3 Jan

The day before yesterday, Ron (Gorga) excused himself from our traditional New Years Day visit to take a nap. Which would have been unusual enough, but then he passed out afterwards (from exhaustion?) and was admitted to the hospital. Then yesterday, Andi spent over four hours in a dentist chair getting an implant to support the crown (i.e., fake tooth) that will eventually replace the perfectly good tooth that broke her fall from Eric’s childishly stupid shoulder on my perfectly planned birthday weekend in October. That same night, with Ron G. still in the hospital and Andi recovering at home from her surgery and Natalie sleeping over at Mia’s, David and I went with Grandpa Ron (Bell) to see the Red Wings play inspired hockey against the Calgary Flames in Little Caesar’s Arena, my first visit to the fancy new venue. Today, I made scratch banana bread and French press coffee with Grandpa Ron (Bell) before second-distilling last year’s final pear brandy fraction, David’s perfect bottle labels adding an air of professionalism to the proceedings, all the while ignoring the Roland SPD-SX SE sampling machine that showed up in the mail yesterday. Then we all went out to an amazing dinner at The Standard. I am completely exhausted and can’t wait for work and fiscal restraint (along with Sober January) to restore a sense of vitality.