“Remoted” – Workday 161 / Day 235 (Friday)

Earlier this week, six new bottles of wine arrived from the Firstleaf wine delivery club. It should have been 12, but I forgot to double the order as I had intended for the free shipping. Since June, the delivery date had been pushed out several times as my existing stock of wine is ever so slowly savored and  enjoyed, and I loosely follow Mummu’s drinking rules when I even bother to drink. Yes, just like Mom has puzzle rules, Mummu had drinking rules.

Mummu’s first rule was that there was no drinking on a night when there was work the next day, which eliminated Sunday through Thursday nights. Knowing she got up at 5:00 am Monday through Friday for decades of her life to work in a factory operating potentially dangerous equipment, the rule made sense. Sundays weren't totally off limits -- drinking was allowed until supper. She would kiddingly say she was a “weekend alcoholic” because she only drank on weekends.

Mummu's beer for years.

The second rule was that there was no drinking before noon. This rule resulted in many, many Saturday and Sunday mornings spent with Mummu where she sat in the wooden captain’s chair at her kitchen table, glaring at the clock on the wall as if the fire in her eyes could make if go faster. Each second that ticked by was met by her index finger flicking the pull tab on the beer can. Click, click, click. When the clock finally hit noon, and never a moment earlier, the can was popped open and the contents poured into a glass mug, which I now have. In the years in my custody, the set of beer mugs more often holds hot cocoa and coffee with a the occasional dash of whiskey. 

Mummu’s beer choices evolved over the years from Schaefer to Miller Lite. When I was very young, Mummu and I would sing the Schaefer theme song with great enthusiasm. I still know it. When I was older, Mummu gained infamy with my brother and his friends as she drank them all under the table. 

After she was diagnosed with breast cancer, Mummu's third drinking rule was enacted: no drinking. And just like that, she stopped. That is how she had quit smoking decades earlier. One day she decided to quit and then she was done. 

My current version of Mummu’s rules is a bit loose. Or maybe it’s variable. Drinking before noon is completely out of the question for me and drinking during daylight hours is avoided unless I can build in a nap. For whatever reason, daylight mixed with alcohol knocks me out, which, like all the best lessons,  was learned the hard and embarrassing way. Once upon a social life, Thursday night, or as I prefer to think of it, Friday Eve, was the preferred night out. 

College was a different story. There was no room for rules when Monday night featured two-for-one drinks at the Holiday Inn, disco night happened every Tuesday at Cathay Island, and the Wine Cellar was the place to be every night of  the week. The stamina was more robust then, as was the disdain for rules.

For now, during the pandemic times, it’s wine at home with Netflix and Prime and a computer and a cell phone and two dogs. Tonight also included the Lowell Humane Society Paws for Celebration virtual event. In addition to spoiling my own pups in person, I watched the live feed with tales of foster pets and successful adoptions and ate cheese with crackers and sipped wine. After that, it was the remainder of a show about Dolly Parton started the other night, followed by a Christmas themed romantic comedy to avoid the drama of the political news. Survival tactics for a modern world.