Like anyone with compulsive tendencies who comes from a family of addicts, I have had my fair share of cringe-worthy lost weekends (we could probably round that up to “lost years”), enough so that I went sober for about five years, which brought me to my early 30s (BTW, I never weighed more than I did in these sober years). It was a sporting event that got me drinking again: I gave Chad tickets to a Sonics game for Christmas, and I suggested that we stop for pre-game drinks, because I how else would I get through 2 hours of Sasquatch ejaculating tee-shirts from a cannon into the crowd while riding around the court on the back of an ATV? Not that drinking again opened much of a Pandora’s Box. Neither Chad nor I drank much, and rarely at home.
There was, however, a fair bit of drinking after the divorce, up to and including the early days with Michael (I emphasize early days, i.e., not now). We spent a good deal of time at a particularly shitty dive bar when we were dating and I don’t mean “dive bar” in that “infested with hipsters” dive bar kind of way, but more like in that “frequented by actual unemployed alcoholics who lived in parked cars behind the bar” way. Michael was already something of a regular, and was treated exceptionally well by staff because they knew that he would not only pay for his drinks, but he would also tip them–unlike the other patrons. We enjoyed this place so much that Michael and I even talked about getting married in the pool room. It was just too disgusting to not share with our families.
Michael: a fight between a couple which ended when the woman hit the man with a turkey (presumably frozen). Michael: A group of Native Americans pile in, fresh from a Sobriety Pow Wow and ready to drink. Lee: Obliviously walking between two men who were fighting on my way to the restroom, with my hand raised: “Excuse me, please!” I was clued into my stupidity when I returned from the restroom to a bar full of cops and a guy with a bloody nose. |
But, then we moved, and the bar shut down (I assume these two events are unrelated?), and life went on (although, you should probably check out my post “Lies then and Now” to better understand my current relationship with alcohol).
Unlike marriage #1, Michael and I do sometimes drink at home. We like to craft our own mixed drinks, usually in martini glasses, and depending how many drinks into the night we are, sometimes we add some chocolate sauce or another viscous fluid to our creations. It is not uncommon for these nights to end with a burst of late night baking (with the exception of the time we made plans to have children; see my “Baby Fever” post).
One particularly drunken night (which I refuse to take responsibility for, and instead am assuming there was some kind of Freaky-Friday-type-thing with my alcoholic sister), I was struggling with the cookie dough. I couldn’t figure out why the dough was so wet and wouldn’t hold a ball-shape. My first attempt to right this was was to add a bunch of shit to thicken it up: a BOX of currents, a couple candy bars, and some hazelnut syrup (leftover from our mixed drink experimentation). Having no luck with this approach, I decided I would try boiling off the excess fluid, so I dumped the mix into a stew pot and put it on the stove. And because I only cook on high (no time for those lower temps), the cookie-stew boiled over pretty quickly.
Michael: Why are you doing…. this? (sweeps arm across the kitchen counter like a magician’s assistance)
Me: (as if this is a logical response) I’m making one big cookie.
Michael (noticing the excessive number of ingredients piled on the countertop, and yet one glaring ingredient missing): Um, is there any flour in that?
So, anyway. The cookies actually tasted pretty good, and very choco-hazelnutty. As an unnamed sister said (after her Muslim doctor told her to stop drinking wine, to which she decided to chalk up to cultural differences and not medical advice and therefore safe to disregard), “Genius new recipes come from drunk chefs. That’s why I drink.”
Cheers to that.