Rainy Days and Mondays

Day 13 of abs. The sun is shining up here in the Rockies at 6 am this morning and it looks like a gorgeous day ahead. However, that was not the story yesterday when I took my gambol up the mountain. As I started out there was a lovely mist shrouding the mountainside but soon the mist turned into big fat droplets of rain. My first instinct was to turn back to my cabin and the comfort of the fire in my woodstove but then I thought, "What's a little rain?" It reminded me of a movie I watched a long time ago. "Instinct" is a movie about a man, played by Anthony Hopkins, who goes to live with the gorillas in Africa. In one scene Hopkins has finally won the trust of the gorillas and is sleeping with them in their "camp". It starts to rain and Hopkins grabs a large banana leaf to cover his face. He looks over at his gorilla friend and sees that he has his face turned up to the rain with a blissful look on his face. Old Tony then removes the leaf and does the same. (At least that's the way I remember it, it's been a long time since I've seen the movie.)
For me that banana leaf is alcohol. Anytime I feel a little discomfort I want to pull that leaf over me to shield me. Bored, unhappy, stressed, hungover…I'd better go pick a leaf. Pretty soon I was wearing that leaf all the time. The problem with that is not only does the leaf keep the rain from getting in, it also dims the sunshine just like alcohol prevented me from fully experiencing all the good things in my life. So now I'm throwing off the leaf. I know I'm exposing myself to all those unpleasant feelings but a plant not only needs sunshine to grow, it needs rain. Likewise, those undesirable feelings are necessary for my growth because only after I have endured them can I fully appreciate the wonderful things in my life.
Did any of this make sense?
Oh well, today I'm out there doing my best to let the sunshine in but singing in the rain, if need be.

Home Sweet Home

Happy Sunday Y'all! I slept late and I'm feeling lazy and I want to spend the morning on the couch reading the paper and the afternoon in my flowerbeds so I'm taking a day off from being a drunk and I'm cheating on this blog and stealing a blog from another blog I write. Wow, the word "blog" three times in a sentence. As I have posted in earlier blogs, I do believe my Co-Writer does reward me for trying to stay sober and writing this blog and just for being one helluva a gal. (My mother would say I'm full of piss and vinegar this morning. I'm just in a good mood. I'd forgotten what that was like. Those bogus good moods brought about by several Jack and Diet Pepsi's just don't measure up) I have a requisition of miracle requests that I expect to be filled. One was already delivered this week when my foster dog Daisy was permanently adopted. I wrote a couple of blogs about Daisy, Walking Miss Daisy and Saturdays Spent With Daisy. Even though I tried hard not to, I fell in love with Daisy and it was hard to leave her behind but it for many reasons it just wasn't feasible to bring her back to the states with us. That being said I was scrambling and writing feverish emails trying to arrange her shipment here as the time was nearing that she was going to have to walk that Green Mile but luckily my prayers were answered and, I hope, a loving family agreed to take her in. So there's one miracle I can check off the list. The next one is that I figure out a way to keep both my cabin here in CO and my casa in Mexico. Here's the blog:
Before we left Mexico a month ago, a friend of mine gave me an assignment. You see, she knew I was beginning to feel the pressure to move to Mexico full time. The cap'n is getting tired of working full time and would like to retire completely. I can't blame him. Thanks to him, I basically retired fourteen years ago. Unfortunately, while we could live like kings in MX on our retirement income, we can't continue to support two households (plus that freaking boat). So the time for making a choice is drawing near. I'm not ready. So my friend gave me the assignment of writing a blog of why I love my home in Colorado.
Several of the reasons are simple:
1. The ease of living in my own country. The familiar language and laws. And if you are an expat from Mexico, the cleanliness and the plethora toilet seats.
2. The music. No, not the stuff coming out of the radio, although I do miss that, too. I miss the gurgle of our stream, the chatter of the squirrels, the scolding of the blue jays and the whisper of the wind through the pines. Mexico has its own music, beautiful and exotic. It's just not my music… yet.
3. The smell. The early dawn air scented with woodsmoke after a fresh snowfall. The musty perfume of sun warmed pine needles on a summer afternoon.
But the BIGGIE, the main reason is harder to explain, but I'll try.
My Grandmother died when I was very young. Lucky for me and multitudes of cousins, we had Aunt Irene and Uncle. Aunt Irene and Uncle Paul had no children of their own but they helped raise hundreds. Their modest country home was a monument to continuity. Through all the years I visited, with the exception of new photographs of great nieces and nephews taped to the glass front of the china cabinet, it never changed. The same pictures adorned the walls, the coloring books were always in the same drawer, the toys were in the closet in the first bedroom and the cookies were in the same Dutch Girl cookie jar on top of the refrigerator. More importantly, the rituals remained the same. Mornings started in the kitchen breakfast nook with the toaster on the table amid an array of homemade jellies and jams to choose from. The day was filled with trying to catch rabbits or fish or each other as we played hide-and-seek in the cornfield. When the stars came out the grown-ups would be on the front porch watching as we chased fireflies. I'm sure I complained many times of being bored but I loved that house and the people that peopled it. There was solace in knowing there was one place in my ever changing, growing-up world that would remain the same. A place where I could expect the expected.
That's what I want for my children and grandchildren and, possibly, their children. I want my cabin in the mountains to be their haven from this frenzied world. I want them to know the comfort of coming up the drive and know that there will be a welcoming fire in the woodstove. The coloring books are in the buffet, the old favorite board games are in the closet in the first bedroom, and the fishing rods are leaning in their corner of the living room. Mornings will start with hot chocolate out on the deck. The days will be filled with trying to catch chipmunks, fish or each other as they play hide and seek among the bristlecone pines. When the stars come out the grown-ups will warm themselves by the fire in the fire pit while the young ones roast marshmallows and tell ghost stories in the night shadows of the forest.
Idealistic? Probably. But more than possible because I've already lived it . I just can't see Mexico with all of its strangeness and its distance fostering these kinds of memories. I worry that it will always seem an adventure instead of a homecoming.
But I'm greedy. I want them both. Good thing I have tonight's winning lottery tickets in hand.
Update: The lottery tickets were bogus!
So today I'm out there doing my best to wage war on the scourge of dandelions in my flowerbeds and waiting on a miracle or two.

I Want To Be 7 Years Old Again

Day 11 of abs. Don't you hate grandparents that talk about their grandchildren all the time. LOL I promise this is the last time for a while because mine went home yesterday. I'm proud of myself for not having one drink the whole time he was here. I may not have been the funny wacky grandma that he was used to, but I don't think he missed her. This Grandma was out of bed way before him every morning, ready to go hiking or fishing or whatever he wanted to do. As always he taught me some lessons while he was here. I had to admire how he tried to pack every moment of every day full of adventure and fun. Hey, I could learn to do that.

I want to:
Turn on cartoons when I wake-up and laugh first thing in the morning.

 Have my biggest decision of the day be whether I have Captain Crunch or Frosted Flakes for breakfast.

Think that Kraft Mac-and-Cheese is way better than any gourmet meal without worrying what it's doing to my arteries or waistline.

Spend hours performing magnificently goofy jumps into a swimming pool without worrying about what anyone watching might think.

Spend hours running back and forth kicking a soccer ball without getting winded or having my knees hurt.

Run away shrieking and screaming when the lion roars at the zoo.

Think that every person I meet is a prospective friend.

Make a flag out of a stick and be my own parade marching down the street.

Love rain because that's where mud comes from.

Read "Curious George" at bedtime and laugh last thing at night.

Dream dreams that make me smile while I'm sleeping.

I want to be 7 again!

So today I'm out there doing my best to channel my inner 7 year old and cherish every one of the adventures this day holds for me.

Heeding My Own Advice

I'm on Day 9 of abstaining and I do great every day until about 3:00 pm when that 5 o'clock somewhere feeling comes calling. On the MM list the other day someone had posted that she thought another member's husband was controlling. In my all-knowing and benevolent manner I responded that we need to cut our significant others some slack. I boldly typed that when we lose control of our drinking we cause chaos and a loss of control in the lives of our significant others and in order to gain back some control over their own lives they have to take hold of the reins and rein us in. When we begin to gain some control back over our drinking it is hard for them to trust us and relinquish that control.

What insight! I have to give myself credit and say I really hit the old nail square on the head with that little jewel of wisdom.

Now I just need to swallow my own medicine.

The grandson is still here and last night we had decided we would all make our own pizzas for dinner. While I was up taking my bath the cap'n prepped everything. He browned the hamburger and mushrooms, cut up all the vegetables….you think I would be grateful, wouldn't you. Instead when I came downstairs and saw that he had rolled out the dough, I blew a gasket. I wanted it round and he had rolled it out in something resembling a square and, of course, it was way too thin. Too summarize, I was a T-total bitch. Was it really the pizza dough that caused my metamorphosis? No, it was the fact that he was having a drink and I couldn't. I better learn to get over that.

So today I'm out there doing my best to practice what I preach and not be too preachy.

An Unregrettable Day

III

I am exhausted. In the last 24 hours I have fished and fished bobbers and hooks out of tackle eating bushes. I have hiked and spent precious moments attempting to skip stones across a previously placid pond. I have roasted marshmallows, hot dogs, pinecones, and any other unfortunate object that happened to be found. I have read 3 chapters of Fudgeamania and watched 5 episodes of Tom and Jerry. I have not had a drink! Believe me, by the third Tom and Jerry I could have used one. But I didn't. Yesterday is a day in which I have no regrets, no shame. My grandson got the grandma he deserves. I am very proud of myself. And I am as buoyant as a bobber (not the one that still adorns the branches of the tackle eating bush) I can have more of these days. Lots more. It's all up to me.

Sorry to cut this short but the fish are biting.

So today I'm out there doing best to stay out of the branches and not hook any regrets.

Starting All Over Again

Happy Sunday! My grandson is coming today to stay for a week. I shouldn't say he is my favorite human being on the whole planet, but he is. It is just easier to love children than it is to love their adult counterparts. He is my main incentive to getting sober. He is 7. He doesn't know Grandma is a drunk. I hope he never does. I went to visit him a couple of weeks ago. I went to his first baseball game. Of course, I was hungover because I'd had a few too many while watching him do a series of brilliantly idiotic jumps into the hotel pool the night before. And then I couldn't sleep as usual. But I was doing okay at the game because I'd had a little hair of the dog to get me through. He'd come up to bat and slyly give me a little wave before he took his stance. He loves me. Sometimes I deserve it.
In comparison, the baseball game wasn't that bad. There was his soccer game when I had to go to the bathroom and vomit. There was the time it was just him and his Grandma up here on the mountain and I was too hungover to get off the couch and I had him fix himself a bowl of ice cream for dinner. I am so ashamed to write this. Believe me, I really didn't want to write this. But I promised to be honest.
Of course, there are good times, too. But the bad ones are the ones I replay over and over and over. I don't want any more sequels. So today is a day for new beginnings. Actually every hour, every minute, every second, every breath is a chance at a new beginning. I'm taking mine right now.  .
So today I'm out there doing my best to make wonderful memories and thanking God for fresh chances.

Simple Pleasures

A wonderful meal with a new recipe (Artichoke Chicken).
A restful night's sleep.
An early morning walk up a mist shrouded mountain.
A hot cup of tea on my sunny deck while I watched the morning battle at the bird feeders.
These simple pleasures are my reward for not drinking for the last 3 days. Not monumental but still miraculous.
For once in life, here's your miracle,
Stand up and fight.

That was the song that popped into my head as I was walking up my mountain this morning. As you know, I don't believe that random thoughts that pop into my head are accidents. I think they are my Co-writer talking to me.

"Cautious Optimism" is what popped into my head when I shut up long enough to listen as I had my nightly conversation with him last night. May was a difficult month for me. Although I abstained half of the month, the rest of the month was the shits. But while I was still back in MX I found my journal from last May (When I die and my kids or grandkids find all these journals and scribbled notebook pages tucked everywhere they are going to think I was really wacko but at least they'll know I was trying.). Last Mother's Day I had written in the journal that my goal for this Mother's Day was that my relationship with my boys would be closer. My son who struggles with his own demons didn't call last year. The next day his excuse was that he was in jail. I guess he thought that would make me feel better. This year I got a card from him thanking me for always being there for him. I think my relationship with my other two is getting closer also. So I guess things have improved. So far I have abstained all of June (3 whole days) and I'm approaching June with "Cautious Optimism" and a quiet hope.

Another thing that my Co-writer explained to me last night is that while he may reward me when I am trying my hardest and not drinking, he doesn't punish me when I fall. The repercussions I suffer from my drinking are my own self-inflicted punishments.

So today I'm out there trying not to be carelessly optimistic but also not to be stiflingly cautious either.