"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" ~ Ben Franklin

A friend of mine is concerned with her level of alcohol consumption, represented scientifically by the graph above.

She is funny, outgoing, friendly, and an incredibly social person, sober or otherwise. I have never seen her be a source of embarrassment to her friends, nor could I conceive of any situation in which she would be.

Even so, she worries that she has been drinking too much, and that her level of fun has become a function dependent on her level of drunkenness. As a result, she has presented to us a radical new idea: she wants to stop drinking – for an extended period of time at least – completely cold turkey.

Bullhonky, I say. To quote Homer Simpson: alcohol is the “cause of – and solution to – all of life’s problems.”

My friend doesn’t sit alone in a bathtub with a bucket of ice cream and a bottle of Jack Daniels (well, as far as I know). She drinks in social situations with her friends, and she has a great time. And if the night occasionally devolves into blurry episodes of questionable recollection, well, that’s fine. Times are changing: it has become not only expected, but socially acceptable for our generation to imbibe to such a degree of sloppiness. Enjoy it while you can, I say. When you’re 40 years old and married with six kids, these good times will become less frequent.

The bottom line is if she were really dependent on alcohol to have fun, she wouldn’t be such a fun person to hang around when she’s not drinking, (which she most definitely is).

So the next time we’re out at a bar, I expect her to raise her frosty mug of ice-cold deliciousness in celebration, and join me in chanting:

We’re here. We have beer….we want more beer.

Home Sweet Home

Boston is great.

And grad school is great (seriously).

But there is nothing like coming home and realizing just how much you’ve missed it.

My parents have flitted off to Cancun for the weekend (well maybe “flitted” is not quite the right word – they are getting a last chance to visit family before moving to Uruguay for the next three years), and I was put in charge of caring for our dog, Skye. We adopted Skye about a year and a half ago. My parents worked full time, as did I, however I did not go into the office until very late in the afternoon. It therefore became my duty to take care of Skye while my parents were out of the house. She was a rambunctious little puppy: mischievous and full of energy, but sweet as candy. I started reading the puppy books, looking online for puppy-raising tips, and even watching Cesar Milan’s “The Dog Whisperer” to figure out how to properly raise this little ball of energy. After investing countless hours working with her and studying the material available to me, I am proud to say that today she is the sweetest, most well-behaved dog I have ever met, (absolutely no bias present on my part). And I hadn’t realized how much I missed her until I got home last night and she jumped all over me in excitement as soon as I walked in the door.

Oh yea, and seeing my parents again was great too.

Love you, mom and dad!