Laurie Crazy Aunt Purl Perry - Home Is Where the Wine Is: Making the Most of What Youve Got One Stitch (and Cocktail!) at a Time

Home
Is Where the
Wine Is

Laurie Perry

www.hcibooks.com

Disclaimer: The events described in this book are true as I remember them, best as I could what with being covered in cat hair and three minutes from directing traffic in my nightgown. Some names and details have been changed.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Perry, Laurie.
Home is where the wine is: making the most of what youve got one stitch (and cocktail!) at a time / Laurie Perry.
p. cm.
eISBN-13: 978-0-7573-9583-3 eISBN-10: 0-7573-9583-X
1. Conduct of lifeHumor. 2. Drinking of alcoholic beveragesHumor. 3. Dating (Social customs)Humor. 4. KnittingHumor. 5. Perry, Laurie. I. Title.
PN6231.C6142P43 2010
818'.5402dc22

2009048175

2009 Laurie Beasley Perry

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

HCI, its logos, and marks are trademarks of Health Communications, Inc.

Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.
3201 S.W. 15th Street
Deerfield Beach, FL 33442-8190

Cover design by Andrea Perrine Brower
Interior design and formatting by Lawna Patterson Oldfield

For all the
crazy cat
ladies

Contents

January 1:
Resolutions

Old Year

December 31, 9 p.m.
La Habra, California
Sunny Lake Retirement Community

Its New Years Eve. Once again I have the disturbing feeling I should be somewhere more fun and exciting, wearing a funny hat and age-inappropriate glitter while drunkenly sloshing something on my fancy dress.

Instead I am wearing pajamas and my glasses, and I am locked in the bathroom at my grandmothers house in Orange County. We just watched the West Hollywood Gay Mens Chorus on TV, and she turned to ask me if I thought being gay was a requirement to join the chorus or if it was just a learning opportunity.

I am drinking wine out of a Styrofoam cup with my name penned on it. Grandma wrote my name on the cup so I would remember which one was mine. This is my familys version of going green.

Tonight, for the first time ever, I realized that my five-year plan includes turning FORTY YEARS OLD. My grandmother, well into her eighties, is still drinking bourbon and making jokes, but for some reason I am more terrified of one day being forty than of one day being eighty.

Also, since I am being honest, instead of really wanting to be at a cool party, I secretly just miss my cats who are probably puking on my new bathroom rug, unaware that we are on the cusp of a new year, a new start, a brand-new, freshly unopened calendar whose 365 days could hold unending surprise. I need to make some changes. I have to get my life together. I should make some resolutions. I should refill this Styrofoam cup.

The Morning After

After eating the required spoonful of black-eyed peas (for good luck!) and eating my way out of a jeans size at breakfast, I left Grandmas house and drove back to my own little corner of the world. My life, contained in 800 square feet of rented bliss in the San Fernando Valley. When I moved in, the landlord made me sign a disclaimer saying I wouldnt eat the paint or gnaw on the door frames, since the house was so old it was practically held together by lead-based paint from years gone by.

When I started my New Years resolutions, there was no one in the house except for me and the catsand a surprisingly large amount of champagne in little single-person sizes, which I couldnt help buying everywhere I saw them on sale until I had the equivalent of a miniature champagne farm in my cupboard. I opened a fresh notebook and began to ponder this new year, this new opportunity to become the person Id always wanted to be:

New Years Resolutions (first draft)
Start drinking champagne at noon
Clean the cat box

I am about to turn the corner from midthirties to mid-to-wrinkled thirties, and my life has settled into a rhythm that is certainly less dramatic and grief-encompassing than the past few years, but not nearly exciting enough to send out happy Christmas letters written in the third person, annoying all my friends and family about the minutia of my life.

New Years resolutions feel powerful, like they have the trans-formative mojo to add purpose and excitement to your life and make over your wardrobe and your love life, and change your entire path. I want those resolutions; I want the list that will advance me ever nearer bliss and fulfillmentand forty.

But I am a realist; I cant see myself running off and joining an ashram and shaving my head to find enlightenment. I just paid my hairdresser to give me shiny New Year highlights, and I have yet to find an ashram that takes cats.

New Years Resolutions (second draft)

Stop reading books about other people that make me feel jealous and want to stab them with a fork

Become a better person

Clean the cat box

It is an attainable list, especially with become a better person so loosely defined.

What I need is a purpose. An overarching life goal. And a pool boy. I want to change my life; I want happinesswhatever that is.

There Is Nothing Wrong with Me, Still I Search

Some of my resolutions, such as become a better person, are works in progress and not immediately achievable, while others, such as try five new things (not all of them food items), clean the cat box every day, and send at least two birthday cards on time seem doable. But in terms of whole-life changes, there is no single resolution I can make, so my final list is fairly brief:

1. Explore New Paths to Enlightenment.

2. Take an Adventurous Trip.

3. Knit Something That Isnt Square.

4. Go on a Real, Live Date (Versus a Pretend One with Jason Bourne-Anderson Cooper/George Clooney).

5. Grow a Garden.

6. Deal with My Issues

7. Try Something New (and Not Just a New Food)

8. Do Some Form of Exercise Other than Knitting

I read my list over the phone to my friend Drew, who lives in Houston. Talking to my long-distance friends and family is now much cheaper than therapy since the advent of the Fave-5s cell phone plan. Once I read the list out loud, it doesnt sound like much.

At this point in my life I feel like I should have accomplished more, I tell Drew.

But you wrote a book, he says.

True, but the first word in the title is Drunk, I said. Its not exactly going to win a Pulitzer anytime soon. You think theres money with a Pulitzer? And now I get letters from guys in prison who tell me they like cats and girls who write books with Drunk in the title. Theyre a very loyal audience.

So what is it you think you should have accomplished by now?

I dont know... Im not sure where I go from here. I dont want to get married again. I think Im still paying off my divorce. I dont think Im ready for kids. That in itself makes me morally suspect to virtually everyone I know.

Well, he said, you could be gay. That would give you a way to stay unmarried, and youd only have to consider adopting, although youd have to go antiquing at least once.

I laugh out loud. Drew always makes me laugh.

While that certainly is enticing, the only thing I do know for sure is that Im not gay. I sigh. Its a shame, really. If I met someone my own size it would be like an instant wardrobe expansion.