(scene opens in small kitchen. Platters of frozen ingredients thawing: everything from meat to mulberries. Kitchen aid-mixer running.)
Me: (muttering to self) Bread going, where are the peppers?
(Carrot take down small red glass jar, holding five small red pepper. Carefully shakes one out, begins to de-seed. Crumbles to near dust in her hands.)
Me: Damnit, they’re too old. I can’t use these.
(Pepper flakes re-bottled, Carrot turns back to mixer, tests dough with finger.)
Me: Damnit, too watery and I’m out of flour.
(Carrot absently licks fingers. Freezes. Surprised look on her face.
Me: Oh. They’re not too old.
(Carrot claps hand over her mouth, begins hunting for coffee mug, downs it)
(scene opens in early morning dinning room, several bouquets of multi colored roses on the table)
Me: (reading email, drinking coffee)
Beta: (sees card, picks it up to read it, item drops out) Mom? What’s this?
Me: Your father gave that to me. We’ve been married twenty years today. That’s my golden watch.
Beta: (with relief) Oh good. I was hoping dad got this for you and wasn’t some toy of Delta’s laying around. You know that there’s no way he bought this by itself, right? That this was probably some Paw Patrol set and there’s a bunch of other Paw Patrol stuff just laying around the house somewhere.
Me: Going the extra mile for the joke is why I like your dad so much.
Beta: It kinda makes sense he’d give you a gold watch. I mean, you’re kinda retired. You don’t work.
Me: (mildly) I don’t work?
Beta: (recovering) You don’t work for money. Dad works for money and you kinda hang out here with him.
Me: (obviously laying a trap) Oh. I just hang out here and let dad do all the work.
Beta: (sweating) No! That’s not –
(footsteps off screen announces the arrival of Husband)
Husband: (blinking in the bright light of the dinning room) What are you doing up so early?
Me: (gets up, kisses husband) I was going to sneak out and get you a card, but I forgot that pandemic means nothing opens before 6 am any more. Beta loves the gold watch you got me. Said it made sense since I don’t work.
Husband: (gives Beta “you done messed up” look)
Beta: (dramatically flails arms)
Me: (sitting, picks up coffee) Also told me that you work, and I just kinda hang out.
Husband: (dramatically alarmed, looks at Beta) Run.
(Husband flees off stage, not pursued by a bear)
Beta: (mean mugs Carrot) That’s not what I meant! I know you work hard!
Me: Extra mile for the joke, honey. Have a good day at school.
Me: (buckling seatbelt) Okay. I am totally willing to support you in your dream dress vision. I want you to understand that there are a couple of times I will be enacting the Parental Veto.
Gamma: Why?
Me: If it’s too expensive, I don’t care how perfect it is, we just can’t. Or if it’s too risqué.
Gamma: What does ‘risqué’ mean?
Me: It’s the sexy level. And you’re only almost twelve…
(scene opens in long open cabin room, tween pre-bed chaos in full swing)
Me: (paces to center of the room, orates loudly) Okay campers! I did not get any sleep last night and I am highly resentful of that fact! Tonight, at lights out, we will not have yelling! We will not have running around and shaking the entire cabin! There will be no crying, no fighting, and there will be quiet! Am I understood?
Me: OH! I remember this song. Yeah, okay. I get it now.
Alpha: (surprised) You know this song?
Me: Yeah. It was popular recently. It was on the Troll’s soundtrack.
Alpha: But that was like nine years ago.
Me: Honey, hate to break it to you, but its way older than that. I remember being a little kid in the car with my dad and singing it. Use the technology and see what year it came out.
(Alpha fiddles with his phone)
Alpha: Woah. It came out in….1978?
Me: Yes. For reference, your Uncle J was born that year. I’m six years older than this song.
Me: Okay, Alpha! Ready to go get your driver’s license?
Alpha: (glumly) No.
Me: Excellent. (checks webpage) Says we need to bring one piece of documentation from sections A, B, C, and D. Got your birth certificate and social security card?
Alpha: (holds them up) Check.
Me: Proof of address?
Alpha: (holds up college letter, state ID, and driver’s permit) Check.
Me: Proof of Insurance?
Alpha: (holds up insurance paper) Check.
Me: We ride!
(cut scene to parking lot of sad struggling strip mall)
Door Guard: Does he have all his paperwork? Are you 18?
Alpha: (hands over folder) Yes.
Door Guard: (rifles paperwork) You have to stay out here, mom. Appointments only and he’s adult.
Me: Cool. (sides on a concrete riser)
(time passes, Alpha returns)
Alpha: They say I need a high school transcript to prove I took Driver’s Ed. I’m not in the system.
Me: (dumbfounded) Not in the system? (goes to Door Guard) He needs a high school transcript?
Door Guard: Yeah, bring a high school transcript and they send it to Springfield and once he’s in the system he can take the driver’s test.
Me: (hotly) That wasn’t on the list of required documentation.
Door Guard: (shrugs) It’s a state law.
Me: (with poison) And where does it say that on the web site for required documentation?
Door Guard: (shrugs again) You can come back later today.
Me: (calling up the fire within) Then what was the point of making an appointment?
(Door Guard shrugs a third time, doesn’t answer, turns away. Carrot pulls out her phone and begins frantically researching and typing while Alpha hovers nervously by)
Me: Oh! They can email me a transcript! Maybe the day is saved. (types some more and pauses)
Alpha: What?
Me: They can email me a transcript. For three dollars and it’ll arrive in five business days.
(Carrot closes eyes and breaths deeply)
Alpha: (nervously) I’m really sorry mom.
Me: (kindly) It’s not your fault, Alpha. We followed all the instructions given to us. They just didn’t give us all the instructions.
So once upon a time, I use to play with making mead. And when I say “play with” I really do mean it. I have this delightful inclination to go full on Lab Kid* when doing anything halfway arty. I can’t say halfway sciencey because we all know the difference between fvcking around and science is writing it down.
I was not writing it down in those days.
In that Fvck Around Phase I made some hella good mead. A few stands outs were a my plain sweet, a morat (mulberry mead), and a peach mead. My brewing process went as follow –
1.4 cup orange juice to start off a packet of Montrachet yeast
2.5 gallons of tap water (Lake Michigan for you aqua connoisseurs)
2.5 gallons of blackberry honey from the Great North Wests somewhere. I think from Glory Bee.
I’ll give a few of you a moment to wipe the coffee you just spit all over your screen. Yes. 2.5 gallons. We good? Okay – so I like mead sweet. Those of you with even the smallest bit of fermenting knowledge will not be surprised to hear it took me nearly two years for it to be drinkable. And I bet it could have gone longer, but as soon as I brought some bottles out to test drink, it went fast. Any notes I took – if I was even halfway that organized – had me do some math. I only remember this math on the alcohol content because I did it several times over, 100% certain I had totally fubar’ed my math and it just wasn’t humanly possible.
It was clocking in at 20%.
Okay, you really need to stop drinking when you’re reading my hilarious interludes. Get a fresh cup and come back.
This ridiculously high alcohol content is hilarious because I am a lightweight beyond compare. I bring shame upon my known-for-heavy-drinking ancestors with my two drink drunk. Alas.
My morat ran as follows –
Same juice set up, 3 gallon bucket, who knows how much honey, topped off with water.
No notes. Because I was full on mad scientist, which wasn’t really all that sciencey because no documentation. Who knows what my alcohol content was. But that got drunk as fast as the blackberry sweet.
The peach?
Same juice set up
12 pounds of mashed peaches with skins ripped off (you can’t really peel peaches when they’re really ripe, just mutilate them)
Oh hey, look, I have some left over honey in this three gallon bucket. I have no idea how much honey is in there, lets just dump it all in and add some water and call it a day.
See? Very precise. Such Math. Much Science.
Even with my lightweightness, that had a kick. I had racked them into 16 oz Grolsch bottles I had saved for this project. Half way through one of them I had to lay on the floor and recover. Five years later it was still amazing. I only know this for it having shown up in a Mystery Brew Box (for having no label) where adventurous re-enactors would drink for a dollar donation. It was the hit of the evening.
And now we are here. I have a little black book now and am more sciencey than arty.
Raw honey and here we go! I know some of you are thinking – why is the water and honey separated? Are they supposed to be mixed?
Yeah. I guess so? I did this with my blackberry sweet. I’d have to roll the carboy every couple of weeks to agitate the top layer of honey as the yeast slowly ate its way down. I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason the yeast was able to accomplish this task, it gave it time to build up tolerance. Also I’m sure there’s some sort of very niche-trick of slow fermentation that impacts the final product something something wine snob goes here.
Weirdly, the water/honey was more homogenous until I poured in the o.j. with the nicely foaming yeast. Cleared it like oil and water. Fascinating. So now my yeasties beasties are going to slowly nibble from the top down.
I guess we’ll see what we get? In two years? It’s only three gallons, so maybe we’ll see in one year.
(scene opens in dining room not Carrot’s. Family party in progress, mostly adults around the table)
Beta: (takes empty chair, downs the last of a bottle of root beer)
Cousin K: You drank it all?
Beta: Yeah.
Carrot: I thought you liked root beer.
Beta: I do. Just that it was super flat. I went to take off the cap and it just fell off like someone had opened it.
(silence falls)
Aunt T: It’s a good idea not to drink bottles that have already been opened.
Husband: That’s someone cracking it open at the store, taking a drink and putting it back.
Me: Or putting something inside of it.
Beta: (shrugs)
(scene ends)
(new scene in grocery store refrigerated aisle)
Me: (looking at prices of small juice bottles) It says three for five – did you want to try the cranberry flavor? Get an OJ, apple, and then cranberry?
Beta: Sure.
(Carrot reaches up to get the cranberry juice)
Beta: Wait! Look at the lid.
(camera close up on broken seal)
Beta: We probably shouldn’t drink that. See? I can learn! (laughs stupidly)
Me: Your father would be so proud of you. You just might live to see adulthood.
