Would you like something to drink?

 Sure.  An innocent question I ask or am asked quite frequently.  It is a social thing and accepted as harmless fodder in our day to day interactions with people.  Sure.  My drink of choice is water with ice.  An occasional soft drink on a hot day or a  big glass full of ice with tea goes good.  It has not always been that way.  Sadly I am one of those people for whom "a drink" means stay the hell away from anything that contains alcohol.  One drink is too many and a thousand not enough.

I learned very early on that if there was booze at the party it was not going to end well!  The boys in the crowd quickly learned that the best they would get out of me full of liquor was barfed on.  Dancing went out the window.  I became belligerent.  My first date with my first husband was spent with him holding my head while I wretched out the door of the car.  This was followed by me passing out and brother Jake taking me home, putting me fully clothed in the bathtub and throwing a blanket over me.  

I hated hangovers more than fried apples, which I loathe with every fiber of my being.  Every time I picked up a beer or mixed drink I told myself, "This time it will be different.  This time I will just have this one.  One.  Well, maybe one more."  And down the rabbit hole I went.  "90 miles an hour down a dead end street," so to speak.

I managed to function in my job because I limited my drinking to my days off from work.  I drank at home after the kids were safely in bed.  Since I was a single working mother with no child support I could not afford my habit.  Had anyone suggested AA I would have been offended.  Life has a funny way of putting us where we need to be at the time we need to be there and I am a prime example of that.

  My third husband brought me to Colorado and after about a year we divorced.  At that time I learned my first husband's brother was living in Pueblo with his wife.  Delvin and Nedra and I got together.  They were big on "AA" which is the acronym for Alcoholics Anonymous.  They attended meetings probably every day of the week and would swing by and share the "Big Book" lessons with me.  I explained to them that I was not an alcoholic because I did not drink.  He explained to me that being dry did not mean I was not an alcoholic.  I was one drink away.  And you know what?  He was right.

I would love to have a big red tomato beer.  Or a Pina Colada.  Or a Rum and coke. Or a fifth of rot gut whiskey and chase it with red Kool-Aid, but that is not going to happen.  I know myself enough to know that one drink is too many and a thousand are not enough.  I have overcome the nicotine addiction and put the cork in the bottle, so it is all down hill from here.  I just gotta' keep breathing, putting one foot in front of the other and some day the trumpet will sound and I will be out of here.  Keep my hand on the rudder and my eye on the prize.

Maintain.

At the base of the porcelain god...

I have not had a drop of alcohol in many years.  It holds no siren call to me.  I drink water and if I am feeling the need for libation of any kind, tea will do.  Occasionally I do crave a soda pop, but even that is very rarely.  So, that having been said, why did I wake up at 4:25 AM remembering the siren call of alcohol?  Why were my first thoughts this morning a memory of waking up in a dry bathtub, fully clothed and covered in vomit from the night before?  How many years ago was that?!?  Apparently, the fun I had transitioning from teenager to young adulthood is a memory I shall never live long enough to neither clearly remember or forget.  

When I was 16 I wanted to be a missionary and save the souls of naked natives in Africa, but by the time I reached 18 I had changed my goal from saving souls to drinking the brewery dry.  I had a friend whose dad made home brew and she and I relieved him of a lot of his product when he was not looking.  I think he blamed it on his wife, but it is a little late now to apologize for that little fiasco.

I remember very little of my Junior year in high school and even less of the Senior year.  I showed up for class pictures and ordered my class ring (which I promptly lost) and that was about it.

Now, there were boys who subscribed to the theory that "candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker."  Those little fellows never reckoned with me, did they?  Beer made me mean and hard liquor made me meaner.  Of course, either one was going to make me throw up!  Nothing turns a guy off like some broad barfing  which was the one thing that got me through my high school years with my virtue intact.  The last time I was drunk was when my brother came home from the Army and he bought a fifth of rot gut whiskey for three dollars and some change.  We washed that down with red Koolaid.  And the rest is history.  I threw up for 3 days and swore off liquor for the rest of my life.  Red Koolaid is never found in my house.  And I am pretty much  still abstinent.  Lips of wine will never touch mine!

So let's get back to the subject.  Why, all these years later, are the memories of booze so clear in my mind?  I can not remember what I got in the car and drove to the store to purchase, but I can remember how drunk and sick I was lo' those many years ago.  Now I suppose a psychologist would say I was secretly wanting a drink, but I am pretty sure that is not it, because I could drive to the liquor store which is one mile away and buy a bottle if I chose.  But, no, I drink tea.  And water.  Sometimes chocolate milk.  And of course, coffee.

So, it is now 5:30 AM and I am winding up this entry.  I will have another cup of coffee and get ready to start my day.  Not sure what today will bring, but I am sure I will be stone assed sober for whatever it is that happens.  There are things in my life that are "givens".  That means "it goes without saying."  I will not drink liquor today.  No red Koolaid either. No cooked apples.  For the most part, my life is good.  I miss my kids, but so be it.  Some day!

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

 

I been rode hard and put away wet!

Husband number 3 had a hard time understanding his second wife.  That was me!  He found it necessary to go to my mother and complain to her that I was not totally dependent on him and did as I "pleased" most of the time.  He had no say so in how the kids were raised, blah, blah blah.

Now you need to understand that at the time I married him, I owned my own home, operated a resturant, (Lou's Kitchen) and supported 5 kids with no child support.  The man was nuts for ever marrying me in the first place and he sure was not interested in being a father to someone else's kids, so I did not know just what he expected.  The kids spent a lot of time in Garden City with their dad and since he paid no child support, I figured that was alright.  He was their father after all!

But back to the current husband and his need for a clingy, dependent woman.  Sorry, buddy, I have never been clingy, nor dependent.  I knew who paid the bills and I knew whose paycheck went into the bank for that purpose.  So when he sought my mother's advice he might as well have beat his head against a brick wall.  She just explained to him that I had been screwed over a couple times and that I had a hard time trusting anyone to "take care of me."

He was upset that I did not jump up all happy and cheerful first thing in the morning.  She told him that if that was the case, he should just leave me alone until I was ready to be happy, cheerful little thing.  I do recall several times when he was so hung over he could not function, but that was alright, that was him.

When he went into the spiel about me managing my own finances and not making the kids dad pay child support, she explained to him that since that was a futile endeavor it was best that he just not meddle n my finances.  

" You know, Charlie, it is kind of like when you ride a horse.  You gotta take it easy on the horse and when you put it in the barn, you have to groom it and cover it so it won't get sick.  You see, poor little Louella has been rode hard and put away wet!"

He decided at that point that my mother was as crazy as I was.  He just couldn't understand the dyamics of an independent woman.  So we came to Colorado where he was sure I would worship at the alter of Charlie.  In all fairness I tried to be the mousy little thing he wanted, but that just wasn't in my chemical makeup, so we divorced.  Then we remarried and then we divorced again and both moved on.  

Now I am not sure why this is on my mind this morning, but it is.  So now you know and you can do what you will with this worthless little bit of knowledge.  One thing is for sure, I have no secrets, so if anyone wants to blackmail me they are S O L.  I trust you all know what that means.

The one thing I have learned in this life is that no one is responsible for my happiness, but me.  My last husband and I were happy until the day he died, but I think that was because we respected each other and were happy with ourselves, which left us free to be happy with each other.  If I could find another man like that, I would be all over him,   But I think God broke the mold after he made him.

So peace and prosperity to all from the broken old nag here on South Road!

This post should be titled "Inside the mind of a madwoman."  I woke up this morning thinking about today being Jiriaya's first day in daycare/preschool.  Then my mind moved to a grandson who is estranged from his kids and they are being raised by my daughter, his mother and how sad that was.  And then I flashed back to my teens when my brother and I got drunk on rot gut whiskey and red Kool-Aid and how I can not drink red Kool-Aid to this day.  Then I flashed to the next time I got drunk on wine.  I was divorced and living in Hutchinson, Kansas and working at the Red Carpet Restaurant as a cook.  That hangover lasted 5 days.  Now, the point of this post is for those of you who think I do not drink and that butter would not melt in my mouth.  You are wrong.  What I want you to take away from this is several things.

Liquor by itself is not bad.  Liquor in small does is probably alright, but liquor in some peoples hands is like a stick of dynamite in a gunpowder warehouse.  It is not good.  Both of these hangovers are burned into the deep recesses of my mind.  Let's face it, when you can remember a hangover that happened 40 or 50 years ago like it was yesterday, that is a hangover from hell!

I have been married several times, as most of you know.  And the majority of those men were alcoholics.  (Mother always said that the difference between a drunk and an alcoholic was that the alcoholic had to go to those damn meetings.  So with that definition in mind I must rephrase that to read that most of those men were drunks.)  Henry was not, he was just a jerk.  Kenny was not and we were together 20 years when he passed.  He must have made an impression because I have only dated one man since than and that relationship was strictly platonic until he passed.  He did kiss me a couple times, but I am not sure why. Then I hung out with a younger man who took me hiking and things like that, but that one petered out without even a handshake.   And I am not sure where I am going with this, but bear with me.

Oh, I know.  I have now been wide awake for one hour and 49 minutes, drank half a pot of coffee, gone from preschool to hangovers to death and am now thinking about the 2 half sheet cakes that are down in the freezer waiting for me to finish frosting them, but I had a thought when I got up of something I wanted to impart to you, so let me think what it could be.

Oh, this is to my daughter who is raising 3 grandkids and to the father who is letting her.  And to anyone else out there who thinks walking away from responsibility is a good thing.  Thinking drugs are the answer.  Thinking other peoples feelings do not matter.  There are several things I have learned in life and one of them is that God will never give you more than you can carry.

So when I walked away from a 10 year marriage with my kids in the back seat of a 1959 Chevy and all my belongings in the trunk, I was scared to death.  I knew my mother would not let me live with her very long so the first item on the agenda was to get a job.  Easier said then done, but I walked into Skaets Steak Shop where I had washed dishes before I married and told them I was an experienced waitress.  If you lie with a straight face and do not waver, people tend to believe you.  And thus began my career in the restaurant business.  I held my little family together that way.  And now years later I see history repeating itself.  You all know that my youngest son is an adopted grandson.

My hat is off to my daughter who is now the security of 3 kids that belong to her son.  For whatever reason, sometimes people take a wrong turn and sex and drugs seem to be more important then the kids at your knee.  Selfish wants replace love and family.  Temporary feel good moments replace the fulfillment of the children we sired.  And someone has to step in and pick up the pieces.  My daughter and her husband are doing that.  Not because they want to, but because they do not want to see her grandkids separated and placed in foster homes.  I did one kid, but she is doing 3.  So that makes her 3 times the woman I am.  Daddy pops in long enough to make noises that sound like he might actually step up to the plate, but then he doesn't.  The kids do not understand that.  But my daughter does and so does her husband.  So they are the security  for the kids and some day it will all work out.  In a perfect world the Daddy would get a job and set up a home for the kids.  And maybe the mother would do that.  Right now it looks like that is not happening.

So while I may know how things should work, they don't and there is nothing going to change anyone's mind so I guess I will just call it a day and go tend to my own knitting, as mother used to say.  It will all come out in the wash, or not.