Booze

I’m not talking bars, today, internet.  With Christmas just around the corner, and New Years on its heels, let’s get down to business.  The holidays are stressful.  It’s also cold.  A good bottle of wine does wonders to counter both of those things, and also serves as an acceptable holiday gift.

Maryland has frustrating liquor laws, at least for those of us coming from states that aren't Pennsylvania.  Wikipedia outlines them for the entirety of Maryland here, but I’ll break down the city’s laws for you, beyond the obvious, “Don’t drink if you’re under 21 unless you’re under your parents’ roof with their consent,” “Don’t drink and drive,” and, “You can have alcohol if it’s a religious service and that’s how y’all roll.”

• You can’t buy alcohol at the grocery store (except for Eddie’s of Mt Vernon and Roland Park.  Raise your hand if you know why, because I have no earthly clue).
• Bars/taverns can’t sell you alcohol after 2am.
• You can’t buy alcohol on Sundays, except for any Sunday that lands between Christmas and New Years.  At least they’re not barbaric about it.

A Hapsburg Palace Adventure

This is a personal story, from far before my move to Baltimore.  If the oversharing of personal details makes you even vaguely uncomfortable or the use of a word beyond "damn" is not your cup of tea, I suggest you go back to Facebook or Twitter, or wherever you may have come here from.  If this has not deterred you, read on, and enjoy one of my most absurd moments.

There comes a point in many a middle class college student’s life where they are bitten by the study-abroad bug.  Professors and parents persuade you that a few months of heavy drinking in a foreign country will broaden your world view and do minimal harm to your liver.  While my semester in Spain is now but a far-off, distant memory, it did help me expand my horizons past that of a sheltered American student while teaching me the classic Spanish tradition of combining coca cola with my red wine.  

El Escorial

Pet Ownership: just as glamorous as you think it is

I am, as you are likely well aware, a pet owner.  I am a proud crazy-dog-mother to a lovable, stubborn and cheerfully chubby basset hound mutt named Bubba.  I adopted Bubba two weeks before moving to Baltimore from a shelter in Southwest Virginia where he'd been for six months.

Bubba (aka: Sir Bubbakins, Little Man, Bubs, The Bubster, El Bubbisito)

The local indie station where I'd lived highlighted local pets each week, and I heard about him months before I adopted him.  Upon learning I was going to move, I went by purely out of curiosity to see if he was still there.  "I'm just going to look," I told myself.  And then I walked out with a dog.