Tag Archives: beer

Day 40 rerun

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On Wednesday, I was trying to find an image of the number 40 that I would find suitable for yesterday’s Day 40 post. I didn’t have any grand ideas for the post… 40 is just a nice round number to comment on.

After entering ’40 days’ into Google, the search results came in with an unusually heavy weighting in Christianity and the bible. I’m not religious but this caught my interest. What is the significance of the number 40 in the bible?

It seems that there are many biblical stories where God would test man with various trials and, often, the duration of these trials were… 40 days. Weird. I didn’t look into thoughts or theories on why this was; I only have so much tolerance for preaching and every website had just too much preaching for me. I did take note of the biblical stories in question and, unfortunately, none of these trials would have starred Charleton Heston or involved Jesus riding a raptor. Sorry.

I’m not making any religious parallels here. Unless there’s a parallel that involves Nic Cage… then, why the hell not? 40 days… it’s just an interesting coincidence.

But, yeah, yesterday was my 40th day of sobriety and, holy fuck, it was boring. I had text messaged a friend earlier in the day saying, “I don’t need a drink but I could really go for a beer right now.” It wasn’t like I was going to actually have a beer but it was just one of those days where I was needing to unwind. A beer was just my old familiar way to unwind. Instead, I relaxed in my chair after work, watched some hockey on TV and ended up in bed around 9:30 pm out of pure exhaustion. That’s kind of been my modus operandi lately. Chillaxing. 

Sound As A Pound

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 One thing about sobriety is that I’ve actually started dreaming again. I don’t know if it was the source of my dream last night but I forgot to take my Valium yesterday evening. I’m tapering off and I’m taking 2.5 mg twice per day to help deal with withdrawals.

Anyway, I had a dream within a dream. I woke up inside of the dream still drunk from the night before. I had made it to 21 days but would have to start over because I got drunk at some informal reunion with high school classmates. Someone also stole my shoes and I, somehow, broke all of the strings on both of my guitars. 

I was extremely disappointed in myself until I realized within the dream that it was, in fact, just a dream and that I am sound as a pound. I woke myself up to reality and then relief washed over me. 

Today is Day 22. 

20 Days In The Hole

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I haven’t written about my emotions in quite some time. Hell, I’ve been trying to escape them with the drink. At least, I think that’s what I’ve been doing. Really, I’d lost my focus and my direction a long time ago and finding the numbness seems like it was my guiding principle, if I could even be accused of having a guiding principle.

Anyway, I just finished Day 20. And it was a hard day to close out.

I woke up early, got showered and dressed, poured half a cup of coffee down the hatch and then left the house with my 14 year old son. It was a brisk winter morning, cold but not unbearably so. We got on the public transit together; he would be getting off at his regular stop to go to school and I would be continuing on downtown. My destination: my initial intake drop-in appointment with Addiction Services.

The initial appointment didn’t take all that long, I filled out some paperwork and talked to an advisor who gave me a list of groups and classes and programs to get into before taking the next step.

I left there feeling powerful and strong and in control. I maintained that feeling until the afternoon. It was quiet; my wife was still sleeping, my kids are at school and everything that’s on TV is shit. I’m bored and I’m coming off that endorphin high.

One thing that I’ve learned about myself is that with every major extroverted expenditure of emotion I have, be it joy or rage or love or frustration, the event ultimately leaves me in an emotional deficit. I become quiet, introverted… and then the dark thoughts enter.

At this point, I haven’t quite wanted a drink yet… but I’m feeling uncomfortable. Kind of like I’m a bit stir crazy and maybe thinking a little too much. The boredom doesn’t help. So, I channel flip and grow slightly anxious. I clean up and rearrange the desk in the Man Room to keep my head and body busy. My MacBook Pro gets set into place. So far, it’s working.

The kids get home from school and the wife wakes up; there is a whole bunch of coming and going with everyone that doesn’t include me until everyone is gone for the evening. The younger two boys make their way home together via public transit around 10:30pm. During that time on my own, I’d drank two cans of Dr. Pepper, watched the Detroit Red Wings beat the Edmonton Oilers in overtime, cursed out my Apple TV and watched episodes 1 and 2 from season 2 of The Strain on my MacBook. 

(The Strain was supposed to be FX’s answer to AMC’s The Walking Dead, which it fails miserably at. Taking it out of that context, however, it’s not half bad.)

Anyway, during the whole day there are tons of commercials for Molson Canadian, Coors Light, Budweiser, Gibson’s Finest, Crown Royal, Ketel One and programming showing people drinking straight vodka or Scotch out of refined glasses during what is a burgeoning apocalypse. I don’t think you realize how much is there until you’re trying to ignore it. 

For me, the advertising and seeing people drink in shows doesn’t seem to affect Me yet. It’s the boredom. It’s the loneliness. It’s the seeming lack of purpose that drives me to want a drink. That feeling I had all afternoon and into the evening. I acknowledged that I could walk to the liquor store and buy a bottle or a case of beer. But what would have been the purpose? What would be the end game for that? What would be the gain?

I couldn’t figure it out so I went to bed and started writing this post. Because I need to tell someone. Even if I don’t know you. 

 

Talk Like A Pirate Day Is Coming

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September 19th. It’s marked in my calendar and I’ve been celebrating it for years now. I am well known amongst my friends for starting to talk like a pirate when I get drunk. To be fair, I break into accents quite often and even moreso if I’ve got a few beers under my belt.

My friend, Trev, emailed me to remind me that TLAPD is coming this Saturday. I replied to this email with:

Yer spewin bilge bout this scallywag fergettin TLAPD, ye best belay that talk! This old coat’s been on th’ account since ye’s were a wee landlubber! By th’ stars, TLAPD be fallin on Saturn’s Day meanin t’is time t’ go ashore, splice he mainbrace and get loaded to th’ gunwales!! Yarrr!!

He could only reply, exasperated, with:

Thordamnit… (He’s of Nordic descent.)

After trading these emails, I felt that I should share this with my girl. And then, this exchange happened:

Her: Holy fuck I wish I had that kind of talent. LOL

Me: And, somehow, I’m not getting paid to do this.

Her: You’re looking for work in the wrong industry. Pirate Porn. You need to look into a career in Pirate Porn.

Me: Yarr!! Ye likes that, ye buxom wench? Ar, t’is me yardarm lass. Be ye ready t’scrape the barnacles from’ me hull? Yarrrrr….

Her: See?!?

Me: LOL I only wish T’would be a salty dog’s dream come true.

So my question NOW is… how do you get into Pirate Porn?

Rider Pride And The 2010 Grey Cup

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It’s the weekend of the CFL’s 2010 Grey Cup; a rematch of last year’s championship between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Montreal Alouettes. This year, the Grey Cup is being played in Edmonton.

Riders

Now, I’ve been in the stands in Commonwealth Stadium when Saskatchewan rolled into town against the Eskimos and the attendance swelled from the average 29,780 to 47,829.  The likeliest scenario is that more than one third of fans in attendance were full of Rider Pride. This meant that over 18,000 Roughrider fans made the pilgrimage from the ‘Old Country’ to Edmonton to watch their football team play.  And this was a regular season game. Picture Edmonton with the Rider Pride rolling into town because of the Grey Cup.

To say it gets crazy when the Saskatchewan Roughriders come to town would be an understatement.

Getting a basic understanding of a Riders fan isn’t difficult; you really need to go no further than the internet.  However, to help out, I’ve chosen several Riders fans photos from a quick search to demonstrate a typical fan to those who may not have ever seen this phenomenon in person.  Besides their fanatical dedication to their team, they are also known for their small town attitudes and are stereotyped as lovers of Pilsner beer.

For real lovers of Old Style Pilsner

To get on with my story, I headed out to a nearby liquor store to grab some beer for the evening and as I pulled into the parking lot, a white crew-cab truck pulled in and parked.  I watched as six large men stepped out of the truck, all of them wearing the emerald green home jersey of the Saskatchewan Roughriders.  I wanted to perform a bit of a social test of the whole ‘Riders fan loves Pilsner’ stereotype for my own interest so I lagged behind a little and observed.

Two of them briefly lingered by the vodka shelf before following the other four guys headed for the beer cooler.  I followed and casually observed them head to the domestic beer section. I was on the other side of the beer cooler mulling over my options at the import beer shelf, keeping one eye on the six Riders fans.

Half of the motley crew left around the same time I did and the other half remained in the beer cooler for a little while longer.  At the end of the day, all six of these Riders fans ended up at the till while I was still there.  Five of the six of them ended up with a box of Pilsner beer with the sixth being the rogue of the bunch and carrying a 24 can box of Wildcat Strong.

So what does this mean?  It’s hard to say, really.

One could also say that five out of six Riders fans prefer Pilsner to Wildcat Strong, however I don’t feel this is truly a scientific conclusion. My main thought revolves around whether a stereotype is actually a stereotype if it’s true.  Because, in this case, I’d say that it is.

I, Alone

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The King is ‘holding the fort’ on his own this week. The rest of the royal family went on a bit of a road trip to the Canadian west coast to visit the Duchess in Vancouver; making this the first re-union since she migrated west from the NJLE.

I’d liked to have been able to go.  However, in the past six months, all of those little things that go along with being King necessitated me taking an hour off here, a half a day there and before you know it… I’ve burned through all of my vacation time that I’d earned manning the helm of industry.  What can I say?  I’ve nickel and dimed myself out of a summer vacation.

Corona & Lime

Down the hatch...

So what am I to do for the next week?  Judging from the picture to the left, I’m going to have a bevy or two.  I’m going to relax.  I’m going to lounge around in the royal chambers absolutely buck naked.  I’m going to save my farts in a jar.  You know, the kind of the things that all of the royals do when they are unsupervised.

To be truthful, I’ve got a few things that I’d like to get done around the kingdom over the next couple of days.  Exactly what those things are, well… I’m not going to give it up here.  In reality, there’s a lot depending on what the weather is going to be like; weather that has been nothing but infinitely sucktastic since the royal fam left yesterday morning.

I guess there is a lot that can go on in the next week in the New JeffLand Empire… I’ll have to post some updates to make sure that everyone is on the same page.