Harvey Wallbanger / Caleb's First Taste of Vodka

Still thinking lots about my family, and the Christmas that we missed. This photo is from last year at Mom and Dad's house in Dunmore: Caleb's in the Santa hat. I'm about to make New Year's cookies, two days late, as I was on call on New Year's Eve. The day was fine but the night exploded with ambulances, boys beaten with steel boots, left in ditches, nosebleeds that wouldn't stop ("but what's causing it?" - "what do you mean, what's causing it? - it's a nosebleed"), chronic back pain coming in Code 4 at 3 am, endotracheal tubes laid out and suction running, ready to go.

I drank white wine instead of eating lunch today, then collapsed asleep in my bed for two hours, so I may have to avoid alcohol for the rest of the evening, in order to stay awake for New Year's cookies and "Austin Powers 2". Or I could make a Vochacino, I suppose... or something new, and share it. I did manage to stop at at liquor store in Winnipeg on our way home, ran in alone in a haze of fatigue with my list of vodkas, grabbed a basket, and loaded it with bottles. It was exciting to find some of the things on my list actually there: Bison Grass vodka, Galliano, creme de cassis, and so on, though I was disappointed that they didn't have every single vodka on my list and also that there weren't half-bottles (?mickeys) of anything but raspberry vodka, so for 5 bottles I paid about $110. We are stocking up for our future lives, I tell myself, for the next thirty years of cocktail parties, which I might have to start hosting if I expect to ever use all this stuff up.

Okay, I want easy and quick. Caleb is hanging over me making irritating noises so that I'll hurry and get off the computer - he is here now, reading this, saying "Quit it, Mom," and "Why the heck are you writing down what I'm saying?" His head is on my shoulder. "This is stupid," he says. "You know this is stupid." Maybe this will convince him to go away. "Carla sucks," he says.

Okay, so I made a quick thing - a Harvey Wallbanger. Supposedly named after a Hawaiian surfer named Harvey who drank too much vodka, orange juice, and Galliano, then knocked around from wall to wall on his way out of the bar. "Are you almost done?" Caleb demands, still here. The drink is okay, kind of Hawaii, I guess, though I've never been there. Galliano's Italian, though. What the heck? Anyways, it's not bad, but I don't think I'll make it again. "That's Hawaiian?" Caleb asks. "Can I have a sip?" He does before I can stop him, then burps and says, "That takes my breath away. Is that vodka?" Now he's exhaling in my face in an exaggerated manner. Okay, that's enough. I'm outta here.