2026, Food, Gatherings, holidays, Uncategorized

Bottoms Up!

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Most of my friends and acquaintances know me well enough to know that New Year’s Eve does not find me out drinking and partying wildly.  The only time I’m up at midnight these days is if I need to make a trip down the hall in the middle of the night. 

I have only been drunk twice in my life.  The first time was when I was living in Northfield during the summer between what would have been my junior and senior year.  I was working at Ole Piper Inn and went to a party with my co-workers.  I hadn’t really had drunk much prior to that and there was a lot of mixing of different kinds of alcohol.  I woke up in my bed but don’t remember how I got there.  Keys were in my jacket pocket and the car was in the driveway – luckily nothing amiss. Thank goodness the party was only about 10 blocks from my apartment.

The second time was at a work party at the bakery in Milwaukee.   No memory loss this time (I remember the bus ride home from the bakery QUITE clearly) but I felt so awful the next day that I wished for memory loss.  It was after this horrible hangover that I decided that overdrinking was just not something I wanted to do. 

I’m not a teetotaler but I rarely have more than a glass of wine or one mixed drink.  It’s not hard as the taste of alcohol isn’t my favorite anyway.  Not imbibing much was a little challenging with clients over the years but nothing too awful.  The pressure that many people experience for not drinking in social settings hasn’t happened much to me; I’ve found that if I don’t call attention to my beverage in a party setting, most folks don’t even notice that I’m nursing one glass of wine for an hour or that I’ve switched to a non-alcoholic option.

All this is coming to mind because in addition to the New Year, I finally gave in and let the Medicare/BCBS home wellness visit happen last week. It was easy enough, no invasive stuff and only took about 30 minutes. The nurse practitioner asked me all the same questions that the doctor asks every year at my usual wellness checkup.  When he got to the “how often to you drink alcohol” question I hesitated after saying “one or two” and he immediately filled in with “a day?”.  I laughed and said “no, probably one or two every two or three months”.  I had hesitated because I was trying to decide between two to three months and three to four months.  He clearly didn’t believe me.  I reported that I had just had a glass of wine the Saturday before at my party but that I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d had any alcohol.  Maybe Blevins back in September? 

He did write down 2-3 months, although I’m not sure he really thought that was the truth.  Oh well.

Did you party last night?  What makes for a good celebration in your opinion? 

38 thoughts on “Bottoms Up!”

  2. We ate leftovers and went to bed at 7:00. We have been so exhausted since our move that we go to bed really early. I hope we can stay up later in the new year.

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    2. FYI Renee, When I mostly retired in 2023, then completely retired and turned in my license in 2024, my mother had died and husband’s illnesses were becoming visible. I spent a year taking naps and feeling exhausted. I have encountered quite a few new retirees who go this. It is a big change and I needed the naps! I still nap occasionally, but the exhausted feeling has passed.

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  3. Nope, last night we just watched an episode of Miss Scarlet, and lights out as usual, 11-ish.

    My favorite celebrations are small gatherings with snacks (rather than a full meal), and happen with a fireplace or fire ring. Wine may be involved, or coffee…
    If Husband is present, then the people there are patient, and help to make sure that everyone get a chance to speak or participate.

    OT: I remembered one more New Year’s goal to add to yesterday’s question – to get some sort of meditation practice in my routine.

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  4. Went to bed at 9:30. Woke up at 2:30. Been awake since. Side effect. My smart watch showed fireworks this morning. There was my celebration.
    Clyde

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  5. We partied as much as two people can when at home . . . well, maybe not even all that much. Did our usual appetizers, Champagne, and watched “Casablanca” and “Young Frankenstein.” Added treats were Ferrero-Rocher chocolates and Irish Cream to savor with them. DVD player kept stopping every few minutes for some reason. COuldn’t make it stop. Worse than sitting through a commercial broadcast with an hour’s worth of commercials packed into a two hour movie. Well, not really. I’ll take the random silent frustration of a malfunctioning DVD player any time over ads. 🙂

    To my surprise, Sandra made it until 11 pm to watch the Times Square celebration. Unfortunately, we thought the CNN version might be interesting, with Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper. Ummm, no. I understand their shtick is to get slowly drunk up until midnight. No thanks, watching drunks giggle and act stupid doesn’t qualify as entertainment. But we gutted it out on that station mostly because of inertia. Only watched for 15 minutes or so until the ball dropped.

    Interesting factoid. The only New Year’s Eve party I ever attended was in my senior year of high school. I actually had a date too! But it wasn’t Sandra, even though we were almost best friends by then. Just a misguided dalliance with a girl who apparently had a crush on me. 😉 Ahh, young “love.”

    Chris in Owatonna

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    3. I try hard to avoid situations in which I am the only sober person nursing one beer forever while watching the drunk people around me. Why would I watch that on TV?

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  6. Happy New Year, Baboons,

    Last year we tried a New Years party. Our neighbor invited us. It did not last long. The host had a live Christmas tree to which I am allergic, so within an hour my voice was gone and I was wheezing. We came home and went to bed. This year we went to White Christmas at the Chanhassen Dinner Theater. I usually do not like the old Christmas musicals ala Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, et al. To my surprise this was marvelous. The live singing and tap dancing numbers, beautifully costumed, knocked my socks off. The musical features a weak, unlikely plot that just does not matter. But there is nothing like live theater featuring talented performers. The pit orchestra, which no longer needs a pit since orchestras now sit on a scaffold at the upper back of the stage, was in tune and terrific. I was back home and in bed by 11:50pm, a really late night here.

    I had one cocktail, which was delicious. During the New Years toast I took a sip of champagne out of the complimentary flute that I did not take home, and left the rest. We were noticing that some of the audience was really drunk and a little bit raucous. That bar must have made a fortune last night.

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  7. Nope, no partying around here. I was knitting a mitten and I’m stuck at the thumb gore. I struggled with it for a couple of hours, watching YouTube videos to try to learn how to cast on after placing stitches on a stitch holder for the thumb. I felt like I was trying to cast on out of thin air. I succeeded in a “back loop cast on”, but I don’t think it was in the right place because it didn’t join properly. I gave up and I’ll try again. My knitting group meets on Monday morning. While trying to knit, I watched an episode of Royal Flying Doctor Service. I nursed about 4 ounces of red wine over the course of a few hours. I was in bed at 10:30.

    I had a group of friends who were mostly from the Mankato-St. Peter area who gathered at the home of the guitar player in the band I used to play in for every New Year’s Eve for many years. We went cross-country skiing, enjoyed a winter bonfire, enjoyed a potluck, then played music until midnight, when we dressed up in wigs, costumes, wild outfits, boas, and party hats, and toasted in the New Year. Those parties were really a lot of fun. Nobody ever bugged me about what or how much I was drinking. My friends just weren’t like that. I had to drive home to Waterville, so I usually just had a champagne flute near midnight, and that was it. I enjoyed those parties a lot. Those friends are still dear to me, but we don’t see each other as often now. I send them all a special New Year’s greeting every year.

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  8. After work, Husband and I went to Costco for our flu shots and Covid boosters. It was moderately busy. Two women near the pharmacy queue nearly got into a brawl because one of them was sitting on a pallet of product (some kind of baked goods). When we got home, I got a late start on dinner. Usually we have cheese fondue on New Year’s Eve but this year I made tourtiere, a Quebecois meat pie that we usually have at Christmas, but didn’t this year (long story). It takes a while to make pie dough, make and simmer the filling, and assemble and bake, so dinner was quite late. We had chilled a bottle of prosecco but decided to stick with non-sparkling wine. After dinner we decided not to stay up late and watch When Harry Met Sally, but ended up reading until midnight anyway.

    I’ve been really drunk once, during a spring break trip to Florida during my freshman year at the U of MN. That was enough.

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    1. That freshman in college drunk experience seems pretty universal. I think mine was in the summer after the freshman year. A cornfield, a bon fire, Mogen David wine, hotdogs, and breaking up with my boyfriend were all involved. I was cured of the need to drink to excess. I still don’t eat hot dogs much and I never again drank Mogen David pancake syrup.

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        1. I’m afraid I wasn’t as quick a learner as some of you, and got drunk repeatedly in my younger years. The worst was one time when I was drinking sherry, not realizing that it had about twice the alcohol of wine. It wasn’t pretty…

          Now I know my limits, and will alternate a glass of wine with a glass of water.

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      1. No cheddar, but it sounds good and I’ll try it. My recipe is pretty old. My notes say I adapted it from two recipes: “Fabulous tourtiere a la famille Blais” and “Tourtiere from Fouchers.” Although I’m part Quebecois, I never had it growing up. Our Lady of Lourdes church in Minneapolis used to sell tourtiere at holiday time, and that’s how I discovered it.

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  9. Here’s to 2026.
    We partied at the wedding last night.
    Home by 9:30, had sparkling cider on the couch while daughter jumped up and down and gave big hugs.

    The best parties are being surrounded by friends.

    Growing up sheltered and innocent on the farm, I learned all the vices when I started theater. At least I was old enough to have a little bit of smarts too.
    Cast parties with open bars and I would try vodka, just because I didn’t know what else to try. Someone said ‘what are you mixing it with?’ I said nothing. They said “DON’T DO THAT!” Ah. See? Learned something already. Good thing that party was only about a mile from our house.
    One of the local restaurants we frequently went to after shows offered 2 for 1 on bar pours. I could have 4 drinks and be OK. If I had 5 I had to close one eye to drive home.
    I’m sure I’ve mentioned a Mantorville Melodrama year end party where our cast “won” by drinking more champagne than any other cast. We averaged 2 bottles / person. I got sick out in the parking lot. And I haven’t liked champagne since.
    And when a couple old stagehands took the new guy out for supper before a show, And fed me beer until I couldn’t see straight. Somehow I got to Kelly’s apartment and got sick, THEN went back to work, up in the catwalks and ran spotlight for a show. And they thought they were so funny….

    These days I just fall asleep before I can drink that much.

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      1. I have not thought about my three years as a theater education major in a long time. A flood of memories has come back, some even good. I liked the little theater under the stage in Cooke Hall. Ben would have found that a challenge to light.

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  10. i was only drunk a couple of times
    from 1974-1982 and 1983-2001

    i got sick on bali hai wine once and colt 45 a couple times as a kid and learned to function while buzzed. i used to talk my way out of pilice stops by passing the finger to nose and heel toe tests and always played my ace telling them i forgot my drivers liscence but the number is j 520603793141 officer.

    last night delivered until 930 when liquor stores closed and went home to wish happy new year to deb as she came down from her bath. she made it to 1030 me to 1130 . my last drinking was at a blevins book club and i remember my one year anniversay was 12.13.14
    i enjoy the buzz so a joint every now and again is a nice adder but i dont get high when i need to function and mellow is not much of a party atmosphere. the thc cans of stuff dont work for me at all. maybe when real stuff gets here instead of the synthetic stuff we have at liquor stores today. i do have pot from chicago and colorado but i really dont ever have a time slot to have my brain become a toy instead of a tool.
    who knew
    happy new year
    today is our 25th anniversary
    we were pregnant with our 3rd and got married in disneyland on the boardwalk.
    mimosas were the deal 25 years ago.
    a good celebration is when emotions are high and shared. happiness, laughter, recollections and shared dreams .

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  11. Had dinner at my sister’s place last night. Split a bottle of champagne with three other people. Watched a movie and came home well before midnight. That’s a good celebration for me!

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