jr67

Happy Birthday Dear Nephew.

Hey there, SobeRlandian, here is something new I'm doing for the first time ever that I wouldn't be doing if I were still abusing substances: Taking a break from work (that is not the new part, the new part follows) during which I am sipping on homemade ginger tea. I made a bunch (well what is the collective noun for a half gallon of liquid; it is not a bunch, like grapes, and it is not a murder, like crows, or a warren, like rabbits, Oh, I know, here goes), I mean I made about a half gallon of ginger tea on the stove last night.

I could drink it cold or hot, in this case I nuked it because it is wintry out. Here's how I did it:

To make just a couple of cups to see if you like it:

Put a couple of cups of water into a saucepan, start heating it to the boil.

While the water is heating up, take a length of ginger root, average thickness, maybe two inches long, and slice very thin.

Add the sliced ginger root to the water.

Allow to sit for a while.

Taste. If too strong, dilute with more water. If too weak, slice up more ginger, add, wait, taste.

Once you like the strength, pour into a mug.

Sip.

Enjoy.

Thank you, SobeRlandian, I wouldn't have made it (the tea, that is) without you.

Today is my nephew's 45th birthday. I was living with his mother (my older sister) for a few months over the winter he was born. She already had a beautiful little girl, my first niece, who was 4 years old at the time.

Back in the prior June, just about the time Sis began to suspect she was expecting, her dear hubby, aged 28, announced he was tired of this marriage-and-family and striving-middle-glass money game, so he quit. (He was a functioning, hard-driving salesman type of way overdrinking ethanol abuser, had maybe 3 of 4 car wrecks and at least a couple of OUIs under his belt, but the laws were not as strict back then.) Come October (Sis now 6 months pregnant), just after the hearing when a judge informed them how much my dear bro-in-law was going to have to pay in child support, outside on the courthouse steps, he told her, in essence, "You're never going to see another dime from me."

Gotta give the guy credit, for the first time in his life he kept his word. He disappeared, never to see or be seen again by Sis, daughter, or yet-to-be-born son. There were vague stories of sightings on the West Coast, and eventually he was said to be living in Panama, with a wife and a kid or two, running a bar, before he died, natural causes, so we heard, a few years back.

There's more, but all that is off topic. This post is about my nephew's birthday.

My nephew, my niece, and my sister are all doing very well, thank you. She remarried, and Sis and new bro-in-law raised a blended family of four kids, so I got two more instant nieces.

I get props for staying with my sister, niece, and eventual nephew that winter, but it seems to me I don't deserve much credit because I was just doing the right thing at the right time, and my situation in life at the time (at age 23 that January), fresh out of college, not yet starting grad school, allowed me to do it, and boy did I (and do I) love that niece and nephew (and the insta-nieces I met later).

So it turns out I never had kids (long story), which is not a particularly relevant fact in this context, but we're just getting to know each other, newly recovering SobeRlandians, so I thought I'd mention it in passing.

My nephew now lives about 2000 miles from here, or about 3218.688 km (according to the very precise, in this instance, mr. google), with his 8-year-old daughter and his wife. This year, for the first time in many years, I sent him a birthday present, and actually mailed it so that he probably will receive it by today, his actual birthday (I should know, I was there in the hospital). I enclosed the Christmas present I bought for his daughter back in October, all prettily wrapped by the bookstore, but never got around to mailing till late last week, just in time for her father's birthday.

She'll like it just the same. The only one bothered by the fact that I didn't send it till January is jr.

But jr is not living in the past. jr is not living in the future. jr is living in the present, and the present is looking pretty good. jr credits Dry and Pot-free January (a decision and commitment jr made on his own), and this SR community (a discovery he happily found on January 6) for the fact that he got that package into the mail on time.

jr lifts his ginger tea to toast his nephew's birthday (credit SR again for the fact that it is tea).

jr now heads back to worky work for a few more hours, making a dent in the to-dos he has put off for far too long.