LESS Alcohol ~ JANUARY 2023 ~ One Day At A Time

DH and I usually go to our local fav place on Wednesday nights (it’s “burger night”). We go early, the bartenders know to give me my “special glass” and top it with Prosecco… we stay for a few, order food to go and home by 8. Last night, DH asked if I wanted to go. I said I didn’t really want to go there and not drink. He said “what? You sound like an alcoholic!” Ok, I know I might be a bit oversensitive and irritable, but I took that really hard. Am I unreasonable to think that it is normal for someone to not want to sit literally at a bar and have a glass of Diet Coke, when my habit was usually to enjoy my favorite drink? I did let him know that I didn’t like or appreciate that comment, and he did apologize.

Anyway, AF last night. And no burger either. 😜

Happy Thursday,
Georgia

I did one of those fitness marshall videos this morning and by did I mean kind of marched along. That is dude is wild and way more flexible than I am! I love him. What fun and thank you for posting.

Womona wrote: »

mfowler883 wrote: »

AF tonight, eating better and slowly getting back on track.

Took a massive chunk off of my finger after using new sharpening stones I picked up at SMKW to put my old Calphalon Katana knives back in shape. It's awesome when they're properly sharp. I took the first one done down to the kitchen sink to wash it and put it away and shwippp, the nerves in my finger all stood up and said WHAT WAS THAT? Look down and wait for the blood to come, just thinking I'm glad it wasn't deeper...

-m

Ouch!!! I’ve sliced open my fingers not once but twice while handling knives, so I literally feel your pain!!!!!

I've done it more times than I care to count. I was telling my son, play with sharp things enough and you will eventually get cut.

RockinRobyn672 wrote: »

@mfowler883 Glad that no stiches were required! Your story brought back some great memories. They're not as fancy as yours but I have several pocket knives that were my dad's. He always kept them very sharp. One is worn down in it's width due to the repeated sharpening over the years.

I have a few, but not all of my knives are fancy. My day to day kitchen knives are inexpensive Farberwares that do just fine for most tasks, and I have several not so fancy pocket knives. I got one of Dad's old pocket knives a while back, it's nothing particularly desirable, an old Kamp King that he carried throughout most of my childhood. Like yours, the blade is pretty heavily worn from use and sharpening. A couple years ago, he gave me a stone that I had always seen in his toolbox. It was smallish, and shiny black. He says it's been in the family since at least his grandfather, but I wonder if it's been around longer than that. One day, as I was sitting at my desk pondering how many strokes of how many blades had worn the edges of that stone over the years, I noticed that the black was rubbing off on my thumb and revealing a buttery yellow underneath. I took it to the kitchen and scrubbed the hell out of it, and most of the swarf came away to reveal what appears to be a Belgian coticule, likely quarried at Ardennes. I used a diamond lapping block to flatten it and it quickly became one of my go-to stones for sharpening. One reason I suspect that it is older than thought, is that most veins of yellow coticule are fairly thin. The thick parts were all quarried ages and ages ago, and thin slabs of yellow coticule have been glued to blue slate backings for a very long time.

Now that I have the new Arkansas stones, the coticule will be more or less retired as an heirloom.

Fancy knives....those would be...lemme see. Boker Applegate-Fairbairn Combat II dagger is pretty cool. Benchmade Barrage Mini was my first really good one, and the full size Barrage first production run, 402 of 1000, that's been my everyday knife for a few years now. The Benchmade Phaeton I got in November and the Microtech Ultratech D/E I just got, those are pretty slick. In the kitchen, I think just the Calphalon Katana 7" slicer and 7" santoku count as fancy. The One That Got Away was a SOG Tech II bowie from the early 2000s that was stolen from me. If and when you find one now, they're getting more and more expensive.

MissMay wrote: »

@mfowler883
OHhhhhhh dang that must really smart. I've done almost the same thing right after sharpening.

It isn't as bad as I expected it to be. I don't mind things that hurt, but I've been cut enough to get that rolling in my stomach when I feel that nameless sensation that only comes with a very sharp knife going in...it's a little tender today but healing faster than I thought it would. Now I have nicks on my thumb and middle finger to go with it from working with two more kitchen knives. O_o

GeeBee08505 wrote: »

DH and I usually go to our local fav place on Wednesday nights (it’s “burger night”). We go early, the bartenders know to give me my “special glass” and top it with Prosecco… we stay for a few, order food to go and home by 8. Last night, DH asked if I wanted to go. I said I didn’t really want to go there and not drink. He said “what? You sound like an alcoholic!” Ok, I know I might be a bit oversensitive and irritable, but I took that really hard. Am I unreasonable to think that it is normal for someone to not want to sit literally at a bar and have a glass of Diet Coke, when my habit was usually to enjoy my favorite drink? I did let him know that I didn’t like or appreciate that comment, and he did apologize.

Anyway, AF last night. And no burger either. 😜

Happy Thursday,
Georgia

I feel this.

I totally get the desire to not put one's self in a setting where one customarily drinks alcohol, served by somebody who expects to serve you alcohol, surrounded by people who are consuming alcohol, when trying to form a new habit of not drinking as much alcohol. There's nothing wrong with not wanting to place yourself there.

I totally get the irritation at a comment like that; it's not unlike my irritation at the comments that I should just eat unhealthy foods in unhealthy portions just because it's a holiday or vacation or something without consideration for my desire - no, my need to not do that. I hope that the resulting discussion led to better understanding.

-m

@GeeBee08505 I don't think you sound like an alcoholic, you sound like a habit-holic! I can totally understand not wanting to go to a place where you have instilled habits like sitting at the bar with your favorite drink. Maybe next time you can go but sit at a table instead? Or chose a different place for your date night once in a while. Or even have your date night at home with homemade burgers?

The recent posts about "alcoholics" has had me revisiting my conclusions about myself.

When I was a pre-teen there was a casual family discussion about drinking because my aunt's husband was never without a "beverage" in his hand, even when driving. He was not often around, but when he was, he would take me riding around in his car, punching radio buttons with one hand and sipping with the other. My Daddy decided that I should no longer go riding with Uncle, and explained to me that Uncle was an alcoholic, and that he himself was an alcoholic. "But, Daddy, you don't drink" ..."And that is why I don't drink." Apparently when he enlisted in the Marines as a child, he was introduced to hard drinking and thankfully lived to regret it. They kicked him out when they found out his true age, and a couple years later he enlisted in the Army [WWII patriotic fever & all that]. After all the kids were grown & out of the house, he was the one to mow our acres with a push mower. He kept a 6 pack of beer in the rec room fridge and had exactly one, every 2 weeks after mowing. Me, I used to do it for a glass bottle of Pepsi...

After my first marriage went down in flames, I ended up a single mother working as a bartender in a fine dining restaurant. I didn't drink, and at the beginning was pouring booze with one hand and consulting Hoyle's with the other....WTF is a Singapore Sling ???? I wasn't hired for my expertise, just by virtue of being young-cute-perky. Many years-careers-states afterwards I had begun to drink socially, then stop for years as my lifestyle changed, and begin again. Eventually it was just an enjoyable habit. I rarely drink away from home...gotta drive afterwards...don't want to be responsible for the horrors of a drunk accident.

Long ago decided that I am an alcoholic, because just stopping at one or two glasses works for a while....then all of a sudden, it's the whole wine bottle. Quiting for a month or even a year isn't terribly difficult, just let it ride, but moderation sucks. I really, really like the taste and the "chill". The "experts" say that an alcoholic absolutely cannot drink "a little".
Even so, I keep trying. Definition of insanity, right ?? I do not find the word "alcoholic" demeaning or offensive, just a description of someone whose body or mind cannot resist that stimulant without great effort, sometimes more effort than they are capable of at the time.

My heart hurts for those who have signifigant others that can't or don't try to understand the stuggle. And I am also guilty of judging my "drunk ex-SIL" . At least he has served as an excellent example for my grandson as to what NOT to do.

Enough self-absorbed ramblings...Remember, tomorrow, Friday, is the day that New Year's Resolutions come tumbling down...keep the cork in the bottle...hop on the treadmill at 6 am....oatmeal, not Fruit Loops...smile at the idiot co-worker....your spouse is NOT the only one who can take out the trash...

Ciao [Trisha] /Meow [Catpuccino]