Happy Hour

When it comes to being on vacation there's really no inappropriate time to have a cocktail. Bailey's and Coffee over breakfast?  Sure.  Bloody Mary at brunch?  Absolutely.  But what about when you're home on a random cold Tuesday afternoon?  When is it really appropriate to pop the cork on that bottle of wine that's been calling your name since you walked by your overly-full wine rack in the kitchen to cook breakfast?  

As my best friend likes to say when we're down at her shore house and the clock strikes noon, "It's five o'clock somewhere!"  And it is.  Especially now that I'm enjoying a life free of a job, a boss, and tomorrow's early meeting/conference call/Gossip Girl discussion at the water cooler, it seems like every hour should be happy hour.  

Upon first receiving my pink slip I firmly decided that I would not lose my motivation or become lazy in any way.  I told myself that I would continue to get up early to workout and keep myself on a strict schedule designed to pack as much possible into each day; furthermore,I would achieve world peace and end world hunger.  This lasted for about a week.  Since then, I've decided to become, as I like to look at it, more European.  I am doing so by sleeping in, getting workouts walking about town rather than in the gym, and eating late lunches that are full cheese and wine.  

So when I decided to become a connoisseur of my local wine store's bargain bin, I began my samplings at around 7 or 8pm over dinner.  Soon I started having a glass at 5 or 6pm as I cook because a little vino just makes everything taste better (and look a little sloppier).  In fact, think vino is responsible for me inventing the suprisingy delicous, zuchinni-cinnamon-jalepeno burger. A few days later, when 4pm rolled around and I took my "Oprah break", I thought, "What the hell? That malbec is calling my name."

Now as I sit here, fresh off a late lunch thinking about how nothing gets my creative juices going like a yummy cabernet, I'm wondering, how early is too early?  Would one consider me to have a problem if I were to sip a cocktail in front of my computer at 2:30 in the afternoon on a Monday? If I changed my name to something French, would that make it OK?  If I started wearing lots of black eyeliner and smoking, would that make it OK?  If I started hanging out with Lindsay Lohan, would that make it OK?  Throw me a bone please! 

Until I can justify it in my own head, I'll have to stick to a 3pm coffee fix instead of a mainline of that sweet-grape-nectar-of-the-gods.  I don't think it'll take too long to figure something out. 

For now, having no better excuse, I'm just going to call myself Jean-Francois-Michele-Baguette, so I can sip my wine and eat my cheese guilt-free no matter what time it is. To my close friends, I look forward to the intervention.  To my party-buddies, I look forward to the relapse.