Just What the Doctor Ordered

First off, I have to confess that the past few months have been somewhat stressful, which finally culminated in coordinating the move of our office last week. Mix in the holidays, and the usual day-job work of month-end and year-end closing, and I'm pretty sure I was thisclose to a stroke. I've grown about a hundred gray hairs and gained a third chin from my go-to coping mechanism: stuffing my face with comfort food. People were actually coming up to me saying you need a drink or that I had a look of what do you want? on my face complete with deep furrowed, frowny brows.

I think the most stressful part about coordinating a move, especially one with weekly construction meetings, is that there is only so much that is actually in your control and you have to rely and trust vendors to do what they say they'll do. Of course, the largest and monolithic of those vendors (which shall remain nameless) did not follow through on some key tasks and I was scrambling and panicking through the weekend. Anyhoo, bottom line, the big job was complete last weekend, with a few various loose ends to tie up.

Now I am not one that promotes drinking but I have to confess I needed a drink like I needed amnesia to forget the previous months' labors and stresses. Kind of how you forget about the whole birthing process because you've got a beautiful baby afterwards--to the point that you look forward to doing it all over again because it wasn't that bad the last time, right?

Anyhoo, I wasn't the only one affected by the move and a whole bunch of us planned for Happy Hour after work last night.

Let me digress here to explain my drinks of choice: I'll do beer and wine on short social, dinner engagement type events. The pros: I can drink them slowly, enjoy them with food, and can be coherent bordering on profound without resorting to salty language. The cons: they make me pretty drowsy and I usually pass out in a couple of hours. In terms of beer, I prefer a nice wheat beer, e.g. Pyramid Hefeweizen, and in terms of wine, my pick would be a viognier. The hard liquor exception would be a very well-made mojito. And I mean a real, mint-leaves-crushed-with-a-pestle with sugar syrup and fine rum, mojito. Unfortunately, these typically are not made to this standard in most bars and where available, usually run about $10/serving. Which means I rarely have them. Sigh. I love a good mojito.

Now for socializing where the conversations get ranty and the humor a bit ribald, my go-to drink is rum and diet coke. If I'm feeling fancy or it's on an event tab, I'll go for Captain Morgan's spice rum but honestly, I can do house rum pretty well. The pros: if I maintain a good pace, my energy stays high throughout the night. The cons: my language definitely veers into salty territory, along with the cursed combination of thinking I'm saying something profound, when I'm merely holding up various objects to my face, announcing this is what I'd look like with a moustache! Depending on the space, I also will attempt to bring back various dance moves from the 80s while alternately channeling Cat (when Prince was Prince), Madonna, and a Beastie Boy. (To save time and space, I'll save the rest of the drinking spectrum for another post some day.)

Back to Happy Hour. I pretty much decided to go with option B--in fact, I was so sure in my decision that I responsibly arranged for folks to drive me to and from Happy Hour. When I got there, I pretty much had 3 rum&cokes in a row, which pretty much kept me lit through the night. To which I have to say I discovered other pros and cons:

Pro - I'm proud to say I'm not mean when I drink--in fact, I'm the opposite. I had the revelation that all my co-workers are some of the sweetest, funniest, and most understanding people on the planet. With the best skin! Man, I cannot explain how good everyone's skin looked. I remember wanting to touch their perfect faces but thankfully refrained from doing so. I think I actually started calling one of them "Porcelain skin doll" to her face. Wait a minute...she wasn't a co-worker. Ouch. That part is probably a Con.

Con - I think I'm more coordinated than I am. My apologies to all my co-workers who I thought I could throw french fries in their mouths from various distances. I can't.

Pro - I was much more open to telling folks how much I admired them. Especially about their porcelain-like skin.

Con - Apparently I have an Elaine-esque habit of punching someone in the arm in various moments of disbelief--usually accompanied by a no way!, or you're lying!

Pro - At the urging/dare of some co-workers, I attempted to thwart the advances of some dude who was digging on one of our co-workers who was too nice to reject him. Hmmm, maybe this probably belongs in the Con column.

Con - I choked. Papillon Soo Soo would have been so disappointed. In terms of dignity, this was probably a Pro.

Pro - After some long discussion on the benefits of using Moroccan oil on hair, I made some promises to clean up and fem up my appearance at work.

Con - There's no way I can keep that promise.

Anyhoo, it turns out the night was just what the doctor ordered. After Happy Hours, a handful of us went to another venue and got our groove on. That's right, bring on the popping and locking, the cabbage patch, the sprinkler, with a heap of Solid Gold Dancer! Good Lord, let there be no pictures. Aaaah, and the icing on the cake: hash browns at the Denny's.

It was a good night, indeed.

Monday, I just might be ready for you.