Winning!

Yesterday I went to buy lottery tickets, the cap'n and I argued back and forth about it being a waste of money but you can't win if you don't play and somebody has to win and this is the last time we'll have a chance to win since we're heading to Mexico on Tuesday.

So we decided to try our luck one more time, but we decided to cutback on our wager a little and only spend $20.00, $10.00 for Lotto and $10.00 for Powerball, instead of the $30.00 we'd been spending since the price of Powerball doubled. 

First, I had to cash in our winning ticket from Wednesday night. $4.00 Woo-Hoo!  And then I told the cashier I wanted 10 on Lotto and 10 on Powerball.  Well, the girl heard 10 "of" Powerball and gave me $20 worth of numbers.  Of course, this is a sign and if I correct the girl and tell her to redo the numbers, she'll keep these numbers or dig them out of the trash later and they'll be the winning numbers and she'll be able to quit her job and spend her days buying things off of QVC, instead of me.

If I keep the tickets, I'll still lose but she won't win.  So I kept the tickets.

Today I was filling up my bathtub, I'm loading up on baths because I don't get to take them in Mexico.  I have a bathtub down there which is about the size of the city kiddy pool I used to go to when I was little but I only have a 5 gallon hot water heater.  What's up with that?  Mexicans aren't real big on hot water.  I'm not sure they even sell 40 or 50 gallon water heaters down there.  Just like belle was talking about in her blog today on Tired of Thinking About Drinking, when you live in a foreign place you start thinking of ways to make it "better" which usually means you're trying to make it just like the place you just "escaped from."  If I were to open a little gringo emporium down in Mexico, I would stock it with 50 gallon water heaters, crunchy taco shells and Yankee Candles.

Once more I have wandered off and stalwartly (I need to look this word up, it could mean to go about without personal regard for pungent toe fungus or mutant belly button hairs, for all I know.) ignored any rules of punctuation.

Ahem.  Today I was filling up my bathtub and adding my watery, cheap bubble bath and I thought, "If I win the lottery I'm going to buy me some really nice bubble bath, no more Suave or Western Family (that's our local store brand), I'm going to really splurge and buy Calgon.

Then I let my lofty dreams really "take me away."

If I win the lottery I'll build a big Frank Loyd Wright kind of  house up on the rise to the side of this house but I'll keep this one just for the grandkids to hang out in and I'll connect it with all kinds of stone and wood walkways like Nora Roberts' house that I saw on Sunday Morning a couple of weeks ago.

Then I'll buy shiny new bikes for all the kids in our little village in Mexico for Christmas.  If you guys haven't been following my blog for long you probably don't know that I turn into an elf when I head down to Mexico.  I'm very involved with the toy drive for our village and this is the time of year I have to go around and beg for money and I hate it.  So I'd just buy the bikes myself and be done with it.  BTW, if you notice an elf leaving comments on your blogs, that means I'm signed into the wrong account.

Then I'll build me a traditional Bahamian house with views of both the Sea of Abaco and the Atlantic Ocean in Hope Town, Abacos, Bahamas because that's where I belong, I just can't afford to live there.

And of course, my kids and grandkids will be set-up in grand style.  That goes without saying.

But you know what?  While I was dreaming all these dreams I had the thought, "If I won the lottery and I had all of this and I was still drinking, I'd still be miserable."

I'd rather be sober and happy.

And win the lottery.

Fluffy Stuff

There's the view from the ridge off to the side of my cabin this morning and that's about how my head feels, all kinds of fluffy winter wool has gathered there but it melts away before I can get my hands around it.  I'm left sitting here at 11:30 am in my nightclothes and bed hair, scrubbing my hands over my face trying to form a snowball of a thought.

It wasn't that way yesterday, yesterday my head was brimming with valuable tidbits to share, but of course, yesterday I didn't have time to write a blog, so I jotted down some notes about the snowflakes that were whirling around in my brain yesterday.  I never do this, jot things down, that is, because usually by the time I sit down to write a blog, all the blogs that have formed in my head throughout the day or week before seem pointless and sometimes downright ridiculous.

But since this morning's fluff is not abating, I'll try to conjure something up from yesterday's scribbles.

Here's the first one:

"Feeling Mystical"  You've got to be fucking kidding me.  Okay, if I recall this one came about when I knocked a little wooden sailboat off of its perch where I had placed it 8 years ago when the cap'n and I were still holding onto the lines of our sailboat, where we had lived for 12 years, and trying to keep that dream afloat while also admitting that maybe it was time to let it go.  That's when we bought this cabin.  We continued to split our time between here and the boat until we bought the house in Mexico and we put the boat on the market.  It's still there.  On the market.  Four years later. So yesterday when that tiny sailboat fell from it's shelf I was hoping it was a message from beyond that the f'ing boat (our pet name )had finally been sold and we were going to be able to let go of it completely, finally.  Or it could mean that the f'ing boat fell off its jacks and has extensive damage for which we no longer carry insurance.

"Perfume for Attie" Ah, I like this one.  My daughter-in-law is visiting her mother in Denver and she has my granddaughter, Atalie Jolene, with her.  We made arrangements to meet for lunch yesterday and that is why I didn't have time to write a blog.  As I was getting ready, I spritzed on my perfume.  I only wear one perfume and it is Giorgio's Beverly Hills.  I started wearing it more than 25 years ago when my mother gave me a bottle that someone had bought for her.  "It doesn't smell good on me," she said.  Through the years I've had several people ask me "what are you wearing" and when I reply that it's Giorgio's they always say, "I tried that and it didn't smell good on me."  One time when I walked into a shop in Key West the shopkeeper said, "My God, what are you wearing? You smell dee-vine."  When a gay guy tells you, you smell dee-vine, you better keep wearing what you're wearing.  I hope whenever my granddaughter smells Giorgio's, remember smell is the biggest trigger for memories, it brings back happy memories of me.

"Jodi Piccoult-the dream"  I had my first drinking dream in a long time the other night, actually it was more of a hangover dream.  I actually dreamed what a hangover feels like.  Ugh, thanks for the memory.  When I mentioned the dream during mmabsers chat the other night, someone asked me if I thought this meant anything.  I immediately got defensive and said, "No, I'm not having any urges or anything."  But when I was laying in the tub yesterday re-reading a Jodi Piccoult book there was this line, "When we're awake, we see what we need to see.  When we're asleep, we see what's really there."  Maybe that dream was a warning, maybe I'm getting too complacent, maybe I need to keep doing the work, maybe I need to work harder.  Maybe I needed to revisit my past to remind myself not to forget how lost I was.

"Puzzle Pieces"  This is the thought that struck me as really inspired yesterday.  Today? Mmm, not so much.  I was actually thinking of you, my fellow bloggers, and my fellow members of the message boards I am involved in and I was thinking that sometimes we may get discouraged and others may seem to say what we want to say so much better and so much more succinctly than us, but then I had this thought that sobriety (and life, for that matter) is like a big jigsaw puzzle and we are each holding a piece of the puzzle and someone out there is looking for that exact piece that we are holding to make their puzzle complete, or at least enable them to see more fully what the whole picture is going to look like so they can go look for that next piece.  So don't get discouraged, someone's looking for what you have to offer.  Someone needs to hear what you have to say.

"The Rosary" My brother reminded me that October is the month of Mary and the Rosary so I've been saying a rosary everyday this month. My brother says he remembers our mom, Ruth, corralling all of us Hickey kids into the living room every night of October to say the rosary, he said it was like herding cats.  I don't remember saying the rosary every night, but I do remember kneeling in front of the green crushed velvet rocker that was my designated kneeling station and making pretty shapes out of my rosary beads.

  Clearer in my mind are the terrifying nights of withdrawal when I counted out the Hail Mary's on my fingers and begged for help, as my brother says, in one word, holymarymotherofGodprayforussinnersnowandatthehourofourdeathamen.

It is so much better to sit in my old cherrywood rocker, pulled up to the front door so I can see the birds squabble over their breakfast, and run those familiar comforting beads through my fingers.

So thankful that she listened.

September Collage

Sweet little rock 'n' roller, sweet little rock 'n' roller
Her daddy doesn't have to scold her
Her partner can't hardly hold her
Because she never gets any older
Sweet little rock 'n' roller

-------Sweet Little Rock'n'Roller: Rod Stewart

My last day of work was Friday.  I cried.  I've left that place a dozen times before and I've never cried.  My co-workers said they'd miss me....and they meant it.  None of them know what this summer has meant to me with all the shifting and changing reasons for me to be back there.  None of them, the ones that knew me before or the newbies, would not have recognized me a year ago.  My boss said, "Thank you." and I said, "No, thank you.  You'll never know how much I needed this."  He knows a little bit because I told him.  He's known me thirty years, he wouldn't have recognized me a year ago either.

I hit the mountains just as the sun was going down and home was still two hours away, the cap'n wanted me to get a hotel and wait until morning to make the twisty-scarey drive instead of doing it in the dark but I wanted to get home.  Our cabin is an old simple A-frame and our bedroom is in the loft. From our bed you can look out at the mountains and I was determined to wake up in my own bed and see my mountains first thing in the morning.  The cap'n conceded reluctantly, he knows how strong-willed I am.  That's new, that strong-will, well maybe not but it's been cowering in the back of the liquor cabinet for a few years.  Too many years.

I white knuckle it up the twisty-terrifying road at 40 mph, I can see the dark mountain looming over me, I keep my eyes glued to the white line on the side of the road, a deer stares at me from the side of the road, I hope he doesn't decide to play chicken and run out in front of me because I'll have heart attack out here in the middle of nowhere.  But hey, my BAC will be zero! 

The deer displayed uncommon good sense and stayed put on the side of the road until I made it past.  I made it home safe and sound.

I woke up in the morning as the sun was lighting up the aspens on my mountain.

Saturday was a glorious sunny day.  My poor flowerbeds bore the proof of my summer abandonment, my delphiniums and poppy's are stunted little scraggly things where they've even bothered to come up but the native bushes that the cap'n and I transplanted are bursting forth in their short-lived riotous fall colors and the unruly brave little pansies have sprouted up among the gravel in the driveway.  The cap' made fun of me at the beginning of the summer when I dug a few up and put them in my flower boxes and covered the soil with gravel to retain what scarce water they would get. They're thriving and he's incredulous.  Look who's laughing now, buddy.

Taking advantage of being apart from the cap'n and his somewhat limited movie interests this summer, I watched Julie and Julia one afternoon and, of course, had to order the cookbook, Mastering The Art Of French Cooking, and, of course, the total amount was 2 cents short of the amount needed to get free shipping so I ordered the Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking also.  I made Braised Pork Chops with Tomatoes, Cream, and Porcini Mushrooms.       AAAAAMAZING!

The cap'n was getting a little tipsy and I said, "You might want to think about slowing down.  I only have three nights with you and I want to enjoy them."  He said, "Okay, I'll just top this off with soda.  And he did.  AAAAAMAZING!

Sunday I decided to hook my laptop up to our less than mediocre, down-right pitiful oxygen deprived internet up here and, of course, it didn't work.  Lots of fiddle-farting around on my own trying to fix it, a little bit of snarling at the cap'n when he timidly offers helpful suggestions, lots of time on hold to various techie support services, and finally after a little bit of helpful advice (remove the battery, turn off the modem and let the computer reset itself), it worked, in its mediocre, down-right pitiful oxygen deprived way.  I told the cap'n, "I need a drink.  I think this might have triggered a relapse." He said, "No, you don't."  I was joking, making light, that's what I do, that's a Hickey thing, to make light of the heavy stuff, to laugh at our weaknesses.  I am a stoic, smart-ass, always ready with the wise-crack out the side of my mouth, Hickey, even when I'm quaking in my boots.

In some random conversation we were having, I made the comment to the cap'n, "Nobody's perfect."

He looked at me and said, "You are."

My breath caught.  Once more, if even for just a moment, he thinks I'm perfect.  Once more.

Today the cap'n left for another two weeks of work and I'll be alone up here on the mountain, which means really alone.  I know one soul that I can call if I have a problem up here, this is my hermitage, my Walden Pond, and while I'm a little intimidated by all that alone time, I'm, at the same time, relishing it.  It's been a strange summer for the me and the cap'n, we've lived in each others' pockets for so long, but I think it's been for the good.

So there's a handful of my weekend memories, just like those handfuls of fall leaves we used to collect for collages when we were kids, some of them have been held onto too tightly and may be a little bruised, and some of the brittle edges may have crumbled but when you throw them all together it's a beautiful brilliant thing.

So now I'm sitting here in my cabin, there's a fire in the woodstove, a from-scratch Bolognese sauce is simmering on the stove and I'm blasting Rod Stewart. Not that old fart stuff he's been singing in the last few years, nope I'm belting out the good stuff, Young Turks, Maggie May, Down Town Train...

Time to get off my sweet little rock'n'roller ass and dance!

Update:  The cap'n just called me on his way to the airport and told me how proud he was of me, how wonderful it was not to have to worry about me 24/7.  He said, "You have no idea."

Oh, yes I do.

One Year

 (The gang from mmabsers will get this pic.  My apologies to shutterstock for stealing this but it was too perfect)

Days of Sobriety: 363, One Year.  Hallelujah! I want MORE!

This morning I'm reminded of the very first mornings I wrote this blog, I've been finding all kinds of distractions and things I "needed" to do before I sat down to type this out.  As usual, I've asked my Co-writer to chime in and let me know what he wants me to say but it seems he's letting me throw my own party today.

Why am I putting this off, why, of all mornings, is this so difficult? "(I know, I know", my six year old self is waving her hand in the back of the room, "Pick me! Pick me")

I'm putting this off because I know it is impossible to put into words what this year has meant to me.  But I'll try my best.

I am sitting here looking out the front door of this shitty little apartment at this rainy, blustery, almost fall day, I have a cup of hot tea at my elbow and I can smell it's cinnamon apple sweetness, and I am content.  Once more a warm cup of tea brings an appreciative smile to my face.  Once more a cold autumn day entices me with dreams of a long hot bath, a roast cooking in the oven, a soft throw a good book and socks on cold feet.  This is enough.  This is everything.  I couldn't ask for more.

In my quest of avoidance, I traipsed through a few of my favorite blogs,  Patty wrote about passing her nursing exams, Riversurfer wrote of being in love, and SoberMom wrote of paths taken and I read all of them with tears of many colors prickling behind my eyelids waiting to overflow as my heart is overflowing with such humble gratitude this morning.  Okay, a few of those tears couldn't wait any longer.  Once more my life is overflowing with the graceful loveliness of friendship and being cared for and being able to care for.  That is so much more than I could have dreamed of.  More than I thought I'd ever deserve again. Thank you guys, I wish I could fully express my gratitude but there are not enough words.

In another delay tactic this morning, I sorted through a couple of bags of goodies I have squirreled away for the grandkids and sat them out on the bed so I could mail them later.  I picked up a soft pink flannel blanket trimmed in wide satin ribbon with a little kitten and puppy embroidered in simple X's in one of the corners.  I made this blanket thirty-two years ago when I was pregnant with my oldest son, back then you didn't know what you were having until the baby arrived.  It wasn't until this year that I finally got a little girl to send it to, my granddaughter Atalie.  As I rubbed the satin ribbon against my cheek this morning, I was so relieved and proud to know that she would only have memories of a sober grandma.  That when I hug her and nuzzle my nose in her sweet, sweet neck, making her giggle, that I'll want to linger and hold on to that moment instead of being distracted wondering where my drink is, as I was with her big brother.  That someday she might be proud to have me at her wedding, that she will never have the worry that I might shame her.  Once more, I have faith in myself.  Once more, I am proud. Once more I have self-worth and that is priceless.

Later today I'll do some laundry and pack a bag for my trip to Colorado this weekend.  I'm not going home yet, the hospital has asked me to stay on for a couple more weeks (another little deposit into my self-worth account) so the cap'n and I are meeting up for another conjugal visit (waggly eyebrows) at a rustic little cabin by a lake.  I bought a few little enticements a few weeks ago that I'll throw in there. Once more the feel of something new and sexy sliding over my body makes me giddy.  ( Okay, I know the visuals of a 50 year old menopausal woman and her 64 year old love interest getting it on are probably making you of the younger crowd a little nauseous. Get over it.) I'm not sure what this summer apart has meant for the cap'n and me and what adjustments will have to be made when we are back to co-habitating, but I do know it has been a demonstration of his faith in me and his devotion to me and what is best for me.  He vehemently didn't want to live apart for three months but he supported me.  Which is what he has done throughout this tortuous journey, which is what he has always unflaggingly done, held me up.  Once more I feel worthy.  Once more I feel I am carrying my load in this marriage, instead of being carried.  Once more, he has is wife back.  And I am so fortunate.

So tomorrow starts another year.  Bring it on, once more I am ready.

Bone Yard

Days of Sobriety = 361

I still have those nights of digging up the bones of my matrimony to booze, as evidenced in my blog of a week ago, Once In A Blue Moon , but I never wake up in the morning wishing I'd drank the night before.

Last night I had my first drinking dream in a long time, I was with the cap'n and my boys on some tropical vacation, at one point in the dream I was sitting alone in a bar/restaurant and when I got up I realized I could barely walk.  Then I belatedly realized, that I had just drank one drink and I marveled at how quick and hard it hit me, and immediately all those old compensation methods kicked in, how to try to walk and talk so nobody would know that I'd been drinking, and I was already planning about how I was going to lie to you all about it. 

Of course, I was blessedly relieved when I woke up to find it was all a dream and I remembered that in the dream my boys had been much younger than they are now.  They had been teens and tweens, the same age they were when my drinking was escalating, so maybe that dream was a necessary visit to the Bone Yard.  A gentle reminder?

I'm on call this weekend, so even though I'm not scheduled to work I set the alarm for 6:00 am so I could jump out of bed and put on my make-up and curl my hair just in case I get called out and have to go to work where I will don a surgical cap and mask and cover it all up anyway.  Go figure.

But then I crawled back into bed with my laptop and started strolling through the blogs, what a pleasure it is to be able to do so at my leisure this Saturday morning instead of in a pre-dawn rush before I go to work or in the evening when I am a barely functioning, brain dead zombie.

My friend and mentor, cp, posted a poem this week about how we find our way through recovery on the bones of others.  So it seems  this morning, I've been strolling through yet another Bone Yard. The poem is from the book,  The Zen of Recovery.

The Bones of Others

by 

Mel Ash

If you are here to read this,

think of those who aren't.

Pray for them:good thoughts for those

who lost their minds, love and years

to compulsion, addiction and fears.

Think of their great sacrifice.

We recover on the bones of others.

Wrap your loving thoughts around them:

alone no more.

If you are here and recovering

your original shining true self,

a moment of silence for those driven mad,

by the voices and screams of disease--

driven dreams. We walk from night to day

on a path made of the bones of others.

Hold them tightly in the warm arms of your spirit:

cold no more

If you are here and attaining freedom,

A thousand bows for those who didn't

reach this shore and drowned in a

sea of despair:suffering no more.

We walk in freedom past cages made

of the bones of others.

They hand us the keys of desperation.

Quench their burning thirst

with the tears of your soul.

Calm their cravings. Still their minds.

Grant them peace in the dark and

lonely places below and above the ground.

Fill the gaping holes left by their deaths

with the immensity of your love.

Remember them as you sleep;

remember them as you wake.

Only a thought is the difference

between you and the bones of others.

To all of those that have gone before me, all of those who walk along side of me, and all of those that will follow:  Thank You

P.S. Randy looks a lot finer here than he did in his recent mug shots.  Hey Randy, if you need a shoulder, give me a holler.

Yes, It Is!!

Day 357 of Sobriety

I was sitting out on the front porch of my shitty little apartment shooting the shit with my neighbor, Kyvan, this evening.  Kyvan is a driller in the oil field, and if you know much about oil field workers, you know that  about the closest most of them get to refinement is what happens to that stuff that they're drilling that big hole and losing a few fingers for..  I can say that with pride because my daddy spent 30+ years in the oil field and he always liked to make note of all the years he spent in the field and the fact that he retained all of his digits.

Kyvan is also a recovered alcoholic and drug addict with 12 years of sobriety under his belt, I know this because my friend/landlady told me that Kyvan's first day of sobriety was the day he moved in next door, which was 12 years ago.  I also know this because another friend told me that Kyvan helped her daughter get off the crack and booze.

Kyvan does not know I am an alcoholic.  Or he didn't, but when we were discussing our mutual acquaintance, the daughter of my friend, I thought it appropriate that I let him in on my little secret.

"You know," I said, "I'm an alcoholic, too."

 "It'll be a year within the next week," I added with what I thought was just the right amount of humility.

"Well," Kyvan replied thoughtfully, running his tongue under his bottom lip as if he was getting ready to let go with a big wad of chew (which he also gave up 12 years ago), "Ya gotta start somewhere."

I blinked at him dumbfounded for a minute, and then I burst out laughing.

Who was I to think that my peasly, measly, almost year would impress him?  I'm sure he's seen the likes of me come and go and come and go again.

And then I thought of how I view the people with all those years of saying, "No" under their belts and how it must be so blase for them now and how the struggle has got to be practically  non-existent for them.  And really, after all those years do they really deserve much attention?  Certainly not as much as I, who still thinks about drinking on a daily basis, and even today had an occasion to think, "I wish I could have a drink before I do this."

And then I thought of how I view the people who are just starting out, the ones that are getting their Day 1's, and Day 30's, and Day 100's under their belt and the pull of the booze is still the stronger opponent in their game of tug-of-war and I'm still not putting my bets on them because that ground under their feet is still to damn slippery.

And then I made myself remember how hard-won and amazing every one of my 357 days have been and how proud and thankful I was/am when I woke/wake up in the morning after making the choice not to drink the day before. 

And then I made myself look ahead and try to picture myself 10 or 20 years from now and I wonder if I will have let my sobriety become monotonous or if I will forget how hard I struggled and how much I valued my early sobriety. How will I keep myself from being tempted to relinquish this miracle?  Will all that time spent sober some how fool me, once again, into believing I am in control.

 I looked into Kyvan's 12 years sober eyes and I could see the gratitude and pride that I knew was mirrored in my own 357 days sober eyes.

That's when I realized that every day we stay sober is a Big Fucking Deal!

Saturdays With Friends

 Men have always detested women's gossip because they suspect the truth: Their measurements are being taken and compared. ~Erica Jong

348 Days of Sober Sex (I'm just checking to see if anyone actually reads this or if they just skim over it.)

Late Saturday mornings, after she had stood eagle-eyed over her under-aged, under-paid, and under-motivated house slaves (my brothers and sister and I), making sure that we had dusted under Dad's bowling trophies and raked the avocado green shag carpet until it stood proudly upright from its usual downtrodden  clumps, my mother would grab up her bottle of Tab and pack of Winstons and head down the street to her best friend, Lucy's house.  Mom and Lucy would convene at Lucy's just polished lemony fresh modern American Colonial dining room set, ashtray between them and ice cold Tabs and cigarettes in hand, while Lucy's own, recently released from indenture, house monkey's (my best friend Lisa and her sisters) were sprawled out in front of the TV in the family room watching the hip kids on the east coast gyrate on American Band Stand.

I usually beat Mom out the door on her way to our best friends' house and would already be sprawled belly down alongside the Seigrist girls, with my chin in my hands and my calves in the air, feet jerking spasmodically to the tunes of the Stylistics or the Carpenters, my feet ain't got rhythm on land or air.  Once Dick Clark bid, "For now, Dick Clark...so long" we would wander into the kitchen and perch ourselves on the maple veneered captain's chairs and listen intently as our mothers gossiped about the other neighbors, or debated whether Dr. Lee Baldwin, a recovering alcoholic, would finally find love in the arms of Dr. Lesley, or would he remain faithful to his neurotic institutionalized wife, Meg.  The denizens of Port Charles, the home town of our mothers' favorite soap, General Hospital, were as well known to us as the Andersons and the Spencers who lived across the street.

Our mothers would shoo us away occasionally but we were always drawn back by their hushed voices and smothered laughter.

Yesterday morning, was a bright late summer Saturday morning here in the bread basket of the world and I was in the mood to spend it with a friend so I wondered over to SoberMomRocks blog, Oh for the love of...me to do some re-reads and make some comments.  Before long, she commented back to me through email and then I commented back to her and ....before long we had a conversation going.  We both thought, Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could get together with our other fellow bloggers and have coffee and just talk.  (Didn't we, Sherry? I've been known to drag people unwittingly into my wild-ass schemes before. ) But since we can't do that, wouldn't it be nice to be able to chat real time instead of having these kind of one-sided conversations we get to have with our blogs.  I know we kind of do that with our comments but sometimes we miss the replies or we don't pay as much attention to what the other commenters say.  Okay, maybe it's just me that does that.



So what'd ya'll think?  Wanna find an empty chatroom for just us gal bloggers (we might even let in a token guy or two, I'm pretty sure the gal in the gauchos above has hairy legs to go along with that mustache) and our followers somewhere or design our own to meet up and just talk sometimes? 

Just a thought and not that consequential, if we like things the way they are, we like things the way they are.

  BTW SoberMomRocks Sherry is not my friend Sherry of last week's blogs...or is she? Maybe my friend Sherry has an alter-ego, split personality, sober twin who disappeared years ago when her car broke down and a double-decker VW band full of Deadheads picked her up on their way to a concert and someone slipped her some bad mushrooms and she has suffered amnesia ever since... Sorry, must be the effects of being the child of a cigarette smoking, Tab drinking, soap opera watching mother of the 70's ( Sherry, I hope we don't find out that Elmo is really your brother from that brief period when your father turned to the arms of another woman when he thought your mother was lost at sea but then she was rescued from that deserted island in the South Pacific by the captain and crew of small tourist boat out for a three hour tour carrying a professor, a girl from Kansas, a millionare and his wife, and a movie star that had a daily fresh change of clothes, including evening wear, for three years.)

Thelma and Louise

Thelma: Hey Louise, better slow down, I'll just die if we get caught over a speeding ticket. Are you sure we should be driving like this, I mean in broad daylight and everything?
Louise Sawyer: No we shouldn't, but I want to put some distance between us and the SCENE OF OUR LAST GOD DAMNED CRIME!
[Thelma laughs and screams]
Thelma: Oh man! You wouldn'ta believed it, it was like I was doing it all my life, nobody woulda believed it.
Louise Sawyer: Think you found your calling?
Thelma: May-be... may-be.
[gets up in her seat]
Thelma: The call of the wild!

Days of Sobriety: 338

I have been trying to talk myself out of writing this blog all evening and now it's time to go to bed and I could be curled up reading Fifty Shades Of Gray (to my commenter, grateful:  Of course, I'm reading that book, and we'll compare book reports later), but this damn thing just won't be put to rest.  Mainly because I'm worried about my best friend, Sherry, who just got evicted from her apartment.

I was out for a walk this evening and I passed a neat little older home, two story with a wrap around porch and a stained glass transom light over the front door, and I thought to myself, "If I won the lottery, I would buy that house for Sherry."  And then, of course, I started making stipulations.  The list kept growing.  She couldn't move her dogs in, especially the one that poops on the floor every time it barks which is every 37 seconds.  She couldn't move her kids in, especially the one that steals her money so she has to put it in her robe pocket and sleep in her robe every night.  She couldn't resale the house for cash.  She couldn't drink.

Well, there goes that deal out the window, we all know that last one's a deal breaker.

I think I've told you about my best friend.  We're so alike in so many ways.  We were both born in this same little dusty cow town.  We grew up in middle class neighborhoods with parents that stayed married and older brothers and sisters.  In high school we both existed on the fringe of the popular crowd, we weren't friends then but we knew of each other.  Later on we both worked at the hospital but in different departments, then Sherry transferred to the OR and we found out we had one more thing in common, we both loved to drink, and our friendship was forged.

We lived in the same neighborhood, we both had three boys and unhappy marriages.  By day we were dedicated scrub nurses, by night we were two boozy bosom buddies trying to escape our humdrum lives.  Thick as thieves we were, lying and cheating and covering each others tracks no matter where they led.

But there were always differences.  I won't go into them but I think if Sherry and I were Thelma and Louise, I would be Louise and Sherry would be Thelma.  It was as if, like Thelma and Louise, we were both on the same road trip but there were different views out our windows.  My side had pastoral meadows, gently rolling hills, babbling brooks and all kinds of bucolic shit while hers was all craggy cliffs, sharp drop offs and beware of falling rocks signs.

I don't know about you, but when that movie ended, I always liked to imagine that Louise jumped out of that car before it went flying over that cliff.  At the last minute, she saw there was no way in hell they were going to make it, she looked over at Thelma and said, "Sorry babe, you're on your own.'' and then threw herself from the car, did a couple of somersaults and then stood up, dusted herself off and walked back to the Harvey Keitel character and rode off into the sunset in an RV.

As for Thelma, I always thought even if she jumped from the car and saved herself that time, she was going to end up back at the edge of that cliff over and over again, and someday she was going to wait too long to save herself.

And I know, that no matter how good the view was on my side of the road, that if I hadn't quit drinking 338 days ago someday I would have ended up at the bottom of that cliff with Thelma.

I'm glad I jumped out of that damn car.

As for my friend, Sherry?  I need your help.  I don't know how to keep her from plunging off that cliff.