the counter.

"See," I said, "They're glasses, but they are ice..."

I pulled the instructions out to be sure I was right about this, and, yes, I was (see picture above). You pour the water in, put in the little mold to make the cup part and you freeze the daggone thing. Voila...ice shot glasses.

I explained as much and my Grandma looked at me quizzically and took the directions to read them for herself.

"Huh," Mom said.

"You couldn't make jello shots in these..." I said.

"Because they would melt," my Mom and I said in unison.

"It's really cool!" I said, getting excited about this silly little piece of whimsy. "You can freeze these up, pour in some booze, drink it up and eat the cup!" I was tickled because it reminded me of the Mad Hatter eating a tea cup in the cartoon version of Alice in Wonderland. I imagined myself whipping out frozen shot glasses for our annual Groundhog's Day party (mark you calendars now, folks).

"Or," I said, inspired now, "You could make boilermakers with them!!"

"Boilermakers?" my Mom asked.

"Yeah, isn't that where you get a beer and a shot and you drop the shot glass into the beer?" I asked.

"No," my Grandma said, "You toss back the shot, then drink the beer."

I gave her this point but made a mental note to check that fact with Doc.

"Well," I said, "They're really cool anyway."

"Take them home with you," my Mom said, "There was another one at the store and we'll go get it,"

"I'd really like to give them a shot..." I said and we chuckled at the pun, "I'm going to have to stop and get some booze..."

"Here," she said, turning to their fridge, "Here's most of a bottle of Margarita mix with the booze already in it."

She grabbed a Fisher's bag and started packing it up. I rounded up the kids and the steam cleaner Mom gave to me and hit the road, anxious to give this novelty a try. They're in the freezer as we speak and Doc said they're ready to go.

I let you know if they are all I hope them to be. I promise; I won't make jello shots in them.

Report...they are everything I thought them to be...but you gotta be quick!

Flannery
xoxox

Thank You, Michelob Ultra!

It's been really busy at work lately. I come home, zombified, lay down and go to bed too late, and sleep fitfully for four or five hours and wake up like Jake Gideon, especially in the last few seconds of the video below (starting at the 3:40 mark):

But last night, Doc and I were hanging out and I decided to have myself a Michelob Ultra Lime Cactus "beer." It's a lovely little summer beer and has better flaver than Bud Lite with Lime. Plus, the bottle is pretty.

Once I got to bed, I drifted off into real, honest to God sleep, the likes of which could go down in legend. I didn't wake up during the night and I had some of the best dreams. Dreams where me and my friends and co-workers (who are also friends, lucky for me) were saving the world. Some Guy even showed up in the middle of winter with the gear we needed.

I woke up frowzy but with a sense that I had learned something during the night, or rather settled something. I'm sure I'll figure out what that was sometime. But still, what's better than actual accomplishment is the feeling that comes with it. So I begin my day feeling ahead of the game, but not sure why. This is great because it comes with no responsibility to actually do anything about it.

So thank you, Michelob Ultra, for the good night's sleep and the bonhomie you left me with.

What Can I Say? I Faltered.

What can I say? I bought some beer. I broke down and bought some beer. I broke the pledge.

But there were mitigating circumstances.

We got our Economic Stimulus Check (read: Govt Bribe) and I have two nickels to rub together. Now if this isn't a reason to celebrate, I don't know what is. We didn't impeach him, so we get a kickback. Most all of this money is slated for bills, but I did make sure that a small portion of this money went to the betterment of the family. I filled my tank and purchased a five pack of strip steaks. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy bologna and Ramon noodles as much as the next person, but every once in a while you need to treat your family. I scored major points with Flannery the other night when out of nowhere I produce hot N.Y. strip with a garlic & black pepper crust, medium well. The next day at lunchtime, she is still telling me how good that steak was. I also made sure we were stocked up on batteries, light bulbs, and duct tape, as you never know when an emergency might arise. (Little did I know that Flannery had just purchased batteries and light bulbs, so we are doubly stocked now.) I purchased some things for the yard and a new lock for the shed. There was a fair amount of money spent but none of it was blown on frivolities, unless you count the six tacos we ate at the park.

I feel asleep early Wednesday and when I awoke at 12:33 am, I was up for the night. I read your blogs and played Solitaire. The kids were up early and I made them breakfast, but as the coffee ran out so did my steam. The children spent the morning at each other's throats, and I kept having to separate them with a reminder about Rule #1.

"Lucy, what is Rule #1?" I barked.

"do no harm..." she said softly.

"Punching Sister in the nose breaks Rule #1!"

"i'm sorry..." she purred. Twenty minutes later it was the same thing, only both parties claimed that they had been unjustly attacked. It was like trying to babysit two rabid badgers. I cleaned them, dressed them, and took them to the one place on earth that makes every kid bored: Home Depot.

Then we purchased tacos from Toxic Hell and went to the park. They left a fine mess for the birds to clean up and we hiked to the children's garden. I barely had enough energy to propel myself after my two little dynamos, but I managed to keep up, just. On the ride home, we stopped at the gas station. I went inside only after extracting a promise that they would be good for the rest of the day if I bought ice cream sandwiches along with the pack of smokes I stopped for.

The next few minutes passed in a sleepless blur, but I left the store with my pack of smokes, two ice cream sandwiches, and a case of Bud in cans that had miraculously appeared in my hand. I am not one to look a miracle in the mouth, so I took the cans home to see to their proper disposal.

Technically, I have broken the pledge, and for that I am truly sorry.

But the point of the experiment was to see how much money we saved, and I have managed to make it through one week of a two week experiment, all is not lost.

I have been spending $7.23 on a twelve pack of PBR, and purchasing four a week works out to $28.92. Double that figure for two weeks works out to $57.84. I spent $16.00 on the case of Bud and no one had to be throttled to within an inch of their life. I think the savings far outweighs my my minor transgression. $57.84 minus $16.00 works out to Doc not "being a dull boy" and flying off the handle at passers-by and being untolerable to his friends, family, and coworkers.

Besides, the experiment was taking a direction that I hadn't intended. It was not my intention to see how much beer I could mooch from my friends but that is what it was becoming. They couldn't sit and enjoy a beer in my company without feeling obliged to offer me one, and I'm sure that got old very quickly. No one wants a beer bum hanging about all the time, regardless how scintillating his conversation might be.

But the experiment isn't a total loss and I am not prepared to scrap it yet. I will continue to limit my beer and keep my expenditure under $41.87 until Wednesday when it ends. I will purchase less and try to make it last longer and therefore save money, which was the point of the whole experiment.

I hope you don't think less of ol' Doc because he fell off the wagon. In the immortal words of Billy Joel, "Every dog must have his everyday, every drunk must have his drink." Truer words were never spoken.

Doc