Brews You Can Use
Anniversary day today. I haven't been able to drink much, due to my dehydration (or whatever is ailing me these past two months). As a corollary, I haven't had much desire to things I normally do while drinking, like hanging out on the porch, going out to eat, visiting friends and family, breathing. Marie has, unsurprisingly, served up the George Thorogood notice:
Now, in fairness, she hasn't used those words. What she said was, "I don't care if you don't drink, but you're gonna have to learn to have fun without drinking."
But that, of course, is pretty much the same thing as telling me I have to start drinking again, since I've been fueling my fun with booze since I was 15 and, I fear, don't know any other way to have fun with people (fun with a book, in a garden, while typing . . . yes, but socializing?), so I have doubled-down on my electrolyte intake.
Last Sunday, I feared I overdid it at the production site, so I immediately walked to my neighbor (a liquor store, coincidentally) and
bought two 32-ounce bottles of Gatorade. I guzzled one of them, then polished off the other over the course of the next 45 minutes. I then showered, ate, took a nap . . . and felt freakin' great for the first time since June. That led me to conclude that maybe, just maybe, I'm having trouble with my electrolytes, so I'm taking in a lot more of them.
The problem, of course, is that sports drinks like Gatorade are high in calories, so I did some research and found "Nuun" hydration tablets. They arrived yesterday and I started pounding them. Each table makes 16 ounces of electrolyte drink, at a cost of 47.5 cents and only 25 calories (the equivalent Gatorade is about 75 cents and 120 calories). I'm pretty stoked by the find. As of this typing, I'm on my fifth Nuun drink . . . and getting ready to have a few gin and tonics.
Wish me luck.
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BTW: The beginning scenes in that Thorogood video are from The Lost Weekend. A classic.