hacked widgets, cleanses, and husbands worried about cats

No one seems to have noticed the passing of my Cocktail Widget, the cocktail recipe du jour which my friend Janababy found for me and which graced this blog for some time. I'm mourning its loss myself, but it had to be killed off. It started out with interesting and believable cocktail recipes, even one called the Felix which I was dying to try myself. But I noticed its language got overly slangy and full of errors. Then the last straw occurred: the widget provided a receipe for a Lemondrop (a perfectly acceptable cocktail I myself have been known to toss back from time to time). This Lemondrop recipe called for four shots of frozen vodka and a box of icing sugar (confectioner's sugar, if you please). The instructions were to toss back the shots of vodka and then lick one's fingers and stick them into the box of icing sugar (albeit it was all phrased less elegantly and grammatically). Either the widget site was hacked, or its owner had lost his mind.

If the Drunken Housewife is anything, she is a Liquor Purist, a Drinks Snob who is practically unbearable, and hence the cocktail of the day recipe was promptly killed. Requiescat in pace, dear Cocktail Widget. If I were not so lazy, I could post a cocktail recipe of the day myself. Posting a cocktail of the week might be more feasible, but that project shall wait because.... I'm not drinking at the moment. As a hairdresser acquaintance of mine says, "I am having a cleanse."

I think it's time for my poor old liver to have a rest. Last year, I held a Month of Health, during which month I didn't drink and I ate sensibly, according to the Weight Watchers' guidelines. I planned to do this again this year, and I realized that a week had gone by without any drinking (I got that week of no drinking as sort of a freebie from being sick). So, I think I'll carry on for another three weeks. The month of non-drinking idea stems from a doctor friend telling me over a decade ago that the early stages of cirrhosis can be reversed by just not drinking for a month (this doctor friend, who was a drinking friend, went on to share unsolicitedly that the both of us undoubtedly were in those early stages of cirrhosis).

Not drinking feels easy today: overcome by a fit of nausea and a pounding headache, I asked the Sober Husband to call a friend whose child is in the same gymnastics class and beg her to give Lola a ride. While we were waiting for the friends to come, Lola said to me confidentially, "I have an idea. When they are coming, I want you to wear something fancier! While we are waiting, you go put on something fancier!" I guess my Boston University t-shirt and sushi print pajama pants were just not up to par. I managed to pull my black silk robe with the embroidered dragons on it on, and Lola gave me a thumb's up. As she drove away, Lola called to me, "Remember, when they come back, be wearing something fancy!"

And if the idea of a fancy yet sober Drunken Housewife drying out seems unlikely to you, consider this: the Sober Husband showed concern and caring for a cat. When Iris Uber Alles and I have her pet rats out for quality time, we always put I.U.A.'s large, fluffy cat in a closed room. Lola's cat, Al, is too feeble mentally and physically to serve much of a threat, and the third cat, Rachel, is a more intellectual cat who understands that the rats are members of the family and that she is not permitted to harm them. (I would not leave her unchaperoned with them for a minute, but she knows not to bother them when someone's watching). Frowsty, however, is an untamed spirit and a bold hunter, and the other night, we closed him in the downstairs bathroom (which is where the cats' litterbox, food, and water are kept). However, we forgot to open the door again. In the morning, the Sober Husband found Frowst in the backyard, curled up on a deck chair. "He spent the night outside," the S.H. said accusingly many times to me. "I found him trying to keep warm on a chair."

"Eh, he's got plenty of fur," I said.

And there you have it: the Drunken Housewife, strangely sober, evidencing less concern for a cat than the cat-hating husband. What will happen next?