I woke up this morning with a hangover headache.
Alright alright, it was in fact probably a wee bit of a hangover. Gareth came home from work last night and knew that I hadn't had a great deal of time yesterday to really delve into all of the comments that were left on yesterdays post, or the waterfall of emails it elicited and was a bit worried that once Gaby went down for the night that I'd spend hours on the computer, frustrated. So he took Gaby and I to dinner where I ordered my first ever Blue Moon ale. I am not a fan of beer, ales, stouts, or even alcohol in general. I don't think they taste that great. I drink a few times a year. I try not to overdo it because I've been known to snowboard down the stairs after having a few too many glasses of wine. Oh...that would be the stairs IN the house!
I don't much care for beer because of the aftertaste it leaves in my mouth and it just doesn't taste good to me. However, I thought the Blue Moon looked good for some reason so I ordered one with my meal. A tall one. A really tall one. Our server told me it was her favorite ale and it had a slightly nutty/citrus flavor.
It arrived at our table with an orange slice perched on the side of the glass. I took a first tentative sip and discovered that I liked it. I really liked it. Hey Mikey! She likes it!
Sorry about that last line. You'll only get it if you're as ancient as I am. Anyhow, that first Blue Moon went down extremely well and Gareth, that cheeky bloke I'm married to, asked me if I wanted another? If I didn't know better, I'd say he was trying to get lucky!
Magically, another tall frosty citrusy (that's not how that's spelled, is it?) Blue Moon landed in front of me. And down it went...albeit a bit slower than the first.
By the time I got around to finishing my second ale, my cheeks were bright red and my nose was bright enough to light up a runway in the middle of a blizzard. Or that's the way it felt anyhow. I handed the car keys to Gareth and tucked my hand into the corner of his elbow as I weaved my way out of the restaurant.
As we made our way home Gareth mentioned that we were running really low on milk and should probably stop and pick some up. Right at that split second my bladder commanded my full attention and I looked at Gareth and told him to go straight home because I had to pee like a racehorse! It didn't help matters that every single bump he went over damned near sent me into the land of near-incontinence (let's keep in mind, I've had FIVE kids!), and then Gaby kept kicking the back of my seat. I felt as if the two of them were conspiring to see who could make mommy pee her pants first!
I jumped out of the car and nearly fell flat on my face trying to wobble my way up the front stairs and into the house and then sprinted for the loo! Relief! And with it came almost instant sobriety. That's just the way my body works. I spent a little time working through the avalanche of emails and comments from earlier in the day and eventually climbed into bed and only to fall into a fitful sleep full of dreams about some sort of bizarre elephant-lion hyrbid. I'm sure those dreams were a mixture of the Blue Moon and the fact that I fell asleep watching Planet Earth on the Animal Planet channel.
I woke up seriously craving a huge bowl of Shredded Wheat and glass or orange juice. This is par for the course when it comes to the night after I've over-indulged when it comes to alcohol and left my liver begging for it's life! I always want Shredded Wheat. Some people swear that a huge greasy fry up will kill the hangover whilst others say it's surely a little of the hair of the dog that bit you that will have you feeling aces in no time flat. For me, it's always Shredded Wheat. I was practically salivating over how badly I wanted a bowl of the brittle hay-like cereal.
I took a couple of bowls down from the cupboard, grabbed the Rice Krispies for Gaby and the Shredded Wheat for myself and went to grab the milk out of the fridge. I lifted the gallon milk container and to my horror there was barely enough left for Gaby's cereal and not a drop more. Shit!
I looked at the box of Shredded Wheat and my empty bowl and stood there, lower lip hanging out whilst I listened to the sounds of Snap, Crackle and Pop taunting me from Gaby's cereal bowl. Bastards!
I sat Gaby down with her cereal and a glass or orange juice and thought about how a fried egg with a little bacon and toast didn't sound so bad after all. I dug around in the meat drawer in the fridge and grabbed a pound of bacon then turned a burner on the stove on and banged a pan down on the stove top to heat up. I really wish I hadn't "banged" the pan down so hard. My head is still reverberating from the sound. I opened up the package of bacon and the smell that hit me nearly dropped me to my knees. Cheeses of Nazareth, how old was the bacon...that pig had surely passed it's "Best By" date. In between dry heaves I scanned the package and the best by date made me gag even harder...December 15, 2009! Shit!
OK, so I guess it's just going to be a fried egg on a piece of toast, with a glass of orange juice. I dropped a tiny pat of butter into the heating frying pan and as it sizzled away I removed the carton of idiot proof eggs from the fridge and set them on the counter. I opened the carton and to my horror discovered that the only thing remaining in the carton where the cracked and empty shells of eggs I'd used for something else. Like an idiot, I'd put the empty carton back in the fridge. Shit!
I shoved the empty egg carton into the trash bin and plopped myself down on the couch, completely disgruntled, head pounding, and stuck my lower lip out as far as it would go. No milk, no eggs...no breakfast!
Gaby had been watching my entire tantrum and bless her heart, offered to share her now-soggy Rice Krispies with me. She said, "Mumma, you gots to have some breakfast! It'll make you poop!" I told her I was good and that she was such a sweetheart for offering to share her own breakfast with me. I stood back up and went over to the fridge, opened it and just stood there and stared into it. Maybe I was hoping for something to jump out at me and offer itself to me. The only thing that looked remotely appetizing was some leftover meatloaf from Tuesday's dinner. The thought of a cold slab of ground chicken, oatmeal, eggs (dammit, that was what I used the last two eggs for!), onions and Worcestershire sauce, working it's way down my throat did not sound terribly awesome. But then I spotted it...a loaf of bread, some mayo and the last bottle of Coke in the fridge.
I can tell you that was pretty much the most amazing meatloaf sandwich I have ever eaten. And my hangover headache? Gone. Not a trace left. Looks like a meatloaf sandwich is my new Shredded Wheat!
As I was putting away the mayo and the rest of the meatloaf I noticed that a rather large jar of maraschino cherries had been tipped over in the fridge. The lid was laying at an odd angle against the jar of cherries and thick, red, cherry syrup was dripping all over the inside of the fridge and down the back, and in between the drawers and onto all of the produce.
Shit!
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Thanks again for all of the lovely, heartfelt and supportive comments on yesterday's post. I have some final thoughts on some of the stuff that was mentioned and alleged as a result of the post and the comments it generated, but I'm gonna give it a day or two before delving back into it. I still have about a hundred emails to sort through and read (or trash - that Peggy sure is a verbose creature!), and it's going to take me some time to mull it all over. I am still confused as ever. But then...that's nothing new.
