cele*hiccup*bration

I took myself out tonight to celebrate my new promotion at work. Nothing big, just decided when I got home from work tonight, while drinking an after-work glass of wine, that I should go out to eat someplace I like for dinner. Even if I was all by myself.

So after hanging out at the house on the front porch a couple hours with the kitty cats, drinking chardonnay and reading a book, I went to a New Orleans-style restaurant near my house (excellent crawfish etoufee, I think that's their best dish, although tonight I had mahi mahi), and sat up at the bar and had myself some dinner and a couple more glasses of chardonnay. (I wasn't the only one eating at the bar, btw; place was packed, more than half the people sitting at the bar were eating right there too).

It was a good place to go on a night like that. Casual, friendly, lively, neighborhood kind of place, with good food and a live band playing bluegrass music. Nice.

By the time I left, I was feeling my wine. Even after that cup of she crab soup and the grilled mahi mahi. I think maybe I'd been pouring my glasses on the heavy side at home before even going over there.

And it's times like this, when I'm feeling pretty damn freaking buzzed but am all alone, that I realize what a talkative damn drunk I am. Because I keep talking to myself, only inside my head, and I can't seem to shut myself up. It's just drunk me, blabbering away all chatter-like, letting loose internally all these thoughts and conversational tidbits I might let loose if there were someone here to hear them. Of course, I do occasionally let those tidbits loose out loud and direct them towards my cats; Pearl, the older, lazier cat, will at least raise her head and look at me in acknowledgment, but she can't carry on her own half of a conversation. I just get the indulgent "ok, I listened, I gave it a shot anyway" look, and then she's back down for the count, napping away, oblivious to my need to communicate with another living soul. I tell her all about my happiness at getting my new promotion, and all the anxiety I have about it as well, my ambivalence about it in general - still not sure if it's such a good thing or not; she listens ok, but as soon as I'm done, she tunes out. "You've booooooooored me, woman," she seems to say when I'm done, as she stretches her long back and rolls into a new position and closes her eyes.

Well, no problem. I'll just pour myself another glass of wine. Only, see, (and this is what had me deciding to write a post tonight to begin with, right here at the end), I think I must be kind of a little too drunk at this point maybe ... because I think I just poured a glass of red wine on top of what was still left of a glass of white wine. Which was about a fourth a glass ... how did I miss that? That's not a good sign.

Worse, though, is that I'm drinking it ... and it tastes good to me. Go figure.

Holla back!