Sorting Through The Memories

I threw out most of the last of my alcohol tonight. I gave the Romance Heroine a bottle of sloe gin and a large bottle of regular gin, but I had some cheap sherry and vermouth (which goes bad) that went down the sink. I paused at the bottle of Gordon's Citrus Vodka because I remembered the circumstances under which it was purchased. In May 2000, I drove to Baltimore to go to Dusie's graduation, and I hit the hotel at a point which no one in my family was there so I couldn't get into the room. I was rumpled and hot and cranky. And no one had a cell phone then, so I was out of luck. I wound up walking over to the nearest strip mall to get something to read and eat, and thank heavens there was a liquor store because I could tell already that I was going to start running out of patience right quick. Later that night I was in the room with Aces and had it with some awful citrus soda. More recently I have mixed the vodka with homemade lemonade, still warm. Ambrosial.

The next day I had to help Dusie cover her tattoo with fancy makeup so my Dad wouldn't see it. Strangely, that was a pretty good graduation. Aces graduated the next year in North Carolina and that was an even better trip. My mom had found a state park near Durham (I think it was Pilot Mountain State Park) that had cheap, cool cabins. However, I had no clue which cabin, and no way to reach them so my dad was waiting out by the front sign for me to show up.

Later we picked up Aces and went out to dinner, which lead to frantic phone calls between Dusie and my Dad since we were in different cars.

"What do you see, Dusie? "

"Trees, Daddy! I see trees!"

Ah, the strip malls of Winston-Salem and the joys of rural development. We took our leftovers to feed Aces' favorite ferals out by the dumpster at the donut place. The next day I suffered through the graduation, and it's the last one I will ever have to attend if I don't have kids. Thank goodness.