I'll Have a Shirley Temple, Please

On New Year's Eve, my housemate Donna showed me a column in the local paper.

It was written by a Mother of a student at Donna's daughters' school.

It was about adopting a "Dry January."

This woman wasn't talking about staying out of the rain in Seattle. She was talking about not drinking.

I got the feeling that Donna wanted to give it a try. I told her that if she wanted to do it that I'd be willing to do it with her. You know, for moral support.

Tomorrow is February and I've had a mostly dry January.

For the exception of 3 occasions.

When my friend Karen visited from Vegas earlier in the month I met her for dinner at a Moroccan restaurant. The food was exotic and pretty tasty, but by the end of the meal we were both tired of eating with our hands.

That's not why I resorted to consuming an alcoholic beverage, though. I had decided before Karen even arrived at the restaurant that I would order a glass of champagne. I was even neurotic enough to send her a text message while I was waiting for her (she was detained coming from the airport) asking if she drank champagne. She said she did and I was looking forward to breaking my vow with her.

It's not like I'd been miserable since I hadn't been drinking. Really, it was quite uneventful as I'm not a big drinker to begin with.

Karen recently published her first article as a writer and I wanted to celebrate her success. I also wanted to celebrate me getting back into acting. When Karen arrived, we each ordered a glass of champagne, toasted each other, then embarked on our strange meal. While I love international cuisine, not so much with the Moroccan food. I don't know about Karen, but that glass of champagne helped the meal immensely.

Then I went back to being dry until this past Saturday night when I had dinner with my friend Debbie at our favorite Seattle Thai restaurant. Again, I had decided in advance that I wanted some champagne. Now, this is coming from someone who rarely drinks champagne. I again felt the desire to celebrate with a friend. This time the reason for celebrating was because I had gotten confirmation from the talent agent that I'd met with last year that she indeed wanted to represent me for Film & TV work. I'd waited to tell her I was in Seattle until I knew I had job security and flexibility, which luckily I do.

I was okay, 2 for 2 with the champagne. It was consumed with food and didn't leave me feeling horrible. I went home, got a good night's sleep and woke up the next day and went to yoga class.

Everything was fine until last night when I decided to imbibe once again. This time with some red wine.

I went to a concert at my favorite jazz club and had eaten dinner before going out. I had decided beforehand that I might have a glass of wine. Other than my new champagne habit, I prefer red wine over white so I ordered a glass of Pinot Noir. The waitress brings it, I take a sip and I tell the woman sitting across the table from me (Ann, I believe her name is) how lousy the wine is. She says that maybe it's a cheap table wine.

It hadn't occurred to me that maybe something was wrong until the waitress came back to tell me she had Cabernet on the brain and brought me the wrong wine. Great. So she returns with the Pinot, I take a sip and am happy.

I drink the glass of wine. I sip it. And I drink about 20 glasses of water.

For those of you who have been around me when I'm out and having a drink, you know how I go through the water.

I'm sitting there, listening to WAR, a band who was big in the '70's who was known for their hit "Low Rider." I'm enjoying the music and the wine is definitely helping. Since I was born when most of their songs were written, I didn't know a lot of them. But, that was okay. I was feeling good so I ordered a second glass of wine.

The waitress brings the wine. I drink it. Slowly. Again, I drink a ton of water.

After the second glass I realize I'm not feeling so great. It's not like I was feeling sick. I just wasn't feeling great and the thought of staying in my seat till the end of the concert didn't appeal. I started thinking about my car sitting in the parking structure next door and how great it would be to get out before those 200 other cars did. Now, I wasn't drunk. Luckily I drank enough water so that wasn't the case.

When I got home, I wasn't ready for sleep. That red wine was just sitting in my stomach. So, I wasted time until I felt ready for bed. I surfed the internet. I did the LA Times crossword puzzle online. Unfortunately, I never really felt ready for bed. Finally I popped a couple of melatonin and closed my eyes.

I woke up this morning feeling like crap. Moral of the story? I think my days of red wine, if not completely over, are definitely numbered.

Am I just getting old?

You know, you hear about people as they get older, not being able to eat the foods they enjoyed when they were younger. I've had problems in the past wine with red wine & sulfites and found that imported wines, that don't contain them, were much easier to handle.

It looks likes other than the occasional glass of champagne, I'm out for the count.

I guess it could be worse. Someone, invite me to a wedding please.