Too Many Holiday Spirits?

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Each year when November rolls around an amazing thing happens. We all gain a lot of weight and many of us drink alcohol with wild abandon. People who rarely if ever drink during the year suddenly have voracious appetites for food and spirits. Too much of both. However, one can eat half a turkey and still get in a car and drive home. There might be a seat adjustment (removing the steering wheel from our guts) but eating 8000 calories of Thanksgiving food still gets us home---sick but safe. Drinking multiple bottles of wine and consuming fancy cocktails does not.

There are many holidays throughout the year but Thanksgiving begins a pig fest of enormous proportions. Most people I know pull out all the stops and dig through traditional family recipes with vigor and spend way too much money on these meals and work their fannies off all in an effort to make a lovely event for family and friends. Sometimes it’s a group preparation event but all too often it’s one woman working from dawn to midnight feeding hoards of people wondering if she’ll also be able to pay her utility bill when it’s all over. After we have just barely recovered from Thanksgiving it’s the steady and relentless march to Christmas and New Year’s. More food and more alcohol.

I’ve scaled back on all of this. Many years ago I gave up mall shopping and Christmas cards. I used to send out 300 cards. Now I wish everyone a Merry Christmas on the Internet via social networking, email, etc. I buy a few gifts online, I often make a few gifts, and I prepare very nice but simple meals. Granted, there are fewer of us left in the family so feeding those who remain is a lot easier. And alcohol is almost nonexistent. Maybe one bottle of very nice wine for all of us to share at one dinner. We love wine. We are Californians. I hate drunks. When I’m in charge of the meals, alcohol is minimal.

News reports each year at the beginning of the feeding frenzy warn all of us about drinking and driving. More law enforcement officers are required to be on duty than any other time of the year and they spend a large amount of their day/night looking for the drivers who had a bit too much alcohol---and they find them. Even with all the warnings about holiday drinking drunk drivers are out there by the thousands.

Some habitual drinkers have learned to take appropriate steps to get home without interruption by law enforcement. Many now take cabs to and from drinking events, some sleep over at their hosts’ homes, some buddy up and someone becomes the designated driver (which means the DDs are not allowed ANY alcohol), and some sleep it off in their cars. However, that last trick is still begging for a DUI.

Years ago on “Everybody Loves Raymond” “Deborah” went to an event and because she knew she had probably consumed more alcohol than was allowed she decided to sleep in her car until she felt she would be safe to drive. Instead, she was arrested for a DUI. No one who has consumed alcohol can sit in a car even if they are passed out unless there is a sober driver behind the wheel. Even though that seemed the sensible thing for her to do she was an inebriated person alone in a car with car keys. The assumption is that people who drink use bad judgment and though she was trying to be prudent how would she determine she was sober enough to drive? After a 30 minute nap? 60 minute nap? What would be the appropriate amount of time to pass before the remnants of alcohol no longer remained in her system making her legally able to drive? Who knows? So rather than take a chance on someone’s faulty assessment of their abilities, law enforcement considers that a DUI.

As I recall that character was not a “drinker.” In fact, many people who end up on the bad end of a DUI are casual social drinkers. A little wine with dinner, maybe a cocktail. But when I researched alcohol levels for this post I found that there are many guidelines but they are only guidelines. Most people can probably have a glass of wine with dinner and much later drive home. Apparently, not all people are that lucky. (And what size is the wine glass?) If a person has a health condition, is small and doesn’t weigh much, does not eat much of a dinner but nibbles, doesn’t drink often and has a low tolerance for stimulants of any kind, all of these people can find themselves in trouble.

One example of a typical social evening providing the inability to avoid a DUI is a nice cocktail before dinner, and a few glasses of wine with dinner. That is the classic recipe for disaster. And it is not the hardcore guy sitting at a bar chugging down drink after drink. It’s the fancy spiked Christmas punch followed by expensive holiday wines for the meal. Casual social drinkers are actually more of a problem than those guys hunkering down over a bar. Bartenders routinely call cabs for those guys and smart lawsuit-savvy bartenders cut those drinkers off. (Not just guys. Plenty of women hunker down on a barstool.)

I know many people who drink too much. These people drive all the time. If there were bounties for reporting drunk drivers I’d be wealthy. And these people know they have had too much, but they also believe they know “how to handle” their liquor and believe themselves to be great drivers. Part of alcohol enhancement is an abundance of overconfidence in one’s abilities (this includes sexual prowess, driving, being amusing, singing, dancing, and the list goes on). Police aren’t looking for people driving the wrong way at 100 miles per hour (though those people are out there). No, they find those people easily. They are, however, trained to look for the slight swerve, driving 40 mph on the freeway, making incomplete stops and coasting through intersections, too much braking, speeding up then slowing down. Those folks make up the bulk of DUI driving. Sipping a beverage while behind the wheel, any beverage, is also suspect.

When I was growing up police officers stopped people and made a face-to-face determination about a person’s alcohol level. Sometimes drivers were asked to get out of the car for a walking test. Sometimes officers interviewed the driver and upon learning the driver was on their way home they were told to drive straight home with no stops. Sometimes they were taken to the local jail to sleep it off, no arrest. Sometimes they were told to sleep it off in a parking lot and the officers would escort the driver to a safe place and drive by and check on them from time to time. This happened all the time. Sometimes officers drove intoxicated drivers home. I personally know folks in my family and circle of friends who were the recipients of these benevolent police interventions.

Those days are gone. Too many drunks have killed, maimed, and injured too many. Drinking and driving with ANY alcohol is a tremendous risk and very expensive. Depending on how bad the DUI is it can involve jail time and the loss of a license, car impoundment, and the list goes on. This isn’t the hardcore drinker, it’s you and me. We are the light social drinkers who go off the grid and get ourselves in more trouble than we ever thought possible during the holidays.

Merry Christmas----but, please----not too merry.

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Pet Surgery and Other Bad Things

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Four years ago I adopted one of my dogs knowing full well he had major dental problems. My vet and I discussed a treatment plan and we both decided to wait until he had lived with me a few months so he would be more comfortable with his surroundings. It was presumed his teeth had been bad for years prior to his arrival at the shelter. No one knew his history but it didn’t include dental care. However, someone loved this dog and treated him lovingly. He has great manners and knows a number of basic commands and is very polite and sweet. We think he may have had an older human and perhaps the human died and the family dropped him off because they didn’t want him or couldn’t have him. I wish they had taken the time to fill out an info sheet.

The vet said it would be extensive and costly the first time he did the procedure and he was right. The second time was estimated to be less stressful and less costly. It was a bit more---of both. The procedure was actually more invasive. He is the type of dog, and there are humans with this problem, who has terrible dental problems inherent to his gene pool. I’ve had friends who had root planing on a regular basis. I only have had one small area with a gum issue and after the work was performed I’ve been fine since. My poor dog.

So the first night was horrible but we are a week post-surgery and he is almost back to normal. With each day I see improvement and he is no longer on pain pills. That first night I felt I should have had pain pills too. I slept on his large dog pillow with him every night for a few days as he groaned and moaned and whimpered. He will NOT let me look in his mouth. When I attempt to look at his mouth he politely moves his head and firmly clamps his lips together. He gives me “the look.” Next week we go back for his post-surgery check-up. I can’t wait to see her try to pry his mouth open. He only has eleven teeth left so biting may not be an issue.

Two weeks before his surgery my daughter moved into a new apartment. She had belongings stored in a public storage unit and many in my garage. She lives about 20 miles away south of me now which makes visits a 40 mile round trip and I did my best to help her but then my dog had surgery and I was no longer able to help her with the stacks of boxes and debris. She is still sorting through it all because of course she had to return to work and I became a canine nurse.

Next, we discovered termites at my mom’s who lives 60 miles in the opposite direction. There’ve been inspections and appointments and phone calls and my mom doesn’t really understand any of it. We have more to go on this project. I have a gas-friendly car though.

Finally, we’ve had beautiful sunny weather so I hired someone to paint my house. First he had to deal with dry rot which was about as bad as my dog’s gum disease. The painter eventually had to enlist the assistance of his cousin, a dry rot expert, and they have been out there banging and pounding and using screeching electrical equipment for two weeks now. My little dog, the one who didn’t have the surgery, barks at them all day and I’ve given up trying to stop her. I’ve barked a time or two myself.

Many problems have occurred along the way with all these fun activities that have had to be resolved. I feel like a yo-yo. I have only missed one blog posting since I started this operation back in March of 2009 and this past week was my first week I couldn’t post anything. My head was pounding and I couldn’t think. I’m barely back to thinking.

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Moving: The Agony and the Ecstasy

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I helped my daughter move this past weekend. Prior to the move she ordered many new pieces of unassembled furniture. She also went from a two-bedroom apartment to a one-bedroom apartment but kept all her two-bedroom “things.” This post is late because I can’t straighten my fingers into typing position. I’ve been using a screwdriver for two days and lifting, tugging, pushing, shoving---and dropping---boxes. This will be a brief post.

Moving is so exciting---until the day we move. A new place to live, perhaps a new town to explore, new neighbors and potential friends to meet, all of it is so exciting until the actual move. Our family has given up on the do-it-yourself truck rentals. We did that for many years and now when we know a move is coming we save for a professional moving company.

We don’t select the large national outfits but rather local small companies with just a couple of employees. The rates are great and we always leave a nice tip. This move was the best so far because we went from a ground floor unit to another ground floor unit. Usually there are stairs. The movers were thrilled. Less agony for all. Her move this past weekend was $705 plus tip. I would have paid twice, perhaps three times as much. And yet, even though they did all that hard work we almost cried when they left. Boxes and unassembled pieces of furniture were everywhere. She must return to work tomorrow. She took two days off surrounding the weekend. I am the official furniture assembler.

This move will reduce her commute by close to an hour. That’s a tremendous savings of time in her life. But for the next few weeks she will be unpacking boxes each evening and as much as she can on weekends. She’s carefully putting things away rather than cramming it all in willy nilly. Many years of moving taught all of us in the family that doing it right from day one will save many hours of pain. Yet, it’s a tedious process and makes the unpacking a lot slower than shoving it all in cupboards and closets. She lives a good distance from me and it will not be as easy to help her out this time.

I am 66 and have moved 25 times in my life. My daughter is 36 and this is her 13^th move. I’ve included the college years because she didn’t live in a dorm and had apartments. With each apartment her possessions grew and grew. I have friends who are my age and have only moved a handful of times. Sometimes I’ve envied them except I’m very happy I’ve moved around so much. I have a huge group of friends from each location and lots of happy memories of so many different parts of the country. But the moving part is just the pits.

I can’t type anymore because my hands and fingers will not cooperate. I had a great blog planned for this weekend but it will have to wait. I think I need a nice soak in the tub with bubbles. And maybe a pound of Aleve.

[No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written p permission of the author. Blog series began in March 2009.]