One Whiskey. One Scotch. One bottle of wine!

This is so much harder than I thought, this NO DRINKING thing.  I keep slipping.  I keep guilting myself.  I am eating 1200 calories daily which does leave room for about two glasses of wine a day if I wish.  But I can't and don't drink Tuesday through Thursday so technically I could drink those 6 glasses in one night, right?  I figured out there are 85 calories in 3.5 ounces of wine.  With twenty-four ounces in a bottle that is 582 calories.  OY.  Now I'm flat out obsessing over what I can drink the MOST of with the least caloric spanking.  Beer; 12 ounce can of my choice has 155 calories so that's out.  Brandy with water and lemon?  85 calories per ounce!  Who puts one shot in their drink?  Not me!  My mom taught me better than that!  Then I had an ingenious idea.  Drink the wine, but with diet spritzer and lemon.  Well, last night I forgot to buy the soda water at the liquor store and the local convenient store dudn't even carry it.  Wha? 

So straight up red wine it was.  And so yummy it is!  I love the shit so much that if you were gonna make me choose between my wine and my daughter I'd choose my daughter of course, but only because people would chastise me for choosing the glorious taste of tannins.  Granted, it's not the same as drinking beer in the warm sun or by a warm bonfire since it is a warming beverage.  But I'm willin' to compromise if it's gonna keep me from gettin' fatter.

So there I am, outside enjoying the first really nice day of March, so gallantly sipping on my little glass of red blend.  I sip and I have a smoke and I sense guilt sitting on the steps behind me but I'm able to ignore the beast, for now.  Afterall, I haven't lost the fight yet.  My gloves are still on and I'm probably gonna have one more small glass of wine before the day is over. 

Eventually the wine gets set aside for playtime with the kid and guilt fades away.  We go for a walk.  Well, she runs and I walk briskly behind her trying to keep a finger on her hoodie so she doesn't get too far ahead of me.  The neighbors start to gather, save for one that is stricken with the flu.  Bikes are cycling about and skidding here and there in the alley trying to make tire marks.  Remember that?  I used to do that.  I didn't wear a helmet back then though.  They were so like, not cool.

The kid starts to get absolutely insanely crazy about not getting her way so we retreat into the house to eat dinner and get ready for bed.  She falls asleep on the couch watching E.T.  Her daddy puts her to bed.  I look at the clock and OH EM GEE it's only six o'clock?  I go back outside to reunite with my meager serving of vino and discover a petite winged insect had decided to assault my scant drink.  After several failed attempts at a rescue, I involuntarily toss the wine in the grass.  Mournfully, I go back inside to refuel.  These wasted ounces prove very important later in the evening. 

This glass (my second poured but only my first consumed in it's entirety) goes down quickly.  Not only does guilt reappear, but I can feel the bastards breath on my left shoulder but don't have the breadth of mind to care..yet.  I pour more.  I keep it teeny, around three ounces.  I drink it and have more smokes.  My baby daddy starts a fire in our rusty patina of a pit and I pull up a chair and kick back.  I'm pretty sure at this point that I'm sitting on guilt but I don't care.  I have come up with rather insightful and sensible justifications as to why I deserve this wine, even if it is more than I'd planned on having.  Here are a few examples:

*It's the first really nice day since winter and I just need to get this out of my system.
*I didn't eat the pineapple that came with lunch so that must add up to a spare 100 calories.
*OH, and I rarely drink my 2 glasses of milk that is included in my daily dietary caloric intake. Another 160.
*I didn't drink saturday night and only had one dinky cocktail sunday night.
*The kid crashed so early, surely that's a sign that it's MY night.

ETCETERA.

They were lame justifications, yes?  Simultaneously entertaining nonetheless.  On the contrary, Guilt did not appreciate the humor but by now I'm thinking that fucker can kiss my fat dieting ass!  I fight guilt on a daily basis and usually win, or at least come out enough ahead so that the menace has no desire to come to bed with me.  And that's what eventually happened here.  The asshole retreated.  Saw that I was done with.  I was drinking beyond my allowed intake.  I poured another and another and another until the bottle was empty.  I had even recorked a couple of times thinking that would deter me but it didn't and why would it?  I'm not to be trusted, afterall.  I'm a veteran of drinking.  I know what I'm capable of.  Sobriety was something that went in unison with pregnancy, but nothing else....ever. 

And I wasn't done, or at least I didn't feel I was.  New neighbors had just shown up to partake in our natural heat and I didn't want to miss anything.  It wasn't even nine o'clock yet, was it?  Then a light went on!  An epiphany.  A revelation.  I didn't actually drink the whole bottle.  I unwillingly discarded my first puny glass of wine due to the invasion of a sesame seed sized critter.  What would be so wrong with opening another bottle and having just one more teeny glass of beauty?  So I did.  But the cork stopped there.

I was done.  Ready for my feather tick.  I checked a few messages and brushed my teeth and retainer and entered the bedroom door only to discover GUILT!  Guilt was in my room.  That never happens!  WTF WTF WTF do I do now?  OMG and I'm not LOL.  The prick won't leave either, so I crawl in bed and close my eyes and try to tune satan out.  All I can do now is wait for my man to come to bed to kick guilt's ass.  It would be like a "two-fer" for him since guilt is probably there for dual reasons.  I haven't been such a good "puter outer" lately and maybe if I give in tonight guilt will go running.  Afterall, a bottle of wine does make me HO-nay.  HO hum.