Experiment

Ice cream + sweet mead. Not so good. The mead is sort of overpowering, particularly in the alcohol notes, and quickly melts the ice cream into a soupy mess.

Ice cream + sweet mead + blackberries, crushed. This is good. It becomes a smooth blackberry and mead shake with just a hint of the sharp taste of the alcohol after the taste of the blackberries and before the final sweet taste of the ice cream + blackberries. Maybe I need to take a flask to the State Fair to dump in my Dairy Barn shake.

Allergy or Alcohol

Friday night I went Uptown with Kyle, Erik, and two developers (Alan and Razeul) from the UK. I'd been providing them training during the first three days of the week, and was worried they might be a little tired of talking to me about work. We had dinner at Chiang Mai Thai, which failed to be hot enough for a native of Bangladesh, and then went across the street to the Uptown bar to drink until just after 1:00 a.m. and listen to local band The Sota who, despite Erik's disgust at their lack of a bass - although his band doesn't have a harmonica - were pretty good once you got far enough away not to be bleeding out of your ear drums. Alan and Kyle had a spirited discussion about alternate energy, that was only interrupted when they both spluttered to a brief stop as a blonde leaned over the bar. If only that could be harnessed to power vehicles.

So the next day I was absolutely knackered. Even after half a pot of coffee it felt like someone had pilfered all my available energy. I chalked it up to lack of sleep and too much beer and didn't worry about it all day. I just got along as best I could. But today, I felt exactly the same and came to the conclusion that a few Advil and Tylenol were in order. Sixty minutes later, problem gone. Six hours later, I was tired again and repeated the Advil and Tylenol. And I was fine again. Which means it was allergies. Perhaps that's a reason to drink less now that I'm old. Because confusing allergies with a hangover just shouldn't be an issue.

Perhaps We Have a Drinking Problem

So many weeks ago, I was at the liquor store finding beer for gaming days and poker nights, and I hauled Eryn along so I didn't have to make a second trip out but could just stop after school. We found the beer just fine, and then I noted that I should buy Pooteewheet a bottle of vodka. We went over to the vodka shelves and I poked around, trying to remember what it was that my wife prefers. I remarked out loud that I just couldn't remember, and we were about to walk away, when Eryn said, "It starts with something like...um...."

The guy near us got a smile.

Then she added, "An s. It starts with an s."

Bigger smile.

"It's blue, Dad. Mom drinks the vodka in the blue bottle."

He was laughing silently.

"That one! Skyy. Mom drinks Skyy."

He was laughing openly. I remarked that my wife didn't drink quite THAT much, not pointing out that it was probably me who drank her last bottle, and he concurred that he liked Skyy vodka too.


Move forward a few weeks. I'm single parenting for a few hours and Eryn says, "Dad, I want something to drink."

"Sure honey, what do you want."

"The kids stuff. You know."

"No....what?"

"Kids....vodka. I want the kids vodka."

I pointed out that there was no kids vodka. And if there was, it would be in poor taste. Then I explained that I didn't mean it would necessarily taste bad, but that I meant it wouldn't be funny or a good advertising campaign or product. Then I stressed that I really doubted it existed, and even if it did, we wouldn't allow it in the house.

She shrugged and told me it was pretty sure it was in a green bottle, although we couldn't find it. Apparently she was looking for the kids' champagne that was left over from New Year's - all fizzy and pears I believe, not a drop of alcohol in it.


Then yesterday, I gave her a Target-brand ginger beer and she yelled upstairs in a tattle-tale voice, "Mom, Dad's giving me a beer!"


I think I need to start scratching the labels off of things and putting them in different bottles so Eryn isn't associating what she drinks with alcohol. Then again, after ginger beer and pear faux-champagne, maybe her first bitter taste of beer will shock her into teetotaling (I know...I know...).

Flak Radio Podcast Guest

Last night, not too long after the Minneapolis bridge came falling down, I was on my way down 35W to be the guest on a local podcast. I dropped off not too far from Lake, which was far from the tragedy, but it was surreal seeing cars just driving along normally knowing that downtown the whole interstate dropped into the river, some of it on top of cars containing fellow Minnesotans. I expected a traffic jam, or no traffic at all. Not business as usual. My deepest condolences go out to those who were on the bridge and those who lost loved ones.

The podcast I was on was Jim's and Taylor's Flak Radio, recorded in a cat-free room in south Minneapolis. I was their guest as official winner of the "name the nasal sex spray" contest they held a few weeks ago. Specifically, I won a bottle of Reyka Vodka, pictured below in a nice bow they applied, and positioned in front of the only gold picture frame in my house, peripherally, I got to be guest on my first podcast and partake of a very good vodka tonic with lime and a delicious lemon bar. You can listen to the whole podcast at Flak Magazine and appreciate how Jim and Taylor seem to make me not sound as nervous as I felt while I was sitting there with the headphones on trying to remember that the appropriate proximity to the microphone was to be frenching it - for sound purposes. They comforted me by insisting they wash the microphone between guests - but we all know someone who lies about washing their hands in the bathroom, so who's to say.

I hope I wasn't too quiet or flustered, although when Jim asks me about what the kids are doing, I'm at a loss - after all, the "kids" in my life are 4, not 24. When I picture what they're up to (24 year olds, not 4 year olds), I imagine them all dressing up for the night and wandering around Uptown trying to score a few free drinks. Being so much older, I take advantage of not dressing up (because I'm not trying to attract anyone), sitting down at a restaurant in Uptown so I don't have to be on my feet, and buying my own drinks because they pay white collar ex-developers enough to drink the memory of our cube-confined days away.

Very good vodka, filtered through lava rocks as it is - you can even see a slight gray tint to the liquid from the filtering. If you know me and you're over, remind me to get it down and share a glass. And a big thanks to Jim (and family) and Taylor for having me on the show.