DEAR DOLLY (my fave pain-killer)

                                                                           

cc: Tylenol Panadol Paracetamol Dafalgan Afferalgan Calpol Alvedon Excedrin Acetaminophen....... ad nauseam. 

Dear Dolly,                                                   

I hope you don't mind the nickname, Doliprane. It's your French brand. This month you've been a constant presence in my life, I'm so familiar with you now, and I thank you for this.

Tendinitis and myalgia have given me an opportunity to crack open your blister-packs and make my way through the backlog of pills I'd thought irrelevant. Also I wouldn't want you to expire. 

I have a big supply, and I've shared you with others in need, and we know giving to others stimulates the release of dopamine, one of the happy hormones. Ah what a rush!

But for now I need to keep you for myself, my friend, where would I be without you? With the kidney-hostile ibuprofen in her various pseudonyms? Rougher on the stomach - you have a gentler touch. And no-better naproxen? 

However I must concede that you're a featherweight in the pain-killing arena. Even ibuprofen and naproxen do better than you. And then the heavyweights oxycontin, oxycodone, codeine, opium, heroin, morphine, hydrocodone ad nauseam and the more recent winner in the addictions sweepstakes - Fentanyl.

But I would never abandon you, dear one, Your sister-in-arms who goes by the bane Tylenol is a best-seller back in the US. You can all hold your heads high and continue dispensing relief to the millions.

Yours,

Lexie

PS  This one is addressed specifically to Tylenol-- you must recall the scandal back in 1982, the bad old days before sealed packaging?

Someone slipped imposter pills of cyanide-laced 'Extra-Strength Tylenol 'into the packages.                                          

Horrific scandal! Your reputation tanked. You became the Untouchable, even after multiple mea culpas......

But don't be too modest...... 

You put your name and reputation on the line to galvanize the revolution in safe packaging. 

You were the poster-child for taking charge!! It was onward and upward again, you were the Darling Daughter of the drugstore over-the-counter revolution.

                                    Way to go Girl!

                                                                  

 PPS. But watch out - research is ongoing and you ever know when you'll become Bad Girl on the Block again. They're following you.....

A  'thesaurus' of heavies:

Opioids: brand names, generic names and street names

https://www.asam.org/docs/default-source/education-docs/opioid-names_generic-brand-street_it-matttrs_8-28-17.pdf?sfvrsn=7b0640c2_2

A short disquisition on disease and disease prevention. Plus an unsung disease.

I grew up in a family that harbored health experts and world-class hypochondriacs, and I am one of ‘those‘ insufferable patients – a media surfer who wants to be on the same page as her doctors. Obnoxious. Well no, I’m pretty discreet.

Many of us oldies are lining up for double-whammy vaccinations to prevent or attenuate influenza (strains expected this year) and Covid 19 (idem). RFK Jr notwithstanding, those who can generally go for prevention. Despite some negative reactions it’s still wise. We won’t lock up RFK Jr just because he has issues with mainstream science, ignores and undermines it, obsessed with unverified theories of autism. New vaccinations have been developed, the door is open for more. We’ll simply carry on, despite Olympian Trumpian cuts to universities, the CDC, major medical research projects and so on.

We oldies still recall polio, whooping cough, measles, mumps, chicken pox, if not diphtheria, etc. Weeks and months of suffering. Bovine tuberculous was still alive and well in Switzerland, and all schoolchildren received chest fluoroscopies annually (with generous doses of radiation). Measles kept me in bed  for a month, a nightmare of fevers and isolation.  And measles is rearing its angry rash again among the unvaccinated, with the risk of severe complications.

All this is a lead-in for my favorite under-the-radar disease…….

Cat-scratch fever, with the beautiful Latin name:

 

 Bartonella henselae

My younger brother was diagnosed with cat-scratch fever by the pediatrician-who-made-housecalls with his stuffed monkey puppet meant to distract a scared child. My brother was 6, I was 11 and curious about all the attention he was getting.  He had very swollen lymph glands and fever, and simply wasn’t his usual sunny self. 

I was fascinated that a cat could cause this condition. Yet I have owned many cats, have endured many scratches over the years but never had it, and I haven’t met anyone else who confesses to being a survivor. 

The sheltered life? Better flea powder? Who knows?

Westerners still live with parasites, worms, head and body lice, scabies, etc. 

So where are the Bartonellistas?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November Morning, Driving to Geneva

 

November Morning, driving to Geneva

While I was driving east to town today 

a metaphor escaped my morning mind

as sun blew off the mist, a brilliant reprieve.

As for that metaphor eclipsed by sun:

why substitute a simile or simply curse? 

If a trope eludes me then I’ll let it be, 

it’s headed for a better metaverse.

🌥

⛅

🌤

🌞

(written that night when I couldn't get to sleep!)

• 
  

WORDLESHIP - WORDLE WORSHIP

You know it too:  it's an addiction. Playing Wordle produces a delicious rush of dopamine - your little morning energy shot.

Wordle is a social, if not sociable game, sharpening your competitive edge with friends and relatives. With or without commentary you can rely on a daily Wordle boost to wake you up.

Many go solo, but I enjoy rubbing my grid up against other grids. 

If a Wordle buddy doesn't send you their daily result you begin to wonder--are they OK? What's wrong? Why haven't I heard from them? 

They may not be part of your intimate entourage but you now have a Wordleship that needs  to be nourished, upheld---- a commitment:  I will play Wordle and share it with you, crow when I do better than you, cower when I don't.

Some begin with the same few words that favor maximum vowels or consonants. Key words, go-to five-letter words. 

That's boring!  I use whatever word pops into my head for variety.

And you know what? I believe my own scores and those of my 'opponent' friends - over time - average out the same (though I haven't charted them).

There are no champions in my book!

triumphant two     thrilling three     banal four      frightened five 

stupid six

WORDSHARE ------ TACHYPHYLAXIS

A mouthful of a word. My brother-the-doctor (in fact both brothers are doctors) offered me the Greek word incorporated into the medical lexicon. In response to my complaint that perhaps a medication I was taking was no longer as effective after a long and happy coexistence with my body. Pills, pills.

Tachyphylaxis - that medicine you loved has stopped loving you.

Certain words are just too delicious. 

Like a hand-made dark truffle from Auer Chocolatier, rolled repeatedly over and under the tongue. 

So what do you do? Reduce dose, take a drug 'holiday' (a dreadful American term that makes it sound like you're on spring break in Miami), ignore it, get over it, shop around for another med ?

But this is nothing compared to what's happening to the overseas drug industry Americans have relied on for decades which Trump has tariffed mercilessly.  European Pharma may not be saintly, but it still should be allowed to serve the public, export medicines and their components to the US without costly impediments. 

Now prices in the US are soaring......unless the Supreme Court rules that Trump's arbitrary and vengeful tariffs are illegal.

The Supreme Court is busy mulling it over.

'Tachy'  means lightly, quickly

'Taxis' in Greek means order, regular disposition, arrangement....:

We beg the Supreme Court:   Tachytaxis  (pseudo Greek).

  

AI AND I #2

AI and I: What is Jeûne Genevois? #2

 Carol did tell us it Chatbots sometimes lied, invented facts -- perhaps to flesh out the narrative, pretend it knows, protect its ego and shut you up.

I queried my bot on the history of the Jeûne Genevois, a (religious) day of fasting (jeûne) on the first Thursday of September.

Well.....apparently it's a kind of SWISS CHEESE!

                                                                                                        

                                                                        WHAT?? 

Follow-up:

I checked both my search bots and now they have come

to their senses: a religious commemoration of the

Protestant Reformation (thought so) and some

people do fast. I haven't met them.

No one fasts. 

It's like Labor Day with plums.

People bake or buy scrumptious plum tarts, go to

the country, take in a show, meet with friends and enjoy   

Labor Day by the Lake.  

I simply wanted a bit more historic/religious context 

for this special holiday.

Bot Motto

"No deep-dive research - just a quick dip for whatever

floats belly-up to the surface.

Politicians can be liars to please the crowd.

Hey........just like a bot!

 

 

AI AND I #1

Witty, Cagey, Elusive, Lying

My first, and so far only investigation of the powers of AI-generated narrative is when Carol, our collective writing coach, challenged us to download ChatBox AI, feed it a storyline and set it free. 

I entered a general plotline and some distinctive characters and a vague narrative arc and set it free. 

The story was shockingly good. It also seemed to reflect my tone of voice. It requested more prompts so it could continue its filibuster. I use the word ‘filibuster’ because it can hold up a session of true personal creativity. It talks and rambles, taking up time and space, hungry for more feeds and then? I could put out a collection of AI fiction – as people probably have already – and ……..

I was so excited I accidentally erased all of it, just as I was contemplating a collection with a major bot-feed element. Surely writers have already done this, but I was an AI virgin (almost) and was ready for a fling. After the story got re-absorbed into the AI bardo I dropped the idea.  

At least for now.

 

 

 

GRILLED MANGO DOWN UNDER

PS for the previous post

I heard from Paula, who lives on the other side of the planet.

A true story, with variations:

"Believe it or not, in Queensland we barbecue mangoes - yep, on the grill. Pineapples too. Quite scrumptious actually. But you might have heard thrilled mangoes and wondered what all the excitement was about. Or spilled mangoes, an obvious result of their slimy character. What about killed mangoes? Of course we take a knife to them and cut off their cheeks - we even score them (score, not scar - adjust your hearing aids with that app!). How about drilled mangoes or filled mangoes..."

Fried Mango Reverie

Coffee time in Ferney-Voltaire 

🍦🍦🍦             🥭

 There are several Friday conversations going on at once: some of us discuss fruit ice cream and sherbet as the young daughter of one of our group lavishes attention on her passion-fruit ice cream in a sugar cone. Orange, lime, raspberry, strawberry, lemon, blackberry, mango, a rainbow of flavours, a reverie of tastes…….. I tune back in a minute later to a discussion about fried mangoes. 

Hmm, sounds exotic, perhaps a tad awkward to pull off. But then of course bananas and plantains are fried, pineapple is flambéed, pears poached, apples caramelised….not so far-fetched. I imagine skilled gourmet chefs. Grappling with the gelatinous mango pulp, flipping a skillet — fruit cuisine requiring skill…. accompanied by a tot of rum? crême fraîche? but then who but a chef would bother with it? 

 Mangoes are delicious au naturel. Hot mango on toast? Hot mango waffles? Hot mango stew? I am off on a mango daydream. Amazing, I say, in all these years of international gastronomy I’ve never encountered…. 

…….when one of my friends giggles and says, er sorry….we’re talking about dried mangoes, have you ever tried dried mangoes? 

 The reverie angles off: fried dried mangoes! I have a vision of sautéed leathery, desiccated mangoes…..in butter perhaps? Would they look like orange kippers? Perhaps as a winning side dish in an exotic brunch? Or maybe pre-soaked but not for too long, plumped up to its original pulpy state. But then you’d be stuck in the same situation: sauteeing squishy mangoes.. ……..worth it? Dried then soaked then fried, well no….. Re-directing my attention to the conversation, the proverbial penny drops as my friend had said “we’re talking about Dried Mangoes” It’s simply Dried Mangoes. Have you ever had Dried Mangoes?  There is no fried.

Life can be so simple and straightforward. But then ADHD has me dreaming up eccentric recipes during this quiet conversation with friends. …….Hmm perhaps a sprinkle of coriander and a flick of nutmeg?……. 

So for the hearing issue, there are hearing aids. Hearing aids are now part of my life, charging up in a box with a USB C slot, le dernier cri in ear technology. Used intermittently, as the spirit takes me: little plastic commas invisibly tucked into the ear with a clear fishing line that’s cradled in the inner curve of my ear (the concha), and a discreet microphone, a dream away one generation ago. 

We control them with our phone, adapt them to music, noisy restaurants, televisions and conversations. When I’m not in a hurry, I remove them  from their silver repository and curl one gently into each ear. Red one for Right and blue one for, well….left—should I accidentally drop them, as sometimes happens.

They are sturdy - the other day I entered a thermal bath wearing them and re-emerged with them faithfully lodged in my ears. No sweat. 

They're my little helpers who occupy small spaces and enhance life, stimulate the brain and fend off cognitive decline. 

 Or so they say. 

 I hear therefore (I think) I am cognizant.

A PS lexicon of the outer ear:  a lesson in anatomy, as well as in Latin and Greek. 

It would need a clever mnemonic device to memorize this.....

 Concha: The fossa bounded by the tragus, incisura, antitragus, antihelix, inferior crus of the antihelix, and root of the helix, into which opens the external auditory canal. It is usually bisected by the crus helix into the cymba superiorly and cavum inferiorly. 

Now I begin wondering  if part of my ear is bisected by the crus helix......um....does it matter? 

 Now about that ADHD….....

The Seven Ages of Wrinkled

  

It's been more than a year since the Hibiscus blog, so I thought it was about time to weigh in.

Fortunately my blogspot didn't disappear, but it did decide to switch to html mode.  I was confronted by a foreign language--Code Gibberish. When I panicked, a clever friend suggested I google the problem and lo! with a couple of easy manoeuvres all the posts reappeared in unscathed English.

Today, while waiting for my Peugeot to have a couple of old parts replaced at the garage, I thought of autumn outside, and then about time passing, and then with time passing the inexorable fact of ageing. 

Armed with a blank Note on my iphone and a single finger I tapped out

 

                        The Seven Ages of Wrinkled*

 

Baby Wrinkled: occasionally at birth, but inconsequential, and doesn't last. 

Otherwise: plump folds of flesh, usually concealed in gender-designated disposable diapers and cutesy clothes. 

 

Adolescent Wrinkled: Acne City. In fact this is not about wrinkles, it’s about volcanic eruptions ruining your life, self-image compromised. Desire for invisibility often defines this stage. 

 

Early Wrinkled: which, let’s face it, is not wrinkled: simply a gentle fold of thirty-something years, gathering before the onslaught. Here we are talking enhancement rather than pulling, stretching and ironing out wrinkles. It's the age of early corrections: lips plumped, cheeks enhanced, nose bobbed and whatever other obsession ruins your daily meditation.

 

Early Middle-Wrinkled concerns those in the vicinity of 50 years. Promises of wrinkles to come along with a not-so-subtle shift of hormones. You stop smoking, you make health pledges. Some friends have already embarked on the long, repetitive path of surgical and chemical improvement. 

 

Middle Wrinkled (when 65 is the new fifty): seriously considering having work done but not doing anything besides applying outrageously priced cream made from someone's placenta. Plus royal jelly, collagen, hyaluronic acid, retinol, forgotten herbal extracts, et j'en passe.

Asking oneself is it too late to lift?  Is one too lazy to do Botox? Too afraid to inject foreign uplifting substances?

 

Late Middle-Wrinkled (when 78 is the new 77): every wrinkle now has a home: the neck, the cheeks, the forehead, the vertical grooves on sides of mouth.... and one's eyes are sinking back into turtled eyelids-- such indignities! 

And one doesn't immediately recognize the person staring back at you from the morning mirror. 

 

Who? Oh yeah….

 

Late Wrinkled: OK, we're not there yet, so won't try documenting it. 

 

But truth be told I’ll be grateful to get there. 

 

I say fuck the wrinkles!

 

 

 

                  * with apologies to my Shakespeare friends

 

 

LIFE WITH OR WITHOUT HIBISCUS

 

 Harry Hibiscus

It wasn’t that my garden was bare. There were of course the sun-dried grasses and weeds struggling in various phases of growth and death on the ‘lawn’. But in addition there were rudbeckia (known as black-eyed Susans), some survivor sunflowers and some revenant Sweet William. Varieties of aster were leafy but not yet in flower. 

 

Every year I’ve vowed to purchase a hibiscus and plant it lovingly by the hedge, watching it survive hot summers and thrive, just like ones along paths in the south of France – indomitable survivors. And every year, hauling bags of rich ‘or noir’ from the garden center I vowed that next visit would include this plant that seemed to grow everywhere but in my garden. I forgot each time, sidetracked by Canary Island date palms (with untrimmed dried fronds), tempting baby olive trees. I’d buy another hydrangea.

 

This year was different – I brought home a reddish-leaved plant that looked resistant to parching sun, flood or neglect in hard soil. My type of guy.

 

The summer was criminally hot, and his reddish leaves drooped if he was not watered. Sensitive and temperamental he went from bright enthusiastic outreach on cool, watered days to threatening us with his imminent demise on most days. 

 

This guy was not a survivor of Provençal sun, a casual splash of color living out thirty years by an old fence. He was a sensitive soul, grown in some greenhouse in the Département de l’Ain.  Had I not done my homework and read his small print? No, I hadn’t, just as I hadn’t read the small print when I brought my babies home from the hospital. I would wing it as mothers do, realizing that offspring never follow the expected monthly patterns in development laid out in popular books. I would follow instinct.

 

Instinct told me to use organic fertilizer and water him twice daily. He appeared to enjoy this, and his red leaves blushed and thrived.

 

Then one day a flamboyant pink flower emerged. Triumph! Beauty!

 

By the next day it was a memory, collapsed like a dead butterfly on a stem. One iphone photo was the only proof I had of this flash fecundity.

 

*****

For late August vacation I’ve had to give him in garden custody to a gentle but baffled Colombian, who believes that house-cleaning is vastly preferable to working the soil. 

 

I’d like to think that Harry will be cherished, fed and watered by his temporary custodian, his brilliant flowers heralded by passers-by. 

 

 

 

HEAT WAVE August 13th 2022

The soft warmth of the day tides over my sweaty neck,

time is leased for now to a brief tableau,

a masquerade.

Slow as honey that stutters

and stops at the rim of a glass jar

I sleep an instant at peak heat,

my cucumber eyes so cool, so closed

UNPLEDGED ALLEGIANCE

She stood up on the soapbox and screamed fury at the world. 

Now a continent away from her country of birth, but still tethered to it -- some notion of history and ideals, the founding of a nation that would promote liberty and representative government. Freedom and good governance. She'd loved history class with Mrs. Currie and her hefty junior high-school textbook with its 1950s narrative. Flawed with ideals.

Every morning, her right hand over her left heart, she, along with two thousand others within those walls, pledged allegiance to 48 stars. She thought of it as a kind of religion: you could partake and bear witness simultaneously. You did not have to believe in 'under God' (added in 1954);  you simply said it and let it pass like a foreign language you didn't speak. 

This was her bond of loyalty - her country was an entire world, a moral, social and industrial giant,  winner of a terrible war,

More than sixty years later it had cut its own wings, condemned women's rights and legalized weapons that slaughtered everyday people.

The  soapbox was soggy. Between sleep and non-sleep the box creased and collapsed. No strong wooden slats from another century propped her up.

She reached for her phone, contemporary life-support system, opened Notes and typed:

                                               You Sanctimonious Bastards

SUPREME COURT TURNS ITS BACK ON WOMEN - brackets on [[[ROE vs.WADE]]]

 Was working on another entry but I've been side-swiped by the news.

We knew the Supreme Court in its present formulation was going to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Of course we knew it. Without quite believing it. So it's no surprise.

But it's a profound shock to the system, our system, our rights, our safety, and the governance over our own bodies. 

Does a woman look forward to an abortion?  Hell NO, but there are times and circumstances when this procedure is necessary: from the quality of life of the mother and to avoid bringing an unwanted child into our fraught world to suffer its indignities. Not to mention forces majeures like rape, incest, underage pregnancies, poverty, too many children, drug addiction, illness.......Is it unfortunate to have to do it? Hell YES. But that doesn't mean a court can give freedom to individual States of the Union to determine what a woman chooses.  

I remember, and so do all of my friends and associates: back in the day women were butchered or butchered themselves and died of infection. Illegal abortions were highly dangerous, clandestine, unprotected. I knew women who travelled from other states to New York, where it was still 'illegal' but relatively easy to obtain and far safer -it was a place of refuge. A terrified, unhappy woman had to make the trip to New York - and it was still not truly legal. It was terrible. I helped one of them on her unhappy journey -- she came over from France in 1967 -- desolate and disoriented.

The court has closed a bracket on Roe vs. Wade --  a bracket that included a better, freer, remarkable period of time: despite horrible attacks on abortion clinics and their staff, it was legal, possible and relatively safe. 

Now it will be over in many states. Will this discourage courageous women from travelling to another state? No, but the poor, who can't afford the trip, and the young and powerless, who don't have the wherewithal, will suffer the most.

This is a shock. Off with the brackets, get back to sanity.

COGNITIVE RESERVE

 

Cognitive Reserve

The life raft for fading university graduates?

The buzzword of the year?

The little change purse of tricks to use when a common word eludes you? Like a small federal reserve, all in your head (well, you hope....).

Cognitive Reserve is a sexy topic these (post-Covid) days -- good for Baby Boomers. The Harvard label (branding?) implies Valid Research, Credibility, Academic Backing, Intelligent Perspective, Help For You Who Are Afraid You're Losing It. You can pay for online courses and exercise your flabby brain for hours. Ah, maybe this will do it! Boxes and flow-charts and sequence narration and memory games.

Your private Cognitive Reserve doesn't recall names all on its own. It needs care & feeding, the right diet, supplements in the form of gross pills and gel capsules, extracts and syrups, plenty of exercise, plenty of rest.. the right proportion of work / social life / hobbies / pursuits....i.e. A Meaningful Life. So help me...This is supposed to slow down dementia, which may or may not get you in the end.

It's all vague woo-woo, let's be good to our minds and bodies so maybe the old Alzheimer Witch won't come knocking at your cranium. Being a tad ADD,  'good to our bodies' puts me in mind of those healthy extracted fruit and vegetable juices - what are they called now? Ah yes, Smoothies! a late twentieth century term.

I'm still on the Harvard Health mailing list. I once ordered their booklet on hand injuries and arthritis and how to address them with the appropriate doctor, the right imaging, great rehab exercises. Complete with scientific illustrations and charts. (Or did I get the general arthritis manual?). Harvard Health appeals to hypochondriacs and true sufferers. I haven't yet purchased other wares or signed up for the privilege of asking questions on any medical issue that crosses my mind at 2 am.

Conversations! Famous Whoevers you try to fish out of the murky pool of memory in the course of a relaxed conversation....gone until your Cognitive Reserve kicks in (if you're lucky) and feeds you a hint, a rhyme, a song that will retrieve it. Hearing the song Lili Marlene I suddenly recall the exotic actress and gifted inventor with patents in her own name.....ah  yes, Hedy Lamarr! Music evokes memory. So does relaxation, when the name of that elusive flower comes to you at the end of a nap -- yes! Digitalis!

For now I take in Harvard's kind recommendations without paying for more detailed brochures (which I'd probably mislay) and try to lead a healthier life. I want to love life for whatever it is at the moment.

 

 

GEORGE W. BUSH AND ONE COLOSSAL FREUDIAN SLIP

George W.Bush made a Freudian slip of world proportions.

The Russian invasion of Iraq! ......oops, Ukraine.

Iraq was on his mind.

The US in Iraq, Russia in Ukraine and Syria, Russia and the US in Afghanistan, oh how do you keep all these straight?

The larger animal en-gulfs the smaller, merging messily to become a monster mistake of foreign policy.

His excuse? He's seventy-five! Aw shucks!

An excuse for this gaffe, conflating nations and invasions and time frames.

Do I fault the shucks-who-me? man who stumbled into the presidency with scant knowledge, a lot of money, a faux-Texan mouth slouch, charm and simply nothing to lose but his cheerful sobriety?

Hell yes! At 75 I make lots of mistakes, but not on the world scene of (ir)responsibility.

I forget things too, Georgie Porgie, but not vast invasions of truth.

I hope this on-camera boo-boo jolts you into sanity and you go somewhere sane. 

Recognize your colossal mistake.

It ain't dementia, old boy. It's guilt.

75 and still dreaming I'm younger and potentially fantastic

Here it is: I'm squarely in my mid-seventies. Today.

Happy Birthday to Me.

Last night I dreamt I was pretending I was some sort of doctor or scientist at a workshop - we all had to participate in the cooking and cleaning up, and although I'd just arrived, I was assigned at the last minute to prepare a gourmet dish. 

People were outperforming each other for culinary speed and virtuosity in the large collective space, and were proving that they were skilled above and beyond their prestigious professional credentials.

I was cooking cauliflower (?brain?) in a tasteless broth, and scrambling for other ingredients to add pizzazz, or at least something. A clever woman with lots of letters after her name was grilling cutlets on her own, not bothering with the collective efforts, and I had to admire her: plus where did she get the personal cutlets? Had she smuggled them in with her running shoes?

And there I was, with the false trappings of a profession I never entered and struggling with a smelly vegetable. Ignominious or what?

So there it is. 

I'm still narrating Dream Tales of the Ego to my subconscious and losing out as an impostor.

What will I be in my dreams when I turn 80?  

A geneticist? A charismatic cult leader? A garden-variety psychic? Simply 80?

HOW DRY I AM, HOW DRY I AM, NOBODY KNOWS.....*

Since January 4th I've been totally dry, the day a good friend sent out a gentle challenge to a few of us to try Dry January, and without really thinking about it I said yes, and then downloaded a British app for the occasion. It's an app you use to test how many units of alcohol you are consuming per week, assigning a grade out of 10 (I won't tell), and offers of many 'astuces' as the French would call them for how you handle those moments when a glass of wine seems like the best idea you've come up with all day and it's only 5 pm. And not fall back on the usual Covid excuse?

No, I'm not addicted, I had no physical withdrawal symptoms, and the first days were easy, even heady with how easy it was. 

Second week not so great, as I began to realize how my day gravitated toward an evening rendez-vous with some fairly decent red wine. I was becoming a bit of a connoisseur, comparing grape varietals with interesting names and the flavors that rolled over the tongue and up into the nostrils. And a subject of my online research and offers of good Bordeaux from French wine distributors which arrive in my inbox daily. 1jour1vin, La Grande Cave, Bodeboca.....

Wine porn? Sort of. I invested in some vins primeurs, which should be delivered to me in a couple of years, after they've aged gracefully in a French cave.

Mindfulness, replacing one habit (reflex) with another, being aware of how/where/when you're missing it (the wine fix) and why. There are countless (boring) recommendations of candles, hot baths, naps, chocolate, more chocolate....

These days I'm browsing online for cashmere instead of cabernet, buying ginger ale for the intense tongue-buzz.

Is today's blog a journal of alcohol-free experience? Well yes, sort of - if it helps why not?

I'd been feeling that some neurons were firing more slowly. Brain sludge. Even this week while I was doing the Quick Crossword in the Guardian I didn't get the clue to which the answer was 'filet mignon' - a cut of beef beneath the sirloin...The week before I didn't get 'deuce' in tennis....I mean really!! I want to stay sharp as long as possible.

I gave up my pack and a half smoking addiction years ago,, I can do this.

But does it mean no wine forever or just resetting the......er.. bar?

I think I'll stay dry  for a couple of months and see if I can write the great expat novel.

One can always see....

*"'The Near Future' is the name of a song written by Irving Berlin in 1919. It is better known for the small part of its lyric that took on a life of its own: 'How Dry I Am'.

The term 'Dry' in that time period meant abstinence from alcohol, and support of Prohibition. Those who took the opposite approach and/or view were often called 'Wet'. Prohibition became fact in 1920, in 'the near future' after the song was issued.

This portion of the song...

How dry I am, how dry I am
It's plain to see just why I am
No alcohol in my highball
And that is why so dry I am

...became known for its ironic use, by people getting drunk and singing it, sometimes in harmony, in all manner of popular media, especially Warner Bros. cartoons. That usage necessitated removing the parts that overtly denied drinking, which tended to reduce the song to these two lines:

How dry I am, how dry I am
Nobody knows how dry I am... Hooow dryyy I aaaaaam!"

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Near_Future

Also:

The phrase "how dry I am" had become structured into song and referred specifically to drinking alcohol by at least 1898, as one journal describes a college drinking song that goes:

   'How dry I am, How dry I am!/God only knows How dry I am'