Brookie

Good Lord Danielle - If I'd known you'd say something as funny as that, I'd have come back a while ago. Glad you're doing OK too.

As far as the research goes, I think I honestly needed it, but I also think I got the answers I was looking for. I'm the last guy to know whether it's a disease, a harmful behavior, or what, but I don't like the guy I turn into when my life revolves around a bottle. Hopefully, that will be enough of a bottom to keep me from going further.

Thanks also to Best. Funny you should mention fishing. I had my little epiphany that I was done while I was out fishing from my kayak on Galveston Bay Sunday. That's where I do all my best thinking.

Suomi Poika

I feel like there is an echo in this dark closet.

I've been going like crazy for the past several weeks, so I've had little time to check in. I'm by myself in a far-away hotel tonight, on the way to another big three-day ethnic wedding (the last that I know of, for a while). Thankfully, my wonderful, tea drinking wife, will join me tomorrow evening.

Ahh -- but I'm not totally by myself -- I bought two 24 oz., bottles of Guinness Extra Stout to enjoy with my soggy Subway sandwich and potato chips. They're gone.

For the wedding, a WV neighbor stuck a jug of good whiskey in the bed of my truck last night – where I hope it will stay until I give it away tomorrow night.

I've had time to read some of the recent posts.

Like several of the others, including our good friends Brookie, Patrickk, and Quercusalba, I too have veered off center. Not too bad -- but a course correction is certainly needed. It all started with a big, three-day ethnic wedding in Patrickk's neighborhood. My cousins in Bethel sure found the liquor stores without problem. For the most part, I restrained myself -- but not totally.

I'm again going through what I've experienced before, and what so many of you have experienced. Sometimes it has been more intense -- lots of alcohol over a very short period of time. This time it's been going on for about the past month. A few drinks here. A few drinks there. But, about three, or four, or five drinks -- four or five evenings a week. We all know where that leads.

I've told no one, until now. My older brother, who thinks I'm the one who has it all together -- and who got us into the programs we went through several years ago, will get a call once I post this.

Quote:

by Brookie

Ok - I'm ready

I'm sick of this.

As of today, I'm back in.

That's all I've got to say for the moment. Just thought I'd let you all know.

I hear an echo in the closet.

I see an image in the mirror.

I thought the ghost was gone.

Time for bed.

Time to think about another big Finnlander wedding!

Ummm. Good pickeled herring!

Ignore the booze.

Ummm, good lefsa.

Ignore the aquavit!

Ummm good sylte.

Ignore the wotka.

As my Dark Norwegian friends would say -- Uffda!

Wish me success.

Toivo


P.S. ONE: Brookie -- there are two canoes and a kayak in the back yard yelping like my old sled dogs to go for a ride. When I left the WV house on Sunday afternoon, I thought I heard the brookies at the bottom of the mountain calling "you don't have a hair . . . "

P.S. TWO: I'll again be out of communication until at least early next week. Please don't do anything dumb without me.

Don S

The celebrations will be more interesting, more fun, and certainly more memorable with a clear head, Soumi. Thanks for checking in. This post -- this thread -- is helping many unseen lurkers.
Take care,
Don S

Don S

See, now, in my case I know what the noises are coming from. I just can't do anything about it. At least, not anything humane.

There is a family of possums that loves my property. I have a huge, very productive English walnut tree shading the back yard, and many fruit trees and pecans and so on outside the yard. The possums pick up one walnut each, work their way along the fence (I know this because my dogs follow along barking incessantly as the possums lumber slowly around the yard along the top fence runner).

Then they either go up through the basement, or down through the attic, into the walls of my old farm house, where they sit and gnaw and gnaw and skritch and skratch and gnaw and gnaw and gnaw and skritch and skratch and gnaw and gnaw and gnaw and skritch and skratch and gnaw and gnaw and gnaw and skritch and skratch and gnaw and gnaw and gnaw and skritch and skratch and gnaw until they get to the meat inside the nut.

Sometimes they drop the nut. Pick pock clatter pick ping pock pick clatter, down the wall like a pinball. Scuffle scuffle scuffle, scratch, scamper, and back up the wall with the nut.

I can tell you that it takes approximately two hours for a possum of moderate size to penetrate the shell of a walnut and get to the meat. Throughout this process, my entirely useless black cats are staring at the wall and ceiling with the detached interest that felines are known for.

I have thought about killing them, or sealing them out (nearly impossible), or scaring them (even more difficult). But I've grown accustomed to their sound, and consider their persistence for such rich rewards to be a useful metaphor. It also makes me glad each and every day that I have opposable thumbs and have acquired the use of tools. So they stay.
Don S

Time2Surrender

Welcome back Brookie.

2dayzmuse

(((Brookie)))

Welcome back. It doesn't get any better out there does it? Since I've quit doing the research, my life has become rich. Not perfect, but better than I ever imagined it to be. Take it one day at a time.

Brookie

Toivo - Thanks for that very moving post. I was just wondering how you were doing today. Appreciate hearing from you. Here's wishing you every success my friend. I won't do anything dumb if you won't.

I'm guessing that the dogwoods up by you out to be blooming within just a few weeks, and on an overcast day you ought to be getting some decent hatches of blue winged olives at about the same time. Get back safe and tell me how the trout fishing goes.

Don - your post reminded me of a poem by Billy Collins. I'm going to see if I can Google it up for you.

Brookie

.

Suomi Poika

Brookie, and Don S.

It is well past my bedtime, but the computer was still on. Leno was over, and it was time to brush my teeth.

Thanks for both of your posts.

No dogwoods yet. We awoke to several inches of snow on Saturday morning. It snowed all day Sunday, but it didn't stick. On the way home from church on Sunday morning, I saw some guys at the bottom of the mountain with spinning rods and crawlers. A cat, with a big smile, was perched near one of them.

And Don S . . .

I know more about possums and porcupines than anyone ever should.

Because of a porcupine, I was caught "fishing" in my outhouse for my wallet -- but that is a whole 'nother story for another time.

Talk about addiction problems, -- those miserable possums (O'possums for St. Patrick's Day!) have eaten my tractor gas line and the ends off my gas containers. They've eaten pounds of D-Con intended for the non-chicken critters eating my chicken feed down at the barn. They've scared me half to death, with their red-glowing eyes as I search the barn late at night. They've consumed more chemicals than any of my employees or friends.

I switched to a diesel tractor. So far so good.

Unfortunately, drug dealers inherited the house across the road. I live in a county that is about 40 miles wide by 60 miles long, and with less 8000 homes and less than 20,000 people. We have a sympathetic Sheriff, seven deputies, and what seems to be a number of meth labs. Any suggestions are welcome. The possums just seem to be addicted to gasoline and my persimmons.

Toivo

3legacy

((((((((Brookie))))))))
Getting a little rain finally here in SteelHeadville. Love to wet a line and tell a few tall tales with you while fishing. Might even do a little catching this time round if your interested. Glad to see you are persistent, & also blessed in returning once again.

historyteach

Glad your home, Brookie!
Shalom, my friend!
Shalom!

quercusalba

Brookie... I'm with you, my friend. Really, really with you. I'm sick of this, too.

Toivo - I've been thinking about you, too - I'm so glad you checked in.

My kayak is ready for the season to start, too.

Take care, all...
--anne

squirrelly77

Don, Don, Don...

You're WAY too innocent!

In my case, not only would doing something about the noises I was talking about be inhumane, it would be Murder I!

Danielle

Brookie

I knew what you were talking about, but I didn't feel like it was my place to correct him.

Anne - I used to spend a lot of time up near your part of the world a few years ago, or more specifically around Phonecia and up and down HW 28 (where I used to fish the Eusopus). There's some really nice rivers up that way, but I remember that spring starts painfully slowly up there. I have a great memory of fishing the Eusopus on about April 1st one year in the middle of a snowstorm.

quercusalba

That's a great little river, isn't it? There are a fair amount of good rivers/creeks around here... I'm SO looking forward to getting out there in the canoe and the kayak. I've spent a fair amount of time around Phoenicia, too, as I love to hike & the Catskills are right there.

Hope you're hanging in there - congratulations on day three!

take care,
Anne

Brookie

Thanks Anna. I've got a favor to ask. One of these Saturdays, I want you to go to Sweet Sue's in Phonecia and have a stack of pancakes for me. I may not be able to eat them any more, but I want to hear all about it. Best pancakes in the universe, and I've eaten pancakes all over.

quercusalba

Thanks for the tip. I will definitely give those pancakes a try... and I'll let you know when I do!

Brookie

Oh man. You've never had them? You're in for a treat. Get the ones with fruit cooked in. I just e-mailed by brother-in-law to see if I could talk him into a long weekend of fishing and pancake eating sometime this summer.

2dayzmuse

Come on Joe... let's order up a tall stack. Sound good?

KelKel

(((Joe)))